What We Got Wrong (and Right) about the Right in 2025 [Teaser]

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.As the end of the year approaches, we wanted to look back at another year of trying to understand the American right—what we got wrong, what we got right, and what to expect in 2026. The conversation begins with the cracks showing in Trump's coalition, his plummeting approval ratings, and the possibility that Charlie Kirk really was helping hold the marriage of MAGA and the GOP together, then consider if we should have seen this coming (or not) and what it might say about our understanding of Trump, Vance, Kirk, Musk, and others we've considered on KYE in 2025.Sources:Christopher Flavelle, "How Biden Ignored Warnings and Lost Americans’ Faith in Immigration," New York Times, Dec 7, 2025Bilal Baydoun, "What Musk's DOGE Really Cut: Trust, Safety, and Democracy," Roosevelt Institute, May 29, 2025Jake Tapper & Alex Thompson, Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again (2025)"Jill Lepore on Nationalism, Populism, and the State of America," EconTalk, April 15, 2019Ryan Burge, "Religion Has Become A Luxury Good For The Middle Class, Married College Graduate With Children," ReligionUnplugged, July 12, 2023Matt Dinan, "Permission Structures: How AI-skeptic Professors Can Still Help Students Write Papers," Prefaces, Dec 10, 2025

Given the not-terribly-uplifting streak of episodes we've had lately, we thought it was time for a Know Your Enemy movie night, and were joined by the podcast's intrepid producer, Jesse Brenneman, for a conversation about Paul Thomas Anderson's 2025 film, One Battle After Another. Its tagline—"When their evil enemy resurfaces after 16 years, a group of ex-revolutionaries reunite to rescue the daughter of one of their own"—suggests why all three of us absolutely loved it. We discuss: the film's relationship to the contemporary United States, and what it might reveal about our political situation; how it portrays both the left and the right; the family drama at the heart of the film, and the connection between origin and identity, personally and politically; the way Ronald Reagan haunts a surprising number of its scenes; and more! Spoiler alert: we offer a quick plot summary for those who haven't (yet!) seen One Battle After Another, but that does mean certain surprises will be spoiled for you.Sources:Sam Adler-Bell, "The Fantasy of Assassination Culture," New York Magazine, Nov 1, 2025Armond White, "There Will Be Bloodlust in One Battle After Another," National Review, Sept 26, 2025Richard Brody, "The Real Battle of 'One Battle After Another,'" New Yorker, Oct 7, 2025...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.Should you try to improve your friends or leave them be? Do friendship and politics mix? Is friendship about virtue or delight? In 2023, we were interviewed by Andrew Elrick, now a professor at Marist University, for a documentary podcast he was making about men and friendship. (Two of our favorite topics!) That podcast never came to fruition, but Andy was kind enough to share this audio with us, and now we're sharing it with you: a conversation about friendship — Matt and Sam's in particular — politics, and podcasting. Enjoy!Further Reading:Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, (350 BCE)  Michel de Montaigne , “On Friendship” from The Essays of Michel de Montaigne (1580) Judith Shklar, “On Political Obligation,” (2019)Allan Bloom, Love and Friendship (1993)  Michael Oakeshott,  “On Being Conservative,” (1956)Dewey, Democracy and Education (1916)Andrew Elrick, "Friendship is a Dangerous Thing," Game Stories, Nov 9, 2025.

