What do Trump, Lincoln, Truman, Bush, Clinton, Obama, and Biden all have in common?

They all did unconstitutional things while in office.

Trump is currently facing numerous charges for “crimes” he committed while President.

He’s already been impeached. Twice. But to those who want to permanently remove not only Trump but the “deplorables” he represents, the stakes are high.

Get Trump and you de-fang MAGA.

The founding generation thought impeachment would be the correct way to punish a president for poor conduct or illegal acts. That was enough.

No president had ever been charged with crimes once he left office before Trump. We could have gone after most of them.

Even Washington. Was the federal response to the “Whiskey Rebellion” an abuse of power? Some people thought so, but no one considered charging Washington with a crime,

Andrew Jackson abused power as President. He even broke the law. But he never faced criminal charges when he was out of office.

I have said that almost every president of the last 100 years deserved to be impeached, but I never suggested any of these people should be charged and tried in court.

For all of the leftist hand-wringing about Trump’s threat to “democracy”, these people are showing the way.

If you don’t like your political rivals, destroy them.

We’ve seen this before in Rome and Greece. It was commonplace in Eastern Bloc countries during the Cold War. Saddam Hussein had his political rivals marched out and shot. You can’t even sneeze incorrectly in North Korea and China.

Is this what we want in the United States? It seems the Democrats think so.

But of course the Trump trials make for great Podcast fodder. I discuss Trump, the founding generations’ position on impeachment and presidential misconduct, and the future of American politics on Episode 970 of The Brion McClanahan Show.

If you listen to Nikole Hannah-Jones or the West Coast Straussians, you would think that the American tradition is the “proposition nation.” Hannah-Jones doesn’t think anyone was committed to it, while the Straussians argue they were, but those evil Southerners retarded progress and were only turned back by noble Northern abolitionist crusaders in the 19th century.

This would fundamentally mean that “American conservatism” is in fact repackaged liberalism, something Louis Hartz argued about eighty years ago.

In other words, no American conservative tradition existed.

I–and many others–think otherwise, but it’s rare to find a leftist historian who argues the same thing.

Enter Steven Hahn.

Hahn is a died in the wool leftist. He fundamentally believes that Donald Trump and everyone who supports him are fascists. More importantly, he contends that Trump is the full expression of the dominant force in American political history, the “illiberal tradition”.

We would just call it “conservative”.

Hahn wrote a decent book on Southern populists in the 1980s, but his recent work has focused on trashing the South, the American right, and everything associated with it.

He doesn’t like you.

And though he thinks it is little more than a code word for racism, he is honest about the American conservative tradition.

Hahn’s mostly selective history is boiler-plate for the left, as is his summary of modern politics, but he does not appear to buy the “proposition nation” myth even if he thinks the left is the most glorious thing to happen since Charles Darwin argued we descended from apes.

Southerners and Northerners both denied all of those underrepresented people a seat at the table, and no one was really committed to any “liberal” agenda even if they gave it lip service, even 20th century progressives.

That is until now, which is why Trump and MAGA fascists are so dangerous, at least according to Hahn.

His piece was just too good to pass up, so I hammered it on Episode 969 of The Brion McClanahan Show.

You have to give it to leftist “scholars” and their brain-dead acolytes.

The light bulb goes off for these people and they treat it like no one had ever come up with this idea/thought/topic before.

Take for example the Constitution.

Everyone with a brain knows the document has been flawed since it was written.

The “anti-federalists” spilled considerable ink on the subject.

If you’ve taken any of my courses–or read my book The Founding Fathers Guide to the Constitution–you know that those in favor of the document had a hard time convincing a reluctant public to adopt such a flawed document.

Executive government, a political Supreme Court, and a central authority with virtually unlimited power show that the document Americans bought in 1787-1788 isn’t the one they were sold.

But leftists are just figuring this out thanks in large part to Donald Trump.

If he only had one redeeming quality, this is it.

When I was in grad school, my roommate and I would discuss how someone could so drastically undermine the presidency that everyone would learn to hate it and the flawed Constitution.

Trump pulled it off, maybe.

Or maybe the left did it to themselves. Either way, confidence in the executive office is at historic lows.

