BACKYARD NATIONALISM Will Make America Great Again
Trump won. Now what?
Dear Reader: Welcome to dog and pony show, your new favorite source of thoughtful and eloquent tomfoolery of the written word on all manner of touchy and uncouth topics authored by your friendly neighborhood court jester, ringleader! From political conspiracies to forgotten and hidden histories, the search for truth and beauty to the ecstasy of controversy, grab a ticket to the show and SUBSCRIBE TODAY as we revel in the comedy of free thought in an unthinking world.
Trump won. Now what?
In case you haven’t heard, the White House is once again going to have a splash of orange—in unprecedented fashion, at that. Donald J. Trump is only the second president to win nonconsecutive terms, after Grover Cleveland in 1892. He is also only the second president to be wounded in an assassination attempt while campaigning for reelection, after Teddy Roosevelt in 1912. Trump is the first president to have ever been convicted for a crime and is technically a felon. Trump’s vice-president, J.D. Vance, born in 1984, is the first millennial vice-president and third youngest at 40 years old. Together they beat the incumbent president Joe Biden (and, ultimately, his vice-president Kamala Harris) 312-226, becoming the first Republican ticket to win both the Electoral College and popular vote since George W. Bush in 2004.
By all accounts, President Trump has an unequivocal mandate to implement the MAGA agenda.
Indeed, with this mandate, America is poised to have a president that can shift the destiny of this country for generations to come and Make America Great Again.
Or not.
Only time will tell whether President Trump, now freed from the shackles of re-election and fully conscious of the deep state cathedral which has sought to destroy him, will actually make good on his promises by whatever means necessary and proper—or if he will go down as another Reagan, the figurehead of a co-opted and neutralized populist uprising at the ballot box, whose ghost is summoned fitfully for fifty years on the campaign trail to stir the masses to continue voting for the warmed over nostalgia of false promises. For anyone still under the illusion of Reaganism, I suggest Christopher Caldwell’s book The Age of Entitlement which masterfully breaks down point by point exactly why Reagan was a failure.
The worst outcome of the next four years is not another stymied and beleaguered term like 2016-2020 but a term with moderate success. A term that does just enough to placate the electorate with the satisfaction that prices have gone done, taxes don’t go up, and their kids aren’t getting directly TRANSed in public school. Anything less than a complete revolution in how our federal government operates will be a total failure because we’ll be right back to the baseline in no time.
I hope and pray for the best of this upcoming administration, but I suggest that the ultimate key to Making America Great Again—the key to ensuring that our children do not live through continued decline and degeneration, whether this administration is successful or not—starts with us and our own backyards.
Only Backyard Nationalism will ensure that the American people are strong enough to withstand whatever machinations that the puppet-masters of darkness put in play.
Backyard Nationalism is MAGA at the molecular level.
When was America ever great? Back in slavery days? Back when women couldn’t vote?
You can hear the snarky millennial snot now.
Even today, I would venture to guess that most baby-boomers would answer this question with either the 1950s (a time only the oldest boomers have any childhood memories of) or the 80s/90s (when America was experiencing rapid economic growth due to the ecstatic orgy of overspending, cheap goods from globalization, and development of the nascent tech industry).
Of these, the 50s is much closer to correct, but still woefully wrong. The prosperous high of the post-war baby boom was merely window dressing for the death of the America that fought the World Wars and the dawn of the new Constitutional Order rooted in grievance and its unholy grail of equitable outcomes. No, the 1950s was the beginning of the end of American greatness.
So what did make America great?
American greatness was rooted in the organic communities of Albion’s Seed: the four folkways of the English Puritans, Cavaliers, Quakers, and Scotch-Irish Borderers. Over 400 years ago, these British kindred, close in blood, but radically diverse in their own right, ventured to America for a variety of reasons that all boil down to one thing—they sought to stake out a new backyard in the wilderness of the New World.
In doing so, these Englishmen would, using their inheritance of Western Civilization’s greatest achievements, devise a system of governance that was premised on protecting our God-given rights, the chief of which is the right to self-government. The “American Experiment” was not an exercise in inviting the whole world here to sing kumbaya but rather the culmination of centuries of political and cultural wisdom, untold bloodshed and oppression amongst brothers, and the establishment of a system of governance that placed the People as the bearers of ultimate responsibility of their own political destiny.
Individual responsibility is what made America great. Backyard Nationalism is a 21st century framework for restoring individual responsibility and its natural fruit of organic community.
By individual responsibility I do not mean mere individualism and bootstrapping, which has actually been a core factor in the degeneration of America. Instead, I mean the mutual self-reliance that enabled our British forefathers to tame a wild and savage continent with only their sweat, blood, and grace of God. I mean close-knit communities of families living, working, and worshipping God together and alongside one another as they developed systems of government with the sole purpose of ensuring the flourishing of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for themselves and their posterity.
America was great when you knew that the land you lived upon was your own and that good fences make good neighbors. In other words, America was great when your community and country at large felt like your backyard.
This doesn’t mean a lack of danger, per se. During the colonial period, well into America’s founding, our backyard was populated by immense danger. But it was a danger that Americans were empowered to reckon with themselves. It was a danger to conquer and tame. Today’s danger in our backyards makes us a prisoner in our own homes and communities, powerless and afraid to take action lest we be prostrated by the all-powerful state like Daniel Penny, Kyle Rittenhouse, Derek Chauvin, George Zimmerman, etc. etc. etc.
In fact, the colonial period is exactly the point of reference that we must base our efforts on. It is time to recolonize our own country, and Backyard Nationalism is how we make it happen.
Backyard Nationalism & 21st Century Colonialism
Without colonialism, much of the world today would still be living in undeveloped squalor. Now, thanks to their evil oppressors, much of the world lives in underdeveloped squalor with a McDonald’s and internet access. America’s decline has led to much of our once prosperous nation looking like the third world countries that the tired, hungry masses leave to come here.
We once again face a wilderness, but instead of the land being overgrown and savage, we face a sclerotic leviathan of man-made policy, tangled with bureaucratic snares that, while perhaps less physically brutal, are no less deadly than the risks of the past. The only way forward is to beat back the wilderness just like our forefathers did. We must take ground and keep it—not in the cancerous organs of the state (though that will come in due time), but in everyday life.
My friend
over at has written an excellent piece, A Blueprint for Independent Enclave Communities, that lays out one such way to stake a claim for an independent community utilizing a non-profit organization framework. If you are interested in community building, his piece is required reading. There are a few more potential models that I will be exploring in the coming months, but Copernican’s non-profit idea has serious potential as a framework with a more centralized organization.The most important focus of Backyard Nationalism is of course one’s own backyard, but as organic community is formed and flourishes, one’s backyard will necessarily scale in kind. Whatever the organizational framework that a particular group decides upon, established communities will eventually be able to form networks with other communities that are offshoots, allies, or even those that simply have mutually beneficial interests. Eventually, these networks have the potential to reach a critical mass of political plurality that has the power to not just shift towns or cities, but entire states and regions.
How does Backyard Nationalism compare to the MAGA agenda?
On the topic of scale, let’s look together at the official 2024 Trump platform and see what is (or isn’t) copacetic to Backyard Nationalism.
For the first half of the platform, we’re starting strong out of the gate with (1) and (2) emphasizing the need to stop illegal immigration and begin reversing the damage it has done to this country. Backyard Nationalism’s fundamental principle is that good fences make good neighbors, and this applies to the nation just as well as it applies to your own backdoor.
Planks (3) through (6) all deal with economic reforms that center on self-sufficiency. Each of these resonate with Backyard Nationalism’s principle of individual responsibility by prioritizing a robust America First economy.
Plank (7) is critical to Backyard Nationalism, as the more protected our God-given rights are, the better our chances of rebuilding organic community premised on the God-given right of freedom of association.
Plank (8) through (10) deal with war, foreign and domestic. I want peace in my backyard and those of my neighbors whose fighting threatens to disturb that peace. Preventing WWIII is critical. Likewise, the weaponization of government against Americans is also very important to the mission of Backyard Nationalism—Ruby Ridge and Waco are the ultimate examples of what you do not want foisted upon your backyard. Crime writ large must also be tackled if we are to live in peace and quiet in our communities again.
The next half of the platform is also good, but contains some iffier items. Plank (11) is a no-brainer, as our cities are rotting out from the inside with blight and fentZombies. Just outside my neighborhood, we’ve now got a whole colony of a dozen plus homeless who’ve taken up residence in multiple commercial buildings for sale. Just this week, the cop at our neighborhood meeting says “We can’t do anything to them if they’re on private property. The owner has to make a complaint first.”
Planks (12) and (13) are focused on restoring and maintaining American global influence which is a double-edged sword. As long as that influence is exercised to advance American interests first, then it’s a positive thing. But these two planks do carry the high risk of abuse should the Trump Administration be co-opted/subverted by globalist warmongers.
Plank (14) is another tough cookie. I hold no quarter for Ayn Rand objectivism which salivates at the thought of gutting social security and Medicare. My father is personally being kept alive much because of Medicare, in fact. BUT I do have major qualms with how the programs are run, which more often than not act as subsidies for Big Pharma and the medical establishment, rather than programs to truly heal and take care of our senior citizens. The short paragraph of explanation within the official platform document does contemplate RFK Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again focus, but I expect there to be continued resistance to real reform of the system and accountability for the decline of American health.
