Impeachment... Again
Topics Discussed:
The Particulars of Impeachment
Moment of Hope
Public Reaction to Impeachment
Outside of Politics
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Episode Resources
Five Things You Need to Know About Impeachment (Pantsuit Politics)
Transforming carbon dioxide into jet fuel using an organic combustion-synthesized Fe-Mn-K catalyst (Nature)
Talk-radio owner orders conservative hosts to temper election fraud rhetoric (The Washington Post)
Transcript:
Sarah: (00:00:22) This is Sarah
Beth: [00:00:22] And Beth,
Sarah: [00:00:23] You're listening to Pantsuit Politics.
Beth: [00:00:25] The home of grace-filled political conversations.
Sarah: [00:00:00] Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Pantsuit Politics on this historic day. As we face the second impeachment of president Donald Trump, we are going to spend this episode talking about Congress's reaction to the impeachment, as well as all of your questions surrounding impeachment, and really just the community, both here at Pantsuit Politics and the community at large and how they are reacting to the siege at the Capitol and the upcoming impeachment.
Before we get to that, I wanted to share that on January 21st, the news brief will be moving exclusively to Patreon. For those of you not on Instagram, every day on IGTV, I give about a seven minute or less roundup of the day's headlines. It's grown tremendously over the last few months or over a year, I guess. I don't know how long I've been doing [00:01:00] it.
And it just seemed important that the news brief in the morning and the nightly nuance at night, we're together at home exclusively on Patreon. They're really two sides of the same coin and we are trying to be thoughtful and really consider it about how to grow Pantsuit Politics and in a really sustainable way, both for us and our team and this community and taking the news brief to Patreon really seemed like the way to do that.
It will be available both in video and audio form on Patreon at the $5 a month level. Also at the $5 a month level, you'll get the Monday Nightly Nuance and then at 15, you'll get both every day, Monday through Thursday. So if you've been interested in the news brief, but never on Instagram and thinking about moving to Patreon, well here is the perfect opportunity to make that switch. So January 21st, the news brief will move exclusively to Patreon.
[00:02:00] Beth: [00:02:04] The house of representatives has impeached the president of the United States for the second time. That's the first time in our nation's history that a president has been impeached twice. We've gotten a number of questions, so I just, I want to briefly review what impeachment means. You can learn more about this in our episode, Five Things You Need to Know About Impeachment, that we'll link here in the show notes, but impeachment is the house of representatives formally charging the president with high crimes and misdemeanors.
If you want a parallel in state criminal law, the house is acting a little bit like a grand jury. This is a formal indictment and then the Senate actually tries the president for that high crime and misdemeanor and renders a verdict and the sentencing process, I think, is what's really confusing around this president because before the Senate takes up this process, Donald Trump's term will expire.
So there's a question, [00:03:00] well, what's the point if he's no longer the president? There are lots of philosophical arguments about what the point is, but there is a practical one as well. If the Senate convicts the president, not only can they remove him from office, which will be moot in the case of Donald J Trump, but they can also, if they choose, ban him from seeking office again, and that is the point practically of continuing forward with a trial after his term has expired.
Sarah: [00:03:29] And we have done this before. There are two historical precedents, not with the president, but with a cabinet secretary and I believe a judge of impeaching someone after they've left office.
It still obviously requires a two thirds majority in the United States Senate to convict, but the sentences themselves only require a simple majority, but of course you would still, you would still need a conviction in order to sentence. So I think that the ability to enforce any sort [00:04:00] of consequence is the philosophical argument that you're talking about.
Like there must be some sort of accountability. I think one representative said like, if this is not impeachable, why do we have impeachment? If inciting a violent mob to attack our seat of government is not impeachable, then what is, and whether or not he'll already be removed from office, you know, I think the point is to have some accountability. And I mean, I think that the ability to enforce wider consequences beyond just removal from office is important as well. I
Beth: [00:04:35] just used very legalistic terms about this process. And it is a legal process. It is prescribed by con by the constitution. Unfortunately like a lot of other things prescribed by the constitution, we don't have a lot of detail on how it is supposed to play out.
So over the past couple of days, there have been a number of arguments about this being rushed that the president [00:05:00] should have an opportunity for due process. And we really don't have any meaningful answers to that beyond the Senate rules that it has adopted itself and that it could change at any time.
The constitution doesn't say much about what is supposed to happen in this process, it just lays out the roadmap for the house impeaching, sending it to the Senate for trial and the sentence options once it has it for trial. But what actually goes into those parts is prescribed by the rules that Congress makes itself and that it is able to change and for which it is accountable only to the people.
A court is very unlikely. I would put the chances hovering maybe slightly above zero, but not much, that a court would ever get involved and say, Congress has done this process improperly because impeachment is political. And so when you think back to last January, [00:06:00] when the house was impeaching the president with respect to the Ukraine call and the withholding of aid to Ukraine, the reason that that process played out over such a long period of time is because Congress was making the case to the American people more than to itself.
Yes. We needed to investigate the facts and we need to take it extremely seriously because it is serious. There are few things more serious than saying to the American public, you elected this leader and now we are saying this leader cannot continue to serve. It's very, very serious, but the facts about Ukraine were largely know to members of Congress and largely confusing and complex and unknown to the public.
And because our legislators are accountable for their actions surrounding impeachment, only to the public in the form of their personal elections, it's important to make that case and explain why. [00:07:00] That was a very important civics lesson for the country, regardless of its outcome. This situation is unfolding differently because members of the house do not believe they need to make that case to the American public. We all watched the events that underlie this impeachment unfolding before our eyes on Wednesday in real time.
We all saw it. We can disagree about what the president's words actually meant to his supporters. And lots of people are out there mincing those words and parsing them apart. And the president himself has told us that to a T they were perfect. But we all heard them. We aren't searching for the credibility of witnesses about who said what when, and that's why this process unfolded much more quickly.
Sarah: [00:07:45] This was not only the first time a United States president hasn't been impeached for a second time, it was also what one commentator called the most bipartisan impeachment in American history. [00:08:00] 10 House Republicans, including the number three leadership, Liz Cheney, voted for impeachment. Zero obviously voted for it the first time in January of 2020.
And as I look at these 10 and I listened to their statements, I can't decide if I feel hopeful that there were 10 or despair that there were only 10. And I am interested to hear your perspective on that. If you're feeling hopeful or feeling despair.
