Know Your Enemy

Project 2025: Building a "Better" Trump Administration

As listeners might have noticed, 2024 is a presidential election year, and already the prospect of Donald Trump returning to power is looming over the campaign and the media's coverage of it. In a second term, Trump has promised to weaponize the Justice Department to punish his enemies, deconstruct major portions of the administrative state, and mobilize the largest deportation force in US hist...

The Politics of Seinfeld (w/ Gabe Winant and Jesse Brenneman)

Journeyman actor Peter Crombie, who appeared in films such as Seven, Born on the Fourth of July, and Natural Born Killers, died earlier this month, on January 10, 2024, at the age of 71. But his most famous, or at least memorable, role probably was his five-episode arc in season four of Seinfeld as "Crazy" Joe Davola, a struggling writer who becomes obsessed with Elai...

Building a "Better" Trump White House

Thought you guys might want to read (and discuss) this article, my latest for NYT opinion, on the rival think tanks vying to serve as Trump's "White House-in-waiting." Matt and I will be discussing this piece and various conservative transition plans, like the Heritage Foundations "Project 2025," on an upcoming episode. 

Now that Trump is truly the presumptive nominee (...) it probab...

The History of the History of the Right (w/ Kim Phillips-Fein)

When did the American conservative movement begin? Who were its chief protagonists? What were their main motivations? Is the conservative movement a social movement, like any other, or is it something different? Should scholars have "sympathy" for their conservative subjects in order to study them? And are there important distinctions to be drawn between "conservative," "the right," and "the fa...

The Wolfe in the White Suit (w/ Osita Nwanevu)

Writer Osita Nwanevu joins for a rip-roaring conversation about legendary prose stylist, "new journalist," and novelist Tom Wolfe. Reviewing a new documentary about Wolfe ("Radical Wolfe" on Netflix), Osita writes, "Behind the ellipses and exclamation points and between the lines of his prose, a lively though often lazy conservative mind was at work, making sense of the half-century that birthe...

Bomb Power (w/ Erik Baker)

For our final main episode of 2023, we're dipping back into the Wills well to discuss Garry's under-appreciated 2010 book, Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State. Joining us is our great friend Erik Baker, lecturer in the History of Science Department at Harvard Uni...

Milton Friedman and the Making of Our Times (w/ Jennifer Burns)

In this episode, Matt and Sam are joined by Stanford historian Jennifer Burns to discuss her new biography of Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist whose influence would reach far beyond the academy when, during his last decades, he became one of the most effective popularizers of libertarian ideas—in books, columns, and even a ten-part PBS program, Free to Choose. How d...

Anarcho-Capitalism in Argentina? (w/ David Adler)

Know Your Enemy Latin America correspondent David Adler returns to breakdown the (terrible) election results from Argentina, where Javier Milei, a deranged disciple of Murray Rothbard, Milton Friedman, and Austrian economics, who consults his cloned dogs for political advice and promises to tear down the Peronist state with a chainsaw, has won the presidency.

David is the General Coordina...

The Kennedy Imprisonment (w/ Jeet Heer)

In this episode, Matt and Sam welcome the Nation's Jeet Heer to the podcast to continue their journey into the work of Garry Wills—in particular, Wills's under-appreciated 1982 masterpiece, The Kennedy Imprisonment: A Meditation on Power. The book might be thought of as a sequel to his earlier Nixon Agonistes (1970). As Wills puts it in his introduction to the most ...

More Questions, More Answers

In 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; 21st century Bob; how to teach a course on post-war conservatism; and more! 

Sources cited:

Matthew Sitman, " 2023-11-04 18:49:06 +0000 UTC View Post

Your Questions, Answered

Once a year Matt and Sam take questions from listeners—and they always prove to be incredibly smart and interesting. This time around was no different, with questions that include such topics as: the crisis in Israel and Palestine, the influence of postliberal thinkers on the right, polarization and our political future, the state of the GOP, Willie Nelson, conservative art (and artists), and...

Ask Know Your Enemy Anything

It's that time of year again, when your beloved co-hosts answer your questions in a mailbag episode. In the past, these episodes have been some of our favorites to record—owing, of course, to the exceptional quality of your questions. And this time around, there's certainly no shortage of topics to ask about.

We take questions from all of our listeners, and will post a call for question...

In Search of Anti-Semitism

In a 1991, William F. Buckley, Jr. dedicated  almost an entire issue of National Review to an essay entitled  "In Search of Anti-Semitism." In its pages, Buckley attempted to adjudicate a conflict that was then roiling America's right wing intelligentsia — over whether two of its leading lights, Pat Buchanan and Joseph Sobran, were guilty of antisemitism in their syndicated...

House of Pain (w/ Eric Levitz)

Republican congressman Kevin McCarthy always wanted to make history—and he did when, earlier this week, he became the first Speaker of the House to be ousted from the job after eight Republicans joined Democrats to approve a motion to vacate the position. How does a motion to vacate work? What events led to McCarthy's fall from grace? How deranged is the Republican caucus in the House, and ho...

The Debate, the Donald, and the Strike

Matt and Sam suffer through the second GOP debate—a pathetic display from a gaggle of generally uninteresting reactionaries with no chance of defeating Trump in the primary—and then turn to an extended conversation about the politics and possibilities of the UAW auto strike against the Big Three car manufacturers. President Biden walked the picket line, while Trump spoke to employees of a n...

