The Friend-Enemy Distinction, Part 3: The Way of the Shepherd
The definition of friend and enemy will inevitably rest more with leaders rather than followers.
While writing this short series, I came to realize that each part of it was inextricably tied in with leadership. Upon reflection, this makes perfect sense, as politics is necessarily a collective enterprise, and therefore hierarchies will come to exist: strong personalities will assert themselves, people with vision will draw others to them, and those who don’t want to be at the very front will look for leaders to follow. With leadership comes responsibility, as the followers will conform themselves to the beliefs and actions of their leaders. Leaders, therefore, have a greater responsibility, before men and God (as the apostle says in James 3:1, that those who teach will be judged with greater strictness). The definition of friend and enemy, and therefore the application of “no enemies to the right,” or for that matter any other political strategy, will inevitably rest more with leaders whom people follow, than with their followers, in practice
Will to Confrontation
So far we have said nothing new. However, the question arises of what to do if true leadership is lacking, and how to recognize if this is the case. Some may even ask whether it is right to test for this at all, or whether we should simply follow whoever is leading, and trust God to work through their mistakes (even if that seems to be most of what they do).
I suggested a little while ago on X that people (myself included) would benefit from being able to acknowledge that we are sheep. This was well meant, but intentionally slightly abrasive, as being called “sheep” has a negative connotation (though it should also recall Christ’s own use of the term for his flock). The reason for this is that sin can express itself in different ways. In some circumstances, it is the sin of pride in excessively pushing oneself to the front. But in others, it is the sin of inappropriately shrinking to the back and letting others step forward, or following a bad leader for personal convenience, thereby tolerating their evil. (Note that the categorization is by circumstance, not person, as any person can be tempted to both). The latter can come from cowardice, but it fundamentally manifests as irresponsibility.
My point in the X post is that denoting oneself a natural follower does not absolve you of responsibility. Speaking about myself, for the past decade that I’ve participated in radical politics, I was consciously looking for leaders. I found a number of them, and most of them ultimately proved themselves unworthy to follow. Each time I realized this I was faced with a choice. I could abandon the struggle entirely. I could make excuses for the leader in question and continue following them, shoving my concerns, moral or otherwise, to the side. Or I could accept the responsibility of making a judgment on my leader. If you choose to be a follower, you are responsible for picking good leaders to follow. If you follow bad ones, their sin may be greater, but you will still be held accountable.
For this present series, I chose the Schmittian concept of the “friend-enemy distinction” as a practical framework for understanding how to apply “no enemies on the right.” However, as I’ve written a number of times now, politics is war. Indeed so is life itself. More specifically, the central fact of the experience of existence is confrontation, and correspondingly, what is necessary in order to engage in the struggle of life is will-to-confrontation.
Will-to-confrontation requires taking on moral responsibility. Moral responsibility requires moral principles. Moral principles should fundamentally be grounded in the Word of God. Principles define both ends and means. What a man says, claims to believe, or labels himself to be, are all irrelevant; what matters is what he does, and especially, what he does when tested by confrontation with evil. In fact, in many cases, I would argue that even distinctions like “left vs right” are irrelevant. No one possesses a monopoly on virtuous action or making the required confession, and there are no participation trophies for labeling yourself the correct and based thing.
Let’s return to the example of Donald Trump from the last essay. I wrote in some detail of my own experiences eagerly voting for Trump in 2016, and being disappointed in the years since. I noted that initially, “Trumpism appeared to be a genuinely nationalist platform which aligned moral principles with tangible goals,” and when these goals were not only not accomplished, but in most cases explicitly betrayed, I and many others withdrew our support. Recently, Trump launched a war against Iran, an act of unprovoked aggression which he and other members of his administration have stated clearly on multiple occasions is done for Israel’s benefit. During his announcement of the operation, he admitted that Americans would likely be killed. Trump’s presidency has been a long line of such events, each seemingly more egregious than the last, and each one of which presents anyone who supports him with a confrontation: will you accept this, too? Will you make your peace with it? This declaration of sacrificing Americans in a war for Israel’s regional ambitions, coming on the heels of Trump’s attempted cover-up of Epstein, is the result of six years of failing the confrontation, of White Americans and White Christians making their peace with each betrayal that preceded it.
Making your peace with evil is an abdication of power because it is an abdication of moral responsibility. It is stepping back from the confrontation, by telling yourself that you cannot step up to it, or that it is not your job. You are just a sheep, and this is your shepherd, and he is leading his flock, and the United States, into hell. There are no other words for those who are willing, even now, to make their peace with a regime that explicitly intends to sacrifice their children to the chosen people of Satan.