Beth: [00:08:43] I'm feeling hopeful. And I recognize that I could be feeling hopeful as a coping mechanism. It helps me to remember that we all behave from a set of deep patterns worn into the grooves of our [00:09:00] brains. And so the deep pattern worn into the grooves of the brains of house Republicans in particular is to be opposed to what the Democrats want to do, especially when it is about an inherently political topic.
And so to me, that 10 Republicans on this schedule this quickly said, yes, I, it is worth it to me to hold this president accountable, despite the fact that my default position is being opposed to what Democrats want to do. I think that's fairly significant. I think it's especially significant that a member of the house Republican leadership spoke out as forcefully as Liz Cheney did.
What I hope that everyone who actually experienced the fallout of what happened on January 6th would have a perspective more aligned with mine? Sure I would. It gave me hope that some of the members who opposed impeachment [00:10:00] were still not defensive of the president's actions. I disagree with the process arguments, but I can make a process argument in good faith.
And so the fact that we didn't have a room full of Jim Jordans, that's a low bar, but I guess that's where my bar is at this point. And it does, it does make me feel hopeful. It makes me feel hopeful to see someone like Adam Kinzinger of Illinois saying on Twitter, that the adults are going to take charge again, that we're not going to remember who Marjorie Taylor Green is in a year. I really want to believe that. And so I choose for this moment to feel good about the fact that 10 house Republicans made this move.
Sarah: [00:10:41] Yeah, I think that overall, this was a good sign. It's not what I would like, but it's a good sign. The political pragmatist inside my brain says that this is also a function of the failure of leadership of [00:11:00] Kevin McCarthy, who is just talking out both sides of his mouth at every opportunity.
I appreciated his statements on the floor that the election was not stolen and that Antifa was not in the mob and that the president holds responsibility, but that is in direct opposition to the things that he was saying before January 6th. And I just think that he's trying to have it both ways and in sometimes in leadership, you have to choose one way. And so I think that that's part of it.
I think, you know, just the experience for so many members of, of living through that I would think would affect more of them. But what I really had an aha moment about when it came to Congress is reading some of the reports, particularly from representative Mikie Sherrill, who said she saw congresspeople leading what she described as reconnaissance tours.
Groups of people in town for this rally, people who had plans to come and attack the Capitol and try to [00:12:00] overturn the election and they were being led and shown the tunnels and the, the, the, the Capitol complex by members of Congress. My first immediate reaction was of course horror. Like that's horrific to think that members of the United States house of representatives would assist domestic terrorists and trying to overthrow our seat of government.
And then I thought, why would this particular identity be any different, then all the other people in our country willing to abandon identities and support of the president. And what I mean by that is, you know, we have in our audience, so many people who have been pushed away from their family members, family members who chose their identity as a Trump supporter over their identity as a father [00:13:00] or a brother or a son. People who choose their identities as Trump supporters over, you know, the people we're seeing in the crowd at the insurrection over their identities as CEOs, Olympic gold medalist, elected officials.
And so, you know, why wouldn't the identity as a member of the United States Congress be any different? Why wouldn't you be willing to subsume that and sacrifice that on the alter of loyalty to this present, because that's what he demands. And so I think there's just a part of me that's like, well, this is what we've seen since he first came down that escalator and what he told us was true, that he could shoot somebody in the middle of the time square and people would still support him.
So I think there's a group within the people who voted in opposition to the impeachment, who that identity is the most important identity to them. [00:14:00] Like the Mo Brooks, the Andy Biggs, like the Marjorie Taylor Green, that identity as a believer is more important than anything else. And then I think for the rest of those people, for the rest of the Republican party, I think that identity as a Republican and not, not really as a Republican, as an opposition to the democratic party is the most important identity. That that's all that matters, is that this is what a Republican does and I think that's, that's really sad.
Beth: [00:14:35] I understand that this is going to be more generous than a lot of folks are willing to be right now. And I understand why, but I'll say I think that it's not just being oppositional to Democrats, which I do think is a pattern more deeply in the groups of lots of our brains.
I think it is also a piece of one's identity to say, well, I'm a conservative or I am very [00:15:00] process oriented or I am a cooler head that prevails. I'm not someone who's going to act in haste. I mean, there are, there are probably as many motivating identities as there are human beings within that group of folks who voted against impeachment.
And I think that there is some fear. I think it's true that I think that fear comes from a lot of different sources. I think that fear comes not only from feeling actually threatened, which many members are telling us that they do and I don't blame them. I think it also comes from the fear of being rejected or being categorized as weak or a sellout and is any of that good enough when you're serving in a leadership position? Not really.
And yet they are people and they are people who are traumatized as they're taking these votes, whether they acknowledge it or not. [00:16:00] And so I'm just trying to hold a lot of space around the different decisions folks are making right now.
I never again would like to hear from Jim Jordan or Andy Biggs or Mo Brooks, and I don't believe that they deserve their seats in the United States, Congress, after everything that has unfolded. I also recognize that they do represent a slice of the American public. And so if we can get back to a moment of them being the fringe instead of the center of the Republican party, that will feel like meaningful progress to me.
Sarah: [00:16:33] One of the most effecting statements for me was from representative Michael McCall of Texas. And he said, who, who voted against impeachment, he said, I truly fear there may be more facts that come to light in the future that will put me on the wrong side of this debate. And I think that's absolutely true in that he can even recognize that articulated, articulated in his statements on the phone floor means he [00:17:00] knows it's true.
Like, I think that. You know, I don't really want these people just on the fringe. I want them expelled from Congress because fringe is you hold beliefs that only a few people do. Like that you're an idealogue, that you have no room for compromise. It doesn't mean that you want to overthrow, that you work with citizensto come and threaten your fellow members of Congress and to try to steal an election. Right. And I, I felt such sympathy when they articulated, like I'm afraid for my life, but it's hard to hear that. And then hear, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez say, well, welcome to the party. You've been talking about me like this the entire time.
You've put my life at risk from the beginning, and I'm supposed to have sympathy for you because you're afraid what will happen if you hold this president accountable for inciting an insurrection? I mean, it's tough. It's tough. Like I don't want to dehumanize and I don't want to [00:18:00] lose my capacity to see these people as human beings, but it is difficult when they are members of Congress and when they are in leadership positions and they reject every opportunity to do the right thing.
