David Zsutty Introduces the Homeland Institute: Transcript

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The following is a transcript of of the speech given by David M. Zsutty, Executive Director of the Homeland Institute ^[2] (website ^[3], Telegram ^[4]), to introduce the organization at the 2023 Counter-Currents Conference in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas. The video is also below.

Good morning, it’s great to be here! Before we begin, I have some unusual people whom I would like to thank for making today possible: the losers and haters of antifa.

They thought it would be a good idea to dox me while I was in law school. They didn’t realize that in the long term, all they would be doing is promoting my resume. A tactic becomes less effective if it is overused. For example, Pedro Gonzalez, a conservative influencer associated with Ron DeSantis’ campaign, was doxed for some spicy comments — and yet nothing happened. The doxing of Richard Hanania ^[5], who apparently used to write for our illustrious Counter-Currents, also fizzled.

Unfortunately, both of them still apologized. But I, for one, will not. I hope to be one of a growing number of people for whom doxing doesn’t just prove to be ineffective, but for whom it actually backfires. They may soon come to reconsider the wisdom of making bitter enemies out of so many talented people.

Dr. Greg Johnson already touched upon how the Homeland Institute ^[6] (HI) came about. We identified a need that was not being filled. A policy institute sounds stuffy and academic — but that’s just a disguise. In truth, what we are doing is much more romantic and exciting. We’re doing intelligence work. And I’m glad that I can bring my experience in that field into advocating for our people instead of wasting it on the regime.

In the world of intelligence, we distinguish between “open-source” intelligence and everything else. Open-source intelligence uses publicly-available information to draw new conclusions. It is amazing how much our movement has accomplished simply by commenting on publicly-available information.

But we need to go beyond that, because a lot of publicly-available information is partial, distorted, or simply not information at all. Thus, building a political movement on open-source intelligence is what it would have been like if the United States had based its entire Cold War strategy solely on reading Pravda. No serious country would do that.

Nor should a serious movement. Obviously, we need to do our own, original intelligence gathering. That’s the purpose of the Homeland Institute. That’s the purpose of our first two polls ^[7]. Now we can ask what we want, when we want it, and perhaps most importantly, in as great an amount of detail as we want. How many times have we read other people’s research, only to come away with more questions? For example, when the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) reported last year that the Great Replacement theory was spreading, how many of us immediately asked, “How?” Thanks to the Homeland Institute, we can ask questions which would otherwise have been left unanswered.

For years, there was endless discussion about what we should be doing and how. This discussion would sometimes become quite heated, which is natural given what is at stake. But for all our movement’s love of empirical rigor, we lacked hard data to back our strategies up. A lot of our strategy was based on gut instinct, personal preference, or by cargo-culting past movements. Wouldn’t it be nice to know if our views are wrong before we invest our scarce money and manpower in pursuing strategies based on them? Shouldn’t this be the first thing we invest money and manpower in?

Our first poll ^[8] was to compare how dangerous the charges of “racism” and “wokeness” are to businesses and politicians. We asked a pool of about 800 respondents who are representative of white voters. Although a lot of mainstream Republicans are fond of claiming that the Left are the “real racists,” generally speaking accusations of “racism” are a tool of the Left, and they are directed solely against whites, whereas accusations of “wokeness” are tools of Right-wing pushback.

So how strong is the Right’s counter-weapon? Our poll indicated that it has about 70% of the stopping power of racism. Racism is a 9-millimeter charge; wokeness is .22 caliber. In absolute terms, though, both can kill. The charge of wokeness is already powerful enough to destroy political careers and businesses.

More specifically, 61.9% of respondents said they are less likely to support a business if it is accused of being racist, while 43.7% said they are less likely to support a business if it is accused of being woke.

But talk and virtue-signaling is cheap. Only 41.8% said they would be willing to follow through with boycotting a business that is accused of being racist if they had to pay 10% more or drive an extra mile. Likewise, only 29.1% said they would be willing to follow through with boycotting a business that is accused of being woke if they had to pay 10% more or drive an extra mile.

