The Bernie Bro Question, Part Three: Cringe Encounters of the Third Position
Travis LeBlanc2,993 words
*Trav takes long drag from cigarette*
The Optics War?
*Trav exhales long plume of smoke*
Yeah, kid. I was there.
*Commence flashback sequence, cue late ’60s acid rock*
There I was, deep in the jungles of the 504-um. I was just a small-town boy from the Midwest who wanted to make a difference. “Join the Alt-Right,” they said. “It’ll be fun,” they said. “Trigger some libs. Save the white race. It’ll be great.” Now here I was, fighting a memetic optics war against a bunch of costumed trailer park neo-Nazis. This sure as hell wasn’t in the brochure.
I was serving in the 15th Airborne AmNat battalion as we went on optics patrol through the forum. The megathread was quiet. A little too quiet, if you know what I mean. Suddenly, Sergeant Weev orders us to halt.
“Shh! Listen!” At first, I didn’t hear anything. But then the low sound of voices came rolling through the trees. At first, they were soft and indistinct, but as they drew close and became louder, I could start to make out some of the things they were saying. They were things like “There is no political solution!” and “Who cares? They’re going to call us Nazis no matter what we do!”
“Oh shit! It’s the Wignats! Take defensive positions!” Suddenly we were being swarmed by a human wave of strawmen. No sooner did you shoot one down, another would rise up to take its place. People were getting flaming all around me.
Let me tell you, the Optics War was hell. I lost a good friend that day. His name was Ricky Vaughn.
*End flashback sequence*
The Great Optics War of 2018 raged on for several months, leaving behind a trail of broken dreams, broken lives, and broken boxes. It permanently divided the White Nationalist community into two camps: the American Nationalists AKA the Optics Cucks, and the Natsocs AKA the Wignats. Many hoped this split to be temporary, and that maybe the differences could have been reconciled, but if anything, the divide has only deepened since then, mostly due to two major events. The first was the schism between the Daily Stormer (widely seen as being AmNat Central) and The Right Stuff, which happened last fall. The other is the rise of Nick Fuentes and the Groyper Wars, which was hailed by many as the ultimate vindication of the AmNat approach. While some managed to stay neutral during the Optics War proper, those events managed to push most people squarely into one camp or the other. A notable exception would be the Brit Right (Patriotic Alternative et al.) which is kind of its own thing now and exists largely outside the AmNat-Wignat paradigm.
The divide isn’t really AmNat-Wignat anymore so much as it is AmNat versus Not AmNat, but I’m still going to refer to the Not AmNat side as “Wignats” anyway, just to be a jerk. Indeed, many of the original leading names of the Wignat side are no longer with us. Christopher Cantwell is in jail while Paul Nehlen and Patrick Little have faded back into the obscurity from whence they came.
And then you have Wignat Prime, Matt Heimbach. If you’re deep enough down the Dissident Right rabbit hole that you are reading Counter-Currents, then you’ve probably also heard that the former Traditionalist Workers Party leader has pulled a Christian Picciolini. On April 1, Heimbach put out a video declaring himself a “former White Nationalist” and anti-racist.
The interesting thing about the Heimbach case is that unlike Picciolini or Katie McHugh, who went from White Nationalist to full Cult Marx SJW, Heimbach has declared himself a class-first communist. As many have observed, he has hardly changed any of his views at all — rather, he changed emphasis. Heimbach was always a class warfare guy (he was kicked out of the National Socialist Movement for “promoting communism”), but it was always a secondary part of his shtick. Now it’s his whole shtick.
The whole Heimbach affair has been commented upon by everyone and their dog at this point and I can’t really improve on what has already been said. For more on Matt Heimbach, check out Ryan Faulk’s video “Matt Heimbach and the Perils of Wignatism.”
But this is a trend that you see throughout the entire Not AmNat spectrum as the Wignats have started rebranding themselves as explicit Third Positionists. A lot of them were already Third Positionists, but again, it’s a matter of emphasis, as critiques of capitalism have become more front and center while things like HBD and identity have become more secondary.
It is somewhat ironic, though. The Alt-Right was founded by a bunch of ex-libertarians who became White Nationalists in order to save capitalism. Fast forward a few years, and many of those same people have reached the conclusion that in order to save the white race, they have to destroy capitalism. I don’t know how much of this is sincere conversion, how much is cynical careerism, and how much is strategic branding in opposition to AmNats. The Wignats’ old sales pitch was that AmNats were Diet White Nationalism while they were the full flavor, but with the Groyper Uprising, it became clear that the AmNats had won that Pepsi Challenge. Rebranding as Third Positionists allows them to offer a genuine alternative beyond “AmNats, but with worse optics.”
Admittedly, this is an improvement on their part. Unlike accelerationism (the Wignats’ previous defining characteristic) the role of socialism in a nationalist movement is at least a conversation worth having.
Wignats have always bitched and moaned that the AmNats didn’t want to do things their way, whereas the AmNats have always just wanted the Wignats to go away. There’s a reason for that, and because I like you guys, I’m gonna tell you what that is.
Wignats don’t redpill anyone. Wignats are all about blackpilling redpilled types. One thing you notice about Wignats is that none of them make any entry-level content. Not in the way that Nick Fuentes or Andrew Anglin do. By “entry-level content,” I mean content that a normie can read and enjoy without knowing a ton of political theory and/or 10 years of internet lore. And it would be pointless for them to try, because their ideas are completely unpalatable to normal people, and on some level, I think they know this. Wignats require a gateway movement in between themselves and the masses. Without one, they can’t grow. For a while, AmNats served this role for them. And this is why the Wignats have stagnated ever since the box broke on that fateful day back in 2018.
Wignats will tell you that the reason their ideas are not more popular than they are is because Andrew Anglin keeps saying mean things about them. “If only people would stop punching Right against us!” But this is pure cope. Nick Fuentes was ostracized by 80% of the movement, but he still managed to grind out a following without anyone else’s help because he makes a product that people actually like. Say what you like about Nick Fuentes, he did prove one valuable lesson: that you don’t need the support of “the movement” to succeed. You can just bypass the movement entirely and appeal directly to the masses. If Anglin is hoarding all the redpilled people, guess what? There are still millions of bluepilled people out there who have never heard of Andrew Anglin. Go out and redpill them. If what you’re selling is good, people punching Right against you doesn’t matter.
However, Wignats are not capable of doing the same kind of entry-level recruiting that Fuentes does because their ideas are fundamentally repulsive to normal people. They need a gateway movement that is capable of getting their foot in the door with the masses for them. Wanna talk about pipelines? Let me tell you about a pipeline that definitely does not exist. There is no such thing as a normie-to-Wignat pipeline. People wind up at Wignatism by way of something else.
So by pivoting to Third Positionism, the Wignats are clearly hoping to make the Bernie Bros in general, and the Dirtbag or “unwoke” Left in particular, into their new gateway movement to replace the AmNats who continue to shun them.
