Stephen Miller’s remarkably rapid rise to become one of the most influential figures in the White House begun, perhaps surprisingly, in liberal Santa Monica.

The California native, who is believed to have helped craft Donald Trump' s State of the Union address and the controversial travel ban, crystalised his ideology while at high school.

He took to ringing his local radio stations to rail against multiculturalism and the usage of Spanish-language announcements, and wrote for his high school newspaper a column entitled “A Time to Kill”, urging violent response to radical Islamists.

“We have all heard about how peaceful and benign the Islamic religion is, but no matter how many times you say that, it cannot change the fact that millions of radical Muslims would celebrate your death for the simple reason that you are Christian, Jewish or American,” Mr Miller wrote.

Ari Rosmarin, a civil rights lawyer who edited the student newspaper at time, told The Washington Post that Mr Miller was especially critical of a Mexican-American student group.

“I think he’s got a very sharp understanding of what words and issues will poke and provoke progressives, because he came up around it and really cut his teeth picking these fights that had low stakes but high offense,” he said.