Peaks And Troughs of White Nationalist Meetings

[previously in a series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4]

The crash that came on April 3, 2025, didn’t just reduce the value of the stock market, it was also the crash that followed the high the young Right had been on since Trump’s inauguration. “You can just do things,” they had said. For a while, they were satisfied with the things. But telling a five-year-old, “you can do things” and then giving him a loaded machine gun is not actually a good idea. Who could have known?

The negative evaluation of the Liberation Day Tariffs was shared by the bulk of the attendees at the May meeting of the Robinson Crusoe Society, young Rightists who were not representative of the Republican base. The true Republican base, older, uneducated, working-to-middle-class, living in rural areas, suburbs, or small cities in flyover country and not paying much attention to politics, had no sense of alarm. The tariff issue had eclipsed all others. Abortion, the supposed negotiations to end the Ukraine war, even AGI were put on the back burner.

“What’s happening,” said Ishwar Bharadwaj, a Bengali-American computer programmer, “is simple. Y’all are getting Brexited. Everyone knew Brexit was a vote against immigration, but Boris and Co. decided to honor the letter rather than the spirit of the vote by withdrawing from the E.U. and sharply increasing non-European immigration. Now, the same thing is happening in America. You thought you voted for mass deportations, instead you’re gonna get amnesty for illegals and one man’s weird trade theories. The Great Replacement will keep marching on. And rightoids will keep supporting Trump, why? Because the rightoid mindset values loyalty more than anything else. You declared your loyalty to Trump and that became your supreme value such that you forget why you chose to declare loyalty in the first place. The SS said it best: ‘Meine Ehre heißt Treue,’ my honor is loyalty.”

“Nonsense,” said William Wendell, a Trump supporter with white nationalist sympathies. “Nobody who voted for Trump can claim the tariffs are some betrayal. It is the reason, perhaps more than any other, that Trump is President. He ran on it, he won on it, and he’s doing it.”

“Is protectionism the reason Trump is President?” Ishwar asked. “Look at the margins in the states Trump won. Pennsylvania, 2 points. Michigan, 1 point. Florida, 13 points. Nebraska, 20 points. Tennessee, 30 points. Without knowing anything specific about American politics, it doesn’t look like Trump’s election had much to do at all with muh rust belt, muh NAFTA.”

“Look at the swing, not the absolute vote. In our electoral system, the swing voters determine the outcome.”

“That’s the case in any electoral system,” I said.

“Right,” William said.

“When 51 percent voted for a party, any of that 51 percent defecting could have cost that party the election,” Ishwar said. “There’s no reason the 49 need to let the 2 percent order them around. Trumpists understand that when it comes to other kinds of ‘moderates.’ If you say that the party needs to move to the center to win over suburban whites or Hispanics or the ‘gays for Trump’ guy, these people will howl with outrage at the ‘cuckoldry’ and abandonment of supposed ‘values.’ But then along comes a man who voted straight-ticket Democrat for his entire life but switched to Trump because he didn’t like NAFTA and suddenly you throw yourselves at his feet. It’s because you have a sexual fetish for white men who didn’t go to college.”

“It’s funny,” said Blake Johnston, usually the loudest anti-Trump voice. “I saw this AI-generated anti-Trump video of a bunch of Americans sewing clothing and screwing iPhones together, some fat, some not, most white, but a fat black man thrown in for good measure. And there were a bunch of outraged responses from MAGAts angry at the insinuation that ‘Americans’ are not capable of factory work. THAT was their objection. Woke blacks see their race working menial labor and want DEI to uplift them so they can work as doctors, lawyers, bankers, and politicians. The white nationalist sees his race sitting at home unemployed and dreams of uplifting them so they can sew bras together. Nobody thinks more poorly of the white race than white nationalists themselves.”

“That’s unfortunately true,” said Joel Smith, a white nationalist computer science student. “White nationalists used to be aware that white people were, on average, more intelligent, educated, and had higher incomes than non-Asian minorities. Now they want to wreck the economy on the theory that it helps the unemployed Michiganer they imagine as a white roughneck but who’s actually a black single mother.”

