Know Your Enemy

Misogyny, MAGA-style [Teaser]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman , sam adler-bell) — Wed, 1 Apr 2026 10:30:00 +0000

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.

Last month, our very own Sam Adler-Bell published a deeply reported article in New York magazine about "the women leaving the New Right." That is, the women who've come to realize, as Sam pithily puts it, this truth about the MAGA movement: "Sexism wasn’t merely the price of entry; it was the theme of the party." MAGA-style misogyny is different than the oldfangled, pre-Trump, pre-Fuentes, pre-Tate brothers iteration that marked the conservative movement in decades past. In this episode, Matt interviews Sam about the article, and they discuss misogyny on the right, old and new; what the women he spoke to describe experiencing during their time on the New Right, the bargain they thought they were getting by joining its ranks, and what they found in reality; the nasty misogyny that, even more than his racism and antisemitism, animates Nick Fuentes; dating and romance on the New Right; rightwing religion, patriarchy, and the 19th amendment; and more.

Sources:

Sam Adler-Bell, "The Young Women Leaving the New Right," New York, March 12, 2026

Ian Ward, "Doug Wilson Has Spent Decades Pushing for a Christian Theocracy. In Trump’s DC, the New Right Is Listening," Politico, May 23, 2025

Mariel Padilla, Grace Panetta, & Mel Leonor Barclay, "Who’s Questioning Women’s Right to Vote?" The 19th, Aug 12, 2025

Leo Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli (1958)

From Neocon to Never-Trump (w/ Bill Kristol)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, William Kristol, Matthew Sitman) — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 10:30:00 +0000

There’s perhaps no living person who better embodies the themes, contradictions, ethos, and pathos of “Know Your Enemy” than William Kristol, this week’s guest. Today, Kristol is editor-at-large of The Bulwark, a valuable redoubt of unreconstructed Never-Trumpism, which he helped found in 2018. But before dedicating himself, full-time, to the admirable if quixotic mission of undermining Donald Trump from the center-right — alienating many of his one-time friends in the process — Kristol was best known as an influential practitioner of neoconservatism: a staffer in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations; cofounder (in 1995 and 1997, respectively) of The Weekly Standard and the Project for a New American Century; a prominent champion of the 2003 invasion of Iraq; and faithful son of one of neoconservatism’s First Couples: Irving Kristol and Gertrude Himmelfarb. Kristol was also trained in political philosophy by the Harvard Straussian (and frequent KYE subject) Harvey Mansfield. As such, we had an enormous amount to discuss in a limited amount of time. A few things we covered: What was neoconservatism? How should political theory inform political action? Why didn’t Never-Trump conservatism work? Where did Trumpism come from? Are Straussians to blame for the Iraq War? And, why does Kristol (a longtime proponent of regime change in Iran) oppose Donald Trump’s current war with the Islamic Republic?

Further Listening:

"Harvey Mansfield on Political Philosophy," Conversations with Kristol, Jun 30, 2014

"Know Your Frenemies (w/ Samuel Moyn)," KYE, Aug 10, 2020.

Further Reading:

William Kristol & Robert Kagan, "Toward a Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy," Foreign Affairs, Jul 1, 1996.

William Kristol & David Brooks, "What Ails Conservatism," Wall Street Journal, Sept 15, 1997.

Justin Vaïsse, Neoconservatism: The Biography of a Movement, (2011)

William Kristol and Steven Lenzner, "What was Leo Strauss up to?" National Affairs, Fall 2003.

Anne Norton, Leo Strauss and the Politics of American Empire, (2004)

Sam Adler-Bell, "How the War on Terror Fuels Trump," Jacobin, Aug 13, 2016.

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

James Talarico and the Politics of Progressive Christianity [Teaser]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman , Sam Adler-Bell) — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 10:30:00 +0000

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.

In this episode, we shift our attention from the Trump administration to the winner of the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate in Texas, state legislator and Presbyterian seminarian, James Talarico. Even before prevailing in that contest earlier this month, Talarico had been having something of a moment, appearing on Ezra Klein's podcast, being profiled by the New Yorker, and generating a wave of media coverage, much of it focused on Talarico's Christian faith, his criticisms of the religious right, and what it all might mean for his political prospects in a state that remains stubbornly red. We explore what we like and what we find frustrating about Talarico's attempt to mix religious rhetoric and populism; how he navigates the complexities of speaking the language of a particular religious tradition in an increasingly secular, pluralistic society; Dr. King, the Civil Rights Movement, and prophetic religion; the place of religion on the left, and how it differs from the religious right; Herbert McCabe and socialism; and more.

Sources:

"James Talarico’s Beautiful Answer to Christian Nationalism," Ezra Klein Show, Jan 13, 2026

Matthew Sitman, "Whither the Religious Left?" New Republic, April 15, 2021

— "Against Moral Austerity: On the Need for a Christian Left," Dissent, Summer 2017

— "Finding the Words for Faith: Meet Christian Wiman, America’s Most Important Christian Writer," The Dish, Sept 3, 2014

Bill McCormick, S.J., "Joe Biden Said Now Is The Time To Heal. But What If Americans Don’t Want Reconciliation?" America, Nov 13, 2020

Vincent Lloyd, "Marcuse the Lover," Telos, Winter 2013

Alex Thompson, "Faith-forward Texas Senate Candidate Follows Porn Actors, Escorts on Instagram," Axios, Nov 8, 2025

Tad Friend, "James Talarico Puts His Faith in Texas Voters," New Yorker, Feb 23, 2026

Christian Wiman, My Bright Abyss: Meditations of a Modern Believer (2013)

Joseph Bottum, An Anxious Age: The Post-Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of America (2014)

Trump's War Against Iran (w/ Matt Duss)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman , Matt Duss, Sam Adler-Bell) — Fri, 6 Mar 2026 11:30:00 +0000

On February 28, both the United States and Israel attacked Iran, killing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the nation's Supreme Leader, along with other political leaders and government officials, destroying various military targets, and bombing a girls elementary school that took at least 175 lives, many of them children. Just under a week into the war, where are we? Why did Trump decide to attack Iran now? What reasons did they give, and were any of them plausible? What have the consequences been so far? And what can Democrats do to fight back? To answer these questions, we had on Matt Duss, executive vice president of the Center for International Policy and a former foreign policy adviser to Bernie Sanders. Other topics include: Michael Ledeen and the right's fixation on Iran; Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, and the Iranian hostage crisis, and more.

Sources:

Matthew Duss, "War With Iran Would Be Illegal and Stupid. Democrats Should Care," Foreign Policy, Feb 27, 2026

Zachary Basu, "Trump's Lethal Presidency," Axios, Mar 2, 2026

Mark Mazzetti, Julian E. Barnes, et al, "How Trump Decided to Go to War," New York Times, Mar 2, 2026

Michael Ledeen, The War Against the Terror Masters: Why It Happened. Where We Are Now. How We'll Win (2002)

— The Iranian Time Bomb: The Mullah Zealots' Quest for Destruction (2007)

— Accomplice to Evil: Iran and the War Against the West (2009)

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Standing Athwart History, Yelling "Slop!" (w/ John Ganz) [Teaser]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (John Ganz, sam adler-bell, Matthew Sitman ) — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 11:30:00 +0000

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.

On Monday, Manhattan Institute fellow Chris Rufo posted this: "The Right's collective brain is getting melted in a vat of slop, conspiracy, and algorithm-chasing. An intelligent man will guard himself against all of it." Given that Rufo was, after J.D. Vance, perhaps the most prominent Haitians-are-eating-pets-in-Ohio conspiracy theorist in the country, his complaint generated many, many responses rightfully calling him out for his lack of self-awareness and his own role in mainstreaming such a politics. As our friend John Ganz wrote, "Is this hypocrisy, stupidity, or unabashed malevolence? Try all three: it’s politics. Specifically, it’s the politics of the American Conservative Movement. People cry out for a new William F. Buckley. Give the title to Rufo, I say; he’s doing the job already."

In this episode we talked to Ganz about how the dynamic Rufo identified has always been a feature of the postwar conservative movement, stretching back at least to William F. Buckley, Jr. and Brent Bozell's defense of McCarthyism; what's distinctive about the Right's present slop era, especially the alignment of conservative movement propagandists, the Republican Party, and the state; populism and the "Madisonian model"; and more!

Sources:

John Ganz, "I Told You So..." Unpopular Front, Feb 24, 2026

— "Finding Neverland: The American right’s doomed quest to rid itself of Trumpism," New Republic, Feb 17, 2020

Olivia Bellusci, "Candace Owens Drops Trailer for Investigative Series About Erika Kirk Months After Charlie’s Death," Yahoo, Feb 24, 2026

Matthew Sitman, "Riding the Trump Tiger," Commonweal, Aug 7, 2015

Nathan Taylor Pemberton, "Is ‘Slopulism’ Shaping Our Politics?" New York Times, Feb 13, 2026

Ruby Cramer, "You Don't Know Bernie Sanders," Buzzfeed, Dec 16, 2019.

Walter J. Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word, (1982)

Leaving MAGA Behind (w/ Pedro L. Gonzalez)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Matthew Sitman, Pedro Gonzalez) — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 11:30:00 +0000

When people break with MAGA, most of them walk away and don't look back, whether out of shame or fear or both. So it's a rare thing to talk with someone willing to describe publicly why they joined the Trump movement, what life was like on the inside, and the reasons they left — but it's just such a conversation we have for you today, with writer and former New Right firebrand Pedro L. Gonzalez. Enjoy.

Sources:

Pedro L. Gonzalez, "The Right Lost the Culture War, and America," Contra, Feb 16, 2026

— "Trump Demands the Worst of Us," Contra, Feb 8, 2026

— "Why the New Right Can’t Quit Conspiracy Theories," Contra, Dec 18, 2025

— "Welcome to Hell," Contra, Dec 10, 2025

— "Gen Z’s Flight From Trump," Contra, July 24, 2025

James Burnham, The Machiavellians, (1943)

Sam Francis, Beautiful Losers, (1993)

Michael Anton, "The Flight 93 Election," Claremont Review of Books, Sept 5, 2017.

Matthew Boyle, "Rising Conservative Influencer Pedro Gonzalez Regularly Espoused Racist and Anti-Semitic Sentiments in Private Messages," Breitbart, June 27, 2023

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

'Shattered Glass,' Journalism, & the End of History [Teaser]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman, Sam Adler-Bell) — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 11:30:00 +0000

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.

This episode is about Shattered Glass, the 2003 movie portraying former New Republic writer Stephen Glass's fall from the heights of magazine journalism after he was exposed as a serial fabulist who routinely made up quotes, sources, key details, and more in his stories. We've both loved this movie for years, and thought discussing it would serve as a companion of sorts to our interview with Jason Zengerle about Tucker Carlson—and, of course, as a chance for us to geek out about it. After describing the basics of the plot and introducing the main characters, we explore the history of the New Republic under its then-owner and editor in chief Marty Peretz; its string of young, Harvard educated editors during the Peretz Era, who often had short, turbulent stints in that role; fact-checking and the mythos of objective journalism; the relationship between elite magazine writing and celebrity culture during "the end of history"; and more.

Sources:

Shattered Glass (2003)

Buzz Bissinger, "Shattered Glass," Vanity Fair, Sept 1998

Howard Kurtz, "Stranger Than Fiction: The Cautionary Tale of Magazine Writer Stephen Glass," Washington Post, May 12, 1998

Jonathan Last, "Stopping Stephen Glass," Weekly Standard, Oct 30, 2003

Pete Croatto, "Why ‘Shattered Glass’ Endures," Poynter, Jan 24, 2024

Martin Peretz, The Controversialist: Arguments with Everyone, Left Right and Center (2023)

Benjamin Wallace-Wells, "Peretz in Exile," New York, Dec 23, 2010

John Cook, "Why Won't Anyone Tell You That Marty Peretz Is Gay?" Gawker, Jan 25, 2011

David Klion, "Everybody Hates Marty," The Baffler, Sept 13, 2023

Andrew Sullivan, Virtually Normal: An Argument About Homosexuality (1996)

— "The Tao of Marty," The Weekly Dish, July 21, 2023

Alex Shultz, "Nobody Wants To Talk About John Fetterman And Buzz Bissinger’s Pricey Memoir Project," Defector, June 23, 2025

Tucker Carlson's Phases & Stages (w/ Jason Zengerle)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Jason Zengerle, Matthew Sitman) — Mon, 9 Feb 2026 11:30:00 +0000

Finally, an episode about Tucker Carlson—and at an auspicious time, as his influence on the right seems only to have grown in the first year of Trump's second term. To help us understand him, we turned to journalist Jason Zengerle, who first crossed paths with Tucker in the last, halcyon days of magazine journalism before cable news and the internet, and now has written Hated By All the Right People, a book that tells two intertwined stories: the life of Tucker Carlson, and the changes in the media that he's navigated so deftly (despite some low points along the way). This conversation takes you from his adolescence to his early fame writing for The Weekly Standard and Talk to his recent interview with Nick Fuentes, and all the phases and stages of Tucker's sad trajectory toward anti-semitism and conspiracy-mongering.

Sources:

Jason Zengerle, Hated By All the Right People: Tucker Carlson and the Unraveling of the Conservative Mind (2026)

Andrew Marantz, "The Tucker Carlson Roadshow," New Yorker, Nov 1, 2024

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

On the Ground in Minneapolis (w/ Lydia Polgreen) [Teaser]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Lydia Polgreen, Matthew Sitman) — Mon, 2 Feb 2026 11:30:00 +0000

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.

The shocking execution of Alex Pretti occurred after we recorded our last episode for subscribers about Minneapolis, and so the city and its people have remained in our thoughts in a special way. To help us understand what's happening on the ground there, we talked to our friend Lydia Polgreen, who grew up in Minneapolis and traveled there to report on the situation for the New York Times. Topics include: how Lydia approached her reporting in Minneapolis; the way the resistance and response to ICE/BP has drawn on networks forged during the George Floyd protests; the ordinary Minnesotans acting with bravery and courage; the "civil war" she glimpsed on the streets of Minneapolis; original sin and democracy; and more.

Previous episodes referenced: "The Donroe Doctrine" (Jan 26, 2026); "The Killing of Renee Good" (Jan 19, 2026)

Sources:

Lydia Polgreen, David French, & Michelle Goldberg, "'Noem Needs to Go': Three Columnists on ICE in Minneapolis," New York Times, Jan 26, 2026

Lydia Polgreen, "In Minneapolis, I Glimpsed a Civil War," New York Times, Jan 19, 2026

— "Trump’s One Small Trick to Destroy American Democracy," New York Times, Jan 9, 2026

Garry Wills, The Second Civil War: Arming for Armageddon (1968)

Emily Witt, "The Battle for Minneapolis," The New Yorker, Jan 25, 2026

The Donroe Doctrine (w/ David Adler & Matt Kirkegaard)

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 11:30:00 +0000

Last week, all eyes were on Davos as President Trump unfurled his deranged desire to buy or take Greenland from Denmark—just weeks after the United States kidnapped Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and Trump asserted the so-called "Donroe Doctrine." To help us understand what the Trump administration is doing in the Western hemisphere, we talked to the Progressive International's David Adler and Matt Kirkegaard, who take us from the Monroe Doctrine to what Trump had done both in his first term and in the first year of his second term in Venezuela and other Latin American countries before abducting Maduro. We then try to grasp what the Trump administration is up to with Greenland, all the while trying to offer a better explanation of the forces shaping Trump's foreign policy than the elusive search for a coherent theory of "Trumpism."

Sources:

Patrick Iber, "The Trump Doctrine," Dissent, Jan 5, 2026

Alexandra Stevenson, "Trump Is Making a Power Play in Latin America. China Is Already There," New York Times, Jan 9, 2026

David Adler, Vanessa Romero Rocha, Michael Galant, "The Fourth Transformation: The political economy of Claudia Sheinbaum’s popularity," Phenomenal World, Apr 3, 2025.

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

The Killing of Renee Good [Teaser]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman, Sam Adler-Bell) — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 11:30:00 +0000

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.

Matt and Sam discuss the January 7 killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis by an ICE agent, the promising signs that it is proving deeply unpopular, and the less hopeful indications coming from Trump, Vance, Stephen Miller, and others in the administration and the Republican Party about what it portends.

Sources:

Nancy Cook, "Inside the White House, Stephen Miller is Making His Vision of America Real," Bloomberg, Jan 9, 2026

Peter Hamby, "Support for ICE is Collapsing," Puck, Jan 13, 2026

Greg Sargent & Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, "Transcript: Trump Press Sec Snaps at Media as Polls on ICE Turns Dire," New Republic, Jan 16, 2026

Marilynne Robinson, Mother Country: Britain, the Welfare State, and Nuclear Pollution (1989)

January 6, Five Years Later (w/ Robert Draper)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Robert Draper, Matthew Sitman, Sam Adler-Bell) — Mon, 12 Jan 2026 11:30:00 +0000

For years now on Know Your Enemy, we've taken the January 6, 2021 insurrection as a glimpse of Trumpism unbound—not a few naive Q-anon types and tourists bumbling around, and not an excuse to be blackmailed into voting for Democrats, but a violent prelude to what a second Trump term would be like, a judgment that, sadly, has been entirely vindicated. One reason we've taken this perspective is Robert Draper's exceptionally insightful reporting from the Capitol that day and the days that followed, beginning with being in the Capitol on January 6 and seeing first hand the MAGA mob's unfolding violence, then following figures like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar, Kevin McCarthy, and others who followed Dear Leader's coattails to power (or attention), offering fascinating portraits of the menagerie of conspiracy theorists, liars, and frauds at the center of power in Trump's Washington. We discuss what Draper experienced on January and what he's learned since about the motivations behind, and meaning, of the riot, then ask him about Greene, Nick Fuentes, and Charlie Kirk, all of whom he's profiled in the last year.

Sources:

Robert Draper, Weapons of Mass Delusion: When the Republican Party Lost Its Mind (2022)

— To Start a War: How the Bush Administration Took America into Iraq (2020)

— When the Tea Party Comes to Town: Inside the U.S. House of Representatives' Most Combative, Dysfunctional, and Infuriating Term in Modern History (2012)

— Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush (2007)

— "'I Was Just So Naïve': Inside Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Break With Trump," New York Times Magazine, Dec 29, 2026

— "Once He Was 'Just Asking Questions.' Now Tucker Carlson Is the Question," New York Times Magazine, Nov 15, 2025

— "Nick Fuentes: A White Nationalist Problem for the Right," New York Times Magazine, Sept 9, 2025

— "How Charlie Kirk Became the Youth Whisperer of the American Right," New York Times Magazine, Feb 10, 2025

And please check out the new record from KYE's own Will Epstein, "Yeah, Mostly."

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Great Books and the AI Apocalypse (w/ Matt Dinan) [Teaser]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matt Dinan, Sam Adler-Bell, Matthew Sitman) — Fri, 2 Jan 2026 11:30:00 +0000

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.

We were excited to record and share this conversation with Matt Dinan, a professor who teaches in a Great Books program at St. Thomas University, a liberal arts college in New Brunswick, Canada. It brings together longtime preoccupations of the show — Saul Bellow's late novel, Ravelstein, Allan Bloom, Straussian political philosophy — with the fraught emergence of LLMs like ChatGPT. This past semester, Dinan took a fairly radical approach to confronting AI in the classroom, and it seemed to work. We consider the art of teaching, the qualities of great teachers, and what it all reveals about an insidious technology's effect on how we live and learn as citizens in, at least for now, a democratic republic.

Listen again: "Unraveling Allan Bloom and Saul Bellow," June 21, 2021

Sources:

Saul Bellow, Ravelstein (2000)

Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind (1987)

Matt Dinan, "Saul Bellow's Ravelstein," Hedgehog Review, Spring 2025

— "Permission Structures," Prefaces, Dec 10, 2025

— "It's Not Just a Calculator," Prefaces, Aug 28, 2024

Jorge Luis Borges, "The Lottery in Babylon," Collected Fictions (1999)

Jonathan Malesic, "ChatGPT Is a Gimmick: AI cannot save us from the effort of learning to live and die," Hedgehog Review, May 21, 2025

— "Taming the Demon: How desert monks put work in its place," Commonweal, Feb 2, 2019

UNLOCKED: Trump's Big, Beautiful Ballroom (w/ Kate Wagner)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Kate Wagner, Sam Adler-Bell, Matthew Sitman) — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 11:30:00 +0000

This episode originally aired November 17, 2025 on Patreon — we're unlocking it as a holiday treat.

If there's a Trump-era topic that manages to fascinate without being entirely depressing, it's probably the ongoing arguments about architecture that his ascension has occasioned. Proponents of a RETVRN to the architectural ideals of ancient Greece and Rome are prominent in MAGA circles; partisans of a neo-classical revival populate government commissions, and their prescriptions find expression in various executive orders again. To understand who these people are, what their movement wants, and the kernel of truth in their grievances, we talked to architectural critic and proprietor of McMansion Hell Kate Wagner. We start by analyzing Trump's ballroom and the demolishing the East Wing of the White House — the perfect way into MAGA architecture and the mind of their Beautiful Builder himself, Donald J. Trump.

Sources:

Kate Wagner, "Duncing About Architecture," New Republic, Feb 8, 2020

— "Trump Will Not Make Architecture Great Again," The Nation, Jan 7, 2025

— "The Real Problem With Trump’s Cheesy Neoclassical Building Fetish," Feb 12, 2025

— "what the fuck are we doing anymore," The Late Review, Jan 9, 2025.

— "Wrecking Ballroom," The New York Review of Architecture, Dec 17, 2025.

Charlie Nash, "Trump Admits He Could've Built Ballroom Without Destroying the East Wing, But 'It Looked Like Hell,'" Mediate, Nov 10, 2025

Jonathan Edwards & Dan Diamond, "Trump hires new White House ballroom architect," WaPo, Dec 4, 2025.

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

What We Got Wrong (and Right) about the Right in 2025 [Teaser]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman, Sam Adler-Bell) — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 11:30:00 +0000

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.

As the end of the year approaches, we wanted to look back at another year of trying to understand the American right—what we got wrong, what we got right, and what to expect in 2026. The conversation begins with the cracks showing in Trump's coalition, his plummeting approval ratings, and the possibility that Charlie Kirk really was helping hold the marriage of MAGA and the GOP together, then consider if we should have seen this coming (or not) and what it might say about our understanding of Trump, Vance, Kirk, Musk, and others we've considered on KYE in 2025.

Sources:

Christopher Flavelle, "How Biden Ignored Warnings and Lost Americans’ Faith in Immigration," New York Times, Dec 7, 2025

Bilal Baydoun, "What Musk's DOGE Really Cut: Trust, Safety, and Democracy," Roosevelt Institute, May 29, 2025

Jake Tapper & Alex Thompson, Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again (2025)

"Jill Lepore on Nationalism, Populism, and the State of America," EconTalk, April 15, 2019

Ryan Burge, "Religion Has Become A Luxury Good For The Middle Class, Married College Graduate With Children," ReligionUnplugged, July 12, 2023

Matt Dinan, "Permission Structures: How AI-skeptic Professors Can Still Help Students Write Papers," Prefaces, Dec 10, 2025

One Podcast After Another (w/ Jesse Brenneman)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman, Sam Adler-Bell, Jesse Brenneman) — Mon, 8 Dec 2025 11:30:00 +0000

Given the not-terribly-uplifting streak of episodes we've had lately, we thought it was time for a Know Your Enemy movie night, and were joined by the podcast's intrepid producer, Jesse Brenneman, for a conversation about Paul Thomas Anderson's 2025 film, One Battle After Another. Its tagline—"When their evil enemy resurfaces after 16 years, a group of ex-revolutionaries reunite to rescue the daughter of one of their own"—suggests why all three of us absolutely loved it. We discuss: the film's relationship to the contemporary United States, and what it might reveal about our political situation; how it portrays both the left and the right; the family drama at the heart of the film, and the connection between origin and identity, personally and politically; the way Ronald Reagan haunts a surprising number of its scenes; and more!

Spoiler alert: we offer a quick plot summary for those who haven't (yet!) seen One Battle After Another, but that does mean certain surprises will be spoiled for you.

Sources:

Sam Adler-Bell, "The Fantasy of Assassination Culture," New York Magazine, Nov 1, 2025

Armond White, "There Will Be Bloodlust in One Battle After Another," National Review, Sept 26, 2025

Richard Brody, "The Real Battle of 'One Battle After Another,'" New Yorker, Oct 7, 2025

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

On Friendship (w/ Andy Elrick)

Mon, 1 Dec 2025 11:30:00 +0000

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.

Should you try to improve your friends or leave them be? Do friendship and politics mix? Is friendship about virtue or delight? In 2023, we were interviewed by Andrew Elrick, now a professor at Marist University, for a documentary podcast he was making about men and friendship. (Two of our favorite topics!) That podcast never came to fruition, but Andy was kind enough to share this audio with us, and now we're sharing it with you: a conversation about friendship — Matt and Sam's in particular — politics, and podcasting. Enjoy!

Further Reading:

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, (350 BCE)

Michel de Montaigne , “On Friendship” from The Essays of Michel de Montaigne (1580)

Judith Shklar, “On Political Obligation,” (2019)

Allan Bloom, Love and Friendship (1993)

Michael Oakeshott, “On Being Conservative,” (1956)

Dewey, Democracy and Education (1916)

Andrew Elrick, "Friendship is a Dangerous Thing," Game Stories, Nov 9, 2025.

The Furious Minds of MAGA (w/ Laura Field)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Laura Field, Matthew Sitman, Sam Adler-Bell) — Mon, 24 Nov 2025 11:30:00 +0000

Laura K. Field's Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right, published earlier this month, is a book we simply had to discuss. Listeners to this podcast will recognize its cast of characters—conservative intellectuals like Patrick Deneen, Michael Anton, John Eastman, Adrian Vermeule, and Harry Jaffa, among others—whose ideas and influence Field carefully categorizes and evaluates, bringing order to an unruly decade of intellectual history. Topics include: Leo Strauss and the problem of great teachers; the use and abuse of grand narratives by the right; how the Claremonters went all in on Trump; the permission given by postliberals to some of the nastiest impulses on the right; and more!

Sources:

Laura K. Field, Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right (2025)

— "Revisiting Why Liberalism Failed: A Five-Part Series," Niskanen Center, Dec 21, 2020

Patrick Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed (2018)

— Regime Change: Toward a Postliberal Future (2023)

Matthew Sitman, "Liberalism and the Catholic Left," Commonweal, Dec 3, 2018

Publius Decius Mus/Michael Anton, "The Flight 93 Election," Claremont Review of Books, Sept 5, 2016

Adrian Vermeule, "Integration from Within," American Affairs, Spring 2018

The Editors, "The Fight is Now," The American Mind, Nov 5, 2020

Anemona Hartocollis, "On Campus, Trump Fans Say They Need 'Safe Spaces,'" New York Times, Dec 8, 2016

Further Listening:

KYE: "Rise of the Illiberal Right," July 12, 2019.

KYE: "Midnight in the Garden of American Heroes (On West Coast Straussians)," Feb 11, 2021.

KYE: "Unraveling Allan Bloom and Saul Bellow," June 21, 2021.

KYE: "The Afterlife of January 6," July 19, 2021.

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Trump's Big, Beautiful Ballroom (w/ Kate Wagner) [Teaser]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman) — Mon, 17 Nov 2025 11:30:00 +0000

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.

If there's a Trump-era topic that manages to fascinate without being entirely depressing, it's probably the ongoing arguments about architecture that his ascension has occasioned. Proponents of a RETVRN to the architectural ideals of ancient Greece and Rome are prominent in MAGA circles; partisans of a neo-classical revival populate government commissions, and their prescriptions have found expression in several executive orders. To understand who these people are, what their movement wants, and the kernel of truth in their grievances, we talked to architectural critic and proprietor of McMansion Hell Kate Wagner. We start by analyzing Trump's ballroom and the demolishing the East Wing of the White House — the perfect way into MAGA architecture and the mind of their Beautiful Builder himself, Donald J. Trump.

Sources:

Kate Wagner, "Duncing About Architecture," New Republic, Feb 8, 2020

— "Trump Will Not Make Architecture Great Again," The Nation, Jan 7, 2025

— "The Real Problem With Trump’s Cheesy Neoclassical Building Fetish," Feb 12, 2025

— "what the fuck are we doing anymore," The Late Review, Jan 9, 2025.

Charlie Nash, "Trump Admits He Could've Built Ballroom Without Destroying the East Wing, But 'It Looked Like Hell,'" Mediate, Nov 10, 2025

Zohran, the Jews, and Reckoning with Gaza (w/ Peter Beinart)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Peter Beinart, Matthew Sitman, Sam Adler-Bell) — Tue, 11 Nov 2025 11:30:00 +0000

This episode isn't focused on a single topic or text, but rather just wanting to have a wide-ranging conversation with our guest, Peter Beinart, editor-at-large of Jewish Currents and author of the recent book, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning. We start by discussing the appalling wave of Islamophobic attacks against Zohran Mamdani during the last weeks of his victorious mayoral campaign, the short-sighted embrace of such bigotry by too many American Jews and Jewish institutions, the current iterations of anti-semitism roiling the right, religious tradition and progressive politics, changing your mind, and more.

Listen again: "Elon Musk, the Jews, and the ADL" (w/ Mari Cohen, Alex Kane, & Peter Beinart), Sept 26, 2023

Sources:

Zohran Mamdani, "My Message to Muslim New Yorkers—and Everyone Who Calls This City Home," YouTube, Oct 24, 2025

Peter Beinart, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning (2025)

Mark Mazower, On Antisemitism: A Word in History, (2025)

Arwa Mahdawi, "Mamdani's Mayoral Race was Marred by Unhinged Islamophobia. It's Not Going Away Soon," The Guardian, Nov 6, 2025

Romanus Cessario, O.P., "Non Possumus," First Things, Feb 1, 2018

George Washington, "To the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island," August 18, 1790

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Break Glass in Case of Emergency

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman, Sam Adler-Bell) — Mon, 3 Nov 2025 11:30:00 +0000

This is a different kind of episode than is typical; there's no book, no central text, not even a single, central event that guides the conversation. Instead, we begin with a few recent news items—speculation about Trump 2028, Speaker Mike Johnson's refusal to swear in a Democratic congresswoman, the stunning abdication of Congress as the shutdown continues, and, incredibly, a secretive billionaire and Mellon heir donates over a hundred million dollars to pay the military, among others—and then lay out our profound worries about Trump ruling by decree, and the coming of MAGA-style Caeserism. How and when might that occur? We discuss troubling signals the Trump administration is sending about upcoming elections, and especially the 2026 midterms; the ticking time bomb that is the Insurrection Act; how the right thinks about executive power (then and now), and more.

Sources:

Peter Rothpletz, "Trump's Third Term?" Zeteo/First Draft, Oct 24, 2025

Dana Milbank, "How Reactionary is MAGA? Try the First Century B.C.," Washington Post, Sept 7, 2022

Steve Bannon interview with The Economist, Oct 23, 2025 (YouTube)

Shawn Hubler & Laurel Rosenhall, "Justice Department Will Monitor Elections in California and New Jersey," New York Times, Oct 24, 2025

Steve Contorno & Ashley Killough, "Frustrated Arizonans Have Waited More Than a Month for Their New Congresswoman to be Seated," CNN, Oct 25, 2025

Yoni Applebaum, "America's Fragile Constitution," The Atlantic, Oct 2015

Abraham Lincoln, "Speech to the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield," Jan 27, 1838

Bob Bauer & Jack Goldsmith, "Here’s What Trump Could Unleash by Invoking the Insurrection Act," New York Times, Oct 18, 2025

Damon Linker, "The Surest Path to Dictatorship: A Quick Plug for a Short Primer about the Insurrection Act," Notes from the Middleground, Oct 18, 2025

"Discussing Caesarism," New Founding Podcast, Oct 21, 2022.