What that comes down to is that for every ten people who said they would be willing to suffer a small but not insignificant detriment in order to boycott a business that is accused of racism, about seven people said they would be willing do the same to boycott a business that is accused of being woke.

Despite declining demographics, white people still make up about 70% of the voting and buying power in America. A Right-wing cancel culture against woke politicians and businesses therefore already has the potential to counter the Left, as was seen in the Target and Bud Lite boycotts. That the Bud Lite boycott cost their parent company, Anheuser-Busch, $27 billion is very encouraging, because this success happened despite Donald Trump, Jr. throwing cold water on it. It’s an American symbol, apparently.

And speaking of politicians, we also found that among Republicans, the charge of wokeness is twice as damaging to a politician as the charge of racism in regards to voter support. Much of the outrage from a charge of racism comes from voters who were unlikely to vote Republican, anyway. In contrast, among Republican respondents 42.6% said they were less likely to vote for a politician who is accused of being racist, compared to 79% who said they were less likely to vote for a politician who is accused of being woke.

The quickest way for a Republican to be labeled woke is probably to pander too hard to minorities. Thus, pandering to minorities while taking the white vote for granted is not a smart strategy for Republicans if it gets them labeled as “woke.” Let’s hope that sinks in, and especially with Donald Trump, Jr.’s pops, who gave blacks reparations via the Platinum Plan as a reward for rioting — something which would have been inconceivable even under the Obama administration.

Another interesting finding is that 7.2% of Republicans said they would be more likely to support a candidate who is accused of being racist. Wouldn’t you like to know how many of those people are just fed up with the racism charge being overused, and how many of them are actual White Nationalists? I sure do. Maybe that’s a topic for a future poll.

Furthermore, while that 7.2% can only vote once — unlike deceased Democrats — they can still translate their passion into volunteering for political campaigns. Volunteers naturally tend to be radicals or people who know the candidate well. Volunteers are vital for any campaign, whether it be for phone banks, going door-to-door, or other essential tasks. Wouldn’t it be interesting if a supermajority of Republican volunteers and interns are our guys, or at least adjacent? That would be a major source of leverage over mainstream politicians. It would mean that political campaigns are prime opportunities for us to network. And that’s but one of many questions I hope to explore.

Our second poll ^[11] was on the Great Replacement. In it, we repeated questions from the SPLC and YouGov polls that garnered many headlines last year because they indicated that the idea of the Great Replacement is very widespread among Republicans. This news was greeted with horror in the mainstream, and joy in our circles.

Again, we had roughly 800 respondents who are representative of white voters. Our poll roughly replicated the results of the YouGov and SPLC polls. We will use this poll as a baseline, repeating it annually to measure how much change has taken place and whether it is in a favorable direction. Here are some important findings:

59.4% of Republicans said they had not even heard of the Great Replacement theory until they were polled, but 62.4% nonetheless at least slightly agreed with the Great Replacement theory once it was succinctly explained to them.

Respondents who had previously heard of the Great Replacement theory tended to have learned about it relatively recently. 68.5% of all respondents and 69.7% of Republicans had not heard of the white genocide theory until polled.

What this means is that educating the public is essential. I was shocked at how few people had heard of the Great Replacement. This served as an important wakeup call to the fact that it is folly to assume that the general public has the same knowledge we have simply because we take it for granted. We might swim in demographic data, but most other people are more interested in swimming at the beach. There’s nothing wrong with that. Ironically, it’s actually very encouraging. The problem isn’t that what we are saying or how we are saying it isn’t resonating with people. Rather, the main hurdle is reaching them in the first place. What this means is that mass censorship is only delaying the inevitable. Taken in this light, the regime’s vast censorship and propaganda campaigns appear more like acts of desperation rather than of triumph.

We were naturally curious as to how people were learning about the Great Replacement. The SPLC didn’t ask that, or if they did, they’re keeping that intel under lock and key. Thankfully, this is just one of many questions that we can ask on our own now. What we found is that “alternate” news sources as opposed to “Alt Right” sources were the leading way in which respondents had learned about it.

