Know Your Enemy

Early in Timothy Shenk's absorbing, provocative recent book, Realigners: Partisan Hacks, Political Visionaries, and the Struggle to Rule American Democracy, he describes it as "a biography of American democracy told through its majorities, and the people who made them." Looking at American figures from Martin Van Buren to Charles Sumner to Mark Hanna to Phyllis Schlafly and Barack Obama, the book attempts to define the character and conditions necessary for fashioning a durable electoral majority — in those moments when existing partisan and coalitional structures were reshuffled and articulated anew. In other words: a realignment.In this thrilling conversation, Matt, Sam, and Tim talk through the implications of past realignments and argue about whether something similar is possible today.Sources:Timothy Shenk, Realigners: Partisan Hacks, Political Visionaries, and the Struggle to Rule American Democracy (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2022)Stephen Skowronek, The Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to Bill Clinton (Harvard University Press, 1993)Sam Adler-Bell, "The Radical Young Intellectuals Who Want to Take Over the American Right," The New Republic, Dec 2021Firing Line debate on the Panama Canal (YouTube) This episode was unlocked from Patreon. To hear more bonus episodes, subscribe at https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy.

Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemySam is joined by returning KYE all-stars Jamelle Bouie (of the NYTimes) and John Ganz (of Unpopular Front) for a spirited discussion of the 1984 film "The Little Drummer Girl," starring Diane Keaton — an adaptation of John le Carré's 1983 novel of the same name.We approach the film — which, it turns out, is not very good — with the same analytical rigor that Jamelle and John bring to their own podcast, "Unclear and Present Danger," which focuses on the post-Cold War thrillers of the 1990s. We wind up talking about why the film doesn't work and about le Carré's ambiguous approach to spy fiction, in particular, how his perspective differs from other British chroniclers of Cold War espionage, like Ian Flemming and Graham Greene.In what ways does le Carré's approach represent an essentially (small-c) conservative disposition? And why is it so attractive to all of us? Listen to find out! Recommended Reading:Sam Adler-Bell, "The Father of All Secrets," The Baffler, Dec 2022.Laura Marsh, "The Nonconformist," NYRB, Feb 2022.Nicholas Dames, "Coming in from the Cold," n+1, Spring 2018.John le Carré, The Little Drummer Girl, Hodder & Stoughton, 1983.Tim Cornwell ed., A Private Spy: The Letters of John le Carré, Random House, Jan 2023.

Modern conservatives have long asked the following questions: how can we live together without God? Is there any substitute for religion in cohering a moral community? And if not, what can we do to revive the old sacred authority that reason, science, and liberalism have interred?These were also the questions that preoccupied Philip Rieff (1922-2006), an idiosyncratic sociologist and product of the University of Chicago, whose thought cast a long shadow over right-wing intellectuals, theologians, and other Jeremiahs of the modern condition (like Christopher Lasch and Alasdair MacIntyre). In the two books that made his name — 1959's Freud: Mind of the Moralist and 1966's Triumph of the Therapeutic: The Uses of Faith After Freud — Rieff engages deeply with psychoanalysis, deriving from Sigmund Freud a theory of how culture creates morality and, in turn, why modern culture, with its emphasis on psychological well-being over moral instruction, no longer functions to shape individuals into a community of shared purpose. Rieff, a secular Jew, remained concerned to the very end of his life with the problem of living in a society without faith, one in which the rudderless self is mediated, most of all, by therapeutic ideas and psychological institutions rather than by religious or political ones. Less sophisticated versions of this conundrum haunt conservative thought to this day — from complaints about "wokeness" as a religion to the right's treatment of sexual and gender transgression as mental pathology. To help us navigate Rieff, Freud, and the conservative underbelly of psychoanalysis, we're joined by two brilliant thinkers and writers: Hannah Zeavin and Alex Colston. Hannah is an Assistant Professor at Indiana University in the Luddy School of Informatics; Alex is a PhD student at Duquesne in clinical psychology. Most importantly, for our purposes, Hannah and Alex are also the editors of Parapraxis, a new magazine of psychoanalysis on the left. We hope you enjoy this (admittedly, heady) episode. If you do, consider signing up for a new podcast — on psychoanalysis and politics, of all things — hosted by beloved KYE guest Patrick Blanchfield and his partner Abby Kluchin entitled "Ordinary Unhappiness." Further Reading: Philip Rieff, Freud: Mind of the Moralist (Viking, 1959)— The Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith After Freud (Harper & Row, 1966)— Fellow Teachers (Harper & Row, 1973)Gerald Howard, "Reasons to Believe," Bookforum, Feb 2007. Blake Smith, "The Secret Life of Philip Rieff." Tablet, Dec 15, 2022George Scialabba, "The Curse of Modernity: Rieff's Problem with Freedom," Boston Review, Jul 1, 2007.Christopher Lasch, "The Saving Remnant," The New Republic, Nov 19, 1990. Hannah Zeavin, "Composite Case: The fate of the children of psychoanalysis," Parapraxis, Nov 14, 2022. Alex Colston, "Father," Parapraxis, Nov 21, 2022. Rod Dreher, "We Live In Rieff World," Mar 1, 2019. Park MacDougald, "The Importance of Repression," Sept 29, 2021...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemyEarly in Timothy Shenk's absorbing, provocative book, Realigners: Partisan Hacks, Political Visionaries, and the Struggle to Rule American Democracy, he describes it as "a biography of American democracy told through its majorities, and the people who made them." Looking at American figures from Martin Van Buren to Charles Sumner to Mark Hanna to Phyllis Schlafly and Barack Obama, the book attempts to define the character and conditions necessary for fashioning a durable electoral majority — in those moments when existing partisan and coalitional structures were reshuffled and articulated anew. In other words: a realignment. In this thrilling conversation, Matt, Sam, and Tim talk through the implications of past realignments and argue about whether something similar is possible today. Sources:Timothy Shenk, Realigners: Partisan Hacks, Political Visionaries, and the Struggle to Rule American Democracy (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2022)Stephen Skowronek, The Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to Bill Clinton (Harvard University Press, 1993)Sam Adler-Bell, "The Radical Young Intellectuals Who Want to Take Over the American Right," The New Republic, Dec 2021

