Know Your Enemy

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

UNPAYWALLED:

Sam interviews journalist Hannah Gais about (1) the far right's ongoing efforts to infiltrate conservative media and (2) the self-victimizing grift of Quillette anti-anti-fascist Andy Ngo.

Discussed:

• Hannah Gais, Leaked Emails Show How White Nationalists Have Infiltrated Conservative Media, Splinter
• Hannah Gais, The Making of Andy Ngo, Jewish Currents

Matt and Sam talk to Max Alvarez—writer, editor, and host of Working People, an excellent podcast—about growing up working-class and conservative in a mixed race household.

Matt and Max compare experiences as we try to answer some basic but tough questions: what attracts some members of the working class to conservative politics? How do the cultural and economic aspects of conservatism interact for working class conservatives? And what can the left learn from working-class conservatism's appeal?

Support Max's Patreon here!

Further Reading:

• Max Alvarez, "Can the Working Class Speak?" Current Affairs (2018)
• Stuart Hall "The Toad in the Garden: Thatcherism Among the Theorists," (1988)
• Charlie Post's two-part essay from the early aughts in Against the Current (and Sebastian Lamb's response)
• Bethany Moreton, To Serve God and Walmart
• Thomas Frank, What's the Matter with Kansas? (2005)
• Larry Bartels' review of Frank.
• John Jost, "Working Class Conservatism: A System Justification Perspective," (2017)

Oh and please support our Patreon!

With the help of Jane Mayer's essential 2016 book, Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, your hosts explore the world of right-wing philanthropy and the institutions—from centers at universities to think tanks in Washington, DC—it has funded. What emerges is a startling history of how a small group of incredibly rich families used novel techniques to shelter their wealth from taxation and fund a right-wing takeover of American politics.

Other sources cited and consulted:

Matt and Sam's first ever guest, Patrick Blanchfield, is an Associate Faculty member at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research and author of the forthcoming book Gunpower from Verso books, which you can and should pre-order here. In the wake of the massacres in El Paso and Dayton, we turn to Patrick—a truly brillant writer and thinker—to help us understand how these traumatic reptitions of spectacular violence are rooted in American history and ideology.

Patrick's work:

Other sources cited:

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