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Ex-mobster-turned-YouTuber Michael Franzese recently responded to a comment made by Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) President Dana White. There’s no beef here as far as I can see — no scandal or anything particularly newsworthy. Just a mild disagreement. I believe both guys are more or less politically aligned to the right of center, and — for all I know — get along just fine. To most, their disagreement will seem trivial.

But if you dig deeper, not so much. These two men, whether they realize it or not, are getting to the heart of human identity. What do we call ourselves? To what tribe do we belong? Despite their similarities, their differences on this issue are fairly stark, as are the differences between them and myself.

Going off on one of his typical profanity-laced rants, Dana White had this to say:

I’m Italian. No you’re not. You’re a fucking American. What are you? I’m Irish. No you’re not. You’re an American. And nobody hates it more than these people who are really from those countries when Americans say that. . . . What people need to wake up and realize is that we’re all Americans. You’re an African-American. No, you’re not. You’re a fucking American. I’m Irish-American. No, you’re not. You’re a fucking — We’re all Americans.

So, proud Italian-American that he is, Michael Franzese could not let that comment stand:

I am an Italian-American. I am proud of my Italian heritage. Why? Because I honor my grandparents. I honor my great-grandparents that grew up in Italy and came to this country legally and built a life for themselves and a life that I was able to benefit from. So I like to say I’m an Italian-American. I am an American first. Hundred percent. Okay? If Italy and America went to war, I’m supporting America. . . . My wife, Mexican-American. She’s an American first. A proud American. But she’s also proud of her Mexican heritage. Why? Her grandparents. Okay? Her great-grandparents. She has ancestry there. She’s proud of those people. You know, that’s our bloodline. There’s no reason to disavow that.

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On one hand, this is merely a rehash of the hyphen vs. non-hyphen argument, which is as old as Teddy Roosevelt. Changing demographics in the twenty-first century are updating it rather quickly, however. White represents the civic nationalist position. Someone such as myself represents the ethnonationalist position. Franzese wants the best of both worlds. He wants to pay homage to blood and heritage while professing civic loyalty to a multiracial country. Hyphen-nationalism, so to speak.

My job as a writer for Counter-Currents is to explain the necessity of ethnonationalism, which I shall do within the context of the much more familiar White-Franzese divide. Believe it or not, I like both men and sympathize with their positions, because at one point or another in my life I have held them myself. But I have moved on. And so should you.

First of all, Dana White is a fight promoter. He is not an opinion leader, and for all intents and purposes does not represent anything beyond himself, his family, and the UFC. Thus, we should not take anything too seriously that comes out of his mouth. Fight promoters are not exactly paragons of consistency. And that’s okay. Dana White is protecting a multi-billion-dollar brand. So if that means accepting heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez’s “Brown Pride” tattoo while not doing the same for white fighters with “White Pride” tattoos — whatever. It’s not ideal, but the alternative would damage the brand and reduce the UFC’s very positive impact on our culture, which is to balance the West’s feminization with something invigoratingly masculine. Everything is a tradeoff in life, and as long as White eschews overt anti-white racism (as he has), I’m willing to look the other way regarding his picadilloes.

As for his staunch — and ironically consistent — civic nationalism, who knows if he’s being sincere? Probably at the moment, he said it he was. Franzese certainly thinks he is. And considering what Dana White is now worth, he can afford to ignore racial realities in his day-to-day life.

As for Franzese, we can count on him to mean what he says — at least when it comes to his Italian-American identity. He takes that very seriously. But is he correct? Well, yes and no. Where White rules out all ethnic identity for a more disciplined — yet not quite natural — approach to identity, Franzese bends to nature. Of course, he should take pride in his heritage and bloodline. We all should. So, his inconsistency here is understandable.

The ethnonationalist position in a sense encompasses both perspectives. Yes, we should honor our heritage as Franzese does, but in a white ethnostate, Dana White’s call for universality should also apply. Someone’s Italian-ness or Irish-ness should never supersede one’s white identity. This means, for example, a Polish-American should take nearly as much pride in Antonine Lavoisier’s accomplishments in chemistry as a French-American would. And why not? White people from Europe are not that genetically different, as demonstrated by Frank Salter in his classic On Genetic Interests. The same of course applies to any ethnostate based on race.

On the other hand, ethnonationalism refutes both positions quite easily — White’s for its denial of nature, and Franzese’s for its inconsistency. Only ethnonationalism is both natural and consistent. The tradeoff here is that the ethnocentrist must have the confidence and will to say “no” to out-group members. He must also be prepared to accept the considerable risks of doing so. Dana White is prepared to say “no,” but for all the wrong reasons given that he ignores race, while Franzese doesn’t want to say “no” at all — at least not to those Americans wanting to keep their hyphens.

