Know Your Enemy
Matthew Sitman
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A leftist's guide to the conservative movement, one podcast episode at a time, with co-hosts Matthew Sitman and Sam Adler-Bell.
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2 days ago
Reading the Trump Indictments [Teaser]
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Former president Donald Trump is currently facing 91 criminal charges in four different jurisdictions — Georgia, Florida, New York, and the District of Columbia. Two of these indictments — Special Prosecutor Jack Smith's in D.C. and District Attorney Fani Willis's Fulton County, Georgia — take up Trump's and his co-conspirators efforts to steal the 2020 election, efforts that culminated with the insurrection on January 6. In this episode, Matt and Sam try to make sense of them and weigh the possible risks and rewards of "breaking the seal" and criminally charging a former president. In particular, they give closes readings to the two January 6-related indictments and discuss what they reveal about the deranged efforts Trump and his team made to overturn the election and a Republican Party that seemed to mostly go along with it, along with some of the problems with the RICO statute Trump and others are being charged under in Georgia. And of course, these indictments came down just as we're entering presidential election season — how will Trump's legal problems effect the 2024 race?
Sources:
Charlie Savage and Adam Goldman, "The Trump Jan. 6 Indictment, Annotated," _NYT_, Aug 1, 2023
Alan Feuer, et al, "The Trump Georgia Indictment, Annotated," _NYT_, Aug 15, 2023
Charlie Savage, "The Four Trump Criminal Cases: Strengths and Weaknesses," _NYT_, Aug 28, 2023
James Risen, "In Trump’s Georgia Indictment, a Tale of Two Election Workers," _The Intercept_, Aug 17, 2023
Rick Rojas and Sean Keenan, "Dozens of ‘Cop City’ Activists Are Indicted on Racketeering Charges," _NYT_, Sept 5, 2023
Laurence Tribe, "Anatomy of a Fraud," _Just Security_, Aug 8, 2023
Matthew Sitman, "Will Be Wild," _Dissent_, Spring 2023
Damon Linker, "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Trump?" _Notes from the Middleground_, July 18, 2022
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Sep 5, 2023
What the Cold War Did to Liberalism (w/ Samuel Moyn)
In his provocative new book, _Liberalism Against Itself_, historian Samuel Moyn revisits the work of five key Cold War thinkers—Judith Shklar, Isaiah Berlin, Karl Popper, Gertrude Himmelfarb, and Lionel Trilling—to explain the deformation of liberalism in the middle of the twentieth century, a time when, in his telling, liberals abandoned their commitment to progress, the Enlightenment, and grand dreams of emancipation and instead embraced fatalism, pessimism, and a narrow conception of freedom. For Moyn, the liberalism that emerged from the Cold War is, lamentably, still with us—a culprit in the rise of Donald Trump, and a barrier to offering a compelling alternative to him.
Sources:
Samuel Moyn, _Liberalism Against Itself: Cold War Intellectuals and the Making of Our Times_ (2023)
Judith Shklar, _After Utopia: The Decline of Political Faith__ _(1957)
Lionel Trilling, _The Middle of the Journey_ (1947)
Lionel Trilling, _The Liberal Imagination_ (1950)
Matthew Sitman, "How to Read Reinhold Niebuhr, After 9-11," _Society_, Spring 2012
...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!
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Aug 24, 2023
The First 2024 GOP Presidential Debate [TEASER]
Matt and Sam stayed up late to record just minutes after the first GOP presidential debate ended on Wednesday night; we did this for you, our beloved subscribers, because _we_ _care_. This episode (full of blistering insights) is the result of that decision. "Enjoy."
Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy
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Aug 21, 2023
The Hochman Affair
Three weeks ago, one-time Know Your Enemy guest and “frenemy” of the show Nate Hochman was fired from Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign for his role in producing a campaign video featuring a Nazi “sonnenrad” symbol. (You may have read about it!) Unsurprisingly, the Hochman affair inspired some soul-searching on the part of your podcast hosts: had we inadvertently exposed our audience to a neo-nazi? Was our original December 2021 interview insufficiently combative — or too credulous (as many of our most vigilant listeners have suggested)? Were we naive about the value of welcoming young conservatives on the show? And, perhaps most illuminatingly, what can Hochman’s trajectory (from Never-Trump conservative and Michael Oakeshott fan to disgraced DeSantis speechwriter) tell us about the young right today?
After all, Hochman was not alone. A few weeks before the Hochman affair, DeSantis influencer and _Chronicles_ magazine editor Pedro Gonzalez was exposed for expressing virulent anti-Semitic sentiments in private group chats in 2019. And most recently, _Huffington Post _reported that Richard Hanania, another young conservative — a darling of Silicon Valley reactionaries and a frequent interlocutor with centrist pundits on Twitter — had lived a previous life as an alt-right white supremacist and misogynist.
In this episode, we ask (not for the first time): what exactly is going on with young conservatives? Has the wall between mainstream conservatism and unacceptably hard-right sentiments completely broken down? Was it ever there? Or has it only become more porous in the age of Twitter, Telegram, and online anonymity? Did the alt-right of 2016, with its Pepe memes and winking fascist apologia, ever go away? Or did it merely merge, seamlessly, with today’s young right, turning an entire generation of GOP operatives into half-ironic racists, neofascists, and violent homophobes?
Further Reading:
Michelle Goldberg, “The Radicalization of the Young Right,” _NYTimes_, July 31, 2023.
“Young, Radical, and on the Right, with Nate Hochman,” KYE, Dec 16, 2021.
"How Euphemisms Muddy Our Political Conversations," On the Media (WNYC), Jan 21, 2022
David Weigel and Shelby Talcott, “‘This belongs in the Smithsonian’: Inside the meme video operation that swallowed Ron DeSantis’ campaign,” Aug 1, 2023.
Sam Adler-Bell, “The Radical Young Intellectuals Who Want to Take Over the American Right,” _The New Republic_, Dec 2, 2021.
Michael Oakeshott, “On Being Conservative,” from _Rationalism in politics and other essays_, 1962.
John Ganz, “They’re All Like That,” _Unpopular Front_, Aug 6, 2023.
Jordan Nixon-Hamilton, “‘F**k This President’: More Messages Show Pro-DeSantis Influencer Pedro Gonzalez Turned on Trump in 2019,” _Breitbart_, Aug 1, 2023.
Christopher Mathias, “Richard Hanania, Rising Right-Wing Star, Wrote For White Supremacist Sites Under Pseudonym,” _Huffington Post_, Aug 4, 2023.
...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!
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Aug 11, 2023
Grateful Dead Conservatives (w/ Sophie Haigney) [TEASER]
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The Grateful Dead Conservative (w/ Sophie Haigney)
Another fun summer-y episode for you, our beloved subscribers: This time, we talked to writer, _Paris Review_ editor, and Grateful Dead super-fan Sophie Haigney about a topic we've long pondered: the phenomenon of the "Grateful Dead conservative."
Why is it that right-wing figures including Tucker Carlson, Ann Coulter, and Paul Ryan count the Grateful Dead among their favorite bands? Isn't there something _odd_ about these social conservative luminaries loving the Dead, such avatars of 1960s psychedelia, libertinism, and hippie counterculture? Or else, have we misunderstood something essential about the band — their Americana roots, their individualist ethos, their reverence for transcendent experiences — which makes them particularly suitable to conservative sensibilities?
And also why do _we_ all love them so much — this band that tests our patience, produces largely forgettable studio records, and often sounds, in concert, as if they're playing their own songs for the first time? The mind reels...
Strap in for a long, strange, improvisational trip to the heart of these bewildering matters.
Further Reading:
Sophie Haigney, "Those of Us Who Love the Dead," _Gawker, _Dec 3, 2021.
— "The Final Dead Shows: Part One," _The Paris Review_, Jul 17, 2023.
— "The Final Dead Shows: Part Two," _The Paris Review_, July 18, 2023.
— "The Final Dead Shows: Part Three," _The Paris Review_, Jul 19, 2023.
Ann Coulter, "I’m A Grateful Dead Fan For Life," _Billboard_, Jun 24, 2016.
Noah Eckstein, "'Wave That Flag': Meet the Deadheads Who Stump for Trump," _Variety_, Nov 2, 2020.
Zachary D. Carter and Arthur Delaney, "Why Do Conservatives Love The Grateful Dead? We Ask Tucker Carlson," _Huffington Post_, Jul 15, 2015.
Dean Budnick, "Behind The Scene: Jake Sherman on Phish, the Grateful Dead and Covering 535 Class Presidents at Punchbowl News," _Relix_, May 12, 2021.
Martin Longman, "Why Do Republicans Love the Grateful Dead?" _Washington Monthly_, July 3, 2015
Nick Paumgarten, "Dead Head," _The New Yorker_, Nov 18, 2012.
Hunter Schwartz, "Grateful Dead fans: Surprisingly Republican," _Washington Post_, Jul 1, 2015.
Marc Tracy, "Saying Goodbye to the Dead. (Again.)" _NYTimes_, Jul 14, 2023.
Andy Kroll, "Jon Huntsman: We Need a 'Grateful Dead Tour' to Save America," _Mother Jones_, Jan 8, 2012.
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Jul 27, 2023
Midge Decter: Anti-Feminist Cold Warrior (w/ Moira Donegan & Adrian Daub)
In this episode, Matt and Sam join Moira Donegan and Adrian Daub — co-hosts of the new podcast “In Bed With The Right" — for an in-depth look at the life, times, and work of the late Midge Decter, who died in 2022. Decter was inspired by a distinctly conservative, mid-century American reading of Freudian psychology, mobilized in defense of traditional family hierarchies, which made her an important link between neoconservatives and the religious right — unsurprisingly, she helped found or served on the boards of numerous conservative organizations, including the Heritage Foundation, Committee for the Free World, and the Independent Women's Forum, among others. Her essays, books, and memoirs represent an anguished counter-revolt against the sexual liberation movements of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, and her trajectory from (ostensible) New Deal liberal to anti-feminist Cold Warrior proves a perfect subject for Know Your Enemy. Decter also was married to Norman Podhoretz (another subject of KYE lore) and the mother of John Podhoretz, current editor of _Commentary_ magazine. A quarrelsome, Jewish conservative with a lively writing style and a fascinating, emblematic life story: what could be better?
Further Reading:
Midge Decter, _An Old Wife’s Tale: My Seven Decades in Love and War_ (2002)
—_The New Chastity and Other Arguments Against Women's Liberation_ (1972)
— _Always Right: Selected Writings of Midge Decter__ _(2002)
— _Liberal Parents, Radical Children_ (1975)
— _Rumsfeld: A Personal Portrait_ (2003)
— “The Boys on the Beach,” _Commentary_, Sept 1980.
— “Socialism & Its Irresponsibilities: The Case of Irving Howe,” _Commentary_, Dec 1982.
— “Documentation: Sex Education on Trial—What They’re Teaching Our Children,” _Crisis Magazine_, Dec 1, 1998.
John Podhoretz, A Son’s Eulogy for Midge Decter (1927-2022), _Commentary_, May 12, 2022.
R. R. Reno, “My Memories of Midge Decter,” _First Things_, May 11, 2022.
Jeet Heer, “Farewell to Midge Decter, the Bigot on the Beach,” The Nation, May 13, 2022.
Ronnie Grinberg, “An overlooked conservative writer helps explain Trump’s enduring appeal,” _Washington Post_, May 20, 2022.
Douglas Martin, “Midge Decter, an Architect of Neoconservatism, Dies at 94,” _NYTimes_, May 9, 2022.
Adrienne Rich, “The Anti-Feminist Woman,” NYRB, Nov 30, 1972.
...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!
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Jul 21, 2023
TEASER: Sin and Salvation in the Righteous Gemstones (w/ Jesse Brenneman)
Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy
Matt and Sam welcome their intrepid producer and great friend Jesse Brenneman back to the third mic to talk about HBO's _The Righteous Gemstones_. In addition to being a wildly entertaining entry to the Danny McBride cinematic and television universe, the show perceptively explores the culture of American megachurch, evangelical Christianity—and offers your hosts plenty of fodder to discuss where faith ends and cynicism begins, the relationship between evangelicalism and consumer capitalism, cheap grace vs. real grace, whether or not people can change, the pathologies of evangelical purity culture, and much more. Plus: Jesse takes us behind the scenes of his brilliant, very funny podcast Tech Talk and its surprising connections to Elon Musk, Eli Gemstone, and others.
Sources:
John Jeremiah Sullivan, "Upon This Rock," _GQ_, January 24, 2004
Austin Considine, "Danny McBride Keeps It Righteous," _New York Times_, June 14, 2023
Doreen St. Félix, "The Lost Sheep of Danny McBride's The Righteous Gemstones," _New Yorker_, January 17, 2022
Matthew Sitman, "Speaking of New York: An Interview with Fran Lebowitz," _Commonweal_, February 7, 2019
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Jul 17, 2023
Legal Trouble
After several trying months, Matt and Sam can finally discuss the lawsuit against KYE and Dissent magazine filed by Young Americans Foundation , the successor organization to Young Americans for Freedom. (We prevailed, for now anyway.)
Then we turn to three SCOTUS rulings from the end of the session: (1) Biden vs Nebraska (the student debt ruling); (2) Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (the affirmative action ruling); and (3) 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis (the gay wedding website design ruling). Each of these rulings represents a victory for the conservative legal movement, an exercise of raw power by the court, and a blow to dignity and decent policy for millions of Americans. Taken together, they help us understand the workings of the conservative intellectual pipeline — at law schools, fellowships, and well-endowed non-profits — to change federal policy.
How do conservative institutions work together to (in the eyes of the law) turn victims into oppressors and vice versa? Listen to find out.
Sources:
Jennifer Schuessler, "Conservative Group Withdraws Lawsuit Against Left-Wing Podcast," _New York Times_, July 12, 2023
John A. Andrew III, _The Other Side of the Sixties: Young Americans for Freedom and the Rise of Conservative Politics_ (1997)
Sarah Posner, "The Legal Muscle Leading the Fight to End the Separation of Church and State," _Washington Spectator_, April 1, 2007
Emma Brown and Jon Swaine, "Amy Coney Barrett, Supreme Court Nominee, Spoke at Program Founded to Inspire a 'Distinctly Christian Worldview in Every Area of Law,'" _Washington Post_, September 27, 2020
Melissa Gira Grant, "The Mysterious Case of the Fake Gay Marriage Website, the Real Straight Man, and the Supreme Court," _New Republic_, June 29, 2023
Thomas Sowell, "The Day Cornell Died," _Weekly Standard_, October 30, 1999
Katherine Stewart, _The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism_ (2020)
...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!
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Jul 6, 2023
Impossible Professions: Freud and Janet Malcolm (ft. Patrick Blanchfield & Abby Kluchin)
Know Your Enemy presents: an episode of Ordinary Unhappiness — a new podcast about psychoanalysis with hosts Abby Kluchin and Patrick Blanchfield.
Their guest? Sam Adler-Bell! In the episode that follows, we talk about how Sam came to study conservative thought from a leftist perspective and what role psychoanalysis plays in that project; discuss the libidinal satisfactions of conservative politics; and speculate about the contemporary absence of sophisticated right-wing psychoanalytic thinkers. Then they turn to a favorite writer, journalist Janet Malcolm, author of _Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession_ and _The Journalist and the Murderer_. They talk about parallels between the role of the analyst and that of the journalist; interiors and interiority; secrets, thefts, and betrayals; the so-called “Freud wars”; and the internal politics of psychoanalytic institutions. Finally, they examine Malcolm’s famous claim that the task of the journalist is “morally indefensible” and its implications for the work of the analyst.