This has been particularly apparent over at The Right Stuff. TRS had originally been hostile to the Dirtbag Left because they believed that Chapo Trap House had ripped off their style, although this attitude appears to have softened. TRS has made anti-capitalism increasingly central to their brand in what one might suspect as an attempt to win over the admittedly large Dirtbag Left audience. Borzoi has said nice things about the Dirtbag Left, and Fash the Nation has increasingly started to sound like an antisemitic Bernie Bro podcast.
Recently, Eric Striker and Mike Enoch did a debate stream with a couple of Antifa weirdos. Interestingly, they billed their side of the debate as Third Positionism. Not “nationalism” or “White Nationalism” but Third Positionism. It’s like, OK whatever. Maybe they just think that’s a nicer sounding word.
Radix Live: Bernie's Bust https://t.co/PpiXDMRtQT
— Richard Spencer (@RichardBSpencer) April 9, 2020
Shortly after Heimbach’s conversion, Richard Spencer did a live stream entitled Bernie’s Bust. His guest was some guy with a Freddie Mercury mustache who I had never heard of before. In Spencer’s typical contrarian fashion, he not only pooh-poohed the prospects of a Bernie Bro-to-Dissident Right pipeline but said the opposite was more likely. “I think that in this kind of funny way that if there’s going to be a pipeline, I think it’s actually going to be the Alt-Right-to-Bernie Bro pipeline.”
He went a step further and announced his intention to become a Bernie Bro himself: “I think there might be an Alt-Right to Bernie Bro pipeline where we might not always be accepted [understatement of the century — Trav] but we’re at least sympathetic to the ideas. We’re not going to counter-signal them, try to basically, going to try to change Right-wing energies towards socialism and foreign policy.” He continues: “I hate to break it to you MAGA dudes, but there is no way in Hell that a self-respecting serious Leftist who has read their Zizek is going to conceivably have anything to do with you. Like he would more likely vote for Biden.”
Well, Richard, I’d be willing to bet that there are a hell of a lot more Dirtbag Leftists willing to vote for Trump than there ever were Alt-Righters willing to pay $10,000 to listen to your phone conversations.
Snark aside, Spencer’s claim is observably untrue. When Red Scare’s Anna Khachiyan decided to build bridges to the Right, she got Steve Bannon, the literal architect of MAGA, on her podcast, not Eric Striker. Another example would be Benjamin Studebaker, Aimee Terese’s former co-host on What’s Left. He’s related to the Studebaker car manufacturing family. We’re talking about some real working-class heroes here. On the night of Super Tuesday, Studebaker tweeted out this:
I am taking March off from podding
This is too depressing and I need some time to think
— Benjamin Studebaker (@BMStudebaker) March 4, 2020
Then when he came back, he says this:
I have decided not to return to What's Left. We did some good work, but it's time for me to move on to other things. I wish Aimee and the show well.
— Benjamin Studebaker (@BMStudebaker) April 1, 2020
And then a few days later, he says this:
I support re-electing Trump with a senate controlled by the Democrats. Vote for the Democrats in senate races, but vote for Trump for POTUS
Don't let Biden cut Social Security and do post-corona austerity deals. Lock the government up in unproductive partisan conflict
— Benjamin Studebaker (@BMStudebaker) April 8, 2020
He’s not alone. Judging from the comments in this post, there appears to be a non-insignificant faction of the r/StupIDPol crowd that believes that Trump would be better than Biden for advancing Left-wing goals. The thinking is that while they are both essentially neoliberals, Trump is at least rhetorically populist and there is value to that in terms of moving the Overton Window. Which, coincidentally, is the same argument that most AmNats use for backing Trump. From what I can tell, a lot of Dirtbag Leftists are less hostile to Trump than most Wignats are. This could be because, unlike Richard Spencer, most Dirtbag Leftists have never been personally disavowed by Trump. Because they are not morons. But there could be more factors at play there.
Trump is actually dumb as hell if he doesn’t take this opportunity to become the greatest president of all time by instituting some bare-minimum progressive measures instead of being content to play the villainous foil to the DNC
— Anna Khachiyan (@annakhachiyan) March 18, 2020
You see, here’s something about the Bernie Left that a lot of people on the Right are fond of overlooking. While people like to point out all the overlap between the Bernie Left and the Dissident Right, there is one very big thing that the Bernie Left have in common with the establishment Right and the Ben Shapiros of the world: a visceral hatred of identity politics. And that’s not some ideological afterthought, either. It’s a core tenet. “Idpol” is a severe pejorative in those circles.
Another thing is that much of the appeal of the Dirtbag Left is that they are funny. Wignats are not. I mean, name a funny Wignat. OK, other than Mr. Bond [1] name a funny Wignat. OK, other than Mr. Bond, name a Wignat who is funny on purpose (I’ll admit that several of them are unintentionally hilarious). While the Dirtbag Left may have more in common ideologically with Third Positionist Wignats, aesthetically and in terms of temperament, they are more similar to AmNat outlets like The Daily Stormer and Nick Fuentes’ America First than the Traditionalist Workers Party.
The most absurd part of Spencer’s stream, and what makes it impossible for me to take Spencer seriously here (not that I ever did), is that earlier in the stream, Spencer states his belief that the Bernie Bro Left can’t win. Earlier, Spencer explained that there are three components of the Democratic Party: the establishment wing, the POC coalition, and the Bernie Bro socialists. He says: “So basically, the Bernie Bros are caught between those two pincer movements, the establishment and the POC coalition, and they just got crushed and they’re always gonna get crushed.”
So let me get this straight, Richard. You plan on defecting from the Dissident Right to a side that you don’t believe can win.
You know, I bet those guys over in the DSA are sitting around thinking “You know what we need? More blackpillers. The thing that is clearly holding us back is the lack of defeatists in our ranks. And if we could get someone with a long history of PR catastrophes, that would be even better. We need some real bridge-burners around here. We need someone so unlikeable that they get disavowed by the people they toast to.”
I mean, Spencer is not wrong in his assessment here: the Bernie Bros cannot win. I’ve been banging that drum for a while now. But you see, that’s the kind of thing you say when you are trying to get them to join you. It’s an incredibly stupid thing to say when you are trying to join them. If someone is joining up with a movement that they do not believe can win or succeed at making any real-world change, then I have to wonder about their true motives. I can only assume that they are either an aspiring martyr, a careerist, or someone who has no serious ambitions beyond looking smart on the internet. And Spencer doesn’t strike me as the martyr type.
Indeed, there is a ton of money in the Dirtbag Left. Chapo Trap House quite famously makes $170,000 a month off their Patreon (no doubt all coming from the working-class coal miners, factory workers, and chimney sweeps who comprise the majority of their listeners). $170,000 is a lot of money. In 2015, $170,000 would have allowed you to listen to 17 of Richard Spencer’s phone conversations.
