I paused today on my “listener generation episode week”–I had one of the four last week–so I could talk with Kevin Gutzman about his new book, The Jeffersonians.

This is the first real interview on The Brion McClanahan Show, and it corresponds with Episode 750.

I won’t do another one for a long time, but this was fun.

To make a long story short, you need to buy this book.

The twenty-four years that “Jeffersonians” occupied the executive mansion are perhaps the most important in American history, at least until Lincoln’s administration.

You could argue that Washington set the tone, but Jefferson changed the narrative.

Even after the “Jeffersonians” left office, other men, fully in line with “Jeffersonian America” became President, notably Martin Van Buren, John Tyler, and Franklin Pierce. You could even argue that men like Adams, Taylor, Polk, Jackson, Harrison, and Buchanan were all “Jeffersonians” in one way or another.

He defined the period.

That is what Gutzman argues in this great book.

I’ll probably scribble a review at one point, but until then, the interview is worth a listen, and when you’re done, head over to Amazon or where ever you buy books and grab a copy.

You won’t be disappointed.

I’m kicking off my “listener generated episode week” with a discussion of decentralization.

My Podcast theme is “Think locally, Act locally,” so much of the show covers this topics, but this particular listener wanted to know if I think we are seeing any progress in decentralization in the United States.

I had a lot to say about this, both positive and negative.

Much has changed since I was a young graduate student nearly thirty years ago.

At that time, any talk of “decentralization” would get you labeled a quack. It didn’t matter if it was something mild like federalism or stronger moves like nullification or the dreaded secession.

The War settled those issues, right?

Wrong.

Regardless, people on both the left and the right are now openly talking about these forbidden ideas. This is healthy. The time may not be right for any of it, or maybe it is, but the fact that we can have a civil conversation about it means that at least a foundation has been built for a larger conversation.

This is great at the State and local level where all of this actions needs to take place.

But just as in the late 1990s, the center will never buy it. I don’t see anyone in Washington really thinking about decentralization. Some give it lip service, but most just ignore it.

Too much money and too much power.

Trump’s election in 2016 also sparked a rise in conservative “nationalism,” from “Christian Nationalism” to “Populist Nationalism.”

That certainly retards any serious discussion of decentralization.

There is a dirty little secret that no one in D.C. wants to acknowledge:

When the people of the States push back, they win.

As Clyde Wilson told me in 1999, nullification always works.

This was a fun episode to put together.

Politico reporter Joshua Zeitz thinks Joe Biden could learn something from James K. Polk.

I hope not.

Polk has become a popular president among the American monarchists.

I get it. I used to be a Polk fan, too, back when I thought Bob Dole was a conservative.

It’s embarrassing, but we all start somewhere.

I used to agree with Mr. Zeitz on Polk’s record. He accomplished everything he set out to do in four years and hung it up.

Retiring, in fact, was fairly noble.

But Polk was a disaster long term. He started a war over a dubious claim and lied to Congress, a la George W. Bush, expanded executive power–something Calhoun criticized–and helped craft the image of the “energetic executive” by working into the night by gas light.

Zeitz is also incorrect that Polk obtained everything he wanted. He whiffed on “All of Oregon” and had to settle at the 49th Parallel, a position that had already been negotiated before he fumbled the ball.

Polk boasted in his diary that he was looking “John Bull” in the eye and John Bull would blink. It turned out to be the other way.

And Polk’s dream of an “Empire on the Pacific” as Norman Graebner termed it contributed to the problems of the sectional conflict.

The issues were already present, but acquiring more exacerbated the problem. The North could not stand any longer to be a political minority and forced the South’s hand.

Henry Clay might have been the better option for the stability of the Union. The same could be said for Seward in 1860 if we had to pick a Republican.

Zeitz thinks Biden should also pack it up after four years in office. According to Zeitz, Biden has a record to be proud of–seriously–and thinks it might be time to ride off into the sunset.

I would love to see Brandon retire, but I would also like to see most presidents retire.

The office hasn’t been the same since John Tyler.

Either way, Zeitz’s piece made for a great topic on The Brion McClanahan Show.

When will the next American civil war begin?

This has become a popular question over the last decade as people on both the left and the right calculate the value of Union.

It’s also a poor question because it relies on the incorrect assumption that secession must bring war.

We have no one but Lincoln–and the Righteous Cause Lincolnian Myth–to blame for that.

Regardless, the mere fact that people on both sides of the political spectrum have started openly talking about secession is an interesting development.

For years the proposition had been dead and buried.

But something interesting starting happening with the fall of the Soviet Union. People around the world starting realizing the secession may not always be a “bad” thing, and it can be done peacefully.

It has never been a bad thing. Only our collective historical ignorance makes it so.

Several listeners sent me a recent piece at the website Tablet explaining “How the Next Civil War Begins.”

