STORMER IN A TEACUP

Image courtesy of The Daily Stormer.

A Brief History of Political Marginalization

by Colin Liddell

Andrew Anglin of The Daily Stormer has honoured me with a lengthy and detailed reply to my article about his article about RamZPaul’s vlog on Robert Ransdell’s quixotic senate campaign. This is all well and as it should be: people who purportedly care about the future of the White race and nationalism airing their differences in public and having what is known as a healthy debate.

But it is revealing that the image chosen to accompany this reply is a publicity shot of Russell Crowe in Romper Stomper, perhaps the most famous on-screen example of a self-destructive White Nationalism, living in the past and associating itself with the reviled symbolism of the Third Reich.

While The Daily Stormer has a certain populist appeal within the ghetto of hard-line White Nationalists, which can be likened to the initial popularity of Russell Crowe’s character amongst his gang mates in that movie, Anglin’s professed purpose of mass conversion and moving the Overton window seems a clear pipe dream. Now why is that?

Essentially because his message only works with hard-core, emotional White nationalists, and only those White nationalists who want to isolate themselves from the rest of society. It is essentially preaching to the choir and telling everybody else to go to hell.

Imagine a scene, if you will: You live in a Northern English town in the run-up to next year’s UK general election. Recently UKIP has been making inroads, and the socialist Labour Party is worried enough to go canvassing door-to-door, so you get a knock on your door. Up pops your Labour candidate, but instead of talking about preserving the National Health Service or some other warm and fuzzy vote winner, he starts going on about what a great guy Pol Pot was and how he was right to march all those Cambodian bourgeoisie scum out into the Killing Fields. And, as for those Liberal-Democrat-supporting farmers, he suggests, the best way to deal with them would be to re-enact the Holodomor in the dales of Yorkshire, etc., etc.

He’s also got some old WWII-style cartoons, showing Nigel Farage as a diseased rat, and hands you one to post in your window. Now, assuming this is the way he canvases with everybody, how do you think he will do on election night?

If you answered "landslide victory" you are obviously a moron and should immediately put down reality as you might get seriously injured.

This is a mirror image of how nationalists who allow themselves to be associated with the Third Reich appear to members of the public, in other words as complete nutcases living in a particularly dark and sticky corner of the past. Socialists enjoy their enormous success because they skip lightly over Pol Pot, Stalin, Mao, and Kim Il Sung, and connect their ideas with what they redefine as the basic interests of the people, even though their vision is ultimately a poisonous and destructive one.

White nationalists of The Daily Stormer type – and my attack is not just aimed at Andrew Anglin but all those who strive to harness White Nationalism to Hitler's corpse – effectively do the exact opposite. Even though nationalism is the essence of the basic interests of the people, many nationalists manage somehow to step over this strong point and instead connect themselves with the worst excesses of the past. It looks like a clear defeatist strategy, and defeatist strategies always look like deliberate betrayal, or at best stupidity.

What actually happened in Nazi Europe is of course a question of great historical interest, but whatever the actual details – many of them distorted beyond recognition or now unknowable – one thing is sure, not much of it was pretty. But it is this ugliness – codified in images of “evil Jews” getting their come-uppance – that appeals to certain White nationalists so they continue on their mastubatory short circuit.

1970s: Nazi trimmings. No biggie.

In the UK, it wasn’t always thus. In the 1960s and 1970s before the Holocaust and political correctness industries got up and running, and before the feminization of Western societies, the bootboy look – even with Nazi trimmings – had something of a coolness quotient.

Remember punk, with its Nazi imagery – punks and swastikas, Belsen was a Gas, etc.? And even new wave – bands like “Joy Division,” which later became “New Order;” and you even had English Jews like Mick Jones of Clash fame fronting up a band by the name of London SS. And then mainstream stars like blues-rock legend Eric Clapton invoking the spirit of Enoch Powell.

Yes, that was a different age from our own – a comparative age of innocence. The whole bootboy, Nazi aesthetic was just another way of being authentically working class and rebellious, and of shoving up two fingers to the musty old establishment, with its self-serving patriotic platitudes.

