I’ve been listening to The Open Highway Podcast with Eric Erickson. He’s got an incredible talent for interviewing people, and he needed every bit of it today. Because he interviewed me. Some highlights: 1. That time I told him patriotism should be more like Tylenol and less like heroin. 2…

Franklin Roosevelt called him “one of the most dangerous men in America.” Huey Long, governor and then senator from Louisiana, was a champion of the poor at precisely the right time. The Great Depression had most of the country out of work and hungry. He advocated a massive redistribution of…

Sometimes a Republic on its way to becoming an empire could really use an intractable stick-in-the-mud to run things. (If you’d rather listen then read, check out this episode at The History’s Trainwrecks Podcast): 004 - Stubborn Nags of Ancient Rome, Part I | History's Trainwrecks Listen to 004 - Stubborn Nags of Ancient Rome, Part I from History's Trainwrecks. Meet Cato the Elder, a stick in the…shows.acast.com

We already know our next President doesn’t have the integrity George Washington had when he put America’s cause ahead of personal considerations and patriotism ahead of party. We already know our next President doesn’t have the strength Abraham Lincoln had when he reminded us of the heartbreaking necessity of shared…

The way Americans think about politics is the root cause of America’s political problems: The party I don’t support isn’t just wrong — it’s evil. And so is everyone who agrees with them. The party I do support isn’t just right about a bunch of policy ideas — it’s infallible…

Being in Congress is like living on another planet. With a quick “Aye” you can spend trillions of dollars, declare war, and affect millions of lives. You probably haven’t even read the bills you voted into law. You put your name on emails to your constituents saying that the left…

On our last episode, we left things in this precarious situation: American second in command General Charles Lee had been captured by the British at the end of 1776 while he was holed up in a New Jersey tavern, loosely plotting to replace George Washington as commander in chief of…

American Major General Charles Lee had picked a great place to hide. Like big-city mobsters two centuries later, George Washington’s second in command had discovered that New Jersey was a great place to lay low if someone was after you. Charles had a lot of people after him in December…

It’s winter, 1778. America is losing. The British have taken the American capital at Philadelphia and sent the Continental Congress into exile. Their navy, the most powerful the world has ever seen, is out to sea somewhere but will be back. No one knows where it will strike. George Washington…