The White Identitarians Are Having a Moment

It should have been a softball.Carl has built his career on the claim that white identity is under threat. In his 2024 book, The Unprotected Class: How Anti-White Racism Is Tearing America Apart, Carl warns that “white Americans increasingly are second-class citizens in a country their ancestors founded.” A 53-year-old senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, he argues that anti-whiteness pervades the American mainstream and particularly elite institutions, which routinely pass over qualified white candidates in pursuit of diversity.Yet during his confirmation hearing, Carl couldn’t give Murphy a coherent definition of the identity he seeks to protect. “You have made several statements about your worry regarding the erasure of white culture in America,” Murphy said. “Tell me the white values that you believe are being erased.” After some back-and-forth, Carl tried offering an example: “Scotch-Irish military culture.”“You don’t speak about ethnic identity; you speak about white identity,” the senator countered. Carl eventually proposed some generalities. “The white church is very different than the Black church in terms of its tone and style, on average. Foodways could often be different.” Music too, he said.Murphy started to laugh. “So our ability to access white churches or white food or white music is being erased?” he asked. “The majority common American culture that we had for some time,” Carl said, “has become much more balkanized. And I think that weakens us.”[Read: What Chris Murphy learned from the new right]Carl’s nomination failed, but his views are ascendant. For a group of rising figures on the right, white people have become the victims in the American story. Although this idea is hardly novel, its proponents wield more political and cultural influence today than they did at any