I will say this. What gives me hope is that if you have 10 in the house, you can absolutely assume that number will be larger in the Senate. Do you feel like that is your gut? That like, if we can get? Cause the house is so much more loyal and so much more ideological and just in every way is, is different than the United States Senate. And so if we can get 10 there, I don't feel like 17 is out of the realm of possibility in the Senate. What do you think>
Beth: [00:18:46] I think it's entirely possible, especially when you have Mitch McConnell himself signaling openness and no one really stepping up to actually defend the president in this process, other than those fringe house members.
And I [00:19:00] don't disagree with you at all, that there's a difference between fringe ideology and insurrectionist behavior. And I am interested in what the facts will show about the way members of Congress interacted with this group of people. I already think that Mo Brooks should be expelled from Congress based on the way he spoke to the crowd at the Capitol.
I don't know what part of his speech we're supposed to assume was metaphorical when he was literally referencing American revolutionaries and spilled blood. So I don't disagree with anything that you're saying. I really think for me, This is just a moment when I keep thinking, how do I bring more light than heat to the conversation here because the conversation's hot enough?
My emotions are hot enough and I do have sympathy. I don't agree I don't think at the end of the day, I do have sympathy for the idea that normalizing impeachment is not great. It's a tool that we should use and it should, it should have been used and the Senate [00:20:00] should have convicted the president last January.
I have zero doubt about that. At the same time I could spontaneously combust when I think about the effort to impeach governor Bashir here in Kentucky, I could burst into flames, just sitting here, talking about it because I think it is so deeply wrong. There are so many people in leadership positions who I think have exceeded the scope of their power or have behaved in ways that are unwise or unbecoming to the country or the actually put the country in jeopardy but impeachment is not the remedy for all of that.
Impeachment is absolutely the remedy I think when a president is so clearly corrupt and has used that power to advance his personal interest ahead of the country, which is what Donald Trump did when we were talking about impeachment of January 29th, 2020, and what Donald Trump did in a much more dangerous and [00:21:00] serious way as we're talking about impeachment at January, 2021.
Sarah: [00:21:04] And what he did on that call was secretary of state of Georgia. That was an impeachable offense for sure. I mean it's yeah, I think it sucks that this keeps coming up with him. I can see that. I can see, like, we don't want to make this, the normal reaction, but he's not normal. He's not normal. So how else are we supposed to respond when he shreds every norm.
Beth: [00:21:28] And what I'm struggling with and I knew we're going to talk more about this in a minute, is that I really think everybody knows that he's not normal and we're pretending that he is. And we're pretending that consequences and commentary directed at him are actually directed at millions and millions of people. And that is not how I feel at all.
I think he is uniquely amoral. I think he is [00:22:00] uniquely empowered to exercise that amorality in a very serious way that demands very serious consequences. And I'm frustrated that we're pretending that you can sub in a garden variety Republican for Donald Trump. And that's what like this idea that everyone just wants to get rid of all conservatism, that is not where I am, at all.
Sarah: [00:22:25] Yeah, well, and what really frustrates me is the idea that, well, let's treat him like a normal president because if we react and hold him accountable, it sets this terrible precedent. Well, soda's letting him get away with it every time he gets away with it, that doesn't just feed the frustration of the opposition that feeds the narrative of his supporters, that he is untouchable.
That is a narrative everybody holds about Donald Trump. That he's untouchable, whether you hate him or love him because they have [00:23:00] refused to hold him accountable. And I mean, they, the Republican leadership, the Republicans in Congress, we have co-equal branches of government, but they have not acted like it.
They have acted like the United States government is the Republican party and there is no separation. And there is no accountability between the party and the party leader that there is no presidency in Congress. There is just the leader of the Republican party and that's it. There seems to be no willingness to separate the two from the beginning where he has never acted like he represents Americans that did not vote for him ever not once and their refusal to hold him accountable for his exercises in corruption and fraud and abuse of power.
Beth: [00:23:51] I think that's such an important point and it has consequences. I couldn't be less interested in what the polling on impeachment and [00:24:00] removal looks like right now because the country is going to be behind the leadership. I think if you see Republicans in Congress actually asserting the power that they have, that will move the polling.
A few weeks out, if this president is impeached and removed, I think you will see some of those numbers change. I think there's a, a fraction of the country that is locked in where they are for now. And there's not much any of us can do about that. But a lot of those numbers follow the general consensus of Republican leadership.
That's why it's called leadership. I think that's why Kevin McCarthy is in crisis right now, because I think he understands what he has traded for what. And it's miserable to think about. And I think he understands that his voice matters [00:25:00] here and he wants to use it responsibly and is struggling to turn a ship 180 degrees.
Sarah: [00:25:06] Yeah. Well, to me, that fraction, it's not a, it's not a small fraction that quote from a Mitch McConnell adviser at the end of the New York times article, that was basically like, well, If you can find somebody who can turn out voters in rural America, like Donald Trump without the crazy, it's an undefeatable majority.And you remember that quote?
And I thought, yes, but they're not Republicans. He's not, he's not just finding people who have deep identities as Republicans and turning them out. Turn out is not the right word. That fraction that would not ever separate from him. They're not Republicans, they're not a Republican base.
They're a Trump base. And when he's gone from the political scene, I have no doubt that they will as well. Like the, there was even an article about the erratic voting history of the people arrested and charged in the insurrection. Like these [00:26:00] aren't party faithful. Right. But this is, this is different.
You've built a coalition of party faithful who will stand by the party no matter what and people, fringe, extreme people who will stand by Donald Trump, no matter what. And just because there are millions of them, does it make their belief any less fringe? Like the desire to follow a populist authoritarian is a threat no matter, what's motivating it. And no matter how many people beliee that.
And they couldn't see it as a threat to the country and they couldn't see it as a threat to their party, all they saw is that it increased their margins. And because they are a minority party in America, make no mistake. The 50 senators in the new Congress who represent the Republican party represent 40 million less Americans than the democratic half.
And so I think this, th this belief that like, if we don't, if we don't take every chance we get, if we don't take [00:27:00] every voter we get, because of the changing demographics in America, we will become a permanent minority, was motivating so much of this, and they made a deal with the devil and the Republican party is going to have to face the sacrifices that they made to support Donald Trump and it might not be now.