Further reading:
Sam Adler-Bell, "Janet Malcolm’s Dangerous Method," _The New Republic_, Mar 20, 2023
Sam Adler-Bell, "Succession's Repetition Compulsion," _The Nation_, Nov 10, 2021
Hannah Gold, “Analysis Interminable: On Janet Malcolm,”_ The Nation_, June 25, 2021.
Janet Malcolm, _Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession _ (1982)
— _In The Freud Archives _ (1984)
— _The Journalist and the Murderer _ (1990)
...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!
For more Ordinary Unhappiness:
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/OrdinaryUnhappiness
Twitter: @UnhappinessPod
Instagram: @OrdinaryUnhappiness
Patreon: patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness
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Jun 30, 2023
Grow Up, Men (w/ Phil Christman) [TEASER]
Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy
In this follow-up to "What's Wrong with Men?, Matt and Sam talk with the essayist and critic Phil Christman about his 2018 _Hedgehog Review _article, "What Is It Like To Be a Man?"—an article that figured prominently in their conversation—as well as two posts responding to the episode published on his always excellent Substack, The Tourist. They discuss how the discourse about men has evolved in recent years, the darker and more deranged consequences of an "abstract rage to protect," some of the ways gender and class might relate to each other, and more about Matt's psyche than you might care to know.
Sources:
Phil Christman, _How To Be Normal__ _(2022)
"What Is It Like To Be a Man?" _Hedgehog Review_, Summer 2018
"Guy stuff. Boy time. Brosephery." _The Tourist_, June 11, 2023
"Manfulness. Hot guy stuff. Convening a bro-seph bro-dsky reading group." _The Tourist_, June 22, 2023
Leonard Michaels, _The Men’s Club__, (_1981)
Rudyard Kipling, “If—“ (1941)
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Jun 17, 2023
The Prayers and Prophecies of Pat Robertson [TEASER]
Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy
Last week, televangelist, businessman, conspiracy theorist, and former Republican presidential candidate Pat Robertson died at the age of 93. Though mostly known today for his deranged comments about homosexuality, abortion, feminism, and other "sins" causing everything from natural disasters to 9-11, Robertson had a major influence on the evolution of the Republican Party and the religious right. Where did Robertson come from, and what was distinctive about Robertson's theological and political views? What were the innovations of the Christian Coalition, the group he founded in 1987, in organizing conservative believers for the GOP? How did he respond to the end of the Cold War and adapt his message for the 1990s and the supposed advent of a "New World Order"?
In this episode, Matt and Sam take up these questions and more, plus offer a discussion of James G. Watt, Ronald Reagan's first Secretary of the Interior, who died in late May. An evangelical Christian known for railing against the Beach Boys, his offensive comments about Native Americans and others, and using the supposed imminent return of Christ to justify destroying the environment.
Sources:
Pat Robertson obituaries: NYT, Washington Post
James G. Watt obituaries: NYT, Washington Post
Daniel Schlozman, _When Movements Anchor Parties: Electoral Alignments in American History_ (2016)
Jacob Heilbrunn, "His Anti-Semitic Sources," _New York Review of Books_, April 20, 1995
Pat Robertson, _The New World Order__ _(1991)
James Conaway, "James Watt, In the Right with the Lord," _Washington Post_, April 27, 1983
John Taylor "Pat Robertson’s God, Inc." _Esquire_, Nov 1994.
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Jun 5, 2023
What's Wrong With Men?
"Many men in this country are in crisis, and their ranks are swelling," Missouri Senator Josh Hawley said at the National Conservatism conference in 2021. "And that's not just a crisis for men. It's a crisis for the republic."
Some version of this sentiment — that men are in trouble, adrift, or falling behind — is shared by writers and thinkers across the political spectrum. It's nearly impossible to open a magazine without finding an article about the state of manhood in America. Brookings Institution scholar Richard Reeves' 2022 book _Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It is_ a best-seller. Figures like Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate attract huge audiences, serving as reactionary self-help gurus for young people eager to be told _what_ a man is and _how_ he should behave. One doesn't have to accept the right's framing of the problem — nor any kind of gender essentialism — to acknowledge the statistics: boys and men are f…
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May 18, 2023
The 2024 Race: "It's Showtime, Folks!" (TEASER)
Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy
Matt and Sam take the pulse of the 2024 presidential race: Is DeSantis already doomed? Does Trump still have the juice? Can Biden handle a full campaign schedule? And how do you solve a problem like Kamala?
The answers to these questions and more! Enjoy some rank punditry!
Sources
Nate Cohn, "Why Ron DeSantis Is Struggling," _New York Times_, May 5, 2023
Shane Goldmacher, Maggie Haberman & Jonathan Swan, "Why Ron DeSantis Is Limping to the Starting Line," _New York Times_, May 13, 2023
Reid J. Epstein & Shane Goldmacher, "Biden’s Slow Start Worries Democrats. Aides Insist All Is Well," _New York Times_, May 14, 2023
Sam Adler-Bell, "The One Thing Trump Has That DeSantis Never Will," _New York Times, _Apr 10, 2023
Matthew Sitman, "The 'Weekend at Bernie’s' Primary," _Commonweal_, Mar 3, 2020.
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May 4, 2023
"Succession," "Extrapolations," and TV Writing Today (w/ Dorothy Fortenberry and Will Arbery)
With the Writers Guild of America strike underway, the plight of television writers—especially their treatment in the age of streaming and artificial intelligence—is garnering new, and overdue, attention. Matt and Sam are joined by two friends of the podcast, Will Arbery and Dorothy Fortenberry, who write for major television shows: Will is a writer for HBO's _Succession_, and Dorothy for Apple TV+'s _Extrapolations_. They discuss how they write about political topics and themes, such as rightwing political candidates or the effects of climate change, in these fraught times, when the demands of good art can seem in tension with a simplistic and moralistic culture. Also discussed: parents, children, and families, now and in the coming climate crisis; how and whether people can change; and, of course, the WGA strike and why it matters.
Sources Cited:
Michael Schulman, "Why Are TV Writers So Miserable," _The New Yorker_, Apr 29, 2023
Alex Press, "TV Writers Say They’re Striking t…
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Apr 29, 2023
TEASER: The January 6th Committee Report
Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy
The boys discuss Matt's recent _Dissent_ essay on the 845-page report of the "Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol." What did the Jan 6 report — and the committee's work — achieve? Was the report a missed opportunity? How should political actors navigate the relationship between historical constraints and contingency? And is there a way to wed the Democrats' eagerness to "defend democracy," as such, with a more robust program for social and economic justice? We puzzle it out.
Sources:
Matthew Sitman, "Will Be Wild," _Dissent_, Apr 18, 2023.
Jill Lepore, "What the January 6th Report is Missing," _The New Yorker_, Jan 9, 2023.
David Sirota, "The Long American Meltdown Led to the January 6 Insurrection" _Jacobin_, Jan 6, 2022
Sam Adler-Bell, "Is the January 6 Committee Really Saving Democracy?"…
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Apr 18, 2023
Ron DeSantis Wants to Make America Florida (w/ Gillian Branstetter)
Gillian Branstetter (of the ACLU's Women’s Rights Project and LGBTQ & HIV Project) returns to Know Your Enemy for an episode on the strange case of Ron DeSantis: what is his ideology and vision for America? And why do his political aspirations involve inflicting wanton cruelty upon LGBTQ children and adults in his home state? For our sins, we read DeSantis's new book — a campaign book, though he has not yet formally announce his presidential run — _The Courage to Be Free: Florida's Blueprint for America's Revival. _(You heard it here: it sucks.)
Along the way, Gillian provides an update on the conservative war on so-called "gender ideology" and "wokeness," how organizations like hers are fighting back, and why superficial expressions of sympathy for trans people by major corporations and banks — which so outrage the right — are themselves a trap and a means of evading real justice. We also discuss Sam's _New York Times _piece on DeSantis as an anti-woke technocrat, an embodi…
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Apr 10, 2023
TEASER: Whittaker Chambers, Redux (w/ Sam Tanenhaus)
Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy
The great Sam Tanenhaus (author of _Whittaker Chambers: A Biography__) _returns to the podcast for a spirited and gossipy discussion of everything we missed — or only briefly mentioned — in our main episode on Chambers, including: his religious faith, his sexuality, his ideological position in the _National Review _crowd, Hannah Arendt's review of _Witness_, and much more.
Plus: we extract from Sam Tanenhaus an update on the status of his _HIGHLY-_anticipated biography of William F. Buckley Jr... This one is for real heads. Enjoy!
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Apr 4, 2023
Bob Dylan's America (w/ Will Epstein)
"That’s the problem with a lot of things these days," wrote Bob Dylan in 2022_, "_Everything is too full now; we are spoon-fed everything. All songs are about one thing and one thing specifically, there is no shading, no nuance, no mystery. Perhaps this is why music is not a place where people put their dreams at the moment; dreams suffocate in these airless environs."
This mournful attitude — for a lost age of artfulness, mystery, and hope — pervades Dylan's 2022 book, _Philosophy of Modern Song._ In this sense, it's a quintessentially conservative book. But decline and nostalgia are not its only themes. In short bursts of prose reflecting on sixty-six totemic songs (from Webb Pierce's 1953 hit "There Stands the Glass;" to The Fugs' 1967 proto-punk romp "CIA Man;" to Nina Simone's unimpeachable "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood"), Dylan conjures a country — and canon — defined most of all by mutability, motion, and menace. Dylan's America never stops moving, reinventing itself…
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Mar 29, 2023
TEASER: Our Lady of Guadalupe and American Democracy (w/ Nichole M. Flores)
Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy
In the second (and final) of Matt's Lent-related conversations with theologians, he's joined by Dr. Nichole M. Flores of the University of Virginia, where she is Associate Professor of Religious Studies and researches the constructive contributions of Catholic and Latinx theologies to notions of justice and aesthetics to the life of democracy. This conversation focuses on her recent book, _The Aesthetics of Solidarity: Our Lady of Guadalupe and American Democracy_, and considers the promise and perils of using particular religious symbols, imagery, and language in a pluralistic, democratic society.
Sources:
Nichole M. Flores, _The Aesthetics of Solidarity: Our Lady of Guadalupe and American Democracy__ _(2021)
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Mar 20, 2023
TEASER: Suffering, Solidarity, and Ritual (w/ Susan Bigelow Reynolds)
Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy
This conversation is the first of two that Matt recorded to be released during Lent, the forty-day season when Christians prepare for Easter Sunday by fasting and giving of their time and treasure to those in need. This episodes features Catholic theologian and Emory University professor Dr. Susan Bigelow Reynolds discussing her new book, _People Get Ready: Ritual, Solidarity, and Lived Ecclesiology in Catholic Roxbury_. In the book, she draws on years of ethnographic research about St. Mary of the Angels, a small, urban parish near Boston's Egleston Square, to understand how that religious community "constructed rituals of solidarity as a practical foundation for building radical solidarity in the face of racial and economic injustice."
Sources:
Susan Bigelow Reynolds, _People Get Ready: Ritual, Solidarity, and Lived Ecclesiology in Catholic R…
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Mar 12, 2023
Whittaker Chambers and the Freight Train of History
In this episode, Matt and Sam go deep into the life and times of Whittaker Chambers, most famous for his role in the "trial of the century"—the trial of Alger Hiss for perjury after Chambers accused Hiss of being a Communist spy during his years working in the federal government, especially the State Department. The two figures, once friends, came to symbolize a clash that was bigger than themselves, and prefigured the turn American politics would take at the onset of the Cold War. Chambers would become a hero of the nascent postwar conservative movement, with his status as an ex-Communist—one of many who would congregate around _National Review_ in the mid-to-late 1950s—bringing his moral credibility to the right as one who had seen the other side and lived to tell his tale. Before all that, though, Chambers's life was like something out of a novel: a difficult family life, early brilliance at Columbia University, literary achievement in leftwing publications, and years "undergr…
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Feb 27, 2023
Realignments (w/ Timothy Shenk)
Early in Timothy Shenk's absorbing, provocative recent book, _Realigners: Partisan Hacks, Political Visionaries, and the Struggle to Rule American Democracy_, he describes it as "a biography of American democracy told through its majorities, and the people who made them." Looking at American figures from Martin Van Buren to Charles Sumner to Mark Hanna to Phyllis Schlafly and Barack Obama, the book attempts to define the character and conditions necessary for fashioning a durable electoral majority — in those moments when existing partisan and coalitional structures were reshuffled and articulated anew. In other words: a realignment.
In this thrilling conversation, Matt, Sam, and Tim talk through the implications of past realignments and argue about whether something similar is possible today.
Sources:
Timothy Shenk, _Realigners: Partisan Hacks, Political Visionaries, and the Struggle to Rule American Democracy__ _(Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2022)
Stephen Skowronek, _The Politics P…
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Feb 22, 2023
TEASER: Le Carre's Cold War (w/ Jamelle Bouie and John Ganz)
Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy
Sam is joined by returning KYE all-stars Jamelle Bouie (of the NYTimes) and John Ganz (of Unpopular Front) for a spirited discussion of the 1984 film "The Little Drummer Girl," starring Diane Keaton — an adaptation of John le Carré's 1983 novel of the same name.
We approach the film — which, it turns out, is not very good — with the same analytical rigor that Jamelle and John bring to their own podcast, "Unclear and Present Danger," which focuses on the post-Cold War thrillers of the 1990s. We wind up talking about why the film _doesn't work _and about le Carré's ambiguous approach to spy fiction, in particular, how his perspective differs from other British chroniclers of Cold War espionage, like Ian Flemming and Graham Greene.
In what ways does le Carré's approach represent an essentially (small-c) conservative disposition? And why i…
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Feb 13, 2023
Triumph of the Therapeutic (w/ Hannah Zeavin & Alex Colston)
Modern conservatives have long asked the following questions: how can we live together without God? Is there any substitute for religion in cohering a moral community? And if not, what can we do to revive the old sacred authority that reason, science, and liberalism have interred?
These were also the questions that preoccupied Philip Rieff (1922-2006), an idiosyncratic sociologist and product of the University of Chicago, whose thought cast a long shadow over right-wing intellectuals, theologians, and other Jeremiahs of the modern condition (like Christopher Lasch and Alasdair MacIntyre). In the two books that made his name — 1959's _Freud: Mind of the Moralist_ and 1966's _Triumph of the Therapeutic: The Uses of Faith After Freud _— Rieff engages deeply with psychoanalysis, deriving from Sigmund Freud a theory of how culture creates morality and, in turn, why modern culture, with its emphasis on psychological well-being over moral instruction, no longer functions to shape individ…
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Jan 31, 2023
TEASER: Realignments (w/ Timothy Shenk)
Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy
Early in Timothy Shenk's absorbing, provocative book, _Realigners: Partisan Hacks, Political Visionaries, and the Struggle to Rule American Democracy_, he describes it as "a biography of American democracy told through its majorities, and the people who made them." Looking at American figures from Martin Van Buren to Charles Sumner to Mark Hanna to Phyllis Schlafly and Barack Obama, the book attempts to define the character and conditions necessary for fashioning a durable electoral majority — in those moments when existing partisan and coalitional structures were reshuffled and articulated anew. In other words: a realignment.
