2,260 words
Dear Vox,
Regarding your recent Darkstream entitled “White Supremacy, White Nationalism, and Other Fictions,” I’m finding myself having to infer what your position is on a number of topics. In this letter, I’ll explain why I remain confused on some of them so you can set me straight if you care to. I’d like to also further certain aspects of the discussion because I believe the Darkstream format—with your speaking more or less extemporaneously while fielding questions—prevents you from reaching a satisfying conclusion for every one your selected topics. Finally, I hope this letter will demonstrate that what we have in common as members of the Dissident or “Alt” Right far outstrips what we don’t.
Here is your position, as far as I can tell: White nationalism is unworkable, but the two main kinds of white nationalism are not the same thing and are therefore unworkable for different reasons. European white nationalism is a “non-starter” because Europeans are too ethnically disparate to make a pan-European country work without empire. Indeed, you believe that the indigenous French, Finns, Irish, et cetera are all separate nations in and of themselves, and so wouldn’t be interested in homogenizing Europe in any case. As for American white nationalism, you seem to allow for white nationalism in theory but you question the timing. You believe it would take a thousand years or so for all the whites in America to interbreed well enough to form a real nation, one that would have a genuinely unique identity apart from the European nations from which it sprang. You also believe that the United States has between fifteen and thirty years before it breaks apart due non-white immigration and racial strife. Therefore any effort to stuff a thousand years of change into thirty is doomed to fail.
Does this sum it up more or less accurately?
If so, then I can safely say that there’s not a nickel’s worth of difference between your position and mine when it comes to European white nationalism. Anyone who promotes a pan-European ethnostate has their work cut out for them explaining how such a project could succeed in spite of thousands of years of historical counter-examples, some of which you provided in your Darkstream. In a future of ethnic nationalism in Europe, I would hope that the European nations would share a sense of brotherhood and not repeat the bellicose blunders of the past. But European nations are nations for reasons which are based mostly in genetics and history, and it is best to respect those reasons.
As for white nationalism in America, I’m wondering why you have such little regard for American whites. What data do you have that would support your assertion that they would do such a poor job forming an ethnostate? One of your viewers asks: “So you’re saying that American whites will never be able to function as a nation?” Your answer: “I don’t believe so. I don’t believe that it’s possible. I think that there’s going to be fault lines fracturing partly on ethnic heritage, partly on region, and partly on ideology. The fact that they’re deracinated does not help them.”
So if American whites are completely incapable of functioning as a nation, then what were they doing between 1790 and 1965? Were they failing when they enjoyed a ninety percent majority of the country? Did they consider themselves ‘deracinated’ as well? Were the tiny proportions of non-whites in the United States the glue that held it all together? Is there anything in the American literature from that time period that tells us the American identity is a “false identity,” as you put it? What sources can you produce to back up such an uncompromising position? And can you explain why sources that don’t are unreliable?
From 1880 until 1965, many parts of the United States were swarming with millions of ethnically different whites from all corners of Europe. According to census data 4.9 million immigrated from Italy during this time, 4.37 million from central Europe, 3.9 million from Germany, 3.35 million from Russia/USSR and the Baltic states, 2.24 million from Ireland, and 2.1 million from Scandinavia, just to name a few. During this time, the United States enjoyed unprecedented economic growth and prosperity. We also fought and won three wars against European powers and ultimately became the world leaders in finance, science, technology, and many other fields. Also during this time, the United States was in effect still following the spirit of the 1790 Naturalization Act which limited immigration to whites of good character. There were small numbers of East Asians on the West Coast, Hispanics within our southern states, and Jews in the northeast and in the big cities. We also had sizeable black and Indian minorities which hadn’t yet imposed themselves upon our mainstream culture. For the most part, America was a normatively white nation, and its white inhabitants identified as American first and foremost because there was less racial pressure from non-whites back then to force them to identify racially. We had fairly strict immigration laws in designed to keep it that way.
But according to your logic, white America would have broken off into ethnic enclaves before 1930. According to your logic, white Americans would have felt enough allegiance to the European powers they fought against in the world wars to rise up against American power. But they didn’t.
Basically, the question is this: if a hodgepodge of whites made it work pretty well in America before 1965, then why can’t we do so again? You never explain why except to point to the supposed lack of identity of American whites—“They’re not Dutch; they’re not German. They’re nothing.”—and predict doom and gloom.