Laura K. Field's Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right, published earlier this month, is a book we simply had to discuss. Listeners to this podcast will recognize its cast of characters—conservative intellectuals like Patrick Deneen, Michael Anton, John Eastman, Adrian Vermeule, and Harry Jaffa, among others—whose ideas and influence Field carefully categorizes and evaluates, bringing order to an unruly decade of intellectual history. Topics include: Leo Strauss and the problem of great teachers; the use and abuse of grand narratives by the right; how the Claremonters went all in on Trump; the permission given by postliberals to some of the nastiest impulses on the right; and more!Sources:Laura K. Field, Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right (2025)— "Revisiting Why Liberalism Failed: A Five-Part Series," Niskanen Center, Dec 21, 2020Patrick Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed (2018)— Regime Change: Toward a Postliberal Future (2023)Matthew Sitman, "Liberalism and the Catholic Left," Commonweal, Dec 3, 2018Publius Decius Mus/Michael Anton, "The Flight 93 Election," Claremont Review of Books, Sept 5, 2016Adrian Vermeule, "Integration from Within," American Affairs, Spring 2018The Editors, "The Fight is Now," The American Mind, Nov 5, 2020Anemona Hartocollis, "On Campus, Trump Fans Say They Need 'Safe Spaces,'" New York Times, Dec 8, 2016Further Listening: KYE: "Rise of the Illiberal Right," July 12, 2019. KYE: "Midnight in the Garden of American Heroes (On West Coast Straussians)," Feb 11, 2021. KYE: "Unraveling Allan Bloom and Saul Bellow," June 21, 2021. KYE: "The Afterlife of January 6," July 19, 2021....and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.If there's a Trump-era topic that manages to fascinate without being entirely depressing, it's probably the ongoing arguments about architecture that his ascension has occasioned. Proponents of a RETVRN to the architectural ideals of ancient Greece and Rome are prominent in MAGA circles; partisans of a neo-classical revival populate government commissions, and their prescriptions have found expression in several executive orders. To understand who these people are, what their movement wants, and the kernel of truth in their grievances, we talked to architectural critic and proprietor of McMansion Hell Kate Wagner. We start by analyzing Trump's ballroom and the demolishing the East Wing of the White House — the perfect way into MAGA architecture and the mind of their Beautiful Builder himself, Donald J. Trump.Sources:Kate Wagner, "Duncing About Architecture," New Republic, Feb 8, 2020— "Trump Will Not Make Architecture Great Again," The Nation, Jan 7, 2025— "The Real Problem With Trump’s Cheesy Neoclassical Building Fetish," Feb 12, 2025— "what the fuck are we doing anymore," The Late Review, Jan 9, 2025.Charlie Nash, "Trump Admits He Could've Built Ballroom Without Destroying the East Wing, But 'It Looked Like Hell,'" Mediate, Nov 10, 2025

This episode isn't focused on a single topic or text, but rather just wanting to have a wide-ranging conversation with our guest, Peter Beinart, editor-at-large of Jewish Currents and author of the recent book, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning. We start by discussing the appalling wave of Islamophobic attacks against Zohran Mamdani during the last weeks of his victorious mayoral campaign, the short-sighted embrace of such bigotry by too many American Jews and Jewish institutions, the current iterations of anti-semitism roiling the right, religious tradition and progressive politics, changing your mind, and more.Listen again: "Elon Musk, the Jews, and the ADL" (w/ Mari Cohen, Alex Kane, & Peter Beinart), Sept 26, 2023Sources:Zohran Mamdani, "My Message to Muslim New Yorkers—and Everyone Who Calls This City Home," YouTube, Oct 24, 2025Peter Beinart, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning (2025)Mark Mazower, On Antisemitism: A Word in History, (2025)Arwa Mahdawi, "Mamdani's Mayoral Race was Marred by Unhinged Islamophobia. It's Not Going Away Soon," The Guardian, Nov 6, 2025Romanus Cessario, O.P., "Non Possumus," First Things, Feb 1, 2018George Washington, "To the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island," August 18, 1790...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

