Counter-Currents
1,726 words
Is political power too far out of our grasp? Are our nations doomed to collapse? Are party politics a rigged game we can never win?
These questions loom over many distraught nationalists. They see Donald Trump as a massive disappointment, they bemoan the persecution European identitarians suffer, they see no possible action to save their people from destruction. Some become so blackpilled that they give up politics entirely and try to return to the bluepilled world. Others decide that we need to transcend politics and build a diaspora culture in order to survive. Our own nations are beyond saving; it’s time to see us as a people without a home and separate ourselves from the decline. We will become a transnational people, dreaming of the homeland to come.
This is not a new idea, but it’s gained increased attention after the Charlottesville debacle and disappointment with national populist politicians like Trump. Though it is tempting to buy into this theory, it’s a fool’s hope. Power will not be acquired by retreating from the world; it will only be taken by engagement and appeals to the mainstream of white society.
One of the best articulations of the diaspora concept was written by one “Titus Quintius” in 2017. Quintius labeled the strategy as the Fifth Political Theory. The writer argues that trying to win through the normal political process is hopeless because most Westerners don’t want to be saved:
You cannot bring a corpse back to life. . . That’s the premise of the Fifth Political Theory (5PT) with regard to ethnic nationalism. The way forward is not to cling to the nation-state or to try to carve one out of a multi-ethnic imperial state. It is to reorient ourselves towards a diaspora model. The West is becoming de-nationalized. . . If we are to become a minority in what is becoming someone else’s country, and we want to continue our Western heritage, we will need to embrace the ur-identity, that of the tribe. Because we are a tribe inside a vast, multi-ethnic superstate that is increasingly foreign to us (and us foreign to it), we are also a diaspora.
Ultimately, 5PT sees nationalist politics and building a mass movement to “take our country back” or “save our nation” as a futile waste of resources that we need to build our tribe.
Quintius writes that this identity should not be based on one nation or ethnicity — it should be pan-European and ideological. We need to become a global tribe dedicated to preserving our racial heritage. Quintius believes this will benefit us as we “will, fortunately, become more cohesive and resilient. And if we reject the national model, we do not need to burden ourselves with pursuing fruitless objectives at that level. We can focus on the tribal level.”
This is a fairly decent summary of the diaspora mindset. Whites have already tried this in certain places, building communities separate from the nations they dwell in. Afrikaners founded Orania to escape from the deprivations of black-run South Africa. It’s largely been successful in isolating itself from the surrounding racial hell. Orania has been able to do this because the black government doesn’t view them as a threat. These are just a few whites moving to their little corner; the African National Congress knows they cannot take over the country. This is not a criticism of a positive community, just an observation.
Some German nationalists have also moved to remote villages to isolate themselves from multiculturalism. Unlike Orania, these villages are explicitly ideological and seem more like skinhead compounds than attractive communities.
Both of these examples reveal the problems of setting up isolated diaspora communities. If you base it on ideology, you will only attract the fringe. Several American white nationalists have tried to set up communities of their own in rural parts. The Craig Cobb farce of a few years ago perfectly demonstrates the failure of these experiments. You’re likely to attract only misfits who can’t fit into normal society. There will be hardly any women and few resources to make these experiments thrive.
You can buy Greg Johnson’s Toward a New Nationalism here
Moreover, they were despised by the locals. Cobb’s “community” ultimately came to an end over disputes with neighbors. The same happened with the World Church of the Creator’s community attempt. Ruralites don’t want their towns invaded by crackpots and freaks.
Granted, the readers of Counter-Currents are far less nutty than Craig Cobb, World Church of the Creator, and the Aryan Nations. But similar problems would exist for any nationalist community. The only way they can survive is if they are non-ideological and pose no threat to the existing order. That’s not exactly in the cards for a dissident community.
You’re also not going to obtain power in the middle of nowhere. You will not attract elites, who will be forced to ditch their careers and families to live in a hovel. You will not interact with the mainstream of society, who will never see your community outside of scary media reports. The average white person doesn’t want to give up everything they know to live with a bunch of strangers who share the same memes on the internet. Ghettoization is not the path to success.
