Of the many stupid arguments that can be made on cable news—and there have been plenty of them—correctly describing White House aide Stephen Miller’s radicalism shouldn’t be among them. The pope is Catholic, tacos are the best food, and Stephen Miller is a white supremacist. Those are just facts. But, lo and behold, this is what the civility pearl-clutching debate—truly one of the dumbest debates of the Trump era yet—from over the past few days has wrought:
“I don’t know if you want to go as far as to, I mean, let’s not, I just did an entire segment about civility here, I don’t know if you want to call Stephen Miller a white nationalist,” CNN’s Kate Bolduan told David Leopold, an immigration attorney and former president of the American Immigration Lawyer’s Association (AILA). “It’s not an uncivil thing, I would argue that it’s a fact, but okay,” he replied. “Honestly, I have not seen that,” Bolduan continued. “Where is the fact on that?”
ARE YOU SERIOUS, CNN? Have you covered the Muslim ban? The termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for hundreds of thousands of immigrants (and the ensuing “shit hole countries” rant from Donald Trump)? The barbaric policy tearing migrant kids from the arms of parents at the border? Congrats, because those are proposals implemented under the dead-glazed stare of Miller, and all policies designed to punish and deport people of color. If it looks like a white supremacist, if it quacks like a white supremacist, you get the picture.
“White nationalism is an ideology,” writes Splinter’s Cleo Chang. “Calling someone a white nationalist—whether or not they like being called that—when they are pushing for and implementing white nationalist policy is a factual statement.” It is 100 percent accurate to describe Miller for what he truly is, and pearl-clutching over this 100 percent accurate description only works to the benefit of radicals like him. So quit it.