There has occasionally emerged on the far right self-designated “white nationalists.” I ocassionally debate them, but I don’t consider myself one of them. The problem with this view, not least, is that we’re not a white nation. Historically, we’re a biracial nation. We brought black people here in chains. Until 1965 immigration reform, we had small admixtures of Indians and Hispanics, but that biracial reality basically encapsulates the first 400 years of history in North America. This demographic reality is a problem–and it has undeniably created many problems, not least the Civil War–but it’s a problem chiefly of white people’s making.
What strikes me as problematic among “white nationalists” is the essentialism of their view of minority and white relations. Yes, it’s undeniable, there is more crime and poverty and general lack of civilization among most minority groups in America. And, as of late, particularly since the 1960s, there is a great deal of unrest and hostility towards the majority white culture and its people, in spite of the general devolution of formal limits on minority advancement and the general lessening of white racist attitudes.
But the America of 1900 or 1920 or 1941 or 1961 for that matter had these same minorities, and it was in many ways more decent, more stable, and had more flourishing of both black and white than the present. And this was as true in New York or Detroit, as Houston or Birmingham. That is, in the past, there were fewer social problems for both groups, and there were widely accepted standards of behavior that were exemplified by the leadership of both groups. Higher class people wore jackets and ties. Fathering kids (or having them) out of wedlock was considered low class, disreputable, and a fast track to poverty. There was patriotism. There was enterprise. There was some segregation, but there was also a great deal of cooperation and mixing, particularly in mid-century. True, there was crime and poverty, and often more of it among blacks, but criminals were shunned by the leaders of both communities, and poverty was not encouraged by the welfare state and the contempt for labor it breeds.
This past should be scandalous for the white nationalists, who say that our intertwined future as a black and white nation is impossible and that some radical solution of separation or mass expulsion of all non-white groups is required. An expulsion and rejection of liberalism and a restoration of confidence by the majority, yes, and realism too. I consider myself a conservative and a nationalist, but the nationalism I embrace is one that conforms to the distinct and also biracial American character. I love real Americans and consider them my brothers. I’m devoted to America’s historic peoples and their flourishing. As a conservative, I want to conserve a way of life both tangible and real, damaged perhaps, but not totally out of living memory. And I see the answers to many of our problems, and the resolution to these supposedly insurmountable racial conflicts, in the answers arrived at by our ancestors in that same history.
The dominant ethos of that history was a flexible, fair, and focused on true merit. It featured self-confident rule by laws and the best men in the community , guided by some concept of noblesse oblige and respect for birth, with this leadership repeated on a small scale by the elite in each sub-community. The mostly WASP majority set the tone of society. They did so without excessive guilt or self-imposed weakness. They did not apply different or lower standards to blacks or immigrants or others out of a sense of misplaced Christian compassion, even as they acknowledged differences among these groups. In other words, leadership rooted in moral truth and confidence in the same was the watchword of America’s yesteryear.
Learning history is important to refute the many distortions and defamations of our past that see nothing but whips and chains and segregated lunch counters, while ignoring the economic and social progress of blacks in that era, as well as ignoring the manifold crack dens, illiteracy, hostility, high crime, race riots, and persistent poverty of that same underclass today. We may have a Barack Obama, but where is today’s Booker T. Washington or George Washington Carver or Bill “Bojangles” Robinson.
Occidental Dissent, an interesting blogger, has recently learned that some of his white nationalist fellow travelers are nasty people, devoid of charity for their countrymen, and in some cases filled with hate and hostility and downright craziness. This is not true of all of them, to be fair; some merely emphasize what I consider an ahistorical goal of separation that goes too far and is unnecessary. I hope he looks to our history for the answers, and I hope, unlike some so-called “white nationalists,” he remembers that our first duty in politics, as in life, is to do what is right and true. This truth includes the truth of Christianity and its teaching that each of us, no matter how poor or incapable or disadvantaged or low IQ or dark complected, has human dignity, and this dignity must be respected, even as we try to create a stable and flourishing social order. We can be realists. We can not be demoralized by different levels of flourishing among different group, but that realism must also include the recognition of the real supernatural order and the reality of our Divine Author.
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There are many flavors of white nationalist and one of them is the impractical one you cite: those who are radical separatists. The rest of us want to be left alone to protect ourselves from those who hate us and would do us harm if they could. People do this in myriad ways: by where they live, where they work and whom they associate with (and how well they’re armed!). Those who would deny us those rights and who would flood the country with more people who hate us are our enemies. Unfortunately, that class of people includes most of our ruling elite. They are also the wreckers of the country in general – anti-patriotic, alienist and larcenous. These people are mostly white, another example of the truth that race isn’t everything.
