Brief: “Weird Stephen” Miller

Summary

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Episode Overview

Theme:
This episode of Conspirituality, titled "Brief: 'Weird Stephen' Miller," dissects the power and persona of Stephen Miller—once Trump’s speechwriter, now a key architect of hardline right wing policy. The hosts unpack Miller's public and formative roots, his influence over immigration and authoritarian policies, and his supervillain-style rhetorical performance. Through analysis, quotes, and revealing clips, the episode exposes how bullying, white nationalism, and the wellness-conspirituality overlap have shaped both Miller and his environment.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Stephen Miller’s Early Infamy—Privilege as a Platform

• White House adviser Stephen Miller was already making headlines as a 17-year-old, advocating for his “right to throw trash wherever [he] like[s].”
  • "In the video he has more hair but no less gross attitude than we see today." – Julian Walker [00:54]
• Derek and Julian contextualize Miller’s background in Santa Monica, noting its paradoxically libertarian, privileged, and pseudoscientific undercurrents despite a reputation for liberalism.
  • "Santa Monica particularly has a bit of a libertarian ethos... and there's also a lot of pseudoscience that floats around that neighborhood." – Derek Barris [03:00]
• The role of entitled culture and white privilege in shaping figures like Miller is foregrounded.

2. Understanding Santa Monica’s Political Texture

• The region is summarized as “super taxed, a very weird, weird area in that sense” with “conspirituality vortex... super concentrated in Santa Monica and Venice” ([05:12-05:55]).
• The material contrasts between public image and the reality of concentrated privilege, libertarian status, and susceptibility to pseudoscience are highlighted.

3. Miller’s Performative Authoritarianism on CNN

• The hosts break down a recent, viral CNN clip where Miller freezes mid-interview after overreaching on legal jargon, notably claiming Trump’s “plenary authority.”
  • "Did Miller freeze because he was getting ahead of himself? He's building the propaganda case... for martial law or for imposing the Insurrection Act." – Julian Walker [07:27]
  • "Mentioning the prescription while still trying to get the country to buy in... is definitely a slip up." – Julian Walker [07:27]
• The “plenary authority” phrase is explained; the hosts compare Miller’s awkward freeze to Senator Mitch McConnell’s public lapses, opining Miller “told the truth for once in his life” ([08:40]).

4. The Rhetoric and Rhythm of Proto-Fascism

• The hosts dissect Miller’s rhetorical style: relentless volume, adversarial tone, and emotional performativity.
  • Notable Quote:
    “He just feels that amping up the volume will therefore give him more power. He’s not that skilled. He’s not that manipulative.” – Derek Barris [10:15]
• Example clip: Miller decries Portland protesters as “domestic terrorists” and demands militarized crackdowns.
  • Quote:
    "When ICE officers have to street battle against antifa... street battles. It's absurd. It's unconstitutional and must be put down." – Stephen Miller (via Charles Gould) [11:28-12:41]

5. “Weird Stephen”—Public Persona and Insult as Description

• Michael Wolff’s account that Trump’s nickname for Miller is “Weird Stephen” is discussed with amusement.
  • “It’s disturbing to hear that kind of rage… hysterical description… at high pitched frequency from a guy who looks the way he looks.” – Julian Walker [13:37]

6. Miller as Policy Architect: From Speechwriting to Immigration Crackdowns

• His role as primary author of infamous speeches—2016 GOP convention, "American carnage" inauguration, and “fight like hell” on January 6th—is detailed ([14:51], [17:47]).
• “He also reportedly tested out anti-immigrant bits during rallies, then chose the ones that did best for Trump’s more official speeches.” – Julian Walker [17:47]
• Miller’s authorship of a pivotal immigration “handbook” for Senator Jeff Sessions is recounted, and rude "Miller Time" columns from his Duke years are read aloud for illustrative bigotry ([16:36]).

