Ep. 1327: With Friends Like These...

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2:08Welcome to the Brian McLeanahan Show. Glad to be back on the program. Very glad to be here. All right. Kicking off the week with a piece that appeared in the Washington Examiner a few days ago, about a week ago, actually. And it's written by a man named Christian Alejandro Gonzales. Now, Dr. Gonzales has a PhD in the Washington Examiner. He's a PhD in the Washington Examiner. He's a PhD in the Washington Examiner. Now, Dr. Gonzales has a PhD in government from Georgetown University. He went to Columbia University for his undergraduate. He is a fellow at AEI. He's a West Coast Strousey. I mean, really in many ways, as I've said many times, the West Coast Strousey gets upset when I say this, but the West Coast Strousey and the Neal cons have a lot in common. Now, let's back up a little bit. Let's go back to 2015.

3:11I've got to go back about a decade. So 2015, of course, we have the Dillon Roof fiasco. Unfortunately, that lunatic goes in and commits a horrible crime in South Carolina. And immediately, media posts, social media posts and the media, the establishment media, and they find out somehow that this guy had some Confederate symbols, some flags and other things, and some pictures that he had taken. And of course, the call went out that all those things have to be taken down. We know that Nikki Haley and South Carolina decided at that point that the flag had to come off the dome. And then, of course, it was moved. Or the flag had to come down entirely, excuse me, off the dome, but had to come down entirely. We had to get it off the state house grounds. And, of course, there was already capitulation to get it off the dome and put it on the state house grounds. But now it had to come off the state house grounds entirely. It had to come away from the soldier's monument that was in front of the state capital.

4:17Still, the monument's still there, but the flag is gone. We know that at that point, there was a call to purge all things Confederate by conservatives, including people like Victor Davis-Hanson and others. I'll never forget, in 2015, I was interviewed by someone at the Christian Science Monitor. And the idea was that, you know, well, I mean, what do you think about this? And of course, I said that this is just the beginning of a slippery slope. And that's often a fallacy, but I said, once you, the Confederate symbols are low-hanging fruit, really what people want here is to eliminate, not just the Confederacy, but the founding fathers, Western civilization. And of course, conservatives were quick to say, that's not true. We just want to get rid of this bad stuff, right? This is the bad stuff. You have people like forest neighbors writing his little book on Republicanism and how the South was all a garrick. And we needed to purge American history of these bad people, these all a garrx and anti-democrats and anti-Republicans and all this nonsense.

5:20Even though we know that John C. Calhoun always said that he was Republican, always believed in Republican government. Of course, he's not Confederate. He dies 11 years before we get the war, 10 years before South Carolina secedes. But regardless, southerners consider themselves to be Republican with a lowercase R, because they were. They weren't all a garrx. No more all a garrick than northern political figures. And if you want to start thinking about that and these distinctions, well, this basically the charge came from Republicans with a capital R during the war and people started believing this stuff. In the 1850s, you had others, again, Republicans making these accusations as well. And so what's happened is these conservatives have picked up on Lincolnian nonsense and GOP nonsense that were politically charged attacks against their opponents. And that's what they've said is real history. It's stupid, but it's what these people have done.

6:21Imagine if this stability piece and the innovation piece were each others missing piece. First Citizens Bank and Silicon Valley Bank are combining financial security and innovation expertise to create a full suite of solutions for all your business needs. With the scale to back every state of growth, from pre-C to IPO and beyond, you have everything you need to make your big ideas click into place. First Citizens Bank and Silicon Valley Bank. It's the best of bank worlds. Push your limits, train with precision, see the results. At Equinox, that's high performance loving. Everything you need to lock in and unlock your potential at Equinox. Start today at Equinox.com. So in 2015, we had to take everything down that was, you know, pro-South, pro-conf hell had to go because of one idiot in South Carolina. Now, you'd be hard pressed to find anything else if something, you know,

7:23there's another tragic event that happens and we, I mean, look, well, just, here we are, September of 2026. As I'm recording this, not long after 9-11. I'm recording this, you know, just a week or so after that. And think about the fact that in New York now, the mayor of New York is a Muslim. 25 years ago, that would have seemed to be impossible. But almost immediately after that happened, think about the push back again, where we can't blame this on an entire religion. We can't say anything about bad about Muslims. We can't do any of that because that would be bad. I mean, this, you can't say anything bad about this. And what's happened in 25 years is that we've gone from a situation where Islamic terrorists fly planes into buildings and kill thousands of people to having a Muslim mayor of New York. The place where two of those planes struck. And that, because we can't say anything bad about this, I mean, we can't do that.

8:25You see? And that's just one example. We can pick all kinds of things. We could have, you know, you could put in front of people's face symbols and other things attached to lunatics. But that, that's just one, I mean, just because that person had that symbol doesn't mean the symbol is bad. Just because this person is this doesn't mean that's bad. Unless it's a Confederate symbol in the United States. You can't have any kind of nuance and an approach to this. You can't do that, right? It has to be one way or the other. Black and white. No gray areas. With that one issue. Well, I was right in 2015. Because almost immediately after these symbols started coming down and the monuments started getting attacked and everything. Within five years, of course, then we have the summer of love and George Floyd. Quote, quote, love and George Floyd. And what happens there? Monuments come down.

9:26And at that point, conservatives, even people like Victor Davis Hanson, well, you know, I really didn't think that we needed to take them down necessarily. But, you know, maybe we need to have a conversation about things. And maybe this is going too far. Now, I guess because we're six years beyond that. Like I guess every five years, these people just changed their minds. Now you have mainstream publications. Well, we need to take them down. Why? Because what Virginia had removed three monuments. And so now they have to come down again. And conservatives are on board with this. And what you're seeing now again is a shift in social media of conservatives, quote unquote, starting to talk about this again in a way that would be capitulation to the left, or at least appeasement to the left. Because they don't want to be called bad names. And they think they're on the right-ass side of this. I mean, this is what you're starting to see now across social media. It's subtle, but it's starting to change back in the other direction again.

10:27Because they think they can. I think it's a winning issue. Well, we'll side with these lefty. See, we're not bad people after all. We just we believe we believe in the same Lincolnian system. It's so that you're going too far. We think it needs to stop somewhere else. Now, what's also interesting about this is a lot of people driving this, not all of them, but a lot of people driving this. Are people who have no linear attachment to the event that they're going to do? No linear attachment to the events themselves. In other words, their first generation, second generation, maybe third generation Americans. They have no connection to the war itself. They have no relatives who fought in the war, nothing. And yet they're coming in and making pronouncements about the war and what it means and what it should mean for America, based on simply reading some Republic Consources from the 1860s and saying,

11:27this is it. And they use charge political terms that you would find any leftist saying conservatives shouldn't be saying these things. And particularly without, you know, understanding nuance in history. So this piece, again, Washington Examiner Christian Alejandro Gonzalez, how conservatives should approach Confederate monuments, how conservative should approach. He's telling you, this is what you should do if you're conservative. It's laughable. It's a joke. Christian Alejandro Gonzalez, who again, I don't know how long he's been in the United States. Generation two generations. I don't know. Maybe three generations. I have no idea his family. I don't know. But I can almost guarantee you he has no attachment. Any family member that fought in that war.

12:28Maybe he does. I mean, maybe maybe on one side of the family he does. I don't know. I haven't asked him. Maybe he does. But I mean, look, if it's someone like, you know, vlogging through history, who makes statements like this, at least he has a dog in the fight, right? I mean, his family fought for the Union in the war. So he can say, well, this is what I think based on the fact that my family fought here. Another person like, you know, Antoon Chai has no dog in the fight. He's, I think like a second generation, maybe third generation, maximum American. I think his family arrived here like in the 1920s. So again, no dog in the fight. I get it when people have, you know, they have a family history going back to the 1860s and their family fought for the Union and they say these things. Even if their family fought for the Confederacy and they still think Confederate monuments should come down. Fine. They have a dog in the fight, okay? But people coming in and making pronouncements and you see this across the profession now. I'm going to talk about another article tomorrow, same kind of thing.

13:29Someone writing about Robert E. Lee. Again, who is maybe a second generation American, maximum? And this is how conservatives should think about these things. You see? It's embarrassing that anybody would publish this stuff. But I want to get into it. Now, of course, he put this on his Twitter feed and he got blasted for it. He didn't respond to any of it. But these people are thinking that this is the way the political winds are blowing and they need to be on board with it because it absolves them from all charges of anything wrong. You know, conservatives, this is the Harry Jaffa position, right? If conservatives can just do this, they're absolved from any bad words, any wrongdoing, they're all, they believe in the same kind of righteous cause that everybody else believes in.

