If white nationalism emerges as a societal threat, it won’t be because of white nationalists’ organizational and leadership skills. It will be the result of policies of those who would abhor such a development.
Tribalism is a persistent human emotion. Overarching nationalism that appeared to be long embraced collapsed in a single night, replaced by a resurgence of tribalism.
As the Soviet Union unraveled, each nationality sought its own independence. The collapse of Yugoslavia brought violence between neighbors who had existed in comity for generations. Croat killed Serb and Serb killed Muslim and each killed one another.
Aside from Switzerland, no successful multicultural society has ever existed. America, despite its embrace of multicultural mantras, is still a multiethnic culture with many subcultures swimming in the sea of a dominant culture.
If America becomes a true multicultural society, it will have the stability of Lebanon, the efficiency of Belgium, and the tolerance of Rwanda.
America’s unique success as a multiethnic society is the consequence of having been, for decades, the destination of people who chose to leave their former loyalties behind and adopt new ones. For those that didn’t, their children eagerly did.
Acculturation and then assimilation occurred in America because after 1924 there was a lack of new immigrants in substantial numbers to reinforce the culture left behind. Where the old culture persisted, it nonetheless declined from generation to generation.
That of course has changed in a world where Skype, the Internet, and overseas air travel mean the old culture can be turned on and embraced if one desires to do so. But more important than advancing technology is the changing role of the education system.
Throughout the 20th century, the education system extolled the values and promise of America. Today, the education system, at all levels, challenges the American ideal and reshapes America as a racist, sexist, and homophobic society. One that is not only unworthy of loyalty but also responsible for all the ills in the world.
All cultures are to be celebrated in our universities except Western culture. All races are to be valued for their contributions to civilization except the Caucasian race. It is simultaneously tragic and amusing to observe white, middle-class students trip over themselves not only to identify with the “oppressed” but to find something in their biographies to show their own victimization.
Never in the course of human history has victimization been celebrated as much as it is in American universities. Never before have students been socialized to believe that the pathway to success is not only to assist the oppressed but, more important, to become like them.
White students are told to shed their white privilege by administrators who preach the value of diversity and the undesirability of being white. Yet, nearly all these administrators are themselves privileged, hired for their demographics, not their abilities. You are more likely to find a Jewish pope than you are to find a white male as dean of diversity and inclusion.
There is no affirmative action for the white poor. In the hyperinflated university bureaucracies there is a dean for women, a dean for various minorities, an affirmative action officer, and a dean for diversity and inclusion. But poor white people are just poor with no difficulties adjusting to university life, at least none that deserve a receptive dean’s office and an advocate.
As a society, we are faced with the rapid decline of non-Hispanic whites as the dominant ethnic group. By some estimates, in the next thirty years, whites will be just another minority. This is a consequence of chain immigration and refugee policies. It is also part of a national blueprint to reshape America and to do so rapidly.
No people want to become strangers in their own land. No majority wants to become a minority, whatever their race or ethnicity. No people want to pay taxes to have their culture denigrated in the public education system.
To date, the great multicultural experiment, even with its obvious flaws, has been surprisingly embraced. But if there is an economic or political crisis, we will learn that every society needs a unifying culture, one that transcends demographic divides and tribalism. If we lose that — and we are losing it with identity culture and politics — we will find that hate is the great unifier and the destroyer of civilizations. We are not immune from the cultural clashes that destroyed other societies.
Abraham H. Miller is an emeritus professor of political science, University of Cincinnati, and a distinguished fellow with the Haym Salomon Center. Follow him @salomoncenter