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7. Early Bullying, Ongoing Cruelty—Testimonies from Peers

• Notable Segment [22:23-22:42]:
  Charles Gould, a stand-up comic and classmate, asserts:
  • "Stephen Miller was never bullied in high school. Stephen Miller was the bully. He bullied kids... who were learning English as a second language... and he continues to do that from the White House today."
  • Hosts emphasize Miller's cruelty towards marginalized peers even in adolescence, despite being the grandchild of Jewish immigrants ([22:58]).

8. Pop Psychology & Archetypes: Overcompensating Bullies in Power

• The show laments the rise of “bullies from high school” to national power, observing the ongoing victimization while simultaneously claiming victimhood ([23:43]).
• The “overcompensation” theme is identified in both Miller’s personal history and public persona.

9. Miller’s Teenage “Torture” Speech—An Edgelord’s Pathology

• Chilling High School Clip [27:02]:
  • "We are not a barbaric people. We respect life. Therefore torture is the way to go because tortured people can live. Torture is a celebration of life and human dignity." — Stephen Miller, on a high school bus
• Hosts call this “the most disgusting edgelord imaginable,” suggesting sociopathy.

10. Wellness, Pseudoscience, and the Conspirituality Vortex

• The Santa Monica region—cradle for both New Age pseudoscience and reactionary politics—is identified as an influencer hub, where wellness narratives and authoritarian populism blur.

11. From Bullies to ICE—Cultural Shaming and the Limits Thereof

• The hosts note the trend: insecure, grievance-fueled men (with no “moral core”) rising to power, and how attempted shaming online often backfires, further radicalizing them ([28:01]).
• The “shame cycle” of online culture vs. traditional social regulation is critically examined.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments with Timestamps

• On privilege and trash:
  "Imagine your high school political platform was about lauding your privilege over janitorial staff by asserting your right to throw trash wherever you like."
  — Julian Walker [00:54]

• On Miller’s Santa Monica roots:
  "Santa Monica is very like, it’s libertarian, but it’s also super taxed. It’s a very weird, weird area in that sense."
  — Derek Barris [05:12]

• On Miller’s CNN “glitch”:
  "Miller seems like he realizes he's overplaying his hand and he stopped right in his tracks. I see the gears turning in his head as to how he can dig… himself out of this hole."
  — Julian Walker [07:12]

• On “plenary authority”:
  "Mentioning the prescription while still trying to get the country to buy in on his claim of the disease is definitely a slip up."
  — Julian Walker [07:27]

• Describing Miller’s oratory:
  "He just feels that amping up the volume will therefore give him more power. He’s not that skilled. He’s not that manipulative."
  — Derek Barris [10:15]

• On bullying roots:
  "Stephen Miller was never bullied in high school. Stephen Miller was the bully. He bullied kids in our school who were new to this country, who were learning English as a second language."
  — Charles Gould [22:23-22:32]

• On nihilistic political bullying:
  "Watching the bullies from high school gain so much power while simultaneously always claiming to be the victim... I know how it feels from that end..."
  — Derek Barris [23:43]

• Proto-fascist logic, even as a teen:
  "Therefore torture is the way to go because tortured people can live. Torture is a celebration of life and human dignity."
  — Stephen Miller (high school) via Charles Gould [27:02]

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Conclusion: The Archetype of Grievance and Its Dangers

The episode concludes by summarizing Miller as an embodiment of the entitled, aggrieved, and morally hollow bully who transitions seamlessly from taunting classmates and marginalized peers to orchestrating White House policy. Through deep-dive storytelling, archival audio, and analysis, the hosts frame Miller in the context of American conspirituality, illustrating how dangerous ideas and personalities can emerge from suburban privilege and hybrid cultural landscapes.

For listeners wanting more:

• Reference is made to Gene Guerrero’s investigative book Hate: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump and the White Nationalist Agenda [26:35], highly recommended for those seeking to understand Miller’s psyche and background.

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Further Listening & Reading

• Show notes will include Charles Gould’s full five-minute clip, Gene Guerrero’s book, and related past episodes for context on Project 2025, the unitary executive theory, and the wellness-conspirituality pipeline.

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This summary covers the substance and tone of this Conspirituality episode, distilling argument, analysis, and personality into an accessible overview for those who’ve not listened—or for those seeking deeper engagement with its critiques of power, culture, and disinformation.

