The Brion McClanahan Show Podcast

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is currently on trail for being an “insurrectionist.” A federal judge allowed Greene to stand trial in State court in an effort to have her removed from the November ballot for violating the 14th Amendment. There are several legal problems with this line of thinking, as legal scholar Jonathan Turley recently pointed out in a piece on his website. Greene is …more

If Kevin Levin wasn’t bad enough yesterday, Lindsay Chervinsky upped the ante. Chervinsky is a well regarded popular historian. She wrote a little book on Washington’s cabinet that generated some buzz and has a fairly prominent public speaking routine. She is good on media and has a nice personality. But she’s not a great historian. Case in point, a recent post at her substack account …more

I almost feel sorry for these people. Almost. I’m speaking of the righteous cause mythologists, people like Kevin Levin who think they are “bringing their A game” when attacking “Neo-Confederate Lost Causers.” What would constitute Levin’s “A game”? Pointing out that there were pockets of Union sentiment in the South during the War. No way! You got us, Levin. No one knows this! Of course, …more

In 1999, no one would have believed that in less than 25 years, secession would be a topic of discussion in the United States, so much so that major pollsters are starting to ask questions about it. A lot has happened since the late 90s, particularly the growth in the size and scope of the general government. But many Americans are finally getting it. They …more

About a week ago, Michael Boldin at The Tenth Amendment Center asked me to explain why George Washington was a nationalist. Good question. After all, Washington hailed from Virginia, and to many men from the Old Dominion, Virginia was a fine enough country without another central government telling it what to do. But Washington wasn’t alone. John Marshall was a nationalist, so was Robert E. …more

Were “black Confederates” a myth? If you listen to Kevin Levin, then yes. In fact, he wrote an entire polemic, published by the University of North Carolina Press, on the topic. Problem is, he didn’t really write on the topic. Most of the book is a screed against “neo-Confederates” and in particular the UDC, SCV, and UCV and anyone who dares utter a sentence that …more

Sometimes you win, and sometimes you have to take a victory lap for even small things. Like Bill Maher admitting that local government is more important than the “national” stupidity in D.C. Maher is a staple for the left, though he has fallen out of favor with the more idiotic progressives because he has hammered woke cancel culture and the loss of free speech. He …more

Every now and then, an establishment historian gets something right without knowing it. It’s almost shocking. Take for example a new book by David Thomson, Bonds of War. Thomson has not sympathy for the South or for “Lost Cause mythology.” He is as establishment as it gets. Yet, Bonds of War surprisingly shows that the main objective of the War in 1861 was anything but …more

One common narrative from establishment hacks, I mean historians, involves the term “State’s rights.” You see, to these dopes, the South invented State’s rights as a convenient way to enforce “white supremacy.” They insist no one was talking about it before slavery became an issue in American political life. That would mean that the term was never uttered by anyone except proslavery and segregationist Southerners …more

The historical profession has a tendency to hide behind a supposed veil of objectivity. Kind of like Yankees have a treasury of virtue. Establishment hacks believe that a publication with a university press–“peer reviewed”–gives them a badge of trust. You see, these people believe this validates their work. Except it just means that they sent it to a few people in the field and asked …more