First Principles and What We Can Do Now

First principles and what we can do now.

Gregory Hood, American Renaissance classic article,

first published December the 4th, 2020,

republished Sunday March 29th, 2026.

In March, I wrote about what I think should be done.

My ideas included building power locally,

moving to the country and promoting

succession within states.

Some of these things are happening.

There are movements to build a greater Idaho

to expel Chicago from Illinois

and to have parts of Virginia join West Virginia.

However, in my earlier essay, I made a mistake.

A good friend recently told me

that there is no political solution.

He's wrong, and I was too.

When I wrote in March, that we should create

non-political institutions.

There's no such thing as a non-political institution.

I should have said non-partisan or non-electoral.

There may not be an electoral solution

for whites on a national level.

However, there's always a political solution.

There will always be politics because politics is about power.

Every human interaction involves power

and power is always unequal.

The left have a slogan.

The personal is political.

They are right when they say that ancient ideas

like the family, sex roles, private property,

or even pet ownership are rooted in certain ideas,

systems, and assumptions.

Tradition, culture, economic systems,

and history shape us.

We aren't free floating individuals.

It's a myth that we can all each pull ourselves up

by our bootstraps.

We have autonomy, but it is limited by others' power over us.

Progressives to their credit understand this.

They may have the right method.

They have reached the wrong conclusions.

There are three reasons why.

First, small C conservatives are right

about the inherent value of tradition.

It has accumulated wisdom, our ancestor's solutions

to problems, that will come back if we

tear down what they built.

There's nothing inherently good in challenging tradition.

When leftists take apart things such as family, patriotism,

or sexual morality, they forget that these things

develop for a reason.

The purpose of irrational traditions

becomes clear during times of chaos.

Even traditions that are irrational

are important because they provide solidarity and meaning.

We have compelling arguments about why

we should love our children, our country, and our people.

But if we even have to debate these things,

we're already in an age of dissolution.

Second, leftists neglect the most important,

unchosen force that shapes us.

It's not society, religion, or economics.

It's nature.

Nature isn't egalitarian.

Nature just is.

A socialist may scoff at a libertarian

who thinks that anyone in America could become a millionaire.

However, the socialist who assumes racial discrimination

explains racial inequality is the bigger fool.

Individually and collectively,

race also shapes who we are.

Our abilities, culture, world view, strengths,

and flaws are part of us and mostly unchosen.

This is offensive to some of disturbing to many

because it implies limits.

We don't fully command ourselves let alone the world.

We Western men with our Faustian soul don't like limits.

We Americans born of a revolution that promised

in Thomas Payne's words to begin the world over again,

hate limits.

Whites have a tragic fate.

It's our nature to deny nature.

That includes the characteristically white ambition

to end racism by ending our race.

No other group acts this way or is duped so easily.

We're always driving either towards Imperium

or self annihilation.

Finally, leftists forget they aren't the critics

of the power structure.

They control it.

Sam Francis said egalitarianism is a political weapon.

Few, he said, really believe in it

and no one is seriously motivated by it,

but most people are comfortable living with contradictions.

White egalitarians probably believe

that they are better than other whites

and are sincerely self-loathing.

Analyzing that psychology would take books.

However, what's clear is that many white egalitarians

feel justified using threats, economic pressure

or violence against racists.

The definition of racism keeps expanding.

We can't out argue zealots.

We just need to be free of them.

However, before we can do anything,

we have to define who we are.

Again, Sam Francis was right when he said,

if enemies come to kill us,

it won't be because we are Americans or Christians

or conservatives or liberals,

but because we are white.

I would add that it's not because of Donald Trump either.

Whiteness itself is the problem.

While our opponents make claim

that ending whiteness isn't the same thing as ending whites,

substitute any other group and it certainly sounds that way.

Furthermore, whatever white advocates, conservatives,

nationalists, or Trump supporters may think,

we aren't in power.

We are not even allowed to define ourselves.

Those with power do.

