I really relate to what Beth said about not wanting to contribute to separation from people but feeling like there are other Christians who want that. I think that’s the trend I find most concerning, that Christian nationalists exclude anyone who doesn’t agree with them by saying they are not ‘Christian’. For example, Taylor Swift calls herself a Christian in Miss Americana, and discusses the way her faith has led her to speak out about politics, but you still have kids saying they don’t listen to Taylor Swift because she’s not ‘Christian’. The issue is that she doesn’t ascribe to Christian Nationalism. She lives out her faith in a way that threatens the Christian Nationalist agenda, and they find that unacceptable, so when they feel their identity is threatened by Christians who don’t agree with them politically, they respond by questioning the faith of anyone who disagrees with them.
Kristen Kobes Du Mez talked about this dynamic in her recent substack newsletter “Christians, your religious liberty really is at stake in this election.” https://open.substack.com/pub/kristindumez/p/christians-your-religious-liberty?r=1vhkm&utm_medium=ios She talks about Trump’s proposal to set up a “new Federal Task Force on Fighting Anti-Christian Bias” and how that is likely to target Christians who disagree with Christian Nationalism. She writes “If Trump is promising to go after his political enemies, I can only imagine that his Christian nationalist allies will want to go after theirs. And Trump has told them he’ll have their back. At the National Religious Broadcasters convention, he promised his Christian supporters that if he got back to the White House, he’d give them power: ‘If I get in, you’re going to be using that power at a level that you’ve never used before.’ …The greatest threat to the Christian nationalist agenda are Christians themselves. Christian nationalism thrives on an “us-vs-them” mentality in which God is allegedly on their side.
Christian nationalists are not in the majority, but their power depends on convincing ordinary Christians that any who oppose their religious and political agenda are opposing God—and if you oppose God, you are clearly on the side of the devil.
Fellow Christians who speak out against Christian nationalism get in the way of this false narrative, and that’s why Christian nationalists have spent so much time attacking fellow Christians.“
So can I take a very unscientific poll? How many of you have encountered the articles about Biden being resentful of Harris’ success, which for Sarah are apparently so ubiquitous she wants to be spared more in the future? I ask because not only have I not seen them, I googled “Joe Biden bitter” and was NOT rewarded with a bunch of material. Then I asked my husband who reads The Atlantic, Politico, etc, more regularly than I do and he also was not familiar with this story.
Of course I’m not suggesting that she didn’t see/hear what she said. But it does seem to be evidence of some algorithmic bias, which I find very interesting. I had the same experience before Biden stepped down as the candidate, when “everybody” was leaning on him but it wasn’t prominent in my feed. (Obviously I’m receiving a biased feed as well.)
We have probably all heard how Fox doesn’t cover the most egregious Trump stories, so often his supporters don’t know about events that our friends can’t stop talking about. But it appears to me that a similar pattern is happening within our sources, giving us more of what Dr. Algorithm thinks we want, to the point that it distorts the reality of the situation. Reader/listener/viewer beware, I guess!
I see their main recommendation is to not expect the results that evening. I may need a social media blackout that day. I appreciate that Sarah and Beth will go live that day, but I doubt they will be able to provide what I'll need (cute interviews with children, nonsense about Survivor, a fashion show and complete set of links for purchasing the blouses Sarah wears on camera, Beth singing show tunes, a thorough treatise on the benefits of a well-made bed - to name just a few).
Taking suggestions for distractions for Tuesday. Additional distractions to last the whole week also welcomed. Maybe a good time to start writing Christmas cards?
Apparently my election coping strategy is to have family medical drama and caregiving take center stage and claim my time and attention. I did not see that coming. everyone is going to be okay, but it has definitely shifted my focus quickly. on the one hand, it points out the stakes of healthcare and caregiver support policies. on the other hand I can't spend this weekend worrying about polling and closing arguments, because I have to focus elsewhere.
I am apparently a real outlier when it comes to time zones. In my 67 years I’ve done at least 10 years in each. Lived in all of them for at least a year before I was 10.
When we visited Arizona, and planned an outing to Antelope Canyon, it was stressful and crazy-making because the Native land where we were camping and the Canyon were in different zones. The Grand Canyon was in another one. We never knew what time it was.
Oh my goodness, this!!!! We were in a rental car that automatically adjusted to local time when we went to the Grand Canyon a couple of years ago and we were driving back to Phoenix (and our flight) through the Navajo nation and didn't realize the time changed, and I looked over at my husband and was like “I’m so sorry. I don't know how I got the time so wrong, but there's no way we're going to make our flight”
Turns out when we got to Flagstaff we had an extra hour 😅
Hawaii. It's on the equator, so no need to flip the clock back and forth. Perfect amount of day, perfect amount of night. And, really, when you live in Hawaii, you really don't care what the rest of the country is doing at any given time of day.
