White Power: A Steroid for American Politics

White Power: A Steroid for American Politics
Peter Schultz


Call it what you will, unilateralism, hegemony, global dominance but such a foreign policy must use all available resources to be implemented. As one guy put it, US “unilateralism [was/is built upon] an odd collection of idealists, religionists, and militarists” and is supported by corporations no longer committed to “a socially responsible capitalism” or to “a humane model of economic development.” [Empires Workshop, Greg Grandin] 

“Globalization” is the latest euphemism for such a capitalism, world wide, and it dawned on me that the white power movement is not tangential to the prevailing political agenda, domestically or internationally. That is how I was thinking about it, as tangential, aberrational, and it’s how it’s being written about. But it is part and parcel of the global domination project that has been pursued since at least JFK’s death, which project is also covered over with euphemisms, e.g., “humanitarian interventionism,” counterinsurgency, limited war, promoting democracy worldwide, the war on terror, anti-communism, nation-building. Take your pick. 

I believe it is this project that explains most of American politics today, both domestically and internationally. And supporting the white power movement and parts of its agenda - anti-immigration, anti-gun control, militarization of police forces, pervasive surveillance of “urban life” - makes sense because it fits as an ally for this project if for no other reason that the white power people are nationalistic and racist. And, of course, any politics of world dominance - whether that politics be American, British, German, Russian, or Chinese - must be both nationalistic and racist. 

So it is a mistake to see and treat the white power movement as tangential, as aberrational, as something like a cancer that has invaded the body politic. From the standpoint of a politics of world dominance, this movement is far from a cancer on the body politic. In fact, it would be better to treat it as a steroid or other “performance enhancing drug.”