Quintius’ insistence that we can build communities simply on ideology overlooks the low-trust, toxic relations among the far-Right. Do you really think people who quarrel over TRS forum posts from three years ago are capable of creating a town together? People will bicker and fight more when they live with one another. A shared radical ideology is more likely to cause friction than unity in a small community.
The low-trust among nationalists — complete with doxing and vicious feuding — foredooms any attempt to produce a healthy community. You would need more than ideology to build these resilient IRL networks.
There are other options to build a diaspora community besides small villages. There’s the possibility we can form clandestine fraternal organizations and mutual assistance groups. People can go about their normal lives while belonging to identitarian groups that seek a better tomorrow. Many of us already live like this and we have groups and events that connect us. These do constitute communities of sorts, but likely not the ones envisioned by the advocates of diaspora nationalism. They would possibly prefer a global network like the Freemasons, where you maintain a presence in every city and wield power outside of politics.
Maybe that can one day can happen, but there would need to be a huge cultural change for society to accept white nationalist lodges everywhere.
There have been plenty of ethnic diasporas that have kept their identities alive away from their homelands. The problem for whites is that our identities are disappearing in our own lands where we’re the majority. In America, most whites don’t even think they have an identity. This obviously hinders our ability to form a diaspora community.
There’s also the challenge of keeping people engaged in non-political activities when political ideology is the chief factor. The diaspora is brought together by politics, but we’re not supposed to engage in politics. Organizations operating like this would struggle to retain membership and unity. The Dissident Right’s ideology puts a target on its back, whatever it does. It would also not draw many recruits over fears of doxing and career ruination.
There are two great examples of stateless political diasporas having a major effect: communism and Zionism. Communism connected millions of people all over the world under the red flag. Zionists connected millions of Jews with the dream of an ethnostate. These are two examples that identitarians could emulate, but both groups had significant advantages we don’t have.
It was easier being a communist in the Cold War than it is being an identitarian in the 21st century. Communists also faced persecution and suppression, but they had a ready market for their ideas among the intellectuals and working class. There was far more tolerance for communism among these classes than among any group for white nationalism today. There was also a state sponsor of communist organizations for most of the 20th century. We certainly don’t have a state sponsor. The liberal chattering class also respected communists and saw their cause as moral yet misguided. The chattering class sees us as worse than child killers. Average people are more willing to make riskier associations if they feel it will be praised by the right people. We don’t have that advantage.
Zionists had obvious advantages. For one, Zionists didn’t face persecution for their political beliefs. They were backed by some of the most powerful people in Western societies and enjoyed the respect of polite society. Zionists grew from an already-established ethnoreligious group that was not outright hostile to their ideas. There is not a single Christian denomination that is friendly to our views.
Importantly, both Zionists and communists stayed involved in politics and gained members through political activity. Communists were at the forefront of the civil rights movement and were heavily enmeshed in union organizing. Zionists supported various political candidates. They were not movements that gave up on the unwashed masses and politics.
We already have a kind of diaspora nationalism. The internet allows us to connect to like-minded folks all over the world. Many of us live in lands far away from our homelands. Many of us feel more connected to comrades we’ve never met in person before than with our own real-life friends. What unites us is, ultimately, politics. Yes, it is an ideology that is more than an opinion on tax cuts and single-payer healthcare. It is an all-encompassing worldview.
But let’s not kid ourselves.
Without the political struggle, we would be without a purpose. We stay relevant through political involvement and activity. People turn to us for answers to current troubles. Retreating from the world is not an option for us. We are not a religion or an entertainment subculture. We are a political force. The best way to succeed is to engage with the mainstream of white society and appeal to those most inclined to wake up. We can only do that through political engagement and metapolitical work.
If politics were hopeless, the answer would be to turn to religion. But that’s a matter worthy of its own essay.
