Matt and Sam dedicate an entire episode to an under appreciated but indispensable figure in the founding of post-war conservatism: Frank Meyer, the father of "fusionism."
Meyer was a man of contradictions: an ex-communist ideologue who longed for consensus; a cantankerous, unyielding debater who kept his fri...
2021-11-10 23:40:36 +0000 UTC View Post
Matt and Sam talk to the Washington Post's David Weigel about his approach to reporting on American politics, left and right, and what he's learned during his travels across the country.
Read all of Dave's latest reporting h...
2021-10-29 15:15:26 +0000 UTC View Post
Matt and Sam are joined by historian Lauren Stokes and writer John Ganz to unpack the American Right's ongoing embrace of Viktor Orbán's Hungary, from Rod Dreher's springtime junket there to Tucker Carlson broadcasting from the country to the adoring attention it receives from an assortment of "postliberal" intellectua...
2021-10-25 19:49:17 +0000 UTC View Post
(Posting this main episode over here on the Patreon feed because we forgot to last week! Love you guys! - Team KYE)
Matt is joined by Know Your Enemy favorite Sarah Jones to discuss her recent New York Magazine essay, "An Atheist Reconsiders God in the Pandemic." They discuss their shared religious upbringing a...
2021-10-22 13:39:31 +0000 UTC View Post
Matt and Sam are joined by a very special guest—the 5-4 podcast's Rhiannon—to discuss the ghastly anti-abortion bill that recently went into affect in Texas after the Supreme Court failed to provide an injunction against it. They discuss the Supreme Court's "shadow docket" (on which Whole Woman's Health v. Ja...
2021-09-30 15:01:08 +0000 UTC View Post
In this subscribers-only episode, Matt and Sam discuss the latest revelations about the Trumpist plot to steal the presidency, the madness of anti-vaxx derangement syndrome among conservatives, and the fate of Biden's Build Back Better agenda.
Sources:
DOCUMENT: John Eastman's six-point plan to st...
2021-09-25 19:37:20 +0000 UTC View Post
It's impossible to comprehend the state of conservative politics — or American politics in general — without looking closely at the wars we've been waging for the past two decades. The story we've been telling about American conservatism has been incomplete without a deep-dive on the so-called Global War on Terror. Luckil...
2021-09-15 19:06:11 +0000 UTC View Post
This is a slightly different kind of Know Your Enemy episode—a conversation about hope and despair as the effects of climate change bear down upon us. At the center of that conversation is a brilliant new book, Daniel Sherrell's 2021-09-03 00:27:36 +0000 UTC View Post
Join Matt and Sam as they drink bourbon and talk about Ronald (and Nancy) Reagan. They begin with Matt's history as a young conservative who researched multiple books on Reagan and eventually get to the recent four-part Showtime documentary, The Reagans. Along the way they talk about Reagan's time as an actor, the im...
2021-08-30 21:34:18 +0000 UTC View Post
Finally, a deep-dive on William F. Buckley, Jr.! Matt and Sam are joined by Buckley's biographer, Sam Tanenhaus, to talk about WFB's 1965 campaign for mayor of New York City. Topics include: how Buckley's campaign made him the most famous conservative in America; the importance of his candidacy to the conservative movement's ...
2021-08-23 18:20:45 +0000 UTC View Post
Matt and Sam discuss "Woke Capital," the revival of James Burnham's critique of managerialism, and how right-wing populists learned to stop worrying (about liberty) and love the state.
Further Reading:
Sam Adler-Bell, "2021-07-31 17:32:59 +0000 UTC View Post
Matt and Sam are back in the same room — Matt's study — enjoying brown liquor, each other's company, and a surprisingly coherent discussion of the right's latest fixations: our "rainbow regime" and "critical race theory."
Listen to find out how Matt's mother feels about his porn-stache, if Sam feels bad ...
2021-06-30 16:32:24 +0000 UTC View Post
Every June it happens: conservatives get all hot and bothered by Pride celebrations, and this year has been no different. Why do banal corporate expressions of support for LGBTQ+ rights drive them so mad? How does religion factor into their opposition to basic protections for LGBTQ+ people? What part do these culture war flar...
2021-06-14 03:02:24 +0000 UTC View Post
What is the status of "equality" in the American political tradition? What place does it have in the inheritance that conservatives are trying to preserve?
