The Mainstream Right's Stance On Identity Issues

A speech delivered at the VDARE Conference

(Note: This is the outline of the talk I delivered at last weekend’s VDARE conference. I spoke mostly off-the-cuff without reading my speech, so the delivered remarks are slightly different from the speech below. But the outline captures the gist of my speech.)

Today I’m going to speak about how conservative media and the Republican Party address identity issues. Identity issues refer to those topics that deal with race, national identity, and demographics. Mass immigration, affirmative action, anti-white racism, crime, and the war over American history all fall under this category. I argue this should be the chief focus of the American Right. Conservative media and the GOP approach this topic in different ways.

Conservative media has dramatically improved on this front since I’ve been in politics. It wasn’t too long ago when it was controversial to strongly stand against illegal immigration and powerful commentators championed amnesty. I remember when I wrote columns for the Daily Caller and how I was very careful about including references to Steve Sailer and Sam Francis. Now many mainstream conservative commentators openly cite those two figures.

Conservative media has improved greatly on the issue of immigration. You will rarely see a major commentator promote amnesty any more. Personalities are much more careful about using pro-immigration arguments, such as claiming immigrants “do the jobs Americans won’t do” or that they’re more American than Americans. They realize this irritates the audience and they refrain from these dumb platitudes. 

But it’s not just an improvement in what they don’t say or don’t advocate for. Immigration restriction is now a mainstream item in conservative media. Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson regularly pushed for this idea when he hosted the top show in cable news. Current Fox News host Laura Ingraham still advocates for this, as well as many talk radio personalities. Restricting legal immigration was hardly ever mentioned in the tea party days. Now it’s arguably the primary position within conservative media. Con Inc. types also rarely discuss increasing legal immigration. They’re more likely to discuss decreasing it.

Anti-white racism was a term unmentioned in conservative media in the pre-Trump days. Now it’s regularly discussed. Charlie Kirk and Matt Walsh are two of the most popular names in conservatism–both of them constantly draw attention to anti-white racism. Neither one is bothered by the fact that Media Matters and other far-left rags shriek any time they bring it up. Kirk himself would’ve dismissed anti-white racism just a few years ago. Even establishment outlets such as the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Examiner criticize the Left’s anti-white racism. Critical Race Theory became a central focus on conservatism in 2021 and that topic easily led to conversations about the growing animosity towards whites.

Conservatives frequently mention the Great Replacement and demographic change. It’s now a mainstream talking point to say Democrats want more immigration to secure electoral victories. Seventy-three percent of Trump voters believe in the Great Replacement. This figure is a result of conservative media sharing this idea to the wider public.

The color of crime has also been surprisingly mainstreamed. This is less due to conservative media and more due to Elon Musk. Musk replying to and sharing tweets about black crime made conservatives talk openly about the issue. But even before Musk’s redpill moment back in the spring, many conservatives were sharing Sailer tweets about the matter. Several conservatives were also open about who was committing the vast majority of hate crimes against Asians back in 2021. There’s a greater willingness to state that blacks are just under 13 percent of the population, yet commit over 60 percent of murders.

Dissident Right has become popularized among the mainstream Right. This is largely due to Trump and Tucker. 

But this doesn’t mean Conservative Inc. has completely adopted the positions of the Dissident Right. They still are inhibited by other factors. The primary issue is that conservatives are more focused on other topics rather than identitarianism. They may express support for immigration restriction and condemn anti-white racism, but it’s not what they primarily discuss. Right now, the transgender issue and drag queens get far more attention than the border. That’s not to say that gender ideology is not a threat, but the border invasion is of greater consequence. Yet, a drag queen twerking in Des Moines will be the top topic on Conservative Twitter rather than illegals pouring in by the thousands. Conservatives will even fawn over Muslim immigrants if they perceive them as opposing “wokeness.” It’s nice for Muslim parents to not want gender ideology taught to their kids, but that doesn’t mean we should start celebrating their increasing presence in our country.

There’s also the issue of how much conservatives will continue to address the identity issues without Tucker on Fox. Tucker made the Great Replacement and anti-white racism mainstream, thanks to his position as the most influential voice in conservative media. But if someone else takes over that throne–say someone like Ben Shapiro–we could get a very different conservatism. It could be more like the cuckservatism of old than the America First nationalism that’s become popular in recent years. 

The GOP has also shown some improvement on this front, but not as much as Con media. Like conservative commentators, few Republicans will champion amnesty. There are some notable exceptions, such as Florida congresswoman Maria Salazar, who will champion a full amnesty for illegals. There’s a slightly larger number of Republicans who will support an amnesty for Dreamers. But this group is definitely in the minority. The majority opinion is absolutely no amnesty. Rick Scott and Mike Pence, both establishment Republicans, released separate election agendas for the GOP to run on last year. Both plans emphasized that amnesty was a non-starter and implied that the GOP should consider some immigration restrictions.

Most Republicans don’t discuss immigration restriction, but more bring it up than ever before. J.D. Vance, Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar, and a couple of others have supported concrete proposals to reduce legal immigration. A number of Republicans have brought up demographic change as a political weapon. These include conservatives such as Ron Johnson and Scott Perry and establishment figures such as Elise Stefanik. There’s also some Republicans who are willing to directly call out anti-white racism. Mike Pence, of all people, is one of those figures who would say Critical Race Theory is anti-white. Donald Trump would also attack left-wing policies for being anti-white. Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville, no one’s idea of a radical right-winger, blasted reparations last year for rewarding the “people that do the crime.” 

State Republicans have also started to target Critical Race Theory in schools and diversity indoctrination in government jobs and universities. Just last week, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a ban of DEI offices at public colleges in his state. 

But there are serious weaknesses on the part of the GOP. Republicans are more willing to embrace racially woke policies than conservative commentators. Gov. Abbott also recently signed into law a ban on discrimination against black hair. This is obviously a very important issue. These bans, called CROWN Acts, were widely mocked as peak wokeness just a few years ago. Now we have Republicans proudly sign them into law. Ron DeSantis has done a commendable job tackling anti-white indoctrination in Florida schools. But even his record is not spotless. He recently made “Asian American and Pacific Islander” history a requirement in all public schools. These woke lessons will teach the same anti-white lessons as CRT, but for some reason Ron signed it into law. It also must be remembered that only 14 Republicans voted against making Juneteenth a federal holiday and the majority of Republicans backed some form of criminal justice reform up until crime started to rise following the George Floyd Revolution.

Republicans also don’t prioritize the identity issues. The big battle in Congress this year isn’t over the border–it’s over government spending. The debt ceiling fight seemed like a timewarp back to the heyday of the Tea Party. The border crisis hardly figured into it. House conservatives wasted nearly all of their political capital on this fight rather than on securing the border. Like conservative media, Republicans also seem more worked up about drag queens than illegal immigrants and anti-white discrimination in the workplace. 

Comparing the American Right of 2023 to the American Right of 2013 shows incredible improvement. The state of the Right was terrible back then. The Right, overall, is much better now even four or five years. This is largely due to Tucker’s influence. But there’s still a lot of room for improvement. More conservatives and Republicans support nationalist ideas than ever before, but it’s at risk of being drowned out by other concerns. The goal for true nationalists is to emphasize the identity issues above all other concerns. Drag queens and high taxes are unpleasant, but they’re not what threaten our civilization. The Great Replacement threatens our civilization. We have to get conservatives and Republicans to focus on what matters most–and those are the identity issues.