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In a recent New Yorker essay, our guest, UC Davis anthropologist Manvir Singh, argues, "The Trumpian mystique echoes a dynamic that has occurred for centuries and across cultures. Its core ingredients—an alleged league of pedophiles, a godlike miracle worker, promises of an Edenic restoration—resemble archetypes that have long occupied humanity’s imagination. Trump’s followers may communicate through memes and message boards, but their faith belongs to a much older mythology: the eternal face-off between shaman and witch, prophet and cabal."

In this conversation, Manvir, the author of a new book on "Shamanism," compellingly demonstrates how the MAGA movement — especially in its QAnon-inflected guises — manifests archetypal features of the messianic cult, analogues for which can be found across cultures and historical epochs. On KYE, we haven't often indulged in this sort of critique, for (justifiable) fear of eliding the very specific political conditions that gave rise to Trumpism, but for today: we're going for it! And Manvir was an ideal (and suitably careful) guide to this methodology and way of thinking about our political conjecture.

Further Reading:

Manvir Singh, "The President Who Became a Prophet," The New Yorker, May 17, 2025.

— "How Much Does Our Language Shape Our Thinking?" The New Yorker, Dec 23, 2025.

— "Don’t Believe What They’re Telling You About Misinformation," The New Yorker, April 15, 2024.

— Shamanism: The Timeless Religion, (May 2025)

Among the many factors credited for Donald Trump's victory over Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential race was one that, naturally, the hosts of Know Your Enemy took an interest in: podcasts. More specifically, "bro" podcasts—think Joe Rogan or Theo Von—seemed to be one reason why Trump continued, as he did in 2016 and 2020, to perform so well with male voters, especially gaining ground with younger, Black, and Latino men. An episode of one of these podcasts might stretch to three hours long or more, and typically features meandering, casual conversations that put a premium on apparent authenticity, as well as a knack for hanging with the boys. Trump and other Republican candidates and figures on the right (such as Elon Musk, a regular on Rogan's show) made appearing on these podcasts part of their campaign strategy, which allowed them to reach men who tend not to "follow politics" or even vote in every election. 

To try to understand what's happening with bros, podcasts, Trump, and beyond, there was no better guest than New Yorker staff writer Andrew Marantz, author of an early—and quite perceptive—piece on KYE and, more importantly for this conversation, a recent investigation into the world of bro podcasts and streamers, and what they might mean for both the left and the right at the start of Trump's second term.

Sources:

Andrew Marantz, "The Battle for the Bros," The New Yorker, Mar 17, 2025

— "Is the U.S. Becoming and Autocracy," The New Yorker, April 28, 2025

-- "Why We Can’t Stop Arguing About Whether Trump Is a Fascist," The New Yorker, March 27, 2024

— "The Post-Dirtbag Left," The New Yorker, July 26, 2021

 Jonathan Allen & Amie Parnes, "The inside story of Harris' lost gamble on Joe Rogan, Beyoncé and a late Texas rally," NBC News, Jan 29, 2025

Jack Crosbie, "Hasan Piker: A Progressive Mind in a MAGA Body," New York Times, April 27, 2025

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Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.

With the papal conclave convening in Rome to pick Pope Francis's successor, Matt and Sam are joined by novelist Brandon Taylor to discuss the 2024 film Conclave, directed by Edward Berger and starring Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, and Isabella Rossellini. The film, as you might guess, depicts the shabby and conspiratorial inner-workings of a (fictional) College of Cardinals as they go about picking a new pope. Fun movie! Great chat!

Furthering Reading:

Brandon Taylor, Real Life, (2020)

— Filthy Animals, (2021)

— The Late Americans, (2023)

— "Is it even good? Two Years with Zola," LRB, April 4, 2024.

Ben Munster, "Cardinals are watching ‘Conclave’ the movie for guidance on the actual conclave," Politico, May 6, 2025.

Dan Walden, "Gender, Sex, and other Nonsense," Commonweal, March 1, 2021.

Recently Matt joined Moira Donegan and Adrian Daub of the excellent In Bed with the Right podcast to record what turned out to be two episodes about Roy Cohn—the "lawyer, closet case and ratfucker extraordinaire," as they describe him. These days Cohn is perhaps most infamous for being Donald Trump's lawyer and mentor, but this first episode focuses on Cohn's childhood and family life, his decisive role in the Rosenberg trial (especially their execution), and his time working with Sen. Joe McCarthy at the height of the Red Scare. After you listen, please head over to In Bed with the Right to check out the second episode on Cohn and hear the rest of his story.

