What If: Conservative Podcasters Interviewed The Founding Fathers

 Conservative podcasters always talk about the good old days when men were white, women had no power at all, and minorities were second-class citizens. They recall with great affection the wisdom and insight of The Founding Fathers. That's George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Monroe, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay. 

It is indeed an esteemed group who were ahead of their time and introduced the world to the social experiment called democracy.

Let's do a thought experiment. What would happen if some of the most popular conservative podcasters could interview The Founding Fathers?

By suspending belief and using our imagination -- unless that has now been banned in schools along with many books -- we can capture what those interviews would be like. 

Let's start with Tucker Carlson. Now, Tucker has recently been flirting with some of the most odious dictators in the world. He has a sweet spot in his Grinch-like heart for Vladimir Putin of Russia and Viktor Orban of Hungary, extolling the virtues of their political structure where there is no free press, elections are rigged, the courts are hopelessly corrupt, and Putin's and Orban's cronies sodomize the economy.

Consequently, Tucker would not want to speak to a founding father, but instead he'd travel to London and talk with King George III of England.  

Tucker Carlson interviews King George III of England

Tucker: Your majesty, What do you think about this American experiment in democracy? Did you hear that President George Washington refused to be called a King? Can you believe how woke he is?

King George III: Yes, Mr. Carlson, you took the royal words out of my royal mouth.  Strong leaders are necessary if a nation or empire is to succeed. Unalienable rights are for sissies. The sad masses are too sensitive these days. 

Tucker: It's a tragedy how American leaders are soft on immigration. Did you know that some are even proposing we don't take over all the land the Indians control?

King George III: First, Mr. Carlson, I am a man of traditional values. Queen Charlotte and I have had 15 children. Keep 'em pregnant, you know (The King winks at Carlson) and keep 'em quiet. And, yes, native people like the Indians should be conquered like British Empire has done successfully in so many areas around the world. We've conquered India, a lot of Africa -- they're such children -- and Canada -- they're nice and easy to control.

And traditional values are important. I don't go to church. Never have. But the masses should. It'll keep them in line. By the by, beheading Sir Thomas More two hundred years ago was really fake news.

Ben Shapiro interviews James Madison

 Ben Shapiro is an influential conservative commentator (just ask him, he'll tell you) and strong believer in religious purity. He is a believer in Judeo-Christian values and Greek philosophy (although not Ancient Greece's acceptance of gay people). In the past, Shapiro has said that transgender people suffer a mental disorder, same-sex couples cannot possibly raise children, and addressed the obesity epidemic with this pithy quote: "Kids are fat due to lack of parenting."

Shapiro: Now, Mr. Madison, the Constitution that you wrote with others does not expressly forbid the blending of church and government. The United States can be a Christian Nationalist nation?

Madison: No, that's not accurate. The establishment clause does not separate politics from religion, but it prohibits all levels of government either advancing or inhibiting religion. Many of the people here now fled Europe because of religious persecution. To establish a state religion would replicate that religious persecution in this great nation.

Shapiro: Facts don't care about your feelings, sir.

Madison: I don't know what that means, but it sounds snotty, sir.

Shapiro: Anyway, Mr. Madison, wouldn't you agree that those who would impose government on the people are grievously wrong. That small government with very little regulation is the government you envisioned?

Madison: If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

Shapiro: Don't you believe that people with different lifestyles and beliefs should not be granted the same rights as everyone else?

Madison: Equal laws protecting equal rights, are found as they ought to be presumed, the best guarantee of loyalty, and love of country; as well as best calculated to cherish that mutual respect and good will among citizens of every religious denomination which are necessary to social harmony and most favorable to the advancement of truth.

Dan Bognino interviews John Adams

Dan Bognino hosts a popular podcast and radio show and is a loud voice supporting the election fraud lie being pushed by Donald Trump and his followers.

Bognino: Mr. Adams, when you lost to Thomas Jefferson in the election of 1800, the winner was not announced until February 17, 1801. There had been a lot of political jockeying for an advantage. I'd say there was outright fraud?

Adams: Mr. Bognino, yes, there were some issues. But I would never interfere with the peaceful transfer of power. It is a sacred trust that the people place in a democracy. In fact, the 12th amendment fixed those issues several years later. Trust the Democratic process.

