Originally published June 23, 2020, at Dissident Mama.
Episode 8 features James Edwards, host of the The Political Cesspool, a Tennessee-based syndicated talk-radio show that has been on air now for 16 years. Edwards is a paleocon and a free-speech advocate who doesn’t shy away from hard conversations, which has gotten him in some hot water over the years.
Like his hero Nathan Bedford Forrest, Edwards has been maligned and vexed with guilt-by-association and guilt-by-accusation attacks for discussing topics that many others aren’t willing to touch. Heck, he knew all about the tyranny of the PC gestapo and cancel culture back when some of us were still liberals and neocons. But also like Forrest, Edwards keeps raising the black flag and moving forward.
Check out this episode or watch on YouTube.
Mentioned in our conversation are my blog posts “White souls aren’t worth much these days” and “White Christians should feel guilty,” and Edwards’ 2010 book “Racism, Shmacism: How Liberals Use the ‘R’ Word to Push the Obama Agenda.” Also mentioned is Pat Buchanan’s influence in Edwards’ political activism, so I’ve included two TPC interviews in which Buchanan and Edwards discuss the stalwart’s prophetic books “Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?” and “Churchill, Hitler, and ‘The Unnecessary War’: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World.”
And if you’d like to listen to my appearance on TPC from back in April, click here. Live radio is a whole different beast than is podcasting. My sons claim that during my interview I said that Levon Helm played Loretta Lynn’s “mother” in “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” and when I referred to the Battle of the Crater in Petersburg, I called it the Siege of “Gettysburg.” I vehemently denied both charges, but they’re probably right. Oy. Hey, at least I’m raising kids who pay attention to detail. I really don’t know how Edwards does it live every Saturday night.
Additional reading on Nathan Bedford Forrest’s faith include articles “Nathan Bedford Forrest and God’s Amazing Grace” by Mike Scruggs and “When the Devil Got Saved: The Christian Conversion of Nathan Bedford Forrest” by Shane E. Kastler. For deeper biographical dives, check out the book “A Rebel Born: A Defense of Nathan Bedford Forrest” by Lochlainn Seabrook and the many articles on Forrest at the Abbeville Institute.
Truth warrior, Jesus follower, wife, and boymom. Apologetics practitioner for Orthodox Christianity, the Southern tradition, homeschooling, and freedom. Recovering feminist-socialist-atheist, graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and retired mainstream journalist turned domesticated belle and rabble-rousing rhetorician. You can read her blog at Dissident Mama.
