White Racial Consciousness and Advocacy

Joyeux Noёl: The Beginnings of WWI and the Christmas Truce of 1914

December 25, 2025/42 Comments/in Featured Articles, White Racial Consciousness and Advocacy/by F. Roger Devlin, Ph.D.

Editor’s note: Christmas is a special time of year, and over the years TOO has posted some classic articles that bear on the season. This article by F. Roger Devlin was originally posted in December, 2013. It is an important reminder of the disastrous intra-racial wars of the twentieth century—wars that may yet deal a death blow to our people and culture given the processes that they set in motion.

With the hindsight offered by ninety-nine years, it is obvious that the outbreak of the World War I marked not merely the beginning of the most destructive war in history up to that time, but a fundamental civilizational watershed. While the fighting was going on, nearly all participants assumed they had been forced into the struggle by naked aggression from the other side. It took historians years to unravel what had actually happened.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the German Army was the best in Europe, capable of defeating any individual rival. Yet Germany had no natural borders, and was vulnerable to a joint attack on two fronts: by France and Britain in the West and the Russian Empire in the East. A German defeat was considered virtually inevitable in such a scenario.

The Franco-Russian alliance of 1894, which became the Triple Entente when Britain joined in 1907, realized Germany’s worst fears.

However, there were important differences between Germany’s Western and Eastern rivals: France and Britain were modern, compact, efficiently-organized countries capable of rapid mobilization, while sprawling Russia with its thinly spread population and economic backwardness was expected to require up to 110 days for full mobilization. Taking advantage of this asymmetry, the German High Command developed the Schlieffen plan: upon the outbreak of hostilities, close to ninety percent of Germany’s effective troops would launch a lightning attack in the West; this campaign was to be completed within forty days, while lumbering Russia was still mobilizing. With the Western powers out of the way, massive troop transfers to the Eastern front were expected to arrive in time for Germany to face down Russia. Speed—of mobilization, of offensive operations, and of troop transfer—was critical to the success of this plan.

The assassination of the Austro-Hungarian Arch-Duke by a Serb nationalist in June, 1914, is the perfect example of an event which occasioned events which followed, but did not cause them; the men of Europe’s great powers did not slaughter one another for four years over a political assassination in the Balkans. Rather, the assassination occurred in the context of Russian guarantees to Serbia and German guarantees to Austria, which inevitably brought the Triple Entente into play. A diplomatic game of ‘chicken’ ensued, in which no side was willing to be the first to back down.

When Austria declared war on Serbia on July 28th, the Russian Tsar, conscious of his Empire’s military backwardness, ordered a partial mobilization. This action was intended merely as a precaution in case of a war that still seemed unlikely. But for the Germans, with their Schlieffen plan requiring utmost speed, the Tsar’s order had the effect of an electric shock. Germany felt it had to mobilize as well. Russia responded two days later by ordering full mobilization. Germany gave Russia an ultimatum; and the Tsar, unwilling to knuckle under, allowed the deadline to pass. Within hours, everyone was involved in a war that none of the parties had originally wanted or intended.

German historians call such a series of events a Betriebsunfall: a quasi-mechanical accident such as might occur in the machinery of a factory. Men were drawn into the gear work and crushed when no one was able to throw the emergency switch in time. It was a tragedy in the fullest sense of the word—a disaster brought on by well-intentioned but flawed men acting rationally under conditions of imperfect knowledge. The consequences are well-known: ten million dead, twenty-eight million more wounded or missing, Communism established in Russia, the Balfour Declaration setting the stage for today’s ongoing Middle East conflict, and the whole crowned by a shameful ‘peace’ treaty that all but guaranteed a future war of German revenge.

Yet, as we can see from newsreel footage of August 1st, the popular reaction to the outbreak was war fever on a scale not seen since the crusades. Europe had been enjoying forty-three years of peace and unprecedented material prosperity, and the young greeted the war as a romantic adventure.

The planned rapid German advance through the Low Countries into Northeast France was unexpectedly halted in early September—the “Miracle of the Marne”—foiling the Schlieffen plan. On the 13th, the German Army responded by attempting a flanking action around the French lines; the French then rapidly extended their own defensive lines in what became known as the “race to the sea.” Since neither side could dislodge the other, and neither was willing to retreat, soldiers began digging themselves in to their positions—the beginning of trench warfare. By the time winter set in, the pattern of the next four years had been clearly established: a war of attrition involving trivial advances and retreats across a few acres of mud.

But as Christmas approached that year, something unexpected began unfolding. On the frontline sector south of Ypres, Belgium, German troops began decorating the area around their trenches for Christmas Eve. As Wikipedia describes it:

The Germans began by placing candles on their trenches and on Christmas trees, then continued the celebration by singing Christmas carols. The British responded by singing carols of their own. The two sides continued by shouting Christmas greetings to each other. Soon thereafter, there were excursions across No Man’s Land, where small gifts were exchanged, such as food, tobacco and alcohol, and souvenirs such as buttons and hats. The artillery in the region fell silent. The truce also allowed a breathing spell where recently killed soldiers could be brought back behind their lines by burial parties. Joint [religious] services were held.

The ceasefire spread to other sectors of the front, with as many as 100,000 men eventually participating. In some areas, soccer games between the belligerents replaced combat.

By December 26th, it was over. The authorities got word of the breakdown in discipline and intervened vigorously.

In 2005, an international consortium from France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Belgium, and Romania produced a film about the Christmas Truce: Joyeux Noёl. The film opens with scenes of children in French, British and German grade schools reciting rhymed curses they had been taught against the opposing side: the British child’s curse calls for the complete extermination of Germans.

The scene switches to Scotland, where an enthusiastic young man, William, rushes into his local Catholic church breathlessly to announce to his younger brother Jonathan that war has been declared; they are to begin basic training in two days. “At last, something’s happening in our lives,” he rejoices. The priest, Fr. Palmer, looks notably less enthusiastic.

At the Berlin Opera, a performance is interrupted by an officer walking on stage to announce that war has been declared. The lead tenor, Sprink, is quickly called up.

In a French trench, Lieutenant Audebert wistfully looks at a photograph of his pregnant wife moments before being called to lead an assault on the German lines. In the ensuing action, Scottish William is mortally wounded; his brother Jonathan is forced to leave him behind, a psychological trauma from which he never recovers. Audebert’s men pour into a German trench, but as they turn a corner, some one-third of them are mown down by a German machine gun.

Meanwhile, Sprink’s lover, the Danish soprano Anna, receives permission to sing before the Crown Prince of Prussia. Sprink is called back from the front to perform with her, and is impressed with the luxurious comfort in which the German commanders are living. When he returns to the front, Anna insists on accompanying him, determined to sing for the ordinary frontline soldiers as well as the officers at headquarters. (The presence of a woman at the front is poetic license on the filmmakers’ part.)

The German soldiers begin setting up Christmas trees along their trenches, to the bewildered suspicion of the French soldiery. After the singers conclude their first number, a cheer goes up from the Scottish trenches. Fr. Palmer plays the first few bars of another Christmas song on the bagpipes, and Sprink responds by performing the song, climbing out into No Man’s Land. Lieutenant Audebert motions to his men to hold fire. Soon, men are pouring out of the trenches on both sides, sharing food and drinks. Fr. Palmer holds a Christmas Eve Mass for all the men.

On Christmas morning, the officers renew the truce and arrange for exchanging their dead. Dozens of men are buried between the lines. A soccer match ensues. The officers realize the situation is untenable and attempt to restore discipline, but by this time the men are refusing to fire upon each other.

A bundle of soldiers’ letters is intercepted by the French authorities, alerting them to the situation. Fearful of having their war spoiled, they dissolve the division and repost its members to various unaffected sectors of the front. The Germans are transferred to the Eastern front to face the Russians. Fr. Palmer is replaced by a Bishop who preaches a sermon urging new recruits to exterminate German men, women and children.

A major theme of the film is music. Sprink’s superior officer begins by telling him that, being a singer, he is useless as a soldier. Then it is the incongruous presence of music that leads to the unplanned ceasefire. At the end, as the Crown Prince of Prussia informs his men of their punishment, he catches sight of a harmonica. He snatches it away and crushes it beneath his boot heel.

The Christmas Truce of 1914 did not change the course of the war very much. In future years, commanders were successful in suppressing similar occurrences. As the war progressed and especially after poison gas was introduced, soldiers gradually came to see their enemies as less than human, as was the intention of the higher officers on all sides. But it has continued to spark the popular imagination in the near-century since it took place. A Canadian historian has written:

It [was] the last expression of that 19th-century world of manners and morals, where the opponent was a gentleman. The ones who survived, who lived to see other Christmases in the war, themselves expressed amazement that this had occurred. The emotions had changed to such a degree that the sort of humanity seen in Christmas 1914 seemed inconceivable.

Joyeux Noёl lost money at the box office, and critics have complained of its “sentimentality.” I suggest seeing it for oneself this Christmas season.

White Radical Agent Provocateur: An Alex Linder Remembrance

November 26, 2025/19 Comments/in Featured Articles, White Racial Consciousness and Advocacy/by Christopher Donovan

The first and only time I met Alex Linder in person was at a Shakespeare’s Pizza in Columbia, Missouri more than 20 years ago. The rest of the encounters took place over email, or under the original red, blue and yellow banner of the Vanguard News Network.

The Madison Avenue-ready motto: “No Jews. Just Right.”

Linder, who died in June, 2025 at age 59, was the site’s editor. It was one of the most explosive white advocacy publications to ever to flash pixels. VNN, as it was also known, combined crude epithets, clever neologisms (“Amerikwa” combined America and Kwa Zulu, the autonomous zone for Zulus in South Africa), Yiddish endings (itz coming), the brilliant “spintro”, a pithy paragraph-like piece of writing that preceded a link, original writings, and links to other pro-white sources.

It was enough to earn Linder a visit from the FBI. Also, a place in the Internet archives of the Library of Congress.

At Shakespeare’s, I wondered if the table was bugged (and he may have wondered if I were wearing a wire), but within a few minutes, I gathered he was serious. He handed me some CD’s of material he’d burned, and it was the first time I’d ever heard another human being use the term “pro-white” out loud.

It was jarring, even for someone like me, who was in the early stages of exploring white advocacy. I don’t know what to make of the fact that of all the white advocates out there, he was the first one I met in person.

I held to his resumé to persuade myself he wasn’t completely nuts: graduate of academically strong Pomona College, a researcher for Evans & Novak (one of my parents’ favorite shows), and some kind of work for The American Spectator, though I never saw a byline. His interest in D.C. politics and journalism matched mine.

The white-hot intensity of Linder’s thinking and writing prevented anything resembling a normal life, or even a “normal” life of white advocacy. He clashed with just about everyone. He lobbed insults at Sam Francis, Jared Taylor and Peter Brimelow, among others — men who themselves suffered repercussions for white advocacy, but whose failure to “Name the Jew” to his satisfaction earned his scorn.

Of Pat Buchanan he said: “When you talk about Hitler, you’re looking up, not down.” He associated with a man who committed a shooting at a synagogue that resulted in the death of three people, none of whom were Jewish.

How this advanced the cause of white advocacy is anyone’s guess.

Jesus Christ was “jeeboo”, as in, “if you believe in jeeboo, white man, you’ll believe in anything,and that’ll get you dead.” Not an exact quote — I’m going for the spirit.

On VDare, Brimelow called him “a white radical agent provocateur… savagely witty but scabrously incorrect … and “whatever else you can say about Linder, he can write.”

One wonders what Linder would have said about Nick Fuentes.

“No Way Out But Through the Jew” he would write, over and over, a phrase that could of course be interpreted as “a critical mass of whites must understand Jews and their motivations, and work to decrease their influence, if we are to survive”, instead of mass killing, which is surely how the ADL would interpret it.

Of course, Israel acts as if there is “No Way Out But Through the Palestinian”, and few seem bothered — or, if they do, Israel is proceeding apace nevertheless. Nor does Baruch Goldstein’s massacre of worshippers at a mosque seem to cause personal embarrassment or discomfort to Jews.

Note for the record that Linder never killed anyone, nor was he ever convicted of anything but disorderly conduct. He struggled with a police officer at a protest.

A favorite crudely-lettered sign: “Civil Rights is Jewish Tyranny in Blackface.” He held it up, wearing a tweed jacket and scholarly glasses.

Some energy forms, like the fire in a fireplace, can be contained. Linder, by contrast, was like some kind of molten liquid that would burn through the jar into which it was poured, through the table, and through the floor below.

Two views: an obsessed mind whose asynchronous endorsements of racial violence, open hostility to Christianity and inability to coordinate with even the staunchest of white activists doomed him to unmentionable status.

Or: a sharp mind whose understanding of the Jewish threat was communicated in blunt language, and who understood how humor can help to get a point across.

His entire life was dedicated to sounding this one alarm.

In the course of one e-mail conversation, he acknowledged: “I know this is rough stuff. But keep your eyes open, follow current events, and see if I’m not right.”

Linder thought it was funny that whites were scared to even think certain thoughts or speak certain words, while our racial opponents not only didn’t fear thinking or writing about acting against us. They actually did it.

