It’s Not White To Embrace Welfare

We need an aspirational whiteness, not trailer park nationalism

People on the internet will get mad over the craziest things. This is especially true for right-wing Twitter. Last week, your humble author upset a lot of people when I declared: “Going on welfare instantly revokes your white card.” This enraged many right-wingers, particularly a certain kind of white nationalist. These aggrieved folks believe that whites should go on welfare to stick it to the corrupt regime. Apparently, if whites en masse apply for welfare—for BASED reasons—the regime will collapse and the ethnostate will finally emerge. Even if that doesn’t happen, it’s still good and right for whites to rely on welfare.

This idea is plainly retarded. Welfare use fundamentally undermines a person’s whiteness and dignity. It doesn’t threaten the regime or offer the promise of the long-sought collapse. It’s just another hair-brained idea that only finds an audience online. Welfare idolization is influenced by the Right’s poverty fetish and idiotic ideas on how to gain power. It also reflects the strange tendency among some white nationalists who want whiteness to ape blackness. This advice is not about paving a path to victory—it just wants to reduce whites to the underclass. 

Welfare is something whites should avoid, but there are some forms of assistance that there is no shame in embracing. The elderly should enjoy social security and medicare because they earned that through years of work. (Most Americans don’t view this as welfare, but many of the pro-welfare critics do.) It’s perfectly fine to take unemployment compensation when you need something to hold you over as you look for new work. Disability is a more complicated matter, but no one should strive for it. (Many on disability are there because of their own poor health choices). In general, most forms of welfare should be avoided by whites if they can help it. Some may be so poor that they will have to apply for food stamps. While this may be justified, it is not something to be praised; no one should aspire to be on governmental assistance.

White Americans have always prided themselves on their independence. The Founders envisioned this country as one composed of yeoman farmers who were able to support themselves on their own. Obviously, modern America is not like that, but the ideal remains. No matter your class or income, whites strive to work to earn their daily bread. They don’t want to depend on the government for their sustenance. They see that as degrading. Their self-worth is tied in with their ability to support themselves. How can you be an upstanding citizen if you need the government to buy your groceries?

Hostility toward welfare isn’t a matter of class. Middle- and working-class whites both look down on it. It’s why poor whites are far more likely to reject welfare than other racial groups. 

Conservative whites cast their votes against welfare. They see it as a program that takes their tax dollars and gives it to freeloaders; essentially redistributing wealth from the productive to the unproductive. Their views on the matter are further hardened when they understand it’s going to groups unlike themselves. They are not going to respect those who happily use an EBT card, regardless of whether the food stamp beneficiary tells them it’s a rebellion against ZOG.

Whites want welfare payments reduced, not doled out to more people. They would rather this money go towards rebuilding infrastructure than sustaining moochers. This is the true right-wing attitude toward welfare.

None of the right-wing welfare advocates are actually applying for government assistance. Like pretty much everything online right-wingers promise to do—from starting a revolution to forming a “pro-white” credit union—this is something that never leaves the internet. It’s just part of the venting that people do day in and day out on Twitter. These pro-welfare advocates aren’t going to reduce themselves to this status. They just want everyone to pretend along with them that this is an awesome idea. At least the desire for a revolution is exciting and appeals to the youth. Wanting to go on welfare is just pathetic.

Even if people did do this for BASED reasons, it would have no real effect. There are not that many dedicated white nationalists. The government would not be bothered if a few hundred guys impoverished themselves so they could be eligible for SNAP. This isn’t going to strain the regime of its resources. All it’s going to do is ensure that none of these morons have any money left over for their cause and alienate them from the rest of white America. Ordinary people don’t want to join a movement of government assisted deadbeats. People would rightfully recognize this is something exclusively for losers.

Many critics claim we’re at the looting phase of the Empire, so we should go on welfare at this point. If that were the case and everything is ripe for the taking, then why not just go directly to shoplifting? You’re already throwing away your dignity by proudly signing up for government assistance, might as well go full MAGIC AMERICAN and begin to snag Cheetos at your local CVS. Of course, none of these people will advocate for that because they still have enough sense to recognize shoplifting as scummy behavior. But shoplifting is on the same tawdry level as welfare.

It begs the question why people would think this a good idea. The Right’s general adoration of poverty is one reason. Ever since Donald Trump won the 2016 election by appealing to non-college educated whites, the Right has tried to make itself more downscale. Several conservative commentators recommend that young people should skip college, abandon white collar work, and move to the hinterlands. For some people, this isn’t terrible advice. But it’s advice they want all young conservatives to follow. Proletarianization is the preferred lifeplan. 

The welfare push is different because, as previously mentioned, real-life working-class whites look down on it. Conservatives who support proletarianization want people to get jobs that will pay them well, not subsist off the public trough. Going on welfare violates the norms upheld by working class whites.

Since proletarianization excludes people from elite positions in society, right-wingers rationalize this as a means to gain power. If we all become tradesmen in rural America, we allegedly obtain a stranglehold on the system. Clearly, this is a cope for conservatives finding themselves outside of the halls of power. Welfare idolization takes this idea to an even greater point of absurdity. This delusion imagines that straight-up poverty leads to political power. In reality, it just leads to dhimmitude. People on government assistance are a neutered class who pose no threat to the system. They directly depend on it. Most find themselves degraded to such a point to where they care about nothing more than junk food and receiving the dole. This is not a revolutionary class, nor is it a class that has control of anything. It just subsists off the regime as spoiled dhimmis. For all their talk of aristocracy and conquest, a number of white nationalists can’t think of a political model better than slovenly dhimmitude. 

The particular kind of white nationalist who valorizes welfare wants to model his identity after blackness. These types believe that blacks offer the real path to power in our society. They want to have a white Al Sharpton, a white Kwanzaa, a white history month, a white studies department at the university, and, most importantly, gibs for whites. This will never happen because white Americans operate completely differently from blacks. We don’t want handouts. We want to be in control of our own destiny. Blacks may have their racial identity indulged by the regime, but it comes at the expense of any real autonomy. Black nationalists wanted to have self-sufficient communities that were independent of white America. Black leaders abandoned that vision in favor of complete dependence on the regime. But at least they got Kwanzaa out of the deal.

We need a better white identity.

White Americans made this country great by upholding strong norms and values. They worked hard to obtain independence and self-worth. No matter how hard their lives got, they would stick by their principles of rugged individualism. It’s what made white Americans who they are. There are certainly downsides to these principles, but there’s an inherent nobility to them. They are also deeply held beliefs among our people. In order to win them over, we need to appeal to who they are.

Rent-seeking doesn’t appeal to them. 

Whiteness should prize aspirational norms and standards, not doom us to the lumpenproletariat. A proud white man would never merrily accept welfare. It would revoke his white card.