Know Your Enemy

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.

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 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!  

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemySpeaking 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, 2025Paul Blumenthal, "Trump's Rationales for His Tariffs Are Incoherent and Contradict Each Other," Huffington Post, April 7, 2025

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, 2021Sources: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, 2023David Wallace-Wells, The Uninhabitable Earth (2019)Nicholson Baker, "The Lab-Leak Hypothesis," New York Magazine, Jan 4, 2021Zeynep 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.

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemyThis 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."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, 2021Sources: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, 2023David Wallace-Wells, The Uninhabitable Earth (2019)Nicholson Baker, "The Lab-Leak Hypothesis," New York Magazine, Jan 4, 2021Zeynep 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.

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, 2025Kylie Cheung, "World's Richest Man Allegedly Refuses to Pay Appropriate Child Support," Jezebel, Mar 21, 2025Faiz Siddiqui, "Elon Musk is worth $270 billion. He'd buy Twitter with an IOU," WaPo, April 22, 2022Theodore 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!

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. 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, 2023Henry Farrell, "Silicon Valley's Reading List Reveals Its Political Ambitions," Bloomberg, Feb 21, 2025Tony Tulathimutte, Rejection (2024)Kase Wickhman, "Elon Musk Has Yet Another Child, According to the Mother of That Baby," Vanity Fair, Feb 18, 2025Favour 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...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to access to all of our bonus episodes!

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!

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemyJust 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, 2025Jonathan Swan & Maggie Haberman, "Power, Intimidation and the Resurrection of Trump's Support for Hegseth," New York Times, Dec 12, 2024Gabriel Sherman, "'They're Scared Shitless': The Threat of Political Violence Informing Trump's Grip on Congress," Vanity Fair, Feb 19, 2025Jude Joffe-Block, et al, "How Kash Patel has Used Children's Books and Podcasts to Promote Conspiracy Theories," NPR, Dec 10, 2024Heidi Przybyla, "Leonard Leo Used Federalist Society Contact to Obtain $1.6B Donation," Politico, May 2, 2023James Burnham, Congress and the American Tradition(1959)

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! 

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemyThe 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 1946John Ganz, "What Happened Here," Unpopular Front, Feb 4, 2024Nathan Tankus, "Elon Musk Wants to Get Operational Control of the Treasury's Payment System," Notes on the Crises, Feb 3, 2024Karen Yourish, et al, "All of the Trump Administration's Major Moves in the First 17 Days," New York Times, Feb 6, 2024Yoni Applebaum, "America's Fragile Constitution," The Atlantic, Oct 2015Eric Rauchway, Why the New Deal Matters (2021)

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, 1957Murray 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!

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemyA 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 Story 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)

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, 2025Dale 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!

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.

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

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, 2020Martin 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

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!

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

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, 2018Daniel Nichanian, "How Organizers Are Defending Direct Democracy," Bolts, Aug 16, 2023Dana Goldstein and Troy Closson, "Voters Poised to Reject Private School Vouchers in Three States," New York Times, Nov 7, 2024Keith 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! 

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! 

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, 2024Shane Goldmacher, Maggie Haberman, and Jonathan Swan, "How Trump Won, and How Harris Lost," New York Times, Nov 7, 2024Matthew Sitman, "The Morning After," Liberties, Nov 7, 2024Gabe Winant, "Exit Right," Dissent, Nov 8, 2024Tim Barker, "Dealignment," Sidecar, Nov 11, 2024Sam Adler-Bell, "Can Liberalism Stop Being So Darn...Liberal?" New Republic, June 20, 2024

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, 2022Sam Adler-Bell, "The Shadow War to Determine the Next Trump Administration," NYT, Jan 10, 2024Matthew 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!

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.

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

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 ReadingRick 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!

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

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemyHistorian 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, 1969Listen again:"Realignments (w/ Timothy Shenk)," Know Your Enemy, Feb 27, 2023

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 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 thatSources: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, 2019Mollie Wilson O'Reilly, "When Abortion Isn't Abortion," Commonweal, Mar 21, 2022Listen 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!

