Quote · The Rest Is Politics: US
201. Trump’s A Crypto Billionaire While Americans Are Getting Poorer
Where this was said
Stephen Miller, Alito, and the History of Immigrant Hatred
At 39:40 · chapter starts 38:40
Swisher reserves her sharpest words for Stephen Miller, whom she calls one of two people she finds 'particularly heinous' in this era (the other being Alito) [1] — Kara Swisher "Kara Swisher drew a direct line between Stephen Miller and the bureaucrat who engineered Japanese-American internment — both powered by sin…" 38:15 . She draws an explicit comparison to the midlevel bureaucrat — largely forgotten to history — who was the driving force behind Japanese-American internment during World War II, exploiting an 'addled' superior to enact a policy of mass cruelty without legal justification. She recommends Rachel Maddow's Burn Order podcast for listeners who want to understand the archetype. Then the tone shifts. Swisher describes being invited to give a speech at a naturalization ceremony in DC — roughly 100 new citizens from dozens of countries, a judge's courtroom, families watching their relatives become American. She teared up. She brought her six-year-old daughter. She found the record of her own grandfather arriving from Italy, under a different name. The pride of those families, she says, was the most moving thing she has experienced in a long time — and the starkest possible rebuke to the politics being discussed throughout the episode.
Kara Swisher gave a speech at a DC naturalization ceremony attended by roughly 100 new citizens from dozens of countries. She teared up. The contrast with the administration's anti-immigrant crusade could not be more stark.