Elon Musk, the Jews, and the ADL (w/ Mari Cohen, Alex Kane, & Peter Beinart)

A few weeks ago, the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, eagerly joined in a campaign, originating on the far right, to demonize the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a century-old Jewish civil rights organization whose leaders have criticized Musk  for allowing anti-semitic and white supremacist hate speech to proliferate on Twitter/X. To many progressives, it could sound like a simple story...

Reading the Trump Indictments

Former president Donald Trump is currently facing 91 criminal charges in four different jurisdictions — Georgia, Florida, New York, and the District of Columbia. Two of these indictments — Special Prosecutor Jack Smith's in D.C. and District Attorney Fani Willis's Fulton County, Georgia — take up Trump's and his co-conspirators efforts to steal the 2020 election, efforts that culminated w...

What the Cold War Did to Liberalism (w/ Samuel Moyn)

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...

The First 2024 GOP Presidential Debate (!)

Matt and Sam stayed up late to record just minutes after the first GOP presidential debate ended on Wednesday night; we did this for you, our beloved subscribers, because we care. This episode — full of blistering insights — is the result of that decision. "Enjoy." 

The Hochman Affair

Three weeks ago, one-time Know Your Enemy guest and “frenemy” of the show Nate Hochman was fired from Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign for his role in producing a campaign video featuring a Nazi “sonnenrad” symbol. (You may have read about it!) Unsurprisingly, the...

The Grateful Dead Conservative (w/ Sophie Haigney)

Another fun summer-y episode for you, our beloved subscribers: This time, we talked to writer, Paris Review editor, and Grateful Dead super-fan Sophie Haigney about a topic we've long pondered: the phenomenon of the "Grateful Dead conservative."

Why is it that right-wing figures including Tuck...

Midge Decter: Anti-Feminist Cold Warrior (w/ Moira Donegan & Adrian Daub)

In this episode, Matt and Sam join Moira Donegan and Adrian Daub — co-hosts of the new podcast “In Bed With The Right" — for an in-depth look at the life, times, and work of the late Midge Decter, who died in 2022. Decter was inspired by a distinctly conservative, mid-century A...

Sin and Salvation in The Righteous Gemstones (w/ Jesse Brenneman)

Matt and Sam welcome their intrepid producer and great friend Jesse Brenneman back to the third mic to talk about HBO's The Righteous Gemstones. In addition to being a wildly entertaining entry to the Danny McBride cinematic and television universe, the show perceptively explores the culture of American megachurch, evangelical Christianity—and offers your hosts plenty of fodder to di...

Legal Trouble

After several trying months, Matt and Sam can finally discuss the lawsuit against KYE and Dissent magazine filed by Young Americans Foundation , the successor organization to Young Americans for Freedom. (We prevailed, for now anyway.)

Then we turn to three SCOTUS rulings from the ...

Impossible Professions: Freud and Janet Malcolm (ft. Patrick Blanchfield & Abby Kluchin)

Sam joins Patrick Blanchfield and Abby Kluchin for a lengthy discussion of psychoanalysis, conservative minds, and Janet Malcolm — on their excellent new podcast, "Ordinary Unhappiness."

Episode Notes

Know Your Enemy presents: an episode of Ordinary Unhappiness — a n...

Grow Up, Men (w/ Phil Christman)

In this follow-up to "What's Wrong with Men?, Matt and Sam talk with the essayist and critic Phil Christman about his 2018 Hedgehog Review article, "2023-06-30 16:00:30 +0000 UTC View Post

The Prayers and Prophecies of Pat Robertson

Last week, televangelist, businessman, conspiracy theorist, and former Republican presidential candidate Pat Robertson died at the age of 93. Though mostly known today for his deranged comments about homosexuality, abortion, feminism, and other "sins" causing everything from natural disasters to 9-11, Robertson had a major influence on the evolution of the Republican Party and the religious rig...

What's Wrong With Men?

"Many men in this country are in crisis, and their ranks are swelling," Missouri Senator Josh Hawley said at the National Conservatism conference in 2021. "And that's not just a crisis for men. It's a crisis for the republic."

Some version of this sentiment — that men are in trouble, adrift, or falling behind — is shared by writers and thinkers across the political spectrum. It's near...

The 2024 Race: "It's Showtime, Folks!"

Matt and Sam take the pulse of the 2024 presidential race: Is DeSantis already doomed? Does Trump still have the juice? Can Biden handle a full campaign schedule? And how do you solve a problem like Kamala?

The answers to these questions and more! Enjoy some rank punditry!

Sources

Nate Cohn, "2023-05-18 18:44:25 +0000 UTC View Post

"Succession," "Extrapolations," and TV Writing Today (w/ Dorothy Fortenberry and Will Arbery)

With the Writers Guild of America strike underway, the plight of television writers—especially their treatment in the age of streaming and artificial intelligence—is garnering new, and overdue, attention. Matt and Sam are joined by two friends of the podcast, Will Arbery and Dorothy Fortenberry, who write for major television shows: Will is a writer for HBO's 2023-05-04 22:42:46 +0000 UTC View Post