When James Edwards asked me to speak at The Political Cesspool’s 20th Anniversary Conference earlier this year, I accepted on the spot and cleared my schedule. I knew that it would be a fantastic event. I knew that the finest people that I have met in the movement would be there.
I’ve been critical of the movement on this website, but it has always been from the perspective of love and as an insider. I have been a card carrying member of the Council of Conservative Citizens and League of the South. I have been to dozens of conferences over the course of the past 15 years. I marched into Charlottesville. I’ve been around since the White Nationalism 1.0 days. I saw the rise and fall of the Alt-Right. I’m as deeply involved as ever in whatever we are calling ourselves these days. I’m so deeply involved in the movement that my sons are Gordon Baum’s grandsons. I have watched children grow up and old war horses be buried. I count the leaders of the movement as my closest associates.
The truth is that the leaders of our movement, most of them anyway, are all smart, solid, productive, interesting, wonderful people like James Edwards. It is always a pleasure to be in the same room with them. I can’t speak highly enough of the core of the movement where most people have known each other in real life for decades. You encounter so many cranks and morons online. It is the fine people who I know offline who keep my spirits up. It is essential to develop and nurture these relationships.
The Dissident Right is like the Palace of Versailles. There are so many wings of it which are adjacent to the main building. There are innumerable rooms and gardens where the various subcultures are each doing their own thing. We cross paths with each other. Sometimes we get into arguments over the various points of division. People travel from room to room. James Edwards is unifying figure who is known and liked by nearly everyone. The Political Cesspool conference is a place where White Nationalists, White advocates, Alt-Right people, unreconstructed National Socialists, paleocons, populists, Patriots, Southern nationalists, Southern heritage activists and so on can all feel at ease and have a good time.
When I walked through the door of our hotel, I felt rich, fulfilled and among friends. It was emotional. It wasn’t just the 20 year anniversary of The Political Cesspool. It felt like passing a milestone in my life as well. I have been active for roughly the same amount of time. I have spent my entire young adult life in this scene. I am entering middle age now. I have a wife and two kids. I knew I would be seeing a lot of old friends. I knew that I would be meeting people who I know from the internet, but who I haven’t had the pleasure to meet yet in real life. I knew there would be people there who were at my wedding and who are like family to me. I knew there would be other bright people there who I hadn’t met yet. I knew there would be people there who I haven’t seen in years or who I saw in the blur of Charlottesville.
The 20 year anniversary of The Political Cesspool got me thinking about our ideological journey, not just about political shifts in the culture which I could measure in numbers in my speech, but in the origins and the trials and triumphs that we have all experienced. I thought about my most memorable experiences. I thought about my regrets and mistakes which are numerous. I thought about all the things for which I was grateful. I thought about the areas in which we were successful and the challenges ahead of us. I thought about all the stories that I have a few of which I enjoyed talking about over whiskey.
The title of my speech was “Paleoconservatism: From the Margins to the Mainstream.” It was about how critiques of conservative orthodoxy from men like Pat Buchanan, Sam Francis and Peter Brimelow in the 1990s and early 2000s have resonated and seem to be gaining a larger audience on the Right. Identity issues have become more salient and now animate the Republican coalition. We live in a time when Joe Six Pack is radicalized enough to storm the Capitol, but also one in which the Republican House has held nearly thirty votes in two months on Israel and “fighting anti-Semitism” on Ivy League campuses.
Warren Balogh of Modern Politics and formerly the National Justice Party circled back to Pat Buchanan’s run on the Reform Party ticket in 2000 in which he defeated Donald Trump. Warren and James Edwards started out in politics in the Buchanan Brigades. I had no idea what Warren was going to speak about, but he also traced our cause back to those crucial years and was able to describe it in greater detail in terms of his first hand personal experience. Paleoconservatism looked finished in the early 2000s. The George W. Bush administration is where history began to bend back in our direction.
Tim Murdock of White Rabbit Radio described his experiences working with Bob Whitaker and their role in injecting the term “anti-White” into the discourse. Bob Whitaker was always trying to use new technology to impose terminology and thus ideology on spaces outside the White Nationalist echo chamber. I will never forget the interview that I did with Tim on White Rabbit Radio in January 2022 which I called “The Tipping Point.” I had spent the first year of the Biden administration tracking the mass radicalization of conservatives across multiple polls. It was clear to me that something huge was happening in the wake of Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election, but the significance of this wasn’t registering in the wider movement. Tim is one of the few activists who thinks like I do. I define success as our ideas, values, criticisms and concepts permeating the Right. Thus, I saw it as a watershed moment when the “anti-White” genie was let out of the bottle by Tucker Carlson, even if it was being used in boilerplate conservative rhetoric. Whites were given permission to think racially. We anticipated even greater triumphs in the years ahead like the mainstreaming of the Jewish Question. All of this has come to pass in less than two years.
