# Bannon & Miller-- who is their choice to replace Trump? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Tags:** trump\ **Created:** [December 28, 2025, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bannon-miller-who-is-their-choice-to-replace-trump/1026129 "2025-12-28T23:09:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2025, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bannon-miller-who-is-their-choice-to-replace-trump/1026129/61 "2025-12-30T21:47:26Z")
I do think Reagan had a cult of personality, and a long-lasting one too. It just wasn’t as rabid as with Trump, and Reagan had _far_ more dignity than Trump (a low, low standard to be sure) so it wasn’t as obviously discongruous with the reality. As much as I despised Reagan he could at least _act_ “Presidential” after all. For all his flaws he was never the mass of fractal awfulness that Trump is. Trump is basically a living parody character; if he was fictional people would mock the author for how unrealistically incompetent and horrible he is. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Wiggler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/red_wiggler/32/13190_2.png) [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2025, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bannon-miller-who-is-their-choice-to-replace-trump/1026129/62 "2025-12-30T22:03:49Z")
Oh yeah, there was a Reagan cult of personality and it dominated the party right up until the orange guy came along. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2025, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bannon-miller-who-is-their-choice-to-replace-trump/1026129/63 "2025-12-30T23:07:46Z")
Campaign rallies 3 days before election day aren’t at all the same thing as what I’m talking about with Trump. He’s ineligible for re-election, but he’s STILL having rallies. He and they seem to enjoy the whole thing. What I’m getting at is that Reagan was popular in his day, for a politician. So were the Bushes. So was Clinton, so is Obama. But none had the sort of weird cultish behavior by their followers that Trump does. When was the last time you saw a billboard for a politician touting that they are “Obama liberal Democrat”? Or just put up a celebratory billboard for any of those four? They’ve done all that stuff for Trump- one current candidate for Texas Comptroller has billboards up and down I-35 touting himself as a “Trump MAGA Republican”. And this obnoxious mess is out near Weatherford somewhere- I’ve beheld its putrescence myself. [2023 Nov 24 | “Trump, Born in New York, But TEXAN in SPIRIT”… | Flickr](https://api.flickr.com/photos/yarbroughs2002/53359804980/in/album-72177720304966679/) There’s something definitely different about the way they think of Trump vs. other politicians. There’s almost something… religious about it, which disturbs, repels, and… is there a word for “makes me think condescending thoughts”? That would be the third thing I think when I hear how people seem to have such odd affection for him. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2026, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bannon-miller-who-is-their-choice-to-replace-trump/1026129/64 "2026-01-07T17:54:03Z")
This is why Stephen Miller and his choice to replace trump matters, for those who were wondering why I started this thread. Miller is not going to step down when trump leaves the presidency, whether upright or horizontally. Miller is driven, and he will want the next Republican president to be as much his puppet as trump is/was. He is behind a lot of the things we despise about the trump administration. > **[The Wrath of Stephen Miller](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/01/stephen-miller-trump-white-house/685516/?gift=QgO_LHw-skz7EqtMG0lcxueV0MDCRu4fwbXXYY2Txxo&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share)** > > The man who turns President Trump’s most incendiary impulses into policy (This is supposed to be a gift link. You may be asked to create a free login in order to read it. I’ll quote as much as I think I can get away with.) > … > Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy ruthlessly pursues the president’s vision, especially when it comes to pushing immigrants out of the country, and he runs a tight, efficient meeting. Consensus is not the goal. > > … > > In Trump’s inner circle—even with the president himself—Miller is known as a dogmatic force whose ideas are sometimes too extreme for public consumption. “I’d love to have him come up and explain his true feelings—maybe not his _truest_ feelings,” the president joked at an Oval Office briefing in October. But in Trump’s second term, Miller finds himself at the height of his powers—the pulsing human id of a president who is already almost pure id. > > Miller has tried to recast the nation’s partisan political disagreements as an existential conflict, a battle pitting “forces of wickedness and evil” against the nation’s noble, virtuous people—a mostly native-born crowd that traces its lineage and legacy “back to Athens, to Rome, to Philadelphia, to Monticello.” He accuses federal judges of “legal insurrection” for ruling against Trump’s policies, describes the Democratic Party as a “domestic extremist organization,” and dismisses