The Brion McClanahan Show Podcast

Dust off your black cockle hat and buckle shoes and get ready to celebrate the first Thanksgiving in Pilgrim style! Or not, because the Pilgrim event in 1621 wasn’t close to the first Thanksgiving. That honor would go to the Spanish in Florida and the English in Virginia. What happened? If the glorious Pilgrims were not the first settlers to celebrate Thanksgiving in North America, …more

Remember when children’s television had a fairly traditional message? Me neither, at least not in the last decade. Everyone’s a princess, and the “princes” are all bad guys. It hasn’t always been this way, and there is at least one modern film that bucks this trend. I discuss modern children’s entertainment in this episode of The Brion McClanahan Show.

Nationalism presents a real problem in American politics. The razor thin majorities in federal elections means that half the population will use the power of government to abuse the other half of the population. Winner take all elections have consequences. The founding generation designed a system that could prevent this, but the nationalists on both the Left and the Right have destroyed the original federal …more

Donald Trump is a Confederate and Alexander Hamilton invented America. I learned both last week while sorting through my email. Several people sent me a piece from the Guardian that claims Trump is nothing more than a reincarnation of the Confederacy while Prager U. published a short video on how we live in Hamilton’s America. News flash: you can’t have both, or can you? I …more

Did you survive the most important election of our lifetime? I thought that was two years ago, or perhaps ten years ago. Regardless, one thing is certain: big government was going to win no matter which party controlled the general government. But what about thinking locally and acting locally? There were interesting elections and ballot measures at the state and local level across the United …more

Nationalism has become the new political pejorative. According to such geniuses like Alyssa Milano and Sarah Silverman, nationalism equals Nazi. And the young minds of mush believe it. This is a strange development but par for the course in the age of social media. If they’ll eat Tide Pods….Regardless, what is American nationalism and what does that term really mean? I discuss the issue in …more

Donald Trump is the most important political figure of the early 21st century. No one else has been able to turn the political discussion on a dime like Trump, and that discussion quickly turned to immigration and the 14th Amendment on October 30, just days after everyone was talking about political violence. Not anymore. But can Trump end birthright citizenship with an executive order, and …more

Does the general government have the authority to get involved in the horrible mass murder in PA? Short answer: No. Had the founding generation thought otherwise, the Constitution would not have been ratified. There are countless examples from the early federal period that point to opposition to federal overreach, but Americans today have become accustomed to it, so we accept it without asking any questions. …more

Hillary Clinton tweeted that the progressives need to start using the States to protect their citizens. Sounds a lot like nullification. Is Hillary a closet “neo-confederate?” The progressives have become more interested in real federalism since Trump won the 2016 election. Their dedication may be fleeting, but this provides a “think locally, act locally” teachable moment for The Brion McClanahan Show.

We’ve all been told by the “actual historians” that Confederate monuments were erected to perpetuate “white supremacy.” Unfortunately for these “actual historians,” they have no evidence. In fact, the primary documents point to an entirely different conclusion. The Oak Woods monument in Chicago proves the point. I discuss that monument and its dedication ceremony in this episode of The Brion McClanahan Show.