Strategies of White Supremacy and the Weaknesses of the Cause

White supremacists have employed a variety of means to increase their influence on society and impose their hateful agenda. In the post–civil rights era, avowedly white supremacist candidates have failed in elections, especially in the United States, though some of their ideas have moved toward the mainstream. Because peaceful politics have largely failed, white supremacists have tried to foster a race war, use violence to spark an uprising, accelerate what they see as the inevitable collapse of a multiracial system, intimidate minorities, and create a separate homeland. Many white supremacists fall back on leaderless resistance, which makes violent individuals harder to identify and arrest but compounds the movement’s strategic problems. Although they fall short of their most ambitious goals, white supremacists have nevertheless proven able to shape political discourse and otherwise increase their influence in smaller ways.