White Populism Is The Future Of The GOP

February 7, 2021 Hunter Wallace Alt-Center, Conservatism, Polarization, Politics, Populists, Whiteness 46

Editor’s Note: A year ago, a big question was what would happen to Trump voters after he lost the election. Would Joe Biden winning the 2020 election “accelerate” things like under Obama and further radicalize Trump voters, or, would the GOP go back to its old ways? While it has only been two weeks, it definitely looks like things have changed for the better.

“White Populism” is the future of the Republican Party.

I’ve coined this new term to describe what I am seeing in a bunch of recent surveys and polls. Specifically, I am referring to this 70/30 split that I see among Donald Trump voters.

Throughout my entire lifetime, the conservative movement and the Republican Party has been composed of two major groups. There are the “True Cons” or “Free Marketeers” or “Core Conservatives” who have dominated the party since the 1980s. These people tend to be White college educated, middle class professionals or small business owners who live in the suburbs and who are defined by their belief in classical liberalism and free-market capitalism. There is also the Religious Right, the paleocons or the social conservatives who tend to live in the suburbs or rural areas. These people tend to be White working class or middle class Catholics or evangelicals who are pro-free market and motivated by social issues. These factions were united into the classic “three-legged stool” of conservatism which was based on Frank Meyer’s “fusionism” between capitalists, moralists and defense hawks in the Cold War.

The Republican Party is now a very different animal in the wake of Donald Trump. Mainstream conservatism as we have known it for decades has retreated within the party. Donald Trump has changed the demographics of the Republican Party by bringing in two huge groups of White voters. These White voters used to be adjacent to the GOP in the Center of the electorate until the 2016 election.

In 2017, the Pew Research Center and Voter Study Group found that there were now four groups of Trump voters. There were traditional Republican voters and Trump voters.

In the 2020 election, we know that Donald Trump brought more White working class and Hispanic voters into the Republican Party while losing large numbers of suburbanites, Independents and moderates. The bleeding in his coalition came from both ends. There were suburbanites who left the GOP who never really liked Trump in the first place and there were people like us who had enthusiastically voted for him in 2016 but who were disappointed that he governed too much like a traditional Republican.

In 2021, Joe Biden is president, Donald Trump has been sent into exile and the Republican Party is now in turmoil. The Free Marketeer wing which has traditionally been the governing wing of the party has continued to shrink as Baby Boomers and Silent Generation voters have continued dying off and as college-educated suburbanites with modernist values have left the party. Trump voters are also being radicalized by all the censorship, violence and the intensification of the political correctness. COVID-19, the stimulus checks and the changing demographics of the Republican Party which has become more working class has also made the party much more receptive to wealth redistribution. Meanwhile, people like Jonah Goldberg, David French, Stephen Hayes, Bill Kristol, Jeff Flake, Bob Corker and Charlie Sykes are now in exile and people who are still like that such as Liz Cheney and Ben Sasse who are still in the party are being censured while others like Rob Portman, Ron Johnson and Pat Toomey are retiring.

What is the Republican Party in the post-Trump era?

There is still a 70/30 split within the party. The demographic base of the establishment wing of the party has shrunk even further. The dominant wing of the party is now the social conservatives and populists which have increased in relative size. The party is now 1/2 conservative and 1/2 populist on economics and is held together by social identity issues. 87% of Trump voters feel threatened by anti-White discrimination. 64% of Trump voters now say that their race or ethnicity is extremely important, very important or somewhat important to their identity. White identity is more salient and closer to the surface now and the ongoing exodus of college-educated suburban professionals and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce from the GOP has further reduced the institutional barriers to its expression.

Do you remember these numbers from a few years ago? In the span of one year, they have probably doubled or tripled. The YouGov poll suggests a spike in White racial consciousness.

If these numbers have doubled or tripled in size due to the events of the past year since the death of George Floyd and Trump’s loss in the election, what should we call this?

It’s not “white supremacy.”

There is no evidence anywhere in the polling that suggests “white supremacy” is coming back. By that I mean the real thing. No one talks that way or thinks that way about race in those old terms.

