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I have reverted James J. Lambden's removal of the phrase "far-right" from the lede of this biography. A wide array of high-quality reliable sources describe him as coming from the far-right of the political spectrum, including The New York Times (The ascent of Mr. Miller from far-right gadfly with little policy experience to the president’s senior policy adviser came as a shock to many of the staff members who knew him from his seven years in the Senate), Bloomberg News (Miller was well known for publicly advocating far-right policies on immigration), etc. There is no BLP issue here, given the quality of the sources, so it's rather a matter of deciding whether the qualifier belongs there; given the sources, I think it does. But I'm open to discovering that there's consensus otherwise, and if that consensus is that it should be removed, we should remove it. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 08:08, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion there is universal agreement among sources that he is far-right (if he isn't, then who is?). Notably, he was described specifically as a far-right figure by Michael Wolff in the book on the Trump White House; Wolff writes: Miller, a fifty-five-year-old trapped in a thirty-two-year-old's body. Except, other than being a far-right conservative, it was unclear what particular abilities accompanied Miller’s views. He was supposed to be a speechwriter, but if so, he seemed restricted to bullet points and unable to construct sentences. He was supposed to be a policy adviser but knew little about policy. He was supposed to be the house intellectual but was militantly unread. He was supposed to be a communications specialist but he antagonized almost everyone. Miller's views differ very strongly from what is traditionally considered conservatism in the United States and the western world—for example in his hatred of NATO (a position traditionally mainly found on the hard left in the US, quite unsurprisingly since it primarily serves Russia's interests, although in recent years some extreme-right elements have embraced what used to be considered pro-communist/pro-Soviet/pro-Russian views)—so there is clearly a need to distinguish him from traditional conservatives who support western values and who oppose communism/the Soviet Union/Putin's Russia. --Tataral (talk) 21:28, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Just noting that Putin is no left-wing communist, but a right-wing, autocratic, kleptocratic nationalist, which explains why the far right love him.[1] -- BullRangifer (talk) 21:46, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Putin, the former KGB agent who regards the downfall of the Soviet Union as the greatest tragedy in modern history, is essentially both pro-Soviet and far-right at the same time, and deeply anti-western and anti-American. He has certainly abandoned many aspects of communism as it was traditionally understood, but his political worldview is still fundamentally based on being pro-Soviet, and he presides over a regime that engages in extensive pro-Soviet historical revisionism and that hero worships Stalin to an even greater extent than the Soviet Union did itself after around 1960. In any event, the views held by Putin are incompatible with what is regarded as conservatism in the western world, and people who work on behalf of Putin primarily work against the western world, and they also work against everything the Republican Party proclaimed to stand for and identified as its core values, at least prior to Trump. --Tataral (talk) 04:46, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Oh stop. These are value labels that are not encyclopedic nor universal. That the discussion has devolved to making claims that Putin is right wing, its clear the decision for the label is not about accuracy but association. "Far-right" offers no insight at all over "right" and serves to inject an opinion that his views are on the edge. That's always a matter of perspective that varies from source to source, country to country. It's very easy and a rather intellectually shallow exercise to portray mainstream elected and appointed officials as "far-X". Save the extreme labels for members of extreme organizations, not simply just in the party that has an opposition party. --DHeyward (talk) 05:50, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

" "Far-right" offers no insight at all over "right"" - that's a obviously ridiculous assertion. I myself, and many others, as well as multiple sources, do apparently find it "insightful" to distinguish between "far right" and "right". It's just as insightful as including the fact that a dog is a Canis and not just a mammal. Indeed, if it wasn't insightful, you wouldn't be here objecting to it so strenuously. And while your opinion of who is and who is not "mainstream" is noted, we actually rely on reliable sources for our articles.Volunteer Marek (talk) 06:02, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Take it up with the mainstream reliable sources cited. You seem to be objecting to the way reliable sources depict Miller; we can't fix that problem. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 06:50, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"Mainstream reliable" ACCORDING TO YOU!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.77.237.195 (talk) 18:04, 27 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. The "mainstream" sources listed are all left wing associated and have an overall political agenda of labeling certain right wing parties as being on the fringe or extreme and thus using the term "far-right" but there is no indication of actual far-right ideology with regards to Stephen Miller except the aforementioned name calling. "Take it up with mainstream...we can't fix that problem" yes we actually can fix it by being more selective in what is cited. Why cite something that is proven to be heavily liberal and not anything on the other side. The responsible thing to do is to use facts and not subjective opinions. Distinguishing should be made when there is actual evidence to support such claims but I do not see it here. "Far-right activist" needs to go. (Dgarza42 (talk) 15:17, 9 March 2018 (UTC))[reply]

