Laura K. Field's Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right, published earlier this month, is a book we simply had to discuss. Listeners to this podcast will recognize its cast of characters—conservative intellectuals like Patrick Deneen, Michael Anton, John Eastman, Adrian Vermeule, and Harry Jaffa, among others—whose ideas and influence Field carefully categorizes and evaluates, bringing order to an unruly decade of intellectual history. Topics include: Leo Strauss and the problem of great teachers; the use and abuse of grand narratives by the right; how the Claremonters went all in on Trump; the permission given by postliberals to some of the nastiest impulses on the right; and more!

Sources:

Laura K. Field, Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right (2025)

— "Revisiting Why Liberalism Failed: A Five-Part Series," Niskanen Center, Dec 21, 2020

Patrick Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed (2018)

— Regime Change: Toward a Postliberal Future (2023)

Matthew Sitman, "Liberalism and the Catholic Left," Commonweal, Dec 3, 2018

Publius Decius Mus/Michael Anton, "The Flight 93 Election," Claremont Review of Books, Sept 5, 2016

Adrian Vermeule, "Integration from Within," American Affairs, Spring 2018

The Editors, "The Fight is Now," The American Mind, Nov 5, 2020

Anemona Hartocollis, "On Campus, Trump Fans Say They Need 'Safe Spaces,'" New York Times, Dec 8, 2016

Further Listening:

KYE: "Rise of the Illiberal Right," July 12, 2019.

KYE: "Midnight in the Garden of American Heroes (On West Coast Straussians)," Feb 11, 2021.

KYE: "Unraveling Allan Bloom and Saul Bellow," June 21, 2021.

KYE: "The Afterlife of January 6," July 19, 2021.

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!