And that base might stick with them for a long time. And it might not ever be that the, the, the true party faithful ever turned from the Republican party. Although I can tell you our inboxes fill up pretty quick with people saying I voted Republican my entire life and I will never vote Republican again. So there, those people are out there too, but it's just, it's not a long-term strategy. I know that Mitch McConnell's biography was the long game, but I don't see him playing it when it comes to Donald Trump.
Beth: [00:27:49] Well, it couldn't be clearer that it's a Trump party, not Republican party when Donald Trump Jr. Says those words out loud and a pipe bomb was placed at the RNC headquarters too. [00:28:00] And I think it is fair and true for Republican members of Congress to feel like they are in physical danger right now. And as you pointed out, I think it is a moment when they have to consider the physical danger that they have helped inflame and create around other members of Congress for a very long time.
So it is a really hard moment. And I keep trying to remember in my analysis of it, that it is both a moment about me as an American citizen and not a moment about me at all. And so I don't want to take up any mantle that creates a lot of defensiveness in me because this was a long time in the making. And it's going to be a long time in the undoing, and it's just not super helpful to get swept up in, Oh my gosh, they want to banish all of us from Twitter.
Like, that's just not [00:29:00] where we are right now in, in my opinion, that that is not the main thing right now. And I am really working in every aspect of my life on keeping the main thing the main thing.
Sarah: [00:29:10] We took a pause for a little bit, but we do want to go back to our moment of hope. It's very important, the discipline of hope and Beth, you have something that you've been excited about for weeks, that we haven't been able to fit in the show. You just been punting and punting, and you're so excited about it. I'm glad you finally get to share me too.
Beth: [00:29:26] The number of times I have cut and paste this into a different file is ridiculous, but I am really excited that according to a new study published on nature.com, researchers from Oxford have found a way to actually take carbon dioxide as airplanes are admitting it and convert it into jet fuel.
I think that is the most like amazing futuristic application of technology that I could possibly imagine, that we could [00:30:00] have flights that are actually net zero, because we're immediately grabbing up that carbon dioxide and changing it through an inexpensive iron based catalyst. Do I totally understand what that means? I do not.
No, I do not. But a process that can be replicated without enormous expense could allow us to take that carbon dioxide and convert it into energy again. And that makes me really, really excited. And I wanted to share this quote from the researchers themselves.
" For more than a century, our industrial society and humankind's prosperity, wealth and wellbeing have been based on the combustion of hydrocarbon fossil fuels. However, it is abundantly clear this has disturbed the natural environment by the emission of greenhouse gases, most notably carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane. Nevertheless, the use of fossil fuels continues to grow with an expected annual increase of 1.3% to 2030 continually exacerbating this problem in the form of climate change.
[00:31:00] Air transport, playing a significant role in the modern world in worldwide social contact, business and marketing is a recognized source of high CO2 emissions. Given these recognized environmental concerns, it is now imperative to develop clean energy efficient technologies for producing sustainable or renewable aviation fuels."
And I'm just so excited that they're doing it.
Sarah: [00:31:21] Yeah, that sounds very awesome. As someone who loves to fly, but like, you know, purchases the credits to make it carbon neutral. When I fly, I would love, I love the idea of just knowing that whether or not the passengers are purchasing the credits, the flight itself is carbon neutral. That's amazing.
Beth: [00:31:40] It seems like that's a very difficult place to get something like that. Right. So if you could apply that kind of technology to flights, what else could that kind of technology be applied to? It just, it makes me. Very helpful.
Sarah: [00:31:52] Totally. Next step. We're going to move beyond Congress's reaction to impeachment, to all of our reactions to [00:32:00] impeachment.
Well, before we get started, I have a correction to share. Many of you pointed out that I lumped Ben Shapiro into the list of Cumulus hosts and through imprecise language implied that he was also stating that the election was stolen, which he has not done. So I do want to say that was just me listing the hosts and an imprecise sentence that follows, but I know that Ben Shapiro is not of the Dan Bongino, Mark Levin type, at least for the most part.
And then after I'd already planned to make this correction, Ben Shapiro wrote the political playbook today, as we're recording on Thursday and made a really interesting argument, that might be generous, made an argument about why the Republicans in Congress are not supporting impeachment. Wanna [00:33:00] share his argument and what you thought about it?
Beth: [00:33:03] I think what Ben Shapiro argued is a version of what we were talking about at the beginning, which is just that there is a pattern in practice of believing that disagreeing with someone politically means that you don't want them to exist anymore.
And he said, Republicans fear that Democrats want to eradicate them. And their fears are well-placed if you look at what's happening on social media and elsewhere. I have a number of things to say about this. Beginning wish I did not love Ben Shapiro writing the Politico playbook because I would like that to come from journalists and he is not one.
I don't want to read it from one of the Pod Save America guys either. Right. We are not journalists. We should not write the Politico playbook. Like I expected that publication to be fact-based and about unique insights that people in Washington can offer to those of us not in Washington.
I respect what the political team was trying to do and bringing other voices and perspectives [00:34:00] in, but there are lots of other voices and perspectives that still meet the definition of journalist inside Washington giving us unique Washington DC insights. So I wasn't a big fan of this decision.
Sarah: [00:34:11] May I add, I also did not like his y'all. It felt very forced. He's only lived in Nashville for like two hot minutes. Go back to what you were saying.
Beth: [00:34:18] I feel about this argument from him, the way I felt about Ted Cruz's go jump in a lake that we discussed last time. It is one thing for me to say, you're wrong about this and another thing for me to say, and you are therefore wrong about everything and your very existence is offensive to me.
That is not how I feel. That is not how I feel. I, I even tried to articulate and I will get so many emails unhappy about this at the beginning of the show that I can understand why people voted against impeaching the president this time I disagree strongly with them, but I understand it.
That's all I'm looking for good faith, reasonable arguments. And I [00:35:00] think this pretense that conservatives lack an opportunity to connect their ideas to their supporters, feeds in to the kind of mob mentality that led you actual violence. I think this pretense that they are, they are trying to silence us is dangerous and we know that now, and it needs to stop.