Doesn't matter if you agree with a 1-line screaming text from an IP user or not, the Wikipedia has policies on sourcing, verification, and reliability of the sourcing. The citations noted for Miller's far-right beliefs are more than sufficient. ValarianB (talk) 15:38, 9 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Dude, take a seat...they are no way sufficient or an end to the debate--Mapsfly (talk) 03:15, 13 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Let me repeat something I noted elsewhere. The term "far right" is a common term of art for what is mostly described in the literature as the populist radical right. It differs from right-wing and conservative in its emphasis on authoritarianism, nativism and anti-immigration policies. I dug up a couple of examples several days ago to illustrate the point:

• Cas Mudd, ed. (2017). "Introduction to the populist radical right". The Populist Radical Right: A reader. Routledge. ISBN 9781315514574. (The populist radical right shares a core ideology that combines (at least) three features: nativism, authoritarianism, and populism (Mudde 2007)... In Europe the nativism of the populist radical right has mainly targeted 'immigrants')
• Mudde, Cas. "The Study of Populist Radical Right Parties:Towards a Fourth Wave" (PDF). C-REX Working Paper Series,. 2016 (1): 1. Retrieved 2024-06-23. (Since the start of the third wave of populist radical right politics in postwar Europe in the early 1980s, more articles and books have been written on far right parties than on all other party families combined.){{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)

These happen to be by the same author but there are lots of examples out there of the terms being effectively synonymous per the usage in the second quote. The point being that the term far right does not mean 'more right' or 'more conservative' it is used, specifically, to denote views and parties which are anti-immigrant, populist and authoritarian. A far right party may or may not stress religion, 'family values' to the extent of the traditional American right and it certainly does not encompass the free trade policies of conservatives. It is a distinct area of the ideological spectrum, the populist radical right, and labeling a person with far right views as simply right-wing or conservative is simply incorrect and inaccurate on its face.

It is not a derogatory term. It is a simple adjective describing a common, distinct, set of policies and values. Others may see the label as derogatory because they see the values of the far right repugnant but, from an encyclopedic standpoint, it is no different from saying someone is a Family Values Christian. Their views are undoubtedly repugnant to a large group of people but it is not controversial to say someone holds those values nor do the people so labeled typically object to being called such. Just as Miller has not, to my knowledge, objected to being called far right. His views are what they are and the proper term for them is far right. Jbh ^Talk 15:37, 9 March 2018 (UTC) Last edited: 16:00, 9 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

By this logic, Bernie Sanders or El Chapo Traphouse should be described as 'far-left', since that would be an accurate description of their activities. However, if you check word frequency, you will notice that both 'far-left' and 'far-right' are political slurs only used by people with certain political views. For comparison, 'neoliberal' is not used by free market liberals, 'progressive' is used by few except center-left and left-wing liberals, 'pro-life' is only used by anti-abortion activists and 'pro-choice' by pro-abortion activists, etc. 'Right-wing' or 'nationalist' would be a more appropriate descriptor. Cas Mudde, by the way, is a scholar activist who is very vocal about his views, not even trying to resemble a neutral observer who abstains from using slurs. Humanophage (talk) 06:25, 21 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The defense of the phrase far-right by claiming it is supported by myriad sources is not legitimate. Firstly, the definition of far-right should be considered. Far-right is used to describe Fascistic, Nazist, or Extreme-Nationalist politics.^{[1] [2]} The New York Times source was an editorial, and therefore the opinion of the author, but by no means a confirmation of the reality. Further, the Bloomberg article defines specific policies of Mr. Miller's as far-right, but that does not necessarily mean that he is far-right as a whole. Further, [User_talk:Jbhunley| ^Talk]] cited the same author twice and made an unsupported claim that there are many other articles that back up the single author he cited, however, he did not cite any of those authors. Further, the articles he provided did not use the word far-right, they discussed Populist Radical Right Parties, which [User_talk:Jbhunley| ^Talk]] claimed was the definition of far-right, without any sources backing it up. Moreover, the article did not mention Mr. Miller, so per Wikipedia Guidelines it is not relevant to and discussion over this article. Additionally, talk is right that it is important to distinguish between conservative and far-right, but it must be done properly, consistently, and by definition. So while we would like to distinguish Mr. Miller in order to provide more insight into his exact political leanings, when the nature of those leanings as far-right is ambiguous, it is imperative to describe his stated views instead of provide speculation over the nature of those views on the political spectrum.Canijustedit (talk) 02:15, 3 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but you are engaging in original research. We don't do that. We use reliable resources. O3000 (talk) 02:18, 3 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Canijustedit: Hi. I took a quick look at your edit history. How come you're trying to remove mentions of Miller being "far-right" while working hard to include mentions of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as being "far-left"? Your logic re: Miller contradicts your logic re: Ocasio-Cortez. – Muboshgu (talk) 02:25, 3 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Muboshgu: My edit history has no effect on what is right for this page. Further, I did that in order to try and create consistency across pages. Considering that the phrase far-left is not being used on her page, I came to this page. It does not make sense why far-right is used on one but far-left not on the others. I am trying to provide consistency. Further, sources that were in favor of Ms. Cortes referred to her endearingly as far-left. The sources used here are from Mr. Miller's adversaries. In the future, you may want to engage with what I write on this talk page in order to advise your opinion about this page instead of any other page, which are by Wikipedia guidelines irrelevant to this one. Canijustedit (talk) 02:32, July 3, 2018‎ (UTC)