Sources:

Nicholas von Hoffman, Citizen Cohn: The Life and Times of Roy Cohn (1988)

Christopher M. Elias, Gossip Men: J. Edgar Hoover, Joe McCarthy, Roy Cohn, and the Politics of Insinuation (2021)

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet (1990)

Ivy Meeropol (dir.), Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn (2019)

Matt Tyrnauer (dir.), Where's My Roy Cohn? (2019)

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The passing of Pope Francis on April 21, 2025 marked not just the end of a papacy but the end of an era in global politics. The moment in which Francis spoke before Congress a decade ago and identified Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, and Martin Luther King as models of Christian moral witness feels like another universe — far from the cruel, cramped, suspicious, and selfish world we are living in. What was the Francis era? Where did he come from, and how did he become pope? And what are we losing — besides a pretty good pope — with his passing from the mortal realm? Matt and Sam discuss the passing of Pope Francis and what his papacy meant (to us and to the world), why he scandalized the Catholic right, and why his message feels so necessary and yet so far away. 

Further Reading: 

Vinson Cunningham, "Many and One," Commonweal, Dec 14, 2020. 

Dorothy Fortenberry, "The climate apocalypse is also a religious crisis," Vox, April 12, 2023.

Abeer Salman and Oren Liebermann, "The pope called them every night until his final hours. Now, Gaza’s Christians cling to the hope he left behind," CNN, April 23, 2025. 

Matthew Sitman, "No, Pope Francis is Nothing Like Donald Trump," Commonweal, Feb. 26, 2016.

— "Pope Francis and Civil Unions: We Need Clarity, Not a Media Blackout," Commonweal, Oct. 27, 2020.

Pope Francis, Laudato si’ (“On Care for Our Common Home”), May 2015.

Pope Francis, Fratelli Tutti, Oct. 3, 2020.

Ross Douthat, "Francis and the End of the Imperial Papacy," New York Times, April 21, 2025.

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Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy

Speaking in the Rose Garden on April 2, or as he called it, "Liberation Day," President Trump unveiled his plans to impose a new minimum tariff on nearly every country in the world, along with country-specific "reciprocal" tariffs for those nations Trump deemed to be engaging in unfair trade practices. He called it "one of the most important days in American history" and claimed it was "our declaration of economic independence." But rather than liberation, Trump's tariffs have unleashed chaos in the stock market and thrown the role of the United States in the world economy into doubt, not least because of the administration's ever shifting justifications for their actions and the constantly changing details of the tariffs themselves. To make sense of the ongoing fallout, we yet again turn to our friend John Ganz — who just finished reading and reviewing Trump's first three books for The Nation — to understand the deeper motivations (if they can be found) behind Trump's trade war. It's a good conversation, ranging from the bond markets to the bizarre psycho-sexual fantasies about tariffs on the right to "mimetic" competition with China, and beyond!

Sources:

John Ganz, "Dog Eat Dog: The Books of Donald Trump," The Nation, April 7, 2025

— "Apocalypse Delayed? What Happened in the Bond Markets and What's Next," Unpopular Front, April 10, 2025

Paul Blumenthal, "Trump's Rationales for His Tariffs Are Incoherent and Contradict Each Other," Huffington Post, April 7, 2025

In response to several requests from our (wonderful) Patreon subscribers, we're unlocking this episode from behind the paywall. Consider subscribing at Patreon.com/KnowYourEnemy to never miss an episode. 

March 2025 marked five years since the formal start of the pandemic in the United States, when the federal government declared the arrival and spread of the novel coronavirus to be a national emergency. The official Covid death toll in the United States now stands at over 1.2 million; globally it surpasses 20 million people. Tens of millions of others were hospitalized, and many who survived infection are facing long Covid or related health complications. Our lives were upended, whether by sheltering-in-place, working from home, and barely leaving our home or apartment, or, for others, by endangering themselves by continuing to show up to work in hospitals, making deliveries, or staffing essential businesses. And yet, as David Wallace-Wells recently argued in the New York Times, "We tell ourselves we’ve moved on and hardly talk about the disease or all the people who died or the way the trauma and tumult have transformed us. But Covid changed everything around us."

We wanted to have a conversation with David about that reality: why, collectively, we resist acknowledging what Covid really cost us, and the ways it continues to shape our lives. The discussion begins by revisiting the first weeks and months of the pandemic, the fear we felt, and the remarkable displays of solidarity that occurred in blue states as well as red states. From there we explore the different "phases" of the pandemic, how public-health measures became culture-war fodder, the impact of the vaccine on how both the public and elected officials perceived the risks of Covid, the pandemic's profound influence on our politics, the fallout from school closures, the Lab Leak Theory, and more.

Listen again: "How to Survive a Pandemic" (w/ Peter Staley), Feb 21, 2021

Sources:

David Wallace-Wells, "How Covid Remade America," New York Times, Mar 4, 2025

— "The Covid Alarmists Were Closer to the Truth Than Anyone Else," New York Times, Feb 26, 2025

— "We’ve Been Talking About the Lab-Leak Hypothesis All Wrong," New York Times, Feb 28, 2023

— "Dr. Fauci Looks Back: ‘Something Clearly Went Wrong'," New York Times, April 24, 2023

David Wallace-Wells, The Uninhabitable Earth (2019)

Nicholson Baker, "The Lab-Leak Hypothesis," New York Magazine, Jan 4, 2021

Zeynep Tufekci, "We Were Badly Misled About the Event That Changed Our Lives," NYTimes, Mar 16, 2025.

Sam Adler-Bell, "Doctor Do-Little​: The Case Against Anthony Fauci," The Drift, Jan 24, 2021

— "David Leonhardt: The Pandemic Interpreter," NYMag, Feb 24, 2022.

Jacqueline Rose, "To Die One’s Own Death," LRB, Nov 19, 2020.

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy

This month marked five years since the formal start of the pandemic in the United States in March 2020, when the federal government declared the arrival and spread of the novel coronavirus to be a national emergency. The official Covid death toll in the United States now stands at over 1.2 million; globally it surpasses 20 million people. Tens of millions of others were hospitalized, and many who survived infection are facing long Covid or related health complications. Our lives were upended, whether by sheltering-in-place, working from home, and barely leaving our home or apartment, or, for others, by endangering themselves by continuing to show up to work in hospitals, making deliveries, or staffing essential businesses. And yet, as David Wallace-Wells recently argued in the New York Times, "We tell ourselves we’ve moved on and hardly talk about the disease or all the people who died or the way the trauma and tumult have transformed us. But Covid changed everything around us."

We wanted to have a conversation with David about that reality: why, collectively, we resist acknowledging what Covid really cost us, and the ways it continues to shape our lives. The discussion begins by revisiting the first weeks and months of the pandemic, the fear we felt, and the remarkable displays of solidarity that occurred in blue states as well as red states. From there we explore the different "phases" of the pandemic, how public-health measures became culture-war fodder, the impact of the vaccine on how both the public and elected officials perceived the risks of Covid, the pandemic's profound influence on our politics, the fallout from school closures, the Lab Leak Theory, and more.

Listen again: "How to Survive a Pandemic" (w/ Peter Staley), Feb 21, 2021

Sources:

David Wallace-Wells, "How Covid Remade America," New York Times, Mar 4, 2025

— "The Covid Alarmists Were Closer to the Truth Than Anyone Else," New York Times, Feb 26, 2025

— "We’ve Been Talking About the Lab-Leak Hypothesis All Wrong," New York Times, Feb 28, 2023

— "Dr. Fauci Looks Back: ‘Something Clearly Went Wrong'," New York Times, April 24, 2023

David Wallace-Wells, The Uninhabitable Earth (2019)

Nicholson Baker, "The Lab-Leak Hypothesis," New York Magazine, Jan 4, 2021

Zeynep Tufekci, "We Were Badly Misled About the Event That Changed Our Lives," NYTimes, Mar 16, 2025.

Sam Adler-Bell, "Doctor Do-Little​: The Case Against Anthony Fauci," The Drift, Jan 24, 2021

— "David Leonhardt: The Pandemic Interpreter," NYMag, Feb 24, 2022.

Jacqueline Rose, "To Die One’s Own Death," LRB, Nov 19, 2020.

If there's ever been a Know Your Enemy subject worthy of two episodes, it is Elon Musk—currently the world's richest man, CEO and leader of several pathbreaking companies, ringleader of the Department of Government Efficiency, and (for now) Donald Trump's co-president. In other words, to understand what's happening in the United States during the second Trump administration, it's essential to understand Musk: what shaped him, his enduring preoccupations and personality traits, how he made his vast fortune, and why, in unprecedented ways, he decided to go all in on Trump.

In this second of two episodes on Musk, Matt and Sam bring his story up to the present. After offering a few concluding details on Musk's various romantic and familial entanglements, they chart the course of his political derangement, especially focusing on his seeming addiction to Twitter—the social media platform he eventually bought and renamed "X," which also is the name he gave one of his young sons. Musk's purchase of Twitter is treated as a case study in how the billionaire now tends to operate, from his penchant for making wild claims and impulsive decisions, to the way he manages people, tasks, and money. The discussion concludes with a theory of why Trump made such a show of buying a Tesla at the White House, and how to understand what Musk is up to with his erratic, ignorant work at DOGE, with plenty of eyebrow-raising details along the way.

As mentioned: Join Matt and Sam and Jamelle Bouie at Dissent magazine’s fundraiser on April 8 in New York!

Listen again: "Becoming Elon Musk, Part One"

Sources:

Kate Conger & Ryan Mac, Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter (2024)

Walter Isaacson, Elon Musk (2023)

Ashlee Vance, Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future (2015)

Ella Yurman, "Vivian Jenna Wilson on Being Elon Musk’s Estranged Daughter, Protecting Trans Youth and Taking on the Right Online," Mar 20, 2025

Kylie Cheung, "World’s Richest Man Allegedly Refuses to Pay Appropriate Child Support," Jezebel, Mar 21, 2025

Faiz Siddiqui, "Elon Musk is worth $270 billion. He’d buy Twitter with an IOU," WaPo, April 22, 2022

Theodore Schleifer  & Maggie Haberman "Elon Musk Seeks to Put $100 Million Into Trump Political Operation," NYTimes, Mar 11, 20225.

Eric Lipton, "Musk Is Positioned to Profit Off Billions in New Government Contracts," NYTimes, Mar 23, 2025.

Jessie Blaeser, "DOGE shared its receipts — and some of them don’t match," Politico, Feb 22, 2025. 

Hadas Gold, "Trump says he’ll buy a Tesla to support Elon Musk, whose companies are struggling," CNN, Mar 11, 2025.

Sam Adler-Bell, "Capital without Borders," Commonweal, Feb 8, 2017.  

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If there's ever been a Know Your Enemy subject worthy of two episodes, it is Elon Musk—currently the world's richest man, CEO and leader of several pathbreaking companies, ringleader of the Department of Government Efficiency, and (for now) Donald Trump's co-president. In other words, to understand what's happening in the United States during the second Trump administration, it's essential to understand Musk: what shaped him, his enduring preoccupations and personality traits, how he made his vast fortune, and why, in unprecedented ways, he decided to go all in on Trump. 

To explore the life and times of Musk, Matt and Sam read several biographies, along with the best reporting on him and his activities (especially of late). In this first episode, they offer a close reading of Musk's childhood in South Africa and the people, and traumas, that shaped him; his discovery of science fiction and teenage fixations on computers, video games, and space exploration; his escape to Canada to attend college and eventual arrival in the United States; and his early years in Silicon Valley and the businesses that first made him very rich. 

As mentioned: Join Matt and Sam and Jamelle Bouie at Dissent magazine’s fundraiser on April 8 in New York!

Sources:

Kate Conger & Ryan Mac, Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter (2024)

Walter Isaacson, Elon Musk (2023)

Ashlee Vance, Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future (2015)

Joshua Benton, "Musk’s Anti-Semitic, Apartheid-Loving Grandfather," The Atlantic, Sept 30, 2023

Henry Farrell, "Silicon Valley’s Reading List Reveals Its Political Ambitions," Bloomberg, Feb 21, 2025

Tony Tulathimutte, Rejection (2024)

Kase Wickhman, "Elon Musk Has Yet Another Child, According to the Mother of That Baby," Vanity Fair, Feb 18, 2025

Favour Adegoke, "Elon Musk's Trans Daughter Rips Dad For Allegedly Using Sex-Selective IVF For Her: 'I Was Going Against The Product'," Yahoo News, March 11, 2024

Jesse's podcast: Tech Talk.

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