总统唐纳德·特朗普在灾难性的中期选举后陷入困境，转而任命斯蒂芬·米勒担任新任白宫幕僚长，这一举动预示着他计划与国会新的民主党多数派正面交锋。特朗普和米勒至少会暂时享受这场战斗。然而，不可避免的是，米勒——这位曾将特朗普最黑暗的构想转化为政策的白宫副幕僚长——会走得太远。很难看出，米勒将总统权力推向极限，如何能帮助共和党赢回那些已经背弃特朗普的选民。
President Donald Trump, cornered after a disastrous midterm election, turned to Stephen Miller to be his new White House chief of staff, a move that heralded a plan for head-on confrontation with the new Democratic majority in Congress. Trump and Miller will relish the fight — for a time, at least. It is inevitable, though, that Miller, the deputy White House chief of staff who turned Trump’s darkest visions into policy, will overreach. It’s difficult to see how Miller pushing the powers of the presidency past their limit will help Republicans win back the voters who have turned their backs on Trump.
尽管特朗普在选举后的采访中发表了各种缓和的言论，但他提拔米勒的举动远比那些言语更有说服力。“他真是个优秀的斗士，”特朗普周五对记者说。据《大西洋月刊》报道，“一位了解特朗普提拔米勒决定的人士”表示，他想要“一个‘会打破别人头颅’的人”。这样的说法表明，特朗普并未了解政治现实。
For all the conciliatory noises Trump made in postelection interviews, his promotion of Miller speaks far louder. “Well, he’s a great fighter,” Trump told reporters Friday. According to The Atlantic, “one person familiar with Trump’s decision to elevate Miller” said he wanted “someone who ‘will crack skulls.’”Such a statement suggests that Trump isn’t in touch with political reality.
米勒最近的记录表明，任何即将到来的缓和都毫无可能。他一直是特朗普本届任期内签署的每一项行政令的幕后推手，包括试图通过宣布南部边境发生入侵来解锁紧急权力、推翻宪法关于出生公民权的条款，以及将被政府严重歪曲描述为种族灭绝受害者的白人南非人引进美国。在特朗普的核心圈子里，米勒给出的建议是最糟糕、最危险的——而现在，他将是总统身边最后一个离开房间的人。
Miller’s recent track record belies any chance of pending conciliation. He has been behind every executive order Trump has signed this term, including efforts to unlock emergency powers by declaring an invasion on the southern border, overrule the birthright citizenship clause of the Constitution, and import white South Africans the administration grossly mischaracterizes as victims of genocide. Among Trump’s inner circle, Miller gives Trump the worst and most dangerous advice — and now he will be the last one in the room with the president.
尽管军事行动远超其职权范围，米勒仍策划了一场针对太平洋和加勒比海所谓毒品船只的导弹打击行动。因此，他对在没有罪行证据、更不用说审判的情况下，结束200多条人命负有一定责任，其目的是服务于一项旨在减缓移民进入美国的复杂计划。他对美国公民权利的漠视令人震惊。在米勒主导讨论的情况下，想象暂停移民人身保护令或在抗议活动后动用《叛乱法》的内部争议，令人不寒而栗。
Despite military operations being far outside his remit, Miller engineered a campaign of missile strikes on alleged drug boats in the Pacific and Caribbean. He bears some responsibility, then, for ending more than 200 lives without evidence of guilt, let alone a trial, in service of a convoluted plan to slow immigration into the United States. He has shown a shocking disregard for the rights of American citizens. With Miller leading the discussion, it’s frightening to imagine internal disputes about suspending habeas corpus for immigrants or invoking the Insurrection Act after protests.
“如果不是特朗普总统，美利坚合众国现在将不复存在，”周五，特朗普任命米勒为新任幕僚长后，米勒在马拉戈庄园对一群听众说。他说特朗普“拯救了美国”，其语气暗示他是字面意思，并且在看着特朗普时，他承诺“对您的成功和这个国家的成功，我绝对忠诚，坚定不移地承诺，全心全意地投入。”米勒要么确信特朗普是实现其白人民族主义政策的唯一途径，要么他相信自己的偏好就是特朗普的偏好，反之亦然。
“If it wasn’t for President Trump, the United States of America would not exist right now,” Miller told a crowd at Mar-a-Lago on Friday after Trump made him the new chief of staff. He said Trump “saved America” in a way that suggested he meant it literally, and as he looked at Trump, he pledged “my absolute loyalty, my unwavering commitment and my total devotion to your success and the success of this country.”Miller either is convinced that Trump is the only way to bring his white nationalist policies to life, or he believes that his preferences are Trump’s and vice versa.
他在特朗普第一个任期开始时担任演讲稿撰写人，展现出传达总统声音和愿景的能力，这对他大有裨益。即使特朗普公开担心他走得太远——例如，移民特工在明尼阿波利斯杀害两名美国公民之后——他也从未将米勒推开。
He started as a speechwriter in Trump’s first term and showed an ability to channel the president’s voice and vision, which has served him well. Even when Trump has openly worried he has gone too far — e.g., after immigration agents killed two American citizens in Minneapolis — he has never pushed Miller away.