You sound like a reactionary. There is no way in hell that we are ever going back to the America of 1900 or 1920 or 1941 or even 1961. That America is long gone.
Racial (and ethnic) conflict and separation are as American as apple pie. Historically, the North American continent was the battleground of various nationalisms and empires. The continent was split up into French territories, English territories, Spanish territories, and Indian tribal territories. There were even some Russian settlements in Alaska and California. Later, following the American Revolution, which was a secessionist conflict or civil war, there were created American territories. Large parts of the country were racially segregated between Europeans and Africans. The American Civil War (or, the 2nd War of Independence) revolved around the issue of separation.
True, as you point out, there have been different races occupying the N. American continent since colonial times. This demographic reality, of course, fostered separation and conflict from the start. It is certainly not an argument for keeping the present Multi-Cult experiment in place.
What makes today different is the overwhelming anti-White propaganda machine, largely managed by the Jewish elite and its Gentile servant class, that makes life increasingly difficult if not impossible for White people. (I can imagine that the situation is even worse for believing Christians like you). Added to which, consider the vast unprecedented numbers of non-White colonists imported by the globalist authorities, and you have the recipe for a racial/political/military disaster of nightmarish scope.
What makes today different, too, is the nature of the American elite. The old WASP elite has been beaten down and replaced by a predominantly Jewish elite. Not only does this alien class lack a connection to the historic American people, but it is also actively hostile to it and seeks to undermine and swamp it with imported colonists from the third world.
To understand how we got here and what we can do about it, it is necessary to examine the role of the Jews, though the Jewish variable alone is insufficient.
I am a reactionary! Ted, I certainly agree we need to stop nearly all immigration, perhaps for 30-40 years completely, and when and if it restarts, it should consist of highly assimilable Europeans and high quality super talented people from elsewhere (in very small numbers).
As for the elites, we do need to end rule of the majority by hostile minorities of all kinds (starting with Obama) as well as brainwashed natives whose minds have been destroyed by Marxist multiculturalism.
“I love real Americans and consider them my brothers.”
American blacks hate you. Don’t ever forget that.
I generally agree with this take, btw, and I’m not quite a “White Nationalist” either, more just a pro-White White. A White ethnostate is not the only solution to our problems, and may not be realistic anyway, so I’m open to other solutions.
I really disagree with you view of history, Mr. Roach. Before the Immigration Act of 1965 America was 90 percent white and had immigration restrictions in place that essentially only allowed northwestern Europeans. Also, throughout the South we had legal racial segregation and anti-miscegenation laws and throughout the rest of the country we had de facto racial segregation. In other words, we were explicitly a white country not a biracial country as you say. A country needn’t be 100 percent homogenous for it to be considered a white country. However, this situation wasn’t ideal that’s why we had to implement racial segregation in the regions of the country that had large black populations.
Bottom line: Travel back in time and ask any white American before the Second World War whether or not we were a biracial country or a white country. 100 percent of the time they would tell you that we were a white country.
“some [white nationalists] merely emphasize what I consider an ahistorical goal of separation that goes too far and is unnecessary.”
But history isn’t even important anyway. So what if we were historically a multiracial nation? (We weren’t, but let’s just say so for arguments sake.) That doesn’t mean that we should be forevor bound to this. We should be able to change our nation for the better. Have you never heard of progress?
Also, Mr. Roach, you seem to not understand the importance of a homogenous nation. Have you ever read Frank Salter’s book On Genetic Interests? In that book Salter proposes universal nationalism in order to preserve the “ethnic genetic interests” of all races and ethnic groups. If you truly want to understand the reasoning behind white nationalists’ desire for a homogenous ethnostate you should read that book. Order it from Amazon tonight.
“I hope, unlike some so-called “white nationalists,” he remembers that our first duty in politics, as in life, is to do what is right and true.”
Standing up for your own people is what is right and true. And you can definitely do this without infringing on the human dignity of other groups of people!
I have no problem with racial separatism per se. The problem comes when racial separatists try go achieve political power. If people want to preserve their race they can do so privately.
[...] Mansizedtarget, Chris Roach has some commentary on White Nationalism from a paleocon perspective that I suspect our readers will find interesting. [...]
The 20,000+ white women who are raped each year by blacks thank you for your pathetic views!
Just what we need, another weak white man.
Mr. Roach, it was a fine article. Yours was the classic non-racialist conservative’s retort to WN, like what Goldwater would have said to Malcolm X (had X been white) or Herman Talmadge (had Talmadge been a nationalist instead of a segregationist).
Let me clarify that I am not quite a WN myself, only I find myself thinking quite like them when I am at my most optimistic. So I can kinda sorta offer an apologia for them.
You wrote: The problem with this view, not least, is that we’re not a white nation.
