The Brion McClanahan Show Podcast

If you watched Spielberg’s Lincoln, then you undoubtedly know that the prevailing myth has Lincoln pushing for the 13th Amendment, so much so in fact that he was unwilling to compromise when he secretly met with Southern representatives in Hampton Roads in February 1865. Except this isn’t  true. Paul Escott blew this narrative up before Spielberg produced Lincoln and yet he continued with the myth …more

The nerve of those grassroot Republicans. A recent poll said that a majority of Republicans think Trump is a better president than Honest Abe. You might guess what happened next. Every Lincoln cultist on the Right and Left went nuts. The lefties responded by calling these people idiots who just want to have slaves. The Lincoln worshipers on the right were aghast at the cult-like …more

Adam Schiff released his long awaited report on impeachment, and as expected it is full of hypocritical talking points and short on concrete evidence of any impeachable offenses, at least in regard to foreign policy. I found the report laughable. The next morning, legal scholar Jonathan Turley made available his prepared statements to the House Judiciary Committee. It is a devastating blow to the impeachment …more

The neoconservatives would have you believe that Abraham Lincoln was a conservative. This is blatantly false, but alas the myth persists. A new piece at the Kirk Center doubles down on the narrative. Lincoln, it seems, was not just a conservative, but a Burkean conservative. I discuss this lunacy in this episode of The Brion McClanahan Show.

Yoni Appelbaum believes moderate Republicans are the future. You see, every problem in America can be summarized by one phrase: right-wing extremism. The only way to change this, he believes, is for moderate Republicans to repudiate these outlaws, take back the party, and continue to support good progressive measures. There’s just one problem with this nonsense. Appelbaum doesn’t think the far left has anything to …more

Judge Napolitano has become public enemy number one for the Trump administration. Why? Because he argues Trump deserves to be impeached. This does not sit will with Fox News viewers who think Judge Nap has gone to the dark side. Is Napolitano right? More importantly, should he be taking the heat from both the Trump administration and the viewers at Fox? I discuss the issue …more

World War II was a transformational event. It offered the United States general government the opportunity to codify the aggressive Lincolnian nationalism prevalent but not triumphant since 1865. The entire United States was affected politically, militarily, diplomatically, and socially. I discuss how this happened in this episode of The Brion McClanahan Show.

In 1956, the great Southern philosopher Richard Weave penned a review of Russell Kirk’s Conservative Mind where he asked which ancestors we should emulate. There are several traditions in America but which traditions are best? Should we follow Lincoln, the progressive tradition, or something else? Just as with the definition of liberty, tradition can be a thorny issue. I discuss Weaver and his brilliant essay …more

Michael Vlahos argues at The American Conservative that “civil war” is the natural result of two competing “legitimacies” slugging it out for control of the same government. This I agree with. But he falls flat when he suggests that this has occurred twice in American history and when he considers nullification to be a root cause of such conflict. I was disappointed with this article …more

Have historical sites gone too far in pushing a slavery narrative? Some people think so. I do, too. I discuss the issue in this episode of The Brion McClanahan Show.