Patience Is A Political Act
Recorded on late Thursday afternoon, we discuss our reactions to the election, what the polarization of the race says about America, and what will come next.
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Episode Resources
Healing the Heart of Democracy Discussion Guide (Parker Palmer)
Transcript
Sarah: [00:00:00] Hello, everyone. Welcome to Pantsuit Politics. We're going to kick this off like it's an episode of the NPR Politics podcast and tell you that we're recording on Thursday, November 5th at 1:54 PM central standard time. And by the time you hear this things, dear God, please let things have changed.
Beth: [00:00:17] It is indicative of the state of the world, we just discovered that we both made chicken pot pie for dinner last night.
Sarah: [00:00:23] Well Nicholas made chicken pot pie.
Beth: [00:00:25] Served up some chicken pot pie in our houses last night, because that is the kind of comfort that we need. And we hope that today's episode can be a mental version of chicken pot pie for you.
Sarah: [00:00:35] As we're recording a very well-respected state journalist in Nevada has said he doesn't see a path for Trump. Fox news is not backing off they're calling of Arizona. And they're saying they're likely to call Nevada for Biden, which means that Biden is at two 70.
We're also hearing that Pennsylvania could call the results by the end of the day. And the Biden team seems very confident that they will come home with Pennsylvania and Georgia. So the path to victory for Donald Trump is very, very, very slim as we sit here on Thursday afternoon.
Beth: [00:01:13] And also it is not over. And we are just going to do our best to talk about this race in ways that will be applicable no matter what happens over the next 24 to 36 hours, because there is a lot to talk about however, this turns out.
I think some big picture takeaways are in order and require a lot of conversation and thought and kind of meditation for all of us, regardless of who we were excited to vote for in the selection.
Sarah: [00:01:45] All of our listeners who joined us on Instagram live and hot mic, the night of the election, the night of final voting. I don't even know, our language it doesn't work for these.
Beth: [00:01:59] No, that was November, November 3rd, November 3rd.
Sarah: [00:02:03] Perfect. I have very tough evening because I had convinced myself with much of the, along with much of the democratic party, that it was going to be a landslide. That way we were going to take the Senate, that we were going to increase our seats in the house, that we were going to know that Florida had gone for Joe Biden early.
And we could all call it a night. That is not how it went down. I should've listened to the many, many experts who said we will not know an election night, especially the people who were jumping up in the air and waving their arms and saying there could be a red Mirage, you're going to see a wave of same day voting going for Donald Trump, but we need to wait for the absentee and mail-in ballots to be voted, to be counted.
I wish I'd listened to them and guarded my heart a little bit. I should have learned from last time and I didn't, and I have my own personal self-growth and reflections to do, but it was the night itself was tough. I think for those of us who wanted a moral repudiation of Trump and his approach and his particular brand of politics, no matter what the results are, even should Joe Biden win, that's not, that's not what we got on Tuesday night.
Beth: [00:03:09] Desperately wanted that repudiation and I absolutely knew it wasn't coming and was still really disappointed. I was certain if I had had to put money on this thing, I would have bet it turning out exactly as it did with the exception that I didn't think Georgia would be in play for Biden at this stage in the game so it's a little better scenario than I imagined. But it still stings a lot because I really wanted America to show up and surprise me in the best way and it did not.
Sarah: [00:03:48] Now, you know, we shared a, I think it was a take on an exit poll, and I kind of regret that in our Instastories because I don't think we know the full picture yet, but we don't really need to know the breakdowns exactly to realize that this is heartbreaking, that what we wanted to see is, you know, a majority decisive majority of Americans in every state say we don't want this anymore.
And I think we're just beginning to think through the complexities of why that message wasn't what we'd hoped it would be. You know, I think the simplistic narrative that the pandemic would break for Joe Biden and the Democrats, that people would want a more science-based, aggressive form of leadership from the federal government wasn't the case. One of the most disappointing things I've read is that in focus groups, the idea among American voters is that we were choosing between public health or the economy. And I hate so very much that that has become a narrative because I think it is absolutely untrue.
