Man this profile of what Stephen Miller was like in high school sounds so much like me at that age: Conservative town, started listening to Rush Limbaugh and other right-wing radio hosts, made political trolling my teen rebellion identity... https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/08/01/stephen-miller-david-horowitz-mentor-389933

I had a part-time job after school and the radio at the shop was always tuned to right-wing talk radio, a bloc of Rush/Hannity/Boortz. That was the early to mid-90s (this was the same Clinton-era rebellion that gave us South Park). That shit seemed like punk rock to me...

When I got to college and had all these socialists professors, I got a huge adrenaline rush out of defying them, mocking all of the on-campus protesters whining about saving the whales or whatever. I felt rebellious and strong and smarter than everyone. Got it was addictive.

After 9/11, I was all but ready to join a hate group. It took YEARS to even moderate somewhat (a blitz of the Iraq debacle, the Katrina debacle, a wave of anti-intellectualism that culminated in Sarah Palin). Hell, if I'd just made different online friends maybe I wouldn't have.

Looking back, I can see more clearly that I was a lonely kid, had been bullied some, was plagued by anxiety, had no plan for the future (hell, the internet didn't even exist). I didn't have a single non-white friend or co-worker. It felt amazing to be part of a club, a movement.

Also, right-wing talk radio was my introduction to media criticism, they'd point out subtle biases in language news anchors used to describe Republicans, how coverage of the Bush Sr recession vanished the day Clinton took office. It felt like seeing through the Matrix.

I could so easily have wound up like this guy, I mean, not with a job in the white house, but probably spewing hate in some corner of the internet, indoctrinating the next round of kids, getting that same spiteful adrenaline rush from the backlash. I don't know. I got lucky. /end