His constant bashing of Christianity added to Linder’s prickle. He was gleefully doing this until his death, the Twitter record shows. But that was all just pure Linder: crashing the party to choquer les foules, and watching the terrified looks on everyone’s faces.

He once mused on what kind of men would lead us out of our mess. He predicted that it would not be a southern man. Rather, it would be someone brash from the New York area or maybe the Midwest.

When Trump won the first time, this thought crossed my mind.

Parallels between Linder and Trump are difficult to ignore. Both men cause even their strongest supporters to cringe on occasion. Recklessness comes standard. Actually taking action and getting things done is a virtue.

They even shared a penchant for nicknames. “Appeaser Annie,” Linder would call Ann Coulter, among other nicknames that sound Trumpian.

Linder’s ideal was the German man. He dismissed “WASPs and Irishmen” as tipsy backslapping dealmakers and bribe-takers too cowardly to simply pick up the sword and start swinging.

He predicted the “manosphere” observation that women are generally unfit for politics, noting “women’s socio-biological function and concern is birthing and binding families, and in that regard harmoniousness is the very definition of success. But politics is about big groups of people dividing and fighting” (“On Women and Their Proper Relation to White Nationalism,” loaded 7/10/2003, VNN.) [1] A list of Linder’s writings may be found at: https://www.alexlinder.com/writings.html.

In “For Conservatives Ignorant of the Jewish Question”, Linder wrote the subhead: They aren’t liberals, they aren’t conservatives, they’re Jews. Miss that and you miss everything.”

There is, by my observation of platforms like X, an increasing understanding of this.

In reading about all the Jewish figures to emerge from the Jeffrey Epstein e-mails, I had to laugh. There’s Lawrence Summers right alongside Noam Chomsky right alongside Ehud Barak. There’s no “conservative” or “liberal” there. They’re all just Jews, the end. They network for wealth, prestige and powe

r, regardless of whether they’re calling themselves liberal, conservative or radical.

Miss that and you miss everything.

I just got done watching a New York Times podcast interview between Ross Douthat, their house conservative, and Yoram Hazony, the Israeli leader of the “National Conservative” movement. Over the course of an hour, Hazony was asked about the rise of “antisemitism” on the American right and the “threat” posed by figures like Nick Fuentes and Tucker Carlson. Hazony never engaged with the substance of anything Fuentes or Carlson ever said. He told Douthat that true nationalism has nothing to do with race.

“Semitically correct”, Linder would have snorted. “Nationalism made safe for Jews.”

His business card read, “Cultural Chemotherapy. P.C. is a Disease. Get Cured”.

In many ways, Linder tracked the mindset of an old-school, cigar-chomping newspaper editor:

If you’re going to write, say what you mean and mean what you say. Don’t waste our time.

Don’t lard it up with useless corporate-speak. Don’t spin out pointless and boring

articles that serve no purpose. Get right to the point.

Have a little fun while you’re at it. “With a high, hard Viking laugh”, he’d say.

He protested on VNN that while “scary and dangerous racist” was his label, he actually spoke for the good guys. “We’re the ones protecting a little white girl

in a pinafore dress playing happily on the sidewalk. The Jews are the bad guys, not us.” Or something like that.

Linder observed that “Jews dictate to us. We should be dictating to them.”

Sounds like a healthy mindset for a white man to me.

Today, when I read a New York Times piece by “Binyamin Appelbaum” promoting Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, I’m reminded of Linder. When I read about Bari Weiss posing as a “dangerous thinker”, I think of Linder. When I see a headline reading “Israel is at War With Itself,” I think of Linder. Another New York Times headline for him: “Adam Sandler is the Light We Need. Yes, Adam Sandler.” Author: one Joanna Novak.

Cue Linder, over and over.

Linder was especially amused by the spectacle of the tough-guy conservative writer who turned into a stammering coward on the topic of Jews. Tough everywhere except where it most counts, he would write.

I know of no white advocacy writer who dropped as many memorable one-liners.

“Racism is just conservatism with descended testicles.”

“Nothing was ever improved by adding Mexicans to it.”

“There’s nothing wrong with Indians. They just belong in India.”

“Jew set up, Jew knock down.”

For all the missteps, I do believe Linder was motivated by an acute sense of justice. It drove him crazy that Jews could get away with the injustices they did and never get called out for it, and instead be hailed as the world’s ultimate victims. And on top of that, paint anyone who so much as hinted at this as the worst imaginable evil in our society.

He resented the fact that white suffering was denied and ignored.

Linder had quirks. For some reason, he was a big fan of the Black football coach Tony Dungy. He once he tossed out a word of admiration for Jewish men by declaring that when actual threats begin to mount and surround them, Jewish males will get together and “act like men.” Yes, Linder said that.

The implication was that white men do not currently “act like men.”

I didn’t know anything about Linder’s personal life. I’m sure your average SPLC investigator could tell you more than I could. I just didn’t find myself interested in gossipy items.

I didn’t know much about his health struggles, either. Just that Crohn’s disease was mentioned, and later, that he’d died of cancer.

But for whatever else you can say about Linder, his sheer brashness made a mark on white advocacy.

As we parted that night so many years ago, I expressed concerns about his future prospects and personal safety.

Outside the pizza place, he turned back toward me and swung open his trenchcoat. “If they want me, here I am. Come and get me.”

He then disappeared into the cold Missouri night.

Christopher Donovan has contributed many pieces to The Occidental Observer and The Occidental Quarterly.

Tucker’s Interview with Nick Fuentes

November 4, 2025/21 Comments/in Anti-Jewish Writing, Featured Articles, White Pathology/Guilt, White Racial Consciousness and Advocacy/by Kevin MacDonald

Tucker Carlson Interviews Nick Fuentes: Video and transcript

Tucker Carlson’s interview with Nick Fuentes has gotten considerable coverage in the media, e.g., “Tucker Carlson discusses ‘these Zionist Jews’ with avowed antisemite Nick Fuentes in The Times of Israel” and “Heritage Foundation president stands by Tucker Carlson after host platforms antisemitism” in the Jewish Telegraph Agency.

Regarding the Heritage Foundation, the email from Jewish Insider:

Communal concern: Jewish conservatives, including the CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition, condemned [Heritage Foundation president] Roberts’ defense of Carlson. RJC CEO Matt Brooks said that Heritage’s defense of Carlson and Fuentes “is a total abrogation of their mission and what it means to be a conservative today.” Brooks said there will now be a “reassessment” of the RJC’s relationship with the Heritage Foundation..

And: Jewish lawyer quits Heritage Foundation’s antisemitism task force over Tucker Carlson defense.

“Elevating him and then attacking those who object as somehow un-American or disloyal in a video replete with antisemitic tropes and dog whistles, no less, is not the protection of free speech. It is a moral collapse disguised as courage,” wrote [Mark] Goldfeder, who is also an Orthodox rabbi.

He continued, “It is especially painful that Heritage, an institution with a historic role in shaping conservative policy, would choose this moment to blur the line between worthwhile debate and the normalization of hate.”

Roberts went after Fuentes, but it’s noteworthy that he failed to condemn Tucker, presumably because Tucker is well connected to mainstream conservatives and has had ads for the Heritage Foundation on his show (since scrubbed from their website):

“Nick Fuentes’s antisemitism is not complicated, ironic, or misunderstood. It is explicit, dangerous, and demands our unified opposition as conservatives. Fuentes knows exactly what he is doing. He is fomenting Jew hatred, and his incitements are not only immoral and un-Christian, they risk violence,” Roberts wrote.

“Our task is to confront and challenge those poisonous ideas at every turn to prevent them from taking America to a very dark place,” he added. “Join us—not to cancel—but to guide, challenge, and strengthen the conversation, and be confident as I am that our best ideas at the heart of western

New York Post: Heritage Foundation in revolt over Tucker Carlson defense after controversial Nick Fuentes interview: ‘Footsie with literal Nazis’

In Carlson’s two-hour interview, which has racked up more than 17 million views on X, Fuentes called himself “a fan” of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin and denounced the influence of “organized Jewry” in US politics, while Carlson accused American Christians who support the state of Israel of being heretics with a “brain virus.” … The ripple effect from Roberts’ statement has gone beyond staff issues, with sources close to the think tank saying that it has been “hemorrhaging” evangelical Christian and Jewish contributors. … If we are labeled on the same side as Nick Fuentes, then we deserve to lose,” chimed in a fourth Heritage colleague, who later added: “Talking with some of the interns I think that there are a growing number of them who actually agree” with the views Fuentes espoused. [Wow!!]

References to Heritage’s sponsorship of The Tucker Carlson Network, which hosts the show Fuentes appeared on, seem to have been scrubbed from the think tank’s donations page since some point last week. … David Bernstein, the author of “Woke Antisemitism” and a former member of a task force at Heritage called “Project Esther: A National Strategy to Combat Antisemitism,” told The Post Monday that he had resigned from his position over Roberts’ remarks. “The language that to me was most problematic was a ‘venomous coalition’ aligned against him [Carlson] — because that’s me and any Jewish person who cares about condemning antisemitism,” Bernstein said. [“Venomous.” If the shoe fits, wear it.]

“They openly preach white supremacy and the hatred of Jews, among other noxious ideas. They no longer feel the need even to try to hide their bigotry.” [A good sign indeed.]

“In the last six months, I’ve seen more antisemitism on the right than I have in my entire life. This is a poison, and I believe we are facing an existential crisis in our party and in our country,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) Friday night.

“Now is the time for choosing, now is the time for courage,” Cruz added in an address that referenced other guests on Carlson’s podcast who have downplayed Nazi atrocities and the Holocaust. “If you say nothing, then you are a coward and you are complicit in that evil.”

Of course, the really courageous people are people like Tucker Carlson who has much to lose in this battle. But some people are too big to cancel. Tucker is still scheduled to speak at the upcoming Turning Points USA conference in December.

So it’s a big deal. It’s a long interview. Here are excerpts that I want to address:

Tucker [00:45:21] Well, so my read on Joe Kent was he’s totally sincere. He, like me, has always been committed to separating out foreign policy views from ethnicity, not because, obviously I’m denounced as an anti-Semite every day. So I don’t really care what ADL thinks of me, but my Christian faith tells me that there’s no such thing as blood guilt. And Virtue or sin is not inherited. It’s not a feature of DNA. So every person must be assessed individually as God assesses each person individually and that’s like a foundational view, so I always thought it’s great to criticize and it’s a question like our relationship with Israel because it’s insane and it hurts us; we get nothing out of it. I completely agree with you there. But the second you’re like, well actually it’s the Jews. First of all, it’s against my Christian faith. Like, I just don’t believe that and I never will, period. And second, then it becomes a way to discredit. That’s when I was like, this guy’s a fed. I was totally convinced you were a fed because I was, like, here he’s bear hugging, like, the one sincere guy who lost his wife in Syria thanks to these fucking crazy wars, neocon wars. And he’s discredited, he’s doing the David Duke. Like, David Duke would always, every time I rolled out a new show, he would issue an endorsement of the show. I’ve never met the guy. What’s that? Well, it’s the feds. Obviously, he’s trying to destroy me.

David Duke a fed??

Tucker seems to be implying that we should only talk about the Jews as individuals, never as a group — “the Jews,” implying that by referring to the Jews, Fuentes is putting all Jews in the same basket. This is the wrong way to think about it. Of course, one can’t put all Jews in the same basket, implying that all are on the same page on anything. Who says that?? You can’t think of Stephen Miller like you think of Jonathan Greenblatt.

But there’s a middle ground that acknowledges that Jews should be judged as individuals, but that it also makes sense to talk about Jewish power as the consequence of the activism of particular Jews acting in particular influential groups. The question that must be asked is: How much power do groups of activist Jews have, where is Jewish power directed, and which Jews are behind that power? The ADL and the Israel Lobby, along with the massively organized Jewish community are creations of the mainstream Jewish community. (There is a Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations representing 53 national Jewish organizations.) They exert a lot of power, including the power to get America into fighting Israel’s wars, funding Israel, and supporting Israel diplomatically, as both Tucker and Fuentes would agree.

So it’s silly not to talk about Jewish power in the U.S. as effected by particular groups of Jews. One always has to ask questions like, “Which groups have more power in influencing U.S. foreign policy, the Israel Lobby or is it the Jewish Voice for Peace?” We all know the answer to that. No Congressman is afraid of the Jewish Voice for Peace but the vast majority live in fear of the Israel Lobby.

And yes, the Israel Lobby is a creation of the mainstream American Jewish community. We can identify the main forces in the Lobby, we can identify their operatives, and their donors. Organizations like the ADL (which has vigorously supported the Israeli genocide in Gaza), the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the American Enterprise Institute, the Center for Security Policy, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, the Middle East Forum, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the Zionist Organization of America (the ZOA didn’t hold back: “ZOA States Kevin Roberts Is Unfit to Lead Heritage Fdn. & Must Condemn & End Support for Jew-Hating, Israel-Hating Tucker Carlson,” Nov. 3, 2025.). All are well-funded and working to support Israel. I discuss them in my 2004 paper on the neoconservatives (an updated version is in the Third Edition of The Culture of Critique). Not all of them are headed by Jews, a point that is discussed in the chapter and will be returned to below.

