Successful dissident organizations are not built merely by attracting attention. They are built by doing the taking the following and turning it something meaningful:

Interest → participation → responsibility → leadership.

Social media can introduce people to an organization, but it cannot, by itself, create the personal relationships, shared experiences, and sense of duty necessary to sustain it. For any organization seeking long-term growth, recruitment must be treated as an ongoing process of developing people rather than simply accumulating followers.

Seek Out Individuals, Not Only Audiences

Arguably one of the most common mistakes an organization can make is confusing an audience with a membership roster. Thousands of followers may produce impressive numbers, but those numbers mean little if few people are willing to contribute their time, abilities, or resources.

For example, the Ethnic American Broadcast (EAB), an online group run by The General, regularly has X Spaces with over 150 listeners. However, that is not indicative of actual participation. For instance, a couple of the listeners, frustrated that the EAB wasn’t practicing what they preached, decided to join my nationalist organization, The New Way.

I’m not saying that the EAB doesn’t have some people working behind the scenes to produce some kind of work, but it’s certainly not convincing people to rally behind them in the way that they think.

So, if you want to convert your audience to membership, you will have to begin by recruiting key individuals instead of trying to cast a wide net. Instead of putting out the same message to everyone and hoping someone responds, take the time to consider why a particular person might be interested in the organization. What are their interests? What concerns do they have? What experiences or skills might make them a natural fit?

In my experience, personal invitations demonstrate that someone is being approached for a reason. It established the possibility of a genuine relationship instead of treating the individual as another name on a mailing list.

Now, of course, I am not saying that you should abandon public outreach. You should be producing articles, videos, social media posts, and you should be building up to host public events. Because all of these things have their place and can make your organization more likely to catch more eyes, increasing you change to recruit more people. However, public outreach should be the beginning of the relationship, not a substitute for one.

It is crucial to remember that the purpose of publicity is to create opportunities for personal engagement, and the purpose of recruitment is to turn those opportunities into meaningful relationships.

Build a Ladder of Involvement

It should be remembered that not everyone who expresses interest is ready to become an active member. Some people need time to understand an organization’s purpose, while others may be interested but uncertain about how they can contribute, or if the benefits of joining outweigh the negatives of joining. Expecting every new new contact to immediately become a committed volunteer places unnecessary pressure on both the individual and the organization.

What I found to be more effective is to approach each new contact with a clear progression of involvement:

1. Interested: The individual encounters the organization and wants to learn more.

2. Supporter: The individual agrees with its general purpose and follows its work.

3. Participant: The individual attends an event, joins a discussion, or takes part in an activity.

4. Volunteer: The individual begins contributing time and effort.

5. Recruiter: The individual introduces other interested people to the organization.

6. Organizer: The individual assumes responsibility for coordinating activities, projects, or other volunteers, and manages the recruiters.

7. Leader: The individual demonstrates the judgment, reliability, and ability to guide others.

This progression helps to provide a framework for developing members without assuming that everyone will advance at the same pace. Some may remain occasional supporters, while others will eventually take on substantial responsibilities. Both will have their value.

The most important thing to remember is to make each progressive step more accessible, so a person who is not prepared to organize an event might be willing to attend one. Someone who cannot volunteer every week might be able to write an article, help with a single project, or introduce a friend.

Every meaningful contribution creates a new opportunity to gain more members and further involvement with the organization. Remember to keep track of these contributions and recognize those taking the contributions by inviting them to take the next step when they are ready.

Know Your Members

An organization cannot effectively develop its membership if it treats every member as interchangeable. People have different interests, abilities, schedules, ambitions, and levels of commitment. Successful organizations must understand these differences if they are to grow and remain successful.

I would recommend keeping practical records of each member’s interests, skills, previous contributions, and preferred areas of involvement. Someone with writing experience might be well suited to preparing articles of newsletters. Another person might have experiencing managing events, maintaining accounts, conducting research, designing promotional materials, or communicating with prospective members.

Also, it’s incredibly important to learn what your people are actually willing and able to do. A member may possess impressive professional skills, but they may have very little free time because they have a hectic work/personal life. While another may have fewer specialized abilities but be exceptionally dependable.

Reliability is also particularly important. A successful organization will need people who are able to follow through on their commitments, communicate when circumstances change, and can be trusted with responsibilities appropriate to their experience.

I’m not saying that you should develop a rigid system of labeling people or permanently limiting their opportunities. Members will develop new skills, discover new interests, and gain confidence through experience. The purpose of keeping these records is to help people find suitable opportunities and to ensure that responsibilities are distributed sensibly.

A successful organization will understand that its members can make better use of its existing resources before attempting to expand its membership. It can also identify where additional skills are needed and recruit accordingly.

The article below goes into more detail.

Give People Meaningful Jobs

By now, you should understand that people are more likely to become invested in an organization when they have a genuine role within it. Membership should mean more than receiving emails, paying dues, or occasionally reading publications. Whenever possible, it should provide an opportunity to contribute to something tangible.

Even small organizations can divide its work into useful responsibilities. Depending on its purpose and resources, these might include:

• Recruiters, who speak with prospective members and introduce them to the organization.

• Event organizers, who coordinate meetings, gatherings, and activities.

• Writers and editors, who prepare articles, newsletters, and other publications.

• Designers, who develop graphics, promotional materials, and visual content.

• Researchers, who gather information and prepare reports.

• Treasurers, who maintain financial records and assist with budgeting.

• Outreach coordinators, who maintain relationships with relevant individuals and groups.

These roles do not need to begin as formal positions with elaborate titles. A volunteer can start by completing a single assignment, then gradually assume greater responsibility as experience and trust develops.

What I found the key to be is to assign work that matters. Asking someone to help with a clearly defined project, giving them the resources necessary to complete it, and acknowledging the finished work is more effective than offering an impressive title without any real responsibility.

Delegation benefits the organization’s leadership. Trust me, you can’t do it all alone. When all decisions and tasks depend on one person, growth eventually becomes limited by that person’s time and energy. Distributing responsibility allows more work to be completed while giving members the experience needed to assume leadership themselves.

Don’t forget, responsibility should be accompanied by appropriate authority. If someone is expected to organize an event, for example, they should understand their budget, their decision making limits, and the support available to them. Assigning responsibility without providing the means to exercise it creates frustration rather than commitment.

Personal Outreach Is Essential

While it is true that public communication can reach large numbers of people, but personal outreach gives an organization the opportunity to establish trust. A thoughtful conversation with someone who already has an affinity for the organization’s ideals is often more productive than another generic post directed at thousands of strangers.

Personal outreach begins with listening. Instead of immediately delivering a prepared speech, ask what interests the person, what they think about the organization’s work, and whether there is anything they would like to learn more about. Explain the organization’s purpose honestly and give them room to decide whether they wish to become involved or not.

The invitation should also be specific whenever possible. Rather than simply asking someone to support the organization, invite them to a particular event, introduce them to a relevant project, or ask whether they would be interested in contributing a skill they already possess.

Following up with the contact is also important. If someone expresses interest, provide the information promised. If they attend an event, thank them for coming. If they volunteer for a task, acknowledge their contribution and communicate the results. These small acts demonstrate that the organization values people as individuals rather than merely viewing them as potential members.

Personal outreach should always remain respectful and voluntary. People must be free to decline an invitation without being subjected to repeated pressure or having their relationships treated as recruitment opportunities. Trust is difficult to build and easy to lose.

Over time, you will see genuine relations blossoming, which can create wider network participation. People introduce friends, recommend capable volunteers, and share their experiences with others. This kind of growth is often slower than a sudden surge in online attention, but it can produce a more dependable foundation.

Organizing Members

Members reinforce organization. Personal outreach brings key individuals into contact with the organization and a clear ladder of involvement gives them a path forward. Understanding their interests and abilities helps identify appropriate opportunities. Meaningful responsibilities encourage participation and develop leadership.

By keeping these things in the back of your mind, you will find a result in which your organization is not dependent entirely on continually finding new people. And it also develops the people you already have.

As the organization grows, this distinction will become more and more important. A small group may initially function through informal conversations and the efforts of a few dedicated individuals. However, as the membership grows informal arrangements can become insufficient. Responsibilities need to be clarified, communication needs to become consistent, and experienced members need to help guide newer ones.

Growth should therefore be measured not only by how many people join, but also by how many participate, how many fulfill responsibilities, and how many become capable of helping the organization function independently.

A hundred passive members may provide a larger audience than a dozen active members, but the latter may be better equipped to carry out projects, welcome newcomers, and sustain regular activities. The strongest organizations will seek both breadth and depth—a broad base of people who are interested and a dependable core willing to contribute.

The Most Important Thing to Remember

An organization’s greatest resource is not its social media following, its promotional material, or even its membership list. It is the people who are willing to put the work in and help it endure—perseverance through trial and tribulation.

