In 2009, I wrote my Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers as a way to bring attention to what I called the “greatest generation” of Americans.

This doesn’t mean that Americans had forgotten the founding generation. Hardly. They were being discussed all the time.

But I did have the sense that it was getting harder to talk about their accomplishments without bowing your head in remorse for racism and slavery.

Only a penitent man will pass.

I was right, and the crusade against everything traditionally Americans has only grown worse.

Efforts by the West Coast Straussians to attach Lincoln to the founding generation through the “proposition nation” are just as foolish, and in fact, make the right look even worse.

Which brings me to the opening question. What can we learn from early American politics?

We should not simplify the period. Anyone who has written on the topic–including yours truly–had been guilty of this oversight before. We want to make the period easier to understand and so we throw a wide net while ignoring the complexity of the period.

Simple labels do not work.

Which is why I decided to discuss this essay from Douglas Wilson on the founding period.

It was sent to me by one of my McClanahan Academy LIVE! students (this has become a great community, meaning you should hop on board for the next class this fall).

Wilson gets a lot of things right in his essay, but he makes some major mistakes by trying to oversimplify the founding period.

For example, Washington was a “nationalist” but that should not be confused with Daniel Webster nationalism or Andrew Jackson nationalism or Abraham Lincoln nationalism. He would have rejected all three.

He was never Jefferson’s political “adversary”, and while Washington admired the English political tradition, he believed the American political system was far superior to the British model.

It also seems that Wilson does not really understand an “unwritten constitution,” though again, this could just be an oversight in his effort to make the history more “understandable.”

He does correctly point out that we can learn a great deal from this period in American history, though I would also argue that the structural problems of the United States Constitution could be improved. The Confederate Constitution of 1861 did a nice job in that regard.

We should talk about the founding generation, but we should also get them right. That includes the indispensable man, George Washington.

Washington was a real “nationalist”, meaning he favored a union of States that benefited all and burden all equally. He opposed factions because he thought they undermined the general welfare of the whole, and he advocated republican virtue and the most important quality for American statesmen.

In other words, Washington favored a domestic policy that John C. Calhoun would have understood.

Both Washington and Jefferson advanced a foreign policy that would be alien in the federal city today. Non-intervention was the most pro-American foreign policy in the history of the United States.

There is much to learn from Washington and the founding generation. We just need to get it right so that our adversaries cannot point the finger back at us and say, “See, you are “whitewashing” history!”

I discuss Wilson’s piece and the founding generation on episode 857 of The Brion McClanahan Show.

I’ve talked about this issue many times on my Podcast. Americans are angry, so much so that we are seeing rhetorical conflict unmatched since the 1850s.

At least we could define “woman.”

Regardless, all of the hand wringing and angst over the current polarization of American politics misses one key ingredient: centralization of power.

The culture war would not be an issue if we had real federalism.

That was the whole point. Massachusetts did not want to be governed by South Carolina and South Carolina did not want to be governed by New England.

Who does?

This was a commonly understood in the nineteenth century, but after the Lincolnian Revolution of 1861, we’ve lost sight of the beauty of federalism.

Peace.

If people in Mississippi did not have to worry about those in California, they wouldn’t wring their hands wondering if Gavin Newsome becomes president.

Joe Biden would be irrelevant. So would Donald Trump.

So would the Supreme Court.

This should be a selling point.

Of course, the progressive left and right aren’t really interested in federalism because they want power and are willing to suffer through dark times so long as they can “own” the other side when they ascend to the throne.

Lincolnian nationalism is a disease that needs to be eradicated.

It can’t so long as Americans continue to believe in the “Righteous Cause Myth” and the glory of “Honest Abe.” “Conservatives” are as much responsible for this as the Left, perhaps more so.

This is why I talk about the problem so often.

You can’t say it loudly enough or often enough.

I discuss the issue on Episode 856 of The Brion McClanahan Show.

Did Jefferson Davis reply to the Emancipation Proclamation with a threat to enslave all blacks in America?

That is what some historically challenged people on social media think.

Their evidence is a broadside reportedly published in January 1863 by the Richmond Enquirer as “An Address to the People of the Free States by the President of the Southern Confederacy.”

In other words, Jefferson Davis went to a local paper, published a policy statement, and never mentioned it again. Ever.

This document screams “fake news.” It should. Even the Library of Congress calls it a fake.

But let’s examine the document with a critical eye.