In this thrilling conversation, Matt, Sam, and Tim talk through the implications of past realignments and argue about whether something similar is possible today.
Sources:
Timothy Shenk, _Realigners: Partisan Hacks, Po…
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Jan 18, 2023
The Eyes of the Ranger (w/ Jesse Brenneman)
This episode is a little different. Rather than dissecting an influential conservative book written by long-dead intellectual, Matt and Sam are joined by Know Your Enemy's brilliant producer (and host of the very funny podcast, Tech Talk) to unpack a different kind of "text"—the hit CBS television show from the 1990s, _Walker, Texas Ranger_, starring the very much still-living Chuck Norris. Set in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Norris stars as Sergeant Cordell Walker, a member of the storied Texas Rangers who takes on drug dealers, Satanists, corrupt cops, and other bad guys, a task aided by his incredible martial-arts skills. The episodes of _Walker_ discussed in this conversation were carefully curated by Jesse, and they provide a great deal of fodder for understanding conservatism (and America) in the 1990s, law and order politics, the American penchant for moral panics, how the Right has changed in the decades since the show aired, and more.
Sources:
_Walker, Texas Ranger_ on IMDB…
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Jan 8, 2023
TEASER: The Death of Pope Benedict XVI (w/ Michael O'Loughlin)
Listen to the entire conversation by subscribing to Know Your Enemy on Patreon!
On Dec. 31, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI died at the age of 95. During his long career as a towering figure in the Catholic Church in the second half of the twentieth century and beyond—especially his decades helming the Vatican's powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, then as Pope and Pope Emeritus—Benedict was involved in nearly all of the Church's crises and controversies. He cracked down on liberation theologians, held a reactionary line on homosexuality at the height of the AIDS crisis, and slowly awakened to the depths and depravity of the Catholic sex-abuse scandal—but he also wrote movingly about God's love and took positions on the environment and the economy that would be mostly ignored by his conservative fans.
To try to make sense of Benedict's life and work, especially his relationship with American Catholics, Matt is joined by Michael O'Loughlin, the national correspondent…
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Dec 26, 2022
Jesus and Bob Dylan (w/ the Jokermen)
Merry Christmas! Here's a little bonus content to tide you over until 2023. In April, Matt and Sam appeared on the excellent Jokermen podcast to discuss Bob Dylan's Christian rock records. And now we're sharing it with you. Lots to chew on in here for fans of KYE, Dylan, Jesus, and rock n' roll. Enjoy.
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Dec 19, 2022
J. Edgar Hoover, G-Man (w/ Beverly Gage)
For forty-eight years, American presidents came and went, but J. Edgar Hoover remained as the powerful director of the FBI. In her authoritative new biography, _G-Man_, Yale historian Beverly Gage brings Hoover to life, uncovering the all-too-human man who played such an outsized role in twentieth-century U.S. political history. Gage's decade of research provides fascinating insights into the troubles that impinged on Hoover's childhood; his formative time in a white supremacist, Southern fraternity at George Washington University, Kappa Alpha; his early years in what was then the Bureau of Investigation and eventual rise to running it; Hoover's personal life and sexuality, including his longterm relationship with Clyde Tolson; and the transformation of the FBI across the 1930s and 1940s, and the ways it drew Hoover into a number of controversies that followed, from the Kennedy assassination to COINTELPRO and the FBI's attacks on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Sources:
Beverly Gage, _G-…
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Dec 7, 2022
TEASER: More Mail, More Bag
Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy
Matt and Sam pick up where they left off in their recent mailbag episode and keep answering listener questions. Topics include: KYE merchandise, the existence of Hell, Francis Fukuyama, Mormonism, gun violence, and more.
Sources:
David Bentley Hart, _That All Shall Be Saved__ _(Yale University Press, 2019)
John G. Turner, _Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet_ (Harvard University Press, 2012)
Francis Fukuyama, "Still the End of History," _Atlantic_, October 17, 2022
Francis Fukuyama, _The End of History and the Last Man__ _(Free Press, 1992)
W.H. Auden, "In Memory of Sigmund Freud" (1940)
Christopher Isherwood, _Christopher and His Kind__ _(Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1976)
Sohrab Ahmari, "Urban Jeremiah: Mike Davis, 1946-2022," _Compact_, October 26, 2022
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Nov 30, 2022
You Have Questions, We Have Answers (Mailbag episode)
As the end of the year approaches, Matt and Sam are once again answering questions from you, their beloved listeners. Like previous mailbag episodes, there was an abundance of excellent questions that were submitted. Topics include: the possibilities for the religious left, white Christian nationalism, your hosts' literary habits and favorite novels, conspiracy theories—and more. For those who especially enjoy this type of episode, check out the next KYE bonus episode on Patreon, which will take up even more listener questions!
Sources:
Hannah Gold, "The Loud Parts," _Harper's_, October 2022
Jewish Currents, "The Jews" (_On the Nose_ podcast episode), November 23, 2022
Alastair Roberts, "On Thomas Achord," _Alastair's Adversaria_, November 27, 2022
Rod Dreher, "The Thomas Achord – Alastair Roberts Mess," _The American Conservative_, November 27, 2022
Matthew Sitman, "Whither the Religious Left?" _New Republic_, April 15, 2021
Ned Rorem, _Lies: A Diary, 1986-1999__ _(2002)
B…
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Nov 11, 2022
How Fetterman Won (w/ Joe Calvello)
This is episode is a little different. Listeners know that Matt and Sam have been following John Fetterman's Senate campaign in Pennsylvania from the start, doing their first episode about him after his primary win in May. After his victory over Dr. Oz earlier this week in the general election, they talked to the Fetterman campaign's Director of Communications, Joe Calvello, for a behind-the-scenes look at how they did it. Topics discussed: Fetterman's strategy of defining Oz early (and, yes, the origins of some of Fetterman's most popular Twitter dunks), left populism, crime, abortion, why voters have a right to be angry, and how the campaign responded to Fetterman's stroke and turned his very public recovery into one more argument about why he'd fight for Pennsylvanians.
To hear Know Your Enemy's full take on the midterm elections, recorded earlier this week, listen and subscribe on Patreon here — you'll also get access to all of our previous bonus episodes!
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Nov 9, 2022
TEASER: The Red Ripple (Midterm Debrief)
Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy
Matt and Sam recap and analyze the 2022 midterms — as we know them so far.
Why did Dems do so much better than we thought? Why did the GOP underperform? How cucked were the polls? How happy is Matt that John Fetterman beat Dr. Oz? (Very) What about Blake Masters in Arizona? Was this a bad night for Trump? Was it a good night for DeSantis? How worried should we be about the integrity of American democracy given these results? And how happy should we be that the Democrats managed to stave off the worst possible outcome? Listen while it's hot...
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Nov 6, 2022
Nixon Agonistes
"What is best and weakest in America goes out to reciprocating strength and deficiencies in Richard Nixon." It's difficult to think of a more electric meeting of author and subject than Garry Wills and Richard Nixon, a meeting that produced what might be the best book ever written about American politics, Wills's _Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self-Made Man_. What begins as reporting from the campaign trail during the 1968 presidential contest—where Wills introduces us to Nixon, George Wallace, Nelson Rockefeller, and more—eventually becomes a profound meditation on the fate of liberalism in the United States. Wills found in Nixon the key to unlocking the reigning—but by then faltering—myths of their country's history and self-understanding, and what they reveal about each other.
Along the way he discusses the complex psychological dance between Nixon and Dwight Eisenhower; takes us on a tour of Nixon's hometown, Whittier, California; describes the Republicans' "southern…
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Oct 31, 2022
TEASER: State of the States (w/ Aaron Kleinman)
Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy
With the midterms a week away, Sam talked to Aaron Kleinman of The States Project (aka @BobbyBigWheel) about the battle to defend American democracy at the state level — where Trumpist state legislators continue to deny the 2020 election and lay the groundwork for ignoring the will of the majority in the future. How did the conservative movement manage to to take over so many statehouses? Can Democrats still turn back the tide? What is the "independent state legislature" theory?
Aaron helps answers these questions and more — and gives us a useful rundown of the states to watch closely in the midterms next Tuesday.
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Oct 17, 2022
Why Conservatives Love Baseball (w/ David Roth)
At long last, an episode about baseball—America's national pastime, and a sport that conservatives in the United States seem to especially love. To understand baseball's appeal, both to conservatives and the rest of us, Matt and Sam are joined by David Roth of Defector Media, a brilliant, funny writer who also is a long suffering Mets fan. Topics include: the start of the MLB playoffs, baseball's interesting place in American history, varieties of conservative baseball fans, and more!
Sources:
George F. Will, _Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball__ _(Macmillan, 1990)
"Foul Ball," _New York Review of Books_, June 1991
Donald Kagan, "George Will's Baseball—A Conservative Critique," _Public Interest_, Fall 1990
Tim Marchman, "Did George Will’s Men at Work Anticipate Baseball’s Statistical Revolution?" _Slate_, April 27, 2010
David Bentley Hart, "A Perfect Game," _First Things_, August 2010
Greg Hillis, "Quit Trying to 'Fix' Baseball," _Commonweal_, March 27, 2018
David Roth…
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Oct 6, 2022
TEASER: Giorgia Meloni's Neo-Fascism (w/ David Broder)
Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy
Sam is joined by David Broder — the Europe editor of _Jacobin Magazine _and author of _First They Took Rome: How the Populist Right Conquered Italy__ _and the forthcoming book, _Mussolini's Grandchildren: Fascism in Contemporary Italy _— to discuss the recent victory of Giorgia Meloni in Italian general elections. Meloni's Brothers for Italy party descends directly from the neo-fascist parties of post-war Italy.
We discuss the ways in which her victory is continuous and discontinuous with the recent history of right-wing populism in Italy — from Silvio Berlusconi to Matteo Salvini. And David explains how Meloni has incorporated fascist nostalgia and historical revision into a 21st century, identitarian nationalism, which draws heavily on conservative economics, anti-feminist and anti-LGBTQ politics, and "great replacement" nativist conspir…
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Sep 24, 2022
TEASER: I Taught the Sheriff (w/ John Ganz)
Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy
KYE super guest John Ganz joins Matt and Sam for a characteristically spirited discussion of The Claremont Institute's "Sheriff Fellowship," which invites county sheriffs from across the country to California for a weekend of West Coast Straussian ideological programing.
Drawing on the history of "posse comitatus" movements and recent reports on the role of conservative sheriffs in resisting COVID mandates, propagating 2020 election lies, and cozying up to vigilante militias, we offer a synthesized account of why the mythologized figure of the sheriff — and sheriffs themselves — have such an attraction for right-wing radicals intent on subverting American democracy.
Further Reading:
Jessica Pishko, "Here’s the Secret “Sheriff Fellowship” Curriculum From the Country’s Most Prominent MAGA Think Tank," _Slate_, Sept 21, 2022.
Alexand…
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Sep 20, 2022
After the Theocons (w/ Damon Linker)
Damon Linker is an idiosyncratic figure among political writers—trained by Straussians as a political philosopher, he's a former editor of First Things, the flagship publication for intellectual religious conservatives, who broke with that publication over the Iraq War (among other things) and is now a self-described centrist. He's also a longtime friend of the podcast, who recently started his own attempt to grapple with what's happening in the GOP and among conservatives, a Substack newsletter he titled Eyes on the Right.
In this conversation, Matt and Sam talk with Linker about what his own trajectory can teach us about the Right: his experiences working at First Things while the Bush administration was gearing up to invade Iraq; why thinks Sarah Palin marked a turning point on the Right; and his case for understanding Donald Trump as a political, rather than legal, problem.
Sources:
"The End of Democracy? The Judicial Usurpation of Politics," _First Things_, November 1996
Dam…
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Sep 12, 2022
On Barbara Ehrenreich (w/ Alex Press & Gabriel Winant)
This episode was unplanned, but when Barbara Ehrenreich died on September 1, 2022, we felt an urge to honor her memory and the profound influence she has had on the American left, socialism, feminism, and our collective thinking about class struggle. From her work in the women's health movement of the 1960s, to her theorizing (with ex-husband John Ehrenreich) of the "professional-managerial class" in the 1970s, to her explorations of Reagan-era yuppie pathologies, and her renowned exposé of low-wage work in 2001's _Nickel and Dimed, _Barbara Ehrenreich has been an essential and nuanced guide to the inner-life of American class conflict in the latter half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st.
To undertake this journey through an extraordinary body of work, we're joined by two brilliant writers who have both — in their own way — taken up Ehrenreich's profound ethical and intellectual challenge: Alex Press, staff writer at _Jacobin_ magazine (and KYE's favorite labor jo…
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Aug 31, 2022
A Low, Dishonest Decade: The Right in the 1990s (w/ Nicole Hemmer)
In this episode, historian Nicole Hemmer returns to the show to discuss her new book, _Partisans_, about the ascendancy of an angrier, more radical strain of conservatism in the Republican Party in the 1990s—a backlash driven by the right's dissatisfaction with the genial, popularity-seeking Ronald Reagan. As the Cold War ended, many conservatives stopped genuflecting to democracy and freedom and used new forms of media—talk radio and cable news especially—to spread their grievances. Topics include: Pat Buchanan's campaigns for the presidency, Ross Perot, Newt Gingrich and the GOP's takeover of the House of Representatives, Rush Limbaugh, Dinesh D'Souza, and the new breed of anti-feminist, rightwing women such as Laura Ingraham and Ann Coulter.
Sources:
Nicole Hemmer, _Partisans: The Conservative Revolutionaries Who Remade American Politics in the 1990s__ _(Basic, 2022)
_Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics__ _(Penn, 2016)
K…
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Aug 18, 2022
TEASER: Blake Masters + Claremont
Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy
Matt and Sam bring you the latest from the “caesarist” wing of the conservative movement, discussing two recent and related articles in the New York Times. The first: Sam’s profile of Arizona GOP senate nominee Blake Masters, who, like J.D. Vance, is bankrolled by his former employer and mentor, the Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel. And second: an in-depth look at the Claremont Institute by Elizabeth Zerofsky, whose excellent reporting gives the boys an opportunity to refine their thoughts on the West Coast Straussian legacy of Harry Jaffa.
It’s KYE _classico_. Enjoy.
Cited:
Adler-Bell, “The Violent Fantasies of Blake Masters,” _NYTimes_, Aug 3, 2022.
Adler-Bell, “The Radical Young Intellectuals Who Want to Take Over the American Right,” The New Republic, Dec 2, 2021.
Elizabeth Zerofsky, “How the Claremont Institute B…
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Aug 11, 2022
Christopher Lasch's Critique of Progress (w/ Chris Lehmann)
Christopher Lasch, the late historian and social critic, can be difficult to pin down. Despite writing with startling clarity and verve, Lasch frustrates his readers' longing for clean partisan taxonomies and explicit programmatic statements. Taken up in recent years by Steve Bannon and post-liberal populists, he was, in life, a man of the left who never ceased interrogating his own side’s pathologies and historical blindspots — often using Marxism, psychoanalysis, and a rich, idiosyncratic historiography of the American scene to do so. As George Scialabba once put it, “Virtually every political and cultural tendency in recent American history has smarted under Lasch’s criticism." And even his most devoted readers have been left asking — “plaintively or exasperatedly,” writes Scialabba — _what exactly does Christopher Lasch want?_
For our guest, editor and writer Chris Lehmann, Lasch was more than an admired intellectual iconoclast and gadfly; he was a treasured teache…
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Jul 30, 2022
TEASER: Far-Right Vanguard (w/ John S. Huntington)
Matt is joined by John Huntington, author of _Far-Right Vanguard_, which chronicles the history of what he calls the "ultraconservative" movement, its national network, its influence on Republican Party politics, and its centrality to America's rightward turn during the second half of the twentieth century.
