As noted a while ago, Richard Spencer is no Machiavel—despite his Nietzschean pretensions he is no “il principe”, not “a prince among men”. He doesn’t embody the attitude found in Roman senators, who lived in a world, per Gibbon, where, “For the masses all the gods were equally true, for the philosophers they were equally false, and for the judges they were equally useful.” He is still suffused with belief, not Christian belief but an anti-Christian belief—the prince is above all that, he just asks if a cult is useful to him or not. That is true virtù, true manliness.
Who is a real Machiavel? The American state—or parts of it, anyway. Just look at the war in the Ukraine: in the Ukraine, we have seen Azov, a Hitlerite formation, supplied with guns and material and even propaganda support—and this comes after a period when the American state, in reaction to Trump, pushed sheet lightning propaganda that covered everything to the effect that Donald Trump was a “Nazi”; and, indeed, post-Brexit, even the mildest vicar, with two spaniels and a penchant for milky tea, who might suggest that, maybe, perhaps, this whole idea of children changing their sexes was a “bit much” (my verger is gay, of course—I have no objection) was also branded a “Nazi.”
This is the true Machiavel mindset at work. No sentimental attachment: it so happens there is a considerable Hitlerite formation in the Ukraine that hates Russia for various reasons—very well, we use them. Again, it’s not conscious hypocrisy to punish domestic conservatives, to rub their noses in it—it’s just realpolitik. It’s like the old woman who swallowed a spider to catch the fly she swallowed and then swallowed a bird to catch the spider—and so on…
It works at several levels: the Ukrainian state will “join the West”—so it has already mooted legalising gay marriage, and afterwards will be flooded with migrants and all the approved programs of the American empire. Azov would oppose that, but they’ll not be in a position to do so because their best activists will have been bled dry fighting the Russians. While they’re at the front weakening themselves, people they would oppose set everything up at home.
It’s neatly done, it’s how a real Machiavel thinks. You wave a hammer and sickle at some people, you wave a black sun and a swastika and others, you sloganise about “liberal democracy” to others—and, like Pavlov’s proverbial dogs, they wag their tails and salivate. Hence you have a spectacle where “hardcore neo-Nazis” die for their Jewish president, Zelensky. Doubtless they warm their hearts with the idea they receive German weapons now—just like WWII; except they live in a dream. Everyone is so in love with slogans and icons and their imagination—the bliss of the USSR, of the Eastern Front, of the Crusader castles; and our believers, of many varieties, are wound up like clockwork soldiers and sent off to die by those men who don’t sink into daydreams.
Others may cry, “It’s outrageous, it’s unprincipled,” and that’s true—but it’s also how politics works and how you have to be if you want to be effective (if you hate the hypocrisy, then take to religion and go into a monastery, or don’t do politics—or, at least, cultivate some space where you live in a detached higher realm while you do what is necessary “to the pure everything is pure”).
So that’s what you’re up against—these people aren’t stupid; although, in some respects, they are hobbled by beliefs as well—if they were total Machiavels there would be no war in the Ukraine because it isn’t really in America’s interests for there to be one; it was only because they believed in NATO expansion as an axiom that it happened, and perhaps because there’s some Jewish grudge against the Russians that’s being played out via Washington. Yet the people in charge are still much more Machiavellian than the people, like Spencer, who nominally oppose them—so they reliably win.
To be a Machiavel doesn’t always mean to be manipulative or deceptive—it’s to be effective. For example, Spencer was involved in the 2010s in an attempt to recoup the radical right under the name “the alt-right”; and he tried to be respectable, to get away from the “Nazi” image while playing on it at the same time—to play on retro aesthetics from the 1980s, on Millennial nostalgia, and on synthwave (organic developments to be sure, but also consciously deployed at times for political effect). In fact, this whole strategy was a waste—it’s what European neo-fascists and post-fascists have tried to do since the 1980s; viz, put on suits and change their logos and talk about “sensible bread and butter issues”.
It’s a terrible strategy. Their entire strength is that they are nutcases—not literally but in the sense that the Taliban are nutcases. The Taliban are like the absolute emergency reserve for Islam: you might be in Cairo smoking sisha and dancing to Lebanese pop music and calling yourself “a Muslim”—but these guys aren’t. They’re like the last reserve you call on when everything’s on the line—the people who are radical, literally “true to the roots”. It’s the fact they make no compromise that makes them powerful. European “neo-fascism” and “neo-Nazism” are just like that—these are, per Bowden, a “European Taliban”. They strip what Europe is right down to the base, they even take off Christianity really, and say, “We’re for Europe in its most radical formulation with no accretions—essentially racial and pagan, particularly Greek.” The Taliban do the same with Islam.
