A very good piece by Eric Kaufmann, which gets to the heart of the matter.
Kaufmann begins with the evidence that, across Western nations, more diversity leads to steadily widening political divisions.
This new schism springs from several forces. First, the unprecedented post-1960s level of long-distance migration from the developing world to an aging West. Second, the Left-wing ideological shift from class populism to pro-minority cosmopolitanism. The latter has successfully made any meaningful discussion of immigration and national identity taboo, with mainstream parties until recently steering clear of such topics for fear of being branded ‘racist’.
However… when there is a vacuum, it gets filled:
When liquor isn’t supplied by the market, bootleggers move in. So, too, the expanding anti-racist ideology hemmed in the major parties on immigration, opening space for populist Right entrepreneurs such as the Sweden Democrats or Donald Trump. In Britain, where the debate was more open, it was the failure of first Labour, then the Tories, to control numbers that permitted the BNP and Ukip to flourish.
And by those dastardly Alt-Right types.
Kaufmann cites recent evidence of how the racial-displacement-of-whites projections is framed (which is largely driven by media coverage) affects how such whites interpret this future scenario:
As coverage of the increase [in non-white immigration] grows, the public becomes more focused on the potential long-term loss of what I term the nation’s ‘ethno-tradition’, i.e. its characteristic ethnic composition of having a substantial ethnic majority alongside minorities. It also makes white majorities more aware that their group, with its collective memories, sense of common ancestry and cultural practices, is declining numerically in relation to other groups.
In other words, in the Western democracies — which are the countries founded by ethnic ‘whites’ and that (until the post-1960s, Third World, mass immigration debacle) were clear-majority ‘white countries’ — demographic racial displacement will increasingly lead to forms (plural?) of white racial consciousness.
As society grows more diverse, these divisions will steadily widen. This self-reinforcing triple-lock will tighten its grip. The US is at a more advanced stage in the process, but as the German regional elections show, Europe is following suit: the centre is hollowing out.
Kaufmann’s piece stumbles, however, at his proposed ‘solution’ for the intensifying racial discord we are seeing (and will continue to see) worsen:
The remedy lies in what I term Whiteshift, the voluntary assimilation of minorities into the majority though intermarriage – a process which will need active telegraphing as mixing won’t be strong enough on its own to make much difference to social cohesion until the end of the century.
I fail to see how any such racial intermarriage, particularly among about half of the white electorate, will come to fruition. It’s an idea that seems to bely the widening polarization we’re seeing emerge along racial lines.
Unless, that is, an implicit auxiliary hypothesis of Kaufmann’s is that, for all intents and purposes, the Left will have won, causing the eventual disappearance of a heightened white racial consciousness.