Here’s the way I think we should think about these issues. From my “The Failure of the Default Hypothesis to Explain Jewish Influence“:

In general, this area of scholarship [whether it’s the Israel Lobby or the Frankfurt School] stands or falls depending on whether certain specific influential intellectual and political movements of the twentieth century were originated and dominated by Jews who were attempting to advance Jewish interests. Thus it does not stand or fall on whether Jews in a particular movement constitute more than their percentage of the population as a whole, whether Jews in general are ethnocentric, the rate of Jewish intermarriage, or whether most Jews were even aware of particular movements. The focus is on describing the Jewish identities of the main figures of influential movements and their concern with specific Jewish issues, such as combatting anti-Semitism [or supporting Israel], as well as the dynamics of these movements—ethnic networking, centering around charismatic figures, connections with prestigious universities and media, involvement of the organized Jewish community, and non-Jews who participated in the movements and their motivations.

The Jewish community is clearly not monolithic, although at particular historical periods there has been substantial consensus on particular issues [e.g., Israel and the desirability of non-White immigration and multiculturalism as a model for Western societies]. Individual influential Jews or a separate influential Jewish intellectual movement may be critical of a specific Jewish intellectual movement. For example, the split beginning in the 1930s between the Stalinist left (“Jews and the Left,” The Culture of Critique: Ch. 3) and the Trotskyist left (“Neoconservatism as a Jewish Movement,”) comes to mind. It is possible that some components of the opposition to the pro-Israel lobby in the United States, such as Mondoweiss or Jewish Voice for Peace, may also be reasonably analyzed as Jewish movements. But in order to establish that an organization critical of Israel constitutes a Jewish movement, one would have to discuss whether the originators and dominant figures have a Jewish identity and whether they see their activities as furthering Jewish interests. And then one would need to assess its power relative to other Jewish movements.

For example, the Jewish critics of Israel may regard a powerful Jewish influence on U.S. policy toward Israel as feeding into perceptions that Jews are disloyal—a very mainstream view among American Jews until well after the establishment of Israel; or Israeli actions vis-à-vis the Palestinians may be seen as hurting Israel in the long run [the view of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt in their The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy]; a 2013 survey found 44 percent of U.S. Jews believe Israeli settlements hurt Israel. On the other hand, they may oppose what they see as Jewish interests in maintaining a Jewish state for moral reasons or because they see U.S. support for Israel as not in the interests of the United States [Carlson, Fuentes and I are good examples]. … Assuming that such a movement was originated and dominated by individuals with strong Jewish identity pursuing their perception of Jewish interests, it may be analogized to arguments between different Jewish factions in the Knesset—both dominated by Jews but with different perceptions of Jewish interests or even opposition to what they perceive as Jewish interests. …

The movements analyzed in CofC were originated and dominated by strongly identified Jews with a strong sense of Jewish interests, and there was a great deal of ethnic networking and mutual citation patterns, with non-Jews often relegated to subordinate roles that really amounted to window dressing. These movements have been influential, and the Jews at the center of these movements were critical to their influence.

And where is Jewish power being directed at this time? Obviously support for Israel is the most obvious, but the ADL is leading the campaign to dilute the First Amendment in order to expunge social media of ideas they don’t like, particularly on X (Twitter) and soon on Larry Ellison’s Tik Tok (Ellison has also installed self-described Zionist fanatic Bari Weiss as head of CBS), and Jewish billionaires are blacklisting students and withholding funds from universities if they protest Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians. And the organized Jewish community remains entirely committed to non-White immigration and multiculturalism as a model for Western societies, as they have for over 100 years in the United States. We are witnessing an incredible display of Jewish power in the United States. We have to be able to talk about it.

Fuentes. unlike Carlson, is quite specific about the need to explicitly advocate for White interests:

Fuentes: By winning, I mean, we wanna see our vision realized. But with Joe [Kent], for me, it was very specific. He said inclusive populism. And I really didn’t like that because to me, there were a lot of similar phrases at this time, multiracial, working class, populism, this kind of stuff. And I said, you know, on some level, we do need to be exclusive, not inclusive. We do need to be right-wing. We do need to be Christian. We do on some level need to be pro-White. Not to the exclusion of everybody else, but recognizing that White people have a special heritage here as Americans. And so the reason I opposed him in 22 was not because I was mad … . America first cannot backslide into this kind of inclusive populism message, which I perceive to be more like GOP slop. And I’ll tell you, when he ran again in 24, I did not oppose him. I did, and I would have supported him if he had reached out or something like that. Because for me, it was very political and professional. I wanted to impose a cost. If you disavow someone because they criticize Israel, if you disavow someone for talking about white people and Christianity, I said, we can’t let that slide because, and you understand why he did it. Like I don’t, on some level, I don’t hold it against him in the sense that there’s such a strong incentive. It’s easy to say, I disavowed all these crazy Christians and all these White nationalists. Because it buys you wiggle room with people that are attacking you. It’s like easy to throw them under the bus and say, I’m one of the good guys. And so I said, it’s too easy. We need to push in the other direction and say you should feel less comfortable saying that people shouldn’t talk about their race and religion. Maybe you’ll think twice next time. And that I, so I did it for a very specific reason. And, um, I get that.

Notice Tucker doesn’t object to this talk about White people but immediately changes the subject back to “all Jews.”

Tucker [00:50:36] What I do think is bad, just objectively bad and destructive is the, all Jews are guilty or all anybody is guilty of anything because that’s just like not true. And we don’t believe that as Christians. We, I mean, my hero in life is Paul. Cause you call him St. Paul, Saul of Tarsus, a Pharisee and meets Jesus and becomes this just incredible, man, incredibly brave, smart. Loving, like everything you want to be as a man, he was too. Yeah. So like, I, you know, and God did that to him. So it’s like, you can’t, I think that’s an important, I don’t think it’s like mushy liberal bullshit, which I hate. I hate all the language that you’re describing. I get why it offends you because it’s code for, I don’t really believe what I’m saying. I, I have a PhD in the subject. So I know. But I also think there is like a true, not just principle, but like spiritual reality that we have to defend, which is God created every person as an individual, not as a group. No woman gave birth to a community. Like we hate that kind of thinking, right? Collective is thinking like that. That’s identity politics. That’s what Dave Rubin engages in. That’s why Dave is like just a child. Like you don’t pay any attention to Dave because he’s like shallow, but we’re not going to be.

I often wonder whether Carlson really believes all the Christian stuff he’s been spouting lately. I think it’s doubtful. I suspect that he sees Christianity as a useful ideology to unite a viable conservative movement that could bind together Americans of different races and different branches of Christianity, in the same manner as Charlie Kirk was so successful at. I think Tucker believes that’s the only realistic way forward in multicultural, multiethnic America. Tucker’s often-expressed commitment to Christianity just seems fake to me.

In any case, Tucker is pleading for individualism at a time when the West is made up of competing groups. It’s simply a losing strategy. Guess what? Cohesive groups made up of intelligent, committed individuals with plenty of financial wherewithal out-compete individualists every time. The Jews have known this forever.

Fuentes is much more on the right track after a bit of taking cover:

Nick Fuentes [00:51:59] That right? Or no? No, I, I completely agree with you. And, you know, like, and not to be that guy and say that thing, but like my best friend is a Jewish person, you know, but here’s my, I guess here’s my substantive disagreement because as a Catholic, I could not agree more with you in what you’re saying. I love all people, even the ones that don’t like us. We have to love them all. And we have to recognize that we’re required to. Yes. Yes. And especially Aquinas says the Jews are a witness people. And so they actually have special protections under the law, according to Catholic philosophy. But I guess my substantive disagreement, which I’ve said on the show also, is the idea that neoconservatism and Israel have nothing to do with Jewishness, Jewish identity, the Jewish religion, because clearly the state of Israel and the neocon’s are deeply motivated by that ethnic identity and their allegiance to Israel proceeds from that. The plan of greater Israel. The blood and soil nationalism of Israel. It stems from this ethno-religion, which is Judaism. Well, this is…

So Fuentes is saying that neoconservatism is at its core Jewish. Quite right. But Tucker goes right back to attacking identity politics and the whole “all Jews” thing.

Tucker [00:53:10] Uh, you know, just BLM, the new version, this is identity politics. They’re engaging in identity politics, I, I mean, that’s just so obvious to me. It, but the problem in your response, so you’re of, I mean, I get what you’re saying, but the problem and your response is it does not apply to every individual. No, and I would never say that. Okay. Well, I just think it’s important to say that not to kind of like dodge the accusations against you. My best friends are Jewish. I agree. Embarrassing, even though it’s probably true, and it’s true in my case actually, but whatever. But because just that principle that we’re all judged as individuals by what we do, our faith, the decisions that we make, the way we live our lives, and God will judge every one of us in that way, and that’s how we’re supposed to judge. I think that’s true.

Amazingly, Tucker seems to be claiming that neoconservatism as a Jewish movement is wrong because it doesn’t apply to all Jews. Absurd. With that sort of idea Jewishness becomes completely impotent. Any disagreement by even one Jew means we can never talk about the power of specific strongly identified groups of Jews effectively pursuing their perceptions of Jewish interests.

Fuentes [00:53:59] Yeah, and I totally agree. But I guess the disagreement is, you say identity politics, like it’s a bad thing. I think identity is reality.

Tucker [00:54:11] Identity is a reality. Absolutely. You just can’t have a country of 350 million, this diverse where it’s just like warring ethnicities, because then it’s Rwanda soon and the people with the most force just kill the others. So like, you can’t have that here.

Tucker’s argument here is simply a practical one. You can’t have an America riven by identity politics because it will produce conflict, possibly a civil war, while Fuentes is acknowledging the reality of identity politics and the need for Whites to have an identity as Whites with a “special place” in America. The fact is that the reality of non-White identity politics is not going to change, and if White people persist in denying their own identity politics based on their common European ancestry, they will simply lose to people who do have a strong sense of identity and group commitment, as well as sufficient wealth and media involvement to make a difference (like the Jews). The Great Replacement, which Tucker abhors and is a basis for other claims that he is an anti-Semite, is not going to be derailed by White people deciding they have no identity. And trust me, because of our unique evolutionary history, White people are the only group that is susceptible to individualist prescriptions, as advocated by the Frankfurt School and the legacy media at least since World War II. Somehow Jews never succumbed to that, and ever since Horace Kallen (here, p. 484), Jews have been in the forefront of promoting a utopian view of a multicultural America where all the various groups would live in peace and harmony. Obviously, that’s not what is happening. It never will.

Nick Fuentes [00:54:28] Right? Yeah. And, but I would say specifically as it pertains to, you know, you, I think, have said it’s, it’s the neocons, it is the neocrons. And I think that neoconservatism, where does it arise from? It arises from Jewish leftists who were mugged by reality when they saw the surprise attack in the Yom Kippur War.

Well actually, it was before that when proto-neocons saw that Jews were being pushed out of elite positions in the USSR by Stalin after World War II. But the point is that some Jews with connections to elite universities and the media and with sufficient funding to create an elaborate infrastructure of lobbying groups realized that the left was not good for the Jews because of what the left was doing in the Soviet Union but also because opposition to Israel was developing on the left (particularly Blacks), and Israel needed a militarily strong ally that could be prodded into going to war for Israel. Jimmy Carter was not that person.

Tucker [00:54:50] Yeah, well, that’s a lot of it for sure. But then like, how do you explain Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz, and they’re a lot like that John Bolton, I mean, I’ve known them all, George W. Bush, like the Karl Rove. I mean all people I know personally who I’ve seen be seized by this brain virus and they are not Jewish, most of them are self-described Christians and then the Christian Zionists who are. Well, Christian Zionists. Like, what is that? Right. And I can just say for myself, I dislike them more than anybody, you know, because like what, because it’s Christian heresy and I’m offended by that as a Christian. That’s why. So I don’t like, why not? Like I’m pissed at the neocons. Very pissed. I’ve said that a million times. I’ve been mad since December of 2003 when I went to Iraq. And so like I went and hassled, hassled asked straightforward questions to Ted Cruz, cause that seemed like there’s a sitting Senator who’s like serving for Israel by his own description. He seemed like a worthy target. I’m not going after MTG who’s the most sincere, like why not go after Ted Cruz? I don’t understand.

I can’t say I found the ensuing discussion informative, but I do think that the question of why so many White people succumb to anti-White ideologies and blind support of Israel is critical. The fact is that human cultures are able to influence behavior and attitudes, so the question becomes: Who controls the culture?

Some ideas, based on Ch. 8 of my Individualism and the Western Liberal Tradition:

The Power of Media Messages. The elite media and academia have been captured by the left at least since World War II and especially since the 1960s. Jews as owners and contributors to the media and being overrepresented at elite universities have had a critical role—reviewed in the Preface to the Third Edition of The Culture of Critique, and I also discuss the project of Jewish intellectuals associated with the Frankfurt School after World War II to staff media companies with sympathetic people and pursue research on how to create effective media messages based on real social science (unlike works like The Authoritarian Personality which was nothing but ideology masquerading as science). Research has shown that media messages are able to inhibit the output evolutionarily ancient parts of the brain so important for survival and reproduction, e.g., dampening ethnocentrism.
Self-interest. Jews have been an elite in American society for decades. A large part of the problem is that these elites have created a very elaborate infrastructure so that, for the vast majority of individuals, economic and professional self-interest coincides with support for anti-White and pro-Israel policies. Particularly egregious examples are individuals like university presidents earning 7-figure salaries and advocating DEI ideology and companies that directly beneﬁt from immigration via cheap labor, or companies that beneﬁt from remittances sent by immigrants to relatives in other countries. Adopting conventional views on race and ethnicity is a sine qua non for a career as a mainstream academic, a public intellectual, and in the political arena but brings with it long-term disaster for Whites as a group.
Fear of Punishment. The elites are able to exert punishment on dissenters, as the Israel Lobby is attempting to do now with Tucker Carlson. Having pro-White or anti-Israel ideas carries huge costs in terms of employment and social status.
Social Learning. People are prone to adopting the ideas and behavior of others who have prestige and high status, and this tendency fits well with an evolutionary perspective in which seeking high social status is a universal feature of the human mind. A critical component of the success of the culture of White dispossession is that it achieved control of the most prestigious and influential institutions of the West, particularly the media and universities. Once it became a consensus among the elites, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, this culture became widely accepted among Whites of very different levels of education and among people of different social classes. Adopting the views on race and ethnicity held by elites also confers psychological beneﬁts because it enhances one’s reputation in the contemporary moral community created by these elites. As Mark Goldfeder noted (see above), favorable attitudes toward Carlson’s interview is “is a moral collapse disguised as courage.” Clearly, saying the interview was a good thing because it moved the Overton window is to place oneself outside the moral community that is intensively policed by Jewish activists. On the other hand, as noted, publicly dissenting from these views carries huge costs for most people. White elites who turn their back on their own ethnic group are likely to be massively reinforced within the contemporary explicit culture, while those who attempt to advance White interests can expect to suffer financial and psychological costs.
Religion. Tucker complains about Ted Cruz for what he calls the “religious heresy” of supposing that Bible says that nations that bless Israel will be blessed — a common view among Evangelicals and likely rationalizing Cruz’s warmongering on behalf of Israel. Ideologies are an evolutionary wild card because people may come to believe things that are not only false but, more importantly, are maladaptive. This “heresay” is one such belief, and it has been promoted by Jewish activists like Felix Untermeyer who was instrumental in getting the Scofield Bible, the basis of Christian Zionism, published by Oxford University Press in 1909. For examples, there are footnotes added in the 1960s such as: “For a nation to commit the sin of anti-Semitism brings inevitable judgment.” ” God made an unconditional promise of blessing through Abram’s seed to the nation of Israel to inherit a specific territory forever.” “It has invariably fared ill with the people who have persecuted the Jew, well with those who have protected him. The future will still more remarkably prove this principle.” (Footnotes to Genesis 12:3)
Women: Empathy and Fear. For sound evolutionary reasons, women are more nurturant than men and more concerned about personal safety. Empathy is strongly linked to Nurturance/Love which implies that women will be more prone to be motivated by empathy for the suffering of others and pathological forms of altruism. In turn, this has important ramifications in the contemporary world saturated with images of suffering refugees, immigrants, and other non-Whites promoted by our hostile, media-savvy elite. Nurturance/Love involves the tendency to provide aid for those needing help, including children and people who are ill. This dimension is strongly associated with measures of femininity, and is associated with warm, empathic personal relationships and dependence., and the safest course is usually to go with the dominant group. Women are also more prone to concern for their personal safety, and the safest course is to go with powerful individuals and movements. Women are thus less likely to challenge entrenched dominance hierarchies, as noted by F. Roger Devlin.
Conscientiousness. Being conscientious is certainly a good thing in life; conscientious people do well at their jobs and, along with IQ, conscientiousness predicts upward mobility. On average, White people are quite high on conscientiousness. However, conscientious people also tend to be deeply concerned about their reputation, and having a good reputaiton is likely to result in long-term payoffs, as opposed to sociopaths who opt for short-term gains but quickly develop a poor reputation. Conscientious people are responsible, dependable, dutiful, and reliable, traits linked to honesty, morality, and behavior as a moral exemplar. Conscientiousness not only makes us better able to inhibit natural impulses like ethnocentrism, it also makes us more concerned about our reputation in a moral community. We want to ﬁt into the community and we want to be known as cooperators, not cheaters. The downside, however, is that conscientious people may become so concerned about their reputation that they become conformists. Once the intellectual and political left had won the day, a large part of its success was that it dominated the moral and intellectual high ground on issues of race and ethnicity. The culture of critique had become conventionalized and a pillar of the intellectual establishment. People who dissent from this leftist consensus are faced with a disastrous loss of reputation—nothing less than psychological agony for conscientious people. Ostracism and moral condemnation from others in one’s face-to-face world trigger guilt feelings. These are automatic responses resulting ultimately from the importance of ﬁtting into a group. This is especially so in the individualistic cultures of the West, where having a good reputation beyond the borders of the kinship group forms the basis of trust and civil society, and where having a poor reputation would have resulted in ostracism and evolutionary death.

One might think that just as the prefrontal control areas can inhibit ethnocentric impulses originating in the sub-cortex, we should be able to inhibit these primitive guilt feelings. After all, the guilt feelings ultimately result from absolutely normal attitudes of ethnic identity and interests that have been delegitimized as a result of the ultimate failure of the period of ethnic defense and immigration restriction that resulted from passage of the 1924 and 1952 immigration acts — and the rise of a new, substantially Jewish elite hostile to the traditional people and culture of the West and deeply concerned about their safety in relatively homogeneous White societies given what happened in Germany in the 1930s.

It should be therapeutic to understand that many of the people who created this culture retained a strong sense of their own ethnic identity and interests — the Israel Lobby being a case in point. And it should help assuage guilt feelings if we understand that this culture is now propped up by people seeking material advantages and psychological approval at the expense of their own ethnic interests. Given the strong Jewish influence in erecting this culture, the guilt feelings are nothing more than the end result of ethnic warfare, pursued at the level of ideology and culture instead of on the battleﬁeld. Getting rid of guilt and shame over having defensible beliefs about race and Israel is certainly not an easy process. Psychotherapy for White people begins with an explicit understanding of the issues that allows us to act in our interests, even if we can’t entirely control the negative feelings engendered by those actions.

So I am not surprised that so many White people jump onto the pro-Israel bandwagon. The only wonder is that there are any brave souls at all who are willing to cross into this hostile, psychologically difficult and economically perilous environment.

Moralizing White Nationalism

November 1, 2025/7 Comments/in Featured Articles, White Racial Consciousness and Advocacy/by Hewitt E. Moore

I stumbled into White Nationalism circa 2006. There wasn’t any particular happenstance that resulted in my interest, I just always seemed to inherently find myself viewing an increasingly diverse society through a racial lens.

Perhaps one of the biggest misconceptions about White Nationalism on an individual level is that it’s a reactionary position based on causation, due to either multicultural victimization, or being seduced by some form of antiquated, familial indoctrination. Of course this isn’t a coincidence, it’s a socially engineered ad hominem fallacy used to deter Whites from being pro-White: “Oh, you’re a ‘racist,’ did you get assaulted by a black guy, or was your grandpa in the KKK?” An unprovoked worldview in support of White homogeneity is implausible reasoning within the conformity guidelines of the status quo.

Due to the perpetual onslaught of anti-White propaganda that has flooded the Western conscious via the subverted information systems over the last 60 years, the concept of White people wanting to be racially exclusive triggers immense cognitive dissonance within the average person’s psyche. The argument can be made that “diversity is our strength” and “we all bleed red” have replaced “land of the free” and “home of the brave” as characterized mantras of neo-Americanism.

Personally speaking, my journey into White Nationalism began after an internet search of a local politician accused of doing a racism directed me to the forum Stormfront. Mind you, this was long before search engine censorship attempted to manipulate people’s curiosities algorithmically. Therefore, interest on a variety of topics could lead one to such a website and ultimately pique their curiosity into the foundational ideology of the platform (hence the reason for censorship years later). I’ve personally known people who had very little interest in race who became race realists after their interest in pantheism and Nietzsche resulted in Google sending them to Stormfront as well.

Furthermore, up until that point, I had this media-induced stereotype ingrained in my mind that these “White Nationalists” were just a bunch of dumb skinheads and rednecks with a collective IQ of 78. Instead, what I quickly learned was that White Nationalism was a byproduct of intellectualism, motivated by the quest for unadulterated truth. Of course, like all intellectual movements, many of these people were eccentric, anti-social personality types, but that was the stage of the game at that point in time. It was the exchange of ideas that was needed to pave the way for future generations by seeding propaganda in support of an existential ideology that was forged with group survival in mind.

In those days, White Nationalism was a thinktank, not a movement. In fact, way back in January of 2014 I had my first paper published on Occidental Observer titled Is White Nationalism Real?, based on the premise that White Nationalism was just the exchange of ideas on the internet:

Theoretically, White Nationalism is the political ideology supporting the formation of a homogeneous state or “homeland” for the White race. Although the definition might vary somewhat, the concept is universally consistent. Obviously the philosophy is real, but is the movement endorsing the dogma a reality? Is White Nationalism figurative terminology in efforts to make the ideology more socially acceptable (i.e. “I’m a White Nationalist, not a racist”), or is it an actual movement?

I was somewhat jaded, because it seemed like all anyone wanted to do was argue on the internet about things that had been argued about a thousand times already. You couldn’t even convince anyone to meet you for a beer. I couldn’t see the forest through the trees. I was naive to the systemic consequences involved with revolutionary ideas, and the fear of social ostracization that made a lot of people really paranoid. And after reading books like Hoffer’s The True Believer, I developed a better understanding of the psychology behind the personality types that were attracted to fringe movements. It takes a certain kind of person to be “racist” in an explicitly anti-racist world.

In the conclusion of my paper, I posited that White Nationalism wasn’t “real” because it hadn’t been experienced:

In conclusion, the term “real” is defined as having actual physical existence. With a very few minor exceptions, the White Nationalist movement would be better defined as a hobby of like-minded idealists. The reality of an all-White homeland in the foreseeable future (in America) is comparable to finding the end of a rainbow….

“Nothing ever becomes real until it is experienced” ~ John Keats

Hindsight is always 20/20. If you had told me back then that the political landscape would be what it is today, I’d probably accuse you of lying. I remember having a conversation with a Bob Whitaker disciple around that time period, and I asked him to give me an optimistic forecast for where he would like to see us in 10 years. He said, “If the mainstream media is using our talking points and terminology, that would be big. If they just referred to us as ‘White Nationalists’ or ‘pro-White’ and we can defeat their term ‘racist,’ that would be a huge victory.” He was one of those guys who would just go around repeating “anti-racist is just a code word for anti-white” to anyone who would listen. The term “racist” has definitely lost its sting, mostly because I think people have slowly realized that the “R word” is just the “N word” for White people.

I seldom write these days. Maybe one piece a year. I’m not very ingenuitive, and when you’re an “oldhead” like me, a lot of dissident discourse becomes redundant. But occasionally something will spark the creative juices, and I’ll dust off the keyboard and spend a day pecking away. Case in point, Counter-Currents recently published an article titled “Alt-Right Nostalgia” that was an enjoyable and rather reminiscent read. The author touched on some things that I’ve discussed in this paper, and consequently instigated a personal pause for reflection:

Occasionally, I miss the romance of fighting a battle against seemingly impossible odds. The movement is in a different phase. We’ve won the debate and our ideas have conquered the internet. In a way, the fun part is over. The road ahead to the next level is going to involve some mundane normie politicking that requires engaging with the system and a long march through the GOP.

He references the romantic age of the Alt-Right era of 2016-2019. Those were certainly fun times to be involved in dissident politics. Lots of street activism. Tons of entertaining podcasts and digital media content with very little censorship. And for the first time since my involvement, the adage “getting White Nationalists together is like herding cats,” didn’t apply. There was an aroma of optimism in the air.

This Dissident Right, or whatever we shall have to call ourselves now, was founded by political theory nerds who arrived at White Nationalism after a long ideological journey. “I started out as a normie conservative, then read Atlas Shrugged and was a libertarian for a few years. I was into Moldbug for a little while and then got redpilled on race after watching some Molyneux videos. Then I found Jared Taylor and here I am.”

While many probably see that bygone era as the catalyst for the mundane march politicking through the GOP that lies ahead, I personally rewind back further to those early Stormfront days as the formative years that paved that ideological road for future success (I assume those before me are going to rewind it back further, before the internet). You never really know what is going to become relevant, and what’s not. So many of those ideas that were so passionately debated at the time ended up being completely irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. You can draw up the perfect societal system on paper, but until the unpredictable variant (humans) is inserted into that equation, you don’t know what the question will be. This has always been the argument for and against communism. When faced with the atrocities of communism, communists always point out that “true” communism has never actually been implemented.