And what, you know, the president made a video and put out a statement and we all got to see it, even though he doesn't have a Twitter account. What do you know? Ben Shapiro wrote the political playbook, telling us a thing. Yeah, he's using this unimaginably powerful platform to complain about not having enough platforms.
I get that no one likes to feel constantly criticized, but I'll tell you all of the Republicans in places where they feel constantly criticized should [00:36:00] meet our listeners who live in Red districts because they feel constantly criticized too. And they feel like they're constantly being told that they don't love this country enough and they shouldn't exist anymore.
So I just want to know when we can stop with the ledger of personal pity parties, I just want to be done with the personal pity party ledger and all of us come together to say, like, we can tell each other the truth and we can think. But you are seriously wrong about something. I can entertain all kinds of arguments about what responsibility social media companies have and how they should exercise it. Happy to have that conversation. But I am not happy to have it in the Ben Shapiro context of, they want us to shut up for forever, because that is not it.
Sarah: [00:36:47] What I'm hearing you say, Beth, is that you think he's wrong, but you're listening.
Beth: [00:36:50] Correct? I think he's wrong, but I'm listening. I'm listening selectively, not every day.
Sarah: [00:36:55] Remember where I read this, but I thought about it a lot when I was reading his, taking the [00:37:00] playbook, I thought about it a lot as I watched these Republicans defend their vote against impeachment, which is the moment that Ronald Reagan was elected in a landslide and then reelected in just, I mean, the biggest electoral victory in modern American history.
I mean, I think that's a fair description, don't you? Yes, yes. That it was this, I think that we don't think enough about how that moment defined politics and particularly define the Republican party. I think there is a narrative inside the Republican party, this sort of silent majority, that we're really on the side of right. And if we gave them a chance, they would exile us to the hinder lands or all eternity, because they were for a long time. Right?
The, I mean the democratic party controlled Congress for [00:38:00] decades. And I think that there's this sense of like, from being in the minority for so long, And from really, if they have any clarity or self-awareness at all, realizing that they are in the minority, at least electorally now, it's like, it's sort of that precarity that leads people to act so cravenly and leads people to act out of fear and leads, you know, all of us to have conversations where it feels like if you ask your family member to disagree with Donald Trump, they think you're asking them to be a Democrat until the day they die.
And I don't know why those are linked so closely, but I think there's something about how long the Republican party was in the minority, that moment when Reagan changed things and that they cannot move past that moment, move past that belief that like this is really a Republican country. This is really a conservative country.
[00:39:00] They're just playing the game or they're just exploiting the rules for any electoral victory they can get, but that's not really what's happening out there in America. And I think you hear that. I don't, I'm not just talking about Republican leadership. I think you hear that from Republicans, just regular party faithful, that they're the real Americans. That they're, they represent the real majority.
And that if you give, I mean, it was what was dripping from every line of that Ben Shapiro piece, which is, well, if we give them an inch, they'll take a mile. I know I've never lived anywhere else. I don't know how this is much this is reflected in the party politics of other country. And I, and I see this and I even, I had a conversation with a family member.
I was like, do you have any hesitation in remaining a Republican considering the events of January 6th? And he was like, no, and I was shocked by that. Like, this is not a person who votes for Donald Trump that's not motivated by any fierce loyalty. And I thought, what is [00:40:00] this? What is this? But then of course, I think what would it take for me to abandon the democratic party?
I would take a lot. And I thought like this, this level of identity, which is the hardest level of change party identity, and they believe that the other party is not just an opposition to you. But a fundamental threat to you, both in elections and beyond is causing this break and threatening all of us.
And I don't mean to imply that like, there's this kumbaya partisan solution to the insurrection. I read David French's piece that said, we must treat this insurgency as we do in any other country. And I agreed with almost every word of it. I was like, yep, this is what take it. Like he has to lose. He has to lose repeatedly.
He has to be removed as a person of influence and power because every time he racks up a win, it builds the insurgency. And I think that's right. And I think there, you know, there's a level of domestic terrorism and that we have to [00:41:00] talk about separate from our friends and family members who just cannot walk away from this identity. Um, but they're both problems and they're not they're spectrums of the, of a similar problem to me.
Beth: [00:41:12] I don't know how many people I'm going to be representing when I say this. So just please hear this as best silvers only. I think that a difficulty in analyzing. Why people hold their nose and vote for a person or remain in a party where they're really disgusted by some of the party's actions on the Republican side of the aisle, maybe has to be understood differently than on the democratic side of the aisle.
Because I think there is, for a number of people who would say that they vote Republican for the reasons that I did, a much lower sense of group affiliation, just naturally. When you're a person who says, [00:42:00] I don't want a lot of big government, I really value individual Liberty. Maybe this is more the libertarian strain, right?
You just don't feel as connected to the group. It was easy relatively speaking for me to relinquish my Republican registration, because I don't have a strong sense of group affiliation. And it's easy for me to put Democrat on my registration, even though I struggle with a lot of policies in the democratic party, because I don't feel a strong sense of group affiliation.
I'm just not a strong affiliation person. And so I think there are a lot of people who would say, well, yeah, I'm not going to change my party registration because every day in their lives, their party registration just isn't that big of a deal to them. It doesn't really affect other human beings. I think I only got to that point because we are in such public positions about our politics that I had to [00:43:00] stand in front of rooms full of people and see their faces when I was introduced as Beth from the right.
Is very impactful to have to stand as a representative of a group in a totally different experience than I ever had just like sitting in my house as a person who cared about the news. And so I think I just want to be careful about making too much of those individual choices because people analyze them with so much less intensity than you have to when you're like carrying other people's expectations in the process.
The other thing that this makes me think about is a really heartfelt message. I got from one of our executive producers who has been in her words, kind of very liberal for most of her life. And she was asking me about my perception of liberals during the George W. Bush presidency and lots of
other things, but [00:44:00] I'm mystic to that because I think it's connected to your point about Ronald Reagan. When George W. Bush was president, I voted for him twice and I understand the Iraq war very differently now. And I understand his view of the unitary executive. And maybe it's not even fair to say his view, but a lot of the people he surrounded himself with, I understand their views differently now.
And so I would make a different choice today, obviously. And I well understood how liberals felt about George W. Bush during that time, because Chad and I, I have always consumed a lot of quote, liberal media. And so all during the George W. Bush presidency, we were watching the Daily Show. So we really understood that a whole bunch of the country thought that he was really stupid.