I’m sorry, but that’s not terribly convincing.
Even though you seem to consider European and American white nationalism to be completely different beasts (the former, you say, is “nonsensical” and the latter “theoretically possible,” which does imply a categorical distinction) let’s zoom out a bit and assume that they aren’t different at all. A pan-white nationalism would fail in Europe largely due to two factors: genetics and history. The genetic differences between indigenous European ethnic groups are too great, and their histories, which transmit all the customs and traditions which make a folk a folk, are just too incongruent. This implies that genetics and history would form the same stumbling blocks for racial nationalism in America and everywhere else. So far, so good. The problem for your position, however, is that in America, you have less history thanks to all the recent arrivals, and you have fewer genetic differences thanks to interbreeding. Therefore, the impediments you describe in Europe become less forbidding in places like America.
America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries presented a unique situation wherein thousands of English, Irish, Germans, Italians, Poles, Russians, et cetera could occupy a certain city or town and enjoy comparable political rights. Even if one of these groups were to dominate the others in certain aspects of local government or culture, their kids would still play in the same parks, attend the same schools, compete in the same sports leagues, worship at the same churches in many cases, see each other at the same grocery stores, and so on. Interbreeding is bound to happen in these circumstances. It becomes normal. So if an American is still of pure European ethnic stock, odds are that he’ll have relatives, neighbors, friends, or colleagues who aren’t. This is a great motivation to identify with the nation you’re in rather than the nation from which you came.
Look also at our presidents. Sure, most of them until recently were either English, Irish, Welsh, or Scottish or a mixture of these (different ethnic groups, yes, but we’ll set that aside for sake of argument). But according to this Infogalactic page, we have had several of them before 1965 who were not of that group or who were of mixed European descent. Observe:
- George Washington: Part-German, Part-French
- Martin Van Buren: Dutch
- James Garfield: Part-French
- Grover Cleveland: Part-German
- Teddy Roosevelt: Part-Dutch
- Herbert Hoover: Part-German, Part-Swiss
- Franklin Roosevelt: Part-Dutch
- Dwight Eisenhower: German and Swiss
- John Kennedy: Irish
Seriously, did Americans really care that much about the ethnic makeup of their presidents? Sure, maybe a little, but not enough to prevent these guys from getting elected. This list above is a full one quarter of all the presidents who served until 1965, which was prior to multiculturalism as we know it today.
How can you explain this?
One attempt you make is to point to tradition. When a reader asked you, “Why can’t the mixed whites in America band together as white and form a new nation and a new identity?” you answered “Because they all have different traditions.” As an example of such divisive traditions, you then how describe different Scandinavian peoples open Christmas presents on different days.
I believe that sound you’re hearing right now is the sound of everyone’s jaws dropping to the floor.
Not to offend you, Vox, but such an absurd objection to American white nationalism invites mockery. Imagine, if you will, a white identitarian’s worst nightmare thirty years from now in which an American of pure English descent says the following:
“Sure, Mexican gangs are selling drugs and warring in our streets, and the Somalis are raping our women, and the Muslims are enforcing Sharia law, and corrupt, incompetent blacks are taking over the city government, and nepotistic Indian and Chinese mafias have taken over our tech industries, and affirmative action laws have practically stripped all power and opportunity away from white people. But I will never form an ethnostate with that Norwegian sonofabitch! He celebrates Christmas on the wrong day. Why, he’s practically a heathen, don’t you know!”
Is this really the future you envision, Vox? Don’t you realize that while white people may notice the differences between their own ethnic groups, our invaders most certainly will not? Most of them couldn’t give one whisker on Muhammad’s beard if a white person is Cornish or Croatian or Catalonian. To them, we’re all white and we’re in their way. Before you try to diminish hope for a white ethnostate in the United States, perhaps you should also consider how the racial chauvinism of our enemies will serve to unite white people out of pure necessity. Early in American history, I’m sure English, Dutch, and German settlers weren’t terribly fond of each other, but when faced with bands of Indians intent upon killing them, they circled their wagons pretty quick.