Nick Griffin of the British National Party addressed the conference via video. He was scheduled to attend and had booked his flight and hotel room, but was denied entry into the United States. He spoke about how the political window to turn things around through democratic means had closed in Britain. Much like the Republican Party in the United States, the Tories have spent the last 25 years successfully absorbing, containing, redirecting and dissipating the energies of the Right. As in the United States, mass immigration has reached an all-time high in Britain under Conservative rule, which guarantees a majority-minority Britain by mid-century which will one day resemble Syria or Lebanon. In spite of this bitter defeat, Nick remains optimistic. He spoke at length about the collapse of the post-World War II liberal world order and how it is happening militarily in Ukraine, economically through de-dollarization, culturally through extreme polarization and morally through the end of the Holocaust card thanks to Gaza. Historically, we are at the end of an epoch which has been defined by Germany’s defeat in World War II.
Mark Weber of the Institute of Historical Review and Jared Taylor of American Renaissance were our next two speakers and both spoke about how America deserves to fall at this point. Uncle Jared told us that the America which fought the War Between the States was gone. Similarly, the nation which had reconciled and moved beyond sectionalism to become a Great Power in the 20th century was gone too. We now live in a country which prefers to demonize its founding stock and deconstruct its culture. We live in a country which renames schools and topples men like Robert E. Lee from pillars. It is not our country anymore. We occupy the same geographical space with hostile aliens including those who are related to us. It doesn’t matter who wins the next election because it is too late to “Take Back America.” Instead, we should be thinking about how to salvage a part of it through migration and secession.
Sam Dickson spoke at length about the media shapes the news cycle through selectivity and repetition to fit its preferred narrative. We have all heard the names of George Floyd, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Emmett Till and so on. No one remembers the names of White victims of even the most gruesome crimes like Daniel Williams who was recently raped to death by black inmates in an Alabama prison. I personally remembered that horrific story, which happened here near Montgomery, but not the name. It didn’t stick with me because I haven’t heard it repeated a thousand times. Lies which are repeated a hundred times like the notion that our current system is based on “white supremacy” are earnestly believed by millions of people. The American education system is also based on lies like this. We recently celebrated the 70th anniversary of the Brown decision which failed to erase academic racial gaps.
LISTEN HERE:
We closed out the evening with a live three hour broadcast of The Political Cesspool. I was interviewed along with the other speakers and many of the attendees. Jaye Ryan was interviewed. Unfortunately, I missed Dr. Michael Hill’s speech on Sunday which closed out the conference, which was in South Carolina. I was done in by a familiar foe … exhaustion from traveling, staying up too late drinking and socializing with friends over the previous two evenings. We also brought the baby who wanted to sleep in.
The conference was well done. Hats off to James for throwing such a great event. By the time of the 30 year anniversary, we need to shoot for being so mainstream and normalized that such an event could be open to the public and even our enemies wouldn’t see the point of trying to shut us down. Those tactics aren’t working at a time when tens of thousands of people are participating in Twitter Spaces.
Note: I would like to give a shout out to my new friends at Antelope Hill Publishing and Above Time Coffee Roasters. Thanks for the coffee! Check them out!
Congratulations to Political CessPool’s hosts on 20 years; and respect & admiration to all attendees.
Proud supporter of Go Pat Go back then, a shame truly Americans weren’t ready for him.
Here’s to 20 more and sometime asap white men reclaim the nation our ancestors provided us – we owe them no less.
Yep, Pat was just too truthful for American politics.
Plus, he needed to learn the disarming smile, goes a long way.
An excellent post, worth reading, and listening. Among the most interesting (to me) paragraphs is this one: “Nick Griffin of the British National Party addressed the conference via video (…) booked his flight and hotel room, but was denied entry into the United States. He spoke about how the political window to turn things around through democratic means had closed in Britain (…) immigration has reached an all-time high in Britain under Conservative rule, which guarantees a majority-minority Britain by mid-century (…) In spite of this bitter defeat, Nick remains optimistic. He spoke at length about the collapse of the post-World War II liberal world order and how it is happening militarily in Ukraine, economically through de-dollarization, culturally through extreme polarization and morally through the end of the Holocaust card thanks to Gaza. Historically, we are at the end of an epoch which has been defined by Germany’s defeat in World War II.” He sounds like he is resigned to the multi-ethnicity of the U.S.’s UK colony, but he was always more accepting of the “reality of multiculturalism” in Britain than Tyndall and other BNP founders. He said he found Mein Kampf “extremely boring” when he tried to read it, and he tried to purge “hard talk and Hitler” from BNP discourse to make it more mainstream acceptable. I remember the heyday of the BNP in England and Wales when it won some local seats, although not to the extent (percentage-wise) that George Galloway’s Workers Party of Great Britain has recently won some local elections, and a seat in the UK Parliament. Griffin stood in numerous contests in various places including the Welsh National Assembly Election, South Wales West region, where he received over 5& of votes (Labour received almost 60%) one of BNP’s best showings. He became MEP in 2009 with over 5% of the vote in North West England, which was the BNP’s highwater mark.