John is a history professor at Houston Community College.
Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy
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Jul 17, 2022
Up From Straussianism (w/ Matt McManus & Victor Bruzzone)
Here's something fun and a little different: your beloved cohost Matt Sitman was recently interviewed by Victor Bruzzone and Matt McManus on their podcast, Plastic Pills, and the ensuing conversation — about Matt's own history, the right-wing intellectual pipeline, and the enduring and contested influence of Leo Strauss on the conservative movement and its minds — is just fascinating.
So we're sharing it with you, dear listeners. I do want to acknowledge the elephant in the room: we're in a bit of a summer slow down at KYE headquarters. After sprinting to get the Roe v Wade series done last month, we've all had to take a bit of a breath amid the July heat — our producer, Jesse, has been on vacation — and so there've been fewer new episodes in the feed than we would prefer. But thank you for bearing with us. And trust that many excellent episodes are in the works!
...if you're hurting for KYE content, feel free to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access our back cat…
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Jun 29, 2022
How They Did It, Pt. 3: The End of the Beginning
In the third and final episode in their series on the overturning of _Roe v. Wade_—recorded on the day it happened—Matt and Sam pick up with 1990s, the George W. Bush administration, and eventually take listeners up to the present. They focus especially on way conservative, mostly Christian intellectuals, many of them connected to the religious journal _First Things_, brought Catholics and evangelicals together to fight against abortion rights, with figures like Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, Robert P. George, and Hadley Arkes providing language and arguments in a more elite idiom—a project that deeply influenced Bush's presidency and helped cement the anti-abortion movement's place not just in the religious right but the broader conservative movement and the GOP.
Sources:
"Killing Abortionists: A Symposium," _First Things_, December 1994
"Evangelicals and Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millenium," _First Things_, May 1994
"The End of Democracy? The Judicia…
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Jun 21, 2022
The State of the American Right (w/ Daniel Denvir)
Today we're sharing a special "Dig Your Enemy" crossover event, as Daniel Denvir of Jacobin magazine's The Dig podcast puts Matt and Sam in the hot seat. We answer all of Dan's excellent questions about the state of the American right, including: the return of isolationism, the New Right, Peter Thiel, Curtis Yarvin, Blake Masters, Doug Mastriano, the prospects for a multi-racial conservative majority, the "groomer" panic, masculinity and gender politics, MAGA, authoritarianism, NYC's new reactionary "downtown scene," and the bad dialectic between racial liberalism and the anti-woke reactionaries. Enjoy!
This episode was originally posted by The Dig; find the rest of their excellent podcasts here: https://thedigradio.com/
...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!
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Jun 16, 2022
How They Did It, Pt. 2: The Christian Right and Roe
At long last, Matt and Sam dive into the origins of the Christian right—a complicated tale often flattened by contemporary debates. What was the history of Christian anti-abortion activism before _Roe_, and how soon after the landmark Supreme Court decision did conservative Christians coalesce around the abortion—and other issues—to become the political force we know today? What did it take to get Catholics and evangelicals to join forces, and what were the barriers to them coming together, especially given the history of anti-Catholicism in the United States? And how did all this help reshape the GOP into a vehicle for anti-abortion politics, given that such a scenario was not fated on the eve of _Roe_? Your hosts take up these questions and more, stopping in the early 1990s—when they'll pick up with the story in the third and final episode in the series.
Sources and Citations:
Randall Balmer, "The Religious Right and the Abortion Myth," _Politico Magazine_, May 10, 2022
Ne…
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May 28, 2022
How They Did It: Overturning Roe, Pt. 1 (w/ the 5-4 podcast)
On May 5, _Politico _published a leaked draft of the majority opinion in _Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health_, written by Justice Samuel Alito, that would overturn _Roe v. Wade_. How did we get here? In the first of three episodes dedicated to answering that question, Matt and Sam talk to Peter, Rhiannon, and Michael of the _5-4 Podcast_ about the conservative legal movement's role and the right's use of the courts in achieving their aims. What were the main arguments in the leaded _Dobbs_ decision, and where did these ideas come from? How important was opposition to abortion rights to the development of originalism and organizations like the Federalist Society? What function has the Federalist Society served in the conservative takeover of the Supreme Court? Also discussed in this episode: the relationship between radical, violent anti-abortion groups and the broader anti-abortion legal movement, the narrower victories the right won against abortion rights along the way, and what might c…
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May 25, 2022
UNLOCKED: A New Pink Tide? (w/ Thea Riofrancos & David Adler)
A conversation with David Adler and Thea Riofrancos about the return of the Latin American left — unlocked from Patreon in advance of hugely consequential elections in Colombia this weekend!! (Originally published May 15, 2022.)
Hope for the American left is at a fairly low ebb, at the moment, but our counterparts in Latin America are on the march and succeeding at beating back repressive right wing governments across the region. What can we learn from them? And given extremely volatile global conditions — and the continued role of the US in defending the interests of capital in the region — what can these new left-wing governments hope to accomplish?
Sam is joined by political scientist Thea Riofrancos and David Adler, the General Coordinator of the Progressive International, to discuss left populism in Chile, Colombia, Brazil, and elsewhere.
Further Reading:
Thea Riofrancos & David Adler, "Gabriel Boric and Latin America’s new pink tide," _New Statesman, _Mar 11, 2022.
T…
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May 20, 2022
TEASER: Yinzer Country
In this bonus episode, Matt takes Sam on a tour of his native state, Pennsylvania, where a number of key primaries were held this week. The results brought some hopeful news: Lt. Gov. John Fetterman handily defeated State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta and (even better) Manchin-backed moderate Rep. Conor Lamb in the contest for the Democratic senate nomination. But it also revealed the madness that continues to grip the GOP: State Sen. Doug Mastriano, a January 6 marcher and election-fraud true believer, will be running for governor in November, and Dr. Oz, as of this writing, was clinging to a narrow lead in the race to take on Fetterman. Don't worry, though, it's not all punditry: the cuisines, strange regional dialects, and curious folkways of the virtuous commonwealth also are discussed. Then the episode turns to the fortunes of the Thiel tools: J.D. Vance and Blake Masters, both of whom are running for the Senate (Vance in Ohio and Masters in Arizona). The former won the Republican nod, an…
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May 15, 2022
TEASER: A New Pink Tide? (w/ Thea Riofrancos & David Adler)
Hope for the American left is at a fairly low ebb, at the moment, but our counterparts in Latin America are on the march and succeeding at beating back repressive right wing governments across the region. What can we learn from them? And given extremely volatile global conditions — and the continued role of the US in defending the interests of capital in the region — what can these new left-wing governments hope to accomplish?
Sam is joined by political scientist Thea Riofrancos and David Adler, the General Coordinator of the Progressive International, to discuss left populism in Chile, Colombia, Brazil, and elsewhere.
Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy
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May 9, 2022
The Conservative and the Convict (w/ Sarah Weinman)
Sarah Weinman's new book—Scoundrel: How a Convicted Murderer Persuaded the Women Who Loved Him, the Conservative Establishment, and the Courts to Set Him Free—is a gripping true crime story, and perhaps the tale of an ill-fated love triangle. It also is a story about William F. Buckley, Jr., who defied expectations to show mercy to a death-row prisoner, Edgar Smith, after finding out that he supposedly read _National Review_. In this episode, Weinman joins Matt and Sam to talk about this fascinating, half-forgotten episode from a key period in Buckley's life and career—how Smith and Buckley met; what Buckley did for him; the role played by Sophie Wilkins, Smith's editor at Knopf, in what happened; and the sad ending toward which it all careened.
Sources:
Sarah Weinman, _Scoundrel: How a Convicted Murderer Persuaded the Women Who Loved Him, the Conservative Establishment, and the Courts to Set Him Free_ (Ecco Press, February 2022)
Sam Adler-Bell, "The Conservative and the Murde…
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Apr 30, 2022
The Right Kind of Worker (w/ Gabriel Winant)
Since Donald Trump was elected president — partially on the strength of white working class support in the Rust Belt — we've heard that the GOP is a working class party; that liberals sold out American labor to globalized capital; and that American workers are too socially and culturally conservative to remain within the increasingly progressive Democratic tent. According to the populist right, the culture war is itself a class war, waged on behalf of _real workers_ against a secular, libertine professional elite who control the commanding heights of the economy, government, and media.
What's wrong with this story? Labor historian and essayist Gabriel Winant joins Matt and Sam to answer that question. Using Gabe's award-winning book _The Next Shift: The Fall of Industry and the Rise of Health Care in Rust Belt America__ _as a guide, we tell a different story about working class formation in this country, about the forces that led to the decline of America's industrial base, and ab…
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Apr 22, 2022
Macron vs. Le Pen (w/ Cole Stangler)
Did this week's one-on-one debate between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen change the race in any significant ways? Why is Le Pen drawing notably more support this time around than she did in 2017? How much is Macron's strategy of pivoting to the right on issues of culture and identity to blame for her rise? What about Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leftwing politician who nearly made it to the runoff? And why did the far-right candidate Éric Zemmour fade? Listen for the answers to these questions—and more! You can do so by subscribing to Know Your Enemy at Patreon.
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Apr 13, 2022
The Other Side of the Story (w/ Michael Kazin)
Matt and Sam are joined by Georgetown University historian and co-editor emeritus of _Dissent_, Michael Kazin, to discuss his new book, _What It Took to Win: A History of the Democratic Party__. _They discuss the origins of the Democratic Party, the alliance between its urban North and segregationist South, the party's turn toward using government to help ordinary people, and the eventual crack-up of the New Deal coalition—and the rise of the right, and the Republican Party, that followed. Why did people whose relative comfort and prosperity had been made possible by policies championed by Democrats turn against them? How did Democrats respond to Ronald Reagan winning 49 states in 1984? Did it have to turn out the way it did?
Sources:
Michael Kazin, _What It Took To Win: A History of the Democratic Party__ _(Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2022)
_A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan__ _(Anchor, 2007)
Michael Kazin, "Whatever Happened to Moral Capitalism?" _New York Times_,…
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Apr 9, 2022
TEASER: Compact with the Devil? (w/ John Ganz)
Matt and Sam are joined by KYE all-star John Ganz to discuss Compact: A Radical American Journal, a new publication founded by Sohrab Ahmari, Matthew Schmitz, and Edward Aponte. It's launch coincided with a profile in the New York Times—and a party that Sam attended. What are the ideas behind Compact? How should the left approach the perspective it offers? Your hosts answer these questions, and more, drawing on Ganz's excellent Substack post on these topics, "Compact Magazine's Unholy Alliance."
Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy
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Mar 30, 2022
Red Diaper Baby (w/ Ari Brostoff)
Matt and Sam are joined by Ari Brostoff, author of _Missing Time: Essays_, to explore David Horowitz's 1996 memoir, _Radical Son_. Like a number of prominent conservatives, Horowitz is a convert from the left. But he's younger than most of the first neocons, and his journey to the right went through Berkeley and the New Left more than the alcoves of City College. _Radical Son_ is his account of that journey—an evocative, angry, revealing text that takes the reader from his red-diaper baby childhood in Queens's Sunnyside neighborhood to his involvement with Huey Newton and the Black Panthers in Oakland to his break with the left and turn to the right. What does Horowitz's trajectory reveal about the rightwing politics today?
Sources:
Ari Brostoff, _Missing Time: Essays_ (n+1, 2022)
Vivian Gornick, _The Romance of American Communism__ _(1977, reprint Verso 2020)
David Horowitz, _Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey__ _(Simon & Schuster, 1996)
Fran Lebowitz, "Speaking of New York,"…
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Mar 20, 2022
The Anti-Trans Agenda (w/ Gillian Branstetter)
Matt and Sam talk to Gillian Branstetter, press secretary for the National Women’s Law Center, about the spate of anti-trans laws sweeping the country: What do these interventions do? Who is pushing them? And why?
The American right has long been invested in policing gender boundaries, but its fixation on trans people — and trans children, in particular — has become more acute in recent years. Over 100 anti-trans state-level measures have been passed this legislative session alone, including athletics bans, curriculum/book bans, religious refusal laws, and bans on access to health care. Perhaps most alarmingly, states like Texas are instituting policies that equate gender-affirming care with child abuse, terrorizing trans kids and their families. With Gillian's help, we explore the conservative forces behind these bills and reveal the ideological fixations, misapprehensions, and contradictions driving this panic. It's a difficult but necessary conversation.
If you'd like to hel…
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Mar 11, 2022
TEASER: Disinformation, Peter Thiel, and the Vibe Shift (w/ Joe Bernstein)
In the first half of this conversation with _Buzzfeed’s_ Joe Bernstein, Sam asks: What is “disinformation?” Who gets to decide? And does it explain what's wrong with our politics? And in the second half: why is Trump’s favorite venture capitalist, Peter Thiel, funding New York City’s downtown arts scene? And what are the political stakes of "anti-woke" art?
This was a fun conversation with one of our favorite journalists! Enjoy.
Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy
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Mar 7, 2022
A Second Civil War? (w/ Jamelle Bouie)
The past few months have seen much talk of a "second Civil War" in the United States or a "national divorce" between red states and blue states. _New York Times_ columnist Jamelle Bouie joins Matt and Sam to discuss why the analogy to the Civil War fails, what such rhetoric does for those who deploy it, and what the challenges really are to a better politics in America.
Listening: Check out Jamelle's podcast, co-hosted with fellow KYE guest John Ganz, Unclear and Present Danger!
Reading:
Jamelle Bouie, "Why We Are Not Facing the Prospect of a Second Civil War," _New York Times_, Feb 15, 2022
Michelle Goldberg, "Are We Really Facing a Second Civil War?" _New York Times_, Jan 6, 2022
Nate Hochman, "Let's Stay Together," _Spectator_, January 2, 2022
Michael Anton, "Right Flight: The War Between the States," _Claremont Review of Books_, Summer 2021
Helen Andrews, "Reconstruction Revisionism," _American Conservative_, Dec 11, 2021
Harry Jaffa, _Crisis of the House Divided_ (Universi…
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Feb 26, 2022
Mothers of Conservatism (w/ Michelle Nickerson)
Matt and Sam talk to Michelle Nickerson about her brilliant book, _Mothers of Conservatism_, which explores the lives and political activism of conservative women in the Los Angeles area in the 1940s and 50s. Unlike many other conversations on the show, this one is less about intellectuals and ideas than social history—a description of how, as Nickerson puts it, housewife activists worked to "protect the nation from aliens, internationalism, and power-hungry bureaucrats in Washington." Topics include: the Great Depression and the rise of "housewife populism," conservative bookstores and "Americanism" centers run by women, the networks of activism that conservative women built and deployed, fierce battles over public education, the menace of psychiatry and the social sciences in shaping education policy, and more.