You get a healthy economy by respecting and following public health officials because our economy will continue to suffer and lag as long as we continue to ignore the fact that this pandemic is raging across our country. And even though we're also consumed by the election right now, I mean, that's still going on.
And so I think, you know, that was such the top story. The top of the line narrative coming from the Biden campaign, the narrative, the Trump campaign was trying to avoid. And I think it was foolish to think that it was going to be. Um, simplistic in the ways that Americans interpreted the pandemic. When they stepped into the ballot box.
Beth: [00:05:31] We had a hundred thousand cases on one day this week. And if you think that our economy is just going to hum along, despite that many people getting sick, even if you don't believe it's serious or even if you think that we've come so far in our ability to treat and manage COVID that people won't die from it, that's a lot of people who are sick and who are spreading something around.
If you just have huge levels of absenteeism in workplaces the economy suffers. Putting aside the fact that even though, yes, we are getting better at preventing death, we are not is not zero, but we are getting better. You know, if you're new to the show, my parents contracted COVID 19 in September, despite being very conscientious in their, um, compliance with guidance and my mom spent 15 days in the hospital.
She is still here in the beginning of November on supplemental oxygen. She is still in a tremendous amount of pain that her doctors attribute to COVID-19 and they believe will last for at least another three months. So the seriousness of this has not gone away, even though we're all sick of it.
And I think you're right, Sarah, that Trump successfully pushed people into binary thinking about this when the reality is so much darker and so much more difficult. And I think Joe Biden's honesty about the fact that he would not be able to immediately solve all of that. As much as it appealed to me, just couldn't break through the people who heard that choice and thought, well, I know what I'm choosing.
Sarah: [00:07:10] I think the other hard reality is so many people, including myself, told themselves that Donald Trump won by a very small margin and he wasn't going to keep all those people. And that is true. I think that he lost evangelical voters, not all of them, but some of them, I think he lost, um, suburban voters. I think that he, his, not everybody stuck with him, but the other side of that coin, which I refused to admit to myself as that he did gain people.
There were people who liked what he had to say and liked his approach. I think there's a enormous gender component. And I think you see a gender gap in most ethnic groups in this country for a reason, because I think his, his macho approach appeals to men. And, you know, I think it's not that he didn't, he didn't just pick up men, but, you know, he picked up everybody.
He picked up some voters in every category and I think that's just something I didn't want it to admit to myself that would happen as well.
Beth: [00:08:10] There are a couple of things that I identified as just takeaways early on, like before actual election day, that made me nervous. One was a survey of sort of is your life better than it was four years ago and the majority of people said yes, in that survey, I saw that. And the other was how many new voters Republicans were registering in some of the battleground States and how new Republican registrations were outpacing new Democrats registering. And those seemed like real warning signs to me.
I think when you look at the data, you know, people who were politically engaged red got redder and blue got bluer. And that trend is likely to continue. The bigger gulf to me then between Democrats and Republicans, as wide as that feels is between people who pay attention to politics consistently, and people who don't
Sarah: [00:09:13] 100% agree. That's something I thought about a lot on election night as I was trying to calm myself down before I went to sleep.
Beth: [00:09:19] Especially when you think about Democrats running on healthcare. There is almost an assumption at the foundation of that message on healthcare. And this is not me trying to Monday morning quarterback Democrats. It's really me trying to think about what are the next steps for us as a country. There's almost an assumption at the base of the conversation about healthcare that people fully understand what the affordable care act does and does not do.
And fully understand what it would mean to lose the affordable care act and fully understand what it would mean to shore up the affordable care act. And I think that for people who are politically disengaged most of the year, when they hear Donald Trump wants to take away your health care, some of them are going to react and say, well, that's what he says about you all, right? And some of them are going to react and think fine, it sucks anyway. Maybe this successful businessman can do better. And as much as we talk about echo chambers and people living in their own information universes, I want to be really honest about the fact that I live in my own information universe.
