The Brion McClanahan Author & Historian Blog

No word in the American political lexicon incites as much conflict as “equality.” Is the United States based on the “proposition” that “all men are created equal”? Are “equality” and “democracy” inextricably linked? These are pressing questions and in some respects key battle lines between both the left and right and the right and “right.” Consider the longstanding debate between Harry Jaffa and Mel Bradford …more

A long time listener of the program sent me an email asking me to define the term “Yankee.” He hosts a group of around ten men that regularly listen to the show. Some of them became agitated when I recently used Yankee to disparage a particular type of American. They were offended ostensibly because they are from the North. He thought if I clarified by …more

Were Confederates “evil”? Wayne Allyn Root seems to think so. In fact, if you didn’t know better, you would believe Eric Foner, Karen Cox, or some other leftist dope wrote this piece. This is a problem I have been discussing for quite some time on my podcast and elsewhere. With “friends” like these “conservative intellectuals,” who needs the left? I rightfully blasted the Straussian/neocons in …more

Meet Karen Cox, Activist at University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Her biography reads “Professor” and “Historian” but those descriptions don’t apply. Cox is the personification of the current historical profession. She has no integrity, makes up straw man fallacies to suit her political positions, and cherry picks information to defend her predetermined narratives. In other words, she isn’t an historian. Historians seek to understand, …more

Meet Laura Fairchild Brodie, visiting Professor of English at Washington and Lee University. Professor Brodie has created quite a stir with a recent publication for Harvard Magazine titled “Harvard and the Cult of Robert E. Lee.” You probably can already guess where she takes the story. A bunch of racists at Harvard, notably Charles F. Adams, admired Robert E. Lee and the Confederacy because they …more

The conservative establishment has gone hog wild over Equality. The Straussians at the Claremont Institute have always shoveled this garbage, but because they have taken a prominent role in the modern “conservative movement”–even if they like to consider themselves to be dissident voices–they are pushing the same message as the neocons and Con. Inc., namely that men like Martin Luther King and Frederick Douglass were …more

About twelve years ago I was invited to give a talk in Texas on the Founding Fathers. This was on the heels of my Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers, and was at a large church with good people. The talk went well, and afterward one member of the audience came up to me and asked if I had heard of David Barton. I …more

Don’t be fooled by your friendly neighborhood hippie. The left has always been the instigator in the culture war, and while they pretend they don’t know what’s stoking the flames of American angst, they fully know they are at the wheel. They just project onto the other side. This recent piece at Politico is a great example. Founding editor John Harris wonders aloud, “what exactly” …more

Today is Robert E. Lee’s birthday. Alabama and Mississippi still mark the occasion with a State holiday, both on the Monday of that week, which means it will always line up with the federal celebration of Martin Luther King. This really vexes the Left. Good. All Americans should recognize Lee and Jackson, two of the best men America has ever produced. Even Northerners recognized this …more

One of the most abused myths of American history is the belief that secession causes war. You see, according to this line of thinking, if one party wants to be free of another party, then the party left in the dust has every right to violently badger the other into staying. And I thought we lived in the era of “Me Too.” The ultimately act …more