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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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Pull 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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Saknas det avsnitt?
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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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In 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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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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Not 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!
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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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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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Over the course of the past year, Peter Thiel—the Trump backing, Vance boosting gay tech billionaire—has been delivering a series of lectures on the Antichrist, using an examination of the Biblical antagonist of the End Times to make an argument about the supposed perils of this political moment. We got our hands on transcripts of these talks as delivered last year in San Francisco, and explain what Thiel said and why it matters. Topics include: Thiel's conservative evangelical upbringing, the influence of Rene Girard on his thinking, and how Thiel's Antichrist lectures relate to his broader thinking and worldview; the place of the Antichrist in the eschatology of different Christian traditions, and the curious similarities between Thiel's understanding of the Antichrist and that found in the work of Timothy LaHaye, co-author of the Left Behind novels; Christianity's recent trendiness in Silicon Valley; the way Thiel's account of how the Antichrist will come to power connects to his economic interests; and more!
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Listen again:
"Rene Girard and the Right" (w/ John Ganz), KYE, Feb 26, 2024
"A Remedy for Envy? Rene Girard Redux," KYE, March 4, 2024 (for subscribers)
Sources:
Peter Thiel, "The Straussian Moment," 2007
Ross Douthat interviews Peter Thiel (transcript), New York Times, June 26, 2025
Max Chafkin, The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and the Rise of the Silicon Valley Oligarchs (2021)
Timothy LaHaye, Revelation Unveiled (1999)
Elisabetta Povoledo, "Peter Thiel Fears the Antichrist Is Coming. In Rome, Some Call His View Heresy," New York Times, March 17, 2026
Johana Bhuiyan, Dara Kerr, Nick Robins-Early, "Inside tech billionaire Peter Thiel’s off-the-record lectures about the antichrist," The Guardian, Oct 10, 2025
Peter Thiel & Sam Wolfe, "Voyages to the End of the World," First Things, Oct 1, 2025
Emma Goldberg, "Seeking God, or Peter Thiel, in Silicon Valley," New York Times, Feb 11, 2025
Kate Lucky interview w/ Michelle Stephens, "‘Wouldn’t It Be Funny if We Tricked a Bunch of People into Going to Church?’" Christianity Today, Aug 11, 2025
Laura Bullard, "The Real Stakes, and Real Story, of Peter Thiel’s Antichrist Obsession," Wired, Sep 30, 2025
John Ganz, "What Happened Here," Unpopular Front, Feb 4, 2025
...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!
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Once more we take up religion and politics, this time a conversation about President Donald Trump's attacks on Pope Leo XIV—the first successor of St. Peter from the United States—mostly, though not only, over the pope's pleas for peace as Trump rages war against Iran. Why is the incredibly unpopular Trump going after the beloved pontiff? Why does Trump's Catholic vice president, J.D. Vance, argue that Leo should stay out of politics and stick to morality, as if politics was not irreducibly a moral enterprise? Who is Pope Leo, and what seem to be his priorities for his papacy? How to make sense over the arguments about just-war theory that Leo's various statements about war and peace—notably, that God does not hear the prayers of those who wage war—have generated? We answer all these questions, and more!
COME SEE KYE x MIKE DUNCAN LIVE IN NYC
Sources:
"Rerum Novarum: Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII on Capital and Labor," May 15, 1891
"Reflection of His Holiness Pope Leo XIV at the Prayer Vigil for Peace," April 11, 2026
"U.S. Bishops’ Chairman on Doctrine Issues Clarification on Just War Theory," April 15, 2026
Chris Cameron, "Vance Says Pope Leo Should Stay Out of U.S. Affairs," New York Times, April 13, 2026
Matthew Sitman, "Pope Francis and Civil Unions: We Need Clarity, Not a Media Blackout," Commonweal, Oct 27, 2020
Jason Horowitz & Natalie Kitroeff, "Pope Francis’ Views on Same-Sex Civil Unions Were Cut From a 2019 Vatican Interview," New York Times, Oct 22, 2020
Gerald W. Schlabach, "Just War? Enough Already," Commonweal, May 31, 2017
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In 1897, a small group of Jewish Marxists on the outskirts of the Russian empire founded the General Jewish Labour Bund. The Bundists were revolutionary socialists, unapologetic internationalists, champions of the Yiddish language, and implacable foes of nationalism of every stripe, including (especially) Zionism. Bundists helped found the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, organized militias to defend Jews against pogroms, fought on the frontlines of the 1905 and 1917 revolutions, fought fascists wherever they found them, and helped lead the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.
