Politics
'Know Your Enemy' podcast gets why Taylor Swift drives conservatives crazy
If Democrats want to understand why president-elect Donald Trump is returning to the White House, a good place to start might be the “Know Your Enemy” podcast, hosted by two self-described leftist bros who, without mockery or tongue-in-cheek elitism, explore the complicated past and feverish present of the American conservative movement.
It’s a sort of anti-Joe Rogan program for a perplexed and dismayed left-wing set curious about William F. Buckley Jr., Ronald Reagan, the rise of the tea party movement, conservative fans of the Grateful Dead and why so many right-wing commentators suffer from “Taylor Swift derangement syndrome.” The show’s interrogation of conservative history is rigorous and occasionally peppered with expletives, but the exchanges with guests are nuanced and civil.
“Know Your Enemy” was started in 2019 by Matthew Sitman, the son of a factory worker raised in a Christian fundamentalist home in central Pennsylvania, and Sam Adler-Bell, a Jew who grew up in a left-leaning family, listening to union leaders and visiting picket lines with his labor-lawyer father. They met when Sitman, then an editor at Commonweal Magazine, asked Adler-Bell to write book reviews. The two shared a fascination for country music and right-wing politics, believing the best way to oppose conservatives is not to berate or ridicule but to respect and understand.
The podcast’s topics include William F. Buckley Jr., a founder of the modern conservative movement, seen conceding defeat in the 1965 New York City mayoral election.
(John J. Lent / Associated Press)
“Even if I come to find the [conservative] ideas unpersuasive, there might be some kernel or core there” — such as understanding the costs and consequences of social change — “that’s worth treating seriously and exploring,” said Sitman, 43, a onetime conservative disciple turned Bernie Sanders fan.
“The left has to think really hard about why we’re right [in our beliefs],” Adler-Bell, 34, said in one episode, adding that conservatives are not “self-consciously evil,” but rather rooted in their convictions.
Such equanimity is rare in the age of podcasts and politics of recrimination. The driving forces of the moment are fixated less on enlightenment than on attacking, distorting and vanquishing. Disdain and division reverberate across a vast and partisan social media landscape that includes X, TikTok and YouTube. A recent poll by the Pew Research Center found that 37% of Americans under 30 regularly get news from social media influencers, the large majority of whom have no background with or ties to news organizations.
“Know Your Enemy,” which the two record in their New York apartments, has a modest audience — about 30,000 listeners an episode and 8,000 subscribers who bring in $39,000 a month. The show is smaller than more prominent podcasts with similarly progressive temperaments. “Pod Save America,” hosted by Jon Favreau and other former aides to President Obama, has a reported 20 million monthly downloads; and Tim Miller, host of “The Bulwark Podcast,” which is described as providing an “unabashed defense of liberal democracy,” has nearly 400,000 followers on X. Sitman has 31,300 followers on the platform, and Adler-Bell has 46,300.
But “Know Your Enemy” appeals to socialists, Democrats and more than a few conservatives — some who have been guests — interested in right-wing thought including that of neoconservatives, so-called reformicons and a species known as the paleoconservative. The show, as it wades into what Adler-Bell calls a “swampy morass” of conservative history that touches on free markets and American interventionism, is heavy on reading lists.
“It’s an innovative and important podcast,” said Curt Mills, executive director of the American Conservative magazine, who appeared on the show in November to discuss foreign policy and Trump’s picks for his national security team. “It doesn’t have an enormous audience, but it’s an extremely important audience.”
He added that the show’s willingness to dissect center-right ideas at a time when the left often demonizes Republicans implies “a level of curiosity that I think was often lacking for the last eight years. … They’re essentially honest brokers.”
Jon Lovett, Tommy Vietor and Jon Favreau, from left, co-host the more popular “Pod Save America” with their fellow former Obama administration aide Dan Pfeiffer, not pictured.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Other podcasts that focus on right-wing politics include “5-4,” which analyzes Supreme Court cases, and “In Bed with the Right,” which studies conservative ideas on sexuality and gender. But few are as comprehensive as “Know Your Enemy.”
The show’s liberal followers are loyal but don’t hesitate to take Sitman and Adler-Bell to task when they sense a whiff of politesse toward the right.
