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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!
Eric Klinenberg, professor in the social sciences and director of the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University and the author of 2020: One City, Seven People, and the Year Everything Changed (Knopf, 2024), tells the story of New York in 2020 through the lens of seven New Yorkers, and talks about the ongoing effect of that traumatic year. → Eric Klinenberg will talk about the book "2020: One City, Seven People, and the Year Everything Changed" with Columbia history professor Kim Phillips-Fein on Monday, March 4th at 6:30pm at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library on 5th Avenue at 40th Street.
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 2009John S. Huntington, Far-Right Vanguard: The Radical Roots of Modern Conservatism, Penn Press, Oct 2021.
To hear an extended version of this conversation, become a patron at Patreon.com/LoveMessagePod. In this episode Jeremy and Tim are joined by historian and New Yorker Kim Phillips-Fein to discuss a crucial event in the Love is the Message story: the 1975 New York City fiscal crisis. Kim's book ‘Fear City: New York's Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics' is widely regarded as the definitive text on the matter, so she was the perfect person to talk to, and she brought some great music recommendations to boot. The three discuss both the long- and short-term backdrop to the crisis, charting how the city's unique social democratic municipal system of rent controls, hospitals and education changed across the twentieth century, before examining how the centre of international capital came extremely close to bankruptcy. Kim explains the financial mechanisms which animated the crisis and the political choices that precipitated it. She elucidates President Ford's predicament during the crisis, the effects of ‘white flight', and reminds us that New York was itself an industrial city rapidly de-industrialising. This being Love is the Message, naturally we also hear about the extraordinary cultural creativity of the time and examine its material causes, including changing democraphics and the transformation of Soho. Finally, Tim Jeremy and Kim consider what happened next, and how the fiscal crisis has been historicised to serve a particular ideology. Kim Phillips-Fein is the Gardiner-Kenneth T. Jackson Professor of History at Columbia University. Her book ‘Fear City: New York's Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics' was named a finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for History. She is also the author of ‘Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from the New Deal to Reagan'. Tracklist: Television - Venus The Dils - Class War The Rolling Stones - Shattered Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five - The Message
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!
Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this premium episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemyIn which we answer more of your excellent questions, including: the right-wing panic over children; how to leave grad school; Tillich, Niebuhr, and Dorothy Day; why 21st century Bob Dylan is the best Bob Dylan; how to teach a course on post-war conservatism; and more!Sources cited:Matthew Sitman, "Anti-Social Conservatives," Gawker, July 25, 2022.— "Whither the Religious Left?" The New Republic, April 15, 2021.Jules Gill-Peterson, Histories of the Transgender Child, 2018.Kyle Riismandel, Neighborhood of Fear: The Suburban Crisis in American Culture, 1975–2001, (2020)Paul Renfro, Stranger Danger: Family Values, Childhood, and the American Carceral State, (2020)Edward H. Miller, A Conspiratorial Life: Robert Welch, the John Birch Society, and the Revolution of American Conservatism, (2021)John S Huntington, Far-Right Vanguard: The Radical Roots of Modern Conservatism, (2021)Kim Phillips-Fein, "Conservatism: A State of the Field," Journal of American History, Dec 2011.Allen Brinkley, "The Problem of American Conservatism," The American Historical Review, Apr 1994.Rick Perlstein, "I Thought I Understood the American Right. Trump Proved Me Wrong," New York Times, Apr 11, 2017.Peter Steinfels, The Neoconservatives: The Origins of a Movement, (1979)Mike Davis, Prisoners of the American Dream, (1986)Stuart Hall, The Great Moving Right Show and Other Essays, (2017)Corey Robin, The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Donald Trump, (2017)
