Making Lions out of Lambs:
A Response to Max Morton of American Greatness

^[1]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” ^[2] over at American Greatness (linked to in this very depressing post ^[3] 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.

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 ^[6]. 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” ^[7] 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 ^[8]. (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.

*  *  *

On Monday, April 12th, Counter-Currents will be extending special privileges to those who donate $120 or more per year.

• First, donor comments will appear immediately instead of waiting in a moderation queue. (People who abuse this privilege will lose it.)
• Second, donors will have immediate access to all Counter-Currents posts. Non-donors will find that one post a day, five posts a week will be behind a “paywall” and will be available to the general public after 30 days.

As an incentive to act now, everyone who joins the paywall between now and Monday, April 12th will receive a free paperback copy of Greg Johnson’s next book, The Year America Died.

To get full access to all content behind the paywall, sign up here: