American racists are a diverse group of people who are divided by their views on racism. One area of division is the sincerity of a person’s professed racism. Some racists are no doubt opportunists who do not sincerely and deeply believe in racism, they merely take advantage of it. Other racists are true believers. While racists do question the sincerity of other racists, much of the analysis of sincerity comes from outside these circles. For example, commentators in the media often seemed to agonize over the issue of whether Donald Trump is a racist or merely an opportunist. One the one hand, this can be seen as unimportant. After all, from the standpoint of those harmed by racism it hardly matters whether the racist is a true believer or an opportunist. To use an analogy, if someone robbed you, you would presumably not agonize over or even care whether the thief held a deep and sincere belief in being a thief. What matters is the harm they did to you. On the other hand, the sincerity of a racist is relevant in assessing them morally and can have some practical consequences. In terms of moral assessment, a case can be made that the opportunist is worse, since they are adding dishonesty to their moral crimes. In practical terms, an opportunist would abandon their professed racism when it was no longer advantageous. A second realm of division among American racists is the degree of racism they embrace.

While it is often claimed that everyone is a little bit racist, there is significant diversity in the degrees of racism people embrace. A very mild racist might feel superior to others while professing to be appalled at even the suggestion that people should be harmed solely because of their race. At the other extreme are those who engage in genocide and ethnic cleansing. The United States has a history of ethnic cleansing and it is not unreasonable to consider that the current administration’s immigration practices are aimed at this goal. However, there is disagreement on the right as to what degree of racism is acceptable.

The murder of Charlie Kirk created an influence vacuum that Nick Fuentes seems to be endeavoring to fill. In the process, Fuentes has set off what some commentators are calling a civil war of the right. This dispute centers over the next two areas of division. One is the extent to which the right should be openly racist. The historical shift from open racism to dog whistles and code words is often described as the Southern Strategy. The essentials of this strategy are best presented in the words of Lee Atwater:

You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”

While open racism obviously never went away, modern mainstream racists embraced this approach, using dog whistles and code words. Trump’s election and especially his re-election helped rewind the Southern Strategy as people shifted back from dog whistles and code to being more open about their racism. Fuentes, who has been moving into the mainstream, is noteworthy for expressing his views directly, without euphemisms or employing dog whistles.

The other dispute is over who should be considered White. Nick Fuentes is Mexican American and he seems to regard himself as White, though others on the right might take issue with his view. There is also conflict over whether Indian Americans (with connections to India) count and Fuentes has attacked JD Vance because he is married to Usha, whose parents are Indian immigrants.  But a big fight that seems to be dividing American racists is the question of whether Jews should be considered White.  Tucker Carlson is credited with bringing this division into the national spotlight by interviewing Fuentes.

As Nick Fuentes has openly expressed his antisemitic views, he would presumably regard someone like Stephen Miller as not being White. After all, Stephen Miller is from a Jewish family that emigrated from Eastern Europe.  Others on the right profess to reject antisemitism or at least express support for Israel.

As a relevant aside, antisemites can support Israel for a variety of reasons, though this might strike some as bizarre. One reason can be that they favor ethno-states and endorse Jewish people leaving the United States and going to Israel. Another is for religious reasons, because they see Israel as playing an important role in the end times. There can also be purely pragmatic reasons involving Israel’s strategic importance as an American ally. But back to the main topic.

This fight on the right shines a light on the historical fact that being White is a matter of convention rather than a metaphysical reality. To illustrate, consider how the Irish and the Italians became White after being subject to virulent racism from Whites in America. It might strike some as odd that Irish and Italians would be considered non-White and subject to attacks from White racists. After all, one might say, the Irish and Italians look white in those old photos from back when they were not White. But as history shows, being White is not a matter of looking white but being accepted as White by those who are already accepted as being White. This acceptance is, obviously, not a matter of a vote and not all the established Whites accept new whites as White at the same time (or even ever). For the Irish and Italians, it was a gradual and uneven process, and some prejudices and derogatory terms persist.  

The history of Whiteness in America also shows that the right is inclusive and progressive, albeit at a slower rate and with a different style than the American left. In general, the American left has professed to embrace inclusion not by expanding who they accept as acceptable by allowing more people to be White. Rather, they profess to accept people as people. In contrast, the right tends to accept a broader definition of what it is to be White, thus becoming more inclusive. To be fair and balanced, there are those on the right who profess to embrace inclusivity and reject racism, although this seems to often be limited to non-Whites who happen to be in the upper economic classes or share their right-wing ideology. As an extreme example, Nick Fuentes claims to be good friends with Kanye West and they have appeared together with Kanye sporting a giant swastika on a chain.  As a less extreme example, Clarence Thomas has long been accepted by the mainstream right. The fight, then, is over how inclusive the right should be in terms of accepting people as White and which individuals should be accepted even if they are not White. The current main fight, as noted above, is over antisemitism and this is dividing the right. Because antisemitism has historically been embraced by the right and remains strong in the United States, it remains to be seen whether the right will embrace inclusivity or whether the traditional racists will win this fight.