White Nationalism Isn’t Only Immoral, It’s Suicide for America

The economy and democracy can’t survive in an ethnostate

Image: ARJUBOND, Shutterstock, standard license, purchased by author

I shouldn’t have to say the words in that title.

It should be enough to proclaim the obvious: that racism and white supremacy are morally wretched belief systems and that the institutions and structures based on them are rotten to the core.

It should be enough to condemn white supremacy and white nationalism (its political vision) because both are evil.

But sadly, we live in a kind of upside-down world, in which even the most basic moral truths are insufficient for personal or collective action. Life in America has become increasingly transactional — what’s in it for me? — so, rather than leading with moral vision, politicians and pundits are now forced to put aside matters of right and wrong and speak to more pedestrian concerns.

Even conservatives who speak about “values voters” focus primarily on practical matters about how their constituents will supposedly be affected by public policy, from vaccine mandates to school curriculum to trans folk using the bathrooms that correspond to their gender identity.

So, despite the unseemliness of it, I’ll speak in the language of the moment, hopeful that at some point we can…