But then things changed. Political White Nationalism rose up for a while in the guise of the National Front, and brought with it some of this imagery and attitude. The perception was that here was a force that was potentially very powerful, something that could combine the two potent chemicals of nationalism and socialism in a volatile mixture, and lead to destructive/ regenerative chaos for a cosmopolitan country like Britain. So the decision was made to demonize the whole package, and this was not that hard to do, as the Nazis had left plenty of material to work with, and what they hadn’t could easily be fabricated or imported from Communist Europe. Auschwitz, after all, started its life in the public consciousness rather in the same way that Katyn did, as part of Soviet propaganda.

Nick Griffin who went on to have 
a stunted career in politics. 

The poison of Nazi associationism thus brewed was then ladled out to the unsuspecting masses of the National Front, who swilled it down willingly, some of them even shouting “sieg heil” between glugs. Result? Nationalism died a death at the polls, despite the evils it pointed to happening in broad daylight. Each nationalist movement that then came along was similarly doused, including the BNP, and when they finally grew wiser and tried to refuse the poison, it was still forced down their throats until they choked on it.

The empirical evidence is clear: the track record of Nazi-associationism in killing nationalist movements – especially in the Anglophone world – is pretty solid. You can complain that this is simply not fair, but facts are facts. This is the way it works, and politics is the art of the possible, not the impossible.

It is this kind of Nazi-associationism that Andrew Anglin supports. Where nationalism becomes associated with Nazism, however, it shrivels and dies. Where it manages to escape this taint, however, it does remarkably well. Right now The Daily Stormer is running stories on its front page celebrating victories by the Front National in France and the Sweden Democrats. Both these results are the product of political realism and avoiding, like the plague, the kind of imagery and rhetoric that Anglin stands for. This in itself is proof that Anglin is wrong and his position is a welter of contradictions.

Perhaps exceptions can be pointed to in Hungary’s Jobbik or Greece’s Golden Dawn, or the Ukraine’s Pravy Sektor, which might seem slightly more Himmler-shaped, but these countries are still several decades behind the true West and have unique local factors, yet even they make rigorous efforts to distance themselves from the  full Nazi-tard mode favoured by The Daily Stormer.

In his article, replying to my article, Anglin’s main negative strap line is: when in history have conferences and essays resulted in political revolution?

Yes, I know what he’s getting at and he’s about as right as he is wrong, but let him also answer my question: When, since Hitler blew his brains out, has anybody waving around a swastika been democratically successful in America or Western Europe?

As for “conferences and essays,” one could point to the original Marxists and the later Frankfort School as examples of revolutionary change growing out of abstruse books, arcane essays, and soporific conferences.

Revolutions, of course, also come from social collapse, when food runs out or law and order breaks down. Not from pampered, obese, over-policed, and porn-fed populations that are half-willingly participating in their own demise.

"Conferences are bullshit."

There is physical revolution and there is mental revolution. The hungry mob or the angry young men given tacit approval by their elders constitute physical revolution – a raw animal force.

With the consumerist bribery and technological systems we have in the West, however, there is little likelihood of actual physical revolution happening for some time. Nevertheless people are far from happy. They know that much is wrong. They can still be made to recognize the creeping chaos and stupidity of multiculturalism. Mental revolution is still possible.

The old system of politics is also increasingly hollow. The scope for mental revolution widens daily, so ideas are more important than repetitive bootboy sloganeering.

Anglin’s main positive strap line is: the Daily Stormer is designed to serve as a hardcore front for the conversion of masses of people into a pro-White, Antisemitic ideology and to move the Overton window. But is it even possible to have a window in the basement The Daily Stormer occupies? (Sorry, cheap shot!)

His main example of how to do this, however, is based on pictures of Tokio Kid, a brilliant though dated caricature from WWII. This led me to suspect that Anglin has a hidden but highly developed sense of humour after all. But, sticking to brutal logic, something like The Daily Stormer is no comparison with a WWII propaganda machine. Firstly, the modern audience is much more sophisticated – The Three Stooges don’t quite cut it anymore – and, secondly, WWII propaganda machines could blare out their messages from every wall, wireless station, and newspaper 24-7. I hope Andrew let's me know the moment when Rupert Murdoch climbs on board the White Nationalist movement, otherwise I might miss it.

