Know Your Enemy17 Jun 2023

The Prayers and Prophecies of Pat Robertson [TEASER]

Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy

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 right. Where did Robertson come from, and what was distinctive about Robertson's theological and political views? What were the innovations of the Christian Coalition, the group he founded in 1987, in organizing conservative believers for the GOP? How did he respond to the end of the Cold War and adapt his message for the 1990s and the supposed advent of a "New World Order"?

In this episode, Matt and Sam take up these questions and more, plus offer a discussion of James G. Watt, Ronald Reagan's first Secretary of the Interior, who died in late May. An evangelical Christian known for railing against the Beach Boys, his offensive comments about Native Americans and others, and using the supposed imminent return of Christ to justify destroying the environment.

Sources:

Pat Robertson obituaries: NYT, Washington Post

James G. Watt obituaries: NYT, Washington Post

Daniel Schlozman, When Movements Anchor Parties: Electoral Alignments in American History (2016)

Jacob Heilbrunn, "His Anti-Semitic Sources," New York Review of Books, April 20, 1995

Pat Robertson, The New World Order (1991)

James Conaway, "James Watt, In the Right with the Lord," Washington Post, April 27, 1983

John Taylor "Pat Robertson’s God, Inc." Esquire, Nov 1994.

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(266)

Zohran, the Jews, and Reckoning with Gaza (w/ Peter Beinart)

This episode isn't focused on a single topic or text, but rather just wanting to have a wide-ranging conversation with our guest, Peter Beinart, editor-at-large of Jewish Currents and author of the re...

11 Nov 20251h 14min

Break Glass in Case of Emergency

This is a different kind of episode than is typical; there's no book, no central text, not even a single, central event that guides the conversation. Instead, we begin with a few recent news items—spe...

3 Nov 20251h 31min

Command + F + Hitler [Teaser]

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.The theme of this rank punditry episode is Getting in Trouble on the Internet, and we begin with the frankly unsu...

24 Okt 20253min

How Charles Murray (Almost) Predicted the Trump Era

This episode is the second in our occasional series on important, controversial, or unusually relevant conservative texts from the recent past. Here we take up Charles Murray's 2012 book, Coming Apart...

15 Okt 20251h 32min

How To Give A Damn [Teaser]

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.Before embarking on a spirited bout of rank punditry, we take a step back and talk about the Staple Singers, Hann...

6 Okt 20253min

Death, Power, and the Charlie Kirk Memorial (w/ Pat Blanchfield)

To try to understand both the power and strangeness of the Charlie Kirk memorial—one part evangelical worship service, one part MAGA rally—we turned, of course, to our friend Pat Blanchfield. All thre...

29 Sep 20251h 26min

The Assassination of Charlie Kirk [Teaser]

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.The assassination of Turning Points USA founder Charlie Kirk on September 10, 2025, seemed to change the landscap...

19 Sep 20253min

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 Sep 20251h 20min