Michael Brendan Dougherty: Nationalism Is a Chameleon

Very true.

“Last week our fearless editor Rich Lowry and departing colleague Jonah Goldberg tried to settle the question of nationalism for the attendees of the National Review Institute Ideas Summit. Lowry defended the American tradition of nationalism, pointing to the accomplishments of Republican nationalists such Lincoln. But, strangely, as the person who wears the “nationalist” label with the least discomfort, I found myself agreeing with Jonah Goldberg. He emphasized the variety of nationalisms and its hard-to-pin-down character.

That is a point that Kevin D. Williamson picked up in his commentary. “As -isms go, nationalism is pretty loosey-goosey,” he observed. Indeed. Historically, nationalist movements tend to be opportunistic when it comes to ideologies. Some pick up on socialism, others on capitalism. Some go communist, and some go democratic, depending on their place in situ. That opportunism is especially found in nationalist movements that are seeking to establish independence or sovereignty from some great power. Their full embrace of capitalism or communism may be a way of heightening polarization with the imperial power they want to eject, or a way of attracting a powerful ally. …”

I’ve already observed that national populism can look like this in 2016:

or this in 2020:

Populists value social cohesion and economic fairness. If they are forced to choose between their values in a hyper polarized electorate, well, they can and often do swing either way. Donald Trump can win them by promising to build the Great Wall of America and bringing back the 1950s. Andrew Yang can win them with Universal Basic Income and student loan debt forgiveness.

Believe me, I’m down with this:

What’s the opportunity cost?

Four more years of Conservatism, Inc? The MIGA agenda? Blompf’s Twitter feed?

Yes, even a TINY GESTURE of respect like Andrew Yang simply acknowledging that there is a raging suicide and opioid epidemic in White America can pay a huge political dividend:

“Personally, I think America’s liberal elites would be surprised at how easy it would be to mollify the nationalist passions out there, how small the adjustments have to be, how satisfied nationalist constituencies would find themselves if they were offered even tiny gestures of respect. My worry is that even small sacrifices are impossible for people who believe they possess so much merit.”

via GIPHY

Is it “white supremacy” to care about the White birth rate? I’m a “white supremacist” because I like to see my fellow White people having children and not killing themselves?

What would happen if, say, Yang were to toss political correctness in the dumpster in the general election with Trump? Look at the hell it is already causing for Pete Buttigieg and Joe Biden to satisfy such a small, highly resented, fanatical constituency of zealots at the expense of tens of millions of White populist voters in the center of the electorate who hold the keys to the presidency.

If Yang came out and said something like, say, it is okay to be a White person and to care about other White people and to value your traditional culture like my people do in Taiwan and China and that doesn’t mean you are evil or hate anyone else and, what’s more, we need to follow China’s example and move beyond political correctness and get rich, well, what would happen then?

What would Conservatism, Inc. and Blompf’s response to that be? Do you give mainstream conservatism its 1,000th chance or take $1,000 a month?

About Hunter Wallace 12390 Articles
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11 Comments

  1. Trump is punting on 2020. Tucker is right, he doesn’t want another term.

    His presidency was a joke, a publicly stunt.

    Someone should tell the high IQ gamma, Vox Day, that the gig is up. Trump was never the God Emperor. It was a scam.

    There will be no Wall, and there will be no drawdown of our people in the Middle East.

    Hunter, I have to give you and Marcus credit. Both of you called it early on.

    • The best reaction to Chief Whining Arrow is to ignore him and let him sulk in his tipi. His significance in the greater scheme of things is nil.

      I was through with that faggot the moment he said Whites should obey the moral imperatives of Injuns forever because we were so mean to them, that’s true Christianity. In short, he just wants to substitute another form of wog-worshipping White guilt for the current nigger-based gaslighting.

      At this point, I find him more amusing in his tinpot strutting than anything else.

  2. Jews actually show how nationalism works with their moral heuristic: “is it good for the Jews?” This is the guiding motivation for almost all Jewish activity. They write about this, and when they talk about “Jewish guilt” they are talking about the feeling of guilt of having not done enough to advance the jews (pretty much the polar opposite of “white guilt” which is guilt over doing anything good for whites). So even when two Jews seem to be in disagreement, they are typically both still working on what they believe is “good for the Jews,” only with different views on the path to achieve that goal. Thus Nationalism is not an ideology as much as it is a meta-ideology. An ideology aimed at choosing the best ideology for whatever particular context. What is good for the nation in an agrarian society is much different from what is good for the nation in an industrial society, for example, so it cannot be boiled down to a handful of “principles” like True Conservatives™ would have us believe.

    Whites need this form of nationalism, but with the key difference that we do not have to see it as zero sum. Jews view everything as zero sum, so they most often equate “good for the Jews” with harming goyim. We do not have to equate “good for whites” with harming everyone else. I don’t advocate taking up the “white man’s burden” again, but we should really be taking a similar stance to how Chinese do with their economic activity in Africa and the poorer parts of Asia. It is mutually beneficial arrangement, and Chinese client states get great benefits from working with China (compare to the USA who demands their client states bow down to globo-homo and flush their heritage down the toilet). Whites as a collective have a lot to offer that could create mutually beneficial relationships with other groups.

    Yang offers a mutually beneficial viewpoint, that is in stark contrast to SJW zero sum views.

  3. I was going to leave a long message but who cares…. There is no way to win our battle against this evil entity in a ballot box.
    I believe if HW ran the government it could work…but we must have real expectations here..
    No, some leftist chinese commie is not going to save America and the white race…laughable.
    I like the assumed ideas but thats not ever going to happen and i dont live in fantasy land, i live in jew clown world

  4. It’s difficult to understand how Based Chinaman gets boxed into the same upper left quadrant with Heimbach, Spencer and Anglin. Shouldn’t he be located closer to Bernie and Tulsi?

  5. Trying to reign in or eliminate white nationalism is like playing whack-a-mole. Good luck trying.

  6. ““As a parent imagine if you knew every one of your children would start receiving $1,000 a month at age 18. That’s over a million dollars. That’s a gamechanger.” She liked that answer.”

    She obviously didn’t do the calculation. Am I missing something? How long will the recipients be living to snag a million? 83.333333…… years after turning 18. I can only assume the quality of life for Americans will continue to decline as time goes on which means shorter lifespans. Unless they come up with a pharmaceutical to solve that issue – no, not the quality of life just the length (being bed ridden and unable to speak is irrelevant). And like social security, the age to collect will get older and older. Is that $1,000/month ever going to be adjusted for inflation and does it stop when social security clicks in?

    Folks, it’s only a matter of time before some sleazeball politician states that he/she will start the process of moving that stipend to birth just to get elected. Think of the population explosion at that point. The negro population would go from XX million to X,XXX million+++ within a decade. Better hold on to that fiat system after all.

  7. I’m thinking that perhaps a nationalist platform needs an automation tax. It would be more flexible than UBI and would self-adjust according to circumstances. It would also give people an incentive to vote for anti-immigration candidates.

    Tax all enterprises over a certain size on 50% (or whatever) of the money they’re saving on salaries through use of automation. Eliminate 200 truckers who were getting paid 100,000 a year each? Fine, You now owe $10 million automation tax. Still saving $10 million on salaries you don’t need to pay.

    Then pool all the money obtained by automation tax and split it evenly between all adult citizens. Don’t want to see your share shrink? Vote for people who will eliminate legal immigration or keep it very low, and who won’t “amnesty” illegals.

    There you’ve got the rough outline of a self-adjusting system with built-in anti-immigration, anti-amnesty incentives.

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