Posted on August 4, 2017

Derb’s July Diary: Jared Taylor’s Tennessee Triumph; Conservatism Inc.’s Collapse

John Derbyshire, VDare, August 3, 2017

The 2017 American Renaissance conference.

Hatefest in Tennessee. This month’s big event was the annual conference of American Renaissance in Tennessee over the last weekend. It was a great success — the best of the several AmRen conferences I’ve attended.

One difference with previous AmRen conferences in this location is that the anti-white protestors (practically all of them, of course, white themselves — Goodwhites) were allowed to stand right outside the main door of the conference center, instead of on the other side of the parking lot as formerly. This change apparently resulted from legal pressure.

This made no difference to us attendees inside, other than to give us and the protestors close looks at each other through the conference-center windows. It did, though, probably lead to the first ever punch-up between one of ours and several of theirs, reported at the end of AmRen’s own conference report.

Nobody seems to know how the fight got started; I’ve heard several different stories. Local law enforcement apparently doesn’t post police reports online, other than for traffic incidents, so we’ll have to wait for legal proceedings.

Whatever: He’s our guy. Dissident Right doesn’t leave its wounded on the battlefield. A funding site has been set up for his medical and legal costs. I’ve donated, and I hope you will too.

Alt Right rising. It’s getting to be a cliché at AmRen conferences, but it’s a happy one: The attendees get younger every year. Scanning the conference hall on Saturday I saw a couple of guys who prompted the thought: “How did they get here? They don’t look old enough to drive.”

The blogger Z-man attended this year’s conference, his first ever, and wrote a very good three-part diary (herehere, and here) about it. From Part I:

The age of the crowd was the first thing I noticed. There were many people there in the under-30 age bracket. There were lot of guys in their 40’s and 50’s too. The average age was probably early 40’s and there were quite a few women in attendance.

Later, in Part III, Z-man contrasted that with the protestors, as seen through the conference hall windows.

I was standing in front of the big glass windows watching the Antifa loonies, when I turned and looked at the young AmRen guys taking pics and selfies, laughing and enjoying themselves. On one side of the glass were grotesquely out of shape people in grubby clothes, smoking and gesticulating. On the other were young men in suits, well groomed and composed. It was one of those times when you can stand on the timeline of your life and see the past and the future at the same time.

Indeed. Something’s happening here, and it’s a privilege to be a part of it. I only wish I’d been born 50 years later.

The uselessness of Conservatism Inc. I not only got to meet Z-man for the first time ever, but also Audacious Epigone, who is out there with Steve Sailer at the front of the pack of Alt Right quantitative bloggers. (Of whom there can never be enough. Numbers are of the essence.)

Audacious is the getting-younger cliché incarnate. He looks way too young to have as much worldly smarts as he shows in his blogging.

At an after-conference private gathering, our own James Kirkpatrick — who, notwithstanding he describes himself as “a Beltway veteran,” I personally would card if he tried to buy beer in my checkout lane at the supermarket — gave an eloquent talk full of insights about this.

The meeting was private so it would be naughty to quote at any length, but James did say that among young, politically-engaged people he knows, Conservatism, Inc. has next to no market share.

Why would they have any market share? Conservatism, Inc. has accomplished nothing. HeritageCatoAEINRI . . . all that scholarly lucubration, all those millions in funds, and Conservatism, Inc. couldn’t even pass Health-Care Reform. Our borders are wide open to anyone that cares to stroll in, American citizenship counts for nothing, the Afghanistan war is in its sixteenth futile year, and they’re fine with it all.

Why would any patriotic young person support these arm-flappers?

Did any of them, with all their overflowing treasure chests, contribute anything to last year’s election victory? If they did, it must have been inadvertent: they all hated Trump.

Something’s definitely happening. The tawch has been paahssed . . .

A great living AmericanI can’t leave the topic of July’s AmRen conference without a deep bow of respect to Jared Taylor, who founded AmRen.

Jared Taylor

Jared Taylor speaking at the 2017 conference.

As the Z-man wrote, and as I said at the beginning of my conference presentation, Jared has been pressing on doggedly with his project — white advocacy, race realism — for a quarter of a century now, through innumerable difficulties and setbacks, and against a stiff headwind of opposition from the dominant culture — including, of course, Conservatism, Inc.

Now all that labor is bearing fruit. This year, for the first time ever, Jared had to turn people away; the conference center was just not big enough for all who wanted to attend. My advice to Jared would be to think ahead some and book Yankee Stadium for the 2020 conference.

Success couldn’t happen to a better man. I’ve been saying for years that if our civilization survives, there will one day be statues to Jared in public squares all over the country.

Congratulations, Sir. Onward and upward! Excelsior!