The system in power and those who control it

are objectively opposed to whites.

The legal system works against us.

Economic elites fund Black Lives Matter,

not American Renaissance.

Blacks are far more likely to attack whites than vice versa,

but our rulers and opponents say blacks are the victims.

They claim to see white racism everywhere.

They may even believe it, but that doesn't make it true.

We can exploit the egalitarians' flaws against them.

They deny tradition, nature, and the reality of the system.

We must preach all three.

American tradition, first America,

despite the flaws inherent in its founding,

has a useful legal, cultural, and mythic tradition.

Our legal code is rooted in the Anglo-Saxon tradition

of a free people governing itself.

Jefferson promoted the vision of hearty Saxons

throwing off a foreign monarchy.

Our constitution is designed to control central authority

by checking power with power.

The framers understood this.

Many thought the articles of Confederation

had given too much power to the states.

They thought America needed a strong central government,

but didn't want an all-powerful federal state

hence the 10th Amendment.

The power is not delegated to the United States

by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states,

are reserved to the states respectively or to the people.

The Constitution arguably failed

because the framers did not anticipate

the rise of political parties, judicial review,

and universal suffrage.

However, the Constitution has quasi-sacred status

for Americans.

Our Second Amendment right to bear arms

is especially important.

Symbols matter and we still have rights under this system.

President Donald Trump failed in many ways,

but he forced our opponents to reveal themselves.

He also didn't surrender

when any other Republicans would have.

Corrupt American institutions,

especially legacy media outlets,

burned through their credibility trying to stop him.

Donald Trump didn't radicalize Republicans.

He radicalized Democrats.

Many of them want to pack the Supreme Court

eliminate the electoral college,

impose sweeping gun control,

and create new states that will guarantee democratic hegemony.

Donald Trump supporters,

many of whom think the election was stolen,

would call these actions illegitimate.

However, the greater truth is that urban elites govern

rural whites and think they are morally suspect pumpkins.

There are movements trying to do something about that.

Greater Idaho.

Most voters in Union and Jefferson counties

in Oregon voted to ask their local authorities

to discuss leaving the state to join Idaho

and create a greater Idaho.

West Virginia's governor,

Democrat Turn Republican Jim Justice,

said that his state would stand with open arms

to welcome Virginia counties

that wanted to leave the old dominion.

The West Virginia House adopted a resolution renewing

a 158-year-old invitation for Frederick County, Virginia,

to join the state.

Virginia, once conservative,

is now essentially governed by Northern Virginia,

which is an expressance of Washington, DC.

In a non-binding referendum,

72% of voters in Bond County, Illinois,

favored coordinating with other counties

in the hope of separating from Cook County,

which contains most of Chicago.

For the purpose of creating a new state,

new Illinois, Hancock County voted the same way.

This wouldn't be secession.

The House and Senate can vote to establish a new state.

If a slim Democratic government ratified statehood

for Washington, DC, Puerto Rico, and other territories,

at least some Republicans would spearhead a movement

to create new states and write the balance.

It is not our job to save the GOP from its own stupidity.

The point is not to save Republicans,

but to have smaller, whiter, conservative areas

where white advocates could get a fair hearing

and public support.

We can also push to rebuild monuments to national heroes.

Many Republicans are afraid to talk about race,

but if the triumph and Democrats

start demanding reparations, gun control,

and crackdowns on free speech,

the GOP base will react in ways

the establishment can't control.

If the GOP refuses to defend white interests,

regional parties, third parties,

or even independent candidates could force them to

or face certain defeat.

Nature and race realism.

All this is necessary, but not sufficient

for us to make progress.

The difficult part will be openly defending race realism.

I expect the Biden-Harris administration

will do everything it can to thwart us

and that censorship will intensify.

White Americans will not someday wake up

and fight off egalitarian radicalism.

There will be no movement unless we organize it.

However, the Democratic leadership may find it hard

to keep its own base under control.

Revolutions happen when elites can't meet

rising expectations.