It’s so crazy to see some of those talking points that nobody knew anything about 20 years ago be used in the mainstream today. Those big-brain political theory nerds, like Bob Whitaker and Horus, used to preach about the importance of staying on a consistent message, and how propaganda typically took about 15 years to have an impact on public opinion. Our side was playing 4D chess long before that term became popularized in 2016. Nonetheless, intellectual movements just provide the ideological framework necessary to nudge the pendulum of power. At some point, conclusions are reached when the variants of unpredictability become known, and that intellectual candle slowly burns out. As the writer of the Alt-Right nostalgia piece accurately points out, dumbing down is an unavoidable part of the mainstreaming process:

That said, I also remember the bad times of the Alt Right. The sociopaths and constantly having to run cover for the latest self-inflicted PR disaster. After having been in the game as long as I have, I’ll take the boring but stable normiefied Dissident Right of today over interesting yet volatile counter-culture era Alt Right. Being edgy was fun but I’m ready to be a normie now. The whole mission was to get the ideas to this point.

But to be honest, yes, something has been lost in the mainstreaming process. In many ways, the level of intellectual discourse has dropped since back in the good old days. There have been rumblings about “low-IQ antisemitism.” That might mean different things to different people. Sometimes the term is used disingenuously and sometimes it’s referring to a real phenomenon that might or might not be a serious issue. It’s normal to accuse your factional rivals of being a dumb version of what your faction believes. Still, it is deniable that the level of discourse in the right-wing ecosphere has dropped a grade or two. Going from Kevin McDonald to Lucas Gage is a step down intellectually. Science-heavy Human Biodiversity stuff has become less fashionable, and the leading influencers are less dynamic thinkers than back in the day. I don’t think it is an unreasonable critique to say that the scene has gotten dumber.

Some of the dumbing down may be an unavoidable part of the mainstreaming process. Some of it is not. Some of it we might be able to remedy and some of it we simply cannot.

“The whole mission was to get the ideas to this point,” is the perfect summation of pre-2020 White Nationalism, and dissident politics in general. The exchange of ideas is over. There were certainly lots of pessimistic times during that period. Honestly, you pretty much had to be a pessimist to even get involved in White Nationalist politics pre-2016. But the good thing about pessimism is it reduces expectation. It has been said that happiness is results minus expectation. And demoralization is usually the result of failed expectations.

When I embarked on my intellectual journey I was already college educated, but I never really learned anything meaningful until I dove headfirst into White Nationalism. And that isn’t to say I just learned how to regurgitate White Nationalist ideology, I learned philosophy, psychology, political theory, science, genetics, theology, human biodiversity, the JQ, economics, geography, migration patterns, finance, etc., which all supported the morality of my worldview. I could count the number of books I had read on two fingers, and my writing skills were elementary at best. I became an accomplished writer and have read hundreds of books. I lived in a very diverse metropolis and relocated to a predominately White rural area. I fathered White children. I adhered to a pro-White code of conduct. It’s highly improbable that any of these things would have happened had I not become interested in White Nationalism. To say that White Nationalism hasn’t had a profound impact on my life would be a drastic understatement. I was (and still am) a true believer that White people should have the right to self determination.

Kevin DeAnna on Arktos: The European Civil War Starts Again

September 18, 2025/11 Comments/in Featured Articles, White Racial Consciousness and Advocacy, White Victimization/by Kevin DeAnna

The European Civil War Starts Again

Kevin DeAnna pays tribute to Charlie Kirk, Iryna Zarutska, and Liana Kassai, arguing that their killings inaugurate a new age of martyrdom and struggle for the future of European peoples.

Historically, Western Civilization has existed as a unity. From the Greek alliance against the Persians, to Rome, to the Crusades, the West has found its highest expression when it fights as one. Since the rise of the nation-state, such expressions have been few. In many ways, the entire twentieth century was one great European Civil War, with the global right and left warring over the destiny of Western Man. The victor was not the Communists nor the traditional Right but the extra-European, American creed of individual liberation and international capitalism. In the eyes of critics like Julius Evola, this was a foreign conquest as dangerous as that of Soviet Communism.

Yet, while it is rational for Europeans to oppose American interference on the Continent, it does not change the reality. Despite repeated boasts of European “strategic autonomy” from figures like Emmanuel Macron, the EU has failed to chart a course separate from Washington, and in many ways seems more committed to center-left transatlantic institutions than America itself. The more traditionalist and arguably authentic European Right remains submerged and politically marginalized, while Donald Trump, despite his failures, provides a rallying point for Western patriots worldwide. We can mourn that America has become the Metropole of the West, but what happens in the United States affects everything that happens in Europe.

“The past European conflicts over borders, language, and empires fade to insignificance as we see the war raging within each of our countries.”

The killings of Iryna Zarutska, Liana Kassai, and Charlie Kirk could provide an unexpected spur to united action. The murder of Zarutska is almost overdone in its scripted poignancy – a beautiful Ukrainian refugee, practically a poster child for the sympathetic victim that the neoliberal establishment has been championing. She received shelter in America, exactly the kind of case that the liberal media would use as a club against the Trump Administration’s anti-immigration and arguably anti-Ukrainian policies. She got a job and begins making her way in the big city, almost a walking advertisement for progressives who want a living rebuttal to nativism, patriarchy, and Putinism.

All this was annihilated overnight as she was butchered before the uncaring denizens of Chicago by a career felon who was already arrested more than a dozen times. Decarlos Brown Jr. was released by a magistrate on the basis of a “written promise” he would show up for court, despite numerous past offenses and wild rantings to police that materials in his body were controlling his action. Despite his supposed insanity, he somehow managed to expertly ambush the one white girl within his car from behind, avoiding potentially more dangerous targets. Audio after the event suggests that he muttered “got that white girl” to himself as Zarutska bled out on the dirty floor, fodder for cell phone footage by gawking spectators. Needless to say, the murderer has already been referred to mental health counseling, and we await the inevitable ruling that he cannot be held criminally responsible.

The manner of Zarutska’s end also made her immortal. In shock from the sudden stabbing, she curls in a fetal position and looks up fearfully, almost childlike in appearance. As life drains from her, she sobs while the other passengers on the train ignore her. She then slides off the seat, dead within seconds. There is no gore or fountain of blood, but a combination of vulnerability and beauty that can’t help but inspire rage and a frustrated desire to protect her in every white man that viewed it. Her final moment is iconic, and it compels and yet sickens one to look upon it.

In her, we also see the countless other victims of terrorism and crime, mostly committed by non-whites throughout Europe. It’s impossible not to think of Liana Kassai, another Ukrainian refugee killed at a train station in August, this time in Germany. She was reportedly killed by an Iraqi refugee who had been denied asylum. German authorities initially suspected suicide, though the victim’s family immediately objected. In this case too, we are told the alleged murderer is schizophrenic. Despite his asylum request being denied, the alleged killer remained in the country for years.

Angela Merkel’s boast of “Wir schaffen das” appears doubly tragic, as the Fatherland’s inability to assimilate millions of resentful Muslims now compromises its ability to shelter its European kinsmen fleeing from war. The bright promises of European unity and even the German rearmament supposedly needed to guard the Continent against Russian aggression are especially hollow when refugees are in danger from non-European migrants admitted by Berlin itself. History is rebuking Mutti Merkel, with reality showing Europeans that no, we cannot do this, we cannot admit unlimited numbers of migrants from the Third World and remain who we are.

The assassination of Charlie Kirk is the capstone to this trifecta of tragedy. Kirk was a singular figure on the American Right. Only 31, no one in recent political history has filled so many roles. The founder and lead organizer of the most powerful campus conservative organization, he was also a talk show host, a political organizer who helped win the last presidential election, a close ally and advisor of the White House, a campus speaker, and an online fixture. No one else was simultaneously pushing the margins of political debate while remaining relevant within the mainstream, advocating realistic policies from within the corridors of power while simultaneously widening the Overton Window.

For the extremely online Dissident Right, Charlie Kirk and TPUSA were something of a joke years ago, famously confronted during the first “Groyper War” by activists pressuring him on immigration, anti-white discrimination, Israel, and other issues. Recently, however, Kirk had shifted his rhetoric away from Conservatism Inc. bromides. He proclaimed that there was undeniably a war on whites. He told whites to be proud of who they were. He called for ending the “H1B visa scam.” His final post on X read: “If we want things to change, it’s 100% necessary to politicize the senseless murder of Iryna Zarutska because it was politics that allowed a savage monster with 14 priors to be free on the streets to kill her.” The hard right did not appreciate Kirk until he was martyred, and many of us found to our shock that his opinions were not so different from ours after all.

Despite a deeply dishonest effort by media to muddy the waters, it appears the killer is exactly what most people expected: a progressive radicalized by the violent cults of “antifascism” and transgenderism. Though he was raised in a conservative family, it appears Tyler Robinson converted to the clichés of the modern egalitarian religion and felt he had not just the right but the duty to kill Kirk because he was a “hater.” Perhaps more than the killing itself, it is the reaction to the murder that has radicalized the Right. Soldiers, nurses, teachers, government workers, emergency dispatchers, and others in positions that Americans depend on in their most vulnerable moments have revealed themselves as reveling in the public execution of one of mainstream conservatism’s most beloved figures, one whose entire approach was characterized by a dedication to open debate with even his most militant opponents.

Yet what is most remarkable about the assassination of Kirk is how it has echoed around the world. In England, his name, along with that of Iryna and Liana, was cited by activists at the Unite the Kingdom rally. In Vienna and Leipzig, impromptu monuments to Iryna and Kirk were created, and then promptly targeted and destroyed by antifa. In Poland, Dariusz Matecki held up a picture of Iryna on the floor of the Sejm while proclaiming “White Lives Matter.” The names of our martyrs are known throughout the West.

“This struggle is forging a new civilizational identity, if for no other reason than that we face the same enemy pursuing the same goal of the Great Replacement.”

The past European conflicts over borders, language, and empires fade to insignificance as we see the war raging within each of our countries. While whites cling to post-racial illusions, non-whites within our countries put race first in both political and personal disputes. Unlike in the last European Civil War, leftists do not fight in the name of class justice, but in solidarity with non-whites to defeat “hate” and “racism.” Whatever local issues confront us, the essentials of mass immigration, crime, anti-white discrimination, and the repression of right-wing figures are common to Europeans worldwide. This struggle is forging a new civilizational identity, if for no other reason than that we face the same enemy pursuing the same goal of the Great Replacement.

Few of those on the authentic Right can have any illusions that American-style “conservatism” offers a way out of the death spiral of the West. Yet that is secondary. What matters is the forging of a constituency and ultimately a people that is aware it is under deadly, existential threat. The assassination of Kirk and the butchery of Iryna and Liana have brought that home to millions. “Our fellow citizens” mean nothing compared to those of kindred blood who have felt the pain of these losses and rallied against them. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church – and the Faith is Europe, and Europe is the Faith.

Kevin DeAnna, popularly known under the pen name James Kirkpatrick, is the author of Conservatism Inc., available from Arktos.

THE CHARLOTTESVILLE LEGAL STRUGGLE CONTINUES!

September 18, 2025/1 Comment/in Featured Articles, White Racial Consciousness and Advocacy, White Victimization/by Nathan Damigo

As many of you are aware, I have been in bankruptcy court fighting the multi-million dollar debt incurred from the absurd Sines v. Kessler ruling. While I will continue to call bullshit on the conspiracy allegations to the day I die, for legal purposes the arguments in bankruptcy court are of a different nature. Currently, the plaintiffs have been claiming that the debt incurred is not dischargeable, despite a clause in the law itself specifically stating that those found liable on a conspiracy allegation can discharge their debt so long as they themselves did not cause the actual damages.

The bankruptcy exception under 11 U.S. Code 523(6) states:

The critical language is “for… injury by the debtor”

The so-called “injuries” in the Sines v Kessler case were all alleged to have been caused by the actions of other individuals. Not myself. In fact, I was not even present when a single one of these injuries occurred!

Despite my attorney pointing this out in his argument, Judge Ronald Sargis ignored the law and sided with the plaintiffs bizarre argument which conflates two legal concepts from entirely different jurisdictions and areas of law.

He observed that, in Virginia civil suits, an individual or business entity can, in some cases, be legally liable for the actions of another person via respondent superior (aka vicarious liability). An example of this is if an employee of a company negligently or wantonly injures a customer, the customer can sue the company itself, and it is legally responsible.

Then he applied that logic to federal bankruptcy law (which is an entirely independent area of law) and concluded that, because VA civil liability acknowledges vicarious liability, then the federal exception statute for bankruptcy (which states that “the debtor” must physically harm someone or some property) should also be subject to vicarious liability.

This is an entirely malicious interpretation of the law based on a genocidal hatred of of White people. This ruling is ultimately not about me. It is about sending a message that any White man who publicly rejects the ethnic cleansing of our people will be dragged through the system for years on end.

Despite this, I have not given up hope. Legally, the ruling is so absurd that there is a good chance a higher court will overturn it or risk setting an entirely new precedent that would overthrow long-standing bankruptcy law. While I have already filed a notice of appeal, the process will require raising another $3,000 for the fees involved that I cannot afford. If you would like to contribute to my my legal fight against this judicial corruption, click on the link below to the Free Expression Foundation (FEF) and make a donation. Please ensure to write in the notes that the donation is to go to my appeal, as I am not the only individual being represented by the FEF.