米勒现在将拥有更大的自由度，充当特朗普的化身，让总统的权力通过他流动。《纽约时报》报道称，米勒将鼓励特朗普“回归受MAGA基本盘欢迎的政策”，并“将激励2024年选举特朗普先生的选民”。米勒对残酷和大规模驱逐的奉献依然丝毫未减，他希望“回归”的政策似乎都类似于大屠杀。
Miller will now have even more leeway to act as an avatar for Trump and let the power of the presidency flow through him. The New York Times reported that Miller will encourage Trump to “get back to policies that are popular with the MAGA base” and “will energize the voters who elected Mr. Trump in 2024.”Miller’s dedication to cruelty and mass deportations remains unabated, and it seems likely that the policies he wants to “get back to” all resemble pogroms.
据报道，他确实希望缓和与“让美国再次健康”派系之间的紧张关系。该派系对米勒的前任苏西·威尔斯感到不满，并一直抱怨政府对其诉求拖拖拉拉。我曾将威尔斯描述为“完美的首席纵容者”，但她至少试图推动特朗普做出能将政治后果降到最低的决定。米勒只会进一步将他引向极端主义。
He does reportedly want to smooth over tensions with the Make America Healthy Again-wing of the movement, which felt frustrated with Miller’s predecessor, Susie Wiles, and has been venting about the administration’s slow-walking its demands. I once described Wiles as “the perfect enabler-in-chief,” but she at least attempted to nudge Trump toward decisions that minimized political fallout. Miller will only guide him further toward extremism.
显然，他不会采取什么措施来缓解特朗普许多支持者所表达的经济困境。据报道，他虽然承认伊朗战争代价高昂并希望看到战争结束，但据《华尔街日报》报道，“米勒还以特朗普贸易议程的信奉者而著称，这与一些其他总统顾问不同，那些人认为关税加剧了主导此次选举的生活成本担忧。”《纽约时报》报道称，选举刚结束，米勒就若无其事地照常与国土安全部官员通话，敦促移民官员完成他设定的逮捕配额。
Apparently, he will do little to address the economic distress many of Trump’s own supporters have expressed. While he has reportedly acknowledged the high cost of the Iran war and wishes to see it wound down, according to The Wall Street Journal, “Miller also stood out as a believer in Trump’s trade agenda, unlike some other presidential advisers who saw tariffs as helping fuel cost-of-living concerns that dominated the election.”The Times reported that Miller was back on his usual call with Department of Homeland Security officials like nothing happened immediately after the election, hammering immigration officials to meet his arrest quotas.
他针对移民群体组织的恐惧与恐怖行动，在独立人士和目睹工人被驱逐的企业主中反响极差。再次全力推进，或许能激发特朗普追随者中最有害派系的支持，但对改善他在其他人当中的声望几乎无济于事。
The campaign of fear and terror he has organized against the migrant community has played terribly among independents and business owners who have seen their workers deported. Going full throttle once more might churn up support from the most toxic factions among Trump’s followers but do little to improve his standing with others.
在此过程中，米勒似乎非常乐意挑起一场宪法危机，他和管理和预算办公室主任拉塞尔·沃特一起试探议员的耐心极限。据报道，两人一直在努力“制定第二任期议程，重点放在无需国会批准的行政行动上”。而与沃特不同，米勒不受弹劾和下台威胁的影响。这一组合预示着一场与国会之间迫在眉睫的争斗，涉及监督权、权力分立以及总统权力的边界。
In the process, Miller seems more than happy to provoke a constitutional crisis as he and Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought press the limits of legislators’ patience. The two have reportedly been working to “chart a second-term agenda with an emphasis on executive actions that don’t require congressional approval.”And unlike Vought, Miller is immune to the threat of impeachment and removal. This combination sets up a looming fight with Congress over oversight, the separation of powers and where a president’s power ends.
不过，米勒在这种斗争中获胜的可能性现在看起来更低，尤其是考虑到他的晋升引发了惊恐的反应。米勒还必须在达到特朗普高期望的同时，不抢风头，也不因任何成功而获得过多赞誉。
The likelihood that Miller would win in such a fight seems lower now, though, especially given the horrified reactions to his promotion. Miller also must meet Trump’s high expectations without stealing the limelight or getting too much credit for any success.
一种流行的理论是，特朗普把米勒视为他的新罗伊·科恩——那位律师兼“搞定者”，其阴暗、操控性的手段在特朗普年轻时给他留下了深刻印象。米勒就是那种你认为只要拥有最强意志就足以重塑世界时会请来的人。
A prevailing theory is that Trump thinks of Miller as his new Roy Cohn, the lawyer slash fixer whose shady, manipulative tactics left a deep impression on Trump when he was young. Miller is who you bring in when you think having the strongest will is all it takes to reshape the world.
对于米勒那种阴郁的美国愿景，人们的接受意愿比他自己永远愿意承认的要低。美国选民已表明，他们希望特朗普的白宫受到约束。在试图打破这些束缚的过程中，米勒会以只会把它们拉得更紧的方式猛烈出击，掐断一个本已式微的MAGA运动所剩无几的支持。
There is less appetite for Miller’s grim vision of America than he will ever be able to admit. America’s voters indicated that they want Trump’s White House restrained. In trying to break those bonds, Miller will lash out in ways that will only draw them tighter, choking off what little support remains for an already diminished MAGA movement.