It’s not “White Nationalism.”

There hasn’t been any growth in White separatism or belief in an ethnostate. Instead, the polling suggests that far more White people feel under siege right now. It is a sharper sense of White grievance. White people feel under attack by the political, corporate and cultural establishment.

It’s not the “Alt-Right.”

In 2017, the polls suggested that 5% to 10% of the population identified with the Alt-Right. These people were explicitly racially conscious while the polling showed there was a far larger group at the time that was Alt-Right adjacent and mildly or implicitly racially conscious. It was this larger group who we were trying to appeal to which seems to have been activated and dramatically expanded.

“White Populism” is how I would describe this larger group which is becoming 1.) more ethnocentric and racially aware due to the attacks and 2.) simultaneously friendlier to economic populism and wealth redistribution. There has been notably no change in their attitude toward non-Whites:

17% of Trump voters say that their race is “not at all important” to their identity. In contrast, 40% say it is extremely or very important. This puts into perspective how grossly out of touch Conservatism, Inc. has become with its own voters. It is clinging to antiquated views on race, culture and economics that reflect a more suburban Baby Boomer party from the 1980s that no longer exists.

64% of Trump voters now say their race is extremely, very or somewhat important to their sense of identity. At the same time, they rank blacks, Hispanics and Asians very positively. They have more mixed views about immigrants and negative views about illegal aliens.

Trump voters have a more negative view of rich people than non-Whites.

Why do I say that White populism is the future of the Republican Party? I don’t expect these trends to reverse. I expect the attacks on Whites to continue which will further boost and sharpen White racial consciousness. I see more college-educated, White professionals with modernist values like Charlie Sykes or David French migrating to the Democratic Party and more working class voters coming into the party. The party is gradually becoming more populist on economics due to changing demographics around age, income and education … Huckabee, Rick Santorum, Donald Trump, etc.

The inevitable reckoning between Conservatism, Inc. and its voters is coming soon. The gap between the donor class, the party establishment, professional conservatism, the Republican policy agenda and their voters and their values, beliefs and interests is now greater than ever. The electorate has changed dramatically, but the people of the top of the pyramid have been trying to ignore it and hold on to a vanished world even as the voters who propped up this apparatus are dead or going senile.

The truth is the Republican Party is now more the party of George Wallace than it is the party of Ronald Reagan. That’s the way it is headed. It’s more like the George Wallace in the later years of his life though. It is far milder, mellower and more populist than the Democrats make it out to be.

Note: I’m not in any hurry to join. I am enjoying observing and thinking about the implications of these changing demographics. It is also nice to report good news.

About Hunter Wallace 12392 Articles
Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Occidental Dissent

32 Comments

  1. I remember the Wallace campaign, and I remember George Wallace as if it was yesterday. A great, honest man.

    But, Wallace made many of the same mistakes as Ross Perot. Picked a retired, not all there, militarist as his VP—when he could have had his pick of Congressmen, Governors or Big City Mayors.

    He also let his campaign fade a number of times, when he should have been out there touring the US.

    His term for the opposition was pointy headed liberals, which was ok. But, he could have alluded to the Jewish nature of communism-socialism, and, the race issue including the Roman Catholic back stabbers. It was a hit song back then. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmsrOXO1FyU

    • I supported Wallace in ’68 and McGovern in ’72 – each time the apparently less pro-war candidate. Wallace had a lot of support in this area (several redlining 100% White counties according to the Census) of northern Appalachia mostly from poor blue collar workers, rural conservatives and Ku Klux Klan members.

      But Wallace really wasn’t anti-war. He only said the Vietnam war was a mistake, not that imperialism as such is wrong, and he tellingly chose for his runnng mate a really big murder-bomber, a former Air Force General who boasted about using nuclear weapons to destroy communists, and thought the plutonium-drenched Bikini Atoll testing area was still safe for life.

      How can anyone supportive of U.S. imperialist war be called a man of the common people? Far from a socialist, I say!

      • @ anonymous , mr.wallace was one of the better examples politically, that a man can. Definitely , be a man of the people and in the case of mr.wallace, once upon a time, a man among men, clearing not a socialist, populist in some ways, yes, socialist not now, not then, not ever !

