Lots of Clubs

My answer to the question, “what should reactionaries actually do?”
has been, “build a theory”. I’ve made the argument,
over a few years,
that any kind of actual political activism is harmful. The elite need
to be converted, not defeated, and directly challenging them for power
will never achieve that.
However, that answer is very unsatisfying for some people. There are
people out there who want to get rid of democracy and politicians, but
are not inclined to write books or follow a dozen blogs worth of
reactionary theory. Their obvious outlet would be a fascist movement,
but some may understand the shortcomings and flaws of that approach.
People who are looking for the Modern Structure to be replaced when it
fails by something more traditional should, most of all, get
together. This is
Heubeck
again, but even his “book clubs” are too narrow an approach. Video
clubs, sports clubs, craft clubs, dining clubs — any of these
contribute to the culture as long as they stick to three rules: have
some kind of traditionalist orientation, be selective in membership,
and prohibit political participation.
Obviously, with there not being a hierarchy to give orders, some of
these clubs could fall away from virtue and become democratic,
fascist, or just clubs. Is that worse than not forming them? Today we
have nothing; if we succeed in this, we can start to weaken the
democratic culture at its edges.
There are those who say, that since we are in favour of hierarchy,
that our movement should start by being hierarchical — as if the first
step in overthrowing democracy is for someone to appoint himself King,
and then look for subjects. It won’t work that way. The people have to
want a King before they can have one. Not that this is a bottom-up
movement, either: the people will demand a King when the elite tell
them to. Influencing the elite will be a slow process, but the major
aim is to make the unthinkable
thinkable,
and having numbers of ordinary respectable people is a way to do that.
Shunning politics is the most important value. That means not just
parties and elections, but single-issue campaigns, demonstrations, and
the like. Adding more fascists just tells the elite that they need to
crack down harder on fascists. Adding more normal-seeming people who
just chuckle when you talk to them about political issues and say they
don’t care for pretending to know how to rule a country, they’d rather
just have a King, might have a small creeping effect on what ideas are
considered unthinkable.
Publicity is a different matter. Once you have a viable organisation,
it is good to get some exposure, but the exposure should be centred on
the club’s activity. The anti-political aspect should be an incidental
matter.
There is a catch there, in that selective membership may be illegal in
some jurisdictions. In that circumstance, it is necessary to be less
formal. The club should have no assets, no bank account. It can still
have officers, but paperwork should be minimised, expenditures should
be raised on an ad-hoc basis, any bookings of premises or equipment
should be done as a personal transaction by a member. If the club is
attacked by the authorities for not being inclusive enough, do not
whine or fight, just go away, and go informal. (If the club is just
criticised, not actually attacked, shrug and carry on). Both the
attack and the lack of response serve our purpose — they show that the
members are just ordinary people who are not political extremists, but
who want to socialise in a way that is not allowed or approved by the
state.
If it does start to go wrong — progressives are accidentally admitted
and start to take over — deal with the problem quietly or not at
all. Better to abandon it, wait a few months, and start again, than
get in a big public split between “right-thinking people” and
“extremists”. The same if the club becomes associated with right-wing
activists. Politics cannot be allowed. It’s just about OK for members
to vote in elections if they’re quiet about it, but it must be
prohibited for a member to be publicly associated with any party or
campaign.
The fact that these clubs are neither talking shops for theorists nor
political cadres does not mean than the members need to be stupid. At
the very least, the “no politics” rule needs to be defended. The
members should know who the reactionary theorists are, and should be
aware that the brazen competition for power between interest groups is
both a barrier to solving the real problems of the state, and a
necessary feature of democracy. They should know that they are
excluding themselves from the political process not out of defeatism,
but as a method of undermining the legitimacy of the régime.
That is not much to ask. Just this morning, @UK_Resistance, which
appears to be a straightforward nationalist account, tweeted,
“Proud to be disenfranchised working class”. I was
impressed. Recognising and accepting disenfranchisement is the way of
creating an alternative basis of legitimacy for a non-progressive
ruler.
The Jack Donovan quote
used by the Radish
is another strong way of putting it: “I’m not advocating apathy. I
don’t want you to stop caring. I want you to stop believing. I want
you to withdraw your consent. The best thing you can do for your
country — for the men around you, for the future — is to let the
system tear itself apart.”