Counter-Currents
Making Lions out of Lambs: A Response to Max Morton of American Greatness
Spencer J. Quinn
1,671 words
Two kinds of conservatives constitute the mainstream Right: those who take conservatism seriously as a political creed, and those who are merely conservative liberals, or, as the Z-Man once called them, the rearguard of the Left. The latter, as we all know, may as well be the enemy of the Right and deserve none of our time except for mockery and derision. These are the folks we call “cuckservatives.” But the former group has a way of sticking around that I am growing to admire. These are people who, despite paying some obeisance to some Leftist principles, still resist Leftist progress. They still fight.
Ever both pity and envy someone? That’s sort of how I feel when observing these stubborn conservatives, whom I will collectively label the Conservative Right (as opposed to the Dissident Right). They sense they are losing and act with appropriate urgency. I feel their anger and frustration. I envy them, because they still occupy real estate on Main Street, so to speak, if perhaps the seedier end of it these days. Their opinions rarely stray beyond the outer edges of respectability, and so they can still reach millions in the mainstream media, they can still raise large amounts of money, and they can still live without fear of deplatforming and cancelation — at least for the time being.
On the other hand, I pity the Conservative Right because I know things they don’t know. I know they can’t win. They are ideologically compromised and don’t realize it, yet they keep swinging like a fighter on queer street. (And we all know what most often happens to fighters on queer street.) By accepting the essential tenets of the egalitarian Left, these conservatives will forever be fighting on their back foot. There is no easy way to explain obvious racial differences and be an egalitarian at the same time. Even more difficult would be to make tactical alliances with the Dissident Right that rejects racial egalitarianism — even if both groups agree on most everything else.
By now, we should all know whom I am talking about: those pundits who are reliably pro-Trump, pro-Western Civilization, and — most importantly — anti-anti-white. In this group, I would place Steven Crowder, the Ace of Spades, Tucker Carlson, Paul Joseph Watson, the late Rush Limbaugh, and others. I like all of these guys, and appreciate what they do. But a good deal of their schtick boils down to revealing how the Left cheats by its own egalitarian rules — as if standing up and screaming foul all the time is ever a good strategy during war.
All of these thoughts and more were galloping through my head as I was reading Max Morton’s essay “Until Lambs Become Lions” over at American Greatness (linked to in this very depressing post by Kim du Toit). Morton starts with a real kicker of a lede:
Right now, we are 80 million couch potatoes and keyboard warriors with rifles in our bedroom closets. This is not a force to be reckoned with.
Feeling nervous yet?
After he has captured our rapt attention, Morton does a good job of outlining the contours of the culture war. He describes the overriding power of the Left, explains why he thinks the Right is losing, and then offers some practical guidance on how the Right can turn the tide.
We can counter these assaults on our liberty by organizing at the local and state level. By anticipating the actions of the ruling elite and their proxies, we can set up community outreach programs that mitigate their attempts to crush us. Shadow services, food banks, and employment networks can provide financial assistance and jobs to traditional Americans who get canceled or face financial hardships resulting from their political activism.
Evangelize liberty by holding town hall meetings at your local library, bar, or social club in order to network, and discuss the agenda. Leverage these networks to develop the community outreach programs that will help protect your members if and when they get canceled or arrested. Keep your meetings focused on helping, not hurting, and don’t allow talk of violence. Remember, government informants and agents provocateur are an integral part of the political landscape.
You can buy Spencer J. Quinn’s novel Charity’s Blade here.
Not bad. Morton gets a little cringy at times (“You are only limited by your imagination”) and suffers from a Mayberrian faith in American democracy (“Mobilize, organize, and vote them out of office.”), but at least he’s thinking in terms of tactics, like a true dissident, rather than railing uselessly against the tide of history. Where Morton calls for shadow services and food banks, I call for a white underground railroad. Where Morton calls for conservatives to “[v]olunteer for homeschooling pods with families who want to withdraw from the political and social indoctrination in the public school system,” we have a longtime Counter-Currents reader calling for a “dues-paying American Nationalist League” that could subsidize pro-white internet publications.
Anyone can see that the Conservative Right and the Dissident Right are swimming in the same direction in the same river and are facing the same wrath of the same hostile elite. Why not join forces? Morton recognizes we’re in a war for our very survival. He understands the stakes. Is this really a time to be picky with one’s allies? Why wouldn’t he accept dissidents in his homeschooling pods and food banks?