Early on, you posed an interesting question but never got around to answering it explicitly. How can someone believe in the fourteen words and not be a white nationalist? After all, the fourteen words mention white children, not French or Russian or Irish children. So what gives? You call for sinking boats filled with non-white immigrants. You don’t consider the non-whites who have immigrated to the United States since 1965 to be Americans. You’re definitely a race realist. You oppose the Left in all its manifestations. You’re red-pilled on the Jewish Question and handle it admirably. And you have deep concern for the future of the United States and Europe. Yet you consider white nationalism, or at least certain aspects of it, to be “the epitome of stupid.”
Yes, I get it. It’s not all about race for you. Judging from one of your Voxiversity videos, if millions of white immigrants were invading Europe the way the Goths acquired access to Roman territory to avoid the Huns in the fifth century or whenever you’d want to sink their boats too. If anything, Vox, you are consistent. And that’s great. But don’t you think today such an attitude would be a little harsh? We’re not in the era of the late Roman Empire in which you can draw an easy line between civilized whites and barbarian whites. Today, pretty much all white peoples are civilized and they do this civilization thing pretty well too. Boats filled with Italians sailing for the shores of Wales are not going to hurt that country very much despite whatever identity differences you may point to. (This actually happened, too. Check out this Infogalactic article on the Welsh Italians for more information.) Making the news these days is how thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of hard-working Boer farmers are planning to immigrate to Russia. Should the Russians sink their boats too? Is this really an invasion the same as North African barges parking their squalid cargo in the ports of Athens or Palermo?
In the light of the real world, your position and a white nationalist’s are not terribly different. What exactly are we arguing about? Whether we should force a return pre-1965 demographics in the West or forge ahead with explicitly white ethnostates? You may find the latter option unworkable, and I may find the former implausible, but that doesn’t mean we disagree on the nature of the problem or that our end goals aren’t extremely similar. I do believe most white nationalists would agree with you that the civic nationalist option you seem to favor is still a pretty good option, especially if it could come without the price of a war. This is why we all got behind Trump in 2016. This is why we all have a sense of hope that was completely absent only several years ago.
So, regardless of our differences, Vox, I think we’re all the same boat. Please don’t try to sink it.
Yours,
Spencer J. Quinn
Spencer J. Quinn is a frequent contributor to Counter-Currents and the author of the novel White Like You.
23 Comments
Thank you for penning this letter Mr. Quinn. Great opportunity for exchange between two parties in the dissident right, which I appreciate lacking the time to follow Vox Day. I hope he replies and that we may read it here.
A couple questions for you regarding “What exactly are we arguing about? Whether we should force a return pre-1965 demographics in the West or forge ahead with explicitly white ethnostates?” Is there anymore you can summarize briefly on his position about how the former would be realized? And to be sure I follow the difference here, is it your opinion (and other WNs’ generally) that a separate white ethnostate(s) within the USA, i.e. a part but not a whole of the country’s current geographic area, is the goal for whatever reasons or constraints? I’d like to know more clearly what exactly the difference between those visions and end states is, if you have the time to elaborate. Thank you.
Thomas: I’d say we need a return to the late 1800s demographics. The 1920s immigration law, first one ever passed, also saw it this way; it used the Census of 1890 to determine the percentage that each ethnic would be allowed into the USA, due to all the non western Euro descent peoples who came in during 1880s to 1910s.
What America needs to remove is the jews. They are parasites and are currently sucking this country dry. As well as lowering the moral tone of the country.
Thomas,
I will make my response the topic of one of my next articles for C-C. Thank you for the kind words.
I have a great deal of respect for Vox, and I realize he is several standard deviations higher in IQ than I am, but I also disagree with him on this issue. I think the main problem, and my main problem with him on this issue, is he has mixed heritage, and consistently identifies as an Amerindian. He has often commented on how the Europeans were quite brutal towards the native populations, and I believe he has a certain animus towards the whites in North America that informs his opinions on the issue of white nationalism. Just an opinion based on several years of reading his blog, and I am fulling willing to concede I am out of my league in this discussion, but there you go.
Native American elements in his blood is negligible at best, hence nobody taking it seriously. I am a bit surprised at him playing that particular card straight as of late.