While the use of paywalls in the Dissident Right has always been somewhat controversial (some feel that paywalling Dissident Right content is essentially trying to profit off white genocide), paywalling is standard among the Dirtbag Left’s major players. This seems quite odd; not in the “hey, I thought you guys were against capitalism derp derp” sense, but in the sense that these guys supposedly want to put together a working-class movement (i.e., uniting people who have no money).
Anyway, good luck with your new venture, Richard. If nothing else, I’m looking forward to hearing you make the class reductionist case for re-taking Constantinople. “Look guy, the Turks have been asking to speak to the manager for centuries.”
For the record, I am not passing judgment on Third Positionism as a concept here. At most, I’m questioning the motives of some of the people who have suddenly pivoted towards it. If anything, I’ve always looked at Third Positionism the same way I look at Star Trek. It’s fine in theory, but the kind of person who is into it, like really into it, tends to leave a bad taste in my mouth and make me somewhat reluctant to go down that road just because I don’t want to become one of those people. NAXALT, of course. Keith Woods has made some interesting Right-wing arguments for socialism. One of Woods’ more compelling arguments is that his home country of Ireland has never had a serious Marxist movement, and yet they have wound up in the same Globohomo dystopia as the rest of the West. So the culprit cannot be “Cultural Marxism,” as many on the Right claim, but actually Cultural Neoliberalism.
IMO, if the Dissident Right is going to dabble in socialism, whatever, but it’s probably a good idea not to use the word “socialism.” The word has a lot of baggage, especially in America where people associate it with stuffy Europeans and college radicals. Say what you will about Joseph McCarthy, but he was so damn good at his job that 60 years after his death, “socialist” still has such an intense stigma attached to it. Any socialist policies advocated by nationalists should be billed as simply “pro-worker” or some other, friendlier-sounding euphemism.
Rehabilitating words is a fool’s errand.
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Notes
[1] I’ve never been convinced that Mr. Bond was not a performance art troll. He always struck me as a little too self-aware of his own ridiculousness.
The%20Bernie%20Bro%20Question%2C%20Part%20Three%3A%20Cringe%20Encounters%20of%20the%20Third%20Position
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38 comments
The grudge against ‘socialism’ in America is tribute to 90+ years of propaganda. Even liberals like Tim Pool have no clue regarding the diversity of socialisms available to implement. Liberals — and of course libertarians — will argue that ‘government interference in the market doesn’t work’ and then out of the other side of their mouths argue that ‘diversity’ is destroying ‘merit’ which solely the result of government programs backed by legislation. The conclusion they reach is that ‘government is the problem’. It’s really hard to get up the enthusiasm to vote for government representatives whose main claim to fame is a refusal to rule if elected. The Wignats are fighting the harder fight. The harder fight rarely attracts the people with most talent simply because the cost/benefit ratio is so low. I don’t think the problem is the Wignat philosophy itself, it’s the Wignat position in the political/cultural/semiotic ecosystem. It’s hard being a heretic from just about every orthodoxy.
Ofcourse it has nothing to do with socialism turning everything to shit it touches.
‘Socialism’ is simply any political-economic arrangement that does not prioritize the interests of the owners of the resources of production over every other interest. In this sense, socialism exists in a variety of ways right now and they’re all working as intended. What most apologists for capitalism want you to think is that there is only one kind of ‘socialism’: a centralized command economy in which the State owns and controls all property and labor. This kind of ‘socialism’ is essentially no different from capitalism, except that the Party now fills the role of elite capital and the people are still ‘wage slaves’. This type of ‘socialism’ eliminates the small property holder or small business person entirely, something which capital does not oppose (however much apologists for capital might opine otherwise). This type of expropriating, domineering — ultimately Semitic — socialism is, of course, of to be deplored. The Third Reich was openly socialist, but the Reich’s social theory was different than Semitic social theory and the results were different. Both the Reich and Mussolini’s approaches to managing national resources were ‘socialist’, but arose from an ‘Aryan’ social theory that sought to use the State to buffer the working class from the vicissitudes of the operations of the ownership class, concentrating not on controlling the economy as a whole but on making sure the great majority of their people had access to tools and resources to make a better life for themselves. ‘Entrepreneurship’ was only suppressed when it conflicted with Reich social policy (such as the production of pornography or Kosher meat production).
I mean this sincerely and without wishing to appear demeaning: you need to study the work of Ludwig von Mises (visit Mises.org). One must thoroughly understand basic economics before even attempting to salvage anything useful for nationalism from any of the varieties of socialism. The laissez-fairists are 100% correct (analytically as well as empirically/historically) wrt microeconomics; it is in macroeconomics where nationalists can start proposing racially useful deviations from free marketist orthodoxy.
If I knew I was going to survive the Mongolvirus, and would be stuck semi-working from home for many more months, I would start work (eg, reviewing economics classics I mostly read in the 80s and 90s) on a long essay-post detailing how we can begin framing an economics redesigned to shore up ethnonations (at least ours), instead of breaking them down, as is clearly the case today wrt global capital. (As it is, I am using my free time mostly to furiously read various literary “immortal classics” that I’d put off for … well, my whole life. Strange what assumes importance when one is facing possible but not certain imminent death.)
What you are reaching for, I think, is something that occurred to me a couple of decades ago, once I became aware of the scale of America’s industrial devastation in the wake of Federal Government-all-but-engineered globalization (which began in earnest under con(man)servative Reagan) – something, please note, that I was pondering before China’s accession to the WTO, and which over the past two decades has dramatically accelerated this economic immiseration of the heartland. What you want is not egalitarian/utopian socialism, but rather, ethnocollectivist economics, an economic policy which serves both the interests of the vast majority of honorable white men (instead of some wealthy few – esp when so many of those few are not members of our own ethnie or tribe), and the well-being of the nation as a whole, with “nation” being understood to refer not merely to its present but also its future members, and not just any random agglomeration of such, but of the true historic folkish community.
My point is that even theoretically such a nationalist economic policy must still be erected on a capitalist foundation. And it easily can be. The basic economic principles of capitalism do not need to be extended so far that they politically or militarily threaten the very nation within which the capitalist economy is embedded. Disallowing nonwhite immigration is not anti-capitalist per se; it is merely restricting the maximal reach of capitalism. Having the Federal Government guarantee purchases for medical equipment, while enacting prohibitive tariffs on imported supplies, so as to ensure a US-based medical supply chain, is no more anti-capitalist than subsidizing necessary US-based defense contractors. Ditto disallowing hundreds of thousands of Chi-com nationals to steal places from real Americans in STEM doctoral programs, such “two-fer” treason policy thereby simultaneously 1) strengthening our Oriental Main Enemy, whose entire post-Mao “economic miracle” has been based on shedding socialist economic dysfunctionality (Maoist v. Dengist economic results: yet another testimony to the superiority of free market capitalism, btw) while simultaneously copying and usually stealing Western technology secrets, whilst 2) weakening the supply of scientifically advanced Americans.
