Originally published at NPI October 2013
Well, Conservatism Inc. has found out about the National Policy Institute’s conference—and they are not happy. One “J. Arthur Bloom” (that’s his real name) at the Daily Caller bravely unmasks the “White Nationalist” conference and its “notorious” speakers, breaking from his usual trailblazing articles about Herman Cain’s “9-9-9” tax videos.
There are the usual drive-by style smears. The Traditional Britain Group is a “fringe group.” Sam Dickson is a “Klan Attorney.” The manosphere (identified as the base for NPI speaker Jack Donovan) is a “network of self-described anti-feminist bloggers and internet lurkers who seem to think there’s something courageous about misogyny.”
However, what is truly interesting is the source Bloom uses to describe the National Policy Institute. He cites one Daryle Lamont Jenkins of the One Person’s Project, er, One People’s Project. Mr. Jenkins, of course, includes such conservative luminaries as Pat Coyle of Young America’s Foundation, Phyllis Schlafly, Pat Buchanan, and that notorious radical Sean Hannity in his “Rogue’s Gallery.” OPP also publishes their personal addresses—and given its support and collaboration with “antifa” executing violent attacks on people they disagree with, one can only guess what Mr. Jenkins wants people to do with this information.
Mr. Jenkins also includes Ann Coulter as someone worthy of condemnation and, presumably, more direct actions. Coulter is a featured columnist on, you guessed it, the Daily Caller. When Margaret Thatcher died, Mr. Jenkins also gloated with a banner headline reading “Rot in Hell!”, a practice for any conservative (or person he thinks is “racist”) who dies.
The fact that J. Arthur Bloom thinks this character is more worthy of respectful treatment in the conservative press than former American Conservative Editor Richard Spencer or former National Review contributors Peter Brimelow and Jared Taylor tells us a lot about where the conservative movement stands today. Of course, this also assumes J. Arthur Bloom is actually a real person, and not just a caricature created by Tom Wolfe.
However, there is a deeper philosophical connection besides the characteristic stupidity required for success within the Beltway Right. The Beltway Right and the self-styled “antifa” have much in common. Neither group actually advances towards their supposed goals. Both draw on phony rationalizations for their support. And both are deeply committed—even dependent—on the maintenance of the status quo.
The American conservative movement systemically marginalized scholars, intellectuals, and activists who wanted to push the American Right towards a serious defense of nationalist economic, cultural, and demographic policies. Today, the Beltway Right celebrates these “purges” (their term) as the necessary price for giving the American conservative movement the “respectability” it enjoys today.
Of course, the American conservative movement is widely smeared as “racist” and is utterly dependent on White voters and thinly veiled race baiting—especially at institutions like the Daily Caller. One can even see this in comments section of Bloom’s own story, which was quickly dominated by White advocates using the “anti-racist is anti-white” talking points.
However, because the Beltway gatekeepers ensure the conservative movement never connects the dots between their platform and their constituency, the Beltway Right is allowed a seat at the table. The fundraising scams and promises of “the most important election in our lifetime” continue again and again, even as the movement stumbles from catastrophe to catastrophe. As Joseph Sobran noted of the conduct of movement conservatives, “It was a game, a way of making a living.”
As for antifascists, they are ostensibly mobilized against a system of oppression that represses people of color and maintains hierarchical social arrangements. Initially, many of these groups grew out of workers’ organizations and to this day largely coincide with various explicitly socialist and Communist organizations. However, the robber barons of today never experience any real pressure from the Left. Instead, the antifa’s posturing and strutting—which even Jack Donovan might call a bit of an overcompensation—is purely targeted at politically marginalized White Nationalists.
One can see this in the initial promise and eventual collapse of the Occupy movement. The mobilization against taxpayer bailouts of banks, corporate privilege, and the rise in inequality touched a nerve in the mass population. However, the protests quickly degenerated into a grab bag of cutesy PC policies, as SWPL’s with post-graduate degrees made sure “people of color” spoke first so they can fight institutional racism. Instead of becoming a mass movement, it became a cliché of overeducated anarchists typing away on their Macs about why someone else should pay for their Gender Studies degree. Today’s antifascists would see the workers of the world reduced to absolute serfdom so long as it means mass immigration continues to dispossess whites.
