Know Your Enemy

Whittaker Chambers and the Freight Train of History

In this episode, Matt and Sam go deep into the life and times of Whittaker Chambers, most famous for his role in the "trial of the century"—the trial of Alger Hiss for perjury after Chambers accused of Hiss of being a Communist spy during his years working in the federal government, especially the State Department. The two figures, once friends, came to symbolize a clash that was bigger than ...

Le Carré's Cold War (w/ Jamelle Bouie & John Ganz)

Jamelle Bouie (of the NYTimes) and John Ganz (of Unpopular Front) join 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 ap...

Triumph of the Therapeutic (w/ Hannah Zeavin & Alex Colston)

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 a...

Realignments (w/ Timothy Shenk)

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 f...

The Eyes of the Ranger (w/ Jesse Brenneman)

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 televi...

The Death of Pope Benedict XVI (w/ Michael O'Loughlin)

On Dec. 31, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI died at the age of 95. 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 many crises and controversies. He cracked down on libe...

Jesus and Bob Dylan (w/ the Jokermen)

Happy New Year! In April 2022, 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. 

J. Edgar Hoover, G-Man (w/ Beverly Gage)

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 outsize...

More Questions, More Answers (Mailbag pt. 2)

Matt 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:

D...

You Have Questions, We Have Answers (Mailbag episode)

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 wh...

Mailbag Episode! Submit your questions...

Greetings dearest patrons, 

We're planning another mailbag episode to close out November! Please submit your questions for Matt and Sam here, by message on Patreon, or by email at knowyourenemypodcast@gmail.com — and please do so by Monday 11/28.  

With love and enduring gratitude,

Sam and Matt

...

How Fetterman Won (w/ Joe Calvello)

This is episode is a little different. Listeners know that Matt and Sam have been following John Fetterman's run for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania from the start, doing their first episode about his campaign after hi...

The Red Ripple (Midterm Debrief)

Matt 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 integri...

Nixon Agonistes

"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 reportin...

State of the States (w/ Aaron Kleinman)

With 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 grou...

Why Conservatives Love Baseball (w/ David Roth)

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 M...

Giorgia Meloni's Neo-Fascism (w/ David Broder)

Sam 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, 2022-10-05 23:15:16 +0000 UTC View Post

I Taught the Sheriff (w/ John Ganz)

KYE 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 "2022-09-23 20:14:10 +0000 UTC View Post

After the Theocons (w/ Damon Linker)

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 h...

On Barbara Ehrenreich (w/ Alex Press & Gabriel Winant)

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-manageri...

A Low, Dishonest Decade: The Right in the 1990s (w/ Nicole Hemmer)

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, p...

Masters of War

Matt and Sam bring you the latest from the “caesarist” wing of the conservative movement, discussing two recent 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 e...