@Canijustedit: Since Wikipedia is a community-based project built on consensus, editor behavior is absolutely relevant. You're making a false equivalence between this page and that page. – Muboshgu (talk) 02:38, 3 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Muboshgu:You made the equivalence between this page and the other. You said that because I supported a specific term, that is distinct from the term being used here, on that page, that I can not support a different term on this page. You made a false equivalency. I did not equate the two pages. And if you are to equate them, then you should immediately go and either add far-left to that page or remove far-right from this page. However, I have stopped my campaign on that page, as it was brought to my attention of the lack of precision in either of those terms. For Wikipedia to remain neutral it is pertinent we do not have either far-left on that page or far-right on this page. Please engage with what I said here about why we should remove far-right and not with an irrelevant article. Canijustedit (talk) 02:48, July 3, 2018‎ (UTC)

We base content on RS, not on consistency between articles. There is no policy for that. See WP:OTHERSTUFF. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 03:19, 3 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• I support removing "far-right" from the lead. The sources, of which there are few, are all either calling him "far-right" as an insult (because they are hit-pieces anyway) and the others are talking about his immigration policies. Since the previous RfC has a consensus to call him an "immigration hardliner", there's no need to redundantly mention his immigration policies by vaguely calling him "far-right". wumbolo ^^^ 11:45, 5 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• The current intro (and some other bits) is quite strongly NPOV and harms the credibility of the article. In the UK, Miller would clearly qualify for what we call "hard-right", and would be the diametric opposite of the "hard-left" who would be people like the Occupy movement. The "far-right" are the openly racist (which Miller is not) but still democratic (mostly) types currently winning power in Eastern Europe. The "extreme-right" and "extreme-left" are groups who openly espouse military tactics to seize power and then propose abolishing democracy and cleansing the population of troublemakers (i.e. actual Nazis and Stalinists) Fig (talk) 20:40, 22 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Miller's claim was that the poem was not originally part of the Statue; this is true, yet Wa Po claims he didn't get it right because the poem was written to fund the statue. Miller's claim is factually correct, Wa Po is just adding POV. Let's remove the Wa Po reference there.MagicatthemovieS (talk) 17:25, 17 December 2018 (UTC)MagicatthemovieS[reply]

The WaPo source does a good job explaining, with nuance, the context for the disagreement and notes, fairly, that both had a point depending on how you look at it. I don't see why we'd remove it. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 17:28, 17 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Miller's claim was not false, so the inclusion of the WaPo source makes it appear that we are challenging his claimMagicatthemovieS (talk) 17:38, 17 December 2018 (UTC)MagicatthemovieS[reply]

No, it wasn't false, but neither was Acosta's point. Each person had a point, and by presenting a fair reliably-sourced analysis of the issue, we illuminate the situation for our readers. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 18:10, 17 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Miller's uncle is a man of no significance; his views on his nephew do not warrant a block quote, particularly one which this article does not challenge.MagicatthemovieS (talk) 17:27, 17 December 2018 (UTC)MagicatthemovieS[reply]

Is there a rebuttal source from another member of Miller's family we could add? NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 18:09, 17 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia often uses sources with a non-neutral POV but we do not allow such POV to spill over into this website. The phrase "sowing fear" makes Miller look like a Disney villain and is not neutral. One cannot objectively say that someone "sows fear" because nothing universally causes fear. Even if Miller claims that all immigrants will murder Americans, such a claim would be joyous to a hardline anti-American.MagicatthemovieS (talk) 17:31, 17 December 2018 (UTC)MagicatthemovieS[reply]

