by Justin Bergman, The Conversation, [This article first appeared in The Conversation, republished with permission]
\nEvery autocrat needs a clan of loyalists, strategists, masterminds \u2013 these are the figures behind the scenes pulling the strings.
\nThey\u2019re unelected and unaccountable, yet they wield a huge amount of power.
\nThis is the role Stephen Miller has played for Donald Trump \u2013 he is the architect in chief for the second Trump administration. He has so much power, in fact, he\u2019s reportedly referred to as the \u201cprime minister\u201d.<\/p>\n
So who is Stephen Miller? And why are architects so important in helping a would-be autocrat amass power?
\nAs Emma Shortis, a Trump expert and an adjunct senior fellow at RMIT University in Melbourne, explains in episode 2 of The Making of an Autocrat:<\/p>\n
[Miller] is the kind of brains behind particularly Trump\u2019s hardline stances on immigration and the Trump administration\u2019s ability to use the levers of power, and expand the power available to the president.
\nI think what Stephen Miller demonstrates and, and history has demonstrated over and over again is that autocrats cannot rise to power by themselves. They often require a singular kind of charisma and a singular kind of historical moment, but they also need architects behind them who are able to facilitate their rise to power.<\/p>\n
Listen to the interview with Emma Shortis at The Making of an Autocrat podcast.
\nThis episode was written by Justin Bergman and produced and edited by Isabella Podwinski and Ashlynne McGhee. Sound design by Michelle Macklem.
\nNewsclips in this episode from CNN, CNN, ABC News, and Timothy Snyder\u2019s Substack.
\nListen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feedor find out how else to listen here. A transcript of this episode is available via the Apple Podcasts or Spotify apps.
\nJustin Bergman, International Affairs Editor, The Conversation
\nThis article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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