GOP senator’s speech sparks alarm over ‘white nationalist’ overtones: 'Sign of the times'

Critics expressed deep alarm watching a Republican senator's speech Tuesday at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington, D.C., with one New York Times columnist likening it to "straightforward white nationalist agitprop," a reference to “agitation” and “propaganda.”

Sen. Eric Schmitt's remarks made waves on Bluesky for promoting national conservatism as a pushback against global elites, immigration, and liberal ideas. He said America isn’t just an idea, but a country built on Western culture, Christianity, and the pioneering spirit of early settlers.

Schmitt stressed a strong national identity and praised early settlers and westward expansion. He told Americans not to feel ashamed of the country’s darkest history and said America’s greatness comes from its white, Western, and Christian roots.

Among his contreversial statements:

• "Our country is, in this important sense, the most essentially Western nation. For our settler ancestors, the American frontier stretched out as a horizon of infinite possibility. It was here, on this continent, that the West realized its destiny."
• "This is who we are. We’re a nation of settlers, explorers, and pioneers — born on the ocean waters that carried the first ships to our shores and forged in the crucible of a wild frontier. Our people tamed a continent, built a civilization from the wilderness, and wrote our nation’s name in history."
• "America, in all its glory, is their gift to us, handed down across the generations. It belongs to us. It’s our birthright, our heritage, our destiny."
• "We Americans are the sons and daughters of the Christian pilgrims that poured out from Europe’s shores to baptize a new world in their ancient faith. Our ancestors were driven here by destiny, possessed by urgent and fiery conviction, by burning belief, devoted to their cause and their God."
• "The Continental Army soldiers dying of frostbite at Valley Forge, the Pilgrims struggling to survive in the hard winter soil of Plymouth, the pioneers striking out from Missouri for the wild and dangerous frontier, the outnumbered Kentucky settlers repelling wave after wave of Indian war band attacks from behind their stockade walls — all of them would be astonished to hear that they were only fighting for a 'proposition.'"
• "They believed they were forging a nation — a homeland for themselves and their descendants. They fought, they bled, they struggled, they died for us. They built this country for us."
• "America, in all its glory, is their gift to us, handed down across the generations. It belongs to us. It’s our birthright, our heritage, our destiny."
• "If America is everything and everyone, then it is nothing and no one at all. But we know that’s not true."
• "Now, just as a matter of historical record, the Indians were perfectly capable of invading, killing and enslaving each other all on their own for centuries before we got here. They attacked, tortured, and brutalized our settlers, just as our settlers surely did the same to them. When we carved out our Manifest Destiny on this continent, it was not because we were less morally righteous, but only because we had more sophisticated tools and methods. But that’s really beside the point."

Critics sounded the alarm over the senator's remarks.

‪Jamelle‬ ‪Bouie, a New York Times columnist, slammed Schmitt on Bluesky.

"Oh this is straightforward white nationalist agitprop," he said.

In a series of follow-up posts, Bouie notes it "really is interesting that they recognize it isn't politically possible to claim the US as a specifically anglo-saxon country and thus have to retroactively include groups of european immigrants — seen, at the time, as interlopers — as 'white' people entitled to the same claim on national origins."

"If they were making a claim about historical origins the logic would push towards the inclusion of blacks, natives and other peoples on the north american continent. but schmitt is fundamentally making a racial claim," he added.

Tristan Lee, a data scientist and researcher‪ who contributes to Bellingcat, wrote on Bluesky, "Literally indistinguishable from the manifesto of neo-fascist group Patriot Front."

Fellow Bluesky user and organizer Gwen Snyder wrote, "I saw someone mention elsewhere that Schmitt had hired on the comms staffer fired for placing explicit neo-Nazi imagery in Ron DeSantis campaign material, and. If that's the case, either that Nazi is writing his material or ANOTHER Nazi is writing his material. Because that is German Nazi s---."

Leonid Baezhnev‬ wrote on Bluesky, "Guys like Eric S--- are the least American people in the world. Take this kind of s--- back to the old world, go f--- your cousins you dim-eyed twerp."

Historian Charles Louis Richter‪ wrote on Bluesky, "had to double check to make sure this wasn't *carl* schmitt."

Carl Schmitt joined the Nazi Party in 1933 and provided legal justifications for aspects of the regime.‪

Fellow historian Thanasis Kinias‬ added, "I feel like I’m reading a 1950s elementary school book—and it’s telling that that also sounds a lot like blood & soil nationalism."

User Sharon‬wrote on Bluesky, "man. if Eric Schmitt's speech to NatCon isn't a sign of the times, i don't know what is."