I do like him, his books on the mentality & tactics of SJWs are nice gateway drug, to use that term, for the wider readership compared to the often esoteric & academic writing of many prominent Alt Right, New Right authors. But I think that he may serve as a great example as to the inherent incompatibility of the Christian Right (which is what he ultimately is, and where the explanation of his positions is to be sought) and the Alt Right (which is post-, or even anti-Christian), on the long run.
For me, Vox’s writings were indeed “gateway drug,” as you say. He was pretty much the one and only self-identified alt-righter that I read for quite a while. And the reason I read him in the first place was because he was the one and only self-identified alt-righter that prominent alt-lighters like Milo, Cernovich, and Molyneux associate with, and whose work, I must admit, helped me re-discover my natural rightist leanings after many years of toxic libertarian indoctrination. Actually, Vox’s blatant basic-bitching during his debate about the nature of National Socialism with Greg was what motivated me to learn more about Counter Currents and other New Right authors, both American and European. So in a way I am glad that Vox plays that gateway-drug role in the movement, even if that’s not his intention whatsoever. On the other hand, in my opinion he is a bit too eager to defend his position as a friend of these prominent alt-lighters, and the potentially large audience he could reach through them. That’s what I think is the main driver of his posturing against white nationalism. For me that eagerness is also perfectly transparent in his savage attacks on people like Jordan Peterson, which I think is mostly fair, but you could perfectly blame people like Molyneux of very similar inconsistencies and sophistry.
Synchronistic Child,
Very well stated. Vox is in a sense as you describe, but I also thinks he brings valid things to the table. When he’s on fire, I love reading him. And his SJW books are the best. He’s also fearless and he thinks for himself–an incredibly valuable combination.
I don’t always agree with him. I find him tiresome from time to time (I stopped reading his assaults on Jordan Peterson after the second one). I also think he likes to rigidly categorize things to the point of losing sight of the bigger picture. That’s why I wouldn’t consider his opposition to WN as posturing towards his friends on the Alt-Light, as you put it. I believe it is sincere. I believe that what he wants and what most of the literate WNs want are very similar; he just doesn’t want to *categorize* his ideal state as WN.
He did the same thing in his debate with Greg Johnson: He and Greg both agreed that Nazis are bad, they just disagreed about how to categorize them. Vox found some historical evidence of the German Nazis claiming adherence to socialist principals and then declared them alien to the Right. On the other hand, Greg took a more relaxed approach and zoomed out and said, yeah, that’s just an artifact of the time. If you look at what the Nazis were like prior to the war they really were on the Right. Vox, for all his genius, has the autistic inability to zoom out like that when his precious categories are threatened.
This isn’t always bad. Vox, as far as I can see, handles the JQ brilliantly. That’s because he doesn’t *categorize* himself as an anti-Semite. (I’m extrapolating here, so I could be wrong, but here goes…). Vox is the only writer I know who can make snide comments about Jews, criticize them ruthlessly for undermining the West, use (((echo signalling))), deny that they’re true Americans, and still, when the situation calls for it, staunchly and enthusiastically back Israel when they are in line with his Alt Right principles. This means two things. 1. he employs a consistent, disinterested, scientific approach to his analysis, and 2. he has the evidence to prove he’s not anti-Semitic.
I think this makes him more than just a gateway drug (although, you’re right. He is that). He’s a great writer and thinker. In 50 years, when someone writes the history of our movement, Vox will get his own chapter. Maybe not the longest chapter. But no book on the Dissident Right would be complete without it.
Leech,
I hope to God you are wrong about the inherent incompatibilty of the Christian and Alt Right. I agree with your assessment of Vox as a member of the Christian Right. However, I really hope that in the near-future, a based, red-pilled Christian Right and a based, red-pilled anti/pre/post-Christian Right will join forces to solve our current troubles. We will always have Christians among us, and I believe that Vox Day is showing the world how to do Christianity right.
ronejhr,
I disagree. You’re not out of your league at all.
Be that as it may, I am very glad for your engagement with Vox on this issue, because I completely concur with you on his importance to the movement. Which is why, even if he has a deep-seated burning hatred for the European diaspora in the North American, I will continue to read him. He possesses a great deal of intelligence and wisdom, and dispenses with it mostly for free.
I think Vox Day identifies as non-white (native Indian and Mexican?). He needs to ensure his place in a society of “values” so he can stay in a white built civilisation. He mentions his 150+ IQ on a few podcasts so I suppose the greatest reward is also in white societies. I do wonder what “values” non-white peoples have that make white ones so magnetic and what is to stop them adopting white values on their own soil if they are so darn desirable.