This same analysis explains the plight of the White American people as a whole. Despite all of our patriotism, bravado, threats on social media about how everyone’s going to get deported, all the guns we own, and more, over the past decades the American people have taken on the chin an unprecedented and planned demographic decline; the continuance of the sin of abortion; the continued and unanswered murder of Whites by non-Whites, in many cases for political reasons; the exposure of Epstein’s White sex-trafficking and pedophilia operation implicating our whole system of power; and now being overtly declared to be cannon fodder for Israel—all without a material response. Before we argue about what form that response could or should take, we need the humility to recognize that we have collectively failed to give it. We are sheep, but worst of all, we are sheep who have failed in our moral responsibility. We have been confronted with evil, and each time, have stepped back, until now we are standing at the edge of the abyss, if not in fact already falling in.
Failing confrontation over and over means entering a death spiral in which you convince yourself that it makes sense to trade the moral principles that should define your ultimate goals for short-term comfort or convenience. This is misconstrued as pragmatism, but over time it inevitably leads to abandoning one’s original goals and principles. Each time you step back from the confrontation, you necessarily invest more of yourself in doing so, and take it on as your own identity. You become someone who steps back, until that is the only thing you are able to do.
The only way out is to have red lines which you will not permit to be crossed, and if they are crossed, you will respond. This means accepting that you do have moral responsibility, regardless of your station in any circumstance or what you say about yourself. You need to hold people accountable, including, and perhaps especially, your leaders. If they fail, you must have the courage to let them fail, and to convict themselves by their failure. You abandon them and look for someone else, and if there is no one else, then the responsibility falls to you to act righteously, even if that ends up putting you in a station you did not originally conceive for yourself. In short, don’t get so caught up in whether you think you are meant to be a leader or a follower. Do what is righteous and confront evil when it inevitably presents itself. Follow those who do likewise and turn away from those who do not. Remember that in the end we are all accountable to God himself.
In this spirit, I will end this series with a list of ideas and strategies which I think are vital for pragmatic political activism.
1. Be More Materialist
I don’t mean to abandon the Christian, spiritual understanding of reality. Rather, this has to do with prioritizing the tangible over the abstract.
I have noticed in my own experience a general distinction (though not a universal rule) that on the pro-White right, the most ideologically consistent radicalism is found among those who either come from a liberal or leftist background, or went through some kind of leftist political phase, rather than going straight from mainstream conservatism. This is certainly true for me. Though I never even questioned either my Christian faith or the social values (such as opposition to sexual degeneracy) that come from it, I did have a period of about a year during which I was most interested in Marxist analysis, which turned out to be a stepping stone between political conservatism and the far right. The fundamental takeaway I had is one shared by many of the 20th century fascists, such as Mussolini, Jose Antonio, and Hitler, namely that Marxism or similar economic views are fundamentally correct as criticisms of capitalism, though not correct in their prescriptions.
The fundamental practical element here is historical materialism, dialectical materialism, or materialist analysis. You’re free to research for yourself, if you wish, orthodox Marxism’s actual definition of these things; for my purposes, I want to boil it down to the principle that political analysis has to be grounded in physical reality and consider it as, in many cases, a primary explanation for phenomena. Anything abstract on its own is entirely meaningless. Politics does not happen in your head; it requires interaction with real-world systems, physical objects, and measurable objectives.
Let’s look at examples from two angles. Consider the existing spiritual condition of Americans in regard to vices. The prevalence of behaviors like gambling, porn addiction, OnlyFans use (prostitution), opioid misuse, lack of Christian sexual morality, etc.—these are all vices which manifest in any given moment as an individual choice, but at the same time we understand that on a societal level, they are predictable, in that if certain material conditions exist, these behaviors will increase or decrease in prevalence. It is not inaccurate to say that the individual behaviors are created more by material conditions than by free choices. The traditional American conservative response, conditioned by the infiltration of libertarianism, has been to always blame the individual and to cast individual choices as the solution to such collective ills.
Similarly, the traditional Christian conservative approach to politics has generally been that there is nothing to be done other than evangelize people individually, and trying to “legislate morality” is both impossible and (for some reason) not Christian or conservative. I am happy to grant it is not conservative; but it is Christian, and moreover is simply reality. Morality is always legislated; the only question is who is defining it. This specific area is one in which the New Christian Right and Christian Nationalism has explicitly improved, and rejected the traditional conservative libertarian approach, and I believe this is ultimately traceable to Marxist analysis, not directly but mediated through far right or third positionist ideologies like fascism and National Socialism, and their impact either through the Alt Right and White Nationalism, or directly upon NXR/CN from original sources.
