The Case for Democracy (w/ Osita Nwanevu)

We took the holiday week off,  so we're sharing an episode from behind the paywall. Coming soon: new episodes on The Biden Problem, SCOTUS, and Israeli illiberalism as an inspiration for the global right. ***In this episode, from January 2024, 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 birthed our garish and dismal present, Trump and all."Answered herein: is Tom Wolfe a good writer? What kind of conservative is he? How does his approach compare to other "new journalists" like Joan Didion and Garry Wills? And what's the deal with the white suit?Further Reading:Osita Nwanevu, "The Electric Kool-Aid Conservative," The New Republic, Jan 5, 2023Tom Wolfe, "The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby," Esquire, Nov 1963.— "The Birth of ‘The New Journalism’; Eyewitness Report," New York Magazine, Feb 1972.— "Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny’s," New York Magazine, June 1972— The Bonfire of the Vanities (1987)— A Man in Full (1998)— The Kingdom of Speech (2016)Peter Augustine Lawler, "What is Southern Stoicism? An Interview with Professor Peter Lawler,"  Daily Stoic, March 2017...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to all of our extensive catalogue of bonus episodes!

5 Juli 20241h 34min

Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this premium episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy We watched it, and you probably did too. Here is our analysis of the incredibly depressing, even shocking first presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. While the topic of this episode is self-explanatory, it's worth making a few comments about our conversation. We recorded this on the afternoon of Friday, June 28, the day after the debate (thus, you'll often hear us refer to "last night"), and you can tell we're still somewhat processing what happened—in particular, we'd have a clearer sense of what could, and could not, be done in the weeks ahead to find an alternative to Biden if we were to record it now. Even more, in the past 24-36 hours new reporting has emerged that portrays Biden's capabilities in bleak terms, from the claim that Biden has about six "good" hours a day to damning portrayals of his confused, stumbling performances at key international meetings with foreign heads of state. Because that reporting largely confirms an off-the-record story shared with Matt, we thought, especially given the circumstances, it was worth including here. And because of the seriousness of Biden's apparent decline, your hosts' positions to continue to evolve. Matt, for example, has called for Biden to not just step aside from the campaign, but resign from office.Sources:Daniel Schlozman, "Elder Statesmen," Dissent, Spring 2024Alex Thompson, "Two Joe Biden's: The Night America Saw the Other One," Axios, June 29, 2024Annie Linskey, Laurence Norman, & Drew Hinshaw, "The World Saw Biden Deteriorating. Democrats Ignored the Warnings," WSJ, June 28, 2024Matthew Sitman, "The 'Weekend at Bernie's' Primary," Commonweal, March 3, 2020

30 Juni 20244min

We're joined by two experts on European politics to explain the EU parliamentary election results: David Adler, general coordinator of the Progressive International, and David Broder, historian of Italy and Europe editor at Jacobin.What do the results say about the strength of the far right in Europe? And why has Emmanuel Macron of France called snap parliamentary elections in response? Is Macron welcoming the far-right into power in France, or is there some other explanation for his gamble? Further Reading:David Broder, "Giorgia Meloni’s Europe," Dissent, Spring 2024.Cole Stangler, "France Is on the Brink of Something Terrifying," NYTimes, Jun 13, 2024.

28 Juni 20243min

Something happened to America — and to American conservatism — in the early 1990s: an unspooling, a coarsening, a turn from substance to symbol and from narrative to fragment; prevailing political myths ceased to make sense or have purchase, and nothing sufficiently capacious or legible emerged to replace them, leaving only a dank, foggy climate of conspiracy, bellicosity, and despair. Victorious in the Cold War, America was supposed to be riding high; instead the whole country was experiencing a crisis of confidence.Why? What happened? And did we ever get over it — or are we still somehow stuck in the "long 1990s?" No one is better equipped to tease out answers to these questions than our great friend John Ganz, whose riveting new book is called When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s. With his characteristic wit and panache, John guides us through a lively discussion of: Sam Francis's middle American radicalism; Pat Buchanan's "culture war" speech; Ross Perot and POW-MIA; Carroll Quigley's influence on Bill Clinton; John Gotti's appeal; and how these figures, and this era, prepared the way for Donald Trump. It's a barnburner, folks! Enjoy!Sources:John Ganz, When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s (2024)— "The Year the Clock Broke: How the world we live in already happened in 1992," The Baffler, Nov 2018Jen Szalai, "The 1990s Were Weirder Than You Think. We’re Feeling the Effects." NYTimes, Jun 12, 2024. Listening: KYE "The Year the Clock Broke, (w/ John Ganz)" Mar 16, 2020KYE "Christopher Lasch’s Critique of Progress, (w/ Chris Lehmann)" Aug 11, 2022 ...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to all of our extensive catalogue of bonus episodes!

24 Juni 20241h 31min

In this special Pride Month episode of Know Your Enemy, Matt and Sam talk to historian Neil J. Young about his new book, Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right. His absorbing account picks up in after World War II, when neither party made for a good political home for gay people, which helped make a libertarian approach to sexual politics—getting the government out of their private lives—compelling, a feature that would mark the gay right for years to come. The conversation then turns to some of the gay, often closeted architects of the postwar conservative movement, the hopeful years between Stonewall and AIDS, Ronald Reagan's embrace of the religious right and the growing partisan divide on LGBTQ rights, and goes on through the very campy Trump years—and more!Sources:Neil J. Young, Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (2024)Neil J. Young, We Gather Together: The Religious Right and the Problem of Interfaith Politics (2015)Andrew Sullivan, Virtually Normal: An Argument About Homosexuality, (1996)James Kirchick, Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington, (2022)Marvin Leibman, Coming Out Conservative: An Autobiography, (1992)...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to all of our extensive catalogue of bonus episodes!