Harvey Mansfield, Taming the Prince: The Ambivalence of Modern Executive Power (1989)

James Burnham, Congress and the American Tradition (1959)

Garry Wills, Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State (2010)

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Command + F + Hitler [Teaser]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Matthew Sitman) — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 10:30:00 +0000

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.

The theme of this rank punditry episode is Getting in Trouble on the Internet, and we begin with the frankly unsurprising story of the Young Republican Hitler group chats, then move on to a longer discussion about Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in Maine, Graham Platner, and the revelations about controversial past posts on Reddit about guns and fighting fascism, rural white voters, his ideological allegiances, and more—all recorded before the news of his tattoo, now covered over, of a Nazi skull-and-bones insignia. Along the way we talk about what makes a change of mind and heart persuasive, how grace comes to us in our struggles, if Platner is Fetterman 2.0, and the class dimension of all these debates, and finally close with a relatively hopeful take on the "No Kings" protests last weekend.

Sources:

Jason Beeferman and Emily Ngo, "'I Love Hitler': Leaked Messages Expose Young Republicans' Racist Chat," Politico, Oct 14, 2025

Julianne McShane, “No One in the GOP Hitler Chat Was a ‘Kid’: We checked. Sorry, JD Vance," Mother Jones, Oct 15, 2025

Adam Wren, Erin Doherty & Jessica Piper, "Maine Senate Candidate Promoted Violent Political Action in Since-Deleted Online Posts," Politico, Oct 16, 2025

Lauren McCauley, "Unearthed Reddit Comments Present First Stumble in Platner’s Rise," Maine Morning Star, Oct 17, 2025

Kimberlee Kruesi & Patrick Whittle, "Maine Senate Candidate Platner Says Tattoo Recognized as Nazi Symbol Has Been Covered," Associated Press, Oct 23, 2025

Ben Terris, "The Hidden Struggle of John Fetterman," New York, May 2, 2025

Christian Wiman, My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer (2013)

How Charles Murray (Almost) Predicted the Trump Era

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Matthew Sitman) — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 10:30:00 +0000

This episode is the second in our occasional series on important, controversial, or unusually relevant conservative texts from the recent past. Here we take up Charles Murray's 2012 book, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010. With its focus on the ascendence of a new "cognitive elite," cultural divides, and the pathologies afflicting working and lower class whites, the book might seem prophetic of the Age of Trump — but the reality is more complicated. Murray's oversights, it turns out, are as interesting as his insights. We walk listeners through Murray's account of how America "came apart," take the test he provides to see how thick our class/cultural bubbles are, then rip into the moralizing prescriptions with which he concludes the book. Along the way we discuss Murray as an emblematic success story of the right-wing welfare state and intellectual pipeline, revisit his obsession with race and IQ, and more!

Sources:

Charles Murray, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010 (2012)

— Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950 (2003)

— Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950-1980 (1984)

Jason DeParle, "Daring Research or 'Social Science Pornography'? Charles Murray," New York Times, Oct 9, 1994

Jane Mayer, Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right (2016)

Pew Research Center, "Religious Landscape Study," Feb 26, 2025

Quinn Slobodian & Stuart Schrader, "The White Man, Unburdened," The Baffler, July 2018

"Do you live in a bubble? A quiz." PBS Newshour, Mar 24, 2016.

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

How To Give A Damn [Teaser]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Matthew Sitman) — Mon, 6 Oct 2025 10:30:00 +0000

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.

Before embarking on a spirited bout of rank punditry, we take a step back and talk about the Staple Singers, Hannah Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism, Tocqueville's Democracy in America, Zohran, and giving a damn about both your "fellow man" and democracy. Then, we walk you through the latest catalogue of horrors: Hegseth's lame TED talk in front of the generals, the menacing yet comically inept dimestore Gestapo that is ICE, the shutdown, and more!

Sources:

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835, 1840)

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951)

Jasper Craven, "Battle of the Sexes," The Baffler, Sept 2025

"Deafies for Zohran" (YouTube)

"Things Can Change" (X)

Death, Power, and the Charlie Kirk Memorial (w/ Pat Blanchfield)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Matthew Sitman, Pat Blanchfield) — Mon, 29 Sep 2025 10:30:00 +0000

To try to understand both the power and strangeness of the Charlie Kirk memorial—one part evangelical worship service, one part MAGA rally—we turned, of course, to our friend Pat Blanchfield. All three of us stewed in the event's footage, which runs to over four and a half hours, then convened to discuss it. After laying out for listeners what happened at State Farm Stadium in Arizona just over a week ago, replete with clips, we tried to understand how the event aimed to turn death and grief into power by unpacking its imagery, symbols, references, and, of course, how it might play "out there" among Americans not already plugged into the menagerie of seen subcultures on stage.

Sources:

Charlie Kirk Memorial at State Farm Stadium, Sept 21, 2025 (Fox News on YouTube)

— Transcript of President Donald Trump's speech at Kirk Memorial

— The story behind the hymn, "It is Well with My Soul" (link)

Jack Jenkins, "At Charlie Kirk's memorial, religion, politics and antagonism toward liberals combine," Religion News Service, Sept 22, 2025

Amber Phillips, "3 takeaways from the Charlie Kirk memorial," Wash Post, Sept 22, 2025

Elizabeth Castelli, Martyrdom and Memory: Early Christian Culture Making, (2004)

Gabriel Winant, "On Mourning and Statehood: A Response to Joshua Leifer," Dissent, Oct 13, 2023

...and don't forget to subscribe on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

The Assassination of Charlie Kirk [Teaser]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (sam adler-bell, Matthew Sitman) — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 16:55:48 +0000

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.

The assassination of Turning Points USA founder Charlie Kirk on September 10, 2025, seemed to change the landscape of American politics in an instant, inspiring a startlingly unanimous battlecry of vengeance from the conservative movement, the GOP, and the Trump White House. In this episode, Matt and Sam respond to this ominous moment, analyzing Kirk’s legacy, the politics of martyrdom, and the dangers that lurk ahead.

Two notes: (1) This episode was recorded on Tuesday 9/16, before some of the administration's specific repressive efforts — e.g. the FCC intimidating ABC into suspending late night host Jimmy Kimmel — had taken place. (2) Matt's sound quality is diminished toward the end of episode because of a technical problem with his mic.

The Case for Democracy (w/ Osita Nwanevu)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Matthew Sitman, Osita Nwanevu) — Fri, 12 Sep 2025 10:30:00 +0000

Since the start of the Trump Era over a decade ago, few words have been deployed as often as "democracy": how it's become imperiled, who threatens it, and what to do to defend it. In The Right of the People: Democracy and the Case for a New American Founding, Osita Nwanevu sets out to understand the true meaning of democracy and defend it from its critics, not just on the right but those liberals who doubt the capacity of ordinary voters to determine their country's fate in a complex world. From there, he levels a critique of the Constitution for its myriad democratic deficits, then details what refounding the United States to be genuinely democratic—politically and economically—would require of us.

Listen again: "The Wolfe in the White Suit" (w/ Osita Nwanevu), July 5, 2024

Sources:

Osita Nwanevu, The Right of the People: Democracy and the Case for a New American Founding (2025)

— "Conservatism’s Baton Twirler," New York Review of Books, Sept 25, 2025.

Sheldon Wolin, Fugitive Democracy: And Other Essays (2016)

Michael J. Klarman, The Framers' Coup: The Making of the United States Constitution (2016)

Marilynne Robinson, The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought (1998)

Walter Lippman, Public Opinion (1922)

Publius, Federalist 49 (February 1788)

Matthew Sitman, "Will Be Wild," Dissent, April 18, 2023

...and don't forget to subscribe on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

An Officer and a Spy (w/ John Ganz) [Teaser]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (john ganz, matthew sitman, sam adler-bell) — Fri, 5 Sep 2025 10:30:00 +0000

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.

Roman Polanski's 2019 film about the Dreyfus affair, An Officer and a Spy, only recently made it's U.S. "premier," running for a few weeks in August at Film Forum in New York City. When it originally was released, it couldn't find an American distributor (and likewise was shunned by streaming services), a consequence of the MeToo moment meeting Polanski's criminal past—in 1978 he fled to Europe after being indicted for the rape of a 13 year-old girl in the United States. Polanski's past is particularly relevant for his film about the falsely accused Jewish officer in the French military, to whom, in publicity materials circulated when An Officer and a Spy came out in Europe in 2019, the director explicitly compared himself.

Of course, we couldn't possibly have had on any other guest than John Ganz to help us understand the politics of the Dreyfus affair, both in 1895 and 2025, and what to make of Polanski's cinematic rendering of it. Topics include: Polanski's life and crimes; Hannah Arendt's treatment of the Dreyfus affair in The Origins of Totalitarianism; anti-semitism in 19th and early 20th century France; the way Polanski largely ignores the political convulsions caused by the Dreyfus affair, instead handling it more as a crime procedural, and why he might have done so; and more.

Sources:

John Ganz, "Reading, Watching," Unpopular Front, Aug 10, 2025

— "Gramscians vs Sorelians," Unpopular Front, Jan 23, 2021

— "The Third Republic and Today," Unpopular Front, Jan 27, 2021

— "The Century of Rubbish," Unpopular Front, Feb 2, 2021

— "From Republic to Reaction," Unpopular Front, Feb 4, 2021

David Bell, "An Officer and a Spy," H-France, March 2021

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951)

Frank Meyer, Inventor of Conservatism (w/ Daniel J. Flynn)

Thu, 28 Aug 2025 10:30:00 +0000

Devoted Know Your Enemy listeners will recall that, in November 2021, we released a fairly dense, theory-driven episode on Frank Meyer, the Communist from New Jersey whose exploits on behalf of the Party in the UK got him kicked out of the country and back to the United States, where he eventually turned right and became a key figure in the post-war U.S. conservative movement, both as an editor at National Review and an architect of institutions like the American Conservative Union, Young Americans for Freedom, and the Conservative Party of New York. Of course, we had more to say about Meyer, and we're devoting another episode to him, this time focused on the details of his incredible life, thanks to the publication of an extraordinary new biography of Meyer, Daniel J. Flynn's The Man Who Invented Conservatism: The Unlikely Life of Frank S. Meyer. Flynn discovered a trove of never-before-seen papers of Meyer's that range from personal documents (tax returns, Christmas cards from Joan Didion, his dance card from college) to his correspondence with nearly every conservative writer and intellectual of note in the 1950s and 60s. Armed with these files, Flynn offers a vivid portrait of a brilliant, eccentric political life and mind.

Listen again: "Frank Meyer: Father of Fusionism" (November 10, 2021)

Sources:

Daniel J. Flynn, The Man Who Invented Conservatism: The Unlikely Life of Frank S. Meyer (2025)

Frank S. Meyer, In Defense of Freedom: A Conservative Credo (Regnery, 1962)

F.A. Hayek, "Why I am Not a Conservative," from The Constitution of Liberty: The Definitive Edition (2011)

George H. Nash, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945 (Basic Books, 1976)

Garry Wills, Confessions of a Conservative (Doubleday, 1979)

"Against the Dead Consensus," First Things, March 21, 2019

...and don't forget to subscribe on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

The Christian Right's "Wild Faith" (w/ Talia Lavin) [Unlocked]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Talia Lavin, Matthew Sitman) — Sat, 23 Aug 2025 11:00:00 +0000

This episode was first published in October 2024, and has been un-paywalled following the death this week, on August 21, of Focus on the Family founder and influential figure on the religious right, James Dobson, at age 89. Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to hear more episodes just for subscribers.

In this episode, Matt is joined by journalist Talia Lavin to discuss her book, Wild Faith: How the Christian Right is Taking Over America, one of the most fascinating and unique books published on the Christian right during the Trump-era. Lavin takes her subjects seriously, but not uncritically, and especially focuses on the wrecked and ruined lives left in the wake of conservative evangelicalism's more conspiratorial and authoritarian elements, from the Satanic Panic to James Dobson's parenting manual on how to discipline a "strong-willed child" into compliance. Along the way, they talk about the triumph of QAnon, End Times theology, the importance of the New Apostolic Reformation, and more—all with an eye toward how these religious views and practices help explain conservative evangelicals' overwhelming support for Donald Trump.

Sources:

Talia Lavin, Wild Faith: How the Christian Right Is Taking Over America (2024)

— Culture Warlords: My Journey Into the Dark Web of White Supremacy (2020)

— "The Sword and the Sandwich" (Talia's newsletter)

Listen again:

"The Prayers and Prophecies of Pat Robertson," Know Your Enemy, July 17, 2023

The Minority Voters Moving Right (w/ Daniel Martinez HoSang)

Mon, 18 Aug 2025 10:30:00 +0000

A major topic following Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 presidential election has been his gains with racial and ethnic minorities, a trend that's scrambled many people's assumptions about American politics, not least those of anti-racist liberals. Why have minority voters drifted toward Trump, despite his many comments and campaign pledges that demonize or disparage them? To try to understand this phenomenon, we talked to Daniel Martinez HoSang, who has studied the minorities entering the GOP coalition, not only but especially in the MAGA era, including extraordinarily rich interview with people of color on the right attending Turning Point USA conference, CPAC, Trump rallies, following right wing influencers, and more.

Sources:

Daniel Martinez HoSang, "Inside the Rise of the Multiracial Right," New York Times, July 24, 2025

Daniel Martinez HoSang, Wider Type of Freedom: How Struggles for Racial Justice Liberate Everyone, (2023)

Stuart Hall, Selected Writings on Race and Difference, (2021)

Joseph E. Lowndes & Daniel Martinez HoSang, Producers, Parasites, Patriots: Race and the New Right-Wing Politics of Precarity (2019)

Joseph E. Lowndes, From the New Deal to the New Right: Race and the Southern Origins of Modern Conservatism (2008)

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to all of our bonus episodes!

From Armageddon to Zionism — More Listener Questions [Teaser]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman, Sam Adler-Bell) — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 10:30:00 +0000

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.

Our mailbag runneth over! Unsurprisingly, we received so many excellent questions from subscribers for our most recent episode that we decided to answer even more of them. Once again religion seemed to be on the minds of listeners, and we take up charismatic Christians and the evolution of both the religious right and the Republican Party, as well as the role of Christian Zionism in U.S. policy toward Israel. But that's not all: other topics include leftist theory bros; Roy Cohn, Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, and the politics of sexual blackmail; Gore Vidal at 100, and more.

Sources:

Hal Lindsey, The Late Great Planet Earth (1970)

Daniel G. Hummel, The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism: How the Evangelical Battle over the End Times Shaped a Nation (2023)

Wilson Carey McWilliams, "The Bible in the American Political Tradition," in Redeeming Democracy in America, ed. Patrick Deneen & Susan McWilliams (2011)

The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem, 1932–1940, ed. Gershom Scholem (1992)

Cedric Robinson, Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition, (1938)

Phil Christman, Why Christians Should Be Leftists (2025)

Sam Tanenhaus, Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America (2025)

Nicholas von Hoffman, Citizen Cohn: The Life and Times of Roy Cohn (1988)

Christopher M. Elias, Gossip Men: J. Edgar Hoover, Joe McCarthy, Roy Cohn, and the Politics of Insinuation (2021)

Gore Vidal, United States: Essays 1952-1992 (1993)

Has Trump 2.0 Been a Success So Far? — And Other Questions

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Matthew Sitman) — Mon, 4 Aug 2025 10:30:00 +0000

It's been nearly a year since we asked our subscribers to send us questions for a mailbag episode—which they did, with remarkable thoughtfulness and intelligence, for our 100th episode back in September 2024. A lot has happened since then (to say the least), so we wanted to once again open up the mailbag and find out what was on the minds of Know Your Enemy listeners, who sent too many excellent questions for just one episode—so, if you like what you hear, consider subscribing on Patreon to listen our next bonus episode when we'll answer even more of them.

In this round of listener questions, we take up how much Trump has kept his campaign promises, our favorite bourbons, the politics of Judaism, St. Augustine and original sin, novelists (gay and straight), and more!

Sources and further reading:

Christopher Isherwood, The Berlin Stories (1945)

— A Single Man (1964)

Don Bachardy, Last Drawings of Christopher Isherwood (1990)

Edmund White, City Boy: My Life in New York During the 1960s and '70s (2009)

— A Boy's Own Story (1982)

— The Beautiful Room is Empty (1988)

— The Farewell Symphony (1997)

— The Married Man (2000)

Walker Percy, Love in the Ruins (1971)

— Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book (1983)

Henri du Lubac, Catholicism: Christ and the Common Destiny of Man (1962)

Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation (1949)

— Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (1968)

Sam Adler-Bell, "The Father of All Secrets," The Baffler, Dec 2022.

— "The Essential John le Carré," NYTimes, Jul 12, 2023.

Henry Roth, Call It Sleep, (1930)

Javier Marías, A Heart So White, (1995)

Helen DeWitt, The Last Samurai, (2000)

Percival Everett, Erasure, (2001)

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to all of our bonus episodes!

Trump's Epstein Problem [Teaser]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Matt Sitman) — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 10:00:00 +0000

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.

Over July 4th weekend, the Department of Justice and FBI put out a memo essentially declaring "case closed" on the matter of Jeffrey Epstein, the well-connected sex criminal and pedophile who died (apparently) by suicide in federal custody in 2019. No more files. No more questions. He killed himself and that's that. This was quite the reversal from an administration stacked with figures — like FBI director Kash Patel and his deputy Dan Bongino — who built their celebrity in MAGA circles by ginning up the Epstein conspiracy and demanding his case files be released. In February, Attorney General Pam Bondi had said the the Epstein client list was "sitting on her desk for review." Now the White House says no such list exists. And Trump wants everyone to stop talking about it.

As all this unfolded, a number of listeners wanted the KYE take on the Epstein story—so here it is. We recount some of the most salient details of the case for the uninitiated, then offer our takes on what we think really is going on, and, perhaps more importantly, assess how this might affect Trump's second term: how serious the breach between Trump and the MAGA movement is, the possible consequences of administration officials spinning stories about Hillary's emails (still!) instead of doing their actual jobs, the ongoing attacks on the basic functions of the federal government, Trump's spectacular, open corruption, and, as we all pay attention to the crisis of the day, what sending tens of billions in new funding to ICE will mean for our country.

Sources:

Emily Davies, Perry Stein, Jeremy Roebuck and Kadia Goba, "Trump fumes as Epstein scandal dominates headlines, overshadows agenda," Washington Post, Jul 27, 2025.

Khadeeja Safdar & Joe Palazzolo, "Jeffrey Epstein’s Friends Sent Him Bawdy Letters for a 50th Birthday Album. One Was From Donald Trump," Wall St. Journal, July 17, 2025

Sadie Gurman, Annie Linskey, et al, "Justice Department Told Trump in May That His Name Is Among Many in the Epstein Files," Wall St. Journal, July 23, 2025

Jacob Weindling, "FBI Deputy Director Takes Mental Health Day Over Trump’s Epstein Betrayal," Splinter, July 11, 2025

Lauren-Brooke Eisen, "Budget Bill Massively Increases Funding for Immigration Detention," Brennan Center, July 3, 2025

Julie Turkewitz, "Convicted Murderer Released by Trump From Venezuelan Prison Is Free in U.S." New York Times, July 24, 2025.

Glenn Thrush & Julian E. Barnes, "Gabbard’s Attacks on Obama Put the Attorney General in a Tough Spot," New York Times, July 24, 2025

Miriam Waldvogel, "Rogan Hits Patel Over Epstein Claims: 'Doesn’t Make Any Sense,'" The Hill, July 25, 2025

How Republics End (w/ Mike Duncan) [Unlocked]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman, Mike Duncan) — Fri, 18 Jul 2025 10:30:00 +0000

This episode from January 2025 has been un-paywalled for your summer enjoyment...

A stock rhetorical trope on the right is to invoke ancient Rome when talking about American decline—often making direct comparisons between the Goth invaders and contemporary immigrants, obsessing over homosexuality and Rome's fall, and more. If their understanding of history isn't very serious, what should we make of these appeals? And are there any "lessons" we should learn from Roman history?

There's no better time to take up such matters than while Matt is in Rome, and there was no one better for him to talk with about them than Mike Duncan, the prolific and brilliant history podcaster; he currently hosts the Revolutions podcast and, especially relevant for the purposes of this conversation, hosted the History of Rome podcast from 2007-2012, a project that led him to write The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic (2017). Matt and Mike discuss the use and abuse of history, how "norms" do and do not matter, the relationship between imperialist foreign policy and domestic politics, the perils of vast income inequality, then and now, and more.

Sources:

For quotes from conservatives about Roman decline: Reagan, Nixon, Buchanan, Vance (and Pete Navarro & Michael Anton)

Mike Duncan, The Storm Before the Storm(2017)

— Hero of Two Worlds: The Marquis de Lafayette in the Age of Revolution (2021)

Zohran! (w/ Waleed Shahid) [Teaser]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Waleed Shahid, Matthew Sitman) — Fri, 11 Jul 2025 11:00:00 +0000

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.

We don't do too many New York City-focused episodes on Know Your Enemy, but Zohran Mamdani's decisive win in the Democratic mayoral primary last month certainly warrants this one. The thirty-three year old democratic socialist, state assemblyman, and Muslim of Indian descent born in Uganda, ended up running away with it, defeating the runner-up, former governor and sex pest Andrew Cuomo, by over ten points—and, when all the ballots finally were counted, set a record by receiving the most votes of any candidate for mayor in a Democratic primary in the city's history.

Our format in this episode is a little different. In the first half, your podcast co-hosts lay out the basics of Zohran's victory, from Zohran's biography to the final tallies to our impressions of the candidate and his message. In the second half, we're joined by veteran progressive campaign strategist Waleed Shahid to get more of an insider's take on Zohran's achievement: the campaign's stunningly effective turnout operation, which brought out young voters in droves; how he withstood the disgusting way he was attacked as an anti-semite for his protesting Israel's genocide in Gaza; the substance of his pitch to New Yorkers, and it's contrast with Cuomo's uninspiring, mostly negative campaign; the deranged Islamophobic attacks on Zohran since he became the Democratic nominee, and not only from the right; the role of current NYC comptroller and a progressive, Jewish candidate in the race, Brad Lander, who cross-endorsed Zohran, refused to punch left, and joyfully campaigned with Zohran in the final weeks leading up to the election; and more!

Sources:

Waleed Shahid, "How Broadcast Media Covered Zohran Mamdani's Win," Waleed's Substack, July 3, 2025

Matthew Miles Goodrich, "It's...the Politics of No Translation," Something Different, July 2, 2025

Sam Adler-Bell, "Can DSA Go the Distance?" Dissent, Fall 2022

John Cassidy, "The Case for Zohranomics," The New Yorker, June 30, 2025

David Wallace, "10 Ways of Making Sense of Zohran Mamdani’s Win," New York Times, July 2, 2025.

Nicholas Fandos, Benjamin Oreskes, Emma G. Fitzsimmons, & Jeffery C. Mays, "How Zohran Mamdani Stunned New York and Won the Primary for Mayor," New York Times, July 1, 2025

A Complicated Man: William F. Buckley, Jr. (w/ Sam Tanenhaus)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (sam adler-bell, Sam Tanenhaus, Matthew Sitman) — Fri, 4 Jul 2025 11:00:00 +0000

This episode is one that Matt and Sam have been anticipating for years: after two-and-a-half decades of research and writing, Sam Tanehaus's authoritative biography of William F. Buckley, Jr.—youthful booster of America First, enfant terrible at Yale, CIA agent, founder of National Review, best-selling author, brilliant television host, and more—has blessedly arrived. Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America stretches to just under 900 pages of text, before you get to the endnotes and index, an appropriately epic biography of an overstuffed, consequential life, containing far more than could be covered in a single episode. This conversation focuses on the challenges of writing a biography of a man whose archives rivaled those found in presidential libraries; Tanenhaus's discovery of a newspaper the Buckley's owned in South Carolina that essentially was a mouthpiece for the White Citizens' Council, and the Southern roots of Buckley's "northern segregationist" politics; the influence of his oilman father, who fled the revolution in Mexico and instilled anti-communist politics, as well as the Catholic faith, in his children; Buckley's role in forging the post-war conservative movement, through National Review and his frenetic endeavors as a columnist and speaker; the controversies, disappointments, failures, and triumphs of his decades-long career; and more.

Sources:

Sam Tanenhaus, Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America (2025)

— Whittaker Chambers: A Biography (1997)

John Judis, William F. Buckley, Jr.: Patron Saint of the Conservatives (1988)

Sam Adler-Bell, "A Practical Fanatic," The Idea Letters, June 26, 2025

Alexander Chee, "Mr. and Mrs. B.," Longreads, June 18, 2025

Christopher Owen, Heaven Can Indeed Fall: The Life of Willmoore Kendall, (2022)

Listen again to these Know Your Enemy episodes for background on:

Brent Bozell: "Keeping up with the Bozells," Feb 26, 2021

Willmoore Kendall: "The Long Farewell to Majority Rule? (w/ Joshua Tait)," May 17, 2021

Frank Meyer: "Frank Meyer, the Father of Fusionism," Nov 10, 2021

Joan Didion: "Joan Didion, Conservative (w/ Sam Tanenhaus)," Jan 13, 2022

William F. Buckley, Jr.: "Buckley for Mayor (w/ Sam Tanenhaus)," Aug 23, 2021

— "The Conservative and the Convict (w/ Sarah Weinman)," May 9, 2022

— "Consider the Cranks (w/ David Austin Walsh)," May 21, 2024

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

MAGA's War Over the War with Iran (w/ Curt Mills) [Teaser]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Curt Mills, Matt Sitman) — Fri, 27 Jun 2025 11:00:00 +0000

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.

Donald Trump's rise in U.S. politics over the past decade has been inextricable from his "America First" foreign policy and withering criticisms of the Iraq War, nation building, and both the neoconservatism that led the Republican Party to disaster during George W. Bush's presidency and the Washington establishment that still thought America could police the world. Trump's message of a restrained foreign policy and pledge to avoid getting dragged into forever wars especially seemed to resonate as he ran to take back the presidency in 2024—there was no end in sight to the war between Ukraine and Russia, and Israel was committing genocide in Gaza as Bibi Netanyahu walked all over an exhausted, only occasionally lucid Biden.

But less than half a year into President Trump's second term and the failure negotiations with Iran, Israel bombed that country's nuclear facilities and assassinated their negotiators and nuclear scientists—and just over a week later, so did Trump when he ordered the dropping of massive "bunker buster" bombs to try to destroy the nuclear facilities Israel could not.

In this episode, we once again talk to executive editor of The American Conservative, Curt Mills, a leading voice of the restraint and realism wing on the right, to try to understand the war within MAGA set off by the "Twelve Day War" with Iran. Why did Trump bomb Iran? Who was he listening to, or not, as he made that decision? How did the various factions within the MAGA movement respond, and what is the state of play currently in Trump World? What was Israel's role in all this? And how much longer will Trump tolerate Netanyahu's constant efforts to get the American military to fight in Israel's wars? We take up these questions, and more.

Sources:

Ian Ward, "The MAGA Split Over Israel," Politico, June 13, 2025

Joe Gould, et al, "MAGA Largely Falls in Line on Trump’s Iran Strikes," Politico, June 21, 2025

Katy Balls, "Trump is Taking Fire Over 'Forever Wars,' but MAGA’s Real Battle Awaits," The Times of London, June 22, 2025

Jude Russo, "What Next?" The American Conservative, June 24, 2025

Sohrab Ahmari, "Did Iran win the 12-day war?" Unherd, June 25, 2025

Immigration Showdown in LA (w/ E. Tammy Kim) [TEASER]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, E. Tammy Kim) — Mon, 23 Jun 2025 18:01:04 +0000

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.

Journalist Tammy Kim joins the pod to talk about the anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles — and the raids that precipitated them.

Further Reading:

E Tammy Kim, "Immigration Protests Threaten to Boil Over in Los Angeles," The New Yorker, June 9, 2025.

— "Inside the Activist Groups Resisting ICE," The New Yorker, Jun 13, 2025.

Reagan, the Movie (w/ Jesse Brenneman) [UNLOCKED]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Jesse Brenneman, Matt Sitman) — Thu, 12 Jun 2025 10:30:00 +0000

As the world falls apart — and we prep for our Buckley mega-episode with Sam Tanenhaus — we're unlocking this fun episode from late last year. Subscribe at Patreon.com/knowyourenemy to never miss an episode like this one. And please listen to Jesse's insane, hilarious, freakishly prescient (and fake) podcast Tech Talk.

A palette cleanser for subscribers: we watched Reagan (2024), with our intrepid producer, Jesse Brenneman. Even better, the movie is based on the 2006 book, The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism, by Paul Kengor — who just happens to have been Matt's close mentor as an undergraduate student. Reagan clocks in at over two hours and twenty minutes, and it's a wild, even fantastical ride that offers a revealing glimpse into the conservative psyche and a faithful rendition of the most hagiographic version of the Reagan mythology, especially his personal responsibility for ending the Cold War and finally putting the Soviet Union on the ash heap of history.

Sources:

Reagan (2024)

Paul Kengor, The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism(2006)

— God and Ronald Reagan: A Spiritual Life(2004)

— A Pope and a President: John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, and the Extraordinary Untold Story of the 20th Century(2017)

Edmund Morris, Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan (1999)

Joe Biden's Betrayal [TEASER]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (sam adler-bell, matthew sitman) — Sat, 7 Jun 2025 11:00:00 +0000

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.

If you pay any attention at all to political news, it's been hard to avoid Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson's recent bombshell of a book, Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, which offers behind-the-scenes reporting from the White House, halls of Congress, the campaign trail, and beyond about Joe Biden's health, mental and physical, and the efforts to conceal just how bad it had gotten from his Cabinet, Congress, and, most damningly, the American people. Much of the coverage of the book has focused on a handful of sensational examples—Biden supposedly not recognizing George Clooney at a fundraiser, or forgetting the names of staffers who'd worked for him for decades—but that's unfortunate. What's most shocking is the book's cumulative force, the sheer number of details that make it undoubtedly clear Biden was not fit to run again in 2024, or, for that matter, be President. As you won't be surprised to learn, Matt eagerly read Original Sin, and he and Sam discuss what the take-aways from the book should really be, what it says about the state of the Democratic Party, what it reveals about the media, and more.

Jake Tapper & Alex Thompson, Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again (2025)

Matthew Sitman, "The 'Weekend at Bernie's' Primary," Commonweal, Mar 3, 2020

Sam Adler-Bell, "The Tragic Legacy of the Mourner-in-Chief," New York Magazine, Jan 14, 2025

Edmund White, City Boy: My Life in New York During the 1960s & 70s (2009)

— My Lives: A Memoir (2005)

— A Boy's Own Story (1982)

— The Beautiful Room is Empty (1988)

— The Farewell Symphony (1997)

— Nocturnes for the King of Naples (1978)

Christopher Caldwell's Case Against Civil Rights

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (matthew sitman, sam adler-bell) — Mon, 2 Jun 2025 10:45:00 +0000

Attentive listeners will notice that this episode is about a book but isn't an author interview. That's because it's the first in a new occasional series of episodes that will be dedicated to books by conservative writers that we think are important — whether because a book articulates the right's approach to an issue or problem in an especially revealing way, influenced or galvanized the conservative movement when it was published, or, with the benefit of hindsight, has proven to be prescient about where the right, and perhaps the country, were heading. Many of these books will be from decades past, but our first selection is more recent: Christopher Caldwell's 2020 broadside against the 1964 Civil Rights Act and what it wrought, The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties. Caldwell argues that the apparatus created by civil rights legislation and the federal courts in the 1960s amounted to a new, second constitution that displaced the one Americans had lived under since the founding, one that jettisoned traditional liberties like freedom of association and replaced democratic self-government with rule by bureaucrats, lawyers, and judges.