Political struggle is not a dead end. It’s our best path to salvation.
21 comments
In my short run for office, I attracted more and better quality people to our banner than in the 9 years I’d been engaged in political activism. Even though I failed to secure office, I came out of the fray 10 times stronger than I was.
You gotta keep showing up.
You are quite correct about many of us feeling a closeness with regards to white identity ideals towards people we have never met in real life than to friends family etc who simply don’t understand our points. It’s frustrating.
Having said that I gone from being a guy few agreed with to a guy quite a lot agree with now so people are certainly beginning to wake up.
Great essay with insightful parallels to our movement’s weaknesses vis a vis international communism and zionism. I agree that we need a mass political movement, IRL engagement of whites, wherever they find themselves in the world today, and not to retreat to backwoods communes (where Jewish reporters will come film inked-up heavy metal bands praising SS heroes and release this to mainstream white normies) or internet chatrooms, to wait for our defeat.
In my view, I do not feel we will ever succeed without state sponsorship, and respectfully, chatting with friends or running unsuccessfully for office are starts, but never going to generate a national, let alone a pan-European movement. No matter how many times I speak to my white coworkers about the need for white nationalism, their reaction is going to be like that of my Jewish, mixed-race, gay coworker; they reject it (this is your U.S. military, just so you know).
Chinese Han project great power because they have a determined ethnic state. The Jews succeed because they employ their financial power, controlled mass media, and grip on academia to effectively exercise state power. But we have no such organization to represent our interests.
Our struggle is not unlike the metaphysical dilemma faced by nationalists 100 years ago. In the face of organized ideologies and multiracial empires, we will be torn to shreds and occupied, or simply bred out of existence, too few and weak to mount any political campaign. That was what Hitler understood, and in his blunt way implemented a movement based on national/racial unity, which served as a huge force multiplier and amplified Germany’s power (I realize not everyone here sees National Socialist Germany with the same respect, as an ideological older brother of sorts, and that’s fine, normie whites would never buy our pitch if we attach ourselves to Hitler).
Nevertheless, people are naturally cowards, and without bold symbols and strong leaders to rally around, which come with state power, they will never risk their names, or livelihoods for abstract, embryonic racial nationalist movements the way better men like some of you have.
I agree 100%. Those who eschew political power will always be dominated by those who do not. There is no hiding. The problem with strategies like the Northwest Front model is that it seems no one ever wants to move from their home state. So the question for American white advocates is, do we create our own party or try to work within an existing party? Once answered, everyone needs to be all in.
We need
1. Politicians – should be squeaky clean and impervious to blackmail.
2. Financiers – literally just make as much money as humanly possible to help fund the cause. Think like a Jew.
3. Lawyers – protection from anarcho-tyranny.
4. Academics and think tanks – Luckily, we have a number of PhDs like Greg Johnson in the movement, but we could always use more. I’d say that if one considers themselves to be an academic, they should try to get their PhD. And having an abundance of think tanks worked very well for the neocons.
5. Webzines and online activism – where we are strongest.
6. Street activism – Personally, I’m not a huge fan of uniforms or matching clothes. I think everyone in just normal white working class American clothing and waving American flags would work best, but that’s just my opinion.
We wouldn’t necessarily have to maintain lodges or special churches–both of which could be targets for antifa attacks, etc. We could meet informally in one another’s houses or hold bar-be-cues. At any rate, it’d be a start.
I am trying to figure out how both of these things could be true:
The low-trust among nationalists — complete with doxing and vicious feuding — foredooms any attempt to produce a healthy community.
Many of us feel more connected to comrades we’ve never met in person before than with our own real-life friends.
I accept that they are both true, so it seems there’s perhaps something missing in our own self-understanding or analysis of our strengths/weaknesses.
We have both the State and mainstream culture against us. What we have on our side is reality and a message that resonates at some level with many Whites.
