Podcast appearances and mentions of matthew sitman

A new Pope has been chosen by the conclave. But how much can one man, even one appointed by the Holy Spirit, do to transform one of the most powerful institutions in the world? Richard Hames spoke to Matthew Sitman of the Know Your Enemy podcast about what role the church can play in our […]

Join Matt Lewis as he welcomes back Matthew Sitman, co-host of the acclaimed 'Know Your Enemy' podcast, to dive deep into the fascinating and complex life of Elon Musk. In this episode, we explore Musk's tumultuous childhood in South Africa, marked by bullying and an abusive father, and how these experiences shaped his path to becoming a tech titan. From his early love of science fiction to losing his first child and his controversial reaction to his trans daughter Vivian, we uncover the personal stories behind the headlines. Matthew shares insights from his two-part podcast series on Musk, drawing from biographies like Ashley Vance's 2014 book, Walter Isaacson's authorized bio, and 'Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter' (2024). Discover what drives Musk — from his Mars ambitions to his role in the Department of Government Efficiency — and whether his flaws are tied to his brilliance. Want more? Check out the full 3.5-hour deep dive on 'Know Your Enemy.' https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/know-your-enemy/id1462703434Support "Matt Lewis & The News" at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mattlewisFollow Matt Lewis & Cut Through the Noise:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MattLewisDCTwitter: https://twitter.com/mattklewisInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattklewis/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVhSMpjOzydlnxm5TDcYn0A– Who is Matt Lewis? –Matt K. Lewis is a political commentator and the author of Filthy Rich Politicians.Buy Matt's book: https://www.amazon.com/Filthy-Rich-Politicians-Creatures-Ruling-Class/dp/1546004416Copyright © 2024, BBL & BWL, LLC

We are joined by the great Matthew Sitman (@matthewsitman) of Dissent Magazine and the podcast Know Your Enemy. We talk about Trump's fake populism, what left media missed about Trump, and what that means for the left going forward. Left Reckoning goes live Tuesdays @ 6 Central. To get access to all the bonus episodes, including more Hitchens conversations & deep dives into radical US history, Lenin, James Connolly & more support the show at patreon.com/leftreckoning - for just $5 you help make the public show possible and get double the bonus content. Support us on patreon.com/LeftReckoning Twitter: @LeftReckoning - @mattlech - @davidgriscom Instagram: @LeftReckoning Check out our Twitch streams at Twitch.tv/LeftReckoning

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/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

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!

By ideas, dollars and in personal connections, Republican vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance is intimately tied to an amorphous ideological movement known as the “New Right.”Some of its major players, which include billionaires and tech elites, want to gut the US' institutions and upend democracy in what they see as necessary, radical action to reverse the tyranny of liberalism. So what is the New Right? How far would JD Vance be willing to go to advance its ideas in the White House? Or do Vance's allegiances lie elsewhere? Matthew Sitman is a writer based in New York City and co-host of the podcast Know Your Enemy.

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

George Bernard Shaw once joked that the US and the UK are “two countries divided by a common language.” Can the same be said of their conservatives? As we brace for a joint election year, Eleanor Penny talks to Sam Adler-Bell and Matthew Sitman, two expert guides to US conservatism via their podcast Know Your […]

This conversation is a little different. We wanted to take a break from the election-year political jousting to talk to the poet Christian Wiman about Zero at the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair, one of the most singular books published in recent memory—part memoir, part commonplace book, part poetry collection. As with his previous My Bright Abyss, Wiman, more than any other contemporary Christian writer, manages to shake off our culture's desiccated religious tropes to write and talk about matters of ultimate concern in ways that are bracing, even exhilarating. How does poetry tap into reality, or, even better, what does poetry reveal about it? How does he think about the relationship between "life and art"? Why does he resist "Saul on the Road to Damascus"-style accounts of religious conversion? Why did he almost not write about his cancer diagnosis in My Bright Abyss? Why might postmodernism be good for religion, actually? How does the love of another person connect to the love of God? And how does any of this matter for how we live? We take up these questions and more.Sources:Christian Wiman, Zero at the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair (2023)— My Bright Abyss: Meditations of a Modern Believer (2013)— Ambition and Survival: Becoming a Poet (2004)— Every Riven Thing: Poems (2014)— "The Preacher Addresses the Seminarians" in Once in the West (2014)Matthew Sitman, "Finding the Words for Faith: Meet America's Most Important Christian Writer," The Dish, Sept 3, 2014Casey Cep, "How the Poet Christian Wiman Keeps His Faith," New Yorker, Dec 4, 2023Andre Dubus, "A Father's Story," in Selected Stories of Andre Dubus (1996)Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace (1947)Robert Bringhurst, "These Poems, She Said,"  from The Beauty of the Weapons: Selected Poems 1972-1982. Copper Canyon Press (1982)...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Matthew Sitman, co-host of the Know Your Enemy podcast, talks with Matt about whether the American right was destined to end up with a leader like Donald Trump.

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.

Matthew Sitman and Sohrab Ahmari discuss friendship across political divides. Both men have made their careers in political media and have made significant changes in their politics over the course of their lives – in Sohrab's case, very publicly. These changes have affected some friendships and have left others intact. Sohrab and Matt and Susannah discuss the phenomenon of friendship that transcends politics, how difficult that can be, how painful when it doesn't work, but how good when it does. They also discuss the social peculiarities of Left and Right, and challenge Jonathan Haidt's moral foundationalism. They reflect on what Christianity must say to enmity and friendship, and end with an excursus on Dimes Square.

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)

Throughout September, Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X—the social media platform formerly known as Twitter—has targeted the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in response to the group's attempts, along with several other advocacy organizations, to encourage an advertiser boycott of X. The ADL's proposed ad boycott was an effort to curb hate speech on the platform, which has grown since Musk's purchase of the site. Many observers viewed Musk's singling out of the ADL, which located the source of his financial troubles in one of the most prominent Jewish groups in the country, as a repurposing of an age-old antisemitic conspiracy theory. And his tweeting spree whipped up anti-ADL sentiment on the far right, with some antisemitic activists calling to “#BanTheADL” from X. Yet in responding to these attacks, ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt has conflated far-right attacks with criticisms of his organization from the left, recently comparing the white nationalist #BantheADL tweets to the #DroptheADL campaign, a progressive push to discourage partnership with the ADL. This week, Jewish Currents associate editor Mari Cohen, senior reporter Alex Kane, and editor-at-large Peter Beinart joined contributor Sam Adler Bell on the Know Your Enemy podcast to untangle the contradictions of an organization that has faced unjust attacks from the right-wing, but has also allied itself with the right in its effort to protect the State of Israel from criticism or protest. Drawing on several years of Jewish Currents reporting, the conversation touched on the ADL's political history, explored whether the organization's commitment to Israel advocacy impedes its ability to take on the right, and asked how leftists should respond to Musk's attacks. Know Your Enemy, produced in partnership with Dissent Magazine and co-hosted by Adler Bell and Matthew Sitman, investigates the history and politics of the American right wing from a leftist perspective. Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Articles Mentioned and Further Reading: “The Anti-Democratic Origins of the ADL and AJC,” Emmaia Gelman, Jewish Currents “Has the Fight Against Antisemitism Lost Its Way?,” Peter Beinart, New York Times “The ADL's Antisemitism Findings, Explained,” Mari Cohen, Jewish Currents “

In his provocative new book, Liberalism Against Itself, historian Samuel Moyn revisits the work of five key Cold War thinkers—Judith Shklar, Isaiah Berlin, Karl Popper, Gertrude Himmelfarb, and Lionel Trilling—to explain the deformation of liberalism in the middle of the twentieth century, a time when, in his telling, liberals abandoned their commitment to progress, the Enlightenment, and grand dreams of emancipation and instead embraced fatalism, pessimism, and a narrow conception of freedom. For Moyn, the liberalism that emerged from the Cold War is, lamentably, still with us—a culprit in the rise of Donald Trump, and a barrier to offering a compelling alternative to him. Sources:Samuel Moyn, Liberalism Against Itself: Cold War Intellectuals and the Making of Our Times (2023)Judith Shklar, After Utopia: The Decline of Political Faith (1957)Lionel Trilling, The Middle of the Journey (1947)Lionel Trilling, The Liberal Imagination (1950)Matthew Sitman, "How to Read Reinhold Niebuhr, After 9-11," Society, Spring 2012 ...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