I could go on, but my main point should be clear. Way too many nationalists, very much including here at C-C, observe the evils of globalism and then bizarrely use them to critique the essential nature of capitalism. As though mass immigration is an inherent failure of capitalism per se, instead of a treasonous policy set in motion politically for race replacement reasons (that greedy capitalists started noticing that mass immigration also helped their short-term bottom lines by artificially lowering unit labor costs is an indictment of the selfishness of pro-immigration businessmen, not of the prosperity-maximizing logic of free markets).
There are two kinds of socialism, and both are inimical to prosperity and ultimately white preservation. The first is the pure Marxian kind in which government central planners operate the means of production (ie own/control all factories, farms, etc). This invariably leads to economic discoordination on unsurpassed scales. It has resulted in economic ruin everywhere such nonsense has been attempted. The illogic behind it was exposed and defenestrated by Mises no later than 1920, in his classic article on the impossibility of economic calculation under socialism [of the Marxian kind]. A different critical approach emphasizing dispersed knowledge was elaborated by Hayek in the 1930s-40s. Arguably, the earliest (and still devastating) critique was put forth by conservative W.H. Mallock in the late 19th century. It may seem like such “central planner socialism” has disappeared, but what is Medicare for All or the “Green Screw Deal”, except contemporary proposals for state ownership and central planning (and which if legislated will have the same results as other such exercises in economic tyranny)?
The second kind of socialism is “social(ist) democracy”, or welfare state wealth redistribution; ie, stealing money from those who earned it to give to those who didn’t. It also is usually accompanied by huge levels of redistributive regulation (eg, rent controls, antidiscrimination laws, minority favoritism, etc), in addition to non-distributive regulation (eg, environmental laws). This is less destructive than the first kind, insofar as it still rests upon a capitalist “calculative” base (ie, prices remain market-determined, and production remains in private hands), and still gives scope to entrepreneurship and private acquisitiveness (ie, you can get rich, but less easily than under unregulated capitalism).
A nationalist economics would not be socialist in either sense (or need not be and should not be). A white ethnostate will need economic prosperity to generate the wealth needed for national military power. Such prosperity will be maximized by a capitalist economy incentivizing wealth creation and resting on a secure foundation of private property rights. This does not mean that National Capitalism must be INDIVIDUALIST (which is at the root of our economic problems today – and thus, I think, with why so many white nationalists are turning away from capitalism). It could just as easily be ETHNOCOLLECTIVIST – and it should be. It should be a bounded capitalism, with the boundaries determined by what is good for white and national preservation (not individual wealth maximization). The US is a bit this way today. We don’t allow Northrup to sell missile technology to our enemies, for example. Most people now realize that we should not allow China to be the supplier of … 97% (!!!) of American pharmaceuticals, as it is today (yeah, unbelievable). And we could do many other things that promote white interests (no more immigrants or foreign grad students) while still preserving our economy’s capitalist foundations, and thus national prosperity and liberty.
I honestly don’t think you and I are in fundamental disagreement regarding the desired goal of economics. Whether the result is called ‘Folk Capitalism’ or ‘Folk Socialism’, the point is the same: Put The Folk First.
A ‘capitalism’ that cannot put the Folk first is not one WN’s should support. That same for any ‘socialism’ that be considered.
I don’t think insisting that ‘socialism is bad’ helps WN, which is why I think that the key part — as you pointed out — is whether the economic system benefits the Folk, not what it’s called. If it benefits the Folk, I’m for it.
Many of these so called “Third Positionists” are just pro-white Commies.
It was my understanding that a “Third Position” was supposed to take what worked from both Capitalism and Socialism and discard what didn’t. Guess I was wrong.
You weren’t wrong. Rather, there is a contingent of wignats who use third position as rhetorical cover to promulgate socialism. They do this out of a combination of misguided belief in attracting Bernie Bros and a hyperfocus on the neoliberal flank of the enemy ranks.
Third positionism is anything that falls outside of the traditional left wing, right wing paradigm
but in our circles generally refers to some sort of combination of left wing economics and right wing nationalism/traditionalism.
I think the idea in the context of WN was coined by Kevin Macdonald and the occidental observer crew about ten years ago when they formed the third position party. I don’t know if it’s defunct or still a thing. I’m sure the term has been around before as it fits the two party tyranny.
What exactly are you gaining by using the term “wignat” still? It’s just a slur for people who openly stand up for White people, instead of hiding behind irony, Christianity, or GOP conservatism.
No, it really just refers to wigger nationalists: people who have high time preferences (like accelerationists), low impulse control (Hail Trump), bad judgment (Hail Trump), low empathy/high sociopathy (Hail Trump), bad optics, and generally bring shame and embarrassment on White Nationalism. You can openly stand for white people without all this self-defeating buffoonery.
without Christianity you split the pantheons of each white.
and also, in the case of the New World, each white tribe fractures harder.
at least let’s remain secular and accepting of all white traditions before 1945.
as for the article, i agree. the pro-white movement has to be moderate in economics, in part because both libertarians and communists fail, in part also because as a practicality it is way easier to get people to agree to light unionization and immigration bans and tariffs than the whole “let’s get all the youths into uniform!” deal, or “let’s tax the rich just like in Scandinavia” (forgetting that Scandinavia has ancient high IQ, wealth, natural resources, low population, nearby Europe to sell to and to keep cozy – if anything, it is their supposedly third-position materialist socialism that makes them go sterile and love Somalis now). America is different, America depends a lot for better and worse on the strength of corporations and finance sector – of course, one could make fascist reforms, but even then all the interwar fascists made deals with both capital and labor to set wages and taxes fair to everyone; they controlled unions, but gave workers enough rights; they set some wages but also some production quotas and autarky and tax breaks for local business; they controlled the money supply tightly so all could work without inflation. of course, intraparty weakness/corruption and the war doomed these few years of fascist prosperity to forgotten history. but they happened. during that time, also forgotten, is the total alliance between liberals and leftists against fascists, which made fascists look to traditionalist help; this romance had started since the late 19th century, and after all Marx considered himself a rationalist and evolutionist applying the scientific method to economics and history as enlighteners prescribed.
