Know Your Enemy (KYE) is a podcast about the Right cohosted by two democratic socialists, Matthew Sitman and Sam Adler-Bell. It’s far from the only left-wing show to focus on the other side of the political spectrum, but in both tone and substance KYE feels unique. A typical episode might involve Matt and Sam doing a deep dive on Whittaker Chambers’s 1952 book Witness or William F. Buckley’s quixotic 1965 run for mayor of New York.

Sam has always been a progressive, but Matt was a young conservative intellectual before he moved to the left. They both take the title of their show seriously. They don’t just want to mock or denounce their ideological enemies. They want to understand them.

In February, a deep-pocketed right-wing foundation launched a spurious lawsuit in a transparent attempt to shut down the podcast. The suit was finally withdrawn last week — but the whole incident says a lot about the contemporary American right.