What would it be like to grow up in a household guided by the principles of Ayn Rand's Objectivist philosophy? We talk to Things Not Seen radio host Dr. David Dault, of Loyola University Chicago, about being expoed to the ideology of Ayn Rand at a young age. If you've ever wanted to know about Rand's “Objectivist” idea but were too afraid to ask, we'll take you there. Along the way, Brian mispronounces Ayn's name, David shares several fascinating and vulnerable personal stories, and we review the dystopian novella Anthem, ending with the hard question: Are these principles of radical self-interest compatible with Christianity?David Dault: https://www.luc.edu/ips/about/faculty/daviddaultphd.shtml Things Not Seen Radio: https://www.thingsnotseenradio.com/ Ayn Rand on the pronunciation of her first name: https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2011/1015/Six-things-you-probably-didn-t-know-about-Ayn-Rand/The-name-s-not-Ann The Ayn Rand Institute: https://aynrand.org/ Max Stirner: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/max-stirner/ Ayn Rand's Anthem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthem_(novella) “Paul Ryan and Ayn Rand” (Washington Post): https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/what-ayn-rand-says-about-paul-ryan/2012/08/13/fd40d574-e56d-11e1-8741-940e3f6dbf48_blog.html Matthew Sitman, Know Your Enemy: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/know-your-enemy/id1462703434 Jordan Peterson on Ayn Rand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9aHYj93xJY

Damon Linker is an idiosyncratic figure among political writers—trained by Straussians as a political philosopher, he's a former editor of First Things, the flagship publication for intellectual religious conservatives, who broke with that publication over the Iraq War (among other things) and is now a self-described centrist. He's also a longtime friend of the podcast, who recently started his own attempt to grapple with what's happening in the GOP and among conservatives, a Substack newsletter he titled Eyes on the Right. In this conversation, Matt and Sam talk with Linker about what his own trajectory can teach us about the Right: his experiences working at First Things while the Bush administration was gearing up to invade Iraq; why thinks Sarah Palin marked a turning point on the Right; and his case for understanding Donald Trump as a political, rather than legal, problem. Sources:"The End of Democracy? The Judicial Usurpation of Politics," First Things, November 1996Damon Linker, "There is No Happy Ending to America's Trump Problem," New York Times, Aug 21, 2022                                   "A Giving of Intellectual Accounts," Eyes on the Right, Sept 9, 2022                                  "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Donald Trump?" Eyes on the Right, July 18, 2022                                   The Theocons: Secular America Under Seige (Doubleday, 2006)Matthew Sitman, "Reading Left to Right" (review of Richard John Neuhaus: A Life in the Public Square), Commonweal, Aug 24, 2015...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

As fundamental freedoms are being challenged worldwide, the very idea of open societies is being questioned. The crisis of liberalism and the decline of the West, together with increased disinformation and polarisation, have revealed inequality and the need for critical public debate as a central issue for the advancement of open societies. In this week's podcast, Leonard Benardo, executive vice president for the Open Society Foundations, joins Mark Leonard to discuss the great challenges open societies are currently experiencing. What role do identity politics play when thinking about solidarity and social cohesion? How can the digital revolution impact electoral democracy? And finally, how can we ensure that Ukraine as an open society is retained? This podcast was recorded on 6 September 2022. Bookshelf: - "Against Decolonisation. Taking African Agency Seriously" by Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò - "Know Your Enemy" podcast hosted by Matthew Sitman and Sam Adler-Bell - Follow @samagreene and @rochowanski for food for thought and debates on the Eurasian space

Christopher Lasch, the late historian and social critic, can be difficult to pin down. Despite writing with startling clarity and verve, Lasch  frustrates his readers' longing for clean partisan taxonomies and explicit programmatic statements. Taken up in recent years by Steve Bannon and  post-liberal populists, he was, in life, a man of the left who never ceased interrogating his own side's pathologies and historical blindspots — often using Marxism, psychoanalysis, and a rich, idiosyncratic historiography of the American scene to do so. As George Scialabba once put it, “Virtually every political and cultural tendency in recent American history has smarted under Lasch's criticism."  And even his most devoted readers have been left asking — “plaintively or exasperatedly,” writes Scialabba — what exactly does Christopher Lasch want? For our guest, editor and writer Chris Lehmann, Lasch was more than an admired intellectual iconoclast and gadfly; he was a treasured teacher and mentor — who was nonetheless difficult to get to know well. In our conversation, Lehmann finds fault with tendentious readings of Lasch's work by his most ardent fans and virulent enemies alike. To unearth the powerful critique running through Lasch's oeuvre, we spend most of this episode discussing his late-career opus The True and Only Heaven. Along the way, Lasch's insights frustrate and illuminate in equal measure, inspiring new variations on classic KYE themes: the relationship between particularity and solidarity, tradition and hierarchy, egalitarianism and expertise, and religion and political virtue. Come along for the ride!  Further Reading: Chris Lehmann, "Pilgrim's Progress," BookForum, Summer 2010.Chris Lehmann, "The Betrayal of Democracy," The Baffler, March, 13, 2017.George Scialabba, "A Whole World of Heroes: Christopher Lasch on Democracy," Dissent, 1995. Patrick Deneen, "Christopher Lasch and the Limits of Hope," First Things, Dec 2004.Matthew Sitman, "Whither the Religious Left?" The New Republic, April 15, 2021. Eric Miller, Hope in a Scattering Time: A Life of Christopher Lasch, Wm B Eerdmans, 2010. Lasch, The True and Only Heaven: Progress and Its Critics, Norton, 1991. Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in An Age of Diminishing Expectations, Norton, 1978.Lasch, The Minimal Self: Psychic Survival in Troubled Times, Norton, 1984.  

