Cartoon Attribution: Mike Konopacki
Mike Konopacki (born c. 1951) is an American political cartoonist from Wisconsin, best known for his labor-focused editorial cartoons and co‑founding the Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons syndicate
His Cohn Incarnate
22 thoughts on “His Cohn Incarnate”
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The Ghost of Roy Cohn Revived As Stephen Miller? An Eerie Resemblance!
Martin D. Vasquez
Nov 22, 2025
In the pantheon of political operators who shaped Donald Trump’s worldview, one name stands above all others. Roy Cohn, the ruthless attorney who served as chief counsel to Senator Joseph McCarthy during the Red Scare, taught the young Trump developer a brutal philosophy: never apologize, always attack, and use fear as both shield and sword. Cohn died of AIDS in 1986, disbarred and disgraced. But if you look closely at Trump’s current inner circle, you’ll notice something unsettling.
Roy Cohn is back. And his name is Stephen Miller.
The Physical Echo
The resemblance is startling. Miller, now 40, wears the same retro skinny suits that Cohn favored. Both share pale, hooded eyes that observers describe as cultivating a “just-try-me stare” that seems to bore through adversaries. When Vanity Fair’s Marie Brenner first saw Stephen Miller, she had an immediate reaction: “Oh my God, Trump sees the young Roy Cohn. Seeing that face, it’s a comfort zone for him.”
Multiple journalists and political observers have noted the physical similarities. NPR’s review of the documentary “Where’s My Roy Cohn?” observed that Cohn’s appearance “eerily prefigures the hard-bore stare of that other kingmaker, Trump aide Stephen Miller.” The Santa Monica Daily Press, writing about Miller’s hometown, noted that he “bears a striking resemblance to the infamous Roy Cohn” down to the “soulless facial expressions.”
But the physical resemblance, as eerie as it is, represents only the surface of a far more troubling parallel.
The Tactical Blueprint
Roy Cohn didn’t just teach Trump how to think. He provided a comprehensive playbook for wielding power without conscience. That playbook now guides Stephen Miller’s every move.
Always Attack, Never Apologize
Cohn’s first rule was absolute: never admit wrongdoing, ever. As journalist Ken Auletta noted, “The idea that you can admit a mistake is not part of Roy’s genetic code.” Miller has internalized this principle completely. During Trump’s first term, when faced with criticism over family separation policies at the border, Miller doubled down, reportedly stating, “I would be happy if not a single refugee foot ever again touched America’s soil.”
Counterattack With Greater Force
Cohn taught that when criticized, you hit back harder, escalate, and make accusers regret mentioning your name. Miller has mastered this approach. Like Cohn during the McCarthy hearings, Miller operates as Trump’s “rhetorical attack dog,” emerging at strategic moments to deliver what observers describe as “heated, take-no-prisoners rhetoric” that follows Cohn’s rule: “If you’re hit, hit back a hundred times harder.”
Weaponize Fear
Perhaps the most dangerous lesson Cohn taught was that people who are afraid are easier to manipulate and more willing to accept authoritarian solutions. Cohn helped McCarthy weaponize the Red Scare, stoking paranoia about secret communists undermining America. Miller has adapted these tactics for the 21st century, stoking fears about immigrants, refugees, and what he describes as threats to American identity. In September 2025, after a violent incident, Miller blamed Democratic judges and politicians, using the tragedy to amplify fear and justify expanded enforcement powers.
Media Manipulation
During the McCarthy hearings, Cohn demonstrated an intuitive understanding that appearance often matters more than reality, that bold assertions frequently override facts. Miller shows the same instinct. As Trump’s longest-serving speechwriter, Miller’s words become Trump’s words, and he has mastered the art of crafting rhetoric that inflames rather than informs. During the 2016 campaign, Miller served as warm-up act at rallies, working crowds into a frenzy with red-meat rhetoric.
The Ideological Architecture
Miller hasn’t just adopted Cohn’s tactics. He has stepped into the same structural role that Cohn played for McCarthy, and later for Trump in the 1970s and 1980s.