also, the interwar fascists knew better than fighting the culture of whites at the time, those who didn’t such as Hitler always had the “pagan brute” label stuck to them, and even if he only believed in natural religion/fate it doesn’t matter, the weird ceremonials and christenings with Hitler’s portrait will forever doom his cause to idolatry for most whites, which is quite sad. Mussolini triumphed earlier but was a worse organizer, and yet perhaps his rule was still the last time Italy mattered in the world stage; even then he had to pact with the Church too. other Mitteleuropean fascists were explicitly Christian and it helped their cause, after all it is harder for a small nation to be extremely autarchical if faced with an irredentist power like the Reich – alliances can be made, and Christendom had allowed in the past these Mitteleuropean states to remain relatively allied in the face of external threats. of course, one could argue that Christianity has been mortally wounded since 1789, and that’s another story, but the point is that whites want to keep it anyway to a degree at least. heck, even the secular western ideologies have some degree of Christian influence to them, and all along the white political spectrum one can find differently-minded groups of Christians. of course, the race mixing ones are a majority, but it wasn’t always so, and it can change again as native people all over the world notice why immigration matters to their nation – not just wages some hundreds of dollars higher.
without Christianity you split the pantheons of each white.
and also, in the case of the New World, each white tribe fractures harder.
at least let’s remain secular and accepting of all white traditions before 1945.
as for the article, i agree. the pro-white movement has to be moderate in economics, in part because both libertarians and communists fail, in part also because as a practicality it is way easier to get people to agree to light unionization and immigration bans and tariffs than the whole “let’s get all the youths into uniform!” deal, or “let’s tax the rich just like in Scandinavia” (forgetting that Scandinavia has ancient high IQ, wealth, natural resources, low population, nearby Europe to sell to and to keep cozy – if anything, it is their supposedly third-position materialist socialism that makes them go sterile and love Somalis now). America is different, America depends a lot for better and worse on the strength of corporations and finance sector – of course, one could make fascist reforms, but even then all the interwar fascists made deals with both capital and labor to set wages and taxes fair to everyone; they controlled unions, but gave workers enough rights; they set some wages but also some production quotas and autarky and tax breaks for local business; they controlled the money supply tightly so all could work without inflation. of course, intraparty weakness/corruption and the war doomed these few years of fascist prosperity to forgotten history. but they happened. during that time, also forgotten, is the total alliance between liberals and leftists against fascists, which made fascists look to traditionalist help; this romance had started since the late 19th century, and after all Marx considered himself a rationalist and evolutionist applying the scientific method to economics and history as enlighteners prescribed.
also, the interwar fascists knew better than fighting the culture of whites at the time, those who didn’t such as Hitler always had the “pagan brute” label stuck to them, and even if he only believed in natural religion/fate it doesn’t matter, the weird ceremonials and christenings with Hitler’s portrait will forever doom his cause to idolatry for most whites, which is quite sad. Mussolini triumphed earlier but was a worse organizer, and yet perhaps his rule was still the last time Italy mattered in the world stage; even then he had to pact with the Church too. other Mitteleuropean fascists were explicitly Christian and it helped their cause, after all it is harder for a small nation to be extremely autarchical if faced with an irredentist power like the Reich – alliances can be made, and Christendom had allowed in the past these Mitteleuropean states to remain relatively allied in the face of external threats. of course, one could argue that Christianity has been mortally wounded since 1789, and that’s another story, but the point is that whites want to keep it anyway to a degree at least. heck, even the secular western ideologies have some degree of Christian influence to them, and all along the white political spectrum one can find differently-minded groups of Christians. of course, the race mixing ones are a majority, but it wasn’t always so, and it can change again as native people all over the world notice why immigration matters to their nation – not just wages some hundreds of dollars higher.
Lmao literally re-litigating forum drama from 2018
>It is somewhat ironic, though. The Alt-Right was founded by a bunch of ex-libertarians who became White Nationalists in order to save capitalism.
Enoch, Spencer, Striker, your truly, and the TWP-types came from the left to the Alt Right (AR). AR was always racialist first, the economic “libertarianism” came up in the issue of Blacks taking welfare checks. The anti-capitalist line was pushed hard once we all started getting kicked off and fired by… capitalists. You’ll never find me saying a single good word about capitalism while my White brothers are being run out of their jobs because they stick up for their race.
>However, Wignats are not capable of doing the same kind of entry-level recruiting that Fuentes does because their ideas are fundamentally repulsive to normal people
As opposed to Anglin, incel Nick, and Matt Forney? Who would you rather get a beer with Striker and Enoch or that trio? At least with the TRS crew you don’t have to check your drink for roofies. We’ve got National-Justice.com and TRS and podcasts that the listen counts and web traffic blow you standard AmNat parties out the water. Imagine calling us not funny when you write an essay on how we were mean to you in a forum 3 years ago.
>but with the Groyper Uprising, it became clear that the AmNats had won that Pepsi Challenge. Rebranding as Third Positionists allows them to offer a genuine alternative beyond “AmNats, but with worse optics.”
Donald Chump tweeted out 10 times to buy Charlie Kirks book and is threatening to sanction countries that don’t legalize buttsex. The losers of the Groyper War were the people who convinced themselves that they could still influence the GOP. If you’re still voting for a party (the GOP) that hates, yes HATES, White people, you are the chump. I liked the idea of humiliating Kirk publicly, but if your own is “the GOP won’t get reelected if you allow immigration” they genuinely don’t give a shit.
>When Red Scare’s Anna Khachiyan decided to build bridges to the Right, she got Steve Bannon, the literal architect of MAGA, on her podcast, not Eric Striker.
Yeah no shit, those cokehead broads ran circles around Bannon. They want Bannonism to be the ideology of the right, because they can use is Israel shilling and private healthcare plan as a Weeble-Wobble to smack around.
>A lot of them were already Third Positionists, but again, it’s a matter of emphasis, as critiques of capitalism have become more front and center while things like HBD and identity have become more secondary.
Because everyone understands that Blacks are more impulsive and less intelligent, Liberals know that shit. All the bell curve graphs in the world won’t change the fact that our ideological opponents aren’t even bothering to fight on the scientific field, they fight on the moral field. Yeah you can say “Haha I have hihg IQ,” but that doesn’t make a moral case for White identity. Capitalism shitting on has picked up because we’re literally being attacked by the agents of Big Capital. You think it’s the USSR funding the SPLC and the ADL, no it’s rich Zionist billionaires who made their money off of stock market parasitism.
>From what I can tell, a lot of Dirtbag Leftists are less hostile to Trump than most Wignats are.
Yeah because he gives them what they want on social issues, leaving them fighting only on economic issues, where as Trump fucks us “Wignats” on both economic and social issues. Dirt Bag leftists didn’t literally risk their lives to attend the campaign rallies of politician who betrayed us, WE did.
Listen here, ret*rd we hate capitalists because they fire us. We hate Trump because he throws our comrades in jail.
5 years from now you’ll still be whining about Ricky Vaughn, while we’ll be building a third alternative to the two-party, Jew party, queer party system.
>The anti-capitalist line was pushed hard once we all started getting kicked off and fired by… capitalists. You’ll never find me saying a single good word about capitalism while my White brothers are being run out of their jobs because they stick up for their race.
You seem unaware that you can have job protections within a capitalist economy, as many European countries do.