An interview with rising young conservative Nate Hochman, who was later fired as a speechwriter for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for posting Nazi-adopted imagery online, drew backlash. And after the Mills episode, a listener wrote: “Completely ridiculous how you let him get away with talking about [Pete] Hegseth and the intelligence scandals around Tulsi [Gabbard]. If that’s your approach to having conservatives on – no thanks.”
Another wrote, “Stop giving Trump apologists a platform.”
“We’re really not debaters,” Adler-Bell said. “I think other podcasts on the left, if they had a conservative or a person they disagreed with, the goal would be victory. To embarrass or humiliate the guests. We just don’t do that.”
Listening to Sitman and Adler-Bell is like wandering the basement stacks of a library with two grad students jazzed on coffee and shuffling index cards. Nothing is too obscure, no tidbit too arcane. In an episode that discussed Buckley, founder of the National Review and widely considered the godfather of modern conservatism, the hosts examined extremist and racist elements in the conservative movement half a century ago that persist today.
In another show, they discussed global right-wing populism and a class realignment that foreshadowed Trump’s victory in November.
“Know Your enemy” also delves into right-wing influences on film, music and literature. It examined how conservatism played into the careers of celebrated authors such as Joan Didion — “why she loved Barry Goldwater and hated Ronald Reagan” — and Tom Wolfe, he of the vanilla suits and quicksilver prose, who navigated how post-World War II prosperity led to American subcultures.
Sitman and Adler-Bell spent more than an hour in March on an episode about Taylor Swift.
“Why does she make the right so crazy? Why does she sometimes make the left so crazy? What does her celebrity mean?” Adler-Bell asked at the beginning of the show. “What can she tell us about the nature of American culture today? It turns out, listeners, Taylor Swift is a great lens into making sense of some of the American berserk.”
The podcast offers possible solutions for how liberals and Democrats can appeal to working-class voters they have lost. In an episode called “Organizing in Rural America,” the hosts spoke with Luke Mayville of Reclaim Idaho, a grassroots group that mobilized voters to expand Medicaid in a deep-red state.
“Know Your Enemy” has criticized Democrats for hubris and elitism as the party has shifted toward identity politics and urban college-educated voters. That occurred in the years Trump was breaking taboos within the Republican Party by opposing the war in Afghanistan and global trade, and, according to Sitman, tapping into a “vicious and nativist” anti-immigration sentiment that was embraced by his working-class base even as it left the GOP establishment initially uneasy.
“I can’t really remember when a candidate had shown up in the place where I grew up and told people they were being ripped off and they were right to be angry,” said Sitman, who is on the editorial board of the leftist magazine Dissent, which partners with his podcast. “The nature of Trump’s transgressions mattered less than their anger at the system.”
Sitman and Adler-Bell discussed Taylor Swift, and some conservatives’ views of her, for more than an hour in a March episode.
(John Shearer / Getty Images for TAS Rights Management)
Sitman knows something about that anger. Growing up in a blue-collar, deeply Christian home, he was shaped by the Bible and the conservative politics of self-reliance. Those who fail in life, he once thought, bring it on themselves. He carried those views into young adulthood as he met prominent conservative thinkers while interning at the Heritage Foundation and attending graduate school at Georgetown University.
“I was at my most conservative,” he said, “when I experienced the least of the world — when I was at my most naive.”
His sentiments shifted after he experienced severe depression and reflected on the struggles of others and how the economic class one is born into affects the trajectory of their future.
“The reason I moved from right to left is not because my fundamental values changed,” said Sitman, who has converted to Roman Catholicism. Rather, it was because he came to realize he wasn’t empathetic enough to class differences and the privations of others.
Sitman — who as a boy saw his father pull out one of his teeth over the kitchen sink because he lacked dental insurance — wrote in a 2016 essay for Dissent: “The failure of conservatives to attend to the world as it actually exists, the world in its suffering and hardship, drove me from their ranks.”
Adler-Bell’s upbringing was more secular, tailored by labor struggles and watching movies like “Matewan,” about union organizing in the coalfields of West Virginia in the 1920s. This background taught him, he said, the power of solidarity: “We are all vulnerable, frail and broken and flawed, and the only way we can overcome atomized suffering is through recognizing [this] in others.”