Cohn served as McCarthy’s chief counsel, the “subcommittee’s real brain” according to Time magazine in 1954. Miller now serves as Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security advisor. The parallel is precise. Both operated as the intellectual architect behind their patron’s most controversial initiatives.
For Cohn, that meant orchestrating the Second Red Scare and the lesser-known Lavender Scare, which purged thousands of federal employees based on McCarthyism’s paranoid logic. For Miller, it means serving as the “architect of anti-immigration policies,” including the Muslim travel ban, family separation at the border, and plans for mass deportations that have dominated Trump’s agenda.
Both men cultivated reputations for ruthlessness. Esquire magazine called Cohn “a legal executioner, the toughest, meanest, loyalest, vilest, and one of the most brilliant lawyers in America.” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said of Miller: “As long as Stephen Miller is in charge of negotiating on immigration, we are going nowhere.”
The Shadow Operator
Like Cohn, Miller understands the power of operating from the shadows while emerging at crucial moments. Cohn was described as operating “behind the scenes, the ever-willing fixer pulling the strings.” Miller has mastered this same approach. Though he holds prominent titles, he works largely outside the public eye, yet surfaces to defend Trump during crises.
This was demonstrated in March 2025 when Miller appeared on a leaked text chain of 18 top Trump officials discussing military strikes in Yemen. The fact that Miller, who is not cabinet-level, was included in this conversation revealed his true influence. As one Republican strategist noted, “Stephen Miller’s perspective means quite a bit in this discussion, and his words may even outweigh those of some cabinet members.”
Miller’s inclusion in such high-level discussions mirrors Cohn’s role as an indispensable advisor whose influence exceeded his formal position. When Trump asked “Where’s my Roy Cohn?” in frustration with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, he was lamenting the absence of someone who would be “consummately loyal, utterly crafty, and at least as willing as Trump to do whatever it took to win.”
In Miller, Trump found exactly that.
The Personal Parallels
The similarities extend into personal background. Both Cohn and Miller are Jewish, from Democratic families, yet became prominent figures in right-wing politics. Cohn’s biographer noted that he “very early in my life broke with tradition and left my Jewish upper class-oriented life in New York and became a contradiction of everything I was supposed to stand for.”
Miller’s trajectory mirrors this. Born in 1985 in Santa Monica to a liberal Democratic family, Miller rejected that heritage early. In high school, he opposed bilingual education and multicultural programs. A former classmate, Jason Islas, recounted how Miller ended their friendship, saying, “I can’t be your friend anymore because you are Latino.” Like Cohn, Miller has spent much of his life as “an outsider, rejected and often disrespected by those around him,” yet using that outsider status to fuel his political agenda.
This personal contradiction adds a disturbing dimension. Both men have been accused of weaponizing their outsider status while simultaneously working to exclude others. Critics note that Miller and other Trump advisors with similar backgrounds seem to demonstrate what some observers describe as a willingness to “play Heinrich Himmler for Trump,” implementing policies that critics argue reinforce harmful stereotypes and endanger the very communities from which they came.
The Consequences of History Repeating
When Trump met Cohn in 1973, he encountered a man who had already left a trail of destroyed lives and careers. Cohn’s tactics during the McCarthy era ruined countless people through innuendo and guilt by association. Not a single communist infiltrator was actually uncovered by McCarthy’s investigations, but the damage to American democracy was profound.
Now, with Miller serving as Trump’s chief policy architect and homeland security advisor, those same tactics have been revived and adapted. Miller’s policies have resulted in family separations, detained children, travel bans affecting millions, and proposals for mass deportations. Like Cohn’s investigations, these initiatives are justified through fear-mongering about threats to national security.
In May 2025, reports emerged that Miller and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had allegedly set arrest quotas of 3,000 people per day for immigration enforcement. After Charlie Kirk’s assassination in September 2025, Miller appeared on television to vow the use of the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security to dismantle what he called a “vast domestic terror movement,” echoing Cohn’s language about hidden enemies within.