And that he was really evil and we could hear those [00:45:00] critiques and not take them on ourselves because we didn't have that strong sense of affiliation and we thought they were overstated. Sure. And we kind of rolled our eyes with a lot of it, but we saw some truth in it too. And we just tried to hold that space of, yeah, it's not perfect.
Would we, if we had chosen him out of all the possible people in the universe who could be the president? No, but he was the choice we had and he was fine enough. And here we are. Again, I would make a different choice today, please don't email me about George W. Bush. I understand.
I think the reason that Ronald Reagan is held up as like a Saint among certain Republicans, is that he signified cultural power in addition to political power. I think that framework from Ezra Klein separating those two is really helpful. And I think that Ronald Reagan represents a time when Republicans felt not only political power, but also cultural power.
And I think that's why there's such gravity to Donald Trump, [00:46:00] except that.Donald Trump culturally has provoked an equal and opposite reaction as well. And so if you're raring for a fight constantly, you get it with Donald Trump, both politically and culturally.
And I think that's been really toxic. And I think there is some toxicity, even in my own viewing habits of the daily show for years, I think there are some things that are, that have just not been great about the intersection of cultural and political power for a long time. And that maybe the work in moving toward a different form of governance is not untangling those completely because they can't be, but figuring out what the right relationship.
Sarah: [00:46:43] No, that makes a lot of sense to me. The difference between individual identity and group identity, you know, it's sometimes not a difference at all.
And sometimes the identity you take on as an individual is a member of the group. [00:47:00] But man, it's like when I, I read these quotes, like, well, sometimes the, you own the libs and sometimes the libs on you. Like it does seem that many inside the party. Do ha feel that strong sense of political identification or that, that group identification.
And that's what motivates, I mean, nothing, nothing will motivate a human being like ingroup outgroup. That's what, in so many ways to me was on display on January 6th, is the desire to or the, the feeling that you're on the inside and that you will not stand for it, that you belong on the inside and they're forcing you out.
And that is powerful. And I think you're right. I mean, I think. During the George W. Bush presidency and especially because it was such a hard turn culturally in the cultural embrace of president Obama, and it just builds this narrative of like, they're never going to let us in, like, don't be fooled. Like they're never going to let us in.
And the idea that that Donald Trump came along and [00:48:00] said, well, we're not gonna win for permission. We're going to force our way in, met people where they were at in a lot of ways. And I think that's where you pick up that, that hard group that really weren't Republicans. They didn't like Republicans. They felt like the Republican establishment establishment was leaving them on the outside as well, which I think was part of the tea party and definitely a huge part of that Trump base that is more Trump than Republican.
And I think examining all of our reactions to those group identities is really important work and. You know, that that cultural reaction is, I don't know how to even grow in awareness to that. I certainly don't know how to entangle it. I would be lying if I said, I don't understand the appeal. You know, we we've had long talks here, you and I about the Democrats and their cool kid approach, even up until we were just discussing the inauguration plans and the fact that there will be a heavy celebrity presence.
And I, you know, I don't know what to [00:49:00] do with that. There's a part of me that I think a lot about and Helen Petersen's work and that celebrity is just where we exercise our values. As much as politics is culture, you know, they're both exercises and values that cultural exercise is valid. And if you feel, you know, that disjointed sense where like corporate America is 20 years in front of political America.
And so that group dynamic is almost in the re working in the reverse, I think, in the progressive wing of the, or all of the democratic party, right. That we've been shut out electorally so we're going to take what we can get culturally, right? You might not, we might not be able, ever able to fix the population distortion in the United States Senate, but we can shut you out and make you feel uncool at every term.
Right. You see that sort of, that group affiliation, that group identity beyond just being a Democrat, but just being, like being the, being the cool kids culturally, like you're backwards, you're ignorant. [00:50:00] And we, again, we can't, maybe we can't do anything about the electoral college, but we can make sure you're shut out of all the art and the music and the movies and the television.
And you know, this, this war we're fighting with each other is becoming a real war. That's what we saw on January 6th. Right. I think that this who's in and who's out and who's being treated fairly and who's not is something we have to figure out. And that doesn't mean like in, I, I'm not making any sort of call for anything, but honestly, jail time for the people who participated in that insurrection.
There is societal hand ringing to be done. And there is philosophical debates to be had, but there is also criminal liability and there are also people who [00:51:00] exceeded the bounds of that debate when they decided violence was the answer. But I don't think that means the debate is, is invalid. And I think that where do people feel on the inside and where do people feel on the outside is something we have to examine as a country.
Beth: [00:51:18] I don't know the answer is here either. I know that I am trying to really slow all of my reactions down to figure out where they're coming from as I work through this, on my own. Anytime someone brings up violence surrounding Black Lives Matter protests, the summer in connection with what happened on January 6th, I feel a physical reaction in my body to it.
And I am trying to slow that way down. Um, and what I am I'm untangling when I slow it way down is that the first voice inside me says. I cannot believe that is your reaction. I cannot [00:52:00] believe that we are so deeply ingrained in this keeping elect a ledger of what you did and how consistent it was with every position that that's what we're talking about here.
And I really just kind of want to say, like, get all the way out of here with that, but then I try to pro myself more and think through my personal response to outbreaks of violence over the summer. If you are attacking a federal courthouse, I have a massive problem with that. I didn't articulate that on our podcast for a bunch of reasons.
I try always to be aware that when I'm talking to you here, I'm doing it with lots of other people listening. And so again, keeping the main thing, the main thing is important to me. And to me, the main thing this summer was having an eight minute and 46 second video that distilled [00:53:00] hundreds of years of pain in such a pronounced way, and trying to actually figure out what we can do to lessen that pain and create a more just society.
And I was having those conversations about the protest this summer very, very aware that I am a white woman sitting in Kentucky. And as much as I work to learn about race, I always want to remember that I can't feel it. I can learn about it, but I can't feel it. And so I can never speak about that with real authority.
I can work hard to be an ally. But I am not going to be an authority on it because I have not lived it. And the lived experience of being treated as less than, and greeted with suspicion and having your ancestors having experienced enslavement, I just think that's necessary to be an authority on race and so I'm not going to [00:54:00] speak here with authority about it and misspeak as a person who's trying to learn and be curious and do better.
