Thomas Chatterton Williams' "Summer of Our Discontent"
Sep 11, 2025 · 1 hr 32 min · 17 segments
Peter and Michael discuss a book that's light on facts and long on sentences. **Where to find us:** - Our Patreon…
Sep 11, 2025 · 1 hr 32 min · 17 segments
Peter and Michael discuss a book that's light on facts and long on sentences. **Where to find us:** - Our Patreon…
Peter ShamshiriHost
Michael HobbesHostAll I know is there's a reason people don't call him Thomas Thinkerton-Williams.
(Upbeat music)
This just came out a few weeks back.
We wanted to cover this book for a couple of reasons.
One is that he's, like, disproportionately influential to his talent, and the other is that, like, I think that there is, like, a lingering reactionary narrative about 2020 that he's articulating here that needs to be addressed in some form.
It's very similar...
It is very similar to the COVID revisionism stuff, where people are just-
Right.
... trying to make you ignore what you remember, like, from relatively recent history.
This is the work of a man who, for some reason, has been relatively influential among, like, a certain set of reactionary centrists and journalists.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And he has one Black parent, one white parent.
And so he is, like, a person of color who doesn't think we should be talking about race so much.
Yeah, yeah.
Right? That's always sort of of interest to the yapping classes.
But also talking about it makes you sound hella problematic.
(laughs) 'Cause you're basically calling him-
Yeah.
... like, an affirmative action hire in, like, the worst possible sense of the term.
But I think that is, like, part of his popularity.
All I know is there's a reason people don't call him Thomas Thinkerton-Williams.
(Upbeat music)
This just came out a few weeks back.
We wanted to cover this book for a couple of reasons.
One is that he's, like, disproportionately influential to his talent, and the other is that, like, I think that there is, like, a lingering reactionary narrative about 2020 that he's articulating here that needs to be addressed in some form.
It's very similar...
It is very similar to the COVID revisionism stuff, where people are just-
Right.
... trying to make you ignore what you remember, like, from relatively recent history.
This is the work of a man who, for some reason, has been relatively influential among, like, a certain set of reactionary centrists and journalists.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And he has one Black parent, one white parent.
And so he is, like, a person of color who doesn't think we should be talking about race so much.
Yeah, yeah.
Right? That's always sort of of interest to the yapping classes.
But also talking about it makes you sound hella problematic.
(laughs) 'Cause you're basically calling him-
Yeah.
... like, an affirmative action hire in, like, the worst possible sense of the term.
But I think that is, like, part of his popularity.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.