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You know I’ve been waiting for a good time to talk about this, but I am usually hesitant because by now these discussions don’t ever lead anywhere and no one’s opinion is ever changed in any meaningful way, but I guess now is as good a time as ever.
At one point I would have considered myself a white nationalist, although only in the way a nineteen-year-old university student would consider themselves a Marxist. Just as I was reaching my twenties I got caught up in the counter-cultural alt-right sphere in 2016, and adopted many of the worldviews that were congruent with the political atmosphere of the time, including Ultra-nationalism, Antisemitism, and extreme social conservatism.
It is important to note that one does not become an ultranationalist following a genuine reading of Evola but comes about almost exclusively as a reaction to the failures, dishonesty, and excesses of modern progressivism. It is almost a meme at this point to talk about Anti-white propaganda that is constantly espoused from the left and influences their legislative policies and cultural creations in every aspect of society. It is difficult to ignore this when every social message from every institution is categorically opposed to your very existence in a very genuine way. It is not ironic or subtle, and it is very difficult to take criticism of racial prejudice seriously when the culture at large only considers discrimination legitimate when against ‘approved’ groups.
This is coupled with a domestic policy that also reflects those values, and actively promotes immigration programs that are intrinsically designed to weaken the amount of social and economic power that the majority holds. It is not fallacious to say that western governments are actively supporting causes and ideologies that are inherently anti-white. It is always in the back of people’s minds that their societies have gotten successively worse over the last twenty years and in the minds of the radical right this is correlated with the rise of multiculturalism. We have been so ingrained with the idea that it is morally wrong to even* conceive* of a nation strictly composed of a white majority that It is no surprise that it leads to strong political reactions such as white nationalism.
While I could go on infinitely about the failures of modern liberalism, the point of this thread chain is about why white nationalism is not a viable solution to the greater social trends we are currently seeing, or specifically why I became disillusioned with white nationalism.
The greatest problem I had with entire community is one of unspoken beliefs. Much like Marxists (who have legitimate grievances with neo-liberal capitalism, ones that they are correct in pointing out can not last without complete disaster), they hold beliefs internally that are completely malevolent. White nationalism is centered on a goal of a homogeneous nation that is composed of an ethnically white majority. While I do not consider this inherently immoral (much like how I wouldn’t consider nation such as Japan, India, or China's homogeneity as immoral), the reality is that due to modern immigration policies over the last thirty years, western nations hold a large number of visible minorities. Underneath many of the public facades of ultra-nationalists there lies a reality that is invisible under the surface. Ask a white nationalist what they would do to minorities who would refuse to leave the nations in which they have built a foundation for the future, and they will give you ambiguous solutions that never really sound satisfying to either you or them. They will deny this to no end, but If given complete political authority, they would do many of the things that leftists would accuse them of doing. In order to reach their preferred racial demographic goals, they would have no qualms in deporting, imprisoning, and ultimately murdering hundreds of thousands if not millions of people given the opportunity. Much like the far left in which they criticize, their public personas do not actually reflect the values in which they hold in their hearts, and the practical reality of their governance would result in a large amount of innocent bloodshed, which I do consider immoral.
White nationalism does not have an adequate plan for the future and their proposed solutions to problems will not simply vanish if given political control. Since I have explained that white nationalists come about primarily as a reaction to the excess of progressive ideology, they don’t really have a thought-out plan for the future, only the destruction of what is currently politically popular. Destroying a current political establishment, and actually governing are two completely different things, and they are often in sharp contrast with one another. It would not surprise me if they achieved political power that it would not last particularly long, because the modern world does not share the political realities of the interwar period. They seem to have this idea that the only thing stopping western nations from their previous economic and technological superiority is simply the racial makeup of the country. Now while it can be strongly argued that the social benefits of homogeneity would lead to better educational and economic outcomes, by no means is this guaranteed. Modern nation states are in constant competition with one another in all kinds of ways that are not obvious on the surface. They seem to have this opinion regarding almost all facets of society, that simply making western nations homogeneous will solve almost all of their political problems. This is not apparent to me. There are many serious issues that demographics don’t seem to solve. The birthrate for example, would seemingly skyrocket the moment western nations are ethnically homogeneous, never stopping to notice that these problems are worst within nations that are ethnically homogeneous, such as China, Korea, or Japan. The modern world has become far too complicated for such simple solutions, and in many ways White nationalist’s delusional world is only a reality within their minds.