Sources:
Michelle Nickerson, _Mothers of Conservatism__ _(Princeton University Press, 2012)
"Stefanik's Rise and Cheney's Fall Mark a New Role for GOP Women," Washington…
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Feb 17, 2022
TEASER: How To Be Normal (w/ Phil Christman)
Matt talks to writer Phil Christman about his new essay collection, _How To Be Normal_. They talk about the meaning of "normal" (especially in these pandemic times), religious fundamentalism, Christian conspiracy theories about rock music, Mark Fisher, love, and much more.
Sources:
Phil Christman, _How To Be Normal_ (Belt Publishing, 2022)
"Turning Nothings Into Somethings," _Commonweal_, Dec 3, 2020
"What Is It Like To Be a Man?" _Hedgehog Review_, Summer 2018
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Jan 28, 2022
School Wars (w/ Jennifer Berkshire)
It seems almost every big culture-war battle of the moment—from "Critical Race Theory" to COVID mandates—is being fought in America's schools. Meanwhile, Democrats, anxious about a midterm rout driven by angry Republican parents, too often are conceding these battles to the right, adopting their rhetoric and their terms of debate, and have been for a long time—despite supposedly being the party of teachers' unions. Does it have to be this way?
We put that question, and many more, to our guest Jennifer Berkshire, the coauthor (with Jack Schneider) of _A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door_ and co-host of the education podcast Have You Heard. Jennifer guides us through the recent history of conservatives' war on public education—fights over desegregation, the Reagan administration's _A Nation at Risk_, the "parents' rights" movement of the 1990s, Obama-era ed reform, and the CRT gag-orders sweeping the nation today. Along the way we tease out some illuminating contradictions in the rig…
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Jan 21, 2022
TEASER: Cancel Jay Caspian Kang (w/ Jay Caspian Kang)
Author, podcaster, and _New York Times Magazine_ staff writer Jay Caspian Kang joins Matt and Sam for a spirited discussion of some treacherous topics: identity politics, critical race theory, and cancel culture (oh my!). Jay is our charming, intrepid guide to these touchy subjects, those that liberals and leftists are sometimes loath to engage, offering his idiosyncratic (though not contrarian!) takes on each — and inspiring some of our own.
Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy
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Jan 13, 2022
Joan Didion, Conservative (w/ Sam Tanenhaus)
When Joan Didion died at the age of 87 in December, her early conservatism figured into a number of obituaries and commentaries, but was rarely discussed in detail. Matt and Sam turned to Sam Tanenhaus, William F. Buckley, Jr.'s biographer and knower of all things _National Review_, to discuss Didion's early writing for the magazine, her roots in California conservatism, and how her politics changed—and didn't—over the course of her long career. Along the way, they discuss why she loved Barry Goldwater and hated Ronald Reagan, why she finally stopped writing for _National Review_, and how she compares to other writers from that era—from Norman Mailer and Tom Wolfe to Gore Vidal and Garry Wills.
Sources:
Joan Didion:
"On Self-Respect," _Vogue_, 1961
‘I want to go ahead and do it,' (Review of Mailer), _NYTimes,_ Oct 7, 1979
"The Lion King," (Review of Dinesh D'Souza), _NYRB_, Dec 18, 1997
"New York: Sentimental Journeys," _NYRB_, Jan 17, 1991.
"John Wayne: A Love Song," _S…
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Jan 4, 2022
UNLOCKED: Freud and Politics (w/ Pat Blanchfield)
Unlocked by popular demand: Psychoanalytic writer and teacher Pat Blanchfield joins Sam for a discussion of Freud and politics. Together we ask: how can psychoanalytic tools help us make sense of our irrational political moment, our desires and attachments, as well as conservatism, liberalism, fascism, Donald Trump, and even Thanksgiving?
If we've done our job right, you'll derive many _blistering insights_ from this discussion whether or not you've read a single page of Sigmund Freud — or remotely buy into his theories of mind, culture, or clinical practice. (And hopefully we didn't talk too fast.) Because Freud would disapprove of any injunction to enjoyment, we'll simply say: "have a listen, if you please."
(Originally published on Patreon 12/01/2021.)
Further Reading/Listening:
KYE Episode 7: "Gun Power" (w/ Pat Blanchfield)
Pat Blanchfield, "Kyle Rittenhouse is an American," _Gawker_, Nov 16, 2021
Adam Phillips, _Becoming Freud: The Making of a Psychoanalyst__, _Yale Press…
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Dec 22, 2021
Hindsight is 2021
With another year of the podcast, the pandemic, and American decline in the rearview, we turn to Know Your Enemy's _absurdly_ _brilliant_ listeners for guidance and intellectual stimulation. That's right, folks, it's a mailbag episode! And thanks to you, our cups runneth over with fascinating questions. Along the way, we discuss the intellectual legacy of one-time _National Review_ wunderkind Garry Wills; why Bill Buckley never wrote a great book; right-wing half-wit propagandists like Ben Shapiro and Charlie Kirk; conservative feminism; Richard Nixon's role in conservative history; Vatican II; Bob Dylan's artful incoherence; our favorite books; and our favorite bourbons. We also take a few minutes to discuss listener feedback from our last episode with Nate Hochman. We are truly blessed with the most curious, sophisticated, and intellectually voracious listeners in the podcast game. We love you freaks so very much.
So strap in! Like the year 2021, it's a wild ride, with many twists,…
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Dec 15, 2021
Young, Radical, and on the Right (w/ Nate Hochman)
Finally, another enemy! This time Matt and Sam are joined by Nate Hochman, a rising star on the intellectual Right and one of the subjects of Sam's recent _New Republic _article about today's young, populist conservatives. They discuss Michael Oakeshott, friendship and politics, where the Right and Left might agree, and, especially, where they don't.
Further Reading:
Sam Adler-Bell, "The Radical Young Intellectuals Who Want to Take Over the American Right," _New Republic_, Dec 2, 2021
Nate Hochman, "Michael Oakeshott, 30 Years Later," _National Review_, Dec 18, 2020
Matthew Sitman, "Leaving Conservatism Behind," _Dissent_, Summer 2016
Michael Oakeshott, _Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays_ (Liberty Fund, 1991)
_The Voice of Liberal Learning__ _(Yale University Press, 1990)
..and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!
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Dec 1, 2021
TEASER: Freud and Politics (w/ Pat Blanchfield)
Psychoanalytic writer and teacher Pat Blanchfield joins Sam for the long-awaited KYE "Freud Pod," in which we discuss how psychoanalytic tools can help us make sense of our irrational political moment, our desires and attachments, as well as conservatism, liberalism, fascism, Donald Trump, and even Thanksgiving.
Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy
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Nov 24, 2021
Retvrn of the National Conservatives
It's rare for nearly all the inhabitants of the KYE podcast universe to gather in one place, but it happened earlier this month in—as you might guess—Florida, where the National Conservatism 2 conference was held. The proceedings were littered with extraordinary claims of a "totalitarian cult" (liberals and the left) deliberately trying to destroy the United States, with the help of Big Tech, China, and...university professors. The conference seemed to mark the ascendency of national conservatism on the Right, and perhaps the Republican Party. Matt and Sam break it all down: what it means, what it portends, and why they're wrong.
Sources:
Watch all the National Conservatism conference videos (YouTube)
David Brooks, "The Terrifying Future of the American Right," _Atlantic_, November 18, 2021
J.G. Ballard, _Super Cannes__ _(Picador, 2000)
Murray Rothbard, _Man, Economy, and State_ (David van Nostrand Company/William Volker Fund, 1962)
Background Listening:
Know Your Enemy, "Th…
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Nov 15, 2021
TEASER: I Am The GooseKing (w/ Ben Firke)
Matt talks with playwright Ben Firke about _I Am The GooseKing_, which just finished its debut run at The Tank theater in New York City. Here's a description of the play:
Jane Vazquez is a journalist on assignment for a tech blog. She travels to New Hampshire to interview a young conspiracy theorist and YouTuber named Phil, who has thousands of followers who embrace his elaborate "vegetable conspiracy," first outlined by the mysterious GooseKing. As Jane goes deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole of Phil's family, she finds herself in a mire of journalistic ethics.
To learn more, watch the _I Am The Gooseking_ trailer or read an excerpt from the play. To contact Ben Firke, follow him on Twitter (@pasta_ben).
Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy
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Nov 10, 2021
Frank Meyer: Father of Fusionism
Matt and Sam dedicate an entire episode to an under appreciated but indispensable figure in the founding of post-war conservatism: Frank Meyer, the father of "fusionism."
Meyer was a man of contradictions: an ex-communist ideologue who longed for consensus; a cantankerous, unyielding debater who kept his friends and rivals close; a bohemian, individualist Jew who argued vociferously for freedom and against repressive orthodoxies, but who converted to Catholicism on his death bed. In this episode, we explore his life, work, and legacy — including a close reading of his most famous book, _In Defense of Freedom: A Conservative Credo. _Along the way, we ask some big questions: Why was it so important for Meyer to find a philosophical justification for fusing the traditional and libertarian strains of the conservative movement? How did he go about doing it? And did it work?
Today, many — especially younger — conservatives consider fusionism to be a dead consensus, a marriage of erst…
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Oct 29, 2021
TEASER: Reporting for Duty (w/ Dave Weigel)
Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy
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Oct 25, 2021
The American Right's Hungary Hearts (w/ Lauren Stokes and John Ganz)
Matt and Sam are joined by historian Lauren Stokes and writer John Ganz to unpack the American Right's ongoing embrace of Viktor Orbán's Hungary, from Rod Dreher's springtime junket there to Tucker Carlson broadcasting from the country to the adoring attention it receives from an assortment of "postliberal" intellectuals What gives? Your hosts and their esteemed guests break it down, including: what the American Right gets from Orbán, and what he gets from them; the 20th century history of Hungary that provides the backdrop to its current politics; the long history of U.S. conservatives of admiring authoritarians abroad; John's visit to a Nazi bookshop in Budapest; and more!
Sources and Further Reading:
Elisabeth Zerofsky, "How the American Right Fell in Love With Hungary," _New York Times Magazine_, Oct 19, 2021
Benjamin Wallace-Wells, "What American Conservatives See in Hungary's Leader," _New Yorker_, Sept 13, 2021
David Baer, translation/Twitter thread of Rod Dreher's intervi…
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Oct 16, 2021
God, Death, and the Pandemic (w/ Sarah Jones)
Matt is joined by Know Your Enemy favorite Sarah Jones to discuss her recent _New York Magazine_ essay, "An Atheist Reconsiders God in the Pandemic." They discuss their shared religious upbringing and college years among fundamentalist and evangelical Christians, why Sarah became an atheist (and Matt didn't), and the reasons she reopened the question of God's existence during the pandemic—and what she did and didn't find along the way. Other topics include: C.S. Lewis, the nature of rituals, how we hold our beliefs, and more!
Sources:
Sarah Jones, "An Atheist Reconsiders God in the Pandemic," _New York Magazine_, October 11, 2021
Andre Dubus, "A Father's Story," from _Selected Stories__ _(Vintage)
T.S. Eliot, "Little Gidding," from _Four Quartets__ _(1943)
C.S. Lewis, _The Screwtape Letters__ _(HarperOne)
...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes.
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Sep 30, 2021
TEASER: The Texas Bounty Hunter Bill (w/ 5-4's Rhiannon)
Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy
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Sep 25, 2021
TEASER: Coup, Covid, Congress
Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy
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Sep 15, 2021
Twenty Years of Terror (w/ Spencer Ackerman)
It's impossible to comprehend the state of conservative politics — or American politics in general — without looking closely at the wars we've been waging for the past two decades. The story we've been telling about American conservatism has been incomplete without a deep-dive on the so-called Global War on Terror. Luckily, Spencer Ackerman has written the perfect book to occasion such a dialogue. In _Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump__, _Ackerman provides a richly detailed (and acutely frustrating) account of the perversions of justice, liberalism, humanity, and the constitution wrought by the forever wars. Our discussion with Ackerman goes from the Oklahoma City Bombing to the cancellation of Susan Sontag to the battles among neocons and paleocons to define the post-9/11 era. We also touch on the CIA's torture program, nation-building in Afghanistan, and the hypocrisies of the Trump-era Resistance. In typical KYE fashion, it's a complex and…
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Sep 2, 2021
Living at the End of Our World (w/ Daniel Sherrell & Dorothy Fortenberry)
This is a slightly different kind of Know Your Enemy episode—a conversation about hope and despair as the effects of climate change bear down upon us. At the center of that conversation is a brilliant new book, Daniel Sherrell's _Warmth: Coming of Age at the End of the World_, that focuses not on the facts of climate change or how to stop it, but what it feels like to imagine and live into the future in the knowledge of its existence. Matt and Sam are joined by Sherrell and Dorothy Fortenberry, a playwright and television writer currently working on _Extrapolations_, an upcoming limited series for Apple TV+ that focuses on climate change.
Sources and Further Reading:
Daniel Sherrell, _Warmth: Coming of Age at the End of Our World_ (Penguin, 2021)
Pope Francis, _Laudato si'__ _("On Care for Our Common Home"), May 2015
Dorothy Fortenberry, "Can't Fight This Feeling Anymore: What Donald Trump Understands about Politics Today," _Commonweal_, November 5, 2020
Sam Adler-Bell, "Beautif…
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Aug 30, 2021
TEASER: Where's the Rest of Him?
Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy
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Aug 23, 2021
Buckley for Mayor (w/ Sam Tanenhaus)
Finally, a deep-dive on William F. Buckley, Jr.! Matt and Sam are joined by Buckley's biographer, Sam Tanenhaus, to talk about WFB's 1965 campaign for mayor of New York City. Topics include: how Buckley's campaign made him the most famous conservative in America; the importance of his candidacy to the conservative movement's rise; the hardline positions he took on policing and his inflammatory views on race; and more. Along the way, Tanenhaus offers countless details that only Buckley's biographer would know, from WFB dropping LSD with James Burnham to the debate that changed Buckley forever.
Sources and Further Reading:
Sam Tanenhaus, _Whittaker Chambers: A Biography_ (Random House, 1997)
Sam Tanenhaus, "The Buckley Effect," _New York Times Magazine_, October 2, 2005
Carl T. Bogus, _Buckley: William F. Buckley Jr. and the Rise of American Conservatism_ (Bloomsbury, 2011)
Matthew Sitman, "There Will Be No Buckley Revival," _Commonweal_, July 28, 2015
...and don't forget to subscr…
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Aug 7, 2021
KYE Presents: 5-4 on Connick v. Thompson
For those who want to learn more about the 5-4 podcast, you can visit their website here!
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Jul 31, 2021
TEASER: Woke Capital
Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy
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Jul 28, 2021
After Nationalism (w/ Samuel Goldman)
In this episode, Matt and Sam are joined by political theorist and conservative intellectual Samuel Goldman—a very sensible and polite "enemy"—to discuss his brilliant new book, _After Nationalism_. Topics include: Goldman's punk-rocker past; the influence of Leo Strauss on his thinking; historical attempts to provide Americans with a coherent, enduring symbol of national identity; why these symbols have failed; what all this means for debates about teaching U.S. history; and what alternatives to nationalism its critics can offer.