Transcript

[Julian Walker]

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[Derek Barris]

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[Derek Barris]

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[Julian Walker]

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[Charles Gould]

So true.

[Julian Walker]

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[Derek Barris]

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[Julian Walker]

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[Derek Barris]

Pickup fees may apply.

[Julian Walker]

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[Charles Gould]

12:31 see paypal.com promoter points can be.

[Julian Walker]

Redeemed for cash or more paying for subject to terms and approval. PayPal Inc. And MLS 910457Am I the.

[Charles Gould]

Only one who is sick and tired of being told to pick up my.

[Julian Walker]

Trash when we have plenty of janitors? That's White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Trump's Homeland Security adviser Stephen Miller when he was just 17. In the video he has more hair but no less gross attitude than we see today. Imagine your high school political platform was about lauding your privilege over janitorial staff by asserting your right to throw trash wherever you like.

[Derek Barris]

Yeah, I think in high school we wanted more chocolate available in the in the cafeteria. I don't remember remember any people wanting to throw trash wherever they like. But this is in Santa Monica, which we're going to get to because as much as people associate Los Angeles with being a liberal city, there's some fine points we'll get into. But let's get into this brief. You are listening to Conspirituality, where we investigate the intersections of conspiracy theories and spiritual influence to uncover cults, pseudoscience, authoritarian extremism and the anti janitor attitudes of the rights. I'm Derek Barris.

[Julian Walker]

I'm Julian Walker.

[Derek Barris]

As always, you can find us on Instagram and threads at Conspirituality Pod. We are all individually on Blue sky and you can access all of our episodes ad free plus our Monday bonus episodes on [e-mail] conspirituality we also post our bonus episodes every Monday to Apple Podcasts via Apple Subscriptions. As independent media creators, we really appreciate your support.

[Julian Walker]

Stephen Miller, older but certainly not any wiser, had a moment of massive media exposure on October 7th just a couple Weeks ago. It's an important moment to unpack, but I also want to use it as an opportunity to dive into who this person really is, what he's up to, how much power he has over both the ominous and illegal actions of masked ICE agents and the fascist militarized presence on Blue City streets.

[Derek Barris]

Before we get into some clips, I'm sure a lot of people know the basics of Miller's background, but I think it's important to point something out. A lot is made of the fact that he grew up as I flagged, in Santa Monica, which is in super blue Los Angeles. But there's a few things people might not realize. People even in Los Angeles don't know this because, yes, it is a largely liberal city, but Santa Monica particularly has a bit of a libertarian ethos. It's the only city of within the city of Los Angeles because it refused to become part of LA itself. So unlike neighborhoods you hear about like Hollywood or Culver City, Santa Monica is an incorporated city. It's its own island. It has its own police department, fire department, and public services. When I moved to Los Angeles from the East coast in 2011, I lived in Santa Monica for the first year before I moved over to Mar Vista. And it's a bit more conservative than you might assume. And there's also a lot of pseudoscience that floats around that neighborhood. Particularly there was a measles outbreak in 2014. We've covered it on this podcast before, and it was centered in Santa Monica and neighboring Brentwood, which are two upscale areas where the concept of medical freedom was alive long before COVID 19 and the rise of Maha. Yes, as a voting population, Santa Monica is blue. I have many friends there. There are definitely progressives and liberals and even leftists there. But the conspirituality vortex that we've long discussed is super concentrated in Santa Monica and Venice right on the west side, and even now Culver City, which is a little further out. But hey, there's an erawan there now and Medical Medium spoke there and like over a thousand people came. So, you know, it's definitely spreading its tentacles. So all this is to say that the veracity of Miller's white national nationalism is a little surprising, but the fact that an entitled, power hungry bigot would come from that region isn't exactly shocking.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, that's really, that's really good analysis. I hadn't thought about it that way because people do often refer to it as like the People's Republic of Santa Monica. Like it's this kind of like almost socialist blue bastion. But all of that analysis is on point.

