Rally ‘Round the Flag

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In the wake of Charlottesville, there has been much discussion about optics and the most effective aesthetic strategies for the growing White Nationalist movement. Andrew Anglin recently pronounced the Alt Right “dead” and implied that American symbology was the best path forward. He received instant blowback from many in the movement. However, anyone who has travelled in these circles for more than the past year or two will understand immediately and intuitively this tension: our concern is the white race, something toward which the United States government has exhibited open hostility for decades, and which the white American public somewhat paradoxically pretends does not exist while regularly and enthusiastically ceding social, political, cultural, and physical territory to non-whites.

As racialists, we see such behavior as insane and abhorrent. To the extent that the American government facilitates this process of white displacement, we can be said to be anti-American. We are certainly not a movement of patriots in the typical sense. We also understand that America is both the headquarters and major financier of the uniquely destructive Judeo-capitalist empire, and we know exactly how whites figure into this empire’s plan for the future: we don’t. So it is more than understandable that the average White Nationalist has long ago shed any traditional notion of patriotism and finds displays of such sentiments to be childish and ignorant. But for the movement to be successful, it must not become ossified, it must not become orthodox and conservative, it must not become wedded to one particular direction if there is an easier and more effective path. As such, it might be time to consider very seriously Mr. Anglin’s suggestion.

What does American symbology currently represent? Generally, either a naïve conservatism or white supremacy. There is virtually no middle ground. This seemingly odd polarization was actually inevitable once America began inviting the non-white world into its territory. Humans are tribal creatures, and the idea of a multiracial “melting pot” was always a mere fantasy. It is just as much a fantasy in America as it is everywhere else on the globe. It is simply not how humans naturally function. And when forced to live in such conditions, productivity, happiness, and other markers of social and personal health drop strikingly. White Americans, whether we are consciously aware of it or not, are currently in this situation: we are battling for space within our own country. We are under the thumb of a government which thwarts our interests at every turn. And we are surrounded by increasingly foreign-born non-whites who are hostile to our interests, seek to attain power over us, and, by a combination of natural tribal instincts (for which they certainly cannot be faulted) and corrosive Jewish propaganda, have come to despise our very existence. These people were always going to react negatively, eventually with venomous hostility and violence, to white hegemony in the United States.

Anything that serves in this country as a symbol of the white race, of America’s historical white roots, or which valorizes white cultural norms and social expectations will invoke in non-whites feelings of loathing, alienation, and fantasies of power acquisition and revenge. The flag, for example, encapsulates these things and more. For blacks, it is a symbol of slavery, Jim Crow, police brutality, and their collective failure to attain white standards in almost every field of endeavor outside of a handful of sports, which they blame not on genetics or genetically-derived behavioral patterns but on historical oppression. For other non-whites, the flag is a visual representation of everything they are not, of a world in which they can play nothing but a superficial (and largely economic) role. It is a reminder that despite their physical presence in our lands, spiritual integration will not–indeed cannot–occur within the context of anything remotely resembling America as it was intended, as it used to be, and as it is still imagined to be by most whites. Even those who have succeeded economically and socially (East Asians, for example) intuitively know that they are fundamentally alien to American culture. Non-whites understand more than we that the flag is indeed a symbol of whiteness. This is precisely why they neither respect it nor respect any display of reverence for it. For non-whites, the flag is an obstacle to power because we are an obstacle to power.

What does American symbology mean to whites? For older whites, it holds a degree of nostalgic value: a faith in the ideals that they were taught as children and have not yet figured out were either outright lies or were tainted with deception and manipulation. It also represents a longing for the pre-1965 white America in which they were raised. These people still revere the flag and the anthem simply as a result of a healthy, albeit unsophisticated and often misguided, patriotic instinct, but also out of a subconscious and legitimate appreciation of the white world of their childhoods. For younger whites, American symbology tends to mean very little. It is either an antiquated curiosity devoid of substance or, for the purple-haired crowd, a representation of the cause of whichever major world problem is currently trending on Twitter. But neither group of young people actually takes it very seriously.

The flag itself does not offend. It is innocuous and, even to those with the deepest purple hair, evokes no strong emotion. The most eloquent and charming immigrant Marxist professor could never make a young white person truly hate the flag; any expressed hatred would only be an affectation. Indeed, both for those who still revere it and for those who do not, the flag remains imbued with an implicit sense of community, of security, and of order: white values. Simple, recognizable, homey, and safe, the flag has a mild yet solid base of emotional appeal with great potential for added deeper meaning. It is a ubiquitous not-quite-blank slate that would be impossible to disavow without serious consequences, even if successfully claimed and rehabilitated by White Nationalists. And, crucially, it is also ripe for aesthetic reconfiguration. It can be as edgy or as tame as the situation demands. The same holds true for other American symbols.