At which point, Sitman, the more understated of the two, chimed in during an interview: “Your diaper was pink, if not red.”
They laughed, then pressed on.
The conservative right, said Adler-Bell, who writes for Jewish Currents, the New Republic and other publications, is less empathetic to shared vulnerability.
“Trump represents,” he added, “more explicitly than any politician I think maybe in American history, … the message of the racketeer, of the mafioso who says, ‘I will protect you, and you can get yours, and everyone else, f— ’em.’ The world is a war of all against all.”
Both hosts wonder who will rise as key players in the new Trump administration. Elon Musk, who spent more than $250 million to help get Trump elected, is in the ascent and supports the president-elect’s pro-business agenda. But Trump’s eldest son, Donald Jr., is also a force. He is close to Vice President-elect JD Vance, whose brand of economic populism leans more toward the working class of Trump’s base than corporate America.
They are also watching how Trump, who has threatened to arrest his political enemies, will oversee the FBI and the Justice Department, and how much of a hawk Sen. Marco Rubio might be if he becomes secretary of State.
“We’re very much in Versailles, French monarch territory,” said Sitman. “Observing the courtiers around the king and trying to decipher who wins favor.”
Embassy staffers and dependents evacuating, airlines suspending service, eyes in Iran warily turning skyward for signs of an attack.
The prospects of a showdown between the U.S. and Iran loom ever higher, as massive American naval and air power lies in wait off Iran’s shores and land borders.
Yet little of that urgency is felt in Iran’s government. Rather than quickly acquiescing to President Trump’s demands, Iranian diplomats persist in the kind of torturously slow diplomatic dance that marked previous discussions with the U.S., a pace that prompted Trump to declare on Friday that the Iranians were not negotiating in “good faith.”
But For Iran’s leadership, Iranian experts say, concessions of the sort Trump are asking for about nuclear power and the country’s role in the Middle East undermine the very ethos of the Islamic Republic and the decades-old project it has created.
“As an Islamic theocracy, Iran serves as a role model for the Islamic world. And as a role model, we cannot capitulate,” said Hamid Reza Taraghi, who heads international affairs for Iran’s Islamic Coalition Party, or Hezb-e Motalefeh Eslami.
Besides, he added, “militarily we are strong enough to fight back and make any enemy regret attacking us.”
Even as another round of negotiations ended with no resolution this week, the U.S. has completed a buildup involving more than 150 aircraft into the region, along with roughly a third of all active U.S. ships.
Observers say those forces remain insufficient for anything beyond a short campaign of a few weeks or a high-intensity kinetic strike.
Iran would be sure to retaliate, perhaps against an aircraft carrier or the many U.S. military bases arrayed in the region. Though such an attack is unlikely to destroy its target, it could damage or at least disrupt operations, demonstrating that “American power is not untouchable,” said Hooshang Talé, a former Iranian parliamentarian.
Tehran could also mobilize paramilitary groups it cultivated in the region, including Iraqi militias and Yemen’s Houthis, Talé added. Other U.S. rivals, such as Russia and China, may seize the opportunity to launch their own campaigns elsewhere in the world while the U.S. remains preoccupied in the Middle East, he said.
“From this perspective, Iran would not be acting entirely alone,” Tale said. “Indirect alignment among U.S. adversaries — even without a formal alliance — would create a cascading effect.”
We’re not exactly happy with the way they’re negotiating and, again, they cannot have nuclear weapons
— President Trump
The U.S. demands Iran give up all nuclear enrichment and relinquish existing stockpiles of enriched uranium so as to stop any path to developing a bomb. Iran has repeatedly stated it does not want to build a nuclear weapon and that nuclear enrichment would be for exclusively peaceful purposes.
The Trump administration has also talked about curtailing Iran’s ballistic missile program and its support to proxy groups, such as Hezbollah, in the region, though those have not been consistent demands. Tehran insists the talks should be limited to the nuclear issue.
After indirect negotiations on Thursday, Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi — the mediator for the talks in Geneva — lauded what he said was “significant progress.” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said there had been “constructive proposals.”