This is not to say that modern liberal democracy is inherently better, as I would prefer almost anything to what we currently have. I believe modern progressivism to be a political and cultural dead end, and one that white nationalists correctly diagnose as being inevitable to die, either due to political revolt or societal collapse, given a long enough time frame. The dissident right has emerged as an evolution to this type of ideology and is a little more realistic in their goals and slightly more aware of the moral problems that come about as a result. White nationalism is an equal dead end, at least the fantasy of it that the adherents hold to in their heads.
This seems to me a quite bad refutation of white nationalism. The meat of your objection is that wignats would have to use violence to achieve their policy goals, but apparently you've never had a frustrating conversation with a libertarian. That's true for every political movement ever. Whether we are talking about ethnic cleansing of hispanics or civil rights laws for blacks or motor vehicle registration for your SUV, the enforcement of policy ultimately rests on an escalating sequence of consequences that end in non-compliants being gunned down by police in the street.
Yes, making an ethnostate would require reprisals on people who don't want to obey. This is equally true of patrolling borders. China, Korea, and Japan are not "naturally" homogenous today. They are homogenous because they have continued to enforce a threat of violence against border crossers who do not meet their preferences.
This post could be rewritten to condemn any political movement that is not in power, save ancaps.
The best refutation of white nationalism is fact that there is no such thing as "white nation", that all the hundreds of millions of pale skinned people all over the world (white nationalists themselves vigorously disagree all the time on the basic issue who exactly should count as "white") do not see themselves as "one nation" and do not see any stranger with the same skin color as their brothers or sisters.
White nationalists have to build their nation out of nothing, have to organize, educate and agitate on unprecendted worldwide scale, have to persuade, for example, Balkan and Eastern European peoples to put down their mutual grievances and see each other as fellow white comrades.
Do you see any force capable of such monumental task? I don't.
I remember reading a couple of discussions online following the first Black Panther movie and the first season of Bob Hearts Abishola, respectively, making a parallel point about "black" — that things like "Pan-Africanism" have always been primarily phenomena of "diaspora" blacks (Erik Killmonger, Gloria Tyler), while Africans have their own particular national and sub-national identities, rivalries, and enmities.
(This parallel also provides a good rejoinder to the 'if you, a "white" American, want to live in a "white ethnostate," just go back to Europe, bro' argument — how's Liberia been doing?)
But note that while the above militates against a global "black" identity, it doesn't remove the salience of such an identity in the American context; hence the increasing ADoS discourse. There's no "black nation," but there's quite arguably a "black American nation." Ethnogenesis is a thing.
And the parallel goes for white Americans… to a degree. For various reasons, including, but not limited to, the "break" from the "old country" and its culture being less extreme for (mostly, to varying degrees) willing immigrants versus slaves brought in chains. The "melting pot" did a lot, but so did "Albion's Seed," as it were.
So there isn't even one "white American nation" — there's at least two, and they're increasingly hostile. A lot of times, when a certain type of "white person" goes on about how awful "white people" are, they don't mean themselves, they mean the other tribe. As I've put it to people before, I'm not a "white nationalist," but I am, perhaps, a Borderer nationalist. And "build[ing] their nation out of nothing… to organize, educate and agitate" on that much smaller and more homogenous scale would indeed be an easier task than "convincing Balkan and Eastern European peoples to put down their mutual grievances and see each other as fellow white comrades" — consider, for example, why quite a number of "white Americans" with no historical, familial, or geographic ties to the South will display a Confederate flag?
Except, I, for one, don't particularly see trying to carve out a Borderer ethnostate as much of a path forward either, even if the "tribes" are increasingly segregating geographically. Instead, I see the best path forward for my people to lie outside the (increasingly outdated) Westphalian nation-state model.
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