This was supposed to be a love letter. An exaltation. A fanfare for the public pool. I’d call upon the muses, pray they sing of the high dive and the snack bar. The smell of sunblock and laundered towel and chlorinated water evaporating on hot macadam. Of the gutter and the lap lane; the wet sandal’s “thock,” and the belly flop’s “smack.”And this was to be a recitation of its virtues on Independence Day, no less. With neither irony nor pollyanna in mind but rather, to go armed with the sobering knowledge of the country’s fraught past and its perilous moment and still partake of the Republic’s finest achievements: encased meats, cheap suds, and the public pool.Pools make people more legible. People’s needs and desires become harder to repress. There’s the child, so excited by the prospect of a swim, that she cannot help but run across the pool deck, lifeguard’s whistle be damned. And the teenager who, on surfacing from a plunge, cannot suppress that vain little flick of his head. The parents desperate for a place where their adolescent children can while away a few hours. And the lizard need, across ages, just to get some sun. It’s all there, right on the surface, at the pool.So given all that, there was something…unnerving happening at the pool that day. Or, more precisely, happening on the pool’s stereo. There’s no PA system at the Samford Pool. Instead, they have one of those rolly suitcase amps hooked up to someone’s phone. The pool’s small enough — 25 by 50 yards, roughly — that a single rolly suitcase amp can reach the far end of the grounds, no problem. And songs on the stereo that day, the nation’s 246th birthday, well, they certainly had a sense of moment to them.While I rolled out my towel, Lee Brice was singing about driving a dead brother’s truck. “I roll every window down / And I burn up every back road in this town / I find a field, I tear it up til all the pain's a cloud of dust / Yes, sometimes, I drive your truck.” A bit maudlin for the occasion but it sounds like the brother died in service. So, condolences. Tree of liberty, etc., etc.But before I’d finished putting on sunblock, Blake Shelton was singing about how whistling Dixie would get you heaven-bound and promising that “I don't care what my headstone reads / Or what kind of pinewood box I end up in / When it's my time, lay me six feet deep / In God's country.” Which, I mean, c’mon dude. Inane but also just a bummer.Okay, but here was Miranda Lambert to lighten the mood, maybe? Not so: “Whether you're late for church / Or you're stuck in jail / Hey, word's gonna get around / Everybody dies famous in a small town.”Pretty bleak. Isn’t today supposed to be a happy day? Or if you let the algorithm play long enough does it always land in a death wish? I looked around, a little confused, hoping to catch the eye of someone similarly put off. Slow day at the pool, though. Slow enough that the off-duty lifeguards had set up a basketball hoop and were shooting jumpers off the diving board. They seemed unfazed by the tunes. Inoculated, maybe. I hope not.Maybe you’re hearing this and thinking to yourself, “Oh please. Spare me the pointy-headed writer being annoying about country music.” But I love country music. And not just those Terry Allen and Gene Clark re-issues, either. I’ve tried to play music for almost twenty years now and the closest I’ve ever come to entertaining anyone was with a rendition of Toby Keith’s “Should’ve Been a Cowboy” at karaoke night in an SEC college town. But this alienated, atomized, only-finding-meaning-in-consumer-goods-and-death country? I mean, to quote Greil Marcus: “What is this s**t?”But the songs kept playing.Now, you’re going to think I invented this next song but you’d be flattering my imagination. Every verse of this song is from the perspective of a dead soldier from a different war. But that’s not all. Then — I kid you not — there’s a coda with this whole chorus of the undead singing, “Set our spirits free (set us free) / Let us lay down our guns / Sweet mother Mary, we're so tired / But we can't come home ‘til the last shot's fired.”At this point, I would have gladly listened to “Proud to be an American.” On repeat. I would have even considered letting Lee Greenwood give me a lobotomy. I mean, we live in a society, don’t we? Might we hope for better? What irrepressible thing was the pool revealing today on the rolly suitcase speaker? That we might only hope for death.No, but wait. Here was Zac Brown. Zac Brown, with a voice like James Taylor. He might show us a way to reclaim some civic pride even at this late hour of our democracy. Zac, you show us the way, won’t you? And, lo, Zac replied: “Salute the ones who died / The ones who give their lives / so we don’t have to sacrifice / All the things we love / like our chicken fried.”I went to the pool to indulge in some Americana. Maybe I was naive to expect anything less.Still, this soundtrack to a small town death wish felt like a betrayal. Not just of country music — which, at this best, celebrates and ironizes rural life with a kind of pathos and wit not at all in evidence that day — but, more to the point, a betrayal of the Samford Pool. Which is to say it felt like a betrayal of public life. Of even the possibility of public life. The Samford Pool is run by the city and it sits right behind the public junior high school. Which really makes it the hub of public life in Auburn (such as it is). It’s the most integrated place, by class and race, in this southern town. It’s cheap to get in. It’s well maintained. Its only shortcoming, really, is a lack of shade. At its best, it embodies the democratic enterprise — the idea that we might be more than consumers and candidates for the reaper, but citizens, too. That we might collectively endeavor to improve our lives by, in this case, providing a place for children to run on the pool deck, for teenagers to flick their heads, and for us all to get some sun.And part of the premise of this swimming project is to go out beyond my door and find something vitalizing. So on the Fourth, I wanted to get my Walt Whitman on, and find that vitality in the public sphere. I wanted to find a meaning that came somewhere other than the specter of death.Matthew Sitman touches on this idea in a recent essay calling for renewed civic culture. Sitman looks to the New Deal for instruction: “Franklin Roosevelt and his administration understood that despair could be countered and democracy fortified by a kind of social infrastructure…They built theaters and public pools and commissioned murals to beautify public spaces…They were also public goods that brought people together, and were ways of making communities easier to feel a part of and entertainment and culture enjoyable for more than the rich.”And, on the flip side, we might read the closing of so many public pools in response to the gains of the civil rights movement as a tacit understanding by conservatives of the democratic power of the space.So, all to say, I had harbored a small hope that, even in this eleventh hour, the muses might sing of something other than the inevitability of our demise.But if only I would wrest my attention away from the music, they were doing exactly that, all around. Singing of gainers off the diving board, of shoulder tans turning the corner into sunburns, of my own daughter holding tight to a pool noodle and flailing her legs in something beginning to approximate a flutter kick. More people had arrived, the deck chairs filled, a hive hum of the group fortifying the air against the rolly suitcase amp.A counter-melody to the algorithm, singing that for whatever its worth, for as long as there remains a collective will and the water to fill it, there is the public pool. Sing o muse.Before we left that day, I needed a tonic, something to jar me from the malaise on the stereo. I decided to go off the high dive, something I hadn’t yet done this summer. The climb up seemed higher than I’d remembered. My stomach fluttered. So without delay, I ran off the board and into the air. And much sooner than I’d expected the water had risen up to meet me. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thebluemillionmiles.substack.com