Setting ethnonationalism aside for a moment, there remains a problem with Franzese’s compromise solution: What about mixed-ethnic whites? Should they be proud of their bloodlines, too? Can a person who is a quarter Russian, a quarter Spanish, a quarter English, and a quarter Bulgarian esteem his heritage just as Franzese esteems his? If this happens across enough ethnicities, then a general white identity will emerge. How could it not? If it is perfectly natural for Michael Franzese to take pride in his Italian heritage, then the same must follow for mixed-ethnic whites and their broader white heritage. It’s either this, or people will need to consult down-to-the-chromosome genealogical data to determine whom they should or should not be proud of. Which is the more economic path to identity?

This, I believe, underscores one main difference between Rightist movements in Europe and the United States. In Europe, where whites have lived for millennia, it’s appropriate to limit, say, Italy to the ethnic Italians (with reasonable exceptions for out-group whites). The geographic precedent there is too strong to invite limitless intermixing of white ethnicities. After all, where else are the Italians going to live if not South of the Alps, where they faced down Hannibal over two thousand years ago? But in the United States, where white history stretches back mere centuries, fewer geographic delimitations keep white people apart. Thus, a broader white consciousness will become necessary for survival. Just as importantly, it will become convenient, more so than being a stickler over which side of the Rhine three of your eight great-grandparents came from. Most of us are going to end up as mixed-ethnic Europeans, anyway, if we aren’t already.

So White Nationalism, as a pure form of ethnonationalism, is the more consistent and natural option than either civic or hyphen nationalism. But it is suppressed. Why? The answer has everything to with the universality of tribalism and why Jonathan Greenblatt has not written letters asking the UFC to fire Dana White or demanding that YouTube cancel Michael Franzese. Everyone is tribal to some extent. When small tribes exist among much bigger tribes and don’t want to assimilate, most will take a highly unprincipled stand against tribalism. I get a whiff of this every time Tim Pool asserts his mixed-race ancestry as an excuse to disavow racial tribalism. Of course he’ll do this; he identifies with the relatively small mixed-race tribe. It is safer for him to suppress tribalism among the bigger tribes, white, black, or whatever.

We all know where this is headed.

Pound for pound, the Jews are the strongest and fittest tribe of all the tribes in the West. Aside from their plethora of negative traits, they have a high average IQ, demonstrable accomplishments in many fields, an innate clannishness, a strong sense of victimhood, a knack for finance, and a tremendous will to power. They are also quick to close ranks and attack outgroups whenever they feel threatened. For some revealing evidence, here is Carl Cameron’s December 2001 FOX News reporting on Israel’s anti-American espionage before the 9/11 attacks [emphasis mine]:

Why would Israelis spy in and on the US? A general accounting office investigation referred to Israel as Country A, and said, “According to a US intelligence agency, the government of Country A conducts the most aggressive espionage operation against the US of any US ally.”

A defense intelligence report said Israel has a voracious appetite for information, and “the Israelis are motivated by strong survival instincts which dictate every facet of their political and economic policies. It aggressively collects military and industrial technology, and the US is a high priority target.”

The document concludes “Israel possesses the resources and technical capability to achieve its collection objectives.”

So, being a small tribe, Jews feel safest either when bigger tribes renounce racial tribalism for the civic nationalism Dana White professes, or when they live among other small tribes, i.e. the hyphen nationalism that Michael Franzese prefers. MAGA and mafia flavors of white identity may not be ideal from the Jewish standpoint, but are at least kosher. On the other hand, Jews feel least safe when living among larger tribes who can challenge them in terms of fitness and will to power. If all white Americans were to coalesce their identities by race, they would be just that, and would force the neurotic Jews into perpetual worry over the next inevitable pogrom. Thus, racial identity for the biggest tribe in America — the whites — must be suppressed.

This is not only what I say. It’s what they say.

Making it all about “safety,” of course, is giving Jews the benefit of the doubt. Some would say that Jews are more concerned with conquest. They oppose white identity and its concomitant penchant for tradition, patriotism, and anti-globalism simply because this would impede the expansion of Jewish power. According to my reading of Edwin Black’s The Transfer Agreement, this, rather than concern over “anti-Semitism,” was the primary reason for the international Jewish boycott against Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

In any event, the forms of identity offered by Dana White and Michael Franzese are not without merit nor without truth. But over time, they will both prove insufficient to serve the best interests of whites in North America. Considering who is behind suppressing some forms of white identity and not others, that may very well be the point.