That’s great.

We should never have adopted an American king in the first place.

Leftist legal “scholar” Aziz Rana warns in a New York Times opinion piece that the Constitution won’t save us from Trump.

The horror.

It didn’t save us from Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson, FDR, Truman, Johnson, Nixon, H.W. Bush, Clinton, W. Bush, Obama, or Biden, either.

It never could. But after Trump, leftist dopes like Rana are worried that someone else might assume office and abuse power.

These people have no self-awareness.

Of course, Rana’s solution is a summary of every current leftist talking point, right down to abolishing the Electoral College, adding more States, and eliminating the powers of the Senate.

You know, everything that would rig the game in their favor.

It’s always about power. As Calhoun pointed out, the Constitution never mattered.

But Rana’s piece was great Podcast fodder.

I discuss it on Episode 966 of The Brion McClanahan Show.

We have a Hamiltonian in the White House.

This breaking news comes courtesy of the New York Times and historian Jacob Soll.

What a revelation!

It’s almost as if Hamiltonian America did not win at Appomattox in 1865.

We’ve had a Hamiltonian in the White House almost unabated since.

Soll’s amazing discovery is politically motivated. You see, if Joe Biden is a Hamiltonian, then we should all vote to reelect him. The implied alternative is that we would get something else, perhaps someone who isn’t a Hamiltonian in Donald Trump.

That would be news to Donald Trump. Or perhaps anyone who covered the Trump administration.

This is why Alexander Hamilton continues to screw up America.

Everyone who loves centralized power is a Hamiltonian, including Trump, Biden, and frankly just about everyone in the federal city.

This isn’t news. I wrote a book on it in 2016.

If you are unhappy with the current activist Supreme Court, blame Hamilton.

If you don’t like the direction of an overly centralized government in Washington D.C., blame Hamilton.

If you mourn the loss of real federalism in America, blame Hamilton.

If you think implied powers are a detriment to constitutional government, blame Hamilton.

I could go on, but the fact that the New York Times would present this piece as something of a unique discovery shows just how stupid American politics have become.

We don’t have a real Jeffersonian opposition in America and haven’t in a long time, perhaps nearly 200 years.

To think that Biden is novel by pursuing Hamiltonianism is a joke.

But as usual, this made for great Podcast fodder.

I discuss Hamilton, Soll, Biden, and Trump on Episode 945 of The Brion McClanahan Show.

Trump is going to get the Republican nomination in 2024.

That should have never been in doubt.

With the news that Michelle Obama is staying out of the race dropping yesterday, it’s clear Biden is going to be the Democrat nominee.

That might change, but probably not.

The real question remains: what about third or fourth parties?

We know Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is primed to run as a third party candidate.

His Super Bowl ad was one of the best in the last couple of decades, even if he tried to distance himself from it just a day later.

But what about Nikki Haley? The “No Labels” Party is clearly interested in running a “Never Trump, Never Biden” ticket.

Joe Manchin of West Virginia is also a contender for that nomination.

What happens if we get a real four way race?

Could it be 1860 all over again?

I produced a Podcast about this about four years ago on a potential four way split that never materialized. Bernie Sanders stayed loyal.

But it’s clear that Kennedy isn’t loyal to the Democrats and they don’t like him.

It’s also clear that there are many Republicans who won’t vote for Trump and some Democrats who don’t want Biden.

This could be beautiful.

If that happens and we get four viable candidates for office, what happens if no one gets 270 Electoral College votes?

The States elect the president.

One pundit at The Hill has anxiety or this possibility.

I think it would be great, and it shows the “compact fact” of the Constitution.

The general government was created by and is a creature of the States.

A sovereign entity cannot be destroyed, but the general government can–by the States.

If the States get the choose the President, Trump probably wins.

28 States have majority Republican delegations, and States only get one vote. That means Trump probably wins 28-22 in the House. I cannot see any other candidate getting votes.

But again, the veil would be lifted and everyone would see that the States really control the entire system.

I am rooting for it.

Of course this made for great Podcast fodder, so I cover it on Episode 943 of The Brion McClanahan Show.

Michelle Obama’s media team released a press statement saying that she will not be running in 2024.

