Know Your Enemy

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Your hosts explain West Coast Straussianism, the school of conservative thought undergirding the "1776 Report" — the Right's shabby response to the 1619 Project and a blueprint for how the American Founding should be understood and taught. 

Matt and Sam take up the question that's dominating The Discourse: Is Donald Trump—and the movement he leads—fascist? To provide an answer, they turn to the rich historiography of fascism and some key essays on the subject published since Trump's election. Along the way, they break down different approaches and sets of criteria for evaluating fascism, consider the similarities—and differences—between the 1920s and '30s and today, and ponder whether or not the "fascist question" is the right one to be asking. Listen to the end to find out where Matt and Sam finally land!

Further Reading: 

Robert O. Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism (Vintage, 2004)

Friedrich Reck, Diary of a Man in Despair (New York Review of Books, 2013; originally published in 1947)

Federico Finchelstein, From Fascism to Populism in History (University of California Press, 2017)

Kathleen Belew, Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America Harvard University Press, 2019 

Jason Stanley, How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them (Penguin, 2018)

Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism (1950)

George Jackson, Soledad Brother, (1970)

Robert O. Paxton, "I've Hesitated to Call Donald Trump a Fascist. Until Now," Newsweek, Jan 11, 2021

Richard Evans, "Why Trump Isn't Fascist," New Statesman, Jan 13, 2021

Dorothy Fortenberry, "Can’t Fight This Feeling Anymore" Commonweal, Nov 5, 2020

Dylan Riley, "What is Trump?" New Left Review, Dec 1, 2018

Gabriel Winant, "We Live in a Society," n + 1, Dec 12, 2020

Alberto Toscano, "The Long Shadow of Racial Fascism," Boston Review, Oct 28, 2020

Angela Davis, "Political Prisoners, Prisons and Black Liberation," Verso, Feb 21, 2018

Jairus Banaji, "The Political Culture of Fascism," Historical Materialism, Feb 19, 2017.

Richard Seymour, "Inchoate Fascism," Patreon, Nov 13, 2020. 

Samuel Moyn & David Priestland, "Trump Isn’t a Threat to Our Democracy. Hysteria Is," New York Times, Aug 11, 2017

Corey Robin and David Klion, "Almost the Complete Opposite of Fascism," Jewish Currents, Dec 4, 2020. 

Peter Steinfels "The Semi-Fascist Candidate," Commonweal, May 16, 2016.

...and don't forget to subscribe at Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Subscribe at https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy to hear this and all our bonus content.  Matt and Sam analyze the Trumpist "siege" on the Capitol on our latest bonus episode.

Matt and Sam—in a rare, just-the-two-of-them episode—look back at what a bad year revealed about a number of bad people, especially the coterie of rightwing intellectuals and politicians who have downplayed the pandemic, exacerbated anxieties about the uprising against police violence, and played along with Donald Trump's conspiracy-fueled attempts to steal the presidential election. What holds these efforts together, and what do they say about the state of conservatism? It turns out that 2020 confirmed the anti-democratic, revanchist character of the Right in the United States.

Sources Cited:

Matthew Sitman, "Why the Pandemic is Driving Conservative Intellectuals Mad," New Republic, May 21, 2020

Matthew Sitman, "Time in the Eternal City," Commonweal, December 24, 2020

Sam Adler-Bell, "Conservative Incoherence," Dissent, Summer 2020

Bret Stephens, "America Shouldn't Have to Play by New York Rules," New York Times, April 24, 2020

"Trump’s Focus as the Pandemic Raged: What Would It Mean for Him?" New York Times, December 31, 2020

"Pence Welcomes Futile Bid by G.O.P. Lawmakers to Overturn Election," New York Times, January 2, 2021

...and don't forget to sign-up on Patreon for all of our bonus episodes!

Subscribe at https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy to hear this and all our bonus content.

An excerpt from our latest bonus episode on Trump's 'non-interventionist militarism' and the future of American foreign policy — with Stephen Wertheim of the Quincy Institute. 

In this much anticipated crossover event, Matt and Sam take aim at the conservative legal movement with Rhiannon, Michael, and Peter—the brilliant and funny team behind the 5-4 podcast, a Know Your Enemy favorite. For those who are not yet fans of the show, it's "a podcast about how much the Supreme Court sucks" that offers "a progressive and occasionally profane take on the ideological battles at the heart of the Court’s most important landmark cases, and an irreverent tour of all the ways in which the law is shaped by politics." Topics discussed in this conversation include the origins of originalism, the founding of the Federalist Society, Robert Bork's disastrous confirmation hearings, the way the media covers the Supreme Court, and how the Left can fight back. 

Know Your Enemy listeners can check out 5-4 here.  Follow @fivefourpod on Twitter for their latest episodes, along with hosts @AywaRhiannon, @_FleerUltra, and @The_Law_Boy. Special thanks to podcast guru Leon Neyfakh (@leoncrawl) for helping make this happen.

Listeners, especially new ones, might want to revisit Know Your Enemy episode eight, "Koch'd Out," for a deep dive into some of the foundations and institutions mentioned in this conversation.

...and don't forget to support KYE on Patreon to listen to all of our bonus episodes!

Subscribe at https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy to hear this and all our bonus content.

An excerpt from our latest bonus episode on "the limits of realignment" with Aaron Sibarium of The Washington Free Beacon.

Who is Donald Trump? The great David Roth, co-owner of Defector Media and a columnist at the New Republic, joins Matt and Sam to answer that harrowing question. From Trump's odd lies about his baseball talents to creepy White House Christmas decorations, this conversation was the perfect opportunity to unpack the neuroses, self-protective measures, cruelty, humor, and sheer weirdness of a terrible president on his way out of office. Also: Sam finally gets to do his Melania "impression"!

Sources Cited:

Leander Schaerlaeckens, "Was Donald Trump Good at Baseball?" Slate, May 5, 2020

David Roth, "I Made Up a Fake Donald Trump Quote, and He Retweeted It," SBNation, June 10, 2014 

David Roth, "A Unified Theory of Trump's Creepy Aesthetic," New Republic, December 19, 2019

David Roth, "The Littlest Prince," New Republic, November 17, 2020

For more of David's writing on Trump, check out his author archives at the New Republic...and don't forget to support Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to our extensive catalogue of bonus episodes!

Subscribe at https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy to hear this and all our bonus content!

An excerpt from our election recap bonus episode with New York magazine's Eric Levitz and Daniel Sherrell, director of the the #VoteTrumpOut campaign. 

Matt and Sam are joined by Dorothy Fortenberry for a wide-ranging conversation about women and politics. Topics include growing up in Washington, D.C; her experiences writing women characters in Hollywood;  why the left should take over existing institutions; the complicated Catholic motherhood of Amy Coney Barrett; and much, much more. For those not familiar with her work, Fortenberry is a writer and producer on Hulu’s award-winning adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale, and her plays include Species Native, Partners, Mommune, and Good Egg. She's a regular contributor to Commonweal, among other publications, though for her latest political takes you should follow her on Twitter (@Dorothy410berry).

READ: 

Dorothy Fortenberry, "One of Those Serious Women: Andrea Dworkin's Radical Feminism," Commonweal , April 29, 2019

Dorothy Fortenberry, "A Plea to My Fellow Warren Moms," Commonweal, March 6, 2020

Dorothy Fortenberry, "Why I Stay," Commonweal, November 18, 2018

LISTEN:

Highwomen, "Highwomen"

Highwomen, "Redesigning Women"

Dar Williams, "The Pointless, Yet Poignant, Crisis of a Co-Ed"

...and don't forget to support Know Your Enemy on Patreon to hear all Matt and Sam's bonus episodes.