The history of the Bund is largely forgotten today — in part because Bundists were such early and prescient critics of Zionism. As one of its leader said in 1933, "If Jewish nationalism, as a general rule, is not bloodthirsty, this is only out of necessity, not virtue; if an appropriate opportunity arose, Jewish nationalism would show its sharp teeth and nails no less than the nationalisms of other nations.” Thankfully, Crabapple spent the last seven years rediscovering the Bund's fascinating history for her new book: Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund. It was thrilling to have her on to discuss it. “For leftist Jews longing for resources within our own past for combating the Zionist death cult," Crabapple says, "the Bund is a model.”
Further Reading:
Molly Crabapple, Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund, (April 2026)
Sam Adler-Bell, "For leftist Jews, the Bund is a model’: the radical history behind one of Europe’s biggest socialist movements," The Guardian, Apr 7, 2026.
Max Strasser, "What Does Judaism Look Like Without Zionism?" NYTimes, Apr 6, 2026.
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Last month, our very own Sam Adler-Bell published a deeply reported article in New York magazine about "the women leaving the New Right." That is, the women who've come to realize, as Sam pithily puts it, this truth about the MAGA movement: "Sexism wasn’t merely the price of entry; it was the theme of the party." MAGA-style misogyny is different than the oldfangled, pre-Trump, pre-Fuentes, pre-Tate brothers iteration that marked the conservative movement in decades past. In this episode, Matt interviews Sam about the article, and they discuss misogyny on the right, old and new; what the women he spoke to describe experiencing during their time on the New Right, the bargain they thought they were getting by joining its ranks, and what they found in reality; the nasty misogyny that, even more than his racism and antisemitism, animates Nick Fuentes; dating and romance on the New Right; rightwing religion, patriarchy, and the 19th amendment; and more.
Sources:
Sam Adler-Bell, "The Young Women Leaving the New Right," New York, March 12, 2026
Ian Ward, "Doug Wilson Has Spent Decades Pushing for a Christian Theocracy. In Trump’s DC, the New Right Is Listening," Politico, May 23, 2025
Mariel Padilla, Grace Panetta, & Mel Leonor Barclay, "Who’s Questioning Women’s Right to Vote?" The 19th, Aug 12, 2025
Leo Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli (1958)
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There’s perhaps no living person who better embodies the themes, contradictions, ethos, and pathos of “Know Your Enemy” than William Kristol, this week’s guest. Today, Kristol is editor-at-large of The Bulwark, a valuable redoubt of unreconstructed Never-Trumpism, which he helped found in 2018. But before dedicating himself, full-time, to the admirable if quixotic mission of undermining Donald Trump from the center-right — alienating many of his one-time friends in the process — Kristol was best known as an influential practitioner of neoconservatism: a staffer in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations; cofounder (in 1995 and 1997, respectively) of The Weekly Standard and the Project for a New American Century; a prominent champion of the 2003 invasion of Iraq; and faithful son of one of neoconservatism’s First Couples: Irving Kristol and Gertrude Himmelfarb. Kristol was also trained in political philosophy by the Harvard Straussian (and frequent KYE subject) Harvey Mansfield. As such, we had an enormous amount to discuss in a limited amount of time. A few things we covered: What was neoconservatism? How should political theory inform political action? Why didn’t Never-Trump conservatism work? Where did Trumpism come from? Are Straussians to blame for the Iraq War? And, why does Kristol (a longtime proponent of regime change in Iran) oppose Donald Trump’s current war with the Islamic Republic?
