Kevin Williamson: How to Improve the Lot of Those Left Behind

“And he wrote this very famous novel called Infinite Jest, which he described as a very sad book about the pursuit of happiness. And so, I think in some ways, I’ve written a very sad book about the pursuit of happiness as well.”

On January 7th, Thomas Koenig was joined by Kevin Williamson to discuss his latest book, Big White Ghetto: Dead Broke, Stone-Cold Stupid, and High on Rage in the Dank Woolly Wilds of the “Real America.” Mr. Williamson is an author and journalist, currently the roving correspondent for National Review. He previously served as a managing editor and theater critic for The New Criterion and an adjunct professor at The King’s College. In this interview with Mr. Koenig, Mr. Williamson discusses the suffering many American towns are experiencing, how this affects individuals within the “white underclass,” and possible solutions (both at the policy and individual-levels) to help these Americans.

A video of the conversation is available on YouTube.

Hi, I’m Tom Koenig, and I’m joined today by the National Review’s roving correspondent, Kevin Williamson. Mr. Williamson, thanks so much for joining us.

Mr. Williamson is a funny thing to be called. But, yeah, glad to be here—thanks.

Kevin. So we’re here to discuss your new book, Big White Ghetto: Dead Broke, Stone-Cold Stupid, and High on Rage in the Dank Woolly Wilds of the “Real America.” I didn’t even try to commit the subtitle to memory. So the book is a collection of some of your previously reported pieces for National Review. So I want to begin with a pretty simple question: What’s the book about? And what’s the common thread holding all these pieces together?

Yeah, I have a thing that I like to call “Williamson’s First Law of Politics,” which is that everything is really simple if you don’t know anything at all about it. And I think that is really the theme of my long reported work that I’ve done for National Review, which is to try to dig into particular situations, communities, things that are happening in our country and our world—and, actually, just kind of try to figure out what’s going on with them without trying to make some ideological point or some political argument. I mean, obviously, there are ideological considerations in there, and there are political conclusions to be made from some of this stuff.