This is fascinating. Tablet is a standard establishment conservative website, and they were willing to publish this piece.

I tend to agree with the author on several points, notably secession can only happen if a left wing State wanted out.

Conservatives would generally wish them well, though I believe that even a Republican president would attempt to force them to stay in the Union.

I don’t think any “red” State has a shot. The immediate cry would be “Racism!” and the general government would send in the tanks.

Thomas Naylor and the Second Vermont Republic had a far better shot at independence than Texas.

I think that the only real possibility for secession would be for conservatives in Congress to vote out one or more States. But the issues surrounding this move would make it nearly impossible. The most important issue would be money, and not just tax revenue.

Big money would not want to lose their home field advantage.

That could be worked out, of course, even as two separate countries, but the immediate pain would be problematic.

So, while I agree that secession, even unilateral secession through popular conventions, is not only possible but legal, I also think that the best solution would be real federalism and nullification.

The Union has its benefits if the general government stays in its lane, and the States have the power to make that happen.

I find the multiple discussions on secession and decentralization to be interesting and fruitful, but I also don’t think most Americans are ready for such a move.

Time will tell.

The Tablet piece made great Podcast fodder, so I discuss it on Episode 747 of The Brion McClanahan Show.

Pat Buchanan changed the Republican Party in 1992. That’s what the Washington Post thinks, and they hate it.

Or did he? If you consider the fact that the Republican Party still acts like the Grand Old Stupid Party as Sam Francis called it, I would argue not much has changed.

But Pat’s 1992 “Culture War” speech had been brewing for decades. Long before his indictment of establishment Republicans sent shock waves through the Party, the argument that conservatives had not been represented in Washington had been brewing for years.

Even before Barry Goldwater in 1964. R.L. Dabney chastised American “conservatives” in the late 19th century as being just discarded liberals.

He was right then and right now, particularly those that simply regurgitate the Lincoln myth.

George Wallace tapped into this sentiment during his runs in 1968 and 1972. The Dixiecrats said much of the same in 1948.

This was Jimmy Carter’s appeal in 1976, and his “Crisis of Confidence” speech was “Make America Great Again” before MAGA.

It’s funny how this is now considered anti-American.

Much has changed in almost fifty years.

Ronald Reagan promoted a type of MAGA sentiment during the 1980s, but as we all know, the Bushes were simply establishment stooges. Same for Romney and McCain.

Trump was not really an aberration but an acknowledgement of a deep American resentment for establishment hacks.

He was one of them, but he spoke like someone else, an outsider who wanted to clean up corruption.

He was Grover Cleveland in 1884 but not nearly as good.

In 1884 as in 2016 the “establishment” had become so corrupt Americans wanted something done.

And as Cleveland found out, they would fight back. He lost in 1888 because of a stolen election–corruption.

The establishment does not like to be shown up.

Of course, the intellectual root of all of this anti-establishmentism comes from Dixie.

That is why the South is always the root of the problem for establishment stooges and why Hillary Clinton called them a basket of deplorables.

I discuss Buchanan and his influence on American politics on Episode 746 of The Brion McClanahan Show.

If you listen to the Righteous Cause Lincoln Mythologists, the “Lost Cause” was invented after the War by evil Southerners eager to provide cover for their immoral war.

In other words, they lied.

Pushing this narrative has become a cottage industry for historically challenged individuals, from tenured professors and high school history teachers to YouTube amateurs who measure their impact by “views.”

Their entire narrative is, of course, based on their own selective reading of American history and influence by what Professor Susan Mary Grant titled, “North Over South.”

Who were the real liars?

Grant doesn’t care for the South or the Lost Cause, but she understands the power of propaganda and the overt attempt by Northerners to influence American education in the post-bellum period.

Southerners rejected Northern dominated education and preferred to offer their own view of the War and sectional conflict. Northerners call them “mythologists” and argue that they avoid historical “truths.”

But what “truths” are they missing? If you read Jefferson Davis in 1850 and compare that to Jefferson Davis in 1881, he said the same thing.

As did most Southerners writing about the War in the years after the conflict.

According to the Righteous Cause Lincoln Mythologists, these people just made it up as they went along to take the sting out of slavery.

But what about foreigners like G. K. Chesterton?

In 1920, Chesterton wrote an essay that sounds a lot like the “Lost Cause.”

Was he making this up? And more importantly, Chesterton pegged the problem to the Puritan and Pilgrim myth of the American founding.

You see, it all went back to the first myth of America, that the Pilgrims founded America in 1620 and America was based on New England culture.

Chesterton points out the abject stupidity in this assertion.

But of course this made for great Podcast fodder, so I talk about Chesterton’s essay on Episode 745 of The Brion McClanahan Show.

The political left is the single most destructive force in the history of the West.

It’s not even close.

