Know Your Enemy: Know Your Frenemies, with Samuel Moyn

Know Your Enemy: Know Your Frenemies, with Samuel Moyn

A conversation with historian Samuel Moyn on the Never Trump movement, a collection of conservative intellectuals and Republican operatives trying to consolidate the so-called political center against not just Trump but also the left.

Know Your Enemy is a podcast about the American right co-hosted by Matthew Sitman and Sam Adler-Bell. Read more about it here. You can subscribe, rate, and review to the show on Apple Podcasts and Stitcher, and receive bonus content by supporting the podcast on Patreon.

Matt and Sam welcome Yale historian Samuel Moyn to the show for a deep-dive into the Never Trump movement. Who are the Never Trumpers? How seriously should we take the heroic story they tell about themselves? Did they sink Bernie’s campaign for the Democratic nomination? Have they reckoned with their role in paving the way for Trump? In trying to answer these questions the conversation moves from the baleful influence of Never Trumpers to a discussion of historical debates about over the rise of fascism, the perils of “tyrannophobia,” and the possibilities for breaking through the hegemony of neoliberals and neoconservatives in our political life.

Further Reading:

Samuel Moyn, “The Never Trumpers Have Already Won” (New Republic)

Robert P. Saldin and Steven M. Teles, “Don’t Blame Never Trumpers for the Left’s Defeat” (New Republic)

Samuel Moyn and David Priestland, “Trump Isn’t a Threat to Our Democracy. Hysteria Is” (New York Times)

Samuel Moyn, “Interview: We Can’t Settle for Human Rights” (Jacobin)

Sam Adler-Bell, “The Remnant and the Restless Crowd” (Commonweal)

Matthew Sitman, “Riding the Trump Tiger” (Commonweal)

Pankaj Mishra, “The Mask It Wears” (London Review of Books)

John Ganz, “Finding Neverland: The American Right’s Doomed Quest to Rid Itself of Trumpism” (New Republic)

Marshall Steinbaum, “Guardians of Property” (Jacobin)

Books Cited:

Robert P. Saldin and Steven M. Teles, Never Trump: The Revolt of the Conservative Elite (Oxford University Press)

Samuel Moyn, Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World (Harvard University Press)

James Chappel, Catholic Modern : The Challenge of Totalitarianism and the Remaking of the Church (Harvard University Press)