Further Listening:
"Harvey Mansfield on Political Philosophy," Conversations with Kristol, Jun 30, 2014
"Know Your Frenemies (w/ Samuel Moyn)," KYE, Aug 10, 2020.
Further Reading:
William Kristol & Robert Kagan, "Toward a Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy," Foreign Affairs, Jul 1, 1996.
William Kristol & David Brooks, "What Ails Conservatism," Wall Street Journal, Sept 15, 1997.
Justin Vaïsse, Neoconservatism: The Biography of a Movement, (2011)
William Kristol and Steven Lenzner, "What was Leo Strauss up to?" National Affairs, Fall 2003.
Anne Norton, Leo Strauss and the Politics of American Empire, (2004)
Sam Adler-Bell, "How the War on Terror Fuels Trump," Jacobin, Aug 13, 2016.
...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!
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In this episode, we shift our attention from the Trump administration to the winner of the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate in Texas, state legislator and Presbyterian seminarian, James Talarico. Even before prevailing in that contest earlier this month, Talarico had been having something of a moment, appearing on Ezra Klein's podcast, being profiled by the New Yorker, and generating a wave of media coverage, much of it focused on Talarico's Christian faith, his criticisms of the religious right, and what it all might mean for his political prospects in a state that remains stubbornly red. We explore what we like and what we find frustrating about Talarico's attempt to mix religious rhetoric and populism; how he navigates the complexities of speaking the language of a particular religious tradition in an increasingly secular, pluralistic society; Dr. King, the Civil Rights Movement, and prophetic religion; the place of religion on the left, and how it differs from the religious right; Herbert McCabe and socialism; and more.
Sources:
"James Talarico’s Beautiful Answer to Christian Nationalism," Ezra Klein Show, Jan 13, 2026
Matthew Sitman, "Whither the Religious Left?" New Republic, April 15, 2021
— "Against Moral Austerity: On the Need for a Christian Left," Dissent, Summer 2017
— "Finding the Words for Faith: Meet Christian Wiman, America’s Most Important Christian Writer," The Dish, Sept 3, 2014
Bill McCormick, S.J., "Joe Biden Said Now Is The Time To Heal. But What If Americans Don’t Want Reconciliation?" America, Nov 13, 2020
Vincent Lloyd, "Marcuse the Lover," Telos, Winter 2013
Alex Thompson, "Faith-forward Texas Senate Candidate Follows Porn Actors, Escorts on Instagram," Axios, Nov 8, 2025
Tad Friend, "James Talarico Puts His Faith in Texas Voters," New Yorker, Feb 23, 2026
Christian Wiman, My Bright Abyss: Meditations of a Modern Believer (2013)
Joseph Bottum, An Anxious Age: The Post-Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of America (2014)
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On February 28, both the United States and Israel attacked Iran, killing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the nation's Supreme Leader, along with other political leaders and government officials, destroying various military targets, and bombing a girls elementary school that took at least 175 lives, many of them children. Just under a week into the war, where are we? Why did Trump decide to attack Iran now? What reasons did they give, and were any of them plausible? What have the consequences been so far? And what can Democrats do to fight back? To answer these questions, we had on Matt Duss, executive vice president of the Center for International Policy and a former foreign policy adviser to Bernie Sanders. Other topics include: Michael Ledeen and the right's fixation on Iran; Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, and the Iranian hostage crisis, and more.
Sources:
Matthew Duss, "War With Iran Would Be Illegal and Stupid. Democrats Should Care," Foreign Policy, Feb 27, 2026
Zachary Basu, "Trump's Lethal Presidency," Axios, Mar 2, 2026
Mark Mazzetti, Julian E. Barnes, et al, "How Trump Decided to Go to War," New York Times, Mar 2, 2026
Michael Ledeen, The War Against the Terror Masters: Why It Happened. Where We Are Now. How We'll Win (2002)
— The Iranian Time Bomb: The Mullah Zealots' Quest for Destruction (2007)
— Accomplice to Evil: Iran and the War Against the West (2009)
...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!