Well, here’s why he wouldn’t:
We should be proudly colorblind, with zero tolerance for critical race theory, cancel culture, and identity politics.
Oof. You had me and then you lost me there, Max. I can see the first two items on your list. But the last one? No way.
This encapsulates why the Conservative Right, as embodied by Max Morton and American Greatness, is destined to lose. They, like chumps, accept the rules imposed upon them by the Left, even while the Left breaks those very rules. How do I know this? The concept of racial equality began as a Leftist trope, and did not infiltrate the so-called Right until very recently. More accurately, it’s been a weapon used by the Left to destabilize the traditional, Christian, and racially white hegemony of the West for over a century now. “Identity politics” is simply a way for groups to express how their interests (e.g., class, sexual, or racial) are more important than the interests of other groups living in the same country. When whites engage in identity politics, that is an open doorway to the dreaded “White Supremacy” that has the Left in a tizzy these days. Since any kind of racial supremacy violates the egalitarian dogma of the Left, identity politics must be banned.
But what do we see from the Left every day? Identity politics. And across all colors of the rainbow too. There is no anti-white, anti-traditional subgroup whose identity the Left doesn’t tolerate other than that of pedophiles (and give them time on that).
So we arrive then at the following question: does the Conservative Right want to lose? I would say no. I say that they want to win, but would like to preserve their souls while doing so. They have been hoodwinked by the Left into believing that racial egalitarianism is moral, and like good little Boy and Girl Scouts, they steadfastly adhere to racial egalitarianism.
But they forget that people on the Left do not have souls. (Or postmodernists don’t have souls — at least according to the Jolly Heretic Edward Dutton.) And given the enormous death counts racked up in the Soviet Union, Communist China, North Korea, and North Vietnam, people on the Left — when they achieve power — do not act as if they have souls.
So why on Earth should we act with scruples when protecting civilization from these people? The Left certainly doesn’t act with scruples when dealing with the Right. Given that there is a real danger that the far Left in its Antifa and Black Lives Matter incarnations will launch a Soviet-styled revolution in the West sometime in the next twenty years, why should the Right hold back in this culture war? I’m not calling for violence in the streets, of course. But I am calling for the Conservative Right to pay close attention to the following argument:
Given that:
A) The Left hypocritically engages in identity politics, and
B) Engaging in identity politics is effective,
It stands to reason that. . .
C) There is absolutely no reason why the Right should not engage in identity politics as well.
And this means White Identity Politics.
See how this follows logically? And given that the Left leaves wide and deep rivers of blood wherever it goes — to say nothing of all the cultural degeneracy — how does this not also follow morally?
Of course, White Identity Politics does not necessarily mean that we should invalidate other forms of racial identity politics. It just means that ethnonationalism is the best solution, wherein different identity groups can separate into nations where their own racial interests receive top priority. It also means the survival of white people.
Max Morton may think that the Conservative Right can turn lambs into lions without identity politics. He’s sorely mistaken — especially considering that most of the lions we already do have are on the Dissident side of the Right, and not his.
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9 comments
My unassailable disagreement begins with his call to be “proudly colorblind.” But Morton’s error and tacit acceptance of leftist tenets goes deeper. Using identity politics is, of course, excellent strategy and only a fool would forbid its usage to Whites in today’s demographic age.
However, first things first. Anyone who, like Morton, accepts a literal interpretation of the Declaration of Independence and believes “all men are created equal” is my enemy, never my ally. This fallacy is what underlies colorblindness and critical race theory. This ideological blind spot about genetic reality is what the whole rotten edifice of popular democracy and multiculturalism and racial egalitarianism is built on. Any man who rejects hierarchy – both in nature and in man’s affairs – is building a castle in the air, not a house founded on rock solid ground.
Regardless of whether we share a belief in in the right to bear arms or to enjoy the fruits of our own labor, we are not “swimming in the same direction” in “the same river.” An acceptance of human differences (racial and cultural leading to religious and political and economical) as well as human similarities (national racial and ethnic communities) is the founding imperative of ethnonationalism. All who reject it, whether due to leftist lies or the subverting of religious doctrine, are ultimately my enemy, because they will cavil when the going gets hard, and cannot be trusted to put their own people first, every time.
