[Essay]
The Devil’s Advocates
There’s a scene in the classic 1997 horror film “The Devil’s Advocate” where Charlize Theron finds herself in a changing room with the other wives at the high-powered law firm that just hired her husband. A darkness lurks behind all of the luxury and hospitality since the founding partner of the company is actually Satan in the form of Al Pacino. As the women try on couture and sip champagne, they reveal themselves as demon hellspawn when their faces begin to morph and twist into distorted grimaces.
It’s truly a fantastic movie, and I have thought of the shopping scene many times over the years when attending various Trumpworld parties in Washington and New York. There is, of course, a darkness lurking among the very ‘90s rococo, dated, black tie fetes popular with President Donald Trump and his cronies. It is beyond disturbing to find yourself clinking glasses and sharing hors d’oeuvres with the people who are dropping bombs, disappearing families, persecuting their political enemies, and looting the public coffers on a daily basis. The prevalence of “Mar-a-Lago face” and garish pancake makeup among the women (and men) at these ghastly events only makes the resemblance to Pacino’s demonic hordes hit harder.
In today’s Washington, these types of hellish scenes seem to be playing out at one of the capital’s most terrifying places: the home of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and his wife, Katie.
Earlier this month, Vanity Fair published a fascinating look into how Katie is “becoming MAGA DC’s premier hostess” at the couple’s home. The story noted their parties have featured Cabinet secretaries, law enforcement officers, and other White House staffers. Recent bashes included a celebration of the confirmation of ethically challenged Attorney General Todd Blanche and a birthday-slash-farewell party for outgoing White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt before she dipped out through the administration’s revolving door into Fox News. Leavitt’s grand goodbye at the Miller manse featured cookies decorated in icing that spelled out MAGAworld’s aversion to transparency, reading “No More Questions.”
Katie Miller has refashioned herself as a podcast momfluencer after stints working for Trump’s Department of Homeland Security — which oversees ICE — and for race-obsessed billionaire Elon Musk. She has also seemingly used her party-planning cachet to land guests and distribution for her show despite its middling traffic numbers. The spectacle of all the dealmaking and schmoozing against the backdrop of rampant corruption and cruelty that has defined Trump’s second term is made all the more grotesque since the Millers are two of the most extreme figures in the president’s orbit.
Stephen Miller has long been known as the mastermind of many of the sickest aspects of Trump’s mass deportation agenda. He is also one of the White House advisers who most frequently and openly engages in borderline white nationalist rhetoric with bromides about the supposed cultural supremacy of native-born Americans. Just this week on X, Miller posted that low school test scores in the Golden State were due to children who were not “California kids.” That type of comment suggesting there is some population inside America that is inferior and un-American is something of a MAGA and Miller specialty. It is almost certainly an attack on minorities and immigrants that’s stated just indirectly enough to offer the thinnest degree of plausible deniability.
Since stepping into her new role as an influencer, Katie Miller has gotten far more explicitly racist. Along with dabbling in the debunked New Age conspiracies that have become a staple of the MAHA wing of the Trumpian right (Vanity Fair pointed out the Millers’ parties have featured chefs that cater to the pro-raw milk and anti-seed oil preferences of the RFK Jr. set), Katie has used her platform to espouse blatantly white supremacist “Great Replacement Theory” rhetoric.
“In America, foreign-born women … they’re having 25% of the births in the United States. Foreign born have more children than that of native born,” Miller said in one appearance this week where she railed against the “rape of Europe” and “unfettered migration” both here and abroad.
“That is what happens when you have this replacement of civilization,” Miller added. “For societies to grow and societies to flourish and for there to be bonds to be between you and I … it has to have this common culture and, unfortunately we’ve lost that.”
The accounts of the festivities at the Millers’ home shows how common and accepted these racist views are in the upper echelons of the Trump administration.
To add to the dystopian vibe, Vanity Fair noted the Millers are among the Trump officials who have taken to living on military bases around Washington, D.C. These moves have been made to avoid public anger, protests, and the threats that come along with them. As a result, all of the crudites, Hibachi chefs and pizza trucks being enjoyed at Katie and Stephen’s parties are being shared behind barbed wire.
In the article about the scene, Vanity Fair noted Trumpworld has operated under a sense of victimization and siege mentality, particularly in the diverse and largely liberal confines of Washington. These are people who see one of their own being turned away at a fancy restaurant as an outrage far worse than inhumane immigration detention camps.
“It’s hard for anyone in the Trump administration,” Leavitt somehow told the magazine with a straight face. “So why not just create our own parties with our own friends?”
This article exposed the sick world of extremist parties taking place under high security in America’s center of power. Even some of the old elite seem turned off by the scene. Whenever there is a discussion of Washington society, reporters tend to seek out a quote from the quintessential Georgetown doyenne Sally Quinn. In this story, the famed hostess once again espoused the perhaps mythical idea of a bygone bipartisan party scene in the city.
“When the five o’clock bell rang on the Hill, in the old days, that’s when they’d get out the bottles of bourbon and start drinking together,” Quinn said.
Even Quinn, whose desire to paint the ancient political class as a bastion of civility has always seemed out of touch, recognizes things have changed now.
“When Trump got elected the first time, that’s when the whole thing fell apart,” Quinn told Vanity Fair. “That’s when people stopped talking to each other.”
Things are different at the Miller home. It’s spooky season. The people sipping champagne are demons. Their faces are morphing and distorting before our eyes.
