Following the 2016 presidential race and the election of Donald Trump, a huge amount of attention has been given to the rise of the Alt Right and, more generally, the return of nationalism in the West. Trump has been the catalyst for a spike in right wing sentiments in the US and Europe and the news media has been nothing short of hysterical in their coverage, making their usual lack of objectivity seem balanced and sober in comparison. Now, the entertainment industry is following suit. One of the most recent productions dealing with this topic is the Australian series Romper Stomper, set as a sequel to the 1992 movie with the same name. I haven’t seen the movie, so I’ll only deal with the series in this review.

In the first episode we are introduced to nationalist group Patriot Blue who are staging a protest against a halal festival taking place in their city (Melbourne). I think any fair-minded reader will understand their choice of protest. Firstly, Islam is a barbaric religion that has no place in any Western country (you have your own countries, invaders), and secondly, the very act of halal slaughter is a relic of the stone age that these people still practice to this day and it can be only described as utterly bestial.

The protest goes on peacefully, but after a while leftist extremist group Antifasc shows up, attacks the nationalists and shuts down the entire thing. This is quite realistic since real life Antifa usually do meet up at right wing rallies and demonstrations for the sole purpose of acting like the violent and criminal degenerates that they are. Kane and his friend steps in and helps the leader of Patriot Blue, Blake Farron, fend off Antifasc and they and the rest of the gang meet up at Blake’s place afterwards. Having made a good impression on the leader, Kane quickly becomes an important part of the group and he proves himself to be both fearless and capable.

From there, we follow his rise in the nationalist scene and what his opponents on the left do to counter Patriot Blue’s actions. Any violence used by Antifasc is implictly or explictly justified the usual way, by labelling their targets as Nazis. Technically, I don’t think Jews are mentioned – disparagingly or otherwise – a single time in the series. So, even though criticizing Jewish influence is a worthy endeavor, doing it is not a requirement for violent communists to attack you. If you’re not letting millions of third world dregs into your country while at the same time apologizing for the supposed crimes of your forefathers, you’re a Nazi. Plain and simple.

But not only is violence on one side justified and encouraged, the violence committed by non-white immigrants is completely misrepresented. In the real world, pakistanis/arabs usually fight ten against one, but not in Romper Stomper. Here we have some Moslem rushing in to defend his friends who are attacked and then he knocks the white guy out with one punch after first trying to avoid fighting him at all. Later we see the same guy at a mosque crying and praying to Allah («may we have victory over the infidels») because he feels so guilty over what he has done. I’m not sure which part is the most unrealistic. The one entertaining thing here is that they clearly had difficulty finding a Quran verse that didn’t include the words «victory» and «infidels».

Patriot Blue, on the other hand, are mostly shown as the ones either initiating or provoking violence. Most people who know anything about right wing activism can attest to the fact that there’s a strong focus on not initiating the use of force. The obvious reason is that people who have ideas that are unpopular with (and dangerous to) the liberal establishement, will have an uneven starting point given that the system is looking for any excuse to crack down on dissenting organizations. Starting violence when you have the state and all the influential institutions against you is courting disaster. A justification often used by people on the left is that words spoken by right wing dissidents are essentially the same as violence and that because of this they are allowed to use violence to defend themselves. Only a retard would think this is a valid line of reasoning, but this is what Antifa says. What this really means is that they don’t want to have the debate because they know they will lose.

I think the show’s portrayal of Kane is a way of promoting thuggishness as the norm, both to reinforce the skinhead stereotype that is generally presented to the public, but also as an example to emulate for misguided young (and sometimes old) nationalists. Despite obviously being one of the villains, he is portrayed as a tough character and as an efficient, albeit ruthless representative of his cause. In addition to telling the normie viewer that our people are violent and dangerous, this is done to trick the less intelligent in our ranks into believing that street brawling and violence will be effective methods for reaching our goals. To deceive those who have heard the expression «The pen is mightier than the sword» more than once, but never actually grasped its meaning. Kane’s behavior is a mixture of reckless, stupid actions – such as beating up random foreigners – with well-thought-out and effective actions, such as his idea of community outreach and promoting order in their city. This is done to give him some degree of credibility, since everyone would look at a pure thug as an ineffective champion of any cause.

So, in summation, he’s capable, but it’s also completely unrealistic that he would get away with doing what he’s doing. In real life, the group would have been shut down by the Australian government as soon as any of this violence had been uncovered. Take for instance what happened to the Nordic Resistance Movement. The NRM was outlawed in Finland after the death of a Finnish communist, although this was done in response to threats made by the communist and not just some random, unprovoked attack.

Now, just to clarify, it is completely understandable that people who become aware of what is happening want to do something to fix it. But lashing out like Dylann Roof did, or more recently the italian who shot six people in the wake of a grisly murder of a 18 year old girl, is not how we win this war. We need culture warriors, not people that act rashly and recklessly.

Contrast Kane’s behavior with David Wenham’s character, the TV host Jago Zoric (as we all know, the MSM is notoriously right wing) and how he comes across. Well-dressed and eloquent, he presents an image that is far closer to what real life nationalists should aspire to look like.

But of course, after the initial strong impression, Zoric is exposed as an effeminate homosexual. It is important to make sure there are no good straight male characters in the series (especially not on the wrong side) for white men to look up to. It also looks like a thick layer of make-up is required to make him look presentable and polished. This is a way of saying that the people and message of nationalism can be appealing on the surface, but that it doesn’t take much scrutiny to see the «ugly truth» underneath.

The series gets progressively worse as more and more clichés are revealed about the characters. The main message is what the media always says about nationalists, that only damaged and hateful people can be part of these movements and that they are far more similar to gangsters or terrorists than political activists. It’s implied that people who have these views can’t be anything other than violent, as if having these views and wanting to harm people are the same thing, no matter how peacefully these ideas are expressed. They are criminal thugs and their ideas are just a hateful addition that they bring with them. In this way, the makers of the show don’t have to address the arguments, they can simply portray the people as morally defective outcasts filled with irrational hatred. This is just more of the same for anyone familiar with the mainstream media and how they operate. Presenting the arguments is too dangerous, because someone might be convinced (it’s almost as if they agree that we have the truth on our side), so they have to slander and smear and make all these ad hominem attacks. Understandable, but with alternative media being on the rise, that’s just not going to work anymore.

In conclusion, the series starts of relatively good and introduces some interesting characters, mainly on the villain side, but quickly derails as just another hit piece on right wing activists. Don’t get me wrong, this is present from the beginning, but at least there’s more mystery and a little more is left to the imagination before the «revelations» – which are utterly predictable – clearly demonstrate the creator’s intent. Some of the better characters are also woefully unexplored and this lack of depth is the main reason why this series becomes so uninteresting as the show progresses. Truthfully, I didn’t expect more, but this could have been done so much better if the media had any semblance of objectivity when dealing with this topic. Unfortunately they don’t have any, so we can expect more of the same demonization in the future. But that’s fine, these people are destroying themselves anyway.