>Donald Chump tweeted out 10 times to buy Charlie Kirks book and is threatening to sanction countries that don’t legalize buttsex. The losers of the Groyper War were the people who convinced themselves that they could still influence the GOP. If you’re still voting for a party (the GOP) that hates, yes HATES, White people, you are the chump. I liked the idea of humiliating Kirk publicly, but if your own is “the GOP won’t get reelected if you allow immigration” they genuinely don’t give a shit.
In a two party system, it simply isn’t that relevant whether one or the other party is good by some absolute standard. The question is which alternative is preferable, democrats or republicans. In the current situation, i would say republicans. You don’t need to influence the GOP elite in order to win, you need to win in the republican primary (or less likely for us, the democratic primary) and then go on to win the general election. This can be done without having any influence at all with the GOP elite, as shown by David Duke and to a lesser extent Trump.
>Because everyone understands that Blacks are more impulsive and less intelligent, Liberals know that shit. All the bell curve graphs in the world won’t change the fact that our ideological opponents aren’t even bothering to fight on the scientific field, they fight on the moral field.
This simply isn’t true. Anti-racists do make specific empirical claims, such as that low incomes among blacks is due to oppression or bad schools or whatever, that can be refuted scientifically.
>Yeah because he gives them what they want on social issues, leaving them fighting only on economic issues, where as Trump fucks us “Wignats” on both economic and social issues. Dirt Bag leftists didn’t literally risk their lives to attend the campaign rallies of politician who betrayed us, WE did. Listen here, ret*rd we hate capitalists because they fire us. We hate Trump because he throws our comrades in jail.
Here you’re literally confirming one of the points of the article:
“From what I can tell, a lot of Dirtbag Leftists are less hostile to Trump than most Wignats are. This could be because, unlike Richard Spencer, most Dirtbag Leftists have never been personally disavowed by Trump. Because they are not morons. But there could be more factors at play there.”
>5 years from now you’ll still be whining about Ricky Vaughn, while we’ll be building a third alternative to the two-party, Jew party, queer party system.
Imagine being this delusional. By far the most easy and reasonable way to advance is by winning republican primaries and then going on to win general elections.
“5 years from now you’ll still be whining about Ricky Vaughn, while we’ll be building a third alternative to the two-party, Jew party, queer party system.”
Gentile, please. Richard Spencer can’t even build a website, nevermind a third party.
“building an alternative to the 2 party system”. Lol! That will not come from the likes of the TRS crew. The author is correct is in stating that they have absolutely no appeal to normal White people. You are indeed delusional as someone else stated. TRS is toxic and is pushing bad ideas. Theories on why that is differ, I won’t get into them here.
All this accelerationist nonsense is not helpful, nor is a Trump loss in 2020 (as bad as he is, the alternative is much worse). I don’t listen to any TRS podcasts anymore, they’re insufferable, afaik they are still pushing for those things pretty hard though. I just don’t get this stupid nazbol crap, unfettered capitalism is bad but communism denies human nature and would be disastrous for any nationn, including any potential White ethnostate. Either economic extreme is bad imo (as history has demonstrated, communism produces horrible results without exception, but some form of free market with limitations on harmful business practices would work well), I’ll never take any unironic nazbol seriously & nobody should.
If we want to attract normal, successful Whites to join our ranks (& that is who we should want to attract), TRS/wignat optics and ideology is repulsive to those types & for good reason. It is a losing strategy!
The popularity/normie appeal of Amnat types isn’t true. It’s illusory based on Nick’s youtube not getting shoah’d and their twitters staying up. When the “wignats” start youtube accounts they get a shitload of followers then get killed. Before the internet crackdown both wignat and amnat type creators were growing at comparable rates. I haven’t seen much evidence that one or the other is more appealing to convincing to new people. I was at a groyper war event and talking to newly redpilled (<1 year guys) I got a wide swath of who redpilled you stories yes, some said nick, but also striker or TDS. "Wignat" positions are appealing to people who are legitimately politically curious, yes they are not appealing to the politically uninvested as Anglin's more base stuff but its not that much more complex.
stained socialism is no more btw and capitalism worship is also dead https://news.gallup.com/poll/268766/socialism-popular-capitalism-among-young-adults.aspx
Great series of articles. Went down the TRS rabbit hole for a few months. Eventually left disgusted that the goal seems to be Whites Only bread lines.
I’ve been a white nationalist (well, paleocon with strong white and Western identity; a follower of Sam Francis) since the early 80s. Back then, the only real lifeline for white nats specifically was Instauration (maybe National Vanguard, too; I can’t remember; Liberty Bell was OK, but not as intellectual as I liked, except for Revilo Oliver’s stuff, of course). Starting very early into the 90s, in addition to reading Chronicles (which I still do), I read American Renaissance (and did so until they closed around 2012; of course, now I read the website). I also regularly read CC and The Occidental Observer (and Occidental Quarterly). And various less race-centric sites like Unz Review, Lew Rockwell, Mises.org, and sometimes The American Cuckservative.
So I’ve been awakened for many decades (actually, I never was unawakened). And yet, I really have no idea what the hell most of this post was about (though I still found it amusing).
AmNats v. WigNats? What about White Nats? I’m lost. I know wignats are wigger nationalists, the lower class elements on the Racial Right. But I thought AmNats were American, ie, civic, nationalists. People like Trump, who agree with much of our nationalist agenda, but don’t care about our ultimate goal of 100% racial apartheid and new sovereignty. I myself am a white nationalist, but I think American nationalism absolutely is the way to go – the road we must travel for a long time en route to the Ethnostate. A road that leads away from Open Borders and globalism and Zio-statist American imperialism, and which eventually becomes the road to the Ethnostate for those who wish to travel to its terminus.
But Trav seems to imply that we are Amnats, without reference to white nationalism. If we are the Amnats, what is Trump?
To me, American nationalism is merely the acknowledgement that white Americans are a distinct group of people and must be appealed to in a certain way.
I’ve always thought it was kind of larpy to identify as a “European”. To me, “Europeans” are people who are obsessed with soccer, take 3 hour lunches, make incredibly boring art films, have no sense of humor, and are perpetually on strike. They are people whose politicians have public mistresses, and whose women don’t shave.
Asking white Americans to identify as “European” is kind of like asking them to identify as a mammal. On some level, everyone knows they are one but it is too grandiose of a concept to wrap their heads around on a day to day basis.
Americans have a certain joie de vivre that is very attractive and distinct to them. You can go any country in the world and you will find people trying to talk, act, and dress like Americans. Everyone in the world wishes they were American except for the Alt Right who wish they were Germans in the 1930’s and that’s a goddamn shame. We literally invented the concept of “cool” and no one does cool better than us.
Forget “It’s OK to be white”. It’s OK to be American.
Lol. Whether that describes Europeans in their ages of greatness, that is probably fairly accurate today.
