Know Your Enemy28 Tammi 2025

How Republics End (w/ Mike Duncan) [TEASER]

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy

A stock rhetorical trope on the right is to invoke ancient Rome when talking about American decline—often making direct comparisons between the Goth invaders and contemporary immigrants, obsessing over homosexuality and Rome's fall, and more. If their understanding of history isn't very serious, what should we make of these appeals? And are there any "lessons" we should learn from Roman history?

There's no better time to take up such matters than while Matt is in Rome, and there was no one better for him to talk with about them than Mike Duncan, the prolific and brilliant history podcaster; he currently hosts the Revolutions podcast and, especially relevant for the purposes of this conversation, hosted the History of Rome podcast from 2007-2012, a project that led him to write The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic (2017). Matt and Mike discuss the use and abuse of history, how "norms" do and do not matter, the relationship between imperialist foreign policy and domestic politics, the perils of vast income inequality, then and now, and more.

Sources:

For quotes from conservatives about Roman decline: Reagan, Nixon, Buchanan, Vance (and Pete Navarro & Michael Anton)

Mike Duncan, The Storm Before the Storm(2017)

— Hero of Two Worlds: The Marquis de Lafayette in the Age of Revolution (2021)

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

Jaksot(266)

The Rush Limbaugh Show (w/ Nicole Hemmer)

No media figure has had a more profound impact on the shape of contemporary conservative politics than Rush Limbaugh. For three hours a day, every weekday since 1988, Rush delighted and ignited his ra...

9 Maalis 20211h 23min

TEASER: Keeping up with the Bozells

Subscribe at https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy to hear this and all our bonus content!From the union-busting, ad-man scion (Brent Sr.), to the fiercely brilliant and troubled National Review edito...

27 Helmi 20211min

How to Survive a Pandemic (w/ Peter Staley)

Matt and Sam have an in-depth conversation with HIV/AIDs activist Peter Staley to get his perspective on Dr. Anthony Fauci's role in America's response to two of the most devastating public-health eme...

22 Helmi 20211h 15min

UNLOCKED: Midnight in the Garden of American Heroes

Matt and Sam explain West Coast Straussianism, the school of thought behind one of the last acts of the Trump administration: its publication of the "1776 Report," the Right's shabby response to the 1...

11 Helmi 20211h 13min

TEASER: L'Affaire (w/ John Ganz)

Subscribe at https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy to hear this and all our bonus content.Beloved KYE guest John Ganz (Ep. 15: The Year the Clock Broke) returns to explain how the Dreyfus Affair (and ...

6 Helmi 20213min

Panic! In America (w/ the You're Wrong About podcast)

Matt and Sam are joined by special guests Sarah Marshall and Michael Hobbes of the You're Wrong About podcast to discuss moral panics—from tales of rampant Satanism in the late 1970s to the Stranger D...

1 Helmi 20211h 35min

TEASER: West Coast Straussians and the "1776 Report"

Subscribe at https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy to hear this and all our bonus content.Your hosts explain West Coast Straussianism, the school of conservative thought undergirding the "1776 Report"...

23 Tammi 20213min

Did It Happen Here?

Matt and Sam take up the question that's dominating The Discourse: Is Donald Trump—and the movement he leads—fascist? To provide an answer, they turn to the rich historiography of fascism and some key...

17 Tammi 20211h 44min