All of comes down to one thing: demographic change. That is behind the increase of Identity Politics. It’s so bad and unreservable that the Republican Party it’s self is already turning dark. Take a look at the Right Wingers fawning over Candice Owens. It’s going to get so bad that the Conservative Party is going to turn Identity Politics for non-whites, only in the reserve and it’s all geared towards swaying non-whites to Capitalism.
The only hope we have actually lies with middle of the road regular democrats who will wake up and realize that at the end of the day, blacks and other non-whites want them out of the way too and no matter how much lip service they pay to them, in the end it will win them nothing. White Right Wingers hardly mingle with non-whites. It’s liberals who do. It’s liberals who open trendy businesses in areas that were previously non-white. They aren’t teflon against accusations of white supremacy and I THINK it might be happening now. Trump is gone and old news. We have white savior Biden in office now and yet blacks will continue to be arrogant goons.
An ANTIFA revolution is really what this country needs. These white liberals need that to blow up in there face to wake them up. Any attempt from the right wing to stop it now will result in more painting them as the bad guys and agitators. Best to just let them do what they do till it turns into total chaos and there will be full justification to do something about it. Even the most hardcore racists will agree with Carlson, even though he talks against racism. ANTIFA on the other hand hate and despise 99.8% of the idiots who think they are good guys and defend them today. As I said in a previous post, money is the motive for almost everyone today. Liberals love money more than the Right Wingers do. That is why they want racial peace and no standards. It makes you an easy winner. I was told by one relevative they are raising their son anti-racist, so he could have a positive outlook on life and more success. This is why trendy liberals put anti-racist fliers on their businesses windows. They really think ANTIFA are just good people fighting racists and have no clue ANTIFA would spit in their face for buying Starbucks.
There are no conservatives in the mainstream right.
I’m not sure conservative republicans can be swayed to the dissident right. They believe in a unique sort of conservatism which is about American “principals” and not much else. They are definitely aware of how Whites have been made into a scapegoat for everything wrong in the world, but to them it’s their ideals that are being attacked rather than themselves. Usually it’s very hard to communicate with people like that.
Most egalitarian Whites grew up in overwhelmingly or completely Pale areas. Their contact with blacks was minimal and the one or two they came across acted White enough to get by. Those of us who grew up near, or among blacks, know the truth these soft Whites are starting to learn. Conservatives get it first and that’s why they will soon become an integral part of what is now called the “dissident Right”.
I sympathize with the pessimism in most of these comments. However it’s not so much about winning over Morton himself, but his readers. I see myself as being in competition with Morton for his readers. And pessimism is not very persuasive. Plus I agree with Michael’s more optimistic take. I believe many conservatives can be won over by argument.
There are multiple reasons that Conservative Rightists shy away from white identity politics, but one is revealed by the frequency that they say “The American People.”
“The American People won’t tolerate that!”
“This is something The American People believe in their hearts.”
“When push comes to shove, The American People…..”
Conservative Rightists still think they’re the Silent Majority. They are in abject denial of the demographic, cultural and racial change that has occurred on their watch since 1970, when Third World immigration and the victimology ethos fostered by the civil rights revolution joined to fundamentally transform America.
Pitifully, they continue to believe that one day, with the right leaders and the right arguments, the sleeping majority will rise up and help put things back to the way it was, the way it used to be, when character was king — 1980.
Which is why one of the best arguments to make to Conservative Rightists is to remind them of the date when the Census Dept. forecasts whites will be a minority. (That is a date progressives used to tout, but not that we are closing in on it they’ve shut up about it. Let sleeping majorities lie.)
So when the subject is California, make sure to remark that in a few years we’ll be a white minority just like there.
When the subject is a path to citizenship for illegals, wonder aloud how many years such a mass legalization will advance the day your friend’s daughter will be a minority white.
In other words, look for opportunities to shatter that vestigial confidence that Conservative Rightist still have that the mass of Americans on their side.
Hard times make hard people. Our comfortably blind conservative friends need to understand those hard times really are coming.
Some comments for any member of the Conservative Right who comes across this website…
How did we get here?
