IT WAS THE tapping gloves before the first uppercut landed; an opening feint in what is now widely expected to be a brutal two-year brawl.

The relief Americans felt after Donald Trump’s apparently conciliatory response to the brutal humiliation he endured at the polls was short-lived. Stephen Miller’s appointment as his new Chief of Staff shattered the short-lived illusion that he would rise above the most crushing midterm defeat of a Republican president in half a century.

Even as Trump was indicating his willingness to work with Democrats on immigration reform, he had already tapped Miller, the most hardline of the white nationalist cabal within the White House, to replace Susie Wiles.

The decision is the clearest possible indication that Trump has no intention of going gently into the twilight of his lame duck era.

Unlike Wiles, who was essentially a toll booth operator for the Oval Office, deciding which special interest groups, tech and corporate titans had access to Trump, Miller brings an unshakeable ideology to the Chief of Staff’s office. Wiles, a veteran lobbyist and highly regarded campaign operative within GOP circles, had little knowledge of, or experience with, the legislative and political machinations of Congress. Miller has an insider’s knowledge of both, underpinned by a voracious appetite for conflict.

With Miller in charge, the second half of Trump’s second term is likely to be far more ideologically driven, combative and refocused on the anti-woke, anti-DEI crusades that galvanised the MAGA base in 2024.

Trump may have reverted to the pugilistic mode that has defined his political career to date, but he’s a much-depleted force. His power has been eroded by the scale of the midterms defeat and by his diminished mental and physical capacity. His evident detachment from his role as President comes at a dangerous time. The ‘angry little weirdo’ from a grim Los Angeles neighbourhood has become the ruthless power behind the most volatile of thrones.

I first encountered Miller on the campaign trail in Dallas in 2016. At the time he was the communications director for Senator Jeff Sessions, one of the most unabashedly anti-immigration forces on Capitol Hill. When Sessions became the first US Senator to endorse Trump, Miller was initially seconded to beef up the anti-immigration rhetoric in Trump’s speeches.

I’d seen him perform as a sort of warm-up act for Trump at a few events previously. Initially audiences didn’t pay........

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