Recruitment should be personal, involvement should develop gradually, members should be understood as individuals with different abilities and interests, responsibilities should be meaningful, and leadership should be developed rather than assumed to appear automatically.

Publicity can make an organization visible, but visibility alone does not make it effective. Lasting growth comes form turning interest into participation, participation into responsibility, and responsibility into a culture in which people take ownership of their work.

If you ask the question:

How many people can my organization attract?

You are asking the wrong question. Instead ask:

How many people can we develop into capable, dependable contributors?

Because that is the difference between building an audience and building an organization.

When you’re recruiting, you have to focus on the right way to recruit more members.

• Recruit individuals, not just audiences.

• Build a ladder of involvement.

• Know your people.

• Give people meaningful jobs.

• Personal outreach is extraordinarily important.

It’s said that a nationalist organization cannot be sustained by political conviction alone. This is true for all political organizations, but especially for a nationalist organization which is dissenting from the status quo.

For a nationalist organization to succeed, it requires institutions, education, cultural continuity, organizational discipline, and a community of people willing to devote their time and abilities to a common mission.

Men and women alike can contribute to these efforts, although the particular responsibilities assigned to each will depend on the organization’s principles and understanding of national life.

So, therefore, I ask the question if women have a place in a nationalist movement, then what is their place and how can their contributions best serve the national community?

Preserving the National Culture

It is true that a nation is more than just some geographical territory or a political administration. A nation, or a neam, is the people, kindred, lineage, or historical community, who possess a shared language, customs, traditions, collective memories, and institutions inherited from previous generations.

In theological terms, the neam is inseparable from Christ, because we know that it is Christ who has given us our ultimate orientation, moral purpose, and understanding of true history.

As St. Nikolaj Velimirović said:

“We are the children of God, and people of the Aryan race, to which fate has assigned the honorable role of being the principle bearer of Christianity in the world.”

And these things do not preserve themselves. They must be taught, practiced, and transmitted to the people, while also repeating our duty to our neam through successive generations.

In this duty, women play an important role through the preservation of family traditions, the education of children, the maintenance of cultural practices, and participation in institutions dedicated to national history and heritage. They can help ensure the next generation understands not only the history of its homeland, but also the cultural inheritance that connects them to those who came before, as well as their obligation to carry out their duties.

The responsibility should not be understood as belonging exclusively to women. Men also bear responsibility for cultural transmission. Nevertheless, where an organization places particular emphasis on family life and intergenerational continuity, it has reason to recognize the significant of women’s contributions in these areas.

It should be said, that cultural preservation must extend far beyond the household. Women can participate in historical societies, educational associations, publishing projects, language programs, and cultural organizations. And by encouraging women to do such work, national traditions can be preserved as living practices rather than antiquated symbols of the past.

Organization and Service

Political movements frequently devote a considerable attention to their public statements, ideological debates, and prominent personalities—often times cultivating a cult of personality or perceived authority while neglecting the fact that their continued existence often depends on far less visible and glorious work:

• Membership records must be maintained

• Correspondence must be answered

• Events must be organized

• Publications must be prepared and distributed

• Members experiencing hardship may need assistance

• & new participants must be introduced to the movement’s principles.

I suggest that women take up these responsibilities so that they may develop the necessary skills, and assume positions of appropriate organizational authority.

I should also say that I don’t believe that it is effective to have women in places of authority over men, unless there is a man of higher authority who permits it. The Bible states in 1 Timothy 2:11-12;

“Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.”

But it was Acts 18:24–26 that Priscilla and her husband, Aquila, instructed Apollos on how to be a better Christian teacher:

“They took him unto them, and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly.”

Those previously mentioned responsibilities should not be dismissed as a secondary simply because it attracts less public attention than speeches or political campaigns. An organization that cannot administer its affairs reliably will struggle to accomplish its objectives, regardless of the strength of its rhetoric.

However, I am also not saying that administrative or charitable responsibilities need to become exclusively female occupations. What I am saying is that their distribution should reflect the organization’s needs, the ability of its members, and the principles it wishes to uphold. And so, a serious organization should cultivate competence wherever it finds it.

Education and Intellectual Life

Every successful nationalist organization must be able to answer questions about its history, principles, and intended future. It must explain what it seeks to preserve, what it hopes to reform, and what responsibilities it believes its members owe to their neam.

Here is where I have found women to be exemplary in contribution.

Women often times make the best researchers and note takers. So, they can be effectively used for researching national history, writing essays, editing publications, organizing lectures, maintaining archives, and participating in discussions of political philosophy. They can also examine the organization’s assumptions, identify weaknesses in its arguments, and help develop a more coherent understand of its objectives.

Education is especially important when a movement hopes to endure beyond the lifetime of its founders. Personal loyalty may bring people into an organization, but education helps them understand its principles and judge conduct against them.

An organization should expect women to transmit its ideas to future generations and also give them the opportunity to study those ideas seriously. It should not expect them to defend a traditions they have never been permitted to understand.

Remember, intellectual responsibility requires both instruction and independent judgement. By cultivating the mind to make important judgements independent of others, you create a greater nationalist.

Family, Demography, and Generational Continuity

A nationalist organization must regard the family as the fundamental social institution, because family life will naturally occupy an important place in their understanding of national continuity.

Families are responsible for raising children, establishing habits of mutual responsibility, transmitting cultural practices, and connecting successive generations. While many would argue for the nuclear family, what I have found is that it is isolating to the clan—creating indifference and splitting up the extended family—, so I advocate and believe that our most fundamental social institution must be multigenerational.

Nuclear Family

The nuclear family consists of two parents and their children living in a single household. It is a two-generation unit focused on the parent-child bond. In nuclear families, financial and childcare duties are concentrated within the small unit, often requiring outside services, such as schooling, child rearing, etc. Nuclear families offer greater privacy, autonomy, and mobility, making them common in Western Civilization.

Extended Family

The extended family is a multi-generational group that may span three or more generations. Extended families pool resources, allowing for shared labor, collective financial support, and built-in caregiving networks. Extended families also provide stronger community support, security, and cultural continuity, but involve less privacy and typically involve more complex interpersonal dynamics. They also may or may not live in the same household.

Women make important contributions in this sphere, just as men do. Parenthood, however, should not be treated as the only measure of a woman’s worth or commitment to her nation. Women who are widows or cannot have children may contribute through education, scholarship, public service, charitable work, and organizational participation.

By rhetoric alone, demographic security is not ensured. However, it depends on practical circumstances, including economic security, housing, access to education, and the ability of parents to provide for their children.

An organization looking to encourage family formation should consider whether its policies and institutions actually support family life. Celebrating the family while ignoring the material difficulties faced by families is unlikely to produce the desired result. So, the objective should be to strengthen the conditions under which families and communities can flourish.

Leadership and Responsibility

I have touched on this topic a bit earlier in the article, however, I thought it would be good to expand on what I had said. Easily one of the most important questions is what should be the extent of a woman’s participation in leadership.

Men and women have complementary, but distinct, social roles. While women can have substantial opportunities to lead certain institutions and undertake public responsibilities, it is not in an organization’s interests to adopt a sense of egalitarianism.

A woman who demonstrates exceptional ability in research, administration, public speaking, or organizational participation should not have those abilities ignored without a clear explanation grounded in principle. Equally, an organization that encourages women to assume demanding public responsibilities should consider how those responsibilities might affect family life and other obligations.

Leadership entails not just duties, but certain privileges as well. Those entrusted with authority should be judged by their competence, integrity, discipline, and service to the organization.

Beyond Symbolism

What I have noticed among many nationalist organizations is the tendency to treat certain groups primarily as symbols. Women may be praised as embodiments of national tradition or motherhood, but I rarely see them given meaningful opportunities to participate in the institutions supposedly built to preserve those things. Look symbolic recognition certainly has its place, but it cannot substitute for substantive responsibility.

If women are to be expected to contribute, than their responsibilities should be clearly defined with appropriate training and a genuine opportunity to develop their abilities. Their contributions should be evaluated honestly, and their work should be recognized fairly.

The standard that you apply to women, should be applied to men. An organization cannot build a culture of service if it reserves recognition for prominent personalities while overlooking the people who perform its essential work. You must learn to distinguish between appearance and achievement.

A Common National Purpose

Arguably my strongest argument for women’s participation in a nationalist organization is not that every women must perform in a predetermined function, but that because there are numerous responsibilities for the preservation and development of the national community, many of them will undoubtedly require the participation of the entire community.

Cultural institutions need teachers and researchers, while organizations need administrators and organizers. Families need responsible parents, while publications need writers and editors. Charitable projects need volunteers and capable leadership, while political institutions need people willing to accept responsibility for their decisions.

And women can contribute to all of these endeavors, as long as they have male supervision to ensure that they maintain the organization’s principles.

In my opinion, national service is not to be reduced to a single occupation, nor should commitment be measured solely by public visibility. A person who quietly preserves an archive, educates children, organizes a local association, or assists a family in hardship may contribute to the continuity of a national community as meaningfully as someone who addresses a public gathering.

The task at hand is to connect individual abilities with collective responsibilities. Therefore a nationalist organization that takes its future seriously must ask not merely how many people it can recruit, but what kind of community it intends to build, what institutions that community requires, and how its members can sustain those institutions over time.

I believe that women have a vital role in answering those questions, because the nature of that role should be determined through a serious consideration of cultural inheritance, family life, organizational needs, individual ability, and the organization’s stated principles.

Ultimately, a national organization is measured not only by the strength of its declarations, but by the quality of the community it cultivates. Its lasting achievement will depend on whether it can educate successive generations, maintain functioning institutions, encourage responsibility, and translate its convictions into enduring work. And it is these tasks that require dedication, competence, and service from all of the community.

Dissident organizations have to understand the population that they are trying to organize. So, learn who exists, where they are, how that population is changing, and what those changes actually mean for organizing capacity.

This is going to be the population that you are recruiting members, leaders, donors, volunteers, and eventually families and institutions from.

An important thing to remember is that demographics aren’t destiny, and statistics can’t tell you exactly what people believe. However, demographics certainly help establish the pool of people available to organize and the social conditions under which organizing people should take place.

You need to ask yourself:

Who are the people, where are they, how is their population changing, and what institutions and circumstances shape their lives?

Population Growth

The first thing you need to think about is if the population is growing, shrinking, or remaining relatively stable.

The first things that I would look at are:

• Total population

• Annual population change

• Long-term population trends

• Birth versus deaths

• Domestic migration

• International migration

• Household growth

• Population projections

A growing population obviously has the potential to provide an expanding recruiting pool, while a shrinking population will undoubtedly force organizers to work even harder to maintain its membership.

Total population is extremely misleading, because a county or region might grow by 10%, for example, while the population an organization actually hopes to recruit remains flat or declines.

So you have to distinguish between them:

Total population growth → target-population growth → potential membership pool → actual recruitment pool.

Also, population projections are essentially educated guesses, so don’t treat them like facts. Different assumptions about fertility, mortality, and migration can produce substantially different outcomes.

Birth Rates

Birth rates obviously tell you something about the future age structure of a population.

The measurements I pay attention to are:

• Crude birth rates

• General fertility rates

• Total fertility rates

• Age-specific fertility rates

• Births by geographic area

• Births by mother’s age

For us organizers, birth rates are extremely important because today’s children become tomorrow’s workers, parents, activists, community members, and potential leaders.

To be clear, you should not make fertility statistics the immediate measure of organizational strength. Just because the organization has a high birth rate, it doesn’t mean that in 18 years time that the organization will be larger or even still around.

You have to think of these outcomes:

• Retention

• Education

• Religious affiliation

• Family stability

• Migration

• Economic conditions

• Geographic concentration

• Whether young adults remain in the community

You can’t just ask yourself, “How many children are being born?” You really need to think about the population’s age structure in 10 → 20 → 30 years.

Age Distribution

Age distribution is one of the most important demographic considerations for any organizer.

When I am looking at any area to recruit in, I will break the local population down into categories:

• Children

• Teenagers

• 18-24

• 25-34

• 35-44

• 45-54

• 55-64

• 65+

It’s essentially every ten years.

Then ask what every single category means organizationally to you. For instance, a population dominated by young adults presents a very different organizing environment from one dominated by retired men.

These different age groups are more likely to have different:

• Work schedules

• Family responsibilities

• Disposable income

• Social networks

• Transportation patterns

• Communication habits

• Institutional connections

• Willingness to volunteer

• Leadership potential

It’s also really important to consider how many children and elderly people there are relative to the working-age population.

Migration

Population change isn’t just about births and deaths, because people move.

So, study:

• Domestic migration

• International immigration

• Interstate migration

• County-to-county migration

• Rural-to-urban migration

• Urban-to-suburban migration

• Suburban-to-rural migration

• Migration of young adults

• Migration of retirees

• Migration associated with particular industries

Migration could completely transform an organization’s potential geography.

A community may have a declining local population, but rapidly increasing total population because of migration. For instance, if there is an area in Maine that has a declining population, but a bunch of people from Boston are moving there, that could completely change who you would have to attempt recruitment there and how you would need to do it.

So you have to think:

Who is leaving, who is arriving, and who is staying?

Because those 3 different groups could have wildly different relationships to the local community.

Urbanization

Determine how concentrated the population is by asking yourself the following about your potential recruitment area:

• Concentrated in one city?

• Spread across suburbs?

• Distributed among small towns?

• Scattered across rural areas?

• Concentrated along a transportation corridor?

• Divided among several metropolitan areas?

Population density dramatically affects organizing costs, because a thousand potential members living within a few miles of one another is way different from a thousand potential members scattered across the country.

Urbanization really affects the following:

• Meeting locations

• Travel requirements

• Event attendance

• Door-to-door organizing

• Local chapters or clusters

• Communication costs

• Volunteer coordination

Family Formation

When I look at population statistics, I don’t stop at individuals. Instead, I also look at households and families.

Specifically, these are what I look at:

• Marriage rates

• Median age at first marriage

• Household size

• Number of children per household

• Single-person households

• Married-couples households

• Divorce

• Cohabitation

• Household formation

• Homeownership

• Multigenerational households

I mean, think about it… family formation has enormous implications for organizational life.

Look, a 25-year old single person, a married couple with 3 kids, and a 65-year old empty-nester may all belong to the same broad demographic category, but that doesn’t mean they share the same time availability, financial commitments, transportation needs, and social networks.

If you can understand families, then you can build a program around actual household circumstances instead of an imagined member.

Education

Education must be examined at several different levels.

What I measure are:

• High-school completion

• College attendance

• Bachelor’s degrees

• Graduate degrees

• Vocational education

• Apprenticeships

• Trade certifications

• School enrollment

• School quality where appropriate

• Fields of study

You have to remember that education can influence someone’s employment opportunities, the amount of money they make, where they can move to or work, their professional networks, their political participation, their civic participation, communication styles, and how involved they can be in institutions.

However, do not automatically assume someone’s intelligence, character, or political beliefs based on their level of education. For instance, I am a high-school drop out, but here you are reading this to learn more about political activism.

Employment

Another thing you’re going to need to understand is how people make their money.

Here’s what I look at:

• Labor-force participation

• Employment rate

• Unemployment

• Major industries

• Major occupations

• Self-employment

• Unionization where relevant

• Full-time versus part-time employment

• Shift work

• Commute patterns

• Remote work

• Median and household income

• Wage distribution

Organization memberships are constrained by people’s time and economic circumstances. A community dominated by healthcare workers, for example, may have large numbers of people working irregular schedules. Meanwhile, a manufacturing community may have concentrated workplaces and shift changes that mean different organizing opportunities.

So, your goal isn’t merely to know whether people are “working.” You have to understand the economic structure of their everyday lives.

Geographic Concentration

Once I have done all of that, I map where my main recruitment centers should be created by marking:

• Counties

• Towns

• Neighborhoods

• Metropolitan areas

• Rural communities

• Population density

• Transportation

• Employment centers

• Educational institutions

• Existing associations

Then I look for clusters. I won’t tell you what they are for TNW, but lets say that an organization discovered that its potential recruitment centers are distributed nationally but are heavily concentrated in 10 metropolitan areas.

This information will influence how you structure your organization, so it’s best to stop pretending that every single state requires an equal organizational presence—because that won’t be the case.

Think about it like this:

10 strong geographic clusters → regional networks → national organization.

This is the map that should determine your organization—not the other way around.

Rural vs. Urban Populations

“Rural” and “urban” are not to be treated just as two demographic labels.

They represent completely different organizational environments. For instance, rural populations may have:

• Lower population density

• Longer travel distances

• Greater dependence on automobiles

• Smaller local institutions

• More overlapping social networks

• Fewer large public gathering places

Meanwhile, urban populations may have:

• Great population density

• More potential recruits within a small geographic area

• Greater institutional diversity

• High mobility

• More anonymity

• More competing organizations

Also, suburbia deserves a completely separate consideration, because it’s the transitional phase from rural to urban. So, your organization’s recruitment model should reflect the actual communities you’re looking to recruit from.

Generational Differences

People who were born in different time periods do not have identical experiences.

When you’re recruiting, you have to look at each generation:

• Silent Generation (Ages 98-81)

• Baby Boomers (Ages 80-62)

• Generation X (Ages 61-46)

• Millennials (Ages 45-30)

• Generation Z (Ages 29-14)

• Generation Alpha (Ages 13-)

The exact boundaries are less important then understanding the underlying differences. So, different generations will have experienced different economic conditions, technologies, educational systems, family structures, wars, recessions, cultural institutions, media environments, and housing markets.

Undoubtedly, these experienced will affect how people communicate, form friendships, consume information, and participate in organizations.

However, generational categories are analytical tools, not personality types.

Separating Demography from Demographic Narratives

One of the things that I need to address is how demographic data tells you what is happening, while political narratives tell you what someone thinks those changes mean. And this is easily one of the places where most organizers become intellectually careless.

What you need to understand is that demography and demographic narratives are very different things. So, every time you hear a major demographic claim, you must ask:

• What is the actual measurement?

  • Geography

  • Year

  • Population definition

  • Data source

  • Measurement

• What is the time period?

  • 5 years

  • 10 years

  • 25 years

  • 50 years

  • 100 years

• What exactly is being measured?

  • Immigration, foreign-born, ethnicity, race, ancestry, and citizenship are not interchangeable categories.

  • Birth rate does not equal fertility rate, and fertility rate does not mean population growth.

  • Population percentage does not equal absolute population.

• What are the competing explanations?

  • Low fertility

  • Mortality

  • Domestic migration

  • International migration

  • Economic conditions

  • Housing costs

  • Aging

  • Changes in household formation

  • Changes in geographic boundaries.

• Distinguish description from prediction

  • The claim that ‘a population has become older is different’ than ‘a population will become dramatically older by 2050.’

  • The first statement is a statement about observed data, while the second is a projection dependent on assumptions, not fact.

• Distinguish prediction from political interpretation

  • These claims are different:

    • ‘The median age is increasing.’

    • ‘The median age will increase over the next 25 years.’

    • ‘This demographic change will destroy our organization.’

  • The first claim requires historical data, the second requires demographic modeling, and the third requires an argument about organizational consequences. So, don’t let someone try to sneak the third claim into the first.

So, remember to establish the baseline of a time period, because statistics could look dramatically different in comparison. Remember not to immediately assume that a population declining is explained by one answer, because your job when analyzing demographics is to ask which factors actually account for the observed change.

The Core Principle

If you’re trying to be a serious organizer, than you need to move through these four separate stages:

DATA → DEMOGRAPHIC TREND → INTERPRETATION → ORGANIZATIONAL RESPONSE

You can’t skip from one to another like:

POLITICAL NARRATIVE → ORGANIZATIONAL RESPONSE.

In case you didn’t just see what I did, political narrative is not a stage. So if you use political narratives to determine your organizational response, then you’re an idiot. Don’t do that.

Discipline protects an organization from building its strategy around exaggerated statistics, selective anecdotes, ideological assumptions, and demographic myths.

At the same time, avoiding political narratives does not mean ignoring uncomfortable demographic realities. If the data shows substantial population change, acknowledge it. If the data contradicts a popular narrative, acknowledge that too.

The purpose of demographic analysis isn’t to confirm what you already believe. It’s to find out what is actually happening.

I have decided to put together a worksheet that paid subscribers can use, and one which only they can see.

For nationalist movements, there can be no greater endorsement than that of the clergy. In America, this would often take the form of Protestant pastors and perhaps Catholic priests endorsing political movements, but rarely Orthodox priests.

However, that is not because Orthodox priests were historically adverse to endorsing nationalist movements, but that Orthodoxy has been a historical minority amongst the populace. Yet, this is rapidly changing.

For serious political movements, you cannot expect to win if you do not have the blessing of God’s spiritual leaders. Many have tried, but they will always fail—Matt Heimbach’s Traditionalist Worker Party comes to mind.

However, outside of America, there is historical precedence for priests who possess substantial moral authority to endorse and work in nationalist movements. No greater example comes to mind than that of the Legion of the Archangel Michael, one of the largest nationalist movements of the 20th-century.

This article will address the relationship between the Romanian Orthodox clergy and the Legionary movement—commonly referred to as the Iron Guard.

While the relationship was complicated, it was never officially condemned. Patriarchs and bishops disagreed among themselves, many priests opposed the movement, and the Church hierarchy periodically attempted to restrict clerical participation. Nevertheless, a significant minority of priests became members, sympathizers, candidates, organizers, or public supporters of the Legion—with notable Legionaries later becoming canonized.

The historical significance of this episode lies not merely in the fact that priests supported this nationalist movement, but that it demonstrated how a political movement can appeal to existing religious concepts, institutions, social networks, and moral authority while on their journey to establishing symphonia.1

The Legionary Background

The Legion of the Archangel Michael was founded in 1927 by lawyer, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu. However, unlike some earlier Romanian nationalist organizations, such as the National-Christian Defense League which Codreanu took part in, the Legion was founded under the belief that there could not be a separation of faith from that of politics.

The Legion emphasized sacrifice, national regeneration, discipline, national community, Christian morality, and spiritual renewal. And the idea that a people were more than just their race or biology, but that race and biology were important as all of the races are different, as God made so.

This made the priest an unusually important figure in national life, as the village priest did not merely conduct Sunday services. Typically, he could be a teacher, counselor, community leader, organizer of charitable activities, and custodian of local traditions.

A movement seeking national regeneration must naturally meet the Church at the local level.

The Legion understood this social reality. And so, rather than treating religion as a private matter separate from public life, the Legion presented national renewal as requiring corresponding moral renewal of the individual for the benefit of the people.

And while some have attempted to claim that the Romanian Orthodox Church had condemned the Legion for trying to appropriate Orthodoxy, many Orthodox priests saw in the Legionary movement an expression of concerns they already regarded as fundamentally important:

• Faith

• National solidarity

• Moral discipline

• Regeneration of Romanian society

The clergy’s participation was not simply the product of political calculation. For the clergy who joined or endorsed the Legionary movement, the question was whether the nation could recover its moral and spiritual foundations after the upheavals of the Great War, political corruption, economic uncertainty, and rapid social change.

And only the Legion offered an answer.

Neam is Inseparable from Christianity

All Romanian nationalism during the interwar period was closely connected to Orthodoxy, but it was the Legion that pointed out that faith is inseparable.

Romania, was not simply a territory inhabited by people who happened to speak Romanian, but it was a historical community formed through language, tradition, ancestry, belief in Christ, and collective memory.

This truth was embodied in the Romanian word neam:

Neam means a people, kindred, lineage, or historical community—in the historical Romanian context it means the people are inseparable from Christ, because theologically, Christ gives the neam its ultimate orientation, moral purpose, and understanding of true history.

However, in ecclesiological terms, being part of a neam is not itself the Church, nor does belonging to a neam replace belonging to Christ and His Church.

So neam is a historical inheritance and Christ gives that inheritance its meaning and its end.

However, all of mankind have their own neam. And neamuri (plural) do not cease to exist in the Kingdom of God. Revelation 21:24-26;

“And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it. Its gates shall not be shut at all by day (there shall be no night there). And they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it.”

In the Bible, the original Greek for nation was ἔθνος (ethnos), meaning a distinct people, not a collection of diverse peoples.

Likewise, Genesis describes humanity being divided into ἔθνη (ethnē), or nations, according to their families, languages, and lands. Gn 10:5, 20, 31–32;

10:5 “From these the coastal nations were separated into their lands, each according to his language, in their tribes and nations.”

10:20 “These were the sons of Ham, according to their tribes, according to their languages, in their countries and in their nations.”

10:31-32 “These were the sons of Shem, according to their tribes, according to their languages, in their countries, according to their nations. These were the tribes of Noah’s sons, according to their genealogy, in their nations; and from these the coastal nations were divided on the earth after the flood.”

In Act 2:4-8;

“And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.2 And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together, and were confused, because everyone heard them speak in his own language. Then they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, ‘Look, are not all these who speak Galileans? And how it is that we hear, each in our own language in which we were born?’”

In modern terms, neam is the closest equivalent to the Biblical ethnos. And we see the greatest example of this in Gn 11:1-9;

“Now the whole earth was one language and one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and dwelt there. Then they said to one another, ‘Come, let us make bricks and bake them with fire.’ They had brick for stone and asphalt for mortar. They also said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower, whose top will reach to heaven; and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.’ But the Lord said ‘Indeed, the people are one race and one language, and they begun to do what they said. Now they will not fail to accomplish what they have undertaken.3 Come let Us go down there and confuse their language, so they may not understand one another’s speech.’4 So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city and the tower.5 Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the languages of all the earth; and from there the Lord God scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.”

Neam has nothing to do with inferiority or supremacy. However, the Bible does teach that the neamuri are to remain physically separate, but not spiritually separate, as they were united at Pentecost while keeping their particularity.

And because God wishes us to keep our national sovereignty and has commanded us to struggle for self-determination and self-preservation, we must endeavor to preserve our culture, our people, our faith, and our way of life alive.

Why Priests Answered the Legionary Call

The attraction of the Legion to portions of the clergy can be understood through some of the earlies themes that I pointed out.

Moral regeneration

Legionary teachings emphasized discipline, personal sacrifice, courage, service, and rejection of materialism. By incorporating priests to lead these efforts, they could work on treating alcoholism, corruption, sexual immorality, poverty, political opportunism, or the deliberate weakening of traditional social structures.

Service over Electoral Politics

The Legion, like my organization, The New Way (TNW), distinguishes itself from conventional political parties through our emphasis on creating parallel structures.

For example, the Legion created famous work camps that employed young people or gave volunteers the opportunity to construct or repair roads, bridges, buildings, wells, and churches.

During the time of the Legion, a secret police report recorded that out of 128 work camp projects, fifty—39% of all projects—involved religious construction or ecclesiastical property.6

And my organization has already branched out to begin nation-wide clean up services to remove trash and debris from our environment. However, we have also begun to create trade schools and apprenticeships for our people.

For the Legion and TNW, we are fundamentally different from politicians who only pretend to care for the people during elections, deliver speeches, and disappear afterward.

The Formation of the Youth

The Legion being a Christian organization, placed an enormous emphasis on young people. Understandably, priests who think in terms of spiritual formation see the significance of this.

Nationalist movements, like the Legion, should attempt to cultivate discipline through communal living, physical labor, religious observance, study, and ceremonies.

The emphasis on forming character rather than merely obtaining votes is why the Legionary movement is so compelling.

National solidarity

Something that was particularly powerful was the fact that the Legion maintained that Romania had always been a historic Christian nation, and that the survival of Romanian religious and cultural traditions were inseparable from the survival of the Romanian nation.

Nationalists must understand that nationalism is not merely a political program, but that national belonging is a moral obligation.

Priests Taking Positions of Authority in the Legion

The clergy’s involvement in the Legion went far beyond the occasional expression of sympathy. Many priests actively participated in Legionary organizations, while others even become electoral candidates and local organizers.

Fr. Vasile Boldeanu of Putna County and Fr. Nicolae Nițu of Roman are both notable examples of priests becoming Legionary county commanders, giving them positions within the movement's political hierarchy.7 While local organizers include Fr. Gheorghe Doară and Fr. Aurică Nicolescu of Vâlcea were notable Legionary organizers in their communities, where they mobilized people to volunteer in the work camps and other Legionary activities.8

Honorable mention includes Fr. Iustin Pârvu.

Bishop Vartolomeu Stănescu

A significant case was Bishop Vartolomeu Stănescu of Râmnicu Vâlcea. He wasn’t simply a parish priest who sympathized with the movement, but he was a regional patron of the Legion, mobilizing village priests and church resources, while encouraging priests to join. And Legionary commander Radu Gyr regarded him as an important spiritual figure for the movement.9

Stănescu, rather than treating young nationalists as simply another political faction, regarded their activities as having potential social and moral value.

This demonstrated one of the fundamental reasons why the Legion was so important to the Romanian religious society. The Legion did not merely ask priests to vote for it or to convince their flock to vote for it. It presented exactly why the movement was necessary in the moral and material reconstruction of the country.

Metropolitan Nicolae Bălan

Among the most important clerical figures associated with the Legionary movement was Metropolitan Nicolae Bălan of Transylvania.

Bălan possessed a considerable amount of authority within the Romanian Orthodox Church and his relationship with the movement illustrated why clerical endorsement mattered.

Bălan’s support also demonstrates that sympathy for the Legion was not restricted to obscure parish priests and that there were senior members of the hierarchy who believed that aspects of the movement represented a legitimate response to the problems confronting Romania.

Metropolitan Gurie Grosu

Likewise Metropolitan Gurie Grosu of Bessarabia publicly praised Legionary work camps. His support was significant because it demonstrated that the Legionary movement’s emphasis on constructive labor provided a point at which nationalism, youth organization, charitable work, physical labor, and religious life could meet.10

Nationalism must be more than mere rhetoric, as it must become a form of service to your people.

Metropolitan Visarion Puiu of Bukovina

Puiu is another interesting example as he was actively supporting the Legion in the 1930s by financially supporting work camps, organizing Legionary projects, and spreading the Legionary ideology.11

In 1937, he defied government restrictions by holding religious services commemorating Ion Moța and Vasile Marin, Legionary leaders killed fighting in the Spanish Civil War.

After the war he established the Romanian Orthodox Diocese of Western Europe, served as its first hierarch. In 1955, however, Puiu sent Archimandrite Teofil Ionescu on a mission to Canada and the United States to organize Romanian Orthodox communities, and he was the author of the original plan (1926) for establishing a Romanian diocese in the United States, describing himself as its founder.12 This would later give birth to the Romanian Episcopate of America in 1929.

Orthodox Priests in General

The historian Francisco Veiga estimated that approximately 2,000 of Romania’s roughly 10,000 Orthodox priests had joined or worked with the Legion by 1937.13 Meanwhile, Oliver Jens Schmitt estimates that approximately 1/4 of Orthodox priests had joined or supported nationalists movements in general.14

Interestingly, the 1937 election demonstrated the extent of clerical participation. Of the 103 candidates associated with the Legion’s Everything for the Country organization, approximately 33 (or 1/3) were priests.15

Orthodox priests did not regard political participation as inherently incompatible with their vocation. They believed that the priest could serve the nation not only from the altar but also through public life.

Legionaries Later Becoming Authorities in the Church

After the Legionary government fell in 1941, many former Legionaries were subjected to horrific treatment. Especially when the communist government gained power. However, despite the persecution, there were many notable Legionaries who became officials in the Orthodox Church, especially in America. Honorable mention includes Fr. Arsenie Papacioc.

Archbishop Valerian Trifa, head of the Romanian Orthodox Episcopate of America.

One such individual was Valerian Trifa, who had been part of the Legionary government in 1941 and fled Romania after its collapse. However, by 1952 he had become an Orthodox bishop in America. And by 1957, he was running the Romanian Orthodox Episcopate of America. He was also the mentor to the current Archbishop of the Romanian Episcopate of America, Archbishop Nathaniel Popp. Archbishop Valerian never renounced Legionarism.

Fr. Vasile Boldeanu

During the National Legionary State, Boldeanu reached the rank of Legionary commandant and served as deputy to Nicolae Petrașcu, the government’s secretary-general. After the war, he became an Orthodox priest and worked with Metropolitan Puiu’s Romanian Orthodox organization in Paris. In fact, Metropolitan Puiu placed Fr. Boldeanu in charge of the largest Romanian Orthodox congregation there. He never renounced Legionarism.

Fr. Gheorghe Calciu-Dumitreasa

Originally part of the Frățiile de Cruce, a Legionary youth organization, he was arrested both in 1942 and 1948 for Legionary activity. However, after imprisonment, he studied theology and eventually became an Orthodox priest.

It was in 1978 that he became internationally famous for his oppositions to Romania’s communist dictator, Nicolae Ceaușescu, where he openly declared that Romanians had the right to worship their Orthodox faith openly and proudly. He was subsequently sentenced to 10 years in prison. However, he was released from prison due in part to pressure from supporters such as U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

In 1984, he was defrocked by the Romanian Orthodox Church (communist pressure) but became a priest of the Orthodox Church of America’s Romanian Episcopate of America.

Moreover, he continued to glorify the Frățiile de Cruce, suggesting the canonization of Iron Guard leader Corneliu Zelea Codreanu because of being martyred, as well as proposing his view of Legionarism. 16

St. Ilie Lăcătușu

One of the former Legionaries who only disavowed the Legion under communist imprisonment, but not after was Ilie Lăcătușu.

In July 2025, following Legionary-themed manifestations at his relics, it stated that Lăcătușu was canonized for his Christian confession and suffering under communist imprisonment, but not for being part of the Legion.

St. Ilarion Felea

Felea had a documented Legionary association in 1940, later said that the January 1941 rebellion caused him to break with the movement, explicitly rejected renewed Legionary activity in 1948, and denied Legionary connections during his 1949 interrogation. Nevertheless, the Communist security apparatus continued to regard him as a Legionary activist and prosecuted him again in 1958–59 in an alleged Legionary-related conspiracy.

Felea was accused in 1958–59 of participation in an anti-Communist conspiracy that the Securitate interpreted in Legionary terms, and he was convicted in 1959. However, the available evidence does not by itself establish that he had actually resumed Legionary activity after his earlier break with the movement. And he died in prison in 1961.

Religious Meaning of National Service

Nationalism, cannot be understood solely through political categories, but through a repeated process of sacrifice for the nation that provides spiritual meaning.

The ideal nationalist is not merely a political activist, but someone who understands the neam ceremonies, funerals, religious processions, and memorial culture.

A nationalist must become disciplined, courageous, self-sacrificing, faithful to his comrades, devoted to his country, and willing to subordinate personal interests to a higher purpose.

And nationalist movements must commit to outreach in order show that we share the same idea that human beings should sacrifice selfish interests for God, family, community, and neighbor.

This also explains where the fundamental point of contact between nationalism and Christianity is.

Nationalist movements that build churches, help the poor, maintain discipline, attend religious services, and promote devotion to the Lord are very different than political parties that are more concerned with the material over the immaterial, or concerned with the secular over achieving symphonia between the Church and State.

For the nationalist, politics begins with the formation of the person. And a corrupt political system cannot be repaired by replacing one group of politicians with another. The people as a whole must become morally stronger.

In the second article in this series on grassroots nationalism and achieving the status of an accomplished activist, I wanted to discuss the political identity of a true dissident. Not just someone or something that bemoans the injustices of modern-day-society, but true dissidence that actually exists in some degree of tension with the prevailing political, cultural, or institutional ethos or apparatus.

Now don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t necessarily mean that every position it holds is radical, illegal, or outside the mainstream consciousness. However, I can’t get behind an organization that doesn’t hold some political opinions or refuses to commit actions that the government has deemed illegal. If you’re just going to be a good boy, what’s the point?

Honestum non semper quod licet, or for those of you whom only know the Latin phrase memento mori, “What is lawful is not always honorable.”

With that being said, the identifier “dissident” is better understood as a relationship that is in opposition to its counterparts or contemporaries, while not being in opposition merely for the sake of it. For all intents and purposes, it has an actual reason to exist.

From an organizational standpoint, the important question to ask is:

“What are they willing to defend even when doing so is unpopular?”

This question should help an organization distinguish foundational principles from temporary strategies, personal qualms or opinions, and tactical preferences.

So, what exactly makes the organization “dissident”?

I have already laid out one thing that makes a dissident organization actually dissident, but there’s more to the answer.

Despite conventional belief, being unpopular isn’t a metric an organization should consider if they want to be a dissident organization. It’s not a goal. If it was, why would anyone seriously consider joining them?

I know I wouldn’t expect people to join The New Way (TNW) if we constantly attacked organizations on the right when they didn’t deserve it. We can certainly have disagreements, but no one would want to work with us or join us if that were the case.

Organizations that constantly attack people for the sake of attacking people are insecure in their very nature or they’re controlled opposition. Although, plenty of “dissident” organizations will fall into this trap.

Successful organizations can and should have unpopular stances, but they have to remain popular enough that they gain more supporters overall. Otherwise, there’s really no point if you’re just going to hemorrhage supporters. To be frank, that’s actually retarded.

A good example was Atomwaffen Division (AWD). As far as the mainstream goes, they were absolutely loathed. However, underground nationalism loved their aesthetics for being hardcore, original, and trendsetting. Even today nationalist organizations still adopt AWD’s image for their own. So while the public that came into contact either loathed or feared them, the nationalists and youth they can into contact with wanted to be them.

It should also be said that unpopular opinions can become popular given enough persuasion and acceptance. At one point it was absolutely unpopular to suggest that women should have any voting rights. However, with the publicity and notoriety surrounding the Lindsay Clancy case, it’s now becoming popular to suggest women shouldn’t have any rights at all.

Imagine, a plurality of women defend a mother killing her 3 kids and suddenly society starts understanding the story of Eve and the Apple from Genesis. If only mankind learned its lessons.

Plenty of groups have widely unpopular opinions and they’re not dissident in any meaningful way. Likewise, a group can be highly controversial while simply occupying another established faction within the established political system—the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire prior to cucking to the Libertarian National Committee.

I can list 6 different characteristics that dissident organizations should have:

• They believe that some important part of the prevailing society is inherently wrong and is in need of correction or eradication.

• They are willing to articulate that disagreement publicly and boldly.

• They develop their own analysis rather than simply adopting the language of established institutions—e.g. they don’t parrot other organizations.

• They are willing to organize independently when existing organizations don’t or cannot adequately represent their objectives.

• They maintain their core identity even when doing so carries reputational or social costs.

• They seek to develop alternative ideas, parallel institutions, publications, networks, and/or practices.

The last point is arguably the most important in my opinion, because no one wants to listen to someone bitch and moan about something without offering a solution.

Dissidence—as I stated previously—shouldn’t merely mean opposition for the sake of it. An organization that exists entirely to say “no,” eventually becomes dependent on the the very system it opposes.

For example, look at the relation of rabbinic judaism and Christianity. Christianity prevails while remaining dissident to what is worldly. Meanwhile, rabbinic judaism exists just for the sake of being in opposition to everything that Christianity stands for—self evident by its parasitic nature.

A confident dissident asks themselves:

“What are we trying to build?”

That completely changes the organization from a group of protesters into an institution with an actual reason for existence. Without it, just pack up shop.

Establish the non-negotiable principles.

Every organization worth its salt needs principles that define who its members are. They should be few, clear, and so important the organization would collapse if they betrayed them.

Here’s four layers to think of when an organization asks itself “What are we trying to build?”:

1. Foundational principles — these define what the organization fundamentally believes and why it exists. These are the ones that are so important that removing them would destroy the organization.

2. Organizational principles — These establish how members are expected to behave toward one another and the organization itself. They aren’t as important as foundational principles, but they are incredibly important for operational cohesion.

3. Strategic positions — These describe how the organization currently intends to accomplish its objectives. They can be changed whenever deemed necessary without running the risk of organizational collapse.

4. Tactical preferences — These concern particular methods, campaigns, messages, events, or projects, and they can be changed at whim. However, if they are changed too frequently then members will notice how fickle the organization seems.

Fair warning, if they treat all four categories as equally important, they will fail.

For example imagine, if you will, an organization has 20 principles and members are expected to agree equally about all 20. In my experience, the organization will spend more time policing internal disagreement than accomplishing anything meaningful.

Use the 10 Commandments as a guide. Either literally or figuratively. Ten is a solid number of principles and easy to remember.

Whether members disagree with tactics is irrelevant as long as they remain unquestionably grounded in the foundational and organizational principles of the organization.

Foundational versus strategic positions.

Understanding the distinction saves a lot of headaches in the future, because it prevents enormous amounts of unnecessary infighting when there are objectives to finish.

Using the Flock camera example from the last article:

Principle: We believe that Flock cameras should be taken down.

versus:

Strategy: We believe the best way to take them down is to work with DeFlock.

The first is absolutely foundational while the strategy might change. Perhaps the organization is too controversial for DeFlock, maybe they’re not who they claim to be, or perhaps they don’t agree on the best path forward. Regardless, the is a principle and it cannot be changed. Meanwhile, the second is just a conditional strategy that can be changed whenever necessary without compromising any beliefs.

An organization therefore should be able to ask:

“If we changed this position, would we still be the same organization?”

If the answer is no, it’s probably foundational. If the answer is yes, it’s probably strategic. If they can’t answer that, they’re screwed.

Here’s a list of examples of strategic questions that I have had to ask myself as the head of an organization:

• Should TNW concentrate on publishing or events?

• Should TNW prioritize recruiting students or working class men like myself?

• Should TNW focus on local organizing or national networking?

• Should TNW use one social media platform or another?

• Should TNW’s particular campaign last three months or six?

• Should TNW’s membership dues be $10 or $25?

• Should an event be online or in person?

The decisions behind these examples mattered enormously, but what I decided to answer these questions with didn’t change the identity of my organization. This is the distinction that gives leaders permission to adapt without feeling that adaptation constitutes betrayal of their principles. And it is a distinction that leaders must familiarize themselves with if they want to succeed.

Don’t confuse ideological coherence with complete agreement.

A proper organization needs coherence, but coherence is not unanimity in opinion or idea. In fact, unanimity for the sake of unanimity will cripple an organization. Real coherence allows for men to disagree, but the sense of duty to carry through the commands they were given.

A healthy organization can have members who disagree about:

• historical political interpretations

• economic policies

• particular political candidates

• tactical priorities

• messaging or optics

• organizational structure

  • With the caveat that this depends on the structure they are disagreeing with. If the majority of members are disagreeing about the hierarchy in an organization, they’re bordering on mutiny.

• secondary philosophical questions

• predictions about future political developments

The most important question is whether the members still share the organization’s core purpose and principles.

Consider the following diagram:

Not all members will stand in precisely the same place as others inside that boundary, but that doesn’t really matter. As along as they understand where the boundary is and why it exists, organizations can and should succeed. That being said, those who stand closest to the center are usually the greatest assets to an organization and the ideological drivers who drive success.

Creating an explicit hierarchy of disagreement.

What I have done with The New Way is create an explicit hierarchy of disagreement. At first, this may seem like something that is counterintuitive, but the results will speak for themselves at the end of the day.

Let me elaborate on the 4 categories:

• Core principles — disagreement is incompatible with membership.

• Organizational commitments — members are expected to respect these while participating in the organization.

  • Members who do not respect these will be disciplined or removed from the organization.

• Strategic questions — legitimate disagreement which allows myself and my staff to choose one strategy for practical reasons.

  • This is particularly important when considering different options for enacting decisions. You might want to go one way, but someone else chimes in with a better plan. Legitimate disagreement is actually something that I want, because it makes TNW stronger.

• Personal opinions — members are clearly free to disagree.

  • For example, I have one member who believes that we should try to work with pagans. However, the majority of my members—as well as myself—don’t think that should be considered. Regardless, we haven’t shunned him for his personal opinion, nor would it harm the cohesion of our organization unless he were to try to force it on us. Since he hasn’t, he can remain a member of TNW.

By doing this, I have allowed for the alleviation of the common organizational failure of turning every disagreement into a test of ideological loyalty. Essentially, this is a long-winded way of saying I wouldn’t turn everything into a dick measuring contest.

If someone were to disagree about an organization’s tactics, that shouldn’t automatically become a debate about whether they are “really” committed to the organization. It could be that they are trying to improve the organization where they see what they perceive to be a flaw.

Successful organizations need an intellectual center.

This is something that I touched on in last week’s article when I went over the developmental stages of influence. Ideological coherence doesn’t happen automatically and a movement will first start off at the intellectual influence stage, before moving onto the social influence stage, ending up at the organizational stage that this article mainly focuses on. However, throughout all of the stages there will need to be an intellectual center that pumps out ideas like a beating heart. If the heart stops, so does the body—the organization. If the body stops… well you get the idea.

For instance, when I started TNW in March of 2025, I had already been scouting for likeminded candidates to network with since October of 2024 with the use of this publication and social media.

So, TNW already had a defined body of foundational material to work with explaining what I believe, why I believe it, what problems I was attempting to address, what distinguished what I was saying from competitors, what principles I would expect of members, and which questions still have an open invitation for friendly debate.

From personal experience, a statement of principles like we have on TNW’s website, followed by a longer educational curriculum, is often better than a manifesto that nobody actually reads—looking at you Anselme Bellegarrigue.

Here’s what the distinction should be:

The principles establish the identity → The educational program develops the members’ understanding of that identity → The members radiate that identity outward → That identity is adopted by new members → The cycle repeats.

This will also make recruitment easier, because potential members can determine what they’re actually joining before committing to anything. This helps cut down on the amount of people who join an organization out of curiosity and then leave as soon as they get bored.

Dissidence always requires intellectual independence.

An important discipline for dissident activists is avoiding the assumption that everything mainstream is false simply because it’s mainstream.

It’s similar to how everyone thought Creed and Nickelback were shitty bands because they were mainstream. It turns out, they were always good bands, and it was artificially generated opinion that they sucked. Coincidentally, this is when Rap music began overtaking Rock amongst Whites… I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.

By adopting the assumption that everything mainstream is false, a dissident activist will produce a mirror image of the conformity they supposedly reject. Ergo, they become total posers without anything of substance to add to the actual conversation.

A good pop culture example of this can actually be found in the 1998 movie “SLC Punk!,” where the protagonist Stevo (played by Matthew Lillard) stops rejecting everything that is mainstream after realizing he had become a “poser.” Essentially a rebel without a cause and realizes he can use the mainstream system to his advantage:

In my opinion, a serious dissident organization should be willing to say:

• “The mainstream is correct about this.”

• “Our previous position was mistaken.”

  • The more you stand on principle, the less you will have to say this.

• “The evidence doesn’t support our preferred conclusion.”

• “We don’t know.”

  • My personal favorite. Just because I don’t know in the moment, doesn’t mean I won’t know in the future.

• “This is a strategic judgment rather than an established fact.”

These are the things that actually strengthen organizational identity, because the goal isn’t to manufacture disagreement, it’s to develop the ability to think independently enough to disagree when disagreement is warranted. However, if disagreement isn’t warranted, then orders must be followed through as efficiently and passionately as possible.

Don’t make dissent itself the identity.

I briefly covered this in the article section “What exactly makes the organization ‘dissident’?” as well as in the previous subsection with the example of “SLC Punk!”. However, it definitely deserves a more fleshed out explanation, because it is a major trap that I have seen so many organizations and activists fall prey to.

An organization can and often will develop a culture in which being “against the establishment” becomes more important than having a coherent positive platform that actually accomplishes anything worth a damn.

If this is the case, everything basically becomes reactive:

The Democrats support mass illegal immigration → so Republicans support mass legal immigration.

The Republicans oppose abortion → so the Democrats support abortion up to conception.

To reference the example of “SLC Punk!” again, that’s not independence, that’s political inversion.

Here’s a good real world example that I can think of:

The founder of Hate Club, Combat Carl, got into a disagreement with Blood Tribe when he was a member. So, he decided to create his own organization that was essentially a carbon copy of Blood Tribe. Hate Club’s purpose was to dissent from Blood Tribe and that was what the core of its identity was.

Unsurprisingly, Hate Club collapsed in on itself.

So, a mature dissident organization should be able to answer what they would believe in if their opponents didn’t exist.

The question—

“What would we believe in if our opponents didn’t exist?”

—forces the organization to develop its own intellectual and institutional identity.

Preserve room for development.

Finally, a dissident organization should distinguish between having principles and having every answer. This is exactly why my favorite answer is “I don’t know.”

There should be legitimate areas of inquiry where members are encouraged to investigate, debate, and develop conclusions on their own.

A formulation I have used—even if it’s a bit corny—is:

“I’m firm on fundamentals, incredibly serious about evidence, generally flexible about strategy, and open to intellectual development for the benefit of the cause.”

In my opinion, this creates a much more sustainable culture. So, rather than demanding agreement on every question—which could cause the organization to implode—I favor wearing a silk glove over my iron first.

My goal with TNW is not to create members who repeat identical opinions, who are devoid of the ability to articulate their own thoughts or expand on the ones presented to them. You know, like Groypers. I want to create members who understand the organization’s fundamentals, can explain them intelligently, can disagree constructively about secondary questions, and can work together despite those disagreements.

And all successful nationalist organizations will have to adopt this mentality, or they will fail and at the end of the day. We don’t have that option.

This is the first article in this new section for teaching nationalist activists how to participate in and grow grassroots nationalist activism. In this article, I will be outlining and discussing how:

1. minority political movements gain influence,

2. find constituency,

3. distinguish between supporters and sympathizers,

4. build patiently rather than expecting mass support out of the gate.

These four topics are the foundational ideas behind political organizing as a minority. A movement that starts from the ground up—with a relatively small constituency—has to learn how to think in terms of:

“How do we identify the people who are genuinely receptive, organize them, develop them, and gradually increase our influence?”

And stop thinking in terms of:

“How do we get everyone to agree with us?”

How minority political movements gain influence.

If you look at the public resentment and animosity towards Flock Safety (a brand of automated license plate recognition cameras), you can see several organizations that have stepped up to address the issue. The largest organization in that movement is DeFlock, with over 140k Flock cameras mapped and recorded. However, when DeFlock started in 2024, the general public’s awareness of Flock cameras was nearly non-existent. DeFlock helped bring this serious issue to the mainstream consciousness by influencing court rulings on the grounds of Flock Safety violating the 4th Amendment.

So a minority movement doesn’t necessarily need majority support before it can have political influence. Influence itself comes from being organized, persistent, knowledgeable, visible, and capable of mobilizing people around particular issues.

Yet, it’s important to note that popularity doesn’t equate to organization and organization doesn’t necessarily equate to influence. You need a combination of all three—to varying degrees—in order to create a movement that punches above its weight.

In general, a movement might have 100s of 1,000s of people who sympathize with it, but very little ability to accomplish much of anything. Meanwhile, another might have 500 highly committed members who can organize events, publish material, raise money, contact officials, recruit volunteers, and sustain projects.

The organization inside of a movement that can get more done despite its size, will always achieve more practical influence than an organization that is popular but consistently fails its objectives.

Influence tends to develop through multiple stages.

There are at least 5 different stages of influence that a movement will see:

1. Intellectual influence—the first type of influence in any movement—it produces ideas, research, publications, arguments, historical work, journalism, and cultural material that influence people just by being in its proximity.

2. Social influence—the second type of influence in any movement—members begin building relationships with people outside the movement and the movement becomes known within particular communities.

3. Organizational influence—the third type of influence in any movement—the movement develops enough people and resources to consistently undertake projects and it is able to actually commit to things. This is where you see the development of actual organizations within the movement.

4. Political influence—the fourth type of influence in any movement—politicians, candidates, journalists, community organizations, or other institutions begin paying attention to the movement.

5. Institutional influence—the last type of influence in any movement—the movement’s ideas or personnel begin appearing within established institutions. This is generally takes years to accomplish. Sometimes even decades.