Sources:
Samuel Goldman, _After Nationalism: Being American in an Age of Division_ (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021)
James Ceaser, _Nature and History in American Political Development_ (Harvard University Press, 2008)
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Jul 19, 2021
The Afterlife of January 6th
It's been over seven months since pro-Trump protestors breached the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The meaning of the event remains contested. Was it a genuine coup attempt by an extra-parliamentary faction of the Trump movement? Or was it a disorganized and pathetic act of desperation by Fox News-poisoned rubes? Were the protestors inside the Capitol more like tourists or like terrorists? Was the siege an expression of dangerous anti-democratic forces? Or should we be more worried about the security state's overreaction to January 6th than about the event itself?
Looking back with the benefit of hindsight, we try to contextualize the events of January 6th in terms of a longer trajectory of right-wing mobilization in 2020. Conservatives have variously downplayed, ignored, and defended the insurrectionists. Trump and others have begun to treat Ashli Babbitt — killed by a police officer during the riot — as a martyr for the cause. Meanwhile, Tucker Carlson insists the siege was an insi…
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Jul 4, 2021
UNLOCKED: Why the New Deal Matters (w/ Eric Rauchway)
In this unlocked bonus episode, Matt is joined by historian Eric Rauchway for a deep-dive into his new book, _Why the New Deal Matters_. It's Rauchway's latest effort to recover Franklin Delano Roosevelt as an anti-fascist political leader who sought to expand the meaning and practice of American democracy—that in a robust democracy, people don't just need enough to live on, but something to live for. Topics include: Herbert Hoover's and FDR's different responses to the Bonus Army's march on Washington; why Hoover is the true founding father of modern conservatism; how FDR understood the New Deal as more than just a pragmatic series of experiments; the importance to the New Deal of public art and projects like building libraries and theaters; why, despite its compromises with white supremacists in the Democratic Party, the New Deal continues to inspire; and more!
Further Reading:
Eric Rauchway, _Why the New Deal Matters__ _(Yale University Press, 2021)
Eric Rauchway, _Winter War:…
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Jun 30, 2021
TEASER: How (Not) to Talk About Racism
Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy
Matt and Sam are back in the same room — Matt's study — enjoying brown liquor, each other's company, and a surprisingly coherent discussion of the right's latest fixations: our "rainbow regime" and "critical race theory."
Listen to find out how Matt's mother feels about his porn-stache, if Sam feels bad about boosting the career of Robin DiAngelo, whether the term "white fragility" has any utility, and why queer community is a metaphysical conundrum for Christian post-liberals. It's fun!
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Jun 21, 2021
Unraveling Allan Bloom and Saul Bellow
In this episode Matt and Sam discuss _Ravelstein_, Saul Bellow's roman à clef about the Straussian political philosopher Allan Bloom, who achieved late-in-life wealth and fame after publishing his controversial bestseller, _The Closing of the American Mind_. Along the way they consider the University of Chicago's Committee on Social Thought, eros and the intellectual life, love and friendship, Bellow and Bloom's shared Jewishness, and much, much more.
Sources and Further Reading:
Saul Bellow, _Ravelstein_ (Penguin, 2000)
Allan Bloom, _The Closing of the American Mind_ (Simon & Schuster, 1987)
_Giants and Dwarfs_ (Simon & Schuster, 1990)
_Love and Friendship__ _(Simon & Schuster, 1993)
Michel de Montaigne, "Of Friendship," from _The Complete Works_ (trans. Donald Frame)
D.T. Max, "With Friends Like Saul Bellow," _New York Times Magazine_, April 16, 2000
Christopher Hitchens, "The Egg-Head's Egger-On," _London Review of Books_, April 27, 2000
Patrick Deneen, "Who Closed the A…
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Jun 14, 2021
TEASER: Hot and Bothered
Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy
Every June it happens: conservatives get all hot and bothered by Pride celebrations, and this year has been no different. Why do banal corporate expressions of support for LGBTQ+ rights drive them so mad? How does religion factor into their opposition to basic protections for LGBTQ+ people? What part do these culture war flareups play in their broader political strategy? In this bonus episode, Matt and Sam offer a survey of hyperbolic rightwing reactions to the start of Pride month and break it all down.
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May 29, 2021
TEASER: Jaffa vs. Kendall
Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy
What is the status of "equality" in the American political tradition? What place does it have in the inheritance that conservatives are trying to preserve?
Matt and Sam pick up where they left off in their recent conversation with historian Joshua Tait, this time focusing on Harry Jaffa's devastating review of Willmoore Kendall and George Carey's _The Basic Symbols of the American Political Tradition_. In it, Jaffa defends Abraham Lincoln against Kendall and Carey's charge that he "derailed" our political tradition by putting the Declaration of Independence, natural rights, and the principle of equality at its center—a move, in their account, that opened the way to Ceasarism, the rights revolution, and more.
Sources and Further Reading:
Willmoore Kendall & George W. Carey, _Basic Symbols of the American Political Tradition__ _(Louisiana Stat…
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May 24, 2021
The Enemy Within (w/ Brandy Jensen)
For a slight change of pace, we invited our dear friend Brandy Jensen—author of the world's best advice column, _Jezebel_'s Ask a Fuck-Up, and features editor at the new Gawker.com—to answer listener questions about reentering the world post-vaccine, dating, conservative relatives, whether the "Trad Caths" are right, and mourning the lives we did not live.
As you'll see, we ended up addressing many classic Know Your Enemy themes—mercy, redemption, humility, etc.—and we had a great time doing it. Thank you to everyone who wrote in with such intimate and profound questions. You're all very beautifully fucked-up.
Further Reading:
Adam Philips, _Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life__, _Macmillan, 2013
Pope Francis, _Fratelli Tutti_, October 3, 2020
Brandy Jensen, "Ask a Fuck-Up on a Fucked-Up Year," _Jezebel_, December 31, 2020
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May 17, 2021
The Long Farewell to Majority Rule? (w/ Joshua Tait)
In this follow-up episode to "Democracy and Its Discontents" (listen here), historian Joshua Tait joins Matt and Sam for a conversation about the intellectual origins of the American Right's hostility to democracy—from John C. Calhoun's invention of the filibuster in the nineteenth century to the writings of conservatives like Russell Kirk, James Burnham, Willmoore Kendall, and others, in the 1950s and '60s.
Sources and Further Reading:
Adam Jentleson, _Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy__ _(Liveright Books, January 2021)
James Burnham, _Congress and the American Tradition__ _(Regnery, 1959)
Willmoore Kendall, _The Conservative Affirmation__ _(Regnery Publishing, 1963)
Willmoore Kendall & George W. Carey, _Basic Symbols of the American Political Tradition__ _(Louisiana State University Press, 1970; reprint, The Catholic University of American Press, 1995)
Saul Bellow, "Mosby's Memoirs," _The New Yorker_, Jul 12, 1968
John A. Murl…
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May 4, 2021
UNLOCKED: Democracy and Its Discontents
Note: This bonus episode was first published on April 13. We're unlocking it now because we're working on a companion episode that explores in greater detail the intellectual origins of, and justifications for, hostility toward democracy among the founders of the modern American conservative movement.
***
In state legislatures across the country, Republicans are unleashing a fierce assault on voting rights. Hundreds of proposals aimed at restricting ballot access are being considered, and in a few states—most notably Georgia—have already become law. These obvious efforts at suppressing turnout have been justified by the deranged lie that Donald Trump had a landslide victory stole from him in November, along with the usual evidence-free worries about election integrity peddled by conservatives. Of course, the debates all this has generated have been remarkably unintelligent—just more fodder for the culture wars.
Matt and Sam breakdown where voting-rights bill have been passed,…
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Apr 30, 2021
TEASER: Why the New Deal Matters (w/ Eric Rauchway)
Subscribe at https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy to hear this and all our bonus content.
In this episode, Matt is joined by historian Eric Rauchway for a deep-dive into his new book, _Why the New Deal Matters_. It's Rauchway's latest effort to recover Franklin Delano Roosevelt as an anti-fascist political leader who sought to expand the meaning and practice of American democracy—that in a robust democracy, people don't just need enough to live on, but something to live for. Topics include: Herbert Hoover's and FDR's different responses to the Bonus Army's march on Washington; why Hoover is the true founding father of modern conservatism; how FDR understood the New Deal as more than just a pragmatic series of experiments; the importance to the New Deal of public art and projects like building libraries and theaters; why, despite its compromises with white supremacists in the Democratic Party, the New Deal continues to inspire; and more!
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Apr 23, 2021
Overheated (w/ Kate Aronoff)
At last, Know Your Enemy_ _takes on climate change! Kate Aronoff, staff writer at _The New Republic _and _Dissent _editorial board member, joins Matt and Sam to discuss her new book, _Overheated: How Capitalism Broke the Planet—And How We Fight Back_. The conversations traces the history of collaboration between fossil fuel executives and conservative think tanks; then we discuss what comes _after_ climate denial and try our best to imagine a post-carbon world.
What will it take to avoid a future of eco-apartheid, fortress nations, and "lifeboat ethics?" Listen to find out.
Further Reading:
Kate Aronoff, "The European Far-Right's Environmental Turn," _Dissent_, May 31, 2019.
Kate Aronoff, "With A Green New Deal, Here's What the World Could Look Like For The Next Generation," _The Intercept_, Dec 5, 2018.
Sam Adler-Bell, "Appalachia vs. the Carceral State," _The New Republic_, Nov 25, 2019.
Sam Adler-Bell, "Why White Supremacists are Hooked on Green Living," _The New Republic_,…
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Apr 13, 2021
TEASER: Democracy and Its Discontents
To listen to this episode, and all of our bonus content, subscribe here: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy
In state legislatures across the country, Republicans are unleashing a fierce assault on voting rights. Hundreds of proposals aimed at restricting ballot access are being considered, and in a few states—most notably Georgia—have already become law. These obvious efforts at suppressing turnout have been justified by the deranged lie that Donald Trump had a landslide victory stole from him in November, along with the usual evidence-free worries about election integrity peddled by conservatives. Of course, the debates all this has generated have been remarkably unintelligent—just more fodder for the culture wars.
Matt and Sam breakdown where voting-rights bill have been passed, what provisions they include, and how it all fits into both the GOP's current strategy of minority rule and the right's longstanding suspicion of mass democracy.
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Mar 29, 2021
KYE Film Club: A Lost Cause (w/ Jesse Brenneman)
This episode is something different: the latest installment of the KYE Film Club, an ongoing series in which Matt and Sam's great friend (and the podcast's producer) Jesse Brenneman guides them through the strange world of terrible conservative movies. The selection this time was "Christmas Cars," a confusing attempt at Confederate nostalgia written and directed by former Dukes of Hazzard star John Schneider.
Watch: _Christmas Cars _on Vimeo
Peruse: John Schneider Studios
...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to all of our bonus episodes!
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Mar 21, 2021
TEASER: A Royal Mess
To listen to this episode, and all of our bonus content, subscribe here: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy
At last, Matt and Sam take on the British royal family. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's recent interview with Oprah set off a firestorm of commentary—not least from aggrieved conservatives who were outraged at the young couple's criticisms of the monarchy. Why was the Right so upset by the interview? Why did the defenders of the American Revolution find themselves siding with our ancient enemy? Then your hosts turn to a documentary that offers an acerbic look at the media coverage of Princess Diana's death—_Diana: The Mourning After_, by none other than Christopher Hitchens. It leads to a discussion of neoliberalism, what happens when the powerful to share their struggles and appear relatable, and more!
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Mar 13, 2021
TEASER: France's War on Terror (w/ Cole Stangler)
Subscribe at https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy to hear this and all our bonus content.
In recent months, French president Emmanuel Macron, once hailed as the savior of mainstream liberalism, has responded to a series of Islamist terror attacks with a sharp right turn—one he hopes will serve him well in a possible run-off election against the nativist/populist Marine Le Pen. KYE Paris correspondent Cole Stangler joins Matt and Sam to explain Macron's increasingly Islamophobic, authoritarian, and anti-leftist policy agenda. Topics include: whether or not his reactionary pivot should have been a surprise; the alarming parallels between France today and America after 9/11; the susceptibility of center-left politics to reactionary forces; the role French secularism (_laïcité_) has and hasn't played in these controversies; prospects for the French left; and more!
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Mar 9, 2021
The Rush Limbaugh Show (w/ Nicole Hemmer)
No media figure has had a more profound impact on the shape of contemporary conservative politics than Rush Limbaugh. For three hours a day, every weekday since 1988, Rush delighted and ignited his radio audience with a high-octane diatribe against liberal degeneracy — an often comic, always cruel, and never apologetic expression of the white male id. When he died on February 17, 2021, Rush left behind an American media landscape — and a Republican Party — reshaped in his image: a ruinous marriage of entertainment, insular world-building, and reactionary meanness that found its apotheosis in the presidency of Donald J. Trump.
And no one is better situated to elucidate Rush Limbaugh's appeal, his effectiveness, and his impact on American politics than our guest, Nicole Hemmer. Hemmer is the author of _Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics__. _ She's at work on a new book tracing the transformation of right-wing politics in the pos…
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Feb 26, 2021
TEASER: Keeping up with the Bozells
Subscribe at https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy to hear this and all our bonus content!
From the union-busting, ad-man scion (Brent Sr.), to the fiercely brilliant and troubled _National Review_ editor-turned-Catholic zealot (Brent Jr.), to the insipid media watchdog and Trump apologist (Brent III), and finally, to the ball-cap-wearing January 6 capitol siege participant (Brent IV, aka "Zeeker") — the Bozell epic has all the elements of a great family saga: pathos, intrigue, tragedy, farce, decline, and even a bit of redemption.
In classic KYE fashion, we over-prepared and over-imbibed to bring you this story. Please enjoy responsibly!
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Feb 21, 2021
How to Survive a Pandemic (w/ Peter Staley)
Matt and Sam have an in-depth conversation with HIV/AIDs activist Peter Staley to get his perspective on Dr. Anthony Fauci's role in America's response to two of the most devastating public-health emergencies of recent decades: the AIDS crisis and the pandemic that began nearly one year ago. They discuss how Peter got his start in ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) in New York City in the 1980s, what the group was fighting for, his run-ins with Pat Buchanan, Jesse Helms, and other rightwing rogues, and how he came to know Fauci. How does Peter understand Fauci's role in the Trump administration's response to the pandemic? Should Fauci have resigned? What good was he able to do? And how does his experience as an activist inform his views about working with government officials on the "inside"?
Watch:
_How to Survive a Plague__ _(the 2012 documentary about ACT UP in which Peter figures prominently)
Read:
Sam Adler-Bell, "Dr. Do-Little: The Case Against Anthony Fauci," _The Drif…
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Feb 11, 2021
UNLOCKED: Midnight in the Garden of American Heroes
Matt and Sam explain West Coast Straussianism, the school of thought behind one of the last acts of the Trump administration: its publication of the "1776 Report," the Right's shabby response to the 1619 Project and blueprint for how the American Founding should be understood and taught. What are the origins of this school of conservative thought? Why are its adherents so enthusiastic about Trump? How do they understand the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and U.S. history? And why are they obsessed with "identity politics"?
