Know Your Enemy

The second Trump administration hasn't started, but it's already proving chaotic, disturbing, and downright bewildering. (Not unlike the first!) Trump's picks for key staff and cabinet positions display a discordant, if not altogether surprising, mix of ideologies, experience, and scandalous baggage. (Indeed, one of his picks, Matt Gaetz for Attorney General, withdrew from consideration between the time we recorded our interview and when we recorded the intro.)For this episode, we're focused on Trump's national security team, which is shaping up to be divided against itself: neoconservatives like Marco Rubio (State) alongside quasi-isolationists like Tulsi Gabbard (Director of National Intelligence) alongside bellicose TV personalities like Pete Hegseth (Defense). To make sense of it all, we're joined by Curt Mills, a longtime foreign policy reporter and executive director of The American Conservative.  A semi-enemy, Curt hails from the paleoconservative school of foreign affairs, which prioritizes realism and restraint. (That is to say, he's not thrilled about Rubio...) Based on Trump's appointments thus far, we ask Curt to assess, from his perspective, the relative strength of various factions of the Trump coalition: Will Trump listen to the warmongers in his midst? Will he side with the America Firsters? Or will he ignore everyone and just make some deals? Listen to find out.  Further Reading: Curt Mills, "What a Trump Cabinet Might Look Like," The American Conservative, Oct 18, 2024.— "What Trump Could Do in Foreign Policy Might Surprise the World," NYTimes, May 13, 2024.Patrick Smith & Peter Alexander, "Police report details alleged sexual assault by Trump's defense pick Pete Hegseth," NBC News, Nov 21, 2024. Baker, Haberman, Swan, "Gaetz’s withdrawal follows revelations in a sex-trafficking inquiry." NYTimes, Nov 21, 2024. Dave Phillips and Carol Rosenberg, "The Metamorphosis of Pete Hegseth: From Critic of War Crimes to Defender of the Accused," NYTimes, Nov 21, 2024. David Frum, "Unpatriotic Conservatives," National Review, Mar 25, 2003. ...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!In our first episode after the 2024 elections, we briefly considered what the results revealed about how Donald Trump won, and why Kamala Harris lost, before discussing what Trump's first picks for his White House staff and Cabinet meant for his second terms as president. This conversation is different—a proper "post-mortem" of the results and a bit of a group therapy, mixed with wide-ranging reflections on what it all says about the state of Democratic Party, the country, and perhaps even our souls. Topics include: a (long) list of all the reasons that might account for Harris's defeat, the deranged attempt to keep Biden as the nominee despite his obvious decline, the Democrats' decades-long defensiveness on "cultural issues," why Trump's felony convictions didn't seem to hurt his campaign, the lost promise of 2020 and a politics of care and solidarity, the debate over "Bidenomics," and much more!One small note: we mention the controversy over Harris not appearing on Joe Rogan's podcast, and after we recorded further reporting came out on the decision. Rather than re-recording that section or deleting it altogether, we thought we'd keep it in, with listeners determining for themselves what explanation makes the most sense.Sources:Zack Beauchamp, "The Global Trend that Pushed Donald Trump to Victory," Vox, Nov 6, 2024Shane Goldmacher, Maggie Haberman, and Jonathan Swan, "How Trump Won, and How Harris Lost," New York Times, Nov 7, 2024Matthew Sitman, "The Morning After," Liberties, Nov 7, 2024Gabe Winant, "Exit Right," Dissent, Nov 8, 2024Tim Barker, "Dealignment," Sidecar, Nov 11, 2024Sam Adler-Bell, "Can Liberalism Stop Being So Darn...Liberal?" New Republic, June 20, 2024

As the reality of Donald Trump's decisive victory sets in, we wanted to talk to Politico's Ian Ward, who's done some of the very best reporting on post-liberal intellectuals, JD Vance, and MAGA-world, in addition to spending time on the campaign trail this fall. After breaking down the results of the presidential election, we discuss Vance's role in the campaign, his standing with Trump, and friendship with Don Jr.; how the Trump transition is taking shape and who's likely to influence his decisions at the start of his second term; whether Project 2025 will actually be implemented; if the Republican Party will actually govern in a pro-worker way; and much more! Sources:Ian Ward, "Trump Loves Her. His Allies Don’t Trust Her," Politico, Oct 25, 2024— "What the Mainstream Media Can Learn from 'Bro Podcasters,'" Politico, Oct 24, 2024— "The Seven Thinkers and Groups That Have Shaped JD Vance’s Unusual Worldview," Politico, July 18, 2024— "Is There Something More Radical than MAGA?" Politico, Mar 15, 2024— "The Socialists Who Love Talking to Conservatives," Politico, Feb 4, 2022Sam Adler-Bell, "The Shadow War to Determine the Next Trump Administration," NYT, Jan 10, 2024Matthew Sitman, "The Morning After," Liberties, Nov 7, 2024...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

If you're on the left and you've spent time on the internet in the past few weeks, you've probably observe or participated in debates about the strategic value and moral status of voting in the 2024 election: Is it okay to vote for Kamala Harris even though her administration is complicit in a genocide? Is voting an exercise in signaling one's moral convincetions and identity? Or merely a tactical decision calculated to create better or worse terrain on which to organize in the future? Or is it something else altogether?Perhaps these debates have stimulated you; perhaps they've filled you with despair; or perhaps (like Sam) they've driven you nuts. The intention of this conversation — with three of my favorite writers and thinkers — is to help us see further: past the stale categories and tendentious arguments that leave us, on the left, feeling frustrated and mistrustful, rather than mobilized and oriented toward a future beyond November 5th.Our guests include: Astra Taylor, filmmaker, writer, organizer, and cofounder of The Debt Collective; author and organizer Malcolm Harris; and Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, author, political philosopher, and co-editor of Hammer & Hope — a new magazine of black politics and culture.Further Reading/Viewing/Listening:Malcolm Harris, Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World, (2023)Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else), (2022)Astra Taylor, The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart, (2023)— "What is Democracy?" (Zeitgeist Films, 2019)Josie Ensor, "They voted Democrat for years — but the war in Lebanon changes everything," The Times, Oct 25, 2024."Arizona Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and Progressive Democrats and Community Leaders Statement on Presidential Election," Oct 24, 2024.KYE, The Uncommitted Movement (w/ Waleed Shahid & Abbas Alawieh), Sept 4, 2024.