Who has access to these new levers of power? Not the working class whites who are neither a favored racial or ethnic minority — a person of color — nor a member of the progressive elites who preside over the new regime. Much of The Age of Entitlement is dedicated to tracing the effects of civil rights legislation when it comes to the causes that arose in its wake: feminism, immigrant rights, gay marriage, and more. But the book is equally a brutal examination of the legacy of the Baby Boom generation (and, by extension, Ronald Reagan, whose presidency they powered), that most "entitled" of generations, whom Caldwell deplores for wanting to have their cake and eat it, too. Boomers, in Caldwell's telling, refused to straightforwardly reject the second constitution and its distributional demands, while also insisting petulantly, again and again, on having their taxes cut. We explore these topics and more, and end with a discussion of where Caldwell leaves the reader — and where we're at now, in light of the challenge he poses to both conservatives and the left.

Sources:

Christopher Caldwell, The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties (2020)

— Reflections on the Revolution In Europe: Immigration, Islam and the West (2009)

Helen Andrews, "The Law That Ate the Constitution," Claremont Review of Books, Winter 2020

Timothy Crimmins, "America Since the Sixties: A History without Heroes," American Affairs, Summer 2020

Perry Anderson, "Portents of Eurabia," The National, Aug 27, 2009.

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Trump as Messianic Prophet (w/ Manvir Singh) [TEASER]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Manvir Singh) — Thu, 22 May 2025 21:44:33 +0000

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.

In a recent New Yorker essay, our guest, UC Davis anthropologist Manvir Singh, argues, "The Trumpian mystique echoes a dynamic that has occurred for centuries and across cultures. Its core ingredients—an alleged league of pedophiles, a godlike miracle worker, promises of an Edenic restoration—resemble archetypes that have long occupied humanity’s imagination. Trump’s followers may communicate through memes and message boards, but their faith belongs to a much older mythology: the eternal face-off between shaman and witch, prophet and cabal."

In this conversation, Manvir, the author of a new book on "Shamanism," compellingly demonstrates how the MAGA movement — especially in its QAnon-inflected guises — manifests archetypal features of the messianic cult, analogues for which can be found across cultures and historical epochs. On KYE, we haven't often indulged in this sort of critique, for (justifiable) fear of eliding the very specific political conditions that gave rise to Trumpism, but for today: we're going for it! And Manvir was an ideal (and suitably careful) guide to this methodology and way of thinking about our political conjecture.

Further Reading:

Manvir Singh, "The President Who Became a Prophet," The New Yorker, May 17, 2025.

— "How Much Does Our Language Shape Our Thinking?" The New Yorker, Dec 23, 2025.

— "Don’t Believe What They’re Telling You About Misinformation," The New Yorker, April 15, 2024.

— Shamanism: The Timeless Religion, (May 2025)

Did Podcasters Make Trump President? (w/ Andrew Marantz)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Andrew Marantz, Sam Adler-Bell, Matthew Sitman) — Thu, 15 May 2025 10:58:37 +0000

Among the many factors credited for Donald Trump's victory over Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential race was one that, naturally, the hosts of Know Your Enemy took an interest in: podcasts. More specifically, "bro" podcasts—think Joe Rogan or Theo Von—seemed to be one reason why Trump continued, as he did in 2016 and 2020, to perform so well with male voters, especially gaining ground with younger, Black, and Latino men. An episode of one of these podcasts might stretch to three hours long or more, and typically features meandering, casual conversations that put a premium on apparent authenticity, as well as a knack for hanging with the boys. Trump and other Republican candidates and figures on the right (such as Elon Musk, a regular on Rogan's show) made appearing on these podcasts part of their campaign strategy, which allowed them to reach men who tend not to "follow politics" or even vote in every election.

To try to understand what's happening with bros, podcasts, Trump, and beyond, there was no better guest than New Yorker staff writer Andrew Marantz, author of an early—and quite perceptive—piece on KYE and, more importantly for this conversation, a recent investigation into the world of bro podcasts and streamers, and what they might mean for both the left and the right at the start of Trump's second term.

Sources:

Andrew Marantz, "The Battle for the Bros," The New Yorker, Mar 17, 2025

— "Is the U.S. Becoming and Autocracy," The New Yorker, April 28, 2025

-- "Why We Can’t Stop Arguing About Whether Trump Is a Fascist," The New Yorker, March 27, 2024

— "The Post-Dirtbag Left," The New Yorker, July 26, 2021

Jonathan Allen & Amie Parnes, "The inside story of Harris' lost gamble on Joe Rogan, Beyoncé and a late Texas rally," NBC News, Jan 29, 2025

Jack Crosbie, "Hasan Piker: A Progressive Mind in a MAGA Body," New York Times, April 27, 2025

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Conclave (2024) (w/ Brandon Taylor) [TEASER]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Matthew Sitman, Brandon Taylor) — Thu, 8 May 2025 11:00:00 +0000

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.

With the papal conclave convening in Rome to pick Pope Francis's successor, Matt and Sam are joined by novelist Brandon Taylor to discuss the 2024 film Conclave, directed by Edward Berger and starring Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, and Isabella Rossellini. The film, as you might guess, depicts the shabby and conspiratorial inner-workings of a (fictional) College of Cardinals as they go about picking a new pope. Fun movie! Great chat!

Furthering Reading:

Brandon Taylor, Real Life, (2020)

— Filthy Animals, (2021)

— The Late Americans, (2023)

— "Is it even good? Two Years with Zola," LRB, April 4, 2024.

Ben Munster, "Cardinals are watching ‘Conclave’ the movie for guidance on the actual conclave," Politico, May 6, 2025.

Dan Walden, "Gender, Sex, and other Nonsense," Commonweal, March 1, 2021.

The Life & Crimes of Roy Cohn (w/ In Bed with the Right)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman, Moira Donegan, Adrian Daub) — Fri, 2 May 2025 10:30:00 +0000

Recently Matt joined Moira Donegan and Adrian Daub of the excellent In Bed with the Right podcast to record what turned out to be two episodes about Roy Cohn—the "lawyer, closet case and ratfucker extraordinaire," as they describe him. These days Cohn is perhaps most infamous for being Donald Trump's lawyer and mentor, but this first episode focuses on Cohn's childhood and family life, his decisive role in the Rosenberg trial (especially their execution), and his time working with Sen. Joe McCarthy at the height of the Red Scare. After you listen, please head over to In Bed with the Right to check out the second episode on Cohn and hear the rest of his story.

Sources:

Nicholas von Hoffman, Citizen Cohn: The Life and Times of Roy Cohn (1988)

Christopher M. Elias, Gossip Men: J. Edgar Hoover, Joe McCarthy, Roy Cohn, and the Politics of Insinuation (2021)

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet (1990)

Ivy Meeropol (dir.), Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn (2019)

Matt Tyrnauer (dir.), Where's My Roy Cohn? (2019)

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

The Meaning of Pope Francis

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matt Sitman, Sam Adler-Bell) — Fri, 25 Apr 2025 11:00:00 +0000

The passing of Pope Francis on April 21, 2025 marked not just the end of a papacy but the end of an era in global politics. The moment in which Francis spoke before Congress a decade ago and identified Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, and Martin Luther King as models of Christian moral witness feels like another universe — far from the cruel, cramped, suspicious, and selfish world we are living in. What was the Francis era? Where did he come from, and how did he become pope? And what are we losing — besides a pretty good pope — with his passing from the mortal realm? Matt and Sam discuss the passing of Pope Francis and what his papacy meant (to us and to the world), why he scandalized the Catholic right, and why his message feels so necessary and yet so far away.

Further Reading:

Vinson Cunningham, "Many and One," Commonweal, Dec 14, 2020.

Dorothy Fortenberry, "The climate apocalypse is also a religious crisis," Vox, April 12, 2023.

Abeer Salman and Oren Liebermann, "The pope called them every night until his final hours. Now, Gaza’s Christians cling to the hope he left behind," CNN, April 23, 2025.

Matthew Sitman, "No, Pope Francis is Nothing Like Donald Trump," Commonweal, Feb. 26, 2016.

— "Pope Francis and Civil Unions: We Need Clarity, Not a Media Blackout," Commonweal, Oct. 27, 2020.

Pope Francis, Laudato si’ (“On Care for Our Common Home”), May 2015.

Pope Francis, Fratelli Tutti, Oct. 3, 2020.

Ross Douthat, "Francis and the End of the Imperial Papacy," New York Times, April 21, 2025.

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

The Madness of Trump’s Tariffs (w/ John Ganz) [TEASER]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Matt Sitman, John Ganz) — Tue, 15 Apr 2025 15:16:36 +0000

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy

Speaking in the Rose Garden on April 2, or as he called it, "Liberation Day," President Trump unveiled his plans to impose a new minimum tariff on nearly every country in the world, along with country-specific "reciprocal" tariffs for those nations Trump deemed to be engaging in unfair trade practices. He called it "one of the most important days in American history" and claimed it was "our declaration of economic independence." But rather than liberation, Trump's tariffs have unleashed chaos in the stock market and thrown the role of the United States in the world economy into doubt, not least because of the administration's ever shifting justifications for their actions and the constantly changing details of the tariffs themselves. To make sense of the ongoing fallout, we yet again turn to our friend John Ganz — who just finished reading and reviewing Trump's first three books for The Nation — to understand the deeper motivations (if they can be found) behind Trump's trade war. It's a good conversation, ranging from the bond markets to the bizarre psycho-sexual fantasies about tariffs on the right to "mimetic" competition with China, and beyond!

Sources:

John Ganz, "Dog Eat Dog: The Books of Donald Trump," The Nation, April 7, 2025

— "Apocalypse Delayed? What Happened in the Bond Markets and What's Next," Unpopular Front, April 10, 2025

Paul Blumenthal, "Trump's Rationales for His Tariffs Are Incoherent and Contradict Each Other," Huffington Post, April 7, 2025

UNLOCKED: How the Pandemic Changed Everything (w/ David Wallace-Wells)

Tue, 8 Apr 2025 10:00:00 +0000

In response to several requests from our (wonderful) Patreon subscribers, we're unlocking this episode from behind the paywall. Consider subscribing at Patreon.com/KnowYourEnemy to never miss an episode.

March 2025 marked five years since the formal start of the pandemic in the United States, when the federal government declared the arrival and spread of the novel coronavirus to be a national emergency. The official Covid death toll in the United States now stands at over 1.2 million; globally it surpasses 20 million people. Tens of millions of others were hospitalized, and many who survived infection are facing long Covid or related health complications. Our lives were upended, whether by sheltering-in-place, working from home, and barely leaving our home or apartment, or, for others, by endangering themselves by continuing to show up to work in hospitals, making deliveries, or staffing essential businesses. And yet, as David Wallace-Wells recently argued in the New York Times, "We tell ourselves we’ve moved on and hardly talk about the disease or all the people who died or the way the trauma and tumult have transformed us. But Covid changed everything around us."

We wanted to have a conversation with David about that reality: why, collectively, we resist acknowledging what Covid really cost us, and the ways it continues to shape our lives. The discussion begins by revisiting the first weeks and months of the pandemic, the fear we felt, and the remarkable displays of solidarity that occurred in blue states as well as red states. From there we explore the different "phases" of the pandemic, how public-health measures became culture-war fodder, the impact of the vaccine on how both the public and elected officials perceived the risks of Covid, the pandemic's profound influence on our politics, the fallout from school closures, the Lab Leak Theory, and more.

Listen again: "How to Survive a Pandemic" (w/ Peter Staley), Feb 21, 2021

Sources:

David Wallace-Wells, "How Covid Remade America," New York Times, Mar 4, 2025

— "The Covid Alarmists Were Closer to the Truth Than Anyone Else," New York Times, Feb 26, 2025

— "We’ve Been Talking About the Lab-Leak Hypothesis All Wrong," New York Times, Feb 28, 2023

— "Dr. Fauci Looks Back: ‘Something Clearly Went Wrong'," New York Times, April 24, 2023

David Wallace-Wells, The Uninhabitable Earth (2019)

Nicholson Baker, "The Lab-Leak Hypothesis," New York Magazine, Jan 4, 2021

Zeynep Tufekci, "We Were Badly Misled About the Event That Changed Our Lives," NYTimes, Mar 16, 2025.

Sam Adler-Bell, "Doctor Do-Little: The Case Against Anthony Fauci," The Drift, Jan 24, 2021

— "David Leonhardt: The Pandemic Interpreter," NYMag, Feb 24, 2022.

Jacqueline Rose, "To Die One’s Own Death," LRB, Nov 19, 2020.

How the Pandemic Changed Everything (w/ David Wallace-Wells) [TEASER]

Mon, 31 Mar 2025 11:00:00 +0000

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy

This month marked five years since the formal start of the pandemic in the United States in March 2020, when the federal government declared the arrival and spread of the novel coronavirus to be a national emergency. The official Covid death toll in the United States now stands at over 1.2 million; globally it surpasses 20 million people. Tens of millions of others were hospitalized, and many who survived infection are facing long Covid or related health complications. Our lives were upended, whether by sheltering-in-place, working from home, and barely leaving our home or apartment, or, for others, by endangering themselves by continuing to show up to work in hospitals, making deliveries, or staffing essential businesses. And yet, as David Wallace-Wells recently argued in the New York Times, "We tell ourselves we’ve moved on and hardly talk about the disease or all the people who died or the way the trauma and tumult have transformed us. But Covid changed everything around us."

Listen again: "How to Survive a Pandemic" (w/ Peter Staley), Feb 21, 2021

Sources:

David Wallace-Wells, "How Covid Remade America," New York Times, Mar 4, 2025

— "The Covid Alarmists Were Closer to the Truth Than Anyone Else," New York Times, Feb 26, 2025

— "We’ve Been Talking About the Lab-Leak Hypothesis All Wrong," New York Times, Feb 28, 2023

— "Dr. Fauci Looks Back: ‘Something Clearly Went Wrong'," New York Times, April 24, 2023

David Wallace-Wells, The Uninhabitable Earth (2019)

Nicholson Baker, "The Lab-Leak Hypothesis," New York Magazine, Jan 4, 2021

Zeynep Tufekci, "We Were Badly Misled About the Event That Changed Our Lives," NYTimes, Mar 16, 2025.

Sam Adler-Bell, "Doctor Do-Little: The Case Against Anthony Fauci," The Drift, Jan 24, 2021

— "David Leonhardt: The Pandemic Interpreter," NYMag, Feb 24, 2022.

Jacqueline Rose, "To Die One’s Own Death," LRB, Nov 19, 2020.

Becoming Elon Musk, Part Two

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (sam adler-bell, Matthew Sitman) — Tue, 25 Mar 2025 14:22:46 +0000

If there's ever been a Know Your Enemy subject worthy of two episodes, it is Elon Musk—currently the world's richest man, CEO and leader of several pathbreaking companies, ringleader of the Department of Government Efficiency, and (for now) Donald Trump's co-president. In other words, to understand what's happening in the United States during the second Trump administration, it's essential to understand Musk: what shaped him, his enduring preoccupations and personality traits, how he made his vast fortune, and why, in unprecedented ways, he decided to go all in on Trump.

In this second of two episodes on Musk, Matt and Sam bring his story up to the present. After offering a few concluding details on Musk's various romantic and familial entanglements, they chart the course of his political derangement, especially focusing on his seeming addiction to Twitter—the social media platform he eventually bought and renamed "X," which also is the name he gave one of his young sons. Musk's purchase of Twitter is treated as a case study in how the billionaire now tends to operate, from his penchant for making wild claims and impulsive decisions, to the way he manages people, tasks, and money. The discussion concludes with a theory of why Trump made such a show of buying a Tesla at the White House, and how to understand what Musk is up to with his erratic, ignorant work at DOGE, with plenty of eyebrow-raising details along the way.

As mentioned: Join Matt and Sam and Jamelle Bouie at Dissent magazine’s fundraiser on April 8 in New York!

Listen again: "Becoming Elon Musk, Part One"

Sources:

Kate Conger & Ryan Mac, Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter (2024)

Walter Isaacson, Elon Musk (2023)

Ashlee Vance, Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future (2015)

Ella Yurman, "Vivian Jenna Wilson on Being Elon Musk’s Estranged Daughter, Protecting Trans Youth and Taking on the Right Online," Mar 20, 2025

Kylie Cheung, "World’s Richest Man Allegedly Refuses to Pay Appropriate Child Support," Jezebel, Mar 21, 2025

Faiz Siddiqui, "Elon Musk is worth $270 billion. He’d buy Twitter with an IOU," WaPo, April 22, 2022

Theodore Schleifer & Maggie Haberman "Elon Musk Seeks to Put $100 Million Into Trump Political Operation," NYTimes, Mar 11, 20225.

Eric Lipton, "Musk Is Positioned to Profit Off Billions in New Government Contracts," NYTimes, Mar 23, 2025.

Jessie Blaeser, "DOGE shared its receipts — and some of them don’t match," Politico, Feb 22, 2025.

Hadas Gold, "Trump says he’ll buy a Tesla to support Elon Musk, whose companies are struggling," CNN, Mar 11, 2025.

Sam Adler-Bell, "Capital without Borders," Commonweal, Feb 8, 2017.

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to access to all of our bonus episodes!

Becoming Elon Musk, Part One

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (sam adler-bell, Matthew Sitman) — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 10:30:00 +0000

To explore the life and times of Musk, Matt and Sam read several biographies, along with the best reporting on him and his activities (especially of late). In this first episode, they offer a close reading of Musk's childhood in South Africa and the people, and traumas, that shaped him; his discovery of science fiction and teenage fixations on computers, video games, and space exploration; his escape to Canada to attend college and eventual arrival in the United States; and his early years in Silicon Valley and the businesses that first made him very rich.

As mentioned: Join Matt and Sam and Jamelle Bouie at Dissent magazine’s fundraiser on April 8 in New York!

Sources:

Kate Conger & Ryan Mac, Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter (2024)

Walter Isaacson, Elon Musk (2023)

Ashlee Vance, Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future (2015)

Joshua Benton, "Musk’s Anti-Semitic, Apartheid-Loving Grandfather," The Atlantic, Sept 30, 2023

Henry Farrell, "Silicon Valley’s Reading List Reveals Its Political Ambitions," Bloomberg, Feb 21, 2025

Tony Tulathimutte, Rejection (2024)

Kase Wickhman, "Elon Musk Has Yet Another Child, According to the Mother of That Baby," Vanity Fair, Feb 18, 2025

Favour Adegoke, "Elon Musk's Trans Daughter Rips Dad For Allegedly Using Sex-Selective IVF For Her: 'I Was Going Against The Product'," Yahoo News, March 11, 2024

Jesse's podcast: Tech Talk.

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to access to all of our bonus episodes!

"Exit From Within" (August 2022)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matt Sitman, Sam Adler-Bell) — Wed, 5 Mar 2025 13:00:00 +0000

Here's something a little creepy. In a bonus episode from August 2022, Matt and Sam were discussing Sam's profile of Arizona Senate hopeful and Peter Thiel-protégé Blake Masters when we found ourselves imagining how a future union of MAGA nationalism and Silicon Valley libertarianism might try to run the government. A listener flagged it for us, noting that the description — which we call "exit from within" — sounds remarkably similar to what we are now experiencing with Trump, Musk, DOGE, and the tech right. We had totally forgotten about this, and thought the rest of you might like to hear it. We'll be back to our regular programming, with the Elon Musk episode, next week.

The full episode, "Masters of War," is on Patreon.

Readings:

Sam Adler-Bell, "The Violent Fantasies of Blake Masters," NYTimes, Aug 3, 2022.

Albert O. Hirschman, "Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States," (1970)

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to all of our premium episodes!

How Bad Is It? [TEASER]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (sam adler-bell, Matthew Sitman) — Mon, 24 Feb 2025 12:00:00 +0000

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy

Just over a month into Trump's second term, Matt and Sam offer their thoughts on where we're at—and, to be blunt, the assessment is fairly depressing. They take stock of the troubling truth that Pete Hegseth's confirmation reveals about Trump's hold over the Republican Party, new FBI director Kash Patel's conspiratorial children's books, the state of the conservative legal movement, the right's relatively recent embrace of unbounded executive power, what the Democrats can do to fight back, and more.

Sources:

Pope Francis, "Letter of the Holy Father Francis to the Bishops of the United States of America," Feb 10, 2025

Jonathan Swan & Maggie Haberman, "Power, Intimidation and the Resurrection of Trump’s Support for Hegseth," New York Times, Dec 12, 2024

Gabriel Sherman, "'They’re Scared Shitless': The Threat of Political Violence Informing Trump’s Grip on Congress," Vanity Fair, Feb 19, 2025

Jude Joffe-Block, et al, "How Kash Patel has Used Children's Books and Podcasts to Promote Conspiracy Theories," NPR, Dec 10, 2024

Heidi Przybyla, "Leonard Leo Used Federalist Society Contact to Obtain $1.6B Donation," Politico, May 2, 2023

James Burnham, Congress and the American Tradition(1959)

Pay Attention! (w/ Chris Hayes)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Chris Hayes, Matthew Sitman, Sam Adler-Bell) — Tue, 18 Feb 2025 16:29:01 +0000

We're all anxious, and none of us can pay attention. We don't read long books anymore; our kids don't read at all. When we watch TV, we scroll at the same time. And we absolutely cannot be alone with ourselves. These are the symptoms of a modern malaise that is everywhere diagnosed but rarely treated with the dire seriousness it deserves: an epochal sickness that is fundamentally changing the way we relate to each other and to our own minds. What would it take to reclaim control?

Chris Hayes — journalist, author, and host of MSNBC's All In — joins to discuss his new book The Sirens' Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource. Together, Chris and the boys theorize how attention replaced information as the defining commodity of modern life. Along the way, we discuss our own struggles with social media addiction, prayer as an ancient technology for organizing attention, the evolutionary origins of attention-seeking, Donald Trump as the "public figure par excellence" of the attention age, and how to fight back against the corporate takeover of our minds. Toward the end, Chris explains how he's navigating hosting his cable show amid another bewildering Trump era, which seems designed to divide and fragment our attention.

Further Reading:

Chris Hayes, The Sirens' Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource, (2025)

Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace, (1952)

Adam Phillips, Attention Seeking, (2022)

Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, (1844)

Kyle Chayka, FIlterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture, (2024)

Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, (2019)

Daniel Immerwahr, "What if the Attention Crisis Is All a Distraction?" The New Yorker, Jan 20, 2025.

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to all of our premium episodes!

MAGA x DOGE, So Far (w/ John Ganz) [TEASER]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (John Ganz, sam adler-bell, Matthew Sitman) — Sat, 8 Feb 2025 14:11:39 +0000

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy

The first three weeks of Donald Trump's second administration have seen a flurry of vicious executive orders aimed at the federal workforce, trans people, government agencies, and others—all while Elon Musk and his deranged band of young sociopaths, otherwise known as the "Department of Government Efficiency," have been set loose on the Treasury's payment system and other key functions of the state. In this episode, we talk with John Ganz to try to make sense of it all: how to avoid getting sucked into the political quicksand of debating conservatives about line items in a budget, what Trump and Musk really want, how "presidential" political systems break down, and, generally, how to think about What's Happening Now.

Sources:

James Burnham, The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom (1943)

— The Managerial Revolution: What Is Happening in the World (1941)

George Orwell, "Second Thoughts on James Burnham," Polemic, May 1946

John Ganz, "What Happened Here," Unpopular Front, Feb 4, 2024

Nathan Tankus, "Elon Musk Wants to Get Operational Control of the Treasury’s Payment System," Notes on the Crises, Feb 3, 2024

Karen Yourish, et al, "All of the Trump Administration’s Major Moves in the First 17 Days," New York Times, Feb 6, 2024

Yoni Applebaum, "America's Fragile Constitution," The Atlantic, Oct 2015

Eric Rauchway, Why the New Deal Matters (2021)

Ayn Rand Against the World (w/ Jennifer Burns)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman, jennifer burns, sam adler-bell) — Mon, 3 Feb 2025 11:00:00 +0000

An atheist, a radical for capitalism, a caricature of a greedy libertarian, a best-selling novelist, a difficult partner and passionate lover, and the self-proclaimed greatest philosopher since Aristotle: Ayn Rand was many things, and we talk about almost all of them in this epic episode. To do so, we called upon historian Jennifer Burns, whose intellectual biography, Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right , is enormously helpful in trying to understand an idiosyncratic writer who, both then and now, fits ambiguously into the "fusionist" post-war conservative movement. Rand remains a controversial figure whose ideas permeate our culture and continue to inspire some of the most consequential (and least appealing) political figures in the United States. To understand Rand and her influence, we examine her family's experiences during and after the Russian Revolution, her journey to the U.S. and early success in Hollywood, the arduous path she trod to become a writer, Rand's involvement in anti-New Deal politics in the 1930s and 40s, her ideas, philosophy, and scandalous personal life, and much more.

Sources:

Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead (1943)

— Atlas Shrugged (1957)

— We the Living (1936)

Jennifer Burns, Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right (2009)

— Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative (2023)

Whittaker Chambers, "Big Sister Is Watching You," National Review, Dec 28, 1957

Murray Rothbard, "The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult," (1972)

Mary Gaitskill, Two Girls, Fat and Thin (1991)

Lisa Duggan, Mean Girl: Ayn Rand and the Culture of Greed, (2019)

— "Ayn Rand and the Cruel Heart of Neoliberalism," Dissent, May 20, 2019.

Adam Curtis, All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace, (2011)

Listen again:

"Milton Friedman and the Making of Our Times," Dec 3, 2023

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to all of our premium episodes!

How Republics End (w/ Mike Duncan) [TEASER]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Mike Duncan, Matthew Sitman) — Tue, 28 Jan 2025 12:03:14 +0000

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy

There's no better time to take up such matters than while Matt is in Rome, and there was no one better for him to talk with about them than Mike Duncan, the prolific and brilliant history podcaster; he currently hosts the Revolutions podcast and, especially relevant for the purposes of this conversation, hosted the History of Rome podcast from 2007-2012, a project that led him to write The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic (2017). Matt and Mike discuss the use and abuse of history, how "norms" do and do not matter, the relationship between imperialist foreign policy and domestic politics, the perils of vast income inequality, then and now, and more.

Sources:

For quotes from conservatives about Roman decline: Reagan, Nixon, Buchanan, Vance (and Pete Navarro & Michael Anton)

Mike Duncan, The Storm Before the Storm(2017)

— Hero of Two Worlds: The Marquis de Lafayette in the Age of Revolution (2021)

The Entrepreneurial Ethic & How We Work Today (w/ Erik Baker)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (erik baker, Matthew Sitman, sam adler-bell) — Tue, 21 Jan 2025 12:00:00 +0000

This is a fascinating episode that takes up thinkers that the podcast has covered before—the Koch brothers, Austrian economists like Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek, and others—but from a different angle: that of the entrepreneurial work ethic. Historian Erik Baker's superb book on the topic, Make Your Own Job: How the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic Exhausted America, offers a genuinely absorbing tour of this most American of ideologies, one that has emerged again and again, in various guises and in different circumstances, to reconcile workers to the contradictions of the U.S. economy, especially the shortage of jobs that has come with its many "innovations" and changes. What are the historical and even spiritual sources of the entrepreneurial work ethic, and what ideological needs does it serve for bosses and managers? Why is it so seductive to Americans? How does it relate to deeply American impulses relating to responsibility, guilt, and shame? In what ways did the entrepreneurial work ethic serve U.S. aims during the Cold War? And how has it endured in our age of Silicon Valley tech overlords and Donald Trump, entrepreneur, being re-elected? We take up these questions and many more in this rich conversation.

Sources:

Erik Baker, Make Your Own Job: How the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic Exhausted America (2025)

— "Fairytale in the Supermarket," The Baffler, Jan 14, 2025

Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936)

Norman Vincent Peale, The Power of Positive Thinking (1952)

Sarah Jaffe, Work Won't Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone, (2021)

Listen again:

"Bomb Power" (w/ Erik Baker), Dec 19, 2023

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to all of our premium episodes!

UNLOCKED: Are Progressives to Blame for Urban Disorder? (w/ Hayes Davenport)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Hayes Davenport) — Fri, 10 Jan 2025 13:51:18 +0000

A bunch of you requested that we un-paywall this recent bonus episode, which features some highly practical insights for organizers, volunteers, and public servants. So we have! (All the other bonus episodes are good too; please subscribe.)

—

Right wing movements thrive by cultivating fears of disorder. Conservatives depict blue cities as sites of rampant crime, chaos, and iniquity. And often enough, it is progressives — with their overdeveloped empathy and concern for the poor and criminalized — who take the blame. Recently, a rising chorus of voices on the center-left, including figures like Ezra Klein, have embraced the thesis that perceptions of disorder in cities like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco have contributed to America’s rightward turn. But is that accurate? And can anything be done about it?

In this episode, Sam is joined by organizer, writer, and podcaster Hayes Davenport to discuss his experiences fighting against this sort of backlash in Los Angeles. As soon as Hayes had helped his friend Nithya Raman get elected to the LA City Council in 2020 and joined her staff, conservative forces in city government mobilized to thwart her pro-tenant agenda and blame the tiny faction of progressives on the council for rising crime and homelessness. How did they respond? What can the past few years in LA politics teach the American left? And can we imagine a leftist politics that short-circuits the right’s effort to use disorder to undermine our efforts to address its underlying causes: government neglect, poverty, and exploitation. We discuss!

Further Reading:

Hayes Davenport, "Ezra Klein is wrong about this," Big City Heat, Dec 9, 2024.

— "Violent crime is down. Why are so many people mad about it?" Big City Heat, Dec 16, 2024.

— "Sects on the Beach: The 2024 Santa Monica City Council Race," Big City Heat, Nov 1, 2024.

— "The Last LA Election When Crime Was Going Up For Real," Big City Heat, Nov 11, 2024.

Emily Badger & Alicia Parlapiano, "Is the Urban Shift Toward Trump Really About Democratic Cities in Disarray?" NY Times, Dec 6, 2024.

Jill Cowan, Serge F. Kovaleski, & Leanne Abraham, "How a New City Council Map of L.A. Turned Into a Political Brawl," NY Times, Sept 3, 2023.

Koko Nakakjima & Phi Do, "California and Los Angeles County are getting tougher on crime. Here are the maps that show it," LA Times, Dec 30, 2024.

Jay Caspian Kang, "Who Really Controls Local Politics?" NY Times, Oct 11, 2021.

— "How Homeowners’ Associations Get Their Way in California," NY Times, Oct 14, 2021.

— "A Leader They Didn’t Choose," NY Times, Oct 18, 2021.

Subscribe to Hayes's podcast: Hollywood Handbook and Friends.

Are Progressives to Blame for Urban Disorder? (w/ Hayes Davenport) [Teaser]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Hayes Davenport) — Sun, 5 Jan 2025 16:42:40 +0000

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy

Further Reading:

Hayes Davenport, "Ezra Klein is wrong about this," Big City Heat, Dec 9, 2024.

— "Violent crime is down. Why are so many people mad about it?" Big City Heat, Dec 16, 2024.

— "Sects on the Beach: The 2024 Santa Monica City Council Race," Big City Heat, Nov 1, 2024.

— "The Last LA Election When Crime Was Going Up For Real," Big City Heat, Nov 11, 2024.

Emily Badger & Alicia Parlapiano, "Is the Urban Shift Toward Trump Really About Democratic Cities in Disarray?" NY Times, Dec 6, 2024.

Jill Cowan, Serge F. Kovaleski, & Leanne Abraham, "How a New City Council Map of L.A. Turned Into a Political Brawl," NY Times, Sept 3, 2023.

Koko Nakakjima & Phi Do, "California and Los Angeles County are getting tougher on crime. Here are the maps that show it," LA Times, Dec 30, 2024.

Jay Caspian Kang, "Who Really Controls Local Politics?" NY Times, Oct 11, 2021.

