Why Republicans are trying to rebrand white nationalism right now

In the 1970s and 1980s, overt white supremacists and their organizations were largely marginalized in American society. As a way of staying relevant and expanding their influence, the leaders of the white right decided to repackage themselves and the movement to become more “respectable,” which meant putting on suits and ties and modifying their message of hate and its presentation. Central to this campaign involved changing themselves from white supremacists, operating under various labels such as the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis, into “white nationalists,” a term that would eventually evolve to include the “alt-right,” identitarians, so-called race realists, ethnonationalists, Western chauvinists and more. In reality, the supposed differences between “white supremacy” and “white nationalism” are largely pedantic, if not simply double talk, obfuscation and evasion.

So to be clear, white supremacists believe that “white people” are a “superior race” and that black and brown people, Jews, Muslims and other nonwhites are inferior be it because of biology or “culture.” White nationalism is the political project through which the goal of white dominance and total control over society is obtained and maintained. In such a society, nonwhites are to be subordinated and eventually removed. In the most “extreme” versions of the white supremacist project non-whites are to be enslaved or eliminated. The more “generous” versions of the white supremacist political project allows a role for a small number of “honorary whites” who believe in those values and idolize Whiteness and “Western culture.” 

In a 2020 report from the Center for American Progress, Simon Clark offers this context:  

There is little new in the ideas that underpin white nationalism, white supremacy, the alt-right, and fascism. At its core, white nationalism is little more than an attempt to cloak white supremacist ideas in the more respectable language of racial separatism, just as the alt-right has tried to repackage fascist thought in a more modern form. All these variants are built on common notions of a white identity and racial superiority. They promote hate and violence as valid political tools, rejecting values of equality, coexistence, and the rule of law in favor of raw power and ethnic division.

Derek Black, a former white nationalist leader who is now an academic who studies the origins of racist ideas, takes a cultural approach to understanding the movement by identifying its most significant symbols of identity. He defines a white nationalist as someone who interacts with information outlets primarily serving the white nationalist movement, is friends with other white nationalists, attends white nationalist events, and supports the cause financially and politically. Black explains that white nationalist ideas are totems that white nationalists use to show that they belong in the movement. Members spend a great deal of time defining and arguing about these terms as well as spreading them into mainstream society by trying to insert them into mass media.

Black is pointing to a central tactic in the political strategy of white nationalists and white supremacists. They understand that their cause is not widely popular and that they are losing the battles of ideas and demography. This reality pushes them to try to smuggle their ideas into mainstream dialogue by exploiting so-called fellow travelers and political opportunists. Recently, the movement has had notable success, particularly among American and European politicians who are exploiting fear for electoral ends.

In all, as shown by its policies, base of support, and vision for American society (a restoration of what is euphemistically and in Orwellian New Speak described as “traditional” and “patriotic” American values) today’s GOP is a white identity organization. In a 2018 conversation, anti-racism activist and author Tim Wise offered this powerful description of how racism and white supremacy are central to today’s Republican Party and “conservative” movement:  

All that stuff is continuing, and it seems to me that we are barking up the wrong tree when we focus on the extremes and we ignore mainstream white nationalism, which, as you said, is essentially in control of one of the two major political parties.

It is not a fringe movement, it is the Republican Party. As you have long said about the Republican Party, it is a white identity organization. I would even go so far as to say the Republican Party is a white identity cult at this point, with just a few people hanging on, trying to steer the ship back in what they consider to be a less offensive direction. But I’ve got news for them: They’re going to get thrown overboard, their day is done. There is no future for a Republican Party that is not a white nationalist party at this point….

White identity politics, unlike its black or brown equivalent, is very much about attempting to hoard the advantages and the hegemonic dominance that whites, as a group, have generally had for 400 years in what we now call the United States.

In one of the most recent examples of how white supremacy has been mainstreamed and normalized by today’s Republican Party and “conservative” movement, during an interview on Monday with Kaitlan Collins on CNN, Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville refused to condemn “white nationalists” as being inherently racist. On Tuesday night, Tuberville made a tactical pivot in response to the criticism he received for his de facto defense of white supremacy, as CNN reports:

Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama finally condemned White nationalists, telling reporters on Capitol Hill on Tuesday that “White nationalists are racists,” after previously refusing to equate White nationalism with racism.

Tuberville had doubled down Monday when asked about his previous comments on White nationalism and said it was an “opinion” that White nationalists are racist.

