Fearing the Political left: Texts of the Latest Cycle and the Re-Triggering of Shame

“Hold on to what you believe because they can’t take that away”¹²²—this brief quotation from a Lynyrd Skynyrd song appears to recapitulate the essence of the psychological defense that the white nationalist groups have adopted. Holding on to what you believe requires both: the celebration of group memory and the capability to selectively elevate the constitutive values underlying the white nationalist metanarrative while repressing others, including those responsible for the collective tragedy of countless African and African American slaves.

However, in order to explore the mechanisms that today retrigger the memory of the collective trauma (which always affects one more than the trauma one has inflicted upon others) and intensify the sense of shame, it seems helpful to resort to leave theoretical investigations aside for a moment and to concentrate on the clues that can be derived from texts functioning in the public space. The words of some contemporary neo-Confederates will shed a better light on what they and other white nationalists feel is at stake and, more importantly, how they feel their opponents view themselves and their ideas. In his 1989 article, “A Long Farewell: The Southern Valedictories of 1860-1861,” M. E. Bradford elaborates on the level of discourse aimed at the white nationalist right or, indeed, any assertion of white ethnicity by its erstwhile enemies:

They care nothing for legal means, only for ends-purposes-that reinforces the moral presuppositions of their world. Yet in a free society the law cannot be maintained or interpreted against the will of a whole people, by compulsion and abuse: what Lee meant when he spoke disparagingly of a Union held together by nothing but bayonets. […] For if you attack your countrymen as not merely mistaken but evil you are not proceeding politically or at law. Instead you represent an authority higher than statute or process and imply an intimacy with God’s plan thusward [sic]. This strategy is called rhetorically oraculum—speaking for the gods. It is incompatible with the stable rule of law. (Bradford 1993, 25)

The Last Rebel Yell (The Rebel Press, 1991) and James R. Kennedy and Walter D. Kennedy, The South Was Right: A Southern Perspective on the American Civil War (New Orleans: Land and Land Publishing Division, 1991).

122 Lynyrd Skynyrd, Can’t Take That Away, Atlantic Records, 1993.

In essence, Bradford states what many white nationalists have come to see as their persecution for not believing the way that progressive, multicultural American society constantly reinforces they must believe. Furthermore, many white nationalists, who are the intellectual inheritors of the founders of the Confederacy, look at their opponents as more delusional or bewitched than evil. However, in his 1985 article, Forrest McDonald points out the culture crusade that many Social Justice Warriors seem to be engaged in to eradicate any whiff of apostasy from the current politically correct society are anathema to the American system; hence his ideas are quoted at length:

That is the first thing to understand about the Yankee: he is a doctrinal puritan, characterized by what William G. McLaughlin has called pietistic perfectionism. Unlike the Southerner, he is constitutionally incapable of letting things be, of adopting a live-and-let-live attitude. No departure from his version of Truth is tolerable, and thus when he finds himself amidst sinners, as he invariably does, he must either purge and purify the community or join with his fellow saints and go into the wilderness to establish a New Jerusalem. In other words, he must reform society or secede from it; and though he has long since been thoroughly secularized, the compulsion remains as strong in the twentieth century as it was in the seventeenth (McDonald 1993, 210).

Whereas McDonald’s essay revolves around explaining the mindset of Yankees, it could be argued that the current culture wars in the United States pits present-day ‘Yankees’ against present-day ‘Confederates/Rebels,’ with both sides being the logical intellectual inheritors of their counterparts from 157 years ago. The rhetoric aimed at the individual and collective white nationalist seems to be designed to shame him/her into conformity, as is exemplified by one of the major themes that Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary R. Clinton leveled at her opponent’s supporters, labelling them as ‘Deplorables,’ which became a badge of honor that many adopted and from which the lead quote at the beginning of this chapter was taken. The Trump rebellion of 2016 is just the latest in a long string of rebellions of the so-called

‘Unprotected’.¹²³ While Trump’s electoral victory in the 2016 U. S. presidential elections took many by surprise, it came as no surprise to others who have been watching the rise of white working class frustration at the way in which current American society denigrates and demeans, indeed, ‘shames’ them for believing as they believe, worshipping as they worship and for engaging in their various hobbies. Michael Kimmel noticed the same process taking place with many of the Confederate ‘flag wavers,’ who ‘thumb their noses’ as it were at contemporary society when he wrote:

123 A term coined by Peggy Noonan in her article, “Trump and the Rise of the Unprotected,” Wall Street Journal, February 26, 2016.

