An Open Letter to Vox Day

Posted By Spencer J. Quinn On In North American New Right | Comments Disabled

[1]2,260 words

Dear Vox,

Regarding your recent Darkstream entitled “White Supremacy, White Nationalism, and Other Fictions [2],” 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 [3] 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 [4], we have had several of them before 1965 who were not of that group or who were of mixed European descent. Observe:

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 [5], 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 [6] 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 [7]. 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 [8].