EPISODE · Mar 5, 2025 · 20 MIN

"Exit From Within" (August 2022)

from Know Your Enemy · host Matt Sitman, Sam Adler-Bell

Here's something a little creepy. In a bonus episode from August 2022, Matt and Sam were discussing Sam's profile of Arizona Senate hopeful and Peter Thiel-protégé Blake Masters when we found ourselves imagining how a future union of MAGA nationalism and Silicon Valley libertarianism might try to run the government. A listener flagged it for us, noting that the description — which we call "exit from within" — sounds remarkably similar to what we are now experiencing with Trump, Musk, DOGE, and the tech right. We had totally forgotten about this, and thought the rest of you might like to hear it. We'll be back to our regular programming, with the Elon Musk episode, next week. The full episode, "Masters of War," is on Patreon. Readings: Sam Adler-Bell, "The Violent Fantasies of Blake Masters," NYTimes, Aug 3, 2022. Albert O. Hirschman, "Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States," (1970) ...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to all of our premium episodes!