What is White Nationalism?

If we are to fight back, it pays to know what we’re up against

Photo by Dawid Małecki on Unsplash

White nationalism is a term that dates back to as early as 1951. Merriam-Webster defines a white nationalist as a member of “a group of militant white people who espouse white supremacy and forced racial segregation.” The reason that sounds like white supremacy is because white nationalism is a term created by white supremacists. However, there are subtle differences between the ideologies, with nationalism embracing white separatist ideas.

White supremacy is largely based on the idea that white people should be dominant over others, even in multi-racial societies. It promotes the idea that white people should live in whites-only communities and have their own culture, which they argue is superior to others. The idea also posits that white people are genetically superior to nonwhite people. White supremacists are typically much more overtly racist than white nationalists are.

While a white nationalist won’t openly claim that any race is superior, they use coded language (dog whistles) in place of racial slurs to slyly suggest that each race or ethnicity should have their own ethno-states. This is where white separatism comes in. White nationalists don’t just want to be the superior race, they want white people to be considered an ethnic group. They believe this will afford them the same perceived protections as marginalized groups while arguing for separate societies or communities.

Some call for the violent removal of nonwhite people, as has been common in recent years.

While it may seem like they are failing to realize that white people have always had all those protections under the law, this is intentional. If they stopped promoting the idea that minorities have certain privileges, their arguments instantly fall apart. This requires devious willful ignorance of history and reality, a technique so effective that many authoritarians in history have adopted the foundational strategy of repeating lies as if they were true.

Rhetoric

The pejorative use of Critical Race Theory (CRT), diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), and “woke” in place of racial slurs or to directly point at nonwhite communities has been critical to white nationalism’s success in recent decades. This dog whistle trickery prevents being too obvious about their beliefs. We recently saw this as much of the U.S. argued that they support “legal” immigration while claiming Latin American immigrants were “cutting in line” only to see those same people go silent as legal immigrants are being targeted for deportations.

The recent immigration debate is a great example. Most U.S. voters argued something had to be done about “the border” and they used many white nationalist talking points to do it, whether intentional or not. White nationalism is thriving largely because of the toned-down rhetoric, which is easier to normalize when using softer language. It creates incremental shifts in opinions that ultimately lead us to a place where people justify migrant detention camps.

We saw legacy media outlets allow people to make the false claim that migrants were being let into the country without being vetted or medically screened without any pushback. They promoted the dishonest idea that the vast majority of migrants (tens of millions) are “illegals” when the opposite is true. Pundits rarely if ever mentioned that migrants with pending asylum cases are “legal” immigrants regardless of how they entered the country, according to the law.

The broad use of “undocumented” for migrants with pending cases and processed through the system is also problematic because it allows the white nationalists to easily make the jump to saying, “illegals,” again, making their message easier to normalize. From there, the narrative that a migrant crossing the border inherently makes them “illegal” and therefore, criminals by default, flows seamlessly to bolstering the “migrant crime wave” narrative.

The “C” Word

Many journalists and writers use white nationalism interchangeably with white supremacism, and it makes sense because they are indeed quite similar. But what most analysts fail to credit is that white nationalists are much slicker than previous Ku Klux Klan-like movements. Through the creation of culture wars that drive debates on social media, they successfully politicize their beliefs. Coded language serves a secondary purpose, helping them skirt detection by using benign enough rhetoric to drive false and misleading narratives.

When adding “Christian” to white nationalism it adds a very Klannish feel to it all. However, by employing the tactics of modern white nationalists, Christian white nationalists are much better at getting their message out than the Klan ever was. Like your standard white nationalist, they use culture wars and seemingly benign language to appeal to homophobes, transphobes, racists, xenophobes, and misogynists – by appealing to their specific grievances.

To be clear, someone who is a homophobe or transphobe, for example, does not make that person a nationalist. A bigot, sure. However, these movements use animus as an entry point to draw people in. The growth in Christian nationalism coincides with the growth in white nationalism because both feed off of each other and share many of the same members.

Essentially, Christian white nationalism is a sleeker and more clean cut version of the KKK of yesteryear. After decades of trying, the racists from decades ago have created an environment where promoting their ideas is simple, effective, and incremental. These men in suits who attack others for not being straight white males are no different than the KKK who equated everything from desegregation to women’s rights to civil rights as communist ideologies.

