What Do We Do With the Rage?

What+Do+We+Do+With+the+Rage_.jpg

Topics Discussed

  • Processing All the Anger

  • Moment of Hope: Vaccine Assistance

  • Biden’s Immigration Proposal

  • Outside of Politics

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Episode Resources

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.

 Beth: [00:00:00] Hello, and thank you for joining us for this episode of Pantsuit Politics. We're so delighted that you're here to talk about anger, which is our main subject today. We've just looked around and notice that everybody continues to be really mad and there's some good thinking going on about that. There are some very practical results of everyone's anger.

So we're going to spend some time today thinking about what to do with all of this rage, and then we're going to talk, I'm so excited, about policy, about immigration policy and the bill that the Biden administration has asked Congress to take up on immigration combined with some of president Biden's executive orders on immigration.

We're going to end as always with what's on our minds outside of politics. Before we jump in Sarah, I just wanted to let you know that I got a new long sleeve Pantsuit Politics t-shirt. A long sleeve t-shirt is one of my favorite items of clothing, especially when I'm spending so much time in my home and I really-

Sarah: [00:00:53] which one did you get? 

Beth: [00:00:55] It's just a solid, like charcoal gray with our logo on the front. [00:01:00] It's cozy, goes with everything. It's lovely. 

Sarah: [00:01:02] Love it. Well, we're still getting such lovely responses from our, have the best day available to you merch, which you can put on all kinds of things. So check that out over on TeePublic. We'll put the link in the show notes if you need a little bit of Pantsuit Politics swag in your life.

Beth: [00:01:27] I think it will surprise no one that you suggested we talk about rage today, Sarah. 

Sarah: [00:01:32] Listen, you know, I think we spent last week, some of us, feeling very celebratory and that was appropriate and thinking about unity and that was appropriate. And I still think that that is the journey we are on and the goal we should have in front of us.

But you look around and you see the chaos at the Arizona GOP conference. [00:02:00] You see Twitter staying mad about all kinds of things from Joe Biden's coverage in the New York times about his Rolex and Peloton, which I also thought was real stupid, to the anger inside the democratic party, how should we respond to Republicans with regards to impeachment or with regards to COVID relief?

You see it inside the Republican party about how to respond to Liz Cheney and other Republicans in the house who voted for impeaching the president, ex president, former president, and you see it on the streets. There were really violent protests and destructive protests in Oregon, in Portland, and there was some coverage of those and thought that was important to cover.

I got into a fight with my husband about how to deal with the rage we rightly feel now, that we're in the majority from the now [00:03:00] minority party, asking us to, to unite and get along and compromise. And, you know, I just think that there is something essential if we're going to move forward about naming that rage and looking at squarely in the face.

And look, I didn't even get into the rage coming from the far right about the impeachment, about the insurrection. I mean, there's just, there's still so much anger out there in all parts of our political ecosystem. And I think, you know, no one, including Joe Biden, is asking us to just ignore it. And, and in order to not give into it, I think we have to spend some time naming it.

Beth: [00:03:49] I think anger is often related to scarcity as well. And certainly the situation with vaccines fuels a sense of scarcity that leads to anger over [00:04:00] prioritization, who got the vaccine before, who got the vaccine, the inability to get an appointment for the vaccine. Just there are so many places where we just all have a short fuse.

Understandably, all the things that are happening politically are not happening um, in a context that's insulated from the sacrifices that we've had to make because of COVID-19. And so here we are a bunch of Yosemite Sams walking around in the country. Here we are a bunch of really upset people, and some of us are more new to that constant sense of being upset about something then people who have historically dealt with racism, sexism, anti LGBTQ sentiment, you know, various forms of oppression. 

And I do think that some kind of, I don't know, national meeting to just get through some of this is an order. My concern is that [00:05:00] we are so stuck in, in some ways still litigating the 2016 election that we can see how the world is passing us by and America is not meeting present day challenges because we cannot sort out our feelings about past challenges. 

Sarah: [00:05:16] Well, you know, as I look at all this rage, some of it feels deeply familiar, right? Some of it, particularly coming from Twitter or coming from Republican politicians is, is a nice, comfortable groove we've all worn in our brain. You know, I said this last week, like Ran Paul's gonna ran, you know, like th th the sense that republicans who have successfully built a strategy around outrage are not going to give up that successful strategy immediately. 