But are you still a white nationalist? I can understand being a proud American (I am too), but to me that means “white American”. And you do support the ultimate goal: dismembering the USA into various ideo-states, one of which (at least) must be an all-white ethnostate? That is my goal.
If such a thing is even possible, I doubt it will come in my lifetime. I don’t think it is particularly helpful to be looking any further ahead than that. Nothing will happen until we have at least 30% of whites on our side. When we get there, we’ll evaluate the playing field and look at what our options are.
I’ve very recently come across the economist Michael Hudson, reading his website https://michael-hudson.com/.
I’m honestly not quite sure what to make of him as there is a lot of narrative pushing in his articles, as he’s a classical economist but perhaps even Marxist in a sense interestingly. He’s definitely focused on the necessity of a debt jubilee (however that would work) without monetizing debt and sticking it to the institutions that created many of our problems.
Anyway, I bring him up as I think he may be a great example of economic ideas that are attractive to the “Bernie Bro’s” and greater right wing thought without being a cynical wignat.
I don’t get all the abject shilling for the Anglin/weev duo. They might have advocated for better optics after Charlotesville, but it was clear to everyone with two eyes they were only doing it to stay relevant after it became evident that the particularly unhinged brand of edgy nazism they were promoting was a dead end.
I’m willing to give Anglin the benefit of the doubt, as he kind of succeeded in keeping up appearances for some months, but right now his content looks like a combination of Tom Metzger and Alex Jones, with a fine dashing of sincere gloating every time a white girl or woman is being killed by diversity. “AmNat central”? Really?
And, since you’ve been around for some time. Do you remember weev’s blissfully moronic WN sales pitch that basically started with telling the normie we want to kill all non-whites?
“”AmNat central”? Really?”
I think AmNat central is putting it a bit too high, but OP is right that DS does see itself as AmNAt. Like you I’m absolutely mystified that Weev and DS see themselves as AmNAts, and that AmNats like Forney have given Weev and DS a pass.
“A human wave of strawmen” is a zinger.
Capitalists/businesses/corporations/the rich are not in power. Money is not power. The leftist media-academia complex rule-by-intellectuals technocracy is in power. They rule by controlling public opinion through propaganda. And they love it when useful idiots misdirect people about who is in power.
Capitalists do what they’re told. Which means they do what is bad for white people whether it makes them money or loses them money. When we’re in power capitalists will do what we tell them to do.
Whining about capitalism is a waste of time.
do you have any sources for this because there is alot of evidence that big business uses diversity to prevent unionization. this has been true since ford and the industrial barons brought blacks up from the south and destroyed the midwest. sure the academic elite runs HR but the power elite is invested in diversity as a tool to prevent small businesses and unions from threatening their monopoly.
Great article.
One thing you didn’t mention is the JQ aspect of the pivot. It seems to me quite obvious that Spencer and TRS have realised that they can never make headway on the right. They are each pivoting in their own unique way. I think Spencer sees his future as some sort of Glenn Greenwald type figure, a truth-telling, global intellectual.
For TRS it’s all about the Jews, it’s been all about the Jews for years with them now. When I first listened to TRS I was mystified at Mike’s insistence that philo-semitism and pro-Israel sentiment was a given on all sides of politics. He seemed unaware that large parts of the left despise and hate Israel. Possibly people in this website may disgaree, but to me it seems that Anti-Zionism/Israel is a totem for the global left. I think at that point Mike was simply naive and clueless.
Be that as it may, Mike has now tumbled to this fact (though obviously is unwilling to mention it). and believes that he can pivot to the left while retaining his key interest.
Far left elements, particularly of racial character, ie your aoc and squad types are strongly anti Zionist, but centrist democrats like your clintons and Bidens are highly pro Zionist. They are probably less likely to get us into a hot war than the Zionist republicans, but remain highly loyal to Zionist interests. For example Chelsea Clinton has a Jewish husband.
The radical left is increasing in power, and for that reason I predict some sort of fission in the Democratic Party in the coming years, over Zionism and corporate interests.
This is in the US at least. The other countries don’t matter, obviously.
I do think that those Dirtbag Left types who genuinely reject the Hate Whitey requirement of the left (as opposed to just playing it down like most of them usually do) are not ripe pickings for the Dissident Right for the precise reason you named in this article— their rejection of racial politics. For instance, last week Benjamin Studebaker did an interview with Chris Roberts of American Renaissance, which is an incredibly ballsy thing for anyone of the left, even a wrongthinker like him, to do. But in the interview, which was decent overall, he stuck to his guns on identity politics as a distraction.
In a weird way, people who actually believe this in a principled way might be less likely then the average Bernout to join the team. Most supposedly anti-IdPol Bernie Bros only dislike IdPol to the extent that it gives neoliberals an advantage over them. When it comes to saying, like, “our Black campaign surrogate is better than your Black campaign surrogate,” or declaring Bernie a Victim of Anti-Semitism, most will eagerly deploy it. And in a weird way, I think those who already are primed towards racial thinking, albeit currently in an anti-White sense, might be convinced they have the direction wrong easier than someone who finds the entire premise of IdPol invalid could be convinced to see its value. (Although I don’t envision either happening in any significant way.)
I would like to see what crack pipe this author has been smoking. Literally every third article on the DS is about how women need to be beaten and raped, yet that is his example of “normie friendly” content. Insane….
There is a difference between “entry level” and “normie friendly” “Normie friendly” means inoffensive. “Entry level” means “for beginners”.
Daily Stormer may not be normie friendly but it is entry level. Counter-Currents may be normie friendly but it is not always entry level. Way of the World is both. Strike and Mike is neither.
Your own words….“ By “entry-level content,” I mean content that a normie can read and enjoy without knowing a ton of political theory and/or 10 years of internet lore.” If you think any sane/normal white man is going to read and enjoy articles about how his wife/daughter/sister/mother should be beaten and raped, then you live in a different planet. This isn’t one of your straw men. You pointed to the DS as your “entry-level” AmNat gateway, yet I can go there right now and find at least 4 current articles calling for women to be beaten and or raped. Peak optics bro!
Love how you instantly singled out Strike and Mike out of the whole TRS lineup. That’s kind of like me judging all articles at Counter Currents based on your efforts. I get that you seem to have some personality conflict with the TRS guys, but it looks like you have two options here. You can go your own way and let one thousand flowers bloom, or you can join the Zman on gab flinging Pooh and shouting “antisemite” at the people you disagree with…..Your call.
What an unnecessary article. Warming up this topic is really lame. I think it is good that we have pro-white people that are more “socialist” or whatever you want to call it. All the wignat insults are childish. Our ideas are all over the spectrum and that is a good thing.
But one thing is still a mystery to me. How can catboys sucking on dildos, running over jews in GTAV, laughing at a fat woman who died in a car accident or outright woman hatred be good optics? Is optics really optics or is it just the amount of clicks and likes you can generate with your behaviour?