the results of even legal immigration programs as “the Somalification of America.” And he has declared an end to the post–World War II order of “international niceties” in favor of a world that rebukes the weak, “that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power,” as he put it this week when discussing recent military action against Venezuela. > > Along with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Miller was the chief force behind Trump’s decision to capture the Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro. “We are a superpower, and under President Trump, we are going to conduct ourselves as a superpower,” Miller told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Monday, articulating a worldview that started with the fear of immigration but has gradually expanded to a broader national-security and rule-of-law argument. > > .. > > Miller is now acting as an accelerant for the president’s most incendiary impulses and shaping the lives of individual Americans in nearly every realm. He has demonstrated neither the interest nor the ability to moderate his views—even for tactical purposes. He is apt to overreach. And he has shown that he’s not afraid to use the power of the government to go after those who try to stand in his way—even his liberal neighbors, whom he has accused of threatening his family. > > During Trump’s first term, Miller pushed the [family-separation policy](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/09/trump-administration-family-separation-policy-immigration/670604/) at the southern border, a measure long considered too extreme to implement. It triggered such a massive backlash that Trump’s wife and eldest daughter urged him to stop it. > > … > > But Miller has continued to push not just for the deportation of people in the country illegally but also for narrowing or closing legal immigration pathways, especially for people from poor, not-majority-white, non-Christian nations. > > … > > During debate prep for the 2024 campaign, Miller found himself in a contentious back-and-forth over immigration with a more moderate Trump ally. Finally, a frustrated Trump interrupted the two men: _Stephen_, he said, _if you had it your way, everyone would look exactly like you_, someone familiar with the exchange told us. > > “That’s correct,” Miller said, before turning back to continue sparring. > … This man who is running the government from trump’s back pocket is quoted in the article as saying: > In the [2003] video, Miller smirkily suggests that the “ideal solution” for “Saddam Hussein and his henchmen” would be “to cut off their fingers”… “Torture is a celebration of life and human dignity,” he continues, briefly unable to hide his delight as his latest outlandish proclamation illicits titters from his peers… ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2026, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bannon-miller-who-is-their-choice-to-replace-trump/1026129/65 "2026-01-07T18:01:05Z")
The New York Times also has an article about Stephen Miller today. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2026, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bannon-miller-who-is-their-choice-to-replace-trump/1026129/66 "2026-01-07T18:07:16Z")
Here’s a gift link to that one: > # Stephen Miller Offers a Strongman’s View of the World > > _President Trump’s trusted adviser is casting his hard-right gaze abroad, saying the world must be governed by “force.”_ > [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/06/us/politics/stephen-miller-foreign-policy.html?unlocked\_article\_code=1.ClA.29F2.xnkdPDGX-mbc&smid=url-share](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/06/us/politics/stephen-miller-foreign-policy.html?unlocked_article_code=1.ClA.29F2.xnkdPDGX-mbc&smid=url-share) I’m not going to quote from that one. Y’all are on your own. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2026, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bannon-miller-who-is-their-choice-to-replace-trump/1026129/67 "2026-01-07T19:33:52Z")
He (Stephen Miller) sounds nice. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2026, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bannon-miller-who-is-their-choice-to-replace-trump/1026129/68 "2026-01-07T20:19:04Z")
I thought Romney lost it when the waiter got him on camera bossing waiters. “Come on, get those tables out of here!” ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2026, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bannon-miller-who-is-their-choice-to-replace-trump/1026129/69 "2026-01-07T22:34:51Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > _Miller smirkily suggests that the “ideal solution” for “Saddam Hussein and his henchmen” would be “to cut off their fingers”… “Torture is a celebration of life and human dignity,” he continues_, ^From The Atlantic (link above). Reading this, one can’t help thinking in terms of karma. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2026, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bannon-miller-who-is-their-choice-to-replace-trump/1026129/70 "2026-01-07T23:12:00Z")
