Know Your Enemy
166 episodes - English - Latest episode: 3 days ago - ★★★★★ - 1.7K ratingsA leftist's guide to the conservative movement, one podcast episode at a time, with co-hosts Matthew Sitman and Sam Adler-Bell.
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Episodes
The Year the Clock Broke (w/ John Ganz)
March 15, 2020 18:47 - 1 hour - 95.4 MBMatt and Sam talk to John Ganz about paleoconservatism, the Island of the Misfit Toys of the American right. Along the way we're introduced to David Duke, Pat Buchanan, Sam Francis, and others, and discuss their enduring influence on the Republican Party and conservative politics—both in 1992, when Buchanan made a failed run for president, and today, when the hopes of their movement seems to have been fulfilled in Donald Trump. Sources and Recommended Reading: John Ganz, The Year the Clock...
Morbid Symptoms (w/ Ross Douthat)
February 05, 2020 19:39 - 1 hour - 69.3 MBRoss Douthat is that strangest of all creatures, a religious conservative with a New York Times column—a perch from which he pronounces on U.S. politics, the Catholic Church, and modern culture with style and intelligence, plus a dash of mordant pessimism. In other words, the perfect choice to be the first "enemy" to come on the show. He joins Matt and Sam to discuss his own conservatism, the American right in the Trump era, and his new book The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of...
What Happened to Norman? (w/ David Klion)
January 15, 2020 22:04 - 1 hour - 83.4 MBMaking It is Norman Podhoretz's 1967 memoir about his journey from the working-class neighborhood of Brownsville, Brooklyn to his heady ascent in the New York literary scene of 1950s and '60s. It's also a fascinating psychological study of a man on the cusp of converting from Cold War liberalism to what came to be known as neoconservatism—a shift driven, at least in part, by the cool reception of this book. Making It proves a fascinating text through which to understand not just one conserva...
She's Got a Plan (w/ Rebecca Traister)
November 28, 2019 03:05 - 1 hour - 81.8 MBMatt and Sam talk to Rebecca Traister of New York magazine about sexism and electoral politics. How has patriarchy conditioned the political careers of politicians like Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren? How does the right mobilize anti-feminism to win? And how do conservative women like Sarah Palin use traditional womanhood and femininity to their advantage? Listen to find out! Traister is the author of Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger. Further Reading: Rebecca ...
We Could Be Heroes (w/ Will Arbery)
November 11, 2019 15:51 - 2 hours - 103 MBWill Arbery's play "Heroes of the Fourth Turning"—about four conservative Catholic friends arguing under a night sky in Wyoming—feels like it was written to be discussed on Know Your Enemy. An ominous meditation on faith, conservatism, empathy, cruelty, and power, "Heroes" has ignited debate and garnered praise across the political spectrum—from First Things to the (failing) New York Times to Rod Dreher's blog at the American Conservative. Arbery was raised by conservative Catholic professor...
Trump Country (w/ Sarah Jones)
October 29, 2019 17:20 - 1 hour - 80.3 MBSarah Jones joins Matt and Sam to discuss the myth of "Trump Country" and the pitfalls of reporting on rural America, and to address the most important question of all: is Donald Trump the Antichrist? (Answer: Probably not.) Sarah's essay, "Scapegoat Country," appears in this month's special issue of Dissent on "Left Paths in Rural America." Sarah is a staff writer for New York Magazine, where she covers inequality and national politics. Follow her on Twitter: @OneSarahJones Sources Cited:...
KYE EXTRA: "Morning Hate" (w/ Hannah Gais)
October 23, 2019 18:58 - 44 minutes - 35.3 MBUNPAYWALLED: Sam interviews journalist Hannah Gais about (1) the far right's ongoing efforts to infiltrate conservative media and (2) the self-victimizing grift of Quillette anti-anti-fascist Andy Ngo. Discussed: Hannah Gais, Leaked Emails Show How White Nationalists Have Infiltrated Conservative Media, Splinter Hannah Gais, The Making of Andy Ngo, Jewish Currents
Working-Class Conservatism (w/ Max Alvarez)
October 07, 2019 19:31 - 1 hour - 67.3 MBMatt and Sam talk to Max Alvarez—writer, editor, and host of Working People, an excellent podcast—about growing up working-class and conservative in a mixed race household. Matt and Max compare experiences as we try to answer some basic but tough questions: what attracts some members of the working class to conservative politics? How do the cultural and economic aspects of conservatism interact for working class conservatives? And what can the left learn from working-class conservatism's ap...
