Democracy Today

Jeff Koons, “Ushering in Banality,” 1988

3,415 words

It is an understatement that democracy as it is currently practiced holds little repute amongst White Nationalists. Yet at the same time democracy has been part and parcel of western civilization. In contrast to the non-white civilizations of the world, absolute despotism has been exceeding rare in Europe. Across the vast time frame of European history, the tendency has always been for the people to participate in the political affairs of their nations. Going back to antiquity and the dawn of western civilization, Greece and Rome had popular assemblies. Even in the “barbarian” north it was long the custom for the king to be elected. Tacitus relates how among the Germanic tribes, “They choose their kings for their noble birth, their commanders for their valor.”[1]

The reason why the actual practice of democracy has fallen short is not, contrary to its critics, because it is impossible for a democratic government to represent the will of the people or that it cannot deliver competent government, but it is primarily due to how the people’s representatives are ultimately selected through mass elections where the candidate who secures the most votes wins. This method of representative selection inevitably opens itself to corruption and distortion and is rooted in the unexamined assumption that representatives can only be selected through voting.

The key problem of this is that the individual voter has no incentive to engage with politics on any meaningful level as his vote is statistically irrelevant when it is counted along with the millions of others on election night.

It is equally a myth that an individual vote could hold the balance of power in an exactly tied poll, as experience shows that their own decisive vote will be swamped by the margin of error. The outcome of such an election would be largely decided by re-running the election or referring the matter to a court to rule on the outcome. The most well-known episode of the later is when the US presidential election of 2000 swung on whether to count the ballots with hanging chads.

The political parties that have come to dominate contemporary politics are not even aligned to public opinion on many issues that the public and White Nationalists would be in agreement with. The white voting public as expressed in opinion polling consistently show a firm majority opposing mass immigration, wars in the Middle East, and anti-white discrimination, and yet their votes deliver political parties into power that promise and do the exact opposite.

What is the reason for this? The reason is that the average voter knowing full well that their individual vote has no real influence upon on the outcome of elections, and consequently on the drafting of public policy, has no incentive to carefully scrutinize the range of candidates that are presented to him. If he votes at all, which is hardly a given in view of the declining turnout characterizing all democracies in the western world, it will be based on the most convenient source of information, the mass media.

The apathy can be seen in the decline in both the membership of political parties and in voting in the last several decades. In European countries at the beginning of the 1960s an average of 15% of the electorate were party members, which fell to 10.5% at the end of the 1980s and 5% at the end of the 1990s. In Britain and its former colonies of white settlement the figure is much worse. In 1998 only 1.92% of the total British electorate of 43 million reported as being members of any political party. This figure is even starker when one considers that the average party member is significantly older than white demographic trends suggest. Most of this ageing membership does not engage in political activism on behalf of their parties meaning the actual numbers participating in modern political parties scarcely reaches even 1% of the total population.[2]

Such a result would not be surprising to elite theorists of democracy like Robert Michels who argued that the very competitive nature of canvassing for votes means these parties will inevitably be dominated by the party machine through a process that he referred to as the “iron law of oligarchy.” Michels argued an oligarchy is created for the simple reason that for a political party to be effective it needs to be well organized. This means that members must select the best leaders, organizers, and specialists to carry out party functions. This in turn creates a sharp contrast between the rank-and-file members and the insider. As the party grows it begins to accumulate resources enabling the insiders to become full-time paid officials for the party.

This means that the leadership of the party now have patronage — the power to appoint, promote, and remove other individuals from the organization. The patronage networks which plague every political party inevitably create a dependency culture in which these careerist insiders take great care not to clash with any powerful special interest groups that could potentially destroy their party’s chances at the next election. These special interests could be wealthy donors, the media, and big business, which in the modern world is controlled by a disproportionate number of Jews. It was on the basis of this conclusion that Robert Michels abandoned the party of his youth, the German SDP, and embraced fascism, ending his days in Mussolini’s Italy as a professor of economics and history of doctrines at the University of Perugia until his death in 1936.[3]

The party machine and the special interests form a symbiotic relationship with each other, enabling and advancing one other. The special interests provide the party machine with the resources to win elections. In return the party machine votes as directed by the special interests. The hierarchical and authoritarian nature of the power relationships within the party machine ensure that every member of the machine conforms to the party line through a process of groupthink. The higher an individual advances in the party the greater the degree of conformity. The cult of political correctness which dominates all of the major political parties is always highest at the top and lowest at the bottom, which often makes for some awkward encounters between the leadership and the grassroots. This episode was illustrated perfectly in the last UK general election campaign when the incumbent Prime Minister Gordon Brown made a microphone gaffe and inadvertently broadcast his true opinion of his white working class base when he referred to a life-long Labour supporter as a bigoted woman for daring to grumble in front of him about the impact that mass immigration has had on her community.[4]

Political campaigns can be won or lost on issues so invariably the party machines will ensure that political campaigns distance their leader as far as possible from campaign messages that might actually indicate to an apathetic electorate where the candidate actually stands on certain issues. Concrete issues can be attacked and refuted but vague emotional affirmations such as “Time for Change,” “New Labour New Britain” cannot. Whilst political campaigning has evolved more and more into a science, the shallow preferences of the average voter has not gone unnoticed by professional campaign managers.

