Know Your Enemy

Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this premium episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemyKnow Your Enemy Latin America correspondent David Adler returns to breakdown the (terrible) election results from Argentina, where Javier Milei, a deranged disciple of Murray Rothbard, Milton Friedman, and Austrian economics, who consults his cloned dogs for political advice and promises to tear down the Peronist state with a chainsaw, has won the presidency.David is the General Coordinator of the Progressive International, and despite what he tells people at parties, unrelated to Sam.Further ReadingQuinn Slobodian, "Monster of the Mainstream," New Statesman, Nov 20, 2023Murray Rothbard, "Right-Wing Populism: A Strategy for the Paleo Movement,"  Rothbard-Rockwell Report, Jan 1992.John Ganz, "Murray Rothbard's America," Unpopular Front, May 30, 2022.Manuel García Gojon “Will Argentina’s Next President Be a Rothbardian?” The Mises Institute, Jul 4, 2022. Philipp Bagus, "Javier's Milei's Populist Strategy in Argentina Is Working," The Mises Institute, Sept 14, 2023.

22 Nov 20233min

In this episode, Matt and Sam welcome the Nation's Jeet Heer to the podcast to continue their journey into the work of Garry Wills—in particular, Wills's under-appreciated 1982 masterpiece, The Kennedy Imprisonment: A Meditation on Power. The book might be thought of as a sequel to his earlier Nixon Agonistes (1970). As Wills puts it in his introduction to the most recent edition of The Kennedy Imprisonment, "I had written a book about Nixon, and it was not a biography, but an attempt to see what could be learned about America from the way Nixon attracted or repelled his fellow countrymen. Why not do the same thing for the Kennedys?"The result of Wills's efforts is a devastating portrait of an Irish-Catholic family who strove to be accepted at the most rarified heights of American society—and then, when they weren't, relentlessly pursued political power. Along the way, the family patriarch, Joseph Kennedy, used his money and influence to create a series of myths surrounding his sons, most of all the son who would become president, John F. Kennedy. It is these myths at which Wills takes aim, showing how Joseph Kennedy bought his second son good press, a heroic war record, and even a Pulitzer Prize. And it was Joseph Kennedy who taught his sons what was expected of them as men: to use and dominate women (many, many women), to valorize virility and daring and risk, and to understand power as enlightened leadership by the best and brightest (most of all, the Kennedys), not as harnessing the popular energy of mass movements. What begins as a book exposing the Kennedy men as wannabe aristocrats bent on conquest, both sexual and political, ends as an indictment of the liberalism they came to represent.Sources:Garry Wills, The Kennedy Imprisonment: A Meditation on Power (1982)Garry Wills, Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self-Made Man (1970)Garry Wills, Bare Ruined Choirs: Doubt, Prophecy, and Radical Religion (1972)Joan Didion, "Wayne at the Alamo," National Review, Dec 31, 1960Hugh Kenner, The Mechanic Muse (1988)Hugh Kenner, The Pound Era (1971)Richard E. Neustadt, Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents: The Politics of Leadership from Roosevelt to Reagan (1960)John Leonard, "Camelot's Failure," New York Times, Feb 25, 1982Norman Mailer, "Superman Comes to the Supermarket," Esquire, Nov 1960...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

17 Nov 20231h 41min

Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this premium episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemyIn which we answer more of your excellent questions, including: the right-wing panic over children; how to leave grad school; Tillich, Niebuhr, and Dorothy Day; why 21st century Bob Dylan is the best Bob Dylan; how to teach a course on post-war conservatism; and more!Sources cited:Matthew Sitman, "Anti-Social Conservatives," Gawker, July 25, 2022.— "Whither the Religious Left?" The New Republic, April 15, 2021.Jules Gill-Peterson, Histories of the Transgender Child, 2018.Kyle Riismandel, Neighborhood of Fear: The Suburban Crisis in American Culture, 1975–2001, (2020)Paul Renfro, Stranger Danger: Family Values, Childhood, and the American Carceral State, (2020)Edward H. Miller, A Conspiratorial Life: Robert Welch, the John Birch Society, and the Revolution of American Conservatism, (2021)John S Huntington, Far-Right Vanguard: The Radical Roots of Modern Conservatism, (2021)Kim Phillips-Fein, "Conservatism: A State of the Field," Journal of American History, Dec 2011.Allen Brinkley, "The Problem of American Conservatism," The American Historical Review, Apr 1994.Rick Perlstein, "I Thought I Understood the American Right. Trump Proved Me Wrong," New York Times, Apr 11, 2017.Peter Steinfels, The Neoconservatives: The Origins of a Movement, (1979)Mike Davis, Prisoners of the American Dream, (1986)Stuart Hall, The Great Moving Right Show and Other Essays, (2017)Corey Robin, The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Donald Trump, (2017)

4 Nov 20232min

Once a year Matt and Sam take questions from listeners—and they always prove to be incredibly smart and interesting. This time around was no different, with questions that include such topics as: the crisis in Israel and Palestine, the influence of postliberal thinkers on the right, polarization and our political future, the state of the GOP, Willie Nelson, conservative art (and artists), and more!Sources:Joshua Leifer, "Toward a Humane Left," Dissent, Oct 12, 2023; read Gabriel Winant's reply, "On Mourning and Statehood," and Leifer's response to Winant herePatrick Deneen, Regime Change: Toward a Postliberal Future (2023)Kurt Vonnegut, Player Piano (1952)Kurt Vonnegut, "Harrison Bergeron" (1961)Lilliana Mason, Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity (2018)Samuel L. Popkin, Crackup: The Republican Implosion and the Future of Presidential Politics (2021)Matt Grossmann and David A. Hopkins, Asymmetric Politics: Ideological Republicans and Group Interest Democrats (2016)John Spong, "Daniel Lanois on Recording Willie Nelson’s Landmark Album 'Teatro,'" Texas Monthly, June 2023Walker Percy, Love in the Ruins (1971)Suzanne Schneider, "Light Among the Nations," Jewish Currents, Sept 23, 2023Ellis Sandoz, Political Apocalypse: A Study of Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor (1971)Mark C. Henrie, ed., Doomed Bourgeois in Love: Essays on the Films of Whit Stillman (2001) ...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

28 Okt 20231h 35min

In a 1991, William F. Buckley, Jr. dedicated  almost an entire issue of National Review to an essay entitled  "In Search of Anti-Semitism." In its pages, Buckley attempted to adjudicate a conflict that was then roiling America's right wing intelligentsia — over whether two of its leading lights, Pat Buchanan and Joseph Sobran, were guilty of antisemitism in their syndicated columns and speeches. (Never one to miss an opportunity to antagonize an enemy or blame the left, Buckley threw in Gore Vidal for good measure.)  The article, despite its meandering prose and fuzzy-headed conclusions, sparked an enormous response from NR's readership, some of whom felt Buckley was too hard on Pat and Joe, others who thought he was not hard enough. The following year, Buckley combined the essay, several of the responses, and a few new thoughts of his own... and sold it as a "book." And thirty-one years later, we read that book — carefully — and recorded a podcast about it with our friend John Ganz, author of the forthcoming book, When the Clock Broke, about the derangement of American politics in the 1990s. (You can pre-order it here. It's sure to be excellent). Unfortunately for us all, In Search of Anti-Semitism is not a good book; it's hardly a book at all. But it is a fascinating artifact of a fleeting post-Cold War moment in which conservatives furtively faced their own demons — before turning right back around. For those interested, here is the link mentioned in the episode's introduction for tickets to Dissent's 70th anniversary event later this month.Sources:William F. Buckley Jr., In Search of Anti-Semitism (1992)John Ganz, "The Year the Clock Broke," The Baffler, Nov 2018Joshua Muravchik, "Pat Buchanan and the Jews," Commentary, Jan 1991Matthew Sitman, "There Will Be No Buckley Revival," Commonweal, July 2015 ...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

13 Okt 20231h 12min

Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this premium episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemyRepublican congressman Kevin McCarthy always wanted to make history—and he did when, earlier this week, he became the first Speaker of the House to be ousted from the job after eight Republicans joined Democrats to approve a motion to vacate the position. How does a motion to vacate work? What events led to McCarthy's fall from grace? How deranged is the Republican caucus in the House, and how did they get that way? Were Democrats right to not bail out McCarthy? In this episode, Matt and Sam are joined by New York's Eric Levitz to provides answers to all these question—and more. Listen:Todd Snider, "Conservative, Christian, Right Wing Republican, Straight, White, American Males" (2004)Sources:Robert Draper, Weapons of Mass Delusion: When the Republican Party Lost Its Mind (Penguin, 2022)Eric Levitz,  "The GOP Is More Ungovernable Than Ever Before," New York, Jan 5, 2023Ettingermentum, "The Art of Losing the Speaker's Gavel," Oct 3, 2023Matthew Loh, "Mitch McConnell Says House Republicans Should Get Rid of the Motion to Vacate Because It 'Makes the Speaker's Job Impossible,'" Insider, Oct 5, 2023

7 Okt 20232min

Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this premium episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemyMatt and Sam suffer through the second GOP debate—a pathetic display from a gaggle of generally uninteresting reactionaries with no chance of defeating Trump in the primary—and then turn to an extended conversation about the politics and possibilities of the UAW auto strike against the Big Three car manufacturers. President Biden walked the picket line, while Trump spoke to employees of a non-union auto parts company. Why did the mainstream media continually insist that Biden and Trump were both appealing to striking workers? Did Biden do enough in his brief visit to the picket line? What did Trump actually say about the strike? These questions and more get answered in this primary season special!Sources:Alex Press, "Trump Is Speaking Tonight in Michigan at a Nonunion Auto Shop, as a Guest of Its Boss," Jacobin, Sept 27, 2023Craig Mauger, "Donald Trump: UAW Negotiations 'Don't Mean as Much as You Think,'" Detroit Free Press, Sept 27, 2023Martin Pengelly, "Signs Touting ‘Auto Workers for Trump’ at Michigan Rally Found to be Fake – Report," The Guardian, Sept 28, 2023Heather Carter, "UAW President Shawn Fain Is Reviving That Old-Time Religion: Christian Radicalism," Jacobin, Sept 29, 2023

30 Sep 20232min

A few weeks ago, the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, eagerly joined in a campaign, originating on the far right, to demonize the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a century-old Jewish civil rights organization whose leaders have criticized Musk  for allowing anti-semitic and white supremacist hate speech to proliferate on Twitter/X. To many progressives, it could sound like a simple story of good vs. evil — the righteous vs. the hateful — especially for those who've experienced the palpable flourishing of Nazi and Nazi-adjacent sentiment on Twitter/X since Musk purchased the platform.But for our guests — Mari Cohen, Alex Kane, and Peter Beinart of Jewish Currents — the story is more complicated. Over the past five years, Jewish Currents  has been perhaps the only outlet on the left aggressively reporting on the ADL, exposing its complicity with the Trump presidency, its attacks on pro-Palestinian activism, and its fraying relationships with Muslim and black-led civil rights groups. In this episode, we explore the central tension animating the ADL's erratic politics: can an organization officially dedicated to securing "justice and fair treatment to all" simultaneously forbid criticism of a state — the state of Israel — whose ethnonationalist social order is an inspiration to right-wing movements the world over? And if that contradiction can't be reconciled, how should we respond to Musk's attacks on the organization? Is the ADL salvageable? And does it deserve to be saved? Listen to find out! Further Reading Emmaia Gelman, "The Anti-Democratic Origins of the ADL and AJC," Jewish Currents, March 12, 2021Peter Beinart, "Has the Fight Against Antisemitism Lost Its Way?" New York Times, Aug 26, 2022Mari Cohen, The ADL's Antisemitism Findings, Explained, Jewish Currents, April 4, 2023Mari Cohen & Isaac Scher, "The ADL Doubles Down on Opposing the Anti-Zionist Left," Jewish Currents, May 1, 2022Alex Kane & Jacob Hutt, "How the ADL’s Israel Advocacy Undermines Its Civil Rights Work," February 8, 2021Noah Kulwin, "The Unbearable Ignorance of the ADL," Jewish Currents, Dec 9, 2022 Mari Cohen & Alex Kane, "ADL Staffers Dissented After CEO Compared Palestinian Rights Groups to Right-Wing Extremists, Leaked Audio Reveals," Jewish Currents, Mar 8, 2023Alex Kane & Sam Levin, "Internal ADL Memo Recommended Ending Police Delegations to Israel Amid Backlash," Jewish Currents, Mar 17, 2022Eric Alterman, "What Does the ADL Stand for Today?" The New Republic, Aug 21, 2023James Traub, "Does Abe Foxman Have an Anti-Anti-Semite Problem?" New York Times, Jan 14, 2007 Find our intrepid producer Jesse Brenneman's new record "Modern Life" on Bandcamp,  Spotify, or YouTube. ...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

26 Sep 20231h 5min