Once upon a time, the Democrats were the party of slavery, segregation and Jim Crow, and the Republicans embraced emancipation and racial integration. Democrats were the party of the Confederacy in the South and Republicans were the Union of the North. Then the 1960s came and everything switched. Suddenly, the Republicans were tagged as the racists and the Democrats were the so-called champions of civil rights. So what happened? Enter left-leaning academics and journalists, who perpetrated the false narrative that Republicans couldn’t win an election by appealing to the better nature of the country, so they courted the worst. Former professor of political science at Vanderbilt University Carol Swain says this fairy tale and other myths contributed to the incessant lies of the left. She says the transformation occurred because the values of Southerners changed to espousing pro-life, pro-gun and pro-small government. Swain reviews the timeline of the transformation and debunks the myths in this episode of PragerU.
In this exclusive clip from the 1930s, Confederate veterans step up to the mic and let out their version of the fearsome rallying cry.
Today’s Trillion Dollar Movie, It’s a Joke, Son!, shouldn’t be half as funny as it is. Besides being about as politically incorrect as a film could be nowadays, this 1947 comedy essentially has one punchline that it replays over and over again for the duration of its 63-minute running time. But the joke never gets stale when delivered by Kenny Delmar, starring as Beauregard Claghorn, a blustery and unrepentant Southern sympathizer who might be the last man on the planet willing to invest in Confederate Army Victory Bonds.
Just how ironclad is Claghorn’s allegiance to Dixie? Well, besides slugging down mint juleps like they were 64-ounce Cherry Slurpees, he adamantly refuses to eat Boston baked beans, or even apples grown north of the Mason-Dixon line. He hails from South Carolina, and argues that its sister state, North Carolina, should be rechristened as “Upper South Carolina.” When he hears “I Wish I Was In Dixie,” Claghorn salutes the National Anthem.
It’s a Joke, Son! has a silly plot, tangling Claghorn up against a Northern-mob outfit that wants to sabotage the state senate campaign of his strong-willed wife, Magnolia, who has the backing of the patriotic women’s group, the Daughters of Dixie. Claghorn is playing out of his league, but he has a motley crew of allies, including a wonder dog named Daisy and an ice cream truck man who’s sweet on his daughter. No, none of it’s believable, but it’s often hilarious — a valiant attempt to re-create on the screen a beloved comic character that Delmar perfected on the radio as announcer for Fred Allen’s Alley Show. Delmar bears a distinct resemblance to Jon Stewart, and like him, seems to have mastered the art of doing befuddled double-takes.
If you think you recognize Claghorn’s daughter, you probably do. She’s played by a very young June Lockhart, years ahead of her appearances on Lassie or Lost in Space. It’s a Joke, Son! proved to be a one-hit wonder. Dreams of serializing the comedy never came to pass. But Delmar’s character gained immortality through the cartoons. The bombastic Warners Brothers rooster, Foghorn Leghorn, is a thinly veiled copycat of Beauregard Claghorn. Enjoy, and do return next Friday for another Trillion $ Movie.
