The Spanish Distinction

I recently finished reading The Last Crusade: Spain 1936 by Warren Carroll, it’s a history of the first year of the Spanish Civil War written from a traditional Catholic perspective. Unlike secular historians, Carroll covers the religious motivations of the Nationalists during the war in a more serious way. Furthermore, the book does not excuse the rather staggering amount of atrocities committed by the Republic. For example, 12% of the Spanish clergy were killed, including 25% of those caught in Republican controlled areas. In addition, a staggering 85% of the priests in the diocese of Barbastro were killed. And, most of this was done in the first six (6) months of the war! The book is great reading, very informative, and not very long, so I do recommend reading it.

After centuries of national decline, King Aphonso XIII abdicated the Spanish throne and the Republic was proclaimed in its place. Several years of an uneasy peace between right and leftwing elements of Spanish society followed, but then that peace began to break down, largely as a result of the actions of the Far Left. The rightwing Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right (CEDA) was denied any cabinet seats, despite being the largest party in the Spanish government. In 1936, the Popular Front, a coalition of socialists, anarchists, and communists won a narrow victory and immediately began implementing a radical agenda that included attacks on the Catholic Church. Fed up with leftist atrocities, three rightwing Spanish generals attempted a coup that would eventually lead to a brutal three (3) year civil war: Emilio Mola, Francisco Franco, and José Sanjurjo. One Nationalist general, Francisco Franco, eventually emerged as the leader of Nationalist Spain, doing so until his death in 1975. To understand the significance of the Nationalist victory in Spain, it is important to understand how challenging their situation was.

One of the strengths of Carroll’s book is that it discusses the realities of the battle for control in Spain. He describes how unlikely a coup would be successful. The Popular Front took control of the Spanish Navy, traditionally the most prestigious of the branches of the Spanish military. They used the Spanish Navy’s humiliation in the Spanish-American War as a pretext to upend it (oddly enough, Franco was from a traditional naval family, but the decline of the Spanish Navy convinced him to join the Army instead). Too popular to dismiss them entirely, the Popular Front then proceeded to make sure the most conservative, Nationalist generals were deployed out of mainland Spain. Franco, for example, was deployed to the Canary Islands. To stage a coup, Franco would have to find a way to get to mainland Spain from the Canary Islands without naval support.

Fortunately, the Republic overlooked the power of aircraft, mostly because the technology was so new at the time. Franco was, through some luck, able to take a small plane from the Canary Islands to Morocco, then a Spanish possession. During the 1930s, the Spanish Army of Africa was stationed there, which was a bastion of the conservative, Nationalist Right. From there, Franco used the Air Corps, stationed in Spanish Morocco, to begin landing his forces on the Spanish mainland and begin the coup.

It’s a great story, but it is also a sobering one. Nationalists in the United States are in a far worse position than the Nationalist Right of Spain in 1936. If you have been on social media for the past several years, you’ve no doubt heard someone talk about the possibilities of a new civil conflict. The Normie-Right usually takes comfort in the hope that, “the military will have our back.” On the surface, it makes a lot of sense. It is a sentiment I once shared. I have since changed my mind. There are several parallels between 1930s Spain and the modern U.S. A key component is the exploitation by the Left of a historic and humiliating defeat to take over a traditionally rightwing institution, the Spanish Navy in the first case and the American military, as a whole, in the second. But, there are several differences and they don’t bode well for traditionalists in the American Empire.

For one, the American Left has been working on this a lot longer, and thus done a more thorough job than the 1930s Spanish Left. By 1936, they had only completed the takeover of the Spanish Navy. By contrast, the leftist takeover of the U.S. military has been far more effective. If you ever want an example of this consider the differences between the early 1990s and the late 2000s. When Bill Clinton tried to repeal the military’s ban on homosexuals in the 90s, the top brass fought him tooth and nail, eventually forcing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” compromise. Flash-forward about two decades and the political generals have been in open revolt over Trump’s plan to ban transsexuals. This is a stunning contrast. Even after we were conquered, the U.S. military remained very conservative and traditionally rightwing, and was a profession dominated by Southerners. After all, it is a segment of governance that is masculine, hierarchical, and disciplined – all rightwing traits that thrive in Dixie. Even to this day, the bulk of the military is comprised of men from Dixie. But, this overlooks how much the military’s leadership has changed since 2009. Due to that shift in leadership, we cannot expect Uncle Sam’s senior military officers to have any sympathy for genuine conservativism, much less a Nationalist movement.

One of the most impactful actions Obama undertook during the early part of his presidency, and one that has largely been ignored, even by most of the Right, was a purge of the military leadership. Largely using the disaster of the Iraq War as a pretext, Obama dismissed the older, more conservative generals in favor of more leftist ones. According to an Investor’s Business Daily article from 2013, 197 officers were fired in the first four (4) years of the Obama administration. The Obama purge changed the dominant culture of the military and altered how the military might behave in the event of civil unrest between Marxists and Heritage America.