Sources:
Harry Jaffa, "American Conservatism and the Present Crisis," _Claremont Review of Books_, Spring 2003
Publius Decius Mus, "The Flight 93 Election," _Claremont Review of Books_, September 2016
Steven Smith, "Hidden Truths," _New York Times, _August 23, 2013
John J. Miller, "The House of Jaffa," _National Review_, January 12, 2015
Kathryn and Michael Zuckert, _The Truth about Leo Strauss: Political Philosophy and American Democracy_ (Univ…
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Feb 5, 2021
TEASER: L'Affaire (w/ John Ganz)
Subscribe at https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy to hear this and all our bonus content.
Beloved KYE guest John Ganz (Ep. 15: The Year the Clock Broke) returns to explain how the Dreyfus Affair (and the French Third Republic) help us understand the Trumpian right, fascism, and the left's response to both.
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Feb 1, 2021
Panic! In America (w/ the You're Wrong About podcast)
Matt and Sam are joined by special guests Sarah Marshall and Michael Hobbes of the You're Wrong About podcast to discuss moral panics—from tales of rampant Satanism in the late 1970s to the Stranger Danger wave in the 1980s and beyond—and their role in the rise of rightwing politics in America. What do such "Save the Children" stories tell us about the way the conservative mind conceives of morality and power? What do they tell us about American culture and politics? It all builds to a discussion of QAnon and both the promise and problems with empathy.
FURTHER READING AND LISTENING:
Sarah Marshall, "Remote Control: Tonya Harding, Nancy Kerrigan, and the Spectacles of Female Power and Pain," _The Believer_, January 1, 2014
Michael Hobbes, "Everything You Know about Obesity is Wrong," _Huffington Post_, September 19, 2018
John Paul Rollert, "Going to Extremes: What Acting Taught Me about the Limits of Empathy," _Commonweal_, January 27, 2021
Rebecca Jennings, "What we can learn…
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Jan 23, 2021
TEASER: West Coast Straussians and the "1776 Report"
Subscribe at https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy to hear this and all our bonus content.
Your hosts explain West Coast Straussianism, the school of conservative thought undergirding the "1776 Report" — the Right's shabby response to the 1619 Project and a blueprint for how the American Founding should be understood and taught.
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Jan 17, 2021
Did It Happen Here?
Matt and Sam take up the question that's dominating The Discourse: Is Donald Trump—and the movement he leads—fascist? To provide an answer, they turn to the rich historiography of fascism and some key essays on the subject published since Trump's election. Along the way, they break down different approaches and sets of criteria for evaluating fascism, consider the similarities—and differences—between the 1920s and '30s and today, and ponder whether or not the "fascist question" is the right one to be asking. Listen to the end to find out where Matt and Sam finally land!
Further Reading:
Robert O. Paxton, _The Anatomy of Fascism_ (Vintage, 2004)
Friedrich Reck, _Diary of a Man in Despair_ (New York Review of Books, 2013; originally published in 1947)
Federico Finchelstein, _From Fascism to Populism in History_ (University of California Press, 2017)
Kathleen Belew, _Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America_ Harvard University Press, 2019
Jason S…
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Jan 7, 2021
TEASER: Storming the Capitol
Subscribe at https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy to hear this and all our bonus content. Matt and Sam analyze the Trumpist "siege" on the Capitol on our latest bonus episode.
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Jan 4, 2021
Masks Off: The Right in 2020
Matt and Sam—in a rare, just-the-two-of-them episode—look back at what a bad year revealed about a number of bad people, especially the coterie of rightwing intellectuals and politicians who have downplayed the pandemic, exacerbated anxieties about the uprising against police violence, and played along with Donald Trump's conspiracy-fueled attempts to steal the presidential election. What holds these efforts together, and what do they say about the state of conservatism? It turns out that 2020 confirmed the anti-democratic, revanchist character of the Right in the United States.
Sources Cited:
Matthew Sitman, "Why the Pandemic is Driving Conservative Intellectuals Mad," _New Republic_, May 21, 2020
Matthew Sitman, "Time in the Eternal City," _Commonweal_, December 24, 2020
Sam Adler-Bell, "Conservative Incoherence," _Dissent_, Summer 2020
Bret Stephens, "America Shouldn't Have to Play by New York Rules," _New York Times_, April 24, 2020
"Trump’s Focus as the Pandemic Raged:…
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Dec 26, 2020
TEASER: Trump the Dove? (w/ Stephen Wertheim)
Subscribe at https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy to hear this and all our bonus content.
An excerpt from our latest bonus episode on Trump's 'non-interventionist militarism' and the future of American foreign policy — with Stephen Wertheim of the Quincy Institute.
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Dec 20, 2020
Why the Supreme Court Sucks (w/ the 5-4 podcast)
In this much anticipated crossover event, Matt and Sam take aim at the conservative legal movement with Rhiannon, Michael, and Peter—the brilliant and funny team behind the 5-4 podcast, a Know Your Enemy favorite. For those who are not yet fans of the show, it's "a podcast about how much the Supreme Court sucks" that offers "a progressive and occasionally profane take on the ideological battles at the heart of the Court’s most important landmark cases, and an irreverent tour of all the ways in which the law is shaped by politics." Topics discussed in this conversation include the origins of originalism, the founding of the Federalist Society, Robert Bork's disastrous confirmation hearings, the way the media covers the Supreme Court, and how the Left can fight back.
Know Your Enemy listeners can check out 5-4 here. Follow @fivefourpod on Twitter for their latest episodes, along with hosts @AywaRhiannon, @_FleerUltra, and @The_Law_Boy. Special thanks to podcast guru Leon Neyfakh (@l…
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Dec 5, 2020
TEASER: A Working Class GOP? (w/ Aaron Sibarium)
Subscribe at https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy to hear this and all our bonus content.
An excerpt from our latest bonus episode on "the limits of realignment" with Aaron Sibarium of _The Washington Free Beacon_.
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Nov 28, 2020
Talking Trump (w/ David Roth)
Who is Donald Trump? The great David Roth, co-owner of Defector Media and a columnist at the _New Republic_, joins Matt and Sam to answer that harrowing question. From Trump's odd lies about his baseball talents to creepy White House Christmas decorations, this conversation was the perfect opportunity to unpack the neuroses, self-protective measures, cruelty, humor, and sheer weirdness of a terrible president on his way out of office. Also: Sam finally gets to do his Melania "impression"!
Sources Cited:
Leander Schaerlaeckens, "Was Donald Trump Good at Baseball?" _Slate_, May 5, 2020
David Roth, "I Made Up a Fake Donald Trump Quote, and He Retweeted It," _SBNation_, June 10, 2014
David Roth, "A Unified Theory of Trump's Creepy Aesthetic," _New Republic_, December 19, 2019
David Roth, "The Littlest Prince," _New Republic_, November 17, 2020
For more of David's writing on Trump, check out his author archives at the _New Republic..._and don't forget to support Know Your Enemy on Pat…
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Nov 14, 2020
TEASER - What Happened? (w/ Eric Levitz and Dan Sherrell)
Subscribe at https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy to hear this and all our bonus content!
An excerpt from our election recap bonus episode with _New York_ magazine's Eric Levitz and Daniel Sherrell, director of the the #VoteTrumpOut campaign.
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Oct 29, 2020
Suburban Woman (w/ Dorothy Fortenberry)
Matt and Sam are joined by Dorothy Fortenberry for a wide-ranging conversation about women and politics. Topics include growing up in Washington, D.C; her experiences writing women characters in Hollywood; why the left should take over existing institutions; the complicated Catholic motherhood of Amy Coney Barrett; and much, much more. For those not familiar with her work, Fortenberry is a writer and producer on Hulu’s award-winning adaptation of _The Handmaid’s Tale_, and her plays include _Species Native_, _Partners_, _Mommune_, and _Good Egg_. She's a regular contributor to _Commonweal_, among other publications, though for her latest political takes you should follow her on Twitter (@Dorothy410berry).
READ:
Dorothy Fortenberry, "One of Those Serious Women: Andrea Dworkin's Radical Feminism," _Commonweal _, April 29, 2019
Dorothy Fortenberry, "A Plea to My Fellow Warren Moms," _Commonweal_, March 6, 2020
Dorothy Fortenberry, "Why I Stay," _Commonweal_, November 18, 2018
LIS…
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Oct 21, 2020
On the Road to Reaganland (w/ Rick Perlstein and Leon Neyfakh)
Matt and Sam talk to _two_ esteemed guests, Rick Perlstein and Leon Neyfakh, about why U.S. politics took a right turn in the 1970s. “We organize discontent,” as one New Right activist put it—and they did. Fierce battles over desegregation, gay rights, abortion, and the meaning of America itself all paved the way for Ronald Reagan's smashing victory in 1980.
Over four books and two decades, historian Rick Perlstein has chronicled the rise of movement conservatism in America, starting with its renegade beginnings in the 1950s and '60s. Now, with _Reaganland__ _(2020), his extraordinary tetralogy is complete—taking readers on a journey through Jimmy Carter's doomed administration, the culture wars of the 1970s, and Ronald Reagan's campaign for the presidency. Perlstein's sweeping narrative is paired in this episode with the brilliant work of journalist Leon Neyfakh, who just finished the third season of his podcast _Fiasco_. It's a deep-dive into the battle over integration in B…
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Oct 12, 2020
How to Be Depressed
We released this bonus episode on depression and politics in July, and it quickly became a favorite of our Patreon subscribers. A number of them asked us to make it available in front of the paywall so they could share it with friends and family who have experienced depression and other mental-health issues—so that's what we decided to do. Topics discussed include: Matt's review of George Scialabba's memoir about depression; how left and right understand moral desert; and the struggle to build a society based on human frailty, our vulnerability to bad luck and bad breaks, and how much we need each other.
Further Reading:
Matthew Sitman, "Muddling Through: A Depression Memoir Like No Other," _Commonweal_, July 14, 2020.
Johanna Hedva, "Sick Woman Theory," _Mask Magazine_, January 2016.
Gabriel Winant, "Coronavirus and Chronopolitics," _n + 1, _Spring 2020
And Listening:
Steve Earle, "My Old Friend the Blues" (1986)
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Sep 14, 2020
Not Even Past (w/ Jamelle Bouie)
From the never-ending culture war over the_ New York Times_'s 1619 Project to arguments about the Black Lives Matter protests to President Trump's promise to Make American Great Again, today's political conflicts reflect, to an extraordinary degree, disagreements over the meaning of American history. Jamelle Bouie's _New York Times_ column is one of the places where these lively debates are most effectively narrated and clarified.
Bouie joins Matt and Sam to help make sense of how history, historiography, and politics relate to each other—or at least, how they should. Along the way, the conversation takes up slavery and capitalism, Afro-pessimism and Marxism, and (a frequent preoccupation of the podcast) what left-wing patriotism might look like.
Further Reading:
Jamelle Bouie, "Beyond White Fragility," _NY Times_, June 26, 2020.
Jamelle Bouie, "Why Juneteenth Matters," _NY Times_, June 18, 2020.
Sam Adler-Bell, "The Remnant and the Restless Crowd," _Commonweal_, Aug 1, 2018.
V…
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Aug 9, 2020
Know Your Frenemies (w/ Samuel Moyn)
Matt and Sam welcome Yale historian Samuel Moyn to the show for a deep-dive into the Never Trump movement. Who are the Never Trumpers? How seriously should we take the heroic story they tell about themselves? Did they sink Bernie's campaign for the Democratic nomination? Have they reckoned with their role in paving the way for Trump? In trying to answer these questions the conversation moves from the baleful influence of Never Trumpers to a discussion of historical debates about over the rise of fascism, the perils of "tyrannophobia," and the possibilities for breaking through the hegemony of neoliberals and neoconservatives in our political life.
Further Reading:
Samuel Moyn, "The Never Trumpers Have Already Won" (New Republic)
Robert P. Saldin and Steven M. Teles, "Don't Blame Never Trumpers for the Left's Defeat" (New Republic)
Samuel Moyn and David Priestland, "Trump Isn't a Threat to Our Democracy. Hysteria Is" (New York Times)
Samuel Moyn, "Interview: We Can't Settle for Hum…
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Jul 8, 2020
Pandemic Politics (w/ Marshall Steinbaum & Sarah Jones)
Matt and Sam are joined by two special guests, Sarah Jones and Marshall Steinbaum, who return to the show to take stock of where we're at: our failed response to the pandemic, the connections between the pandemic and the protests, and how all this might play out in November. The four of us range widely—but be warned, this is not the most inspiring conversation. Are there any reasons to be hopeful? Listen and find out.
Sources Cited and Further Reading:
Eric Levitz, "Coronavirus is Killing Our Economy because It Was Already Sick" (New York Magazine)
Sam Adler-Bell, "Conservative Incoherence" (Dissent)
Sarah Jones, "Eugenics Isn't Going to Get Us Out of This Mess" (New York Magazine)
Sarah Jones, "The Coronavirus Class War" (New York Magazine)
Matthew Sitman, "Why the Pandemic is Driving Conservative Intellectuals Mad" (The New Republic)
Know Your Enemy bonus episode: What Are Intellectuals Good For? (with further thoughts on the protests that followed George Floyd's murder)
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Jun 8, 2020
Strange Gods and Strong Gods (w/ Tara Isabella Burton)
There's been no shortage of commentary on the rise of the "nones," those Americans who claim no religious affiliation, a trend especially notable among younger people. But that doesn't mean we live in a secular age. Matt and Sam talk to Tara Isabella Burton about her new book, _Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World_, and the way our search for meaning and the need for ritual has met our neoliberal economic order. What does this spiritual churn mean for our politics? Why do reactionary ideas find a ready audience among those disillusioned with modern life? We take up these questions and more in a wide-ranging conversation about the way we live now.
Sources and Recommended Reading:
Tara Isabella Burton, _Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World_
Tara Isabella Burton, "Christianity Gets Weird" (_New York Times_)
Daniel José Camacho, "The Racial Aesthetic of Burton's 'Weird Christians'" (_Sojourners_)
Michael Anton, "Are the Kid Al(t)right?" (_Claremont Review of B…
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May 14, 2020
KYE Extra: The Sad Truth (w/ Shuja Haider)
Matt and Sam are joined by writer and editor Shuja Haider to discuss a topic near and dear to all of our hearts: country music. We talk about country's conservative reputation, the problems with (and virtues of) Ken Burns's recent documentary about country music, and the humane politics that arise from acknowledging—as the best country songs do—our collective frailty. Plus, a bunch of great music recommendations for your quarantine listening.
A playlist featuring every song we mention in the episode, plus a few more bangers can be accessed here.
Further Reading:
Matthew Sitman, "E Pluribus Country," _Dissent_, Winter 2020.
Shuja Haider, "The Empty Jukebox: Johnny Paycheck and the Return of the Repressed in Country Music," _Viewpoint_, March 10, 2015
Shuja Haider, "A World That Draws a Line: Interracial Love Songs in American Country Music," _Viewpoint_, March 1, 2017
Shuja Haider, "Canon Fodder," _Popula_, Sept 13, 2018
Cole Stangler, "Emotional Archaeology: An Interview Wit…
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May 4, 2020
Longtime Listener, First Time Caller (the Mailbag Episode)
Here it is—the mailbag episode. Recorded on 4/20 and celebrating a full year of Know Your Enemy, Matt and Sam answer listener questions about: conservatives hiding in plain sight, our favorite conservative novelists, a George W. Bush counterfactual, the right’s response to COVID-19, and—against our better judgment—some Bernie Sanders campaign postmortem.
