Lost America? Why the United States Went ‘Communist’ and What To Do About It
Stephen Baskerville
Arktos Media, 2024
Back in July my friend Roger Devlin posted an extended and largely favorable review of Stephen Baskerville’s Who Lost America? I recently read this book and had quite a different reaction. To be very generous, Baskerville’s book is a glass half full.
To his credit the author is a harsh critic of establishment conservatism, although perceptive leaders of the authentic Right long ago realized that the conservative approach to combating the Left was a losing proposition. The critique of Conservative Inc. has certainly intensified in recent years with the rise of Trumpism and the Alt Right/Dissident Right. Yet, while keeping a lower profile of late, Ryan/Romney conservatism is quite resistant to change, and is ready to again take full control of the establishment Right after the Trump era is over.
Among Baskerville’s complains about the Right include a lack of leadership, creativity, and energy. In contrast the Left is innovative. It has “reinvented itself repeatedly” while the establishment Right is content to dog whistle to their constituents while protecting vested economic interests. “Conservatives seem temperamentally incapable of arousing themselves . . . . [T]hey seem habituated to apathy” (67). The Right is “devoid of ideas and intellectual depth . . . . the Right still produces few intellectuals of any stature, no universities of any quality, no ideas of any value” (119). Okay, this appears to be the case, but I do not believe that conservatives are inherently stupid or lazy. Their retreat is a maladaptive response to political and social conditions. The master manipulators on the Left have exploited the individualism of Western culture. More on that later.
Another telling point made by Baskerville is the centrality of the radical sexual revolution—feminism, homosexuality, transgenderism—to the Left’s agenda. It is part of an effort by the Left to blur all distinctions between cultures, races, and sexes. The author’s main concern is the prevalence of fatherless families, but this issue must be viewed within a wider context.
Credit Professor Baskerville with tamping down on conspiracy theories. The problem with conspiracy theories is that they “can foster a defeatist mentality of . . . helpless resignation. The conspirators become so evil and all-powerful that opposition is pointless” (xxv). Often those who posit such theories assume the status of savvy and sophisticated analysts who can see through the smoke and mirrors, and the smart money is on the sidelines. Later in the book, however, the author will indulge in some “black pilling” of his own.
Baskerville is also on the mark in Chapter 5 “Flirting with Nuclear War.” Here he laments “the needless carnage in Ukraine” (121). Apparently, “the negotiating table is off limits” (123). And “Russia is not the only hegemon playing power politics at Ukraine’s expense. We—the US, NATO, the EU—have cynically manipulated Ukraine as a pawn to augment our own position” (133). There is no mention of the carnage in the Middle East. Baskerville does not address the Jewish question in this book, but elsewhere he has supported Judeo-Christian values.
So, if Who Lost America? is a glass half full, it must also be a glass half empty. It is a work with serious analytical flaws.
To begin with a minor point of terminology: The word communist in the subtitle is in quotes so we understand that it is used a bit ironically. But Baskerville refers several times to a Leftist coup occurring in early 2020. Although I follow the news fairly closely, I missed that event. A widely accepted definition of a coup is a sudden violent overthrow of the existing government by a small group. At the risk of seeming pedantic, rather than a coup, what we saw in 2020 was the approaching end of the “Long March through the Institutions.” The term was coined in 1967 or 1968 by German communist Rudi Dutschke. The long march is, in part, a reference to the Chinese Communist Party’s retreat inland during the 1930s. But to simplify things quite a bit, the core concept originated with Antonio Gramsci and György Lukács in post- World War I Europe. After the failure to replicate the Bolshevik Revolution in other European countries a segment of the Left reinvented itself, abandoning violent revolution to work within, but against, society’s institutions. The strategy was imported to America in the 1930s ultimately led to the Frankfort School’s critical theory and the domination of academic and media culture by the left.
It has taken time, but this technique has succeeded in making cultural Marxism the dominate ideology in government bureaucracies, education, the news and entertainment media, the judiciary, Christian churches, and even in the military and corporations. Not to belabor the point, but there has been no coup. As a professor of political science, one might think that Baskerville would be more precise in his terminology.
The author’s overriding concern is fatherless families. He states that it is an “irrefutable fact that every major social pathology is directly attributable to fatherless homes” (30). The professor is given to making sweeping generalizations without documentation. A family of children living with their married biological parents is best and should be the norm, but why weaken a valid point by overstatement? The author attributes the weakening of family structure, especially among Blacks, to the welfare “reforms” of the 1960s which made men, particularly Black men superfluous. It was during the 1960s that all the markers of family dysfunction—single parenting, teenage childbearing, and divorce) began their inexorable rise.