Also, unlike WWII, we don't have an enemy that is actively bombing us and trying to militarily enslave us. If we accept The Daily Stormer's reductionist view that Jews are the enemy, then we have an enemy that wants to give us more porn, bad movies, bad credit, cheap labour, and atomized individual freedom, all things that a lot of our people seem happy to sign off on.

Bibliophobia

Perhaps the most absurd component of Anglin’s argument is that people like myself, Jared Taylor, and Greg Johnson are “pathologically clever” and involved in an “intellectual circle jerk.”

“You would think that people as smart as Liddell, who are able to haughtily mock the working class with college-level phrases and essays apparently purposefully designed to turn-off anyone with a life outside of intellectualism, would also be able to recognize the fact that without the working and lower-middle classes on their side, they are eventually going to be eaten alive by Negroes.”

This is amusing for a number of reasons. First I am working class, although unfortunately I can’t say the same for Taylor, Spencer, and Johnson, although they kind of make up for it by being American. Also, I partly grew up in a majority Black society, so, yes, I know how that works too.

I don’t wish to dismiss Anglin’s criticism of over-intellectualization out of hand, as again he has a half point. Indeed he seems to have a lot of half points, which might lead some to suggest he is a half wit, but not me, as I think he’s a lot smarter than he lets on.

Yes, some of the intellectualism of the alternative right can alienate people – or worse bore them – but frankly I find the repetitive dumbed-down rhetoric of The Daily Stormer a lot more tedious.

Intellectualism should not be underestimated. By exploring new ideas and developing new critiques of the modern Leftist, globalized, feminized, egalitarian world, we develop new intellectual weapons and useful insights that can then be reformulated in increasingly populist and basic language to create the memes, axioms, taglines, and factoids to redpill a large number of people whose interests they ultimately serve. Call this trickle down intellectualism. It is at this point that skilled populists like Anglin could make themselves particularly useful, by weaponizing our ideas for a more mass audience.

Instead The Daily Stormer serves as an antiquated cliché factory dispensing rhetoric and memes that are as out of date as the Disney cartoons of Hitler that he cites. Its main idea is the bogeyman of the almighty Jew, a childish caricature, not unlike Tokio Kid, that has little real impact in the modern age, except for those who wish to isolate themselves from the rest of society.

There are also a number of major problems with The Daily Stormer’s Jewish thesis. First, if you believe they are so powerful and superior what are you doing supporting the lowly, impotent White man? For supremacism to exist, you have to believe in your own supremacy. There is really no logical call for Aboriginal Supremacism, is there? But the only supremacy The Daily Stormer believes in is the supremacy of the Jew, along with a kind of self-flagellating White masochism. Count me out!

The Daily Stormer is effectively a voluntary ghetto, where the angry White nationalist can be corralled and filled with the kind of rhetoric and knee-jerk notions that will keep him socially isolated. You really don't need to build walls and wire fences around people when you can get them to internalize their own repression.

Yes, based on empirical evidence, a rational case can be made for undue Jewish influence and examples of malevolence towards White ethnic interests, but who are you going to convince when you go into stormfag mode?

Because of anti-Zionism’s proximity in the popular mind to Hitlerian anti-Semitism, any moves to talk about excessive or inimical Jewish influence have to be handled carefully, drawing attention to incontrovertible facts, rather than half-truths, and agreed-on moral standards and concepts of justice, rather than emotive demonizations and hate spew. This is why the recent war in Gaza was so useful and did far greater harm to Jewish interests than anything The Daily Stormer could dream of.

The kind of clichés one encounters at The Daily Stormer, while emotionally satisfying for the convinced Jew hater, are also an extremely efficient means for isolating him from the people around him. Quite simply, the most effective anti-Semitism doesn’t come from anti-Semites, but from those who are, or at least seem, rational and emotionally uninvolved.