Not because I'm taking in information that is fantastical or that is pure propaganda, but because I'm taking in so much information. So when I hear health care, I remember skinny repeal. I remember that Republicans never put a plan of their own on the floor, right? That's not, that's just not even in the lexicon of the average voter.
I don't want to think about Democrats messaging that better so that's somebody else's job. I want to think about how more people stay engaged consistently enough that we, that we all start at a different place.
Sarah: [00:11:11] The other thing I thought a lot about particularly on election night is if the democratic party is a dependable narrative to those disengaged voters, when it comes to Donald Trump.
And what I mean by that is in 2016, we told people it would be the end of our country if he was elected. And I think you can make the case that in many ways it was. We for all intents and purposes have no immigration to this country. If you believe that America is an ideal and not an ethnicity then he has brought almost a complete and total stop to that, to the idea that America is a melting pot.
That our immigrants and our history of immigration is one of the strongest parts of what makes America America. So I don't want to imply that that was all hyperbole, but I think for those disengaged voters, it became, you know, the narrative that like you hate him no matter what he does, took off and found seed, you know, because I think to a certain extent, you know, you and I've talked about this.
Yeah. There there's nothing that would make us vote for him. Now that doesn't mean I hate him, but it's like, if anybody wants to feel that you are in any way, shape or form neutral towards Donald Trump, in order to trust your opinion, then the democratic party lost its ability to criticize him. Now, would that be lost? No matter what, I don't know.
But, and, and does he deserve elevated rhetoric with regards to who he is and what kind of threat he is? Absolutely, but it is sort of complicated, right? Are we, are we arguing that he's a fool, which I believe him to be? Are we arguing that he's a threat? Cause sometimes those sound conflicting.
Are we arguing that really he's just trying to build the American populace for all its worth and make money or are we arguing that he's the next coming of Mussolini? That he's trying to gain control and stay in the government forever because in some ways I think both of those are true in some ways I think both of those are conflicting.
Do you see what I'm saying? Like, absolutely say a lot of things about Donald Trump and I'm not saying that there isn't some truth in all of them. I'm just saying that to those people who stay not particularly engaged, which thread of that are they supposed to follow without becoming an expert in the exploits of the Trump administration.
Beth: [00:13:34] Well, and if you take someone who's mostly disengaged from politics and you line up what you just said against that polling, where people said mostly better off than I was four years ago. That's tough. That's really tough because again, the way in which I view him as a threat all depends on my understanding of how American government is supposed to function.
And that's just not a question the average person is thinking about even once a year. And that's a flaw in our system, and I'm not saying people are stupid. I'm saying we're missing something societaly that gives people a better understanding of how government is supposed to work and more consistent understanding that lasts a lifetime. High school government classes should not be the end of it.
Right. That should be a beginning, but we don't really have a civic mechanism that keeps people all of us connected in some way to what's going on with our government. So when you say he violates all the norms, what does that even mean to somebody who is not interested in this stuff? Who prioritizes something else?
And look, I recognize that I have prioritized understanding these things to a degree that like, I mean, what could I know about Russian poetry or something if I prioritize that the way that I do this, people just make different choices in their lives. And I'm not saying one's better or one's worse, but I am saying when you look at a democratic process that requires everyone's participation.
And we truly don't have a country that even understands that state law dictates when you start counting ballots, we have a problem, we just do. And it's a problem that has made it impossible to talk about Donald Trump in terms that don't sound hyperbolic.
Sarah: [00:15:37] So that's where I was Tuesday night. I felt heartbroken that there wasn't a landslide. I felt like really reconsidering some of the narratives out there about the political party. I also feel frustrated just because I think in moments like this, where we do have a crisis because of the pandemic and the economy, because of climate change, that there is a certain subset of the population that is always going to choose quote, unquote, conservative politics.
Like the idea that everything is fine and we're going to keep going the way things go instead of no, we have real problems and changes need to be made because change is scary. And so I, you know, I get in this kind of despondent place when Democrats lose, where I just feel like the deck is stacked psychologically against us, but I mostly shook that off by Wednesday morning and I stayed away from Twitter.
I stayed away from all of it. I was so good. I have fallen all the way off the wagon today, Thursday. So I'm feeling a lot more anxiety, even though I do feel like the path for Biden is clear. And I think I felt so much better yesterday because even though I am devastated that there was not a landslide, even though, as we're going to talk about in a minute, the Senate and house looked very different than we thought they were going to.
You know, and even as I just said, like, are we sometimes hyperbolic about Donald Trump or at least in the way we try to communicate about him? Let me be abundantly clear. I felt immeasurably better yesterday because even though I wanted a landslide and I believed in a landslide, I don't think I'd allowed myself to think about how nice it would be to just not him as be him as the president. Like just the relief of that scenario is. It's just really hard to describe.
Beth: [00:17:33] I want to make sure that I'm not glossing past the racial component of this race as well. Because when I say it sounds hyperbolic to people who are typically not politically engaged, I pretty well talking about white people.
Because the truth is, I don't know for other groups, but if you look at the numbers, you know, Black Americans over welcomingly favor Joe Biden, overwhelmingly, and as we've talked about in previous episodes, that is not an intellectual exercise, that is lived experience telling us we feel safer and more respected in this country when there are Democrats in positions of power, then when there are Republicans in positions of power. And I don't think that's because Black Americans think the democratic party is perfect. Um, I think that that has a lot to do with Donald Trump and the way that he speaks and the violence that he incites with his words and his policies.
So I don't want to miss that. I also don't want to miss the fact that I think the way we talk about other groups in this country, and I'm thinking particularly of the Hispanic vote or the Latino vote, depending on who you're listening to, completely misses the complexity of the people within those groups.
And I hope that we do a better job and again, we meaning mostly white people and certainly in media, Being more specific about who we're talking about in those Democrat demographic categories and not presuming that any one of those groups is going to vote in a, in a way that is homogenous. Um, but I was just this morning looking at some numbers and thinking about the absurdity of Asian American, trying to encompass everyone from Indian Americans to Chinese Americans, to Japanese. And you know what I mean?
Like it's just the, the experiences and perspectives people bring are so much richer than basically the nonwhite categories capture. And we're just doing a terrible disservice and trying to understand the place we live and the people that make it up with these categories that are centered from the white perspective.
Sarah: [00:19:55] Well, and for what it's worth, two things. One, I don't really, you know, there are a lot of white women I don't share very many perspective, many experiences with, like lots and lots of them whose lives look absolutely nothing like mine. Now I'm not discounting the power of white supremacy in shaping our particular privilege at all, but I wish we all had the capacity to let the need to categorize like that go.
And what I mean by that is, you know, I really wish I feel like that the triumph of a diverse democracy is when everybody, every group doesn't have to be a monolith. When you have large percentages of Black Americans and Indigenous people and evangelicals and those in the disability community.
Like when everybody can just vote however the heck they want without feeling like they have to vote to protect their very personhood. Like, to me, that's the goal, right? Because I really think there is enough complexity in all of these communities that you should see a split. You shouldn't see. And I, I mean, I, not because of the, the politics of the party right now.
No, I don't think there's, I think for better, for worse where the parties are right now, you're not going to see any complexity for awhile, but I still think that should be the goal. Like, wouldn't that be the, maybe the ultimate classification of your privilege in a society is the ability to, to feel like you can vote for either party, right?
Beth: [00:21:41] For sure. And I think the fact that we don't have that healthy dynamic shows why States like Michigan, to me as an outside observer, Michigan feels like it is about to boil over. And I think when you look at the numbers, you can see it's because there is such a strong blue presence and such a strong red presence.