DONATE

As always, anything donated to the Free Expression Foundation that is not needed for my case will go to the defense of others. Thank you for your support. I could not continue without all of you.

Excerpt from K. M. Breakey’s novel “Britain on the Brink”

June 25, 2025/in Featured Articles, White Racial Consciousness and Advocacy/by K M Breakey

These are the first 6 chapters from K.M. Breakey’s 8th novel, Britain on the Brink, available as a paperback or on Kindle. The blurb on Amazon:

Jack Campbell’s life is perfectly splendid. Lovely wife. Sweet children. Lucrative career in London’s hallowed financial sector. However, Jack can’t help but notice – England is suddenly no longer English. His best mate Ozzie’s been harping on the issue for years, and lately it’s impossible to ignore.

Was this outcome accidental? Or malicious betrayal? It’s starting to feel a lot like the latter, and Jack fears a dark and dystopian future for his kids. But what can he do? What can anyone do?

Abruptly, a little bit of magic appears in Jack’s life when he’s mysteriously transported back in time for a grand adventure in 1960s England. For a few glorious moments, Jack is home again. With his people. His kith and kin. Precious England as she once was. When the strange phenomenon happens again, amidst his utter astonishment, Jack sees an opportunity to change the course of British history.

Before long, he’s keeping company with historical figures like Enoch Powell, and operating in alternate worlds where things turn out drastically different. But can Jack change the actual world? And does he really want to when changing the past is fraught with peril and paradox?

In Britain on the Brink, a new hero emerges in the fight to save the West. And by Jove, he’s ready to do battle.

1. White Male “Privilege”

London, England

May 22, 2025

Jack Campbell took a seat in the posh penthouse boardroom. On the docket: Corporate Excellence Through Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Good Lord. Jack despised the nonsense and would tell you as much in private.

But he didn’t say so publicly. No one did. Not in UniBank’s hallowed halls. Because DEI demanded respect and wielded power. Some UK institutions were pushing back, following the Trump/Musk juggernaut in America. Not UniBank. They remained all in. Diversity is at the heart of everything we do.

Jack played along, even put pronouns in his signature. He learned early in his career – corporate life involves indignities, even occasional soulselling. This was merely another hoop to jump through.

He was a Senior Executive at UniBank, one of the UK’s largest financial institutions, a behemoth with tentacles in over a hundred countries. He joined in 2003 and worked his way up the ladder. He had a sharp mind, a steady hand, and his baritone carried a natural authority. He was the archetype white male executive – tall, handsome, charming. Ruthlessly efficient.

His workday was a steady stream of strategy sessions, high-stakes calls, and complex (sometimes shady) M&A deals in far-flung locations with regulatory grey areas. This had been Jack’s world for twentyplus years. It was rough and tumble – full of ego, conflict, and testosterone.

He mostly stayed above the fray, navigating the politics with finesse and building alliances to consolidate power and influence. Despite layers of bureaucracy, Jack was known as a man who got things done, no fuss.

He knew how to play the game, but the game was changing. Correction: the game had changed. This insidious Wokeism Beast had slithered and squirmed into the bank’s corporate corridors – as if red tape and regulation wasn’t bad enough.

It seemed harmless at first, but like an infection, it morphed and mutated and grew to the point that it seemed it may eventually destroy its host. Jack had seen it destroy a few careers and put a glass ceiling on others. Inevitably, its victims were that once alpha species known as the white male. They deserved it, so said the doctrine.

Jack studied the instructor. Chantelle Williams was a black female. No surprise, they almost always were. The fake eyelashes, fake nails, and blonde weave combined to give her a clownish countenance. Ghoulish even. She was also morbidly obese, but for her it was not a bother. Her self-esteem was off the charts.

The bank was paying her great gobs of money to shit on everything in sight, especially white people. We’re lucky to have her, said the Director of HR, another black female. Chantelle had the jargon down pat – allyship, microaggressions, intersectionality. Words that didn’t exist a few years prior.

When the Orwellian torture session mercifully ended, Jack said a prayer of thanks and bolted for the door. Not only was it 5:00 p.m. it was Friday. And it was his birthday. Fun times awaited.

On the tube home, he observed the same sign he saw every day: Hey Straight White Man, Pass the Power. He shook his head. The insolence. The audacity. All taxpayerfunded, of course.

He shook it off. Nothing was going to dampen his spirits.

2. Another Lap Around the Sun

Lily and the kids greeted Jack at the door. “Happy Birthday, Daddy!” Finn and Lucy screamed in unison.

“Thanks, kiddos,” he swooped down for a hug and a kiss before turning attention to his wife. “Hello, beautiful. I survived another week.”

“You survived another year,” said Lily. “Happy forty-third, darling.”

“Bloody heck Nora, I’m forty-three, am I?”

Lily nodded with a grin. “Fifty’s right around the corner.”

“I need a drink on the double.”

“Go on, Ozzie’s already here.”

Jack strolled with purpose into the living room.

“Welcome home, sir.” Ozzie bowed solemnly.

“Stand up straight you silly man.”

“Sorry, me Dad taught me to respect me elders.”

“I’m younger than you, mate.”

“Will you get the old folks’ discount at the pub now?”

Jack mixed a generous gin and tonic. “Where is everyone? I’m not stuck with you all night, am I?”

“Hey, it’s your party.”

Jack grinned at his best pal. “You were right about the struggle session.”

“Oh yeah, not letting up an inch?”

Jack shook his head. “Pedal to the metal.”

“Told ya.”

“That kiss-ass Morgan lapped it up. What a broken man he is.”

“Sorta like Steady Eddie?”

“It’s an issue of class, not race,” Jack mimicked their liberal friend Edward. “Tell ya what, I may be VP, but I’m low man on the totem pole at these bloody events.”

“You’re not allowed to say totem pole.”

Jack feigned shock and horror. “This bloody wokeness thing, whatever it is, it’s taken over at the bank.”

“Be honest, mate. It’s taken over the bloody country. The commies are in charge now.”

“I should’ve explained that to the instructor,” said Jack.

Ozzie scoffed. “She wouldn’t appreciate the nuance. Too stupid, I guarantee it.”

Just then, young Finn dashed through the room – a blur of youthful energy. “Slow down, champ,” Jack scolded with a grin. My God, what will England be like when Finn comes of age? A scary thought, and not the first time it crossed Jack’s mind.

Edward Squire and his wife entered, pulling Jack from the rueful reverie. “Steady Eddie,” he and Ozzie called out in unison. The nickname, coined years ago, had stuck like glue. Eddie was calm, cool, collected. Nothing fazed him. Not even the rape and pillage of his native land. He was a raging lefty, and a target of ridicule for Ozzie.

Another couple followed, then another. The room swelled with hearty greetings and banter among familiar chums. Cocktails were proffered and before long conversation turned to football, as it often does at English gatherings.

“Don’t start. Our side always comes round.” Ozzie was a United supporter, and his Red Devils were off to a terrible start. “We’ve more trophies than your lot could dream of.”

“You’re living in the past, Ozzie.”

“Ha, I would if I could.”

“Don’t get him started,” said Eddie.

“We’ll be on top again soon, don’t you worry.”

“You’ve been saying that for years. Christ, how many managers you had since Fergie?”

“We’ve got history, mate. What’ve you got with bloody Arsenal? Sweet sod all.” Ozzie and Jack bellowed laughter.

“Keep laughing, lads,” said Eddie. “We’re playing beautiful football. Odegaard’s class. And Saka’s better than half your team combined.”

“Enjoy it while it lasts,” Jack chimed in. “You’re good ’til Christmas, then you lot fold like a cheap tent.”

“We’re runner-up the last two years.”

“Christ sakes, he’s proud o’ second place.”

Jack lapped up the banter. Friendly fire now but with Cup Matches it could come to blows. Literally. Jack was a Liverpool man, like his Daddy, and his Daddy’s Daddy.

“And for what it’s worth,” Ozzie added, “I lost interest years ago. Bunch of feckin’ foreigners wearing English kits and a bunch of cucks watching ’em, more concerned with their team winning than saving their dying country.”

“You always say that when your team’s in the dumpster.”

Both statements were true – Ozzie was as politically right as they come, and one of very few ethnic British males unafraid to speak his mind. To get a sense of Ozzie, picture Conor McGregor, but bigger, bolder, and English. For Ozzie, the Prem was another tool to distract Brits from their dispossession.

“Stop watching, lads. Stop supporting the bullshit.”

“Ah, come World Cup time, you’ll be there with the lot of us.”

Scoff. “I see we hired a German to manage our squad of Africans.”

“We’ll have black players and white players,” said Eddie. “As it should be.”

Bigger scoff.

“Don’t forget,” said Eddie, “it was Kane who missed the penalty against France.”

That stung. When England crashed out of the last World Cup, Oswald (Ozzie) Fletcher was devastated, despite what he might otherwise say. He was inconsolable. All the lads were.

“Wouldn’t it be something if we won,” said Jack wistfully. “What a day that would be.”

“It could happen,” said Eddie.

“It should happen,” said Jack. “We invented the bloody game.”

“Back in ’66, my Dad got finals tickets for ten bloody shillings,” Jack added. “What’s that now, eight quid?”

“Yeah, and back then the competition actually meant something,” said Ozzie. “The Dutch team was Dutch. The French French. Believe it or not, we fielded a roster full o’ English lads.”

“Imagine,” said Jack grinning.

“We even had the remnants of our Empire. But the bleedin’ traitors were selling us out fast.”

“To this day,” Jack continued, “my Dad says it was the greatest day of his life. Better than his wedding, he says. Even Mum knows it.” Jack had heard the story so many times, it was like he’d been there himself, back in 1966, a full thirteen years before he was born.

The night went according to script. Plenty of good-natured banter with a dose of sarcasm and vitriol, for good measure. Always was with Ozzie in the room. Unfortunately, Jack’s parents didn’t make the two-hour trek down from Newfordshire. They weren’t getting any younger and, truth be told, England’s streets weren’t getting any safer. There was also London traffic. Always a bitch.

The kids took centre stage frequently. “For my birthday, I want a football cake,” Finn declared. “And pizza.”

“Better than Paul’s lad,” Ozzie whispered discreetly. “That kid probably wants a frilly skirt.” The twelve-year-old in question had recently announced he wanted to be a girl. The mother was delighted. The father, not so much. “If the alphabet people get their hooks in your kid,” Ozzie proclaimed, “not much you can do.”

The birthday cake made its appearance, and the obligatory Happy Birthday was sung, followed smartly by a rousing rendition of For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.

“Blow out the candles, honey,” Lily said. “Don’t forget to make a wish.”

Jack didn’t hesitate. I wish I could go to the World Cup Final in 1966. Then, remembering the godawful DEI Seminar, he went a step further. I wish I could go back to the England of old. The real England.

Zing.

A surge of energy ran through him like a jolt of electricity. For a few precious moments, a vision appeared. A crystal-clear image of Wembley Stadium. Old Wembley. The very stadium that hosted the 1966 World Cup Final.

“What’d you wish for?” Ozzie demanded. “You didn’t waste it on those Liverpool foreigners, I hope.”

Jack came back to reality and made a zip-the-lips gesture.

Cake was served and the sugar blast sent the kids into overdrive. They were bouncing off the walls, and with alcohol on board so were some of the adults. By the time it was over, Jack was done and dusted. He couldn’t wait to lay his head down. He’d probably be asleep before it hit the pillow.

“That was some proper good fun,” said Lily.

“It certainly was,” Jack agreed. “I’m rightly knackered now though. Didn’t even have that much to drink.”

“You’re getting old, dear.”

“Hey.”

She grinned. “You go in and rest, I’ll do the washing up and check on the kids.”

“Aw, thanks honey.”

Her grin morphed into a leer. “Don’t fall asleep, though, loverboy. I’ll be in later with a special present.” She was a vixen, Lily was.

Jack grinned back in anticipation.

3. The Time Tunnel

In the bedroom, Jack was overcome with a sense of wellbeing and gratitude. He was a blessed man, his troubles trivial. But this particular spirit of goodwill was above and beyond the norm.

Birthday-related, perhaps? Or something to do with that vision of Wembley? What was that by the way? Some weird premonition?

Zing.

It happened again.

Another flash of Old Wembley. More than a flash. A vision. Distinct and real, no detail spared. This one was more powerful. More prolonged. More persistent. He gazed into Lily’s vanity mirror and a surreal outline of his visage stared back, the likeness blurred, an aura of light surrounding it.

Jesus.

Quite suddenly, a strange sensation engulfed him – mind, body, and spirit. He felt weightless as the image in the mirror blurred further, yet he still perceived it with absolute clarity. In fact, he perceived everything with perfect clarity.

Clarity of thought.

Heightened consciousness.

A deep and fearless curiosity to see what this was all about.

It was no medical event. Not a heart attack. Jack felt threatened not in the least. On the contrary, he felt an overwhelming urge to succumb entirely to…whatever was happening.

Bright light filled his field of vision. His body relaxed, his breathing and heartbeat slowed. He surrendered…and was soon floating through…was it space? Time? Yes, and yes. There could be no doubt. He was travelling through the cosmos, backward in time, observing a parade of visions pass by.

