Podcast
Know Your Enemy
Hosted by Matthew Sitman · EN
A leftist's guide to the conservative movement, one podcast episode at a time, with co-hosts Matthew Sitman and Sam Adler-Bell.
44episodes
Episodes
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Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America
1w ago01:31:09Tap to summarizeWe're ringing in the 250th anniversary of the United States with an episode on Garry Wills's superb, Pulitzer Prize-winning 1992 book, Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade the America. It's central argument is that Abraham Lincoln succeeded in revolutionizing how Americans thought of the founding of their country, especially the Declaration of Independence, with the Gettysburg Address—a revolution not just in "thought" but in "style," one that placed the Declaration's assertion of equality at the very center of our political tradition. The book is one that only Garry Wills could have written, with his PhD in Classics allowing him to compare Lincoln's "funeral oration" to that of Pericles, with his long meditation on the American presidency and leadership preparing him to grasp the enormity of the task Lincoln set himself, and with his time at National Review in his youth helping him understand why the American right never forgave Lincoln for succeeding. We discuss all this and more in our conversation about one of our favorite writer's very best books. Tickets for Sam's events: Tuesday with Tad Devine / Thursday with Dan Denvir. Previous KYE episodes on Garry Wills: Nixon Agonistes The Kennedy Imprisonment (w/ Jeet Heer) Bomb Power (w/ Madeleine Baker) Sources: Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America (1992) — Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State (2010) — "Martin Luther King Is Still on the Case!" Esquire, Aug 1, 1968 — "The Blind Teach Us to See," Boston Globe, Aug 20, 1970 Abraham Lincoln, "Letter to Joshua Speed," Aug 24, 1855 Harry V. Jaffa, Crisis of the House Divided: An Interpretation of the Issues in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1959) Russell Kirk, The Roots of American Order (1974) Willmoore Kendall and George W. Carey, The Basic Symbols of the American Political Tradition (1970) ...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!
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The Left Ascendant in New York City [Teaser]
2w ago00:02:47Tap to summarizeListen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy. In this episode we break down the results from last week's Democratic primaries in New York City, which saw candidates aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America prevail in key congressional races (as well as downballot in local and state races). We break down what happened, review the deranged responses from both the right and centrist Democrats, the place of Israel/Palestine in these contests (and the ludicrous if expected charges of anti-semitism that followed), and consider what it might mean for the left in the age of Trump—however much longer that lasts—and more. Sources: Peruse all the results from the NYC Democratic primary at the New York Times. Noah Rothman, "The DSA Is a Hate Group, and What It Hates Is America," National Review, June 24, 2026 — "The Hostile Takeover of the Democratic Party That Everyone but the Democrats Saw Coming," National Review, June 25, 2026 Brianna Lyman, "Socialist Primary Wins Prove Mass Migration Remakes America," The Federalist, June 25, 2026 Jonah Goldberg, "Crazy Begets Crazy in New York City," The Dispatch, June 24, 2026 Michael Luciano, "'I'm Done, I'm Not in That F*cking Political Party':James Carville Freaks Out After Progressives Win Big in Democratic Primaries," Mediaite, June 24, 2026 Elizabeth Kim, "'You're next': The Black and Latino New Yorkers Feeling Burned by Mamdani's Primary Sweep," Gothamist, June 24, 2026 Michael Lange, “DSA vs. WFP,” The Narrative Wars, May 18, 2026
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Pope Leo XIV's 'Magnifica humanitas' (w/ Jack Hanson)
3w ago01:36:38Tap to summarizeAs promised, here is our episode about Pope Leo XIV's recent encyclical, Magnifica humanitas, in which he brings to bear Catholic social teaching on the perils of artificial intelligence and what they reveal about what it really means to be human being. It's a distinctly Augustinian reading of our nature and destiny, marked not just by Leo's attention to our limits as flawed and fallible creatures, but the joy and hope found by living into them—which, finally, becomes his plea to see life from the perspective of the lowly, the downcast, the abandoned. To help us explain such a rich document, we had on our friend Jack Hanson, one of the most perceptive American writers on the Catholic Church. We tease out the connections between this Leo's first and encyclical and that of his namesake Leo XIII's Rerum novarum, an intervention on behalf of working people during the industrial and considered the origin of Catholic social teaching; Leo's "Augustinianism"; the encyclical's critique of artificial intelligence and what that has to do with its account of what really makes us human; and more. Sources: Pope Leo XIV, Magnifica humanitas, May 15, 2026 Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum, May 15, 1891 Jack Hanson, "A Serious Man: The Militant Mysticism of Charles Péguy," Commonweal, May 3, 2021 – “The Heresy of Americanism,” The Drift, Jun 10, 2025. Michael Oakeshott, "The Tower of Babel" in On History and Other Essays (1983) Reinhold Niebuhr, "The Tower of Babel" in Beyond Tragedy: Essays on the Christian Interpretation of History (1937) Donna Haraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto,” (1985) ...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!
