Keith Woods: Nationalism Doesn’t Need National Socialism

Greg Conte = Comedy gold! pic.twitter.com/10SyDDFcLU

— The Colin Liddell (@cbliddell) February 17, 2023

?The White House

Members of the NJP (National Justice Party) rally in front of the White House calling for a ceasefire and end of aid to Israel

WATCH: pic.twitter.com/jh6tXlklFa

— Wid Lyman (@Wid_Lyman) October 28, 2023

If 500 out of 500 attempts to revive National Socialism in the United States have failed including your own attempt with the National Justice Party, maybe there is lesson to be learned in that? ? https://t.co/FOdUR3XOEv

— Hunter Wallace (@LutherEnjoyer) March 7, 2025

For 75 years, countless activists motivated by nostalgia have attempted to relaunch National Socialism. Every single time it has fizzled out. These groups are constantly disintegrating and reforming. They appeal to no one but activists who have read too many history books

— Hunter Wallace (@LutherEnjoyer) March 7, 2025

Editor’s Note: Since this debate has exploded on X, I will share my thoughts on it here.

I strongly agree.

Keith Woods:

“I saw a series of Telegram posts by Australian nationalist Joel Davis recently that I feel the need to respond to. Joel argues that rehabilitating the image of German National Socialism and Adolf Hitler himself is essential for the success of a nationalist movement. For a time, Joel and I were very closely aligned ideologically and collaborated a lot together. Our paths diverged somewhat when Joel embraced, for want of a better word, Neo-Nazism. To be clear, I still consider Joel a friend and the smartest advocate of the position he holds, but I think that position is misguided and have wanted to address it for some time.

Joel’s position isn’t exactly niche within nationalist circles now. In the past couple of years, there has been a great opening up of the topic of Jewish influence in the West, and this has brought with it a resurgence in revisionism and outright Hitlerism. This has real world consequences for our movement too. Justin Barrett, the former leader of the Irish National Party, has also chosen to go the route of embracing Hitlerism. Now self-identifying as a Nazi and donning replica SS coats to protests, he has done a tour of livestreams arguing that the only way forward for Irish nationalism is to educate our people on the success of the German National Socialist experiment. …”

Here are my own thoughts on this:

1. First, I have always hated World War II and its grip over the American imagination, and as far back as over twenty years ago I decided to pursue other historical interests. I own hundreds of books about all kinds of subjects – the Roman Empire, the Middle Ages, the Early Modern Era, the War Between the States, the Gilded Age, the Caribbean, African history and so on – which I have reviewed on this website. Hitler, National Socialism, the World War II era and the Holocaust has genuinely never interested me.

Walk into any Barnes and Noble or Books-a-Million in America and you will find a large shelf of books about World War II. The History Channel largely focuses on World War II. There is just something about the inordinate attention paid to this one war and the way it defined my youth which has always viscerally repulsed me. It is why I deliberately set out to learn as much as possible about other topics.

2. Second, the ghost of Hitler and National Socialism dominated our politics for generations. America has gone to war against multiple Hitlers in my lifetime like Slobodon Milosevic and Saddam Hussein. Fortunately, we seem to be finally moving on from the shadow of World War II as the Silent Generation and the Boomers lose their grip on American politics. Kamala Harris compared Trump to Hitler in the 2024 election and her defeat illustrates that the “fascism” card no longer works. Most Americans are tired of hearing about Hitler and “fascism.” JD Vance’s speech in Munich illustrated it is finally over.

3. Third, nationalism is surging all over the West as the memory of World War II fades due to the passing of older generations, but “National Socialism” isn’t coming back. If anything is true, whether it is in Europe or the United States the memory of it is still an anchor on the feet of nationalists. Every single attempt to revive “National Socialism” in the United States for over eighty years has failed. The collapse of the National Justice Party is the most recent example that comes to mind although there have likely been even smaller groups which have collapsed since then which were too tiny to even register.

4. Fourth, the force that drives that keeps driving the creation of these groups is nostalgia and a desire to shock and cryptkeep and reenact the past of a foreign country. This isn’t the force that led to the creation of National Socialism in Germany in the 1920s which was based on a unique set of historical circumstances like the Italian precedent, the backdrop of World War I, the intellectual atmosphere of the early 20th century, the crushing Versailles Treaty imposed on Germany, etc. As such, it doesn’t resonate with anyone beyond activists who have a narrow interest in history. It doesn’t grow beyond that.

