As If We Have Enough Problems Already: White Supremacists Are Again On The Rise

It’s been a pretty active week for white supremacists both in the United States as well as in Hitler’s homeland, Austria. And though it may not seem believable to most civilized people, white supremacy has been experiencing somewhat of a very real reemergence, both on illegal and legal fronts.

On the illegal front, we’ve seen horrendous violence take place in Las Vegas, where three people – two police officers and a bystander – were shot and killed in cold blood by a white supremacist couple – who then in some kind of twisted act of Aryan martyrdom turned the guns on themselves. Before that, to apparently clear up any confusion as to their ideals, they placed a swastika on one of their murdered victims.

As investigators now sift through the computers, possessions and communications of the deceased couple, the degree of this crime – in that whether or not it is part of a wider, working, conspiracy, is yet to be determined. But I do believe that I am not being inaccurate at all when I state that there are probably many more well-armed, furious white supremacists out there, all playing out some stage of their fantasy of racial purity, white rebellion and Aryan destruction.

Meanwhile, white supremacists/Neo-Nazis are growing bolder in Europe, where

Strauche, Leader of Austria's Right Wing "Freedom Party." 

they’ve experienced a great deal of mainstream political success by winning elections to local, regional, national and even international bodies. This is especially true in Austria – which was completely part of the Nazi war machine in the 1940’s. There, the so-called “Freedom Party” has captured nearly 20 percent of the votes of the last national election (and larger percentages in others). And it’s only grown bolder in its proclamations and positions. For example, its party leader, Heinz-Christian Strauche has now declared that he’ll run for the mayoralty of Vienna. And just this past Sunday he had this to say on the prospect of an upcoming visit from Turkey’s president:

"We don't need Erdoğan in Vienna. I'll tell him right now: 'Erdoğan, stay at home'."

Strauche later accused Erdoğan of seeking to establish a "parallel society" in Austria. Interesting words, because they could have come directly from the mouth of the late anti-Semitic Vienna mayor, Karl Lueger.

These culprits, though on different sides of the globe, are literally on the wrong side of history. In fact, they worship a history that never happened, at least from the prospective that they understand it. Such individuals are convinced that in former days, when a more “pure” and homogeneous population existed, society was stronger and more vital. But what they fail to understand that the foundations of Revolutionary America – and the greatness that was turn-of-the-century Vienna, were founded in diversity. Allow me to explain further.

The two Las Vegas white supremacists also used a “Don’t Tread On Me” Flag to make their point, apparently harkening back to the rebellious spirit of the American Revolutionaries. But those Revolutionaries were a mixed bag of people - and in fact – all of colonial America was. It wasn’t just English – there were Dutch, Jews, Africans, Swedes, Germans, Native Americans and others. And those English – they hardly regarded themselves as so; rather they were carved up into numerous, rival religious and political sects that as late as the early 1800’s were furiously persecuting and competing with each other. If you’re in search of some kind of racial or ideological purity, Colonial and Early America is no place you’ll find it.

And what about those Austrians who are trying to convince their own people that Austria’s greatest days and glories were the product of some pure Germanic population? If you think that, you’d be wrong again. Any historian will tell you that Vienna’s vitality of the late 19^th and early 20^th century was a result of a massive cultural intersection of Germans, Jews and Slavs. Austria was once part of a heterogeneous empire of dozens of nationalities. It was at the city’s open and diverse coffeehouses and salons (many sponsored by Jewish women) that the greatness of the age was forged. It was where Jews like Freud, Herzl, Trotsky and Mahler produced and defended great ideas and made great art. It was in Vienna of the early 20^th century that gave birth to so many forms of modern expression, which were, by in large, produced by all the ethnicities and religious groups in the city.

These white supremacist are ignorant hypocrites. Like their failed Austrian master before them, they’re preaching not just hate, but lies – their history is a complete falsehood – a factually indefensible distortion. If they’re so bent on selling their views, they should be reminded of how things ended when they were last in charge. I believe it was with the sound of a single, suicidal gunshot in a bunker in ruined Berlin, capital of an obliterated nation.