First, Davis never used the term “President of the Southern Confederacy” in any public documents during the War. He was always referenced as President of the Confederate States of America, even when signing public papers.

Second, Davis never referred to Abraham Lincoln as the “President of the Non-Slaveholding States.” He always called Lincoln “President of the United States” so as to differentiate the Confederacy with the foreign government to the North. Like all Southerners, Davis never believed the United States ceased to exist once the South left the Union, regardless of what some modern academics claim. It was now a foreign country, just as the Confederate States represented a sovereign federal republic.

Third, Davis did respond to the Emancipation Proclamation in his annual address to the Confederate Congress. You know what is missing? All of the details from the supposed “Address to the People of the Free States,” like that proposal to enslave all free blacks in every State of the Confederacy and every State occupied by the Confederate army. Such a position would have required the consent of Congress. Funny Davis left that out. If he was so determined to pursue this course, he would have mentioned it, many times. He never did.

Fourth, Davis supposedly concluded the piece by arguing that the “Old Union” would so be put back together and that slavery would soon be nationalized, meaning every State would be a slave state and that all blacks would be enslaved or reduced to “helot” status. Davis never used this type of language in any public or private document.

Fifth, a review of the Richmond Enquirer yields no reference to this address on the date it was reported to be published. The Enquirer had a daily and weekly paper. Neither contains the “Address.” Nor does any other Virginia paper from the period. The only newspaper that mentions the document was a Pennsylvania paper in November 1863, and then as a document in the possession of a Northerner. Again, no paper mentioned the “Address,” either in the North or the South, in January 1863. Such a public statement would have been major news if Davis actually wrote it.

Sixth, Rice University, the home of The Papers of Jefferson Davis, has rejected it’s authenticity, as did one of the most important Jefferson Davis scholars of the early twentieth century. No manuscript exists, and if this document was truly from Davis’s pen, you can bet every “Righteous Cause” mythologist would be talking about it.

The “Address” exemplifies the problem of “Twitter” history. Those who advance a clear political agenda really want something like the “Address” to be real, so much so that they have a hard time believing any evidence to the contrary.

History has become activism that lacks understanding, and establishment historians are no better than those peddling “fake news” like the “Address.”

Of course, this presented a great opportunity for a Podcast, so I discuss the “Address” on Episode 850 of The Brion McClanahan Show.

This isn’t a popular opinion, but the Supreme Court made a grave mistake in the recent decision striking down affirmative action at Harvard and the University of North Carolina.

I told a colleague the Court was just trimming around the edges. He disagreed. Let me explain.

The Court used 14th Amendment incorporation to invalidate affirmative action admissions policies for Harvard and UNC.

While many conservatives have cheered, the longstanding implications are dangerous, as this piece at Mises.org points out.

By relying on the 14th Amendment, the Court nationalized the entire education industry. Of course, it could be argued that the federal Department of Education has already accomplished this fact, but this decision is another step in federal overreach.

Incorporation is a cancer.

The Court could have simply invalidated the admissions practices based on the 1964 Civil Rights Act (a law that is also dubious constitutionally, but that is another issue).

But the Court “conservatives” are just as in love with incorporation as the progressives on the bench.

When you play their game on their field, you are going to lose more than you win.

With the exception of the Dobbs decision, the Court has relied on a generally progressive understanding of federal power to strike down previous bad decisions. They could go further, as Justice Thomas explained in his concurring opinion in Dobbs.

This is why I said they are trimming around the edges.

I am not sure the Roberts court has the backbone to tear down incorporation. That would be significant, and while this has been an entertaining Court with the most substantial record in decades, it could do more.

I discuss the Court and the affirmative action decision on Episode 849 of The Brion McClanahan Show.

Mark Levin is really bad at history.

In one of his rants over the weekend, Levin took the time to promote his forthcoming book, The Democrat Party Hates America.

Now, more most American conservatives, this is read meat. I agree with some of his assessment.

But the devil is in the details.

You see, Levin blames every “evil” in American history on Democrats while the Republicans were just good morally righteous saints.

This is important. To Levin and other conservatives, the issue is always R vs. D.

If we just had more Republicans in office, things would be alright.

And to Levin and people like Victor Davis Hanson, the evil bogeyman is always the Confederacy and Jefferson Davis, which makes them exactly like the left whom they seem to despise.

If you are trumpeting Abraham Lincoln as a conservative, you are already playing a losing game.