Reporters: Jameela Hammond @JameelaHammond, Melissa Fundira @MFundiraInterviewees:Ted Liebman FAIA ; Twitter: @liebman_tYonah Freemark, Ph.D.; Twitter: @yfreemarkRosemary Ndubuizu, Ph.D.Kim Phillips-Fein, Ph.D., kimphillipsfein.comDorothy Davis @diasporantouchMarion Ntiru @marionntiruResidents past and presentSasha Ross *Note: residentLionel Fundira *Note: residentCourtney Francis *Note: previous residentBarbara Spiegel *Note: residentRita Ombele *Note:previous residentNikki Leopold *Note: residentEneaqua Lewis *Note: residentLudi Nsimba *Note: residentMorgan Elinson *Note: former residentJudith Berdy *Note: residentMarie Orraca *Note: resident
We're looking at what happened after subsidized affordable housing programs expired in the 2000s on New York's Roosevelt Island. Some residents managed to buy in, build equity and stability. Others experienced precarious tenancy or displacement while an ongoing influx of wealthier residents is changing the face of the island. We ask the question, can Roosevelt Island's past guide state and federal investments in multi-racial, multi-income neighborhoods for the future? Reporters: Jameela Hammond @JameelaHammond, Melissa Fundira @MFundiraInterviewees:Ted Liebman FAIA ; Twitter: @liebman_tYonah Freemark, Ph.D.; Twitter: @yfreemarkRosemary Ndubuizu, Ph.D.Kim Phillips-Fein, Ph.D., kimphillipsfein.comDorothy Davis @diasporantouchMarion Ntiru @marionntiruResidents past and presentSasha Ross *Note: residentLionel Fundira *Note: residentCourtney Francis *Note: previous residentBarbara Spiegel *Note: residentRita Ombele *Note:previous residentNikki Leopold *Note: residentEneaqua Lewis *Note: residentLudi Nsimba *Note: residentMorgan Elinson *Note: former residentJudith Berdy *Note: residentMarie Orraca *Note: resident
Budget season is heating up, baby!! And Hell Gate is here to break it down for you. First, we look at why the New York state budget process is such a shitshow, and why a newly empowered state legislature could mean even more chaos this year. Then, we chat with Kim Phillips-Fein, professor of history at Columbia University and author of Fear City, about Eric Adams' proposed austerity budget, his beloved "high-income earners," and the lingering impacts of the 1970s fiscal crisis.Read Hell Gate's full interview with Kim Phillips-Fein here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Dan interviews historian Kim Phillips-Fein on Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from the New Deal to Reagan.Listen to Kim's Dig interview on Fear City: New York's Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics thedigradio.com/podcast/fear-city-with-kim-phillips-fein/Listen to past Dig eps for context on Russia's invasion of Ukraine:Tony Wood on Russia and Putin: thedigradio.com/podcast/russia-beyond-putin-with-tony-woodVolodymyr Ishchenko on Ukraine: thedigradio.com/podcast/ukraine-w-volodymyr-ishchenkoSupport The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Dan interviews historian Kim Phillips-Fein on Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from the New Deal to Reagan. Listen to Kim's Dig interview on Fear City: New York's Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics thedigradio.com/podcast/fear-city-with-kim-phillips-fein/ Listen to past Dig eps for context on Russia's invasion of Ukraine: Tony Wood on Russia and Putin: thedigradio.com/podcast/russia-beyond-putin-with-tony-wood Volodymyr Ishchenko on Ukraine: thedigradio.com/podcast/ukraine-w-volodymyr-ishchenko Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig
How two New York classics captured the essence of Times Square then – and what they tell us about it now. No two films capture the urban grime and desperate time of New York City in the late 1960s and 1970s like John Schlesinger's “Midnight Cowboy” and Martin Scorsese's “Taxi Driver.” Both films set much of their action in Times Square (and specifically on “The Deuce,” the block of porno houses and grindhouses on 42nd between Seventh and Eighth Avenues), evocatively documenting that district in its heyday – or its nadir, depending on who you talk to. In this episode, we'll examine the history of Times Square, and its evolution from Gotham's epicenter of sex to its soulless current iteration, as well as the making of “Midnight Cowboy” and “Taxi Driver.” And in telling those stories, we'll look at how the “Disneyfication” of Times Square mirrors the suburbanization of New York, and ask what was lost (and gained) in the transition. Our guests are “Midnight Cowboy” cinematographer Adam Holender, film critic and historian Glenn Kenny, historian and author Kim Phillips-Fein, and “Taxi Driver” director Martin Scorsese. Check out our website at funcitycinema.com for more information and episodes.