The Warning
George Santayana wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” The documentary “Where’s My Roy Cohn?” warns that Cohn “set in motion in the 1950s resurfaces today in shocking and unexpected ways, scare tactics, divisive rhetoric, and aggressions against vulnerable minority communities.”
The connection between Cohn and Miller isn’t just about physical resemblance or even tactical similarity. It represents the resurrection of a dark strain in American politics, one that substitutes fear for facts, attacks for arguments, and loyalty for law.
Cohn died in 1986, his reputation destroyed, disbarred for unethical conduct, broke and owing millions to the IRS. But his methods survived, passed down to Trump, and now to Miller. When you see Stephen Miller on television, with his pale stare and aggressive rhetoric, you’re not just seeing a Trump advisor. You’re seeing Roy Cohn’s ghost, given new life and new power in an era that desperately needs to remember the lessons of the past.
The question isn’t whether Stephen Miller looks like Roy Cohn. The question is whether America will recognize the danger before Cohn’s playbook writes another dark chapter in our history.
Attribution: Trump Demands Security Blanket by Dave Whamond
Srephen Miller quote
From the transcript of an interview on The Lead with Jake Tapper, CNN (5 January 2026)
Remarks on US strikes in Venezuela
Attribution: Stephen Miller Named Chief of Staff by Bill Day
For comparison – Roy Cohn
but we digress to ponder on another appointee
Nov 9, 2026 #lastweektonight
John Oliver discusses the damage that Pete Hegseth has caused both at home and abroad as the U.S. Secretary of Defense, how it could take a generation to fix, and the unexpected decorating flourishes of Mr. Kid Rock.
It is uncanny…
repeating for emphasis (and for those who didn’t have time to read to the end) the conclusion of that Vasquez piece:
PROGRAMMING NOTE: Digital Diner airs 11 a.m.-noon ET on YouTube. Join today’s conversation at trailmix.cc/chat. Watch yesterday’s current replay.
What Is Actually Clicking: November 9, 2026
→ White House signals no retreat after losing Congress, with Attorney General Todd Blanche warning Democrats on Sunday shows and Stephen Miller elevated as chief, fueling debate over executive power versus oversight.
→ Hakeem Jeffries says he is a hard yes on impeaching Pete Hegseth for engineering a reckless Iran war, as Thomas Massie prepares a privileged resolution when the House returns, sparking split reaction on both sides.
→ Hakeem Jeffries calls Stephen Miller the architect of a violent deportation machine and vows no cooperation after Miller replaces Susie Wiles on November 9, a move lighting up political aggregators.
→ Lame-duck 119th Congress returns November 9 facing a December 11 funding deadline, defense and farm bill renewals, and a likely Hegseth impeachment vote before Democrats take power January 3.
→ ANC falls below a third in November 4 municipal polls, its worst result since apartheid, winning no major city outright and forcing complex coalition talks in Johannesburg and beyond.
→ Climate summit opens November 9 in Antalya with 60,000 attendees, Turkey presiding and Australia leading negotiations, pushing electrification to 35 percent by 2035 amid war-driven energy fears.
→ Collision between Kafr Ammar and Al-Raqqa stations in Giza derails carriages south of Cairo on November 8, prompting urgent investigation ordered by President Sisi and renewed debate over rail safety.
→ Board opens independent investigation after reports linking Jensen Huang to Alice Huang, a Megaspeed executive described as a Chinese intelligence asset, as Huang admits affair and Congress demands briefing.
→ McLaren driver takes second straight Interlagos win by 14.6 seconds over Max Verstappen in wet-dry-wet conditions, while Mercedes clinches first constructors crown since 2021.
→ Sequel earns 31.6 million dollars domestically, setting record for biggest live-action foreign-language opening in North America and fueling online debate over IMAX-driven anime and foreign film momentum.
— Human Prompted and Edited. Machine Drafted (ChatGPT).
