A Lingering Sorrow

Over the past few months I’ve been rereading a lot of the older paleoconservative writers that formed the intellectual basis for what is today called the Dissident Right – men like Pat Buchanan, Samuel T. Francis, Joseph Sobran, and M.E. Bradford. For those who don’t know, paleoconservatism was a strain of right-wing thought that emerged as a self-conscious movement in the 1980s and hit its peak during the 1990s. Made up mostly of traditional Catholics and Unreconstructed Dixians (though there were others), the movement was designed to push back against the major faults with the mainstream Right.

Paleoconservatives pushed for non-interventionism in foreign policy, immigration restriction, and were far more concerned with the nation’s cultural health than the health of Walmart’s bottom line, drawing from previous right-wing movements like the America First Committee and the Southern Agrarians. Basically, think the Alt-Right, but as stodgy professionals and professors, minus the Fedposting, ironybros, and memes.  

Anyway, one particular article from Joseph Sobran really caught my attention and it’s been one I’ve been thinking over for some time. In the article, Sobran talks about growing up as a patriotic youngster in eastern Michigan and what a traumatizing experience the Vietnam War was for him because, up until that point, he had always taken pride in the fact that his country had never lost a war. The Vietnam War was, in the words of Sobran, “The end of history’s great winning streak!” For me, that line encapsulates the differences between Dixian conservatism and even the best Yankee conservatives – we know the sting of defeat they will never comprehend.

And may I remind you, Sobran was no moderate. He was an incredibly gifted thinker and principled man. Long before the rest of us had to fear becoming unemployable because of WrongThink, it happened to Sobran. He was, at one time, the editor for National Review, a dream job for many right-wing intellectuals during that time. Unfortunately, he lost his job and spent the last 17 years of his life on the edge of poverty after breaking with Conservatism, Inc. over Israel.

But, that one line still illustrates how Dixians are a unique group of people, different even from someone like Sobran. Granted, I am too young to remember the Vietnam War, but I can never remember looking at the Vietnam War as the end of my country’s winning streak. Long before I began to seriously argue for a new secession, my country had long ago lost a war – when my country, Dixie, was conquered. It is a feeling of sadness that unites all traditional Dixians, from those who want to remain in the Union to Southern Nationalists. It is something we, as a people, share, as tragic as it is, and it is something the Yankees, even men as admirable as Sobran, cannot understand.

Even when the United States lost in Vietnam (and later Iraq, as well as, arguably every war since World War II) it was never conquered. The Iraqi Army never burned down Boston and “marched to the Hudson.” The Taliban didn’t burn and destroy California’s Central Valley. The North Vietnamese Army never laid siege to Chicago and starve them. But, that is what happened to us in Atlanta, the Shenandoah Valley, and Vicksburg. Though my parents didn’t think modern day secession was practical, growing-up I was told stories about what the Yankees did to us, that my ancestors were heroes, and that waving the Confederate flag was a small bit of defiance that we weren’t dead. Despite what happened to our people, they couldn’t make us fully surrender.

The Yankees have never had their country militarily conquered – we have, and it’s something that sets us apart from them. It ultimately gives us more in common, at least on this point, with the Irish who have suffered under British occupation or the Poles who suffered under German and Russian oppression. My experiences with talking to Irishmen confirms this, they understand the pain of having one’s country fall under foreign occupation.

Yes, there are Copperheads, or Yankees that are sympathetic to us. They existed in 1861, 1965, and still in 2020. I’m friends with several of them. But, we are not of the same nation. They are like the Englishmen who opposed the occupation of Ireland or at least thought some of the brutality should end. Allies yes, but countrymen no. Just as pro-Irish Englishmen are still not Irish, pro-Dixie Yankees are still not Dixians. Alliances are one thing, but one thing that separates Dixian Nationalism from a generic conservative (even paleoconservative) nationalism, or a generic White Nationalism, is a shared history we have, and one of those things we share is a loathing of what happened during the War and Reconstruction, one that was nursed from shared stories that have been passed down from generation to generation.  

Joseph Sobran was a conservative titan, a great man, and a brilliant thinker. He influenced me, and many others in the Dissident Right, and was punished for WrongThink long before most others were, even beating out Samuel T. Francis. He was far from the first to get on the wrong side of William F. Buckley’s “respectability” crusade, but he was one of the greatest to fall. It truly is a tragic twist of fate that just as Respectable Conservatism was falling apart, killed in the sands of Iraq, Sobran died, robbing the man of a second chance at finding a mainstream audience, but also the robbing the Right of his brilliant insights. I mean no disrespect to Sobran, he was from Michigan and the Vietnam War was something it was never for me – the first time my country lost a war.

Growing up in a conservative household, the Vietnam War was a great loss, one that was blamed on the hippies and dysfunctional politics, but my people had already felt the sting of defeat and conquest. And, it is that lingering sorrow that separates us from even the best of the Yankees.

– By Dixie Anon