Republicans worked hard in the 1850s to make it clear they were the real “white man’s party.”

They wanted the western territories for free white labor alone. Blacks were persona non grata.

By law.

Let that sink in.

Lincoln made it clear throughout his political career that while he opposed slavery, he was not interested in racial egalitarianism.

Plus, if you are looking for the origins of “Jim Crow,” don’t look to the South as Levin and others ridiculously claim.

Levin argues that legal segregation only came about because of the evil Southern Democrats hiding under the bed and in the closet. BOO!

That is sophomoric at best and stupid at worst.

As I discussed earlier this year, “Jim Crow” began in Northern States and was promoted by Northerners even after the War. Both Whigs and Democrats believed in racial separation, with perhaps only about 10% of the entire New England population on board with racial equality.

When Levin cites the Plessy v. Ferguson case as the definitive example of Southern DEMOCRAT evil, he omits that the majority opinion was written by a New England born Republican, Henry Brown, and that seven of the nine members of the Supreme Court were nominated by Republicans.

Don’t let facts get in the way of being stupid.

I could go on, but this type of simplistic R vs. D nonsense is the byproduct of a poor American education system.

And the fact that Levin had to state several times that his book is “scholarly” and “well-researched” is cover for the fact that it isn’t.

It did give me some great Podcast fodder.

I take apart dopey Levin on Episode 843 of The Brion McClanahan Show.

Could Trump’s indictment be good for the GOP in 2024?

This is a bold assertion based on the belief that Trump will be forced to support whomever gets the nomination–if he doesn’t–because only a Republican president would dare pardon him.

I don’t necessarily buy it.

Trump doesn’t seem to be taking the entire matter seriously, and I’m not certain he would see any jail time regardless of the legal outcome.

And as I have suggested before, if the GOP does move away from Trump, he will run third party.

Trump is and has always been about Trump.

A Republican president still might pardon Trump even if he bolts the GOP, simply because they would be pushing back against a “weaponized” justice department.

Of course, this would imply that the justice department was not weaponized before Biden took office, and anyone who has followed politics for any period of time knows this isn’t true.

Just as anyone with a brain knows that the FBI, CIA, and other “intelligence agencies” have always been used for politically partisan purposes.

Same for the IRS.

That is the point. Power.

Americans on the “right” are waking up to this fact and crying foul.

Those on the “left” who used to worry about being hounded by the FBI are realizing how fun it can be to use it to harm their political opponents.

Calhoun explained that this is always the result of “numerical majoritarianism.” Those in power will use the levers of power to force their agenda while those on the sidelines will squawk about the Constitution–that is until they get power.

The real causalities are ordinary Americans who never have power and won’t get power.

You see, the GOP is just a softer version of the modern Jackasses.

They want power, too, and don’t care much about their constituents once they get it.

See Alabama Representative Mike Rogers and his acceptance of the “Naming Commission”‘s woke agenda because it funneled money into Alabama defense contractors, his real constituents.

Who cares about the thousands of people in his district that oppose the woke stupidity of the “Naming Commission.” They don’t slap down six figures for his toupee fund.

If you feel irrelevant at the federal level, you are.

That’s why I’ve been preaching think locally, act locally for years.

The net takeaway from Trump’s indictment should be simple.

The general government is corrupt and relying on other corrupt people to change it is like throwing gasoline on a fire.

I discuss Trump’s indictment on Episode 841 of The Brion McClanahan Show.

It seems every crisis in America is a “Constitutional crisis.”

Why?

Because Americans have forgotten–or have never been taught–about federalism.

You see, one size fits all, top down government results in all of the political angst we have in the United States.

It’s quite simple.

The founding generation realized that Connecticut and South Carolina were never going to see eye to eye on a variety of “domestic” issues, so they granted the general government power over foreign policy and commerce.

That’s it.

Not education. Not marriage. Not health care. Not energy. Not agriculture or industry.

Just trade and defense.

And the one paper check on federal power was the 10th Amendment.

Of course, I mean “paper” check. John C. Calhoun understood that it needed teeth.

That has always been the problem. The founding generation believed in nullification and State interposition and used it frequently during the colonial period.

Jeffersonians continued the practice in the early federal republic, but by the time Calhoun began advancing the “concurrent majority” New Englanders began rallying around “nationalism” as a cover for their own sectional interests.

The 10th Amendment no longer mattered because the States could not enforce it, even if members of the founding generation insisted the States would be powerful enough to check federal usurpation of power.