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Tucker Carlson and the Anti-Israel Right (w/ Peter Beinart) [Teaser]
Jun 1500:03:46Tap to summarizeListen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy. Author and Jewish Currents editor-at-large Peter Beinart returns to "Know Your Enemy" to discuss Tucker Carlson's newfound anti-Israel politics, their connection to his broader nationalist project, and how the left should think about right-wing anti-zionism. Sources: Peter Beinart, "What Tucker Carlson Means When He Talks About Israel," New York Times, April 28, 2026 — "Progressives Must Not Give Tucker Carlson a Pass," The Beinart Notebook, May 11, 2026 — Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning, (2025) Daniel G. Hummel, The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism (2023) "Tyler Oliveira: Exposing Somali Welfare Abuse, Republican Hypocrisy & the Group You Can’t Criticize," The Tucker Carlson Show, May 8, 2026 Will Alden, "The Many Equivocations of Curt Mills," Jewish Currents, April 16, 2026.
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Leo Strauss's Natural Right and History (w/ Matt Dinan)
Jun 902:26:00Tap to summarizePull up a chair and pour yourself a drink! For the third installment in our occasional series on important conservative books, or important books written by or embraced by conservatives, we take up Leo Strauss's Natural Right and History, based on his 1949 Walgreen Lectures at the University of Chicago (where he taught for two decades) and published in 1953. To help us, we called on our friend Matt Dinan, a political theorist who's associate professor in the Great Books Program at St. Thomas University in New Brunswick, Canada. If you've listened to previous episodes and wanted us to go deeper on Leo Strauss, the German-Jewish political philosopher who came to the United States after fleeing Nazism, "Straussianism," and what they might have to do with American conservatism and our present political moment, here you go. After offering some background on Strauss and the context of Natural Right and History's publication, we discuss Strauss's patriotic appeal to Americans in the book's introduction, walk listeners through the chapters that follow (explaining what "natural right" is and why it's paired with "history" in the title along the way), and close out by exploring Strauss's ambiguous relationship to American conservatism—and more! Sources: Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History (1953) — On Tyranny (1963) — Spinoza's Critique of Religion (1965) Harry V. Jaffa, Thomism and Aristotelianism: A Study of the Commentary by Thomas Aquinas on the Nicomachean Ethics (1952) James W. Ceaser, "The American Context of Leo Strauss's Natural Right and History," Perspectives on Political Science, Spring 2008 Richard Velkley, Heidegger, Strauss, and the Premises of Philosophy: On Original Forgetting (2011) — "On the Roots of Rationalism: Strauss's 'Natural Right and History' as Response to Heidegger," The Review of Politics, Spring 2008 ...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!
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Know Your Enemy, Live! (w/ Mike Duncan) [Teaser]
Jun 100:03:52Tap to summarizeListen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy. Last month, on May 14th, we were joined by nearly 800 listeners in New York City for the first ever Know Your Enemy live show, "Decline and Fall." The event was a fundraiser for Dissent, so we called in the big guns, our great friend Mike Duncan, to join us on stage. Many KYE listeners will be familiar with Mike, the brilliant and prolific host of the Revolutions and, especially relevant for the purposes of this conversation, History of Rome podcasts. We discuss how the right talks about decline, their hilariously ignorant invocations of Rome, our very symptomatic obsession with political decline and dissolution, the power of nostalgia and declension narrative—and then answer audience questions! Thank you again to everyone who joined us in person, to Mike Duncan, to Patrick Iber and Rosalie Ryan and everyone at Dissent, to our intrepid producer Jesse Brenneman (who was able to fly in from Montana to join us), to listeners near and far who so generously continue to support Know Your Enemy! Donate to Dissent here. Photo credit: Jack Califano Sources: For quotes from conservatives about Rome's decline: Reagan, Nixon, Buchanan, Vance Mike Duncan, The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic (2017) James J. Walsh, The Thirteenth, Greatest of Centuries (1907) Michael Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays (1962) Kate Wagner, "Fear of a Breakdown," Late Review, May 11, 2026. D.W. Winnicott, "Fear of a Breakdown," Intl. Review of Psychoanalysis, (1974)
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Military Education and American Manhood (w/ Jasper Craven)
May 2601:32:21Tap to summarizeIn this episode we have a conversation with reporter Jasper Craven about his new book, God Forgives, Brothers Don't: The Long March of Military Education and the Making of American Manhood, which is a made-for-KYE feat of research that offers a fascinating way into perennial themes of this show: masculinity, U.S. empire, the relationship between violence and civilization, and the surprising camp of conservatism. Along the way we discuss Donald Trump, the mob, Peter Brian Hegseth, Graham Platner, and more. Sources: Jasper Craven, God Forgives, Brothers Don't: The Long March of Military Education and the Making of American Manhood (2026) — "Battle of the Sexes: Pete Hegseth's War on Women," The Baffler, Sept 2025 Dan Gilgoth, The Jesus Machine: How James Dobson, Focus on the Family, and Evangelical America Are Winning the Culture War (2007) Dr. James Dobson, Dare to Discipline: A Pyschologist Offers Urgent Advice to Parents and Teachers (1970) ...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!
