Vantard Strategies

1,966 words

marvin [1]

Attack!

My recent article “Vanguardism, Vantardism, and Mainstreaming [2]” was directed primarily at mainstreamers. My goal in distinguishing between genuine vanguardists and “vantards” was to force the mainstreamers to focus on the substance of the vanguardist position, which I think is entirely defensible, rather than on the non-productive strategies of the vantards, which I characterized in two ways: (1) as needlessly linking White Nationalism with German National Socialism and the Holocaust, and (2) as embracing “premature populism [3].”

Colin Liddell sent his initial salvo in this debate, “Andrew Anglin’s Inverted Ghetto [4],” to Counter-Currents, but I did not want to run it. Liddell was responding to Anglin’s response [5] to RamZPaul’s attack on Robert Randsell. (See how complicated this gets? And this was just the beginning.) I told Liddell that I want Counter-Currents to stay above this kind of web drama because it is wearisome and usually unproductive.

I particularly objected to Liddell’s suggestion that Andrew Anglin is working for the enemy. My gut tells me that Anglin is sincere — but so is bad poetry. Moreover, I think that we should presume that people are sincere until proven otherwise. And even counter-productive behavior can be quite sincere. Too often one has occasion to ask: “If so-and-so were working for the enemy, would he be doing anything different?”

I thought RamZPaul’s attack to be pointless, because evidently he wants people like Randsell to shut up and go away, and they never will. So one needs to find a way of dealing with them. For instance, if you want to seem more moderate and reasonable, you can always point to someone like Randsell. And if you take umbrage to being linked with Randsell, well, that would not stop even if he did go away. The enemy is not “fair.” They would simply play the Hitler canard. So one has to have an answer anyway. Best, then, to focus on honing your own message than calling Randsell a clown.

Anglin then responded to Liddell, prompting Liddell to write a real stylistic and argumentative tour de force, “Stormer in a Teacup [6],” which at a stroke elevated the discussion to a level that prompted me to take part. Anglin then responded to both Liddell and me. (And Alex Linder has also chipped in [7].) Then Liddell responded yet again with “Go Straight to NAZI; do Not Pass Go . . . [8]” To which Anglin — who obviously relishes playing the victim and collecting props from dullards — has now penned another response [9].

This controversy has proved useful, because it has prompted Anglin and Linder to set down some of their presuppositions, which I would like to examine critically.

They’ll Call You a Nazi Anyway, so You Might as Well Be One

Liddell’s strongest argument is that linking White Nationalism to German National Socialism is self-defeating. Our enemies go out of the way to assert such linkages. They even claim that harmless conservatives like Rush Limbaugh are Nazis. Why do they do that? Because they correctly perceive that linking any Right-wing cause to Hitler stigmatizes it in the minds of most people. Being linked to Hitler, for example, is much more damaging than being linked to the devil himself, which is quite a feat. Why, then, go out of one’s way to tie White Nationalism to Hitler, when it is hard enough to get Americans or Swedes or Englishmen concerned with stopping their own ethnic displacement in the here and now?

I think Liddell makes a good point, which I would like to amplify. I think it is necessary to reject the premise shared by both vantards and the enemies of White Nationalism, namely, that White Nationalism really, authentically just is National Socialism. If you really are a National Socialist, then that is true. And if, like me, your intellectual journey took you through the Old Right, there is no point in denying it.

But, in truth, National Socialism is just one path that people take to White Nationalism. It is not the sole path. It is not a necessary path. Why? Because White Nationalism is based on reality, which is common to all peoples, places, and times. Because White Nationalism is the only rational and moral response to the white race’s ongoing, programmed march to extinction. Because a rational man who had never heard of Adolf Hitler or World War II would still conclude that ethnonationalism is the best political philosophy for all peoples.

Anglin and Linder, in effect, argue that “You’re going to be called a Nazi anyway, so why not go ‘full Nazi’?”[1] Rejecting the label, they imply, looks weak. Of course in this movement, it is inevitable that they will be accused of being fags, Jews, and FBI informants as well. But for some reason, they don’t wish to embrace those identities. Is denying such charges, if untrue, also “weak”?

If one is not a National Socialist, then one should indignantly reject the charge for what it is: an attempt to distract people from the present-day reality of our race’s demographic displacement. Even if one is a National Socialist, the charge is no less an attempt to distract us from the present justification for White Nationalism. For White Nationalism is justified based on what is happening in America and England and France and Germany and Italy today. And nothing that happened in Germany 70 years ago can make it either more or less true.

But one must not, like RamZPaul, think that one will be spared that charge if people like Randsell and Anglin shut up and go away. And it intensely irritates me [10] when our people think it is clever to pre-emptively throw Hitler under the bus to appease public opinion. But, at the risk of sounding like an old drunk lecturing the youth on the virtues of temperance, I completely sympathize with the Identitiarians, BUGSters, and others who wish to create a case for White Nationalism without reference to Hitler and the Holocaust.

