"Breitbart" and the Confederacy. They aren't the "Southern Partisan." They are banal white nationalists with a policy destructive to American nationalism. "Breitbart" reporting could be an aid to Russia

I had said earlier that Breitbart was a modern day Southern Partisan, They are not. After printing out maybe about 100 articles and scanning them and reading for the last few weeks closely what they say I am beginning to see what their strategy is.

The Breitbart view of the Confederacy will please and displease neo-Confederates.

On one hand Breitbart will publish articles like this.

For example this series about the Houston Independent School District in Texas getting rid of Confederate names for schools.

In this article Breitbart claims they are erasing history.
http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2016/03/22/more-texas-school-district-seek-to-erase-confederate-past/

This article says that taxpayers are complaining that changing the name is a waste of money. How many taxpayers isn't mentioned.
http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2016/05/03/changing-name-of-texas-school-will-cost-500k/

Again another article about irate taxpayers, which means that there are at least 2.
http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2016/08/11/taxpayers-slam-multi-million-dollar-plans-rename-houston-schools/

On the other hand Breitbart invokes the Confederacy to condemn Democrats and liberals.

In this article Ian Hanchett quotes Charles Krauthhammer saying that the supporters of Sanctuary cities, cities where the police don't go after immigrants, are using "the language of the Confederates."
http://www.breitbart.com/video/2016/12/05/krauthammer-sanctuary-cities-speaking-the-language-of-the-southern-segregationists/

Then there is this article in which the California Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon is condemned as neo-Confederate. As I blog earlier on, I didn't see exactly how Rendon was neo-Confederate and I am fairly good on determining neo-Confederacy.

http://www.breitbart.com/california/2016/12/05/rendon-speech-neo-confederate-editorial/

Condemning a speaker, writer, author, columnist, politician, celebrity by claiming that they have some element or feature or similarity to the Confederacy is also a condemnation of the Confederacy. Denouncing some statement, policy, position paper, or resolution claiming that it has elements of the Confederacy is necessarily a condemnation of the Confederacy.

Saying that something is bad because is like or similar or derives from something else, necessarily means that the something else is bad.

More interesting is that Breitbart reporting implies neo-Confederate ideology is bad, since it condemns certain thinking as having Confederate affinities or components or elements.

However, if anyone tries to get rid of a Confederate monument or holiday or place name Breitbart is entirely against it. It might seem contradictory and a person might think that it is just that Breitbart has no coherent ideology and is just a maniacal rage machine. Just because it is a rage machine doesn't mean they are stupid or don't have a strategy.

Breitbart supports a banal white nationalist America. So for issues in the present it supports a strong national government in pursuit of its agenda.

However, in the past, all fighting white Americans are held to be heroic and pulling down one statue to one white American might lead to another statue of a white American being pulled down. The Civil War of Breitbart seems to be the Civil War of the 1950s or earlier, a "romance of reunion" Civil War, a white solidarity maintained by the idea that the Civil War was an avoidable mistake or was only about preserving the union, but wasn't about slavery or race, and in any case the Civil War demonstrated white bravery.

Breitbart's concept of patriotism, a white nationalism, is dangerous to the United States, since white nationalism can't be the basis of a strong American national identity in a multiracial America, and instead will work to undermine America.

And there are foreign powers which will be glad to exploit the situation. It has already become clear that Russia is aiding both left wing and right wing nationalist groups, both California and Texas secessionists. They are aiding both left wing and right wing groups in Europe also. Their policy is a pragmatic realpolitik to attack Western democracy and to undermine their geopolitical opponents.

They will be very quick to seize on strategies of exploiting racial nationalist groups. With their support of neo-Confederates and Texas secessionists already supporting white nationalists. The Russians must be reviewing what other racial nationalists that they can support.

National sentiment is always provisional. With a change in a situation individuals will reevaluate their national identity. This is demonstrated by the current secession movements where both left wing and right wing groups feel that they have no prospects of their agenda in the current political unit being successful.

If the Trump administration is dragging hundreds of thousands or even millions of Hispanics out of their homes and dumping them in Mexico where these individuals end up in camps where they are starving there is bound to be a Hispanic nationalist movement. The United States did steal the Southwest United States as President Ulysses S. Grant as explain in his memoir:

"I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day, regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation. It was an instance of a republic following the bad example of European monarchies in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territory." 

Surely some Hispanic nationalist will want to quote this.

As the Trump administration undermines civil rights and voting rights and shows an indifference to cases where police officers shoot African Americans and the Trump administration expresses a hostility towards the Black Lives Matter movement surely some Black Nationalists will seek to capitalize on the situation.

In 2016 the situation regarding reckless and wrongful shooting of African Americans came dangerously close to getting out of control as some individual African Americans sought to take revenge by shooting police officers and some neo-Confederate groups sought to have counter protest at Blasck Lives Matter protests.

I think with Trump being elected we are likely  to see right wing white groups show up with guns at Black Lives Matter protests. At Black Lives Matter protests there are already African American groups parading with guns. A few days ago a young person with guns fired shots in a pizza parlor in Washington, D.C. because of some lunatic right wing news story that the Clinton's were using its back rooms for child sex slavery. These protests with white nationalists, black nationalists, and the Black Lives Matter protesters, some carrying guns, will be combustible.

All we need to have is two groups at a Black Lives Matter protest shooting at each other and the situation could spiral out of control. It might not even be that the two protesting groups set it off, a third party, a lone individual, might decided to shot one of the protesters to set things off.

In any deteriorating situation Black Nationalism will seek to capitalize on the situation.

Then there is the situation of native Americans. How well has the American nation treated these groups historically? Not very well.  We still have Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill. Surely the Russians will find some opportunities.

All racial nationalisms share the same reactionary understanding of nationality. They only differ in which group they see themselves as advocating for. So it won't be that difficult for a white reactionary nationalist Russia to support minority nationalisms in America. They will find that in many ways they think very similarly.

Also, it should be understood to have your movement backed by a major world power gives it credibility.  Also, a major world power has ways of impressing a separatist movement.

When visiting nationalists are hosted by important officials in prestigious buildings the visiting nationalists are certainly impressed and given confidence and faith in their movement. When the nationalist group sees their leader hosted by important officials in an impressive historic building they can't but imagine what they are doing is important since important people with real power see it as important. The photos of these meetings certainly will give the movement credibility.

Our nationalist elites still see separatism as amusing and a novelty and don't take it seriously. This is because they are in many ways vacuous and an intellectually inbred set of people.

It is time for the government to wake up and start counter measures against separatism. As I stated earlier it needs to be NOT oppressive, but a strategy informed by a critical understanding of the theory of nationalism.

Also, government actions and policy needs to be reviewed such that nationalists are not encouraged. This is not to say avoid certain policies because you are afraid to aggravate some separatist nationalist direction, but to make sure that some policy doesn't needlessly enable separatist nationalism when it could easily have been avoided.

I suggest Michael Billig's "Banal Nationalism," and Donald Mitchell's "Cultural Geography: A Critical Introduction." These books are available on the used market. They are not big books, and reading the both of them will give a fairly comprehensive view of the topic and provide most what a an anti-separatist program needs to know.


My paper on banal white nationalism.
http://www.templeofdemocracy.com/breaking-the-white-nation.html