The Turner Diaries

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
The Turner Diaries
Written by: William Luther Pierce
Central Theme: Racism, Anti-Semitism
Synopsis: White supremacists take over the USA and murder anybody who isn't them.
Genre(s): Political novel
First published: 1978
v · d · e

One of the most important books of the white supremacist movement, and perhaps one of the most controversial books since Mein Kampf, The Turner Diaries is about a group of white supremacists who are fighting a guerrilla war against the US government in a dystopian era where, controlled by the Israeli Zionists and using the blacks as shock troops, the government terrorizes the public into supporting the "mongrelization" of the white race.

Written by William Luther Pierce, founder of massive white nationalist group National Alliance, who credited himself as Andrew Macdonald


Tropes used in The Turner Diaries include:
  • Asshole Victim: How the book regards those not akin to the protagonists in body, mind and soul.
  • Category Traitor: The base premise is that being white without being a racist is a form of extreme betrayal.
  • Cool Old Guy: What Henry is meant to be.
  • Crazy Survivalist: By the end of the book, there are quite a few of these.
  • Crap Saccharine World: The US at the start of the book; Guns have just been outlawed, second amendment be damned, the government has begun behaving like a second Gestapo, and whites are finding their dominion threatened by Jews and minorities.
  • Defictionalization: What this book is perhaps the most notorious for; many white nationalists have killed in its name, assuming it to be a prophecy.
  • Equal Opportunity Evil: Literally; the concept of "equal opportunity" is taken as evil in and of itself.
  • Feeling Oppressed by Their Existence: At the end of the book, the Aryan race is finally "liberated" as the protagonists let atomic, biological and chemical bombs rain over the entire planet, exterminating about 90% of mankind.
  • Final Solution: The Organization plans to wipe out all Jews and non-whites (except maybe Arabs).
  • The Government: Known here as "The System".
  • Greedy Jew: Played completely straight.
  • Heteronormative Crusader: The book uses public acceptance of fetishism, sadomasochism and homosexuality as an example of why society is decadent and has to be destroyed.
  • Hit So Hard the Calendar Felt It: During the epilogue, it is explained that in 2000, they reset the years to coincide with the annihilation of all minority races in the country after the Organization took control and the white nationalist revolution worldwide
  • Hypocrite: In universe, the anti-racists use many of the exact same tactics as the racists, which is lampshaded. That said, the racists who do the lampshading do so through the lens of Protagonist-Centered Morality, since when they do it, they consider it justified and moral.
  • I'm a Humanitarian: At about the midpoint of the book, food scarcity has gotten so bad the protagonist notes black people have resorted to cannibalism.
  • In the Future, Humans Will Be One Race: Enforced by Our Heroes Of Racial Purity.
  • Irony: The concept of civil rights is brought up in relation to the ban on the private ownership of guns which, as the protagonist brings up, is at odds with the Constitution. Much of The Organization's actions could also be contested in exactly the same way.
    • By the end of the book, the Arabs are silently cheered on as they kill off the people of Israel, and are even regarded rather positively... by a team of nationalistic guerillas.
  • La Résistance: The Organization, who carry out a murderous campaign of terror to undermine the US government up to and including setting off nuclear weapons to destroy Baltimore, New York City, start a nuclear war against the Soviet Union and annihilate Israel, flying a plane loaded with a nuclear weapon on a suicide mission to destroy the Pentagon and then wiping out Toronto and covering all of Eurasia east of the Urals with biological and chemical weapons to wipe out the Chinese.
  • Political Correctness Gone Mad: The Supreme Court decriminalized rape in order to promote equality between the sexes.
  • Pride Parade: The novel features a Pride Parade and make a note of how they are getting more inclusive over time, now extending to include fetishists and such. It serves as an example of how the Jews control the world and weaken the Pure Aryan Race through the power of perversion.
  • Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: One of the few things that the book is relatively consistent on, and the text makes it clear the crime itself, regardless who it's inflicted on, is an especially depraved act.
  • Right-Wing Militia Fanatic: The protagonists.
  • Sophisticated As Hell: The protagonist whenever he gets philosophical. On occasion, he will stop to make a reflective comment about the situation, using extremely polished dialogue as if he were a college professor dictating a doctoral thesis. Once that's done, his professionalism drops noticeably.
  • Straw Character: The book is not very consistent in its portrayals of this. Minorities are often subject to this by default, but an Israeli major who tortures the protagonist is depicted as well-educated and extremely competent in his field.
  • Throwaway Country: The only remorse the Organization has about turning much of Asia into an uninhabitable wasteland is that it will take a long time to colonize.
  • Took a Level In Dumbass: After a certain point, everyone not on the side of the racists takes multiple levels in this.
  • Western Terrorists
  • Where Da White Women At?: The one trait endemic to all the black characters.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: When the Arab states commit genocide against Israel, the protagonists express admiration. Yet when the Organization unleashes their final wave of extermination of non-whites, the Arabs are implied to have been killed along with all other non-white races.