[Derek Barris]

Oh, and plus the taxes are crazy in that area because it's, it's. They have to provide their own services. When we threw the Tadasana festival in 2012, which is how you and I met initially, Julianne. Yeah, I remember. We had to move it to a parking lot. Oh, no, I'm sorry. We, we hosted it in Santa Monica. And then later we found out if we would, would have went to a few blocks down on the beach to Venice and hosted it in a parking lot there, we would have saved $40,000 just in taxes. And you're talking about a few blocks. So Santa Monica is very like, it's libertarian, but it's also super taxed. It's a very weird, weird area in that sense.

[Julian Walker]

So any of our listeners who are loyal to us in Santa Monica, this is what your tax dollars are paying for. Stephen Miller is not an unknown figure by any means. He's been in the news a lot lately, but this appearance on CNN was really quite a moment. He's discussing the National Guard deployment to Portland with the anchor Boros Sanchez. He accuses protesters of engaging terrorism. And he called the judges blocking the National Guard deployment. Legal insurrection. And then there's this key moment that comes after that. So we'll pick it up a little bit before then as they discuss the court cases around Trump using the National Guard inside America.

[Charles Gould]

You have called. You've called the district judge's ruling blocking the deployment of National Guard in Oregon.

[Derek Barris]

Legal insurrection.

[Charles Gould]

Does the administration still plan to abide by that ruling? Well, the administration filed an appeal this morning with the 9th Circuit. I would note the administration won an identical case in the 9th Circuit just a few months ago with respect to the federalizing of the California national guard under Title 10 of the US Code. The President has plenary authority, has. Stephen? Stephen? Hey, Steven, can you hear me?

[Julian Walker]

Yeah. So the anchor thought that there might be some technical difficulty, but many people, including me, thought we saw something different because Miller seems like he realizes he's overplaying his hand and he stopped right in his tracks. I see the gears turning in his head as to how he can dig.

[Derek Barris]

Himself out of this hole.

[Julian Walker]

And Sanchez does it for him by going to an ad break. Upon returning, it was like nothing had happened. Neither mentioned the words plenary power again. And Miller was back to his aggressive rhetorical style. In fact, he ramps it up. He gets louder and louder in volume and more nastily adamant with each fact check from Sanchez. As he tries to keep things tethered to reality. And here the CNN anchor has pointed out that claims of Portland being a war zone were rejected both by judges and were not borne out by the police data. So let's break down this phrase that caused Stephen Miller to glitch like a confused robot during the interview. It was plenary authority. Now, plenary means something like complete and unrestricted. In legal terms, plenary authority means having complete power over an issue. Did Miller freeze because he was getting ahead of himself? I mean, he's building the propaganda case with all of this hysterical hyperbole about antifa and violent terrorism for martial law or for imposing the Insurrection Act. But mentioning the prescription while still trying to get the country to buy in on his claim of the disease is definitely a slip up.

[Derek Barris]

I had a similar reaction to you. It reminded me of Mitch McConnell freezing in front of the microphone, which he did twice, I believe, last year. But we know that McConnell was having a neurological event of some kind with Miller. Yeah, the event seems like he told the truth for once in his life. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Julian Walker]

And McConnell, you can really see like, oh, something's wrong with this guy. Miller just seems like he's sit.

[Derek Barris]

Like.

[Julian Walker]

Trying to figure it out.

[Derek Barris]

Yeah, he's trying to figure it out. And plenary authority, you know, you gave the definition, but it is the entire goal of Project 2025. It is the foundation of the unitary executive theory, which we've covered endlessly here. That is the highly disputed legal concept that all branches of government are there to support the whims of the executive or the President. This is explicitly stated throughout Project 2025. And we all know that's administration is going for, but actually saying it out loud seems to have broken poor Steven's brain.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah. Being honest about the particular angle he's taking to try and get there. Some have pointed out that title 10, which he said gave Trump plenary power, makes no mention along these lines at all. So maybe he paused for so long because he realized he had misspoken as some kind of lawyerly, you know, recognition. But maybe, you know, it's possible something really happened on his end to the live feed that made him think he was disconnected and so he was just awkwardly sitting there. But we're all watching this uninterrupted sound and video. There's no sense on our end that there is any kind of glitch. We'll never really know for sure.