“Paleoconservatism looked finished in the early 2000s. The George W. Bush administration is where history began to bend back in our direction”:
Do you consider yourself a Paleoconservative?
“The Dissident Right is like the Palace of Versailles” with “many wings” (rooms) is an interesting analogy. When you crafted that analogy you may, or nay not, have been thinking of the French Revolution that ended (unfortunately only temporarily) the rule of Versailles and its many (right)wings. Conservatives work to conserve the unequal and unjust class and usury system. Socialists work to remove and replace it.
I don’t have time to comment more at this time, but it was all interesting.
Hunter’s Versailles analogy was pretty spot in, what with all the intrigue that various elements of the righteing do to one another and attempt to do with their fiefdoms and all with the Vatican of course playing a major spoiling role. I didn’t think the analogy thru to its end however. Merthrye, my favorite communist since that beautiful red back in Europe, puts the French Revolution back into the epilogue of the analogy.
Indeed, if the Rightwing Nationalist, aka White Nationalist, aka Christian Nationalist movement is Versailles, its foibles that Hunter, myself and others criticize about it might make the plot for a movie about the end of Versailles. Indeed, a revolution does indeed looks to be arriving.
The tragic White Nationalists debating strange things like Anti-Semitism, what if Hitler had won, Putin is a White Nationalist ally, etc seem to be appropriate figures for the nobility of Versailles. Like the Bourbon French court at Versailles we evennhabe our own Papists screwing it up for everyone, including our own Papist agent in chief. The Gay Grand Inquisitor seems intent on ensuring the revolution happens and we all lose our head.
There is a movie appropriate to watch in light of Hunters almost accidently analogy to Versailles. Its called Ridicule. In fact, now that its mentioned by Merthyre, it is likely the 30th anniversary of the Political Cesspool will be in prison as its members await the guillotine and outside America collapses into starvation and civil war. Maybe after all, Hunter should go back to his Swamp and fishing hole just like the protagonist to escape whats coming.
https://youtu.be/Yysndl1tmwE?si=wJ_oNs2R0DHtlmUq
I spoke to someone at the conference who had been through paganism and Christian Identity before landing on Orthodoxy. There are many cases like that. I used to be a Nietzschean atheist. Today, I am a Lutheran sympathetic to Christian Nationalism.
After working with the Papists in politics for 40 yeaars, I ve learned that any Christian Nationalism movement in America which is created, will be fought over by Papists attempting to seize dominance of it. In turn, more and more Christians have come to this realization which is why, in contrast to the Cold War era, sectarian interests have kept broad Christian-Catholic fronts from being formed in our modern times.
INHO, misdirecting Rightwing Pritestants to focus on “Duh, Jews,” is a key strategy for Papists to seize control of the Christian Nationalist or Right movement. It keeps Protestants focused on Jews, while Papists take over the movement behind the scenes. Just open your eyes and you will see it happening around you right now.
Hunter, at any rate, if you want to be a Christian Nationalist or Right Leader, you will need to shore up your Protestant base first. It will build solidarity around you necessary to leveraging long term leadership. Otherwise, and speaking from loads, and loads, and loads of experience, working with Papists before you do that will see you subordinated very quickly by the Papists. They have built in networks and institutions which make its members subservient to their “annointed” leader.
Regardless, since you live in the South, in an area that is highly Protestant, you should be working that angle first. Loads of Protestant churches and organizations to organize in your area with many more Rightists per capita in local congregations than any other congregational area in the country. Note, having worked establishing organizations in the South, I learned that they were always recalcitrant to working with Papists, especially Northern Papists. So, don’t make the mistake of bringing them on board with your organizing drives.
A.G.B., I’m thinking of Thomas Edward Watson, of the state of Georgia, who was very anti-Papist as well as socialistic: https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/thomas-e-watson-1856-1922/ I’m waiting for Hunter to write a Southern biographical/historical post on T. E. Watson and his People’s Party and anti-Roman Catholic activities.
It was a different Thomas Watson (seventeenth century) who preached this great sermon against Popery: https://www.biblebb.com/files/tw/tw-catholicism.htm
Banning Nick Griffin from entering the US is ridiculous. He is harmless.
He endorsed George Galloway – rightly so. If I were British, I’d vote for Galloway for foreign policy reasons alone. But apparently he is also good on immigration, crime, transgender, and anti-Woke.