The cited source has a neutral POV - it's a factual news article written by a respected White House journalist. In fact, we should add additional follow-up stories to note that the strategy of sowing fear about immigrants backfired and was part of the reason Trump's party lost 40 seats in Congress. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 17:58, 17 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• I don't agree with your implicit assertion that the New York Times is non-neutral; they're one of the highest-quality news sources in the world in terms of reputation, impartiality and reliability. There's a reason the term newspaper of record was literally invented to describe them. Their summary is The president has sought to sow fear of immigrants by focusing on a caravan of people fleeing violence and poverty in their Central American countries... It is an agenda Mr. Miller has pushed tirelessly inside the West Wing... That's pretty straightforward, and I agree with NorthBySouthBaranof that "concerns" soft-sells it to the point where it's an inaccurate summary of the source. I think "sowing fears" might be a bit too poetic, though; "raising fears" is slightly more staid, neutral language while still summarizing the gist of the source. The key point is that Trump was not merely focusing on addressing concerns, or answering concerns, but on creating them - on making people afraid. Our summary has to capture that. Also, I don't think your second objection makes sense - the key point is the administration's intent (ie. they sought to make people afraid). --Aquillion (talk) 05:58, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

We need to cover the fear-mongering aspect, as RS do. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 11:32, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The New York Times is far from neutral. While it may be perfectly reputable when covering a hurricane, anything remotely political is "reported" with the bias of it staff, owners, and readership base in its city of publication - all of which are far more left-leaning that the country as a whole. MB 14:23, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Its 125 Pulitzer Prizes would disagree. There is clear consensus across Wikipedia that the New York Times is a reliable source, and that's not going to change based on a discussion here. Bradv🍁 14:48, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That carries no weight with me. See Pulitzer Prize#Criticism and studies, what do you expect when the ref and players are all on the same team. MB 00:21, 19 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

No one's trying to convince you. I'm merely stating Wikipedia consensus. Bradv🍁 00:29, 19 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This seems to have been removed with no explanation. It's well-sourced and has inline citations to identify where the analysis comes from, and seems neutrally-worded to me. Beyond that, the question of how a high-profile advisor's policies have impacted electoral politics seem obviously relevant; devoting one sentence to an assessment from a high-profile reliable source that focuses on politics seems WP:DUE. Is there any specific objection to it? --Aquillion (talk) 06:10, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It was added as a result of the "Sowing fears" section above, and it nicely expands on the first sentence. It was a good edit and should not have been removed. Bradv🍁 06:17, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the question of how an advisor's policies have impacted electoral politics is relevant, however I removed that because the opinion of that one journalist does not necessarily represent a majority perspective of the matter, because there are many varying and conflicting opinions from many "reliable" sources as to why 40 house seats were lost.--IntelligentName (talk) 07:27, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That's a fair point. However, it will be trivial to add several other analysts making the same point; the xenophobic anti-immigrant fearmongering is widely viewed as a (not the, but a) main reason for the catastrophic losses suffered by the president's party in the midterm - and this is not just analysis but also supported by polling data. With those other sources, will that thus satisfy your objection? NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 11:20, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

To say that Trump's party suffered "catastrophic losses" in the mid-term election, when he added two seats in the senate and lost only ten more house seats that the AVERAGE lost in all mid-terms since 1910 (data here) shows your political bias. If you don't recognize your bias you wouldn't see bias in sources either. MB 14:42, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A 40-seat loss in the House is indeed catastrophic; not my words, the sources' words. That you disagree with those sources is neither here nor there. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 17:01, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Judging this as catastrophic is a subjective opinion, regardless of who makes the judgement. This is an encyclopedia and should summarize facts, such as "Trump lost 40 seats in the house". Stating it as a fact in WP's voice is wrong. Discussing it as a "cited opinion" as you mention below is much more reasonable. MB 00:14, 19 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I did not suggest that we should include it as a fact in this article, so I'm glad we agree on that. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 07:46, 19 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

More analysis sources which discuss the issue: [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] etc. etc. etc. and several of these articles name Miller directly. There's clearly sufficient sourcing to include this here as a cited opinion (not proposing it be considered a fact). NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 18:11, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

We candefinitelyy add this with attribution, or, if the other sources are included, without.Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:07, 21 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]