Today, they say Marxism instead.

No Longer Leaderless

Christian white nationalism has become so normalized that it has been overlooked for years, leading us to an environment where we have the executive branch of our government trying to implement Christian white nationalist policies and forcing the rest of the country to abide by them. We see it in President Trump’s appointments of racists, Christian nationalists, and white nationalists to lead powerful government agencies.

Once referred to as “leaderless” movements – a decades-old misnomer – these hate groups and far-right extremists can no longer be referred to as such. While they have always had obvious leaders, legacy media often refers to those who commit hate crimes as “lone wolves” or refer to the broad amount of hate groups as leaderless. This is largely attributable to the fragmented nature of hate groups nationally. We can all see who their leaders are now.

Since white nationalists won’t directly claim a superior race, they often parade any nonwhite people who believe like them to the media. This does not mean white nationalists don’t think they are superior. Typically, the white nationalist will inevitably turn on that person for not being a straight white male, as we have so often seen, and what Henry “Enrique” Tarrio is going through right now for the second time with the Proud Boys and its leadership council.

It’s easy for the Christian white nationalist to bait nonwhite people into their communities based on one or a few shared beliefs. For example, despite the broad antisemitism with many of the groups, Christian white nationalism embraces Zionism because there are too many similarities to ignore, and based on this, they can often recruit Jewish people to associate with them. They also target nonwhite groups with misogyny and anti-LGBTQ beliefs for the same purposes.

Meanwhile, they can point to all of them and say, “See, we’re not racist!” when we all know they are. Creating confusion and gaslighting people is another key strategy employed on the political level more than anything. However, it’s a tactic all fascist movements used throughout history. Confusion is meant to exhaust people into not thinking about things and this part is arguably the most effective tool in the fascist toolbox.

This is why the Trump administration keeps flooding the news cycle with craziness.

Spot the Dog Whistles

As if we needed further evidence of the white nationalism of the Trump administration, Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday was divisive from the beginning. However, his closing remarks were the most telling. All of the milestones he mentioned were all centered around white people. When he said “we” and “our people,” he was talking about white people.

That could not be more evident.

“From the patriots of Lexington and Concord to the heroes of Gettysburg and Normandy. From the warriors who crossed the Delaware, to the trailblazers who climbed the Rockies, and from the legends who soared at Kitty Hawk to the astronauts who touched the moon. Americans have always been the people who defied all odds, transcended all dangers, made the most extraordinary sacrifices, and did whatever it took”

Notice he’s talking about achievements centered on white men while ignoring those behind the scenes, which were often nonwhite people. His reference to the Revolutionary War seemed intentional as this is a theme harbored by the far-right for years and was a major theme of the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

“Our ancestors crossed a vast ocean, strode into the unknown wilderness and carved their fortunes from the rock and soil of a perilous and very dangerous frontier. They chased our destiny across a boundless continent. They built the railroads, laid the highways, and graced the world with American marvels like the Empire State Building, the mighty Hoover Dam, and the towering Golden Gate Bridge. They lit the world with electricity, broke free of the force of gravity, fired up the engines of American industry, vanquished the communist fascists and Marxists all over the world, and gave us countless modern wonders. Sculpted out of iron, glass, and steel, we stand on the shoulders of these pioneers who won and built the modern age.”

Again, focusing on events perceived to be related to white people. Many of the historical images behind the construction of “American marvels” are of white men so it comes as no surprise that a man who doesn’t read and is surrounded by people who willingly ignore the entirety of the country’s history would write something like this for him to say in front of the nation. That he ignored the contributions of workers who accomplished these things is also telling.

Also, notice the “Marxists” and “communists” comment?

“Now it is our time to take up the righteous cause of American liberty and it is our turn to take America's destiny into our own hands and begin the most thrilling days in the history of our country. This will be our greatest era. With God's help, over the next four years, we are going to lead this nation even higher, and we are going to forge the freest, most advanced, most dynamic, and most dominant civilization ever to exist on the face of this Earth.”

Cue the injection of Christianity to expose the Christian white nationalist motivations behind the Trump administration.

We have a big fight ahead of us.

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