A candidate’s height, facial shape, and hair prove far more important factors than mere issues. In twentieth century US Presidential Races the tallest candidate won 82% of the time, and research has been published by Stirling University which demonstrated a correlation between facial type and a candidate’s success at the polls. The basis of the study was the use of electronic software to remove any recognizable features whilst retaining the basic shape, skin-tone, and symmetry of each leader’s face. These anonymous faces were then paired up on the basis of an electoral contest so that a blank Bush would face a blank Kerry and a blank Brown would face a blank Cameron. Participants were asked which candidate they were likely to vote for and the outcome closely reflected the actual election results on these contests.[5]

Modern political parties court roughly the same special interest groups, so their policy differences are minor and largely undetectable given the limited attention the average voter gives towards politicians. Politicians make little effort to broadcast their real agenda, which is generally hidden from view in a bulky manifesto which the average voter will not bother reading. This gives credence to the cynical view that a slick candidate with no ambition other than power but who possesses good looks, a winning smile, is articulate enough to read from a teleprompter, and can demonstrate charisma in a debate will invariably win over a man with integrity who has none of these things.

The success of Mitt Romney and the failure of Ron Paul in the Republican primary elections show this. Ron Paul wore his agenda on his sleeve and ran a principled campaign taking every opportunity to make the case for libertarianism; however, this did not stop Mitt Romney from being elected despite the Republican candidate hypocritically flip flopping over issues such as healthcare, his star appeal trumped mere issues.

The other possible form of government and one to which white nationalists often see as a solution to the current political malaise is one of aristocracy, the rule by the enlightened few as opposed to the one or the many. The main solution offered by White Nationalists is to limit the franchise to worthy individuals who are sufficiently intelligent and virtuous that they can be trusted to exercise their vote competently and avoid the many problems that plague modern democracies.

Greg Johnson argued one can create an elite of worthy electors by either raising the minimum voting age, instituting educational and public service requirements, or giving additional votes to the highly intelligent. Although not mentioned by Greg Johnson, there is also the prevalent argument that voting should be restricted to those that pay taxes. No taxation, then no representation.[6]

The major problems with these proposals are that they cannot address the central problem of the demoralization of individual voters through massification.[7] The size of the voting constituency even after it had been downsized according to some fixed criteria would still be massive enough to continue the apathy of the modern voter. One should consider that a middle-ranking nation like the United Kingdom has 43 million voters, if the limitation of the franchise was applied with extreme zealotry with a result that say only 1 in 3 voters met the competency requirements to vote it would still leave the “competent voter” drowning in a sea of over 14 million other “competent voters.” His individual influence of the affairs of state would still be practically speaking non-existent giving him no incentive to concentrate on the issues of the day. His apathy would still be used to masterful affects by political parties, the media and special interests. One would be certainly naive to assume that even in an ethno-state in which Jewish power is no longer a factor that party machines and special interests would not continue to work to undermine the common good.

The limitation of the franchise would not appreciably improve things but may well cause significant social strife as invariably the limited franchise would not be distributed equally across all social classes, and some groups would end up with little or no political representation whatsoever. The shape of the government might well tilt to privilege one group at the expense of another.

A case in point might be made of the approach to poverty in 19th-century England when the 1832 reform bill enfranchised 800,000 voters who represented the wealthiest 18% of the total adult male population.[8] One of the first acts of this new parliament was to reform welfare provision under the poor law which had been in place since 1601, it aimed to reduce the cost of provision and the growing dependency culture through the workhouse institution. The amendment chosen made the terms of seeking state aid so disagreeable that only the truly desperate would apply. The creation of these prisons for the poor reflected the widespread belief of the enfranchised class interests that poverty was primarily a moral failing.

If a future ethno-state is to balance the competing interests of different groups and work towards the common good it stands to reason that all these interests should be represented without privileging one group over the other. Limiting the franchise in name of creating an aristocracy risks entrenching plutocracy in practice.

Edgar Steele mentions in his book Defensive Racism what a constitution for what a new ethno-state should be like but it merely amounts to tinkering with the electoral system. He does not argue for the limitation of the franchise but for limiting the careers of the politicians elected to office. He argued:

Let the assemblies be annual, concern themselves solely with domestic affairs and their membership serve without pay or benefit of any sort. Let there be no recurring occupancy by any member, not even of differing position. No person who receives government wage or benefit, either directly or indirectly, may occupy elective or appointed office, be allowed to vote or be given any other voice in government. These strictures are to apply to state and local elective office as well.[9]

Whilst such a system would remove the familiar career politician from the scene it would not solve the key problems of representation and competence. By preventing representatives from having a salary it would mean that politics would invariably be the privilege of a wealthy patrician class who do not need to work for a living. Furthermore the corrupting affect of the party machine would remain as a dominant force as even candidates with their five minutes window of power would still need plenty of support to run an election campaign;  they would still need money, personnel, and favorable access to the media.