But they would be powerless without certain myths that give their positions the supposed moral high ground.

Most of this involves “emotivism.”

Equity, equality, fairness, justice, rights, etc. are all based on an emotional concept of moral righteousness.

In some cases, this is justified, like when someone steals your stuff, you want justice.

In other instances, this revolves around a supposed “injustice” than the pain of Confederate monuments.

In the United States, these emotional issues would not be possible without the Lincoln Myth, the idea that the Great Emancipator, the Republican Party, and a bunch of Yankee do-gooders swooped in and saved the United States from moral evil.

Their moral self-righteousness is based on a false understanding of the Declaration of Independence, codified by Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

Except the history does not match any of this.

Yet, we still have so-called “American conservatives” convinced that only the “Lincoln Myth” can save America.

Take Tyler McQueen at Law and Liberty, for example.

McQueen argues that the Lincoln Myth as fact is what people should be rallying around to salvage not just American conservatism, but the United States.

If it worked once, why not twice? Even the death toll was worth it in his estimation. Nearly a million dead men for some myth of American history.

Would that be acceptable again? I think there are those who would gladly take that deal, and most are on the left.

Just take a quick tour through social media and see how much they hate traditional America.

In other words, if “conservatives” continue to promote the Lincoln Myth, they are digging their own political graves, maybe literally.

I discuss McQueen’s article on Episode 744 of The Brion McClanahan Show.

Let me welcome all of the recent subscribers from my appearance on the Chad Prather Show.

That episode corresponded nicely with my own episode of The Brion McClanahan Show today, “The Left’s War on Culture.”

I’ve talked about the Arlington National Cemetery Confederate Monument on both my show and through this email list, but Catesby Leigh ran a nice piece at The City Journal detailing the left’s assault on traditional American society through iconoclasm.

It’s not just Confederate monuments; they want to tear down Western civilization.

That’s the point.

We heard for years that Confederate monuments need to be in museums or cemeteries. Ok, that is until they are in museums and cemeteries and the left still wants them removed.

The answer from the beginning should have been, “No. Shut up.”

We missed that opportunity. You can’t compromise with people who want to destroy every traditional element of American society.

Some people have realized this, including Victor Davis Hanson, but they can’t seem to grasp that their own attacks on Confederate iconography and the South have helped get us to this point.

It’s why I’m so hard on the Straussians. They are worse than the left in some ways. You expect the left to attack you. You don’t need it from people who are supposed to espouse traditional American positions like self-determination, limited government, and decentralization.

Lincoln doesn’t fit that narrative.

I discuss Leigh on Episode 742 of The Brion McClanahan Show.

It seems politicos on the left and right agree that if you want Americans to believe in your cause, you need to demonize John C. Calhoun.

To the right, Calhoun is evil. To the left, Calhoun is evil.

Both are wrong. We’ve lost all concept of the meaning of that term, something I’ll cover later this week on The Brion McClanahan Show.

But until then, the left has been running around for months talking about the filibuster. Their standard talking point involves calling it “evil” because supposedly John C. Calhoun invented it.

Except he didn’t. I was pleasantly surprised when Robert Elder penned a piece making that point. I have been highly critical of Elder’s book. He’s a nice fellow, but he also realizes that getting ahead in the academy requires genuflecting to the right gods.

In this case, you can’t say much that’s good about Calhoun.

It doesn’t offer the right sacrifice to the woke goddesses at establishment universities.

That’s why Elder’s piece is surprising. He attempts to use the correct language, but he doesn’t realize that he has now crossed the Rubicon. You can’t get away with not demonizing Calhoun, even if what you are saying is correct.

Calhoun has become the American Hitler, the thing that should not be.

This analogy is stupid, of course. Calhoun wasn’t an ideologue, and he certainly never advanced genocide.

That doesn’t matter to the left. He was a racist (so was almost everyone in 1837) and he thought slavery as it existed in 1837–not as an abstraction–was a “positive good” for the South.

No one seems to get that. Calhoun also said great things about limitations of power, republican government, and the Constitution. He was a real thinker, the most important of his generation, and both the left and the right could find things to admire about his views on government if they took the 2X4 out of their eyes.

Of course, it really doesn’t matter. The left and the Straussian/neoconservative right can keep hammering Calhoun because no one knows enough about the man to defend him, and if you can blame everything on the South and Calhoun, you deflect the real location of political backwardness in America: Yankees (not Northerners, many of whom are good people).

I discuss Elder’s piece, Calhoun, and the filibuster on Episode 518 of The Brion McClanahan Show.

Every news outlet is calling Joe Biden “president elect.” Except he isn’t. Not until the Electoral College meets and those results are verified by the Senate. NPR actually admits this, just after calling him “president elect.” They also whine about the period between the election and inauguration because bad things happen. This is what passes for serious government journalism, but it’s great fodder for a podcast.