Consider the recent National Football League “KneelGate” protests in which the national anthem figures in the same way as does the flag above. Young black players, Jewish owners, and emasculated whites have been kneeling during the singing of the anthem in protest of . . . something. It is hard to say why exactly they are doing this, but it doesn’t matter even slightly because, whatever the cause, it is doubtless based on spurious reasoning and incorrect data and, more importantly, the larger message is clear: it is a display of anti-whiteness couched in anti-Americanness for the entire country to see. This kind of thing hits average Americans hard because, as people who are accustomed to avoidance (the frontier, white flight, consumerism, etc.), they rely on sensory diversion for comfort. It is safe to say that for many football fans, watching a game might be the only sense of community they get to experience–certainly on the national level. When this bit of recreation becomes politicized and that politicization is racial in nature, an increase in racial awareness occurs, with an increased degree of racial cohesion as the inevitable result. No matter what is said (or not) in public, it escapes no white observer that these spoiled-brat millionaires are blacks who are behaving in typical black fashion. The connection between whiteness and the national anthem is being formed right now in white homes across the country. White Nationalists might not care about the national anthem. We might not care about football. But we do care about angry white people.

We are thus presented with a problem: we have symbols that are either embraced or ignored by whites, but which are despised by non-whites. Attacks on these symbols are obviously racial in origin and are generally seen by many whites as, at the very least, distasteful, and to a large degree absolutely maddening. Would it not be pure folly to refuse to capitalize on the attachment to these symbols? Would it not be irresponsible to let this anger dissipate without making the most of it? Is it not worth pausing to reflect on how this event can inform our optics debate? Is it not worth at least having an open mind about strategy? Let us consider some common objections to a White Nationalist embrace of American symbology.

The first objection is that we should not appeal to normies. This is absurd on its face. Of course we should appeal to normies. Ideally, we want every single white person in the country to be on our side. What we don’t want to do is compromise our message in order to attract them. We want to win average whites to our side with the effectiveness of our arguments and our honest, informed, and courageous appraisal of the current situation. We know we can do this well because we know we are right and can prove it. If an American flag can draw more people close enough to us to hear our message, it is our duty to make use of that tool.

Hunter Wallace has framed this question as a choice between appealing to normies or the disaffected. He opts for the disaffected because he thinks the system works for normies and that they will have no interest in radical politics. Normally, this would be accurate. But what he fails to see is that behind the outward signs of comfort displayed by the middle-class, suburbanite, and coastal whites and others for whom the system seems to have worked, is a seething despair and meaninglessness. Increasingly, normies and the disaffected are the same people.

Another objection to this argument is that almost every one of us started off as a normie. To behave as if White Nationalism is some sort of exclusive club is not only elitist and embarrassingly juvenile, but it is acutely counter-productive. Do we really want to become a movement in which one’s party number alone is a mark of privilege?

The second major objection is that American symbology is necessarily tied to civic nationalism. The response to this is similar to the above: we must not ever temper our message or deceive anyone about our intentions or beliefs. Our arguments are solid and have proven time and again to stand up to any and all criticism. There is simply no need to hide who we are. Not only is that sort of dishonesty distinctly alien to the white character, but it will not help us accomplish our goals. We want new people who will be as committed to our cause tomorrow as we are today, and they cannot be if they are not fully informed. We are not civic nationalists, and draping ourselves in the flag will not change that fact. Furthermore, those who reflexively respond with this objection demonstrate a misunderstanding not only of American history but of one of the most potent and common White Nationalist talking points: that America is a country founded by and for whites. American symbols are either inherently racial or they are inherently non-racial. They cannot be both. And since we know that the former is the case, then this objection is false.

A third objection is that American symbology will steer Americans away from racial thinking. This is unlikely for two reasons. First, the trend is towards racialized politics, and this trend is largely a result of Leftist activism coupled with the observable reality of race-related social decay. Our success in this regard is largely due to being on the scene to provide answers for people who have already sensed the larger problems. Second, American symbology, as mentioned above, was racialized to begin with, and has merely reentered a racialized phase; the interim era of deracination was an aberration rooted in Jewish propaganda efforts and maintained by Jewish political pressure and domination of the media and culture-producing institutions of this country. America was a more or less explicitly white state well into the twentieth century. American symbology will in and of itself have no effect either way in this regard except insofar as it creates a more welcoming atmosphere, and thus a greater audience for our message. White Nationalists will be there to set the record straight about this and all other matters of importance when the normies arrive.

It is important to keep in mind that the majority of people on both sides of this debate are acting in good faith. Both groups of people are concerned with the same fundamental problems and have the same basic goals. There is no reason why multiple strategies cannot function simultaneously until there is more evidence to be weighed. The wisest course of action would be to sit back, let an American aesthetic develop organically, and simply observe. However, those of us who are American, if we are completely honest with ourselves, probably already know that European styles and imagery are not going to work as well in this country as the flag does, regardless of the group we are trying to reach. And that is the beauty of American symbology: it possesses the ability to transcend class, region (with the possible exception of some Southerners), and age by touching on a largely untapped and ignored core of American identity: whiteness. By making the whiteness of America explicit, not only might we broaden our appeal, but we also might find that we have a deeper understanding of ourselves in the process.

White Nationalists in America have grown accustomed to feeling as if we don’t really have a home. What if that were to change? What if the regular use of the flag awakened a hitherto lost and forgotten spiritual connection to our own soil? What if we could find, through a simple change in aesthetics, a newfound appreciation and love of the land that is our birthright? Would we not fight that much harder?