It's a political theory day, speaking with the Know Your Enemy podcast's Matthew Sitman, a former young conservative. Starting with some Roe v. Wade, we then dive deep into the intellectual right's endless fascination with Straussian philosophy (that's Leo Strauss), its underlying esotericism, and its connection to the American right's current political projects. There's a lot of namedropping (both of individuals and institutions) in this episode, so if there are outstanding questions you can tweet them at @matthewsitman, @mattpolprof, and @victorbruzzone

Is US democracy in a death spin? That's now an increasingly mainstream debate as a radicalised Republican Party abandon democratic norms, the Supreme Court not only strikes down Roe v. Wade but facilitates the rigging of the electoral system, while an already heavily caveated US democracy increasingly enforces minority rule. Why is the Democratic response to this crisis so dire? What can be done to prevent the slide of the US into right-wing authoritarianism - all under the watch of a Democratic president? And how far fetched is talk of civil war?We're joined by US journalists and podcasts Francesca Fiorentini and Matthew Sitman.Please subscribe - and help us take on the right-wing media: https://patreon.com/owenjones84Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/the-owen-jones-podcast. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Know Your Enemy hosts Matthew Sitman and Sam Adler-Bell on terrifyingly protean right-wing American politics.Check out our newsletter: thedigradio.com/newsletterRead James Pogue on the New Right: vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/inside-the-new-right-where-peter-thiel-is-placing-his-biggest-betsRead Mie Inouye's Boston Review article on union salts: bostonreview.net/articles/labors-militant-minority See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Know Your Enemy hosts Matthew Sitman and Sam Adler-Bell on terrifyingly protean right-wing American politics. Check out our newsletter: thedigradio.com/newsletter Read James Pogue on the New Right: vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/inside-the-new-right-where-peter-thiel-is-placing-his-biggest-bets Read Mie Inouye's Boston Review article on union salts: bostonreview.net/articles/labors-militant-minority/