PROGRAMMING NOTE: Digital Diner airs 11 a.m.-noon ET on YouTube. Join today’s conversation at trailmix.cc/chat. Watch yesterday’s current replay.
What Is Actually Clicking: November 9, 2026
→ In a Nov. 8 60 Minutes interview with Ross Douthat, Trump said he hates some enemies and cannot forgive James Comey or Nancy Pelosi even to enter paradise, after discussing Erika Kirk and Charlie Kirk.
→ New House majority leaders face internal fight as battleground Democrats led by Henry Cuellar urge focus on affordability over impeachment and culture wars, with Hakeem Jeffries balancing progressives pushing Medicare for All and abolish ICE.
→ Democrat Scott Colom holds eight events and leads by about 2500 votes as incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith stays silent except on X, with race too close to call ahead of Senate return Monday and Mississippi GOP lawyering up for provisional ballots.
→ Board announced Nov. 8 probe led by independent directors after US intelligence reporting linked CEO Jensen Huang to Alice Huang of Megaspeed in Singapore, with Huang admitting affair in staff memo and Congress requesting Nov. 18 closed-door briefing.
→ McLaren driver won from pole at Interlagos Sunday, beating Red Bull duo Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar, as Mercedes clinched ninth constructors title a week after Kimi Antonelli became youngest drivers champion.
→ Lawmakers return Nov. 9 for lame-duck 119th Congress facing Dec. 11 funding expiry, Hegseth impeachment push from Thomas Massie, Epstein files vote, farm and defense bills, with Mike Johnson managing razor-thin margins before 120th Congress Jan. 3.
→ Two passenger trains collided near Al-Ayyat south of Cairo, derailing cars on Cairo-Aswan and Giza-Fayoum routes, killing at least seven and injuring over 100, with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ordering probe.
→ Tens of thousands packed Florida square Sunday for final Mass honoring Virgin of the Thirty-Three, Uruguay patroness, before Leo flies to Buenos Aires to meet Javier Milei amid poverty and church tensions over social spending cuts.
→ At least 159 women will serve in 120th Congress per Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers, with 136 in House, record governors including first Black and Native American women governors, as EMILY’s List hails generational shift.
→ McLaren star shattered bottle trying trademark podium slam at Interlagos, then walked into pyrotechnics, escaping unhurt while Verstappen and Hadjar laughed, with clip going viral after second straight Brazil win.
— Human Prompted and Edited. Machine Drafted (Meta AI).
If you haven’t seen it, make an effort to view the two part mini-series Angels in America
jamie,
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/abolish-the-electoral-college-why-legal-scholar-behind-efforts-now-says-it-could-backfire/vi-AA2h1xGS?ocid=socialshare&uxmode=ruby
Abolish the electoral college? Why legal scholar behind efforts now says it could backfire
Democrats’ sweeping midterm election victories could open a doorway to replace America’s Electoral College system under a long-discussed agreement called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which ensures the candidate who wins the popular vote assumes office. Legal scholar Akhil Amar, one of the minds behind the agreement, tells Jacob Soboroff that while the Electoral College is flawed, this is a moment to “go slow and carefully consider” an alternate election process. “If the idea is equality we’re going to need a uniform system of administration and here’s another concern. Do you want Donald Trump or any incumbent president in charge of that system?” he said.
https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/microsoft-patents-ai-words-in-peoples-mouths
Microsoft Patents an AI That Can Literally Put Words in People’s Mouths in Real Time
In other words, live broadcasts may not be so live anymore after all.
https://defenders.org/newsroom/revised-permitting-bill-fails-address-threats-endangered-species-act
Basically, this allows fuel for data centers, and data centers, through/on public lands…but it’s packaged as jobs, as far acc dc I can tell.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/11/05/1148062/permitting-reform/
With the dust barely settled on this week’s momentous midterms, the Senate is set to vote on the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (BAAJA) on November 9. It’s a plan that could finally start an overhaul of the slow, complicated process for getting energy projects approved, as part of something called permitting reform.