What we can draw from this is that alternative news sources that are sometimes condemned as “gatekeepers” are functioning more like “bridge builders,” whether they intend to or not. For example, Charlie Kirk went from being the poster boy of Conservatism Inc. to pushing the Overton window. I noticed his pivot after the Waukesha massacre, so maybe it’s legitimate. Regardless, we are turning former adversaries into useful tools. A lot of the resentment directed against this phenomenon seems to stem from the fact that we are not being given credit for our ideas and sacrifices. But perhaps one of the best tests of radicalism is whether or not one is willing to forego recognition for victory. How many famous artists do not receive the recognition they deserve until after death? That’s certainly not what we should be aiming for, but it’s a sacrifice that I, for one, am willing to make if necessary.

After Charlottesville, there was a concerted effort by the SPLC, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), and rest of the usual suspects to prevent people from speaking to anyone even an inch further to the right than they were. This climate of disavowal became so intense that the meme of “don’t punch right” had to be created to counter it. The Leftists certainly don’t ever punch left, do they?

The inverse of the mainstream never interacting with anyone further to the right of them is for dissidents to never interact with anyone further to their left. But the end result is the same: ghettoization. We shouldn’t be doing the SPLC’s work for them, and especially given that our polling found that people are receptive to our ideas. They just need to hear our ideas. Dissidents interacting with more mainstream figures and platforms that have larger audiences is not “clout chasing” or “compromise,” but rather a highly effective tool of spreading our ideas.

We also learned that X, formerly known as Twitter, as well as other forms of online discussion were the leading ways in which those aged 18–29 and 30–44 had learned about the Great Replacement theory. This should highlight the importance of the recent #BanTheADL campaign, which was popularized by Keith Woods. It was far from the mere online “slacktivism” some claimed it to be.

The #BanTheADL campaign was a resounding victory for two reasons. First, it may have been the first time that ordinary people had a peek at the puppet masters behind the curtain. They saw that certain elites are more of a parasitic and predatory mafia than the hapless victims they present themselves as. What was seen will not be unseen anytime soon. I don’t know if our people are as receptive to the question of Jewish overrepresentation as much as they are to the Great Replacement. But the resultant drama was invariably the first step on multiple red-pill journeys — perhaps even Elon Musk’s. Time will tell how many, but I am optimistic.

Secondly, the #BanTheADL campaign provided some much-needed pushback against the Left’s cancel culture. X is far from the free speech platform that it should be, but it is still infinitely freer than before. Our ideas can still spread on X. Furthermore, X remaining as free as possible is essential going into the upcoming election. 2020, and especially the election, was a disaster, in large part due to the way in which the media had a stranglehold on information warfare. They were able to push their Black Lives Matter, COVID, and election fraud narratives unimpeded. Today, these lies would have been debunked by community notes as the disinformation that they are. I don’t know what the regime has in store for 2024, but I suspect those community notes may prove useful. Even better, they might prevent the regime from trying to spread disinformation in the first place.

Thanks to the Homeland Institute, we don’t just know that X is an important avenue for spreading our message. We also know from our first poll that we have the potential to launch retaliatory boycotts of our own if the ADL attempts to escalate its advertiser boycott of X.

But timeless social skills can sometimes be just as effective as high-tech social media skills. Similar to online sources, we found that “friends or family” are far more significant sources of information on our ideas than directly visiting our platforms. An individual can make significant contributions simply by working within his private sphere of friends and family. “Real world” activism need not always be collective or public.

But that’s not all. 6.1% of Republican respondents said they are opposed to preserving a white majority. They are well outnumbered by the 14.8% of Democrat respondents who said preserving a white majority was at least somewhat important to them. This was perhaps one of our most groundbreaking findings.

This should dispel the narrative that our ideas are fringe or extreme. More importantly, they should dispel the claim that our ideas are not electorally viable. Despite declining demographics, whites still make up 70% of the electorate. One might wonder why that 14.8% of white Democrats would remain affiliated with their party when anti-white policies are the hallmark of the Democrat establishment. The answer, I think, is quite simple: the Republicans certainly don’t offer them any pro-white policies. Callous indifference is scarcely better than open hostility.

