What Is to Be Done?

George Washington, Pater Patriae, won American independence through a strategy that went against his own aggressive instincts. He avoided battles with superior British forces. Instead, he attacked isolated enemy forces (as he did at the Battle of Trenton), kept his army together, and always withdrew in good order following a defeat.

If we adopt the military analogy, in 2016 and 2017, white advocates did not follow Washington’s example. Unite the Right was the equivalent of throwing colonial militia against disciplined redcoats in a pitched battle. This isn’t because marchers were defeated physically by antifa. Antifa were not the problem. Instead, city and state police deliberately failed to keep the two sides apart and used the ensuing — and inevitable — violence as an excuse to shut down the rally. In the aftermath, leftists unleashed “lawfare” — a host of crippling lawsuits — against pro-white organizations, threatening their very existence. White advocates lack the legal infrastructure — pro bono lawyers, friendly judges — to fight back. Even organizations that had nothing to do with the rally, including VDARE.com and American Renaissance, lost platforms.

The mistake at Charlottesville was understandable; just weeks before, there was a peaceful and successful Free Speech Rally. No one could have predicted that the Charlottesville chief of police would say,“Let them fight; it will make it easier to declare an unlawful assembly.” No one imagined a woman on security would abandon her post at an intersection, so that James Fields could easily drive his car into demonstrators.

What no one imagined, we can now expect. Democrats have denounced white advocates in Congress; we weren’t invited to explain or defend ourselves. Most of the “free press” cheers deplatforming rather than defending free speech. Tennessee, a deep red state, tried to impose security costs on us for hosting a conference, as if we are the ones likely to cause violence. It took a court order to save the AmRen conference.

Just four years ago, I would roll my eyes at excitable activists predicting censorship, arrest, or imprisonment. Today, I’m happy I still have a bank account.

Set aside apocalyptic fantasies. Instead, think of ways to gain control of state and local institutions. This includes supporting movements to break up and rearrange states, localities, and school boards. This may seem fanciful, but movements are already under way that would have sounded absurd just a few years ago.

Conservative Virginia counties are flirting with seceding from the Commonwealth and joining West Virginia. There are secession movements in other states, too. In Illinois, activists want to force Chicago out of the state. In Oregon, some conservatives want the eastern counties to break away and join Idaho. Idaho governor Brad Little welcomed their efforts, making him the second governor essentially to make territorial claims on a neighboring state.

Conservative upstate New Yorkers have called for secession for decades. Former Republican congressman Randy Kuhl argues that New York’s “extreme diversity” makes it almost “ungovernable.” He probably meant the divide between New York City and rural upstate New York, but he may even be thinking about racial and political diversity. To describe any kind of “diversity” as a source of conflict is heresy.

There is also “secession” on a smaller scale. In Louisiana, mostly white communities are breaking away to form their own school districts or cities. In Georgia, white suburbs broke away from Atlanta. In Alabama, a federal judge ruled that the city of Gardenvale’s attempt to break away from a diverse school district was motivated by race. Still, she admitted it was legal.

Journalists say what conservatives dare not: This is about race.

“The School Secession Movement Is Growing. That’s Bad News for Integration,” The New Republic, October 15, 2019

“The new face of racial segregation: School ‘secession,’” CBS News, September 5, 2019

“How a ‘New Secessionist’ Movement Is Threatening to Worsen School Segregation and Widen Inequalities,” The Nation, May 15, 2014

Some denounce the secession efforts in Oregon, Virginia, and Colorado. “Take it from us in SC [South Carolina] — if at first you don’t secede, don’t try again,” wrote Brian Hicks in the Charleston Post and Courier. He called the movement “a little silly” and said we should “chill out.” “Do you know what these myriad modern secession movements have in common?” he asked. “They are all led by conservatives who’ve been triggered because they aren’t getting everything they want.” In fact, the most prominent secessionist movement is “Calexit” — which would take California out of the Union — and it is led by liberals.

What does this mean for white advocates? We should take advantage of the existing political system. Rural America is losing population and is plagued by opioids. That’s where we should be, building institutions and businesses, concentrating geographically, working openly for our people, helping our neighbors, and building local political power. We may not be able to form a mini-ethnostate like Orania, but we can build something close. We can build communities where we can be safe, survive economically, and use the American constitutional system to our advantage. Secession efforts show that white Americans want self-determination, even if they aren’t willing to be explicitly racial about it yet.

What is to be done? It’s not trying to “take over” the GOP — the rise of Bernie Sanders and President Trump show that candidates can run strong campaigns without support from the party establishment, but we don’t have the power or the reach to champion a national candidate.

However, we do have the power to build non-political institutions in conservative, rural communities. We don’t want to “take over” towns. We should just be friendly citizens and be good at our jobs, just as Douglas Hyde’s Dedication and Leadership recommends. We need nursing homes to care for our elderly, gyms to strengthen our young, drug treatment plans to support addicts, credit unions for financial services, and group medical insurance. These things are all possible. With that foundation, we can survive and help struggling whites who need our help.

“White nationalism,” which is now a slur, once had a real meaning. It meant our people living free in our own communities, celebrating our heritage and undertaking great tasks. It’s utterly different from the “white supremacy” of ruling over groups or asserting that we are better than everyone. Perhaps we’ve been so focused on Washington D.C. and the electoral circus that we’ve neglected our nation. The people — not the government — is the nation. My nation is my people: white Americans.

Let’s face reality: America’s white majority has no voice in Washington. We can write, march, and post stickers all over the country. None of this matters if we don’t have a strong home base where we are building real communities based on peace and productivity, not fantasy and rhetoric.

Wherever you are in life, whether you’re a father like me or a college student, examine the path you’re on. If we really want a safe white community and ultimately a proud, productive white country, we need to take risks and make sacrifices. Build networks, concentrate in rural areas, create businesses that can support friends and fend off any attempt to get us fired. Let’s build the world we want from that ground up by uniting and building peaceful, effective systems that will improve our lives individually and strengthen us collectively.

In the second-best speech I ever heard Jared Taylor give (the best being the one in Budapest), he said that one day we will have a place on this continent that is ours, and only ours. Many are willing to suffer or die for this, but I’m asking you to live and work for it. Treat other races with respect, fulfill your obligations as citizens, obey the law. Yet every day, act as if our true homeland already exists. We achieve our homeland by building it from the ground up, within the existing system. Let’s show the millions of whites who already agree with us that it’s not just possible, but a reality. If they shut us down with violence, our example will only inspire others.

In the past, there have been times where I wanted to quit and be “normal.” Today, such thoughts make me sick. How can we say that we are afraid when we see what our ancestors achieved? How can I, or any of us, shirk duty?

We must possess an unshakeable faith that our cause is moral, our victory inevitable, and our future glorious. In the name of the best within us, let’s show the world what People of Light can do, not online, not in Washington D.C., but in the places where our people need our help and need a voice to speak for them. I hope I will see you out there soon. The opportunity is here. Let’s seize it before we lose this race against time.