Back in the summer, I was
riding with a friend, up the north shore of Massachusetts, and we were talking
about Trump and the alt-right. My friend is not into my type of politics. He
remains a generic conservative, the sort who thinks Ben Shapiro is great and
Gavin McInnes is edgy. I don’t fault him for it. Most white people are in that
camp, unless they are a Progressive. The Dissident Right is still small and the
alt-right is even smaller. The tide is running our way, but it has a long way
to go before we have big numbers.
Anyway, one of the things we discussed was what Trump could or
would do regarding the big issues. My buddy truly believes that all that needs
doing is to cut taxes, cut spending and crack down on illegal immigration. Then
America will begin to look like the 1980’s again. He was a bit surprised when I
told him that I disagreed. To be honest, I was a bit turned off by his
optimism. The truth is, these guys stubbornly cling to the old ideas and old
politics. We need to turn them, but it will not be easy. They won’t let go
easily.
That is the biggest challenge facing the Dissident Right and it
is a massive challenge for the alt-right. White people in America have been
marinating, for their whole lives, in the stew of multiculturalism and the conventional
conservative reaction. They still view the world through the lens of the Cold
War. That means accepting the Left’s moral framework, while longing for the
Right’s promised ends. The result is a collection of American myths that our
people stubbornly embrace, despite the evidence.
The biggest one is probably the fetish over the Constitution.
The people who love Ted Cruz and Glenn Beck are the best example. They talk
about the Constitution like it is a holy relic. It is their magic talisman.
They are sure that all we need is a majority of Constitutional Conservatives on
the bench and more of them in Congress. When you point out that the
Constitution currently requires Christian bakers to celebrate homosexual
weddings, they dismiss this as if it is a lie. They just can’t let go of the
dream.
These are usually the same people who go on about our
Judeo-Christian principles. There is no such thing. It is just something nice
white people thought was a good thing to say, so the Jews would feel included.
Jews think the idea is ridiculous and very conservative Jews find it insulting.
The formulation gained popularity in the
Eisenhower years, probably in reaction to the Holocaust. Despite the
ridiculousness of it, most constitutional conservatives are convinced America
is built on Judeo-Christian values.
The great black hope is another one of those myths that
conservative whites cannot let go of, even after eight years of Obama. For
example, the mulatto meathead, Dwayne Johnson, was saying nice things about
generic conservatives for a while last spring. This set off a round of hero
worship in Conservative Inc. National Review did a special
issue on him. Most whites still believe the dream of racial harmony,
so gaining the approval of a guy like Sheriff Clark or a Dwayne Johnson is like
being blessed by the Pope.
This is because whites largely accept the blank slate
egalitarianism the Progs have been preaching for the last half century. White
people are so afraid of being condemned as racist, they will believe just about
anything to avoid it. The most hard boiled right-winger will break out in hives
when race is mentioned. The insist that all blacks need to do is act like
middle-class white people. It’s why they carry guys like Sheriff Clark and
Allen West around as conquering heroes. Whites still cling to the myth of
egalitarianism.
This spills over into the immigration debate. Listen to the
garden variety talk radio conservative and they will fall all over themselves
praising legal immigration. They completely buy in the myth of the
propositional nation. They don’t always use that language, but they accept it.
Whites may not think all people are the same, but they think they can be
the same. Therefore, the non-whites wishing to settle in America can prove this
by following the rules, like a white person would. It’s Magic Rule Theory.
Many alt-right people like to flatter themselves by insisting
that the JQ is the hardest red pill to swallow, but in reality, patriotism is
the toughest. People can accept that blacks are incapable of living with
whites. People can even buy off on the idea that Jews have a disproportionate
influence on society and maybe that’s not a good thing. The one thing you
cannot get anyone to accept is that patriotism is anything but an honorable
quality. If you dare question the idea, whites will condemn you as a some sort
of commie.
That’s the biggest challenge for the alt-right. They don’t couch
it in these terms, but theirs is a post-national movement. Their brand of
identity politics puts racial identity ahead of all other group loyalties. That
includes what Americans call patriotism. If the black NFL players all stand
this week, hands over hearts, singing the anthem, whites around America will be
sobbing and hugging one another like it is the rapture. Talking Americans out
of this sort of over the top love of country is the great challenge for the
alt-right.
Beliefs and customs have a way of transforming into something
different when they lose their salience. Many conservative whites have started
to abandon their party loyalty, realizing it was a sham. Increasing numbers of
whites are coming to terms with the realities of race. Still, they do so with
the hope that, with some tweaking, the republic can be set right again. Maybe
that’s the process. We’re now seeing more people talk openly about ending
immigration entirely. That’s a big step for white people.
The fact is, things like patriotism and a love for ordered
liberty are features of white Americans, not bugs. Most whites get that and
will stubbornly cling to those ideas, even when they are an impediment to
preserving civilization. Sacred beliefs don’t go away without a fight. it does
not happen after one speech or one good YouTube video. The great challenge for
the insurgency is to re-purpose these attributes toward better ends. Appeals to
people’s better natures always works better than challenging their deeply held
beliefs.