[Derek Barris]

I was listening to an interview this morning with Russ Voight, and I have to say the interviewer was very good and was rolling with him as he said things. And Voight is so practiced that he was able to manipulate in real time and use qualifiers and he was able to wiggle his way out of it. Miller doesn't seem that skilled. He seems very much like, like he reminds me when you said of him being just getting louder. He reminds me of that famous debate between Sam Harris and Deepak Chopra where Deepak gets frustrated and just starts getting louder and Sam just sits back and said saying something louder doesn't make it true. Yeah, but, but Miller doesn't. Miller doesn't have those sorts of skills. He just. He feels that amping up the volume will therefore give him more power. He's not that. He's not that skilled. He's not that manipulative.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, a fun fact. I was in the front row for, for that debate live and it was, it was quite something. But speaking of getting louder, I said that that's what is about to happen. This is Bar center is really trying to keep things calm and grounded and actually talk about the facts. And here's an example of what Miller does.

[Charles Gould]

They are actually, as we, trying to overthrow the core law enforcement function of the federal government. Boris, this is, I think, what we're talking past each other. When ICE officers have to street battle against antifa hand to hand combat every night to come and go from their building, when they try to exit in a vehicle, when they are swarmed and surrounded and they try to tip the vehicle over. When people bring weapons to an ICE facility to try to engage in direct violent assault against ICE officers, what is the purpose? It is to prevent Immigration and Customs Enforcement from carrying out the mission the American people elected them to do. Their objective is to make it impossible for ICE to carry out ICE enforcement. When in our history have we tolerated unlawful riotous assemblies night after night around FBI buildings or ATF buildings or DEA buildings. This is the textbook definition of domestic terrorism. Using the actual and imminent threat of violence to keep federal officials from doing their jobs. And unless we send in troops and resources, then we will continue to bleed federal law enforcement resources in these street battles. It's absurd. It's unconstitutional and must be put down.

[Julian Walker]

It's amazing when he starts to get up that rhythm and then he just ramps it up and ramps it up and ramps it up.

[Derek Barris]

Part of presentation is knowing your assets. And, and I know, like Steven, I don't have a lot of bass in my natural speaking voice. So I don't intentionally get loud often because it's not Very threatening. Like the three of us. I think Matthew naturally has the most bass. If he wanted to scream more, he would probably feel more threatening. From that perspective, Miller just, he sounds like he's whining totally. And so there's no threat to it. Although if I were in a room with him, and maybe if I were a woman, for example, I feel like he's the kind of psycho that might do something that would behoove him. So when he's. I just hear this little south park figure yelling when he's on camera.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah. And this may be part of the reason that according to journalist Michael Wolf, Trump has given Miller the nickname Weird Stephen. Right.

[Derek Barris]

It's like this.

[Julian Walker]

There's the set of characteristics that he's had that are, that are. That he has which are kind of mismatched. Right. And it's, it's disturbing. It's disturbing to, to hear that kind of rage and sort of hysterical description of something that he's making a case for, almost like a lawyer at high pitched frequency from a guy who looks the way he looks. It's just, it's just kind of a weird thing. It only gets worse as the interview continues. At one point, he tells Sanchez that one of his questions is incredibly stupid. So it all makes me wonder, like, who is this guy? How did he even get here? Let's start with some fun speech writing facts, which I didn't realize until I started looking into this. Miller didn't just come out of nowhere. It turns out he was the primary author of Trump's GOP convention acceptance speech back in 2016. And then after that, he and Steve Bannon. So he's in good company in terms of weirdness and darkness. Co wrote that ominously memorable 2017 inauguration speech about American carnage and putting America first, a phrase we may have heard somewhere before in our proto fascist history. So as to quote win like never before. That's Stephen Miller's handiwork.

