Alright, welcome listeners to this bonus episode of Know Your Enemy.

I'm Matt Sitman, your podcast co-host, and I'm here with my great friend Sam Eather

Bell and another friend of ours, Tim Shank. Welcome Sam. Welcome Tim. Thanks for having me guys.

I wanted to say to the listeners right off the bat that Tim has a special place in Know Your

Enemy history because I think I don't know how many episodes into a starting the podcast,

like what Tim, like three or four? Yes, it was when I was working on this book as a matter of

fact. I remember sitting in the Library of Congress like stumbling across the early episodes of

Know Your Enemy. And you emailed us and said, I think this is really good. Can descent help you

out in any way? And we said, whatever you can do is helpful. We have no idea what we're doing.

And the partnership was born. I've been regretting it every day ever since.

It was a darkly faded decision, Tim, when you hitched our wagon to the descent team.

We've been dragging descents August name through the mud all these years.

But apology accepted at least I can finally move on. Well, Tim, we're not here to talk about

the history of Know Your Enemy. We're here to talk about your excellent book, real liners,

partisan hacks, political visionaries, and the struggle to rule American democracy. We both

read it. I did the thing where I set out to just do the grad student gut, but I ended up reading

basically every word, which is a credit to just how well-paced and well-written this book is.

So congratulations on that, Tim. Thanks. It was really hard to do.

I'm sure. I mean, I had the thought many times, like writing these kinds of big idea,

popular history, potted biography, anybody can pick it up, but an expert would still get

something out of it. It's really careful dance, which I think you executed.

Yeah, it's sort of like the trying to do is put together the beatry that you could give your aunt

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