From what little I have read of him, I always took the non-white heritage as him cynically posturing to mock the left in a “why can’t I say these outrageous opinions, I’m not white afterall” sort of way. Did I misread that?
I think he is serious enough about his non-white heritage just to annoy the hell out of white nationalists. He might be more serious about it, but I believe he has mentioned being a member of La Raza Cosmica. I tried to look this up, cannot find definitive statements. If I am wrong I withdraw the statement.
Thomas and ronehjr,
I believe it was in an earlier interview Vox had with Greg Johnson (not a debate), where Vox admitted he makes rhetorical use of his Indian heritage, implying that he uses it from time to time to flummox our enemies. But in his WN darkstream, he seemed pretty sincere about labeling himself American Indian. So I really don’t know where he stands on that. But in general, whenever I think or write about him, I focus on the topic at hand, not his personal identity. He could identity as a Martian and it wouldn’t change my analysis.
His grandfather was a Mexican revolutionary who rode with Pancho Villa.
He’s also something like 3/8 Indian, he won’t specify which tribe, probably because the usual suspects would make trouble for them and he doesn’t want that to happen. He’s said in the past that he’s visited the Rez, knows the leaders, and would qualify for tribal membership if he ever decided to apply. He’s also 1/2 or so Anglo, of founder stock. He uses his mixed race, as said above, for rhetorical impact whenever he’s called a White Supremacist.
Vox lives in Italy since the US government malicious prosecution that ruined and jailed his father.
I doubt his alleged 150+ IQ comes from his Mexican or Indian genes.
I think you failed to notice that the U.S. did break down into separate enclaves during the Civil War. As a fan of Vox, I take him to mean that America will break into smaller regional ethnostates at some point. As a southerner who has recently returned home after an extended sojourn in hostile territory on the west coast, I really don’t think white city liberals and white conservative rural people can get along in the long term, although it might be possible to ally with them short term in the hot war situation you describe.
As a man behind enemy lines in a liberal stronghold, I would certainly agree with you that white liberals today have no shared future with white conservatives, rightists, etc. I’m curious to hear what are the major cultural differences you’ve noticed on your return home, differences that whites of the south might coalesce around if given the chance to establish a new country? I’ve only lived in and around the prevailing liberal McMonoculture (though always in opposition), and I honestly have a hard time believing such substantive regional identities exist anymore in a way that would foster political organization.
Andy,
I agree that when America breaks apart, whites will be split on ideological grounds. And a lot of that coincides with region. But I believe Vox took it further than that, implying that ethnic identities carried over from Europe would also be a stumbling block. I don’t agree with this. I believe that when the split or civil war happens, red state solidarity will be strong, and folks really won’t care if you’re English, Dutch, Russian, Norwegian, Italian, or what as long as you’re white and you are onboard.
Something to think about: Vox probably convinced Andrew Anglin to drop Nazi imagery on the Daily Stormer and buy in to an American-themed racialism. Imagery from early America, reclaim Thomas Jefferson as a race realist, etc.
The reasons for this were sound, but the results have been utter failure.
Daily Stormer has moved from relevancy to joke in this shift from National Socialist memes to American memes. There’s something about Odinism, Carl Jung, indeed the Third Reich, that is simply more powerful than Americanism.
By the way GithYankee you are a huge nerd though I wonder how many people here besides me would get the meaning of your name without a web search.
As to your point that’s because the Stormer was for punk kids and White Nationalists and American Racialism is for people more like normies.
Its aiming your marketing at the wrong crowd, like I dunno advertising AARP on Adult Swim or something. Yes both groups are adults but the interest level is different
I sense a serious disconnect here between what Vox does and what people think he’s doing.
For the most part, Vox does not prescribe. He doesn’t tell people what to work for, he does not describe his desired end state. He tells you what he thinks is going to happen. These predictions are based on history, economics, history, worldwide experience with many cultures, and history.
Vox doesn’t think it’s undesirable for the US to form a White Nationalism. Based on history and experience of the different cultures of the US, he doesn’t think it’s ever going to happen.