The lesson to be learned here is that pursuing a “Blexit” by pandering to blacks is a fool’s errand. A “Whexit” in which Republican candidates openly and professionally advocate for white interests wouldn’t just fire up their base, it would probably peel more votes away from the Democrats than the Platinum Plan ever did. One has to wonder if the GOP consultants who encourage such counterproductive tactics such as pandering to minorities are just incompetent, or if they are malicious. Either way, candidates would be wise to disregard them.

Furthermore, 50% of Republicans said they would support a candidate who proposed an immigration program explicitly designed to maintain America’s white majority. This is further buttressed by how much of Trump’s success in 2016 was likely due to his promise to “build a wall.” This was an explicitly pro-white policy position in all but name.

There is evidence that our polling is already having an impact. Shortly after the results of our second poll were published, Sam Parker, who is running for the United States Senate in Utah, posted two similar polls on X. He asked two questions: “Do you want White people of European descent to remain the dominant, majority demographic in the USA?” and “Do you think that classic American culture can be maintained and thrive if White Americans of European descent are put into a permanently-diminishing minority status?”

While this was not a scientific poll such as ours, and most of his followers are probably conservative, the results are not without value. The vast majority of non-white respondents agreed with what are essentially “White Nationalist” views. This suggests that at least in Right-wing spheres, white advocacy is not offensive to non-whites. Perhaps it is even welcomed. This is important because most whites, being highly conscientious, may be hesitant to embrace white advocacy for fear of alienating their non-white friends on a personal level. They may also fear hurting otherwise successful campaign tickets on the public level. We may not like how our people have pathologized taking their own side. At times, it’s downright exasperating. But insulting them is probably not a very effective strategy to help them overcome their racial hangups. I’d much rather address this issue productively.

The Homeland Institute had originally tried to poll non-whites in our second poll to show white conservatives that pro-white politics are not toxic or unpragmatic. Unfortunately, we were unable to poll enough non-whites and then balance their various sub-groups — such as education, BLM support, age, etc. — such that they would be representative of the non-white electorate. The data could not pass muster. So, I decided it would be best to stick to white voters only rather than risk publishing unreliable findings.

Thankfully, Sam Parker’s poll helped fill that gap to some extent. I don’t know if this was intentional, but the topic of the Great Replacement has entered the crisp autumn air. That’s major progress, and especially given the fact that we found that most people are not educated about our ideas.

We intend to do a follow-up poll next year. This was a huge success, and my only regret is that our poll was conducted in late August through early September of this year. It ended just as mass migration began to become a hot topic in the news. Texas was invaded by tidal waves of not just the usual immigrants from Latin America, but by exotic foreigners from who knows where. In response, Governor Greg Abbott of Texas declared an invasion. Charlie Kirk posted: “They are not migrants — they are criminal foreigners. Deport them all.” Trump stated that he would carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in history if he is reelected.

And literally overnight, the Italian residents of the small island of Lampedusa, many of whom probably have ancestors who have resided there since before the rise of Rome, found themselves outnumbered by exotic Africans. It was a scene straight out of The Camp of the Saints. In a welcome change from a myopic focus on American affairs, even the mainstream Right took notice.

I would not have been surprised if we had gotten different answers had we conducted the poll a month later. If we deem it prudent to conduct the same or a similar poll before a year is up, we now have that option. We don’t have to wait and hope that our adversaries do it for us.

Research is as much about questions as answers, and the answers to our second poll immediately sparked more questions. I had several nationalists ask me about how the numbers on support versus opposition to preserving America’s white majority broke down by gender and age. We did not control for gender and age as strictly as we did for party affiliation. Gender is less of an issue, because both genders are abundant, but we had fewer 65-plus respondents than desired, so it was harder to refine their subgroups. The results are still highly suggestive.