Fantastic analysis by Travis, and kudos to some of the commenters, most notably, Lord Sheng, for pointing out the inadequacies of attacking capitalism qua capitalism. This line by Travis deserves closer examination:
As a conservative/libertarian type who was enthusiastic about the Tea Party during its brief ascension, and who was influenced by Bill O’Reilly, Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, the Heritage Foundation, the Media Research Center, and the show “Red Eye” on Fox News by Greg Gutfeld, I distinctly remember thinking that the Pro-White Movement had some “out there” views on economics, culture, and society when I took the redpill on race in 2012. The economics were clearly liberal in origin, or at the very least were populist, and the cultural and social takes, even back then, seemed to me like a bizarre combination of radical fundamentalist Christian positions on sex, marriage, and gender, along with more liberal takes on issues like environmentalism, foreign policy, and the proper role of government.
What I’m saying is, most WigNats seem to be ex-liberals or ex-populists as opposed to ex-conservatives or libertarians. I’m not denying that there was a libertarian to WN pipeline that flowed from the Ron Paul days, but I don’t think they are the majority of the Movement, because if they were, then there wouldn’t be this AmNat vs. WigNat divide to begin with. We would have all figured out by now that Socialism and Communism have no place in a movement that claims to stand for the White Race.
Here’s what I think is going on at an ideological level with the likes of Spencer, Enoch, Striker, Parrott, etc, beyond their own personal idiosyncrasies: Insofar as they were ever conservative or libertarian in any category – economic, social, cultural, whatever – I think that after Obama was reelected in 2012, they came to the (correct) conclusion that mainstream conservatism, as it existed at the time, could not win. Spencer actually gave a very good speech at the inaugural NPI conference in October 2011 in which he explained how GOP and Tea Party policies and politicians are ONLY supported by Whites. All non-whites groups reject the GOP and reject Tea Party proposals in overwhelming (3/4 or more) numbers. Thus, if the GOP wishes to remain electorally viable, and, moreover, if the GOP is the only political party that has a chance of pushing through the immigration that are necessary to stop America from becoming a 3rd world failure, than the GOP must actively court White voters and ignore non-white voters altogether. This is in the political interest of the GOP as well as the long-term goals of White Nationalism.
In hindsight, I think that was Spencer’s way of being “contrarian” at the time, and I don’t think he ever sincerely believed it, because by the 2013 NPI conference, the narrative of What Must Be Done was totally different: Destroy Conservatism, ridicule American identity, relentlessly attack every GOP and mainstream conservatism shibboleth – and all if it out of spite and malice over Barack Obama winning the 2012 election. The 2013 Amren Conference had a similar tone. I think we were all embittered over what happened in 2012, and not because Obama was reelected per say, but because of what his reelection signaled: The eclipse of Middle America, which had been supplanted by an ascendant coalition of non-whites and educated urban Whites, as prophesied by Tim Wise the day after the November 2010 Tea Party wave. To a large degree, this bitterness was justified, but in our eagerness to take our anger out on the GOP and the Conservative Inc. apparatchiks who failed us, we basically swung hard left to the other side, and we decided that any policy or talking point that sounded like it came from Conservatism or the GOP should be mercilessly mocked and attacked.
The major exception to this, as I said above, was on issues of sexuality and marriage, where, to be brutally honest, I think the contemporary White Nationalist positions on sex and gender roles – both Wignat and AmNat – are straight out of the 1980s (Im)moral Majority gutter that the Abstinence Only/Abortion Bad/Gays Evil crowd crawled out of. White America, particularly young White Americans, have utterly rejected fundamentalist style social conservatism and Victorian Era sexual morality. Those morals are obnoxiously puritanical and are not in line with the spirit of our men and women, and they should be thrown in the dustbin of history where they belong.
But I digress. The point is, I don’t think there was ever an “a ha!” moment where the WigNats realized that capitalism is actually bad and socialism is actually good. I think they always gravitated towards socialism to begin with, and after the failures of Conservatism Inc. were exposed for all to see during the 2012 election season, I think their thinking was, “you know what? Screw it. Lets go full-throated communism and distinguish ourselves from conservatives once and for all!”
Additionally – and this is a mindset I’ve seen in liberals my entire life – they fancy themselves as intellectually and morally superior to those who have conservative views. Since I myself feel this way when it comes to social conservatives, I think what’s going on is that they’ve applied it to the entirety of conservative thinking, in this case, capitalism. For their perspective, the kind of White people who support capitalism or free enterprise are low-brow and stupid at best, immoral and insufferable at worst. They have the same contempt for viewers of Fox News and listeners of talk radio as any educated urban White liberal does. It’s the SWPL mentality. The “Good Whites” mentality: We aren’t uneducated, selfish bigots like those Republican voters who just want to hoard the wealth for themselves and just want to keep out Brown people. Fundamentally, that’s how someone like Spencer thinks. It’s why he once said he has more in common with Rachel Maddow than the average GOP politician.
How he squares this with rants against midget octoroons is beyond me, but I know this: 99% of Bernie Bros and true-believing economic leftists out there categorically deny the biological reality of human essentialism. The reason why it’s impossible to pivot to the Left and convert Bernie Bros is because they sincerely want nothing to do with anything that sniffs of the notion that human beings might be born with innate, natural qualities that cannot be changed or altered in any meaningful way by any system, economic or otherwise. It is the denial of essentialism vs. the embrace of the absolute truth of essentialism that distinguishes White Nationalists from Leftists, and, for that matter, from most of the general public, which has been brainwashed and conditioned to believe that humans are moldable play dough with equal inherent abilities.
The challenge for us going forward is how we can convert a critical mass of Whites – especially young Whites – to the reality of biological and spiritual essentialism in a way that is in harmony with their moral understandings of right and wrong. The reason why Whites cling to arguments such as “different outcomes can be explained by poor environment” isn’t because they think its true (they don’t care if its true, and if they did, then they’d already be on our side), it’s because they think it’s the morally correct position to take, and also, because it jives with a primal belief inherent to the Aryan spirit which we must evolve beyond or perish: The belief, first posited by Alexander the Great, that all races of the world can become exactly like us. That right there is the REAL White Supremacist attitude, motivated by arrogance, unjust pride, and a dismissive attitude towards other races that says, “your particular qualities don’t matter. What matters is that you act like us.” Non-whites are doing us a favor by calling this out and relentlessly critiquing it. Sure, they want the gibs, sure, they want the power, but what they also want is to be themselves while enjoying the fruits of our labor, and we are basically telling them, “don’t be yourself. Be like us.” Conservatives do it, liberals do it, everyone EXCEPT White Nationalists does it!
TL;DR The WigNats are overwhelmingly ex-leftists, which means their ideology is wrong, their proposed policies are awful, and their attitude towards other people are unacceptable. They need to be pushed out of the Movement and marginalized, and I applaud writers like Travis for being ahead of the curve on this. Keep up the good work.
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