“The white poor do exist. I’m sorry if their existence mucks up your sense of racial superiority,” Willaim said. “You can’t call yourself a white nationalist if you aren’t concerned with helping them.”

“I am concerned with helping them, I just don’t think tariffs are the way. And for some, no, they don’t concern me. Does the white portion of the criminal class concern you?”

William shook his head. “They chose to engage in behavior that put them outside the national community. Very different from people who were simply born not very bright.”

“What about people who choose to be obese, inject themselves with drugs, cheat on their spouses, have kids out of wedlock, and not work even though they’re able-bodied?” Joel asked.

“I see at least some of them as people who need our help. Being addicted, an alcoholic, or some such, it’s not a death sentence. People climb out of it. You can’t be willing to throw away half of our people. My wife comes from a town in upstate New York that was absolutely destroyed by NAFTA. You can go up there and tell them it was all for the best, comparative advantage, blah blah blah, but they ain’t listening. They’ll just point you to the ruined factories. The addiction didn’t just come out of nowhere for no reason. If your town was ruined like that, maybe you’d have succumbed too.”

“I would not,” Joel said forcefully. “I would be depressed, I would be despairing, but I would not inject myself with fentanyl. I’d hunt and fish, hang out in the library, turn on the TV, anything but that.”

“Oh, superior you? What about all the members of your family? Are they all superior? None of them are people you’d have to turn your back on?”

“Yes, I’m superior!” said Joel. “If I can’t say that in this ‘far-right’ meeting, then what am I doing here? As for the addicts, it’s not about ‘turning my back on them.’ Society has already spent billions helping them. Billions to imprison drug dealers and billions more on drug treatment programs they often refuse to attend. And now you want to wreck the economy for their sake? No! I care about the hard-working family that wants to buy a washing machine for 400$ rather than 800$. We shouldn’t harm them for the sake of biotrash; that’s the height of dysgenics!”

“Yeah, I feel like I’ve been negatively polarized to just not give a s*** anymore about these fentanyl junkies,” I said. “Empathy for them seems to mean a callous cruelty to everyone else, whether that’s people suffering in pain because doctors stopped prescribing opioids, people getting harassed on the bus, or now people who are going to lose their jobs because we need factory jobs to stop these people from falling into addiction. Fuck ’em.”

“If not them, then what about the working-class white person who’s gainfully employed, doesn’t do drugs, but is driving for Uber or washing dishes for minimum wage? He’d benefit from a better job.”

“What makes you think working in a factory is a better job?” Joel said. “Factory work now pays less than the average private sector job. These people think there’s something magical about factory work that means you have to have a ‘living wage’ or some s***. It’s supply and demand like any other job.”

“If they don’t offer more money, the Uber drivers will keep driving for Uber. Bottom line is that this will increase the worker’s bargaining power.”

“Zero-sum fallacy, a larger portion of a smaller pie might not actually be larger. And even if that were true, why is that desirable from a white nationalist point of view? The working class is disproportionately non-white. A net transfer from the upper class to them transfers money away from whites.”

“Which kind of whites?” Willaim asked. “I couldn’t care less about white people who voted for Harris. Take their money and send it to Africa for all I care. I marvel at the former Republicans who loudly walked out the exit door and then turned around and told Republicans, ‘you’re betraying ‘your’ values!’ Others were happy with the party’s populist direction but thought the policies wouldn’t change with the voters. Well, newsflash, they do, and they must, for otherwise we wouldn’t be winning elections.”

“What a crock of s***,” Blake said. “Let me tell you something about ‘economic populism’ from a former economic populist. It is entirely a product of the intellectual class and their frustrations, some justified, some not, with big business and wealthy people. It’s not emanating from the working class itself. The real working class loved Donald Trump even when he was openly proclaiming he would cut taxes for rich people.”

“Wait,” said William, “you’re arguing that workers’ support for Donald Trump somehow supports your thesis instead of mine?”

“Yes. During his first term, he didn’t do any of this s***, and yet his voters love him. None of it is necessary. Yes, it’s true that if you look at the polls, they say they like protectionism because foreigners bad and Trump said it. It’s really not any more complex than that. They’re going to like Trump no matter what he does.”

“Let’s just deliver nothing to our dumb rube supporters. Sorry, I ain’t signing up for that!”