  2. @ white populism is the future, our future, i am not sure if thee gop has a future , or even should have a future .

    • “white populism is the future, our future”:

      Populism if it even comes to pass is only a reform, a half-way measure, merely a temporary step backward for plutocracy before it takes two steps forward.

  3. here we go again. was NOTHING learned from trumps fake populism??? pundits are all grifters. how about you stop encouraging people to waste their time and hope on federal politics Hunter? local groups is where its at

    • Did you read anything that I said?

      I’m describing some movement in the polls in how Trump voters have changed over the last year. I’m observing and analyzing a trend in the polls that is going on. I said nothing to the effect of “yeah, you should go out and vote in elections.” I spent a month analyzing the 2020 election even though I didn’t vote in it.

      • We wont vooooote our way out of this war. Time will prove this true, and absent serious self reflection & growth of rounds, votef**s will curse themselves like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn for not taken his advice as the Jewish NKVD death squads mobilized (i dont think even Trotsky called for airstrikes or even overtly smeared them as boldly as we are seeing today).

        Hear about the new “failure to report ‘suspicious’ persons” pre crime law proposed in puppet congress? The “keep it kosher bro’s” will have be taken to new levels if you think you can tiptoe this stuff. Say hypothetically 23 yrs from today i chimp out…guess what? You are guilty. You failed to snitch. No, “suspicious” doesnt have to be saying something that actually violates (technically speaking) free speech limits established under Brandenburg vs Ohio. I wouldnt have to make any actual illegal statements or whatever. You’re still f out of luck.

        Not that keeping it kosher works anyway. They still take you down if you are deemed a substantial threat…if they can gitmo or black site ppl and allow illegal invaders to hold public office, that should be cue.

        Hope i am wrong, but absent a war mentality or a miracle that aint coming, we will be in the gulags or something sooner or later. Laugh. Hahahahaha. You wont be laughing when stuff gets real. They want us dead, and to suffer to the max beforehand.

      • HW- You say ‘white supremacy’ is over. But all White Supremacy is, is acknowledging our English culture, our Christian religion and our ROLE as the FOUNDERS of this nation and all the blessings of God on her. I’m ok with that sort of ‘white supremacy’ – especially if it ostracizes the J-words to the limits of the pale of settlement. Send them all to camps in North Dakota, to work in the fracking mines.

  4. The coward, backstabbing GOP politicians would rather convent to democrats than support White populism. Voting is a waste of time and energy.

    • It will be interesting to see what happens. I think the ground is shifting underneath the GOP and that there is a lag between where voters and the politicians are at which hasn’t caught up yet

  5. It does seem as if those detestable Bushes, Romneys, Kristols and Cheneys no longer hold sway over the Recucklicans. But I have yet to notice any nascent pro-white populism in their Party.

  6. This is the proletarianization of the White formerly middle class. This is why “free market” small business rhetoric is less effective for the GOP, as well as why “social issues” have slipped beyond White Southern Middle Class Christian issues like “pro-life.”

    The Republicans were just sure they would get to be the neo-liberal ruling class, but have been demoted to playing false opposition for white proles. They were, after all, “too white” – not “diverse enough” and too Christian, thus “intolerant.”

    The new Multicultural Ruling Class, fit for Empire, is clearly the Democratic party. Same drone bombings but with more tolerance.

  7. All that is well and good but many whites-and a growing number at that-do not want to be in the same nation with people who hate us and desire our replacement. What union has light with darkness? It is time to separate. Anything that does not result in an Ethno-State down the line is doomed to failure and failure means the demise of white people in Anglo-America and the torch will be passed to Russia or Eastern Europe. We are entering existential times. Existential times demands for existential politics. Otherwise if just moving closer to the stern as the USS Titanic takes on water and starts to tilt bow first.

    • People who have enough money to do it, are leaving the US. Whites are being diminished into a minority, without the “minority benefits”. They will never give whites the status, money, and privileges that minorities now have.

    • I do not think that things are so bad. The only obstacle to do the same what we did in Eastern Europe is so called ” psychological lock “.

