Know Your Enemy

Christopher Lasch's Critique of Progress (w/ Chris Lehmann)

Christopher Lasch, the late historian and social critic, can be difficult to pin down. Despite writing with startling clarity and verve, Lasch  frustrates his readers' longing for clean partisan taxonomies and explicit programmatic statements. Taken up in recent years by Steve Bannon and  post-liberal populists, he was, in life, a man of the left who never ceased interrogating his own side’s pathologies and historical blindspots — often using Marxism, psychoanalysis, and a rich,...

Far-Right Vanguard (w/ John S. Huntington)

Matt is joined by John Huntington, author of Far-Right Vanguard, which chronicles the history of what he calls the "ultraconservative" movement, its national network, its influence on Republican Party politics, and its centrality to America's rightward turn during the second half of the twentieth centur...

Up From Straussianism (w/ Matt McManus & Victor Bruzzone)

Here's something fun and a little different: your beloved cohost Matt Sitman was interviewed by Victor Bruzzone and Matt McManus on their podcast, Plastic Pills, and the ensuing conversation — about Matt's own history, the right-wing intellectual pipeline, and the enduring and contested influence of Leo Strauss on the conservative movement and its minds — is just fascinating.

So we're sharing it with you, dear...

How They Did It, Pt. 3: The End of the Beginning

In the third and final episode in their series on the overturning of Roe v. Wade—recorded on the day it happened—Matt and Sam pick up with 1990s, the George W. Bush administration, and eventually take listeners up to the present. They focus especially on way conservative, mostly Christian intellectuals, many of them connected to the religious journal First Things, brought Catholics and evangelicals together to fight against abortion rights, with figures like Fr. Richard ...

The State of the American Right (w/ Daniel Denvir)

Today we're sharing a special "Dig Your Enemy" crossover event, as Daniel Denvir of Jacobin magazine's The Dig podcast puts Matt and Sam in the hot seat. We answer all of Dan's excellent questions about the state of the American right, including: the return of isolationism, the New Right, Peter Thiel, Curtis Yarvin, Blake Masters, Doug Mastriano, the prospects for a multi-racial conservative majority, the "groomer" panic, masculinity and gender politics, MAGA, authoritarianism, NYC's new reac...

How They Did It, Pt. 2: The Christian Right and Roe

At long last, Matt and Sam dive into the origins of the Christian right—a complicated tale often flattened by contemporary debates. What was the history of Christian anti-abortion activism before Roe, and how soon after the landmark Supreme Court decision did conservative Christians coalesce around the abortion—and other issues—to become the political force we know today? What did it take to get Catholics and evangelicals to join forces, and what were the barriers to them comin...

How They Did It: Overturning Roe, Pt. 1 (w/ the 5-4 podcast)

On May 5, Politico published a leaked draft of the majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health, written by Justice Samuel Alito, that would overturn Roe v. Wade. How did we get here? In the first of three episodes dedicated to answering that question, Matt and Sam talk to Peter, Rhiannon, and Michael of the 5-4 Podcast about...

Yinzer Country

In this bonus episode, Matt takes Sam on a tour of his native state, Pennsylvania, where a number of key primaries were held this week. The results brought some hopeful news: Lt. Gov. John Fetterman handily defeated State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta and (even better) Manchin-backed moderate Rep. Conor Lamb in the contest for the Democratic senate nomination. But it also revealed the madness that continues to grip the GOP: State Sen. Doug Mastriano, a January 6 marcher and election-fraud true believ...

A New Pink Tide? (w/ Thea Riofrancos & David Adler)

Hope for the American left is at a fairly low ebb, at the moment, but our counterparts in Latin America are on the march and succeeding at beating back repressive right wing governments across the region. What can we learn from them? And given extremely volatile global conditions — and the continued role of the US in defending the interests of capital in the region — what can these new left-wing governments hope to accomplish?

Sam is joined by political scientist Thea Riofrancos and...

The Conservative and the Convict (w/ Sarah Weinman)

Sarah Weinman's new book—Scoundrel: How a Convicted Murderer Persuaded the Women Who Loved Him, the Conservative Establishment, and the Courts to Set Him Free—is a gripping true crime story, and perhaps the tale of an ill-fated love triangle.  It also is a story about William F. Buckley, Jr., who defied expectations to show mercy to a death-row prisoner, Edgar Smith, after finding out that he supposedly read National Review. In this episode, Weinman joins Matt and Sam to tal...

The Right Kind of Worker (w/ Gabriel Winant)

Since Donald Trump was elected president — partially on the strength of white working class support in the Rust Belt — we've heard that the GOP is a working class party; that liberals sold out American labor to globalized capital; and that American workers are too socially and culturally conservative to remain within the increasingly progressive Democratic tent. According to the populist right, the culture war is itself a class war, waged on behalf of real workers against a secul...

Macron vs. Le Pen (w/ Cole Stangler)

Matt and Sam talk to KYE Paris correspondent Cole Stangler (@colestangler) about the French presidential election. Did this week's one-on-one debate between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen change the race in any significant ways? Why is Le Pen drawing notably more support this time around than she did in 2017? How much is Macron's strategy of pivoting to the right on issues of culture and identity to blame for her rise? What about Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leftwing politician who nearly made...

The Other Side of the Story (w/ Michael Kazin)

Matt and Sam are joined by Georgetown University historian and co-editor emeritus of Dissent, Michael Kazin, to discuss his new book, What It Took to Win: A History of the Democratic Party. They discuss the origins of the Democratic Party, the alliance between its urban North and segregationist South, the party's turn toward using government to help ordinary people, ...

Compact with the Devil? (w/ John Ganz)

Matt and Sam are joined by KYE all-star John Ganz to discuss Compact: A Radical American Journal, a new publication founded by Sohrab Ahmari, Matthew Schmitz, and Edward Aponte. It's launch coincided with a profile in the New York Times—and a party that Sam attended. What are the ideas behind Compact? How should the left approach the perspective it offers? Your hosts answer these questions, and more, drawing on Ganz's excellent Substack post on these topics, " 2022-04-09 19:51:34 +0000 UTC View Post

Red Diaper Baby (w/ Ari Brostoff)

Matt and Sam are joined by Ari Brostoff, author of  Missing Time: Essays, to explore David Horowitz's 1996 memoir, Radical Son. Like a number of prominent conservatives, Horowitz is a convert from the left. But he's younger than most of the first neocons, and his journey to the right went through Berkeley and the New Left more than the alcoves of City College. 2022-03-30 21:41:13 +0000 UTC View Post

The Anti-Trans Agenda (w/ Gillian Branstetter)

Matt and Sam talk to Gillian Branstetter,  press secretary for the National Women’s Law Center, about the spate of anti-trans laws sweeping the country: What do these interventions do? Who is pushing them? And why?

The American right has long been invested in policing gender boundaries, but its fixation on trans people — and trans children, in particular — has  become more acute in recent...

Disinformation, Peter Thiel, and the Vibe Shift (w/ Joe Bernstein)

In the first half of this conversation with Buzzfeed’s Joe Bernstein, Sam asks: What is “disinformation?” Who gets to decide? And does it explain what's wrong with our politics? And in the second half: why is Trump’s favorite venture capitalist, Peter Thiel, funding New York City’s downtown arts scene? And what are the political stakes of "anti-woke" art? 

This was a fun conversation with one of our favorite journalists! Enjoy. 

Further Reading...