Know Your Enemy

Matt and Sam are joined by two special guests, Sarah Jones and Marshall Steinbaum, who return to the show to take stock of where we're at: our failed response to the pandemic, the connections between the pandemic and the protests, and how all this might play out in November.  The four of us range widely—but be warned, this is not the most inspiring conversation. Are there any reasons to be hopeful? Listen and find out.Sources Cited and Further Reading:Eric Levitz, "Coronavirus is Killing Our Economy because It Was Already Sick" (New York Magazine)Sam Adler-Bell, "Conservative Incoherence" (Dissent)Sarah Jones, "Eugenics Isn't Going to Get Us Out of This Mess" (New York Magazine)Sarah Jones, "The Coronavirus Class War" (New York Magazine)Matthew Sitman, "Why the Pandemic is Driving Conservative Intellectuals Mad" (The New Republic)Know Your Enemy bonus episode: What Are Intellectuals Good For? (with further thoughts on the protests that followed George Floyd's murder)

8 Juli 20201h 31min

There's been no shortage of commentary on the rise of the "nones," those Americans who claim no religious affiliation, a trend especially notable among younger people. But that doesn't mean we live in a secular age. Matt and Sam talk to Tara Isabella Burton about her new book, Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World, and the way our search for meaning and the need for ritual has met our neoliberal economic order.  What does this spiritual churn mean for our politics? Why do reactionary ideas find a ready audience among those disillusioned with modern life? We take up these questions and more in a wide-ranging conversation about the way we live now.Sources and Recommended Reading:Tara Isabella Burton, Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless WorldTara Isabella Burton, "Christianity Gets Weird" (New York Times)Daniel José Camacho, "The Racial Aesthetic of Burton's 'Weird Christians'" (Sojourners)Michael Anton, "Are the Kid Al(t)right?" (Claremont Review of Books)

8 Juni 20201h 33min

Matt and Sam are joined by writer and editor Shuja Haider to discuss a topic near and dear to all of our hearts: country music. We talk about country's conservative reputation, the problems with (and virtues of) Ken Burns's recent documentary about country music, and the humane politics that arise from acknowledging—as the best country songs do—our collective frailty. Plus, a bunch of great music recommendations for your quarantine listening.A playlist featuring every song we mention in the episode, plus a few more bangers can be accessed here.Further Reading:Matthew Sitman, "E Pluribus Country," Dissent, Winter 2020.Shuja Haider, "The Empty Jukebox: Johnny Paycheck and the Return of the Repressed in Country Music," Viewpoint,  March 10, 2015Shuja Haider, "A World That Draws a Line: Interracial Love Songs in American Country Music," Viewpoint, March 1, 2017Shuja Haider, "Canon Fodder," Popula, Sept 13, 2018Cole Stangler, "Emotional Archaeology: An Interview With Ken Burns," Commonweal, Sept 13, 2019Shuja Haider, "The Invention of Twang," The Believer, Aug 1, 2019Shuja Haider, "Somebody Had to Set a Bad Example," Popula, Nov 14, 2018Nick Murray, "The Other Country," LA Review of Books, Nov 1, 2018Jesse Montgomery, "African Chant," Popula, Sept 18, 2018

14 Maj 20201h 31min

Here it is—the mailbag episode. Recorded on 4/20 and celebrating a full year of Know Your Enemy, Matt and Sam answer listener questions about: conservatives hiding in plain sight, our favorite conservative novelists, a George W. Bush counterfactual, the right’s response to COVID-19, and—against our better judgment—some Bernie Sanders campaign postmortem.We received so many amazing questions for this and recorded tons of material. So much, in fact, that we decided to release another 25 minutes of it as bonus material on Patreon. If you get to the end of this episode and find yourself hankering for more, sign up on Patreon and you can listen to some extra discussion of Bob Dylan and political realignment + our entire back catalog of bonus episodes.Thanks for your support through all this. Stay safe and (reasonably) sane. Further Reading:Matthew Sitman, "Trump's Intellectuals and the Great Moving Right Show," The Bias, April 3, 2020.Matthew Sitman, "A Time For Politics," Commonweal, April 23, 2020.Matthew Sitman, "Saving Calvin from Clichés: An Interview with Marilynne Robinson," Commonweal, October 5, 2017Sam Adler-Bell, "Coronavirus Has Given the Left a Historic Opportunity," The Intercept, April 14, 2020.Sam Adler-Bell, "Beautiful Losers," Commonweal, March 11, 2020.John Thomason, "Hope Deferred (on Obama and Marilynne Robinson)," The Point, May 8, 2017.

4 Maj 20201h 24min

Matt and Sam are finally joined by the show's longtime bête noire, Marshall Steinbaum, for a deep dive into the Chicago school of economics and the wreckage it's supported—from welcoming the birth defects caused by deregulating the pharmaceutical industry to justifying massive resistance to desegregation to being put in the service of Coronavirus truther-ism. Where did this iteration of libertarianism come from, intellectually and institutionally? Who are the key figures in the Chicago school? How have their ideas infected the way we all think about economics and politics? It's a sordid, depressing tale of rightwing money, intellectual dishonesty, and a gleeful desire to discipline the forces of democracy.Sources and further reading:Marshall Steinbaum, The Book That Explains Charlottesville, Boston Review,  August 14, 2017Marshall Steinbaum, Economics after Neoliberalism, Boston Review, February 28, 2019Isaac Chotiner, The Contrarian Coronavirus Theory that Informed the Trump Administration, New Yorker, March 30, 2020Nancy MacLean, Democracy in Chains (Penguin-Random House, June 2017)Edward Nik-Khah, Neoliberal Pharmaceutical Science and the Chicago School of Economics (Social Studies of Science 2014, Vol. 44(4) 489–517)

18 Apr 20201h 49min

Our rollicking conversation with Know Your Enemy Film Correspondent Jesse Brenneman is now out from behind the paywall! Be prepared: we dive into Darrel Campbell's 2012 war-on-Christmas fever dream Last Ounce of Courage, a deranged film that nevertheless offers real insight into the conservative mind. (If you really love freedom, you can watch the film here, before you listen. But it is not at all necessary.) Jesse is a seasoned radio producer and dear friend—and funny. He has his own new podcast you should check out: Tech Talk with Tim and Ted.WATCH: Last Ounce of Courage (YouTube)READ: the Ronald Reagan speeches mentioned in the episode: "A Time for Choosing" (October, 27, 1964 ) and "Encroaching Control" (March 30, 1961) *** As mentioned in the intro, we're doing a mailbag episode next week. Please submit questions you'd like us to answer on air by email knowyourenemypodcast[AT]gmail.com OR by tweet  @Knowyrenemypod ***

5 Apr 20201h 34min

Matt and Sam talk to John Ganz about paleoconservatism, the Island of the Misfit Toys of the American right. Along the way we're introduced to David Duke, Pat Buchanan, Sam Francis, and others, and discuss their enduring influence on the Republican Party and conservative politics—both in 1992, when Buchanan made a failed run for president, and today, when the hopes of their movement seems to have been fulfilled in Donald Trump.Sources and Recommended Reading:John Ganz, The Year the Clock Broke (The Baffler)John Ganz, Finding Neverland (The New Republic)Rick Perlstein, I Thought I Understood the American Right. Trump Proved Me Wrong  (New York Times)Murray Rothbard, Right-Wing Populism: A Strategy for the Paleo MovementMichael Brendan Dougherty, The Castaway (America's Future Foundation)Shuja Haider, How To Be a Democrat, According to Republicans (The Outline)

15 Mars 20201h 59min

Ross Douthat is that strangest of all creatures, a religious conservative with a New York Times column—a perch from which he pronounces on U.S. politics, the Catholic Church, and modern culture with style and intelligence, plus a dash of mordant pessimism. In other words, the perfect choice to be the first "enemy" to come on the show. He joins Matt and Sam to discuss his own conservatism, the American right in the Trump era, and his new book The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success. Further Reading:Ross Douthat, "The Decade of Disillusionment," NYT, Dec 28, 2019Ross Douthat, "The Case for Bernie," NYT, Nov 30, 2019Ross Douthat, "Trump’s Message: Love It or Leave It, With a Bigoted Edge," NYT, Jul 16, 2019Ross Douthat, "What Are Conservatives Actually Debating?" NYT, June 4, 2019Rudyard Kipling, "The Gods of the Copybook Headings," Harper's, Oct 26, 1919

5 Feb 20201h 26min