Five years since the start of the pandemic and the racial reckoning post-George Floyd, we’re still seeing the effects that 2020 had on culture and politics. This week, Ben and Max bring on The Atlantic staff writer, Thomas Chatterton Williams, to talk about how we can trace Donald Trump’s re-election to that summer, the role that media played in fueling the right-wing backlash, and how his experience on social media at the time spawned his latest book, Summer of Our Discontent. They also discuss the criticism of the book, if leftist illiberalism can really be to blame for the current administration’s actions, and why The New York Times and other elite media institutions have more influence than we give them credit for.

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