It’s true the SPLC and ADL are full of hysterical Jews and liberals who see the KKK under every rock and Kristallnacht is always just around the corner, but perhaps they know something that we don’t: We are more successful than we realize.
I’m not trying to be a pollyanna, just trying to point out that when we look at ourselves, we see Bruce Banner, but when our enemies look at us they see the Incredible Hulk. Maybe they’re right and we’re wrong?
As for organizing, there ill always be an attempt to infiltrate any organization Whites try to create to undermine it from within and expose an organization’s membership to cancel culture and violence.
Maybe religion is the way to go, but something more like Scientology than Christian Identity. L. Ron Hubbard came up with a really good system of testing the reliability of recruits.
White nationalism + E-meter galvanic response detection = Successful pro-White organization?
5PT is situational, obviously not optimal, but better than nothing. It’s one way to get to a better there from here. Hopefully Fate provides us some shortcuts along the way but building a community from the ground up is the time-tested way to start – bands of brothers to neighborhoods to small town scale, with an emphasis on the community element rather than overt politics.
Where we don’t have authority, we make the people our nation and be ready to move on when authority becomes an issue – a tradition as old as the volkswanderung.
Let the politics grow from the population, but first be careful about selecting the population. Biology to culture to politics, a natural evolution.
Just imagine what would happen if Whites had the same degree of ethnic solidarity as Blacks. The situation would change overnight, and we could put our countries back on the right course. If we can reach the masses and discredit anti-White propaganda, then it’s inevitable that everything else will fall into place. We don’t have billions for an advertising budget, but the good news is that we are not the ones having to prop up toxic, illogical, and evil cultural Marxism.
In order to have anything worth having, we must simply take back what was once ours. It was not that long ago. One thing worth remembering is that if we have the will to take back our patrimony, our superiority in intelligence, innovation, organization and temperament will essentially guarantee our success. All that’s lacking is the will. It will be a repeat of our success in conquering the whole world during the colonial era. The difference is that we will be taking back what was, and still is, ours. Retreating into little racial hidey holes will guarantee that we will become like the Kurds, the Egyptian Coptics, the Zoroastrians and the Palestinians.
I don’t think we will ever return to ‘normal’ in the next few years, and people will have a new outlook on the value of family and friends, and who one can trust. That will surely influence how we think about ‘our own kind’, and people will be less likely to call us ‘haters’ and ‘nazis’, when they live through multiculturalism on steroids.
We’re also sure being taught a lesson on the value of having a goodly amount of money ‘put by’ for the future, even at a young age. If I didn’t have my paltry savings during this epidemic, I would certainly be thinking of suicide or be having a death-dealing nervous breakdown. Also, our political outlook is going to change vastly. I will be surprised if we do not even go through a period of martial law before all this is over. I hope everyone is keeping a diary and I’m thinking of starting one, though it may be too depressing for my faint heart. But I bet no one in the ‘millennial class’ will ever think of buying a $500 handbag, or a $1500 IPhone in the future. This crisis is definitely something to watch. And we must decide to be the ones who come out on top with the right answers. History is handing us the leadership position on a silver platter.
Woody Allen:
“90% of success is just showing up.”
Wayne Gretzsky:
“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”
Wise words nationalists must never forget (along with studying the long pre-history of communism: the (((“Russian”))) Revolution did not just happen spontaneously; it was the culmination of decades of Marxist intellectual propagandizing and communist organizing).
It was easier being a communist in the Cold War than it is being an identitarian in the 21st century.
The irony is that White Nationalists and their cousins, National Populists, want to preserve the historic American and European civilizations and peoples. The Communists were working to overthrow all that. Yet during the Cold War the Communist Party USA could and did operate openly, communist fronts agitated on the universities, and during the Vietnam War communists would openly support the Viet Cong.
Stipulated, there was a brief period (“McCarthyism”) in which there was pushback against communist activities in the USA. But at least card carrying members of the CPUSA got to testify openly in Congressional hearings, unlike White Nationalists today! Che Guevara can be an icon on the same campuses where the Confederate battleflag is proscribed, while veterans of the Maoist Weatherman Underground, which had a record of street violence and terrorism, are feted by the chattering classes.