[Derek Barris]

I think the word you're looking for is infamous, which I know a lot of people confuse for famous, but that is not what it means. I want to even go back a little bit further because when I saw that, I'm like, well, even then, you don't get to American carnage without having honed your craft for a while. And it turns out he has. After graduating from Duke University, Miller worked for Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions. And while there, he drafted an immigration handbook. It's about 25 pages long. I read through most of it. This was in January 2015, and this served as a gop Talking Points memo for the entire party. And it was effective because that handbook is credited with bringing down the bipartisan Gang of Eight plan, which sought to establish a path to citizenship for immigrants that are in America illegally, but it also tried to strengthen border control. Apparently, the latter wasn't enough for Stevo. In the handbook, he likened immigration to the welfare state. And he wrote, quote, republicans have a historic obligation and opportunity to right the wrong. The wrong. Here is the idea that illegal immigrants are allowed to stay, to return the government to its people, and to tell the special interests, get lost. Now, his writing skills, skills predate this moment because for a year and a half he had a column in the Duke Chronicle that he called Miller Time. His first column dropped on September 4, 2005, and it was titled welcome to Leftist University. Yeah, he felt Duke was too diverse in that gem of a column. Hey, Julian, you want to read this? It's. It's wonderful.

[Julian Walker]

Let me give you an example of Duke's bias many of you have recently experienced. For the conclusion of freshman orientation, Maya Angelou gave her famous address to the incoming class. I can imagine you must have been very excited to hear her speak, especially since the orientation pamphlet lauds her legendary wisdom, known outside of academic circles as tired multicultural cliches. But I shouldn't kid. After all, it was Maya Angelou who had the great wisdom to condemn the show Jeopardy for being racist. How could you, Trebek? Now, whether you share her racial paranoia or not, the point remains that she is a leftist, but yet she is invited to give the orientation speech every single year. Has the administration ever heard of balance? Why not invite someone with another perspective from time to time? Maybe someone who instead of talking about multiculturalism, talks about patriotism. Or would that be inappropriate?

[Derek Barris]

Think of the audacity of being a little 19 year old kid talking about Maya Angelou, one of the great 20th century authors that this country has produced. So we can just see he has not changed. Changed that much since fucking complaining about janitors at Santa Monica High School.

[Julian Walker]

Speaking of infamous Derek, it's also worth noting that Miller wrote that fight like hell speech that Trump delivered from the ellipse to kick off the January 6th insurrection. So he's the guy who's put all of these proto fascist words directly into Trump's mouth during the first term. He also reportedly tested out anti immigrant bits during rallies. And this dovetails with what you were just saying. And then chose the ones that did best in terms of crowd response for in Trump's more official speeches. During Trump's Second term, though, Miller has left the speech writing to a couple of his proteges, and he's moved on to now shaping policy directly, especially on immigration. He was behind some of the sweeping executive orders that set the gears in motion during week one, including the attempt to abolish birthright citizenship. Adding to this, Miller also reportedly laid into a meeting of top officials at the ICE DC headquarters back in June, where he demanded that national arrest quotas be pushed to 3,000 people a day. This is less than six months after Trump 2.0 had started, when ICE already had close to 50,000 people in detention and had already outstripped all the money that Congress had budgeted to fund this horrible initiative. Returning to that CNN interview, Miller had this very interesting overconfident slip up that hasn't been as widely reported. Some commentators picked up on it, though. See if you can catch what it is right here.

[Charles Gould]

Derek, just think about this for a second. If I put federal law enforcement and National Guard into a nice, sleepy Southern town, is anyone going to riot?

[Julian Walker]

If I put. If I put. Not if President Trump puts. Not if the administration puts. Not if we decide to. If, if I put. I think there's something there.

[Derek Barris]

Yeah. And we know that Trump is just mostly the media figure here, that the idea that Miller is running immigration is absurd. But as we reported on Thursday's episode, or maybe it was last Thursday, I get confused now, but we just had historic highs in America in terms of polling for overall support for immigration. It was over. It was like some 79%. It was the highest ever recorded in American history because people are seeing what's going on.

[Julian Walker]

Specifically that was that immigration is, is overall a good thing. Right? Was the, was the question.