And those two in such direct proximity with each other, in the middle of a pandemic and an election year, it's hard. It's really hard. And I think that everyone feels really justified in their sense that no, my party is on the side of right here. And look, I've had some heated conversations this week where I have said to people, I'm sorry, you're wrong about this.
I do not see the truth in your perspective here. I think you are elevating some very selfish ideals over some that would enable all of us to live in greater community with one another. And those are hard conversations to have, but I think they're really important. I think that, you know, there's a big part of me that feels regretful that I didn't speak so assertively and clearly much earlier on. Because we've had four years to have that discussion and people haven't moved and maybe they won't, maybe, maybe people just won't move. I don't know.
Sarah: [00:23:16] Well, and here's where I'm struggling is when we're having this conversation and we're basically saying you're voting selfishly, is the better political play because you know, for better or for worse, I know I get in my head and decide that politics is about morals, but it's not.
It's about power. Is the better political play to stop trying to convince people to not be selfish and to start trying to convince them why this vote would be good for them in the end anyway? And I think that's sort of the internal debate within the democratic party. Are we shaming people into voting Democrat or because that's certainly how millions of Americans feel.
They feel like they're being shamed for their support of Donald Trump, shame for being Republicans, shame for not being a members of the cool kids club and they don't like it. And there is a consistent and infested politics of grievance on the right. It emanates, they are aggrieved. And so, you know, I struggle with like, how much do we say be grieved and how much do we say, do we attempt to, you know, show them that it's not just the politics of you know, don't be selfish, but it's also the politics of this is also beneficial for you. It's almost like the pandemic argument. Like how much do we articulate like, no. Wearing a mask is, is an act for your neighbors. It's also a selfish act because we all want to get back to our regular lives, be selfish, wear a mask so we can all get back to normal. You know?
Beth: [00:25:08] Don't know the answer to that. And I think I would feel differently about it at different times. There is a part of me that worries that either way, there is an element of condescension that is so seized on so quickly by that culture of grievance, it's kind of, you know, this is what Donald Trump has done from the beginning.
Heads I win. Tails you lose. Yeah. And when you have a group of people who thrive on believing that they are being persecuted, despite an absence of objective evidence that that persecution is occurring, it's really difficult to know where to go from there because everything else contributes to the persecution.
It's just like conspiracy theory, right. It, everything becomes self-reinforcing. Twitter puts a warning on it. See, they don't want you to know. And so there's a part of me that, you know, there's a lot of discussion about. How the most successful person in the selection is Stacey Abrams, because her strategy has not been to move people.
It's just been to bring more people into the process. Now, I think in Kentucky, what we see and why I have always suspected is that if you bring more people into the process in Kentucky, you probably get a better outcome. Um, so I don't think it's true universally that more people voting means more Democrats win or Donald Trump figures can't thrive.
But I wonder if I would like to dig into her approach more to know if part of that bringing people in has really centered on bringing them in, in an informed way and helping them understand what's in it for them and helping them understand like, Here's where we are with the issues. This is what matters about your participation, because that to me is a model that could work.
And I say all this as a person who I, you know, I hope 10 years from now has a lot of different candidates that would be interesting to me. I I'm not analyzing us as someone who's thinking like, how do we build up the democratic party. Right now I just want to end Trumpism. I don't want a Republican Senate under Joe Biden to function the way the Republican Senate has functioned under Donald Trump.
And I want enough of America to be on the same page about that, that they're pressured not to. I don't know if that can happen. Two years down the road, I want to be in a very different place. So if that means building the democratic party for now, I'm all in on that. And longterm, I don't know what it looks like, except that I really hate having these discussions and recognizing that a lot of people in these discussions have no clue who is responsible for what in our government.
You know, just this idea that like Joe Biden singularly could usher in socialism or that Joe Biden will die in about five seconds and Kamala Harris will be the president and she will singularly transform us from a capitalistic society into a socialist one, that makes no sense. None. And I want to move the needle around that.
Sarah: [00:28:47] But, you know, when you think about it, Stacy Abrams is the ultimate argument for what we're always saying, which is it's not diversity's for diversity's sake. It's because diversity brings perspective. The reason people like me are obsessed with converting people's political values is because I hang out with a bunch of white college educated people that vote regularly.
And the reason Stacey Abrams is changing the map and changing democratic politics is because she's not just hanging out with educated people that vote regularly. Right. And her perspective is different and insanely valuable, arguably essential. That's how we do this. Right. And I think that's why the squad won.
I think that's why they're so valuable. But I think the important thing is that's not it. I think Beto's approaches different and his approach is valuable. I think all of these things work, they just don't work overnight. And I wanted them to work overnight and by overnight, I mean, four years too, but it's going to take all those things.
It's going to take people pushing from the very progressive side of the party for radical acceptance, for radical expansion of perspectives. It's going to take people in the center saying we can't just leave it all on the field in urban areas. That we also need to increase turnout and register more people and do that sort of civic education across the country.
Because when you win the election, it's not over, you still have to gain legislative victories and legislative coalitions. And. I would like to return to a day where some of those were bipartisan. And I just think all of those, the numbers we see and the successes we see show that we have so much more work to do.
Beth: [00:30:44] I was reading the New York Times letter that goes out the email newsletter that goes out about schools, which I find very valuable. This week, they shared a story from San Francisco about how the public schools in San Francisco have not yet brought students back in any meaningful way. And the only announcement they've really given to the public is don't expect to do that this calendar year.
And at the same time, administrators in that school district have put forth a plan to rename about a third of the schools that have names associated with oppression. And some of those names are like Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. And so there's this bubbling over of tension over that and you get San Francisco's democratic mayor, London Breed issuing a pretty scathing statement saying, Hey.
I get why that's important, but you don't even have a plan to get kids back in these buildings. We're not going to talk about renaming something until you talk about getting it open. You owe the public that. And I really thought in that anecdote, a lot of what, at least when I think about, cause I think your point is so good about Beto and Stacey Abrams.
I do think really different things work in different parts of the country and with different people in different parts of the country. When I think about Kentucky, I think that that anecdote from the New York times newsletter encapsulated a lot of what my fellow Kentucky fans believe about Democrats, that the prioritization is always on something symbolic and something that indicates that if you are not in lock step with every one of their views, you are racist that, and the belief, not only that you are racist, but that you celebrate a history that is all terrible.
And that's an massive caricature of an incredibly complex democratic party, but that caricature is powerful. And I think that's why you see a state that really doesn't like Mitch McConnell still electing Mitch McConnell by a healthy margin because his commercials all spoke to that caricature. Amy McGrath says that the election of Donald Trump is like 9/11 and that the wall is dumb and what she means is you're dumb. And Amy McGrath is way too liberal for Kentucky, meaning she thinks you're all racist, right? Like, and the, the riots in Portland dominated these commercials. I mean, it was, it was, it would be funny if it weren't so sick and demeaning.
And, and look, I think that we are a state that for the most part, when people hear the word racist, they still think, well, I don't have a personal animus toward people of any skin color, instead of thinking, how do I participate in systems that continue to advantage certain groups over others? Or how do I participate in systems that result in the deaths and poverty of other groups. That's just not where we are.
Sarah: [00:34:16] Just the phrase participate in systems is going to get you an eye roll in a substantial part of
Beth: [00:34:21] it. Talking about race is going to get you an eye-roll in Kentucky for the most part. And so. So when I think about like, what's our version here of what Stacey Abrams is doing, of what Beto is doing, of what people all over it, lots of grassroots people whose names we don't know all over the country are doing effectively. Like that, to me, feels like a place to dig in and really understand how, how can we more effectively get at these issues?
Sarah: [00:34:49] Well, and let me just take this really nice, big, healthy aside. I think that we are obsessed in many ways with these rural voters, with the voters who rolled their eyes when you say participate in the system, white voters, because of a political process that is increasingly looking or already as minority rule.
