Since 1630 and the arrival of the Puritans on the North American continent life has never been the same. They are the busy body “Karens” at the grocery store, the woke willful idiots at the colleges and universities, the cancel culture bullies on Social Media, the insane hordes of bureaucratic petty tyrants throughout all levels of local, state, and the federal government. Self-righteous, abusive, and closed minded. The puritanical termites of progressivism burrowing into America’s soul.
Examine for yourself the brilliant insights of the remarkable book, Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America. Below are two precise summaries of this excellent and exceptional book
Perhaps the best summary analysis of a subject on Wikipedia
Albion’s Seed: Four British: Folkways in America
(How the four British colonial migratory groups looked at freedom).
These ethnocultural, ethnoreligious folkway patterns are still largely in effect today. Despite secularization, the Puritan/Yankees are still trying to dominate and control our civil society, and they are not strictly confined to New England. Their descendants migrated throughout America, especially through the Northern States, and also the West Coast.
History of the Puritans in North America (Wikipedia)
In the last decades of Murray Rothbard’s life, he developed an important interpretative framework in understanding American history. This was prodded on by his careful study of the emerging “new political history” which was reinterpreting the dynamics of the ebb and flow of ethnocultural and ethnoreligious groups. This bold synthesis became the central focus of some of his greatest scholarly endeavors, particularly when it came to understanding progressivism as a secularized version of this postmillennial religious zeal. That seminal ethnocultural and ideological struggle continues unabated today as historian Clyde Wilson detailed earlier in his brilliant essay (later amplified into a book), The Yankee Problem in America.
After viewing Dr. Brion McClanahan‘s excellent online college level courses on The War for Southern Independence and US History from 1865, I am even more convinced than ever that the key to unlocking an understanding of the dynamic of American history, from colonization to the present, is grasping the tremendous impact of the conflicts and contributions the various ethnocultural and ethnoreligious groups have made on these shores. This is a subject I first began intensely studying over forty years ago in 1978 due to the pioneering work in this area by Murray N. Rothbard. This is the Rosetta Stone that deciphers and explains it all.
Here are authoritative volumes which present the essential backstory. I could list many others:
Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America;
The Cousins’ Wars: Religion, Politics, Civil Warfare, And The Triumph Of Anglo-America;
Redeemer Nation: The Idea of America’s Millennial Role;
The Puritan Origins of American Patriotism;
America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nation;
The Cross of Culture: A Social Analysis of Midwestern Politics 1850-1900; and
The Yankee and Cowboy War: Conspiracies From Dallas to Watergate;
The place to begin with however, is Rothbard’s seminal book, The Progressive Era.
And here are seven crucial articles on this important subject:
- Who Rules America: Power Elite Analysis, the Deep State, and American History— Charles Burris article
- “Let the People See”: Reflections on Ethnoreligious Forces in American Politics — Joel H. Silbey article
- Religion, Politics, and the American Polity: A Dynamic View of Relationships — Paul Kleppner article
- Religion, Morality, and American Politics — Richard Jensen article
- The Transformation of the American Party System — Murray N. Rothbard article
- The Progressive Era and the Family –– Murray N. Rothbard article
- The Origins of the Welfare State in America — Murray N. Rothbard article
Historian Brion McClanahan observes —
12:26 am on August 15, 2023If you haven’t heard, the world loves Oliver Anthony’s “Rich Men North of Richmond.”
The song raced up the charts in one day thanks to a social media tidal wave of support for the red-bearded farmer from Farmville, VA.
Before August 9, not many people had heard of Oliver Anthony. He mostly played to the trees and his dogs on about 90 acres of woods.
Every now and then he would get 20 people to show up and listen to him pick and sing.
A little recording studio liked his sound and set up some microphones and a camera on his farm. He sang his soul into the microphone, and that tune has now become the anthem of Jeffersonian America.
The day before it was released, Anthony recorded a little video introducing himself to America, not knowing that it would be viewed nearly a million times a few days later.
He also had no idea his song would be played tens of millions of times in the span of a week.
Amazing really, and it was all thanks to one listener of The Brion McClanahan Show.
It was one Tweet that got it all started:
Some larger accounts shared it and the rest is history. Oliver Anthony was a shooting star.
He performed in front of thousands just a few days later, including country music star Jamey Johnson from Alabama.
Some have called it a “right wing anthem” and the left began piling on. When the right people hate it, you know you are over the target.
Faux conservatives at National Review hate it, too. I’ve warned you that these people are branches of the same Lincolnian tree.
They are all just versions of 1860s New England Republicans.
They don’t get it. Just like they wouldn’t get Hank Williams Jr, or Lynyrd Skynyrd, let alone a former factory worker turned farmer from a place they just fly over.
But this kind of American defiance to the establishment has been around for a couple of centuries. Jefferson tapped into it in 1800 and Jackson in the 1820s and 1830s.
Southerners didn’t want to be in a Union with “those people”, while populists in the West and South took aim at the New England mafia in the late nineteenth century.
You can trace that direct line through the Nashville Agrarians, the Southern literary renaissance, and the general Southern renaissance of the 1970s and 1980s with Jimmy Carter, Southern rock, the Dukes of Hazzard, and Smokey and the Bandit.
People loved the South. They admired Confederate heroes, and they thought it was cool to say y’all.
There were Southern artists who knew the score, which is why Hank Williams, Jr. sang “The American Way,” “Dinosaur”, and “I’m Tired of Being Johnny B. Goode.” You can add dozens of other Southern songs to list list of American populist defiance.
“Rich Men North of Richmond” isn’t a tune about rich men causing inflation and taxes, though that is in the song. It’s a tune from the heart and soul of a people who feel left behind and abused by a culture they don’t recognize. That’s why Anthony is an “old soul” in a “new world.”
The progressives fear songs like this because they can’t control the narrative if people are on to their cultural genocide.
But what they really don’t like is someone telling them to shove it.
And for that, Anthony must be canceled.
Good luck.
I discuss his tune on Episode 864 of The Brion McClanahan Show.
You can watch it here below —