Baskerville is a rare bird indeed—a rightwing negrophile. “The young African American male is truly an extraordinary figure. His culture in large measure distinguishes that of the United States itself, and he has spread it all over the world—in music, films, sports, religion, and politics—where it inspires widespread imitation” (159). Two points come to mind: The ascendency of Black culture did not happen by chance, but was heavily promoted by the Left, especially the Jewish Left. And yet, despite this cultural dynamism, the author would have us believe that Black men have no agency when it comes to welfare policies. You cannot have it both ways.
In fact, modern welfare policies have been designed to accommodate the Black family structure. The well-known French anthropologist and historian Emmanuel Todd wrote a seminal work on the influence that family structures have on social systems, especial political ideologies. Todd found that: “Family relationships—those between parents and children, between husband and wife—provide a model for political systems and serve to define the relationships between the individual and authority.” He identified seven different family systems distributed across various geographic and environmental regions. Yet the African system, originating in the sub-Saharan region, was unique. Its main characteristics were “instability of the household [and] polygyny.” One of the subheadings in the African chapter is “A fatherless world?” In the African family “the primordial family relationship is between bothers rather than that between father and son.” There is “a lax attitude toward paternal authority, African society does not respond well to discipline. It has trouble forming states.”
Todd is not a racialist. There is no explicit genetic determinism in his argument. He is, however, identified with the Annales School of historiography. The Annalistes are interested in what they describe as cultural continuities of long duration. Thus, while negatively impacted by New World slavery and modern welfare policies, the looser African family structure predates those institutions.
When discussing welfare, it should be noted that modern social welfare originated under German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, hardly a bleeding-heart liberal. During this same period rural America had county poor farms that cared for the indigent, including single mothers, but excluding “rogues” and other unworthies. Both the German and American systems were government-supported, augmented by private charity. My brief stint as a volunteer with the Salvation Army reinforced my belief that the Victorians were right to distinguish the deserving poor from the irredeemables.
In considering relations between the sexes Baskerville believes that “men are too cowed and frightened—too emasculated even to discuss honestly what is wrong” (147). Radical sexual ideologies, the Left’s cutting edge, have feminized society. “Where did all this begin? Here we must return once again, to that pivotal character in the American tragedy: the neglected, demonized, and manipulated black male” (159). Well, here again, as in welfare policy, Baskerville has things backwards. Second-wave feminism and the sexual revolution, which the author so detests, had its genesis in the “civil rights” movement. The chronology is clear. Mainstream historians agree with feminist journalist and woman of color Anna Holmes: “Correctly contextualized second wave feminism [was] a direct outgrowth of the civil rights movement.” And both are products of the culture of critique.
Forced racial integration meant that the White men could no longer defend their communal interests, diminishing their leadership role. The traditional defenders of the community were men, especially young men, now emasculated and no longer permitted to protect the tribe. What happens if White men assume that role? Consider the fate of Daniel Penny the New York subway rider, Marine Corp vet, and architectural student, who stood up to protect his fellow passengers from a psychotic Black criminal. The confrontation ended with the Black miscreant dead. Some called Mr. Penny a Good Samaritan, others called him a hero. The Black Manhattan district attorney called him a criminal and charged him with manslaughter. European-Americans have paid a high price for diversity.
Baskerville has a valid point regarding “the myth of female innocence.” Many White men especially conservatives, engage in the “sentimentalization of women” (157). This is not true in other societies. It is another example of the Left manipulating a Western cultural characteristic to their advantage. Tacitus, in his ethnographic study Germania, notes the high status of women among the northern tribes. Some social historians trace the concept of romantic love to the medieval aristocratic culture articulated by troubadours of twelfth century Aquitaine and Provence, but may well have much deeper roots in Western culture. The present “woke” society is so alienating that many young people find it difficult to make the social/sexual bonds needed for family formation.
The church is another institution that the Left has marched through. Christianity, a universalist and essentially egalitarian faith concerned with individual salvation has been exploited by every outgroup—racial, sexual, and mental—to guilt trip Whites into acquiescing to their demands. In some Whites, the urge to virtue signal has mutated into ethno-masochism where they actually gain pleasure from witnessing the diminishment of their own people and culture. The terrible sectarian conflicts our people have had in the past argues strongly for religion to be a matter of personal belief. But no creed should be permitted to advocate socially destructive policies. A new Western religion would require the emergence of what Wilmot Robertson called “a mind-blowing prophet.” One might hope that a science-based naturalist religion with an element of faith might gain currency in the future.
What is the creation story of the feeble Right? One of the most cogent explanations for the flaccid state of American conservatism was written by a liberal academic Kevin Kruse. His book White Flight is a case study of racial integration in post-war Atlanta. Kruse describes pre-civil rights era White working-class neighborhoods of that city as taking a great deal of pride in their parks, schools, and civic associations. Integration broke up these neighborhoods along with their collective identities. What replaced this communal integrity was an “every man for himself” individualism which translated politically into a shallow, defensive conservatism that retreated from the public sphere into the private sphere. This process was repeated in hundreds of communities across America.