But there are some concerns that this permitting bill’s real effect would be to open the floodgates for new natural-gas plants. As data centers have put more pressure on the grid, a wave of such plants have been announced.
“You get down to a trade-off between essentially growing the clean electricity industry on the one hand and then, as a compromise, growing the fossil-fuel industry on the other,” says Kevin Kircher, an energy modeler and assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue.
This bill is scheduled for a Senate vote on November 9, well before the next Congress takes control. It’s not clear what the dramatic victories for Democrats might mean for the legislation, which was expected to pass the Senate with largely Republican support if a few Democrats got on board. Democrats could decide to wait for next year, when they’ll have control of both chambers.
But any deal would ultimately need to win Trump’s signature,
limiting what a future bill might be able to change.
If Max is here: have you watched this?
For everyone else: this is a one hour discussion (on the publicly funded TV we were taking about) about your election results and what they mean for you and also us. Maybe you find a way to translate?
„Does America’s Democracy work?“
If YT translate is not working try clicking on the “show transcript” then copy all that and paste into a translate program, Google has one and MS has one. Both work with German, but I like the MS translate a little better, it is good on the obscure sentence structures.
@ barrettpall •
HIS DAUGHTERS:
Jessica Schumer works at OpenAl as the Head of Northeast Policy and Partnerships.
Alison Schumer works at Meta as a privacy and politics product marketing manager.
This means there could easily be suppression from within here for what we are calling for as well.
https://nodirtydatacenterdeal.com/
BAAJA (S. 5653) will destroy core protections for tribal nations, endangered species, wild places, clean water, historic preservation, and local autonomy on behalf of industrial megadevelopers and Trump’s dangerous dreams. The backers in the lame-duck Congress — both Republican and Democrat — have multi-million-dollar fortunes riding on its passage.
Tell your members of Congress: “Commit to vote against BAAJA and pledge to negotiate a clean deal for American communities, workers, and the climate in the 120th Congress.”
202-224-3121
From my morning read.
Jack
You triggered me Jack, hadn’t forgetten this is the anniversary week. Dug up my first story after getting there. Led with a woman eating her first Whopper
A political platform to love from 70 years ago:
Adopted on August 21, 1956, at the Republican National Convention in San Francisco, the 1956 Republican Party Platform reflected the moderate-conservative, New Deal-influenced leadership of President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Core Principles
• Role of Government: The platform quoted Abraham Lincoln, stating that the legitimate object of government is to do for people what they cannot do as well for themselves, while avoiding interference in what they can do individually.
• Fiscal Policy: Emphasized balanced budgets, reduced government spending, controlled inflation, tax cuts, and support for free enterprise and small businesses.
Economy & Labor
• Social Safety Net: Promised the continued expansion and protection of Social Security, broadened coverage for unemployment insurance, improved housing, and better health protection.
• Labor Rights: Supported unhindered collective bargaining, the right of workers to organize into unions, extending federal minimum wage laws, and working to ensure equal pay for equal work regardless of sex.
• Special Assistance: Targeted programs for workers with unique challenges, including older, handicapped, minority, and migratory workers.
Domestic & Social Policy
• Education & Science: Urged a 5-year program of federal assistance to build schools to relieve classroom shortages and pledged support for education in the sciences to maintain technological leadership.
• Civil Rights & Desegregation: Voiced a commitment to enforcing desegregation and ensuring children of all races, creeds, and colors could share in the nation’s opportunities.
• Agriculture & Conservation: Addressed agricultural surpluses through programs like Soil Banks (assisting rural farm families) and committed to maintaining isolated wilderness and natural resources for future generations.
• Immigration: Supported providing a haven for oppressed peoples through policies free from racial, nationality, or religious discrimination.
Foreign Policy
• Cold War & Defense: Advocated for strong military deterrence against aggression, peaceful coexistence, anti-Communism, and collective security agreements through organizations like NATO and SEATO.
• International Cooperation: Expressed strong support for the United Nations, atomic energy for peaceful purposes, and participation in international economic development aid.