The Infernal Triangle (w/ Rick Perlstein)
Added 2024-10-25 16:07:54 +0000 UTCThe author of several excellent books about the history of American conservatism, including The Invisible Bridge, Nixonland, and Reaganland, Rick Perlstein makes his triumphant return to Know Your Enemy. Drawing on Rick's wealth of historical knowledge, as well as his American Prospect column — entitled "The Infernal Triangle" — we explore the failures of American media elites and the Democratic Party to reckon with Donald Trump and his antecedents on the far right. What are the habits and genres of American journalism that inhibit an adequate accounting of Trump's rise and influence? Why do Democrats tend to adopt "conservatism lite," when faced with a far right opponent? How has Rick's perspective on studying the right changed since he began his work in the 1990s? And how will future historians make sense of these times? Listen to find out!
Further Reading
Rick Perlstein, Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus, (2009)
— "I Thought I Understood the American Right. Trump Proved Me Wrong." New York Times, Apr 11, 2017.
— "The Polling Imperilment," American Prospect, Sept 25, 2024.
— "The Election Story Nobody Wants to Talk About," American Prospect, Aug 28, 2024.
— "Project 2025 … and 1921, and 1973, and 1981," American Prospect, Jul 10, 2024.
W. Joseph Campbell, Lost in a Gallup: Polling Failure in U.S. Presidential Elections, (2020)
Isaac Arnsdorf, Finish What We Started: The MAGA Movement’s Ground War to End Democracy, (2023)
Phoebe Petrovic, "Right-Wing Activists Pushed False Claims About Election Fraud. Now They’re Recruiting Poll Workers in Swing States." ProPublica / Wisconsin Watch, Oct 16, 2024.
Clare Malone, "The Face of Donald Trump’s Deceptively Savvy Media Strategy," New Yorker, Mar 25, 2024.
Matthew Sitman, "Will Be Wild: Reading the January 6th Committee Report," Dissent, Apr 18, 2023.
Listen Again:
"On the Road to Reaganland" (w/ Rick Perlstein and Leon Neyfakh), Oct 21, 2020
"The History of the History of the Right" (w/ Kim Phillips-Fein), Jan 17, 2024
Comments
This episode was so therapeutic for me to hear. The part that sang to me was young Matt thinking inside the beltway was filled with bright shining stars only to age and realize they are mediocre intellects. This episode nailed so many things.
Ann
2024-10-30 00:25:59 +0000 UTCPerhaps outside the scope of an sub-hour episode particularly interested in the media’s treatment of Trump and MAGA?
Tim Combes
2024-10-29 19:57:39 +0000 UTCMediacrity
Tim Combes
2024-10-29 19:40:48 +0000 UTCVery interesting , insightful and , culminating with the last observation that so many people want what Trump is offering , very dispiriting .
Richard Seabrook
2024-10-28 23:07:37 +0000 UTCA discussion about the mainstream press’ failings this past year without a single mention of its shamefully inadequate reporting on Gaza and our government’s role there, is disappointing, and emblematic of the media myopia that this conversation’s otherwise sharp on.
drizzly_november
2024-10-28 18:27:13 +0000 UTCLooking forward to both!
Tzvi Mackson
2024-10-28 17:41:29 +0000 UTCAs Reich said, 'why do people desire their own suppression'?
desdinova
2024-10-28 16:19:08 +0000 UTCHow does one seperate the wheat from the chaff though? When 95% of the content is horserace drivel the actual reporting is subsumed. You have to have a spine more than 1% of the time to be able to complain about being maliagned.
desdinova
2024-10-28 16:17:42 +0000 UTCHonestly, I genuinely suspect we will do one at some point. I've been interested in him from way back, and a former professor of mine has sent me some work he's been doing on him recently. An episode on him is the kind of thing we'd be inclined to do during a more placid period in our national life, should one occur again. (Matt)
Know Your Enemy
2024-10-28 09:22:30 +0000 UTCHis mention of Peter Viereck raises the question— when will you do a Viereck episode?
Tzvi Mackson
2024-10-27 20:50:53 +0000 UTCSo much great stuff here, but I’m always confused by this critique of the NYT. On the same day this episode dropped, the Times was in the middle of a news cycle about Trump’s associates calling him a fascist, and Maggie Haberman did an interview urging listeners to take Trump’s threats of violence and political persecution seriously and literally. It’s obviously not perfect, but the suggestion that it doesn’t engage with the awfulness of the modern right strikes me as bizarre (that seems like 80% of what it does to me). What am I missing?
Ian Faucher
2024-10-27 20:00:44 +0000 UTCTrue. Tho I'm referring to the center and center-left people that Harris is trying to appeal to. The right has a robust infrastructure for engagement but I don't really see much to counter that. Sure there's netroots but it doesn't get much visibility.
Henry Bachofer
2024-10-27 18:15:45 +0000 UTCI think the problem is that the voters ARE involved in civic engagement. For fascism. They genuinely are committed to the project of an ethnostate. That's bleak.
Garett Smith
2024-10-27 17:36:55 +0000 UTCGreat discussion ... toward the end (around minute 50) you get to talking about how Trump says what he's about and yet 50% of voters seem to want him to be elected. In all of the media hand waving/wringing about Trump being called a Fascist the concern seems to be this will alienate voters who think they are being called Fascists. It seems to me, and this isn't really a new suspicion, that about 60% of Trump voters and 80% of the MAGA faithful are fascist or at least fascist-friendly—whether they know it or not. Trump simply let them come out of their closets. But does realizing this really change anything — specifically does it suggest how to build a pro-democracy constituency and movement. Rick's point about civic engagement is critical but I'm not sure anyone has a plan to provide pathways to engagement for the growing number of people who are caught in the middle.
Henry Bachofer
2024-10-27 17:22:22 +0000 UTCI wish someone could force every inside-the-Beltway, Tiger Beat-on-the-Potomac “elite” journalist to listen to and take seriously this searing critique, Rick Perlstein is a national treasure
Eric Quirk
2024-10-27 00:43:41 +0000 UTCI loved that thought experiment: imagine there's no polling....it's easy if you try...
lewie spearman
2024-10-26 17:43:23 +0000 UTCHighly recommend everyone read Rick's article on undecided voters in Am Prospect before the election.
Taylor
2024-10-26 03:20:01 +0000 UTCGreatest episode of KYE ever? Many people are saying
Steven Carson
2024-10-26 01:47:48 +0000 UTCRick…this is the bastard who got me into this crap! Before the Storm was the gateway drug!!
Blackford Oakes
2024-10-25 21:32:39 +0000 UTCGreat episode- y’all lay out what drives me nuts about American political “journalism.” Keep up the good work!
Isaac Suárez
2024-10-25 21:28:31 +0000 UTCYou really "let him cook" here! It's hard not to be very doomer-ish about militias, police and border patrol as a faction of society that not only poses a danger now but could easily mobilize most strongly and lethally against a revitalized social democratic project—and equally hard to think of how to build an offramp from those tendencies that isn't grossly conciliatory (though ironically the Democrats' attempt to do just that with their border policy seems to be paying no dividends at all).
Nik
2024-10-25 19:23:53 +0000 UTCRick Content!
Allen
2024-10-25 18:52:55 +0000 UTCyou should interview leah sottile, talk to someone still working in the context niewert describes. also kathleen belew
Deborah Quick
2024-10-25 18:32:44 +0000 UTCThanks for this, I honestly crave hearing from Rick and this didn't disappoint ❤️
Julie Abuelsamid
2024-10-25 17:49:20 +0000 UTC
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