Civics lessons from Stephen Miller

Accurate or oblivious?

“A president is elected by the whole American people. He is the only official in the entire government that is elected by the entire nation.” - Stephen Miller during the White House press conference on February 20, 2025

On February 20th, during a press briefing at the White House, Deputy Chief of Staff, Stephen Miller, took upon himself the task of treating the press in the room to, what he termed, “a brief civics lesson.” This was instigated by a journalist’s question regarding DOGE and a statement that critics are claiming “Elon Musk is an unelected bureaucrat, and he’s doing all this terrible stuff.”

In response, Miller stated:

The — yes, it is true that many of the people in this room, for four years, failed to cover the fact that Joe Biden was mentally incompetent and was not running the country.

It is also true that many people in this room who have used this talking point that Elon is not elected fail to understand how government works. So, I’m glad for the opportunity for a brief civics lesson.

At this point, Miller launched into his dissertation on the Constitution, informing us that “A president is elected by the whole American people. He is the only official in the entire government that is elected by the entire nation.”

While today, this statement is essentially true, contrary to popular understanding, it was never the founders’ intent that any particular position in the central government be elected by “the whole American people.”

According to the Constitution, “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress” (Article II, Section 1, Clause 2). Notice that electors were to be “appointed” however each state legislature chose.

State legislatures could, indeed, create a system whereby the people “elected” by vote the electors who would choose the president, but our forebears, like James Madison envisioned the legislatures’ role in electing the president differently: “Without the intervention of the state legislatures, the president of the United States cannot be elected at all. They must in all cases have a great share in his appointment, and will perhaps in most cases of themselves determine it” (The Federalist No. 45).

The founding fathers expected that electors would be independent, and would exercise independent thought in casting their votes for president. In the end, it was to be the votes of the electors, not the people, that determined who would be president: “The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves” (Article II, Section 1, Clause 3).

As a Supreme Court Justice from 1812-1945, Joseph Story saw in his own time how the corruption of this process could result in dire consequences for the country. Circa 1834, he wrote:

§266. There probably is no part of the plan of the framers of the Constitution, which, practically speaking, has so little realized the expectations of its friends, as that which regards the choice of President. They undoubtedly intended, that the Electors should be left free to make the choice according to their own judgement of the relative merits and qualifications of the candidates for this high office; and that they should be under no pledge to any popular favorite, and should be guided by no sectional influences. In both respects, the event has disappointed all these expectations. The Electors are now almost universally pledged to support a particular candidate, before they receive their own appointment; and they do little more than register the previous decrees, made by public and private meetings of the citizens of their own State. The President is in no just sense the unbiased choice of the people, or of the States. He is commonly the representative of a party, and not of the Union; and the danger, therefore is, that the office may hereafter be filled by those, who will gratify the private resentments, or prejudices, or selfish objects of their particular partisans, rather than by those, who will study to fulfill the high destiny contemplated by the Constitution, and be the impartial patrons, supporters, and friends of the great interests of the whole country.

Story, Joseph, A Familiar Exposition of the Constitution

Story’s lament is the same we face today - it is actually political parties (not “the whole nation”) who select the President. While anyone may aspire to run, the parties own so much control of the electoral process than an outsider stands nary a chance of winning, even if he or she manages to land on the ballot (which in itself is a Herculean task). Likewise, as opposed to the Constitution’s expectation that there would be a single slate of independent electors, each party now designates its own slate of electors pledged to support the party’s candidate before the elector has been appointed.

Miller moreover misunderstands the executive’s role, as he further states:

And the Constitution, Article II, has a clause, known as the vesting clause, and it says, “The executive power shall be vested in a president,” singular. The whole will of democracy is imbued into the elected president.

The “vesting clause” is not unique to Article II of the Constitution. Article I likewise states, “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States…” But this is not the crux of his confusion.

“The whole will of democracy” is not “imbued into the elected president.” The president has several specific roles and duties, but none is to wield “the whole will of democracy” (I’m not going to even get into the distinction between democracy and republic).

The president is to:

• act as “Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States.”

• have power to “grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States.”

• be the primary agent for making treaties, though he may do so only “by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate.”

• appoint judges of the Supreme Court, ambassadors, “Ministers and Consuls,” and any other “Officers of the United States” not provided for within the Constitution, though such appointments require the same “Advice and Consent” as above (requiring “two thirds of Senators present concur”)

• be responsible for providing Congress “Information of the State of the Union” and also for recommending “such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.”

• receive foreign dignitaries

• act as chief law enforcement officer for the country, taking “Care that the Laws be faithfully executed”

Nowhere in Article II do we find that the “whole will of democracy” is put on the president’s shoulders. Nowhere. The President, while he may make recommendations, is not in charge of setting policy for the whole of the federal government. Congress is tasked with this through legislation, and the President is tasked with either approving or vetoing their policy choices. Should Congress believe strongly enough in a policy decision with which the President disagrees, a veto may be overcome by sufficient votes in both houses.

That Miller believes what he said belies as much a lack of understanding of the Constitution and its formation as that held by the press he sought to educate, and the majority of Americans who would not know that both sides were mistaken.

The concept of a proper civics education has unfortunately been lost to the dustbin of history and replaced with ignorance, historical illiteracy, and in large part, Marxist mendacities. Some have lauded Miller’s endeavor to educate the press as a historic hat-handing, but it was as ham-fisted as it was amusing.

If we really want to see positive change in this country, we must bring back proper lessons in history and civics based on the writings of the founding fathers (Articles of Confederation, Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers, notes from the Constitutional Conventions) and the founding documents themselves.

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The transcript of the February 20, 2025 White House press briefing can be found here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/remarks/2025/02/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-karoline-leavitt-deputy-chief-of-staff-stephen-miller-national-economic-council-director-kevin-hassett-and-national-security-advisor-mike-waltz/

And a short piece of the video in which Miller makes the statements discussed above can be found here: