Oh, right. Welcome listeners to episode 60 of Know Your Enemy. I'm Matt Sabin, your podcast co-host, and I'm here with my great friend Sam Heather Bell.

Hey, Sam. Hi, Matt. I should say welcome back in one sense, but we're both back in New York after a few weeks of travel, which means we're gearing up for the fall. A lot of stuff is happening in the midterms, of course, but lots happening on the right.

We're excited for lots of episodes. We have planned, including some great bonus episodes, but today we're kicking things off, kind of a return to full schedule with an amazing guest about her amazing book. Who did we talk to this time, Sam?

We had Nikki Hemmer and Nicole Hemmer on the podcast again, author of a new book, which is called Partisans, the conservative revolutionaries who remade American politics in the 1990s.

We'll remember we had Nikki on before to talk about Rush Limbaugh after he died. She's a really great writer, incredibly, incredibly smart and poised podcaster, and her new book, Partisans, is about what happened to conservatism in the 1990s.

Yes, in addition to being on the podcast before and the author of this great new book, Nikki is also now an associate professor of history at the director of the Rogers Center for the Study of the Presidency at Vanderbilt University.

She also co-hosts her own podcast, not surprising when you hear how great she is, called Past Present, and this day an esoteric political history.

And you've probably seen her around, she writes for CNN, she's of course going to be plugging this book, and we were really happy she was able to stop by, know your enemy to talk about it with us.

Yeah, and the book is now out, yes, but conservatism in the 1990s is something that we've covered on the podcast a few times, but Nikki's thesis here is specifically that something changed between Reaganism and the 90s.

It's a sort of coarsening, more partisanship, and we walk her through that thesis and try to kick the tires of it, and I think listeners will find it really interesting.

Yes, a far more comprehensive and I think systematic look at the 90s than we've done before, you know, not just talking about what happened, but kind of how we got there and how it fits into some of the things we talk about a lot in the show, the history of conservatism, the narratives we use to describe it, so on and so forth.

The book is a really, I think, unique and pleasingly written contribution to some of those debates, totally.

As we mentioned, we're excited to be back kind of podcasting full time, and one of the things we mentioned was that, you know, well, some really interesting bonus episodes, especially if you're interested in the midterm elections coming out in addition to our other ones, you know, our book episodes and those kinds of conversations.

But to listen to those, you should subscribe to us on Patreon.com, slash Know Your Enemy, for $5 a month, you have access to all of our bonus episodes, and for $10 a month, you not only get those, but a digital subscription to our sponsor, Descent Magazine, who, as always, were grateful for their generosity to us and their support, and we're happy to partner with them.

That's right. Sign up for those bonus episodes, get the premium content folks, it's good, it's steaming hot, it's coming out.

And as always, we want to thank our intrepid producer, Jesse Brennan, who did a great job with this episode, as he does with every single one.

And we want to thank Will Epstein, who makes the music for the podcast.

That's right. Well, should we get to it?

Let's do it. Here's our conversation with Nikki Hemmer about her new book, Partisans. Enjoy.

Alright, let's get started. Nikki Hemmer, welcome back to Know Your Enemy.

Thank you guys so much for having me.

We're very excited for this. We're here to talk about a book of yours, Partisans, the conservative revolutionaries, who remade American politics in the 1990s, congrats on this big book coming out.

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