Former Representative John Dingall recently wrote an op-ed for The Atlantic in which he proposed to, among other idiotic measures, abolish the Electoral College and the Senate. Yes, because Progressives really believe in “minority” rights. But this is instructive. We should know who these people are and what they really want. Dingall, as a cranky old man, is just willing to say it. I discuss …more
George H.W. Bush is dead, long live George H.W. Bush. Might as well say it. We have an elected king. The overkill in our public mourning proves it. This was created and now perpetuated by the Republican Party, and we have strayed so far from our republican principles the founding generation would be spinning in their graves. I discuss this headlong rush to monarchism in …more
Was John F. Kennedy a conservative? I get this question a lot, and I have been asked several times to do an episode on JFK. The wait is over. Short answer, yes Kennedy would be a modern “establishment conservative,” but that isn’t saying much. It is, in fact, a criticism. I take on Kennedy the president, if he should have been including in my 9 …more
It has become a cottage industry to compare Donald Trump with the “worst” presidents in American history, among them Andrew Johnson. The comparison is apparently easy. Both men were and are, in the words of a recent op-ed, “unpopular and unfit.” Is this true? More importantly, was Johnson any different from Abraham Lincoln? The Twitter historian brigade would tell you so, but not so fast. …more
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
Most Americans recognize a few of the Founding Fathers—Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Adams, Franklin—but what about some of the important but forgotten men who have been lost to time? They have great stories that need to be told. Here are ten whose fantastic lives are in many ways better than fiction.
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