All We Have to Do to Defeat White Supremacists Is Stand Up to Them

White supremacy is the ideology of ignorance and violence. It’s a bully culture. It’s a fear based culture. It’s the most pathetic, thin-skinned, example of frail masculinity I can imagine.I’ve been around far too many white supremacy indoctrinated males who stomp through their lives assessing everyone they meet on the basis of whether they could take them in a fight. It’s the most ridiculous and petty way to engage your fellow human beings.White supremacy indoctrinated men get their sense of self worth through their ability to inflict violence. That can be scary on the surface, but we need to go down a few layers and understand the fundamental weakness of their ideology.In order for a white supremacist to live with himself, he has to be undefeated. If they succumb to even one challenger, they are no longer “supreme.” Even with the way they contort words, they can’t escape that indisputable fact.Their identities are built on a personal mythology of their own perfection. They tell themselves they’re the strongest. They tell themselves they’re the smartest. They tell themselves they’re the most attractive.It’s a constant toxic pep talk. It’s toxic because they also train themselves to disregard any evidence to the contrary. The consequence is that they deprive themselves of any mechanism of personal growth. Why do they need to grow? They believe they are and always will be perfect.But a strange consequence arises from this weak and pathetic worldview. White supremacists find themselves in a position of needing constant validation even though they are desperately afraid of entering a contest that might disprove their self-perception.Their answer to this is to embrace the bully culture. By acting like a bully, they can berate and threaten and harass all the people around them. This gives them a sense of their own superiority. They feel it every time a man or a woman cowers at the thought of a physical altercation.They become loathsome. They openly brag about sexually assaulting women in public, they call you names, they’ll even spit in your face. All of this behavior leverages the common instinct for conflict avoidance that is a characteristic of rational people.But everyone has a breaking point.I remember having to endure the constant attacks from bullies when I was growing up. They punched me in the face. They gave me bloody noses. They’d light matches and burn me.I had the wind knocked out of me dozens of times. By nature, I am a kind and compassionate person. I take no joy in hurting others. I don’t have any impulse to hurt somebody even when they physically attack me.The problem is that our entire society has been groomed and conditioned to enable white supremacists. Every time we offer a criticism of white supremacists, people are more inclined to say, “You’ll make them more set in their ways,” than they are to hold white supremacists accountable.This is why when I complained to authority figures that I was being brutally attacked on the school bus, their response was to shrug and say, “Well, nobody would have attacked you unless you provoked it.” I also knew that if I did fight back, I would be punished.Eventually, I got to the point where I realized I’d prefer to fight back and be punished than to submit to being murdered by some bully.This is one of those instances where a switch was flipped in my brain. One moment I was a target of bullies, and a fraction of a second later I decided I wouldn’t live like that any more. When a moment like that happens to you, it’s not something you forget. You get an electric shock that runs right down to your toes. It activates your muscles, you feel a surge of power.The next time a bully came at me, I would fight back. I didn’t care what happened. I wasn’t going to take it any more.Naturally, because of the lawless conservative town where I grew up, I didn’t have long to wait. I still remember the day it happened. Some bully came along with his aggressive attitude. I don’t remember what he wanted, maybe it was the basketball I was playing with. Maybe he just wanted me to squeal.He came at me expecting me to retreat and I didn’t. Right away I saw the confusion in his eyes. He’d been expecting an easy victim and the resistance confused him.“You better do what I say, or I’ll beat you up,” he said.“If you try to beat me up, you’ll probably win. You’re bigger than me. But I’m going to fight back and I promise I’ll hurt you before your done. Also, I’m not going to stop until you kill me.”I figured that was fair warning, and I lifted up my fists. Adrenaline surged through me. Every part of my body was ready to fight to the death. I’d made peace with dying. It was living with the constant abuse that I couldn’t handle.But then something happened that I never expected.The bully turned and walked away. He did it so fast it was like he didn’t want me to see. He just turned and left. He didn’t say anything. His face was expressionless. He didn’t run, but he moved away quickly like everything was normal.I didn’t realize what happened then, but I realize it now.A fight is another form of contest. Bullies are terrified of entering a contest because they know they’ll lose. They can’t take a loss, any loss, because that would dismantle their white supremacy ideology.This is why bullies start screaming when you ask them follow-up questions about their ideas. This is why they refuse to study any complex topics. This is why they sit in the back of the classroom mocking the people who are actually trying to learn.It’s because their ideology is so pathetic and weak that they slither away from accountability in any form.Whenever people say, “Just ignore them or they’ll become more set in their ways,” you make it worse. Ignoring white supremacy is a tactic of white supremacy. It dies when it’s challenged.Instead, we have to humiliate them. We have to show them that their ideology is wrong. They’re not superior. They’re not perfect. We have to let them know that they can take on the challenge of learning new ideas and embracing new cultures and it will make them bigger instead of smaller.The problem is that they’ve adopted a toxic identity that doesn’t allow them to grow. When we recognize that, we have to remove it immediately. We can’t give them space to allow the white supremacy mind virus to turn them into a monster.Perhaps the most frustrating thing about the last decade in the United States is watching how the weakest, least talented, most pathetic people in the country have managed to seize all the levers of power. This has happened because the majority of the population has been indoctrinated to think they must never hold a white supremacist accountable.Instead, they just cower before them as these absurd men start raging and saber rattling, and then they give the white supremacists everything they want.All we have to do is stand up and say, “No.”“No, you can’t hurt children.”“No, you can’t invade Greenland.”“No, you don’t get to create a secret police.”“No, you don’t get to engage in insurrection.”“No, you don’t get to steal an election.”Just stand up and make them stop. The problem is that the Democrats are filled with silver spoon jerks who have never had to deal with a bully. They never had the realization, as I did, that white supremacists will instinctively retreat from any contest because deep down they know they’ll lose.These are cowardly men who are afraid to let the world see proof of how pitiful they are. This is why I believe the Republicans cheated in 2024. White supremacists don’t go into fair contests. Their fear of loss makes that impossible. It’s also why the USA spends a trillion dollars on the military. That’s the same as how bullies won’t challenge you to a fair fight, instead they beat you up with twenty of their friends. They only engage if the outcome is already decided.They’re liars.They’re cheaters.They’re inept.They’re cowards.All we have to do to defeat them is tell them “No.” They aren’t going to fight you. They’re going to fold. The one thing they fear most of all is having their fundamental weakness exposed. But the joke is on them. They’ve bullied their way into a corner. They’ve been exposed. The sooner they realize that we’ve all seen their shame, the sooner this ends.You all make this newsletter happen! Thanks for your sponsorship! I have payment tiers starting at as little as twenty dollars a year.Upgrade at 30% offUpgrade at 40% offUpgrade at 50% offUpgrade at 60% offI’m so happy you’re here, and I’m looking forward to sharing more thoughts with you tomorrow.My CoSchedule referral linkHere’s my referral link to my preferred headline analyzer tool. If you sign up through this, it’s another way to support this newsletter (thank you).I'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe