Book Review 1 (The Turner Diaries)

Cosmo, Wanda, I wish for the fall of ZOG

As part of a paid subscription, you will gain access to a weekly book review published by yours truly. I will also be taking suggestions for book reviews from any paid subscriber. This week's book is The Turner Diaries by Dr. William Luther Pierce, and this review will be free for all. All other book reviews will be subscriber-exclusive. Current subscribers can access my exclusive review of Siege by James Nolan Mason later today.

Forward About The Author

I first became aware of Pierce through the web series Murdoch Murdoch, which satirized him in an episode titled The Murdoch Diaries.

Dr. William Luther Pierce was many things—a rocket scientist, an assistant professor at Oregon State University, and a high-ranking member of George Lincoln Rockwell's National Socialist White People's Party. During the 1968 presidential election, he was a member of Youth for Wallace, a group supporting Alabama Governor George C. Wallace's bid for president. Following Wallace's defeat, Pierce and Willis Carto reconfigured the group into the National Youth Alliance. After years of feuding, Pierce and Carto parted ways. Pierce retained a faction of the National Youth Alliance and renamed it the National Alliance. He would go on to lead the organization for the next three decades until his death in 2002. At the time of his passing, the National Alliance was generating over one million dollars per year and had more than 1,500 members. However, the organization has since declined drastically.

I would describe Pierce as one of the smartest wignats to ever live. That’s not saying much, but he was certainly a cut above his fans. I remember when YouTube was less cucked, I stumbled across some of his speeches. He always struck me as a bloviating geezer, but some people clearly found him compelling. He was popular among national socialists and had a particularly strong following on the website Stormfront during the 2000s and 2010s.

You can't talk about William Luther Pierce without addressing the divisions within neo-Nazism. I’ll make no secret of my views on the ideology—I think identifying as a Nazi is stupid, both from an optical standpoint and because the ideology itself is flawed. That said, I'll try to be objective in my analysis. Neo-Nazis tend to fall into two camps based on their goals and rhetoric. Some argue that “every race deserves a homeland,” “we’re all special and unique,” and “there should be a peaceful separation of the races, with everyone getting an ethnostate.” Basically, they believe this:

Then you have the other type which just says “fuck it kill them all!”. Basically, they believe this:

You could describe this difference as separatists versus exterminationists, but I prefer the terms “nice guy National Socialism” versus “not-so-nice guy National Socialism” (a distinction I shamelessly stole from Murdoch Murdoch).

As you’ll see when we review the plot of the book, Dr. Pierce very much falls into the latter camp.

Oh, he also developed a religion called Cosmotheism. It’s a form of racialist pantheism with some Darwinism thrown into the mix. According to Pierce, evolution is much more than just a biological process of random mutation, genetic drift, and environmental selective pressure.

The doctrine of Cosmotheism describes evolution as part of a higher cosmic order, in which the universe consciously seeks to generate increasingly superior forms of life. The white race—specifically, the Nordic subgroup—is the highest form of life created thus far and must be preserved and expanded at all costs. The SPLC claimed the whole thing was just a front to obtain religious tax-exempt status. (Full fuck-you to the SPLC, but honestly, this could be true. I don’t know.)

Introduction

William Luther Pierce published The Turner Diaries in 1978 under the pen name Andrew MacDonald. This book is the most popular piece of race-war fiction ever published, alongside The Camp of the Saints by Jean Raspail.

The book has inspired numerous terrorist attacks, most notably the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing—Timothy McVeigh was a fan—as well as the 1999 London nail bombings. It also led to the formation of a white nationalist group called The Order, which was directly modeled after the fictional organization in the book.

The Order went on to commit several crimes to fund their operation, including racketeering, bank robbery, and counterfeiting. Eventually, they escalated to murder when one of their members, David Lane (the 14 Words guy), shot liberal Jewish radio host Alan Berg and fled the scene.

Anyway, the FBI caught wind of these wacky fellas, arrested most of them, and burned their head honcho, Robert Jay Mathews, alive in his bug-out cabin—Waco style.

So, the book had some real-world impact. Let's see what kind of literary masterpiece inspired these brave racial crusaders to do all that retarded shit.

Ratings

Obvious Spoiler Alert
I'm going over the whole plot here, including the ending. If you want to read it first, here’s a link to a recording of Pierce reading the entire book.

Content / Plot: 4/10

The book is framed as a historical recount of events that transpired 100 years earlier. It’s the year 2099, and the entire world is ruled by a single government called The Organization, headed by a group known as The Order. The planet is now populated entirely by white people, as all other races have been exterminated.