Every time I comment on outside of politics, I remember how Beth talked about how annoyed she is when they say really pithy things during the episode and all we talk about is outside of politics. It was a great episode. I have nothing to add there. Now here's two paragraphs about time zones. :-)
I submit to you that Pacific Time zone is AWESOME if you're into the awards shows or the Super Bowl. Other than that, if we're really listing preferences I suppose it sucks for everything else. World Series is often annoying because it will start at a weird time. I remember Oct 17, 1989 @ 5:04 honestly only because I had just turned on the World Series. (And then my apartment started shaking violently. But I only lost a coffee cup.) And I believe there's a thought that the World Series saved hundreds of lives because anybody who could left work early to watch it, so there were far fewer people on the Bay Bridge or on the collapsed Cypress Structure than on a normal weekday.
I grew up in Central Time zone, and I had to get used to everything being on an hour later. A weird thing happened in the Bay Area market in the 1990s. For some period of time--like years--the CBS station decided to air their prime time shows an hour earlier like all of central time does, but none of the other stations follow suit. It was in the days of VCRs, long before easy time shifting, and it broke my brain. I think the local station was trying to increase the ratings for its news broadcast. I don't think it worked.
I think the things he’s saying are what shouldn’t surprise us when he executes. Trump said “it’s rigged,” and many of us (with raised eyebrows) said, “Won’t that be convenient when he losing. He’s setting it up.”
I hope I’m wrong, but my feeling is that he’ll try that this time with harm to the people he doesn’t like. He’s done it before. And God-knows I hope everyone stays safe. But that’s what I’m hearing that feeeeels unbelievable, yet I wonder if it’ll bear fruit in 2025. 😭 hope I’m wrong.
Listening to this episode, I started to wonder, "What if it's the Democrats who need to contest the results of the election this time?"
With all the reports of possible interference from places like Russia, Harris voters should legitimately be concerned about a "rigged" election. What happens then? Would we be accused of crying wolf?
Regardless of what happens, Trump supporters are gonna howl. If they lose, they will fight. If they win and Harris voters contest it, they'll fight. And when Trump takes office, they will continue his fights. It may not look like the Civil War, but it will still be ugly. It makes me sad to hear Sarah and Beth say the Trump trauma will last another three years, but I think they're right. This isn't going away after next week, or even next January. And if Harris wins, it will be four solid years of misogynist and racist ranting from the Trump Dump.
Someone commented that time zones are too big and I agree. Maine to Indiana are in EST. I moved from Maine to Indiana 9 years ago and they definitely need to be on Atlantic time. The sun comes up so early in the summer that you need blackout shades and it gets dark at 3:45 in the winter. It’s a little bit of whiplash.
Also, as a middle child, the middle is definitely not always the best place to be 😂. Kidding-sort of.
This episode is a balm for my anxiety riddled soul…I want to be desperately optimistic but am so fearful of a repeat of 2016 and I had a meltdown. I am desperately trying to stay hopeful.
Regarding churches; at what point do they lose their tax exemption status when they are hawking and pushing political rhetoric? I am not religious, as soon as I turned 18 and my parents couldn’t force me to go to church I ran (catholic). I respect that people find value and community in church even though I didn’t. What I do not like is that if I can “live and let live” why do some churches feel the right to barge into other’s lives and force their views on others? Is it about power and control? And shouldn’t that be investigated in order to keep or loose then the tax break.
I’m also fearful of a 2016 repeat. My hope is we learned our lesson then. I remember being absolutely gobsmacked that Trump beat Hillary- it was nowhere on the realm of possibility for me. Now I hear all kinds of polls that predicted his win then & I guess I just missed them or no one took them seriously?! But I think we’re all traumatized from that & hoping Kamala’s game plan works.
I am trying to avoid looking at poll data whether positive or negative. I don’t want to get my hopes up (2016 flashbacks) or start the doom spiraling if I don’t have to.
Re: churches. My mom has a book by a pastor named James Garlow and his whole schtick is “pulpit freedom,” which says that preachers should engage in political advocacy from the pulpit, IRS be damned. But basically, very few churches face any actual consequences because Republicans don’t let the law be enforced.
I love this conversation about time zones. However, I’m going to come in with what may be a controversial take. I think the time zones are too big and I do not think central time zone is the best 😂😂
Having spent a significant portion of my life in the part of the central time zone where the sun doesn’t rise until 8am I haaaate it. It does not feel right for it to still be dark after 7am. I think we should have smaller time zones so that everyone can benefit from reasonable sunrise times.