Plank (15) has the potential to be the most radical change within the whole platform. If the Department of Government Efficiency is even 25% successful, then the federal government will be shrunk more than any time in history. This would be a massive shift of power that must be capitalized on at the state and local level.
Planks (16) through (18) deal with education. (16) and (17) are no-brainers, but I do have my eyes on (18) considering the so-called “antisemitism” laws passed in dozens of states since the beginning of the Israeli-Hamas war have been the most chilling regulations on speech in recent memory.
Planks (19) and (20) are interesting. Election integrity is an absolute necessity (and those who had a hand in the abuses during the stolen 2020 election should still be held accountable), but I do wonder how they intend to implement any kind of nationwide reform. On the one hand, the States have the right and authority to handle their own elections, but the feds have also had little problem interfering with this for decades now since the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The final plank, “Unite our country by bringing it to new and record levels of success,” sounds good of course. Success? Record levels? What’s not to like?
But, as I mentioned at the beginning, perhaps the worst possible outcome of President Trump’s second term would be “success” based on the meagre metric of extra spending money in our pockets (even if it’s a record level). Such success would only doom us to another karmic cycle in the establishment matrix where America First is fully supplanted by a “Trumpism” that is effectively Reaganism 2.0.
This is why Backyard Nationalism is imperative no matter what happens over the next 4 years and beyond. At the end of the day, while I do think that this administration does have the potential to shift our everyday lives for the better, I place no hope in that possibility. Instead, each day I resolve to be the man that God has made me to be so that I can lead and love my wife, family, and community in a way that glorifies Him.
das Es of Backyard Nationalism
My wife and I were talking about the Freud’s concepts of the id, ego, superego the other day.1 I explained them to her in basic terms as best I could remember from my freshman psych 101 class however years ago and my last wikipedia binge sesh on the subject. I described the id as our unconscious self, the self that we probably couldn’t put into words if we tried but that includes our reptilian, animalistic brain. When she asked me what how I would describe my id if I had to I said, “the only way I can put it is that, at my core, I am Adam just after God has closed the gates to the Garden of Eden behind me. With sheer independence in the wilderness, yet total dependence on God to survive.”
As Americans we must reclaim the true spirit of independence that is rooted in God’s natural order—not the rootless, Godless, independence of man—but the freedom which comes only from being in complete surrender to God’s will for our lives and glorifying Him in doing so. Which is to say, “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” John 8:36 KJV.
You may say, “but ringleader, I’m not Christian you silly Jesus freak. Is this Backyard Nationalism schtick just a goofy rebrand of Christian Nationalism or something?”
No!
Backyard Nationalism is simply a neutral philosophical praxis to articulate mankind’s sociopolitical nature which is that man flourishes best when he is free to tend to and steward his own backyard.
14For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them 16 on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. Romans 2:14-16 ESV.
The call to tend to your own backyard does not depend on whether you are a Christian or not. In fact, the Church has long had significant trouble with heeding this call and bears a significant degree of responsibility for the present decline we are experiencing in the West. That said, building political systems rooted in the philosophy of Backyard Nationalism is available to any kind of people group that is up to the task. Of course, there is assuredly a bell curve distribution to peoples’ capacities for self-government. Look no further than Haiti. I’ll dive deeper into the individual aspects of Backyard Nationalism in another piece.
Backyard Nationalism is the future of America
Thomas Jefferson, the man who doubled the land mass of the United States with the Louisiana Purchase, envisioned that the U.S. would give birth to sister republics in America. While the Federalist aspirations for one conglomerated empire won the day, they have led to the current state of the union as an unwieldy leviathan which, for the better part of a century, has been the driving force for globalism, centralization of power, and the reduction of sovereignty. President Trump asserts that he stands in the breach of destiny to reverse this course.
But we hold the power as Americans to do the dirty work ourselves here and now. All it takes is the will to do so. In 2019, the Amish were projected to have a greater population than the entire U.S. population by 2235. The Amish all descend from about 200 families that immigrated to the U.S. in the 1700s. They are a perfect case study for Backyard Nationalism, and I will be writing more about them in the future.
For those Americans who understand that it has become “necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them,” we still have the vestiges of the system our forefathers established that enable us to live apart in parallel to the rat race world our country has become. We just have to step into our backyard and begin tending.
Thank you for reading the latest installment in my Backyard Nationalism project! If you are interested in establishing parallel society and independent community, then you are in the right place.
Subscribe now so you don’t miss any of my upcoming work.
(das Es, Ich, and Über-Ich as Freud termed them in his native German—which literally translated would be “the it, I, and I Above”)