This rise of the enervated Right, which Baskerville complains about, developed in the absence of a confident, collective ethnocultural identity. This psychological manipulation was made possible because Western peoples, especially the Anglo-Keltic branch, tend to be very individualistic. They are likely to seek individual solutions to social problems: A deteriorating neighborhood? Move to the suburbs. Poor schools? Home school or parochial school. Public parks and playing fields no longer conducive to recreation? Join a private club. Once again, a cultural characteristic was exploited by those hostile to our people.
With this in mind we can see why Baskerville’s last chapter, “Conclusion—The Way Out” is way off the mark. The author believes “the true antithesis of leftist ideology is not rightist ideology. It is no ideology—the default state that existed throughout the world until modern times” (198). Wrong and wrong. Terminology matters. While some may argue that ideologies grew out of the French Revolution, in fact an ideology—root word ‘idea’—is simply a set of beliefs about how society should be run. All societies are ruled by an ideology. Premodern ideologies included rule by aristocratic warriors or by the divine right of king or priests. What the Right needs is an ideology more radical and dynamic than the Left.
In the conclusion Baskerville again rides his hobby horse. The solution to our present societal crisis is to repeal “no-fault” divorce laws and “reimpose a presumption of father custody over children” (203). Yes, divorce is bad, it is an admission of failure, but it is not always the woman’s fault. Yes, there is clear evidence that the divorce rate increased after many states instituted no-fault laws, but there were other social factors involved. Plus, many studies have shown that infidelity/adultery is the leading cause for divorce. Desertion is another leading cause. Presumably these are not considered no-fault. If you can believe the CDC statistics the divorce rate peaked in the 1980s at close to 50 percent and has since slowly declined. Presently, 41 percent of first marriages end in divorce, still way too high. The author’s solution is for men to “boycott women and marriage until laws are changed” (204). A men’s revolt “is a key takeaway of this book” (205).
There is a lot to unpack here. This is just a guess, but one might suppose that the author has personally experienced a bitter divorce and custody battle that has skewed his perceptions. If young White men did “boycott” the young women of their race, then we will know that the life force has truly left our people and all is lost. The more important and immediate problem is the low White birthrate, and the need for pro-natalist policies. If the European-American ethny had a collective voice it would encourage marriage. There are no guarantees in life other than death and taxes. Starting a business, entering a profession, starting a family are all risky. What if an army recruiter emphasized the dangers of military service, highlighting whose who came home grievously wounded or in a body bag. How many recruits would enlist? In any case, the battle of the sexes has been waged for millennia, consider Aristophanes Lysistrata or Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew.
In the end, Baskerville’s criticisms of conservatives, while valid, rings somewhat hollow. He singles out Victor David Hanson’s “10 Steps to Save America” as an example of “the pointless wish lists dreamed up by frustrated conservatives” (207). That is a bit ironic because Baskerville’s ideas on citizenship are somewhat similar to Hanson’s non-ethnic civic nationalism. In fact, Who Lost America? could be summarized as an amalgamation of libertarianism, Hanson’s ideas on citizenship, and the men’s rights movement. But in the end Baskerville is a reactionary. His answer to the failure of conservatism is radical reaction reaching back to the nineteenth century for some of his policy proposals.
After being so critical of the professor I would be amiss not to offer an alternative. Strong communities are key; they support and strengthen marriages, increase birthrates, and contribute to the overall quality of life. A while back, I made some suggestions for forming White communities even during these trying times. My vision of citizenship differs from both Hanson’s civic nationalism and Baskerville’s libertarian-influenced radical traditionalism. The professor warned us about being “black pilled” by conspiracy theories, yet Baskerville dismisses my idea of building “local communities and parallel structures. . . . As if the totalitarians are going to permit this” (xxvi). Properly conceived, it would be difficult for any authority to prevent the building of European-American communities and parallel structures, as in the case of Orania in South Africa. If there is a remedy for our decadent society, it begins with recreating a strong ethnic and cultural identity. Opposition to such an idea unites Baskerville with the woke Left and the establishment Right.
Notes
F. Roger Devlin, “Courage Cannot Be Outsourced,” A Review Essay on Stephen Baskerville’s Who Lost America? The Occidental Observer. (July 31, 2024).
Written in the 1970s William Pierce’s essay “Why Conservatives Can’t Win “and Wilmot Robertson’s book The Dispossessed Majority are examples.
The quotes below are from: Emmanuel Todd, The Explanation of Ideology: Family Structure and Social Systems. Translated by David Garrioch. (NY: Basil Blackwell, Ltd. 1985) 6,7,191-195.
Anna Holmes, “The Second Wave,” New York Times Book Review, 09/15/24, 10.
Kevin MacDonald, Individualism and the Western Liberal Tradition: Evolution, History, and Prospects for the Future (CreateSpace, 2019).
Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism. (Princeton University Press, 2005).
Eric Paulson, “Nine Reasons for an Ingathering” The Occidental Observer (11/03/2010).
