It was pretty upsetting to read the responses on Central Michigan Life’s Facebook post about the white nationalist posters found in the Dow Science Building.

Some readers questioned why people thought Patriot Front is a white nationalist group. I even had a few conversations with people on campus who visited their website, read their manifesto and still didn’t seem convinced.

That’s where the problem lies.

Patriot Front never says anything overtly racist – their beliefs are carefully masked in the dog whistles used to signal racists and other aggrieved Caucasians.

Using social media and other online websites for research, it appears that Patriot Front has about 20 members who live in and around Mount Pleasant and our campus.

To understand what Patriot Front is advocating, and its relationship to modern white nationalism, you need to understand the three key ideas that unite to form the white nationalist ideology. These ideas have been articulated in varying degrees by all contemporary white nationalist leaders such as like Richard Spencer, Jason Kessler, Andrew Anglin, Matthew Heimbach, Greg Johnson and Jared Taylor.

Their ideas are: 1) white people should, or do, constitute a biological, political and cultural identity described as “European civilization or culture,” 2) immigrants are replacing or displacing Caucasians through a “white genocide” and 3) the only way to protect the white race is to establish a white ethno-state.

The manifesto on Patriot Front’s website supports all three of those ideas.

Patriot Front begins with an overture to the Roman Republic, claiming America was created in its image. It claims “our European ancestors” were tied together by their common identity and bound“together "with their pan-European identity as Americans”.

Even though those assertions are wrong, the manifesto goes further.

It also claims African-Americans cannot be American – as well as “others who are not of the founding stock of our people” – because they “do not share the common unconscious that permeates throughout our greater civilization, and the European diaspora.”

That particular dog whistle is obvious when you break it down -- founders of America were from Europe, Europe is a majority white continent, the history, culture and customs of Europe were shaped by white people.

Europeans do not come from Africa, Latin America, Asia or South America.
Patriot Front believes only white people descended from Europe can truly be Americans.

This leads to another dog whistle in the manifesto – “replacement migration/population.” That's another way of saying “white genocide,” the unfounded belief that non-white immigrants are coming to America to replace white people. The manifesto mentions this three times. Two of them are, “The nation will see the thin veneer of civilization begin to wane as resources are diverted from them to the replacement population.” It also states a “unified culture no longer exists due to replacement migration.”

Who is the replacement population? If real Americans are white people, then to them anyone who is not white would be a "replacement."

To white nationalists, this is one of the greatest threats to America. They believe immigrants will eventually replace caucasians in all positions of power and influence leading to the end of the white race.

Their belief in white genocide leads to the final point of the manifesto -- the creation of a “new America.” White people are in danger of extermination, they state, and the only way to stop that is to create a white ethno-state – “In order to survive as a culture, a heritage, and a way of being, our nation must learn that its collective interests are fighting against its collective threats of replacement and enslavement.”

The manifesto doesn’t say how white Americans should fight against this "white genocide." Menacingly, they write “[t]urmoil will give way to stability, as the sun rises on a new American nation state.” It’s important to note the words nation state. In a document with such carefully chosen words, this isn’t by accident. The dictionary definition of a nation-state is “a form of political organization under which a relatively homogeneous people inhabits a sovereign state, especially, a state containing one as opposed to several nationalities."

Taking what this group believes, only white people can be Americans and white people are in danger of being replaced in America, so the creation of a nation state is the next logical step to preserve life as they know it. Don't be fooled by coded language and colorful posters that promote "family" or having pride in one's country.

They believe the only way to save the “white race” is to create a nation specifically, and only, for them.

This is the ultimate goal of all contemporary white nationalists.

Patriot Front is no different. They are white nationalists.