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, 2015

Shuja Haider, "A World That Draws a Line: Interracial Love Songs in American Country Music," Viewpoint, March 1, 2017

Shuja Haider, "Canon Fodder," Popula, Sept 13, 2018

Cole Stangler, "Emotional Archaeology: An Interview With Ken Burns," Commonweal, Sept 13, 2019

Shuja Haider, "The Invention of Twang," The Believer, Aug 1, 2019

Shuja Haider, "Somebody Had to Set a Bad Example," Popula, Nov 14, 2018

Nick Murray, "The Other Country," LA Review of Books, Nov 1, 2018

Jesse Montgomery, "African Chant," Popula, Sept 18, 2018

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, 2017

Sam 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.

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, 2017

Marshall Steinbaum, Economics after Neoliberalism, Boston Review, February 28, 2019

Isaac Chotiner, The Contrarian Coronavirus Theory that Informed the Trump Administration, New Yorker, March 30, 2020

Nancy 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)

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 ***

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 Movement

Michael Brendan Dougherty, The Castaway (America's Future Foundation)

Shuja Haider, How To Be a Democrat, According to Republicans (The Outline)

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, 2019
• Ross Douthat, "The Case for Bernie," NYT, Nov 30, 2019
• Ross Douthat, "Trump’s Message: Love It or Leave It, With a Bigoted Edge," NYT, Jul 16, 2019
• Ross Douthat, "What Are Conservatives Actually Debating?" NYT, June 4, 2019
• Rudyard Kipling, "The Gods of the Copybook Headings," Harper's, Oct 26, 1919

Making It is Norman Podhoretz's 1967 memoir about his journey from the working-class neighborhood of Brownsville, Brooklyn to his heady ascent in the New York literary scene of 1950s and '60s. It's also a fascinating psychological study of a man on the cusp of converting from Cold War liberalism to what came to be known as neoconservatism—a shift driven, at least in part, by the cool reception of this book. Making It proves a fascinating text through which to understand not just one conservative mind, but multiple generations of New York intellectuals, the neoconservative movement, and the politics of grievance, self-pity, and narcissism that have come to define much of conservatism in the Trump era.

Sources Cited:

• David Klion, "The Making and Unmaking of the Podhoretz Dynasty," Jewish Currents, Dec 19, 2017
• Norman Podhoretz, "My Negro Problem — And Ours," Commentary, Feb 1963
• Janet Malcolm, "‘I Should Have Made Him for a Dentist'" New York Review of Books, Mar 22, 2018
• Louis Menand, "The Book That Scandalized the New York Intellectuals," The New Yorker, Apr 24, 2017
• Benjamin Moser, "My Podhoretz Problem — And Ours," Jewish Quarterly, Dec 5, 2018
• Lee Smith, "Making It," Tablet, Jan 16, 2019

Matt and Sam talk to Rebecca Traister of New York magazine about sexism and electoral politics. How has patriarchy conditioned the political careers of politicians like Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren? How does the right mobilize anti-feminism to win? And how do conservative women like Sarah Palin use traditional womanhood and femininity to their advantage? Listen to find out! 

Traister is the author of Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger.

Further Reading:

Rebecca Traister, "Elizabeth Warren's Classroom Strategy," The Cut, Aug 6, 2019

Rebecca Traister, "Leader of the Persistence," New York Magazine, July 23, 2019

Elaine Blaire, "The Power of Enraged Women," New York Times, Sept 27, 2018

Liesl Schillinger "Book Review: Big Girls Don't Cry," New York Times, Sept 16, 2010

Will Arbery's play "Heroes of the Fourth Turning"—about four conservative Catholic friends arguing under a night sky in Wyoming—feels like it was written to be discussed on Know Your Enemy. An ominous meditation on faith, conservatism, empathy, cruelty, and power, "Heroes" has ignited debate and garnered praise across the political spectrum—from First Things to the (failing) New York Times to Rod Dreher's blog at the American Conservative. Arbery was raised by conservative Catholic professors and grew up imbibing the ideas of the right and the teachings of the Church. He writes from a place of deep love and withering scrutiny. Lucky for us (and you!) Will displays all the sensitivity, intellectually curiosity, and love in this conversation that he does in his remarkable play. Enjoy!

You can buy tickets to see "Heroes" here, which is playing in NYC until November 17. Watch a preview here.

Further Reading:

The New York Times profile of Will, "A Play about God and Trump, from a Writer Raised on the Right"

Vinson Cunningham, "A Play About the Nuances of Conservatism in the Trump Era," The New Yorker, October 14, 2019

B.D. McClay, "Heroes of the Fourth Turning’ is a haunted play about religious conservatives," The Outline, November 5, 2019

Rod Dreher, "Will Arbery’s Heroes," The American Conservative, October 2, 2019

C.C. Pecknold, "An extraordinary play that challenges progressives and conservatives alike," Catholic Herald, October 1, 2019

Sarah Jones joins Matt and Sam to discuss the myth of "Trump Country" and the pitfalls of reporting on rural America, and to address the most important question of all: is Donald Trump the Antichrist? (Answer: Probably not.) Sarah's essay, "Scapegoat Country," appears in this month's special issue of Dissent on "Left Paths in Rural America."

Sarah is a staff writer for New York Magazine, where she covers inequality and national politics. Follow her on Twitter: @OneSarahJones

Sources Cited:

• Sarah Jones, "Scapegoat Country," Dissent, Fall 2019
• Sarah Jones, "What Brett Kavanaugh Means to Conservatives," New York Mag, Sept 30, 2019
• Sarah Jones, "Here’s How We’d Really Know That Trump Is the Antichrist," New York Mag, Aug 21, 2019
• Mollie Hemingway, "I wasn’t a Trump supporter. I am now." Washington Post, Jan 19, 2018