Winter sucks because we have less daylight but whether we change the clock or not, we still will have less daylight. I am also team stop changing time because it is far more jarring to go from incremental change of losing the light to suddenly it’s dark at 4:30pm. When I lived in AZ, I loved that the state didn’t participate in DST. The gradual loss of daylight made less daylight and earlier sunsets so much easier to bear. I primarily live in eastern time zone now and the early sunsets are harsh, but I do like that the sun reliably rises between 6 and 7am. Definitely not looking forward to the jump this weekend.
Again, I wish we could stop changing the clock and just decide we will all be on standard time or saving time. Just please stop messing with our circadian rhythms ☀️
I have strongly agreed with Sarah Stewart Holland on many things but never have I agreed with her more than her pro-central time stance. I live in CST and often list it as one of my favorite things about it!
I loved growing up in the Central Time Zone, TV at 7:00 pm was awesome! But, Sarah, I am calling you out on Western KY because I did 20+ years of Thanksgiving trips between NC (where I live now) to Paducah (where I grew up), and my husband and I always found that dusk at 4:00-4:15 pm on the last leg of our trip from Hopkinsville to Paducah for time with my family after “Fall Back” on time change to be brutal….it made us feel extra tired at the end of a full day of driving to see my parents💤💤💤
Sarah, you are 1000% right. Central is the best time zone. As someone who was born and raised in Central in Missouri, Texas, Tennessee, Arkansas, Kansas, and then Texas again, it is definitely the best time. Now I’m in pacific and I just hope I finally get the good end with the election. My 9 year old though loves this time zone so much because he can watch more football. I miss late shows and SNL on at a decent time.
I really relate to what Beth said about not wanting to contribute to separation from people but feeling like there are other Christians who want that. I think that’s the trend I find most concerning, that Christian nationalists exclude anyone who doesn’t agree with them by saying they are not ‘Christian’. For example, Taylor Swift calls herself a Christian in Miss Americana, and discusses the way her faith has led her to speak out about politics, but you still have kids saying they don’t listen to Taylor Swift because she’s not ‘Christian’. The issue is that she doesn’t ascribe to Christian Nationalism. She lives out her faith in a way that threatens the Christian Nationalist agenda, and they find that unacceptable, so when they feel their identity is threatened by Christians who don’t agree with them politically, they respond by questioning the faith of anyone who disagrees with them.
Kristen Kobes Du Mez talked about this dynamic in her recent substack newsletter “Christians, your religious liberty really is at stake in this election.” https://open.substack.com/pub/kristindumez/p/christians-your-religious-liberty?r=1vhkm&utm_medium=ios She talks about Trump’s proposal to set up a “new Federal Task Force on Fighting Anti-Christian Bias” and how that is likely to target Christians who disagree with Christian Nationalism. She writes “If Trump is promising to go after his political enemies, I can only imagine that his Christian nationalist allies will want to go after theirs. And Trump has told them he’ll have their back. At the National Religious Broadcasters convention, he promised his Christian supporters that if he got back to the White House, he’d give them power: ‘If I get in, you’re going to be using that power at a level that you’ve never used before.’ …The greatest threat to the Christian nationalist agenda are Christians themselves. Christian nationalism thrives on an “us-vs-them” mentality in which God is allegedly on their side.
Christian nationalists are not in the majority, but their power depends on convincing ordinary Christians that any who oppose their religious and political agenda are opposing God—and if you oppose God, you are clearly on the side of the devil.
Fellow Christians who speak out against Christian nationalism get in the way of this false narrative, and that’s why Christian nationalists have spent so much time attacking fellow Christians.“
As to how quickly Donald trump might “go away” if he loses, I keep forgetting that there’s a non-zero chance he goes to jail!
So can I take a very unscientific poll? How many of you have encountered the articles about Biden being resentful of Harris’ success, which for Sarah are apparently so ubiquitous she wants to be spared more in the future? I ask because not only have I not seen them, I googled “Joe Biden bitter” and was NOT rewarded with a bunch of material. Then I asked my husband who reads The Atlantic, Politico, etc, more regularly than I do and he also was not familiar with this story.
Of course I’m not suggesting that she didn’t see/hear what she said. But it does seem to be evidence of some algorithmic bias, which I find very interesting. I had the same experience before Biden stepped down as the candidate, when “everybody” was leaning on him but it wasn’t prominent in my feed. (Obviously I’m receiving a biased feed as well.)