— "How Homeowners’ Associations Get Their Way in California," NY Times, Oct 14, 2021.

— "A Leader They Didn’t Choose," NY Times, Oct 18, 2021.

Subscribe to Hayes's podcast: Hollywood Handbook and Friends.

Women vs. The System (w/ Dorothy Fortenberry)

Fri, 27 Dec 2024 16:01:47 +0000

Back in October, before the 2024 election, we had on our friend—and brilliant screenwriter and playwright—Dorothy Fortenberry to talk about gender and the presidential campaign. Amid all the postmortems and Democratic soul searching, we wanted to have Dorothy back on to revisit some of those questions, starting with the difficulties women face in running as "outsiders" or against "The System"—an especially relevant consideration given the prevailing anti-incumbent, burn-it-down sentiment among voters across Europe and the Americas. Along the way we discuss Sarah Palin, Trump's "bad sex" cabinet and administration, how "having fun" is coded in American culture, and more.

Sources:

Dorothy Fortenberry, "The J.D. Vance sperm cups were probably a troll. But they got me thinking," Slate, Aug 23, 2024

— "Can’t Fight This Feeling Anymore," Commonweal, Nov 5, 2020

Martin Pengelly, "RFK Jr sexual assault accuser says she chose to speak out after Super Bowl ad," The Guardian, Nov 21, 2024.

Eric Lutz, "Matt Gaetz Accused of Sex With Minor in House Ethics Report," Vanity Fair, Dec 21, 2024.

Eric Tucker, "Trump’s Pentagon pick paid woman after sex assault allegation but denies wrongdoing, his lawyer says," AP, Nov 17, 2024.

Tony Tulathimutte, "Our Dope Future" in Rejection (Sept 2024)

Robert Hanley, "Donor Apologized to Sister for Seduction of Husband," NYTimes, Jan 13, 2005.

Damon Linker, "The Bestial Politics of Masculine Self-Assertion," Notes from the Middleground, Nov 22, 2024.

Sam Adler-Bell, "MAGA Misfits vs. Nationalists vs. Reaganites vs. Dorks: The battle of the Trump transition," NY Mag, Dec 14, 2024.

Listen again:

"Suburban Woman," Oct 29, 2019

"Living at the End of Our World" (w/ Daniel Sherrell), Sept 2, 2021

"'Succession,' 'Extrapolations,' & TV Writing Today" (w/ Will Arbery), May 4, 2023

"Boys and Girls in America," Oct 3, 2024

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to all of our bonus episodes!

...or give the gift of a KYE Patreon subscription to your loved on

Trump 2.0 and the Courts (w/ the 5-4 podcast)

Tue, 17 Dec 2024 13:18:31 +0000

It's been a while since we've had our friends from the 5-4 podcast on KYE, and we thought there was no better time to do so than the weeks before Donald Trump is inaugurated, again, as president. As listeners might guess, we wanted to talk to them about what opportunities Trump might have during his second term to reshape the federal judiciary—and if he can secure the confirmations of Kash Patel at the FBI and Pam Bondi as Attorney General, perhaps a lot more than that. Topics include: President Biden's successes, and failures, when it comes to the courts, and what he's handing off to Trump; what kind of judges Trump is likely to appoint; if there's a MAGA wing of the conservative legal movement now, akin to Project 2025 or the America First Policy Institute; whether Justice Alito is a Fox News uncle or an OAN uncle; and more.

Further Reading:

Myah Ward & Betsy Woodruff Swan, "Trump’s plan to end birthright citizenship could be decided by the Supreme Court," Politico, Dec 14, 2024.

Pema Levy, "How Much More Radical Could the Supreme Court Become? Look to the Fifth Circuit." Mother Jones, Oct 8, 2024.

Michael Hall, "Is James Ho Too Brash for Even Trump to Make Him a Supreme Court Justice?" Texas Monthly, Aug 15, 2024.

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Or give the gift of Know Your Enemy this holiday Season.

Reagan, the Movie (w/ Jesse Brenneman) [Teaser]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Jesse Brenneman, Matthew Sitman) — Fri, 6 Dec 2024 23:10:53 +0000

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy

We wanted to offer something of a palette cleanser for our subscribers, so we decided to watch the recent movie, Reagan, with our intrepid producer, Jesse Brenneman. Even better, it's based on the 2006 book, The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism, by Paul Kengor—who just happens to have been Matt's close mentor as an undergraduate student. Reagan clocks in at over two hours and twenty minutes, and it's a wild, even fantastical ride that offers a revealing glimpse into the conservative psyche and a faithful rendition of the most hagiographic version of the Reagan mythology, especially his personal responsibility for ending the Cold War and finally putting the Soviet Union on the ash heap of history.

Sources:

Reagan (2024)

Paul Kengor, The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism(2006)

— God and Ronald Reagan: A Spiritual Life(2004)

— A Pope and a President: John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, and the Extraordinary Untold Story of the 20th Century(2017)

Edmund Morris, Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan (1999)

Organizing in Rural America (w/ Luke Mayville)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Luke Mayville, Matthew Sitman, sam adler-bell) — Wed, 27 Nov 2024 22:38:42 +0000

This is a conversation we've wanted to have for a while, and it seemed like there was no better time than now, as many people on the broad center-left are asking tough questions about Donald Trump's strength in rural America—according to one post-election analysis, he won 62 percent of rural voters. To unpack what's happening in these parts of the country, we talked to Luke Mayville of Reclaim Idaho, a grassroots organization that, among other things, helped win a ballot referendum that expanded Medicaid in the state. Why, when an initiative like that can succeed, or voters in red states reject school vouchers or approve hikes to the minimum wage, does the party that opposes these measures tend to clean up in such places? What can be gleaned from talking to voters from all over a state like Idaho about how they view the two major political parties, understand the role of government, and explain the problems facing them in their lives? We take up these questions and more!

Sources:

Luke Mayville, "Do Something Big," Commonweal, Sept 22, 2020

— "The Battle Against School Vouchers," Commonweal, Dec 11, 2023

— John Adams and the Fear of American Oligarchy (Princeton University Press, 2016)

Paul Demko, "The Ballot Revolt to Bring Medicaid Expansion to Trump Country," Politico, Oct 19, 2018

Daniel Nichanian, "How Organizers Are Defending Direct Democracy," Bolts, Aug 16, 2023

Dana Goldstein and Troy Closson, "Voters Poised to Reject Private School Vouchers in Three States," New York Times, Nov 7, 2024

Keith Orejel, "The Political Economy of the Urban-Rural Divide," Law & Political Economy Project, Nov 11, 2024

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to access all of our bonus episodes!

Trump the Dove? Or Trump the Neocon? (w/ Curt Mills)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Curt Mills, Matt Sitman, Sam Adler-Bell) — Thu, 21 Nov 2024 19:48:16 +0000

The second Trump administration hasn't started, but it's already proving chaotic, disturbing, and downright bewildering. (Not unlike the first!) Trump's picks for key staff and cabinet positions display a discordant, if not altogether surprising, mix of ideologies, experience, and scandalous baggage. (Indeed, one of his picks, Matt Gaetz for Attorney General, withdrew from consideration between the time we recorded our interview and when we recorded the intro.)

For this episode, we're focused on Trump's national security team, which is shaping up to be divided against itself: neoconservatives like Marco Rubio (State) alongside quasi-isolationists like Tulsi Gabbard (Director of National Intelligence) alongside bellicose TV personalities like Pete Hegseth (Defense). To make sense of it all, we're joined by Curt Mills, a longtime foreign policy reporter and executive director of The American Conservative. A semi-enemy, Curt hails from the paleoconservative school of foreign affairs, which prioritizes realism and restraint. (That is to say, he's not thrilled about Rubio...) Based on Trump's appointments thus far, we ask Curt to assess, from his perspective, the relative strength of various factions of the Trump coalition: Will Trump listen to the warmongers in his midst? Will he side with the America Firsters? Or will he ignore everyone and just make some deals? Listen to find out.

Further Reading:

Curt Mills, "What a Trump Cabinet Might Look Like," The American Conservative, Oct 18, 2024.

— "What Trump Could Do in Foreign Policy Might Surprise the World," NYTimes, May 13, 2024.

Patrick Smith & Peter Alexander, "Police report details alleged sexual assault by Trump's defense pick Pete Hegseth," NBC News, Nov 21, 2024.

Baker, Haberman, Swan, "Gaetz’s withdrawal follows revelations in a sex-trafficking inquiry." NYTimes, Nov 21, 2024.

Dave Phillips and Carol Rosenberg, "The Metamorphosis of Pete Hegseth: From Critic of War Crimes to Defender of the Accused," NYTimes, Nov 21, 2024.

David Frum, "Unpatriotic Conservatives," National Review, Mar 25, 2003.

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

What's Wrong with the Democrats? [TEASER]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman, Sam Adler-Bell) — Sat, 16 Nov 2024 18:33:06 +0000

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy!

In our first episode after the 2024 elections, we briefly considered what the results revealed about how Donald Trump won, and why Kamala Harris lost, before discussing what Trump's first picks for his White House staff and Cabinet meant for his second terms as president. This conversation is different—a proper "post-mortem" of the results and a bit of a group therapy, mixed with wide-ranging reflections on what it all says about the state of Democratic Party, the country, and perhaps even our souls. Topics include: a (long) list of all the reasons that might account for Harris's defeat, the deranged attempt to keep Biden as the nominee despite his obvious decline, the Democrats' decades-long defensiveness on "cultural issues," why Trump's felony convictions didn't seem to hurt his campaign, the lost promise of 2020 and a politics of care and solidarity, the debate over "Bidenomics," and much more!

One small note: we mention the controversy over Harris not appearing on Joe Rogan's podcast, and after we recorded further reporting came out on the decision. Rather than re-recording that section or deleting it altogether, we thought we'd keep it in, with listeners determining for themselves what explanation makes the most sense.

Sources:

Zack Beauchamp, "The Global Trend that Pushed Donald Trump to Victory," Vox, Nov 6, 2024

Shane Goldmacher, Maggie Haberman, and Jonathan Swan, "How Trump Won, and How Harris Lost," New York Times, Nov 7, 2024

Matthew Sitman, "The Morning After," Liberties, Nov 7, 2024

Gabe Winant, "Exit Right," Dissent, Nov 8, 2024

Tim Barker, "Dealignment," Sidecar, Nov 11, 2024

Sam Adler-Bell, "Can Liberalism Stop Being So Darn...Liberal?" New Republic, June 20, 2024

Trump's Triumph (w/ Ian Ward)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (ian ward, matthew sitman, sam adler-bell) — Fri, 8 Nov 2024 18:45:00 +0000

As the reality of Donald Trump's decisive victory sets in, we wanted to talk to Politico's Ian Ward, who's done some of the very best reporting on post-liberal intellectuals, JD Vance, and MAGA-world, in addition to spending time on the campaign trail this fall. After breaking down the results of the presidential election, we discuss Vance's role in the campaign, his standing with Trump, and friendship with Don Jr.; how the Trump transition is taking shape and who's likely to influence his decisions at the start of his second term; whether Project 2025 will actually be implemented; if the Republican Party will actually govern in a pro-worker way; and much more!

Sources:

Ian Ward, "Trump Loves Her. His Allies Don’t Trust Her," Politico, Oct 25, 2024

— "What the Mainstream Media Can Learn from 'Bro Podcasters,'" Politico, Oct 24, 2024

— "The Seven Thinkers and Groups That Have Shaped JD Vance’s Unusual Worldview," Politico, July 18, 2024

— "Is There Something More Radical than MAGA?" Politico, Mar 15, 2024

— "The Socialists Who Love Talking to Conservatives," Politico, Feb 4, 2022

Sam Adler-Bell, "The Shadow War to Determine the Next Trump Administration," NYT, Jan 10, 2024

Matthew Sitman, "The Morning After," Liberties, Nov 7, 2024

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

UNLOCKED: Voting: What Is it Good For? (w/ Astra Taylor, Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, & Malcolm Harris)

Fri, 1 Nov 2024 08:58:03 +0000

If you're on the left and you've spent time on the internet in the past few weeks, you've probably observe or participated in debates about the strategic value and moral status of voting in the 2024 election: Is it okay to vote for Kamala Harris even though her administration is complicit in a genocide? Is voting an exercise in signaling one's moral convincetions and identity? Or merely a tactical decision calculated to create better or worse terrain on which to organize in the future? Or is it something else altogether?

Perhaps these debates have stimulated you; perhaps they've filled you with despair; or perhaps (like Sam) they've driven you nuts. The intention of this conversation — with three of my favorite writers and thinkers — is to help us see further: past the stale categories and tendentious arguments that leave us, on the left, feeling frustrated and mistrustful, rather than mobilized and oriented toward a future beyond November 5th.

Our guests include: Astra Taylor, filmmaker, writer, organizer, and cofounder of The Debt Collective; author and organizer Malcolm Harris; and Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, author, political philosopher, and co-editor of Hammer & Hope — a new magazine of black politics and culture.

Further Reading/Viewing/Listening:

Malcolm Harris, Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World, (2023)

Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else), (2022)

Astra Taylor, The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart, (2023)

— "What is Democracy?" (Zeitgeist Films, 2019)

Josie Ensor, "They voted Democrat for years — but the war in Lebanon changes everything," The Times, Oct 25, 2024.

"Arizona Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and Progressive Democrats and Community Leaders Statement on Presidential Election," Oct 24, 2024.

KYE, The Uncommitted Movement (w/ Waleed Shahid & Abbas Alawieh), Sept 4, 2024.

Voting: What Is it Good For? (w/ Astra Taylor, Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, & Malcolm Harris) [TEASER]

Tue, 29 Oct 2024 13:00:00 +0000

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy

Further Reading/Viewing/Listening:

Malcolm Harris, Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World, (2023)

Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else), (2022)

Astra Taylor, The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart, (2023)

— "What is Democracy?" (Zeitgeist Films, 2019)

Josie Ensor, "They voted Democrat for years — but the war in Lebanon changes everything," The Times, Oct 25, 2024.

"Arizona Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and Progressive Democrats and Community Leaders Statement on Presidential Election," Oct 24, 2024.

KYE, The Uncommitted Movement (w/ Waleed Shahid & Abbas Alawieh), Sept 4, 2024.

The Infernal Triangle (w/ Rick Perlstein)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Matthew Sitman, Rick Perlstein) — Fri, 25 Oct 2024 16:07:32 +0000

The author of several excellent books about the history of American conservatism, including The Invisible Bridge, Nixonland, and Reaganland, Rick Perlstein makes his triumphant return to Know Your Enemy. Drawing on Rick's wealth of historical knowledge, as well as his American Prospect column — entitled "The Infernal Triangle" — we explore the failures of American media elites and the Democratic Party to reckon with Donald Trump and his antecedents on the far right. What are the habits and genres of American journalism that inhibit an adequate accounting of Trump's rise and influence? Why do Democrats tend to adopt "conservatism lite," when faced with a far right opponent? How has Rick's perspective on studying the right changed since he began his work in the 1990s? And how will future historians make sense of these times? Listen to find out!

Further Reading

Rick Perlstein, Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus, (2009)

— "I Thought I Understood the American Right. Trump Proved Me Wrong." New York Times, Apr 11, 2017.

— "The Polling Imperilment," American Prospect, Sept 25, 2024.

— "The Election Story Nobody Wants to Talk About," American Prospect, Aug 28, 2024.

— "Project 2025 … and 1921, and 1973, and 1981," American Prospect, Jul 10, 2024.

W. Joseph Campbell, Lost in a Gallup: Polling Failure in U.S. Presidential Elections, (2020)

Isaac Arnsdorf, Finish What We Started: The MAGA Movement’s Ground War to End Democracy, (2023)

Phoebe Petrovic, "Right-Wing Activists Pushed False Claims About Election Fraud. Now They’re Recruiting Poll Workers in Swing States." ProPublica / Wisconsin Watch, Oct 16, 2024.

Clare Malone, "The Face of Donald Trump’s Deceptively Savvy Media Strategy," New Yorker, Mar 25, 2024.

Matthew Sitman, "Will Be Wild: Reading the January 6th Committee Report," Dissent, Apr 18, 2023.

Listen Again:

"On the Road to Reaganland" (w/ Rick Perlstein and Leon Neyfakh), Oct 21, 2020

"The History of the History of the Right" (w/ Kim Phillips-Fein), Jan 17, 2024

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to all of our bonus episodes!

The Christian Right's "Wild Faith" (w/ Talia Lavin) [TEASER]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Talia Lavin, Matthew Sitman) — Fri, 18 Oct 2024 10:30:00 +0000

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy

In this episode, Matt is joined by journalist Talia Lavin to discuss her new book, Wild Faith: How the Christian Right is Taking Over America, one of the most fascinating and unique books published on the Christian right during the Trump-era. Lavin takes her subjects seriously, but not uncritically, and especially focuses on the wrecked and ruined lives left in the wake of conservative evangelicalism's more conspiratorial and authoritarian elements, from the Satanic Panic to James Dobson's parenting manual on how to beat a "strong-willed child" into compliance. Along the way, they talk about the triumph of QAnon, End Times theology, the importance of the New Apostolic Reformation, and more—all with an eye toward how these religious views and practices help explain conservative evangelicals' overwhelming support for Donald Trump.

Sources:

Talia Lavin, Wild Faith: How the Christian Right Is Taking Over America(2024)

— Culture Warlords: My Journey Into the Dark Web of White Supremacy (2020)

— "The Sword and the Sandwich"

Listen again:

"The Prayers and Prophecies of Pat Robertson," Know Your Enemy, July 17, 2023

Democratic Dilemmas after the New Deal Consensus (w/ Timothy Shenk) [TEASER]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (sam adler-bell, Timothy Shenk, Matthew Sitman) — Fri, 11 Oct 2024 22:34:38 +0000

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy

Historian Timothy Shenk joins us for a conversation about his new book, Left Adrift: What Happened to Liberal Politics, a timely look at political strategy on the liberal-left as the New Deal Consensus cracked up in the late 1960s and 1970s through Bill Clinton's presidency and beyond. He tells the story of how Democrats responded to class dealignment through the careers of two consultants, Stan Greenberg and Doug Schoen—a story that, following these two men, also takes us to the UK, Israel, and South Africa. We discuss what happened to the New Deal coalition, arguments about how to appeal to working class voters drifting right, the limits—and necessity—of polling and even focus groups, why Bill Clinton's role in the rise of neoliberalism is more complicated than you might believe, lessons for the American left from their being crushed in Israel, and what all this might mean for 2024.

Sources:

Timothy Shenk, Left Adrift: What Happened to Liberal Politics(2024)

Douglas E. Schoen, Enoch Powell and the Powellites(1977)

Stanley B. Greenberg, Race and State in Capitalist Development(1980)

"Explaining McCarthy," TIME, April 18, 1969

Listen again:

"Realignments (w/ Timothy Shenk)," Know Your Enemy, Feb 27, 2023

Boys and Girls in America (w/ Dorothy Fortenberry)

Thu, 3 Oct 2024 16:41:40 +0000

This conversation is a little different. We thought that exploring the life of, say, Russell Kirk might not be the best way to spend the weeks before such a consequential election, so this is the first of a few episodes that won't be about a text or a life, but about the 2024 elections—hopefully digging a little deeper than most, and with a special concern for the themes and topics of Know Your Enemy. To help us get started, we had on a great friend of the podcast, playwright and screenwriter Dorothy Fortenberry, to talk about a presidential campaign that "smacks of gender," from declining sperm counts to abortion to the lives of moms, dads, and children today. In short, it's an unguarded discussion of how we can better care for each other in a world that's making it harder and harder to do just that

Sources:

Dorothy Fortenberry, "The J.D. Vance sperm cups were probably a troll. But they got me thinking," Slate, Aug 23, 2024

— "'One of Those Serious Women': Andrea Dworkin's Radical Feminism," Commonweal, April 29, 2019

Mollie Wilson O'Reilly, "When Abortion Isn't Abortion," Commonweal, Mar 21, 2022

Listen again:

"Suburban Woman," Oct 29, 2019

"Living at the End of Our World" (w/ Daniel Sherrell), Sept 2, 2021

"'Succession,' 'Extrapolations,' & TV Writing Today" (w/ Will Arbery), May 4, 2023

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to all of our bonus episodes!

More Mailbag, More Friends [Teaser]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman) — Thu, 26 Sep 2024 19:12:58 +0000

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy

Matt and Sam continue the 100th episode extravaganza by answering more truly excellent listener questions and hear from more friends of the show. Topics include: leftwing politics and orthodox Christianity, how to maintain hope (especially on the socialist left), learning to love Freud, complicated family politics, and more! Plus: Dissent co-editor Tash Lewis sings "Happy Birthday" to Matt in Welsh.

Sources:

Charles Péguy, Portal of the Mystery of Hope (1911)

Wesley Hill, "After Boomer Religion," Commonweal, April 29, 2019

Herbert McCabe, "The Class Struggle and Christian Love," in God Matters (2012)

Matthew Sitman, "Against Moral Austerity: On the Need for a Christian Left," Dissent, Summer 2017

Dan Walden, "Gender, Sex, and Other Nonsense," Commonweal, March 1, 2021

Peter Gay, Freud: A Life for Our Time(1988)

Pat Blanchfield, "Death Drive Nation," Late Light, Nov 1, 2022

Casey Blake and Christopher Phelps, "History as Social Criticism: Conversations with Christopher Lasch," Journal of American History, Mar 1994

Sam Adler-Bell, "Beautiful Losers," Commonweal, Mar 11, 2020

— "Jews in the diaspora must resist the inhumanity being done by Israel in our name," New Statesman, Nov 29, 2023

— "Good Enough," The Baffler, April 2024

Kim LaCapria & David Mikkelson, "Does This Photograph Show Bernie Sanders at a 1962 Civil Rights Sit-In?" Snopes, Mar 3, 2016

Know Your Friends: 100th Episode Mailbag

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Matthew Sitman) — Thu, 19 Sep 2024 10:00:00 +0000

To celebrate the 100th episode of Know Your Enemy, Matt and Sam decided to open up the mailbag and field listener questions—which, as always, proved to be incredibly intelligent and interesting, with topics ranging from what they've learned along the way to the politics of guns. Plus, past guests from the podcast stop by to offer their commentary on this auspicious occasion.

Sources:

John Lukacs, The Hitler of History (1997)

— Confessions of an Original Sinner (1989)

— A New History of the Cold War (1966)

Michael Oakeshott, Notebooks, 1922-1986 (2014)

Christopher Smart, "from Jubilate Agno," written between 1759-1763, published 1939

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to all of our bonus episodes!

Kamala's Commanding Debate Performance [TEASER]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, matthew sitman) — Thu, 12 Sep 2024 01:53:19 +0000

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy

Your intrepid hosts watched the first, and possibly only, presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump so you didn't have to—and then stayed up late to talk about it. After a somewhat wobbly start, Harris seized the momentum with a visceral, deeply affecting answer about the consequences of the GOP's assault on abortion rights, then baited Trump into a rambling rant about the size of his crowds. He never really recovered, and spent much of the rest of the debate running his mouth about the debunked story of Haitian immigrants stealing and eat pets in Ohio or claiming that Harris was responsible for every policy of the Biden administration. What did we learn about the candidates and their priorities? Did Harris break with Biden in any significant ways? What does the Trump-Vance obsession with immigrants reveal about their campaign? What firearm does Harris own? And what about foreign policy? Make sure you listen to the very end!

Sources:

Sam Roberts, "Noel Parmentel Jr., Essayist, Polemicist and Apostate, Dies at 98," New York Times, Sept 6, 2024

Watch the entire Harris-Trump debate (YouTube)

Nate Cohn, "New Poll Suggests Harris’s Support Has Stalled After a Euphoric August," New York Times, Sept 8, 2024

Huo Jingnan and Jasmine Garsd, "JD Vance Spreads Debunked Claims about Haitian Immigrants Eating Pets," NPR, Sept 10, 2024

Mike Catalini, et al, "Trump Falsely Accuses Immigrants in Ohio of Abducting and Eating Pets," Associated Press, Sept 11, 2024

B.D. McClay, "The Taylor Swift Endorsement Fantasy," New York Times, Sept. 8, 2024

"Taylor Swift Derangement Syndrome," Know Your Enemy, Mar 26, 2024

[UNLOCKED] The Uncommitted Movement (w/ Waleed Shahid & Abbas Alawieh)

Mon, 9 Sep 2024 10:00:00 +0000

Matt and Sam interview Waleed Shahid and Abbas Alawieh, two organizers of the Uncommitted Movement, about their experiences in the months following October 7 as well as before, during, and after the Democratic National Convention. As an Arab-American from Michigan and one of the state's two Uncommitted delegates to the DNC, what has Abbas heard from the people in his community, and what has he heard from his party? Why try to work within the Democratic Party to change its approach to Israel-Palestine? What were the Uncommitted Movement's "asks" at the convention, and why were they all refused? How does the Democratic Party, institutionally, need to change to better reflect the broadly pro-ceasefire views of its voters? And is there any hope that a possible Harris administration will be an improvement on the dreadful status quo?

Sources:

Waleed Shahid, “Why the Uncommitted Movement Was a Success at the DNC,” Jacobin, Aug 27, 2024

"'The Uncommitted Movement Is the Floor of What’s Possible:' An Interview with Waleed Shahid," Dissent, Aug 16, 2024

Ben Terris, "A 'Ceasefire Delegate' Finds Lots to Do but Little to Celebrate," Washington Post, Aug 21, 2024

Akbar Shahid Ahmed, "Gaza War Critics Are Inspired By The 1964 DNC — And They're Playing The Long Game," HuffPost, Aug 23, 2024

Noah Lanard, "Why Were Democrats Afraid to Hear a Palestinian?" Mother Jones, Aug 31, 2024

— "Here Is the Speech That the Uncommitted Movement Wants to Give at the DNC," Mother Jones, Aug 23, 2024

Ta-Nehisi Coates, "A Palestinian American’s Place Under the Democrats’ Big Tent?" Vanity Fair, Aug 21, 2024

The Uncommitted Movement (w/ Waleed Shahid & Abbas Alawieh) [Teaser]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matt Sitman, Sam Adler-Bell, Waleed Shahid) — Fri, 6 Sep 2024 11:00:00 +0000

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy

Sources:

Waleed Shahid, “Why the Uncommitted Movement Was a Success at the DNC,” Jacobin, Aug 27, 2024

"'The Uncommitted Movement Is the Floor of What’s Possible:' An Interview with Waleed Shahid," Dissent, Aug 16, 2024

Ben Terris, "A 'Ceasefire Delegate' Finds Lots to Do but Little to Celebrate," Washington Post, Aug 21, 2024

Akbar Shahid Ahmed, "Gaza War Critics Are Inspired By The 1964 DNC — And They're Playing The Long Game," HuffPost, Aug 23, 2024

Noah Lanard, "Why Were Democrats Afraid to Hear a Palestinian?" Mother Jones, Aug 31, 2024

— "Here Is the Speech That the Uncommitted Movement Wants to Give at the DNC," Mother Jones, Aug 23, 2024

Ta-Nehisi Coates, "A Palestinian American’s Place Under the Democrats’ Big Tent?" Vanity Fair, Aug 21, 2024

Political Fictions (w/ Vinson Cunningham)

Sat, 31 Aug 2024 19:55:59 +0000

Today, we're joined by one of our favorite writers and thinkers, Vinson Cunningham, to discuss his excellent debut novel, Great Expectations, which tells the story of brilliant-but-unmoored young black man, David Hammond, who finds himself recruited — by fluke, folly, or fate — onto a historic presidential campaign for a certain charismatic Illinois senator. A staff writer at the New Yorker, Vinson also worked for Obama's 2008 campaign in his early twenties. (He bears at least some resemblance to his protagonist.) And his novel provides a wonderful jumping-off point for a deep discussion of political theater, the novel of ideas, race, faith, the meaning of Barack Obama, and the meaning of Kamala Harris.

Also discussed: Christopher Isherwood, Saul Bellow, Garry Wills, Ralph Ellison, Marilynne Robinson, Paul Pierce, and Kobe Bryant! If you can't get enough Vinson, check out his podcast with Naomi Fry and Alexandra Schwartz, Critics at Large.

Sources:

Vinson Cunningham, Great Expectations: A Novel (2024)

— "The Kamala Show," The New Yorker, Aug 19, 2024

— "Searching for the Star of the N.B.A. Finals," The New Yorker, June 21, 2024

— "Many and One," Commonweal, Dec 14, 2020.

Saul Bellow, Ravelstein (2001)

Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg (1992)

Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952)

— Shadow and Act (1964)

David Haglund, "Leaving the Morman Church, After Reading a Poem," New Yorker Radio Hour, Mar 25, 2016.

Phil Jackson, Sacred Hoops: Spiritual Lessons of a Hardwood Warrior (1995)

Glenn Loury, Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative (2024)

Matthew Sitman, "Saving Calvin from Clichés: An Interview with Marilynne Robinson," Commonweal, Oct 5, 2017

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon so you can listen to all of our premium episodes!

Kamala's Convention [Teaser]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Matthew Sitman) — Fri, 23 Aug 2024 22:56:18 +0000

Four days in Chicago, dozens of speeches by Democratic luminaries and backbenchers, and a spotlight on Kamala Harris, who reintroduced herself to America — your favorite podcast co-hosts endured watching the Democratic National Convention and are here to report on what they saw.

It was, in many ways, a highly successful convention: massive crowds, palpable energy for the Harris-Walz ticket, and orations met with pundits' plaudits. But the Democrats' refusal to feature a speaker from the Uncommitted delegates, and the general lack of evident concern for Palestinian suffering, was profoundly disappointing — and morally grotesque. As were the choices to feature cops and ex-CIA agents on the convention stage, and the broad affirmation, from Democrats, of the right's positions on crime and the border. What to make of it all? We discuss how Kamala tried to define her career and candidacy, what we make of Tim Walz (so far), how Democrats talked about Trump (including the shifts from how they've done so in the past), and the state of the presidential race now that both conventions are, blessedly, over.

Sources:

Watch Kamala Harris's full DNC speech (YouTube)

Watch Tim Walz's full DNC speech (YouTube)

Watch Michelle Obama's full DNC speech (YouTube)

Liliana Segura, "Democrats Abandoned Their Anti-Death Penalty Stance. Those on Federal Death Row May Pay the Price," The Intercept, Aug 23, 2024.

Josh Leifer and Waleed Shahid, "The Uncommitted Movement Is the Floor of What’s Possible,” Dissent, Aug 16, 2024

Noah Lanard, "Here Is the Speech That the Uncommitted Movement Wants to Give at the DNC," Mother Jones, Aug 23, 2024

What Happened to America's Political Parties? (w/ Daniel Schlozman and Sam Rosenfeld)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman, Sam Adler-Bell) — Fri, 16 Aug 2024 10:00:00 +0000

Why are American political parties so ineffectual? Why do they seem, simultaneously, so frantically active and so incapable of achieving specific objectives? Why have the Democrats tended to seem listless, uncertain of their own ideological identity; while the Republicans are increasingly dominated by a radical, lunatic fringe more interested in becoming famous on television, radio, and social media than in governing? Why, in other words, are the political parties seemingly "everywhere and nowhere, overbearing and enfeebled, all at once?"

In their new book, The Hollow Parties: The Many Pasts and Disordered Present of American Party Politics, political scientists Daniel Schlozman and Sam Rosenfeld set out to untangle this paradox. Theyargue that much of the discord, dysfunction, and democratic deficit which characterize contemporary politics can be attributed to the "hollowing out" of American political parties — a process which began, in earnest, in the 1970s, with the neoliberal dismantling of New Deal civil society, the rise of the New Right, and reforms to the party system in the wake of the 1968 conventions. In the wake of these changes, our parties have become unrooted from the communities where their constituents live; they are nationalized instead of locally oriented; they are swarmed by para-party groups and networks (the "party blob") which are both unaccountable and parasitic on the Party's aims; and they are lacking in legitimacy — mistrusted and often treated with contempt, even by their own members.

What has this hollowness wrought in our politics? And can anything be done about it? Sam and Danny are here to explain.

Here's a link for 25 percent off print subs to Dissent magazine through August 31: https://www.ezsubscription.com/dis/subscribe?key=DEKYE

Sources:

Daniel Schlozman and Sam Rosenfeld, The Hollow Parties: The Many Pasts and Disordered Present of American Party Politics (2024)

Sam Rosenfeld, The Polarizers: Postwar Architects of Our Partisan Era (2017)

Daniel Schlozman, When Movements Anchor Parties: Electoral Alignments in American History (2015)

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What's Wrong with J.D. Vance?

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (matthew sitman, Sam adler-bell) — Sat, 10 Aug 2024 18:27:21 +0000

In this episode, your co-hosts take a harrowing journey into the life, mind, and times of J.D. Vance, the Republican senator from Ohio and current vice-presidential pick of Donald Trump. You probably were introduced to Vance as the author of Hillbilly Elegy, his 2016 memoir that attempts to explain the plight of the "white working class" in places like Kentucky and Ohio, and now know him as the deranged post-liberal purveyor of insults to single women, lies about Joe Biden targeting MAGA voters with fentanyl to thin their ranks, and deranged comments about the 2020 election and Jan. 6. In short, how did Vance become so weird—and menacing? We try to answer that question by starting with a close reading of Hillbilly Elegy, and then take listeners from the end of that book through the transformations that made Vance Trump's toadie-in-chief.

Sources:

J.D. Vance, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis (2016)

— "How I Joined the Resistance: On Mamaw and Becoming Catholic," The Lamp, April 1, 2020

Glenn Kessler, "J.D. Vance’s Claim That Biden is Targeting ‘MAGA voters’ with Fentanyl," Washington Post, May 11, 2022

Colby Itkowitz, Beth Reinhard and Clara Ence Morse, "In Vance, Trump Finds a Kindred Spirit on Election Denial and Jan. 6," Washington Post, July 17, 2024

Ian Ward, "The Seven Thinkers and Groups That Have Shaped JD Vance’s Unusual Worldview," Politico, July 18, 2024

Simon Van Zuylan-Wood, “The Radicalization of J.D. Vance,” Washington Post, Jan 4, 2022

John Ganz, "The Meaning of JD Vance," Unpopular Front, Jul 16, 2024

Dorothy Thompson, “Who Goes Nazi?” Harper’s, Aug 1941.

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Project 2025 Implodes (w/ Mary Harris)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman) — Mon, 5 Aug 2024 15:55:10 +0000

An extra episode for you: Sam went on Slate's What Next podcast (hosted by Mary Harris) to discuss the rise and fall of the Heritage Foundation's Trump transition project — Project 2025. Is it dead? Why did Trump's campaign resent it so much? And how much influence would its architects have in a second Trump administration?

We'll back to your regular programming (the J.D. Vance episode!) later in the week.

Trump Survives, Biden Doesn't. Where Are We? [Teaser]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman) — Tue, 23 Jul 2024 13:27:34 +0000

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy

In the week-and-a-half since we last offered you, our beloved subscribers, the highest quality election punditry around, a lot has happened: on the Democratic side of the ledger, "The Podcasters' Coup" succeeded and Joe Biden has stepped down as the party's presidential candidate; at least for now, the nomination appears to be Kamala Harris's to lose. Republicans, meanwhile, just wrapped up their carnivalesque Convention, where Ohio senator J.D. Vance was unveiled as Donald Trump's running mate. And, of course, looming over it all was the assassination attempt on Trump in western Pennsylvania only days before the GOP gathered in Milwaukee.

Did Vance impress, and Trump charm? Did the assassination attempt change the race, or—as some credulous journalists ludicrously asserted—Trump himself? Where does the presidential race stand? Are Democrats in disarray? It doesn't seem that way, now, but does Harris have a real chance? Your hosts take up these questions and more!

Read:

Josh Boak, "Biden’s legacy: Far-reaching Accomplishments That Didn’t Translate into Political Support," Associated Press, July 22, 2024.

Ruth Igielnik, "How Kamala Harris Performs Against Donald Trump in the Polls," New York Times, July 21, 2024.

Tim Alberta, "This Is Exactly What the Trump Team Feared," The Atlantic, July 21, 2024.

Ian Ward, "The Seven Thinkers and Groups That Have Shaped JD Vance’s Unusual Worldview," Politico, July 18, 2024.

Matthew Sitman, "Will Be Wild," Dissent, April 18, 2023.

Susan Sontag, Against Interpretations and Other Essays(1966).

Listen:

The Ezra Klein Show, "The Trump Campaign's Theory of Victory" (w/ Tim Alberta), July 18, 2024

Yoram Hazony’s Israeli Model (w/ Suzanne Schneider)

Fri, 19 Jul 2024 17:23:16 +0000

Last week, as Israel continued to prosecute its eliminationist war against Palestinians in Gaza, an eclectic group of right-wing bigwigs gathered in Washington, DC for the fourth iteration of the National Conservatism conference — convened by Yarom Hazony, an Israeli-born writer, activist, and former speechwriter for Benjamin Netanyahu. As our guest, historian Suzanne Schneider, explains, Hazony aspires to export Israel’s model of illiberal democracy and dispossession to the nations of the world. And if the embrace of NatCon by American conservatives is any indication, he is succeeding.

Nations, for Hazony, derive their legitimacy not from the consent of the governed (which, for Israel, would include disenfranchised Palestinians in the West Bank) but from God, who designated the land of Israel as the home of the Jews. All nations are born of divine covenant, not consent; political community is based on unchosen and inherited obligations extending outward in concentric circles of coercion, from the nuclear family, to the clan, to the tribe, and so on. This slipshod political theology authorizes a world of sovereign, militarized ethno-states, intensely protective of patriarchal prerogatives, and with no obligation to international law, human rights, judicial interference, or constitutional guarantees for religious or racial minorities. If Israel is the God-given home of the Jews, why shouldn't America be the God-given home of white Christians?

It’s not difficult to perceive the appeal of this vision for NatCon’s attendees, including Trumpist senators like Josh Hawley and Mike Lee, Catholic integralists like Gladdin Pappin and Chad Pecknold, racist nativists like Stephen Miller, or Viktor Orbán propagandists like John O’Sullivan. These figures may not all acknowledge or recognize their debt to Israeli Zionism, but they all look with admiration on the impunity with which Israel has treated its Arab subjects, seeing in Israel’s contempt for liberal norms, universal rights, and human dignity an aspirational model for America and the globe.

Further Reading:

Suzanne Schneider, "Light Among the Nations," Jewish Currents, Sept 28, 2023

— "How Israel’s Illiberal Democracy Became a Model for the Right," Dissent, Spring 2024.

— "Beyond Athens and Jerusalem," Strange Matters, Spring 2024.

— "A Note on Means and Ends," Dr. Small Talk (Suzanne's Substack), Feb 4, 2024.

Yoram Hazony, The Virtue of Nationalism (2018).

— Conservatism: A Rediscovery (2022).

Sarah Jones, "The Authoritarian Plot (Live from NatCon 4)," New York Magazine, Jul 14, 2024.

Further Listening:

KYE, The Rise of Illiberal Right, Jul 2019.

KYE, Return of the National Conservatives, Nov 2021.

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to all of our extensive catalogue of bonus episodes!

If Joe’s Cooked, What Now? (w/ Ettingermentum) [Teaser]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman) — Fri, 12 Jul 2024 14:41:18 +0000

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy

Just about two weeks ago, we gave a nearly real-time reaction to Joe Biden's catastrophically inept performance in his first presidential debate against Donald Trump. The fallout has been swift but not certain—a flood of stories in the press were unleashed, giving the impression that Biden has been worse, for longer, than most of us knew, all of them filled with cringe-inducing details that gave the impression of a man in rapid decline. Still, Biden has stubbornly insisted that he will remain the Democratic nominee, and the party seemingly has not yet coalesced around a strategy to force his exit.

So where are we? To help us answer that question, we had on Josh Cohen, the proprietor of the must-read Ettingermentum newsletter, one of the most essential reads on U.S. electoral politics, especially the presidential race. We tried to figure out just how bad of shape Joe Biden is currently in, why the age and infirmity issues will not go away, the possibilities for replacing Biden, what the upsides of his various replacements (especially Kamala Harris and Gretchen Whitmer) could be, how Democrats should attack Trump, and more!

The Wolfe in the White Suit (w/ Osita Nwanevu) [UNLOCKED]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Matthew Sitman, Osita Nwanevu) — Fri, 5 Jul 2024 20:29:50 +0000

We took the holiday week off, so we're sharing an episode from behind the paywall. Coming soon: new episodes on The Biden Problem, SCOTUS, and Israeli illiberalism as an inspiration for the global right.

***

In this episode, from January 2024, writer Osita Nwanevu joins for a rip-roaring conversation about legendary prose stylist, "new journalist," and novelist Tom Wolfe. Reviewing a new documentary about Wolfe ("Radical Wolfe" on Netflix), Osita writes, "Behind the ellipses and exclamation points and between the lines of his prose, a lively though often lazy conservative mind was at work, making sense of the half-century that birthed our garish and dismal present, Trump and all."

Answered herein: is Tom Wolfe a good writer? What kind of conservative is he? How does his approach compare to other "new journalists" like Joan Didion and Garry Wills? And what's the deal with the white suit?

Further Reading:

Osita Nwanevu, "The Electric Kool-Aid Conservative," The New Republic, Jan 5, 2023

Tom Wolfe, "The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby," Esquire, Nov 1963.

— "The Birth of ‘The New Journalism’; Eyewitness Report," New York Magazine, Feb 1972.

— "Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny’s," New York Magazine, June 1972

— The Bonfire of the Vanities (1987)

— A Man in Full (1998)

— The Kingdom of Speech (2016)

Peter Augustine Lawler, "What is Southern Stoicism? An Interview with Professor Peter Lawler," Daily Stoic, March 2017

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to all of our extensive catalogue of bonus episodes!

Joe's Gotta Go [Teaser]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (matthew sitman, Sam Adler-Bell) — Sun, 30 Jun 2024 23:04:04 +0000

Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this premium episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy

We watched it, and you probably did too. Here is our analysis of the incredibly depressing, even shocking first presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. While the topic of this episode is self-explanatory, it's worth making a few comments about our conversation. We recorded this on the afternoon of Friday, June 28, the day after the debate (thus, you'll often hear us refer to "last night"), and you can tell we're still somewhat processing what happened—in particular, we'd have a clearer sense of what could, and could not, be done in the weeks ahead to find an alternative to Biden if we were to record it now. Even more, in the past 24-36 hours new reporting has emerged that portrays Biden's capabilities in bleak terms, from the claim that Biden has about six "good" hours a day to damning portrayals of his confused, stumbling performances at key international meetings with foreign heads of state. Because that reporting largely confirms an off-the-record story shared with Matt, we thought, especially given the circumstances, it was worth including here. And because of the seriousness of Biden's apparent decline, your hosts' positions to continue to evolve. Matt, for example, has called for Biden to not just step aside from the campaign, but resign from office.

Sources:

Daniel Schlozman, "Elder Statesmen," Dissent, Spring 2024

Alex Thompson, "Two Joe Biden's: The Night America Saw the Other One," Axios, June 29, 2024

Annie Linskey, Laurence Norman, & Drew Hinshaw, "The World Saw Biden Deteriorating. Democrats Ignored the Warnings," WSJ, June 28, 2024

Matthew Sitman, "The 'Weekend at Bernie's' Primary," Commonweal, March 3, 2020

Has the Far Right Won in Europe? (w/ David Adler & David Broder) [Teaser]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman) — Fri, 28 Jun 2024 12:00:00 +0000

We're joined by two experts on European politics to explain the EU parliamentary election results: David Adler, general coordinator of the Progressive International, and David Broder, historian of Italy and Europe editor at Jacobin.

What do the results say about the strength of the far right in Europe? And why has Emmanuel Macron of France called snap parliamentary elections in response? Is Macron welcoming the far-right into power in France, or is there some other explanation for his gamble?

Further Reading:

David Broder, "Giorgia Meloni’s Europe," Dissent, Spring 2024.

Cole Stangler, "France Is on the Brink of Something Terrifying," NYTimes, Jun 13, 2024.

When the Clock Broke (w/ John Ganz)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (John Ganz, Matthew Sitman, Sam Adler-Bell) — Mon, 24 Jun 2024 17:10:19 +0000

Something happened to America — and to American conservatism — in the early 1990s: an unspooling, a coarsening, a turn from substance to symbol and from narrative to fragment; prevailing political myths ceased to make sense or have purchase, and nothing sufficiently capacious or legible emerged to replace them, leaving only a dank, foggy climate of conspiracy, bellicosity, and despair. Victorious in the Cold War, America was supposed to be riding high; instead the whole country was experiencing a crisis of confidence.

Why? What happened? And did we ever get over it — or are we still somehow stuck in the "long 1990s?" No one is better equipped to tease out answers to these questions than our great friend John Ganz, whose riveting new book is called When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s. With his characteristic wit and panache, John guides us through a lively discussion of: Sam Francis's middle American radicalism; Pat Buchanan's "culture war" speech; Ross Perot and POW-MIA; Carroll Quigley's influence on Bill Clinton; John Gotti's appeal; and how these figures, and this era, prepared the way for Donald Trump. It's a barnburner, folks! Enjoy!

Sources:

John Ganz, When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s (2024)

— "The Year the Clock Broke: How the world we live in already happened in 1992," The Baffler, Nov 2018

Jen Szalai, "The 1990s Were Weirder Than You Think. We’re Feeling the Effects." NYTimes, Jun 12, 2024.

Listening:

KYE "The Year the Clock Broke, (w/ John Ganz)" Mar 16, 2020

KYE "Christopher Lasch’s Critique of Progress, (w/ Chris Lehmann)" Aug 11, 2022

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to all of our extensive catalogue of bonus episodes!

The Gay Men Who Built the Conservative Movement (w/ Neil J. Young)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Matthew Sitman) — Mon, 17 Jun 2024 11:00:00 +0000

In this special Pride Month episode of Know Your Enemy, Matt and Sam talk to historian Neil J. Young about his new book, Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right. His absorbing account picks up in after World War II, when neither party made for a good political home for gay people, which helped make a libertarian approach to sexual politics—getting the government out of their private lives—compelling, a feature that would mark the gay right for years to come. The conversation then turns to some of the gay, often closeted architects of the postwar conservative movement, the hopeful years between Stonewall and AIDS, Ronald Reagan's embrace of the religious right and the growing partisan divide on LGBTQ rights, and goes on through the very campy Trump years—and more!

Sources:

Neil J. Young, Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (2024)

Neil J. Young, We Gather Together: The Religious Right and the Problem of Interfaith Politics (2015)

Andrew Sullivan, Virtually Normal: An Argument About Homosexuality, (1996)

James Kirchick, Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington, (2022)

Marvin Leibman, Coming Out Conservative: An Autobiography, (1992)

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to all of our extensive catalogue of bonus episodes!

Will the Trump Verdict Matter? [Teaser]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Matthew Sitman) — Wed, 5 Jun 2024 12:00:00 +0000

Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this premium episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy

Matt and Sam break down the Trump guilty verdict—what happened during the trial, why the jury might have reached the decision they did, how Republicans and the right reacted, and the ways it all could matter, or not, for the 2024 presidential election. It's a wide-ranging conversation, including discussions of low-trust voters, educational polarization, how everything in the United States has become a scam, our doubts about Biden, and more!

Sources:

Trailer for Mitch McCabe's documentary, 23 Mile (YouTube)

Eric Levitz, "One explanation for the 2024 election’s biggest mystery," Vox, May 28, 2024

Michael Brenes, "How Liberalism Betrayed the Enlightenment and Lost Its Soul," Jacobin, May 31, 2024

Matthew Sitman, "Will Be Wild," Dissent, April 18, 2023

Timothy Snyder, "Not a Normal Election," Commonweal, Nov 2, 2020

What Was the CIO? (w/ Tim Barker and Ben Mabie)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Ben Mabie, Tim Barker, Sam Adler-Bell) — Sun, 26 May 2024 22:10:09 +0000

Historian Tim Barker and editor/organizer Ben Mabie join to discuss a thrilling episode in the history of American labor. Barker and Mabie are two co-hosts of Fragile Juggernaut, a Haymarket Originals podcast exploring the history, politics, and strategic lessons of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (or CIO). Along with co-hosts Alex Press, Gabriel Winant, Andrew Elrod, and Emma Teitelman, they've been telling the story of organized labor in the 1930s, the radical possibilities of that decade, and the eclipsing of those possibilities in the post-war years — with the onset of the cold war, McCarthyism, and anti-union legislation like Taft-Hartley.

In a sense, this episode is a pre-history of the story we tell on Know Your Enemy. If you’ve ever wondered, what was it that so terrified reactionary businessmen about the New Deal era? How did they come to believe that revolutionary upheaval was a real prospect in America, that Communists were everywhere, threatening the social order, and that this peril demanded the creation and funding of a new conservative movement? Well part of the answer is: the CIO. From a certain angle, the right-wing fever dream was real, at least for a time: the CIO really was filled with Communists, labor militants really did take over factories and shut down whole cities, and it really did seem possible, if only briefly, that the American working class — including immigrants from all over Europe, black workers, and women — might find solidarity on the shop floor, consolidate politically, and threaten the reign of capital. That didn’t quite happen. And this episode will partially explain why.

Further Reading:

Andrew Elrod, "Fragile Juggernaut: What was the CIO?" n+1, Jan 24, 2024.

Bruce Nelson, Workers on the Waterfront: Seamen, Longshoremen, and Unionism in the 1930s, U of Illinois Press, 1988.

Robert H. Zieger, The CIO, 1935-1955, UNC Press, 1995.

Landon R.Y. Storrs, The Second Red Scare and the Unmaking of the New Deal Left, Princeton U Press, 2012.

Eric Blanc, “Revisiting the Wagner Act & its Causes,” Labor Politics, Jul 28, 2022.

Rhonda Levine, "Class Struggle and the New Deal: Industrial Labor, Industrial Capital, and the State," U of Kansas Press, 1988.

Further Listening:

The podcast: "Haymarket Originals: Fragile Juggernaut," 2024

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Consider the Cranks (w/ David Austin Walsh)

Mon, 20 May 2024 18:24:44 +0000

Historian David Austin Walsh joins to discuss his excellent new book Taking America Back: The Conservative Movement and the Far Right — a fascinating re-description of the relationship between the far right and the American conservative movement from the 1930s to the end of the Cold War.

How did figures like William F. Buckley, Jr. relate to figures on the further right fringes of right-wing politics, people like Merwin K Hart, Revilo Oliver, Russel Maguire, and George Lincoln Rockwell? And how should we make sense of Buckley and others' furtive efforts to sanitize the right of its more explicitly racist, anti-semitic, and conspiratorial elements? In this conversation, Walsh makes the case for viewing the conservative coalition, from National Review to the John Birch Society to white power movements and neo-Nazis, as embodying a "popular front." That is to say — like the American left in the 1930s — these groups thought of themselves as part of a unified movement with a common enemy; and despite their differences over strategy, tactics, and rhetoric, they shared a fundamental worldview and vision of the good. What's more, as Walsh demonstrates, figures of the fringe and mainstream tended to maintain relationships and contact with one another, even if formal ties were severed.

Walsh's book is a major contribution to ongoing historiographic debates about 20th century American conservatism — of the sort we love to have on KYE — and he himself is a delightful source of detail and texture about the cranks and weirdos who make up a larger share of the right than many mainstream liberals and conservatives would like to believe.

Further Reading:

David Austin Walsh, Taking America Back: The Conservative Movement and the Far Right, Yale U Press, April 2024.

John S. Huntington, Far-Right Vanguard: The Radical Roots of Modern Conservatism, Penn Press, Oct. 2021.

Edward Miller, A Conspiratorial Life: Robert Welch, the John Birch Society, and the Revolution of American Conservatism, U Chicago Press. Feb 2022.

Rick Perlstein, "I Thought I Understood the American Right. Trump Proved Me Wrong." New York Times. April 11, 2017.

Peter Khiss, "KENNEDY TARGET OF BIRCH WRITER; Article Says He Was Killed for Fumbling Red Plot," New York Times, Feb 11, 1964.

Leo Ribuffo, "The Old Christian Right: The Protestant Far Right from the Depression to the Cold War," Temple U Press. 1983.

Sam Adler-Bell, "The Remnant and the Restless Crowd," Commonweal, Aug 1, 2018.

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy for access to all of our bonus episodes!

The Inconclusive Mr. Buckley [Teaser]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (matthew sitman, sam adler-bell) — Sun, 5 May 2024 16:30:49 +0000

Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this premium episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy

Matt and Sam gab about "The Incomparable Mr. Buckley," a new PBS documentary on William F. Buckley Jr., which features Matt Sitman (!) as a talking head — along with a rogue's gallery of KYE friends and former guests: Perlstein, Tanenhaus, Tait, Gage, Burns, the whole gang... What do we make of the doc? Is it a whitewash? Is it too credulous about the conservative movement? Does it "get" Buckley, the man? (Does anyone?) And what does Buckley have to do with Donald Trump? This was a lot of fun. Good ol' KYE classico.

Sources Cited:

Barak Goodman, "The Incomparable Mr. Buckley," PBS (2024)

Rick Perlstein, "An Implausible Mr. Buckley," American Prospect, April 17, 2024.

Alexander Chee, "Mr. and Mrs. B," Apology Magazine, Jan 1, 2014.

Ross Douthat, "'We're On Our Way Home Now, Duckie!'" Atlantic, Feb 2008

Nicholas Buccola, "The Fire Is upon Us: James Baldwin, William F. Buckley Jr., and the Debate over Race in America," Princeton U Press, Oct 2019.

Sam Adler-Bell, "The Conservative and the Murderer," New Republic, March 7, 2022

Previously on KYE:

Buckley vs. Vidal (2020)

Buckley for Mayor (w/ Sam Tanenhaus) (2021)

The Conservative and the Convict (w/ Sarah Weinman) (2022)

In Search of Anti-Semitism (w/ John Ganz) (2023)

Against Despair (w/ Christian Wiman)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (christian wiman, matthew sitman, sam adler-bell) — Sat, 27 Apr 2024 21:36:53 +0000

This conversation is a little different. We wanted to take a break from the election-year political jousting to talk to the poet Christian Wiman about Zero at the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair, one of the most singular books published in recent memory—part memoir, part commonplace book, part poetry collection. As with his previous My Bright Abyss, Wiman, more than any other contemporary Christian writer, manages to shake off our culture's desiccated religious tropes to write and talk about matters of ultimate concern in ways that are bracing, even exhilarating. How does poetry tap into reality, or, even better, what does poetry reveal about it? How does he think about the relationship between "life and art"? Why does he resist "Saul on the Road to Damascus"-style accounts of religious conversion? Why did he almost not write about his cancer diagnosis in My Bright Abyss? Why might postmodernism be good for religion, actually? How does the love of another person connect to the love of God? And how does any of this matter for how we live? We take up these questions and more.

Sources:

Christian Wiman, Zero at the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair (2023)

— My Bright Abyss: Meditations of a Modern Believer (2013)

— Ambition and Survival: Becoming a Poet (2004)

— Every Riven Thing: Poems (2014)

— "The Preacher Addresses the Seminarians" in Once in the West (2014)

Matthew Sitman, "Finding the Words for Faith: Meet America's Most Important Christian Writer," The Dish, Sept 3, 2014

Casey Cep, "How the Poet Christian Wiman Keeps His Faith," New Yorker, Dec 4, 2023

Andre Dubus, "A Father's Story," in Selected Stories of Andre Dubus (1996)

Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace (1947)

Robert Bringhurst, "These Poems, She Said," from The Beauty of the Weapons: Selected Poems 1972-1982. Copper Canyon Press (1982)

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy for access to all of our bonus episodes!

"Write Like a Man" (w/ Ronnie Grinberg)

Wed, 17 Apr 2024 02:22:25 +0000

Historian Ronnie Grinberg's new book Write Like a Man: Jewish Masculinity and the New York Intellectuals couldn't be better "Know Your Enemy" fodder. (Main characters include: Midge Decter and Norman Podhoretz, Diana and Lionel Trilling, Irving Howe, Alfred Kazin, and Mary McCarthy!) These writers, Grinberg shows, built and sustained a novel, secular, Jewish, and masculine concept of the intellectual life, an ideology that would profoundly affected the development of Cold War liberalism, neo-conservativism, Zionism, and right-wing reaction against feminism, gay rights, and black power.

As we discovered in this conversation, it's impossible to make sense of the creative and scholarly contributions of the New York Intellectuals — good and bad — without gender as an essential lens. Moreover, Grinberg shows how scholars can easily misapprehend the deeper motivations for neoconservative reaction (among those such as Podhoretz and Decter) if they are not attentive to the centrality of gender, sexuality, and patriarchy in these thinkers' work.

Further Reading:

Ronnie Grinberg, Write Like a Man: Jewish Masculinity and the New York Intellectuals (Mar 2024)

Sam Adler-Bell, "The New York Intellectuals Were a Boys' Club," Chronicle of Higher Education, Apr 10, 2024

Matthew Sitman, "Midge Decter to Howard Meyer, April 15, 1987," Friends and Enemies, Apr 8, 2024

B.D. McClay, "Of Course They Hated Her: The Uncomfortable Honesty of Mary McCarthy," Commonweal, Dec 18, 2017

William Barrett, The Truants: Adventures Among the Intellectuals (1982)

Mary McCarthy, The Group (1963)

Tess Slesinger, The Unpossessed (1934)

Norman Podhoretz, Breaking Ranks: A Political Memoir (1979)

Irving Howe, World of Our Fathers (1976)

Further Viewing:

D. A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus,"Town Bloody Hall" (1979)

Further Listening:

KYE, "Midge Decter, Anti-Feminist Cold Warrior (w/ Moira Donegan and Adrian Daub," Jul 28, 2023

KYE, "What Happened to Norman (w/ David Klion)," Jan 16, 2020

Arguing the World: Howe, Kristol, Glazer, and Bell [Teaser]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman) — Tue, 9 Apr 2024 17:36:11 +0000

Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this premium episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy

It was inevitable that Know Your Enemy would eventually discuss Arguing the World, the 1998 documentary about four Jewish intellectuals who emerged from the alcoves and arguments of City College in the 1930s and influenced American politics and letters for much of the rest of the twentieth century, and beyond: Irving Howe, Irving Kristol, Daniel Bell, and Nathan Glazer.

Why now? Most of all, it's the kind of documentary we love—the personal rivalries, the gossip, the self-conscious intellectuality, and the, well, arguments. But we'll also be publishing an episode next week with historian Ronnie Grinberg about her new book, Write Like a Man: Jewish Masculinity and the New York Intellectuals, and while the overlap in subject matter is not perfect, this documentary would make for a great primer for listeners (since we know you're the kind of listeners who do not despise homework). It's also an excellent chance to revisit the history of the left, old and new, and their fraught relationship with each other; to consider the place of intellectuals and thinking in a time of urgent action; and, as ever, to talk about the ways the subjects of Arguing the World might fit into America's right turn and "how we got here."

Watch:

Arguing the World, dir. Joseph Dorman (1998); YouTube, PBS, IMDB

Read:

Irving Howe, "This Age of Conformity," Partisan Review, Jan-Feb 1954

Irving Howe, "Socialism and Liberalism: Articles of Conciliation?" Dissent, Winter 1977

Irving Kristol, “Memoirs of a Trotskyist,” NYTimes, Jan 23, 1977

Taylor Swift Derangement Syndrome (w/ B.D. McClay)

Tue, 26 Mar 2024 17:05:47 +0000

Why are Republicans and the right losing their minds over Taylor Swift, the gifted songwriter and globe-bestriding pop star? Why do they think her NFL-playing, Super Bowl-winning boyfriend is secretly gay—precisely because he's dating Taylor Swift? Why is this slice of Americana being portrayed as a deep-state op meant to hand the 2024 election to Joe Biden? To try to answer these, and other, similarly bewildering questions, Matt and Sam talked to writer B.D. McClay, whose Substack, Notebook, has become the essential guide to understanding Taylor Swift, her place in our culture and politics, and why she drives right-wingers (but not just right-wingers!) crazy.

Read:

B.D. McClay, "taylor derangement syndrome: on losing the normies," Notebook, Feb 3, 2024

— "cruel summer is going number one," Notebook, Oct 22, 2023

— "your future is me: let's talk about (sigh) swifties," Notebook, Oct 7, 2023

— "Taylor Swift studies takes a detour," Sept 4, 2023

— "Taylor Swift, Rockist," Notebook, Aug 4, 2023

— "Taylor Swift studies, contd," Notebook, July 3, 2023

— "(but I'm only looking at you)," Notebook, May 29, 2023

— "A Decade of Sore Winners," The Outline, Dec 31, 2019.

Clare Coffey, "Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince," Notebook, Sept 25, 2023

Mark Harris, "Taylor Swift’s ‘Look What You Made Me Do’ Is the First Pure Piece of Trump-Era Pop Art," Vulture, Aug 30, 2017

Edmund Smirk, "Swiftian Normality and the Freak Right," The American Mind, March, 7, 2024.

Watch:

Taylor Swift arguing with her Boomer Republican father about Tennessee U.S. Senate race (YouTube)

Taylor Swift, folklore: the long pond studio sessions (2020)

Bob Dylan, "Murder Most Foul" (2020)

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

UNLOCKED: Keeping Up with the Bozells

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (matthew sitman, sam adler-bell) — Tue, 19 Mar 2024 17:33:56 +0000

What can four generations of men named "L. Brent Bozell" tell us about the trajectory of modern American conservatism? Well, quite a lot. In this classic KYE bonus episode from February 2021, newly unlocked for these last weeks of Lent, Matt and Sam discuss one of the first families of the postwar right, which ends up being a story about faith, fanaticism, and the "awful grace of God."

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!

Further Reading:

Jeet Heer, "Meet the Bozells, America’s First Family of Right-Wing Violence," The Nation, February 22, 2021

Jon Schwarz, "Accused Capitol Rioter Brent Bozell IV Comes from Right-Wing Royalty," The Intercept, February 17, 2021

Timothy Noah, "The Rise and Fall of the L. Brent Bozells," The New Republic, February 19, 2021

Eve Tushnet, "Order, Chaos, Peace," The American Conservative, November 18, 2016

L. Brent Bozell Jr., "Freedom or Virtue?" National Review, Sept 11, 1962

Daniel Kelly, Living on Fire: The Life of L. Brent Bozell Jr., Intercollegiate Studies Institute, January 2014

Further Listening:

"Conservative Intelligentsia with Sam Adler-Bell & Matt Sitman," The Dig, February 18, 2021

Why the Right Loves Foreign Dictators (w/ Jacob Heilbrunn)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (jacob heilbrunn, matthew sitman, Sam Adler-Bell) — Mon, 11 Mar 2024 18:13:05 +0000

The right's romance with odious foreign dictators didn't start with Putin or Viktor Orbán, and their profound contempt for democracy long predates January 6. In his new book, America Last: The Right's Century-Long Romance with Foreign Dictators, Jacob Heilbrunn traces this tradition on the right—in many ways their most deeply rooted and enduring tradition in foreign affairs—back over a century to the embrace of Kaiser Wilhelm during World War I and envy of Mussolini to the present. In this discussion, Matt and Sam ask Heilbrunn about the connection between race science and fear of democracy in the early 20th century, what the right saw in Italian fascism, the machinations of the right's pivot from Nazi revisionism to the onset of the Cold War, Jeane Kirkpatrick and the supposed distinction between authoritarianism and "totalitarianism," the profound consequences of the failure of neoconservatism, the coming disaster of a second Trump term, and more.