[Derek Barris]

Yeah, yeah, Correct. So to answer Stephen's question, yeah, you might see some fucking writing because what you're doing, or whoever is doing it for Trump in the agricultural department by fucking over farmers and tariffs and everything you're doing. Yeah, I would expect to see some of those I Hate America rallies coming to very deep red areas very soon if you keep this up.

[Julian Walker]

So we've established that Miller has this strong presence in the current administration. He's shaping policy behind the scenes, then he's arguing for it belligerently in the media by repeating propaganda narratives that advance the justification for this unconstitutional, illegal, militarized authoritarianism. And he accidentally referenced, before freezing up what kind of the end game is for this. He also held the pen that put the words into Trump's mouth for some of the most starkly alarming speeches during his first term. So Miller comes across to me like he's playing a role. He's got this odd supervillain quality and aoc a lot of people probably saw recently roasted him as a prime example of overcompensating insecure MAGA men and she said we should just laugh at them. This all got me curious, like how did he get this way? Did he grow up under the influence of right wing culture? Was he bullied? Well, it turns out that investigative journalist Jean Guerrero went deep on his background for her book Hate Stephen Miller, Donald Trump and the White Nationalist Agenda. And Miller actually grew up in northern Santa Monica neighborhood, right where I had my first yoga teaching job for 11 years starting in 1993. And it is traditionally quite blue politically. But as you pointed out, Derek, it's prone to the exact conspirituality features we've covered for years now. White privileged, libertarian and susceptible to pseudoscience, wellness and anti vaccine beliefs. Miller went to all the local schools there and it turns out that even then he was an anti immigrant white supremacist sociopath from quite early on. Here's a classmate who is now a stand up comedian. His name is Charles Gould.

[Charles Gould]

Stephen Miller was never bullied in high school.

[Julian Walker]

Stephen Miller was the bully.

[Charles Gould]

Stephen Miller bullied kids in our school.

[Julian Walker]

Who were new to this country who.

[Charles Gould]

Were learning English as a second language language.

[Julian Walker]

He bullied the kids who are already marginalized by our society and he continues.

[Charles Gould]

To do that from the White House today.

[Julian Walker]

Tell us how you really feel, Charles.

[Derek Barris]

That clip is five minutes long. I'll post it in the show notes because you should really watch the whole thing. As commenters say, it's, it's not really comedy, it's during a comedy show, but this particular moment is him just airing out some truth.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, now that kind of cruelty reeds is especially depraved when we realize that Miller is himself the grandchild of immigrants. Eastern European Jewish immigrants to be specific, who fled the pogroms in Belarus in 1903. Nonetheless, he was best known in high school for actively opposing, taunting and harassing Santa Monica High's Chicano student group, for persuading prominent conservative radio host Larry Elder to visit the school and then getting neocon activist David Horowitz to back his initiative to get the school to institute the Pledge of Allegiance. He also ran for the position of being student announcer, campaigning in part on this issue as well as his whole shtick about not wanting to pick up his own trash.

[Derek Barris]

It's watching. I've said this before, but watching the bullies from high school gain so much power while simultaneously always claiming to be the victim. Has been, I think, emotionally, one of the hardest things about the ascent of this administration. Because I was someone who was bullied up, I know how it feels from that end and from my particular high school through the wonders of Facebook over the years, I've seen a lot of those people turn out to be okay people. You know, you're young, things happen. I'm not going to go so far, like J.D. vance, to say, oh, everyone loved Hitler, whatever their kids, you know, that happens. So to watch the people who don't, it reminds me of that high school athlete elite who, in their 40s and 50s, their glory days were in high school, and they're going to go through every moment to try to just keep reminding you about it. That, that cuts across so many of these figures in the administration. The fear of aging, the fear of being irrelevant, the insecurities. And I feel in terms of a psychological profile, the fact that Stephen Miller, this very small little man, would be the bully part of the overcompensation that AOC pointed out and the fact that he's still doing it is just such a fitting archetype. The problem is all of the people that are being harmed by him right now.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah.