The purpose with such stances is not to get involved in mainstream politics. It’s to basically keep a core apart that maintains the worldview in its purest form so that when a crisis emerges due to all the compromises the mainstream makes people will turn to you. The policy to go out and “be normal” was a huge mistake. What attracts about these movements is their uncompromised stance—it terrifies people too, because that which is uncompromised is like nature and God; and it shows up all your repulsive compromises and makes you feel bad—all those things you did just to “play the game”.
All radical political movements, like the Taliban or the Hitlerites, need to do is to stand apart from mainstream politics and what is decadent in society and repeat their message and bide their time. People will come to them naturally—especially if you look at the current media environment where anti-white messages are very prevalent. Sooner or later more people will become curious and then you say, “Well, we’re glad you’ve come, this is what we’ve always said and now you see the system was always against you and wants to destroy you.” However, people don’t have the patience for that—they think they can be clever and have their cake and eat it; it’s pseudo-Machiavellianism. They put on suits and look respectable and say “we’re alt-right” and “we’re not racists”—and then, naturally, at some point, someone throws the Hitler salute or some racial rant emerges; and then they complain “the media keeps infiltrating us and showing us up”.
Respect > to be liked. If they just made no pretence about what they thought, given the current environment, they would grow organically. By pretending to be what they’re not, they ultimately show themselves up and frustrate themselves. The true Machiavel plays to his strengths: the strength of the Taliban and the strength of the Hitlerites is their uncompromised and absolute stance—even if people say they hate them, they do respect them for that. If the Taliban had started to get involved in Afghan politics under the occupation saying they were “alt-Talibs” or whatever, they might have gained some influence but ultimately they would have ruined themselves. They were admired because they were uncompromised—unlike all the corrupt warlords with their dancing boys who worked for the Soviets, then the Americans, and always for themselves.
Hitler understood very well—he made it difficult to join his party; he made his manifestos less appealing rather than more appealing, he charged people to go to his political rallies while other parties hosted free events. He didn’t want to be liked—he wanted to cultivate an utterly loyal core, not a compromised mass. Jesus did the same—he took the 12 disciples off in private and instructed them (told them they were going to have a hard time), and he actively discouraged people from following him and told them it would be difficult (told them it meant being against their parents, against their families).
This is the attitude you need to cultivate if you want to change society—Hitler’s children forgot, they became compromised; they tried to be “liked” in a system that would never like them and regarded them as ur-evil and could only respect them as “nutcases” (now they are neither liked nor respected). If they had formed a cadre apart, remained aloof and rebarbative, they would have reaped rewards as the media environment became overtly anti-white.
A similar point applies to the holocaust. The Hitlerites try to deny it (it’s Nietzsche’s influence, he said much of history is invented)—really, they should say, “It happened and it was the correct course.” That would shock and repel people but it should be remembered that the holocaust was no different, in principle, to the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki—these events are not denied in the West, just not talked about much (there’s an awkward shuffling of feet if you bring them up). However, if someone who really liked Truman, for example, started to say “the atom bombings never happened” you’d lose respect for them (they’re basically insulting your intelligence to lie in such a blatant way)—whereas someone who says, “It was done to save American lives and I’d do it again,” you can respect, even if people show you pictures of badly burned Japanese babies. In the long run, it is always better to be respected and feared than liked—nobody will ever believe that Hiroshima and Nagasaki never took place, nobody will ever believe the holocaust didn’t happen.
Hence to be a Machiavel is not always what it appears; it is not to infiltrate, for example—only the left can infiltrate and subvert organisations; and that’s partly because they can only infiltrate and subvert organisations that are already decadent and in decay. The right cannot infiltrate, since it is the integral position by definition; it can only, in its radical formulations, separate itself and form a redoubt to which people will turn when the compromised mainstream system collapses. It should be what it is, whereas democratic politicians are all pretence—in normality, in decadence, people flock to the easy lies; and yet when there is a crisis, a “moment of decision” in Spenglerian terms, they will turn to those people who have not compromised (who maintain a wise position). The problem for the radical right in the West is that in about 1980 they began to compromise, to become “professional politicians”, and so they largely lost their virtù. The problem was impatience—itself connected to a lack of wisdom