People who have built successful Twitter, followings, or podcast, empires, Ben Shapiro, crowing in [00:06:00] outrage about how they're being silenced. Like there's nothing new there. Doesn't make it any less frustrating, but it's not new. But I think the. The growing rage on the. Really extreme, progressive lift. Now I don't want to equate what happened in Portland in any way with what happened at the Capitol. 

There was really good reporting in the Washington post surrounding this. It was, and they cited a recent study by the transnational threats project at the center for strategic and international studies. And they found that nearly 70% of terrorist attacks in the plots in the U S last year were committed by white supremacists and far-right militia. And according to the study of the portion led by anarchists and anti-fascist groups is small, but it is rising.

It rose to 20% from 8%. So, you know, I want us to always keep our eye on the ball that the threat from white supremacists and far-right militia group is a [00:07:00] mass, massive majority of what we're talking about, but I think this growing rage on both sides, like all the people arrested in Portland were like in their twenties and they had these crazy signs that were like, we don't want Biden. We want revenge. Like, there's just this, this rage present. 

When you see when you witness or watch violent extremists, right? Whether they be on the far left or the far, right. This sense of like nothing works, no one is listening to us. And I think that that sense of rage and scarcity and frustration and silencing is not to be blown off in the way that. You know, Ben Shapiro crowing about being censored is right. And I think that that, that sense of rage, we all feel at, at a situation we don't want to be in with the pandemic, at institutions we feel are failing at the tasks before them and [00:08:00] that sometimes the obstacle in our way to that progress is our fellow Americans. That's, what's leaving us all so just like viscerally angry. 

Beth: [00:08:14] And in many ways you can't blow off the Ben Shapiro, Josh Holly, I'm being constantly silenced business either because they are in positions of leadership and people in positions of leadership, have people coming along with them. And the result of that is that we are constantly in knots as Americans about how media coverage is working, because we didn't have some national crisis unfold over the weekend for the first time in a very long time.

A new national crisis, a hot button. This just in national crisis unfold over the weekend, we have plenty of national crises, but because something new didn't happen, what we got [00:09:00] in the political realm was a bunch of hand wringing over whether the media is going to be harsh enough on the Biden administration, or has the media already been too harsh on the Biden administration or is the media paying attention to the wrong thing?

Or was this person properly fired from the New York times? And it's not that those things are unimportant. The trouble is they, it is a conversation being voiced in public by people with specialized knowledge of an interest in media and followed by a whole bunch of Americans who now feel personally invested in some of those insular media controversies in a way that they then personalize.

 If, if Josh Holly is losing his book deal because of what he said in the Senate, then am I at risk in my life of being fired because of my political opinion, or if this editor for the New York times [00:10:00] has been fired because she tweeted that she had chills when Joe Biden got on air force one or whatever it was, am I in danger of losing something in my life because I've expressed an opinion that's not popular where I am? And I think the more we keep ourselves embedded in those types of controversies as Americans who don't live in media, the more of a self fulfilling prophecy. It becomes. 

And to me, that is part of the antidote to all of this rage. It's not the complete antidote, but part of it is just more leadership, more people willing to say, Hey, this thing actually doesn't relate to that one. That's why I continue to be resistant to spending more time on the riots that accompanied protest over the summer in connection with the insurrection, because regular crime that accompanies any opportunity, and a protest certainly presents [00:11:00] one, is different than crime against the government. 

And I think it's important to say, so I don't think I should sit here as a person who has some leadership opportunity and say, well, because some people feel these are related, they must be, and we'd have to talk about them this way, because I don't think they are. It's not to say, I don't think it matters. I think is a different conversation than the one we're having when we talk about the insurrection and I feel like more of that line drawing, Hey, it is a big deal for someone to lose their job over a tweet and that is also a conversation that really needs to happen among people with us with a clear understanding of media ethics and journalistic standards and roles within a news organization. And so we're going to have that conversation over here, but the rest of us probably don't need to make that mean something for our lives today. 

Sarah: [00:11:50] I feel like these controversies conversations, all of this is just stand in for a [00:12:00] cultural conflict that we're all in the middle of, right. I feel like in so many ways, when you listen to Josh Holly or Ben Shapiro or the people who agree with them and are in rail against cancel culture and says all, you know, Joe Biden just spent his inauguration address calling us all racist, is this sense of like, You don't think I'm nice.