“The dumb rube supporters aren’t asking for anything! They’ll support anything Trump does. On the off chance he actually negotiates a free trade plan, he’ll call it the Trump Trade Plan and they’ll cheer for it. MAGA! Since they’ll support anything, there’s no reason not to give them the thing we think is best. This is an example of my theory that economic populism is driven by the concerns of the intellectual class and not the workers. You don’t like the libs saying you’re just pretending to be pro-working class to fool the dumb rubes into voting against their economic interests. You want to look pro-worker and anti-corporate to deflect that criticism.”

“What’s driving me is simple, I reward my friends and punish my enemies. Corporate America is our enemy. For a long time, the Republican Party bent over backward for them. They were rewarded with nothing but contempt. We actually know what happens if we pursue the Richard Hanania strategy. Many billionaires and corporations are kissing Trump’s ring, more than in his first term. Why? Because he and we learned the hard lesson: nice guys finish last!”

To this, for the first time in the debate, Blake looked deflated and taken aback. He was silent for some time. “It is true, corporate America became brats under the Republican teat. A pure carrot strategy does not work, but nor does a pure stick strategy. Lawsuits against corporations with anti-white policies, that’s the thing you gotta do, and orgs like America First Legal are doing that. The tariffs are being done because a childish man doesn’t understand economics. It isn’t about punishing corporations for wokeness or censorship. The whole job of the Right is to think up sanewashed explanations for Trump’s latest idiocy. It’s stupid and gay.”

“Plus,” said Joel, “the punishing of ‘corporations’ is going to hit a whole lot more people. Those DOGE guys have 401ks. You cannot govern with a coalition of plumbers and truck drivers.”

“Sounds like a very theoretical concern,” William said. “I have not heard of any reports of DOGE guys leaving, and where they gonna go, the Democrats? Laugh.”

“Musk has already spoken against the tariffs. I’d assume many at DOGE share that view,” Blake said.

“And what are they doing about it? Look, I’ve known a lot of the frustrated right-wing aristocrat demographic. They’re always threatening to walk out, saying, ‘oh this, this is the last straw,’ but they ALWAYS come back because the chuds are their only path to power.”

“That is true,” said Steve Martin, a journalist with a long history in the conservative movement. “Someone who shall not be named told a joke about it. ‘I started out as a secret right-winger amidst Leftists and now I’m a secret left-winger amidst Rightists.’”

A few people laughed.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “but that’s just pathetic. These guys are like, ‘oh, I’m a brave warrior against cancel culture,’ and now they’re afraid to speak their minds lest they get canceled by a bunch of obese Walmart people.”

“It is what it is,” Steve said. “It’s the nature of power, you have to suck up to people. Think about Machiavelli. To us now, it seems abstract, game theory and alliance building and such. But to the people actually living in that world, it was dirty, humiliating, pathetic, sucking up to evil, doltish people. ‘A man will sooner forget the death of his father than the loss of his patrimony.’ Think about what that meant!”

“It’s one thing when it’s the politicians sucking up to Trump so they can stay in office and maybe potentially do some good,” I said. “But what value is there in being a Trump slop social media account? They should dig ditches for a living.”

“A Congressman has more power than a Trump slop social media account, but it’s not dramatically more. Where do you think Congressmen get their ideas? Mike Lee, the senator from Utah, has “based” in his Twitter handle.”

“What’s the point if all they do is support whatever Trump says?”

“You asked a while back if we’re all just waiting for Trump to die,” Steve said. “I replied yes, that’s what we’re doing. It’s like this guy I’ve known for many years. Bummed around in college and never graduated, worked a series of lower-middle-class jobs, had a marriage that ended after four years and produced one child, drank more and more until, by his 40s, he was a certifiable alcoholic. Common-enough story, except his mom was a multimillionaire. Also a notorious tightwad who never gave him any money. Then she died and he, an only child, got it all. Overnight, in his early 50s, his lifestyle changed. I feared he’d squander it, but he’s doing fine so far, has a nice car and a big house. His life story was waiting for her to die so he could get that money. That’s us, that’s the conservative movement. Remember that big brouhaha about Panda Express? It shows that, absent a directive from The Leader, the Right has trouble unifying behind something. The atheist Joe Rogan and a bunch of trad Christians, tech execs and MAGA rappers, eugenicists and pro-lifers, hypercapitalists and guys who think the economy is fake, only thing all these people can agree on is ‘you can’t change your gender.’ When Trump dies, it’ll be a race to define what the Right is. ‘Trump slop social media accounts’ will be in a position to do that.”