We have probably all heard how Fox doesn’t cover the most egregious Trump stories, so often his supporters don’t know about events that our friends can’t stop talking about. But it appears to me that a similar pattern is happening within our sources, giving us more of what Dr. Algorithm thinks we want, to the point that it distorts the reality of the situation. Reader/listener/viewer beware, I guess!
Loved this episode. And I agree that Christian Nationalists won’t win over the long run but yikes am I worried about them in the short term. Appreciated these resources to have on hand after Tuesday and thought this community might appreciate them too https://open.substack.com/pub/kristindumez/p/preparing-for-tuesday?r=38dke&utm_medium=ios
Great call on a social media blackout and getting started on Christmas cards is genius!!
Thanks, Emily!
I see their main recommendation is to not expect the results that evening. I may need a social media blackout that day. I appreciate that Sarah and Beth will go live that day, but I doubt they will be able to provide what I'll need (cute interviews with children, nonsense about Survivor, a fashion show and complete set of links for purchasing the blouses Sarah wears on camera, Beth singing show tunes, a thorough treatise on the benefits of a well-made bed - to name just a few).
Taking suggestions for distractions for Tuesday. Additional distractions to last the whole week also welcomed. Maybe a good time to start writing Christmas cards?
Apparently my election coping strategy is to have family medical drama and caregiving take center stage and claim my time and attention. I did not see that coming. everyone is going to be okay, but it has definitely shifted my focus quickly. on the one hand, it points out the stakes of healthcare and caregiver support policies. on the other hand I can't spend this weekend worrying about polling and closing arguments, because I have to focus elsewhere.
I hope everyone is doing as well as possible. We are sending you all our love and well wishes.
I am apparently a real outlier when it comes to time zones. In my 67 years I’ve done at least 10 years in each. Lived in all of them for at least a year before I was 10.
I have absolutely no preference 🤷🏼♀️😂
When we visited Arizona, and planned an outing to Antelope Canyon, it was stressful and crazy-making because the Native land where we were camping and the Canyon were in different zones. The Grand Canyon was in another one. We never knew what time it was.
Oh my goodness, this!!!! We were in a rental car that automatically adjusted to local time when we went to the Grand Canyon a couple of years ago and we were driving back to Phoenix (and our flight) through the Navajo nation and didn't realize the time changed, and I looked over at my husband and was like “I’m so sorry. I don't know how I got the time so wrong, but there's no way we're going to make our flight”
Turns out when we got to Flagstaff we had an extra hour 😅
Hawaii. It's on the equator, so no need to flip the clock back and forth. Perfect amount of day, perfect amount of night. And, really, when you live in Hawaii, you really don't care what the rest of the country is doing at any given time of day.
Every time I comment on outside of politics, I remember how Beth talked about how annoyed she is when they say really pithy things during the episode and all we talk about is outside of politics. It was a great episode. I have nothing to add there. Now here's two paragraphs about time zones. :-)
I submit to you that Pacific Time zone is AWESOME if you're into the awards shows or the Super Bowl. Other than that, if we're really listing preferences I suppose it sucks for everything else. World Series is often annoying because it will start at a weird time. I remember Oct 17, 1989 @ 5:04 honestly only because I had just turned on the World Series. (And then my apartment started shaking violently. But I only lost a coffee cup.) And I believe there's a thought that the World Series saved hundreds of lives because anybody who could left work early to watch it, so there were far fewer people on the Bay Bridge or on the collapsed Cypress Structure than on a normal weekday.
I grew up in Central Time zone, and I had to get used to everything being on an hour later. A weird thing happened in the Bay Area market in the 1990s. For some period of time--like years--the CBS station decided to air their prime time shows an hour earlier like all of central time does, but none of the other stations follow suit. It was in the days of VCRs, long before easy time shifting, and it broke my brain. I think the local station was trying to increase the ratings for its news broadcast. I don't think it worked.
I think the things he’s saying are what shouldn’t surprise us when he executes. Trump said “it’s rigged,” and many of us (with raised eyebrows) said, “Won’t that be convenient when he losing. He’s setting it up.”
I hope I’m wrong, but my feeling is that he’ll try that this time with harm to the people he doesn’t like. He’s done it before. And God-knows I hope everyone stays safe. But that’s what I’m hearing that feeeeels unbelievable, yet I wonder if it’ll bear fruit in 2025. 😭 hope I’m wrong.
Listening to this episode, I started to wonder, "What if it's the Democrats who need to contest the results of the election this time?"
With all the reports of possible interference from places like Russia, Harris voters should legitimately be concerned about a "rigged" election. What happens then? Would we be accused of crying wolf?
