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naraburns  nihil supernum  3yr ago (text post)   36883 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 28, 2022

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I'm not going to jump the gun and say Nick is absolutely for sure a Neo-Nazi, but he is a white nationalist who, at the absolute least, does not treat the holocaust with reverence mocks those who do.

I've never encountered Fuentes in long form and I'm really only familiar with the sort of joking-not-joking clips like what you've linked there, but it strikes me as pretty weird for a "white nationalist" to be actively promoting Kanye West. Antisemitism can make for strange bedfellows, I suppose, but it seems a lot more like Fuentes just actually doesn't mind siding with a black guy that he's on the same page with politically, which is pretty antithetical to being an actual white nationalist.

So, to those of you who have read my message this long, I pose you a question: suppose you are Tim Pool. You tell Kanye that there's no reason to group together Jewish individuals as a collective, when they're all individuals who happen to be Jewish. Kanye points out that you have previously discussed "the black vote," a concept that involves black people making electoral decisions because they're black. You now have to explain how this is different from talking about "the Jews" who control record labels and movie studios.

What do you tell Kanye?

I guess it's hard for me to be Tim Pool in this conversation. I know that acknowledging the point is going to get me more trouble than it's worth, but I also know that the point is so obviously correct that there isn't any plausible argument against it. Every now and then people push back against the "the black vote" or "the Hispanic vote" or "the LGBTQIA2S+ community" monikers on the basis that these aren't monoliths and they often differ on issues, but it's usually pretty weak pushback because we all know that there actually are shared characteristics and interest in these groups. We can come up with historical reasons why noticing the interests of "the Jews" is more impolite than other groups, but none of them really make a whole lot of sense in the 2022 United States. So, if I was to put aside my interests in avoiding an unpleasant encounter with the ADL, I suppose I'd agree with Kanye that it's actually kind of fishy that it's OK to refer to "the Mormons" as controlling Utah, but not "the Jews" controlling record labels.

I suppose, but it seems a lot more like Fuentes just actually doesn't mind siding with a black guy that he's on the same page with politically, which is pretty antithetical to being an actual white nationalist.

I don't think it's antithetical. "White nationalist" means "advocating a white national identity." That could mean wanting to maintain a white majority in historically white countries, or it could mean creating a new nation-state to function as a white homeland. Fuentes claims to be the former, though he prefers the phrase "white majoritarian" as a descriptor. And honestly, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think Peter Brimelow and Jared Taylor are respectable people. Neither of them have ever given me the impression that they don't think the holocaust was both real and bad. Nick has, and that's why I find it troublesome that Kanye is associating with him. But as I said before, the way Kanye is being treated is the kind of thing that leads to radicalization, so I shouldn't be too surprised.

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