This is a smoke screen. Obama is trying to put as much attention as possible on the current election because another Biden victory means another Obama term.

Barack is, after all, running the show from Martha’s Vineyard. Biden is just a placeholder for the real Democrat in Chief.

Michelle doesn’t need to run in 2024. Obama is already on the ballot.

Or if Biden loses, it means the situation is perfect for the Obamas to swoop in and “save” the Democratic Party in 2028. That has been the goal all along.

Their only competition would be Gavin Newsome.

You know who hates this? The Clintons. They controlled the Party for nearly twenty years only to have it taken away by the “clean, articulate” Obama.

Neither the Clintons nor Gavin Newsome have any chance against the Obamas.

They are the real face of the majority minority party in America.

Bill Clinton and Gavin Newsome are too white and too traditional. Clinton is also too Southern now.

If Obama does not run in 2028, count on another black woman. The Party will not nominate another white man in 2028. Book it.

But this of course brings us back to 2024. Trump achieved a major victory yesterday with the SCOTUS ruling keeping him on the ballot in every State.

I said this would happen. I even said it would be 5-4. While the Court ruled 9-0 that Trump had to be on the ballot in Colorado, the real decision was 5-4 as the four women justices wrote concurring opinions that narrowly interpreted the ruling.

Trump is going to get the nomination. Winning is another matter. I guarantee the Democrats will be using all “legal” means necessary to defeat Trump while crying about “voter suppression” in Republican controlled States like Georgia.

And by “legal”, I mean highly suspicious ballot harvesting tactics.

Of course, the left went nuts over the SCOTUS decision yesterday, so much so that some starting calling for the abolition of the Court.

Don’t you love it when these people luck into the right position?

The Court has been abusive since 1794.

Left wing activists masquerading as historians have been crying foul about the decision for the last 24 hours. They were embarrassed and they know it.

But this made for great Podcast fodder.

I discuss the SCOTUS decision on Episode 942 of The Brion McClanahan Show.

Nikki Haley is back in the news, of course not because she is newsworthy.

Far from it.

She is back in the news because she can’t stop flip flopping.

A few weeks back, Haley failed to bow to the woke mob by omitting slavery as the “cause of the War.” To appease the masses, she went on Saturday Night Live and knelt before the altar of acceptable opinion.

She then said on a radio show that Texas could secede if it wanted.

She backtracked the next day, but not before the Lincolnians went nuts.

Take for example Bill O’Reilly.

Ol’ Bill took issue with Nikki and plastered his webpage with a huge graphic:

“Why Texas Cannot Suceed from Union”

You read that right. Bill, or one of his staffers, does not know the difference between secede and suceed.

Or succeed. The typo is atrocious.

But his reasoning is even worse. You might guess it. Texas v. White.

This is the conclusive proof that secession is illegal according to every midwit in America.

Some understand the nuance. The Supreme Court said that unilateral secession is illegal, but not secession per se. States can leave the Union if Congress kicks them out.

Why would the Court rule this way? Because it needed cover for the clearly illegal and nasty 1st Reconstruction Act of 1867, a bill that reduced the former Confederate States to military districts subject to marshal law.

Those States did not exist any longer because Congress said so, even if Lincoln said they were just in rebellion during the War.

The Republicans had a major constitutional mess on their hands by denying the legality of secession. The Court theoretically figured it out by ignoring the Constitution.

Which brings us back to O’Reilly. He also made the case that once the Supreme Court rules on an issue, the case is closed. We don’t have to like it, but you cannot resist.

That would have been news to Andrew Jackson, or better yet, Bill’s beloved Republican Party. Their entire platform of 1860 was dedicated to open resistance to a ruling of the Supreme Court.

This is why I laugh every time people say the North, and not the South, was being forced to compromise in the months leading to the War. The opposite is true. The South had the entire weight of the law on their side. The North, politics.

Now, we can certainly say that the Dred Scott decision was a faulty decision, but regardless, under Bill’s logic, the Republican Party had no authority to resist and should have folded up shop. Slavery, according to the Court, was legal everywhere in the United States, or so I am told my establishment historians. Northern States were still free States, of course, but they won’t say that.

