ABSTRACT
White nationalists are white supremacists who understand “race” as a knowable fact and understand “nation” as the social structure of a racial group. White nationalists esteem their version of white European cultural history and consider the immigration of nonwhites, the decline of white birth rates, and changing cultural norms as obvious and ominous threats. The rhetoric of white nationalism and the rhetoric of nostalgia share three specific elements of doxa: authenticity, home, and restoration. The concept of authenticity argues that identities are expressive of intrinsic qualities rather than discursive performances. White nationalists variously identify as identitarians, racialists, race realists, white advocates, white separatists, citizenists, and civic nationalists. Two things distinguish them from other white supremacists like neo-Nazis, skinheads, and racist militia, criminal, and prison groups: white nationalists usually disavow the label “white supremacist” and they have a relatively specific agenda.
