Stephen Miller and the Needed Post Trump Nuremberg Trials

To recover our democracy we will need a way back to morality

Police are investigating the cause of a fire that burned down the home of South Carolina Circuit Court judge Diane Goodstein, who had ruled against Trump administration.

Stephen Miller, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff for policy, criticized “far-left Democrat judges” on social media platform X. The next day the house of Judge Diane Goodstein’s house seems to have been firebombed.

Miller is a central figure in shaping the Trump Administration’s agenda. From enabling state violence against immigrant families to promoting white nationalist rhetoric in government, his “career is a warning of what happens when bigotry gains institutional power.”

In his speech at Charlie Kirk’s funeral, Miller spewed incredibly vile views.

“And to those trying to incite violence against us, those trying to foment hatred against us,” he said, “what do you have? You have nothing. You are nothing. You are wickedness. You are jealousy. You are envy. You are hatred. You are nothing. You can build nothing. You can produce nothing. You can create nothing…And what will you leave behind? Nothing. Nothing. To our enemies, you have nothing to give. You have nothing to offer. You have nothing to share but bitterness.”

This is literally cultural and ethical poison and it was poured out at a funeral.

I believe that the Trumpians such as Miller were trying to position the assassination of Charlie Kirk as their “Reichstag Fire,” the arson at the German Parliament building in 1933 that the Nazi leadership and its coalition partners claimed signaled that Communists were planning a violent uprising and that emergency legislation was needed to prevent this. The Reichstag Fire Decree abolished a number of constitutional protections and paved the way for Nazi dictatorship.

That did not happen here (yet?). I believe there is still a right-wing effort to systematically destroy our constitutional protections and threats and violence against fair judges is part of their agenda.

During the Nazi regime, Hermann Goering, a politician, used repulsive language labeling “enemies” and justifying ruthlessness as was documented at his trial at Nuremberg.

“We had to deal ruthlessly with these enemies of the state…thus concentration camps were created.”

When a country’s leaders use contemptible language, send troops against their own people including children, create concentration camps, violate due process, “disappear” people, try to undermine democratic norms and procedures and so on, it can drag a nation into a moral quagmire.

We are nearly knee-deep in the muck already.

The Nuremberg trials were necessary because of the scope of the Nazi crimes. The Allies eventually established the laws and procedures for the Nuremberg trials with the London Charter of the International Military Tribunal (IMT), issued on August 8, 1945. Among other things, the charter defined three categories of crimes: crimes against peace (including planning, preparing, starting or waging wars of aggression or wars in violation of international agreements), war crimes (including violations of customs or laws of war, including improper treatment of civilians and prisoners of war) and crimes against humanity (including murder, enslavement or deportation of civilians or persecution on political, religious or racial grounds). It was determined that civilian officials as well as military officers could be accused of war crimes.

You can see how deep we have gotten including “improper treatment of civilians and prisoners of war, and crimes against humanity including murder, enslavement or deportation of civilians or persecution on political, religious or racial grounds.”

So, even as we resist this current morally degenerate administration, we must also think forward.

How are we to recover?

I strongly believe “Nuremberg type” trials will be necessary because the crimes being perpetrated are corrupting the basic values, imperfect as they have been, on which this country staked its claim to be a democracy.