14:36They're just good people. You see? So let's get into his piece. He says on August 28th, the Virginia State legislature removed the last three Confederate monuments from Capitol Square, a part near the state Capitol and Richmond. Conservatives haven't paid much attention to this story, aside from a handful of op-eds and right-leaning media, mostly opposing the decision. In this particular case, Virginia's decision was the right one, he says, conservatives must rethink how they engage the left on the issue of historical memory. We have to rethink how we engage the left on the history and the issue of historical memory. I mean, look, David Blight couldn't have written it better. Conservatives have to rethink this. We should rethink our approach to this. How do we engage the left? Virginia made the right decision to take these Confederate monuments down.

15:38Why? He says it. Confederate monuments should come down for both patriotic and moral reasons, patriotic and moral reasons. The man couldn't define patriotism if it smacked him in the face, if he'd looked it up, I don't think he could define it. He doesn't understand what patriotism is. There are thousands, thousands, tens of thousands, more than that of men from the south marching off to fight for the United States, waving Confederate symbols in wars throughout the 20th century. Lots of pictures of it, lots of men doing this, they were certainly patriotic Americans. There was a time when Americans realized that fighting spirit from the south was a purely American and patriotic thing that someone like Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson were American symbols that being a rebel was a good thing.

16:41Being a little rebellious. I mean, heck didn't the patriots in New England weren't they called rebels in this 18th century? Of course they were. This was a rebellion. That's what Britain called it. So being a little rebellious was a good thing except if you're southern and you're rebelling against their precious state. They're state religion because them Lincoln is the city God presiding over Washington DC and the United States is their religion, whether they say it is or not, it's true. They all genuinely reflect Lincoln and throw holy water on them. I'm friendly. Confidence is this is true. So if you would challenge their precious state, that's not patriotism. State worship is not patriotism. A state worship patriotism is believing in the principles that the United States or the states United were founded upon which is self determination.

17:47And if you follow logically what the South was doing, whether you agree with it or not, if you say, even you say, well, I don't think they were trying to separate for a good cause. And you would have people like Lyce Andrew Spooner say this, an abolitionist was bad cause, but they have a right to do it. Because America is founded on self determination. And by the way, these states seceded not to the acts of their legislatures, but by popular conventions, votes of the people. The people of the state, the state can't commit treason and you can't say the vote of the people of a state is treason. You can't do that. It's a, I mean, just an absolutely aesonine position to say it, but you have a lot of conservatives now feeling bold enough to do this because they think again they're on the right side of all of this.

18:57Because if they just worship the state, this is all about the state where it right side with Lincoln, Lincoln was the good guy Lincoln is all good. I mean, that was all the good stuff. I'm not even realizing that that's how we get to hear it, right? Lincoln gets us to the modern left. 100%. But they're the conservatives somehow push your limits, train with precision, see the results at equinox that type performance loving everything you need to lock in and unlock your potential at equinox start today at equinox.com. Imagine if this stability piece and the innovation piece were each other's missing piece. For Citizens Bank and Silicon Valley Bank are combining financial security and innovation expertise to create a full suite of solutions for all your business needs. With the scale to back every state of growth from pre-C to IPO and beyond, you have everything you need to make your big ideas click into place.

20:01For Citizens Bank and Silicon Valley Bank, it's the best of bank worlds. So then the next part of the paragraph, of course, is absolutely ridiculous. The Confederacy tried to dismember this union for the sake of a wicked political project. What was that? What was the wicked political project self determination? That was the wicked political project. He would say no, no, no, it's slavery. They tried to dismember the union for slavery. So like, I mean, the fact that there were states in the union that had slaves to or would you say it was a wicked political project for the United States in 1776 when every single one of the states had slavery. And was that a wicked political project? Because I mean, the British said the war was about slavery. So was it a wicked political project? Of course, Gonzalez has no attachment to any of that. So it doesn't matter. This is just him, you know, self self congratulating. This is self righteousness.

