Making of a Sadist
It’s 1999. Real estate attorney Michael Miller has bad news for his 14-year old son. Business has slowed down and they will have to downsize and move to a less wealthy neighborhood. The private schools Stephen hoped to go to are no longer in reach; he will have to go to Santa Monica High. The maid can’t stay. Stephen will have to clean up his own room.
As a father of three grown men, I can see how such a change could perturb any 14-year-old boy. But for young Steve Miller, this was his psychological Alamo. His teenage rage at being forced to go to school with people he was afraid of began to overtake his entire being. His fear was being transmuted to sadism.
But it was 9/11 that cemented his life story. While it was a traumatic event for everyone who lived through it, for Steve Miller 9/11 became not just a reason to hate immigrants but a reason to hate anyone who cares about them. His war spread beyond Black and brown people—to liberals, Democrats, and anyone else who sees immigrants as fellow humans.
By 2002, at 16 years old, Miller was waging war on his own high school, successfully agitating for more patriotic displays like the Pledge of Allegiance. He invited his new mentors, right-wing propagandists Larry Elder and David Horowitz, to speak to his class. And he was already using the local media to spread his eugenicist brand of racism.
A video was created by Stephen Miller’s own schoolmates which featured him asking this question to a student body of 2,000: