The Role of Party Politics in the Culture War

by Alex Kurtagic

It is no secret that White identity political parties have it difficult in the age of ‘equality’.

If politics is the art of the possible, a culture where Whiteness is anathema makes White identity polities not possible.

Hence, the call to conceive the struggle for the West as a culture war, rather than a political contest: to win the election, we have to first win the culture.

But does this mean that there is no place for party politics in the culture war? Is it pointless to organise politically? Should we forget about contesting elections?

Not at all.

On the contrary, party politics is a key element in the culture war, and identitarian—or counter-cultural—political parties have an important role to pay, even if presently their electoral prospects seem distant.

Establishment Parties vs. Counter-Cultural Parties

Better to understand this role, we need first to understand the essential differences between counter-cultural and establishment political parties. These differences are itemised below:

Establishment Parties	Counter-Cultural Parties
Short time horizons	Long time horizons
Want voters to think superficially	Want voters to think deeply
Core values socially encouraged	Core values legally discouraged
Want to limit debate	Want to widen debate
Intensive view	Extensive view
Feel-good factor	Feel-bad factor
Politics as a game	Politics as an existential struggle
Compete against teleological opponents	Compete against ontological enemies
Seek to maintain and ‘redecorate’	Seek to pull down and rebuild

Counter-cultural parties have no immediate prospects for real power, so they focus on at least the next generation, which sets long time horizons.  Campaigning involves taking an extensive view on fundamental issues, which are beyond the pale.  These parties see politics as an existential struggle where they compete mainly against existential enemies, and seek a feel-bad factor.  Their mission is to pull down the existing system and rebuild it in their image once they are in power.

Establishment parties have immediate prospects for real power, so they focus at most on the next election, which sets short time horizons.  Campaigning involves taking an intense view on trivial issues, which define the limits of acceptable debate.  These parties see politics as a game where they compete mainly against political opponents, and seek a feel-good factor.  Their mission is to maintain the existing system and adjust it to suit their preferences when they are in power.

Significance of the Culture War

A culture war means that the battleground is not politics, but culture.

Victory or defeat has obvious political implications, and victory results ultimately in political power for the counter-culture, but the immediate object of the war is to ‘win’ the culture, to transform it in a way that makes political power possible, rather than to win an election and fire the incumbent administration.

Moreover, a culture war is multi-dimensional, because when the enemy is an entire system, every institution, every status system, every source of knowledge is configured to serve the dominant ideology of that system, to enthrone its core values and demonise the ideological enemy.

This opens the way for many different types of activist, in addition to the party political activist, because there are battles to be fought in every area of cultural life.

This also opens the way for methods of engagement that are ostensibly non-political, even if there are political repercussions.

The consequence for those who prefer non-political methods of engagement is that each individual, or group of individuals, may formulate an action plan.

Thus, conceptualising the struggle for Western civilisation is a call for multiple action plans, to be developed according to individual or group areas of competence.

Conceived in this way, party politics is one necessary action plan out of many.

Function of Counter-Cultural Politics

Long time horizons do not mean a lack of political urgency today.

Without a political branch serving as interface between intellectuals and the public, without organisation designed to put ideas into practice, the intellectual counter-culture, however necessary or meritorious, would make itself irrelevant, the realm of a cerebral minority burrowed deep in the catacombs of academia.

Having said this, by their nature, the function of counter-cultural party politics differs from that of their establishment counterparts.

In a democracy (real or nominal), the latter’s function is to renew the legitimacy of the existing system, of which they are the political representation, and any one of which represents a faction with minor differences of opinion.

These parties know that they will be permanently excluded from power if their system is destroyed, so the aim of elections is to prolong the life of that system through periodic changes in administration.

The trick works so long as parties are able to conceal the fact that they are nearly identical and exclude from public discourse anything that questions the system’s fundamental values and therefore legitimacy.

This, incidentally, is where the difficulty lies in democratic system overthrow: in a dictatorship, the sources of power are on display; in a democracy, the sources of power are concealed. In a dictatorship, citizens know their ruler; in a democracy, they do not. (Maybe this is why conspiracy theories have thrived in the democratic West—and particularly in the United States—whereas they have not in the autocratic East.)

From the foregoing, the function of a counter-cultural political party is clear. It is there to:

• Articulate and popularise the counter-cultural position. If no one puts it out there, packed into infectious slogans and stomach-punching soundbites, the abstruse theories of intellectuals, however clever, remain consigned to the libraries.

• Disrupt the consensus opinion. Absent an active political presence, the illusion is perpetuated that the establishment opinion is the only possible opinion, and that the establishment’s different factions represent not simply shades of opinion but entirely different worldviews. By being active in politics, a counter-cultural party shows that the establishment is not the be all and end all of politics. A prominent counter-cultural party, even if commanding a small percentage of the vote, can also have a disproportionate impact, as its prominence and growth inspires fear among establishment parties, and fear compels policy changes among the latter in an effort to drain support from their political enemy. (Granted, often, though not always, establishment parties only make cosmetic policy changes (e.g. Sarkozy or Cameron), but this is still a disruption that slows them down and prevents them from going where they want to go as quickly as they would like to or as openly as they would otherwise do.)

• Erode the consensus opinion. By offering a political alternative, a counter-cultural party erodes the establishment parties’ share of the vote, making them all smaller. A prominent counter-cultural party may still fall well short of winning an election, but the winner wins with a smaller share of the vote, which may put its mandate into question. Sometimes a counter-cultural party becomes so prominent that it can no longer be ignored, as has been the case with the French Front National, which commanded one fifth of the vote in the recent presidential polls—just a few percentage points behind the nearest rival. Sometimes a counter-cultural party will splinter into several others, causing a proliferation of alternatives and increasing the chances of establishment parties being forced to work with its enemies in a coalition when an election results in no overall majority.

• Discredit the consensus opinion. By consistently refuting the arguments, exposing the corruption, mocking the policies, highlighting contradictions, discrediting official data, asking awkward questions, and forcing establishment politicians into defensive or hysterical positions, a counter-cultural party can highlight the flawed, fallible, and fragile nature of the system. A system that looks weak encourages consideration of alternatives. (And often a system is only apparently strong, but is internally weak.)

• Provide an official platform for a strand of dissidence. This is an important element in the process of normalising a dissident opinion, for organisation and the trappings of organisation, by virtue of implying thought and purpose, marks a change in status, from angry mob to righteous movement.

• Organise and mobilise dissidents. (Self explanatory.)

• Normalise dissidence. The more citizens get used to the existence of an alternative, the more prominence it gains, the more they become acquainted with its ideas, the more they meet ‘normal’ citizens who support them, the easier it is for them to consider, or become involved in, solutions not endorsed by the system, particularly as the latter comes to be seen simply as a system serving an ideological clique rather than the only possible reality or the only serious way of doing things.

• Provide professional and economic opportunities outside of the system. A growing party requires more staff, infrastructure, goods, and services. This can provide employment and business to individuals or organisations outside of the system, freeing them from their economic and status dependence on it. A citizen whose sources of money and status come from alternative cultural and economic networks will be freer to speak his mind and act in consequence than one who, dependent on the system, feels he must submit to political correctness less he loses his money and reputation.

• Recruit and develop future political leaders. (Self explanatory.)

Pragmatism or Purity?

The idea that support will go nova if we adjust our message just right is premised on false assumptions: the problem is not one of style, but one of essence.

Obviously, style matters a great deal, and certainly more than truth, but more important for people is being accepted and well-liked by friends, family, or those whose respect they care to enjoy.

A system’s core value defines conventional morality.  A message that truly challenges the system will likely be deemed immoral. And if a message is deemed immoral, style may make it less uncomfortable, but discomfort is sure to follow scrutiny.

This is what causes White people to preface a dissident opinion with stupid phrases like, ‘I’m not racist, but . . .’

This is why White people repeat the politically correct party line, even if they are inwardly contemptuous of it and do it purely for career or reputational reasons.

This is the motivation behind endless euphemisms, when the real word is ‘Aryanist’.

Morality is important because in Western societies reputation is important.

Thus the way forward is to attack the morality of the system’s core value—to bring about a transvaluation that dethrones establishment morality and replaces it with another.

We know this works because it has been done within living memory, and landed us where we are now—what was once common sense is now reviled, what was once despised is now admired.

In modern Western society the root of evil is the unquestioning belief in equality as an absolute moral good that is worth pursuing for its own sake.  Everything flows from that.  Destroy that belief and the egalitarian project collapses as malevolent and absurd.

In dissident politics this means that broadening appeal will not come from dilution of the message, but from greater purity—not from passing as egalitarians, or masking that we are inegalitarian, as do pretend ‘conservatives’, but from attacking equality with righteous indignation, openly and ferociously, from every angle, on every level, without hesitation or apology, and upholding a morality of difference with puritanical zeal.

Egalitarians (‘the Left’) campaigned for equality with religious fervour, even terroristically, from day one.  They never tried to pass as anything else. Many disagreed, but they feared and eventually respected their conviction.

For us the good is difference (or Quality), not equality.

Everything must flow from that.

If a dissident political party’s mission is to translate the counter-cultural idea into policy, our political parties must formulate policy on the premise that difference, including human difference, is morally good, productive, and desirable, and equality, including human equality, is morally evil, destructive, and repugnant.

Guerrilla Politics

With the above in mind, the focus needs to be on winnable social and cultural issues rather than on (for now) unwinnable elections.

Egalitarians have used a proven method of campaigning that works irrespective of ideology: pick a winnable issue; campaign intensely on it; push for a ‘reasonable’ concession; and, once secured, start all over again.  Make them run, and keep them running.

The above is adapted from guerrilla warfare, but it is still used by egalitarians because they still see themselves as fighting a conservative establishment, even though they are the establishment.

When egalitarians campaign successfully their tone is always moral.  This works because White people fear being thought of as bad people (e.g. ‘racists’), which generates internal pressure to yield even if they personally dislike the goals of the campaign.

And since the egalitarian morality is the dominant morality, resistance is inevitably ineffective and the result is victory for egalitarians followed by some form of ‘White flight’.

A counter-cultural party is less powerful than its establishment counterparts, so it must resort to guerrilla politics since it cannot fight the establishment on equal terms.

Counter-cultural politicians are guerrilla politicians.

Conclusion

If it is a mistake to think that we can simply vote ourselves out of the present system (if only we get the right Conservative candidate), it is also a mistake to think that, because of that, party politics is a complete waste of time.

Engaging in party politics on behalf of a counter-cultural cause does, however, imply different rules and different aims to those of establishment politics. Understanding those is key to turning involvement in party politics into a productive exercise.