Know Your Enemy13 Tammi 2022

Joan Didion, Conservative (w/ Sam Tanenhaus)

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, 1965

Slouching 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, 2022

Parul Sehgal, "The Case Against the Trauma Plot," NYTimes, Dec 27, 2021

Louis Menand, “Out of Bethlehem,” New Yorker, Aug 17, 2015

Stephen Schryer, "Writers for Goldwater," Post45, Jan 20, 2020

Haley Mlotek, "It’s All in the Angles," The Nation, June 15, 2021

Caitlin Flanagan, "The Autumn of Joan Didion," The Atlantic, Feb 15, 2021

Jacob 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!

Tämä jakso on lisätty Podme-palveluun avoimen RSS-syötteen kautta eikä se ole Podmen omaa tuotantoa. Siksi jakso saattaa sisältää mainontaa.

Jaksot(267)

The Case for Democracy (w/ Osita Nwanevu)

Since the start of the Trump Era over a decade ago, few words have been deployed as often as "democracy": how it's become imperiled, who threatens it, and what to do to defend it. In The Right of the ...

12 Syys 20251h 20min

An Officer and a Spy (w/ John Ganz) [Teaser]

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.Roman Polanski's 2019 film about the Dreyfus affair, An Officer and a Spy, only recently made it's U.S. "premier,...

5 Syys 20253min

Frank Meyer, Inventor of Conservatism (w/ Daniel J. Flynn)

Devoted Know Your Enemy listeners will recall that, in November 2021, we released a fairly dense, theory-driven episode on Frank Meyer, the Communist from New Jersey whose exploits on behalf of the Pa...

28 Elo 20251h 45min

The Christian Right's "Wild Faith" (w/ Talia Lavin) [Unlocked]

This episode was first published in October 2024, and has been un-paywalled following the death this week, on August 21, of Focus on the Family founder and influential figure on the religious right, J...

23 Elo 20251h

The Minority Voters Moving Right (w/ Daniel Martinez HoSang)

A major topic following Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 presidential election has been his gains with racial and ethnic minorities, a trend that's scrambled many people's assumptions about American...

18 Elo 20251h 27min

From Armageddon to Zionism — More Listener Questions [Teaser]

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.Our mailbag runneth over! Unsurprisingly, we received so many excellent questions from subscribers for our most r...

11 Elo 20254min

Has Trump 2.0 Been a Success So Far? — And Other Questions

It's been nearly a year since we asked our subscribers to send us questions for a mailbag episode—which they did, with remarkable thoughtfulness and intelligence, for our 100th episode back in Septemb...

4 Elo 20251h 10min

Trump's Epstein Problem [Teaser]

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.Over July 4th weekend, the Department of Justice and FBI put out a memo essentially declaring "case closed" on th...

28 Heinä 20254min