For Southern men, defeat meant a gendered humiliation-the Southern gentleman was discredited as a “real man.” Southern soldiers returned to a barren and broken land of untilled farms, broken machinery, gutted and burned buildings, and a valueless currency. Schools, banks, and businesses were closed, unemployment was high, and inflation crippling. For the rest of the century and well into the twentieth century, Southern manhood would continually attempt to assert itself against debilitating conditions, Northern invaders (from carpetbaggers to civil rights workers), and newly freed blacks. The Southern rebel, waving the Confederate flag at collegiate football games, is perhaps his most recent incarnation (Kimmel 1996, 77).

While Kimmel was writing this in 1996, his 2013 book, Angry White Men also considers the rebellion that many white men embraced as the new millennium seemed to encompass everyone’s wishes except theirs. In quoting psychiatrist Willard Gaylin:

We can endure the fact that we do not have something unless we feel that something has been taken away from us. We will then experience a sense of violation. The smoldering rage which comes from being cheated [will be extended] to the society which allowed us to be cheated. (Kimmel 2013, 25)

Kimmel mentions, “It’s misdirecting that anger to others that is the central dynamic of America’s angry white men” (Kimmel 2013, 25). Actually, it is argued here that the ‘angry white man’

syndrome and its affect, white nationalist novels direct their anger at the proper parties, as white nationalists see them, those that have tried to take away their freedoms, rights and, above all, their self-respect. Rebellion, it seems, is as American as apple pie, regardless of attempts to argue that rebellion has no place in American society. Many white nationalists have written that current American society does not value them, their culture, or their beliefs. The most eloquent and prolific of current neo-Confederate writers, Michael A. Grissom, hints at this trend in trying to answer critics’ accusations that white Southerners refuse to stop fighting the Civil War. His thoughts are quoted at length because Grissom touches upon various emotional issues present in both neo-Confederate and white nationalist thought:

I suppose the main reason we are still fighting the War, if we truly are, is that we are still being attacked. It didn’t end in 1865. We knew then that we championed a lost cause-not a wrong cause mind you, only a lost cause. […] Are we guilty of high crimes because we still hold fast to the principles for which Lee fought and Jackson died? If the United States were invaded by a conquering Russian army and its Godless government instituted upon our shores, who among our northern neighbors would tell their children to throw out the Bible, despise the flag, curse the past, and never look back? Yet that is precisely what is demanded of us, even after 125 years. It is one thing to whip us but quite another to make us like it! […]

For the past twenty-five years [Grissom was writing in 1991] our customs, mannerisms, speech, and religion have been universally attacked. The self-righteous, all-powerful media rakes the muck and sets the pace in dismantling our very heritage. […] The tell-tale mark of a bigoted community is the presence of a Confederate monument, and the poor old Confederate flag is to blame for every evil named among men.

[…] I know of no other group of people, ethnic or otherwise, who are made to bear public censure day after day, year after year, for quietly memorializing their cultural heritage (Grissom 1991, 286-287).

Grissom is a confirmed neo-Confederate, however, his sentiments, as will be seen in Chapter Four, are echoed by various other white nationalist authors. The sense of defensiveness and

astonishment at the ways in which society had changed at the time he was writing are obvious.

However, for current white nationalists, the rapid cultural and societal changes since 1991, when Grissom wrote the above, have political left many wondering where their place is within American society. Indeed, in the rush towards a more pluralistic society, the present-day white nationalist seems to believe that the average white, heterosexual male has been political left behind to fend off accusations of racism, sexism, cultural appropriation and various other evils that seem to be only directed at them. In particular, the positions adopted by the progressive political left-wing intellectuals seem to aggravate their sense of insecurity, especially if anti-white rhetoric comes from people enjoying a position of note, such as Susan Sonntag:

If America is the culmination of Western white civilization, as everyone from the Political left to the Right declares, then there must be something terribly wrong with Western white civilization.