A different angle to further illustrate the principle of materialism is to emphasize that politics cannot be about both labels and outcomes; it must choose one or the other. To illustrate I will quote from an article I wrote on my own blog, about leftist anti-Israel protests in Italy last year:
Posting anti-Semitic memes online in between voting for Zionists like Trump or Meloni is an abdication of power, which translates a theoretical nationalism into practical, democratic consent for people who give Israel whatever it wants and then some—directly from our pockets, in fact.
On the other hand, physically blocking weapons shipments to Israel, or attacking factories, is an attempt to exert real power by affecting tangible outcomes. Either the weapons get to Israel or they don’t. If they do, the Jews can make their peace with how many internet anti-Semites were involved in the process. If they don’t, they won’t forgive the antifa activist who is their eager pawn in everything else.
This kind of analysis is slowly growing, praise God, and at the same time often subjected to bad-faith attacks of an “alliance” with “leftism,” with the accusation or implication that this is some kind of Trojan horse for smuggling anti-Whiteness into the right (the same accusation is also often made in relation to supporting Palestine, which I have addressed before). This is about as incoherent as it gets, and is best addressed by cutting right to the heart of the relevant truths. 1) “Leftism” can mean anything from socialist economics, which is not in any sense inherently anti-White, to Jewish cultural Marxism (or “wokeness”), which is essentially defined by being anti-White. 2) Similarly, the “right” can encompass anything from capitalism and Zionism, which are both inherently anti-White, to racial nationalism, which in principle is defined by being pro-White.
In other words, it makes sense both to ask whether it is in the White interest to ally with leftism, as it does to ask whether it is in the White interest to ally with rightism. It does not make sense to skip the step of examining whether any given label actually aligns with the material interests of White people in practice. I tangibly benefit from leftist activism against Israel. I am tangibly harmed by leftist activism in support of BLM. I tangibly benefit from rightist activism for White people. I am tangibly harmed by rightist activism in support of Zionist politicians.
In my opinion, the pushback against this kind of thinking boils down to people who at some level understand that their chosen label encompasses many policies that are materially anti-White, but for one reason or another are too invested in the label to subject it to the test of how it interacts with material conditions. What someone calls themselves, or even what principles they avow, at the end of the day is completely meaningless apart from what it actually motivates them to do, and what are the results of those actions. And politics cannot be both racial and partisan, by the definition of both of those terms.
2. Blackpill More
In my experience, what some call “blackpilling” in most cases is just attempting to apply the preceding point to specific situations. Which is to say, we’ve unfortunately landed in a situation in which a lot of people intuitively understand that the political reality they’ve constructed is a house of cards, and they just don’t want to see the wind blow it down. There’s nothing to say about this other than, “too bad.” We must prioritize the truth over our own mental comfort at all times, and most of all precisely those truths that are most difficult to hear. If we’re not willing to do this, we are asking to be fooled and lied to. The real fight begins with tolerating nothing short of complete honesty with ourselves, with the war on our own ego and investment in things which in many cases lack the substance we want to attribute to them.
A great example is my previous article in this series on Donald Trump, which, in light of recent developments with the Epstein files, the war on Iran, and continuing reports of Trump’s desire to avoid any significant deportation operation, I will argue has aged well.
In practice, “don’t blackpill” seems to be deployed primarily to assume the conclusion of an argument, or to just get people to “trust the plan.” The latter of course is meaningless insofar as there’s nothing material about this action at all, and “trusting the plan” functions purely as a means of maintaining mental comfort through self-deception; at the same time, it is meaningful insofar as doing this closes the doors of political imagination. Many (though not all) people who “trust the plan” tend to not do much else, and if they do, it tends to remain conventional, rather than undertaking strategies which more effectively repudiate and build power outside the system. An example of using the term to assume a conclusion is arguing over whether the Republican Party is a worthwhile vehicle for our political interests. A person who rejects this premise may be “blackpilling,” but that in no way means that they think there’s nothing that can or should be done. Calling this “blackpilling” is assuming that the Republican Party is the best or only way, which is the very thing being argued over.