21:08Look at me. I have the right opinions on these things. This is moral preening. I am absolved from any kind of bad words because I say this about the Confederacy. I didn't try to dismember the union at all. The union still existed. Clearly it existed because, well, Lincoln was a president for four years. And he won another election in 64 and you still to Congress and financial houses and an army and a Navy and all those things. All that existed. So the Supreme Court making rulings and all those things went on. So if the union was dismembered, if it failed to, if ceased to exist, well, how did that happen then? There were no governments that they had in the Southern states. West Virginia was illegal. Lincoln do it. It's all illegal. It didn't matter. All these things are still going on, but yet the union was dismembered.

22:08This is the worst argument that anybody comes with. I've seen like there's a Penn State University dopey professor that said this stuff too. She's a moron. These people, I mean, look, some of this stuff requires like one brain cell to refute. I don't think these people have even any brain cells. So he says, if someone's main claim to fame as a public figure, it's having fought for the Confederacy. They do not deserve our admiration. No. Nor that deserve to have statues framed in a way that honors them. If they're one claim to fame or main claim to fame is that was Lee's main claim to fame that or Jackson or to have fought for the Confederacy. Some of the people that are being taken down had other claims to fame, but they're still being taken down anyways.

23:12I mean, it's ridiculous. Look, we even have to take down Calhoun. Calhoun never spent one day of his life with the Confederacy. This is a man who was vice president in the United States, Secretary of War, Secretary of State, United States Senator, member of the House of Representatives, and yet his statue is taken down. Why? Because he made a speech to people don't like one of the most important people in American history is removed. And that's not his main claim to fame because he never was part of the Confederacy. What about John Logan who before he was a what's hit on his only claim to fame is that he was a union soldier. That's it. To retake down statues or only claim to fame was as a public figure was having fought for the union when John Logan as a member of the Illinois legislature had an amendment added to the Illinois Constitution that prohibited black people from living there, but you know, that's okay.

24:15Because he fought for the union, you see. It's all right. It's all right. I don't think any of those people. I mean, look, John Logan's an important guy, US grant whose wife still had slaves. I mean, hey, important guy, have an monument to him. Will him to come to Sherman find, have a monument to him. I mean, these are important Americans, but we should also have monuments all these other Confederate figures as well because, you know, southerners were put back into the union and they were part of the union. And these were their states. Doesn't matter. But then he gets into this cop out, right? Local community should have a say in shaping their monument landscape. Local communities. Now, let's think about this local community slant with Virginia. Most of the people who were voting to take down these monuments were not from Virginia. They're from somewhere else and they move there. To work in the government or do something like that or work for some company that relocated to Virginia.

25:20The man responsible for the bill that had these removed is from New York, but he was in the Virginia legislature because, well, that's where he moved. It's a joke. It's an absolute joke. In many cases, the people involved in taking these down are not from Virginia. They weren't born there. Their family is not from there. But yet, this is the local community. That's not the local community. It's people that were transplants. And I'm sure you would find Virginians that want these things removed. No doubt about it. But you'd find a lot of Virginians who want them to stay. Native Virginians. So then he tries. Well, you know, here is the conservative side of me. Decisions about Confederate monuments should not therefore be reached by, be reached by democratic processes or should I'm sorry, therefore, be reached by democratic process is not the direct action of mobs or writers. So I'm against the writers of the mobs taking these things down.

26:26If they're done by democratic process, they should come down. They should also be moved to museums or historical sites rather than destroyed. Well, we've seen what happens when they move them to museums. They just leave them torn down or melt them down, make them to some abomination. That works out well, doesn't it? Gonzales. Since we shouldn't ignore the algae parts of our history or destroy pieces with aesthetic value, Confederate statues deserve a place in our sites remembrance, but not in places, our places of veneration. Well, what's a place of veneration compared to a place of remembrance? What's the difference? Because the left wants them gone from everywhere or they just want to melt them down and make them to some abomination. So you see, this is the conservatives driving the speed limit. This is the conservatives conserving a leftist talking point because this position is something the left was saying about, I don't know, 10 years ago. Well, let's put them in museums.