Life events. Momentous events. The COVID pandemic. The Manchester bombing. Brexit. The Fall of the Berlin Wall, a stalwart Ronald Reagan demanding, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall! Chernobyl. The John Lennon assassination. The election of Margaret Thatcher. Jack witnessed and perceived them all and many more.

At the same time, his personal life was laid bare: his wedding day, the birth of his children, the death of his beloved Grandad. It was as if he was on a three-dimensional – scratch that, multi-dimensional – moving walkway. Actually, more like a tunnel. A Time Tunnel.

He was perceptive to the events around him. He could see, hear, even smell everything as he observed time pass in elaborate waves of sensory profusion. He felt the wind in his hair, the smells of childhood, the emotion of each moment. But Jack wasn’t overwhelmed. On the contrary, he comprehended with effortless clarity.

Otherworldly clarity.

Then he saw his destination. How did he know? Was it instinct? Or did it just happen? He wasn’t sure. But it made sense, notwithstanding. July 30, 1966. Saturday. Wembley Stadium.

He panned the swarming crowds and gradually zoomed until he was transported inside. He saw the pitch, the players, the fancy electronic scoreboard. The infamous thirty-nine steps leading to the Royal Box where players collected trophies.

This was old Wembley.

The Time Tunnel slowly faded as visions crystallized into reality and Jack’s consciousness settled into this time and place.

Boom.

He was there. In the flesh.

4. 1966 World Cup

Jack had arrived. In 1966. In his seat. Section 38. Wembley Stadium. The place Pelé once called the Cathedral of Football.

He glanced about, wide-eyed, as the crowd buzzed. He spotted West German flags, but Union Jacks were dominant. The skies were grey and bore the threat of rain. But rain would not come. Jack knew this well because his Dad had told him.

His Dad had told him everything and cor blimey, Jack was living it now. As if he’d been transported onto a movie set. But it wasn’t a movie set. It was real. Every detail.

How is this happening?

Jack pinched himself. Nothing happened. He pinched himself again. Still nothing. What the? If it’s not a dream and it’s not reality – what is it?

He surveyed himself. Same green shirt and plaid pants he’d had on at the birthday party. Thank God he’d been wearing sandals. For that matter, thank God he hadn’t changed into pyjamas. Is that how this thing worked? He checked his pockets. No wallet, but his trusty mobile had come along for the journey.

He took several deep breaths and got his bearings. He was a few rows up from the action and could clearly see the lush turf – perhaps a wee bit slick from earlier rain. And the players themselves, from both sides, warmed up on the pitch. He could see them clearly, right down to the expressions on their faces. His eyesight, sans glasses, was perfect. He had the eyesight of his younger self.

There was England’s most beloved footballer, Bobby Charlton. A legendary figure, ambassador extraordinaire for the sport. That’s how Jack knew him. On this day, Sir Bobby was twenty-eight years of age, but his mythical status was already fully formed. Eight years prior, he’d survived the Munich Air Disaster which claimed many of his teammates. He scarcely skipped a beat, going on to win the FA Cup, League Titles, the European Cup, and (spoiler alert) soon to be World Cup. Off the field, Mr. Charlton was humble, as the British are. But on the field, he was renowned for stamina, grit, and a ferocious strike, no matter left or right foot.

There was the twenty-eight-year-old version of Norbert “Nobby” Stiles, the hardnosed five-six defensive midfielder. The Iron Tackler, they called him ’cause he always went in hard. Some say too hard. And of course, the great Geoff Hurst – substitute for the injured Jimmy Greaves. Not a single fan knew it – save Jack Campbell – but Mr. Hurst was about to produce a performance for the ages.

Jack scanned the fans in his vicinity. Mostly commonfolk it appeared, living their best lives – buoyant, joyful, full of expectation. To say the English squad had the country behind them was understatement. Nay, this team carried the dreams of fifty million Britons. Today, team and nation were one and the same.

As Ozzie said, England was still a real country in 1966. Still ninety-nine percent ethnically English. Yes, this means ninety-nine percent white. Based on what Jack could see, Ozzie was bang on. Jack had yet to see a non-white face – in the crowd or on the pitch. That included the West Germans, so it did.

At that moment, the chap two seats over held out his hand. “Good day, sir. I’m Sheldon Cook.”

“Hello, sir.” They shook hands. “Jack Campbell.”

“I heard you were coming,” the man stated. “Peter cancelled last minute, and his brother made some calls. Seems you were the lucky recipient. How do you know Peter?”

Jack hadn’t considered who was supposed to be in this seat. But by some divine providence, it had become available to him.

“We go way back,” said Jack. “Haven’t seem him in a while, mind.”

Sheldon nodded smilingly. He was a family man, with two bright-eyed youngsters either side of him. Introductions were made and Jack was taken by the joy on their faces. Pristine, untainted happiness.

Sheldon was roundabout Jack’s age – the 2025 version of Jack, that is. Am I forty-three here? He wasn’t sure what the hell he was.

“Think we can take ’em today?” Sheldon asked.

“I’ve a good feeling,” said Jack.

“Me too, but me nerves are shot.”

“My Dad told me they’d win. He guaranteed it, and he’s usually right about these things.”

“I wish I had his confidence. Is he here?”

The question threw Jack for a loop. Good Lord, his Dad was here. Jack opted to lie. “Unfortunately, not. But he’ll be watching on the telly.” Jack was starting to relax. He made a grand show of asking the young lads about their own sporting exploits. They were near in age to young Finn.

“My own boy and girl play, too.”

“Your girl plays football?” The boys laughed in unison.

Jack shrugged toward the boy’s father. “She’s a tomboy.” Note to self. It’s a different era. Girls don’t play the Beautiful Game in 1966.

A vendor wandered into the vicinity and barked out his offerings. Meat pies, crisps, fizzy drinks, tea. Sheldon got the man’s attention and ordered the works for his kids, including a glossy Match Programme. He turned to Jack. “What do ya need, mate? My treat.”

Jack smiled sheepishly. He had no money. “Very kind of you, I’ll take a Coke. Thank you, Sheldon.” As the transaction unfolded, Jack came clean. “Appreciate it, mate. Truth is, I lost my wallet earlier.” He gestured vaguely: “Been a hectic day.”

“Sorry to hear, old sport.” In modern-day England, there’d be high suspicion toward a move like that. But here, trust and goodwill were in abundance. “Tell you what, I’ll get you a programme, too. You need one to enjoy the match.”

Sheldon waved off Jack’s protests. “We’re on the same team today, laddie. We’re all family.”

Jack skimmed the publication with interest. There were articles about key players, their respective sides, their respective countries. By modern standards, it was an amateurish production, but this only added to its charm. For the first time, it sank in – England’s opponent was West Germany. My God, this truly was a different world. A world where the Iron Curtain still divided Europe.

Jack studied the rosters and player bios – nothing but white faces on both sides. And just look at those English lads. Proper English lads, they were. Jack felt a surge of National Pride such as he’d never felt. Englishmen weren’t supposed to feel such a thing. We’re supposed to feel guilt and shame.

Sorry, not today.

Jack had seen a copy of the programme once before at a festival. It was a sought-after collectible, worth a fortune. This copy was obviously mint condition. Hot off the presses. Without thinking, Jack whipped out his iPhone to snap a few photos.

A split second later, it dawned – the space-age gadget wouldn’t jive with the time. Heck, these people barely had colour TV. For them, an iPhone was outright sorcery. In some parts of time and space, they’d burn him alive for witchcraft.

Too late. One of the bright-eyed youngsters, the older of the two sitting to Jack’s left, got an eyeful. “What is that? Wow, look Daddy.”

Jack quickly shut the phone off, but not before Sheldon got a glimpse. “Don’t know, me boy. What have you there, mate?”

Jack sheepishly attempted to cover the phone with his hands. “It’s just a, uh, a special kind of camera.”

“Looked like a miniature television to me,” said the kid.

Sheldon nodded. “Who are you, James Bond? You get that from Q, did you?” Both youngsters giggled.

Jack regrouped. “I…uh…I work for the government.” He said it with a serious tone, then grinned and pocketed the phone. “Not for Q. I’m not allowed to talk about this device. It’s a prototype.”

Sheldon looked at him quizzically. He wanted more, and the awkward moment lingered. However, blessedly it was three o’clock and the game was starting.

Another note to self: No photos! And no Googling players. He grinned. There’s no internet here, you silly goose. Probably no Wi-Fi either, he chuckled at the absurdity of explaining Wi-Fi to Sheldon.

5. Victory

The wait was finally over for the packed stadium. Jack knew from memory, 96,000 in attendance, ten percent of them German. Pre-game festivities were brief – national anthems and not much else – and the referee’s piercing opening whistle was bang on 3:00 p.m. local time.

Both teams looked smart in the classic 4-4-2 formation. England in their iconic kit – red jersey, white shorts, red socks. Nothing flashy. No gauche sponsor logos, just the classic embroidered Three Lions crest. The West Germans sported white jerseys, black shorts, white socks. Elegant simplicity.

London bookies made England the 1-2 favourite, but not a single English fan took anything for granted. The game found rhythm quickly. Less than a minute in, free kick Germany fifteen yards outside the England penalty. Moments later, Bobby Charlton with a wonderful touch. Then, a twenty-year-old Beckenbauer – Der Kaiser in the flesh – making superlative plays on the ball. He was a midfielder on the day, not yet the magnificent sweeper he’d become. But he was already special.

For the umpteenth time, Jack marvelled at what he was witnessing. This was straight from a science fiction movie. Going back in time?

How is this happening?

Yet it was happening. It was as real as the stars in the midnight sky, and Jack embraced it. Why not? This was a game for the ages and he might as well savour the moment.

The crowd didn’t have to wait long for a goal, but not from the side they wanted. At the twelve-minute mark, poor clearance by the English defender allowed Helmut Haller to put the ball past keeper Gordon Banks.

Yikes. Germany up 1-nil.

It momentarily took wind out of sails, but six minutes on Geoff Hurst tied the match with a powerful header, and English fans were redeemed. By halftime, the game remained all square at one.

The crowd was in fine spirits and Jack and Sheldon relived the tying goal, and a few other close calls. But the youngster to his left soon interrupted. “May I see your camera again, sir?”

Jack smiled at the young man, who was about a year older than Jack’s own lad. Showing off the iPhone was tempting. Oh, the fun he could have playing wizard to these folks. He resisted the urge. It felt…dangerous. Already, Jack was sensing the burden and responsibility of time travel.

“I wish I could, son. But I’m under NDA.” Neither the boys nor Sheldon knew what that meant but Jack didn’t dwell. “Whereabouts you live Sheldon?”

“Notting Hill. Born and raised.”

Jack frowned. “How’s the neighbourhood?”

“We love it. So vibrant. Full o’ culture, y’know?”

Jack’s frown deepened. He was aware of Notting Hill’s embrace – that wasn’t exactly the correct word – of Caribbean immigrants starting as far back as 1948 with the fated Windrush arrivals. In 1966, few Londoners felt threatened by the influx. After all, this was England. Their England.

Jack knew different. In fact, the inaugural Notting Hill Carnival was set to occur just a month hence. By 2025, the event would be known for violence, with bookies posting an over-under on the number of stabbings. Vast swaths of Notting Hill would eventually become inhospitable to white Britons – Jack knew well – like so many other areas.

The Great Replacement – ethnic cleansing Ozzie called it – would be rapid in Sheldon’s neck of the woods. Already it was in full force, and poor naive Sheldon was putting positive spin to it, God love him.

Jack was tempted to warn the man – get out now – but Sheldon was still talking. “…close to everything, Stamford Bridge for one. We’re Chelsea fans, you know. Blimey, it took us just fifteen minutes to get here today.”

“You drove?”

“Course we did, mate.”

Jack raised his eyebrows in appreciation. In modern-day London, traffic and parking made driving near impossible. On the day of a World Cup Final? Crikey, forget about it.

“Wha’bout yourself, Jack? Where do you live?”

“I’m in Twickenham.” Jack decided to be honest.

“Ah, you’re a rugby fan, then?” It was the home of English rugby.

“Ah sure, but it’s a distant second to this great game.”

“Beautiful spot. Pricey.” Sheldon rubbed thumb and forefingers together. “Government’s paying well these days, yeah?”

Jack shrugged noncommittally.

“I suppose if you’re coming up with space-age gadgets like the one in your pocket, it’s money well spent.”

Another shrug.

“Soon, we’ll have flying cars and men on the moon,” said one of the youngsters.

Jack smiled at the shiny optimism.

“And smart robots,” added the other. “My science teacher told me people in the future won’t even have to work. Not if they don’t want to.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Jack offered. It was obvious he was being cagey, but he didn’t know what else to do. He didn’t know the rules in this strange…circumstance. Erring on the side of caution seemed advisable.

Again, mercifully, the match started and all eyes turned to the pitch. “Here we go again,” Sheldon announced.