And my sense in thinking about what is the main thing over the summer was that a white woman did not need to use the time she has on a podcast talking about property damage in those moments, especially because there were plenty of leaders within the black community, talking about methods, tactics, where the lines are, how we handle this.
And that felt right to me and like their role, not mine. And it also felt important to me to say here what the reporting showed, which was that very often the actual violence was not done by Black Lives Matters protestors.
And it is important to me to be clear about that. So when I [00:55:00] slow my reaction way down, I feel defensive of my choices and I would probably make the same choices again today to answer that question clearly for the same reasons. But the next step for me is what do you actually want when you say that?
Because if I said, you know what, you're right. I should have condemned that much more forcefully. It was entirely wrong and going forward, something needs to change in the way that movement operates. If I felt that in my heart and articulated it, what would that mean in this conversation? What would it shift in you, person who is convinced that I processed that wrongly over the summer and therefore I can not be as upset about the capital as I am.
Am I now free to be that upset? Do you agree with me? How does that move us forward? What are we trying to [00:56:00] do when we do this to each other?
Sarah: [00:56:02] Yeah. I've been thinking a lot about my reactions to like the spray painting of the Robert Lee statute and the, you know, no government zones and Portland. Father would send me links that were supposed to engender fear in me.
And I thought about a lot that daily episode where the pretty progressive guy went out and bought a gun because he was so fearful that the police would not protect him in a moment like that. And I thought, but that doesn't feel like what you're trying to tell me to feel about January 6th.
You're saying you didn't react here. So you shouldn't react now is what they're actually saying. Right? They're saying it's not that they want the reaction from the protest in the summer, it's that they want you to be consistent, right. And or what they see is consistent and not react to the protest now. And to me, you know, I am horrified [00:57:00] by the events of January 6th, but I'm not going out and purchasing a gun.
And, you know, I don't have the reaction that, that guy on the daily had that I feel like the police are not here to protect us. I have concerns about the roles of police officers on January 6th. And I want investigation and accountability about the roles of both law enforcement officials and ex military officials involved in those protests.
But to me, you know, I don't feel defensive because I just feel like those arguments are not being made in good faith. Because they're, it's really, it's just about, you're a hypocrite, not we share these concerns, or I think that your reaction, um, is not strong enough. It's just more, you're inconsistent and so that means I shouldn't believe [00:58:00] anything you say when every human being is inconsistent.
Inconsistency is the name of the day, right? Like that's just what it means to interact with human beings. We're not robots, we're not algorithms where human beings. And sometimes our reactions are not going to make sense to our fellow human beings, but to wrap ourselves in knots, to try to find that consistency or to try to catch one side unconcerned about violence, which is, I mean, in fairness, that's what I'm, I'm accusing the Republican leadership of being, unconcerned with violence.
And I honestly, I don't know how to quite square that I don't know how to am I, am I refusing to give the good faith that they will not give me? Maybe, you know, like, because sometimes I think there is an absence of good faith. And that's like, I can tie myself up in knots about this. And maybe that is the only [00:59:00] proper reaction to January 6th and to the state of our country. And the way we feel about our, our fellow citizens is to be tied up and not.
Beth: [00:59:09] I am that I am for sure tied up in knots. I do want to find places to just be willing to blank slate this partisanship. I'm ready to blank slate it. To be fair, you know, there are definitely people on the democratic side of the aisle who would look at a person like me and say, I'm happy you finally see the light, but I don't trust you forever because of your past judgment.
Okay. If that's where you want to be, that is certainly your right. We have lots and lots and lots of people in this country. And so they're going to feel lots and lots of different ways. And I can a hundred percent live with that. I'm trying to figure out where [01:00:00] I want to be, especially when I think about people I know who voted for Donald Trump twice.
I feel really differently about people who voted for Donald Trump once than people who voted for Donald Trump twice. And I am working on what about the people who voted for Donald Trump twice and now saw this unfold and say, I would not do it again. I don't want to spend all my time being mad at them and I don't want to spend all my time proving my rightness about Donald Trump.
And I don't want to spend all my time wallowing in my wrongness about having supported Mitch McConnell and not in the last election for sure. But before that, I want it to be a new day. I don't think, you know, I've been talking to Ellen so much about her schoolwork and saying what Dr. Becky says that you tell your kids when they're struggling with schoolwork, which is, you only are learning when you're making [01:01:00] mistakes.
If you're not making mistakes, you're not really learning. You're just practicing. And I'm trying to apply that politically. You know, I have learned a lot. I will continue to learn a lot. I will get mountains of things wrong in that process. And I want the opportunity to come back and try it again. And I don't want people to hear me saying this, thinking that I believe the only way to be right is to vote for Democrats all the time.
I don't believe that. Or to support policies that are very progressive all the time. I don't believe that. I do want to support really principled ideas that I think will do the most good for our country in a really ethical framework. And I know that I'm not going to always get to do that in a pure way, because the way that I get to express my ideas as a citizen, most forcefully are in binary choices at the ballot box.
So none of this is easy or straightforward. I [01:02:00] just know that I'm sitting here wanting to be somewhere else in our country and that doing the same things that I've been doing all along, aren't going to get us there.
Sarah: [01:02:13] I think that's right. If we decide that January 6th is a turning point in our nation's history, which I 100% believe that it is, then do we think the only response to that historical moment is a careful accounting of what our fellow citizens did wrong, to put it in the permanent record, to never let leave, open that door to redemption? I don't think so. I don't think so. I know that reconciliation has to have accountability. I know that, and I believe that, and that feels true in every cell of my body that we have to have accountability.
We have to have consequences. I believe that, but you know, from the parenting [01:03:00] analogy, the idea is like the consequences have to be close in time. The consequences have to be related to the action. And I think that's what we're trying to figure out. How close in time, right? What actions, which consequences for him, for whom, how far back that's hard.
And I don't know the answer, but I, you know, I'm with you. Like, I don't like where we are doing the same thing as how we got here. And that includes even if you think, if you do believe that the only way to be right is to vote for Democrat. Well, I've been doing that and I'm still in the, not in a place I like, and I think that's what we have to confront and that's, you know, that's going to be the hard work and there's not going to be one answer and it's not going to be over quickly.