During an interview on CNN’s “The Source with Kaitlan Collins,” Tuberville repeatedly defended his previous comments. When Collins stated the definition of a White nationalist is someone who believes that the White race is superior to other races, Tuberville said, “Well, that’s some people’s opinion.”

When asked what his opinion was, Tuberville said, “My opinion of a White nationalist, if someone wants to call them White nationalist, to me is an American.”

Speaking on an individual level, Tuberville added, “If people think a White nationalist is a racist, I agree with that.”

Tuberville previously faced backlash regarding comments made originally in an interview with a local Alabama radio station when he was asked if he believes White nationalists should be allowed in the military and responded, “I call them Americans.”

In response to Tuberville’s comments and supposed change of mind about “white nationalists” and racism, the pro-democracy group The Lincoln Project warned on Twitter:

We cannot let this story fade and allow the Republican Party to normalize their abhorrent views. They proudly promote white nationalism, and it’s a prime example of the moral rot that’s taken over the GOP. We must defeat them or risk losing our country to their radicalism.

Tuberville’s refusal to condemn white nationalism as being synonymous with racism, and then his non-apology and insincere reconsideration, are an example of what sociologist Joe Feagin has described as “the white racial frame” and the related “logic” of evasion that many (white) Americans use when discussing so-called race relations in American society. In total, Tuberville’s verbal contortions about “white nationalism” is one of many examples of how white supremacist ideas and ideology have become mainstreamed and normalized in the Age of Trump. 

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Trump described the white supremacists who rampaged in Charlottesville, injuring dozens of people and killing Heather Heyer, for example, as “very fine people.” His followers carried Confederate flags into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, wore Nazi and Ku Klux Klan and other hate regalia to his rallies, and assaulted black and brown police and other law enforcement with racial slurs. MAGA is an attempt to end multiracial pluralistic democracy.

Political scientists and other experts have repeatedly shown that racist and white supremacist values and beliefs are heavily correlated with a given white person’s support for Donald Trump and his MAGA movement. In addition, racism and white supremacy are highly predictive of support for the Republican Party and its candidates and policies more generally. 

Predictably, the Republican Party and larger right-wing and conservative movement’s positions and public policies on a range of issues including immigration, guns, the economy, civil and voting rights, support for democracy, “law and order’ and crime, the social safety net and healthcare, wealth and income inequality, the size of the federal government are heavily influenced by racism and white supremacy. Historically and to the present, right-wing political entrepreneurs and other leaders have proven to be very skilled at using racism and white supremacy in a type of divide-and-conquer strategy to generate anger and rage and resentment among white Americans so that they will reject policies and initiatives that would actually benefit them.

Trump rose to power and political prominence, after all, through the racist birther conspiracy theory that claimed Barack Obama, the country’s first black president, was a usurper who was not eligible to be president. As has been extensively documented, Donald Trump’s senior advisor Stephen Miller played a critical role in shaping the ex-president’s regime to closely align it, literally, with the ideology and policies advocated for by overt white supremacists such as neo-Nazis and other racial authoritarians and hatemongers.

A majority of Republicans and Trump followers believe in the white supremacist conspiracy and paranoid delusion that “white people” are going to be made “extinct” and “forced out of their own countries” by non-white people including Muslims. Channeling the antisemitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion, this “great replacement” is supposedly being orchestrated by “globalist elites”, “bankers” and “financiers such as George Soros” and the “Democratic Party”, i.e. Jewish people. The Great Replacement conspiracy theory was not too long ago a fringe belief, largely held by neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members, and other right-wing extremists and hate mongers, ideas and people that one had to seek out in obscure print magazines, newsletters, private mailing lists, and internet chat rooms. Now such beliefs and people are mainstreamed on Fox News, routinely bellowed and advocated for by Republican elected officials and other leaders, and sent out across the right-wing echo chamber disinformation propaganda machine.

There is a direct connection between how as the Republican Party and “conservative movement” have become more racist and more white supremacist they have also become more fascist, authoritarian, violent, anti-human, cruel, sexist, misogynistic, bigoted, hateful, anti-intellectual, and generally irresponsible and antagonistic towards democracy, human freedom, human rights, and the good society.  

America’s final epitaph will be long. But one theme will stand out: racism and white supremacy proved mortal to American democracy; birth defects at the nation’s inception that were never fixed and only became worse.