A CITY ON A HILL OF THEIR OWN:

  North Korea may seem like an odd choice for a white nationalist's utopia, but then these are odd times. A significant portion of the Alt-Right has become enchanted with, or at least willing to defend, the world's foremost bastion of Stalinism. In North Korea, racialists believe they have spied a model of their own nationalism, anti-Americanism, and hatred of free enterprise.

"North Korea is the only ethno-nationalist state opposing the current world order, and as long as it exists, it will stand as an example (and a possible future ally) for ethnic and racial nationalists everywhere," wrote Greg Paulson at the online journal Counter Currents, which styles itself an intellectual powerhouse of the Alt-Right, "especially those of us in the West who see the only hope for our people in the destruction of the current world order."

Appreciation for North Korea has spread in recent years. Matthew Heimbach, an organizer of the Charlottesville rally just released from jail two week ago for a separate assault, said that "North Korea is a nation that stands against imperialism and globalism around the world." And he believes it does so on racial grounds. "The very identity of the nation comes from an actual national socialist perspective, specifically also deriving elements from Japanese fascism," he said.

The assessment borrows from B.R. Myers' book, The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters, which says the 35-year-long Japanese occupation led Koreans to organize society around their own racially superior self-image.

Hence, North Korea's birth as an Alt-Right symbol of The Resistance.

Tweet   @brothersjudd