Trump, however, struck a frustrated tone when speaking to reporters on Friday.
“We’re not exactly happy with the way they’re negotiating and, again, they cannot have nuclear weapons,” he said.
Trump also downplayed concerns that an attack could escalate into a longer conflict.
This frame grab from footage circulating on social media shows protesters dancing and cheering around a bonfire during an anti-government protest in Tehran, Iran, on Jan. 9.
(Uncredited / Associated Press)
“I guess you could say there’s always a risk. You know, when there’s war, there’s a risk in anything, both good and bad,” Trump said.
Three days earlier, in his State of the Union address Tuesday, said, “My preference is to solve this problem through diplomacy. But one thing is certain, I will never allow the world’s number one sponsor of terror, which they are by far, to have a nuclear weapon — can’t let that happen.”
There are other signs an attack could be imminent.
On Friday, the U.S. Embassy in Israel allowed staff to leave the country if they wished. That followed an earlier move this week to evacuate dependents in the embassy in Lebanon. Other countries have followed suit, including the U.K, which pulled its embassy staff in Tehran. Meanwhile, several airlines have suspended service to Israel and Iran.
A U.S. military campaign would come at a sensitive time for Iran’s leadership.
The country’s armed forces are still recovering from the June war with Israel and the U.S, which left more than 1,200 people dead and more than 6,000 injured in Iran. In Israel, 28 people were killed and dozens injured.
Unrest in January — when security forces killed anywhere from 3,000 to 30,000 protesters (estimates range wildly) — means the government has no shortage of domestic enemies. Meanwhile, long-term sanctions have hobbled Iran’s economy and left most Iranians desperately poor.
Despite those vulnerabilities, observers say the U.S. buildup is likely to make Iran dig in its heels, especially because it would not want to set the precedent of giving up positions at the barrel of a U.S. gun.
Other U.S. demands would constitute red lines. Its missile arsenal, for example, counts as its main counter to the U.S. and Israel, said Rose Kelanic, Director of the Middle East Program at the Defense Priorities think tank.
“Iran’s deterrence policy is defense by attrition. They act like a porcupine so the bear will drop them… The missiles are the quills,” she said, adding that the strategy means Iran cannot fully defend against the U.S., but could inflict pain.
At the same time, although mechanisms to monitor nuclear enrichment exist, reining in Tehran’s support for proxy groups would be a much harder matter to verify.
But the larger issue is that Iran doesn’t trust Trump to follow through on whatever the negotiations reach.
After all, it was Trump who withdrew from an Obama-era deal designed to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions, despite widespread consensus Iran was in compliance.
Trump and numerous other critics complained Iran was not constrained in its other “malign activities,” such as support for militant groups in the Middle East and development of ballistic missiles. The Trump administration embarked on a policy of “maximum pressure” hoping to bring Iran to its knees, but it was met with what Iran watchers called maximum resistance.
In June, he joined Israel in attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities, a move that didn’t result in the Islamic Republic returning to negotiations and accepting Trump’s terms. And he has waxed wistfully about regime change.
“Trump has worked very hard to make U.S. threats credible by amassing this huge military force offshore, and they’re extremely credible at this point,” Kelanic said.
“But he also has to make his assurances credible that if Iran agrees to U.S. demands, that the U.S. won’t attack Iran anyway.”
Talé, the former parliamentarian, put it differently.
“If Iranian diplomats demonstrate flexibility, Trump will be more emboldened,” he said. “That’s why Iran, as a sovereign nation, must not capitulate to any foreign power, including America.”
new video loaded: Bill Clinton Says He ‘Did Nothing Wrong’ in House Epstein Inquiry
transcript
transcript
Bill Clinton Says He ‘Did Nothing Wrong’ in House Epstein Inquiry
Former President Bill Clinton told members of the House Oversight Committee in a closed-door deposition that he “saw nothing” and had done nothing wrong when he associated with Jeffrey Epstein decades ago.