And what I hear from all, uh, you know, you might, I might be right, but I want you to think I'm nice too. And what I hear from Democrats is how dare you expect me to be nice. I'm not going to be nice anymore. You know, it's just maddening in some ways, because I feel like there's this talking past because what's real, you know, to me, particularly on the right.

There's a sense of like, your success is not in danger, but you also want to be culturally popular and you are not entitled to that. I also [00:13:00] told my husband and you know, it makes me laugh, this idea of like, Being called racist is this like atomic bomb and it causes so much suffering when we call somebody racist on the right.

And they think that we, you know, on the, on the progressive left in particular wield it like a weapon. And I'm like, but we do that to each other too. Like the, the word is used a lot and I think that's good and helpful progress. You guys are still 10 years behind on how to react to that word. It's an invitation to learn.

It's an invitation to get curious. It's not a personal sentence. You should look how many, how, how often and how much time liberals spend calling each other racist. Right. And calling things racist. And so, because I think let's like our eyes are opening and it's just this it's, it's the ability to call out things that weren't called out for so long.

And then you know, at the same time that they want to be popular. It's [00:14:00] like Democrats stand firmly in the sense of like, we are popular in the truest sense of the word, we get more votes, but we want the right to be mean. One side's mad they're not being called nice and one side's ready to be mean. And it's exhausting.

It's just exhausting. And I, but there's a part of me that's like, I don't know if that it feels like an old fight and an old fight that maybe we should be happy is resurfacing because we haven't even been able to have this like most basic of Washington DC fight, because we were in the middle of, like you said, just like chaos, constantly, like constant chaos.

I just realized like we have this, this Twitter list of journalists and that I really have depended on the last several months to stay on top of the news because the news was so fast. And now like I've been checking it since Biden came into office and I realized like, Oh, I'm not going to be able to get my news this way anymore because a Twitter stream of journalist is like, not the way to stay on top of the policy because that's what you have to stay [00:15:00] up on top of now. It's not, it's not just unfolding crisis or just the constant stream of chaos. 

It's like, you have to actually follow the policy and the law, like sort of, I don't want to use the word boring, cause I don't think it's boring, but that sort of quotidian slog of policy papers and press releases and committee work and all that. And I, you know, you just, that's not, Twitter is not a helpful tool for that. And so there's just a part of me that's like, well, maybe this is this getting back to normal where the minority feels like they're being picked on. And the majority is in disagreement about how hard they should be on the minority and maybe at least at the DC level that's normal. 

I just think that the problem is when they hash these out, these disagreements out on the Sunday shows or on Twitter, the reaction of the populous is disconnected because of what we've been through over the last few years. And so there's not any sort of collab [00:16:00] calibration of this is sort of normal DC disagreement because like Joe Biden so appropriately described it, we're in the middle of this uncivil war. 

And so the rage is just, I want to, there's a sense of like, even in DC, like I think I want to punish you for what you put me through, what you put all of us through for the past four years. And that's what I worry about. That's what I worry about is going to continue to build the rage until we're burning ourselves as much as the people and the institutions we want to burn down. 

Beth: [00:16:37] I think for all of us, we have to recognize that the incentives as things are being hashed out on the Sunday shows or on Twitter or in a press briefing room, the incentives are to keep us all personalizing all of those Washington DC inner party, intra party battles because politicians need to derive their power from the people ultimately. [00:17:00] And so if we aren't personalizing whatever's happening right now, there's a risk that the power starts to fade and that is going to prevent us from doing good governance.

 And I think that's what the Biden Harris administration is asking for everyone to pump the brakes on. I just rolled my eyes so hard at every piece I saw over the weekend, that was like, well, Biden is talking this big unity game, but where's the unity in all of these democratic policies? He's a democratic president. Did anyone expect him to govern? Like he wasn't? I don't, you know, what are we even talking about? 

That is a headline that is a hundred percent for people like you and me. Yeah. That headline is not for anybody in Washington, DC. That is for you and me to sit around our house and go either well good, serves them right. Or that's right. How could there possibly be any unity if he doesn't keep president Trump's [00:18:00] executive orders on immigration in place?