Joe Biden's margin is bigger than the population of 23 States. Don't make me recount my voting history again in presidential races. You know, don't look at the fact that we have five Supreme court justices appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote. Don't get me started on the United States Senate.
Don't get me started on the limit of 435 representatives for 300 million people. Those are all true. But, you know, we have a saying in this in the South, you can shit in one hand and wish in the other and see what fills up first. And I would love to sit around a wishing for the end and have been wishing for the end of the electoral college.
And I would love to sit around wishing for the addition of Puerto Rico and Washington DC, but that ain't happening with this Congress. And so we're going to have to deal with this one way or the other. And I don't think the idea of just it's minority rule, forget you, silence you, moving on is working now.
And it's certainly not going to get us to any big changes to start chipping away at that minority rule. So I want to, I want to get somewhere, instead of just staying where we are pissed off at the other half, who roll their eyes when we say participate in a system.
Beth: [00:36:43] Well, that's right, because when you start talking about minority rule and this isn't just rural voters, people who are more conservative here, you just want to change the rules.
So you can, when you don't like the rules, the way they are, you want to send them so you can win or you get, well, I don't want only cities to choose everything for the country. And look, there are, again, this is not a binary process. Like there are ways to reform our system beyond we have the current electoral college, or we have only a national popular vote for president.
There's a whole lot of territory on a spectrum there, but you're right. Sarah, none of that discussion matters until you have a functioning Congress. That's interested in taking up those structural questions and we don't get that until the rest of the country is engaged enough in those structural questions to have the conversation.
So rank choice voting, something we love was on the ballot in a couple of States. It had a really bad night. And I think it's just because people don't understand it. And once you talk with people about it and show them and demonstrate like what this does, here's how it works, here's how it matches so many other things you do in your life.
If we're like, Oh yeah, that's great. We should do that. Um, but you know, that's a lot of work to get there just on rank choice voting and that alone doesn't update all of the systems that need to be updated to hold a country of this many people. When we think about a functioning Congress, it might be helpful to talk about where Congress stands.
We know that Democrats kept control of the house. Can I be sad for a second though about some really good legislators that lost their races? I think it is so sad that Abby Finkenaurer lost her race in Iowa. I think it's so sad that Doug Jones lost and
Sarah: [00:38:38] Kendra horn
Beth: [00:38:39] and Kendra horn and Abigail Spanberger barely made it through. She is somebody we are all better off for having in Congress. I mean, it just, there were some, there were some tough, tough losses of, of those, the kind of person that people say they want. Somebody who works across the aisle. Hmm, somebody who doesn't always vote lock step with the party, but kind of people that people say they want when they complain about politics, a bunch of those people lost their races.
And it it's really telling about the way we talk about our systems versus the way we vote.
Sarah: [00:39:19] Yeah. So where we're at at the Senate right now is it looks like we will have two run-off elections in Georgia, between the current incumbent, Senator Perdue and John Ossoff and Reverend Raphael Warnock, and the current Senator Kelly Loffler, which will determine if you can believe it, the control of the Senate.
Georgia. I weep for your commercials. I weep for your inboxes and your doors and your mailboxes. Woof, brace yourself girl.
Beth: [00:39:55] That's an absolute miracle though. I mean, it really like. Again, Stacey Abrams and her group and our friend, Sarah Riggs Amico, and lots of people in Georgia have done unbelievable work to get Georgia to two run off.
Sarah: [00:40:11] So that will take place in January. And so we probably won't know about the Senate for many, many, many more weeks. Now we do have results. We have, let me tell you, you had a great night. You talked about this Beth, marijuana had a great night
Marijuana had a greatBeth: [00:40:29] night. That is something that you don't have to be politically engaged to understand an out we came for it.
Sarah: [00:40:34] That's right. And we, that is not surprising in the year 2020 that everybody was like, you know what? I would like some edibles. Thank you so much. California passed proposition 22, which allows for Uber and Lyft to carve out an exception and to allow their drivers to continue on as independent contractors.