Despite the GOP not having power in the White House or Congress, the American Right still have tremendous power and appear to be ascendent once again. The ELC crew is joined by Sam Adler-Bell and Matthew Sitman from the Know Your Enemy podcast to talk about the current state of the Right in America. Sam is a writer and co-host of the Know Your Enemy Podcast. Matthew Sitman is also a writer, co-host of the Know Your Enemy Podcast, and is on the editorial board of Dissent Magazine. Tune in to find out about the current landscape of the Right in America. Check out the Know Your Enemy podcast: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy Learn More About Know Your Enemy: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/07/arts/know-your-enemy-podcast.html Follow Sam Adler-Bell on Twitter: @SamAdlerBell Follow Matthew Sitman on Twitter: @MatthewSitman Follow Know Your Enemy on Twitter: @KnowYrEnemyPod Subscribe to Dissent Magazine, the sponsor of Know Your Enemy: https://www.dissentmagazine.org Follow us on Twitter: @ELCpod Sign up as a supporter at fans.fm/everybodylovescommunism or Patreon.com/everybodylovescommunism to unlock bonus content! Like what you heard? Be sure to give us a 5 Star Rating on Apple Podcasts!

From the popular leftist podcast "Know Your Enemy", Matt Sitman joins the VCW hall to share his story about being raised in fundamentalist Christianity and experiencing culture shock when he attended Grove City College while moving into an Evangelical culture. He discusses being a part of the historic Falls Church in Virginia in 2006 when there was an ugly church split over the appointing of an openly gay bishop. Moving from the conservative right to the left, he talks about how his faith has changed and remained constant while talking about the prospects for a religious left. Connect with Matt Sitman: Listen to "Know Your Enemy" podcast right here: https://know-your-enemy-1682b684.simplecast.com/ Twitter: @MatthewSitman Mentioned on the podcast: -More on Matt Sitman's political and faith shifts via his personal story: https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/leaving-conservatism-behind-blue-collar-republican-progressive -Matt Sitman writes about depression: https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/leaving-conservatism-behind-blue-collar-republican-progressive -Check out Zach's music by going to: https://muzach.bandcamp.com Twitter: Twitter: @vcwpod Zach- @muzach Dave- @Davejlester Podcast music by Zach Malm Logo by Zach Malm

On April 19, Mallory McMorrow, Democratic State Senator of Michigan, delivered a speech in the chamber of the Michigan State Capitol. It instantly struck a chord on social media, and has since been viewed by millions of people throughout the world.  Pushing back forcefully against a Republican colleague's accusations of “grooming and sexualizing children” as well as defending her support of LGBTQ people, McMorrow cited her Christian faith—and in particular her Catholic upbringing—as an inspiration for her political outlook and her insistence on taking the side of the marginalized. On this episode, McMorrow speaks with Commonweal editor Dominic Preziosi about what went into writing that speech, what she hopes listeners will take from it, and what role she hopes a renewed, nuanced understanding of faith might yet play in public life. For further reading: ‘Let Church Be Church Again,' Sr. Carol Keehan, DC ‘American Politics & Social Catholicism,' E.J. Dionne, Jr.  ‘Civic Virtue & the Common Good,' Bishop Robert W. McElroy, John T. McGreevy, Cathleen Kaveny, and Matthew Sitman

The Jokermen are joined by Sam Adler-Bell and Matthew Sitman of Know Your Enemy to discuss conservative recording artist Bob Dylan.LISTEN TO KNOW YOUR ENEMY ON APPLE PODCASTS AND SPOTIFYFOLLOW SAM AND MATT ON TWITTERSUSCRIBE TO JOKERMEN ON PATREONLISTEN TO NOTHING IS REVEALED: JOKERMEN SELECTS THE 60s ON SPOTIFYFOLLOW JOKERMEN ON TWITTER AND INSTAGRAM AND SUBSCRIBE ON YOUTUBE See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

