NATIONALISM

The Force of Civilizational Renewal

The Nation as a Living Force

“Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.”

- Psalms 14:34

When one gazes into mankind’s history, they find it a great woven tapestry of countless peoples and cultures, ways of life, dispositions and philosophies. From the dawn of city-states and the consolidation from them of the first kingdoms and empires, to the marvels of the classical age, to the religious and feudal conflicts of the middle ages, to the great revolutionary struggles of the 18th and 19th centuries, to the cataclysmic battles for the soul of the world itself in the early 20th century, a clear through-line—the pulsing heartbeat of history—emerges: while internally, conflict between classes may disrupt and fracture a nation, in the geopolitical arena the true conflict of the world becomes apparent, that it is a struggle between nations and systems, of ideologies and ways of life.

It is important to understand that these civilizational units are very rarely ethnic monoliths—the example of the Roman Empire comes to mind, which, despite being a large, multiethnic entity, created a common conception of Roman-ness that came to encompass vast numbers of people of wildly different backgrounds. Whether a Gaul, an Iberian, an Illyrian, a Latin, a Thracian, a Greek, an Egyptian, or a Numidian, all of these disparate peoples came to be unified under one state, and in many cases contribute directly to its long line of Emperors. This logic, however, applies to many of the other great civilizations of history, whether China, Persia, India, the emergent nation-states of medieval Europe, and indeed now our own United States of America, a country constructed from a hodge-podge of many different peoples unified under one flag and one common American standard.

This is the root of American identity—and as such, why it is impossible for any truly virtuous and purified form of American Nationalism to be monoethnic in nature—it’s simply at odds with our historical being. The American Republic is not the product of any one tribe, faith or creed, it is a grand historical project, one in which hundreds of millions were bound together by a common spiritual destiny and the principles of liberty. The nation is, in itself, a kind of living organism—one greater than the sum of these hundreds of millions of parts, who gave their sweat, blood and in many cases their lives, to further advance something they would never see the end of, a noble and virtuous Republic. Neither blood nor simple birth on American soil is what makes one “truly American”—rather, it is the investment of one’s entire being into the furtherance of not just their own life and position, but the lives of their countrymen, and the position of their Republic. Participation in civic life, then, is not merely a right—it is a moral obligation.

This is the reason that Nationalism is the First Principle of the People, it is a clear establishment of who the system is designed to serve the interests of, and the answer to the essential question—who are we in the abstract sense? Without this principle, it is impossible to build a constructive civilizational project; it is the integral foundational stones to the mighty fortress we seek to build for ourselves.

Memory and Destiny

“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

- The American Declaration of Independence

The American Republic is an inheritance, but it is not one that we are guaranteed. Our nation has faced many trials since breaking free of monarchical tyranny in 1776, and perhaps had it not been for the sacrifice and toil of the noble and dignified citizenry, it may have long ago shattered into petty feuds and regionalism, never realizing its destiny of hegemony. This is the continuum of national history—just as our ancestors gave themselves to stewardship over liberty and sovereignty, so too is it the duty of today’s young generations, born into a time of economic decline and moral collapse, to carry forth the sacred flame of American identity. It is not an understatement to say that the cross we bear is the greatest challenge facing any generation in recent memory, perhaps since the founding fathers, but certainly since the end of the Second World War—restoring the institutions of the state, the dignity of its international image, and the prosperity of its people.

This great national struggle is, in part, the result of the failure of the ruling neoliberal elite to uphold their own duties as the elected components of the state. Decades of gross neglect and mismanagement have slowly withered away at institutional trust, and for good reason—consider the Flint water crisis, in which elected officials, those chosen by the people to be placed in positions of trust, knowingly lied and obscured the danger of the situation to protect their own positions instead of jumping onto the back of the raging bull and tackling the problem head on, with the gusto and mentality for service one would expect of an elected leader. Consider the ongoing opioid crisis—Purdue Pharmaceuticals and other medicinal conglomerates knowingly lied about the addictive nature of their drugs, particularly Oxycontin, and preyed upon the injured, the poor and the disabled, pushing these drugs to millions of Americans, many of whom were just seeking relief to their pain or a leg up in recovery from a major surgery, not knowing the true risks of what they were putting into their bodies. This entire situation resulted in nothing more than a slap on the wrist by federal authorities, oftentimes in bed with these very same pharmaceutical interests through political lobbying. Now, most damningly, many of our politicians seem hell-bent on hindering the enforcement of national border policy as much as possible, allowing foreign drug cartels to flood our country with increasingly dangerous and debilitating venoms, and prey on the very addictions our leaders either helped to create, turned a blind eye to, or both. These are just two examples of a long, bloody list of the crimes of liberal capitalism, indicting examples which illustrate the frank cruelty and indifference these plutocrats have towards their citizens, so long as the votes continue to come in and the revenue from donors remains steady.

The neoliberal elite is not interested in the historical continuum, they do not care about the sacrifices of their ancestors, they hardly think at all about what kind of world they are leaving behind for our children and grandchildren to live in, and increasingly they disregard entirely the interests of the American state and the uplifting and advancement of its people. If Nationalism is the answer to who the aforementioned national struggle is designed to serve, this great moral failing of our leaders is the answer to why this struggle is not only necessary, but urgent. Our nation will simply not survive another century of being disunited, profiteered and parasitized. What we have earned through tremendous sacrifice is now being squandered by the hapless decadence of our rulers. To inherit the American Republic is to inherit a kind of sacred trust, and to betray that trust is to betray not just the ideal, but those great heroes of the past who gave everything so that the ideal may prosper.