I mean, come on, like we're all adults here. We understand that there was an agenda that they ran on. They won, they're going to enact the agenda, just like the Trump administration. And if we learn anything from the Trump administration, it should be to take people at their word in their campaigns because he very much did what he said he was going to do with those rallies.

Sarah: [00:18:23] Think why I'm really struggling with the sort of return to normalcy. You know, what it reminds me of, it reminds me of what they always say, like when you get divorced, you go, you kind of regress back to the last time you were like the last age you were when you were dating. Like when you first got married and it feels like the media in a lot of ways is like regressing back to before Trump, but we are all different now.

We are all different now. Like you cannot, I don't want to hear the same sort of strategies. I, we can't just default to the way things were [00:19:00] as much as we all desperately want to DC to get back to quote unquote normal. I wanted to get back to competency, but normal is no longer available to us. Donald Trump has gone, but he changed things permanently and we are all changed permanently because of him.

And I think that's why I feel in myself and I see in others that rage bubble up maybe is that there's not any acknowledgement that things are different. I do not feel that when Joe Biden speaks, I do feel that when I read an New York times editorial about his stupid Rolex watch. This idea of like, don't, don't you see things are different.

Don't talk to me like, like I wasn't affected by the last five years. And I think that's where, that's where I really like really feel a sense of rage. And I think that's why you feel, you feel the rage bubble up, especially when people talk about democratic strategies, is that the sense of like, Unity and bipartisanship and compromise needs to look like it would look in 2014, but guess [00:20:00] what things shifted.

 People move to the left, the whole country moved to the left, like people's ideas about progressive policies from climate change to immigration like we're going to talk next, to student debt, to universal basic incomes, they have shifted to the left. People, you know, especially the younger, you, the younger voters you talk to. Not to mention just the voting patterns of younger voters.

Like it's shifting the center is more center left and so that can still be compromise that can still be, you know, just because I think the, the inherent problem is that the right, and that's what we're seeing there's so much rage there, is that they're trying to shift not just to the right, but into Trump nationalism. This, you know what you're seeing at the Arizona party like that rage that the Trump loyalist or the Trump base, or I don't even know what you want to call them feel some of the leadership in the Republican party is not full-throatedly defending him [00:21:00] is indicative of a shift on that side. 

And I don't know what that means for the Republican party. I don't, I'm looking around now and I don't, I couldn't possibly tell you what the rage that is present in that side of the political spectrum means because I haven't existed inside that party and at any point in my adult life. So I just, I can, I see the rage. I know it's there. I know it's dangerous for all of us, but I struggle to know what it means for the Republican party. 

Beth: [00:21:32] I think it's going to be difficult to unpack that. Without some period of time, allowing us to get away from being critical cheeked as the worst thing that could possibly happen.

You know, I really like the Dispatch, the Bulwark, like all of the center right, non-Trump journalism that's out there. And some of it is like pure [00:22:00] anti-Trump and some of it is like anti anti-Trump we're we're above being really mad at him all the time, but we're also not going to do his bidding, whatever.

I feel like I'm among my people when I read those publications and there is a particular anger within the Republican party right now at other Republicans who make anyone who's ever been a reliable GOP voter feel like I'm being lumped in with the worst impulses of a racist nationalist, xenophobic, populous, right?

 And I think right now the sensitivity is so high around that that it's impossible to have a real sorting out in the party. I think there's something honest and important happening when the Texas GOP adopts, we are the storm as a proclamation for itself as a tagline. I think that's honest. And I think it's honest when the [00:23:00] Arizona GOP says we're going to censor Tug Doocy and Jeff Flake and Cindy McCain, because they aren't towing the line exactly as we want them to. What's difficult about all that honesty though, is that it draws some harder lines than anyone's been willing to draw for the past four years. And again, that's why I think there's so much anger right now because there's been no leadership because there's been way too much trying to have it every way to stay close enough to Trump, to do your job and to not get blasted on Twitter by him.

There is fear of people, you know, there's, there's legitimate fear of death threats. And, and to a much lesser extent. I mean, it's silly that you have to say them in the same breath, but people treat them equally, sometimes primary challenges. And there there's so much fear that there hasn't been able to be like a full throated from someone like Mitch McConnell saying we're done with that [00:24:00] now.

That is not what we're doing anymore. The business community has tried to say that in a number of ways. And they're going to have to keep trying to say that because any little hint of equivocation from the business community leads to reporting, like we saw over the weekend that the Republican conference isn't sure what to do, because there are some donors who want this impeachment thing to go away.