This is our current Lincolnian nationalist nightmare and why every issue is a “Constitutional crisis.”

It doesn’t have to be this way, and the good men at The Tenth Amendment Center have been working hard to make real federalism a possibility in the 21st century.

They also gave me some great Podcast fodder.

I talk about federalism and the Tenth Amendment on Episode 839 of The Brion McClanahan Show.

According to a Ron DeSantis “rapid response” organizer, you can call yourself a Republican or a conservative if you are anti-Lincoln.

I actually agree with the first part, but the second is just laughable.

Ron DeSantis has been a very good governor in Florida, but as I have said many times, it would be better to have 50 Ron DeSantis governors than DeSantis as president.

You see, if you have his own people arguing that Lincoln was in any way “conservative”, you’ve already conceded the field to the other side.

This is the real problem with the West Coast Straussians. They get some things right, but their full throated support of Lincoln and “equality” as conservative forces the American right to operate from a position of weakness.

You are playing ball on the other team’s home field. More importantly, you are playing their game by their rules. And they can change them if they choose.

The end result? We lose.

Trump’s potential legal issues could make DeSantis the front runner for the Republican nomination, but as I suggested last week, if that happens I think Trump runs third party.

The real wild card is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

I don’t trust the Kennedy clan, and I was very hard on the family in my The Politically Incorrect Guide to Real American Heroes, but Kennedy is the most intriguing candidate who has announced so far.

He is good on foreign policy (the only real issue for the presidency), talks about real “reconciliation”, and has made the establishment Democrats squirm.

He has admitted he was wrong for believing establishment lies. That’s a plus.

He might even pick someone equally interesting as his running mate.

I hope Kennedy runs third party, or perhaps FOURTH party in 2024.

A four way race would be the most exciting thing to happen in a long time.

It might actually result in an establishment defeat.

All of this made for good Podcast fodder. I discuss DeSantis, Kennedy, and Lincoln “conservatives” on Episode 835 of The Brion McClanahan Show.

With friends like these.

A Trump appointed judge in Tennessee struck down a Tennessee law that prohibited explicit drag shows in the general public. The bill required such events to be age restricted and indoors.

It did not shut them down. It did not tell drag performers they could not put on a show.

It only mandated that they be behind closed doors to those over 18.

You wonder why these people called it an infringement on their “1st Amendment rights”?

Weird.

What are they really trying to do?

Regardless, this Trumpian black robe said the bill violated the 1st Amendment.

Stupid.

If this dope of a judge bothered to read any of the debates during the ratification of the Constitution or even the debates regarding the drafting of the 14th Amendment, he would have correctly ruled that this was not a federal issue and could not be heard in federal court. End of story. Case dismissed.

But this is what you get when you vote Republican. Every single time.

“We need more Republican judges” is like saying we need more ice picks in our eyeballs.

We’ve all seen how “Republican” judges keep issuing stupid ruling after stupid ruling. If Tennessee lawmakers and police had any guts, they would continue to enforce the bill and tell the feds to take a hike by invoking the 11th Amendment.

I won’t hold my breath.

The ruling made for a great Brion McClanahan Show episode.

Sometimes you just have to bathe in the left’s stupidity.

Take for example their current assault on the federal courts.

You see, their entire political agenda has only been possible because of the federal court system.

When the Supreme Court seemed intent on undoing FDR’s New Deal, he pressured the Court to buckle and they did. The entire agenda should have been declared unconstitutional.

Progressive Hugo Black gave us the faulty doctrine of incorporation.

The Warren and Burger Courts codified the Great Society and Civil Rights movement under vague definitions of “constitutional rights.”

In other words, no Supreme Court, no leftist victories.

Which makes their current hand wringing over the Court laughable.

Of course, their attacks have a subtle qualification. Progressives want the Congress to remove the Court’s ability to invalidate federal law, but they also want to ensure that the Court can negate State law.

This is the exact opposite of what was argued during the ratification process.

In fact, the founding generation explicitly rejected a federal negative of State law, which is exactly what these nincompoops want.

They correctly understand that the States have always been the real obstacles to their Utopian idealism. Why? Because States reflect the political culture of their own constituents, not those form others States or sections.

There is a word for this: federalism.

And it’s beautiful.

Unless you are a progressive. Then Yankee imperialism is the only thing that matters. The endgame is power.

I discuss this idiocy on Episode 831 of The Brion McClanahan Show.