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I would suggest to the white nationalists that, within their own framework, right now is precisely the correct time for white nationalists to quietly disappear.
Look, I am not going to pretend to be on the same team as the white nationalists. I do think that it's pretty bad that white people were and are being discriminated against for being white (let's set aside the rabbit hole of how far freedom of association should go for a minute). And inasmuch as that was bad, even if I am skeptical of racial identity politics, I can at least understand the desire to form an ethnic coalition, to pursue a sort of perceived counterweight to other ethnic groups. Defection, game theory, and all that. But with the Latest Developments it seems likely that discrimination against white people may be on the wane. Inasmuch as whites as a group have any interest, if you think that whites perform adequately in a meritocracy, (which I think most white nationalists think – and of course I think there are other reasons to favor meritocracy) then the interest of "white people" seems to be to make sure that meritocracy sticks as the law of the land. As such, supporting the new meritocratic norms that the new administration is trying to push is probably more likely to be effective and good for whites than agitating for white nationalism. And since white supremacy was what originally gave cover for discrimination against white people to begin with, I would think it is tactically advantageous for white nationalists to be particularly unthreatening so as to not give ammunition to team anti-meritocracy (that is, assuming the goal of white nationalists is "stuff that is good for white people" writ large.)
And a cynic might be inclined to believe that this is precisely why they won't.
The sudden signal-boosting of voices claiming that "in order to defeat wokism we must embrace wokism" in the wake of Trump's win reeks of left-wing entryism/controled opposition.
I don't follow the white nationalist types very closely but uh didn't some of them also endorse Biden? Which doesn't exactly beat the controlled opposition allegations – in fact it's so cute that it kinda makes me less likely to think it's (literally) controlled opposition because it's so on the nose.
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If someone suggests that their opponent do, for their own good, something which straightforwardly harms them, it's probably concern trolling or motivated reasoning.
This might not be good for white nationalists (although I suspect in many cases it actually would be) but if the white nationalists are willing to put what's good for white nationalists ahead of what's good for white people then what is the good of white nationalists?
Of course you could argue that this is a principal/agent problem that exists in all political parties and...yes! And political parties (should) get punished by their constituents when they ignore their constituents' interests. To the extent that "white people" are the constituents of "white nationalists" (which in reality is very much not the case) then my argument is that they are arguably staring down the barrel of a principal/agent problem, inasmuch as (waiving objections for the sake of argument, here) to whatever extent that what identity politics ("white nationalism") was an asset for the constituents under an identity-politics regime, it has now become an increased liability under a more meritocratic regime.
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I suppose that begs the question, do you sincerely believe in the superiority of the white man or do you not?
Because if you do, a truly colorblind meritocracy will get you 90% of what you say you want for free, as the cream naturally rises to the top. Sure the occasional woman or Negro may rise to power on thier own merits but that is hardly a insoluble problem, and arguably not really a problem at all.
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So people who want one thing (promote white interests, whatever the details), and after years and decades of being pushed back and marginalized, should stop pursuing their goal the moment they make the slightest gains in order to promote a completely different goal (promote meritocracy) that might align with their goal? Because the procedural outcomes might favor them...assuming that nobody ever screws with the procedures again, as has been done for last half-century, and is still being done, and has only begun to be rolled back in any way at all practically yesterday? Where we still don't know whether even those minute rollbacks will stick?
I'm glad you said
because otherwise it'd smell of bad faith. This way it's just...enlightened self-interest? You just want the white nationalists to quit, period, and any argument can be a soldier. It's fine, mind you. It's fine.
These gains were made, at least overtly, by the color-blind crowd like Elon and Rufo. Which – if the argument is "well this happened because the gigachad white nationalists are good at pushing for white interests but it had to be cloaked in the guise of meritocracy so it doesn't spook normies" again I would just suggest that white nationalists just convert into being color-blind meritocrats, since clearly that's actually politically possible to make inroads that way and apparently also in white interests and it's unclear what added value white nationalism brings to the table.
Now – maybe it would be bad for white nationalists to lie about their views (even if you think their views are bad, maybe it does damage to the soul to lie) but it probably doesn't do any damage to the soul to not make big splashy protests or give juicy quotes to journalists and the like. And (this is probably what I should have led with, in the other post) if one was pushed towards white nationalism as a reaction to some very bad strains of anti-white sentiment, now is exactly the time to rethink that and get behind a framework that is more meritocratic and more color-blind.
Now – definitely true that any argument can be a soldier. But am I wrong that color-blind meritocracy is the winning issue here, not white nationalism? And am I wrong that actual white nationalism is politically impossible in the United States of America (100% seriously, I think white nationalists would be engaged in a vastly less quixotic quest if they started preparing now to found a whites-only space colony in an O'Neill cylinder).
My concern here is two-fold: I don't want people to think "oh look white nationalism is ascendent" because color-blind meritocracy is ascendent and then explode all the good potential that color-blind meritocracy could unlock. And I think that people who are tempted by identity politics can aim higher.
Fair.
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That assumes the purpose of white nationalism is to fight anti-white discrimination rather than what their name actually says: establishing a white ethnonation. That's a terrible pipe dream of pipe dreams, but "we're just here to fight against discrimination against our in-group" is the motte, not the bailey, and it's not truly the central goal they want to accomplish. If you take their actual goals seriously, then now is actually the time to become louder: the broader political coalition they like is gaining power and implementing goals they approve of, so they have momentum.
Yes, I think you're right about this (and I'm a bit stupid for not taking the name more seriously). But on the other hand, if my argument about what is good for white people in the United States is correct, it's helpful to clarify that what white nationalists want might diverge from what is good for white people.
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