This is a painful truth; few of us want to go that far. The truth is that Mozart, Pascal, Boolean algebra, Shakespeare, parliamentary government, baroque churches, Newton, the emancipation of women, Kant, Marx, Balanchine ballets, et al., don't redeem what this particular civilization has wrought upon the world. The white race is the cancer of human history; it is the white race and it alone—its ideologies and inventions—which eradicates autonomous civilizations wherever it spreads, which has upset the ecological balance of the planet, which now threatens the very existence of life itself (Sontag 1967, 57-58).

If their sense of violation is further exacerbated by the seemingly constant ad nauseum recitation of what the white race has done wrong throughout the centuries, as indicated by the quote above, then their sense of victimization and, being under attack for being born white and ‘holding on to what they believe’ can turn into a constant emotional brew of shame, humiliation, and anger. If the statement by Gaylin above and the observations of psychiatrist James Gilligan’s are taken into consideration, then the ‘Angry [white] man’ may become angrier, and, with nothing to lose, may turn to rebellion, which is where the novels of the white nationalist right enter, as these novels advocate not only rebellion but revolution.¹²⁴

Rebellion is an extremely recurrent phenomenon in American history, whether from the right or the political left. However, it seems that some scholars would prefer to focus on the economic motives behind rebellion, as has been shown in the above chapters, rather than a need for revenge, which buttresses the need for a psychological approach to the study of radical literature. Indeed, even the most recent exposé on the various rebellions of whites on the frontier, Nancy Isenberg’s White Trash. The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America makes no

124 For similar forms of anti-white rhetoric, see Frank Joyce, “White Men Must Be Stopped: The Future of Mankind Depends on It,” http://www.salon.com/2015/12/22/white_men_must_be_stopped_the_very_future_of_the_

_depends _on_it_partner/, posted December 22, 2015. For a more balanced approach, see Ross Kaminsky, “Straight White Guys Are Terrible,” https://spectator.org/59231_another-noble-quest-no-solution/, posted May 14, 2014.

mention of either the Regulator Movement of the pre-Revolutionary North and South Carolina or the Whiskey Rebellion of 1798.¹²⁵ Instead, Isenberg concentrates on perceptions of ‘class’ among America’s two of America’s Founding Fathers (Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson) and the myth of Andrew Jackson’s ‘new man,’ among others, using a Marxist-aligned theory of social conflict. The history of rebellion among the white working or poorer classes is quite long and violent, though Isenberg prefers to concentrate on economic causes, relegating emotion to the sidelines of her immense study. Moreover, a study of rebellion among lower class whites, so-called ‘white trash,’ should include some references to the most famous rebellions which, indeed did include economic elements but that also rallied around the banner of respect from a distant government.

If psychologist James Gilligan is correct in his assertion that violence in overall American society comes from a loss of ‘Self’ esteem and respect, then the white nationalist perspective of perceiving American society as abandoning his/her beliefs and ideals lead to a conclusion that there is no place for a straight, white conservative male in multicultural America. This idea is fictionally exemplified by a conversation between two FBI agents, one, a multiracial female agent and the other, a white male agent who are investigating a series of murders committed by white racist revolutionaries in Oregon in Covington’s novel, The Brigade:

In the Chrysler Aspen, [Agent] Rabang Miller had finally finished tearing the deputy’s citation [for illegal parking] into the tiniest possible shreds, and she rolled down the window and tossed the confetti out.

[Agent] Brian Pangborn, who was driving, looked over and said to her sharply, “Roll that window up! You know procedure! You heard that sheriff! It’s possible one of these people [the white revolutionaries who had murdered a Jewish couple that the FBI agents were charged with investigating] may be a military-trained sniper!”

“Like these bumpkins are going to give me another ticket for littering?” Rabang sneered. “Besides, I think that sheriff is in with the racists.”

“Oh?” said Pangborn politely, with a weary roll of his eyes. “On what do you base that brilliant deduction?”

I’m a woman of color,” she told him primly. “That means I have a feel for racists, a sixth sense.”