I think the best answer to the OP is who can you find who is stupid and incompetent and has charisma? My first choice off the top would be RFK Jr. He was briefly a candidate in 2024, so he is clearly interested. And he is making a name for himself as HEW Sec’y. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2026, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bannon-miller-who-is-their-choice-to-replace-trump/1026129/71 "2026-01-08T02:48:47Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > stupid and incompetent and has charisma? You could be right about that. RFK’s name certainly has _cachet_. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2026, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bannon-miller-who-is-their-choice-to-replace-trump/1026129/72 "2026-01-08T02:53:17Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > And he is making a name for himself as HEW Sec’y. HHS. The Department of Health, Education, & Welfare hasn’t existed since 1979. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2026, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bannon-miller-who-is-their-choice-to-replace-trump/1026129/73 "2026-01-08T20:43:56Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > > [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > > > stupid and incompetent and has charisma? > > You could be right about that. RFK’s name certainly has _cachet_. That last name does have cachet. But RFK Jr. himself has what I would describe as “_negative_ charisma.” ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2026, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bannon-miller-who-is-their-choice-to-replace-trump/1026129/74 "2026-01-11T00:25:06Z")
For Steve Bannon at least, it appears the answer is “Steve Bannon”. > **[Insiders say Steve Bannon to challenge JD Vance in 2028 presidential bid: report](https://www.rawstory.com/steve-bannon-2674871768/)** > > Far-right influencer Steve Bannon, who previously served as President Donald Trump’s chief White House strategist, is planning to launch a 2028 presidential bid, according to two insiders who spoke with Axios.Axios reporter Alex Isenstadt was told by... ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2026, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bannon-miller-who-is-their-choice-to-replace-trump/1026129/75 "2026-02-14T18:50:02Z")
Somewhere there’s a clip of someone asking trump if Vance would be his successor, and he immediately dismissed it with a no. It was a while back. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2026, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bannon-miller-who-is-their-choice-to-replace-trump/1026129/76 "2026-02-14T19:07:00Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Trump is basically a living parody character; if he was fictional people would mock the author for how unrealistically incompetent and horrible he is. I’ve often said this - as a book character, he’s totally unbelievable. I’m not sure who said this, but it rings true: > It’s almost impossible to believe he exists. It’s as if we took everything that was bad about America, scraped it up off the floor, wrapped it all up in an old hot dog skin, and then taught it to make noises with its face. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2026, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bannon-miller-who-is-their-choice-to-replace-trump/1026129/77 "2026-02-14T19:27:34Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > I’ve often said this - as a book character, he’s totally unbelievable. Lex Luthor, who once served as President in the fictional DC universe himself, would laugh out loud at the possibility of Trump becoming President. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2026, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bannon-miller-who-is-their-choice-to-replace-trump/1026129/78 "2026-02-15T21:05:32Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Lex Luthor, who once served as President in the fictional DC universe himself, would laugh out loud at the possibility of Trump becoming President. He’d back him, though, because it would really get under Superman’s skin. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2026, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bannon-miller-who-is-their-choice-to-replace-trump/1026129/79 "2026-02-16T06:41:20Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > Reading this, one can’t help thinking in terms of karma. Maybe start a poll: Which Disney villain fate is most appropriate for Miller? Being rocketed into the sky and blown up is very spectacular. The hyenas turning on him expresses poetic justice. ---
**Author:** ![OttoDaFe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ottodafe/32/356_2.png) [@OttoDaFe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OttoDaFe)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2026, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bannon-miller-who-is-their-choice-to-replace-trump/1026129/80 "2026-02-16T07:59:45Z")
It’s not the Disney version, but IIRC the evil queen in the original Snow White was forced to dance in red-hot shoes until she died. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bannon-miller-who-is-their-choice-to-replace-trump/1026129.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bannon-miller-who-is-their-choice-to-replace-trump/1026129.md?page=5)