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“Cause we don’t know when the video will be out. I don’t know when the transcript will be out. We’ve asked that they be out as quickly as possible.” “I don’t like seeing him deposed, but they certainly went after me a lot more than that.” “Republicans have now set a new precedent, which is to bring in presidents and former presidents to testify. So we’re once again going to make that call that we did yesterday. We are now asking and demanding that President Trump officially come in and testify in front of the Oversight Committee.” “Ranking Member Garcia asked President Clinton, quote, ‘Should President Trump be called to answer questions from this committee?’ And President Clinton said, that’s for you to decide. And the president went on to say that the President Trump has never said anything to me to make me think he was involved. “The way Chairman Comer described it, I don’t think is a complete, accurate description of what actually was said. So let’s release the full transcript.”
By Jackeline Luna
February 27, 2026
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) accused Everett, Washington, Mayor Cassie Franklin of escalating tensions with federal authorities after she issued a directive limiting immigration enforcement in the city.
Franklin issued a mayoral directive this week establishing citywide protocols for staff, including law enforcement, that restrict federal immigration agents from entering non-public areas of city buildings without a judicial warrant.
“We’ve heard directly from residents who are afraid to leave their houses because of the concerning immigration activity happening locally and across our country. It’s heartbreaking to see the impacts on Everett families and businesses,” Franklin said in a statement.
“With this directive, we are setting clear protocols, protecting access to services and reinforcing our commitment to serving the entire community.”
ICE blasted the directive Friday, writing on X it “escalates tension and directs city law enforcement to intervene with ICE operations at their own discretion,” thereby “putting everyone at greater risk.”
Mayor Cassie Franklin said her new citywide immigration enforcement protocols are intended to protect residents and ensure access to services, while ICE accused her of escalating tensions with federal authorities. (Google Maps)
ICE said Franklin was directing city workers to “impede ICE operations and expose the location of ICE officers and agents.”
“Working AGAINST ICE forces federal teams into the community searching for criminal illegal aliens released from local jails — INCREASING THE FEDERAL PRESENCE,” the agency said. “Working with ICE reduces the federal presence.”
“If Mayor Franklin wanted to protect the people she claims to serve, she’d empower the city police with an ICE 287g partnership — instead she serves criminal illegal aliens,” ICE added.
DHS, WHITE HOUSE MOCK CHICAGO’S LAWSUIT OVER ICE: ‘MIRACULOUSLY REDISCOVERED THE 10TH AMENDMENT’
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement blasted Everett’s mayor after she issued a directive restricting federal agents from accessing non-public areas of city facilities without a warrant. (Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
During a city council meeting where she announced the policy, Franklin said “federal immigration enforcement is causing real fear for Everett residents.”
“It’s been heartbreaking to see the racial profiling that’s having an impact on Everett families and businesses,” she said. “We know there are kids staying home from school, people not going to work or people not going about their day, dining out or shopping for essentials.”
The mayor’s directive covers four main areas, including restricting federal immigration agents from accessing non-public areas of city buildings without a warrant, requiring immediate reporting of enforcement activity on city property and mandating clear signage to enforce access limits.
BLOCKING ICE COOPERATION FUELED MINNESOTA UNREST, OFFICIALS WARN AS VIRGINIA REVERSES COURSE
Everett, Wash., Mayor Cassie Franklin said her new directive is aimed at protecting residents amid heightened immigration enforcement activity. (iStock)
It also calls for an internal policy review and staff training, including the creation of an Interdepartmental Response Team and updated immigration enforcement protocols to ensure compliance with state law.
Franklin directed city staff to expand partnerships with community leaders, advocacy groups and regional governments to coordinate responses to immigration enforcement, while promoting immigrant-owned businesses and providing workplace protections and “know your rights” resources.
The mayor also reaffirmed a commitment to “constitutional policing and best practices,” stating that the police department will comply with state law barring participation in civil immigration enforcement. The directive outlines protocols for documenting interactions with federal officials, reviewing records requests and strengthening privacy safeguards and technology audits.
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Everett, Wash., Mayor Cassie Franklin issued a directive limiting federal immigration enforcement in city facilities. (iStock)
“We want everyone in the city of Everett to feel safe calling 911 when they need help and to know that Everett Police will not ask about your immigration status,” Franklin said during the council meeting. ”I also expect our officers to intervene if it’s safe to do so to protect our residents when they witness federal officers using unnecessary force.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to Mayor Franklin’s office and ICE for comment.
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