This episode is a little different. Rather than dissecting an influential conservative book written by long-dead intellectual, Matt and Sam are joined by Know Your Enemy's brilliant producer (and host of the very funny podcast, Tech Talk) to unpack a different kind of "text"—the hit CBS television show from the 1990s, Walker, Texas Ranger, starring the very much still-living Chuck Norris. Set in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Norris stars as Sergeant Cordell Walker, a member of the storied Texas Rangers who takes on drug dealers, Satanists, corrupt cops, and other bad guys, a task aided by his incredible martial-arts skills. The episodes of Walker discussed in this conversation were carefully curated by Jesse, and they provide a great deal of fodder for understanding conservatism (and America) in the 1990s, law and order politics, the American penchant for moral panics, how the Right has changed in the decades since the show aired, and more.Sources:Walker, Texas Ranger on IMDB"Chuck Norris's code of honor," drawn from the Chuck Norris System of martial arts (Chun Kuk Do)Chuck Norris, Black Belt Patriotism: How to Reawaken America (2008)Aaron Cantú, The Chaparral Insurgents of South Texas,The New Inquiry, April 2016. ...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Listen to the entire conversation by subscribing to Know Your Enemy on Patreon!On Dec. 31, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI died at the age of 95. During his long career as a towering figure in the Catholic Church in the second half of the twentieth century and beyond—especially his decades helming the Vatican's powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, then as Pope and Pope Emeritus—Benedict was involved in nearly all of the Church's crises and controversies. He cracked down on liberation theologians, held a reactionary line on homosexuality at the height of the AIDS crisis, and slowly awakened to the depths and depravity of the Catholic sex-abuse scandal—but he also wrote movingly about God's love and took positions on the environment and the economy that would be mostly ignored by his conservative fans. To try to make sense of Benedict's life and work, especially his relationship with American Catholics, Matt is joined by Michael O'Loughlin, the national correspondent at America magazine and author of Hidden Mercy: AIDS, Catholics, and the Untold Stories of Compassion in the Face of Fear.Listen to the entire conversation by subscribing to Know Your Enemy on Patreon!

Merry Christmas! Here's a little bonus content to tide you over until 2023. In April, Matt and Sam appeared on the excellent Jokermen podcast to discuss Bob Dylan's Christian rock records. And now we're sharing it with you. Lots to chew on in here for fans of KYE, Dylan, Jesus, and rock n' roll. Enjoy.

For forty-eight years, American presidents came and went, but J. Edgar Hoover remained as the powerful director of the FBI. In her authoritative new biography, G-Man, Yale historian Beverly Gage brings Hoover to life, uncovering the all-too-human man who played such an outsized role in twentieth-century U.S. political history. Gage's decade of research provides fascinating insights into the troubles that impinged on Hoover's childhood; his formative time in a white supremacist, Southern fraternity at George Washington University, Kappa Alpha; his early years in what was then the Bureau of Investigation and eventual rise to running it; Hoover's personal life and sexuality, including his longterm relationship with Clyde Tolson; and the transformation of the FBI across the 1930s and 1940s, and the ways it drew Hoover into a number of controversies that followed, from the Kennedy assassination to COINTELPRO and the FBI's attacks on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Sources:Beverly Gage, G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century (Viking, 2022)Michael Kazin, "J. Edgar Hoover’s Long Shadow," New Republic, Dec 9, 2022Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. Harvey Mansfield and Delba Winthrop (1835, 2002)Please consider making an end-of-year donation to Dissent this holiday season, Know Your Enemy's beloved sponsor. And don't forget to subscribe to KYE on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes.

Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemyMatt and Sam pick up where they left off in their recent mailbag episode and keep answering listener questions. Topics include: KYE merchandise, the existence of Hell, Francis Fukuyama, Mormonism, gun violence, and more. Sources:David Bentley Hart, That All Shall Be Saved (Yale University Press, 2019)John G. Turner, Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet (Harvard University Press, 2012)Francis Fukuyama, "Still the End of History," Atlantic, October 17, 2022Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (Free Press, 1992)W.H. Auden, "In Memory of Sigmund Freud" (1940)Christopher Isherwood, Christopher and His Kind (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1976)Sohrab Ahmari, "Urban Jeremiah: Mike Davis, 1946-2022," Compact, October 26, 2022

As the end of the year approaches, Matt and Sam are once again answering questions from you, their beloved listeners. Like previous mailbag episodes, there was an abundance of excellent questions that were submitted. Topics include: the possibilities for the religious left, white Christian nationalism, your hosts' literary habits and favorite novels, conspiracy theories—and more. For those who especially enjoy this type of episode, check out the next KYE bonus episode on Patreon, which will take up even more listener questions!Sources:Hannah Gold, "The Loud Parts," Harper's, October 2022Jewish Currents, "The Jews" (On the Nose podcast episode), November 23, 2022Alastair Roberts, "On Thomas Achord," Alastair's Adversaria, November 27, 2022Rod Dreher, "The Thomas Achord – Alastair Roberts Mess," The American Conservative, November 27, 2022Matthew Sitman, "Whither the Religious Left?" New Republic, April 15, 2021Ned Rorem, Lies: A Diary, 1986-1999 (2002)Breece D'J Pancake, The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake (2002)Breece D'J Pancake, "Trilobites," The Atlantic, December 1977Andre Dubus, Selected Stories (1995)Janet Malcolm, "I Should Have Made Him for a Dentist," New York Review of Books, March 2018John le Carré, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963)Art Shay, Album for an Age: Unconventional Words and Pictures from the Twentieth Century (2000)...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes

This is episode is a little different. Listeners know that Matt and Sam have been following John Fetterman's Senate campaign in Pennsylvania from the start, doing their first episode about him after his primary win in May. After his victory over Dr. Oz earlier this week in the general election, they talked to the Fetterman campaign's Director of Communications, Joe Calvello, for a behind-the-scenes look at how they did it. Topics discussed: Fetterman's strategy of defining Oz early (and, yes, the origins of some of Fetterman's most popular Twitter dunks), left populism, crime, abortion, why voters have a right to be angry, and how the campaign responded to Fetterman's stroke and turned his very public recovery into one more argument about why he'd fight for Pennsylvanians. To hear Know Your Enemy's full take on the midterm elections, recorded earlier this week, listen and subscribe on Patreon here — you'll also get access to all of our previous bonus episodes!

Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemyMatt and Sam recap and analyze the 2022 midterms — as we know them so far. Why did Dems do so much better than we thought? Why did the GOP underperform? How cucked were the polls? How happy is Matt that John Fetterman beat Dr. Oz? (Very) What about Blake Masters in Arizona? Was this a bad night for Trump? Was it a good night for DeSantis? How worried should we be about the integrity of American democracy given these results? And how happy should we be that the Democrats managed to stave off the worst possible outcome? Listen while it's hot...

"What is best and weakest in America goes out to reciprocating strength and deficiencies in Richard Nixon." It's difficult to think of a more electric meeting of author and subject than Garry Wills and Richard Nixon, a meeting that produced what might be the best book ever written about American politics, Wills's Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self-Made Man. What begins as reporting from the campaign trail during the 1968 presidential contest—where Wills introduces us to Nixon, George Wallace, Nelson Rockefeller, and more—eventually becomes a profound meditation on the fate of liberalism in the United States. Wills found in Nixon the key to unlocking the reigning—but by then faltering—myths of their country's history and self-understanding, and what they reveal about each other. Along the way he discusses the complex psychological dance between Nixon and Dwight Eisenhower; takes us on a tour of Nixon's hometown, Whittier, California; describes the Republicans' "southern strategy"; examines the roiling anger and protests over the Vietnam War; and offers on-the-ground reportage from the 1968 conventions (the GOP's in Miami, the Democrats', infamously, in Chicago). Matt and Sam try to make sense of it all and ponder what Nixon Agonistes might say about how we got here and where we're going. Sources:Garry Wills, Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self-Made Man (1970) Confessions of a Conservative (1979) Outsider Looking In: Adventures of an Observer (2010)Kevin Phillips, The Emerging Republican Majority (1968)Tom Wolfe, The New Journalism (1973)KYE, "Joan Didion, Conservative, (w/ Sam Tanenhaus)" Jan 13, 2022 ...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemyWith the midterms a week away, Sam talked to Aaron Kleinman of The States Project (aka @BobbyBigWheel) about the battle to defend American democracy at the state level — where Trumpist state legislators continue to deny the 2020 election and lay the groundwork for ignoring the will of the majority in the future. How did the conservative movement manage to to take over so many statehouses? Can Democrats still turn back the tide? What is the "independent state legislature" theory? Aaron helps answers these questions and more — and gives us a useful rundown of the states to watch closely in the midterms next Tuesday.

At long last, an episode about baseball—America's national pastime, and a sport that conservatives in the United States seem to especially love. To understand baseball's appeal, both to conservatives and the rest of us, Matt and Sam are joined by David Roth of Defector Media, a brilliant, funny writer who also is a long suffering Mets fan. Topics include: the start of the MLB playoffs, baseball's interesting place in American history, varieties of conservative baseball fans, and more!Sources: George F. Will, Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball (Macmillan, 1990) "Foul Ball," New York Review of Books, June 1991Donald Kagan, "George Will's Baseball—A Conservative Critique," Public Interest, Fall 1990Tim Marchman, "Did George Will’s Men at Work Anticipate Baseball’s Statistical Revolution?" Slate, April 27, 2010David Bentley Hart, "A Perfect Game," First Things, August 2010Greg Hillis, "Quit Trying to 'Fix' Baseball," Commonweal, March 27, 2018David Roth, "Replacement-Level Billionaires," The Baffler, March 2020Leander Schaerlaeckens, "Was Donald Trump Good at Baseball?" Slate, May 5, 2020Michael Serazio, "The GOP hates baseball now. But it has always been a conservative sport," Washington Post, April 7, 2021...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemySam is joined by David Broder — the Europe editor of Jacobin Magazine and author of First They Took Rome: How the Populist Right Conquered Italy and the forthcoming book, Mussolini's Grandchildren: Fascism in Contemporary Italy — to discuss the recent victory of Giorgia Meloni in Italian general elections. Meloni's Brothers for Italy party descends directly from the neo-fascist parties of post-war Italy. We discuss the ways in which her victory is continuous and discontinuous with the recent history of right-wing populism in Italy — from Silvio Berlusconi to Matteo Salvini. And David explains how Meloni has incorporated fascist nostalgia and historical revision into a 21st century, identitarian nationalism, which draws heavily on conservative economics, anti-feminist and anti-LGBTQ politics, and "great replacement" nativist conspiracy. Further reading: David Broder, "Italy’s drift to the far right began long before the rise of Giorgia Meloni," Guardian, Sept. 2022. Natasha Lennard, "It's a Girl (Fascist!)," The Intercept, Sept. 2022.Adam Tooze, "Who is going to vote for Italy's right-wing coalition?," Chartbook, Sept 2022.

Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemyKYE super guest John Ganz joins Matt and Sam for a characteristically spirited discussion of The Claremont Institute's "Sheriff Fellowship," which invites county sheriffs from across the country to California for a weekend of West Coast Straussian ideological programing. Drawing on the history of "posse comitatus" movements and recent reports on the role of conservative sheriffs in resisting COVID mandates, propagating 2020 election lies, and cozying up to vigilante militias, we offer a synthesized account of why the mythologized figure of the sheriff — and sheriffs themselves — have such an attraction for right-wing radicals intent on subverting American democracy.Further Reading:Jessica Pishko, "Here’s the Secret “Sheriff Fellowship” Curriculum From the Country’s Most Prominent MAGA Think Tank," Slate, Sept 21, 2022.Alexandra Berzon and Nick Corasaniti, "2020 Election Deniers Seek Out Powerful Allies: County Sheriffs," NYTimes, Jul 25, 2022.Adam Rawnsley, "MAGA Claremont Institute Honors Sheriffs Who Defy Laws They Don’t Like," Daily Beast, Nov 22, 2021.Ashley Powers, "The Renegade Sheriffs," The New Yorker, Apr 23, 2018. Kimberly Kindy, "Boosted by the pandemic, ‘constitutional sheriffs’ are a political force," Washington Post, Nov 2, 2021.Christian Vanderbrouk, "Notes on an Authoritarian Conspiracy: Inside the Claremont Institute’s “79 Days to Inauguration” Report," The Bulwark, Nov 8, 2021. Michael Anton & Glenn Elmers, "The Stakes: Harry Jaffa’s Philosophy," The American Mind, Sept 19, 2022.

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!

This episode was unplanned, but when Barbara Ehrenreich died on September 1, 2022, we felt an urge to honor her memory and the profound influence she has had on the American left, socialism, feminism, and our collective thinking about class struggle. From her work in the women's health movement of the 1960s, to her theorizing (with ex-husband John Ehrenreich) of the "professional-managerial class" in the 1970s, to her explorations of Reagan-era yuppie pathologies, and her renowned exposé of low-wage work in 2001's Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich has been an essential and nuanced guide to the inner-life of American class conflict in the latter half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st. To undertake this journey through an extraordinary body of work, we're joined by two brilliant writers who have both — in their own way — taken up Ehrenreich's profound ethical and intellectual challenge: Alex Press, staff writer at Jacobin magazine (and KYE's favorite labor journalist); and returning guest Gabe Winant, University of Chicago historian and author of The Next Shift: The Fall of Industry and the Rise of Health Care.As Gabe writes in his stunning obituary last week, "Ehrenreich’s specialty was to reveal her readers to themselves by showing them the other. Her humor and projection of personal vulnerability were particularly deft techniques for asking the reader to see their own position, often through identification with Ehrenreich: she invites this, beckoning you to follow her into her subject, and then suddenly wheels around on you—and you are caught out." We hope this episode can manage something of that technique for the listener, that you might find yourself "caught out" too, thinking deeply about where you fit into the story Barbara is telling — and what it might call on you to do, fight for, or think harder about. Enjoy. Further Reading: Barbara & John Ehrenreich, "The Professional-Managerial Class," Radical America, March 1977. — "The New Left and the Professional Managerial Class," Radical America, May 1977.— "Death of a Yuppie Dream," Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, Feb 2013. Barbara Ehrenreich & Deirdre English, Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers, The Feminist Press, 1973.Barbara Ehrenreich, Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class, Pantheon, 1989. Barbara Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, Metropolitan, 2001. Barbara Ehrenreich, "Preface to Klaus Theweleit's Male Fantasies Volume 1: Women, Floods, Bodies, History," U of Minnesota Press, 1987. Gabriel Winant, "On Barbara Ehrenreich," n+1, Sept 9, 2022. — "Professional-Managerial Chasm," n+1, Oct 10, 2019. — "The Right Kind of Worker," Know Your Enemy, May 2022. Alex Press, "On the Origins of the Professional-Managerial Class: An Interview with Barbara Ehrenreich." Dissent, Oct 22, 2019. David Rieff, "White Bread, White Dread (review of Fear of Falling)," LA Times, Aug 20, 1989. This episode of Know Your Enemy is dedicated to Barbara Ehrenreich (1941-2022) and all those who loved and learned from her.