A similar credibility on the Jewish question.

The main function that the repetitive memes pumped out daily at The Daily Stormer serve is to isolate those who take them up from their fellow Whites. The racially awakened are therefore placed in cultural and metapolitical quarantine. Partly this is a reflection of an American ethos. America is a country famously founded on people’s ability to get away from each other, and for kooks to carve out their own corner of the wilderness. America is a country that protects your right to be as offensive as you want to be, while at the same time depriving you of any real democracy. Europe roughly works the other way.

“Why shouldn’t I develop a crush on Hitler, it’s not as if anybody can beat the two-party system anyway,” seems to be the message. Europe, of course, is a different story. Life is denser, more social, and interconnected. You can’t head off into the wide open spaces or even a capacious, internet-ready basement and turn into a complete crank. Isolated lonerism with widely repugnant views is much less of an option – check out our lovely thought crime laws. Unlike America, such an attitude is also guaranteed to undercut any positive political moves, of which there are plenty of healthy ones in Europe.

But having said all this, it is clear that before the West can be properly saved, a lot of nastiness may be required. How else can America retain its White majority? How else can Europe turn back the tide of Islamism and the Camp of the Saints scenario building up on its southern shores? There is thus a certain tenuous plausibility for the bootboy machismo and general unpleasantness that The Daily Stormer peddles.

But such tendencies – the growling men of action, the rough cut heroes of the hour, etc. – can only arise if they are preceded by genuine popular mass movements. Even fascistic violence, at a certain level, had to be democratic. The popular will comes first, the paramilitary element later. Even Hitler and Mussolini, Anglin’s obvious models, realized this, especially Hitler, who tried it both ways. The first time without broad support, the second time with. The first time resulted in the Munich Putsch, the second in the 1933 democratic coup d'etat.

But whatever horrors may lie down the road thanks to globalism, multiculturalism, and mass immigration, the key, as I indicated in my previous article, is not to see the natural aspirations of White people for survival and self-determination as in any way an extremist position. It is not. Nor is the common human desire to avoid extreme violence and unpleasantness. It is our opponents with their clever cabals and mass orchestrated invasions from the Third World – and the prospect of race war and genocide that this introduces – that have created the future crises. It is they who are the extremists.

This is the simple truth, but dressing it up in swastikas and jackboots, and using the kind of language that 90% of White people feel extremely uncomfortable with, is not only unnecessary, but also guaranteed to turn our people from this moderate though radical truth. Nowadays, thanks to multiculturalism, most Whites have some connection personal or professional with non-Whites. Healthy White nationalism should not be forced to hide in the shadows but should be the material of dinner party discussions and water cooler moments. Is any of this possible with The Daily Stormer’s brand of nationalism? Of course not. It is fare for basement dwellers. Nazism’s potential to do evil has never been greater than it is today.

We all know that Robert Ransdell is going to get a pitiful handful of votes, and be the latest in a long line of laughable failures. Also, if his pseudo-fascist schtick ever did threaten to succeed, the state would soon change the ground rules, using his paramilitarist posturings as a convenient subtext for clamping down.

To succeed White nationalism in America will have to look to successful models abroad rather than to its many failures at home. This means that American White nationalists will have turn their backs on the homegrown experiments of Rockwell and Pierce, and their tendency to substitute cosplay for politics and offensiveness for argument.

Instead look across the sea at your European bretheren, at the European nationalists: France’s Front National (24.9% at the last EU elections), Holland’s Freedom Party (13.3%), and even UKIP (27%), or the True Finns (12.9%) and the Sweden Democrats – 13% in a general election in the land of Swebola! Of course this is not the whole solution, and the policies of all these parties could be greatly improved, but at least the possibilities are healthier than mentally masturbating to The Daily Stormer’s Nazi porn. Yes, I know that it gets a lot of hits. But then so does any porn site.

Learn from success and you will succeed, imitate failure and you will fail. As for those who repeatedly point to failed paths, distrust them as you would the devil.

This article was referenced in the Salon article "The Alt-Right is Killing People"

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