The White Nationalist Manifesto

The word “racist” has been so overused it means virtually nothing. The same thing is beginning to happen with “white nationalist,” the label journalists have chosen for their opponents during the Donald Trump years. As Karl Marx once noted of the word “communist,” there is hardly a conservative faction, individual, or party that has not been accused of “white nationalism.” Yet unlike “racist,” which was always a slur, “white nationalist” has a real meaning. As Marx said of communists, it is time for white nationalists to publish their views and aims, and counter the nursery tale of the White Nationalist Menace with a manifesto. Greg Johnson has done just that, and in so doing has provided a focus for the entire movement.

The White Nationalist Manifesto clearly lays out the threat to the white race, the moral justification for resisting extinction, and the rationale for white homelands as the best way to ensure survival. Dr. Johnson is an ethnonationalist who believes each ethnicity should have a homeland. He denies the existence of “generic white people,” and would oppose a grand Imperium uniting the entire race.

This distinction is crucial because white nationalism thus becomes a logical extension of patriotism: “We have to assert that being white is a necessary condition of belonging to any European national group, although of course we acknowledge that a shared language, culture, and history are also necessary.” White nationalists are the true defenders of existing nation-states.

Dr. Johnson also answers the question of whether “a worldwide European diaspora of a hundred flags, in which every self-conscious nation has at least one sovereign homeland” would lead to conflict and war as it has in the past. He argues that ethnostates would be “good neighbors to one another” because each would have a secure identity and sense of place that would encourage positive relations between peoples. Distinct homelands based on common peoplehood would encourage respect for the peoplehood of others and foster international trust. And even with distinct homelands, pan-European high culture and cooperation in matters of technology would help unify the white world.

Dr. Johnson also explains why nationalists cannot avoid talking about race. As he notes, the taboo against speaking in defense of white interests is a potentially fatal one that applies to no other group. Whiteness is considered a legitimate concept if it is used to punish whites, but suddenly becomes illegitimate when whites defend themselves. European national identities cannot be separated from whiteness; the pursuit of distinct homelands is fully consistent with a celebration of whites’ nature as “one extended family.”

Despite his attachment to ethnonationalism, Dr. Johnson seems to suggest that today, racial solidarity is more important than national solidarity. Echoing Sam Francis, Dr. Johnson argues that whites are attacked as whites, not as Germans or Frenchmen or Americans. Thus, “[W]hen Europeans resist ethnic displacement, they will increasingly regard their race as their nation and their skin as their uniform.” One could even argue that at the current stage of our efforts, there is already a new “nation” of racially aware Europeans who have more in common with each other than their fellow citizens.

The White Nationalist Manifesto makes its case mostly in sober, objective terms, but Dr. Johnson movingly describes how rising white death rates, drug overdoses, and hedonism suggest that our people subconsciously sense they don’t have a future. He captures the pathos of current trends that inevitably lead to extinction.

Dr. Johnson anticipates and responds to many of the objections against white nationalism, and does this so well that this alone makes this book worth reading. (One example: If challenged to define who qualifies as white, the answer is “the ones who are supposed to feel white guilt.”) Yet this is far more than “White Nationalism 101.” It is a sustained, coherent argument grounded in political theory. Dr. Johnson effortlessly cites Martin Heidegger, Alain de Benoist, Tatu Vanhanen, and others, to the profit both of veterans and of those new to the movement. The “Recommended Reading” section is a welcome guide to further education.

Dr. Johnson also includes a useful discussion of what he calls the “Old Right,” or the fascist and National Socialist movements. He writes that these movements have “much to teach us,” but draws vital distinctions between past and present, warning especially against what he calls the “Bolshevik organizational model” of many fascist movements. He criticizes those who “lack a worldview of their own” and instead “go shopping for a complete and ready-made system of ideas that they can adopt as a package deal.”

Dr. Johnson scorns the “escapism” of associating with regimes utterly foreign to our time and place, and instead argues for a movement that can “graft itself onto the living traditions of its own homeland, not exotic imports or toxic and highly stigmatized ideologies.” Dr. Johnson likewise condemns “self-marginalizing, self-defeating behavior,” which is especially destructive at this critical moment.

But isn’t “white nationalism” itself “toxic” and “highly stigmatized?” Dr. Johnson argues that “implicit White Nationalism is the animating principle of the growing populist-nationalist movements across the white world” and believes “we will inevitably move from implicit to explicit racial advocacy.” What now prevents this transition is a hostile establishment “already working feverishly, at nearly 100% capacity, to suppress white identity politics.” However, “when our rising consciousness exceeds their declining ability to control us, then we win.”

But when will that time come? White advocates have been driven from social media, selectively prosecuted by a “conservative” administration, and cut off from means of fundraising. White advocates have less freedom to speak without fear of reprisal than before President Trump’s election. The White Nationalist Manifesto provides little guidance about how to reverse this process. The rise of overt anti-white hatred has also become mainstream since President Trump’s election.

Yet the need to reveal the iron fist within the velvet glove of “diversity” is itself progress. Our rulers rightly fear the appeal of white nationalism. If one were to judge from headlines, it dominates the political conversation. The White Nationalist Manifesto comes at a critical time and provides an approachable, logical, and humane explanation of white nationalism. It avoids sloganeering and divisive “party programs;” it begins a conversation rather than ends it.

As Dr. Johnson notes, we probably can’t change the minds of those who think the white race should die. We can appeal to those who value white civilization but shy away from doing what is necessary to preserve it. This is the perfect book for the conservative teetering on the edge of racial awareness.

Dr. Johnson has written a book that is both timely and timeless. It defines the politics of the present moment but also outlines a vision that will speak to every generation. It’s a book that desperately needed to be written. Now, it desperately needs to be read.