Koch'd Out
September 09, 2019 19:57 - 1 hour - 74.1 MBWith the help of Jane Mayer's essential 2016 book, Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, your hosts explore the world of right-wing philanthropy and the institutions—from centers at universities to think tanks in Washington, DC—it has funded. What emerges is a startling history of how a small group of incredibly rich families used novel techniques to shelter their wealth from taxation and fund a right-wing takeover of American politics. Oth...
Gunpower (w/ Patrick Blanchfield)
August 15, 2019 14:29 - 1 hour - 71.7 MBMatt and Sam's first ever guest, Patrick Blanchfield, is an Associate Faculty member at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research and author of the forthcoming book Gunpower from Verso books, which you can and should pre-order here. In the wake of the massacres in El Paso and Dayton, we turn to Patrick—a truly brillant writer and thinker—to help us understand how these traumatic reptitions of spectacular violence are rooted in American history and ideology. Patrick's work: "The Market Ca...
The Definitely-Not-Racist National Conservatives
July 30, 2019 20:05 - 1 hour - 77.8 MBThe first National Conservatism conference was convened at the Ritz Carlton in Washington D.C. two weeks ago. It was a coming out party for the rising nationalist wing of the conservative movement, with attendees laying the groundwork for a more intellectual version of Trumpism. Many mainstream conservatives were in attendance, along with paleoconservatives, figures from the religious right, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, and a popular Fox News host. In the era of Trump, mainstream conservati...
The Rise of the Illiberal Right
July 12, 2019 20:25 - 1 hour - 62.9 MBInterested in the background reading we did for this episode? There's a lot of it. But we want to show our work and give you the chance to dig deeper. Below are the articles we referenced, read, or drew upon for our conversation on the illiberal right. Primary Sources: Against the Dead Consensus, First Things Sohrab Ahmari, Against David French-ism, First Things David French, What Sohrab Ahmari Gets Wrong, National Review R.R. Reno, What Liberalism Lacks, First Things Romanus Cessario,...
The Death of Conservatism? (Part 2)
June 26, 2019 20:18 - 1 hour - 55.9 MBSpecial thanks to Will Epstein and The Downtown Boys for providing music for these two episodes. Check them out. Ronald Reagan's televised "A Time for Choosing" speech in support of Barry Goldwater in 1964: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXBswFfh6AY A choice excerpt: "Those who ask us to trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state are architects of a policy of accommodation. They tell us that by avoiding a direct confrontation with the enemy he will learn to love us and g...
The Death of Conservatism? (Part 1)
June 12, 2019 22:07 - 1 hour - 49.3 MBSam Tanenhaus's original 2009 essay in The New Republic, the basis for the book we're discussing today: https://newrepublic.com/article/61721/conservatism-dead Whitaker Chambers's 1957 dismantling of Ayn Rand in the pages of National Review: https://www.nationalreview.com/2005/01/big-sister-watching-you-whittaker-chambers/ And here's Buckley's 1955 mission statement for National Review: https://www.nationalreview.com/1955/11/our-mission-statement-william-f-buckley-jr/
How Conservatives Argue
May 16, 2019 19:35 - 1 hourIn episode two of KNOW YOUR ENEMY, Matt and Sam discuss economist Albert O. Hirschman's 1991 book The Rhetoric of Reaction: Perversity, Futility, Jeopardy. Along the way, they identify the persistent patterns in conservative rhetoric from Edmund Burke to Friedrich Hayek to Paul Ryan. They finish off by examining some of the rhetorical tics of the progressive left, and Sam reminisces about the good old days when DSA was comprised exclusive of young nerds and old Jews.
Behind Enemy Lines
May 07, 2019 00:26 - 1 hour - 56.5 MBRead Matt's Dissent essay, "Leaving Conservatism Behind" Read Sam's essay about Jonah Goldberg's Suicide of the West, "The Remnant and the Restless Crowd"