We received so many amazing questions for this and recorded tons of material. So much, in fact, that we decided to release another 25 minutes of it as bonus material on Patreon. If you get to the end of this episode and find yourself hankering for more, sign up on Patreon and you can listen to some extra discussion of Bob Dylan and political realignment + our entire back catalog of bonus episodes.
Thanks for your support through all this. Stay safe and (reasonably) sane.
Further Reading:
Matthew Sitman, "Trump's Intellectuals and the Great Moving Right Show," _The Bias_, April 3, 2020.
Matthew Sitman, "A Time For Politics,…
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Apr 18, 2020
The Windbag City (w/ Marshall Steinbaum)
Matt and Sam are finally joined by the show's longtime bête noire, Marshall Steinbaum, for a deep dive into the Chicago school of economics and the wreckage it's supported—from welcoming the birth defects caused by deregulating the pharmaceutical industry to justifying massive resistance to desegregation to being put in the service of Coronavirus truther-ism. Where did this iteration of libertarianism come from, intellectually and institutionally? Who are the key figures in the Chicago school? How have their ideas infected the way we all think about economics and politics? It's a sordid, depressing tale of rightwing money, intellectual dishonesty, and a gleeful desire to discipline the forces of democracy.
Sources and further reading:
Marshall Steinbaum, The Book That Explains Charlottesville, Boston Review, August 14, 2017
Marshall Steinbaum, Economics after Neoliberalism, Boston Review, February 28, 2019
Isaac Chotiner, The Contrarian Coronavirus Theory that Informed the Trump…
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Apr 5, 2020
KYE Extra: "Last Ounce of Courage"
Our rollicking conversation with Know Your Enemy Film Correspondent Jesse Brenneman is now out from behind the paywall! Be prepared: we dive into Darrel Campbell's 2012 war-on-Christmas fever dream _Last Ounce of Courage_, a deranged film that nevertheless offers real insight into the conservative mind. (If you really love freedom, you can watch the film here, before you listen. But it is not at all necessary.)
Jesse is a seasoned radio producer and dear friend—and funny. He has his own new podcast you should check out: Tech Talk with Tim and Ted.
WATCH: Last Ounce of Courage (YouTube)
READ: the Ronald Reagan speeches mentioned in the episode: "A Time for Choosing" (October, 27, 1964 ) and "Encroaching Control" (March 30, 1961)
*** As mentioned in the intro, we're doing a mailbag episode next week. Please submit questions you'd like us to answer on air by email knowyourenemypodcast[AT]gmail.com OR by tweet @Knowyrenemypod ***
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Mar 15, 2020
The Year the Clock Broke (w/ John Ganz)
Matt and Sam talk to John Ganz about paleoconservatism, the Island of the Misfit Toys of the American right. Along the way we're introduced to David Duke, Pat Buchanan, Sam Francis, and others, and discuss their enduring influence on the Republican Party and conservative politics—both in 1992, when Buchanan made a failed run for president, and today, when the hopes of their movement seems to have been fulfilled in Donald Trump.
Sources and Recommended Reading:
John Ganz, The Year the Clock Broke (The Baffler)
John Ganz, Finding Neverland (The New Republic)
Rick Perlstein, I Thought I Understood the American Right. Trump Proved Me Wrong (New York Times)
Murray Rothbard, Right-Wing Populism: A Strategy for the Paleo Movement
Michael Brendan Dougherty, The Castaway (America's Future Foundation)
Shuja Haider, How To Be a Democrat, According to Republicans (The Outline)
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Feb 5, 2020
Morbid Symptoms (w/ Ross Douthat)
Ross Douthat is that strangest of all creatures, a religious conservative with a _New York Times_ column—a perch from which he pronounces on U.S. politics, the Catholic Church, and modern culture with style and intelligence, plus a dash of mordant pessimism. In other words, the perfect choice to be the first "enemy" to come on the show. He joins Matt and Sam to discuss his own conservatism, the American right in the Trump era, and his new book _The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success__._
Further Reading:
* Ross Douthat, "The Decade of Disillusionment," _NYT, _Dec 28, 2019
* Ross Douthat, "The Case for Bernie," NYT, Nov 30, 2019
* Ross Douthat, "Trump’s Message: Love It or Leave It, With a Bigoted Edge," _NYT_, Jul 16, 2019
* Ross Douthat, "What Are Conservatives Actually Debating?" _NYT_, June 4, 2019
* Rudyard Kipling, _"_The Gods of the Copybook Headings," _Harper's, _Oct 26, 1919
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Jan 15, 2020
What Happened to Norman? (w/ David Klion)
_Making It_ is Norman Podhoretz's 1967 memoir about his journey from the working-class neighborhood of Brownsville, Brooklyn to his heady ascent in the New York literary scene of 1950s and '60s. It's also a fascinating psychological study of a man on the cusp of converting from Cold War liberalism to what came to be known as neoconservatism—a shift driven, at least in part, by the cool reception of this book. _Making It_ proves a fascinating text through which to understand not just one conservative mind, but multiple generations of New York intellectuals, the neoconservative movement, and the politics of grievance, self-pity, and narcissism that have come to define much of conservatism in the Trump era.
Sources Cited:
* David Klion, "The Making and Unmaking of the Podhoretz Dynasty," _Jewish Currents, _Dec 19, 2017
* Norman Podhoretz, "My Negro Problem — And Ours," _Commentary_, Feb 1963
* Janet Malcolm, "‘I Should Have Made Him for a Dentist'" _New York Review of Books_…
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Nov 27, 2019
She's Got a Plan (w/ Rebecca Traister)
Matt and Sam talk to Rebecca Traister of _New York_ magazine about sexism and electoral politics. How has patriarchy conditioned the political careers of politicians like Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren? How does the right mobilize anti-feminism to win? And how do conservative women like Sarah Palin use traditional womanhood and femininity to their advantage? Listen to find out!
Traister is the author of _Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger._
Further Reading:
Rebecca Traister, "Elizabeth Warren's Classroom Strategy," The Cut, Aug 6, 2019
Rebecca Traister, "Leader of the Persistence," New York Magazine, July 23, 2019
Elaine Blaire, "The Power of Enraged Women," New York Times, Sept 27, 2018
Liesl Schillinger "Book Review: Big Girls Don't Cry," New York Times, Sept 16, 2010
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Nov 11, 2019
We Could Be Heroes (w/ Will Arbery)
Will Arbery's play "Heroes of the Fourth Turning"—about four conservative Catholic friends arguing under a night sky in Wyoming—feels like it was written to be discussed on Know Your Enemy. An ominous meditation on faith, conservatism, empathy, cruelty, and power, "Heroes" has ignited debate and garnered praise across the political spectrum—from _First Things_ to the (failing)_ New York Times _to Rod Dreher's blog at the _American Conservative_. Arbery was raised by conservative Catholic professors and grew up imbibing the ideas of the right and the teachings of the Church. He writes from a place of deep love and withering scrutiny. Lucky for us (and you!) Will displays all the sensitivity, intellectually curiosity, and love in this conversation that he does in his remarkable play. Enjoy!
You can buy tickets to see "Heroes" here, which is playing in NYC until November 17. Watch a preview here.
Further Reading:
The _New York Times_ profile of Will, "A Play about God and Trump,…
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Oct 29, 2019
Trump Country (w/ Sarah Jones)
Sarah Jones joins Matt and Sam to discuss the myth of "Trump Country" and the pitfalls of reporting on rural America, and to address the most important question of all: is Donald Trump the Antichrist? (Answer: Probably not.) Sarah's essay, "Scapegoat Country," appears in this month's special issue of _Dissent_ on "Left Paths in Rural America."
Sarah is a staff writer for _New York Magazine_, where she covers inequality and national politics. Follow her on Twitter: @OneSarahJones
Sources Cited:
* Sarah Jones, "Scapegoat Country," _Dissent_, Fall 2019
* Sarah Jones, "What Brett Kavanaugh Means to Conservatives," _New York Mag, _Sept 30, 2019
* Sarah Jones, "Here’s How We’d Really Know That Trump Is the Antichrist," _New York Mag_, Aug 21, 2019
* Mollie Hemingway, "I wasn’t a Trump supporter. I am now." _Washington Post_, Jan 19, 2018
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Oct 23, 2019
KYE EXTRA: "Morning Hate" (w/ Hannah Gais)
UNPAYWALLED:
Sam interviews journalist Hannah Gais about (1) the far right's ongoing efforts to infiltrate conservative media and (2) the self-victimizing grift of _Quillette _anti-anti-fascist Andy Ngo.
Discussed:
* Hannah Gais, Leaked Emails Show How White Nationalists Have Infiltrated Conservative Media, _Splinter_
* Hannah Gais, The Making of Andy Ngo, _Jewish Currents_
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Oct 7, 2019
Working-Class Conservatism (w/ Max Alvarez)
Matt and Sam talk to Max Alvarez—writer, editor, and host of _Working People__, _an excellent podcast—about growing up working-class and conservative in a mixed race household.
Matt and Max compare experiences as we try to answer some basic but tough questions: what attracts some members of the working class to conservative politics? How do the cultural and economic aspects of conservatism interact for working class conservatives? And _what can the left learn from working-class conservatism's appeal?_
Support Max's Patreon here!
Further Reading:
* Max Alvarez, "Can the Working Class Speak?" _Current Affairs _(2018)
* Stuart Hall "The Toad in the Garden: Thatcherism Among the Theorists," (1988)
* Charlie Post's two-part essay from the early aughts in _Against the Current_ (and Sebastian Lamb's response)
* Bethany Moreton, _To Serve God and Walmart_
* Thomas Frank, _What's the Matter with Kansas? _(2005)
* Larry Bartels' review of Frank.
* John Jost, "Working Class…
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Sep 9, 2019
Koch'd Out
With the help of Jane Mayer's essential 2016 book, Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, your hosts explore the world of right-wing philanthropy and the institutions—from centers at universities to think tanks in Washington, DC—it has funded. What emerges is a startling history of how a small group of incredibly rich families used novel techniques to shelter their wealth from taxation and fund a right-wing takeover of American politics.
Other sources cited and consulted:
* Theda Skocpol, "Who Owns the GOP?" (a critical review of Mayer in Dissent)
* Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson, The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism
* Amanda Hollis-Brusky and Calvin Terbeek, "The Federalist Society Says It’s Not an Advocacy Organization. These Documents Show Otherwise." Politico
* Mark Schmidt "The Legend of the Powell Memo," The American Prospect
* Honoré de Balzac, Eugénie Grandet (1833)
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Aug 15, 2019
Gunpower (w/ Patrick Blanchfield)
Matt and Sam's first ever guest, Patrick Blanchfield, is an Associate Faculty member at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research and author of the forthcoming book Gunpower from Verso books, which you can and should pre-order here. In the wake of the massacres in El Paso and Dayton, we turn to Patrick—a truly brillant writer and thinker—to help us understand how these traumatic reptitions of spectacular violence are rooted in American history and ideology.
Patrick's work:
* "The Market Can't Solve a Massacre" (Splinter)
* "Recoil Operation" (New Inquiry)
* "Ghosts of 2012" (N+1)
* "The Gun Control We Deserve" (N+1)
* "Thoughts and Prayers" (N+1)
* "'They're Coming for the Ones You Love': My Weekend of Gun Training in the Desert" (The Nation)
* Declaration of War: The Violent Rise of White Supremacy after Vietnam (The Nation)
Other sources cited:
* Evan Simko-Badnarski, Condition Yellow (Images from Patrick and Evan's trip to a firearms training institute in Ny…
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Jul 30, 2019
The Definitely-Not-Racist National Conservatives
The first National Conservatism conference was convened at the Ritz Carlton in Washington D.C. two weeks ago. It was a coming out party for the rising nationalist wing of the conservative movement, with attendees laying the groundwork for a more intellectual version of Trumpism. Many mainstream conservatives were in attendance, along with paleoconservatives, figures from the religious right, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, and a popular Fox News host. In the era of Trump, mainstream conservatism is making room for hardcore nationalists, economic populists, illiberal theocrats, and others—this conference was a chance for them to find common ground.
Matt and Sam discuss the conference, what it means for the present and future of conservative politics, and how the left can combat the nationalists' appeal—which is, in many ways, much more powerful than that of the dying Reaganite consensus.
Here's what we read and watched:
* Video and text of Senator Josh Hawley's speech
* Alexand…
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Jul 12, 2019
The Rise of the Illiberal Right
Interested in the background reading we did for this episode? There's a lot of it. But we want to show our work and give you the chance to dig deeper. Below are the articles we referenced, read, or drew upon for our conversation on the illiberal right.
Primary Sources:
Against the Dead Consensus, First Things
Sohrab Ahmari, Against David French-ism, First Things
David French, What Sohrab Ahmari Gets Wrong, National Review
R.R. Reno, What Liberalism Lacks, First Things
Romanus Cessario, O.P., Non Possumus, First Things
Edmund Waldstein, O. Cist., Integralism in Three Sentences, The Josias
Ross Douthat, What are Conservatives Actually Debating?, New York Times
Rod Dreher, The Meaning of the Benedict Option, The American Conservative
Adrian Vermeule, Integration from Within, American Affairs
Adrian Vermeule, A Christian Strategy, First Things
Commentary:
Matthew Sitman, Liberalism and the Catholic Left (a review of Patrick Deneen's Why Liberalism Failed), Commonweal
Emma Gre…
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Jun 26, 2019
The Death of Conservatism? (Part 2)
Special thanks to Will Epstein and The Downtown Boys for providing music for these two episodes. Check them out.
Ronald Reagan's televised "A Time for Choosing" speech in support of Barry Goldwater in 1964: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXBswFfh6AY
A choice excerpt:
"Those who ask us to trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state are architects of a policy of accommodation. They tell us that by avoiding a direct confrontation with the enemy he will learn to love us and give up his evil ways. All who oppose this idea are blanket indicted as war-mongers. Well, let us set one thing straight, there is no argument with regard to peace and war. It is cheap demagoguery to suggest that anyone would want to send other people’s sons to war. The only argument is with regard to the best way to avoid war. There is only one sure way—surrender."
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Jun 12, 2019
The Death of Conservatism? (Part 1)
Sam Tanenhaus's original 2009 essay in The New Republic, the basis for the book we're discussing today: https://newrepublic.com/article/61721/conservatism-dead
Whitaker Chambers's 1957 dismantling of Ayn Rand in the pages of National Review: https://www.nationalreview.com/2005/01/big-sister-watching-you-whittaker-chambers/
And here's Buckley's 1955 mission statement for National Review: https://www.nationalreview.com/1955/11/our-mission-statement-william-f-buckley-jr/
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May 16, 2019
How Conservatives Argue
In episode two of KNOW YOUR ENEMY, Matt and Sam discuss economist Albert O. Hirschman's 1991 book The Rhetoric of Reaction: Perversity, Futility, Jeopardy. Along the way, they identify the persistent patterns in conservative rhetoric from Edmund Burke to Friedrich Hayek to Paul Ryan.
They finish off by examining some of the rhetorical tics of the progressive left, and Sam reminisces about the good old days when DSA was comprised exclusive of young nerds and old Jews.
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May 6, 2019
Behind Enemy Lines
Read Matt's Dissent essay, "Leaving Conservatism Behind"
Read Sam's essay about Jonah Goldberg's Suicide of the West, "The Remnant and the Restless Crowd"
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