The National Community

“Here is your country. Cherish these natural wonders, cherish the natural resources, cherish the history and romance as a sacred heritage, for your children and your children's children. Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches or its romance.”

- Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States

As was previously mentioned, belonging to the nation is not defined alone by the circumstances of one’s birth, nor is it determined by ethnic origin. What makes an American is one’s participation in the advancement of the national project. Citizens are not merely atomized bodies floating around in limbo, only useful for extraction of revenue; no, they are the organs of the national body itself, gears necessary for the entire machine to function. Without proper alignment and coordination, it is impossible for the nation to operate coherently. The hard-working laborer, the loving parent, the duty-bound soldier, the visionary artist, the stoic teacher—all of these and many more are the necessary life blood of the national organism, and without them, the creature would die out, withering away as if malnourished.

This is what makes the lie of biological determinism—racialism, as discussed in the introductory article to the Five Principles—particularly insidious. It substitutes the real and the transformative parts of the national body for a kind of false idol, the bronze statue of race. The actualization of this idol in our culture and mode of governance is catastrophic, as it leads to the citizenry being hindered from viewing themselves and acting as if they are one body, but rather, a series of disaffected camps, perpetually in conflict with one another and requiring mediation and balance of interests along arbitrary lines of color, lines which increasingly do not represent the actual divisions of class in this country. Further, racialized state policies which have managed to survive into the modern day continue to cause real, existential suffering to millions of downtrodden Americans, issues then exploited politically by the very neoliberals who helped create them in the first place. The state no longer governs—it acts as a referee to tribal hostilities it helped to create in the first place.

The future of our nation is dependent upon the next generation of American leaders to undertake a radical—if admittedly difficult—cultural transformation of how we view the national community. We must remind ourselves that there is no “white”, there is no “black”, there is no “brown”, for these are arbitrary categories that attempt to mash together many different cultures and ethnicities into uniform labels, and embrace the great moral truth that there is only who is an American. We must further seek to finally dismantle the last remaining racial policies of state and finance, and bring together a unified struggle of the working class—the plight of the rural Appalachian is one and the same as the plight of the inner-city African American, and furthermore, both struggles the revolutionary cause seeks to resolve. Whether we are of European origin, African origin, Asian origin, Latin origin, we must remember and hold dear the idea that we are bound together by a common historical trajectory and destiny, and that we are still, after all this time, one nation, under God, indivisible. We must cease to cast our children into the fiery belly of the Moloch of race, instead making of ourselves iconoclasts and give to them a future in which all men are truly equal, not just in law, but in abstract dignity. For without this, there can be no liberty, and there is no justice for all to have; liberty without unity is a hollow lie, and justice without fraternity is but a shadow on the wall.

Nationalism as Stewardship

“With regard to its 'shape', the state can only be established on a basis of national solidarity, of vigorous and fraternal co-operation.”

- José Antonio Primo de Rivera

With these views in mind, American Nationalism is not blind jingoism nor degenerate supremacy, it is a moral responsibility to one’s nation and all of its people to uphold its virtues and honor, and to act as a guardian of justice. It is the burden of those who come into political, social or economic power to ensure that governance is truly beholden to not just the interests of the people, but their livelihood. Nationalism demands that internal crimes against the American people be ruthlessly punished—those who poison our water and lie to escape responsibility, as happened in the aforementioned Flint crisis, should have long ago been put on trial for crimes against humanity, because that is what it was. Instead, they were sheltered, suffering only public discontent, facing little to no real legal consequences for their actions because the liberal system refuses to police its own.

Nationalism demands the uplifting of all disadvantaged Americans, as an expression of national solidarity and fraternity—we must seek out and implement a plan for the reinvestment and development of our rural regions, as well as many inner-city communities across the country. Our fellow citizens have, for far too long, bore the brunt of the liberal state’s mismanagement and malice. This is the justification for the philosophy of the People’s Livelihood—that we bear a responsibility to our fellow man to ensure that no member of the national community is left behind, neglected, abused or otherwise disenfranchised.

Nationalism is a kind of stewardship. Nationalism is not something one simply just believes in, it is actualized through action, it is only properly expressed when the national community is brought together under one cause, the advancement of the civilization itself regardless of any internal differences or disagreements. Without it, the people are atomized and disaffected from one another, alienated from themselves and the entirety of the national body.

Conclusion: A Revolutionary Phalanx

This Nationalism is not a conservative force—for the goal is not to simply regress to the past and clumsily attempt to recreate some idealized version of a world that never really existed. It is instead a call to honor the past, and to uphold the virtues of our civic processes in an era where they have given away to technocratic, managerial neoliberalism. It is a call for the American people to unite in pursuit of a common future, one in which the springtime of prosperity can come again to our great homeland. The American people, of all stripes, must resolve their conflicts through Nationalism, and unify together as a kind of phalanx—far stronger together than the sum of our individual spears; a national brotherhood. We must reclaim our civic institutions, and drive out the corruption which grips hold of our nation at last. We will march together as one, united in purpose at last, bound by Republican virtue and civic duty. Let that phalanx advance ever forward as brothers, the banners of a restored Republic flying triumphantly, into the future.