Um, they also, we didn't talk about this in our ballot initiatives episode, but projected to pass proposition 24, which expands their data privacy laws. But here's the part that I thought was so interesting. It's going to provide funding for a new state agency in charge of enforcing data privacy rules on behalf of consumers. I thought that was so
Beth: [00:41:05] cool. It's exciting. I wonder how much that's going to follow some of the European models. Like I'm anxious to see how that ultimately rolls.
Sarah: [00:41:14] We had Florida increased their minimum wage. We had Illinois reject the progressive tax increase. What were some of the other big ones that you were watching, Beth?
Beth: [00:41:24] Colorado rejected the ban on abortion after 22 weeks. Louisiana voters decided to get in front of a potential post Roe vs. Wade world, by saying that there is no right to an abortion in the Louisiana constitution, and there is no right to state funding of abortion in the Louisiana constitution.
So it's a little complicated to understand, but basically if you have the Supreme court overturning Roe vs. Wade, as some people think is possible, given the makeup of the court now, and it went to the States, then state courts could find in state constitutions that right implied just as the United States Supreme court found in the United States constitution. And so some States are trying to preempt that and Louisiana voters by an overwhelming margin did. Colorado also approved paid family leave.
12 weeks funded through a payroll tax that is a split between employees and employers. And that's really exciting. Virginia approved a bipartisan commission on redistricting and Mississippi voters approved a change of their state flag,
Sarah: [00:42:29] which is lovely. Good job, Mississippi. I like that Magnolia flag. I think it's really pretty. Okay. So it was tough, but let's talk about some really big picture wins. If the projections hold 2020 turnout will be the highest it's been since 1900 with 73.7% of eligible Americans casting ballots. Got y'all America, pat yourself on the back. That's awesome. There's no other if ands or buts about it, that many Americans voting is something we should all celebrate.
Beth: [00:43:03] And it's a big endorsement of having a more expansive process.
Sarah: [00:43:06] Absolutely.
Beth: [00:43:07] I really worry that some of the conversation right now is see, this is why we don't do it this way, because we don't like waiting. Well, the answer to that friends is for state legislatures to allow States to process the ballots as they come in. There's a fix for what we're living through right now,
Sarah: [00:43:25] I was also incredibly concerned about voter intimidation or violence. And while there were some isolated incidences and there are some protests as the counting, on actual election day, I felt like everything was very calm and ran very smoothly
Beth: [00:43:39] and we didn't have any massive foreign interference that was successful, at least that we know of. And we have a statement from the department of Homeland security saying we don't think any votes were tampered with. We don't think any American was actually prevented from casting a vote. And so we've, we've come a long way. And there are a lot of people whose names we'll never know, working behind the scenes to cut that stuff off as it happens. And they've really done a remarkable job.
Sarah: [00:44:06] So we're here. We're still taking deep breaths. I wanted to share something as we close out the show that just left me so inspired and really got me out of my funk. Um, from Tuesday night when I was still mourning, the landslide that never came, this is from Quaker author and activist Parker Palmer.
And it was shared in Richard Rohrs daily email.
"If we are to stand and act with hope and the tragic gap and do it for the long haul, we cannot settle for mere effectiveness as the ultimate measure of our failure a success. Yes, we want to be effective in pursuit of important goals. But we must judge ourselves by a higher standard than effectiveness.
The standard is called faithfulness. Are we faithful to the community on which we depend to doing what we can and response to its pressing needs? Are we faithful to the better angels of our nature and to what they call forth from us? Are we faithful to the eternal conversation of the human race to speaking and listening in a way that takes us closer to truth.
Are we faithful to the call of courage that summons us to witness to the common good, even against great odds? When faithfulness is our standard, we are more likely to sustain our engagement with tasks that will never end. Doing justice, loving mercy and calling the beloved community into being."
Thank you for joining us for another episode of Pantsuit Politics, we will be back in your ears on Tuesday and until then, keep it nuanced, y'all.