When he does venture into prescription, it’s something immediate. “Sink the damn boats”, because if you don’t, here is what will happen. “Vote for Trump”, because if he doesn’t win, you really won’t like what comes next. “Speak the truth, fearlessly” because truth wins eventually.
There needs to be a sense of order here, as VD’s minions have, unsurprisingly, come to his defense. VD is indeed a “face of the franchise” known as the Alt Right, whether he admits to it or not, and his work has had a definitive influence on the movement. His insistence that the United States will break up into regional ethnostates is a speculative venture, which does not take into serious account that white people in general and throughout our nation’s history have made their own choices about race and culture. Moreover, at various points in time, there have been events that could have propelled white people to say “enough” and make a definitive effort to secede, only to realize that it is not in their collective best interest. And, of course, the Generation Z demographic will have to be utterly convinced by way of perpetual propaganda, which will take decades, to willingly abide by the Alt Right credo.
Indeed, VD uses rhetorical use of his Indian heritage, but he has yet to offer substantial evidence that he is of “red descent”, and he has only given assurances, rather than specific facts, that he has direct ties to a Mexican revolutionary and of the founding stock. Whenever people have dared to question his background, he tends to mock them, at best, and ban them, at worst. No one tells him what to do.
The specific questions that were posed to VD by our host were lucid and forthright. Rather than respond to them in kind, he simply disqualified them–“these other questions strike me as disingenuous and I will not bother to answer them, nor do I have any interest in playing the source game.” Interesting when he regularly insists that his anyone who questions him offers proof to back up their position. When it comes to the proposition nation, one of his pet projects, he doubles and triples down, despite being absolutely eviscerated by Tom Krautman. A snippet of his argument–Posterity does NOT refer only to one’s own children, but as with the synonymous “legacy” also has the broader meaning of what we leave behind. The Founding Fathers were self-consciously leaving behind other than a genetic legacy. The motto “Novus Ordo Seclorum” reflects their legacy, setting up the mechanisms of government they invented to secure liberty against tyranny. Recall Article I, Section 8, Clause 4: “The Congress shall have Power To…establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization….” By definition, naturalization extends citizenship, and all the rights and duties related to it, to an outsider, that is, someone not the posterity of a signer of the document. The Founding Fathers clearly desired “to invite foreigners of merit and republican principles among us.” Indeed, the intention was whites and Europeans, but who imagined at that time non-whites and women would be able to embrace these principles?
As far as the compatibility of Christianity and the Alt Right, it’s not for two fundamental reasons. First, not everyone who supports the Alt Right is a Christian, or believes in the narrow religious dogma that VD espouses. So like any movement, there will be significant infighting in the wake of the alleged second civil war. And calling the detractors “cucks” as a shaming mechanism will assuredly not work. Imagine some on the Alt Right having the audacity to claim that 1) the supermajority of Christians are on the “wrong side” and 2) “whites” are on one side and “non-whites” on the other side. Thus, those whites who are Christian but have sympathies to Alt-Right positions are caught in the crossfire–though they prefer to live in a society based on religious identity, not racial identity, that Mexican Catholics and Kenyan Catholics are one, in reality, “one of them”.
Second, the tenets of the Alt Right bastardizes the faith. God has commanded his disciples to love all of humanity. When God communicates Himself, when He fills us with Himself, He fills us with His Divine Life, with His infinite Love, for He is Love. He confirms that we must share in this Divine nature for God to attract us to Himself because sharing His Grace is His nature. All men are equal in their natural dignity; human beings are NOT superior or inferior in this regard. Moreover, God created us in His likeness. As the children of God, we are redeemed by Christ, and bear witness to His divine calling and destiny, regardless of one’s group identity and locality on this Earth. To deny these truths is to deny the authority of God. God has identified His people as those who adhere to His ways, the brotherhood of humankind. God unifies humanity under His banner. From the beginning, this one Church has been marked by a great diversity which comes from both the variety of God’s gifts and the diversity of those who receive them. Within the unity of the People of God, a multiplicity of peoples and cultures is gathered together. Among the Church’s members, there are different gifts, offices, conditions, and ways of life. The great richness of such diversity is not opposed to the Church’s unity. Yet sin and the burden of its consequences constantly threaten the gift of unity. And so the Apostle has to exhort Christians to “maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”