In this episode, historian Nicole Hemmer returns to the show to discuss her new book, Partisans, about the ascendancy of an angrier, more radical strain of conservatism in the Republican Party in the 1990s—a backlash driven by the right's dissatisfaction with the genial, popularity-seeking Ronald Reagan. As the Cold War ended, many conservatives stopped genuflecting to democracy and freedom and used new forms of media—talk radio and cable news especially—to spread their grievances. Topics include: Pat Buchanan's campaigns for the presidency, Ross Perot, Newt Gingrich and the GOP's takeover of the House of Representatives, Rush Limbaugh, Dinesh D'Souza, and the new breed of anti-feminist, rightwing women such as Laura Ingraham and Ann Coulter.Sources:Nicole Hemmer, Partisans: The Conservative Revolutionaries Who Remade American Politics in the 1990s (Basic, 2022) Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics (Penn, 2016)Kevin Phillips, The Politics of Rich and Poor (Random House, 1990)John Ganz, "The Year the Clock Broke," The Baffler, November 2018Know Your Enemy, "The Year the Clock Broke" (w/ John Ganz), March 16, 2020...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy to listen to all of our bonus episodes!

Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy Matt and Sam bring you the latest from the “caesarist” wing of the conservative movement, discussing two recent and related articles in the New York Times. The first: Sam’s profile of Arizona GOP senate nominee Blake Masters, who, like J.D. Vance, is bankrolled by his former employer and mentor, the Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel. And second: an in-depth look at the Claremont Institute by Elizabeth Zerofsky, whose excellent reporting gives the boys an opportunity to refine their thoughts on the West Coast Straussian legacy of Harry Jaffa.It’s KYE classico. Enjoy. Cited:Adler-Bell, “The Violent Fantasies of Blake Masters,” NYTimes, Aug 3, 2022.Adler-Bell, “The Radical Young Intellectuals Who Want to Take Over the American Right,” The New Republic, Dec 2, 2021.Elizabeth Zerofsky, “How the Claremont Institute Became a Nerve Center of the American Right,” NYTimes Magazine, Aug 3, 2022.Marc Fisher & Isaac Stanley-Becker, “The Claremont Institute triumphed in the Trump years. Then came Jan. 6.” Washington Post, Jul 30, 2022.Glenn Ellmers, “‘Conservatism’ is no Longer Enough,” The American Mind, Mar 24, 2021.Michael Anton, “Are the Kids Al(t)right?” Claremont Review of Books, Summer 2019Harry V. Jaffa, Crisis of the House Divided, U Chicago Press, 1982.Harry V. Jaffa, A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War, Roman & Littlefield, 2000.David Tucker "Why Did Harry Jaffa Change His Mind?" Law and Liberty, Jul 3, 2019.For more on Claremont/Jaffa/Strauss:KYE: "Midnight in the Garden of American Heroes" Feb 2021.KYE: The Long Farewell to Majority Rule (w/ Joshua Tait), May 2021.

Christopher Lasch, 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.

Matt is joined by John Huntington, author of Far-Right Vanguard, which chronicles the history of what he calls the "ultraconservative" movement, its national network, its influence on Republican Party politics, and its centrality to America's rightward turn during the second half of the twentieth century.John is a history professor at Houston Community College.Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy

Here's something fun and a little different: your beloved cohost Matt Sitman was recently interviewed by Victor Bruzzone and Matt McManus on their podcast, Plastic Pills, and the ensuing conversation — about Matt's own history, the right-wing intellectual pipeline, and the enduring and contested influence of Leo Strauss on the conservative movement and its minds — is just fascinating. So we're sharing it with you, dear listeners. I do want to acknowledge the elephant in the room: we're in a bit of a summer slow down at KYE headquarters. After sprinting to get the Roe v Wade series done last month, we've all had to take a bit of a breath amid the July heat — our producer, Jesse, has been on vacation — and so there've been fewer new episodes in the feed than we would prefer. But thank you for bearing with us. And trust that many excellent episodes are in the works! ...if you're hurting for KYE content, feel free to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access our back catalog of bonus episodes!

In the third and final episode in their series on the overturning of Roe v. Wade—recorded on the day it happened—Matt and Sam pick up with 1990s, the George W. Bush administration, and eventually take listeners up to the present. They focus especially on way conservative, mostly Christian intellectuals, many of them connected to the religious journal First Things, brought Catholics and evangelicals together to fight against abortion rights, with figures like Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, Robert P. George, and Hadley Arkes providing language and arguments in a more elite idiom—a project that deeply influenced Bush's presidency and helped cement the anti-abortion movement's place not just in the religious right but the broader conservative movement and the GOP.Sources:"Killing Abortionists: A Symposium," First Things, December 1994"Evangelicals and Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millenium," First Things, May 1994"The End of Democracy? The Judicial Usurpation of Politics," First Things, November 1996Damon Linker, The Theocons: Secular America Under Siege (Doubleday, 2006)Mary Ziegler, Dollars for Life: The Anti-Abortion Movement and the Fall of the Republican Establishment (Yale University Press, 2021)Joshua Wilson, The Street Politics of Abortion: Speech, Violence, and America's Culture Wars, (Stanford University Press, 2013)Richard John Neuhaus, The Naked Public Square: Religion and Democracy in America (Eerdmans, 1984)Robert P. George, Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality (Oxford University Press, 1993)Hadley Arkes, "The End of the Beginning of the End of Abortion," First Things, June 24, 2022Matthew Sitman, "Reading Left to Right" (review of Richard John Neuhaus: A Life in the Public Square), Commonweal, August 24, 2015Tara Isabella Burton, "The Biblical Story the Christian Right Uses to Defend Trump," Vox, March 5, 2018

Today we're sharing a special "Dig Your Enemy" crossover event, as Daniel Denvir of Jacobin magazine's The Dig podcast puts Matt and Sam in the hot seat. We answer all of Dan's excellent questions about the state of the American right, including: the return of isolationism, the New Right, Peter Thiel, Curtis Yarvin, Blake Masters, Doug Mastriano, the prospects for a multi-racial conservative majority, the "groomer" panic, masculinity and gender politics, MAGA, authoritarianism, NYC's new reactionary "downtown scene," and the bad dialectic between racial liberalism and the anti-woke reactionaries. Enjoy! This episode was originally posted by The Dig; find the rest of their excellent podcasts here: https://thedigradio.com/ ...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

At long last, Matt and Sam dive into the origins of the Christian right—a complicated tale often flattened by contemporary debates. What was the history of Christian anti-abortion activism before Roe, and how soon after the landmark Supreme Court decision did conservative Christians coalesce around the abortion—and other issues—to become the political force we know today? What did it take to get Catholics and evangelicals to join forces, and what were the barriers to them coming together, especially given the history of anti-Catholicism in the United States? And how did all this help reshape the GOP into a vehicle for anti-abortion politics, given that such a scenario was not fated on the eve of Roe? Your hosts take up these questions and more, stopping in the early 1990s—when they'll pick up with the story in the third and final episode in the series.Sources and Citations:Randall Balmer, "The Religious Right and the Abortion Myth," Politico Magazine, May 10, 2022Neil J. Young and Gillian Frank, "What Everyone Gets Wrong about Evangelicals and Abortion," Washington Post, May 16, 2022Neil J. Young, We Gather Together: The Religious Right and the Problem of Interfaith Politics (Oxford University Press, 2015)Kristen Luker, Abortion & the Politics of Motherhood, (University of California Press, 1985)Mary Ziegler, After Roe: The Lost History of the Abortion Debate, (Harvard University Press, 2015)Ilyse Hogue and Ellie Langford, The Lie That Binds (Strong Arm Press, 2020)Rick Perlstein, Reaganland: America's Right Turn 1976-80 (Simon & Schuster, 2020)Daniel K. Williams, Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-Life Movement Before Roe v. Wade (Oxford University Press, 2016)Joshua Wilson, The Street Politics of Abortion: Speech, Violence, and America's Culture Wars, (Stanford University Press, 2013)David L. Chappell, A Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow (UNC Press, 2005)"Killing Abortionists: A Symposium," First Things, December 1994

On May 5, Politico published a leaked draft of the majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health, written by Justice Samuel Alito, that would overturn Roe v. Wade. How did we get here? In the first of three episodes dedicated to answering that question, Matt and Sam talk to Peter, Rhiannon, and Michael of the 5-4 Podcast about the conservative legal movement's role and the right's use of the courts in achieving their aims. What were the main arguments in the leaded Dobbs decision, and where did these ideas come from? How important was opposition to abortion rights to the development of originalism and organizations like the Federalist Society? What function has the Federalist Society served in the conservative takeover of the Supreme Court? Also discussed in this episode: the relationship between radical, violent anti-abortion groups and the broader anti-abortion legal movement, the narrower victories the right won against abortion rights along the way, and what might come next from an emboldened conservative movement with the Supreme Court on their side.Sources:Josh Gerstein and Alexander Ward, "Supreme Court Has Voted to Overturn Abortion Rights, Draft Opinion Shows," Politico, May 5, 20225-4 Podcast, "Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health: The End of Roe," May 4, 20225-4 Podcast, "The Return of the Rise and Fall of Roe v. Wade, Pt. 1," January 4, 2022 "The Return of the Rise and Fall of Roe v. Wade, Pt. 2," January 4, 2022Know Your Enemy (w/ 5-4's Rhiannon), "The Texas Bounty Hunter Bill," September 30, 2021Amanda Hollis-Brusky, Ideas with Consequences: The Federalist Society and the Conservative Counterrevolution (Oxford University Press, 2019)Ilyse Hogue and Ellie Langford, The Lie That Binds (Strong Arm Press, 2020)Joshua C. Wilson, The Street Politics of Abortion: Speech, Violence, America's Culture Wars (Stanford University Press, 2013)...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to access to all of our bonus episodes!

A conversation with David Adler and Thea Riofrancos about the return of the Latin American left — unlocked from Patreon in advance of hugely consequential elections in Colombia this weekend!! (Originally published May 15, 2022.)Hope for the American left is at a fairly low ebb, at the moment, but our counterparts in Latin America are on the march and succeeding at beating back repressive right wing governments across the region. What can we learn from them? And given extremely volatile global conditions — and the continued role of the US in defending the interests of capital in the region — what can these new left-wing governments hope to accomplish?Sam is joined by political scientist Thea Riofrancos and David Adler, the General Coordinator of the Progressive International, to discuss left populism in Chile, Colombia, Brazil, and elsewhere. Further Reading: Thea Riofrancos & David Adler, "Gabriel Boric and Latin America’s new pink tide," New Statesman, Mar 11, 2022.Thea Riofrancos, "The rush to ‘go electric’ comes with a hidden cost: destructive lithium mining," Guardian, Jun 14, 2021.— "The View from Latin America," Boston Review, Apr 27, 2020. — "Ecuador After Correa," n+1, Fall 2017.John Bartlett, "Chilean journalist dies after being shot while covering Workers’ Day marches," Guardian, May 12, 2022...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

In this bonus episode, Matt takes Sam on a tour of his native state, Pennsylvania, where a number of key primaries were held this week. The results brought some hopeful news: Lt. Gov. John Fetterman handily defeated State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta and (even better) Manchin-backed moderate Rep. Conor Lamb in the contest for the Democratic senate nomination. But it also revealed the madness that continues to grip the GOP: State Sen. Doug Mastriano, a January 6 marcher and election-fraud true believer, will be running for governor in November, and Dr. Oz, as of this writing, was clinging to a narrow lead in the race to take on Fetterman. Don't worry, though, it's not all punditry: the cuisines, strange regional dialects, and curious folkways of the virtuous commonwealth also are discussed. Then the episode turns to the fortunes of the Thiel tools: J.D. Vance and Blake Masters, both of whom are running for the Senate (Vance in Ohio and Masters in Arizona). The former won the Republican nod, and in come-from-behind fashion—how did he do it, especially after months of woke pundits dismissing his campaign? And what are Masters chances in August, when the Arizona GOP primary will be held?Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy

Hope for the American left is at a fairly low ebb, at the moment, but our counterparts in Latin America are on the march and succeeding at beating back repressive right wing governments across the region. What can we learn from them? And given extremely volatile global conditions — and the continued role of the US in defending the interests of capital in the region — what can these new left-wing governments hope to accomplish?Sam is joined by political scientist Thea Riofrancos and David Adler, the General Coordinator of the Progressive International, to discuss left populism in Chile, Colombia, Brazil, and elsewhere. Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy

Sarah Weinman's new book—Scoundrel: How a Convicted Murderer Persuaded the Women Who Loved Him, the Conservative Establishment, and the Courts to Set Him Free—is a gripping true crime story, and perhaps the tale of an ill-fated love triangle. It also is a story about William F. Buckley, Jr., who defied expectations to show mercy to a death-row prisoner, Edgar Smith, after finding out that he supposedly read National Review. In this episode, Weinman joins Matt and Sam to talk about this fascinating, half-forgotten episode from a key period in Buckley's life and career—how Smith and Buckley met; what Buckley did for him; the role played by Sophie Wilkins, Smith's editor at Knopf, in what happened; and the sad ending toward which it all careened.Sources:Sarah Weinman, Scoundrel: How a Convicted Murderer Persuaded the Women Who Loved Him, the Conservative Establishment, and the Courts to Set Him Free (Ecco Press, February 2022)Sam Adler-Bell, "The Conservative and the Murderer," New Republic, March 7, 2022Christopher Buckley, Losing Mum and Pup: A Memoir (Twelve Books, May 2009)Garry Wills, "Daredevil," Atlantic, July/August 2009Sophie Wilkins, trans., The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil (1930, 2017)Alexander Chee, "Mr. and Mrs. B," Apology Magazine, Winter 2014...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Since Donald Trump was elected president — partially on the strength of white working class support in the Rust Belt — we've heard that the GOP is a working class party; that liberals sold out American labor to globalized capital; and that American workers are too socially and culturally conservative to remain within the increasingly progressive Democratic tent. According to the populist right, the culture war is itself a class war, waged on behalf of real workers against a secular, libertine professional elite who control the commanding heights of the economy, government, and media. What's wrong with this story? Labor historian and essayist Gabriel Winant joins Matt and Sam to answer that question. Using Gabe's award-winning book The Next Shift: The Fall of Industry and the Rise of Health Care in Rust Belt America as a guide, we tell a different story about working class formation in this country, about the forces that led to the decline of America's industrial base, and about the prospects for renewing labor's power relative to capital. Along the way, we take on figures of the newly labor-curious right — Oren Cass, Sohrab Ahmari, and others — explaining how their vision is based on ideologically motivated elisions that seek to resolve rather than energize class conflict. It's a hot one, folks! Further Reading:Gabriel Winant, "We Live in a Society," n+1, Dec 12, 2020— "Professional-Managerial Chasm," n+1, Oct 10, 2019— "Coronavirus and Chronopolitics" n+1, Spring 2020.— "Strike Wave," New Left Review, Nov 25, 2021.Sohrab Ahmari, "How America Kneecapped Its Unions," Compact, Mar 31, 2022.Julius Krein, "The Real Class War," American Affairs, Nov 20, 2019.Alexander Riley, "Labor Betrayed by the Progressive Left," Chronicles, Mar 2022. Landon R.Y. Storrs, The Second Red Scare and the Unmaking of the New Deal Left, Princeton U Press, 2012.Melinda Cooper, Family Values: Between Neoliberalism and the New Social Conservatism Zone Books, 2017.Alice Kessler-Harris, In Pursuit of Equity: Women, Men, and the Quest for Economic Citizenship in 20th-Century America, 2001. Oxford U Press. 2001.

Did this week's one-on-one debate between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen change the race in any significant ways? Why is Le Pen drawing notably more support this time around than she did in 2017? How much is Macron's strategy of pivoting to the right on issues of culture and identity to blame for her rise? What about Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leftwing politician who nearly made it to the runoff? And why did the far-right candidate Éric Zemmour fade? Listen for the answers to these questions—and more! You can do so by subscribing to Know Your Enemy at Patreon.

Matt and Sam are joined by Georgetown University historian and co-editor emeritus of Dissent, Michael Kazin, to discuss his new book, What It Took to Win: A History of the Democratic Party. They discuss the origins of the Democratic Party, the alliance between its urban North and segregationist South, the party's turn toward using government to help ordinary people, and the eventual crack-up of the New Deal coalition—and the rise of the right, and the Republican Party, that followed. Why did people whose relative comfort and prosperity had been made possible by policies championed by Democrats turn against them? How did Democrats respond to Ronald Reagan winning 49 states in 1984? Did it have to turn out the way it did? Sources:Michael Kazin, What It Took To Win: A History of the Democratic Party (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2022) A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan (Anchor, 2007)Michael Kazin, "Whatever Happened to Moral Capitalism?" New York Times, June 24, 2019Nathaniel Hawthorne, "Earth's Holocaust" (1844)Sam Rosenfeld, "What Defines the Democratic Party?" New Republic, February 15, 2022Matthew Sitman, "Tribute to Michael Kazin," Dissent, October 6, 2020...don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Matt and Sam are joined by KYE all-star John Ganz to discuss Compact: A Radical American Journal, a new publication founded by Sohrab Ahmari, Matthew Schmitz, and Edward Aponte. It's launch coincided with a profile in the New York Times—and a party that Sam attended. What are the ideas behind Compact? How should the left approach the perspective it offers? Your hosts answer these questions, and more, drawing on Ganz's excellent Substack post on these topics, "Compact Magazine's Unholy Alliance."Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy

Matt and Sam are joined by Ari Brostoff, author of Missing Time: Essays, to explore David Horowitz's 1996 memoir, Radical Son. Like a number of prominent conservatives, Horowitz is a convert from the left. But he's younger than most of the first neocons, and his journey to the right went through Berkeley and the New Left more than the alcoves of City College. Radical Son is his account of that journey—an evocative, angry, revealing text that takes the reader from his red-diaper baby childhood in Queens's Sunnyside neighborhood to his involvement with Huey Newton and the Black Panthers in Oakland to his break with the left and turn to the right. What does Horowitz's trajectory reveal about the rightwing politics today? Sources:Ari Brostoff, Missing Time: Essays (n+1, 2022)Vivian Gornick, The Romance of American Communism (1977, reprint Verso 2020)David Horowitz, Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey (Simon & Schuster, 1996)Fran Lebowitz, "Speaking of New York," Commonweal, February 7, 2019Ronald Radosh and Sol Stern, "Our Friend, the Trump Propagandist," New Republic, May 5, 2021Cole Stangler, "David Horowitz: 'Conservatives are So F**king Well-Mannered," In These Times, December 12, 2013Reinhold Niebuhr, "Augustine's Political Realism," from The Essential Reinhold Niebuhr (Yale University Press, 1987)..and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Matt and Sam talk to Gillian Branstetter, press secretary for the National Women’s Law Center, about the spate of anti-trans laws sweeping the country: What do these interventions do? Who is pushing them? And why? The American right has long been invested in policing gender boundaries, but its fixation on trans people — and trans children, in particular — has become more acute in recent years. Over 100 anti-trans state-level measures have been passed this legislative session alone, including athletics bans, curriculum/book bans, religious refusal laws, and bans on access to health care. Perhaps most alarmingly, states like Texas are instituting policies that equate gender-affirming care with child abuse, terrorizing trans kids and their families. With Gillian's help, we explore the conservative forces behind these bills and reveal the ideological fixations, misapprehensions, and contradictions driving this panic. It's a difficult but necessary conversation.If you'd like to help fight the right's anti-trans onslaught, consider donating to The Trans Justice Funding Project. Further Reading: J David Goodman, "How Medical Care for Trans Youth Became ‘Child Abuse’ In Texas," NY Times, March 11, 2022Melissa Gira Grant, "The Groups Pushing Anti-Trans Laws Want to Divide the LGBTQ Movement," The New Republic, Feb 17, 2022. Jeremy W Peters, "A Conservative Push to Make Trans Kids and School Sports the Next Battleground," NY Times, Nov 3, 2019. Judith Butler, "Why Is the Idea of ‘Gender’ Provoking Backlash the World Over?" The Guardian, Oct 23, 2021.Jules Gill-Peterson "The Anti-Trans Lobby’s Real Agenda," Jewish Currents, Apr 27, 2021.— Histories of the Transgender Child, UM Press, 2018. ...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to all of our bonus episodes!

In the first half of this conversation with Buzzfeed’s Joe Bernstein, Sam asks: What is “disinformation?” Who gets to decide? And does it explain what's wrong with our politics? And in the second half: why is Trump’s favorite venture capitalist, Peter Thiel, funding New York City’s downtown arts scene? And what are the political stakes of "anti-woke" art? This was a fun conversation with one of our favorite journalists! Enjoy. Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy

The past few months have seen much talk of a "second Civil War" in the United States or a "national divorce" between red states and blue states. New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie joins Matt and Sam to discuss why the analogy to the Civil War fails, what such rhetoric does for those who deploy it, and what the challenges really are to a better politics in America.Listening: Check out Jamelle's podcast, co-hosted with fellow KYE guest John Ganz, Unclear and Present Danger!Reading:Jamelle Bouie, "Why We Are Not Facing the Prospect of a Second Civil War," New York Times, Feb 15, 2022Michelle Goldberg, "Are We Really Facing a Second Civil War?" New York Times, Jan 6, 2022Nate Hochman, "Let's Stay Together," Spectator, January 2, 2022Michael Anton, "Right Flight: The War Between the States," Claremont Review of Books, Summer 2021Helen Andrews, "Reconstruction Revisionism," American Conservative, Dec 11, 2021Harry Jaffa, Crisis of the House Divided (University of Chicago, 1959)..and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Matt and Sam talk to Michelle Nickerson about her brilliant book, Mothers of Conservatism, which explores the lives and political activism of conservative women in the Los Angeles area in the 1940s and 50s. Unlike many other conversations on the show, this one is less about intellectuals and ideas than social history—a description of how, as Nickerson puts it, housewife activists worked to "protect the nation from aliens, internationalism, and power-hungry bureaucrats in Washington." Topics include: the Great Depression and the rise of "housewife populism," conservative bookstores and "Americanism" centers run by women, the networks of activism that conservative women built and deployed, fierce battles over public education, the menace of psychiatry and the social sciences in shaping education policy, and more.Sources:Michelle Nickerson, Mothers of Conservatism (Princeton University Press, 2012) "Stefanik's Rise and Cheney's Fall Mark a New Role for GOP Women," Washington Post, May 13, 2021Alan Brinkley, "The Problem of American Conservatism," American History Review, April 1994Jean Bethke Elshtain, Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy (Basic Books, 2002)...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to all of our bonus episodes!

Matt talks to writer Phil Christman about his new essay collection, How To Be Normal. They talk about the meaning of "normal" (especially in these pandemic times), religious fundamentalism, Christian conspiracy theories about rock music, Mark Fisher, love, and much more.Sources:Phil Christman, How To Be Normal (Belt Publishing, 2022) "Turning Nothings Into Somethings," Commonweal, Dec 3, 2020 "What Is It Like To Be a Man?" Hedgehog Review, Summer 2018

It seems almost every big culture-war battle of the moment—from "Critical Race Theory" to COVID mandates—is being fought in America's schools. Meanwhile, Democrats, anxious about a midterm rout driven by angry Republican parents, too often are conceding these battles to the right, adopting their rhetoric and their terms of debate, and have been for a long time—despite supposedly being the party of teachers' unions. Does it have to be this way? We put that question, and many more, to our guest Jennifer Berkshire, the coauthor (with Jack Schneider) of A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door and co-host of the education podcast Have You Heard. Jennifer guides us through the recent history of conservatives' war on public education—fights over desegregation, the Reagan administration's A Nation at Risk, the "parents' rights" movement of the 1990s, Obama-era ed reform, and the CRT gag-orders sweeping the nation today. Along the way we tease out some illuminating contradictions in the right's nationalist coalition, which seeks to cultivate a shared, sanitized story about American history while simultaneously dismantling the only system by which that narrative can be imposed. We also cast a critical eye on the triangulating, moderate Democrats who have utterly failed to provide a galvanizing, alternative message about the purpose of public education. As Jennifer makes brilliantly clear, the crisis of American education is real; the question is, who will be empowered to solve it? Further Reading:Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider, A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door: The Dismantling of Public Education and the Future of School (The New Press, November 2020)Jennifer Berkshire, "The GOP Has Revived Its Obsession With Parents’ Rights," The New Republic, Dec 9, 2021— "The GOP's Grievance Industrial Complex Invades the Classroom," The Nation, Oct 28, 2021— "'Corporate Democrat Goes Down to Defeat in Virginia,'" The Nation, Nov 8, 2021— "How Education Reform Ate the Democratic Party," The Baffler, Nov 17, 2017Sam Adler-Bell, "Behind the Critical Race Theory Crackdown," The Forum, Jan 13, 2022Sarah Jones, "We're Having the Wrong Conversation About Schools," New York Magazine, Jan 12, 2022...and don't forget to subscribe on Patreon for access to all of Know Your Enemy's bonus episodes!