First, we found that the attitudes between white men and women in preserving America’s demographics are not grossly disparate. The percentage of men who felt that preserving the white majority in America was at least somewhat important was 36.6%, compared to 28.9% of women. 20.0% of men oppose preserving the white majority in America, versus 25.9% of women. 7.6% of men answered they “don’t know,” as did 10.6% of women. Almost the same percent of men and women answered that they neither support nor oppose preserving the white majority.

The difference is nowhere near as stark as one might expect given certain online discourses. This should come as encouraging news to young men who are worried that they may not be able to find a suitable wife. Perhaps anti-white white women hold their views with more conviction than their soyboy counterparts. They certainly are more noticeable due to their strident virtue-signaling and fluorescent hair colors. This does not mean that they are as endemic as they seem. We should not allow them or others to gaslight us into thinking that they are more widespread than they really are.

The age gap is not an insurmountable rift, either. The boomers must wait for another day, as I would prefer to focus on the other age cohorts where there is more reliable data. The number of those for whom preserving the white majority was at least slightly important fell somewhat with age, from 35.6% among those 45-64, to 33.8% among those 30-44, to 29.8% among those 18-29. Interestingly, the number of those who actively oppose preserving the white majority dipped with generation Z. 23.1% of the 45-64 bracket and 23.9% of the 30-44 bracket were in opposition, as opposed to only 18.1% of the 18-29 bracket. Only nine out of 154 Republicans across all age brackets were in opposition, so I don’t feel comfortable commenting on their numbers. But youth certainly correlated with a decline in anti-white attitudes among independents. It precipitously dropped off among white Democrats, from 54.5% of Democrats aged 45-64, to 45.3% aged 30-44, to 26.5% of zoomer Democrats.

Among the youth, the number of those who neither oppose nor support preserving white demographics rose from 32.2% among the 45-64 bracket, to 33.8% of the 30-44 bracket, to 39.4% of the 18-29 bracket.

What we can infer from this is that the greatest obstacle in reaching the youth probably isn’t anti-white indoctrination, but rather nihilism, irony, and apathy. Perhaps a good strategy would be to explain to the youth that, try as they might to avoid politics, politics is not going to ignore them. Every anti-white tragedy is a bitter lesson of this truth.

Yet, nihilism is a double-edged sword: Why should anti-racism, globalism, and diversity be sacred cows when nothing else is sacred? When are the Marxist deconstructors going to finally deconstruct themselves?

We can certainly embrace nihilism and turn it against itself. Many people may want to dip their toes into our ideas with irony before cannonballing into zealotry. You also can’t blame the zoomers for being nihilistic given the state of society, and especially after 2020. They’re essentially shell-shocked from the culture wars. But I would rather give the jaded zoomers something to believe in. I can’t imagine a life without purpose. If the zoomer heart is a crater, then we should fill it. Let us turn nihilism into meaning, irony into sincerity, and apathy into righteous action.

Someone who wanted to reduce the number of whites would also naturally want to divide us against each other along various fault lines such as class, age, and gender. But the numbers don’t suggest that there are insurmountable gulfs between men and women or different age cohorts. Let’s not fall for enemy propaganda.

I’m excited for our next poll, which is going to be on the topic of national divorce and secession. With the federal and Texan governments clashing over the invasion, national divorce is almost as pertinent of a topic as the Great Replacement.

While polling will be our main focus, we will be far from limited to it. We will also publish articles that are relevant to our mission statement of exploring humane and workable solutions to the problem of globalism. But we will also go well beyond the usual content creation. For example, the HI will also aim to propose model legislation, just as mainstream policy institutes do. While we will give lobbying for specific laws and candidates a wide berth for the time being, we can still rank candidates as mainstream policy institutes, such as the National Rifle Association and others do, and approach lawmaking from an academic angle. Aside from the fact that these things have inherent value, they will also earn us respect and legitimacy. We will have an alternate institution doing mainstream things. We will demand our seat at the table — and if denied it, we will flip the table over.

Politics is a collaborative affair. I’d like to take the remaining time for a Q and A. And I would especially like to hear any questions you would like to have us ask in a future poll.