27:30Let's just put them in museums. That's what the left was saying 10 years ago. Same thing. We should put them in museums. They belong in museums. You can go back and find a lot of dopey lefties saying these things and conservatives now are echoing that. Well, they should be in museums. That's what we should do. I mean, it's our al-Dabney being proven over and over again. Well, this is a brilliant talking point. Let's put them in museums. Both of these conditions were met in the recent Virginia case. The statues removed by the legislature and handed to the Sanandoa Valley Battlefields Foundation, which is promised to preserve them. We'll see both of these have been met. So this is good. This is good. We've done the right thing. These things are morally bad and they're just bad. Conservatives often accuse liberals of wanting to erase history, but it isn't always clear what the charge of history or ratio is supposed to mean.

28:33Conservatives often accuse, we don't want to erase history. We don't know what that means. Taking down a monument is not a racing history. This is also, hey, leftist talking point that now Gonzalez is parroting. That's not a racing history. We still exist. We still have history books and we can still read about these things. We still have these things. We can just read about it in books. You see, that's tiesigely. We can just read about this stuff in books. We don't need a monument for it. We can still read about it. It doesn't take that away. We can still do these things. How many times we heard that from the left? Now you've got conservative Christian Alejandro Gonzalez saying this. If it means that leftists want to ignore history, then it is clearly false. He's defending the left. If it means that leftists want to ignore history, then that's false. They don't want to ignore history. The dominant left-wing approach to the past and America very much wants to talk about history. Specifically, it wants to talk about the crimes of the past and keep them fresh and salient in the public consciousness.

29:33The crimes of the past. Well, let me just use that word crimes of the past. The crime was it a crime? I mean, look, do you think the founding generation would use the term crime? And I say that honestly for any of this. There is something called an ex-post facto law. What we're doing socially is having ex-post facto laws. So today, we think these things are bad. So therefore it's a crime 100 years ago or 200 years ago. It's a crime. You can't do that. An ex-post facto law would not allow that to be said. You can't say today, you know what? It's illegal to drive over 65 miles an hour. So yesterday you drove 66 miles an hour or 70 miles an hour. So you're going to be arrested for it.

30:35This is what we're doing. This is presentism. This is an ex-post facto type of social law. Well, these people don't fit what we think is appropriate today. So we're going to remove them because they committed crimes back then. You know, in England right now, there's still our monuments, still statues to Charles I. A man that was beheaded by parliament for essentially treason. That's what they accused him of. Treason beheaded. Still monuments to Charles I. There's a monument to George Washington in London. And yet, I mean, in public place of veneration, public places. And yet we can't have monuments to people in America that the open question of tree is still open. These people weren't traders.

31:39They exercised self-determination and then were brought into the union and there were heroic in their actions and fighting that war. So what's the crime? The crimes of the past. What crime? That would be a present, present-tist evaluation. Was it a crime then? Did they commit any crime then? That's the question. Wasn't a crime then. Then it's not really a crime of the past. Is it? But this is a kind of, I mean, look, lefties would say these exact same things. I'm not sure Gonzales. He says, it's self-conservatives. How about, you know, you just shut up? No, shut up. Because your position is irrelevant. It doesn't matter because you say stupid things. He says, perhaps what conservatives mean to say is that leftists want to condemn the American past. That at least is what critics of Virginia's decision to remove the Confederate monuments from Capitol Square have said.

32:42Hayden Daniel, at the Federalist's Rook, quote, the activists who call for the removal of Confederate statues quickly move on to those of the founders once their demands are initially met. They're hostile to all of American history not just that the Confederacy. That's true. I mean Hayden Daniel was 100% correct about this. And it Fox News, David Marcus commented that as usual, the destroyers of monuments broke no nuance in their march to destroy American history. Gonzales says these authors are driven by legitimate worry that if conservatives agree to take down Confederate monuments, then we'll somehow be forced to take down monuments to the founders as well or to all historical figures who are complicit with slavery or racism. But that consequence doesn't follow. Really? Are you sure about that? Because this is exactly what's happened. It's exactly what's happened. It's exactly what the left wants to do. It's like Gonzales has been paying attention or maybe he has and he's really just a leftist, which I think is more accurate.