   1. At the organizational influence stage, successful organizations will begin to create parallel structures or institutions in order to compete with established ones. By the institutional influence stage, the ones that work will be kept and the ones that don’t will be folded or reformed.

Don’t skip stages

The biggest mistake that a small movement can make is trying to jump directly from a small amount of members to trying to exert national political influence.

Think of it instead:

10 competent people → 25 → 50 → 100 → 250 → 500

At each stage, the organized movement should become more capable and competent.

The question isn’t simply:

“How many people agree with us?”

It’s:

“What can we accomplish with the people we currently have?”

If 25 members can’t organize a successful local event, recruiting 2,500 followers isn’t going to solve the underlying organizational problem. In fact, all it would do is signal to every single sympathizer that it cannot achieve its goals.

Finding the constituency that actually exists rather than imaging one.

This is the biggest wakeup call for activists who believe they are achieving any amount of influence, but aren’t.

I have come across hundreds and hundreds of activists who begin with the assumption that millions of Americans secretly believe what they believe. And honestly, maybe they do. But the activists wouldn’t know that because they haven’t tested it.

Undoubtedly, there is a big increase in sympathetic Americans to the nationalist cause. However, sympathy doesn’t equate to real support. They could agree with 9 out of 10 things, but that last one might be an ideological deal breaker. For example, maybe they don’t think miscegenation is a big deal or they’re in favor of it.

The internet makes determining the scope of support particularly difficult because most activists can spend years surrounded by people who share their worldview and can’t fathom what the average political opinion is among Whites.

Social media feeds can create the illusion that a movement is enormous when it isn’t. So, treat constituencies as something to discover empirically.

Start with hypotheses.

Suppose an organization is of the belief that they appeal to:

• young men

• small-business owners

• veterans

• Christians

• tradesmen

• students

• historical enthusiasts

That doesn’t automatically make it true that all of those groups constitute their constituency.

So, the best thing for the organization to do is to test them and find out where they actually find people who:

1. understand their basic position,

2. agree with enough of it,

3. are willing to associate with the organization,

4. are willing to contribute time or money,

5. and remain involved.

That fifth criterion is extremely important because an organization will die without a solid membership retention rate.

Measure conversion rather than applause.

Suppose an organization puts out a post about an event on social media and it gets 100K views, 300 likes, and 150 comments. That sounds like an absolutely massive amount of support. Right?

Wrong, because only 12 people bought tickets to the event. Of that 12, 4 joined the organization, but after the 1st month only 3 remained members. Those 3 people should tell them far more about their actual constituency than the 100K views.

Don’t get me wrong, by no means did the post about the event fail. They retained 3 new members and they learned a valuable lesson in the difference between audience—either organic or inorganic—and conversion.

Look for patterns.

After repeated organizing efforts, they may discover something like:

“Our strongest recruits aren’t actually college students. They’re working-class men between 25 and 45 who discovered us through X, Y, and Z.”

That’s valuable information to possess. With that in mind they can totally change their outreach accordingly, because the goal isn’t to manufacture an imaginary constituency, it’s to discover where genuine receptivity already exists and is more likely to grow if nurtured.

For example, one of the best ways to get this information is by polling the members that are already in an organization.

Distinguishing genuine supporters from people who merely agree online.

So, now that we have talked about identifying a constituency that resonates with a movement’s message by gauging conversion rather than applause, it’s time to talk about distinguishing genuine supporters from people who merely agree in principle online.

There are several levels of political commitment:

1. Level 1 — Viewer

   1. This is someone who sees certain content and might agree with it, but there’s no certainty.

2. Level 2 — Follower

   1. This person deliberately subscribes or follows a publication or social media account. And while it is a stronger gauge of commitment, it’s still relatively passive.

3. Level 3 — Supporter

   1. A supporter donates, purchases merchandise, shares materials, attends events, or commits to small acts of activism. This is where an organization will actually be able to see behavioral evidence.

4. Level 4 — Participant

   1. This person attends meetings, volunteers, contributes regularly, and/or participates in projects. This is someone becoming part of the organization.

5. Level 5 — Member

   1. They formally join and accept organizational responsibilities.

6. Level 6 — Activist

   1. This is a member who initiates activity rather than waiting for instructions. They recruit people, organize events, produce material, and or take responsibility for projects.

7. Level 7 — Organizer

   1. This is the highest level of political commitment to a movement’s activism. This is a crucial transition, because they will develop other activists capable of doing work instead of merely doing the work by themselves.

The test is behavior.

Instead of a organization just asking:

“Do you agree with us?”

They must also ask:

“What are you willing to do?”

There isn’t anything inherently wrong with someone merely being a sympathizer. But an organization needs to know the difference if they’re going to be successful.

For example someone who:

• Reads an article → shows interest

• Subscribes → shows continued interest

• Shares an article → identifies with that article in some way

• Donates $10 → contributes financial support (obviously)

• Attends an event → has some sort of personal investment

• Volunteers → actively supports the organization

• Joins → commits to the organization

• Recruits someone → shares their commitment with another

• Organizes an event → shows leadership potential

In full transparency, none of these are perfect measures, but together they help to provide a much clearer picture of convertible behavior.

Don’t insult passive supporters.

This is one I have seen quite a lot in the last 15 years that I have been an activist. Time after time, I see organizations and recruiters for organizations treating people who don’t volunteer as “fake supporters.”

I can tell you from experience, dear reader, that sentiment will push potential members away. Someone might genuinely agree with what an organization espouses or does, but they have little time to personally commit to that organization.

And that’s is why it is incredibly important to understand the difference between an audience and an organization.

A publication might have more than 20K active subscribers, but they only have 150 members in their political organization. These are two completely different assets and neither one should be diminished.

An organization has to understand the difference between those two assets and how to use them to their advantage without disenfranchising one for the sake of the other.

Building patiently rather than expecting immediate mass support.

I have seen this time and time again: small political movements expect to rule the world, but can barely get out of bed.

This is called premature expectation, and it often comes about when the founder of a political movement reads about a historical one that went from obscurity to prominence and thinks:

“We’re going to do that.”

However, they either forget or are completely ignorant of the years and years of political and organizational struggle before there was any visible breakthrough.

Personally, my mentality—which I believe is the correct one—is:

BUILD THE INSTITUTION FIRST.

This is a callback to stage 3 of the stages of influence—organizational influence—, because at its core, an organization is a parallel institution of some kind.

So how does a movement build the first institution/organization? Well, firstly they’re going to have to think in layers, like an onion:

• Year 1 — all about building the core of their organization.

• Year 2 — now they can expand membership and establish repeatable recruitment.

• Year 3 — now should focus on developing additional leaders and expanding the organization’s geographic reach.

• Year 4 — by now the organization should be expanding to include more publications, increasing the amount of events they attend or hold, raking in more fundraising, and increasing their overall public presence.

• Year 5+ — at this point the organization should be able to leverage the institutional power that they have built. The exact timeline obviously varies, but it’s the principle that’s important.

Don’t measure yourself against mass movements.

For example, a small organization shouldn’t constantly ask:

“Why aren’t we as big as Patriot Front?”

It should ask:

“Are we substantially stronger than we were six months ago?”

Lets say for example that an organization has 20 members and 2 recruiters in January, as well as 1 regular publication, they bring in $500/month and they have already held an event.

In July they have boosted their numbers up to 35 members and now they have 4 highly trained recruiters. Their total income is $875/month, they have 2 publications, and they are now able to hold 3 recurring events.

That’s the measurement of real tangible growth.

Build institutional memory.

This is absolutely crucial and should be at the forefront of every organization’s agenda: every activity should produce something that survives the activity itself.

For example if an organization is holding an event, it should produce new contacts, new members, promotional photos/material, the organizers should learn some lessons to make the next event even better, they should acquire potential volunteers, and build future relationships.

Networking is the key to future success and it will open the door to new opportunities. An organization cannot survive without it.

If an organization is doing a recruitment campaign, it should produce better recruitment methods, better conversation starters, a better understanding of their constituency, and above all it should train the recruiters to be better at their job.

Also, a publication should produce readers, subscribers, researchers, writers, donors, and it should bring potential members to the recruitment line.

Essentially, this is a long-winded way of saying that every activity should increase the organization’s future capacity for success and any activity that doesn’t should be forgotten.

The deeper principle to operating as a minority political movement.

Taking the 4 key topics that I wrote about in this article on operating as a minority political movement, the deeper principle can be summarized as:

Find the people who actually exist → Determine which of them are genuinely receptive → Convert the receptive people into participants and members → Train those members into activists and organizers → Build an institution capable of increasingly ambitious things → Use that institution to reach a larger constituency.

The objective isn’t to convince everyone. It’s to find the people who can become part of something great and then building it into something great with them.