But slavery was legal in every inch of federal territory, and Republican efforts to resist it would have driven Bill O’Reilly mad. For as he said, “But I understand, that when the Supreme Court rules, that’s it. No wiggle room.”

Of course, we know that if you asked him, he would say that the Republican Party should have resisted Dred Scott. His consistency only goes so far. So does his knowledge.

Either way, Nikki and Bill made for great Podcast fodder.

I discuss both on Episode 930 of The Brion McClanahan Show.

Texas told the Biden administration to take a hike.

But this isn’t “nullification”.

Texas insists that the Biden administration enforce the laws of the United States.

Biden has so far refused and instead retaliated by cutting off natural gas exports from Texas.

In other words, Biden has chosen economic warfare against a State, the very definition of treason in the Constitution, to appease the hard left faction in his political party.

This is the very thing the founding generation feared from the executive branch.

Some background is in order.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott directed the Texas National Guard to construct obstacles—barbed wire fencing and shipping containers–on land adjacent to the Rio Grande River. This is Texas property, not federal land.

The United States Border Patrol used it as a processing center for illegal aliens, and thus it became a focal point for massive numbers of “migrants” crossing into Texas across the Rio Grande River.

Invasion would be a better word.

Texas then told the Border Patrol that they were no longer allowed on State property while Texas law enforcement began arresting and deporting illegal aliens.

The Federal Government sued in federal court and demanded that the razor wire and makeshift border wall come down. Biden’s Justice Department also argued that Texas’ efforts to enforce federal immigration law violated the Constitution.

“Texas cannot run its own immigration system. It’s efforts, through SB 4, intrude on the federal government’s exclusive authority to regulate the entry and removal of noncitizens, frustrate the United States’ immigration operations and proceedings, and interfere with U.S. foreign relations.”

Here’s the catch. Texas isn’t running its own immigration system. It’s enforcing existing federal law.

Every officer in the United States, from the local governments to the President, takes an oath to uphold constitutional federal law. Biden did so in 2021. That is the primary language of his oath of office.

Biden has not claimed that immigration laws are unconstitutional. He has not claimed that these people are crossing the border legally.

He admits that they are entering Texas illegally, meaning his only job is enforcing the laws on the books, something his administration is clearly refusing to do.

Texas has done it for him.

But this raises several larger Constitutional questions.

The Founders unequivocally considered “invasion” to be one of the important reasons States maintained control of their own militia units.

That would be the modern misnamed “National Guard.”

Biden cannot “nationalize” the Guard in this instance because federal law would not allow it.

The Texas National Guard is already enforcing federal law, meaning that if Biden nationalized the Guard and told them to stand down, he would be in violation of the Constitution.

He would also violate federal law. The Insurrection Act of 1792 allows the President to nationalize the militia (National Guard) in three instances: to suppress insurrection, stop domestic violence, or enforce federal law.

Allowing invasion is not on the list. Nor is breaking the law.

That would be a dereliction of duty, an impeachable offense.

The parallels between Biden’s actions and other stand-offs between the States and the general government are impossible to find.

Texas wants to enforce federal law.

In 1798, Virginia and Kentucky nullified the Alien and Sedition Acts because they violated the Constitution. This wasn’t a case of neglect.

In 1815, several New England States refused to enforce laws in support of the War of 1812. Again, not a case of neglect.

In 1832, South Carolina nullified the federal tariff. Jackson threatened to send in the army to collect the tariff. He wasn’t refusing to enforce a federal law.

In the 1840s and 1850s, several Northern States refused to enforce the fugitive slave laws. The Supreme Court ruled that States did not have to use their own police powers to support federal law.

But in this case, Texas is supporting federal law. The Biden Administration has vacated its Constitutional responsibility.

The Justice Department’s claim that the general government has “exclusive authority to regulate the entry and removal of noncitizens” would also be news to the founding generation.

States could determine residency and who could and could not be within their borders. Jefferson made this contention in the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798. After 1808, the general government could prohibit “persons” from entering the States, but this power was not denied to the States in Article I, Section 10, meaning the States could also allow or prohibit “persons” from entering their borders.
 