Ahh, now you’re confusing country with nation. This is easy for Americans to do since for a time it appeared they were one in the same. Part of American exceptionalism (and this applies to any number of Western Hemisphere republics) was that our nationalities were the same shape as our national borders, and thus we were lucky.
Consider for a moment that they may not be one and the same. The “nation” referred to in White Nationalism cannot be located on a map any more easily than Czechoslovakia could be located on a 1910 map of Austria-Hungary. The Czechs didn’t regard AH as their nation (no one called it a nation, ever, as far as I know). Czechs regarded themselves, correctly, as among the really creative, successfully, ambitious, and reliable nationalities among the AH, but as neither Germans nor Hungarians they were third-class citizens at best.
Did you know three of the nine Paris Guns were manufactured not by Germany but Skoda?
The Czechs’ minority status was a disadvantage in politico-military struggles and an advantage in building nationalism. There are plenty of other differences, but beyond them, are there any similarities between whites in the USA 2009 and the Czechs in AH, say, 1909-1918?
Active scientific, cultural, and artistic elites for each group? Yes.
Performance beyond that of other ethnic groups in major war? Yes.
Strong bourgeois values? Not really for whites as a whole, no.
Strong representation in the ruling class? Yes for US whites, only a little for AH Czechs.
Let me spin the question. Are there any similarities between lower-middle class whites in the USA 2009 and the Czechs in AH, say, 1909-1918?
Active scientific, cultural, and artistic elites for each group? Only a little for LMC whites.
Performance beyond that of other ethnic groups in major war? Yes.
Strong bourgeois values? Yes.
Strong representation in the ruling class? Certainly not for LMC whites.
You see? The ingredients aren’t there because whites are divided against themselves.
… But I pretty much got ahead of myself on the Czech analogy.
Why isn’t nation the same as country? Because America gave up its nationhood 1965-1971. In six short years we gave up sensible immigration, meritocratic hiring & contracts, and hard currency. During the psychedelic upheaval of the late part of that period and the decade or so that followed, the “don’t be racist” mantra became the only rule that bound us together.
During the same period we sent thousands of whites off to die to bring democracy to Southeast Asia, conveniently covered up with legend. When the children of affluent whites threw bags of filth at the children of LMC whites (i.e. cops), the media decided that it was the FORMER who were the oppressed! A neat reversal of class war, and then time during which white power elites sided with their class and their ideology against their nation.
The nation still exists. It is bereft of true leaders. Those would-be leaders among think that, of all things, abortion is a super-important issue. Abortion! With gay marriage, gays in the military, and sex education to buttress it. While the affluent white left thinks about angry thermometers, the LMC white right thinks about sex. Southwest Asia, immigration, prison reform, combatting Wall Street fraud … the issues have gone where?
When people stop caring about the “don’t be racist” mantra, WN is one place they can end up. They could do worse … I doubt many WNs are of the screaming-into-the-mic variety. It doesn’t mean separation is easy, or even necessary. For my purposes, it is interesting to assume that it IS necessary – thought experiment – and try to work it out to prevent or minimize violence, and so that civil rights are as great as they have always been, and redefined as little as possible. (For I do believe that they MORAL right of the races to live separately is as legitimate as their right to live together. The problem is only one of recognition.) If a WN told you that he had no problem with black self-governance, Chicano self-governance, or status quo-style multiracial democracy in some areas, but that large white self-governed areas are vital and feasible, would you class him with the microphone-shouters? I’d say give him a listen and if it sounds like he’s claiming he has an infallible crystal ball, let it pass. That’s the way thought experiments are.
Who knows? I’d love to think that you Taft/Goldwater types are right, and that stopping welfare, AA*, mass immigration, and land wars in Asia will stop the subjugation of the white LMC. In person I am Taft/Goldwater to the core and content myself with standing on tracks asking the train to stop.
When I read about Malcolm X saying blacks can and should and must make it on their own, I have a little trouble figuring out why I can’t say the same thing. So I say it online.
This past should be scandalous for the white nationalists, who say that our intertwined future as a black and white nation is impossible and that some radical solution of separation or mass expulsion of all non-white groups is required.
Our past involved petty segregation to keep supposedly inferior blacks out of angelic, holy lunch counters. Our present involves tax-and-welfare to keep supposedly inferior white from reproducing as much as the angelic, holy black playas and the girls they sleep with. AA keeps the lower-middle class whites from setting their sites too high.
The past isn’t scandalous – it is just evidence of the lack of room the different ethnic groups had to be autonomous and to develop on their own. If it weren’t for Brown v. Board of Education, pro-black white folks would have striven to make separate black communities truly equal … they would have figured that empowering the genius-laden, Who’s Coming to Dinner folks of the Mississippi Delta and Harlem to run their own communities was 100 times more useful than thinning out blacks.