For thirty minutes, the two sides battled fiercely, trading chances including a glorious one by Bobby Charlton himself. To Jack’s mind, the English lads had the edge in play, perhaps buoyed by the crowd’s rousing rendition of The Saints Go Marching In, which had become England’s theme song this World Cup. They also belted out a menacingly loud and powerful Rule, Britannia, and it touched Jack’s soul like nothing before ever had.

My God, he felt the full force of English blood and soil. And then, heightening the moment to a state of pristine ecstasy, a magical moment unfolded. In the 78^th minute, following sustained pressure, Martin Peters took a nifty pass from Alan Ball, and struck a clean winner past keeper Hans Tilkowski. The Wembley faithful went into a rabid frenzy.

With just twelve minutes left in regulation, it had to be the clincher. The Cup was England’s. It must be. And as the minutes ticked by, it became more and more obvious. England had this. The trophy was finally coming home.

However, tragedy struck in the 89^th minute. After a goalmouth scramble, Wolfgang Weber put home the tying goal with a minute in regulation. West Germany had pulled off a miracle. The shock equalizer forced thirty minutes of extra time. The singing stopped and the smiles vanished. A hush came over the stadium, save ten thousand Germans who were predictably ecstatic.

The anguish in the faces of Sheldon and his boys was enough to break Jack’s heart. He wanted to console them, tell them it was all gonna work out fine. Again, he resisted the urge.

Why, he wondered. Fear? Caution? Uncertainty? Yes, that was it. Uncertainty. For all he knew in this strange parallel universe, West Germany wins. Was there a guarantee the game would play out according to the historical reality?

It had so far. Thus, chances are, it would continue to. “Chin up, lads. Extra time it is. We’ve got this.”

“We were this close, Jack.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve a good feeling.”

“Blimey, me heart can’t take much more o’ this.”

“We’ll be fine.” Jack offered a confident smile, and it seemed to cheer them. Their mood was lifted further by England’s play out of the gate, with Alan Ball, Bobby Charlton, and Geoff Hurst all leading aggressive attacks.

Sensation came in the 101^st minute when Hurst took Allan Ball’s cross deep in the penalty and blasted a shot from close range. It slammed the underside of the bar and bounced straight down, appearing to hit the goal line, before being cleared by the German defender.

Confusion ensued. The Swiss referee signaled for a corner, but England protested. Shockingly, the Russian linesman took England’s side in adamant fashion. It was a good goal, he proclaimed. Despite passionate protests from the West Germans, the decision stood.

“It was in,” screamed Sheldon, and his boys echoed the sentiment. Like any proper Englishman, Jack had seen the replay a million times. He’d be first to admit, it was questionable. A portion of the ball certainly crossed the line, maybe most of it. But the whole ball? He wasn’t about to bring that up now, though.

No sir.

Because again, he was lost in the elation. The singing was back with greater fervour and the minutes ticked away. At the 120-minute mark, more theatrics. Close to the final whistle, the referee checking his watch, and Germany pressing for an equalizer, Hurst caught the German defence napping. He found space down the left flank and bore down on the German keeper. He struck a left-footed laser from inside the box and it found the back of the net.

My God.

It had to be the clincher, and it completed Hurst’s hat-trick, cementing him in football lore for eternity. But again, controversy as English supporters had stormed the pitch early. No one cared. Nor did history. Asterisk or otherwise, a win was a win. As with Maradona’s Hand of God, it only added to the lore.

And it was a win. A 4-2 final. English fans were intoxicated with joy and pride, Jack included. England was on top again, right where she belonged. Jack forgot he was in a different era.

He forgot about everything except the precise moment he was living.

6. Rule, Britannia

West German grumbling did nothing to dampen spirits of the rabid English fans. They were in a state of mass delirium, as was Jack.

England were World Champions. Finally. Glory restored where it belonged, to the country that gave football to the world. Forget Germany. Forget Latin America. Forget talk of the Southern Hemisphere growing dominant, producing not only the best teams, but the best players. Forget all of that.

England was king of the hill. Top of the heap. Like a phoenix from the ashes, National pride rose up in an unstoppable tsunami of ecstasy. When Bobby Moore collected the great trophy from Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip at her side, the Duke and Duchess of Kent looking on, Jack knew in his heart – this was bigger than football. It was spiritual. A religious experience.

No country could match England’s pomp and circumstance, and now, no country could match England on the pitch. He wasn’t the only one who felt that way. As fans poured out of Wembley, he picked up random snippets of conversation: “I can’t believe we’ve bloody done it.”…“I never doubted our lads, not for a second.”…“This is surely the first of many.”

Pride and happiness swelled in Jack’s chest, so powerful he felt he may explode. It wasn’t only the win, it was the atmosphere. The people. The English people. Smartly dressed all. No ballcaps, no trainers, no hoodies. Not a drug addict nor aggressive panhandler in sight.

And let it be said, not a burka to be seen, either. Not a hint of violence in the air, even as West Germans mingled among English. The Progressive beast hadn’t spoiled England. Not yet. Even here in the heart of London.

“I’m meeting me mates at the Lion’s Pub,” said Sheldon. “We’ve a table waiting. Fancy joining us?”

“I think I shall,” said Jack. The thought of a few pints was irresistible.

“We witnessed it together, mate. Brothers for life now.” The two embraced, and the young lads looked on approvingly.

The crowds in the street were thick and energetic, and Jack marvelled at the orderliness. The people were well–behaved and courteous. Even mild-mannered in this, their moment of great glory. And the city itself – English to the core. For once, the people matched the architecture.

Jack had heard of these days, when you could safely walk London’s streets day or night. When everyone spoke English, and practically everyone was White. The rumours were true. He suddenly realized, he hadn’t seen a person of colour the entire day. If he spoke the term – person of colour – odds are no one would know what he meant.

He was witnessing British people in their natural habitat. British people as they were meant to be in nature. The unabashed joy in Sheldon and his lads was a thing to behold. Unlike Jack, Sheldon didn’t fret for his children’s future.

“Are you quite alright, Jack?”

Jack exited his reverie with a grin. “Never better.”

“You were lost in space for a second there.”

“Just enjoying the moment.” Jack gestured toward three gorgeous lasses strutting past in miniskirts. “Can you blame me?”

“Not at all, mate.”

It was the start of the Swinging ’60s, and risqué garments were all the rage. A symbol of cultural change, perhaps not in the right direction, Jack reckoned. Despite the showy display, the women were decidedly more chaste than their 2025 counterparts. The skirts were certainly revealing, but the girls came across not as slutty, but as graceful and elegant.

“I’m taking it all in, Shel. I haven’t walked these streets in a good while.” He glanced around happily. “Almost feels like I’ve never walked them.”

It was true, the environment was familiar, yet vaguely foreign. Take the vehicles. A shiny TR4 here, a sleek Jaguar E-Type there, no doubt with the plush leather interior. Vauxhalls galore. Black Cabs galore. Even the odd Rolls Royce. Shocking how many of the cars were Britishmade back in the day.

Also, no bike lanes. No dreaded ULEZ cameras. No kebab shops or curry houses. Crikey, around here Curry was a surname. And again, it had to be acknowledged – no non-whites. Scratch that, almost none. By now, Jack had seen a few.

Nevertheless, this was London to the core. Pure. Untouched. Unspoiled. Jack was practically shaking with ancestral recognition. Like an electric charge through his nervous system. However, there was a parallel current of sadness. A mourning for what had been taken, almost as surely as if London had been razed to the ground.

Sheldon shot him another puzzled look. “You’re due for a pint, laddie.”

“Couldn’t agree more.”

“This way, follow me.”

Upon entry, Jack was hit with another dose of ancestral nostalgia. The pub was classic English, probably centuries old. Pubs were one aspect of British life that had resisted change, which is probably why the Brits loved them so much.

Yet here in 1966, Jack witnessed authenticity that didn’t exist in 2025. No TVs, no mobile phones, no craft beer, no loud music to dampen banter. Because that’s what pubs were for, right? Fellowship and pints. Nothing more, nothing less.

On this, perhaps the most glorious day in recent English history, the place was jammed. A modern-day Fire Marshal would’ve had a meltdown. And the smoke. It was thick in the air. Everyone smoked, it seemed, and ashtrays overflowed.

There was a masculine energy in the room. A working-class vibe. It was maledominated to be sure, but women weren’t banned, not at all. Discouraged maybe but not banned. The banter was hale and hearty.

“The lads were class today. Absolute legends, each of ’em.”

“No one can take this away from us.”

“The whole country’s celebrating tonight.”

The men were present, in the moment, and Jack met a fine sampling of Londoners. Bus drivers, longshoremen, postal workers. Professional Class, too. He even swapped shoptalk with a banker.

“Who you with?” The man asked.

Telling the truth was out of the question – UniBank wasn’t formed until the 1990s. “Barclays.” Jack went with a safe bet – the largest bank in England.

“Brilliant, mate. I’m in currency trading, myself. You know the drill – exchange rates, letters of credit, that sorta thing.” He smiled. “Me hand’s still sore from updatin’ ledgers.” He mimicked the motion. “Month end, y’know.”

That’s right, Jack realized. Forget computers, calculators weren’t even on the scene. It was an analog world and these poor saps did everything by hand.

“You know Jamie Cuthbert?” The man was asking. “He’s a good lad. Cheeky bastard, once ya know ’im.”

“The name rings a bell.”

“What sort of work you do there, Jack?”

What to tell this chap? The banking Jack undertook bore no resemblance to this man’s world. “Let’s not talk shop, mate.” He raised his glass. “Not today.”

“Right. Fair play.” The man raised his own glass.

Just then, the barmaid strolled past and some of the men flirted. “Angie, if I ever leave me wife, I’ll be comin’ for ya, luv.”

She was no shrinking violet: “Thanks for the warning, Paul.”

“Aye, she’s a cheeky lass, in’t she.” He pinched her bottom.

To another man, a younger and better-looking specimen, Angie flirted back with full vigour. But the spirit of the moment was never far. Glasses were repeatedly raised, and pints aplenty consumed. From time to time, the singing kicked in:

Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves!

Britons never, never, never will be slaves.

And again:

Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves!

Britons never, never, never will be slaves.

Sheldon’s young lads took it all in and made friends for life with others their age. Jack briefly pondered the fact that his own Dad could be at this very pub, but a quick swill washed away those brain-twisting concerns.

By now, people were ordering food, and Jack realized he was ravenous. The menu was as British as they come – fish and chips, bangers and mash, cottage pie. The Asian food blight, as Ozzie called it, had yet to take hold. Jack settled on steak and kidney pie, a bargain at 26p. Sheldon was still footing the bill, and happy to do it.

The sustenance served the men well. It fortified them for another set of rounds. For the family men, however, 9:00 p.m. was nearing. Time to call it a night. Sheldon, for one, had had enough, and his young lads had turned a wee bit mopey.

“Been a great pleasure, Jack.” Sheldon extended his hand.

“Pleasure’s all mine,” said Jack, pulling Sheldon in for a manly hug. “Can’t thank you enough for the uh, hospitality, shall I say. Next time, it’s on me. That’s a promise.” Hugging among men was not common in 1960s England, but with alcohol on board, Sheldon accepted the overture.

“Happy to do it, sir.” Sheldon said, then turned serious. “What’re you gonna do now? How you getting home? Shall I give you cab fare?”

It was a jarring question, and it jarred Jack from the spell of alcohol, World Cup glory, and the love of fellow countrymen. He had no place to go, and the look on his face betrayed that.

“You could stay at mine. We’ve a spare room, nothing fancy. The wife wouldn’t mind.” Sheldon grinned. “She’s an agreeable sort for the most part.”

“I’ll be fine,” said Jack unconvincingly.

“Or I could book you a room, it’s no trouble.”

Jack smiled. “Something posh and grand if you don’t mind. Perhaps the Dorchester?”

Sheldon smiled at the small joke, but he was ready to leave. His young lads, moments earlier full of mischief, were drooping badly. “I must get these tykes home to bed.” He tousled his eldest’s hair.

Jack stared into space awkwardly.

“You’re a good man, Jack, that I can tell. But, if you don’t mind me saying, you seem a little lost at times. Like maybe, you’re not in the right place.”

Jack rallied his senses. “Look, I’m right, mate. I’ll be fine. Gimme a minute now, would you? I’ll ’ave me a quick Jimmy Riddle and walk out with ya.”

Jack would obviously have to figure something out. He waltzed into the loo, passing a few of his new mates along the way. For a second, uncertainty was replaced by the previous jubilation. What a day, what a day!

With business done, Jack studied his reflection in the mirror, and any sense of normalcy was abruptly punctured.

What is this place? How am I here? How will I return? Will I return?

Emotions overcame him. If I live out my days in this idyllic England-of-old replica – is that what it was? – would I be happier? Perhaps I would. This version of England is clean and pure. Friendly faces all. It is home.

Yet, it wasn’t home. Jack had a home in England to be sure, but not here. Not this era.

He thought of Lily and the kids and his heart ached. Not only for them, but for all the native English living in modern-day dystopian England. A hellhole by comparison, no one could argue otherwise.

Jack could not and would not desert his family. Nor his friends. He had to go back. People needed him. His fears for the future rose to the surface. Fears for his children’s future.

He had to go back. But how?

Would it happen spontaneously? Was there some trigger?

Or would it never happen?