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Know Your Enemy

What Do Conservative Intellectuals Do? (w/ John Ganz) [Teaser]

Matt and Sam talk to writer John Ganz about the nature and function of conservative intellectuals, past and present.
Duration
4m
Broadcast on
13 Oct 2026
Audio Format
other

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In this episode we talk to our friend John Ganz about the nature and function of conservative intellectuals—or "intellectuals," whichever you prefer—past and present. In particular, the Trump era has been a kind of real-time experiment in seeing how rightwing writers and second-hand dealers in ideas degrade, contort, and reinvent themselves. From there we consider what intellectuals, right and left, actually do and what influence, if any, they (we?) have, and how that's changed from the halcyon days of midcentury generalists to our fragmented and mind-numbing "media landscape" today. It'll be a fun one, for some of you!

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Sources:

John Ganz, Unpopular Front:

— "America is Mine, and it Owes Me a Living," Oct 5, 2026

— "From Shitpost to Bullshit: The Function of Conservative Intellectuals," Sept 30, 2026

— "Better Late Than Never? The Right Wakes Up to Fascism...Kinda," Sept 22, 2026

A.J.A. Woods, The Cultural Marxism Conspiracy: Why the Right Blames the Frankfurt School for the Decline of the West (2026)

Stephen Skowronek, The Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to Bill Clinton (1993)

— Presidential Leadership in Political Time: Reprise and Reappraisal (2020)

George Scialabba, What Are Intellectuals Good For? (2009)

Usually there is a upsurge from some grassroots constituency that's not happy, and they force the intellectuals to respond to it and often discipline them for not having a response that they like. But then we have to extend the concept of intellectual to its breaking point kind of and say, "Well, there's something like Graham "she called organic intellectuals," which is people who kind of articulate from the grassroots or begin their lives or careers in the grassroots, and then kind of become spokespeople for it and speak to its concerns. - On the left, we call it more colloquially like a tribune, a tribune of the working class. - Right, and what basically you have since Trump and the alt-right and just the growth of the internet is that a big part of the most vocal part of the Republican constituency, it takes place on Twitter, on message boards, on truth social. So then these organic intellectuals some rise in their concerns, and then the establishment traditional intellectuals kind of reach out to them and try to mediate a settlement between them. So you saw, I mean, we were all horrified by this early on, Claremont reaching out to people like Jack Passobiac, right? - An organic intellectual, yes. - Yeah, and offering this fellowship to this Looney Tunes off the street, basically. And again, recent example, you have this podcast with this fellow Lomes, who was sort of a racist, anonymous troll for a long time. - That's like his handle, right? Lomes. - Yeah, that was his name is like Jonathan Keeperman or something like that. And then Rufo, they have a podcast together. So you have someone who comes from the gutter, I would say. I mean, okay, I'm getting a little polemical, but-- - We'll allow it. - And then you have Rufo with a slightly fancier pedigree, although I think he's a bit of a thug himself. And then basically on their podcast, you see this happening, they try to hash out an understanding between these different parts. And this happened with this horrible, both French thing, you know, complaining about Indians being at a UT Texas game. - Oh, right, the photo, and there was a lot of Asian Americans,

Transcription truncated.

Matt and Sam talk to writer John Ganz about the nature and function of conservative intellectuals, past and present.