Counter-Currents
Cultural Marxist vs. Material Marxist, Part 1: Here’s How Bernie Could Still Win!
Travis LeBlanc1,211 words
Last week, Counter-Currents published an article by Robert Hampton called “The Bernie Temptation,” where he made the case as to why nationalists should not support Bernie Sanders for president. I can’t find much to disagree with in his assessment.
Bernie has said some “based” things in the past about immigration, guns, and foreign policy, but as Mr. Hampton pointed out, he’s reversed his position on almost all of them. Even if we were to give Bernie the benefit of the doubt that his “based” statements represent his true beliefs, and he’s only hiding his power level now for political reasons, it’s worth noting that most of Bernie’s more “based” statements come from interviews, not campaign speeches or debate performances. In other words, they were never issues he is terribly passionate about. If you ask him, he’ll give you his opinion: “Yeah, open borders would be bad for the working class, and illegal immigration is bad for wages,” but he never introduced any legislation or made any serious campaign pledges to, you know, do anything about that. He’s first and foremost a “stick-it-to-the-rich” guy. If Bernie had to authorize a strike on Syria or hand out a million H1-Bs to get his corporate tax hike, I’m thinking he probably would.
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Before I continue, let me give you my take on the Trump Question. Trump is not a white advocate. The problem, however, is that he is perceived as being one by a great many people — especially our enemies — and Trump has been an inspiration to populists all over the world. Trump is more than a man. He’s also a meme, a subculture, a rallying point, and a symbol of many different things to many different people. You have to take all this into account. A Trump defeat in November would be memed by our enemies as a victory over white identity and the Last Stand of Old America. Our enemies would be throwing us funeral parties. A Trump defeat would be profoundly demoralizing in ways that I don’t think anyone can comprehend right now.
You might say Trump winning would be a purely symbolic victory at best, and you may be right. But the fact remains: We are in a meme war, and symbols are important in meme warfare. Real meme warriors know that you have to be more than logical. You also have to be psychological.
Should Trump win re-election and play out his two terms, nationalists would be more likely to see Trump as a trial run and be eager to try again. The attitude would be: “We did it once, we can do it again, only better this time, because now we actually kind of know what we’re doing!” Should Trump lose, he’ll be remembered as a failed experiment. Come 2024, the attitude will be more “Why bother? If we can’t keep a milquetoast fake nationalist in power, what hope do we have of getting the real thing?”
Some think a Trump loss might “wake whites up” somehow, or make them angry. Who knows what might happen? Whites might also blackpill completely and retreat into drugs, video games, sportsball, and nihilistic consumerism — all of which are more enjoyable than hanging around wignats. These are times that try men’s souls, when the summer edgelord and the fair-weather fascist will, in the face of adversity, shrink from the service of their race. At the moment and under the circumstances, keeping morale up is all-important.
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That said, the Bernie Sanders question is a lot more complex than whether we should support his campaign or not. Comparisons between Trump and Sanders have been made since 2015, as a sort of yin and yang of the populist explosion. Like Trump, Bernie Sanders is also a meme, subculture, rallying point, and symbol. This must be taken into account.
Few American politicians have a full-blown subculture surrounding them. Trump, Ron Paul, and Bernie Sanders are the only ones in recent memory. Fewer politicians have a subculture so infamously fanatical that their supporters have their own nickname: Bernie Bros. And then there are subcultures within the Bernie Bros, like the DSA and Dirtbag Left — and there even subcultures within that.
Endorsing Bernie Sanders for President, as some in the Dissident Right have done, is dumb. But I understand why someone, as a matter of strategy, would want to pull their punches with Bernie. Sanders has been a disruptive influence on the Left. Much like Trump forced the establishment to “drop their mask” and reveal their true form, Bernie seems to have a similar effect: The DNC has resorted to rigging primaries and making up absurd lies about Bernie secretly being an Andrew Dice Clay-style misogynist, all in an attempt to keep him from the nomination.
I don’t want Bernie to become president. I want him to do just well enough to cause maximum chaos among the Left.
When discussing Bernie Sanders and the Dissident Right, it’s not just about how we feel about Bernie Sanders, the Man, but also how we feel about Sanders, the movement, Sanders, the phenomenon, and Sanders’ legions of devoted followers. More on the last one later.
I expressed my thoughts on the Dirtbag Left/DSA/Bernie Bro phenomenon and the limitations of the materialist approach in a previous article entitled “Chapo Trap House Is Too White for Me (and I’m a White Supremacist).” Read it. It’s good and I still stand by every word of it — even the typos and grammatical errors. The tl;dr is that class reductionist materialism as espoused by the Dirtbag Left is doomed to fail because it has little appeal to non-whites.
