White House chief of staff Stephen Miller places American electorate on performance improvement plan
Stephen Miller marked his first Monday replacing Susie Wiles by giving the voting public nineteen weeks to show measurable improvement.
The White House comment line began grading its callers on Monday. Americans phoning in their views now hear a chime, then a request to score their own citizenship from one to five.1
The recording is the first visible effect of the Stephen Miller era. Miller, who replaced Susie Wiles as chief of staff, opened his tenure with a memo placing the American electorate on a formal performance improvement plan.
The plan runs nineteen weeks. It grades the public in nineteen categories, among them turnout quality, attitude and what the memo lists only as general trajectory.
Miller, the architect of the administration's immigration raids, was promoted Friday after voters delivered sweeping midterm losses to Republicans. President Donald Trump announced the change on his social platform and praised his new chief of staff as a strong manager.
Wiles, the first woman to hold the job, has moved to the president's political operation. Her first assignment there, two officials said, is retention.
Written warnings
Under the plan, counties that swung toward Democrats will receive written warnings. States that flipped outright get what the memo calls coaching. Texas has been booked for a full-day session in a reserved room.
Each household's goals arrive by mail. By the end of the quarter, voters must show measurable improvement in enthusiasm, receptivity and promptness in returning paperwork. One goal reads, in full: do better.
Marla Deese, a deputy press secretary, said the plan should not be read as a punishment. She called it a structured opportunity for the public to reapply for the country's confidence.
The midterms were, in effect, the electorate's annual review. The results were not satisfactory. The president believes in accountability, and accountability begins with documentation.
Deese added that households with questions may call the comment line, where they will be graded.
Reviews are quarterly now
Democrats were unimpressed. Dana Reyes, a party strategist, said the administration had lost an election and concluded the customer was wrong. "It is a bold theory of democracy," she said. "It is also on brand."
Greta Holm, who has spent two decades writing improvement plans for a workplace consultancy, found the format familiar. "You draft one of these when you have already decided to fire the person," she said. "The only question left is the replacement pool."
Dr. Lena Okafor, who studies democratic institutions, noted that a chief of staff holds no authority over voters. She then paused for a long moment. "I am going to keep saying that," she added, "because it remains true."
Career staff in the Executive Office Building were told the plan does not apply to them. Their own plans, a human resources officer explained, are separate and ongoing.
Miller spent much of his first day in meetings about the electorate's performance. He personally attended the plan's kickoff call. The electorate had not been invited to join.
Aides described the new chief of staff as energized. One said he had read the midterm returns the way a doctor reads an X-ray, looking for the fracture. The fracture, he concluded, was the patient.
Republican lawmakers privately welcomed the clarity. One senator, granted anonymity to discuss personnel matters, said it was a relief to finally know whose fault the election was. Asked whose, he gestured at a window, in the direction of the country.
By late Monday, the White House said Miller had completed the electorate's self-assessment on its behalf, to save time. The public scored below expectations in all nineteen categories. A second, more serious plan has been drafted in case the first one fails.
Footnotes.
- Five is the highest possible score. Four triggers a follow-up call. ↩