Thus, while skinheads and lonely “White Nationalists” in North Dakota without power (or running water) draw fanatical responses, the likes of George Soros, Michael Bloomberg, or Lloyd Blankfein do their business undisturbed. In practice—and perhaps even in theory—antifascists serve as the Pinkerton detectives of the multicultural state, the useful idiots of the regime. Far from being a threat to the System, they are a necessary support, even a militant wing.
Interestingly, some antiracist theoreticians recognize this, at least partially. The Communist Party member Don Hammerquist wrote in “Fascism and Anti-Fascism,” (cited at Anti-Racist Action) that the real danger of “fascism” in his analysis is not that fascists will seize power. He admits, “The policies of official capitalism carried out through the schools and the criminal justice and welfare systems are both a far greater and a more immediate threat to the health and welfare of people of color than fascist instigated racial attacks and their promotion of racialist genocide.”
However, this doesn’t mean they will actually do anything about it. Instead, “fascism” is still th
e real danger because they are the only ones talking about “issues that are regarded a part of our movement: “globalization,” working class economic demands, “green” questions, [and] resistance to police repression, etc.”
He also notes, the “question of who and what, exactly, is anti-capitalist remains very much unsettled. Some of the fascists take positions that at least appear to be much more categorically oppositional than those of most of the left.”
Indeed, the real point of the “anti-fascists” is to make sure no one is talking about important issues. The antifa position seems to be “if we can’t generate resistance to the System, no one can!” You can’t intelligently discuss issues such as environmentalism, class divisions, or what a real community actually entails without talking about the realities of diversity and the costs of mass immigration. But of course, the very things that are most important to discuss are the same things we are not allowed to mention without drastic reprisals.
In theory, anti-fascists see “White Nationalists” as their only possible rivals for a “libertatory anti-capitalism.” In practice, they simply go after the easier target. Thus, thanks to these bold fighters for the workers, class divisions continue to increase, the system of international finance is far stronger than it was a few decades ago, organized labor has all but collapsed, and upper-class Americans have an entirely new class of taxpayer-supported brown helot laborers.
But at least they mildly inconvenience groups trying to hold a conference, and make hotels pay “White Nationalist” groups tens of thousands of dollars for breaking a contract! ¡No pasarán!
Meanwhile, the antifacists also serve a useful role for the Beltway Right. They ensure that activists stick to the script and never lose sight of their role as corporate lobbyists. Economic policies are rarely attacked on their own terms. Instead, they are portrayed as a cover for sneaky “White Nationalists” lurking in the background, pulling the strings. The Left even claimed that the farce of the government shutdown was actually motivated by White racism. Whenever someone does make an explicit connection between the the conservative base and policies that would actually help the historic American nation, the antiracists cry “jump!” and Conservatism Inc. replies “how high?”
The result is the conservative movement remains permanently on the defensive on identitarian issues. The self appointed purgers and guardians of respectability, typically of a neoconservative persuasion, are empowered. The “hard right” of the conservative movement takes solace in conspiracy theories and an ever more fanatical devotion to the civic religion of aracial, acultural “Americanism,” which renders them both stupid and nonthreatening. When Bob Weissburg was purged from National Review for saying sensible things about race, Rich Lowry didn’t just explain the move as a tactical necessity—he actually thanked the “antifascists” who brought it to his attention.
Working in unconscious partnership, the antifascists and the Beltway Right ensure there is no serious threat to the system of control. The antifascists ensure that the only radical force seriously opposing those in power (by their own admission) can never organize openly. Meanwhile, the Beltway Right ensures any large-scale opposition by Whites is funneled into dead ends.
The essential contradiction of “White Nationalism” is that while it is marginalized politically, it dominates all political conversation. To echo what Marx said of Communism, where is the party in opposition that has not been decried as “racist” by its opponents in power? Where is the opposition that has not hurled back the branding reproach of “racism?”
On issues such as mass immigration, anti-White racial preferences, trade policy, and even cultural matters (ask a normal person what he thinks about modern art), racial realists and Traditionalists are a silent majority. An ever more elaborate system of repression is required to prevent a breakthrough. The increasingly prissy and hysterical tone of our media regarding the occasional murmurs of resistance is fully justified, as small conferences and tiny vanguards of activists could transform into a mass force overnight if the boot is ever lifted.
The “Third Way” proposed by nationalists and Traditionalists truly is “beyond Left and Right.” It is the only threat to the current order that exists. This is why both of these groups are united to destroy it.