17 Juni 20241h 24min

Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this premium episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy Matt and Sam break down the Trump guilty verdict—what happened during the trial, why the jury might have reached the decision they did, how Republicans and the right reacted, and the ways it all could matter, or not, for the 2024 presidential election. It's a wide-ranging conversation, including discussions of low-trust voters, educational polarization, how everything in the United States has become a scam, our doubts about Biden, and more!Sources:Trailer for Mitch McCabe's documentary, 23 Mile (YouTube)Eric Levitz, "One explanation for the 2024 election’s biggest mystery," Vox, May 28, 2024Michael Brenes, "How Liberalism Betrayed the Enlightenment and Lost Its Soul," Jacobin, May 31, 2024Matthew Sitman, "Will Be Wild," Dissent, April 18, 2023Timothy Snyder, "Not a Normal Election," Commonweal, Nov 2, 2020

5 Juni 20243min

Historian Tim Barker and editor/organizer Ben Mabie join to discuss a thrilling episode in the history of American labor. Barker and Mabie are two co-hosts of Fragile Juggernaut, a Haymarket Originals podcast exploring the history, politics, and strategic lessons of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (or CIO). Along with  co-hosts Alex Press, Gabriel Winant, Andrew Elrod, and Emma Teitelman, they've been telling the story of organized labor in the 1930s, the radical possibilities of that decade, and the eclipsing of those possibilities in the post-war years — with the onset of the cold war, McCarthyism, and anti-union legislation like Taft-Hartley.In a sense, this episode is a pre-history of the story we tell on Know Your Enemy. If you’ve ever wondered, what was it that so terrified reactionary businessmen about the New Deal era? How did they come to believe that revolutionary upheaval was a real prospect in America, that Communists were everywhere, threatening the social order, and that this peril demanded the creation and funding of a new conservative movement? Well part of the answer is: the CIO. From a certain angle, the right-wing fever dream was real, at least for a time: the CIO really was filled with Communists, labor militants really did take over factories and shut down whole cities, and it really did seem possible, if only briefly, that the American working class — including immigrants from all over Europe, black workers, and women — might find solidarity on the shop floor, consolidate politically, and threaten the reign of capital. That didn’t quite happen. And this episode will partially explain why. Further Reading:Andrew Elrod, "Fragile Juggernaut: What was the CIO?" n+1, Jan 24, 2024. Bruce Nelson, Workers on the Waterfront: Seamen, Longshoremen, and Unionism in the 1930s, U of Illinois Press,  1988.Robert H. Zieger, The CIO, 1935-1955, UNC Press, 1995. Landon R.Y. Storrs,  The Second Red Scare and the Unmaking of the New Deal Left, Princeton U Press, 2012. Eric Blanc, “Revisiting the Wagner Act & its Causes,” Labor Politics, Jul 28, 2022.  Rhonda Levine, "Class Struggle and the New Deal: Industrial Labor, Industrial Capital, and the State," U of Kansas Press, 1988.Further Listening:The podcast: "Haymarket Originals: Fragile Juggernaut," 2024  ...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy for access to all of our bonus episodes!

26 Maj 20241h 21min

Historian David Austin Walsh joins to discuss his excellent new book Taking America Back: The Conservative Movement and the Far Right — a fascinating re-description of the relationship between the far right and the American conservative movement from the 1930s to the end of the Cold War.  How did figures like William F. Buckley, Jr. relate to figures on the further right fringes of right-wing politics, people like Merwin K Hart, Revilo Oliver, Russel Maguire, and George Lincoln Rockwell? And how should we make sense of Buckley and others' furtive efforts to sanitize the right of its more explicitly racist, anti-semitic, and conspiratorial elements? In this conversation, Walsh makes the case for viewing the conservative coalition, from National Review to the John Birch Society to white power movements and neo-Nazis, as embodying a "popular front." That is to say — like the American left in the 1930s —  these groups thought of themselves as part of a unified movement with a common enemy; and despite their differences over strategy, tactics, and rhetoric, they shared a fundamental worldview and vision of the good. What's more, as Walsh demonstrates, figures of the fringe and mainstream tended to maintain relationships and contact with one another, even if formal ties were severed. Walsh's book is a major contribution to ongoing historiographic debates about 20th century American conservatism — of the sort we love to have on KYE — and he himself is a delightful source of detail and texture about the cranks and weirdos who make up a larger share of the right than many mainstream liberals and conservatives would like to believe. Further Reading: David Austin Walsh, Taking America Back: The Conservative Movement and the Far Right, Yale U Press, April 2024. John S. Huntington, Far-Right Vanguard: The Radical Roots of Modern Conservatism, Penn Press, Oct. 2021. Edward Miller, A Conspiratorial Life: Robert Welch, the John Birch Society, and the Revolution of American Conservatism, U Chicago Press. Feb 2022.Rick Perlstein, "I Thought I Understood the American Right. Trump Proved Me Wrong." New York Times. April 11, 2017.Peter Khiss, "KENNEDY TARGET OF BIRCH WRITER; Article Says He Was Killed for Fumbling Red Plot," New York Times, Feb 11, 1964.Leo Ribuffo, "The Old Christian Right: The Protestant Far Right from the Depression to the Cold War," Temple U Press. 1983.Sam Adler-Bell, "The Remnant and the Restless Crowd," Commonweal, Aug 1, 2018....and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy for access to all of our bonus episodes!

20 Maj 20241h 34min