[Derek Barris]

And increasingly so, especially moving into, well, the day this drops, because many of us will be at the no Kings protests and we're going to see what happens there.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, yeah, It's. It's tough for all the marginalized people. It's tough for anyone who's ever been bullied. As you were saying, it's tough for anyone who has kids to be like, okay, the worst exemplars of relational, kind of emotional intelligence are actually the people who are in charge now, and this is how they act. You can't point to anyone in the administration and say, that's how to be a decent human being. And in fact, I've seen some excerpts from Gene Guerrero's book about Miller in which they talk about how he started styling himself in high school as a gangster. He would wear a pinky ring, he would wear certain kinds of necklaces. Started doing this, like, steepling of his fingers when he would talk to people, you know, the whole way that he's compared to the. To the villain in the Simpsons. And apparently he also had first a best friend and then later on a girlfriend who were both Hispanic, that he ended up cutting out of his life with a brutal kind of breaking up speech in which he listed everything that meant everything about Them that wasn't good enough for him. And included in that was. And you're Hispanic. So this, this is qu character.

[Derek Barris]

I would highly recommend reading Gene's book. Gene interviewed me for the LA Times years ago early on in conspirituality and I've occasionally stayed in touch. She's a fantastic journalist. So definitely if you want to get deep into the psychology of Miller, I'll include a link in the show notes as well.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah. So we have one more little clip here that illustrates what we've been talking about. This is Miller in high school, on the school bus, just being the most disgusting edgelord imaginable.

[Charles Gould]

To the issue of the Iraqi civilians, I think that as many of the Muslims should survive as possible because the goal of any military conflict is to kill as few people as possible. But as for Saddam Hussein and his henchmen, I think the ideal solution would be to cut off their fingers. I don't think it's necessary to kill them entirely. We are not a barbaric people. We respect life. Therefore torture is the way to go because tortured people can live. Torture is a celebration of life and human dignity. We need to remember that as we enter these very dark and dangerous times in the next century. And I only hope that many of my peers and people who will be leaving this country will appreciate the value and respect that torture shows towards other cultures.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, I mean, I think we often try to resist diagnosing from afar, but that just sounds like a budding sociopath to me. And we see the evidence in how he's transforming America into a racist, authoritarian police state.

[Derek Barris]

I mentioned JD Vance a moment ago. Listeners aren't aware of what happened. I. I would say that that moment is the perfect example of the sort of text chains that I'm about to describe because Politico recently broke a story about a group text thread between young Republicans and, you know, this clip is just that the messages from that young Republican very recent text chain include things like everyone that votes no is going to the gas chamber and great, I love Hitler and they love the watermelon people. After the story broke, social media was flooded with commentary about this article, but also people sharing photos of these young Republican all men. I'm generally not one for physically shaming anyone, but the point here is that these men pretty much look like who you would expect to send such. Such messages. They pretty much look like an outcast. Stephen Miller in high school yelling about janitors, to be honest. And in this sense, I think shaming is really important and pertinent here. It's a powerful tool. But I'm also cognizant that people like this who have no moral core are the exact men who become top advisors to presidents or presidents. The role of shame in societies is to keep people in check. The problem is that what works in small group settings doesn't have the same effect online. So I'm going to guess that these young men, if they come across cross the shaming posts about them, they're only going to use that as fuel for their grievance politics. They're going to dig in deeper, they're going to crave power that much more. And if all goes well for them, which in this current political moment, they'll probably be ICE agents who are the head of ICE agents, they're going to use that fuel for even more hatred. In fact, Andrew Torba, who is the founder of the right wing chat messaging app Gavin, he tweeted out that group chat was tame. They have no idea what's coming. Wow. For which he was rewarded with over a thousand retweets and 15,000 likes along with hundreds of comments, mostly supportive. Now obviously some number are bots, some number are foreign nationals loving the discord in American society, but I'm going to guess plenty of those are full throated support for whatever civil war against woke people like Torba and those young Republicans dream of. And even more tragically, they have a figure like Stephen Miller in the White House nodding along to every.