Earl Turner’s diary was supposedly unearthed by historians, and this book is a reading of what they found. The actual events take place between 1991 and 1993—which, from Pierce’s perspective in 1978, was 13 years into the future.

So anyway, the book starts like this: The Organization has just declared war on The System, and... yeah, no fucking way am I going to recount the entire book for free. Here’s an AI-generated summary of the most important events:

The Beginning of the Revolution: The diary starts on September 16, 1991, when the Organization begins its war against the "System" following years of discussion and planning. This first action is spurred by government gun raids and arrests.

Early Challenges: The initial days involve finding a secure hideout, obtaining weapons, and dealing with a shortage of funds. The group resorts to robbing liquor stores to acquire cash, with the narrator showing initial hesitation at the violence.

Obtaining Weapons: The group travels to Pennsylvania to retrieve a hidden cache of weapons. They face challenges in transporting the heavy load.

Media Attention: The Organization's actions in Chicago, including killing authorities, result in the group gaining national attention6.... The media labels them a "racist conspiracy" and the attorney general makes a blunder that attracts more recruits to their cause.

Structure of the Organization: The underground units of the Organization are composed of members known to the authorities, while "legal" units provide support and handle low-risk activity.

Communications Network: The Organization establishes a communication network using human couriers and coded radio transmissions.

Passport System: The System implements a passport system to track citizens, prompting the Organization to consider ways to circumvent it.

Ideology and Motivation: The diary discusses how the "System" was able to disarm the population gradually and the goals of the Organization to destroy the racial basis of the current society. The author fears that if they fail the white race will cease to exist.

FBI Bombing: The Organization plans and executes a bombing of the FBI headquarters.

Acquisition of Munitions: The group acquires more munitions with the help of an inside contact at a military proving ground.

Execution of a Mutineer: The narrator participates in the execution of Harry Powell, a unit leader who opposed violence and wanted to compromise with the System....

Communications Equipment: The narrator works to build new transmitters and receivers for the Organization. He is subjected to a "loyalty check" which involves drugs, electrodes, and reading a book that provides context for the struggle.

Initiation into the Order: The narrator is initiated into a secret, inner structure within the Organization called the Order.

Disposal of Intruders: The group has to deal with a group of drug addicts attempting to break into their building; they kill them all.

Chicago Demonstration: The diary describes a large, violent demonstration in Chicago, where white people are seen attacking each other and a cat. The author is worried by the spinelessness of many Americans.

Evaluation of Potential Recruits: The narrator visits Elsa, a "dropout," to evaluate her and her friends for potential involvement in the fight against the System.

Capture and Torture: The narrator is captured, and interrogated by the FBI. He is tortured and eventually reveals tactical information.

Oath Breaking Trial: After his escape from prison, the narrator is tried for breaking his oath to the Order by not killing himself when he was captured. He is not put to death, but his probationary period is extended and he is assigned to a suicide mission.

Summer Offensive: The Organization is planning a large operation that requires activists from all over the country to go to the West Coast.

July 4th Assault: A simultaneous assault on over 600 targets is scheduled for July 4th46. A member is arrested, causing a potential problem.

Military Situation: The author speaks with Henry about how he has been recruiting in the armed forces, and the military situation in Los Angeles. The Organization is appealing to White military personnel to join their revolution.

Evacuation: The Organization begins the evacuation of non-whites from Southern California.

Day of the Rope: The Organization executes those deemed to have betrayed their race, including white women who were with non-white men, and others who helped implement the System's racial program.... Some members of the Organization show a lack of discipline during the executions.

Strategic Situation: The narrator learns that the Organization's gains are not enough, and that they will be easily defeated by conventional means. Their main threat is nuclear weapons.

Nuclear Ultimatum: The Organization issues an ultimatum to the government after bombing Miami and Charleston, threatening more bombings if their demands are not met.

Split Within the System: The ultimatum causes the System to split between those who want nuclear annihilation of California and those who want a truce.

Bombing of Washington DC: The narrator continues to work to deliver nuclear weapons to Washington DC.

Katherine's Death: The narrator learns that Katherine has died and begins to experience a great emptiness.

Soviet Intervention: The narrator describes a nuclear attack from the Soviet Union.

World Events: The narrator notes the news coming in about how the Jews are being eliminated all over the world.

Organization Enclaves: The Organization establishes enclaves with food supplies.

I’ll go over the ending because it was at least interesting. Earl Turner's final mission is to go full 9/11 on the Pentagon—except with a nuclear warhead strapped to a crop duster. There’s some reason why he can’t just drop it and escape, but I forget, and I’m not about to check.

Before his final moments, he does a little bitching and moaning about how he wishes he could have knocked up Katherine, but despite that, he seems content with his fate. He’s told that the moment the bomb detonates, he’ll be fully inducted into The Order, and apparently, that’s enough for him. I think this part is supposed to come off as some grand, honorable sacrifice, but to me, it always felt like he was just getting cucked out of his life because The Order was still salty that he squealed to ZOG earlier in the plot.

After the main story ends, there’s a short history detailing what happens following the destruction of the Pentagon. A protracted conflict between The Organization and the remnants of the U.S. government drags on until 1999. Eventually, the last holdouts of the U.S. government surrender on the condition that they be spared and allowed to live on an island. The Organization agrees.

Shortly after consolidating control over the U.S., race riots break out in Europe, leading to the mass liquidation of non-white populations. Europe then falls under The Organization’s control. In the following years, they expand into parts of the former USSR. A thermonuclear war erupts between The Organization and China after China moves into European Russia. The Organization wins, but the resulting nuclear fallout leaves much of the world irradiated, with roving bands of mutants prowling the wasteland.

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Scenery: 9/10
Let's start with the positives. Pierce does a really good job of laying out the world and describing the scenes in each chapter. I listened to the audiobook at double speed while playing Minecraft and had to stop a couple of times just to take in how vividly he paints the world. The grimy streets, dilapidated cities, and crumbling infrastructure are described in such spectacular detail that I truly felt immersed in a Zogged American dystopia.

But Pierce’s writing style is a double-edged sword. When describing how Earl makes traps or bombs, he goes into excruciating detail. The guy is a rocket scientist, so he spends a good chunk of the book nerding out about engineering and building stuff. It was cool at first, but it quickly became repetitive and distracted from the plot.

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Character Development: 0/10
I’m giving this the lowest possible score. I get that the book is just race-war propaganda, but even race-war propaganda can have character progression. Earl is basically the same guy at the beginning and the end of the book. You’d think Pierce would at least give him some kind of new outlook on his Aryan Warrior virtues or whatever, but no. I get the sense that he would have climbed into that crop duster on day one.

Every character is pretty much static from the moment they’re introduced to the moment they die. No one learns anything, no one grows, and there’s no real development. Having read this book twice, I still know very little about each character. Here’s what I remember:

• Earl Turner: The main character. 35, electrical engineer.

• Katherine: The woman Earl sleeps with an hour into the book. Becomes his girlfriend. Likes theater. Former liberal who worked on Capitol Hill. Dies.

• Henry: Some guy. He’s “principled” (only robs Jews and Blacks).

• George: Another guy. Has a good memory.

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Predictions
Since this book was about the future from Pierce’s perspective (and the past from ours), I figured it was fair to judge it partially on how well its predictions held up. Of course, no one can predict the future with 100% accuracy, so I’ll give Pierce some credit based on how plausible his predictions were at the time and whether they actually came true.

Gun Ban: 2/10
This one didn’t happen at all, but considering how other countries were grabbing guns around the same time, I can see where Pierce got the idea. I think he underestimated how deeply ingrained American gun culture and the Constitution are in the national psyche. This makes sense—he cared more about race than culture.

I’ll also add that, like many old-timey racists, Pierce vastly overestimated how much guns prevent the government from imposing its will. Yeah, we still have AR-15s, but we also have states where the government can take your kids away if you don’t affirm their transexuality.

Hate Crime Laws Causing an Increase in Black-on-White Crime: 6/10

Pierce is more correct on this one. Hate crime laws are often weaponized against whites in cases of self-defense. However, we’re still a far cry from legalizing black-on-white homicide, and events like Daniel Penny’s acquittal suggest we’re not moving toward a world where black criminality is outright legalized anytime soon.

That said, black-on-white violence is still far more common than the reverse, so I’ll give him some points. However, this isn’t exactly a miraculous prediction—it was already the case in the ’70s and has been ever since interracial crime statistics started being recorded.

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International Relations: 2/10

I get that this book was written during the Cold War, but I have to fault Pierce for not foreseeing that the USSR would be a much weaker power in the future. By the late ’70s, when this book was written, there were already clear signs that the Soviet Union was heading toward stagnation and collapse. The economy had stopped growing, and ethnic tensions were rising in the more diverse regions of the Soviet empire.

Also, had the USSR and the U.S. gone nuclear on each other, there wouldn’t be much left for the Organization to rule over. The idea that these two superpowers could casually toss a few nukes at each other and then just move on is a pretty ridiculous premise.

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Protests Over Black Racial Grievances: 8/10

Yeah, this one happened—both during BLM 1.0 in 2015 and BLM 2.0 with the Summer of Floyd in 2020. However, this wasn’t so much a bold prediction as it was a continuation of trends from Pierce’s own time. This book was written barely a decade after the Civil Rights protests and the violence that came with them.

That said, the race riots Pierce predicted didn’t happen until about two decades after the book’s timeline. The early 2000s and 1990s were far less racially charged than today. The only major racial event from that period that comes to mind is the Rodney King riots, but those were fairly isolated compared to what we’ve seen more recently.

White Nationalist Resistance Groups: 8/10

Like with the last prediction, he got it right but predicted it two decades too early. He also underestimated the extent to which these groups would exist online rather than being IRL organizations. (The IRL version happened for a brief period around 2017 and was a huge disaster—see the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally.)

Rape Becomes De Facto Legal: 1/10

The closest real-world parallel would be the grooming gangs in the British city of Rotherham. But even that was more of a cover-up and less of a formal decriminalization of rape. Pierce probably predicted this because he viewed feminism as a side project of ZOG to aid in their efforts to destroy the white race. Decriminalizing rape would supposedly allow nonwhites to rape white women and produce nonwhite offspring, so Pierce thought they’d legalize it. He assumed that women’s concerns would be cast aside since, in his mind, ZOG’s only goal was to eradicate the white race.

Young People Form Violent Hedonistic Gangs: 1/10

This is actually my second time reading this book. When I first read it as a freshman in high school, I got to the part about juvenile gangs living in abandoned buildings, shooting heroin all day, and thought, “Damn, these degenerates are a lot cooler than my friends.” He was way off. Millennials were a bunch of nerdy fags as kids, and most of my fellow Gen Zers can barely order food over the phone even as adults.

Kids were becoming more rebellious and independent from the 1950s to the 1980s, so I can see why Pierce thought this might happen. I’m not giving him a zero out of ten because he couldn’t have foreseen how the internet would domesticate the youth. If he had made this prediction in the early 2000s instead of the ’70s, I’d give him a zero because the trend was already on the horizon back then.

Crime Swells: 5/10

Crime did peak in the 1980s and 1990s. However, this was pretty easy to predict since crime had already been rising since the ’60s. By the year 2000 and every year since, crime has mostly gone down.

Identification/Tracking System: 8/10

This sort of happened during COVID-19 with the vaccine passports, and phones in general already kind of do this. I think something like this is inevitable because of AI, smartphones, and credit cards. It would be really terrible if a government like the one described in this book took power—they wouldn’t even need to build a national passport system to track everyone. They could just use the infrastructure that already exists to monitor and snuff out dissidents.

Conflict Between Blacks and Jews: 7/10

Oh yeah, he was right about this, but like most of his other correct predictions, he was just following trends in his own time. Jews have always been disproportionately involved in Black activism, and there have always been conflicts between them and the Black communities they represent.

Whether it’s over Jewish landlords being dicks to their Black tenants, Black people claiming they’re the real Jews, or Jews getting pissed at Black people for denying the Holocaust—none of this is new. It was happening back then, too.

Race War: 0/10

Yeah, not happening. No fucking way in the modern era. White racial consciousness has certainly increased over the past decade, but even if the average white person were a thousand times more racist, the population is too old, fat, and gay to fight regular wars, let alone race wars.

Total Prediction Score: 4/10

If nothing else, this book serves as an example of a much darker turn America could have taken. Elements of the society Earl Turner lives in at the beginning of the book, like gun grabs, were basically a coin flip away from happening to us.

Racism / Humor: 1/10

If there's one thing this book shows, it’s how far the racist community has come in terms of comedy. If the content within this work was what passed for racist stereotypes before the advent of memes, I’m very disappointed in our forefathers.

The only funny part of the book was when they robbed a deli, bonked a Jewish guy with a bag of soap, and threw a jar of pickles at his wife. But I’m barely counting that since the humor exists solely because of how absurd the scenario is. Beyond that, it’s the usual obligatory racist tropes: blacks are ignorant, lazy, and love drugs; Jews are slimy, subversive, and perverse; and Hispanics are loud and kind of annoying. Yeah, it’s racist—which is cool, I guess—but none of it was new or original even back then. Coming from a seasoned professional like Pierce, I expect more.

I get that the book’s not supposed to be funny, but it would’ve been way better if it was. Even some Marvel-level humor would have improved the whole thing tenfold. Imagine the organization blows up the FBI HQ, and Henry turns to Earl and says, “Ermm… well, that just happened.” Or they’re being chased by ZOG, turn a corner, and Earl looks back at his friends, grinning, thinking they got away, only for his friends to stare back in horror as he realizes: “The Jews are right behind me, aren’t they?”

