“We are a country that has economy, not an economy that has a country.” Stephen Miller, presidential advisor
Since November 12, the MSM, self-described civil rights groups (including a handful of fringe Jewish organizations), and congressional Democrats have been running a new smear campaign against Stephen Miller, senior advisor to President Trump. Stephen has been called a white nationalist, supremacist, and worse. The headlines blare: “Emails show Stephen Miller promoted white supremacist content” (MSNBC); “Sickening” and “Proof” Of Racism: DHS Officials Said Stephen Miller Must Go After His Emails Were Released” (BuzzFeed News); “Democrats want Stephen Miller to resign after report exposes emails promoting white nationalism” (WaPo); “Stephen Miller Is a White Nationalist. Does It Matter? Leaked emails from a top Trump aide test our capacity for outrage” (The New York Times).
Even reasonable people came to believe that a batch of Miller’s 2015-2016 emails has been released, and traces of white nationalism were found there.
In fact, none of Stephen Miller’s emails have been released or published.
Michael Edison Hayden, a journalist employed by the SPLC, wrote a dossier full of allegations about Miller, based on a batch of his emails, allegedly received by the SPLC. The dossier is filled with accusations, racist quotes from unrelated people, and unsupportive links, but contains very few actual quotes from Miller. All the quotes that were included are totally innocent.
A few months ago the dossier writer used a screenshot of a fake Trump tweet to promote his article on Twitter. The fake Trump tweet was supposedly about the writer, however, Trump never tweeted it and had probably never heard his name.
The dossier also refers to an email between third parties mentioning Miller. The email was supposedly received by the SPLC from Electronic Intifada, but has never been published, although Electronic Intifada alluded to it in an inflammatory article on February 1, 2017.
Mainstream media amplifies the smear
The dossier writer expected the media to retell his narrative without inquiring about the emails or questioning any of his baseless conclusions. The Fake News Media did not disappoint. This is the same media that not only did not inquire, but actively resisted the release of the Spygate documents, the source of damaging but false information about Donald Trump.
The Fake News Media has not only met but exceeded Hayden’s expectations. Deep inside the dossier, there is a short statement that Stephen Miller gave to Mother Jones: “I have absolutely no relationship with Mr. [Richard] Spencer. I completely repudiate his views, and his claims are 100 percent false.” Most Fake News reports omit this quote.
Today, the leftist Fake News Media, funded and promoted by Big Tech and international brands, can publish anything and call it news. The conservative / pro-Trump media is weakened and muzzled by the same Big Tech, almost to the point of irrelevance. Whatever middle-of-the-road media remains, doesn’t dare challenge the high-stakes narratives of the Left.
The dossier writer claims that the SPLC possesses 900 emails from Katie McHugh-Stephen Miller exchanges. McHugh is a former Breitbart editor, who was fired for her association with racism and anti-Muslim prejudice. The cherry-picked quotes cited in the dossier do not even show a trace of white nationalism. Miller does not even link to any racist content. The closest any of Miller’s quotes come to an “association with white nationalism” is one email sent to McHugh with a link to a VDARE article, which criticized immigration policies.
An honest media would have described the outcome of the SPLC “research” as follows: After getting its hands on the trove of 900 emails from Stephen Miller to Katie McHugh, the SPLC found nothing linking Miller to white nationalism or racism. Conversely, the emails portray him as a patriot and civic nationalist, who cares about the future of the country and all its citizens.
The smear techniques used in the dossier
On the contrary, the dossier (as released November 12-14) has three parts, 67 pages, and 10,300 words of dense smear. The accusations made are too disgusting to repeat here. The dossier contains links insinuating that they are the proof for the accusations, but the linked pages don’t even mention Miller. All the negative information is either outright invented or comes from hostile sources.
The dossier artfully intersperses quotes from Miller’s alleged emails with racist quotes from unrelated people, the author’s insinuations, and irrelevant links. It is so long, that the casual reader is more likely to assume that it contains something of value than to read it through and conclude that there is nothing substantial there.
Additionally, the dossier uses name-dropping to further confuse the reader. Stephen Miller and Richard Spencer attended Duke University at the same time. Part I of the dossier mentions Spencer 14 times, Duke (University) six times (leaving some people to believe it is David Duke of KKK), and Hitler six times. By mixing Miller’s name with some of the most despicable people in history, the writer creates the impression that he belongs in the same group. Additional pieces, continuing the dossier, were published on November 19 and 25. They change nothing in the analysis or conclusions of this article.
Similar smear techniques have been used by the Left in other cases. For example, hit pieces on Robert Spencer, an academic critic of Islam, purposefully discussed him in parallel with Richard Spencer, the white nationalist, in order to confuse readers. The DailyBeast mixed up the two people as Robert Spencer.
How Stephen Miller became a priority target
Miller has been one of the top targets of smear since Trump signed the travel ban in January 2017. Attacks on him have been escalating ever since. The media unearthed his Democrat uncle, who “hasn’t had much communication” with Miller in the prior 10 years. The media encouraged the uncle to thrash Miller, based on their own allegations.
In January 2018, The Poynter Institute wrote a piece about Miller, blaming him for a confrontation with CNN’s Jake Tapper. That piece also condemns Miller for his alleged behavior in high school, calling him “a spindly agitator at a large and racially divided public high school.” Notice how elegantly they connected his name to “racial division” without any evidence. The Poynter Institute is the certifying entity of the so-called “independent fact-checkers,” so its opinion carries a lot of weight. Miller has also been falsely accused of creating Homeland Security policies that separate children of illegal border crossers and keep them in fenced partitions (“cages”). In fact, these policies have been in existence since before 2014 and were inherited from the Obama administration. That didn’t prevent the Left from harassing and inciting his neighbors against him. The current smear campaign against Miller is linked to the impeachment/coup attempt. In his recent interviews, Miller sharply condemned Biden’s China dealings, the Deep State, and the whole impeachment Schiff Show.
Big Tech’s responsibility
Today, the MSM can report lies without worrying about plausibility. It can afford to do this because of the support of Big Tech companies in the form of preferential placement, clicks, and direct funding. Big Tech concurrently suppresses conservative publications that might question or compete with the MSM. The MSM enjoys First Amendment protections for almost anything it publishes about public figures.
Big Tech, however, provides technical services and does not enjoy such protections. In fact, their favorite Section 230 states that none of them “shall be treated as the publisher or speaker” for third-party content. At the very least, these companies are expected not to deceive their customers about the services they provide. They claim to not discriminate against any political views and to work to decrease the distribution of fake news. Most of us relied on those promises. These promises have usually been made through media outlets, who are themselves dependent on Big Tech. Now, when these promises appear to be untrue, hundreds of millions of their users might be able to sue them.