Beth: [01:03:53] And that requires a lot of different things from different people, because as much as it requires [01:04:00] me to really have a lot of grace and space for how everybody's processing and do a lot of reflection on my own sensibilities. It requires Kevin McCarthy to do the same thing, but in a much more pronounced way. And it requires more than 10 Republicans to say there does have to be some accountability here and we can't control all of that. And that's so frustrating. I think one of the hardest things right now that I sense from our community is that everybody wants to do something that helps and no one feels like there's a thing for them to do that helps.
And that is probably just the truth of it in this particular moment. And that sucks. And we can do all kinds of feel-good things and we can do the sort of take control of what I can control by sending a letter to someone or writing an op-ed. And I think that if it is in you to do those things, this is a good moment to do them.
I [01:05:00] also think some acceptance of what we actually can do as citizens right now. Isn't it important because some of what our politics needs is a greater opportunity for release. It's like we simultaneously have to take more responsibility for it and kind of to go back to the Patty di framework that I love, like make our strong offers around that responsibility, but then like, Oh, the outcome.
Sarah: [01:05:28] Well, and I think for me, that's, what's so brutal about this current moment is that we did that and we've been robbed of the release. Millions of us have worked hard to win elections in Georgia to win the presidential election. And we have to face the fact that millions and millions of our fellow Americans think we cheated.
That we were completely robbed of the release when we actually did what was called on us as citizens. And that to me is like so [01:06:00] brutal. I was thinking today about the fact that, you know, just January 6th and how it started so beautifully because of the results in Georgia and ended so horrifically and I think that's what we're all grieving as well.
Beth: [01:06:15] Lots of grief for everyone. And we don't want to leave you there today. So we are going to talk about what's on our minds outside of politics. And today that is Wonder Woman 84.
Sarah: [01:06:32] So we both saw it on the big screen, which I think is key. I do think your reaction to watching it on the big screen and watching it on a television screen would be different. Like, I think there were some real flaws in that film, but I was so overcome by the bigness of it on the screen that I was willing to overlook many of these flops. How did you feel about it?
Beth: [01:06:57] I really love wonder woman and so [01:07:00] I think my expectations going in were too high and I'm willing to acknowledge them. I thought it was really fun for the first 30 minutes or so. Now the Honest Trailer of Wonder Woman, which is hilarious and you should watch, if you haven't says we spent about 30 minutes waiting for any sort of plot, and that is true, but I don't really need plot around wonder woman.
I'm happy to just see her being awesome as a child and as an adult. And so I really loved the beginning of the film. I thought the actual plot and the execution of the plot was pretty messy and that like a good 45 minutes could have come out of the movie without doing any damage and probably doing a lot of good and that there was, it was trying to do a whole lot of things at one time.
I thought the villain as a stand in for Donald Trump was like way too on the nose and [01:08:00] not what I was there for but overall, I am happy that there was another wonder woman movie. I will watch another, if it comes out. I do not think that these filmmakers are the worst. I just think that they got real excited and tried to do a whole lot in one movie.
Sarah: [01:08:18] Well, I loved Jamie Golden's take that like we've had 92 superhero movies, 88 have been about men, so we're just not going to nitpick the ones about women. Like I think that's the right take. I'm not here to pick it apart. It's really interesting. You had that reaction. I did not have the Donald Trump reaction to him that you did.
I loved Kristen Wiig. It could have used lots of more of that character. I think Gal Gadot is so beautiful and also not the best actress. Luckily I think on the big screen, her beauty is like half, you know, it's just, it's so all consuming that you can't get too wrapped up in her, the emotional worksheet is, or is not doing so.
That's fine. And also the truth about wonder [01:09:00] woman. Listen, I love wonder woman. I had that miss magazine wonder woman poster on my wall forever. I have. Like the original wonder woman comics from the mid eighties when they rebooted it. I like all of them and read them for a long time. So it's only comic book I've ever read sort of consistently over a long period of love, wonder woman, but the truth about wonder woman is the same truth about Superman.
They're so perfect. And therefore, a little boring, like they don't have the same conflicts that a Batman or an iron man or a whole cab, right. To work out in that, like give them that grit and that interesting-ness. And so I think I just made that word up, but, you know, listen, I mean, I love her, but she's not, she's not, uh, overwhelming with humanity and fascination that some of these storylines has because she is in fact not human. She is a goddess. So I don't know
Beth: [01:09:54] that piece of it. I will take the goddess all day. I will take the purity of wonder woman. I can just sit and watch a movie about [01:10:00] how she uses her capacity for languages. And she's so smart and all the things like I don't, I don't need that dark tension that a lot of our superheroes have.
I'm surprised to hear you say that about Kristen Wigg's character, because I was really frustrated by that character. I was really frustrated that what we had was a woman who was clearly brilliant, so daunted by her uncoolness that she was willing to give everything away so that she could look amazing wearing heels and people would pay attention to her.
I was just like, Oh my gosh, this is really what we're doing right now. But again, I agree. I'm happy to see female leads and female villains. And so I'm not trying to be overly critical. I just was disappointed.
Sarah: [01:10:46] I also liked all the eighties, those great more just like eighties, but with the sheen of fashionable. Like I would've worn everything she wore in the movies, even though in the movie, [01:11:00] even though it was set in the eighties. Like that's my favorite is when they find that just the best the eighties had to offer and put it on full display. I was here for that.
Beth: [01:11:08] Yeah. Again, love the first 30 minutes. The mall scene so much fun. I love all of the Amazons. I could watch a whole movie where they're just there with the Amazons being Amazons. Doesn't even have to have a lot of, lot for me. They lost me about 45 minutes in.
Sarah: [01:11:23] But we would still both watch it again. Or another wonder woman movie. Just, I don't know, like two or three stars? Yeah. I don't know. Two thumbs midway
Beth: [01:11:37] In support of more female led movies and a please get a really good editor involved next time.
Sarah: [01:12:23] There we go. Well, thank you for joining us for another episode of Pantsuit Politics. It has been an incredibly difficult week. I wish I could say there is some release on the way, but we have an incredibly intense week next week with inauguration, but we will be [01:12:00] here for all of that.
And for all of you, thank you for being so supportive of the show and our work and have the best weekend available to you.
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