This is a different kind of episode than is typical; there's no book, no central text, not even a single, central event that guides the conversation. Instead, we begin with a few recent news items—speculation about Trump 2028, Speaker Mike Johnson's refusal to swear in a Democratic congresswoman, the stunning abdication of Congress as the shutdown continues, and, incredibly, a secretive billionaire and Mellon heir donates over a hundred million dollars to pay the military, among others—and then lay out our profound worries about Trump ruling by decree, and the coming of MAGA-style Caeserism. How and when might that occur? We discuss troubling signals the Trump administration is sending about upcoming elections, and especially the 2026 midterms; the ticking time bomb that is the Insurrection Act; how the right thinks about executive power (then and now), and more.Sources:Peter Rothpletz, "Trump's Third Term?" Zeteo/First Draft, Oct 24, 2025Dana Milbank, "How Reactionary is MAGA? Try the First Century B.C.," Washington Post, Sept 7, 2022Steve Bannon interview with The Economist, Oct 23, 2025 (YouTube)Shawn Hubler & Laurel Rosenhall, "Justice Department Will Monitor Elections in California and New Jersey," New York Times, Oct 24, 2025Steve Contorno & Ashley Killough, "Frustrated Arizonans Have Waited More Than a Month for Their New Congresswoman to be Seated," CNN, Oct 25, 2025Yoni Applebaum, "America's Fragile Constitution," The Atlantic, Oct 2015Abraham Lincoln, "Speech to the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield," Jan 27, 1838Bob Bauer & Jack Goldsmith, "Here’s What Trump Could Unleash by Invoking the Insurrection Act," New York Times, Oct 18, 2025Damon Linker, "The Surest Path to Dictatorship: A Quick Plug for a Short Primer about the Insurrection Act," Notes from the Middleground, Oct 18, 2025"Discussing Caesarism," New Founding Podcast, Oct 21, 2022. Harvey Mansfield, Taming the Prince: The Ambivalence of Modern Executive Power (1989)James Burnham, Congress and the American Tradition (1959)Garry Wills, Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State (2010)...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.The theme of this rank punditry episode is Getting in Trouble on the Internet, and we begin with the frankly unsurprising story of the Young Republican Hitler group chats, then move on to a longer discussion about Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in Maine, Graham Platner, and the revelations about controversial past posts on Reddit about guns and fighting fascism, rural white voters, his ideological allegiances, and more—all recorded before the news of his tattoo, now covered over, of a Nazi skull-and-bones insignia. Along the way we talk about what makes a change of mind and heart persuasive, how grace comes to us in our struggles, if Platner is Fetterman 2.0, and the class dimension of all these debates, and finally close with a relatively hopeful take on the "No Kings" protests last weekend.Sources:Jason Beeferman and Emily Ngo, "'I Love Hitler': Leaked Messages Expose Young Republicans' Racist Chat," Politico, Oct 14, 2025Julianne McShane, “No One in the GOP Hitler Chat Was a ‘Kid’: We checked. Sorry, JD Vance," Mother Jones, Oct 15, 2025Adam Wren, Erin Doherty & Jessica Piper, "Maine Senate Candidate Promoted Violent Political Action in Since-Deleted Online Posts," Politico, Oct 16, 2025Lauren McCauley, "Unearthed Reddit Comments Present First Stumble in Platner’s Rise," Maine Morning Star, Oct 17, 2025Kimberlee Kruesi & Patrick Whittle, "Maine Senate Candidate Platner Says Tattoo Recognized as Nazi Symbol Has Been Covered," Associated Press, Oct 23, 2025Ben Terris, "The Hidden Struggle of John Fetterman," New York, May 2, 2025Christian Wiman, My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer (2013)

This episode is the second in our occasional series on important, controversial, or unusually relevant conservative texts from the recent past. Here we take up Charles Murray's 2012 book, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010. With its focus on the ascendence of a new "cognitive elite," cultural divides, and the pathologies afflicting working and lower class whites, the book might seem prophetic of the Age of Trump — but the reality is more complicated. Murray's oversights, it turns out, are as interesting as his insights. We walk listeners through Murray's account of how America "came apart," take the test he provides to see how thick our class/cultural bubbles are, then rip into the moralizing prescriptions with which he concludes the book. Along the way we discuss Murray as an emblematic success story of the right-wing welfare state and intellectual pipeline, revisit his obsession with race and IQ, and more!Sources:Charles Murray, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010 (2012)— Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950 (2003)— Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950-1980 (1984)Jason DeParle, "Daring Research or 'Social Science Pornography'? Charles Murray," New York Times, Oct 9, 1994Jane Mayer, Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right (2016)Pew Research Center, "Religious Landscape Study," Feb 26, 2025Quinn Slobodian & Stuart Schrader, "The White Man, Unburdened," The Baffler, July 2018"Do you live in a bubble? A quiz." PBS Newshour, Mar 24, 2016. ...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.Before embarking on a spirited bout of rank punditry, we take a step back and talk about the Staple Singers, Hannah Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism, Tocqueville's Democracy in America, Zohran, and giving a damn about both your "fellow man" and democracy. Then, we walk you through the latest catalogue of horrors: Hegseth's lame TED talk in front of the generals, the menacing yet comically inept dimestore Gestapo that is ICE, the shutdown, and more!Sources:Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835, 1840)Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951)Jasper Craven, "Battle of the Sexes," The Baffler, Sept 2025"Deafies for Zohran" (YouTube)"Things Can Change" (X)