Now, there has been some polling data to suggest that Sanders’ support among blacks, especially black millennials, has grown considerably since 2016. I’ll believe it when I see it. There was a fluke poll back in November that suggested 35% of blacks approve of Trump. I’ll believe it when I see it. Bernie may, in fact, be popular with millennial blacks, but millennial blacks don’t vote — or at least not enough to matter. We’ll find out in South Carolina.
That said, at the time of writing, it looks like Sanders may actually pull it off this time. Sanders benefits from something Trump benefited from in 2016: a large field of establishment shills that no one loves, and no obvious heir apparent.
Joe Biden has become the Jeb Bush of this race; the establishment choice that nobody asked for. Some think Bloomberg is going to come in and just “buy the nomination,” but simply buying the nomination is a lot harder to do in the internet age where political battles happen increasingly online. Candidates need their supporters on social media, in the chat rooms, on the message boards, in the comments section, etc. The aforementioned Jeb! had a ton of money, but no base of support.
Under the circumstances, Bernie might only need a small percentage of POC to flip to get himself over the top. He’ll want their field to stay as large as possible, for as long as possible, so that by the time the official Not Bernie™ candidate emerges, he will have a big enough lead and too much momentum to catch up with.
He might need some lucky breaks to pull it off — but he just might do it.
25 comments
trump is a massive cuck…we must punish him by voting him out…bernie is the real deal…
The real deal of what – antiwhite communism? Troll.
“When you’re white … you don’t know what it’s like to be poor.” — Bernie Sanders
Saunders represents one of the Whitest states in the US — Vermont. Fortunately for him, it’s also full of self-righteous, self-hating Whites, so he gets away with this kind of crap. The question is whether it will play well in the Midwest outside college towns. My guess is that it will not.
Trump v Sanders would the a populist Right v populist Left contest. The US is more of a center-Right nation than a center-Left nation (at least for now) and Sanders’ open borders position isn’t popular. Nothing is perfectly predictable in politics, but I think Bernie’s already burnt toast.
It’s a Trump landslide in the making – and that’s a good thing. The Trump naysaying comes off as incredibly spoiled – these people seem to desire this President to be perfect, to be their saviour, their Hitler or Lenin, to do away with half a century of cucking to Israel, being ruled by a nebulous military-industrial complex and undo the so-called “Civil Rights” act/agenda, all in one fell swoop. Trump was obviously never going to be the man to do that, and that’s not what he symbolizes. What he does symbolize is a firm “halt” in the face of ever-increasing progressivism. To stop going down a slope, first thing you have to do is stop, then turn around, and then walk back up. Trump’s movement was decades of descent being halted, and it indicated the act of stopping. “This far, and no further.” Next will be the act of turning around, orienting ourselves, deciding on the course back up. This is where WNs will come into play. And only then can we start thinking about ascending – and ascending the right way, with the right people and the right ideas for the future.
That said, the center is crumbling, and this is the biggest whitepill of all. Soon it will be only populists on stage, of the best and worst variety, and this is where White Nationalists will get their shot. To have a candidate speak up and say “Wait just a damn minute, what about the Whites who built this country?” is going to become a reality before long.
Bloody right! And about time, too!
I could see Bernie getting the nomination, particularly if he gives the VP nod to someone perceived as safe and anodyne—most likely Amy Kobuchar. Of course Kobuchar is not safe and anodyne at all; she’s a political hack with no moral compass, and a bad disposition to boot. But compared with Bernie, she’s someone who is neither unstable nor radical nor likely to drop dead in the next few years. She’s the insurance policy, and I expect to see Bernie Sanders reach out to her.
That ticket is probably the Democrats’ best hope to capture the White House. Refuse Bernie the nomination, and you can expect to see half his supporters stay home or vote for a third-party candidate. Give him the nomination, and you get some disaffected and accelerationist Trump voters; as well as many of the Democrats who were backing the also-rans; and most of the Democrat voters who really don’t care or have much of a preference.
I like how you phrased things about Bernie, and I’m going to address those individual parts one at a time:
how we feel about Bernie Sanders, the Man
Despite the fact that he’s a Bolshevik Jew, and as such, the man himself never had pure motives, I still wanted to believe in him back in 2016 when he said those based things about immigration and foreign policy. I thought a Trump vs. Sanders race would have fundamentally shifted the rhetorical framework from “is it good for the world?” to “is it good for Americans?” Sanders appeared to think in terms of the latter, if nothing else.