Regardless of what happens, Trump supporters are gonna howl. If they lose, they will fight. If they win and Harris voters contest it, they'll fight. And when Trump takes office, they will continue his fights. It may not look like the Civil War, but it will still be ugly. It makes me sad to hear Sarah and Beth say the Trump trauma will last another three years, but I think they're right. This isn't going away after next week, or even next January. And if Harris wins, it will be four solid years of misogynist and racist ranting from the Trump Dump.
Someone commented that time zones are too big and I agree. Maine to Indiana are in EST. I moved from Maine to Indiana 9 years ago and they definitely need to be on Atlantic time. The sun comes up so early in the summer that you need blackout shades and it gets dark at 3:45 in the winter. It’s a little bit of whiplash.
Also, as a middle child, the middle is definitely not always the best place to be 😂. Kidding-sort of.
This episode is a balm for my anxiety riddled soul…I want to be desperately optimistic but am so fearful of a repeat of 2016 and I had a meltdown. I am desperately trying to stay hopeful.
Regarding churches; at what point do they lose their tax exemption status when they are hawking and pushing political rhetoric? I am not religious, as soon as I turned 18 and my parents couldn’t force me to go to church I ran (catholic). I respect that people find value and community in church even though I didn’t. What I do not like is that if I can “live and let live” why do some churches feel the right to barge into other’s lives and force their views on others? Is it about power and control? And shouldn’t that be investigated in order to keep or loose then the tax break.
I’m also fearful of a 2016 repeat. My hope is we learned our lesson then. I remember being absolutely gobsmacked that Trump beat Hillary- it was nowhere on the realm of possibility for me. Now I hear all kinds of polls that predicted his win then & I guess I just missed them or no one took them seriously?! But I think we’re all traumatized from that & hoping Kamala’s game plan works.
I am trying to avoid looking at poll data whether positive or negative. I don’t want to get my hopes up (2016 flashbacks) or start the doom spiraling if I don’t have to.
Re: churches. My mom has a book by a pastor named James Garlow and his whole schtick is “pulpit freedom,” which says that preachers should engage in political advocacy from the pulpit, IRS be damned. But basically, very few churches face any actual consequences because Republicans don’t let the law be enforced.
So sad and then wonder why church attendance is so low and people feel they don’t have community anymore.
I love this conversation about time zones. However, I’m going to come in with what may be a controversial take. I think the time zones are too big and I do not think central time zone is the best 😂😂
Having spent a significant portion of my life in the part of the central time zone where the sun doesn’t rise until 8am I haaaate it. It does not feel right for it to still be dark after 7am. I think we should have smaller time zones so that everyone can benefit from reasonable sunrise times.
Winter sucks because we have less daylight but whether we change the clock or not, we still will have less daylight. I am also team stop changing time because it is far more jarring to go from incremental change of losing the light to suddenly it’s dark at 4:30pm. When I lived in AZ, I loved that the state didn’t participate in DST. The gradual loss of daylight made less daylight and earlier sunsets so much easier to bear. I primarily live in eastern time zone now and the early sunsets are harsh, but I do like that the sun reliably rises between 6 and 7am. Definitely not looking forward to the jump this weekend.
Again, I wish we could stop changing the clock and just decide we will all be on standard time or saving time. Just please stop messing with our circadian rhythms ☀️
Could be worse. You could live in China, which has one time zone!
Strong agree! You must be on the eastern side of the Central Time Zone for it to work!!! (but the eastern side of the central time zone IS the best)
-Maggie
I have strongly agreed with Sarah Stewart Holland on many things but never have I agreed with her more than her pro-central time stance. I live in CST and often list it as one of my favorite things about it!
I loved growing up in the Central Time Zone, TV at 7:00 pm was awesome! But, Sarah, I am calling you out on Western KY because I did 20+ years of Thanksgiving trips between NC (where I live now) to Paducah (where I grew up), and my husband and I always found that dusk at 4:00-4:15 pm on the last leg of our trip from Hopkinsville to Paducah for time with my family after “Fall Back” on time change to be brutal….it made us feel extra tired at the end of a full day of driving to see my parents💤💤💤
Sarah, you are 1000% right. Central is the best time zone. As someone who was born and raised in Central in Missouri, Texas, Tennessee, Arkansas, Kansas, and then Texas again, it is definitely the best time. Now I’m in pacific and I just hope I finally get the good end with the election. My 9 year old though loves this time zone so much because he can watch more football. I miss late shows and SNL on at a decent time.
Pacific is def best for elections!