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Even More Listener Questions, Answered [Teaser]
May 1800:05:06Tap to summarizeListen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy. As always, listeners asked more mailbag questions than we could respond to in one episode, so we continue answering them here for subscribers. In this second round we take up: a playlist of KYE's Straussian-related episodes; (Straussian) esoteric writing versus (French) death of the author and the art of writing (and interpretation); prose style—what it is, why it matters, its relationship to poetry, and the rhythms of Norman Maclean; a "Straussian" reading of Steely Dan; and why liberalism is (mostly) worth defending. Thank you to everyone who attended our live event in NYC on Thursday! We had a great time. Sources: Leo Strauss, Persecution and the Art of Writing (1952) — Thoughts on Machiavelli (1958) Stanley Rosen, Hermeneutics as Politics (1987) Wallace Stevens, "The Snow Man," Poetry, Oct 1921 Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories (1976) — The Norman Maclean Reader (2008) Edmund White, Nocturnes for the King of Naples (1978) Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (2004) W.H. Auden, "Friday's Child," (1958) Sam Adler-Bell, "Can Liberalism Stop Being So Darn Liberal?" The New Republic, June 20, 2024.
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The Seven Year Anniversary Mailbag Episode
May 1101:16:05Tap to summarizeNot only was May 6th the seven-year anniversary of Know Your Enemy, an occasion to celebrate your support of our work, but it's been nearly a year since we last opened the mailbag and answered listener questions. As always, we loved thinking about the topics you so thoughtfully and intelligently asked us to consider, and we take up a number of them in this episode: the future of the MAGA coalition and GOP politics post-Trump, the promise and perils of graduate school, novels we unexpectedly loved, our favorite places to read, how the left should understand liberalism, among others! * BUY TICKETS FOR KYE x MIKE DUNCAN LIVE IN NYC * Sources: Katherine Miller, Margie Omero, & Adrian J. Rivera, "'Disappointed,' 'Surprised,' 'Betrayed': 11 Trump Voters on What Has Gone Wrong," New York Times, April 27, 2026 Christopher Caldwell, "The End of Trumpism," The Spectator, Mar 30, 2026 Helena Rosenblatt, The Lost History of Liberalism: From Ancient Rome to the Twenty-First Century (2018) Daniel Schlozman & Sam Rosenfeld, The Hollow Parties: The Many Pasts and Disordered Present of American Party Politics (2024) Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (1981) William T. Kavanaugh, "Killing for the Telephone Company: Why the Nation-State is Not the Keeper of the Common Good," Modern Theology, April 2004 Roger Scruton, Gentle Regrets: Thoughts from a Life (2005) ...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!
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Reasons To Believe [Teaser]
May 400:04:34Tap to summarizeListen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy. REMINDER: COME SEE KYE x MIKE DUNCAN LIVE IN NYC Given the string of recent episodes that, in various ways, grappled with religion we wanted to take a step back and offer a rather personal conversation about believing in God, or not, and what difference it might makes. The discussion begins by revisiting when we first met over a decade ago and talked a lot about faith, then ranges widely, including: atheism vs agnosticism, W.H. Auden, why we're not experiencing a religious revival in the United States (but could be soon), and more. Sources: Christopher Beha, Why I Am Not an Atheist (2026) Edward Mendelson, "The Secret Auden," New York Review of Books, March 20, 2014 David Martin, w/ a reply from Edward Mendelson, "Why Auden Married," New York Review of Books, April 24, 2014 Matthew Sitman, "Saving Calvin from Clichés: An Interview with Marilynne Robinson," Commonweal, Oct 5, 2017 Ryan Burge, "Religion Has Become A Luxury Good For The Middle Class, Married College Graduate With Children," Religion Unplugged, July 12, 2023 Daniel Cox, "The Illusion of America's Religious Revival," American Storylines, Nov 13, 2025 Walker Percy, Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book (1983) — The Message in the Bottle: How Queer Man Is, How Queer Language Is, and What One Has to Do with the Other (1975) The Living Thoughts of Kierkegaard, edited & with an introduction by W.H. Auden (1999) W.H. Auden, "In Praise of Limestone," in Nones (1951) "Jill Lepore on Nationalism, Populism, and the State of America," EconTalk, April 15, 2019
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