33:48You're not worried about hosting for the holidays. Oh, Wayfair's got me covered with holiday decor, extra dining chairs and guest bedding, all the tons of five star reviews. So there's no surprises. Unless Uncle Matt brings his dogs again for worry free hosting Wayfair delivers. Imagine if this stability piece and the innovation piece were each other's missing piece. For citizens bank and Silicon Valley bank are combining financial security and innovation expertise to create a full suite of solutions for all your business needs. With the scale to back every state of growth from pre-C to IPO and beyond, you have everything you need to make your big ideas click into place. First Citizens Bank and Silicon Valley Bank. It's the best of bank worlds. It's exactly what's happened. Jefferson's come down. Washington's been canceled. It happens.

34:49Look, people on the left didn't even want to celebrate 250th anniversary of the Declaration. They won't do it. They want to cancel that. They want an entirely new starting point for American independence for the creation of America. That's what the whole 1619 project was about. He says our principles should be that sites of veneration should honor only should only honor figures who deserve our praise. That's how we can make a principle distinction within the founders and the Confederate leadership. The former deserve our admiration. The latter do not. Why? Why? Why does one deserve it and one not? Well, because those are the founding fathers of the United States. Look, if you go through the roll call of founders from the South and then trace their descendants out, they fought for the Confederacy.

35:50Jefferson's descendants fought for the Confederacy. Washington's even though he had no direct descendants, but his family fought for the Confederacy. We'll just use that Madison's dead. Monroe's dead. Mason's dead. All these people did just out of Virginia. Now we can go down to places like Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina. Again, down the line. Fought for the Confederacy. This is just silly. And of course, in the North, you've had this too, you know, descendants of the founding fathers fought for the Union because that's what their state did. Okay. And they were saying it when they're fighting in the South that they're honoring their fathers. They're honoring their fathers and doing this. So Gonzalo says some extreme liberals certainly think that most of American history is a tale of evil. This more radical group will be happy to tear down most of our monuments.

36:52Their mistake isn't that they want to take down Confederate monuments, however, but that they fail to grasp the magnitude of the founders' achievements and therefore fail to see why we should honor them. You see, they can't see their illogical position because we should honor the founders. We should honor the founders and they just can't see it. They don't care. And it's not just the more radical group. This is the left. In general. It's the leftist position. I mean, I don't know where Gonzalo has been living. This is what the left really wants to do. They want to change American history as a tale of all bad things and monuments should come down. We should really start American history about the middle of the 1970s because that's when all that's when all this stuff was finally purged and we can start them. Maybe or maybe it's not to 2009 with Barack Obama. I don't know. But that's really what they want to do.

37:52In general, conservatives should be more concerned with developing our own approach to historical memory. When this guided by our own moral judgments and our sense of the truth, rather than instinctively reacting against whatever leftists happen to be proposing. I don't think that's the case. I think that conservatives are concerned with our own approach to historical memory. And guided by our own moral judgments and our sense of the truth because I think what Gonzalo is actually doing is saying this. Well, we need to think about this. He's essentially doing that. He's doing exactly what he says we shouldn't be doing, reacting to what our leftists happens to be proposing. He's doing it. He's not being guided by his own moral judgment. He's been guided by some moral judgment of somebody from 180 years ago. 160 years ago. This approach may lead to similar policy decisions on occasion, but democratic politics is partly about coming to agreements on specific cases, even if we do do for so many different reasons. Now, notice what he just said here.

38:53This approach, meaning that we come to our own moral judgments and our sense of the truth, might mean that we side with the left, like basically conservatives do. This is what they do. He says, hence we can support the removal of Confederate monuments on perfectly conservative grounds, namely our commitments to the integrity of the nation and the dignity of all persons. And we can defend statues of the founders on the same grounds and stay helped create the nation and designed a political order that protects the dignity of those who live under. That's not what the left would say. This is a cop out. What a piece of garbage. This, this essay should have appeared like in the Atlantic or something or the nation or the New York Times. And again, you know, David Blight might as well written it. Heather Cox Richardson could have written this. It's a joke. This is what's passing now. Again, as I said at the beginning of this, the right quote unquote right is now feeling comfortable. They can come out and say these things because they think this is going to win them brownie points.

39:58They see the tide of American politics moving against them. We got to do this. We got to these are the girawn dens. Right. These are the these are the moderates and the revolution and they hope they won't be consumed by it. But they'll come after Gonzalez to. And yes, monuments of the founders will come down, no matter what Gonzalez says we should do. All right. Got a lot more this week. See you next time on the Brian McLean Hens show. See you then. You