It is only a strange Newspeak slight-of-hand that convinces us that “Black can’t succeed on their own!” is a pro-black sentiment. But I am only WN when I optimistic … I admit that maybe blacks can’t succeed on their own, maybe separate IS inherently unequal. And that is (a) pessimistic, (b) contrary to the separatist side of my thinking, and (c) in agreement with Brown v. Board of Education.
The next phase of Newspeak is, when blacks move to white-majority neighborhoods and move up in white-owned businesses, this is something other than Blacks Benefitting From White Management. What is it? If blacks need to live among whites to be happy, is that white supremacism? Or is it some sort of tacit assertion that when white majorities won’t or don’t or shouldn’t have the usual rights that democracy gives to majorities?
Seriously. Please re-read the above paragraph if it seems like gibberish.
An expulsion and rejection of liberalism and a restoration of confidence by the majority, yes, and realism too. I consider myself a conservative and a nationalist, but the nationalism I embrace is one that conforms to the distinct and also biracial American character.
Then you’re a patriot, not a nationalist. There is no shame in that. Embrace your patriotism, and declare your allegiance to the US and not to its founding stock. You can’t please everybody.
Actually, I would say that the solution to the immigration problem is more (and better) immigration. The USA is not overpopulated relative to land area, and the slight discomforts of making this country a home for about 450 million people ( possibility of higher priced commodities) would be overwhelmed by the advantages of restoring the country to its old racial proportions (80% white/20% nonwhite) through the selective immigration of whites.
There are a lot of whites in poor countries recovering from the communism of the Eastern bloc who more than understand the virtues of limited government. I say we bring them here in spades. There are a lot of conservatives in Britain utterly alienated from their government. I’d welcome them here. A few east Asians would be fine too, but not so many as to alter the character of the country. All applicants would be vetted for fittness and other desirable traits.
Racial Nationalism isn’t my thing, but racial consciousness-the understanding that race matters and taking it into account in one’s political and personal decision making-very much is. It is necessary. Quite frankly, race consciousness might be the single most important part of any turning back from the mess we are in. The day whites can consciously say (without guilt or fear) that they are going to promote policies that import whites and result in a large net outflow of Hispanics is the day that the light shines at the end of the tunnel.
[...] http://mansizedtarget.com/2009/12/24/paleocons-and-white-nationalists/ [...]
I don’t think we need a bunch of foreigners moving here from Russia or elsewhere. Judging by Brighton Beach (and Palm Coast, FL), they are not exactly like us, and many have learned traditions of hustling, swindling, and outright laziness from the spiritual murder of life under the Soviet Union. We need zero net immigration, zero Muslim immigration, and no more coolie laborers from the Third World for at least 50 years.
I say no coolie laborers ever. I understand the difference of opinion, though. Remember, I’m talking in the context of a generally sound immigration system where the US would:
1) Pre-screen for history of criminality or criminal proclivity
2) Insist on English
3) Prevent the development of ethnic ghettoes such as those you describe to the extent to which it is possible. I’m not talking about Russifying Long Island. Set up a system where the immigrants would be set up in areas where there would be no chance at forming ethnic blocks or grievance politics. Try your best to diversify locally so that no area can become too ethnic. I’m not talking just Eatern Europe. I’m saying “give me your tired, your angry, your disaffected WHITE CONSERVATIVES” to all of Europe.
4) Select for productivity. Two of the major sources of greviance politics are that they are in fashion and that they are a comfort when your particular ethnicity is conspicuously underperforming. If we select those who are least likely to underperform, there should be less problems. And no Pro-White Immigration policy could possibly take hold here unless the PC ideology were already discarded, so fashion would not be a problem.
The eastern europeans would be different from us in these ways. Meanwhile, they would also be different from Americans in not holding a blind and stupid trust of government. Eastern Europeans are not particularly keen on PC harpies and Affirmative Action and have better antennae than Americans for Israeli propaganda. And recall, I would insist we diversify enough so that Eastern Europeans do not dominate the system, regardless of how hot the chicks are.
All in all, it would IMO, be a good thing to have as much of a productive base as possible to better hold the deadweight (and a Black/Hispanic population of ~100 million will inevitably lead to a lot of economic and social deadweight). Of course, there is the issue that if we ever get to the point where we can have race-conscious immigration in FAVOR of Whites, we will already have solved much of the other problems on the way. But we will be left with the presence of underperforming, underproductive, crime-prone, often hostile, and HIGHLY FECUND populations from 4 decades of folly. We will need the tax base to absorb them while we chip away at the damage through revivalist programs discouraging dependancy, illegitimacy, etc.
But it is an understandable difference of opinion.
[...] On the Merits and Demerits of “White Nationalism” [...]