Know Your Enemy: Break Glass in Case of Emergency

Matt and Sam are very worried.

Donald Trump on his visit to Japan in October (Issei Kato - Pool/Getty Images)

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 to, rate, and review the show on Apple Podcasts and Stitcher, and receive bonus content by supporting the podcast on Patreon.

This is a different kind of episode than is typical; there’s no book, no central text, not even a single 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 a secretive billionaire and Mellon heir donating over $100 million to pay the military, among others—and then lay out our profound worries about Trump ruling by decree and the coming of MAGA-style Caesarism. How and when might that occur? We discuss troubling signals the Trump administration is sending about upcoming elections, especially the 2026 midterms; the ticking time bomb that is the Insurrection Act; how the right thinks about executive power; and more.

Sources:

Peter Rothpletz, Trump’s Third Term? Zeteo/First Draft (2025)

Dana Milbank, How Reactionary is MAGA? Try the First Century B.C., Washington Post (2022)

Steve Bannon interview with The Economist, 2025

Shawn Hubler & Laurel Rosenhall, Justice Department Will Monitor Elections in California and New Jersey, New York Times (2025)

Steve Contorno & Ashley Killough, Frustrated Arizonans Have Waited More Than a Month for Their New Congresswoman to be Seated, CNN (2025)

Yoni Applebaum, America’s Fragile Constitution, The Atlantic (2015)

Abraham Lincoln, Speech to the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield (1838)

Bob Bauer & Jack Goldsmith, Here’s What Trump Could Unleash by Invoking the Insurrection Act, New York Times (2025)

Damon Linker, The Surest Path to Dictatorship: A Quick Plug for a Short Primer about the Insurrection Act, Notes from the Middleground (2025)

Discussing Caesarism, New Founding Podcast (2022)

Harvey Mansfield, Taming the Prince: The Ambivalence of Modern Executive Power (1989)