      Psychological lock means that obstacle is in people’s heads . This is taboo and that one too and despite all people know the problems , taboo makes changes impossible.

      Psychological lock is very strong but very fragile in the very same time. When something specific happens, people losing faith sometimes overnight like we in the 19 – .20 august 1991.

      Before 19 august 1991 even most hardcore nationalists understood that blowing up Empire may cause unexpected consequences as we saw 1917 so careful reforming is best way forward.

      In the evening on 20 august, even moderate Norimies were convinced that system is irreformable and jumping the ship is the only way.

      “””…..this 70/30 split that I see among Donald Trump voters…..”””

      Are those 30% true believers who are ready to die defending cuck nest ? Or are they people who have serious doubts in their deep heart but they are not ready yet to speak out ?

      “””….Donald Trump has been sent into exile…..”””

      1988 Yeltsin was kicked out from political bureau and every other position he hold and everybody thought that this is the end of Yeltsin career.

  8. Perhaps not a popular opinion amongst SN’s, but I honestly don’t see the appeal towards George Wallace. His “segregationist” views were nothing but an act and only adopted bc it was what people wanted to here, not out of any deep sincerity.

    • @ joe rebel., governor wallace .Was the kind of man, particularly for people with a southern background. , we understood him and we loved him and we believed he felt the same way.about us. He was our champion , as for me personally thee only politician i ever felt that way about. All others pale in comparison next to him , growimg up, my family was damm sure in the george wallace army , i really could have imagined him , sitting at the dinner table with him as our company on a sunday afternoon after church, he was one of us.

  9. “At the same time, they rank blacks, Hispanics and Asians very positively.”

    And if course rank Everyone’s Favorites kikes, at the very top.

    They’re moving in the right, White direction, due to the now-constant anti-White hatred – but they’re still slow-witted bovines. Who the hell do they imagine is spewing all that hate against them, if not those racial competitors they still stupidly like so much? Being against billionaires is right & absolutely necessary, but no oligarch is ever going to knock up your daughter, or blow your brains out just because you’re White.

    I get sick of our destiny being bogged down with the need to convince morons of the obvious.

  10. Irrelevance is the future of the GOP because they would rather kill their party than do anything for White people (and anything against big business). Even if voters are White populist, it doesn’t imply the party will be.

  11. One figure who appears to have aged quite well is Ted Cruz. Turned out to be quite normal and a quick study.

    • Rafael Cruz (born British in Canada of a British-citizen Hispanic mother) who almost became POTUS instead of Trump, favored over Trump by the GOP machine (though they wanted Marco Rubio even more) is Hispanic not English, and consistently capitalst and imperialist pro-military, anti-China, anti-Iran, anti-Venezuela, etc.. How is any of that good?

  12. Kosher fake populism may be the future of the GOP, but that’s not a good thing.

    What these people want is more Trump, IE: someone to pander and lie to them while implementing standard Zionist neo-liberal policies.

    The GOP may eventually be willing to oblige.

    How did the last four years work out for you? Did you think trying to present real populism in an environment dominated by fake populism was effective?

    Or did fake populism suck all the air out of the room and forestall any hint of real populism?

    If the GOP does effectively develop into a fake nationalist, fake populist party, then there is a good chance that they can shut down any movement towards real nationalism and real populism indefinitely.

    Probably need to start thinking about new angles.

    • “Kosher fake populism may be the future of the GOP, but that’s not a good thing”:

      But even real populism, if it ever comes to pass, would not solve the problem, could not get to the root. Imperial populist wordsmiths wil say what just the people want to hear, just the way they want to hear it and nothing will change fundamentally.

  13. This article is more of a case study of changing attitudes than why the GOP will become “White Populist.” The GOP is just as anti-White as the left. They act like the US is already post-White. I don’t expect the GOP to learn from, or reflect the current trends you show here. If anything, it seems like a center is growing, fueled by GOP exodus, and this center will go where the money is. That won’t necessarily be the GOP. Frankly GOP sh*t the bed so bad with Trump and fake populism, that voter recovery will be extremely hard for them.

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