Sources:

Jacob Heilbrunn, America Last: The Right's Century-Long Romance with Foreign Dictators (2024)

The Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons (2008)

RJB Bosworth, Mussolini (2010)

J. Valerio Borghese, Sea Devils: Suicide Squad (Regnery, 1954)

Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, "Dictatorships & Double Standards," Commentary, Nov 1979.

Listen:

Know Your Enemy, "The American Right’s Hungary Hearts, (w/ Lauren Stokes and John Ganz)"

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

A Remedy for Envy? René Girard Redux [TEASER]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman, Sam Adler-Bell) — Mon, 4 Mar 2024 16:48:57 +0000

Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this premium episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy

Matt and Sam return to René Girard via Pope Francis—whom Matt personally met at a recent general audience at the Vatican, and whose homily at that audience addressed the problem of envy, and what Christianity might have to teach us about it. Topics include: how to think about Girard's Christianity, in terms both of how it informs his work and his own attachment to it; the politics of Jesus, and whether or not any of the preceding can actually help us avoid the apocalyptic violence Girard thought was building as we hurtle toward "the end times."

Read:

René Girard, I See Satan Fall Like Lightning (1999)

Scott Cowdell, René Girard and Secular Modernity: Christ, Culture, and Crisis (2015)

Pope Francis, "Envy and Vainglory," Full text of general audience remarks, Feb 28, 2024

John Ganz's Unpopular Front series on Girard: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4

Herbert McCabe, "Class Struggle and Christian Love" in God Matters (2012)

James Alison, The Joy of Being Wrong: Original Sin Through Easter Eyes (1998)

James Allison, "Girard's Breakthrough," The Tablet, June 29, 1996.

Patricia Lockwood, "When I Met the Pope," LRB, Nov 30, 2023.

Listen:

Know Your Enemy, "René Girard and the Right" (w/ John Ganz), Feb 26, 2024

View:

Pericle Fazzini, "The Resurrection" (statue in the Paul VI Audience Hall in Vatican City)r

René Girard and the Right (w/ John Ganz)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (john ganz, sam adler-bell, matthew sitman) — Mon, 26 Feb 2024 15:29:05 +0000

The late René Girard, former Stanford professor of literature and mentor to Peter Thiel, is having something of a moment on the right these days—as Sam Kriss recently put it in a Harper's essay, Girard's name is being "dropped on podcasts and shoved into reading lists," and "Girardianism has become a secret doctrine of a strange new frontier in reactionary thought." Why might that be the case? To unpack this question, Matt and Sam welcomed back John Ganz, whose four-part series on Girard is one of the best primers available. What does Girard have to say about who we are as human beings, why we want what we want, the origins of both violence and social order (and what they have to do with each others), the uniqueness of Christianity, and the nature of secular modernity? What use is all this to the right? And to what uses do they put it?

Also: please pre-order John's book, When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s — it's sure to be excellent.

Sources:

John Ganz's Unpopular Front series on Girard: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4

René Girard, Deceit, Desire, and the Novel: Self and Other in Literary Structure (1976)

Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World (1987)

The Scapegoat (1989)

I See Satan Fall Like Lightning (1999)

Sam Kriss, "Overwhelming and Collective Murder: The Grand, Gruesome Theories of René Girard," Harper's, Nov 2023

Scott Cowdell, René Girard and Secular Modernity: Christ, Culture, and Crisis (2013)

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Thinking the "Far Right" [Teaser]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman) — Sun, 11 Feb 2024 16:29:39 +0000

Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this premium episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy

Matt and Sam return to some historiographic questions from our episode with Kim Phillips-Fein — especially how to think the relationship between "right" and "far right" — and then discuss the troubling return of scientific racism to mainstream conservative thought.

Further Reading:

James Alison, "Facing Down the Wolf," Commonweal, June 10, 2020.

Matthew Sitman, "Time in the Eternal City," Commonweal, Dec 24, 2024.

Samuel L. Popkin, Crackup: The Republican Implosion and the Future of Presidential Politics, Oxford UP, May 2021.

Joseph E. Lowndes, From the New Deal to the New Right: Race and the Southern Origins of Modern Conservatism, Yale UP, June 2009

John S. Huntington, Far-Right Vanguard: The Radical Roots of Modern Conservatism, Penn Press, Oct 2021.

Project 2025: Building a "Better" Trump Administration

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman, Sam Adler-Bell) — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 23:16:06 +0000

As listeners might have noticed, 2024 is a presidential election year, and already the prospect of Donald Trump returning to power is looming over the campaign and the media's coverage of it. In a second term, Trump has promised to weaponize the Justice Department to punish his enemies, deconstruct major portions of the administrative state, and mobilize the largest deportation force in US history — to cleanse the nation of immigrants who, as Trump says, "are poisoning the blood of our country."

The key to achieving these goals, conservatives believe, is ensuring that this time — unlike in 2016 — Trump is surrounded by the right people: populist true-believers who are sufficiently loyal and sufficiently competent to implement his extreme agenda. "Personnel is policy" is the watchword. And think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the America First Policy Institute (AFPI) are busy building rival rosters of ideologically-vetted political appointees. (And pissing each other off in the process.)

This episode explores how movement conservatives are refashioning the "conservative pipeline" for an anti-establishment era — through their efforts to recruit, credential, and train political professionals for a second Trump term. The question is: can these initiatives overcome the candidate's own erratic style, his weakness for sycophancy, his preference for hiring devoted courtiers over disciplined ideologues? If push came to shove, would Trump submit to the Heritage Foundation's plans for his presidential transition? Or would he resent being managed by these self-understood "adults in the room?"

In other words, can the eggheads of the conservative movement clean up the mess that is MAGA? Or is that just another intellectual fantasy? After all, as we often say on Know Your Enemy: "MAGA is the mess."

Sources:

Sam Adler-Bell, "The Shadow War to Determine the Next Trump Administration," New York Times, Jan 10, 2024

Isaac Arnsdorf, Josh Dawsey, and Devlin Barrett, "Trump and allies plot revenge, Justice Department control in a second term," Washington Post, Nov 6, 2023.

Charlie Savage, Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan, "Sweeping Raids, Giant Camps and Mass Deportation: Inside Trump's 2025 Immigration Plans," NYTimes, Nov 11, 2023.

Jonathan D. Karl, "The Man Who Made January 6 Possible," Atlantic, Nov 9, 2021.

Zachary Petrizzo, "Trumpworld Is Already at War Over Staffing a New Trump White House," Daily Beast, Nov 16, 2023.

Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen, "Behind the Curtain — Scoop: The Trump job applications revealed," Axios, Dec 1, 2023.

Ian Ward, "The Brash Group of Young Conservatives Getting Ready for the Next Trump Administration," Politico, Nov 3, 2023.

Michael Hirsh, "Inside the Next Republican Revolution," Politico, Sept 9, 2023.

Dylan Riley, "What Is Trump?" New Left Review, Nov 2018.

Timothy Snyder, "Not a Normal Election," Commonweal, Nov 2, 2020

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

[TEASER] The Politics of Seinfeld (w/ Gabe Winant and Jesse Brenneman)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (gabe winant, matthew sitman, jesse brenneman) — Fri, 26 Jan 2024 02:17:33 +0000

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Journeyman actor Peter Crombie, who appeared in films such as Seven, Born on the Fourth of July, and Natural Born Killers, died earlier this month, on January 10, 2024, at the age of 71. But his most famous, or at least memorable, role probably was his five-episode arc in season four of Seinfeld as "Crazy" Joe Davola, a struggling writer who becomes obsessed with Elaine and believes Jerry is sabotaging his career.

The "Crazy" Joe Davola episodes come at a major turning point in Seinfeld's nine seasons. The grittier, nearly vanished working-class New York City that's depicted in its earliest episodes, filled with dingy laundromats, struggling actors, immigrant relatives, and people who are literally poor, begins to drop out of view as Jerry's career takes off and the settings, references, and concerns of the show becomes more absurd and removed from the day to day life of ordinary people in Manhattan and beyond.

Using the death of Peter Crombie as the thinnest of excuses to do an episode on the politics of Seinfeld, Matt was joined by KYE producer Jesse Brenneman and historian Gabe Winant to explain its "Jewish humor"; how the class politics of New York City in the 70s and 80s informed the show; the deeper meaning of its many references to dictators, Nazis, communists, and others; the Dinkins vs. Giuliani race for mayor; and more!

The History of the History of the Right (w/ Kim Phillips-Fein)

Wed, 17 Jan 2024 22:44:59 +0000

When did the American conservative movement begin? Who were its chief protagonists? What were their main motivations? Is the conservative movement a social movement, like any other, or is it something different? Should scholars have "sympathy" for their conservative subjects in order to study them? And are there important distinctions to be drawn between "conservative," "the right," and "the far right?"

These are the sorts of questions historians ask each other and themselves. The changing ways they answer them — and the reasons their answers change — is the subject of today's episode. In other words: we're discussing the historiography of the American right. (Fun!)

In a highly influential 1994 essay, historian Alan Brinkley referred to conservatism as "something of an orphan in historical scholarship." By 2011, when our brilliant guest, Kim Phillips-Fein, surveyed the historical literature on conservatism, she found a dynamic, prolific, even "trendy" field, but one with many unsettled methodological debates. In 2017, friend of the pod Rick Perlstein wrote that historians, himself included, had made a mistake, privileging the more respectable and intellectual dimensions of conservatism over the more irrational, rank, and racist. "If Donald Trump is the latest chapter of conservatism’s story," Perlstein mused, "might historians have been telling that story wrong?" Since then, several studies and popular books have emerged which correct the record, and take up Perlstein's call to study "conservative history’s political surrealists and intellectual embarrassments, its con artists and tribunes of white rage."

To start off the year — an election year, no less — we're taking up these questions again. What is the state of the field of conservative studies now? Have historians, popular writers, and/or podcasters over-corrected, in the Trump era, for the mistakes Perlstein cites? What might we be missing this time? We're so very lucky to have long-time friend of the show Kim Phillips-Fein, the Robert Gardiner-Kenneth T. Jackson Professor of History at Columbia University, as our guide. Let's get big picture and take stock. 2024, here we go.

Further Reading:

Alan Brinkley, "The Problem of American Conservatism," The American Historical Review, Apr 1994.

Kim Phillips Fein, "Conservatism: A State of the Field," The Journal of American History, Dec 2011.

— Invisible Hands: The Businessmen's Crusade Against the New Deal (2010)

— Fear City: New York's Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics (2017)

Rick Perlstein, "I Thought I Understood the American Right. Trump Proved Me Wrong." New York Times, Apr 11, 2017.

Richard Hofstadter, "The Pseudo-Conservative Revolt," The American Scholar, Winter, 1954.

Willmoore Kendall, The Conservative Affirmation (Regnery Publishing, 1963)

John Huntington, Far-Right Vanguard: The Radical Roots of Modern Conservatism (2021)

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Tom Wolfe (w/ Osita Nwanevu) [TEASER]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Matthew Sitman, Osita Nwanevu) — Mon, 1 Jan 2024 19:57:57 +0000

Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this premium episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy

Writer Osita Nwanevu joins for a rip-roaring conversation about legendary prose stylist, "new journalist," and novelist Tom Wolfe. Reviewing a new documentary about Wolfe ("Radical Wolfe" on Netflix), Osita writes, "Behind the ellipses and exclamation points and between the lines of his prose, a lively though often lazy conservative mind was at work, making sense of the half-century that birthed our garish and dismal present, Trump and all."

Further Reading:

Osita Nwanevu, "The Electric Kool-Aid Conservative," The New Republic, Jan 5, 2023

Tom Wolfe, "The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby," Esquire, Nov 1963.

— "The Birth of ‘The New Journalism’; Eyewitness Report," New York Magazine, Feb 1972.

— "Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny’s," New York Magazine, June 1972

— The Bonfire of the Vanities (1987)

— A Man in Full (1998)

— The Kingdom of Speech (2016)

Peter Augustine Lawler, "What is Southern Stoicism? An Interview with Professor Peter Lawler," Daily Stoic, March 2017

Bomb Power (w/ Erik Baker)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Erik Baker, Sam Adler-Bell, Matt Sitman) — Tue, 19 Dec 2023 22:24:46 +0000

For our final main episode of 2023, we're dipping back into the Wills well to discuss Garry's under-appreciated 2010 book, Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State. Joining us is our great friend Erik Baker, lecturer in the History of Science Department at Harvard University and an editor at The Drift magazine.

In Bomb Power, Garry Wills elegantly demonstrates how the imperatives of secretly conceiving, building, and deploying the nuclear bomb fundamentally changed American democracy — massively empowering the presidency, disempowering Congress, and setting the nation on a permanent war footing. At the same time, secrecy and deception metastasized through the American system, enabling the rise of extra-judicial assassinations, coup plotting, domestic surveillance, torture, and clandestine war. "Secrecy emanated from the Manhattan Project like a giant radiation emission..." writes Wills, "Because the government was the keeper of the great secret, it began specializing in secret keeping.”

Also discussed: Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer (2023), Henry Kissinger (RIP), Bush and Obama, Snowden, Ellsberg, and the ways in which Bomb Power is a profoundly Catholic book. Enjoy!

Sources:

Garry Wills, Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State (2010)

Daniel Ellsberg, The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear Planner (2017)

Barton Gellman, Dark Mirror: Edward Snowden and the American Surveillance State (2021)

Archbishop John Wester, "Living in the Light of Christ's Peace: A Conversation Toward Nuclear Disarmament," Jan 11, 2022

Erik Baker, "Daniel in the Lion's Den: On the Moral Courage of Daniel Ellsberg," The Baffler, June 17, 2023

John Schwenkler and Mark Souva, "False Choices: The Unjustifiable Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki," Commonweal, Oct 14, 2020

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Milton Friedman and the Making of Our Times (w/ Jennifer Burns)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (jennifer burns, matthew sitman, sam adler-bell) — Sun, 3 Dec 2023 12:00:00 +0000

In this episode, Matt and Sam are joined by Stanford historian Jennifer Burns to discuss her new biography of Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist whose influence would reach far beyond the academy when, during his last decades, he became one of the most effective popularizers of libertarian ideas—in books, columns, and even a ten-part PBS program, Free to Choose. How did the son of Jewish immigrants in New Jersey come to hold the often radical ideas that made him famous? How does Friedman's variety of libertarianism differ from, say, that of Mises or Hayek? What made Friedman, unusually for the times, someone who valued the intellects and work of the women around him? And what should we make of Friedman now, as Trump and elements of the conservative movement and Republican Party supposedly jettison the "fusionism" of which Friedman's free markets were a part?

As mentioned in the episode's introduction, listeners might want to revisit episode 16 with economist Marshall Steinbaum for a broader, and more critical, look at the Chicago school.

Sources:

Jennifer Burns, Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative (2023)

Jennifer Burns, Ayn Rand: Goddess of the Market (2009)

Naomi Klein, "40 Years Ago, This Chilean Exile Warned Us About the Shock Doctrine. Then He Was Assassinated." The Nation, Sept 21, 2016.

Tim Barker, "Other People’s Blood," n+1 , Spring 2019.

Pascale Bonnefoy, "50 Years Ago, a Bloody Coup Ended Democracy in Chile," NY Times, Sept 11, 2023.

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Anarcho-Capitalism in Argentina? (w/ David Adler) [TEASER]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (David Adler, Sam Adler-Bell, Matthew Sitman) — Wed, 22 Nov 2023 16:43:45 +0000

Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this premium episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy

Know Your Enemy Latin America correspondent David Adler returns to breakdown the (terrible) election results from Argentina, where Javier Milei, a deranged disciple of Murray Rothbard, Milton Friedman, and Austrian economics, who consults his cloned dogs for political advice and promises to tear down the Peronist state with a chainsaw, has won the presidency.

David is the General Coordinator of the Progressive International, and despite what he tells people at parties, unrelated to Sam.

Further Reading

Quinn Slobodian, "Monster of the Mainstream," New Statesman, Nov 20, 2023

Murray Rothbard, "Right-Wing Populism: A Strategy for the Paleo Movement," Rothbard-Rockwell Report, Jan 1992.

John Ganz, "Murray Rothbard's America," Unpopular Front, May 30, 2022.

Manuel García Gojon “Will Argentina’s Next President Be a Rothbardian?” The Mises Institute, Jul 4, 2022.

Philipp Bagus, "Javier's Milei's Populist Strategy in Argentina Is Working," The Mises Institute, Sept 14, 2023.

The Kennedy Imprisonment (w/ Jeet Heer)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (jeet heer, matthew sitman, sam adler-bell) — Fri, 17 Nov 2023 22:29:30 +0000

In this episode, Matt and Sam welcome the Nation's Jeet Heer to the podcast to continue their journey into the work of Garry Wills—in particular, Wills's under-appreciated 1982 masterpiece, The Kennedy Imprisonment: A Meditation on Power. The book might be thought of as a sequel to his earlier Nixon Agonistes (1970). As Wills puts it in his introduction to the most recent edition of The Kennedy Imprisonment, "I had written a book about Nixon, and it was not a biography, but an attempt to see what could be learned about America from the way Nixon attracted or repelled his fellow countrymen. Why not do the same thing for the Kennedys?"

The result of Wills's efforts is a devastating portrait of an Irish-Catholic family who strove to be accepted at the most rarified heights of American society—and then, when they weren't, relentlessly pursued political power. Along the way, the family patriarch, Joseph Kennedy, used his money and influence to create a series of myths surrounding his sons, most of all the son who would become president, John F. Kennedy. It is these myths at which Wills takes aim, showing how Joseph Kennedy bought his second son good press, a heroic war record, and even a Pulitzer Prize. And it was Joseph Kennedy who taught his sons what was expected of them as men: to use and dominate women (many, many women), to valorize virility and daring and risk, and to understand power as enlightened leadership by the best and brightest (most of all, the Kennedys), not as harnessing the popular energy of mass movements. What begins as a book exposing the Kennedy men as wannabe aristocrats bent on conquest, both sexual and political, ends as an indictment of the liberalism they came to represent.

Sources:

Garry Wills, The Kennedy Imprisonment: A Meditation on Power (1982)

Garry Wills, Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self-Made Man (1970)

Garry Wills, Bare Ruined Choirs: Doubt, Prophecy, and Radical Religion (1972)

Joan Didion, "Wayne at the Alamo," National Review, Dec 31, 1960

Hugh Kenner, The Mechanic Muse (1988)

Hugh Kenner, The Pound Era (1971)

Richard E. Neustadt, Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents: The Politics of Leadership from Roosevelt to Reagan (1960)

John Leonard, "Camelot's Failure," New York Times, Feb 25, 1982

Norman Mailer, "Superman Comes to the Supermarket," Esquire, Nov 1960

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Your Questions, Answered

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (matthew sitman, sam adler-bell) — Sat, 28 Oct 2023 17:31:59 +0000

Once a year Matt and Sam take questions from listeners—and they always prove to be incredibly smart and interesting. This time around was no different, with questions that include such topics as: the crisis in Israel and Palestine, the influence of postliberal thinkers on the right, polarization and our political future, the state of the GOP, Willie Nelson, conservative art (and artists), and more!

Sources:

Joshua Leifer, "Toward a Humane Left," Dissent, Oct 12, 2023; read Gabriel Winant's reply, "On Mourning and Statehood," and Leifer's response to Winant here

Patrick Deneen, Regime Change: Toward a Postliberal Future (2023)

Kurt Vonnegut, Player Piano (1952)

Kurt Vonnegut, "Harrison Bergeron" (1961)

Lilliana Mason, Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity (2018)

Samuel L. Popkin, Crackup: The Republican Implosion and the Future of Presidential Politics (2021)

Matt Grossmann and David A. Hopkins, Asymmetric Politics: Ideological Republicans and Group Interest Democrats (2016)

John Spong, "Daniel Lanois on Recording Willie Nelson’s Landmark Album 'Teatro,'" Texas Monthly, June 2023

Walker Percy, Love in the Ruins (1971)

Suzanne Schneider, "Light Among the Nations," Jewish Currents, Sept 23, 2023

Ellis Sandoz, Political Apocalypse: A Study of Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor (1971)

Mark C. Henrie, ed., Doomed Bourgeois in Love: Essays on the Films of Whit Stillman (2001)

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

In Search of Anti-Semitism (w/ John Ganz)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (John Ganz, Matt Sitman, Sam Adler-Bell) — Fri, 13 Oct 2023 17:00:40 +0000

In a 1991, William F. Buckley, Jr. dedicated almost an entire issue of National Review to an essay entitled "In Search of Anti-Semitism." In its pages, Buckley attempted to adjudicate a conflict that was then roiling America's right wing intelligentsia — over whether two of its leading lights, Pat Buchanan and Joseph Sobran, were guilty of antisemitism in their syndicated columns and speeches. (Never one to miss an opportunity to antagonize an enemy or blame the left, Buckley threw in Gore Vidal for good measure.) The article, despite its meandering prose and fuzzy-headed conclusions, sparked an enormous response from NR's readership, some of whom felt Buckley was too hard on Pat and Joe, others who thought he was not hard enough.

The following year, Buckley combined the essay, several of the responses, and a few new thoughts of his own... and sold it as a "book." And thirty-one years later, we read that book — carefully — and recorded a podcast about it with our friend John Ganz, author of the forthcoming book, When the Clock Broke, about the derangement of American politics in the 1990s. (You can pre-order it here. It's sure to be excellent).

Unfortunately for us all, In Search of Anti-Semitism is not a good book; it's hardly a book at all. But it is a fascinating artifact of a fleeting post-Cold War moment in which conservatives furtively faced their own demons — before turning right back around.

For those interested, here is the link mentioned in the episode's introduction for tickets to Dissent's 70th anniversary event later this month.

Sources:

William F. Buckley Jr., In Search of Anti-Semitism (1992)

John Ganz, "The Year the Clock Broke," The Baffler, Nov 2018

Joshua Muravchik, "Pat Buchanan and the Jews," Commentary, Jan 1991

Matthew Sitman, "There Will Be No Buckley Revival," Commonweal, July 2015

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

House of Pain (w/ Eric Levitz) [Teaser]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman, Sam Adler-Bell, Eric Levitz) — Sat, 7 Oct 2023 15:55:18 +0000

Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this premium episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy

Republican congressman Kevin McCarthy always wanted to make history—and he did when, earlier this week, he became the first Speaker of the House to be ousted from the job after eight Republicans joined Democrats to approve a motion to vacate the position. How does a motion to vacate work? What events led to McCarthy's fall from grace? How deranged is the Republican caucus in the House, and how did they get that way? Were Democrats right to not bail out McCarthy? In this episode, Matt and Sam are joined by New York's Eric Levitz to provides answers to all these question—and more.

Listen:

Todd Snider, "Conservative, Christian, Right Wing Republican, Straight, White, American Males" (2004)

Sources:

Robert Draper, Weapons of Mass Delusion: When the Republican Party Lost Its Mind (Penguin, 2022)

Eric Levitz, "The GOP Is More Ungovernable Than Ever Before," New York, Jan 5, 2023

Ettingermentum, "The Art of Losing the Speaker's Gavel," Oct 3, 2023

Matthew Loh, "Mitch McConnell Says House Republicans Should Get Rid of the Motion to Vacate Because It 'Makes the Speaker's Job Impossible,'" Insider, Oct 5, 2023

The Debate, the Donald, and the Strike [Teaser]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman) — Sat, 30 Sep 2023 17:34:41 +0000

Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this premium episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy

Matt and Sam suffer through the second GOP debate—a pathetic display from a gaggle of generally uninteresting reactionaries with no chance of defeating Trump in the primary—and then turn to an extended conversation about the politics and possibilities of the UAW auto strike against the Big Three car manufacturers. President Biden walked the picket line, while Trump spoke to employees of a non-union auto parts company. Why did the mainstream media continually insist that Biden and Trump were both appealing to striking workers? Did Biden do enough in his brief visit to the picket line? What did Trump actually say about the strike? These questions and more get answered in this primary season special!

Sources:

Alex Press, "Trump Is Speaking Tonight in Michigan at a Nonunion Auto Shop, as a Guest of Its Boss," Jacobin, Sept 27, 2023

Craig Mauger, "Donald Trump: UAW Negotiations 'Don't Mean as Much as You Think,'" Detroit Free Press, Sept 27, 2023

Martin Pengelly, "Signs Touting ‘Auto Workers for Trump’ at Michigan Rally Found to be Fake – Report," The Guardian, Sept 28, 2023

Heather Carter, "UAW President Shawn Fain Is Reviving That Old-Time Religion: Christian Radicalism," Jacobin, Sept 29, 2023

Elon Musk, the Jews, and the ADL (w/ Mari Cohen, Alex Kane, & Peter Beinart)

Tue, 26 Sep 2023 15:05:07 +0000

A few weeks ago, the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, eagerly joined in a campaign, originating on the far right, to demonize the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a century-old Jewish civil rights organization whose leaders have criticized Musk for allowing anti-semitic and white supremacist hate speech to proliferate on Twitter/X. To many progressives, it could sound like a simple story of good vs. evil — the righteous vs. the hateful — especially for those who've experienced the palpable flourishing of Nazi and Nazi-adjacent sentiment on Twitter/X since Musk purchased the platform.

But for our guests — Mari Cohen, Alex Kane, and Peter Beinart of Jewish Currents — the story is more complicated. Over the past five years, Jewish Currents has been perhaps the only outlet on the left aggressively reporting on the ADL, exposing its complicity with the Trump presidency, its attacks on pro-Palestinian activism, and its fraying relationships with Muslim and black-led civil rights groups. In this episode, we explore the central tension animating the ADL's erratic politics: can an organization officially dedicated to securing "justice and fair treatment to all" simultaneously forbid criticism of a state — the state of Israel — whose ethnonationalist social order is an inspiration to right-wing movements the world over? And if that contradiction can't be reconciled, how should we respond to Musk's attacks on the organization? Is the ADL salvageable? And does it deserve to be saved? Listen to find out!

Further Reading

Emmaia Gelman, "The Anti-Democratic Origins of the ADL and AJC," Jewish Currents, March 12, 2021

Peter Beinart, "Has the Fight Against Antisemitism Lost Its Way?" New York Times, Aug 26, 2022

Mari Cohen, The ADL's Antisemitism Findings, Explained, Jewish Currents, April 4, 2023

Mari Cohen & Isaac Scher, "The ADL Doubles Down on Opposing the Anti-Zionist Left," Jewish Currents, May 1, 2022

Alex Kane & Jacob Hutt, "How the ADL’s Israel Advocacy Undermines Its Civil Rights Work," February 8, 2021

Noah Kulwin, "The Unbearable Ignorance of the ADL," Jewish Currents, Dec 9, 2022

Mari Cohen & Alex Kane, "ADL Staffers Dissented After CEO Compared Palestinian Rights Groups to Right-Wing Extremists, Leaked Audio Reveals," Jewish Currents, Mar 8, 2023

Alex Kane & Sam Levin, "Internal ADL Memo Recommended Ending Police Delegations to Israel Amid Backlash," Jewish Currents, Mar 17, 2022

Eric Alterman, "What Does the ADL Stand for Today?" The New Republic, Aug 21, 2023

James Traub, "Does Abe Foxman Have an Anti-Anti-Semite Problem?" New York Times, Jan 14, 2007

Find our intrepid producer Jesse Brenneman's new record "Modern Life" on Bandcamp, Spotify, or YouTube.

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Reading the Trump Indictments [Teaser]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Matt Sitman) — Tue, 19 Sep 2023 17:23:59 +0000

Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this premium episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy

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

What the Cold War Did to Liberalism (w/ Samuel Moyn)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (sam adler-bell, matthew sitman, Samuel Moyn) — Tue, 5 Sep 2023 19:57:04 +0000

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!

The First 2024 GOP Presidential Debate [TEASER]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman, Sam Adler-Bell) — Thu, 24 Aug 2023 23:30:59 +0000

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

The Hochman Affair

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Matt Sitman) — Mon, 21 Aug 2023 17:25:40 +0000

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!

Grateful Dead Conservatives (w/ Sophie Haigney) [TEASER]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matt Sitman, Sam Adler-Bell, Sophie Haigney) — Fri, 11 Aug 2023 20:54:41 +0000

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 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.

Midge Decter: Anti-Feminist Cold Warrior (w/ Moira Donegan & Adrian Daub)

Thu, 27 Jul 2023 20:30:10 +0000

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!

TEASER: Sin and Salvation in the Righteous Gemstones (w/ Jesse Brenneman)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (sam adler-bell, jesse brenneman, matthew sitman) — Fri, 21 Jul 2023 21:53:54 +0000

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

Legal Trouble

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Matt Sitman) — Mon, 17 Jul 2023 16:17:19 +0000

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!

Impossible Professions: Freud and Janet Malcolm (ft. Patrick Blanchfield & Abby Kluchin)

Thu, 6 Jul 2023 22:45:09 +0000

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

Grow Up, Men (w/ Phil Christman) [TEASER]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman) — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 16:00:42 +0000

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)

The Prayers and Prophecies of Pat Robertson [TEASER]

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matt Sitman, Sam Adler-Bell) — Sat, 17 Jun 2023 16:55:33 +0000

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.

What's Wrong With Men?

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Matthew Sitman) — Mon, 5 Jun 2023 23:01:19 +0000

"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 falling behind in education, in work-force participation, and succumbing to drugs, alcoholism, and suicide.

Hawley — apparently having stewed on the topic for two years — has just released a book on "manhood," which advises a revival of biblical virtues to guide the aimless young men of 21st century America. To pair with Hawley, we read Harvey Mansfield's 2006 book on "manliness." Putting Hawley's evangelical Christian preaching in conversation with Mansfield's Straussian philosophical playfulness proved very constructive. Along the way, we talk about our own relationship to manhood and try to decide which (if any) of the virtues associated with maleness are worth preserving, defending, or even advising young men to embrace.

Further reading:

Harvey C. Mansfield, Manliness, Yale University Press, 2006.

Joshua Hawley, Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs, Regnery, 2023.

Joshua Hawley, "America's Epicurean Liberalism," National Affairs, Fall 2010.

Becca Rothfeld, "How to be a man? Josh Hawley has the (incoherent) answers," The Washington Post, May 18, 2023.

Phil Christman, "What Is It Like to Be a Man?" Hedgehog Review, Summer 2018.

Martin Amis, "Return of the Male," London Review of Books, Dec 5, 1991.

Martha Nussbaum, "Man Overboard," New Republic, June 22, 2006.

Idrees Kahloon, "What's the Matter With Men?" The New Yorker, Jan 23, 2023.

Zoë Heller, "How Toxic Is Masculinity?" The New Yorker, Aug 1, 2022.

Lisa Miller, "Tate-Pilled What a generation of boys have found in Andrew Tate’s extreme male gospel." New York Magazine, Mar 14, 2023.

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

The 2024 Race: "It's Showtime, Folks!" (TEASER)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (matthew sitman, sam adler-bell) — Thu, 18 May 2023 18:54:57 +0000

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.

"Succession," "Extrapolations," and TV Writing Today (w/ Dorothy Fortenberry and Will Arbery)

Thu, 4 May 2023 22:12:25 +0000

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 to Stop the Destruction of Their Profession," Jacobin, May 3, 2023.

Sam Adler-Bell, "Succession's Repetition Compulsion," The Nation, Nov 10, 2021.

Pope Francis, Laudato si’ (“On Care for Our Common Home”), May 2015

Listen to previous Know Your Enemy episodes with these guests:

"We Can Be Heroes" (w/ Will Arbery), November 11, 2019

"Suburban Woman" (w/ Dorothy Fortenberry), October 29, 2020

"Living at the End of Our World" (w/ Daniel Sherrell & Dorothy Fortenberry), September 2, 2021

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

TEASER: The January 6th Committee Report

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Matthew Sitman) — Sat, 29 Apr 2023 16:26:48 +0000

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?" New York Magazine, Jul 11, 2022.