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemyMatt 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, 2019Herbert 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 2017Dan Walden, "Gender, Sex, and Other Nonsense," Commonweal, March 1, 2021Peter Gay, Freud: A Life for Our Time(1988)Pat Blanchfield, "Death Drive Nation," Late Light, Nov 1, 2022Casey Blake and Christopher Phelps, "History as Social Criticism: Conversations with Christopher Lasch," Journal of American History, Mar 1994Sam 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 2024Kim LaCapria & David Mikkelson, "Does This Photograph Show Bernie Sanders at a 1962 Civil Rights Sit-In?" Snopes, Mar 3, 2016

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!

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemyYour 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, 2024Watch 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, 2024Mike Catalini, et al, "Trump Falsely Accuses Immigrants in Ohio of Abducting and Eating Pets," Associated Press, Sept 11, 2024B.D. McClay, "The Taylor Swift Endorsement Fantasy," New York Times, Sept. 8, 2024"Taylor Swift Derangement Syndrome," Know Your Enemy, Mar 26, 2024

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, 2024Ben Terris, "A 'Ceasefire Delegate' Finds Lots to Do but Little to Celebrate," Washington Post, Aug 21, 2024Akbar Shahid Ahmed, "Gaza War Critics Are Inspired By The 1964 DNC — And They're Playing The Long Game," HuffPost, Aug 23, 2024Noah 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, 2024Ta-Nehisi Coates, "A Palestinian American's Place Under the Democrats' Big Tent?" Vanity Fair, Aug 21, 2024

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemyMatt 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, 2024Ben Terris, "A 'Ceasefire Delegate' Finds Lots to Do but Little to Celebrate," Washington Post, Aug 21, 2024Akbar Shahid Ahmed, "Gaza War Critics Are Inspired By The 1964 DNC — And They're Playing The Long Game," HuffPost, Aug 23, 2024Noah 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, 2024Ta-Nehisi Coates, "A Palestinian American's Place Under the Democrats' Big Tent?" Vanity Fair, Aug 21, 2024

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!

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

Why are American political parties so ineffectual? Why do they simuntaneous seem so frantically active and so constitutionally incapable of achieving specific goals? 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. They argue 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 were 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 lack 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. 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)Please subscribe on Patreon to hear our bonus episodes!

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, 2020Glenn Kessler, "J.D. Vance's Claim That Biden is Targeting ‘MAGA voters' with Fentanyl," Washington Post, May 11, 2022Colby Itkowitz, Beth Reinhard and Clara Ence Morse, "In Vance, Trump Finds a Kindred Spirit on Election Denial and Jan. 6," Washington Post, July 17, 2024Ian Ward, "The Seven Thinkers and Groups That Have Shaped JD Vance's Unusual Worldview," Politico, July 18, 2024Simon Van Zuylan-Wood, “The Radicalization of J.D. Vance,” Washington Post, Jan 4, 2022Please subscribe on Patreon to hear our bonus episodes!

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.

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

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!

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

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, 2023Tom 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!

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 2024Alex Thompson, "Two Joe Biden's: The Night America Saw the Other One," Axios, June 29, 2024Annie Linskey, Laurence Norman, & Drew Hinshaw, "The World Saw Biden Deteriorating. Democrats Ignored the Warnings," WSJ, June 28, 2024Matthew Sitman, "The 'Weekend at Bernie's' Primary," Commonweal, March 3, 2020

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.

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 2018Jen 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, 2020KYE "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!

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!

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, 2024Michael Brenes, "How Liberalism Betrayed the Enlightenment and Lost Its Soul," Jacobin, May 31, 2024Matthew Sitman, "Will Be Wild," Dissent, April 18, 2023Timothy Snyder, "Not a Normal Election," Commonweal, Nov 2, 2020

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!

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!