Matt and Sam pick up where they left off in their 2021-05-29 23:00:56 +0000 UTC View Post
In this episode, Matt is joined by historian Eric Rauchway for a deep-dive into his new book, Why the New Deal Matters. It's Rauchway's latest effort to recover Franklin Delano Roosevelt as an anti-fascist polit...
2021-04-29 19:43:03 +0000 UTC View Post
In state legislatures across the country, Republicans are unleashing a fierce assault on voting rights. Hundreds of proposals aimed at restricting ballot access are being considered, and in a few states—most notably Georgia—have already become law. These obvious efforts at suppressing turnout have been justified by the de...
2021-04-14 00:26:24 +0000 UTC View Post
Matt and Sam finally take on a controversial subject: the British royal family. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's recent interview with Oprah set off a firestorm of commentary—not least from aggrieved conservatives who were outraged at the young couple's criticisms of the monarchy. Why was the Right so upset by the interview...
2021-03-21 20:44:13 +0000 UTC View Post
In recent months, French president Emmanuel Macron, once hailed as the savior of mainstream liberalism, has responded to a series of Islamist terror attacks with a sharp right turn—one he hopes will serve him well in a possible run-off election against the nativist/populist Marine Le Pen. KYE Paris correspondent Cole Stangl...
2021-03-14 00:50:56 +0000 UTC View Post
What can four generations of men named "L. Brent Bozell" tell us about the trajectory of modern American conservatism? Well, quite a lot.
From the union-busting, ad-man scion (Brent Sr.), to the fiercely brilliant and troubled National Review editor-turned-Catholic zealot (Brent Jr.), to the insipid media...
2021-02-27 01:46:10 +0000 UTC View Post
Beloved KYE guest John Ganz (Ep. 15: The Year the Clock Broke) returns to discuss the Third Republic, the Dreyfus Affair, and what the hell fin de siècle France has to do with 21st ...
2021-02-06 00:16:12 +0000 UTC View Post
Matt and Sam explain West Coast Straussianism, the school of thought behind one of the last acts of the Trump administration: the release of the "1776 Report," the Ri...
2021-01-23 21:25:09 +0000 UTC View Post
Matt and Sam respond to a mob of Trump supporters stopping the certification of Electoral College votes by charging into the Senate and House chambers. It was an unprecedented act that struck at the very heart of American democracy, such as it is. Who is to blame? What will its effects be? Will Republicans pay a price for enc...
2021-01-07 05:08:47 +0000 UTC View Post
Sam speaks with historian Stephen Wertheim, author of Tomorrow, the World: The Birth of U.S. Global Supremacy, about Trump's weird foreign policy record, the prospects for left-right unity on non-...
2020-12-26 17:15:15 +0000 UTC View Post
We're joined by new conservative-ish frenemy of the pod, Aaron Sibarium — a bright, young, bushy-tailed editor at the Washington Free Beacon — for a post-election discussion of everyone's favorite fun topic, realignment (or lack there of)! Together we discuss the prospects ...
2020-12-06 03:30:58 +0000 UTC View Post
A 2020 election recap with two brilliant friends of the pod: Eric Levitz, a senior writer at New York magazine, and Dan Sherrell, the outgoing director of the #VoteTrumpOut campaign (and a wonderful w...
2020-11-14 22:04:37 +0000 UTC View Post
Matt and Sam engage in the most perilous of all punditry—the rankest of rank punditry, even—and discuss what to expect on Election Night. They crunch the numbers, discuss the possible scenarios that could unfold, and give you all that you need to watch the returns as the informed, wise observers you are. Matt even offers ...
2020-11-02 23:24:13 +0000 UTC View Post
Despite Sam's misgivings, Matt managed to convinced us (Sam) to do a quick response to the stupid fucking debate. As it turns out, he had some interesting things to say. Enjoy.
2020-10-23 11:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post
This past Sunday, October 18, 2020, the Movement for Socialism (MAS) in Bolivia — the party led by Evo Morales — was returned to power by a landslide victory, after having been deposed by anti-democratic, right-wing forces with the tacit consent of the United States in November 2019.
It just so happens that fr...
2020-10-23 04:27:12 +0000 UTC View Post
Well. We watched it. And we recorded an episode of our podcast about it. For you. Because we love you.
Matt and Sam do a deep dive on the proposals being discussed about the ways that Democrats can take on the Supreme Court. Should a Democratic President and Senate pack the Court, or seek to disempower it in other ways? Or can they just ignore the Court altogether? Along the way they reflect on Ruth Bader Ginsburg, answer ques...
2020-09-25 19:07:11 +0000 UTC View Post