Author, podcaster, and New York Times Magazine staff writer Jay Caspian Kang joins Matt and Sam for a spirited discussion of some treacherous topics: identity politics, critical race theory, and cancel culture (oh my!). Jay is our charming, intrepid guide to these touchy subjects, those that liberals and leftists are sometimes loath to engage, offering his idiosyncratic (though not contrarian!) takes on each — and inspiring some of our own.Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy

When Joan Didion died at the age of 87 in December, her early conservatism figured into a number of obituaries and commentaries, but was rarely discussed in detail. Matt and Sam turned to Sam Tanenhaus, William F. Buckley, Jr.'s biographer and knower of all things National Review, to discuss Didion's early writing for the magazine, her roots in California conservatism, and how her politics changed—and didn't—over the course of her long career. Along the way, they discuss why she loved Barry Goldwater and hated Ronald Reagan, why she finally stopped writing for National Review, and how she compares to other writers from that era—from Norman Mailer and Tom Wolfe to Gore Vidal and Garry Wills. Sources:Joan Didion: "On Self-Respect," Vogue, 1961‘I want to go ahead and do it,' (Review of Mailer), NYTimes, Oct 7, 1979"The Lion King," (Review of Dinesh D'Souza), NYRB, Dec 18, 1997"New York: Sentimental Journeys," NYRB, Jan 17, 1991. "John Wayne: A Love Song," Saturday Evening Post, 1965Slouching Toward Bethlehem (1968)The White Album (1979)Salvador (1983)Political Fictions (2001)Where I Was From (2003)A collection of Didion's National Review Writing Commentary on Joan Didion:Ross Douthat, "Try Canceling Joan Didion," NYTimes, Jan 5, 2022Parul Sehgal, "The Case Against the Trauma Plot," NYTimes, Dec 27, 2021Louis Menand, “Out of Bethlehem,” New Yorker, Aug 17, 2015Stephen Schryer, "Writers for Goldwater," Post45, Jan 20, 2020Haley Mlotek, "It’s All in the Angles," The Nation, June 15, 2021Caitlin Flanagan, "The Autumn of Joan Didion," The Atlantic, Feb 15, 2021Jacob Bacharach, "Joan Didion Cast Off the Fictions of American Politics," The New Republic, Dec 27, 2021...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Unlocked by popular demand: Psychoanalytic writer and teacher Pat Blanchfield joins Sam for a discussion of Freud and politics. Together we ask: how can psychoanalytic tools help us make sense of our irrational political moment, our desires and attachments, as well as conservatism, liberalism, fascism, Donald Trump, and even Thanksgiving? If we've done our job right, you'll derive many blistering insights from this discussion whether or not you've read a single page of Sigmund Freud — or remotely buy into his theories of mind, culture, or clinical practice. (And hopefully we didn't talk too fast.) Because Freud would disapprove of any injunction to enjoyment, we'll simply say: "have a listen, if you please."(Originally published on Patreon 12/01/2021.)Further Reading/Listening:KYE Episode 7: "Gun Power" (w/ Pat Blanchfield)Pat Blanchfield, "Kyle Rittenhouse is an American," Gawker, Nov 16, 2021Adam Phillips, Becoming Freud: The Making of a Psychoanalyst, Yale Press, Mar 22, 2016.Peter Gay, Freud: A Life For Our Time (1988)Jacqueline Rose, "To Die One's Own Death," LRB, Nov 19, 2020...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

With another year of the podcast, the pandemic, and American decline in the rearview, we turn to Know Your Enemy's absurdly brilliant listeners for guidance and intellectual stimulation. That's right, folks, it's a mailbag episode! And thanks to you, our cups runneth over with fascinating questions. Along the way, we discuss the intellectual legacy of one-time National Review wunderkind Garry Wills; why Bill Buckley never wrote a great book; right-wing half-wit propagandists like Ben Shapiro and Charlie Kirk; conservative feminism; Richard Nixon's role in conservative history; Vatican II; Bob Dylan's artful incoherence; our favorite books; and our favorite bourbons. We also take a few minutes to discuss listener feedback from our last episode with Nate Hochman. We are truly blessed with the most curious, sophisticated, and intellectually voracious listeners in the podcast game. We love you freaks so very much. So strap in! Like the year 2021, it's a wild ride, with many twists, turns, and digressions. Further Reading:Matthew Sitman, "There Will Be No Buckley Revival," Commonweal, Jul 28, 2015. Garry Wills, "Daredevil," Atlantic, Aug 2009. Bare Ruined Choirs (1979) Confessions of a Conservative (1979) John Wayne's America (1997) Sam Adler-Bell, "The Radical Young Intellectuals Who Want to Take Over the American Right," New Republic, Dec 2, 2021. Leonard Coen, Beautiful Losers (1966)Kaya Oakes, The Defiant Middle (2021)Christopher Isherwood, The Berlin Stories (1945)Janet Malcolm, Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession (1982)Dan Georgakas & Marvin Surkin, Detroit: I Do Mind Dying (1998)Norman Rush, Mating (1991)..and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Finally, another enemy! This time Matt and Sam are joined by Nate Hochman, a rising star on the intellectual Right and one of the subjects of Sam's recent New Republic article about today's young, populist conservatives. They discuss Michael Oakeshott, friendship and politics, where the Right and Left might agree, and, especially, where they don't.Further Reading:Sam Adler-Bell, "The Radical Young Intellectuals Who Want to Take Over the American Right," New Republic, Dec 2, 2021Nate Hochman, "Michael Oakeshott, 30 Years Later," National Review, Dec 18, 2020Matthew Sitman, "Leaving Conservatism Behind," Dissent, Summer 2016Michael Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays (Liberty Fund, 1991) The Voice of Liberal Learning (Yale University Press, 1990)..and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Psychoanalytic writer and teacher Pat Blanchfield joins Sam for the long-awaited KYE "Freud Pod," in which we discuss how psychoanalytic tools can help us make sense of our irrational political moment, our desires and attachments, as well as conservatism, liberalism, fascism, Donald Trump, and even Thanksgiving.Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy

It's rare for nearly all the inhabitants of the KYE podcast universe to gather in one place, but it happened earlier this month in—as you might guess—Florida, where the National Conservatism 2 conference was held. The proceedings were littered with extraordinary claims of a "totalitarian cult" (liberals and the left) deliberately trying to destroy the United States, with the help of Big Tech, China, and...university professors. The conference seemed to mark the ascendency of national conservatism on the Right, and perhaps the Republican Party. Matt and Sam break it all down: what it means, what it portends, and why they're wrong.Sources:Watch all the National Conservatism conference videos (YouTube)David Brooks, "The Terrifying Future of the American Right," Atlantic, November 18, 2021J.G. Ballard, Super Cannes (Picador, 2000)Murray Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State (David van Nostrand Company/William Volker Fund, 1962)Background Listening:Know Your Enemy, "The Definitely Not-Racist National Conservatives," July 30, 2019 "The Rise of the Illiberal Right," July 12, 2019 "Frank Meyer: Father of Fusionism," November 10, 2021...and don't forget you can subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!