“Or by the time he’s dead, he’ll have discredited himself so badly that nobody will want to be associated with him,” I said.

“Oh, it won’t be nobody. The Trump masses love him. He could discredit himself with swing voters, lose Texas and Florida, but he’ll still have Tennessee, a state of seven million people now booming with internal migration. There will still be jobs and influence for Trump people. Many primitive people have this zero-sum mindset, which is wrong for most things. But there are areas where it does apply, like politics. There a lack of competition does mean opportunity.”

“Maybe,” I said, unconvinced.

“Let’s get back to the DOGE thing,” Joel said. “William mentioned that the DOGE-ies have nowhere to go, but they don’t need to go anywhere. They can stay and sabotage from within. Is there a “deep state” within DOGE?”

All eyes were on Steve Martin, the man most likely to know.

“If I knew, I wouldn’t say,” he said.

“There’s probably some, but less than you might think,” said Blake. “Smart people often use their intelligence to think up rationalizations for their own behavior. I’ve known quite a few intelligent Trumpers. Often they’ve lost relationships, friendships, and career opportunities. They don’t want to admit that it was all for nothing.”

“Maybe they can be convinced they were deep-cover alt-MSNBC the whole time?” I asked.

“I would hope,” Blake said.

“I have at least one reason for optimism,” Joel said. “The younger smart conservatives, the guys at DOGE, they grasp what a monster conservatism has become, in a way boomers, still living in the past, do not. For example, I was at a Rightist event recently and I talked to this young right-wing guy. He said his girlfriend, who he met on a Christian dating site, was all neurotic about him eating McDonald’s. He’s fit, goes to the gym, not fat at all. This RFK crap, young conservatives are starting to see it negatively impacting their lives. That’s good, might motivate them to do something about it.”

“What’s it matter?” William asked. “What could these people do, should they want to ‘sabotage’ Trump? I don’t see anything they could do against the Trump tariffs.”

“Access to all those government databases and communications systems could be very useful in a coup,” I said.

“There’s one group that can openly defy Trump: the Supreme Court,” Blake said. “Trump can do nothing against them. He could, in theory, refuse to confirm further federalist society people, but what would his alternative be? The nail factory nationalists and QAnoners didn’t go to law school.”

“Nothing in the constitution requires that judges have legal educations. He could start appointing random social media accounts to the bench,” I said.

“Oh, come on, that will never happen,” Steve said.

“Why are you so sure? I could easily imagine it, he’d say so-and-so is a self-taught lawyer and the sanewashers would come up with a bunch of crap about how law school is elitist. I think it’s time for the Serious People to start thinking about what happens if populism has not peaked, if it goes further than it has now.”

“I think the peak is now,” Joel said. “People with money on the line do not expect the Supreme Court to throw out the tariffs. The recession will come, people will lose their jobs and they’ll sour on Trump.”

“He’ll still be in office for the next four years,” I said. “Don’t expect him to react rationally to any loss of support. You have to consider the epistemological world these people inhabit. Polls are fake. Election results they don’t like are fraud. Unemployment, inflation, GDP, the stock market, it’s all fake and gay. In 2026, the Republicans may lose the legislatures in Florida and Texas. Who says they’ll leave office?”

“I could definitely see them refusing,” Blake said.

For the rest of the night, the discussion got darker and darker, things I wouldn’t want the FBI knowing about. I realized there was a big generational divide. Millennials and older Zoomers remember when the idea of Trump as President occasioned laughter. To younger Zoomers, he’s a politician, always has been. There was a time, back in the day, when a general could order another general to put the President of the United States under house arrest and the second would be certain the first was joking. Young people have never known it.

Then, the following day, the tariffs were “temporarily” canceled, the market went up, and a new life was breathed into Trumpism.