Leftists and blacks want a lot right now.

I anticipate racial demands coming from the left

with hapless Joe Biden cast as another

Lyndon Johnson wondering why his voters suddenly hate him.

Already the black mayor of high-ats-ville Maryland

is resigned to start a black nationalist political party,

our black party, which will get blacks elected

to local offices.

Rapper Sean Diddy Combs supports our black party.

Many Democrats, including Majority Whip, James Clyburn,

thought the progressive drive to defund the police

cost his party seats in the house.

This election was not a blue wave,

despite white suburbanites, black radicals,

and millennial socialists uniting to defeat Donald Trump.

What happens when Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi

tell the most dedicated and popular progressives

or pro-black activists to sit down and obey?

Yet again, white liberals may be leading BLM movements

at universities and in some cities,

but self-respecting blacks won't take

this condescension forever.

Other groups in the left's coalition

of the oppressed are vulnerable.

Asians are divided about affirmative action.

California voters defeated an attempt to resurrect it.

Abolishing racial preferences

is an issue waiting for some ambitious populist to champion.

In this racial free for all,

white advocates should also demand policies for our benefit.

I suggested some in my Rodeum plan.

The most interesting question is what Hispanics will do.

Chris Roberts explained in October

that Hispanics are not monolithic.

Offering amnesty won't win Hispanic support for Republicans.

Pedro González argued persuasively at American greatness

that Republicans might be better off

with a cow the e-small message,

emphasizing law and order and economic populism.

Of course, this is the message that would also win back.

The white working class votes that Donald Trump lost in 2020

while he talked about the platinum plan.

I don't think Hispanic is even a useful category.

The Census Bureau says Hispanics can't be of any race.

There's no reason whites with even the slightest bit

of a Hispanic ancestry or some high school Spanish

shouldn't check the Hispanic box

when they apply for jobs or government loans.

There's even debate about whether Portuguese

or Brazilians are Hispanic,

when federal money is at stake.

The cynicism of the system.

Liberal elite is a conservative cliche.

It means nothing.

It's an applause line at CPAC.

It's also dangerous because it suggests liberals are superior.

Our message is different.

I often use the term system,

but we should call the government

that will take power in January the regime.

It's the united power of Democrat leaders,

big tech, Wall Street and media.

It's a power that rules over us, not our government.

Our relationship to it should be the same.

We would have towards an occupation.

We would oppose through peaceful means.

The regime and its mouthpieces in entertainment

and journalism are selfish and cynical.

We should never acknowledge their moral standing.

We should also express our outrage about our status.

It isn't weak to recognize that you're a victim.

It's weak to accept it.

People fake their identity for economic gain.

Politicians openly violate the laws they voted for

and the double standards on race

are becoming even more incoherent.

The regime relies on economic blackmail,

media slander and arbitrary law enforcement.

It is lost its legitimacy,

not just in the eyes of white advocates,

but in much of the country.

This is a once in a lifetime opportunity,

but it requires sacrifice.

I'm not asking people to economically

martyr themselves by speaking truth to power.

Instead, make a plan about where you will go,

whom you can work with

and what you can realistically accomplish.

We need only a small number of people

who can speak out without being socially

and financially ruined.

The movement is far more serious and capable

than it was in 2015 when the alt-right

was at its peak.

The movement in fighting will fade

because it is easier to unite in opposition

and there will be no more tactical debates

about whether to defend Donald Trump.

Across the continent,

I see new economic and social systems and support networks.

I see European Americans finding ways

to survive this regime and thrive amidst the ruins.

I have more hope now than I've had since 2017.

While everyone will have his own plan,

there is a clear way forward.

We can build on our American traditions,

help drive apart the left's coalition

and radically critique the existing power structure.

I'd argue we're in a better position

than we were in 2016.

Everyone knows the stakes and no one is under any illusions.

I'm excited.

About Kevin Deanna.

Mr. Deanna is a staff writer for American Renaissance

and the host of Identity Politics.