Pat talks to Kurt Andersen about his book: Evil Geniuses, the Unmaking of America. Andersen is the author of novels such as Fantasyland. He co-founded Spy Magazine, was managing editor of Time magazine, lead host of NPR's studio 360 and he's covered the politics and architecture beat for various publications. While he was aware of the widening wealth gap throughout the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, it wasn't until he wrote Fantasyland and started research for Evil Geniuses that he saw the intentionality and deviousness of the systematic way in which corporate interests have shaped our political economy over the last 50 years. Evil Geniuses examines coordinated efforts to achieve conservative economical and political changes in the United States from the 1970s to 2020, and discusses how the resulting unfettered laissez-faire approach to capitalism has resulted in an extreme level of economic inequality. In addition to talking about the history of how the system was rigged, how Americans were taught to distrust the government, and how taxes and regulations have been systematically slashed since the 1970s, Andersen explains in the interview some potential solutions to wealth inequality: Universal Basic Income, Boosting Union membership and Union power, worker Co-operatives, removing the profit motive from healthcare, and more. In the open, Dan is back! We went for a longer discussion this episode to provide plenty of discussion around some of the key issues that Pat and Kurt Andersen discuss in the interview. We discussed the current Infrastructure Bill as well. This episode was edited, mixed, and mastered by CMoney Burns. For help with your audio needs, feel free to contact him on Twitter at @CMoneyBurns Further reading on this topic: The Powell Memo: https://law2.wlu.edu/deptimages/Powell%20Archives/PowellMemorandumTypescript.pdf Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from the New Deal to Reagan by Kim Phillips-Fein https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2751831-invisible-hands Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America by Nancy MacLean https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30011020-democracy-in-chains --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/trickledownsocialism/support
Here in the good ol' USA, a strong work ethic -- a drive to succeed through hard work -- is seen as a leading virtue, and indeed, as a necessity. We Americans have long been told that financial success and personal well-being will undoubtedly follow if we adopt a highly motivated mindset toward our job. On today's edition of ST, we look at the origins of that "highly motivated" outlook. Our guest is David Gray, a teaching professor of American studies and history at Oklahoma State University. His new book is "Work Better, Live Better." As was noted of this work by Kim Phillips-Fein, author of "Invisible Hands: The Businessmen's Crusade against the New Deal": "By focusing on the idea of 'motivation' and the level of effort, energy, and engagement that managers have historically put into attempting to shape the inner psychic lives and experiences of workers, Gray renders strange and unusual some of the most familiar tropes of economic culture."
The future of New York has been thrown into question by COVID-19, as the pandemic has taken a massive physical and economic toll on the city. However, it is not the first time the city has been brought to a near standstill. The ninth episode of Exiles on 12th Street examines the systems that have kept the city running resiliently for decades, including architecture, subways and most importantly, essential workers. Join the Exiles as we explore the past and present of New York’s infrastructure, and envision a sustainable future with our guests: historian Kim Phillips-Fein, architecture critic Paul Goldberger, urban ecologist Timon McPhearson, and photographer William Wegman. The episode is presented by your host, Claire Potter, co-executive editor of Public Seminar and professor of history at The New School for Social Research.
John Tarleton, editor-in-chief of The Indypendent, speaks with Kim Phillips-Fein, a professor of history at NYU and author of 'Fear City: New York's Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics,' about austerity in New York in the 70s and now. Reeling from the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, NYC city council approved a city budget with billions of dollars in budget cuts.
Dan interviews historian Kim Phillips-Fein about her book Fear City: New York's Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics and about how the destruction of social democracy made today's city where coronavirus is killing its poor and working-class people. In other news: Dan's Jacobin essay on keeping the Bernie infrastructure alive is here and the volunteer petition to do so, which you should sign, is here. Please support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig
Dan interviews historian Kim Phillips-Fein about her book Fear City: New York's Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics and about how the destruction of social democracy made today's city where coronavirus is killing its poor and working-class people. In other news: Dan's Jacobin essay on keeping the Bernie infrastructure alive is here and the volunteer petition to do so, which you should sign, is here. Please support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig
Kim Phillips-Fein comes on the show to discuss her book Fear City: New York's Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics. Ray thinks he sounds particularly smart in this episode.
Why does gentrification happen? Talking about the books - Fear City by Kim Phillips - Fein and Vanishing New York by Jeremiah Moss
In the 1970s, NYC teetered on the verge of bankruptcy. This crisis lead to the dismantling of the city's generous social safety net. On this week's Odd Lots podcast, we speak to Kim Phillips-Fein, historian and author of "Fear City: New York's Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics." She walks us through what happened then, and what lessons it holds for fiscal politics today.
Bob Herbert is joined by Kim Phillips-Fein, author of the new book, “FEAR CITY: New York's Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics,” which revisits the the city in the 1970s and shows how profoundly it shaped today's New York.
Why do budgetary crises tend to lead to politicians and business leaders calling for governments to tighten their purse strings? How can we understand austerity as politics, not just common business sense? This week, we welcome back Kim Phillips-Fein to discuss her new book, Fear City, on the fiscal crisis in New York City in the 1970s.
Kim Phillips-Fein discusses her book Invisible Hands: The Businessmen's Crusade Against the New Deal. Today we'll focus on the history of resistance to the New Deal. Kim Phillips-Fein details how many of the most prominent elites had their ideas and practices shaped by groups that were part of organized resistance to the New Deal. She argues that this history helps revise common understandings of the rise of conservatism in the 1970s and after.