A final reformist claim is that referendums initiated by the public can solve the modern democratic deficit. In theory the people can use referendums to go around their elected representatives who are enthralled to special interests to get legislation passed that is in the interests of the majority. Whilst it offers certain advantages over a system of government in which law is decided purely by elected elites, in practice it suffers the same problems which corrupt the electoral process. In the United States many state constitutions have this right, but most initiatives that go up against entrenched special interests usually end up being defeated, as these special interests can call on vaster sums of money and favorable media to bury their opposition and buy the vote even when initial public support is 3:1 in favor of the petition. In California between 1968 and 1983 before whites became a minority in California, corporate special interests outspent opponents by more than 2 to 1 in 15 initiative campaigns and won 14 of them.[10]

Also referendums can be repeatedly called by special interests until the general public votes the correct way. In 2008 Irish voters rejected the Treaty of Lisbon which was designed to lead to further political integration into the European Union. Not disheartened, the forces of globalism simply stepped up their campaign and called a new referendum the next year to deliver a firm majority in favor. A referendum offers White Nationalists little more than the possibility of a peasant revolt, but like all peasant revolts, the gains made were only temporary, and eventually the political hierarchy managed to find a way to reassert themselves and overturn whatever achievements the peasants had made.

Reforms have also been made in the past to limit the impact of money in politics by reducing the amount which individuals can donate, forcing potential donors to register their interest, but these have not proved very effective in stemming the flow of money into politics. Money is like water in that if you stop water coming through one hole, the water merely rises until it can leak through another hole somewhere else.

Public subsidies of political parties by taxpayers is one solution that has been adopted in some European countries. However, while this frees parties from having to rely on private donors, it also means that the political parties can simply ignore the view of their own members who might hold awkward and embarrassing political opinions which could put the success of the party machine at risk and ultimately the careers of its apparatchiks. At the same time public funding resurrects the economic fortunes of political parties which would otherwise go bankrupt if left to their own devises. Since such funding is often matched to the measure of current support of parties, insurgent parties challenging mainstream incumbents will find themselves comparatively worse off (and White Nationalists can always expect to be the insurgent party).

A final case could be made for a change in the voting system from “first past the post” to proportional representation on the basis that implicitly white populist parties have won a great deal of seats in Europe. This is deceptive, for although the European populist parties do win a significant amount of seats, they are locked out of power by the other parties which erect a cordon sanitaire around the insurgent populist parties. This happens because under proportional representation there is no clear winner, and political parties must form coalitions to govern. After the election is over, party elites retreat into the backrooms and strike deals with each other, which can mean that a political party that the general public punished at the polls can remain in power as part of a coalition.

On the other hand, populist parties might win the greatest number of seats but will then likely find itself no willing coalition partners. A case in point was in 2004 when the populist anti-immigration Vlaams Blok became the largest party in the Flemish parliament with 1 in 4 voting for it. It was denied any influence in the government as the other political parties maintained their cordon sanitaire and refused to co-operate with Vlaams Blok.[11]

In the first past the post system, delivering a clear winner is equally unrepresentative. Not only is the winning party elected by a minority of the total votes cast, the key principle of first past the post is that the politicians are elected to represent individual geographic constituencies. The social and demographic makeup of each individual voting constituency is far removed from the actual average for the country as a whole. This means that for political purposes there will be areas of the country dominated by one party or another and the election a foregone conclusion.

Elections are decided by a minority of floating voters in several marginal constituencies. Accordingly political parties who want to win an election must focus their resources to market themselves to this small minority who occupy the center-ground through the “median voter strategy.” The preferences of these median voters so necessary to electoral success in marginal constituencies should not be confused with the average views of the entire electorate worked out arithmetically.[12]

As indicated in virtually every public opinion poll across the western world the arithmetically average political preference of whites is against mass immigration and globalization. However, these voters are concentrated in safe seats and can be safely ignored and all the party’s policies and campaigns crafted to appeal to “median voters” who tend to be centrist and hold the balance of power in any election. This is good news in practice for the anti-white Left and bad news for the pro-white Right.

Liberals often express disappointment with their own politicians who for fears of alienating the middle ground are considered too timid in advancing their goals — liberals only end up gaining a little of what they want. Conservatives are also disappointed in their politicians but this is because their politicians are all too willing to throw real conservatives under a bus in their rush to appeal to the “center ground.” Conservatives find themselves on the other side of the coin in having to give up a little each time until there is nothing left to conserve.

Notes