“Sam Dickson spoke at length about the media shapes the news cycle ”
Sam is probably the most comprehensive thinker on our issues , currently alive. He has some of the best insights.
“Sam Dickson spoke at length about the media shapes the news cycle”
Beyond shaping the news cycle and far more dangerous, they shape the very thought process, patterns, of people’s thinking.
Congrats to TPC on 20 years! I was honored to be invited and join in on the celebration. Being present around such great stalwarts of our movement and hearing their words was energizing. I am optimistic about the future and look forward to a free and independent South. Deo Vindice.
I am glad the event went well, the only regret is being so far away (on another continent) that I could not attend these events and meet the people you mentioned, especially Dr. Hill.
M asks :
“ Do you consider yourself a Paleoconservative?”
I respond :
Let s try to get better names for our current cause , better optics, better mix of youth and experience .
“Paleoconservative” is simply too long , too academic to appeal to regul White folks.
It sounds like a dinosaur that went extinct . That term sounds like something Tim Wise called us .
You’re so right.
Our side has a dire shortage of clever swordsmiths.
Err *wordsmiths*
There were many females there and young people and even children. A family friendly environment. No more it is middle aged or elderly White males. Many in the movement do not like each other but James Edwards is a unifying figure that all respect. He never has drama or creates drama. He is the future of White activism
Did anyone else there notice that DD’s granddaughter was there and she’s drop dead beautiful, tall and apparently an excellent soccer/ real football player?
I on the other hand looked rather old and creepy even In nice clothes .Jared Taylor and Dr.Michael Hill looked younger and less creepy than I did.
I can t really blame DD’sgrand daughter for not wanting to speak very long one on one with me.
I saw her. Don’t say her name! I saw DD’s grandson and it looks just like him.
It was wonderful to see so many friends. Doesn’t happen often enough!
So true!
“Doesn’t happen often enough”
Wouldn’t have anything to do with bomb threats, coercive group protests, boycott threats, physical intimidation , financial coercion and other little impediments, would it?
Exactly.
We’re now fully mainstream, not in the sense that these tactics have ceased, but that mainstream conservatives also now have to put up with it. Antifa recently tried to shutdown the NatCon conference in Brussels.
Just look to the past.
How they shut down the German American Bund. The Bund had millions of members and rallies of 10,000’s. They were moving in the right directions. All destroyed by subversive actions of the likes of congressman Dickstein (paid NKVD agent) and his tribesmen, mayor (((LaGuardia))) and the (((mob))) working in unison.
I agree. He is really glowing his ranks. It is no longer middled aged or elderely White males.
Thank you for posting this. I attended the David Duke Conference in 2005 in New Orleans where I first encountered James Edwards. To be in the physical presence of wonderful, strong clean white people (many of whom were young with wives and children) was energizing. The country has gone down hill, but things seem to be swinging our way. I think secession is the only solution. Will we be strong enough to salvage anything? Time will tell.
The Ethno-State resolution is the only solution! We cannot vote our way out of this, and Trump supporters need to realize that. It’s time to leave! Get off the USS Titanic before she drags you to the bottom with her or conversely gets us all vaporized in a nuclear exchange with Russia or Ukraine. The Global American Empire has eclipsed the historic American nation and it’s not coming back!
Speaking of positive happenings, it seems Thomas Massie is actually trying to do something towards overturning one of the more outrageous rulings by the blackrobed Philosophah Kangz: Wickard v. Filburn from 1942 (only one of numerous notions farted out of the arses of kritarchical klown-shows. Yes it’s just some deck-chair feng-shui but it would be a good thing if folks were allowed to grow food for themselves on land they own. That’s the kind of thing even normietards can get behind.
He defeated AIPAC tonight.
Very encouraging. Apparently he got 65% of the vote in the 2022 primary, but this year he got 75% of the primary vote.
$400,000 attack ads from AIPAC increased his share of the vote 10%!
AIPAC exposed as a paper tiger.
AIPAC a paper tiger? Don’t shit yourself. One little victory. In Alabama, AIPAC support would be a plus to who it supported. Christian Zionism is MAJOR here.
Yep.
AIPAC has lost the Left over Gaza and Israel has become a bitterly divisive issue for Democrats. No one under the age of 45 cares about Israel on the Right. Older voters are keeping Israel afloat for now, but in the long term even Jews are turning against AIPAC.
Hunter- Have Southern whites under 45 really given up on Israel? Have they stopped attending Fundamentalist Churches that preach “He who blesses Israel is blessed, He who curses Israel is cursed”? I’m not taunting you- I heard recently that the Southern Baptists have suffered a 13% drop in membership , but does anyone have an age breakdown on this?