What’s Wrong and What’s Right About “America First”

Credit Image: © Cover Images via ZUMA Press

In his March 22 American Renaissance article, “Should Whites Put America First,” Peter Bradley writes, “It is suicide to put America first when America puts whites last.” He justifies this conclusion by giving many examples of how our country punishes white people.

I have no objection to Mr. Bradley’s analysis. Official America is against us. I object only to his blanket rejection of the concept America First. It is still a useful idea if understood correctly.

The validity of America First depends on what you mean by “America.” It could mean the American state: all the apparatus of power both governmental and private. Historically the word “state” has meant government. But in the current age, government and the private sector cooperate to act against our interests. Harming whites is not (yet) official government policy, but it is the policy of many government and private actors. The overall effect of the state, and those who have its blessing, is to oppose our people. The state’s targets also include Christians, heterosexuals, masculine men, and anyone else who openly supports traditional American ways.

It would certainly be suicide for whites and other targets of the American state to put that America first. Besides supporting those who are harming us, this would also mean supporting the forever wars and American cultural and economic dominance overseas. America’s main cultural export is the poison of wokeness, which benefits only the state’s mascots. Forever wars and economic dominance mainly benefit oligarchs.

But the America to be put first could also be the historic American people, the American nation. This is the traditional meaning of the word “nation:” a people related, even if distantly, by birth. The American people has historically consisted of whites and nowadays it can also include non-whites of good will, such as Michelle Malkin, Clarence Thomas, and Thomas Sowell. Identifying non-whites of good will is much easier now; war makes loyalties more apparent. And non-whites of ill will mostly do not consider themselves to be Americans even if they are citizens.

Putting America first in this sense – siding with the American people – is exactly what we should be doing.

Because many Americans sense that our people are not being put first, the slogan “America First” has become popular. Its meaning varies but for some, including the movement led by Nick Fuentes, “America” is the American people, not the State. This is the America they put first by opposing all the machinations of the state that waste our resources and hurt our people. “America First” of the Fuentes variety means demanding that our leaders support our people, not our rivals and enemies.

Nick Fuentes speaks to his followers, ‘the Groypers,’ in Washington D.C. on November 14, 2020 (Credit Image: © Zach D Roberts / NurPhoto via ZUMA Press)

Mr. Fuentes and his Groypers are putting America first. They call out enemies of our people. They loudly back politicians who stand up for whites and Christians. They attack the mainstream claim that whites are irredeemably evil and that non-whites, LGBTQ+ people, and other pets of wokeism must be favored.

The Groypers are not the only group to put America first in this sense. In contrast, the mainstream America First movement mistakenly believes that US military, economic and cultural dominance benefit us all. It also believes the American ruling system is fundamentally good, and all the current hatred of heritage Americans and their values is a bug, not a feature. This America First movement is perverting the patriotism that all normal human beings feel, directing it toward a destructive goal. Many Americans can’t distinguish between state and nation and are easily misled into believing what is good for the one is good for the other.

It is also a mistake to ignore the state completely or to oppose it in toto. We could wholeheartedly support the state in a hypothetical future when it again serves the interests of our people. In the meantime, there is value to us in the current state having some measure of power because even a corrupt state has necessary functions. We can still sometimes use government power to benefit our people, especially at the local level. And we should prefer a future in which we direct the efforts of a strong state, not a weak one. But since we may not be able to take control of the current state or its successor, our support for a certain measure of state power must be subordinated to our more basic need to survive as a people.

Surely the name of this site reflects this understanding. It refers not to the state but to the people. It means cherishing and protecting our people so that they may experience a rebirth. Properly understood, America First sounds a lot like American Renaissance.