The Case for Trump 2024: Secessionists for Trump

In the 2016 election, I was a Southern Nationalist and I was swept up in the Alt-Right wave and I voted for Donald Trump. I thought a lot about my decision and what the future would look like after the Trump presidency. In fact, I gave a speech about it at the Arkansas League of the South conference in 2016 called The Present Moment: Southern Nationalism in the Age of Trump or Clinton.

In 2024, I am still a Southern Nationalist. I still do not believe the system is capable of being reformed. I would happily vote to secede tomorrow. I do not believe that Donald Trump is going to Make America Again. Then as now, I have never believed this. I see myself as an activist who has thought a lot about our national divisions and who is ahead of public opinion. Normal people are more hopeful about Donald Trump and America and slower to arrive at conclusions that I arrived at a decade ago.

Throughout this series, I have focused on the relationship between activists and normies. I have stressed the importance of gaining the trust of normies and the pitfalls of activist brain. Unlike some activists, I have warm feelings toward my own people. I have warm feelings toward the vast majority of Trump supporters including those like Corey Comperatore who are not Southerners. I still see them as basically good people with similar values even if we are not 100% ideologically aligned on, say, the Israel-Palestine conflict. I do not look down on them as stupid rural reactionaries. I do not mock them for not being as smart and educated as I am. This is less important than sharing the same culture and ethnicity. There are a lot of college-educated, middle class activists who have this catty mindset and the snark reminds me of what I see on the Left. Contempt for the audience is politically toxic and counterproductive. The goal of the activist is to move voters and their leaders in what he thinks is the right direction.

In 2016, I think my analysis was spot on. The country wasn’t ready for secession, but it was entering a deep national crisis. Donald Trump would prove to be a deeply polarizing figure. He wouldn’t succeed in Making America Great Again, but he would delegitimize institutions, widen cultural divisions and erode taboos. He is not leading a secessionist movement, but he is preparing the ground for one. When Trump moves on from national politics, he will leave behind a more fertile political landscape. MAGA is something that millions of normies have to go through to mentally get where we want them to go.

In 2024, over half of Southern Republicans and Independents are now open to the dissolution of the Union, which is a big change from 2016. These people are also voting for Trump in the 2024 election. Civil War and National Divorce have gone from unthinkable to mainstream in the Trump era. If Thomas Matthew Crooks had been a slightly better shot, you have to wonder where we would be today.

Secessionists for Trump

In 2016, the SPLC thought it was bizarre that I was “Stumping For Trump.” I’m an Alabamian and have always been an admirer of Alabama senator William Lowndes Yancey. Yancey did not forsake mainstream politics. He participated in the Democratic Party of his day in order to stoke and inflame national divisions over issues like squatter sovereignty and reopening the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Yancey’s insight in the 1850s was essentially that the only way to destroy the system was to throw sand in its gears and drive up polarization to the point where the system was incapable of handling it.

American liberals have made it clear that Donald Trump is the one thing they cannot abide. So far, they have been willing to destroy confidence in everything from the FBI to the Constitution to the judicial system to elections to get Donald Trump who is the modern equivalent of Moby Dick. Joe Biden who won the Democratic primary is the latest casualty of the STOP TRUMP imperative. If Trump wins the 2024 election, we are told it will be the end of American democracy and the triumph of “fascism.” Assuming he is allowed to hold office, we are guaranteed another four years of liberal insanity. Last time around, there was talk that the West Coast states might threaten to secede to STOP TRUMP.

In 2016, I was basically right about Trump’s place in history, but I made two key mistakes:

1. First, I was eager to continue with the street activism that I had enjoyed in Obama’s second term. I was right that Trump winning the 2016 election would provoke an enormous anti-White backlash. Unfortunately, we ended up absorbing the costs of that backlash in Charlottesville by getting involved with the Alt-Right when we would have been better off watching it play out.

2. Second, I did not anticipate that we would still be sitting here talking about Donald Trump in 2024, as I figured he would lose reelection in 2020 and that would be the end of him. I underestimated the enduring strength of the cult of personality. Trump voters still control the Republican primaries.

In 2024, I am ready to get to the other side of this, which is 2028 when Trump is constitutionally barred from running for the presidency. The divisive Trump era will finally be over. Institutions will be in shambles. America will be no closer to greatness than it was in 2016. Hopefully, a victorious Trump will have succeeded in taking out his various enemies though. I’m not anti-Trump like other activists because I am convinced that ultimately his legacy will prove to be a good thing for us.

As usual, the point of this article is to explain my own thinking because otherwise you would not understand the shifts in my position. I am not telling you to vote for Donald Trump. You are capable of making your own decisions. This is my attempt to flesh out my own inner monologue.

1. The Right finally moves on from Trump in 2028

2. The Alt-Right has terrible political instincts

3. Joe Biden has been a sedative as president

4. Activist brain blinds us and creates prejudice against conservative normies

5. Trump is the leader because he is the best of the Republicans

6. “Worse is better” is a cope and was tried in 2020 and maintains the status quo

7. Voting is not a sacrament. Few know this

8. Voting is not going to change anything about Zionism in the next four years

9. Activists have the chance to ride the Trump wave without making the same mistakes

10. Activists are running out of material because the Overton Window has shifted so much

11. Donald Trump is a hunted dog who has been backed into a corner

12. Donald Trump is a divider, not a uniter and his legacy will ultimately be useful for us