The Left Thinks Western Civilization Itself Is ‘White Nationalist’

Do you celebrate classical architecture? Or do you appreciate Platonic or Aristotelian philosophy, or seek to practice stoicism as taught by the ancients? Perhaps you’re inspired by stories of ancient Greek heroism, epitomized by Achilles before the gates of Troy, the Spartans at Thermopylae, or Alexander the Great’s victories against the Persians? You’d better beware — according to liberal propaganda efforts, you’re probably a white nationalist.

According to Curtis Dozier, an associate professor of Greek and Roman studies at Vassar College and director of the website “Pharos: Doing Justice to the Classics” which “documents appropriations of Greco-Roman antiquity by hate groups,” conservatism is awash in appreciations for the classical world that are actually cover for white nationalist narratives. Based on the title of his new book, The White Pedestal: How White Nationalists Use Ancient Greece and Rome to Justify Hate, you might think Dozier is focusing his attention on people such as Nick Fuentes, Richard Spencer, or the crazies at the Neo-Nazi website stormfront.org. But in fact Dozier — and a panoply of prominent liberal institutions — aim to cast a much wider net.

For example, the Trump administration’s Executive Order 13967 (“Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture”), which sought to align federal buildings with the classical style intended by the Founders, is dangerous, because it was the preferred style of architecture for Hitler and Mussolini (a charge also alleged by contributors at Slate and The Guardian). Yet not only that, claims Dozier, but the Founders themselves built classically inspired buildings not because they admired them as objectively beautiful, but to send an “imperial” message to “displaced or exterminated” indigenous peoples. We do not admire classical architecture because it is good, the Vassar professor asserts, but “because we have been taught to find it so.”

Dozier censures the influence of classical sources such as Aristotle and Plato on the Founding because the ancient Greeks believed their culture to be superior and that there exist natural hierarchies. We see the supposed malign influence of this — and the connection to white supremacism — in the Constitution’s distribution of powers, which “institutionalized political hierarchy,” as well as the Founders’ promotion of homogeneity in such places as Federalist No. 2 written by John Jay.

Dozier thus casts aspersions at the entire Founding: “The men who articulated the founding principles of the United States did indeed turn to Greco-Roman antiquity to justify a social order that contemporary white nationalists would admire.”

Tarring Conservatives as White Nationalists

Such opinions are not merely the musings of liberal academics. Since President Trump assumed office in January, corporate media have smeared practically his entire agenda as “white nationalist,” as did Amnesty USA. Time Magazine has accused the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies of employing the “rhetoric” of white nationalists. The Washington Post and KBPS, respectively, accused recruitment efforts by the Department of Labor and ICE of using “white nationalist imagery” because they borrowed from historic America artistic styles used in previous federal recruitment efforts.

These indictments have not been limited to the Trump administration, but are leveled at all conservatives. The Inquirer claimed that the GOP is now the party of “white Christian nationalism.” After Charlie Kirk’s assassination, Foreign Policy labeled the conservative provocateur a white nationalist, despite his constant praising of such persons as Clarence Thomas or Thomas Sowell as brilliant Americans to be honored and emulated. So too is classical education, and the Classical Learning Test effectively cover for white nationalist ideology: “Those who promote classical education often sound troublingly, even if unintentionally, similar to white nationalist intellectuals,” writes Dozier.

Amazingly, even the decline in white nationalist groups is cited by the left as evidence that white nationalism is growing. The bizarre logic is that if conservatives by default are white nationalists, it’s normalized and there is less need for self-described white nationalist groups. (To perceive the stupidity of that reasoning, consider that if we saw a dramatic decline in church attendance, we would not assess this means the culture is so Christian, people need not go to the church.)

The Left’s Most Insidious Rhetorical Move

This is not an entirely new narrative. Rev. Jesse Jackson in 1987 walked with lefty students at Stanford University chanting “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western Civ has got to go,” because they claimed the idea of Western civilization is racist. Today, younger generations of Americans, inculcated in anti-American and anti-Western narratives from the very beginning of their public education, increasingly agree with such sentiments, which at their core manifest a rejection of the very idea that there is such a thing as objective goodness, truth, and beauty.

Though not new, the liberal rhetorical move has broadened in its scope. It goes like this: First, examine the language and beliefs of extremists that most everyone agrees are extremists. Then, show how the conservative movement often appeals to similar language and beliefs. And voila! Everyday, America-loving citizens who think the US Capitol building is prettier than the J. Edgar Hoover building or believe Aristotle or the Stoics teach eternally relevant ideas are just as evil as the neo-Nazis. This is how Dozier, and many other academics, journalists, and apparatchiks label respected conservative academics such as Charles Murray, Victor Davis Hanson, or Michael Anton as promoting white nationalist ideology.

It’s absurd, on many levels. The very institutions these ungrateful, grievance-obsessed technocrats inhabit are the fruits of Western civilization, as are the very intellectual categories they leverage. Nor is correlation causation: the New Testament is written Greek — does that also make the Apostles Paul and John “white nationalist adjacent”? And if there is such a thing as absolute truth, then it’s very well possible that the Greeks and Romans, whatever their many flaws, might have stumbled upon many of those truths. If they did, we would be fools to dismiss their wisdom, just because some stupid Nazi white supremacist also likes them.

Casey Chalk is a senior contributor at The Federalist and an editor and columnist at The New Oxford Review. He is a regular contributor at many publications and the author of three books, including the upcoming “Wisdom From the Cross: How Jesus’ Seven Last Words Teach Us How to Live (and Die)” (Sophia Institute Press, 2026).