It could be argued that the Communists had a considerable support infrastructure (lawyers, agitprop, street activists, fellow travelers) and thus were able to weather any storm of popular reaction. Compare that to how Conservatism Inc has been more than willing to throw White Nationalists under the bus. Conservatism Inc does not defend even the most basic rights of White Americans by, say, opposing open borders or calling for an end to affirmative action.
Of course, many conservatives claim to be speaking for all Americans regardless of race and will bring forward the rare black who shows up as a guest speaker at their events. But this interest is not reciprocated. Non-Whites continue to vote for Democrats and agitate for their own racial interests.
So it comes back to White preservation. It may not be coincidental many White Nationalists come from a libertarian-Objectivist background, where the big bad is altruism. There may be a tactic here in translating enlightened self-interest from the individual level to the racial.
I agree with this:” I will be surprised if we do not even go through a period of martial law before all this is over. ”
This whole Covid-19 hysteria has been deliberately created by the Authorities precisely as a power-bid. Think about the scale of the imposition forced upon us : we have been subjected to a literally unprecedented shut down of the economy; and by order of the Police we are not allowed even to leave our own homes, except to shop at the local store if the shelves have not already been cleared out by panic-buying.
To conclude with Alexandra O.’s quote: “This crisis is definitely something to watch. And we must decide to be the ones who come out on top with the right answers. History is handing us the leadership position on a silver platter.”
Let’s hope so.
Following up on Nicholas’ comment, I think that being seen to be good responsible people who care about things may be the most important thing we can do. It’s does not necessarily need to be in the context of ‘White nationalism’, but take the WN disposition to care about ‘one’s own’ and blur it a bit. Run for office (as Nick did), be seen to be reasonable and competent, someone who can be trusted. No one really need know you’re guided by nationalist impulses.
There is (as Hannah Arendt) pointed out an innate desire in the West for recognition, to be in the public square, to be experienced by others as being who one is, standing for what one stands for.
However, for a despised heresy such as ‘nationalism’ and, most particularly, ‘White nationalism’, the important thing may be the cultivation of ethos by individual members of our movement.
In the end, we could win if at least some of the best — or at least necessary — people are our people.
People trust the person, not the politics.
@Alexander H.
“… people are naturally cowards, and without bold symbols and strong leaders to rally around, which come with state power, they will never risk their names, or livelihoods for abstract, embryonic racial nationalist movements …”.
I think people learned a LOT about the 20th century major events: bolshevik revolution, Hitler’s rise to power, WW1/2, communism. Our race paid a very heavy price for these tragedies.
So, while some people may be cowards sometimes, I think many have learned that they have been taken for a ride !
You say, and that is the common belief, that ” Hitler understood, and in his blunt way implemented a movement based on national/racial unity”.
Well, it appears so.
But I am sceptical about how it came about and for what purpose.
The BEER HALL PUTSCH was faked
http://mileswmathis.com/putsch.pdf
It may be that we should relearn and reevaluate our racial and political history.
Word count:
Politics: 26
Metapolitics: 1
I’m sensing fundamental changes in the Zeitgeist.
“What is political power? Political power, my friends, is our ability to act as one.” – Viktor Orbán*
* Note the context. He was asked why he doesn’t use his clout to force the 3 ethnic Hungarian parties in Transylvania to merge. His answer was, basically, get lost. Go home and work on yourselves. This was last summer. Since then the number of parties went down from 3 to 2.
“Borders are a thing of the past”
“Nationalism was a phase, new identities for a new world”
etc.
This is what I hear from Liberal people whom seek a post-Racial world. Never mind that such a thing will never exist, never mind that it is only whites disappearing, that’s irrelevant to them.
They believe as the world is so connected and they form their own “global internet culture” races and peoples will become one – which may be true to some degree. I see more Indians adopting “fresh memes” from America, Africans and Asians sharing style (African American culture), and so many more white children are wigging out to their favorite African rapper. . . but there are still plenty of detractors everywhere.