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On Monday, Manhattan Institute fellow Chris Rufo posted this: "The Right's collective brain is getting melted in a vat of slop, conspiracy, and algorithm-chasing. An intelligent man will guard himself against all of it." Given that Rufo was, after J.D. Vance, perhaps the most prominent Haitians-are-eating-pets-in-Ohio conspiracy theorist in the country, his complaint generated many, many responses rightfully calling him out for his lack of self-awareness and his own role in mainstreaming such a politics. As our friend John Ganz wrote, "Is this hypocrisy, stupidity, or unabashed malevolence? Try all three: it’s politics. Specifically, it’s the politics of the American Conservative Movement. People cry out for a new William F. Buckley. Give the title to Rufo, I say; he’s doing the job already."
In this episode we talked to Ganz about how the dynamic Rufo identified has always been a feature of the postwar conservative movement, stretching back at least to William F. Buckley, Jr. and Brent Bozell's defense of McCarthyism; what's distinctive about the Right's present slop era, especially the alignment of conservative movement propagandists, the Republican Party, and the state; populism and the "Madisonian model"; and more!
Sources:
John Ganz, "I Told You So..." Unpopular Front, Feb 24, 2026
— "Finding Neverland: The American right’s doomed quest to rid itself of Trumpism," New Republic, Feb 17, 2020
Olivia Bellusci, "Candace Owens Drops Trailer for Investigative Series About Erika Kirk Months After Charlie’s Death," Yahoo, Feb 24, 2026
Matthew Sitman, "Riding the Trump Tiger," Commonweal, Aug 7, 2015
Nathan Taylor Pemberton, "Is ‘Slopulism’ Shaping Our Politics?" New York Times, Feb 13, 2026
Ruby Cramer, "You Don't Know Bernie Sanders," Buzzfeed, Dec 16, 2019.
Walter J. Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word, (1982)
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When people break with MAGA, most of them walk away and don't look back, whether out of shame or fear or both. So it's a rare thing to talk with someone willing to describe publicly why they joined the Trump movement, what life was like on the inside, and the reasons they left — but it's just such a conversation we have for you today, with writer and former New Right firebrand Pedro L. Gonzalez. Enjoy.
Sources:
Pedro L. Gonzalez, "The Right Lost the Culture War, and America," Contra, Feb 16, 2026
— "Trump Demands the Worst of Us," Contra, Feb 8, 2026
— "Why the New Right Can’t Quit Conspiracy Theories," Contra, Dec 18, 2025
— "Welcome to Hell," Contra, Dec 10, 2025
— "Gen Z’s Flight From Trump," Contra, July 24, 2025
James Burnham, The Machiavellians, (1943)
Sam Francis, Beautiful Losers, (1993)
Michael Anton, "The Flight 93 Election," Claremont Review of Books, Sept 5, 2017.
Matthew Boyle, "Rising Conservative Influencer Pedro Gonzalez Regularly Espoused Racist and Anti-Semitic Sentiments in Private Messages," Breitbart, June 27, 2023
...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!
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This episode is about Shattered Glass, the 2003 movie portraying former New Republic writer Stephen Glass's fall from the heights of magazine journalism after he was exposed as a serial fabulist who routinely made up quotes, sources, key details, and more in his stories. We've both loved this movie for years, and thought discussing it would serve as a companion of sorts to our interview with Jason Zengerle about Tucker Carlson—and, of course, as a chance for us to geek out about it. After describing the basics of the plot and introducing the main characters, we explore the history of the New Republic under its then-owner and editor in chief Marty Peretz; its string of young, Harvard educated editors during the Peretz Era, who often had short, turbulent stints in that role; fact-checking and the mythos of objective journalism; the relationship between elite magazine writing and celebrity culture during "the end of history"; and more.
Sources:
Shattered Glass (2003)
Buzz Bissinger, "Shattered Glass," Vanity Fair, Sept 1998
Howard Kurtz, "Stranger Than Fiction: The Cautionary Tale of Magazine Writer Stephen Glass," Washington Post, May 12, 1998
Jonathan Last, "Stopping Stephen Glass," Weekly Standard, Oct 30, 2003
Pete Croatto, "Why ‘Shattered Glass’ Endures," Poynter, Jan 24, 2024
Martin Peretz, The Controversialist: Arguments with Everyone, Left Right and Center (2023)
Benjamin Wallace-Wells, "Peretz in Exile," New York, Dec 23, 2010
John Cook, "Why Won't Anyone Tell You That Marty Peretz Is Gay?" Gawker, Jan 25, 2011
David Klion, "Everybody Hates Marty," The Baffler, Sept 13, 2023
Andrew Sullivan, Virtually Normal: An Argument About Homosexuality (1996)
— "The Tao of Marty," The Weekly Dish, July 21, 2023
Alex Shultz, "Nobody Wants To Talk About John Fetterman And Buzz Bissinger’s Pricey Memoir Project," Defector, June 23, 2025
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Finally, an episode about Tucker Carlson—and at an auspicious time, as his influence on the right seems only to have grown in the first year of Trump's second term. To help us understand him, we turned to journalist Jason Zengerle, who first crossed paths with Tucker in the last, halcyon days of magazine journalism before cable news and the internet, and now has written Hated By All the Right People, a book that tells two intertwined stories: the life of Tucker Carlson, and the changes in the media that he's navigated so deftly (despite some low points along the way). This conversation takes you from his adolescence to his early fame writing for The Weekly Standard and Talk to his recent interview with Nick Fuentes, and all the phases and stages of Tucker's sad trajectory toward anti-semitism and conspiracy-mongering.
Sources:
Jason Zengerle, Hated By All the Right People: Tucker Carlson and the Unraveling of the Conservative Mind (2026)
Andrew Marantz, "The Tucker Carlson Roadshow," New Yorker, Nov 1, 2024
...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 shocking execution of Alex Pretti occurred after we recorded our last episode for subscribers about Minneapolis, and so the city and its people have remained in our thoughts in a special way. To help us understand what's happening on the ground there, we talked to our friend Lydia Polgreen, who grew up in Minneapolis and traveled there to report on the situation for the New York Times. Topics include: how Lydia approached her reporting in Minneapolis; the way the resistance and response to ICE/BP has drawn on networks forged during the George Floyd protests; the ordinary Minnesotans acting with bravery and courage; the "civil war" she glimpsed on the streets of Minneapolis; original sin and democracy; and more.
Previous episodes referenced: "The Donroe Doctrine" (Jan 26, 2026); "The Killing of Renee Good" (Jan 19, 2026)
Sources:
Lydia Polgreen, David French, & Michelle Goldberg, "'Noem Needs to Go': Three Columnists on ICE in Minneapolis," New York Times, Jan 26, 2026
Lydia Polgreen, "In Minneapolis, I Glimpsed a Civil War," New York Times, Jan 19, 2026
— "Trump’s One Small Trick to Destroy American Democracy," New York Times, Jan 9, 2026
Garry Wills, The Second Civil War: Arming for Armageddon (1968)
Emily Witt, "The Battle for Minneapolis," The New Yorker, Jan 25, 2026
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Last week, all eyes were on Davos as President Trump unfurled his deranged desire to buy or take Greenland from Denmark—just weeks after the United States kidnapped Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and Trump asserted the so-called "Donroe Doctrine." To help us understand what the Trump administration is doing in the Western hemisphere, we talked to the Progressive International's David Adler and Matt Kirkegaard, who take us from the Monroe Doctrine to what Trump had done both in his first term and in the first year of his second term in Venezuela and other Latin American countries before abducting Maduro. We then try to grasp what the Trump administration is up to with Greenland, all the while trying to offer a better explanation of the forces shaping Trump's foreign policy than the elusive search for a coherent theory of "Trumpism."
Sources:
Patrick Iber, "The Trump Doctrine," Dissent, Jan 5, 2026
Alexandra Stevenson, "Trump Is Making a Power Play in Latin America. China Is Already There," New York Times, Jan 9, 2026
David Adler, Vanessa Romero Rocha, Michael Galant, "The Fourth Transformation: The political economy of Claudia Sheinbaum’s popularity," Phenomenal World, Apr 3, 2025.
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- Visa fler
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