Bognino: But if you thought the election wasn't fair, even without any evidence that would stand up in court, isn't it your right to contest?

 Adams: Mr. Bognino, it's very simple. If conscience disapproves, the loudest applauses of the world are of little value.

Bognino: Isn't it true that the Founding Fathers supported slavery and understood that, at the time, it was acceptable?

Adams:  Sir, I never owned a slave in my life and consider myself an abolitionist.

 Bognino: Cut. I'm done with this guy. I told you. I just want guests on the show who agree with me!

 Charlie Kirk interviews Thomas Jefferson

 Charlie Kirk is a conservative podcaster and founder of Turning Point USA. Kirk’s “Exposing Critical Racism Theory” tour has made stops in Alabama, Idaho, Michigan, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas and Vermont. For 90 minutes, Kirk speaks directly to the virtually all-white crowd and told them radical leftists want them to feel ashamed.

“Just because you’re a white person does not mean you have to begin apologizing simply for how God made you,” he says on the tour.

Kirk: now, Mr. Jefferson. I know you're a man of God. All those radical leftist, woke wild stories about you and Sally Hemings are all fake news. Right, sir?

Jefferson: No, Mr. Kirk. It is all accurately reported. I did father children by her.  

Kirk: But you did support slavery during the war for independence because you were only going along with the prevailing theories of the day. Isn't that right, Mr. Jefferson?

Jefferson: I quote from a letter I wrote: "There must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners of our people produced by the existence of slavery among us. The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other."

Kirk: But you don't think that white people should not in any way feel bad about the U.S.'s history of slavery?

Jefferson: I can answer that, Mr. Kirk, by quoting from a letter I wrote Mr. Edward Rutledge of South Carolina in July 1787. The letter said, and I quote:  "I congratulate you, my dear friend, on the law of your state for suspending the importation of slaves, and for the glory you have justly acquired by endeavoring to prevent it for ever (sic). This abomination must have an end, and there is a superior bench reserved in heaven for those who hasten it."

Ted Cruz interviews Benjamin Franklin

Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz is also known as the co-host of the podcast, Verdict With Ted Cruz, along with co-host Michael Knowles. Cruz, known as a crusader on the right, has also gained notoriety for flying to Cancun on a family vacation while Texas suffered a statewide power outage in February 2021, and for being a Trump supplicant after the former president insulted his wife, Heidi, during the 2016 presidential primaries. 

Cruz: As a man of your time, you at least understand that slavery was accepted when the country was founded. Isn't that true?

Franklin: In the 1750s, I owned slaves, but soon thereafter I began arguing against slavery. I became an abolitionist, and promoted education and the integration of blacks into U.S. society.

Cruz: How did you deal with enemies of the state who criticized our newly formed nation? Surely, they were radical socialists and part of the woke mob.

Franklin: We need disagreement. But it must be focused on ideas, not lifestyles. As I said in Poor Richard's Almanac, "Love your enemies, for they tell you your faults."

"Don’t throw stones at your neighbors, if your own windows are glass," as I also said in Poor Richard's Almanac.

 Cruz: How did you and the other Founding Fathers stop the spread of elitist Marxists in universities like Columbia, Princeton, and Yale? We know our enemies are godless people with different ways of life and with different values. How did you defeat these enemies?

Franklin: Mr. Cruz. Remember the good book, Poor Richard's Almanac. There, I said, "When you’re good to others, you’re best to yourself." Then I followed up with, "Search others for their virtues, thy self for thy vices." In essence, Mr. Cruz, haters gonna hate. 

Samuel Alito barges in and asks one question of John Jay

Finally, Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito intruded and  insisted upon asking a question of Founding Father and the first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, John Jay. 

Alito: Mr. Chief Justice, if you were alive today wouldn't you support my agrument for rescinding a woman's right to abortion?

 Jay: Mr. Alito, I can only respond with one of my most memorable quotes: "To all general purposes, we have uniformly been one people; each individual citizen everywhere enjoying the same national rights, privileges, and protection."

Sorry, Mr. Alito. I must object.

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 Stay tuned next week when these same conservative podcasters interview Confederate generals and politicians and try to convince their audience once again that the Civil War was only about state's rights, nothing more. 

Spoiler Alert: Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln offer dissenting views that the conservative podcasters characterize as "cancel culture."

 

Photo by Sawyer Sutton