The “supremacy clause” only applies to laws made in “pursuance of the Constitution.”

Nor does the 14^th Amendment cover illegal aliens. Only citizens of the States are entitled to due process and the privileges and immunities of citizens of the other States. Foreign nationals are not citizens of any State or the United States.

This is an open and shut case of dangerous abuse of power by the executive branch. If the Republicans in Congress had any spine, they would immediately impeach Biden for his action against Texas and inaction on immigration enforcement.

In the Philadelphia Convention, James Madison listed “negligence” and betraying “his trust to a foreign power” as the chief causes of impeachment, among others.

Attempting to coerce a State though economic boycotts would satisfy Gouverneur Morris’s definition of “treachery”, what he considered to be an impeachable offense.

In either case, Biden should be easily convicted and booted from power.

That is, if we had a real Constitutional government in the federal city.

That dream died in 1789 in the First Congress.

I discuss all of this on Episode 926 of The Brion McClanahan Show.

I could say that neither Party understands the Constitution. If Lincoln is your man, you are clearly constitutionally ignorant.

But Democrats seem to foul it up the most.

Take for example a recent proposed bill that would ban private “paramilitary” organizations.

Two Democrats wrote the bill to clamp down on dangerous “right wing extremist” violence in America.

When you finish laughing, keep reading.

Ed Markey of Massachusetts (of course) and Jamie Raskin of Maryland think that the greatest threat to “democracy” is “MAGA extremism” in the form of “paramilitary” activity like that of January 6 or 2017 in Charlottesville.

Remember I’ve told you that these people are living in the 1850s. They are no different than the radicals running around the North calling Southerners devils and the vomit of civilization.

Only the names have changed.

The bill will never pass, but it exposes the hypocrisy of these morons. They didn’t write this after the “fiery but mostly peaceful protests” in 2020 or during the ANTIFA bombing of a courthouse in Oregon.

Nope. Those are just patriots fighting systemic racism and oppression.

The people that really need to be neutered by the government are their political opponents.

The Democrats openly use the federal government as a weapon and everyone just smiles and moves along.

Of course the bill is a constitutional disaster. Even this fairly sympathetic piece at VICE points out that States have control over this issue.

But they also explain why these Democrats want this bill. It’s just like any other unconstitutional “federal crime” bill. It allows for a “pathway” to federal intervention in State police powers. If laws are already on the books, why pass another?

Because it is a naked power grab.

And the establishment dopes don’t trust the States to do their job, particularly “red MAGA” States fomenting insurrection. Give a federal prosecutor an inch and he’ll throw everyone in jail.

This is the kind of legislation Jefferson and Madison warned about in 1798.

But of course it makes great Podcast fodder, so I discuss it on Episode 921 of The Brion McClanahan Show.

It’s almost becoming tiresome.

“Republicans were the Party of freedom and Democrats were the Party of slavery, Jim Crow, and treason!”

Modern Republicans really think this tactic will earn more votes.

They’ve been called the stupid party for a reason.

I can just imagine a potential Democratic voter changing his mind while ruminating, “If I cast a vote for this Democrat, I’ll be voting for the Party of treason!” all while looking at the huge bowl of candy the Democrats promise.

But it doesn’t stop the historically ignorant virtue signalling dopes who write for major Republican outlets to keep peddling the lie.

Take Don Feder at the Washington Times. A recent opinion column argued that the “Civil War was caused by Democrats who wanted to keep their slaves.”

Of course this would mean that Republicans had nothing to do with the conflict and were just helpless victims fighting a morally righteous war to free black Americans in bondage.

Except we know all of that is false.

I don’t need to recount the details in an email, but Feder clearly suffers from mental illness.

How else can you explain such a stupid position?

But it seems like the entire establishment has this problem, too. If you are asked a question about the War, just yell SLAVERY! and you’ll be alright.

I learned that on the Simpsons, a cartoon. That is the intelligence level of your average establishment Republican or Democrat.

Or your average Ph.D history professor in the modern academy, someone like Kevin Kruse, Brooks Simpson, Ty Seidule, or Heather Cox Richardson.

But of course, I loved the opportunity to take down this stupid piece on Episode 919 of The Brion McClanahan Show.