There have been voices crying in the proverbial wilderness about the rise of a new ruling elite in America since the mid-20th century. One might note James Burnham’s Managerial Revolution, Wilmot Robertson’s “The Dispossessed Majority,” critics of elite manufacture of consent like Noam Chomsky (regardless of their motives), the anti-globalization activists (before they got bought off to become the new foot soldiers of the regime), and numerous rightist and libertarian students who manned lonely tables on increasingly hostile campuses. Let’s not forget Pat Buchanan and Sam Francis who banged the drum for conservatives to start fighting in the culture war way back when. Most importantly, there were the prophets of White Nationalism, versions 1.0 and 2.0.
Alas, these voices were in the main relegated to the outer darkness by mainstream conservatives who saw politics as little more than marching off to the polling place every two years, filling the gaps by tuning in the local rightwing talk radio shock jock while grilling BBQ in the backyard.
Look at where conservative principals have gotten you. You want less government? Well, you are seeing less government in action with open borders, non-enforcement of anti-trust against IT monopolies, and the police being given stand-down orders in the face of a summer of rioting and iconoclasm.
You may not be interested in identity politics but identity politics are interested in you. There’s that vast network of campus minority “studies” programs, ethno-activist fronts like the NAACP and BLM, and the corporate commissars of critical race theory. And guess what…they do not give a [expletive deleted] about your denunciations of identity politics. When they agitate against “white privilege” and “white supremacy” and “white terrorism,” they really mean they want to destroy you, your family, your country and your civilization. Are you going to fight back on the front of identity, or continue with the same failed talking points?
Take a lesson from the Left, and put your radicals in the vanguard. Let them provide the ideological shock troops so the mainstream can exploit. But you’ve been throwing your radicals under the bus: Ashley St. Clair, the Rise Above Movement, the Patriots of 6 January 2021. This thing is not going to be won by the predictable conservative campus speaker reciting talking points about socialism sucking. Politics is about seizing and exercising power, whether over the state apparatus, the university campus or the corporate boardroom.
As the Globalist-Managerial-Technocratic-Left Regime (or whatever we may care to call it) becomes more repressive, it alienates more people. Right now, the regime is purging the military of patriotic dissenters. Right now, the police are being defunded. Right now, workers and students are being marched off to Maoist style struggle sessions, aka “diversity” training as well as losing jobs to cancel culture. The millions of Americans who are being purged would rally to an activist movement which fights for their interests. How about bringing lawsuits against those universities and corporations? Or organizing worker strikes and student walkouts? Or making a point of recruiting disenchanted ex-troops and cops?
You support capitalism? Get the capitalists to support you. Let’s see political entrepreneurs pony up the buck$ for offices, legal defense, alt media, bail funds, home schooling, activist training and especially IT platforms. All it would take is one billionaire.
You might also look at the Dissident Right (aka Alt Right, aka National Populists, aka White Nationalists). The Dissident Right has been fighting your battle for years from the depths of the Dark Web to the streets of Charlottesville. The Alt Right can make a claim to having memed Donald Trump into the White House in 2016. Plenty of tactical lesson, positive and negative. Sit down and learn them!
Consider an alliance with nationalists worldwide. There’s Brexit, there’s the Le Pen movement, there are the Yellow Vests, there’s Alternative for Germany, there are the Identitarians, and there are the Boer self-defense groups. Network for transnational political action and mutual legal defense.
Declare 6 January as Annual International Patriots’ Day. Get patriots, nationalists, populists and just plain fed up citizens out in the streets to protest against the regime, flags flying and icons raised high. Worldwide.
We live in an historically significant era, one where you can make the difference.
Get off your couch and fight for freedom!
The US is a fundamentally liberal country since it’s based on the radical and patently false notion that All Men Are Created Equal. Therefore, to be an American “conservative” is to be a liberal because when you fight to conserve the American idea, you fight to conserve a form of liberalism. In the US the difference between “conservatives” and “progressives” amounts to disagreeing between driving your own car to hell and taking the bus there. There are very few Americans who are not liberals, which is to say, who reject All Men Are Created Equal, and they are utterly marginalized. There may not be a single elected official in the US who is not a liberal, and certainly none who is open about it. Despite this country being founded on an obviously false and even ridiculous idea, there is less diversity of opinion here than in China or any other country.
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