3. Never Make Threats Online
This isn’t about not doing illegal things; that responsibility is on you and you don’t need to read an article to intuit it. Rather, this is another way of rejecting the abstract in favor of the material. We’re all familiar with the deluge of posts from right-wingers that said something like, “you’re getting deported,” “you’re going in the crystal,” “we’re going to kill you,” etc. This has been particularly prevalent over the past couple years, and usually goes hand in hand with cheering on Donald Trump and similar mainstream populist politicians in the US or other Western countries. This subconsciously reinforces at least two feelings: 1) that the politician or party in mind is doing the desired thing; and 2) that the person posting has in some way contributed. The issue with the first is that there must first be a test of whether it’s actually true. The issue with the second is that regardless of whether the first is true or not, the idea that tweeting is political action reinforces passivity. Again, politics must be fundamentally about the material. Say only what is true, and prioritize the concrete and real-world. And don’t put yourself in a position which is easy to mock when the threatened deportation almost inevitably doesn’t happen.
4. Give the Required Confession
I attribute my use of this term to the Stone Choir episode of the same name, which is probably one of the most important they’ve done. The required confession is that truth which is most under attack, most uncomfortable, or most important for confronting a current enemy attack. Doing this ensures that we remain always on the front line of the fight, rather than resting on the laurels of what has been accomplished (and thereby actually losing ground). It ensures we remain in confrontation with the enemy, and do not allow the enemy to dictate the conflict parameters by appeal to our pride, comfort, or fear.
As of writing this, the required confession is opposing Trump’s war on Iran. Launched unambiguously and expressly on behalf of the satanic Jewish state, with avowed and practiced brutality, and empire-destroying hubris, this war represents nothing short of a complete betrayal of duty to the United States, the White race, and Christ. Another required confession which I would argue is support of Palestine, for the reasons I gave in a previous article.
For many people, a required confession may be the acceptance of America’s role in the tremendous crimes against Germany, Europe, and the White race globally in World War II, the setting up of the satanic liberal world order at Nuremberg, and the promotion of alleged German crimes against the Jews as a blood libel against Whites across the world (see the series by Sons of Korah on American Mantle). For others, it may be applying that truth to current circumstances, in that by the same token, America also bears guilt for the genocide in Gaza.
The required confession is not a justification for inaction, surrender, or self-hatred. Rather, it is the fundamental expression of the will to confrontation with evil. It clears aside all distractions to enable us to strike directly at the heart of the enemy.
5. Never Separate Principle and Pragmatism
This is another reiteration of my first point in this list, which I want to specify on its own because of how often I see a distinction made between these terms, as though they are in conflict. Again, in practice this becomes primarily a means of assuming the conclusion and compromising with the world, when what is required is the imagination to carve a new path, which in the long run has the greater chance of success. To put it another way, if you use “pragmatism” to dilute a desired principle rather than to push it forward, you are making an unnecessary compromise. Principle sets the goals; pragmatism sets specific benchmarks on the way to those goals, to enable you to evaluable whether your methods and strategies are working, or need to be either adjusted or abandoned for new ones.
6. Pursue Piety
I can do no better here than to recommend Michael Spangler’s article on this topic. As we fight evil socially, politically, and collectively, we must also remain constantly on guard against sin personally, so that we never try to gain the world by losing our own soul. As Scripture says, “And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says ‘I know him’ but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him…” (1 John 2:3-4, ESV). Piety is a command from God, and necessary so that God, who sees all and is fooled by nothing, will bless our efforts for his glory. Additionally, piety gives us clarity of judgment over situations and other people, shows us to be trustworthy to others, and protects us from scandal.
7. Think on a Longer Timeline
Finally, I go back to one of the reasons I wrote my first series for American Mantle, namely to establish a continuity of memory and lessons learned for Christian Nationalism from the radical movements that preceded it, specifically White Nationalism and the Alt Right. As I wrote at the conclusion:
Our historical cycles and collective memory have shortened to the length of every election or two, and the upshot, in the long run, is rarely positive. Conversely, when we look at our ancient enemy, we see a people who still remember the sack of Jerusalem depicted on the Arch of Titus, two thousand years ago.
As I hope to elaborate on at some point in the future, on the scale of racial and civilizational conflict, the basic unit of time for strategic thinking should be a generation. We need to finally escape the trap of short-term thinking and the paralysis of panic, feeling as though if we don’t get it right this election, then it’s all over. This manifestly prevents a clear view of both the past and the future. Nothing can be solved by an election, and all such solutions have already been tried, and must be tested against the existing record of past decades. It is not important for me or you to personally see victory. What we must aim for is above all to present our children with a firmer foundation for the struggle and a clearer view of the enemy and their character than what was handed to us.
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