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Ideological Persuasiveness: 9/10

I’m ranking this section based on the assumption that the reader is either a white nationalist, white supremacist, or neo-Nazi. My reason for doing so is obvious—that’s the intended audience. You don’t write a book this graphic and offensive to normal sensibilities with the goal of pulling in regular people.

I’ll give Pierce credit for how well he designed The Organization in terms of brand appeal. It’s never given a specific ideology beyond vague white supremacy, and that’s intentional. There are a lot of different types of racists these days—Groypers, Bapists, HBD nerds, esoteric Hitlerists, Evolian traditionalists, eco-fascists, and a million other forms of bigots. Despite our diversity, we can more or less communicate and understand each other’s ideological frameworks. This is thanks to two things: the alt-right and the internet. The alt-right brought every type of racist under the sun together for a brief moment, and the internet facilitated our interactions.

That’s not to say the racist community is united, but we can at least understand why each of us believes what we believe.

Back in the ’70s when this book was written, there were fewer types of racists and less mutual understanding within the broader racist community. A Klansman who believes in Christian Identity (white people are the real Jews) has a worldview that’s strange and incomprehensible to a Neo-Nazi without a detailed explanation. Pierce kept the ideology vague enough to appeal to all factions of racists at the time.

I’ve made my views on race public in a previous article, so it goes without saying that I don’t identify with any of the ideologies listed above. That said, I can understand their thought processes and values well enough to gauge how this book might appeal to them.

Dr. William Luther Pierce was an exterminationist/not-so-nice guy National Socialist. This type of Nazism is extremely rare, even among hardcore members of the racist community. Most white nationalists and adjacent groups are driven by existential dread over a looming threat of racial extinction. Their motto—“We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children”—implies that whites are currently on a path to extinction and need to stop it.

It doesn’t exactly communicate a desire to bleach the entire planet; it’s more like, “Just give us Vermont, and we’ll be happy.” The fact that the IRL group The Order (inspired by this book) had nice-guy National Socialist tendencies shows how uncommon Pierce’s stance actually is.

One of the things I’ve always hated about white nationalism is how it comes from a lack mentality. You hear this all the time in their circles: “Just let us have the Pacific Northwest.” or “We just want to preserve our culture.” As a white globalist myself, this always struck me as pathetic.

I’m not going to give the exterminationists credit for being genocidal freaks, but at least they’re not begging for their existence. Most white nationalists are pathetic losers with a hobbit mentality, so I get why this book appeals to them. It offers something more aspirational. Instead of just existing, they get to imagine fighting a heroic race war and conquering the whole world.

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Overall: 4/10

This book was written for two purposes: first, to predict the future, and second, to provide tactical advice for white supremacists on how to take power in that future. Because of that, I can excuse the plot for being crummy and the characters for being underdeveloped—that’s not the point of the book. Still, with better writing and a more compelling plot, Pierce could have attracted more competent types of racists to the IRL Order.

We’ve already covered the predictions—they were lacking, to say the least. But let’s review the advice in its own setting. Since we know how The Order played out in real life, I don’t feel the need to speculate there. But if Pierce’s future had come to pass and we were Earl Turner in 1991, could we follow his advice and save the white man?

Yeah, nah. No shot in hell, bro.

Like I said, Pierce is smarter than other wignats, but he still suffers from populist brain rot. The organization’s funding structure relies on a loose network of legals ie regular people with jobs and underground members ie criminals who commit acts of racial terrorism. There’s no mention of elite backing whatsoever.

There’s no precedent for a group of disaffected peasants/workers/middle Americans/etc. “taking back their country” from a corrupt elite without help. Whether it’s the American Revolution or the Bolshevik Revolution, the revolutionary vanguard always had some form of elite backing. If you want to read more on this subject, I recommend The Populist Delusion by Neema Parvini—a book I fully intend to review in the near future.

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Epilogue / How He Could Have Done It Better

First, in writing realistic race war fiction, you cannot fight the federal government from the outside. The fact that The Organization is just a self-funded ragtag group of disaffected whites standing up against the most powerful government in the world is a retarded premise. Even if the government were as corrupt as Pierce describes, revolutionaries always need backing from disaffected elements within the system or from an outside power.

Second, don’t include detailed instructions on how to make bombs, hide guns, or rig traps in the middle of the story. It’s disruptive. Instead, give a brief description and include a footnote with instructions at the end. Seriously, this whole book is half plot and half technical manual on building an industrial-grade Jew crusher.

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