In addition, consider the sharp contrast between Spain of the 1930s and the modern United States. The leftist Spanish Republic was unable to get rid of conservative, traditional, and Nationalists military leaders for fear of inciting a revolt within the ranks. Instead, they opted to remove them from the Spanish mainland, where they believed they would be far less dangerous. The United States is in a much different place. Do you think there is a single rightwing general popular enough to survive a simple exile instigated by the American Left? General Michael Flynn, a Civic Nationalist and a military officer with a stellar service record, gives us a better idea of reality. They would, and have in Flynn’s case, just remove him and replace him with someone more to their liking. We know this because that is what happened. The Left in the United States has the power to destroy Nationalist leaders in a way that the Spanish Left did not.  

Finally, for all of Franco, Milo, and Sanjuro’s military brilliance, the Republic might have achieved their goals of neutralizing Nationalist elements within the Spanish military. However, they couldn’t officially purge it had it not been for one major oversight – they overlooked the importance of aircraft.  And, this is with good reason, too. Remember, this should not surprise any student of history. Planes were a recent addition to warfare, only introduced during World War I, a war which the Spanish played almost no part. As a neutral actor, Spain, unlike France, the United Kingdom, or Germany, had not experienced the importance of aircraft in 20^th century warfare. Expanding air power as a logistical advantage was hard to envision for the majority of strategists in the early 1930s – Left or Right. It is not like they were merely stupid, either; the ability for planes to carry the cargo needed to stage a nationwide coup was very limited.

Today, that luxury is gone. There is no element of the U.S. military that is overlooked. It is a seamless, interconnected series of services. Air has been an important part of warfare for over 100 years and its ability to carry cargo has greatly improved. The Left knows this and will not allow such an oversight to happen this time. The American political Left has grabbed control of all facets of today’s U.S. military. Members of the U.S. military cannot provide any private or public commentary favorable toward traditionalism or Nationalism, unless they want to be removed from the service. Rightwing enlistees and officers have learned to keep quiet and follow orders.

Considering the modern realities, an American Franco waiting in the wings to lead a rightwing coup against a leftwing government is pure fantasy. It almost feels like a secular version of Christ’s Second Coming, where the good guys are saved at the last moment. Yes, Christ will eventually come back. Yes, Christ promised us that, “the gates of hell will not prevail over my Church.” But, to hope for this is an incredibly poor strategy. Christ’s promise was to the global Church, not locally, and no man knows the day or the hour when Christ will return. Neither stopped several intense persecutions of Christians in the past 2,000 years and nothing will stop it in the U.S. either.

If your plans rely upon a savior from within the U.S. military, you are set up to lose. Likewise, if your plan is to hope an American Francisco Franco will rise up, you are setting yourself up for failure down the line. There is no American Franco coming. Don’t expect Trump to reverse this trend, either. If you want to know why, go back and read the posts written by your normiecon Facebook friends. They read something like the following: “Ha! Trump just made a Muslim lesbian a general and the libtards still think he’s racist!” It may be true that the rank and file of the military are still good boys from Dixie, but the leadership that matters has changed – and they do not like Nationalists.

The top brass is no longer comprised of people like you. Rather, it is comprised of people who hate you. That is going to be a significant problem should the country’s fracturing continue. If you think that you can get around the top political officers – think again – Turkey’s experiment in non-Islamic government is now over because Turkish President Recep Erdoğan changed the high command. The mid-ranking officers and below are largely still anti-Islamists, but by replacing the top generals, Erdoğan has effectively neutralized the threat of a coup that has kept Islamists from taking over Turkey since the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

For many on the Left, it is perpetually 1967. It is an era of free love without consequences, peace, communism, and horrible hippie folk music. But for many on the Right, it is always 1989. Traditional America in the 1980s prevailed over those hippies and commies. Everything can get back to normal, the way things were before everything went haywire in the late 1960s. Horrible pop-country will prevail throughout the land. The world has changed, and changed drastically since the late 1980s. And, that includes the U.S. military.

A failure to understand that change is why so many on the Right are completely convinced that the military is still full of a bunch of rightwing men who hate communism and revere the Constitution. The Normie-Right thinks the military is an institution still led by proud members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. This is a forgivable misunderstanding. The Empire hates traditional Southerners, and yet we still provide a significant portion of its defense; even several writers of Identity Dixie are veterans. There is a long history of Southerners in the top ranks of the military. George Washington and Douglas MacArthur were Southerners. The American military once counted Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson as their own, but those were vastly different eras.

The history of the American military makes it sound like a ripe breeding ground for our own Nationalist Franco, but the fact is the military, or at least the leadership, has gone through a significant change and the Right must adjust accordingly. There is no Franco on the horizon. It is a sobering thought, but a necessary one. The political Right, and especially Southern Nationalists, must accept a stark reality: the military is no longer a conservative, Nationalist institution. It is now conquered by the Left.

-By Harmonica