Know Your Enemy

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)

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.

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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)

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)

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