Executive Summary of the Jan 6 Report

Ron DeSantis Wants to Make America Florida (w/ Gillian Branstetter)

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 16:10:40 +0000

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 embodiment of the twin cults of expertise and meritocracy, even as he disavows and demonizes the "ruling class" and it's irksome cultural mores.

Finally, we identify the violent underpinnings of DeSantis's political impulses, discussing his alleged involvement in detainee abuse at Guantanamo Bay. As Gillian summarizes DeSantis's worldview, “It’s just cold efficiency and shared enemies. That’s what he’s selling. It’s like getting a moral lecture from a gun."

Sources:

Gillian Branstetter, "The Gender War Is A Forever War," The Autonomy, Mar 5, 2023.

— "When Biology Needs Some Help," The Autonomy, Feb 9, 2023.

Ron DeSantis, The Courage to Be Free: Florida's Blueprint for America's Revival, Feb 2023

Sam Adler-Bell, "The One Thing Trump Has That DeSantis Never Will," NY Times, Apr 10, 2023.

Adrian Daub, What Tech Calls Thinking: An Inquiry into the Intellectual Bedrock of Silicon Valley, Oct 2020.

Zack Beauchamp, "Ron DeSantis is following a trail blazed by a Hungarian authoritarian," Vox, Apr 28, 2022.

Angelo Codevilla, "America's Ruling Class," The American Spectator, Jul 16, 2010.

Jasper Craven, "The Sunshine Imperium: The militarism of Ron DeSantis," The Baffler, Mar 2023.

Daniel Luban, "The Belligerent: Angelo Codevilla and the ideological origins of the New Right," The Baffler, Oct 2022.

Wendy Brown, In the Ruins of Neoliberalism: The Rise of Antidemocratic Politics in the West, Jul 2019.

Joseph Darda, The Strange Career of Racial Liberalism, Mar 2022.

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, "Identity Politics and Elite Capture," Boston Review, May 7, 2020.

Michael Kranish, "DeSantis’s pivotal service at Guantánamo during a violent year," Washington Post, March 19, 2023.

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

TEASER: Whittaker Chambers, Redux (w/ Sam Tanenhaus)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Tanenhaus, Matthew Sitman, Sam Adler-Bell) — Mon, 10 Apr 2023 20:35:26 +0000

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!

Bob Dylan's America (w/ Will Epstein)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Will Epstein, Sam Adler-Bell, Matt Sitman) — Tue, 4 Apr 2023 21:35:37 +0000

"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, or rebelling against its own strictures. Things get better; things get worse; what they don't do is stay the same.

To help us make sense of Bob Dylan's idiosyncratic vision of America and American song, we're joined by Know Your Enemy musician-in-residence (and Bob super-fan) Will Epstein. Besides providing the music for our show, Will is a song-writer, composer, and improvisor; his latest album, WENDY, is out from Fat Possum records. (Download it or buy the vinyl here.) Music may not be the place where most people put their dreams these days, but it's still where we put ours. And there is no better way to understand America's dreams than by listening — closely — to its music.

Sources:

Bob Dylan, The Philosophy of Modern Song (2022)

Bob Dylan, Chronicles: Volume One (2005)

Sean Wilentz, Bob Dylan in America (2010)

Clinton Heylin, Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisited (2003)

Martin Chilton, "Bob Dylan and the Great American Songbook," May 24, 2022

Raymond Foye, "Bob Dylan’s The Philosophy of Modern Song," The Brooklyn Rail, Nov. 2022.

Hua Hsu, "How Nam June Paik’s Past Shaped His Visions of the Future," The New Yorker, Mar 29, 2023.

John Szwed, Cosmic Scholar: The Life and Times of Harry Smith, coming Aug 2023.

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

TEASER: Our Lady of Guadalupe and American Democracy (w/ Nichole M. Flores)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (nichole m. flores, matthew sitman) — Wed, 29 Mar 2023 15:47:18 +0000

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)

TEASER: Suffering, Solidarity, and Ritual (w/ Susan Bigelow Reynolds)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (susan bigelow reynolds, matthew sitman) — Mon, 20 Mar 2023 15:21:13 +0000

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 Roxbury (2023)

Susan Bigelow Reynolds, "Ways of the Cross," Commonweal, March 14, 2023

Whittaker Chambers and the Freight Train of History

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (sam adler-bell, matthew sitman) — Sun, 12 Mar 2023 19:09:30 +0000

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 "underground" engaging in espionage for the Soviet Union against the United States. "Out of my weakness and folly (but also out of my strength), I committed the characteristic crimes of my century," writes Chambers in his 1952 memoir/jeremiad Witness. Your hosts break it all down, assess his crimes and contributions, and explore one of the most consequential American lives of the twentieth century.

Sources:

Sam Tanenhaus, Whittaker Chambers: A Biography (1997)

Whittaker Chambers, Witness (1952)

Whittaker Chambers, Cold Friday (1964)

Whittaker Chambers, "Big Sister is Watching You," National Review, December 28, 1957

The Whittaker Chambers Reader: His Complete National ReviewWritings, 1957-1959 (2014)

William F. Buckley, Jr., editor, Odyssey of a Friend: Whittaker Chambers Letters to William F. Buckley, Jr. (1969)

L. Brent Bozell, Jr. and William F. Buckley, Jr., McCarthy and His Enemies: The Record and Its Meaning (1954)

Murray Kempton, Part of Our Time: Some Ruins and Monuments of the Thirties (1956)

Landon R.Y. Storrs, The Second Red Scare and the Unmaking of the New Deal Left (2013)

Richard H. Crossman, editor, The God that Failed: A Confession (1949)

Lionel Trilling, The Middle of the Journey (1947)

Matthew Richer, "The Cry Against Ninevah: A Centennial Tribute to Whittaker Chambers," Modern Age, Summer 2001

Christopher Hitchens, "A Regular Bull," London Review of Books, July 1997

Christopher Hitchens and Martin Amis, "No Laughing Matter" (YouTube, 2007)

Jess Bravin, "Whittaker Chambers Award Draws Criticism—From His Family," Wall Street Journal, March 28, 2019

Isaac Deutscher, "The Ex-Communist's Conscience," The Reporter, 1950.

John Patrick Diggins, Up From Communism: Conservative odysseys in American intellectual history, (1975)

Daniel Aaron, Writers on the Left, (1961)

Larry Ceplair, Anti-Communism in Twentieth-Century America: A Critical History, (2011)

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Realignments (w/ Timothy Shenk)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Timothy Shenk, Matthew Sitman, Sam Adler-Bell) — Mon, 27 Feb 2023 16:38:03 +0000

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 Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to Bill Clinton (Harvard University Press, 1993)

Sam Adler-Bell, "The Radical Young Intellectuals Who Want to Take Over the American Right," The New Republic, Dec 2021

Firing Line debate on the Panama Canal (YouTube)

This episode was unlocked from Patreon. To hear more bonus episodes, subscribe at https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy.

TEASER: Le Carre's Cold War (w/ Jamelle Bouie and John Ganz)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, John Ganz, Jamelle Bouie) — Wed, 22 Feb 2023 18:47:20 +0000

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 is it so attractive to all of us? Listen to find out!

Recommended Reading:

Sam Adler-Bell, "The Father of All Secrets," The Baffler, Dec 2022.

Laura Marsh, "The Nonconformist," NYRB, Feb 2022.

Nicholas Dames, "Coming in from the Cold," n+1, Spring 2018.

John le Carré, The Little Drummer Girl, Hodder & Stoughton, 1983.

Tim Cornwell ed., A Private Spy: The Letters of John le Carré, Random House, Jan 2023.

Triumph of the Therapeutic (w/ Hannah Zeavin & Alex Colston)

Mon, 13 Feb 2023 20:50:14 +0000

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 individuals into a community of shared purpose.

Rieff, a secular Jew, remained concerned to the very end of his life with the problem of living in a society without faith, one in which the rudderless self is mediated, most of all, by therapeutic ideas and psychological institutions rather than by religious or political ones. Less sophisticated versions of this conundrum haunt conservative thought to this day — from complaints about "wokeness" as a religion to the right's treatment of sexual and gender transgression as mental pathology.

To help us navigate Rieff, Freud, and the conservative underbelly of psychoanalysis, we're joined by two brilliant thinkers and writers: Hannah Zeavin and Alex Colston. Hannah is an Assistant Professor at Indiana University in the Luddy School of Informatics; Alex is a PhD student at Duquesne in clinical psychology. Most importantly, for our purposes, Hannah and Alex are also the editors of Parapraxis, a new magazine of psychoanalysis on the left. We hope you enjoy this (admittedly, heady) episode. If you do, consider signing up for a new podcast — on psychoanalysis and politics, of all things — hosted by beloved KYE guest Patrick Blanchfield and his partner Abby Kluchin entitled "Ordinary Unhappiness."

Further Reading:

Philip Rieff, Freud: Mind of the Moralist (Viking, 1959)

— The Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith After Freud (Harper & Row, 1966)

— Fellow Teachers (Harper & Row, 1973)

Gerald Howard, "Reasons to Believe," Bookforum, Feb 2007.

Blake Smith, "The Secret Life of Philip Rieff." Tablet, Dec 15, 2022

George Scialabba, "The Curse of Modernity: Rieff's Problem with Freedom," Boston Review, Jul 1, 2007.

Christopher Lasch, "The Saving Remnant," The New Republic, Nov 19, 1990.

Hannah Zeavin, "Composite Case: The fate of the children of psychoanalysis," Parapraxis, Nov 14, 2022.

Alex Colston, "Father," Parapraxis, Nov 21, 2022.

Rod Dreher, "We Live In Rieff World," Mar 1, 2019.

Park MacDougald, "The Importance of Repression," Sept 29, 2021

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

TEASER: Realignments (w/ Timothy Shenk)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Tim Shenk, Sam Adler-Bell, Matthew Sitman) — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 17:42:52 +0000

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, Political Visionaries, and the Struggle to Rule American Democracy (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2022)

Stephen Skowronek, The Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to Bill Clinton (Harvard University Press, 1993)

Sam Adler-Bell, "The Radical Young Intellectuals Who Want to Take Over the American Right," The New Republic, Dec 2021

The Eyes of the Ranger (w/ Jesse Brenneman)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (sam adler-bell, jesse brenneman, matthew sitman) — Wed, 18 Jan 2023 15:16:18 +0000

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

"Chuck Norris's code of honor," drawn from the Chuck Norris System of martial arts (Chun Kuk Do)

Chuck Norris, Black Belt Patriotism: How to Reawaken America (2008)

Aaron Cantú, The Chaparral Insurgents of South Texas,The New Inquiry, April 2016.

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

TEASER: The Death of Pope Benedict XVI (w/ Michael O'Loughlin)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (michael o'loughlin, matthew sitman) — Sun, 8 Jan 2023 17:47:36 +0000

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 at America magazine and author of Hidden Mercy: AIDS, Catholics, and the Untold Stories of Compassion in the Face of Fear.

Listen to the entire conversation by subscribing to Know Your Enemy on Patreon!

Jesus and Bob Dylan (w/ the Jokermen)

Mon, 26 Dec 2022 18:26:25 +0000

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.

J. Edgar Hoover, G-Man (w/ Beverly Gage)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (beverly gage, sam adler-bell, matthew sitman) — Mon, 19 Dec 2022 22:34:50 +0000

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-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century (Viking, 2022)

Michael Kazin, "J. Edgar Hoover’s Long Shadow," New Republic, Dec 9, 2022

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. Harvey Mansfield and Delba Winthrop (1835, 2002)

Please consider making an end-of-year donation to Dissent this holiday season, Know Your Enemy's beloved sponsor. And don't forget to subscribe to KYE on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes.

TEASER: More Mail, More Bag

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Matthew Sitman) — Wed, 7 Dec 2022 16:32:22 +0000

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

You Have Questions, We Have Answers (Mailbag episode)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (matthew sitman, sam adler-bell) — Thu, 1 Dec 2022 00:28:56 +0000

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)

Breece D'J Pancake, The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake (2002)

Breece D'J Pancake, "Trilobites," The Atlantic, December 1977

Andre Dubus, Selected Stories (1995)

Janet Malcolm, "I Should Have Made Him for a Dentist," New York Review of Books, March 2018

John le Carré, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963)

Art Shay, Album for an Age: Unconventional Words and Pictures from the Twentieth Century (2000)

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes

How Fetterman Won (w/ Joe Calvello)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (joe calvello, matthew sitman, sam adler-bell) — Fri, 11 Nov 2022 21:54:04 +0000

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!

TEASER: The Red Ripple (Midterm Debrief)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Matthew Sitman) — Thu, 10 Nov 2022 00:26:16 +0000

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...

Nixon Agonistes

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (sam adler-bell, matthew sitman) — Sun, 6 Nov 2022 17:01:38 +0000

"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 strategy"; examines the roiling anger and protests over the Vietnam War; and offers on-the-ground reportage from the 1968 conventions (the GOP's in Miami, the Democrats', infamously, in Chicago). Matt and Sam try to make sense of it all and ponder what Nixon Agonistes might say about how we got here and where we're going.

Sources:

Garry Wills, Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self-Made Man (1970)

Confessions of a Conservative (1979)

Outsider Looking In: Adventures of an Observer (2010)

Kevin Phillips, The Emerging Republican Majority (1968)

Tom Wolfe, The New Journalism (1973)

KYE, "Joan Didion, Conservative, (w/ Sam Tanenhaus)" Jan 13, 2022

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

TEASER: State of the States (w/ Aaron Kleinman)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Aaron Kleinman) — Mon, 31 Oct 2022 16:56:19 +0000

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.

Why Conservatives Love Baseball (w/ David Roth)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (david roth, matthew sitman, sam adler-bell) — Mon, 17 Oct 2022 18:31:18 +0000

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, "Replacement-Level Billionaires," The Baffler, March 2020

Leander Schaerlaeckens, "Was Donald Trump Good at Baseball?" Slate, May 5, 2020

Michael Serazio, "The GOP hates baseball now. But it has always been a conservative sport," Washington Post, April 7, 2021

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

TEASER: Giorgia Meloni's Neo-Fascism (w/ David Broder)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (david broder, sam adler-bell) — Thu, 6 Oct 2022 14:33:02 +0000

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 conspiracy.

Further reading:

David Broder, "Italy’s drift to the far right began long before the rise of Giorgia Meloni," Guardian, Sept. 2022.

Natasha Lennard, "It's a Girl (Fascist!)," The Intercept, Sept. 2022.

Adam Tooze, "Who is going to vote for Italy's right-wing coalition?," Chartbook, Sept 2022.

TEASER: I Taught the Sheriff (w/ John Ganz)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Matthew Sitman, John Ganz) — Sat, 24 Sep 2022 16:28:51 +0000

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.

Alexandra Berzon and Nick Corasaniti, "2020 Election Deniers Seek Out Powerful Allies: County Sheriffs," NYTimes, Jul 25, 2022.

Adam Rawnsley, "MAGA Claremont Institute Honors Sheriffs Who Defy Laws They Don’t Like," Daily Beast, Nov 22, 2021.

Ashley Powers, "The Renegade Sheriffs," The New Yorker, Apr 23, 2018.

Kimberly Kindy, "Boosted by the pandemic, ‘constitutional sheriffs’ are a political force," Washington Post, Nov 2, 2021.

Christian Vanderbrouk, "Notes on an Authoritarian Conspiracy: Inside the Claremont Institute’s “79 Days to Inauguration” Report," The Bulwark, Nov 8, 2021.

Michael Anton & Glenn Elmers, "The Stakes: Harry Jaffa’s Philosophy," The American Mind, Sept 19, 2022.

After the Theocons (w/ Damon Linker)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Damon Linker, Sam Adler-Bell, Matthew Sitman) — Tue, 20 Sep 2022 15:29:51 +0000

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

Damon Linker, "There is No Happy Ending to America's Trump Problem," New York Times, Aug 21, 2022

"A Giving of Intellectual Accounts," Eyes on the Right, Sept 9, 2022

"How Do You Solve a Problem Like Donald Trump?" Eyes on the Right, July 18, 2022

The Theocons: Secular America Under Seige (Doubleday, 2006)

Matthew Sitman, "Reading Left to Right" (review of Richard John Neuhaus: A Life in the Public Square), Commonweal, Aug 24, 2015

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

On Barbara Ehrenreich (w/ Alex Press & Gabriel Winant)

Mon, 12 Sep 2022 18:29:37 +0000

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 journalist); and returning guest Gabe Winant, University of Chicago historian and author of The Next Shift: The Fall of Industry and the Rise of Health Care.

As Gabe writes in his stunning obituary last week, "Ehrenreich’s specialty was to reveal her readers to themselves by showing them the other. Her humor and projection of personal vulnerability were particularly deft techniques for asking the reader to see their own position, often through identification with Ehrenreich: she invites this, beckoning you to follow her into her subject, and then suddenly wheels around on you—and you are caught out."

We hope this episode can manage something of that technique for the listener, that you might find yourself "caught out" too, thinking deeply about where you fit into the story Barbara is telling — and what it might call on you to do, fight for, or think harder about. Enjoy.

Further Reading:

Barbara & John Ehrenreich, "The Professional-Managerial Class," Radical America, March 1977.

— "The New Left and the Professional Managerial Class," Radical America, May 1977.

— "Death of a Yuppie Dream," Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, Feb 2013.

Barbara Ehrenreich & Deirdre English, Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers, The Feminist Press, 1973.

Barbara Ehrenreich, Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class, Pantheon, 1989.

Barbara Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, Metropolitan, 2001.

Barbara Ehrenreich, "Preface to Klaus Theweleit's Male Fantasies Volume 1: Women, Floods, Bodies, History," U of Minnesota Press, 1987.

Gabriel Winant, "On Barbara Ehrenreich," n+1, Sept 9, 2022.

— "Professional-Managerial Chasm," n+1, Oct 10, 2019.

— "The Right Kind of Worker," Know Your Enemy, May 2022.

Alex Press, "On the Origins of the Professional-Managerial Class: An Interview with Barbara Ehrenreich." Dissent, Oct 22, 2019.

David Rieff, "White Bread, White Dread (review of Fear of Falling)," LA Times, Aug 20, 1989.

This episode of Know Your Enemy is dedicated to Barbara Ehrenreich (1941-2022) and all those who loved and learned from her.

A Low, Dishonest Decade: The Right in the 1990s (w/ Nicole Hemmer)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Nicole Hemmer, Matthew Sitman ) — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 19:07:51 +0000

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)

Kevin Phillips, The Politics of Rich and Poor (Random House, 1990)

John Ganz, "The Year the Clock Broke," The Baffler, November 2018

Know Your Enemy, "The Year the Clock Broke" (w/ John Ganz), March 16, 2020

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy to listen to all of our bonus episodes!

TEASER: Blake Masters + Claremont

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman) — Thu, 18 Aug 2022 13:13:20 +0000

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 Became a Nerve Center of the American Right,” NYTimes Magazine, Aug 3, 2022.

Marc Fisher & Isaac Stanley-Becker, “The Claremont Institute triumphed in the Trump years. Then came Jan. 6.” Washington Post, Jul 30, 2022.

Glenn Ellmers, “‘Conservatism’ is no Longer Enough,” The American Mind, Mar 24, 2021.

Michael Anton, “Are the Kids Al(t)right?” Claremont Review of Books, Summer 2019

Harry V. Jaffa, Crisis of the House Divided, U Chicago Press, 1982.

Harry V. Jaffa, A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War, Roman & Littlefield, 2000.

David Tucker "Why Did Harry Jaffa Change His Mind?" Law and Liberty, Jul 3, 2019.

For more on Claremont/Jaffa/Strauss:

KYE: "Midnight in the Garden of American Heroes" Feb 2021.

KYE: The Long Farewell to Majority Rule (w/ Joshua Tait), May 2021.

Christopher Lasch's Critique of Progress (w/ Chris Lehmann)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Chris Lehmann, Matthew Sitman, Sam Adler-Bell) — Thu, 11 Aug 2022 17:01:49 +0000

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 teacher and mentor — who was nonetheless difficult to get to know well. In our conversation, Lehmann finds fault with tendentious readings of Lasch’s work by his most ardent fans and virulent enemies alike. To unearth the powerful critique running through Lasch’s oeuvre, we spend most of this episode discussing his late-career opus The True and Only Heaven. Along the way, Lasch’s insights frustrate and illuminate in equal measure, inspiring new variations on classic KYE themes: the relationship between particularity and solidarity, tradition and hierarchy, egalitarianism and expertise, and religion and political virtue. Come along for the ride!

Further Reading:

Chris Lehmann, "Pilgrim's Progress," BookForum, Summer 2010.

Chris Lehmann, "The Betrayal of Democracy," The Baffler, March, 13, 2017.

George Scialabba, "A Whole World of Heroes: Christopher Lasch on Democracy," Dissent, 1995.

Patrick Deneen, "Christopher Lasch and the Limits of Hope," First Things, Dec 2004.

Matthew Sitman, "Whither the Religious Left?" The New Republic, April 15, 2021.

Eric Miller, Hope in a Scattering Time: A Life of Christopher Lasch, Wm B Eerdmans, 2010.

Lasch, The True and Only Heaven: Progress and Its Critics, Norton, 1991.

Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in An Age of Diminishing Expectations, Norton, 1978.

Lasch, The Minimal Self: Psychic Survival in Troubled Times, Norton, 1984.

TEASER: Far-Right Vanguard (w/ John S. Huntington)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman, John S Huntington) — Sat, 30 Jul 2022 17:47:10 +0000

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

Up From Straussianism (w/ Matt McManus & Victor Bruzzone)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Victor Bruzzone, Matt McManus, Matthew Sitman) — Sun, 17 Jul 2022 17:36:26 +0000

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 catalog of bonus episodes!

How They Did It, Pt. 3: The End of the Beginning

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (matthew sitman, sam adler-bell) — Thu, 30 Jun 2022 00:15:53 +0000

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 Judicial Usurpation of Politics," First Things, November 1996

Damon Linker, The Theocons: Secular America Under Siege (Doubleday, 2006)

Mary Ziegler, Dollars for Life: The Anti-Abortion Movement and the Fall of the Republican Establishment (Yale University Press, 2021)

Joshua Wilson, The Street Politics of Abortion: Speech, Violence, and America's Culture Wars, (Stanford University Press, 2013)

Richard John Neuhaus, The Naked Public Square: Religion and Democracy in America (Eerdmans, 1984)

Robert P. George, Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality (Oxford University Press, 1993)

Hadley Arkes, "The End of the Beginning of the End of Abortion," First Things, June 24, 2022

Matthew Sitman, "Reading Left to Right" (review of Richard John Neuhaus: A Life in the Public Square), Commonweal, August 24, 2015

Tara Isabella Burton, "The Biblical Story the Christian Right Uses to Defend Trump," Vox, March 5, 2018

The State of the American Right (w/ Daniel Denvir)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman) — Wed, 22 Jun 2022 01:04:41 +0000

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!

How They Did It, Pt. 2: The Christian Right and Roe

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (matthew sitman, sam adler-bell) — Thu, 16 Jun 2022 23:01:01 +0000

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

Neil J. Young and Gillian Frank, "What Everyone Gets Wrong about Evangelicals and Abortion," Washington Post, May 16, 2022

Neil J. Young, We Gather Together: The Religious Right and the Problem of Interfaith Politics (Oxford University Press, 2015)

Kristen Luker, Abortion & the Politics of Motherhood, (University of California Press, 1985)

Mary Ziegler, After Roe: The Lost History of the Abortion Debate, (Harvard University Press, 2015)

Ilyse Hogue and Ellie Langford, The Lie That Binds (Strong Arm Press, 2020)

Rick Perlstein, Reaganland: America's Right Turn 1976-80 (Simon & Schuster, 2020)

Daniel K. Williams, Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-Life Movement Before Roe v. Wade (Oxford University Press, 2016)

Joshua Wilson, The Street Politics of Abortion: Speech, Violence, and America's Culture Wars, (Stanford University Press, 2013)

David L. Chappell, A Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow (UNC Press, 2005)

"Killing Abortionists: A Symposium," First Things, December 1994

How They Did It: Overturning Roe, Pt. 1 (w/ the 5-4 podcast)

Sat, 28 May 2022 18:49:54 +0000

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 come next from an emboldened conservative movement with the Supreme Court on their side.

Sources:

Josh Gerstein and Alexander Ward, "Supreme Court Has Voted to Overturn Abortion Rights, Draft Opinion Shows," Politico, May 5, 2022

5-4 Podcast, "Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health: The End of Roe," May 4, 2022

5-4 Podcast, "The Return of the Rise and Fall of Roe v. Wade, Pt. 1," January 4, 2022

"The Return of the Rise and Fall of Roe v. Wade, Pt. 2," January 4, 2022

Know Your Enemy (w/ 5-4's Rhiannon), "The Texas Bounty Hunter Bill," September 30, 2021

Amanda Hollis-Brusky, Ideas with Consequences: The Federalist Society and the Conservative Counterrevolution (Oxford University Press, 2019)

Ilyse Hogue and Ellie Langford, The Lie That Binds (Strong Arm Press, 2020)

Joshua C. Wilson, The Street Politics of Abortion: Speech, Violence, America's Culture Wars (Stanford University Press, 2013)

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to access to all of our bonus episodes!

UNLOCKED: A New Pink Tide? (w/ Thea Riofrancos & David Adler)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, David Adler, Thea Riofrancos) — Wed, 25 May 2022 23:57:38 +0000

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.

Thea Riofrancos, "The rush to ‘go electric’ comes with a hidden cost: destructive lithium mining," Guardian, Jun 14, 2021.

— "The View from Latin America," Boston Review, Apr 27, 2020.

— "Ecuador After Correa," n+1, Fall 2017.

John Bartlett, "Chilean journalist dies after being shot while covering Workers’ Day marches," Guardian, May 12, 2022

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

TEASER: Yinzer Country

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (matthew sitman, sam adler-bell) — Sat, 21 May 2022 00:25:59 +0000

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, and in come-from-behind fashion—how did he do it, especially after months of woke pundits dismissing his campaign? And what are Masters chances in August, when the Arizona GOP primary will be held?

Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy

TEASER: A New Pink Tide? (w/ Thea Riofrancos & David Adler)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, David Adler, Thea Riofrancos) — Sun, 15 May 2022 18:27:16 +0000

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

The Conservative and the Convict (w/ Sarah Weinman)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sarah Weinman, Matthew Sitman, Sam Adler-Bell) — Mon, 9 May 2022 16:53:23 +0000

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 Murderer," New Republic, March 7, 2022

Christopher Buckley, Losing Mum and Pup: A Memoir (Twelve Books, May 2009)

Garry Wills, "Daredevil," Atlantic, July/August 2009

Sophie Wilkins, trans., The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil (1930, 2017)

Alexander Chee, "Mr. and Mrs. B," Apology Magazine, Winter 2014

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

The Right Kind of Worker (w/ Gabriel Winant)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Gabriel Winant, Matthew Sitman, Sam Adler-Bell) — Sat, 30 Apr 2022 18:20:49 +0000

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 about the prospects for renewing labor's power relative to capital. Along the way, we take on figures of the newly labor-curious right — Oren Cass, Sohrab Ahmari, and others — explaining how their vision is based on ideologically motivated elisions that seek to resolve rather than energize class conflict. It's a hot one, folks!

Further Reading:

Gabriel Winant, "We Live in a Society," n+1, Dec 12, 2020

— "Professional-Managerial Chasm," n+1, Oct 10, 2019

— "Coronavirus and Chronopolitics" n+1, Spring 2020.

— "Strike Wave," New Left Review, Nov 25, 2021.

Sohrab Ahmari, "How America Kneecapped Its Unions," Compact, Mar 31, 2022.

Julius Krein, "The Real Class War," American Affairs, Nov 20, 2019.

Alexander Riley, "Labor Betrayed by the Progressive Left," Chronicles, Mar 2022.

Landon R.Y. Storrs, The Second Red Scare and the Unmaking of the New Deal Left, Princeton U Press, 2012.

Melinda Cooper, Family Values: Between Neoliberalism and the New Social Conservatism Zone Books, 2017.

Alice Kessler-Harris, In Pursuit of Equity: Women, Men, and the Quest for Economic Citizenship in 20th-Century America, 2001. Oxford U Press. 2001.

Macron vs. Le Pen (w/ Cole Stangler)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (matthew sitman, sam adler-bell, cole stangler) — Fri, 22 Apr 2022 19:53:47 +0000

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.

The Other Side of the Story (w/ Michael Kazin)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (matthew sitman, sam adler-bell, michael kazin) — Wed, 13 Apr 2022 17:22:40 +0000

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, June 24, 2019

Nathaniel Hawthorne, "Earth's Holocaust" (1844)

Sam Rosenfeld, "What Defines the Democratic Party?" New Republic, February 15, 2022

Matthew Sitman, "Tribute to Michael Kazin," Dissent, October 6, 2020

...don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

TEASER: Compact with the Devil? (w/ John Ganz)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, John Ganz, Matthew Sitman) — Sat, 9 Apr 2022 20:16:06 +0000

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

Red Diaper Baby (w/ Ari Brostoff)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (ari brostoff, sam adler-bell, matthew sitman) — Wed, 30 Mar 2022 18:53:54 +0000

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," Commonweal, February 7, 2019

Ronald Radosh and Sol Stern, "Our Friend, the Trump Propagandist," New Republic, May 5, 2021

Cole Stangler, "David Horowitz: 'Conservatives are So F**king Well-Mannered," In These Times, December 12, 2013

Reinhold Niebuhr, "Augustine's Political Realism," from The Essential Reinhold Niebuhr (Yale University Press, 1987)

..and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

The Anti-Trans Agenda (w/ Gillian Branstetter)

Sun, 20 Mar 2022 17:49:46 +0000

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 help fight the right's anti-trans onslaught, consider donating to The Trans Justice Funding Project.

Further Reading:

J David Goodman, "How Medical Care for Trans Youth Became ‘Child Abuse’ In Texas," NY Times, March 11, 2022

Melissa Gira Grant, "The Groups Pushing Anti-Trans Laws Want to Divide the LGBTQ Movement," The New Republic, Feb 17, 2022.

Jeremy W Peters, "A Conservative Push to Make Trans Kids and School Sports the Next Battleground," NY Times, Nov 3, 2019.

Judith Butler, "Why Is the Idea of ‘Gender’ Provoking Backlash the World Over?" The Guardian, Oct 23, 2021.

Jules Gill-Peterson "The Anti-Trans Lobby’s Real Agenda," Jewish Currents, Apr 27, 2021.

— Histories of the Transgender Child, UM Press, 2018.

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to all of our bonus episodes!

TEASER: Disinformation, Peter Thiel, and the Vibe Shift (w/ Joe Bernstein)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Joe Bernstein) — Fri, 11 Mar 2022 19:42:20 +0000

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

A Second Civil War? (w/ Jamelle Bouie)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (matthew sitman, jamelle bouie, sam adler-bell) — Mon, 7 Mar 2022 21:33:55 +0000

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 (University of Chicago, 1959)

..and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Mothers of Conservatism (w/ Michelle Nickerson)

Sun, 27 Feb 2022 00:08:28 +0000

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 Post, May 13, 2021

Alan Brinkley, "The Problem of American Conservatism," American History Review, April 1994

Jean Bethke Elshtain, Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy (Basic Books, 2002)

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to all of our bonus episodes!

TEASER: How To Be Normal (w/ Phil Christman)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman, Phil Christman) — Thu, 17 Feb 2022 15:56:30 +0000

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

School Wars (w/ Jennifer Berkshire)

Fri, 28 Jan 2022 22:29:55 +0000

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 right's nationalist coalition, which seeks to cultivate a shared, sanitized story about American history while simultaneously dismantling the only system by which that narrative can be imposed. We also cast a critical eye on the triangulating, moderate Democrats who have utterly failed to provide a galvanizing, alternative message about the purpose of public education. As Jennifer makes brilliantly clear, the crisis of American education is real; the question is, who will be empowered to solve it?

