It seems to me that the Know-Nothings of the nineteenth century had at least a shred of something that counted as pride.
†
Sidebar: I was thinking, not long ago, about the old discussion about punching Nazis. The one who went down trying to bomb a hospital in Missouri is what set me to wondering. Because, you know, maybe not you or me, but did that guy ever have a friend, or a sibling, or someone who actually could have smacked him once upon a time, because I really do wonder what it would have taken for him to be alive today, and not have tried to bomb a hospital for a covid conspiracy theory.
But, also, as the Doxxy Wars play out in my twitfeed, American Nazis and associated hardline rightists seem to be raging through a flatspin, a downward spiral; it's not just that nobody is fighting back on their behalves against some spectre of cancelation, but, rather, the nexus of wondering what they expect is going to happen when, open-faced, they fly darksun banners and salute sowilo, to the one, and the general thought of driving them underground, to the other. It starts to feel like Emilio in the bathtub movie with Demi, except, y'know, the super happy fun Nazi version, screaming as they weep and gnash and bawl, hellbound without a basket, bitterly determined to convince everyone else that at least they're enjoying the ride. Like a mgtow cooking thread, only incalculably more dangerous.
There is a certain surrender beneath the cynicism. The flatspin froggers aren't quite the basket case Nazis without a basket, but the only functional difference really does range of application. Perhaps the Know-Nothings really do have some sense of pride to lose: When organized white supremacists and Nazis identify, they cannot evade the record of what they have done. Know-Nothings still want to evade. And while there is plenty of cowardice to wonder about, this seems more a question of nihil. That is, the one is derived from the other. Neither Nazi nor Know-Nothing hopes for societal redemption. Straight pride, traditionalist pride, white pride, white Ishtar ....
(Actually, you wouldn't believe the rabbit hole I just fell down checking up on a "free speech"—i.e., fascist—organization out of an east-coast city, and, yeah, the antifa impersonator handing out anti-heterosexual propaganda turns out to be a mgtow with connections to various supremacist groups.)
The cynical surrender stands out, a giving over to antisociality. Nor can I describe the particular escalation or, rather, pathology of the flying leap into the Abyss. But the Know-Nothings haven't yet given over to nihilism, though what they actually want, aside from cheap satisfaction of petty infliction, remains a mystery. Then again, they're Know-Nothings, and thus don't really know what they want.
†
One of the things about contemporary Know-Nothingism that really bugs me is the term,
sealioning. The source of the term literally illustrates the problem, as a sea lion harasses a man who just wants to eat his breakfast despite having offended the sea lion. Sealioning does not describe behavior reflective of a sea lion, who would, instead, simply steal your breakfast and then smack you in the face with his ass on the way out. Also, sea lions are only problematic if we go out of our way to make them so. They're actually really easy to get along with.
Oh, right.
The actual functional problem is that the term sealioning allows a particular pretense of politeness that just doesn't work. There is no polite way to be a Nazi. Nor is there a polite way to be a white supremacist. There just isn't really any polite supremacism at all.
And, sure, there are differences 'twixt Know-Nothings and American Nazis that go beyond stupid pretenses of courage, but they really do seem matters of degree. Know-Nothings inherently have nothing to say, thus seek to disrupt.
Toward that end, I wonder if we could ever get an actual, active assertion from one or another of these knockoff white supremacists about when they actually think history begins.