Even if he never had any intentions of halting immigration, the normalization of his rhetorical opposition to immigration would have still been a cultural victory for White Nationalists. If you have Trump hitting immigration from the Right, and Sanders hitting it from the Left, it sure does make Open Borders supporters look like dirty ideologues.
I remember Bernie’s about-face started during a rally in Seattle when some screaming chimpanzee lady took his mic away on stage and demanded that he let her fellow POC speak. I think Bernie learned in that moment that he must appeal to the Woke Left to have any chance of victory, which means abandoning all pretense of “is it good for Americans?”
but also how we feel about Sanders, the movement
After George W. Bush beat John Kerry in the 2004 election, there was a book released called What’s The Matter With Kansas? The book was considered a classic among the Left, and shaped one of their core sentiments over the next 10-15 years, which is this: The Republican Party exploits wedge issues such as abortion, gay marriage, and immigration in order to divide the “working class” (which at the time still meant “White Working Class”), getting them to vote against their common economic interests.
Another version of this sentiment is the one leveled against corporations and The Rich: They are dividing Americans by race in order to play regular people against each other, keep them scared, and get them to vote against their common interests (note: Those “common interests” are always a laundry lists of Leftist policy demands).
The Bernie movement is the culmination of what that book began. White Leftists desperately want to believe in it. What they’re going to learn is that, although POC’s are generally more receptive to the later sentiment – “corporations are dividing us by race!” – once they internalize what Ta-Nehisi Coates preaches, its all over. They became filled with hatred for the White Race and obsessed with revenge. Even if Bernie wins the 2020 nomination, the Bernie movement will fail in the long run because POC don’t want it.
Sanders, the phenomenon
Since we’ve established that Bernie’s idealistic white followers are the driver of his campaign, what we can derive about the phenomenon is this: It is 100% the product of a generation of spoiled, useless eaters that were never properly disciplined, even if they grew up in a stable, two parent household. When they were kids, they were taught, “can’t we all just get along?” And when they got to the Real World…oh, right, they were taught the same thing. Their entire life is one giant bubble created by their schools, their universities, and the Woke businesses they work for. The Bernie phenomenon is what a political movement looks like when soft, idealistic, middle to upper class white kids take what they’ve learned and apply it to the real world.
and Sanders’ legions of devoted followers.
Lets cut straight to the point – his white followers hate White identity, hate White Nationalism, and will not join our cause. Nor should we want them to. Like I said, most of them are useless eaters who are making life worse for the rest of their race. They need to go down with their messiah. I would NEVER want to live in a nation where their values reigned supreme, even if it was 100% White. From the WN perspective, they are the “Bad Whites,” and we should cast them to the wind and actively antagonize them.
In summary, the only good thing that can come out of Bernie Sanders – the man, the movement, the phenomena, or the people behind him – is that it will accelerate the collapse of the center and force Normies to choose between Life/Fascism and Death/Communism. As much as I want to see Normies being forced to make that choice, I agree with the positions expressed here on Counter Currents that White Nationalists should NOT aid or abet Bernie’s candidacy and definitely should NOT vote for him. If you don’t vote for Trump, that’s cool, because I’m not voting for Trump either. But do NOT vote for Bernie.
“In summary, the only good thing that can come out of Bernie Sanders – the man, the movement, the phenomena, or the people behind him – is that it will accelerate the collapse of the center and force Normies to choose between Life/Fascism and Death/Communism.”
That’s what it looks like from where I am standing. Best of Luck to you.
Good comment. I touch on some of the themes you mentions in future installments of this series. Watch this space!
I don’t see much evidence that non-whites will not support Bernie. They seem to like him very much, especially the younger ones.
Unless you live in a non-“swing state” like California or Utah, NOT voting for Trump is really, really stupid, for reasons that have been made abundantly clear here and elsewhere, especially American Renaissance. I actually think Trump will be better in Term 2, but even if he isn’t, the Democrat alternative – ANY Democrat – will be nearly 100% awful for white interests.
Disappointing as Trump is, his reelection buys us time, which is what I want personally, and what the race needs. After another Trump term, it is quite possible that the Comngressional GOP will have gotten the message that the base WANTS THE INVASION OF IMMIGRANTS HALTED. Not saying those cowards will get it done, but amnesty under cover of “comprehensive immigration reform” will be dead in the GOP. That itself further buys us time for redpilling, networking, ingathering, and finally ethnostatism. Trump must win, if you care about White America.