Pangborn sighed. “Look, I’m going to tell you something, Rabang, and if you want to report me to the Diversity and Tolerance Office, fine, but you’d better listen up. This is for your own good. Not all white men are racists and engaged in some deep dark conspiracy to do down women and people of color. Not all

125 Nancy Isenberg, White Trash. The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America (New York: Viking, 2016). For more on the Regulator Movement, see Carole Watterson Troxler, Farming Dissenters: The Regulator Movement in Piedmont North Carolina (Raleigh, NC: Office of Archives and History, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, 2011). For the Regulator Movement in South Carolina, see Richard Brown, The South Carolina Regulators: The Story of America’s First Vigilante Movement (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963).

For the Whiskey Rebellion, see William Hogeland, The Whiskey Rebellion: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and the Frontier Rebels Who Challenged America’s Newfound Sovereignty (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006) and Thomas P. Slaughter, The Whiskey Rebellion: Frontier Epilogue to the American Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986).

white males are your enemies, but if you and your kind don’t quit acting like horse’s asses, by God, eventually we will be! (Covington 2008, 146)

Furthermore, as pointed out by prison psychologist Gilligan when he talked to armed robbers about the reasons behind their crimes:

[prisoners]: “I never got so much respect before in my life as I did when I first pointed a gun at somebody,” or, “You wouldn’t believe how much respect you get when you have a gun pointed at some dude’s face.” For men who have lived for a lifetime on a diet of contempt and distain, the temptation to gain instant respect in this way can be worth far more than the cost of going to prison, or even of dying (Gilligan, 1997, 109).

And further in quoting anthropologist Julian Pitt-Rivers, “the withdrawal of respect dishonors, … and this inspires the sentiment of shame” (Gilligan, 1997, 110). Moreover, Gilligan underpins Thomas J. Scheff’s findings in Bloody Revenge by stating,

The emotion of shame is the primary or ultimate cause of violence, whether toward others or toward the self. Shame is a necessary but not a sufficient cause of violence, […]. Nothing is more shameful than feeling ashamed. Often violent men will hide this secret behind a defensive mask of bravado, arrogance, “machismo,” self-satisfaction, insouciance, or studied indifference. […] Behind the mask of “cool” or self-assurance that many violent men clamp onto their faces, […], is a person who feels vulnerable not just to “loss of face” but to the total loss of honor, prestige, respect, and status-the disintegration of identity, especially their adult, masculine, heterosexual identity; their selfhood, personhood, rationality, and sanity (Gilligan, 1997, 112).

Each individual person and group seems to want, indeed crave, self-respect and, from a white nationalist perspective, whites, particularly white, straight males, are the only group in the United States that is incapable of expressing their beliefs and gaining the much desired self-respect. In examining Jack Katz’s research on crime, Scheff mentions that Katz:

[…] found that the perpetrator felt humiliated, committing the crime was an act of revenge. In some cases the sense of humiliation was based on actual insults [….] In other cases it was difficult to assess to which degree the humiliations were real or imagined. Whatever the realities, Katz’s findings support the model of the shame-rage feeling trap. [quoting Katz] “The would-be killer must undergo a particular emotional process. He must transform what he initially senses as an eternally humiliating situation into a blinding rage.” Rather than acknowledging his or her shame, the killer masks it with anger, the first step into the abyss of the shame-rage feeling trap, which ends in murder (Scheff 1994, 67-68).

In buttressing the arguments presented above by the neo-Confederate authors Bradford and MacDonald and the shame-rage trap, Covington in the last novel of his Northwest Novels saga presents an aging white revolutionary explaining to his grandson’s American girlfriend why the white revolutionaries like him rebelled when they did:

“What I’m trying to say, Danielle, is that like an apple with just a little spot of decay on it, eventually the whole fruit rotted, and the rot spread. The good people of America were too busy living. They were enjoying life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, like they used to say, so the Jews and the bad white people took over and decided that everybody had to be

like them, to think like them, to live like them. They spent a good hundred years trying to force it on the rest of us. All down through the decades we begged and pleaded for them to stop, and they wouldn’t….It became pretty clear that they didn’t just want to lord it over us,

like them, to think like them, to live like them. They spent a good hundred years trying to force it on the rest of us. All down through the decades we begged and pleaded for them to stop, and they wouldn’t….It became pretty clear that they didn’t just want to lord it over us,