Further Reading:

Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider, A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door: The Dismantling of Public Education and the Future of School (The New Press, November 2020)

Jennifer Berkshire, "The GOP Has Revived Its Obsession With Parents’ Rights," The New Republic, Dec 9, 2021

— "The GOP's Grievance Industrial Complex Invades the Classroom," The Nation, Oct 28, 2021

— "'Corporate Democrat Goes Down to Defeat in Virginia,'" The Nation, Nov 8, 2021

— "How Education Reform Ate the Democratic Party," The Baffler, Nov 17, 2017

Sam Adler-Bell, "Behind the Critical Race Theory Crackdown," The Forum, Jan 13, 2022

Sarah Jones, "We're Having the Wrong Conversation About Schools," New York Magazine, Jan 12, 2022

...and don't forget to subscribe on Patreon for access to all of Know Your Enemy's bonus episodes!

TEASER: Cancel Jay Caspian Kang (w/ Jay Caspian Kang)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Jay Caspian Kang, Sam Adler-Bell, Matt Sitman) — Fri, 21 Jan 2022 14:00:00 +0000

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

Joan Didion, Conservative (w/ Sam Tanenhaus)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (matthew sitman, sam tanenhaus, sam adler-bell) — Thu, 13 Jan 2022 20:11:20 +0000

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," Saturday Evening Post, 1965

Slouching Toward Bethlehem (1968)

The White Album (1979)

Salvador (1983)

Political Fictions (2001)

Where I Was From (2003)

A collection of Didion's National Review Writing

Commentary on Joan Didion:

Ross Douthat, "Try Canceling Joan Didion," NYTimes, Jan 5, 2022

Parul Sehgal, "The Case Against the Trauma Plot," NYTimes, Dec 27, 2021

Louis Menand, “Out of Bethlehem,” New Yorker, Aug 17, 2015

Stephen Schryer, "Writers for Goldwater," Post45, Jan 20, 2020

Haley Mlotek, "It’s All in the Angles," The Nation, June 15, 2021

Caitlin Flanagan, "The Autumn of Joan Didion," The Atlantic, Feb 15, 2021

Jacob Bacharach, "Joan Didion Cast Off the Fictions of American Politics," The New Republic, Dec 27, 2021

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

UNLOCKED: Freud and Politics (w/ Pat Blanchfield)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Pat Blanchfield) — Tue, 4 Jan 2022 20:55:00 +0000

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, Mar 22, 2016.

Peter Gay, Freud: A Life For Our Time (1988)

Jacqueline Rose, "To Die One's Own Death," LRB, Nov 19, 2020

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Hindsight is 2021

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman, Sam Adler-Bell) — Wed, 22 Dec 2021 21:58:02 +0000

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, turns, and digressions.

Further Reading:

Matthew Sitman, "There Will Be No Buckley Revival," Commonweal, Jul 28, 2015.

Garry Wills, "Daredevil," Atlantic, Aug 2009.

Bare Ruined Choirs (1979)

Confessions of a Conservative (1979)

John Wayne's America (1997)

Sam Adler-Bell, "The Radical Young Intellectuals Who Want to Take Over the American Right," New Republic, Dec 2, 2021.

Leonard Coen, Beautiful Losers (1966)

Kaya Oakes, The Defiant Middle (2021)

Christopher Isherwood, The Berlin Stories (1945)

Janet Malcolm, Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession (1982)

Dan Georgakas & Marvin Surkin, Detroit: I Do Mind Dying (1998)

Norman Rush, Mating (1991)

..and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Young, Radical, and on the Right (w/ Nate Hochman)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (matthew sitman, nate hochman, sam adler-bell) — Wed, 15 Dec 2021 22:45:23 +0000

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!

TEASER: Freud and Politics (w/ Pat Blanchfield)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Pat Blanchfield, Sam Adler-Bell) — Wed, 1 Dec 2021 23:52:37 +0000

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

Retvrn of the National Conservatives

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (matthew sitman, sam adler-bell) — Thu, 25 Nov 2021 03:31:31 +0000

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, "The Definitely Not-Racist National Conservatives," July 30, 2019

"The Rise of the Illiberal Right," July 12, 2019

"Frank Meyer: Father of Fusionism," November 10, 2021

...and don't forget you can subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

TEASER: I Am The GooseKing (w/ Ben Firke)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (matthew sitman, ben firke) — Mon, 15 Nov 2021 20:10:34 +0000

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

Frank Meyer: Father of Fusionism

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam adler-bell, Matthew Sitman) — Wed, 10 Nov 2021 19:39:26 +0000

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 erstwhile convenience in which one partner, economic libertarians, got everything they wanted, while the other, Christian traditionalists, have seen unfettered capitalism and licentious liberalism destroy the precious permanent things they had hoped to conserve: Church, family, and community. As the seams of the fusionist alliance fray, we look back to the man who conceived it in the first place.

This one is for the nerds. We hope you enjoy it!

Further Reading:

Frank S. Meyer, In Defense of Freedom: A Conservative Credo (Regnery, 1962)

George H. Nash, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945 (Basic Books, 1976)

Jeffrey Hart, The Making of the American Conservative Mind: National Review and Its Times (ISI Books, 2006)

Garry Wills, Confessions of a Conservative (Doubleday, 1979)

Kevin J. Smant, Principles and Heresies: Frank S. Meyer and the Shaping of the American Conservative Movement (ISI Books, 2002)

Various, "Against the Dead Consensus," First Things, March 21, 2019

Frank S Meyer, "The Twisted Tree of Liberty," National Review Jan 16, 1962

L. Brent Bozell Jr. "Freedom or Virtue," National Review, Sept 11, 1962

...and don't forget to subscribe on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

TEASER: Reporting for Duty (w/ Dave Weigel)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (matthew sitman, sam adler-bell, dave weigel) — Fri, 29 Oct 2021 15:27:56 +0000

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 American Right's Hungary Hearts (w/ Lauren Stokes and John Ganz)

Mon, 25 Oct 2021 13:25:56 +0000

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 interview with Klubradio, Aug 29, 2021

John Ganz, "Anti-Democratic Vistas, Part I: The Right Goes to Hungary," Unpopular Front, Aug 10, 2021

"Anti-Democratic Vistas, Part II: Reflections on the Revolutions in Hungary," Unpopular Front, Aug 13, 2021

...and don't forget to subscribe on Patreon.com for access to all of our bonus episodes.

God, Death, and the Pandemic (w/ Sarah Jones)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sarah Jones, Matthew Sitman) — Sat, 16 Oct 2021 17:12:22 +0000

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.

TEASER: The Texas Bounty Hunter Bill (w/ 5-4's Rhiannon)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman, Sam Adler-Bell) — Thu, 30 Sep 2021 15:06:59 +0000

Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy

TEASER: Coup, Covid, Congress

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (matthew sitman, sam adler-bell) — Sat, 25 Sep 2021 19:38:02 +0000

Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy

Twenty Years of Terror (w/ Spencer Ackerman)

Wed, 15 Sep 2021 19:00:17 +0000

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 wide-ranging conversation you won't find elsewhere.

Further Reading:

Susan Sontag et al. "Tuesday, and After: New Yorker writers respond to 9/11." The New Yorker, Sept 16, 2001.

Bernard Lewis, "The Revolt of Islam," The New Yorker, Nov 11, 2001.

Jake Tapper, "Pat Buchanan: America First," Salon, Dec 4, 2001.

Spencer Ackerman, "The CIA’s Outsourced Torture Is Lost To History," Forever Wars, Aug 6, 2021.

Sam Adler-Bell, "How the War on Terror Fuels Trump," Jacobin, Aug 13, 2016.

...and don't forget to subscribe on Patreon to hear all of our bonus episodes!

Living at the End of Our World (w/ Daniel Sherrell & Dorothy Fortenberry)

Thu, 2 Sep 2021 21:43:08 +0000

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, "Beautiful Losers: The Left Should Resist the Comforts of Defeat," Commonweal, March 11, 2020

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

TEASER: Where's the Rest of Him?

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (sam adler-bell, matthew sitman) — Mon, 30 Aug 2021 21:52:23 +0000

Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy

Buckley for Mayor (w/ Sam Tanenhaus)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Sam Tanenhaus, Matthew Sitman) — Mon, 23 Aug 2021 18:02:39 +0000

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 subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

KYE Presents: 5-4 on Connick v. Thompson

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (5 to 4 podcast, 5-4 podcast) — Sat, 7 Aug 2021 23:22:01 +0000

For those who want to learn more about the 5-4 podcast, you can visit their website here!

TEASER: Woke Capital

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Matthew Sitman) — Sat, 31 Jul 2021 17:42:49 +0000

Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy

After Nationalism (w/ Samuel Goldman)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (matthew sitman, sam adler-bell, samuel goldman) — Wed, 28 Jul 2021 20:59:03 +0000

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)

The Afterlife of January 6th

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Matthew Sitman) — Mon, 19 Jul 2021 19:49:31 +0000

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 inside job, planned and executed by the FBI — an implausible theory gaining popularity among conservatives hoping to absolve themselves of culpability. Still other factions of the right (e.g. our old friends at the Claremont Institute) dream about a version of 1/6 that would actually have succeeded.

Further Reading:

Video: Day of Rage: An In-Depth Look at How a Mob Stormed the Capitol, New York Times, June 30, 2021.

Paige Williams, "Kyle Rittenhouse, American Vigilante" The New Yorker. June 28, 2021.

Ben Burgis & Daniel Bessner, "Trump Is a Threat to Democracy. But That Doesn’t Mean He’s Winning." Jacobin. Jan 15, 2021.

Micah Loewinger, The Road to Insurrection, WNYC, July 2, 2021.

Michael Anton & Curtis Yarvin, "The Stakes: The American Monarchy?," The American Mind. May 31, 2021.

Joshua Hochschild "Once Upon a Presidency," The American Mind. Feb 19, 2021.

Andrew Egger, "The New January 6 Scapegoats," The Dispatch, Jun 18, 2021.

John Ganz "Feb 6 1934/Jan 6 2021," Unpopular Front. Jul 15, 2021.

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for all of our bonus episodes!

UNLOCKED: Why the New Deal Matters (w/ Eric Rauchway)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (matthew sitman, eric rauchway) — Sun, 4 Jul 2021 22:48:26 +0000

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: Hoover, Roosevelt, and the First Clash Over the New Deal (Basic Books, 2018)

Jamelle Bouie, "F.D.R. Didn't Just Save the Economy," New York Times, April 16, 2021

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

TEASER: How (Not) to Talk About Racism

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman) — Wed, 30 Jun 2021 17:23:14 +0000

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!

Unraveling Allan Bloom and Saul Bellow

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (matthew sitman, sam adler-bell) — Mon, 21 Jun 2021 13:30:53 +0000

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 American Mind? Allan Bloom, Edmund Burke, & Multiculturalism," The Imaginative Conservative, May 29, 2013

PLUS: Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

TEASER: Hot and Bothered

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Matthew Sitman) — Mon, 14 Jun 2021 19:14:21 +0000

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.

TEASER: Jaffa vs. Kendall

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (sam adler-bell, matthew sitman) — Sat, 29 May 2021 23:17:52 +0000

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 State University Press, 1970; reprint, The Catholic University of American Press, 1995)

Willmoore Kendall, The Conservative Affirmation (Regnery Publishing, 1963)

Harry V. Jaffa, "Equality as a Conservative Principle," Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review, June 1, 1975

Joshua Tait, "Why Willmoore Kendall and James Burnham are the Prophets of Modern Conservatism," National Interest, April 30, 2021

Matthew Sitman, "Farewell to a Constitutional Conservative," The American Conservative, June 27, 2013

The Enemy Within (w/ Brandy Jensen)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman, Brandy Jensen, Sam Adler-Bell) — Mon, 24 May 2021 20:33:00 +0000

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

The Long Farewell to Majority Rule? (w/ Joshua Tait)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (joshua tait, sam adler-bell, matthew sitman) — Tue, 18 May 2021 01:46:02 +0000

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. Murley & John E. Alvis, eds., Willmoore Kendall: Maverick of American Conservatives (Rowman & Littlefield, 2002)

Harry V. Jaffa, "Equality as a Conservative Principle," Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review, June 1, 1975

Joshua Tait, "Why Willmoore Kendall and James Burnham are the Prophets of Modern Conservatism," National Interest, April 30, 2021

Joshua Tait, "The Long History of Fighting Over the Term 'Conservative,'" The Bulwark, April 2, 2021

Matthew Sitman, "Farewell to a Constitutional Conservative," The American Conservative, June 27, 2013

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for all of our bonus episodes!

UNLOCKED: Democracy and Its Discontents

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (matthew sitman, sam adler-bell) — Wed, 5 May 2021 01:42:24 +0000

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, 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.

Sources Cited and Further Reading:

Brennan Center for Justice, "Voting Laws Roundup," April 1, 2021

Nick Corasaniti and Reid J. Epstein, "What Georgia's Voting Law Really Does," New York Times, April 2, 2021

Ari Berman, "Republicans Say the Georgia Law Wasn’t Designed to Suppress Voting. Don’t Believe Them," Mother Jones, April 8, 2021

Ari Berman, "361 Voter Suppression Bills Have Already Been Introduced This Year," Mother Jones, April 1, 2021

Daniel Dale, "Fact Check: Biden and Kemp Misleadingly Describe Parts of Georgia Elections Law," CNN, April 2, 2021

Daniel Dale, "Fact Check: Republicans Falsely Equate Georgia and Colorado Election Laws," CNN, April 7, 2021

Michael Wines, "In Statehouses, Stolen-Election Myth Fuels a G.O.P. Drive to Rewrite Rules," New York Times, February 27, 2021

Glenn Ellmers, "'Conservatism' Is No Longer Enough," The American Mind, March 24, 2021

William F. Buckley, Jr., "Why the South Must Prevail," National Review, August 24, 1957

Kevin Williamson, "Why Not Fewer Voters?" National Review, April 6, 2021

To listen to more bonus episodes like this one, subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon!

TEASER: Why the New Deal Matters (w/ Eric Rauchway)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman) — Fri, 30 Apr 2021 14:10:07 +0000

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!

Overheated (w/ Kate Aronoff)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman, Kate Aronoff, Sam Adler-Bell) — Fri, 23 Apr 2021 23:43:48 +0000

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, Sept. 24, 2019.

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon!

TEASER: Democracy and Its Discontents

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Matthew Sitman) — Wed, 14 Apr 2021 00:43:26 +0000

To listen to this episode, and all of our bonus content, subscribe here: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy

KYE Film Club: A Lost Cause (w/ Jesse Brenneman)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (sam adler-bell, matthew sitman, jesse brenneman) — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 02:35:23 +0000

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!

TEASER: A Royal Mess

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (sam adler-bell, matthew sitman) — Sun, 21 Mar 2021 20:51:49 +0000

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!

TEASER: France's War on Terror (w/ Cole Stangler)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman) — Sun, 14 Mar 2021 01:04:43 +0000

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!

The Rush Limbaugh Show (w/ Nicole Hemmer)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Nicole Hemmer, Matthew Sitman, Sam adler-bell) — Tue, 9 Mar 2021 19:43:58 +0000

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 post-Reagan years — a story in which Rush plays a starring role. Hemmer is also an associate research scholar with the Obama Presidency Oral History Project at Columbia University. And — a skilled broadcaster in her own right — she cohosts the podcasts Past Present and This Day in Esoteric Political History.

We're certain you'll enjoy this conversation as much as we did!

Further Reading:

Nicole Hemmer, "The Man Who Created President Donald Trump," CNN, February 17, 2021.

Mary Harris, "Rush Is Dead, but We're Still Living in the World He Created," Slate, February 18, 2021

Jill Filipovic, "The Life and Death of a Woman-Hater," New York Times, February 20, 2021

William F. Buckley Jr., "Crucial Steps in Combating the Aids Epidemic; Identify All the Carriers," NYT, Mar 18, 1986.

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

TEASER: Keeping up with the Bozells

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (sam adler-bell, matthew sitman) — Sat, 27 Feb 2021 01:55:50 +0000

Subscribe at https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy to hear this and all our bonus content!

In classic KYE fashion, we over-prepared and over-imbibed to bring you this story. Please enjoy responsibly!

How to Survive a Pandemic (w/ Peter Staley)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (sam adler-bell, matthew sitman, peter staley) — Mon, 22 Feb 2021 02:29:20 +0000

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 Drift, February 4, 2021

"A Timeline of the Coronavirus Pandemic," New York Times, January 10, 2021

...and don't forget to subscribe on Patreon for all Know Your Enemy bonus episodes!

UNLOCKED: Midnight in the Garden of American Heroes

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (sam adler-bell, matthew sitman) — Thu, 11 Feb 2021 19:00:37 +0000

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 (University of Chicago Press, 2006)

TEASER: L'Affaire (w/ John Ganz)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman, Sam adler-bell, John Ganz) — Sat, 6 Feb 2021 00:17:44 +0000

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.

Panic! In America (w/ the You're Wrong About podcast)

Mon, 1 Feb 2021 19:10:16 +0000

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 about QAnon from the Satanic Panic: An Interview with Sarah Marshall," Vox, Sept 25, 2020

Paul M. Renfro, Stranger Danger: Family Values, Childhood, and the American Carceral State, (Oxford University Press), June 2020.

Listen to You're Wrong About here, support them on Patreon here, and check out their merch here...

...and don't forget you can subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to all of our bonus episodes!

TEASER: West Coast Straussians and the "1776 Report"

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, matthew sitman) — Sat, 23 Jan 2021 22:32:00 +0000

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.

Did It Happen Here?

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (sam adler-bell, matthew sitman) — Sun, 17 Jan 2021 19:50:37 +0000

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 Stanley, How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them (Penguin, 2018)

Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism (1950)

George Jackson, Soledad Brother, (1970)

Robert O. Paxton, "I've Hesitated to Call Donald Trump a Fascist. Until Now," Newsweek, Jan 11, 2021

Richard Evans, "Why Trump Isn't Fascist," New Statesman, Jan 13, 2021

Dorothy Fortenberry, "Can’t Fight This Feeling Anymore" Commonweal, Nov 5, 2020

Dylan Riley, "What is Trump?" New Left Review, Dec 1, 2018

Gabriel Winant, "We Live in a Society," n + 1, Dec 12, 2020

Alberto Toscano, "The Long Shadow of Racial Fascism," Boston Review, Oct 28, 2020

Angela Davis, "Political Prisoners, Prisons and Black Liberation," Verso, Feb 21, 2018

Jairus Banaji, "The Political Culture of Fascism," Historical Materialism, Feb 19, 2017.

Richard Seymour, "Inchoate Fascism," Patreon, Nov 13, 2020.

Samuel Moyn & David Priestland, "Trump Isn’t a Threat to Our Democracy. Hysteria Is," New York Times, Aug 11, 2017

Corey Robin and David Klion, "Almost the Complete Opposite of Fascism," Jewish Currents, Dec 4, 2020.

Peter Steinfels "The Semi-Fascist Candidate," Commonweal, May 16, 2016.

...and don't forget to subscribe at Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

TEASER: Storming the Capitol

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman, Sam Adler-Bell) — Thu, 7 Jan 2021 05:43:34 +0000

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.

Masks Off: The Right in 2020

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (sam adler-bell, matthew sitman) — Mon, 4 Jan 2021 19:47:52 +0000

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: What Would It Mean for Him?" New York Times, December 31, 2020

"Pence Welcomes Futile Bid by G.O.P. Lawmakers to Overturn Election," New York Times, January 2, 2021

...and don't forget to sign-up on Patreon for all of our bonus episodes!

TEASER: Trump the Dove? (w/ Stephen Wertheim)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman) — Sat, 26 Dec 2020 17:15:43 +0000

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.

Why the Supreme Court Sucks (w/ the 5-4 podcast)

Mon, 21 Dec 2020 02:17:35 +0000

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 (@leoncrawl) for helping make this happen.

Listeners, especially new ones, might want to revisit Know Your Enemy episode eight, "Koch'd Out," for a deep dive into some of the foundations and institutions mentioned in this conversation.

...and don't forget to support KYE on Patreon to listen to all of our bonus episodes!

TEASER: A Working Class GOP? (w/ Aaron Sibarium)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell) — Sun, 6 Dec 2020 03:57:46 +0000

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.

Talking Trump (w/ David Roth)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman, David Roth, Sam Adler-Bell) — Sat, 28 Nov 2020 22:13:00 +0000

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 Patreon to listen to our extensive catalogue of bonus episodes!

TEASER - What Happened? (w/ Eric Levitz and Dan Sherrell)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman) — Sat, 14 Nov 2020 22:30:22 +0000

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.

Suburban Woman (w/ Dorothy Fortenberry)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman) — Thu, 29 Oct 2020 22:37:13 +0000

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

LISTEN:

Highwomen, "Highwomen"

Highwomen, "Redesigning Women"

Dar Williams, "The Pointless, Yet Poignant, Crisis of a Co-Ed"

...and don't forget to support Know Your Enemy on Patreon to hear all Matt and Sam's bonus episodes.

On the Road to Reaganland (w/ Rick Perlstein and Leon Neyfakh)

Wed, 21 Oct 2020 22:47:56 +0000

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 Boston public schools during the 1970s (colloquially but inaccurately known as the Boston "busing crisis")—a vivid and compulsively listenable portrait of a pivotal episode in recent American history.

In this conversation, Rick and Leon disinter forgotten figures from a decade crucial to the rise of conservatism—the 1970s—while discussing how they tell stories we know the ending to, the problem of contingency and political agency, and issues such as American innocence, white backlash, right-wing rhetoric, and more. Don't miss this one!

Further Reading:

Rick Perlstein, "I Thought I Understood the American Right. Trump Proved Me Wrong," NYTimes, April 11, 2017

Richard Sennett & Jonathan Cobb, The Hidden Injuries of Class, (1972)

Jesse Curtis, "'Will the Jungle Take Over?' National Review and the Defense of Western Civilization in the Era of Civil Rights and African Decolonization," Journal of American Studies, November 2019

Jefferson Cowie, "Is Freedom White?" Boston Review, Sept 23, 2020

Tom Wicker, One of Us: Richard Nixon and the American Dream (1995)

... and don't forget to support Know Your Enemy on Patreon to hear all of Matt and Sam's bonus episodes!

How to Be Depressed

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman, Sam Adler-Bell) — Mon, 12 Oct 2020 19:46:13 +0000

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)

Not Even Past (w/ Jamelle Bouie)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Matthew Sitman, jamelle bouie) — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 22:56:18 +0000

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.

Vinson Cunningham, "The Argument of Afropessimism," New Yorker, July 20, 2020

Nikole Hannah-Jones, “Our Democracy’s Founding Ideals Were False When They Were Written. Black Americans Have Fought to Make Them True.” New York Times, Aug 14, 2019.

Sean Wilentz, "A Matter of Facts," The Atlantic, Jan 22, 2020.

John Clegg, "How Slavery Shaped American Capitalism," Jacobin, Aug 28, 2019.

Tom Mackaman, "An interview with historian James Oakes on the New York Times’ 1619 Project," World Socialist Website, Nov 18, 2019

PLUS: Check out Jamelle's newsletter, which recently featured a huge list of books on the American Revolution and the early republic, and don't forget to support Know Your Enemy on Patreon for bonus episodes!

Know Your Frenemies (w/ Samuel Moyn)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman , Sam Adler-Bell, Samuel Moyn) — Sun, 9 Aug 2020 20:45:16 +0000

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 Human Rights" (Jacobin)

Sam Adler-Bell, "The Remnant and the Restless Crowd" (Commonweal)

Matthew Sitman, "Riding the Trump Tiger" (Commonweal)

Pankaj Mishra, "The Mask It Wears" (London Review of Books)

John Ganz, "Finding Neverland: The American Right's Doomed Quest to Rid Itself of Trumpism" (New Republic)

Marshall Steinbaum, "Guardians of Property" (Jacobin)

Books Cited:

Robert P. Saldin and Steven M. Teles, Never Trump: The Revolt of the Conservative Elite (Oxford University Press)

Samuel Moyn, Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World (Harvard University Press)

James Chappel, Catholic Modern : The Challenge of Totalitarianism and the Remaking of the Church (Harvard University Press)

...and don't forget to support Know Your Enemy on Patreon for bonus episodes!

Pandemic Politics (w/ Marshall Steinbaum & Sarah Jones)

Wed, 8 Jul 2020 16:35:05 +0000

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)

Strange Gods and Strong Gods (w/ Tara Isabella Burton)

Mon, 8 Jun 2020 16:46:49 +0000

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 Books)

KYE Extra: The Sad Truth (w/ Shuja Haider)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (sam adler-bell, matthew sitman, shuja haider) — Thu, 14 May 2020 17:35:55 +0000

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 With Ken Burns," Commonweal, Sept 13, 2019

Shuja Haider, "The Invention of Twang," The Believer, Aug 1, 2019

Shuja Haider, "Somebody Had to Set a Bad Example," Popula, Nov 14, 2018

Nick Murray, "The Other Country," LA Review of Books, Nov 1, 2018

Jesse Montgomery, "African Chant," Popula, Sept 18, 2018

Longtime Listener, First Time Caller (the Mailbag Episode)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Matthew Sitman ) — Mon, 4 May 2020 17:17:46 +0000

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," Commonweal, April 23, 2020.

Matthew Sitman, "Saving Calvin from Clichés: An Interview with Marilynne Robinson," Commonweal, October 5, 2017

Sam Adler-Bell, "Coronavirus Has Given the Left a Historic Opportunity," The Intercept, April 14, 2020.

Sam Adler-Bell, "Beautiful Losers," Commonweal, March 11, 2020.

John Thomason, "Hope Deferred (on Obama and Marilynne Robinson)," The Point, May 8, 2017.

The Windbag City (w/ Marshall Steinbaum)

Sat, 18 Apr 2020 17:09:23 +0000

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 Administration, New Yorker, March 30, 2020

Nancy MacLean, Democracy in Chains (Penguin-Random House, June 2017)

Edward Nik-Khah, Neoliberal Pharmaceutical Science and the Chicago School of Economics (Social Studies of Science 2014, Vol. 44(4) 489–517)

KYE Extra: "Last Ounce of Courage"

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (sam adler-bell, jesse brenneman, matthew sitman) — Sun, 5 Apr 2020 21:22:34 +0000

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 ***

The Year the Clock Broke (w/ John Ganz)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (John Ganz, Sam adler-bell, Matthew Sitman ) — Sun, 15 Mar 2020 18:47:49 +0000

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)

Morbid Symptoms (w/ Ross Douthat)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Matthew Sitman ) — Wed, 5 Feb 2020 19:39:10 +0000

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.

What Happened to Norman? (w/ David Klion)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, David Klion, Matthew Sitman) — Wed, 15 Jan 2020 22:04:51 +0000

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, Mar 22, 2018
Louis Menand, "The Book That Scandalized the New York Intellectuals," The New Yorker, Apr 24, 2017
Benjamin Moser, "My Podhoretz Problem — And Ours," Jewish Quarterly, Dec 5, 2018
Lee Smith, "Making It," Tablet, Jan 16, 2019

She's Got a Plan (w/ Rebecca Traister)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (matthew sitman, Sam adler-bell) — Thu, 28 Nov 2019 03:05:04 +0000

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

We Could Be Heroes (w/ Will Arbery)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Matthew Sitman , Will Arbery) — Mon, 11 Nov 2019 15:51:36 +0000

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, from a Writer Raised on the Right"

Vinson Cunningham, "A Play About the Nuances of Conservatism in the Trump Era," The New Yorker, October 14, 2019

B.D. McClay, "Heroes of the Fourth Turning’ is a haunted play about religious conservatives," The Outline, November 5, 2019

Rod Dreher, "Will Arbery’s Heroes," The American Conservative, October 2, 2019

C.C. Pecknold, "An extraordinary play that challenges progressives and conservatives alike," Catholic Herald, October 1, 2019

Trump Country (w/ Sarah Jones)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Matthew Sitman , Sarah Jones) — Tue, 29 Oct 2019 17:20:28 +0000

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

KYE EXTRA: "Morning Hate" (w/ Hannah Gais)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Hannah Gais, Sam Adler-Bell) — Wed, 23 Oct 2019 18:58:26 +0000

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

Working-Class Conservatism (w/ Max Alvarez)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman , Sam Adler-Bell) — Mon, 7 Oct 2019 19:31:15 +0000

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 Conservatism: A System Justification Perspective," (2017)

Oh and please support our Patreon!

Koch'd Out

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman, Sam Adler-Bell) — Mon, 9 Sep 2019 19:57:56 +0000

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)

Gunpower (w/ Patrick Blanchfield)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Matt Sitman) — Thu, 15 Aug 2019 14:29:59 +0000

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 Nye County, Nevada)
Thomas Meaney "White Power," London Review of Books
Adam Kotkso, Neoliberalism's Demons: On the Political Theology of Late Capitalism
Jonathan M. Metzl, Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America's Heartland
Toni Morrison, Nobel Lecture (1993)
Okkervil River "Westfall"
Kathleen Belew, Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America
Benjamin Madley, American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846-1873

PS If you haven't already, please subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon! For $5/month, you get additional episodes and other subscriber-only content. For $10/month you get the bonus content + a digital subscription to Dissent magazine!

The Definitely-Not-Racist National Conservatives

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman, Sam Adler-Bell) — Tue, 30 Jul 2019 20:05:53 +0000

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
Alexander Zaitchick's profile of Hawley in the New Republic.
National Conservatism 2019 YouTube channel (videos of many but not all speeches)
Zach Beauchamp's original write-up at Vox.
NYT's write-up.
Osita Nwanevu (New Yorker), Conservative Nationalism is Trumpism for Intellectuals
Jacob Heilbrunn (NYRB), National Conservatism: Retrofitting Trump’s GOP with a Veneer of Ideas
Daniel McCarthy's (TORY ANARCHIST) take.
Damon Linker's contrarian take.
David Walsh's take on the conference and fascism
Douthat's NYT column.
Daniel Luban's profile in the New Republic of Yoram Hazony.
Criticism from the right: The Federalist and Jacobite takes.

The Rise of the Illiberal Right

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman , Sam Adler-Bell) — Fri, 12 Jul 2019 20:25:45 +0000

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 Green, Imagining Post-Trump Nationalism, The Atlantic

Jane Coaston, David French vs. Sohrab Ahmari, Explained, Vox

Damon Linker, How the Intellectual Right is Talking Itself into Tearing Down American Democracy, The Week

Sam Adler-Bell, With Census Decision, Trump's GOP Falters in March to White Minority Rule, The Intercept

Isaac Chotiner, Interview with Ross Douthat on the Crisis of the Conservative Coalition, New Yorker

Eric Levitz, Oregon Republicans Flee State to Block Action on Climate Change, New York

Patricia Mazzei, Florida Limits Ex-Felon Voting, Prompting a Lawsuit and Cries of ‘Poll Tax’, New York Times

Adam Liptak, Supreme Court Bars Challenges to Partisan Gerrymandering, New York Times

The Death of Conservatism? (Part 2)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Matthew Sitman ) — Wed, 26 Jun 2019 20:18:35 +0000

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."

The Death of Conservatism? (Part 1)

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman , Sam Adler-Bell) — Wed, 12 Jun 2019 22:07:01 +0000

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/

How Conservatives Argue

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Matthew Sitman , Sam Adler-Bell) — Thu, 16 May 2019 19:35:03 +0000

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.

Behind Enemy Lines

msitman@commonwealmagazine.org (Sam Adler-Bell, Matthew Sitman ) — Tue, 7 May 2019 00:26:17 +0000

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"