If it is inevitable that the world, it’s people, and cultures will change because it is so connected, I believe new identities will be adopted just as they do – but along racial lines.
White
Asian
Black
etc.
I see more African Americans appalled at the treatment of Africans by the Chinese, they feel kinship; Chinese Americans are becoming more and more pro-China, and we continue to fight for our survival together.
Race will be the dominant form of identity in the future. Borders will no longer be limitations. All peoples will follow the “international clique” that the Jews have first set upon and now doomed us all to. We will become a racially driven diaspora, with both the negatives and the positives that entails. It is important that we try to keep our distinct cultures alive but it is also important we continue to exist. A Swedish man listening to Sabaton working in an office halfway across the world supporting his pale blue-eyed children I find more kinship with than the based African American down the street.
@Beau Albrecht
I feel this way as well.
I am a bit of a racial determinist in this regard. Given the all-encompassing propaganda and hostility we face at every level for simply existing it is a shock that there are still so many denying the progressive ideology. Our only defense . . . is ourselves, as for our opponents, well, they have everything on their side squeezing the life out of us.
Go to any mainstream news website with comments, you will find so many white people whom identify with our ideals that would have seen us as evil just 5 years ago. It’s not as grim as many think – when you talk to normal people and not indulge in article after article about white evils.
As for the building of a white nation again . . . there has to be some normalcy and white society!
I can’t stand the fact that white people are disappearing and I understand there are quite a few crazies out there, but surely the level-headed ones still can form something from the ground up?
I want to indulge in my son. I want him to have the childhood I did; I want to see him react to the same silly things I did and laugh, I want him to have some music, and culture, and blood to identify with, I want to take him to a baseball game and for him to see himself in everyone there. I want him to dream, to make music, to date that girl next door just as I did.
I don’t want him to have to laugh at being white, or to have trouble fitting in, or be picked on by the black kids. . . but even if all I dream for him comes true it still isn’t the same unless those whom surround him are his kin. It’s just something I can’t explain. I’m not even talking about the little intricacies and differences different groups show even if they try their hardest to blend-in I mean at some deep heart-wrenching level I can’t explain it’s just not the same. Maybe you really are your ancestors.
The more I read from Japanese nationals and peoples all over and even from contributors here like Comtaose I feel they have that same yearning. . . that bond and longing for your people that you can’t quite put to words. Even the skinheads, though I believe should not be welcomed for they may be too far gone . . . I can see in another time under different circumstances . . . being perfectly normal gentleman. Perhaps they’re suffocating just a bit more than we are.
@ Me –
” . . . Maybe you really are your ancestors.”
My father shares the views I do to some degree. There are the right kind and the wrong kind of Boomers, I suppose. He was a Sixties kid and has called me racist on more than a few occasions but he has had his fair share of *rants and still has very racially-based feelings and thinks white people should have their own space. Old German genes won’t let go I suppose. He can’t help but think racially just as I. He’s an old man of German descent whom had blonde hair and the deepest blue eyes you’ve ever seen. My brother’s share his eyes but I have my Polish mother’s brown eyes, but still I am a towhead. I don’t say this to be “materialistic,” I mean to stress that I am my parents. Just as they were theirs. I hope my grandchildren can say the same.
Are we not able to reply to other peoples comments anymore? The comments section changed and i am no longer able to reply to someone elses comment.
I was going to reply to Nikandros
“We need
1. Politicians – should be squeaky clean and impervious to blackmail.
2. Financiers – literally just make as much money as humanly possible to help fund the cause. Think like a Jew.”
Number 2 made me think of the likes of the Koch brothers. Maybe when we actually have a strong foundation, people like that will start to chip in for European Americans…
I expect this has been said before, but would it be possible to reverse the order of these comment streams, so that as you scroll down you do not read replies to comments before you’ve read the original comment?
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