“Why is White Nationalism on the Rise?”

By Jared Taylor

On May 4, CNN published an article by David Neiwert called “Hate groups are recruiting our young people into a toxic belief system.” This belief system is “white nationalism,” which Mr. Neiwert warns is growing at an alarming rate: “[W]e’re talking in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions of new young white nationalists being born online right now.”

Why is white nationalism, which Mr. Neiwert dismisses as “hateful” and “toxic,” so attractive? Because it is based on the conviction that whites—like every other racial group in America and the world—have legitimate group interests. The most obvious of these is not to be reduced to a minority where they have traditionally been the majority.

From its founding and until immigration policy changed in 1965, Americans took it for granted that whites would always be the majority. They were 85 percent of the population in 1960, but are now projected, largely through immigration, to become a minority by 2045.

Whites were never asked if this was what they wanted. White nationalists do not want to become a minority, and the burden is on people like Mr. Neiwert to explain why they are wrong.

Is it wrong for Japanese to want to remain a majority in Japan? Or Mexicans in Mexico? Or Turks in Turkey? Israel is an explicitly Jewish state, and virtually all Americans recognize its right to remain Jewish. White nationalists believe that whites—whether in the United States or Europe—have the same right.

It is not “hatred” for whites to want to live in a society shaped by the European values and texture of life handed down by their ancestors. Mass immigration changes a country—often radically—and whites have the absolute right to prefer societies that are faithful to their ancestral values. This is an entirely normal, healthy sentiment that Mr. Neiwert would surely not find “hateful” if expressed by non-whites.

Would Mr. Neiwert be happy if the whole world were changing as the United States or Europe is? Should populations migrate and mix everywhere, reducing every local majority to a minority? That would crush every distinct culture and civilization everywhere. Why is that acceptable only for white countries?

“White nationalists” recognize that hypnotic slogans do not make “diversity” a strength. It is a source of tension and conflict. At its worst, it means race riots and prison riots. Every day, it means discrimination lawsuits, resentment, accusations of insensitivity, and bitterness over whether the Oscars or Harvard or boardrooms or tech jobs or neighborhoods or the police force have the right racial mix.

Even if diversity were a strength, why should whites “celebrate” it when it always means a decline in their numbers and influence? No healthy people wants to give up its place in society and march into oblivion.

White nationalism is also the inevitable reaction to an increasingly harsh double standard: Whites must always be “sensitive” to others, even if others hold them in contempt.

In 2018, the New York Times appointed a 31-year-old immigrant from Korea, Sarah Jeong, to its editorial board. Miss Jeong had tweeted such things as “White men are bullshit,” “#CancelWhitePeople,” and “White people have stopped breeding. you’ll all go extinct soon. That was my plan all along.” No white person who said anything remotely like this about non-whites could be a janitor at the Times.

Headlines such as these show contempt for whites: “ To the White Men Running to Be the Democratic Presidential Candidate: Can You Not?” “Step aside white men. It’s time for women of color to lead.” “Should a White Man Be the Face of the Democratic Party in 2020?” Television host Trevor Noah put the same question to Bernie Sanders: “Isn’t this a time for your guys to step aside?”

In the 1960s, the national goal was to overcome racism and achieve color-blindness. Now, whites—but only whites—learn that, as Psychology Today explains, “Colorblind ideology is a form of racism.” When whites left transitioning neighborhoods, it was called “white flight” and was “racist.” When they go back to those neighborhoods, it is “gentrification,” which is also “racist.” It’s healthy for blacks or Asians or Hispanics to have a firm racial identity; for whites, it’s “Nazism.”

When blacks and Hispanics do not do as well as whites, it’s the fault of entrenched white supremacy. But if America is a white supremacist country, why do East Asians do so much better than whites?

All this—certainly not Donald Trump—explains the rise of white nationalism.

It is true that some people with nationalist ideas have committed horrific murderous acts. Why? Because when people have a voice, they speak. When they are hated, silenced, and their deeply felt values driven underground by self-righteous media censors, they may act in unspeakable ways.

There are democratic solutions to these problems. Censorship and demonization will make them worse.