Amen! Couldn’t have said it better myself. Throwing a temper tantrum and not voting for Trump because he has, in many ways, been a disappointment is silly & hurts our cause. It’s the equivalent of being a “muh principles” cuckservative. F*** “muh principles”!! Do the right thing for our cause, swallow your pride, & vote for Blumpf!
“don’t want Bernie to become president. I want him to do just well enough to cause maximum chaos among the Left.”
– sums it up well. I think if he loses the primaries due to some more DNC corruption (likely) would get the result.
I live in a very black part of the country, and I testify that a small percentage of smarter blacks seem to support sanders. Still, I think I know of more black trump than sanders supporters.
I like the way the author separates trump the man from trump the movement or MAGA ideology. It’s a spirit now. Yang Gang is sort of another example of a movement. But it seems most of yangs followers are refugees from other ideologies, hiding their power so to speak, far leftists and dissident rightests come together.
“Few American politicians have a full-blown subculture surrounding them. Trump, Ron Paul, and Bernie Sanders are the only ones in recent memory.”
Ummmm…Obama? I guess he has much more than a subculture. He is the founder of the New USA.
Obama was a very popular politician and a meme but I wouldn’t say that there was a subculture around him that was separate or distinct from the Democratic party or generic liberalism. There’s really no such a thing as “Obamaism” as an ideology, a worldview, or approach to politics. If someone said “I’m an Obamaist Democrat”, would you even know what that means?
Though both parties are are wholly-owned subsidiaries, the Dems are not the Republicans. A Democrat Trump is not possible. Bernie will not get the nomination. Not a snowball’s chance.
I’m sticking with Pocahontas/Buttplug as my prediction.
Regardless, Trump gets another term.
This paper have, by far (for me), the best arguments for a Trump victory. I wasn’t convinced before reading it. (I write this because I know nothing create more pleasure to a writer than read than a reader is convinced by your writing and your argues 😉 )
That said, there still the big question : how can “we” (“we” as WN, from US or nations of Europe) possibly win in 2024 ? Texas, Georgia, Florida would be blue. Even if all Great Lake States became nationalists, I can’t see the path.
I added GA, TX, NV, AZ to crazy dems (and I was nice to not add NC). Even with Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, OH, PA, PLUS Vermont, NH, Connecticut (!), Oregon (!), Washington (!!), to make short, the whitest states I can find, we obtain a 257-281 defeat.
Yep it’s looking pretty grim in terms of demographics & the ability to elect a Republican. No idea what will happen, but Trump can definitely win this year. As you stated all of those states you listed are probably gone forever for republicans from 2024 on. Saw a comment on another article about Whites in America returning to Europe. That is sounding better and better to me as time progresses & I witness the shocking demographic transformation here first hand!
But if Trump wins maybe he will have more balls to act in a second term. Also as stated in another article here, he will be much better on the first and second amendments than Sanders or any other democrat. Losing our first and second amendment rights will in no way help us, at a minimum Trump’s re-election will be a symbolic victory for us and buy us more time to get more of our people on our side.
Elizabeth Warren would lose to Trump. If Bernie has a massive heart attack or stroke and endorses Warren, that would give Trump the best chance of winning. Sanders, Bloomberg, or Biden would probably beat Trump, but Pocahontas won’t.
When he was a Vermont senator his positions on immigration and gun control were phony. Current Bernie is the real McCoy.
The ONLY message you should send Trump this Nov is this: a middle finger extended. As we all know by now, you’d only be returning the favor.
One more thing: the GOP fears one thing, and that’s losing your vote. Telling them “You don’t get my vote without massive cuts to immigration and I don’t care what celeb you put up next time, same rules apply”, they’ll get the message. Possibly.
“Some think a Trump loss might “wake whites up” somehow, or make them angry. Who knows what might happen? Whites might also blackpill completely and retreat into drugs, video games, sportsball, and nihilistic consumerism — all of which are more enjoyable than hanging around wignats.”
Lol! Can confirm! I consider myself to be pretty normal aside from my politics. Unfortunately our politics tend to attract many whiny, socially retarded, high time preference losers, I love the term “wignat” because it describes those types perfectly. We need to bring as many normal & successful Whites to our cause as possible. I drop subtle red pills to my blue pilled friends at every opportunity. Have at least gotten a few of them thinking differently about some things. Gotta tread carefully though.
Watch the new Jared Taylor video about what a Bernie presidency would mean for whites. It should dispel any doubts.
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