It's been over a year since Donald Trump was defeated fair and square in the 2020 election, but polling shows that belief in the Big Lie is as strong as ever. On this week's On the Media, hear journalists debate how to interview Americans convinced by this dangerous myth. Plus, find out why one political linguist isn't sure the press can pull democracy back from the brink. 1. Matthew Sitman [@MatthewSitman], host of the Know Your Enemy podcast, shares his tips for interviewing right-wing intellectuals. Listen. 2. Bill Kristol [@BillKristol], editor-at-large of The Bulwark, reckons with 'Stop the Steal'-ers in his party. Listen. 3. Astead Herndon [@AsteadWesley], national politics reporter at the The New York Times, on why he'd rather interview a 'Big Lie'-believing voter than a politician. Listen. 4. George Lakoff [@GeorgeLakoff], linguist and cognitive scientist, reflects on the "truth sandwich." Listen. Music:  Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered by Brad MehldauCellar Door by Michael AndrewsCello Song by Nick DrakeBoy Moves the Sun by Michael AndrewsI'm Not Following You by Michael AndrewsWhite Man Sleeps I by Kronos QuartetLove Angel by Marcos CiscarTraveling Music by Kronos Quartet

PATREON BONUS - https://www.patreon.com/posts/60215138 What exactly is “national conservatism” and to what extent does it represent a break from the post-Reaganite consensus as we've known it? Luke talked to Matthew Sitman and Sam Adler-Bell (cohosts of the Know Your Enemy podcast) about the recent National Conservative Conference (NatCon), the so-called national conservatives, and where the Right may be headed in the coming years.

Finally, a deep-dive on William F. Buckley, Jr.! Matt and Sam are joined by Buckley's biographer, Sam Tanenhaus, to talk about WFB's 1965 campaign for mayor of New York City. Topics include: how Buckley's campaign made him the most famous conservative in America; the importance of his candidacy to the conservative movement's rise; the hardline positions he took on policing and his inflammatory views on race; and more. Along the way, Tanenhaus offers countless details that only Buckley's biographer would know, from WFB dropping LSD with James Burnham to the debate that changed Buckley forever.Sources and Further Reading:Sam Tanenhaus, Whittaker Chambers: A Biography (Random House, 1997)Sam Tanenhaus, "The Buckley Effect," New York Times Magazine, October 2, 2005Carl T. Bogus, Buckley: William F. Buckley Jr. and the Rise of American Conservatism (Bloomsbury, 2011)Matthew Sitman, "There Will Be No Buckley Revival," Commonweal, July 28, 2015...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

About a week and a half after the Capitol riot, Ben co-wrote a Jacobin article with fellow TMBS alumnus Daniel Bessner in Jacobin:https://jacobinmag.com/2021/01/trump-capitol-riot-fascist-coup-attemptBen and Danny think that the case they were making in the article has only gotten stronger in the last several months. Their friends (really, not just a courtesy, we like these guys) Matthew Sitman and Sam Adler-Bell disagree. Matt and Sam criticized the article on the last episode of their (otherwise excellent) podcast Know Your Enemy. Everyone graciously agreed to come on YouTube to sip a little bourbon and talk it out.Sam and Matt's podcast Know Your Enemy:https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy/Danny (and Derek Davison's) podcast American Prestige:https://www.patreon.com/americanprestigeFollow Sam on Twitter: @SamAdlerBellFollow Matt on Twitter: @MatthewSitmanFollow Danny on Twitter: @dbessner***************************************************************************Independent creators rely on your support to create the content you want! Support Give Them An Argument on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/benburgis. Patrons get a bonus episode every Thursday, a postgame every Monday night, access to the Discord server, a “Sopranos” Recap Bonus Episode every month with Mike Recine, Nando Vila, and Wosny Lambre, a monthly Discord Movie Night, and "Discord Office Hours" (regularly scheduled group voice chats).Follow Ben on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BenBurgisLike, subscribe, and get notifications on Ben's channel: https://www.youtube.com/BenBurgisGTAAVisit benburgis.com

Matt's podcast on the conservative movement, Know Your Enemy ... Matt's journey from movement conservative to democratic socialist ... Trump and the conservative intellectuals who tried to defend him ... Can there be a Trumpism without Trump? ... A cheer or two for the anti-Trump neoconservatives ... Are all the young conservative intellectuals just grifters? ... What Matt still retains from his conservative days ... Joe Biden, our first publicly Catholic president ...

In ATOM's first interview of the year, Aaron (@posadist_trapgd) sits down with Sam Adler-Bell (@SamAdlerBell) and Matthew Sitman (@MatthewSitman), hosts of the podcast KNOW YOUR ENEMY, to discuss what Biden's presidency holds for the left, and what leftists ought to make of the Capitol riots on January 6th. Are we seeing the rise of fascism, or is something else taking root? Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon, and check out Matt's work with Commonweal Magazine. SUGGESTED LISTENING: Know Your Enemy: Did It Happen Here? - "Is Donald Trump a fascist? A breakdown of the long-roiling debate."

We are at a perilous moment in American history, and public Catholicism must rise to the task. So says E. J. Dionne Jr., Washington Post columnist and Commonweal contributor.   He joins Commonweal editor Dominic Preziosi to discuss why American Catholicism needs to put aside culture-war rhetoric and return to its rich tradition of social thought—characterized by what he calls “radical moderation”—and how such ideas could play out in the upcoming election and beyond.   Suggestions for further reading: ·     Radical, Moderate, and Necessary, E.J. Dionne Jr. ·     The Faith of Amy Coney Barrett, Matthew Sitman ·     Canons & the Candidate, Nicholas P. Cafardi

How should we understand the current split between so-called “progressives” and “moderates” in the Democratic Party? In the middle of an uncertain primary campaign, where can they find compromise and unity? Longtime Commonweal columnist and political scientist E.J. Dionne, Jr. joins associate editor Matthew Sitman for a wide-ranging conversation about what it means to be a Democrat today. Pointing to Catholic social thought, and in particular the notion of human dignity, Dionne makes the case that there's a lot both wings of the party can agree on for improving people's lives. Plus, Phil Klay, winner of the National Book Award for his collection ‘Redeployment' and co-host of the podcast ‘Manifesto!' sits down with senior editor Matthew Boudway to talk about the “enfant terrible” of the contemporary French literary scene, Michel Houellebecq.

Michael recaps the latest in the 2020 race, including Biden's stunning victory in South Carolina, as well as Mayor Pete's decision to suspend his campaign. Then, Michael talks with Matthew Sitman about Bernie Sanders and the state of the race heading into Super Tuesday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Though we live in a secular age, we sure seem to like reading about faith. Poet and reporter Eliza Griswold, winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for her book ‘Amity and Prosperity' and author of the new poetry collection ‘If Men, Then,' explains how both genres have helped her tell stories that transcend her ego. She talks with us about writing poetry, reporting from conflict zones, and what the secular media get wrong about religious belief today.  Plus, Dominic Preziosi and Matthew Sitman report on the state of the Democratic Primary so far, offering a few prognostications and underscoring the stakes of the 2020 presidential election. 

Alice Quinn is the executive director of the Poetry Society of America, and is on the faculty of the graduate school of Columbia University. She was also the longtime poetry editor of the New Yorker magazine. Here she speaks with our associate editor Matthew Sitman about her work and her life in poetry, including her instrumental role in the beloved program that brought poetry to the New York City subways.

On this episode, we're marking National Poetry month by featuring conversations with three wonderful writers. Our associate editor Matthew Sitman talks with Alice Quinn about her work and her time as poetry editor with the New Yorker magazine. Our literary editor Anthony Domestico speaks with Shane McCrae, whose collection "The Gilded Auction Block" has just been published. And Nicole-Ann Lobo, our Garvey Writing Fellow, sits down with the poet and human rights activist Carolyn Forché, to discuss her most recent book "What You Have heard Is True: A Memoir of Witness & Resistance". And make sure to stick around until the end, when our senior editor Matthew Boudway steps in with a special reading of a poem by Les Murray. 

Dominic Preziosi sat down with Commonweal contributor Massimo Faggioli to get his thoughts about the upcoming bishops' summit on clerical sex abuse, which gets underway at the Vatican on February 21. Contributor, Paul Moses, speaks with Marie Collins, a former member of Pope Francis's papal commission on clergy sexual abuse, about her experiences and insights on the issue. Associate editor, Matthew Sitman, interviews New Yorker staff writer Vinson Cunningham, and associate publisher Meaghan Ritchey and assistant editor Griffin Oleynick discuss the paintings of Swedish abstractionist Hilma af Klint, whose work is now on exhibit at New York's Guggenheim Museum. 

Matthew Sitman interviews Cole Stangler about the recent state of French politics, and what it might suggest about the American political situation.

Commonweal editors Dominic Preziosi, Matthew Sitman, and Griffin Oleynick speak with Executive Producer Meaghan Ritchey about this new project - why we're doing it, and what we hope the experience will be for you, our listeners.

Associate Editor Matthew Sitman interviews Sam Adler-Bell, Senior Policy Associate at the Century Foundation, about Jonah Goldberg's Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics is Destroying American Democracy.

In our pilot episode, editor Dominic Preziosi interviews Massimo Faggioli and Kathleen Sprows Cummings about recent developments in the sex-abuse crisis, Matthew Sitman and Sam Adler-Bell discuss Jonah Goldberg's book Suicide of the West, Anthony Domestico interviews Micheal O'Siadhail about his book The Five Quintets, and several Commonweal staff discuss the recent Alberto Giacometti exhibit at The Guggenheim.