The “Holohoax” Hoax

Anglin stridently asserts that (1) the Holocaust is a hoax, and (2) this hoax is the foundation of Jewish power today, such that undermining the orthodox Holocaust story will undermine Jewish power.

I think that both claims are false.

First, even if one deducts all the falsehoods and exaggerations so ably debunked by revisionists, there is still Holocaust enough for Jewish purposes. How many Jews died and how? Probably in the millions, by all causes. But whatever the historians determine in the end, we can be reasonably assured that it is enough to be (a) the worst thing that ever happened to Jews, and (b) an occasion for endless moral and financial blackmail directed at whites — until we simply harden our hearts to the sob stories.

Second, as Mark Weber has pointed out [11], the Holocaust is not the foundation of Jewish power. It is certainly a handy tool of Jewish power, which they will exploit to the hilt. But Jews already had enormous financial, cultural, and political influence in the white world long before the Second World War, and the ability of Jews to capitalize on the Holocaust presupposed existing Jewish power in politics, academia, and the mass media. Even if the Holocaust could be completely debunked — and no sensible revisionist argues that it can — the pillars of Jewish financial, political, and cultural power would still stand.

Fortunately, as I argue in my essay “Dealing with the Holocaust [12],” even if every jot and tittle of the Holocaust story were true, it does not undermine the validity of White Nationalism.

Anglin and Linder interpret the existence of laws against Holocaust revisionism and “denial” as a sign of Jewish vulnerability. But this does not follow. Such laws may be merely one more expression of overweening Jewish power, self-confidence, and vengefulness. They may not be necessities, but luxuries. Just another boot stomping on a human face, forever.

Premature Populism

In his latest, Anglin writes [9]:

Watch one of the presentations of Richard Spencer or Jared Taylor, and ask yourself: “who exactly it this supposed to appeal to?” Go peruse Counter-Currents – or any of these other “intellectual” blogs – and ask yourself the same thing.

The answer, obviously, is middle class White liberals over the age of 40 – precisely the most useless group of people on the face of the earth, as well as the group that is the least likely to have any interest whatsoever in issues of White survival.

That is why virtually no one at all cares about Richard Spencer, Jared Taylor or any of the rest of these people, and no one ever will.

So then, who am I targeting [in America]?

First, I am targeting all disenfranchised and angry White males under the age of thirty, which is where all of the real power lies. This site appeals to members of all socio-economic classes in that age bracket.

Second, I am targeting all age groups of traditional American conservatives, who generally come from the working and middle classes. This is still the core of America . . .

Now, Anglin is mistaken about my intended audience, which is whites of all social classes who are above average in intelligence, morality, and taste. But let’s just accept his terms for the sake of argument. Why would one wish to convert “middle class White liberals over the age of 40,” whom Anglin disdains as “the most useless group of people on the face of the earth”? Well, because middle class white liberals over the age of 40 have a huge amount of the power in this society. And Counter-Currents certainly does not neglect the tastes of the rich, who have even more power. Every society is ruled by elites. Every revolution is launched by elites. My approach to White Nationalism is to target elites: the existing elite and the elite that we will raise up from all social classes to replace them.

Anglin is also mistaken about his actual audience. He claims that he is appealing to “all disenfranchised and angry White males under the age of thirty” and working and middle class American conservatives. In fact, his site is designed to appeal to whites of all social classes who are below average in intelligence, morality, and taste — and, based on a perusal of his comments, he has hit his target. But no society is ruled by the below average. No revolution is made by the below average. Below average people are just historically inert ballast moved around by elites.

Anglin claims correctly that conservative working and middle class people are “the core of America.” But they are also politically inert and powerless. Anglin also makes the ludicrous claim that “all of the real power lies” with angry and disenfranchised young white men, who are also politically powerless and inert. Again, these people are mostly just historically inert ballast manipulated by elites.

Average whites, and below average whites, are still our people. We still wish to save them. We still represent their racial interests. But they will not save our race without leadership, and to be effective, the leadership of the white masses must be, on average, better than the masses. They must be an elite that can outmatch our Jewish and plutocratic enemy elites in brains, will, and ruthlessness. And that sort of elite will be more likely to emerge among the readers of Counter-Currents and The Occidental Observer than from the readers of The Daily Stormer and VNN Forum.

Note

1. If socialism (welfare statism) is an essential trait of National Socialism, then Linder is not a National Socialist, because he believes in free enterprise. Of course this is also true of George Lincoln Rockwell, who still insisted on calling himself a National Socialist — sometimes a “Free Enterprise National Socialist.” I have no idea what Anglin believes on this issue, but he calls himself a National Socialist, so I will accept that at face value.