5. Fifth, the way in which National Socialists tend to understand politics, which reduces everything that ever happens in the world to a Jewish conspiracy is antiquated and misleading. The strongest argument that I can make against it is way that it has become absolutely crippling for anyone who subscribes to this worldview. It disables activists from doing anything. It demobilizes Whites. The loudest self-described National Socialists who I see on the internet are people who have made an ideology out of losing at politics and twisting everything that happens in the news cycle into a defeat for White people.

All I tend to hear from these people is how to lose to the Left and lose to Democrats. They see themselves as “revolutionaries” even though they aren’t trying to overthrow the government through violence or capture state power through participating in elections. For the record, I don’t associate these people with historic National Socialism, as the whole appeal of the original movement was winning and defeating the Left and to that end the historic NSDAP participated in elections and won state power.

6. Finally, I think of “NS” as a fandom like Swifties or Trekkies or Harry Potter, not as a political movement. These people are not engaged in political activity. “NS” fans *discourage* political activity. There is no “NS” political party to join. There are no “NS” candidates contesting power. There is no “revolutionary” organization that plans to resort to violence to join. “NS” people believe that the system is hopelessly corrupt and their principles preclude them from engaging with it to capture state power. Many of them prefer to focus their attention on “telling the truth about World War II.”

“NS” has a three pronged strategy to demoralize and demobilize Whites: lose at politics to the Left, make endless appeals to the Left which fall on deaf ears, announce to the internet that their “principles” prevent them from engaging with the evil “system” to contest power. The calculation seems to be that if we lose at politics enough times, then “Hitler will come back.” They will say things like “Hitler save us.” This is pietism, not politics. This is a religious movement that is waiting for the Second Coming.

Like other more familiar fandoms, “NS” has meet ups or conventions. “NS” people dress up like Trekkies and parade through the streets in uniforms and with flags. “NS” fans create and consume content. “NS” has forums and podcasts like Trekkies where people get into hairsplitting arguments over canon and lore. It attracts history nerds who master the canon and the lore. It is a subculture that doesn’t appeal to the rest of society. Just like Trekkies, alienated people find comfort and belonging in the fandom. It is not uncommon for couples to meet and get married to other people who are part of the fandom. You will find lots of people in the “NS” fandom who are doing comedy or entertainment, but not politics, as no one really believes it is even possible to challenge our all-powerful Jewish overlords.

Adolf Hitler is the center of the fandom like Taylor Swift or Star Trek or Harry Potter. Historic National Socialism was an actual viable political movement, but the “NS” fandom is something completely different. The National Justice Party was a classic example of the “NS” fandom. It was an organization that was created for fans of Hitler and National Socialism, but which never engaged in political activity. As far as I am aware, members paid dues, engaged in activism and had meet ups and consumed TRS content, but no one actually ran for any office as a National Justice Party candidate. It was a “party” which people joined which didn’t engage in politics whose members were satisfied by just talking about Jews, “telling the truth” about World War II, bonding with other history lovers. It is similar to people who go to Star Trek conventions dressed up like Klingons and who like speaking in Klingon. The appeal of it is the experience of playing the character … the act of being and feeling “NS” or Klingon and affirming your own personal identity.

Harry Potter fans have a much more elaborate LARP called the College of Wizardry in Poland where fans can experience what it is like to be part of one of the four houses of Hogwarts: Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin. No one who attends actually learns to be a magician, but they get to go through a process which makes them feel like a wizard and they find that meaningful because it satisfies a fantasy. It is an experience that separates them from the Muggles who lack magical powers. “NS” fandom parties are similarly organized in that the “party” doesn’t actually do anything that other “parties” normally do for other political factions. There is a similar conceit in that belonging to such a “party” is thought to be more “revolutionary” or “radical” even though political engagement is actually being forfeited.

Nationalism doesn’t need the apolitical “NS” fandom to succeed. To the extent that people become wrapped up in this subculture, they tend to disengage from politics and encourage others to do so. If people actually tried to do what the historic NSDAP did which was contest state power and win offices all over Germany on behalf of their own ideology, the “NS” fandom would oppose this because that would require engaging with the system and a sense of political realism.