You know, we don't have an opportunity right now that will allow regular people to find a new place or to find a place that they're comfortable with or to find a place that they can just say, wait, how much does this align with my values instead of how much critique is this going to throw my way? Or how much is this going to make me align with people that I have been taught to think are the worst for America.

I think part of the reason I don't feel a huge amount of anger right now is because I feel pretty comfortable in that ambiguity and have been practicing that ambiguity for [00:25:00] several years now. That doesn't make it less difficult though. And to ask to be comfortable with that kind of ambiguity in a climate where we are exhausted from, COVID not able to spend the time that we need with our loved ones, not able to get out of our damn houses to anything that feels normal.

It's it's a lot. And so what's the pressure release valve for all of this? I don't know. And I don't think there is just one. And maybe the question is what do we do with this rage for the next six months, you know, instead of the next 10 years, because I have no idea what the longterm, 

Sarah: [00:25:42] BUt you articulating that really helped me clarify on something. I think what's really important to see. And what I was trying to articulate in the beginning is that I see similarities between the rage on the left and [00:26:00] the rage on the right. The difference is the rage on the left is attacking the democratic party headquarters and screaming for revenge against the current party leader. And the rage on the right has fully infiltrated the party and is clasping even harder to the authoritarian leadership of the former president.

And to me, that is something that is why Democrats being sold this sort of 2014 message of unity and bipartisanship makes us all so angry, right. Is because that's ludicrous? Which Republican party do you want me to enact by partisanship with? The Liz Cheney Republican party, the Lauren Bovert Republican party? Like I think that too is like, that is [00:27:00] something, we are going to have to figure out that's 

Beth: [00:27:02] Right. That's a hundred percent right. And I think that there, there will be more outbursts from the left because you have a firm hand in the democratic party leadership saying, no, we're not, we're not doing that right now. We are going to stay closer to the middle. And that's a policy judgment that a lot of people are going to really disagree with. And I think it's a fair critique to say, I don't know how successful it will be to hang closer to the middle. I don't because we don't have anyone on the right, right now saying us too.

That's what we're going to do as well. And I think, you know, when I hear people getting really angry at us, For being too leftist, what I hear is I think that you should affirm both sides and we have been unwilling to do that [00:28:00] when it's just inconsistent with our values to affirm both sides. But I get really sensitive about that critique because of what you just said, both sides of what? Like there are, there is not a clear, in my view, Republican ideological center right now.

If there were, I'd be delighted to discuss some of it. But even if you take Biden's COVID proposal and you hear Mitt Romney, who I respect very much, saying, I just don't see the need for another stimulus bill. That's not an ideological argument, right? That's just an against argument. I would love to sit down and hear Mitt Romney, explain what he sees that's working well enough in the economy that people don't need direct relief now. Or that's too much money is not an ideological center that [00:29:00] you can discuss and say, well, here's what I affirm in this side of the thinking. It's just a critique. Where's the idea behind it? 

I have concerns about the debt too, but I have greater concerns about what the debt will look like if we do nothing today and let things continue to slide into this parallel America where wealthy people are doing really, really well and inequality is furthered. I have, I have greater concerns about that than I do about the debt today. That's my prioritization. What's yours? Can we have that conversation?

There's just nobody having that conversation right now. It's either against, against, against, or we can't even talk about any of this because the election was stolen and Trump should actually be in the oval office right now. So 

Sarah: [00:29:41] we're, we can't talk about any of this because trump was president for four years and how dare you? Now, one of the reasons I like went down this path of really contemplating rage is truly brilliant piece written by Jude Ellison Sady Doyle about Promising Young Woman. They write about horror [00:30:00] films on occasion. For those of you who have not seen Promising Young Woman, it is a, a rage, revenge, I guess horror film is right.

Or maybe like suspense film and. They wrote in particular about how rage, women's rage is treated in film. They talk about Monster. Uh, they talk about Promising Young Woman. There are spoilers and I'm not going to get into it because the film, Oh, that's just, the ending is so brilliant and you should definitely see it.

And I loved it and thought it was fantastic. But at the end, they write about rage, sometimes it kills you. At the end they write, we cannot all emulate ourselves on the Pyre of our trauma. That only does the abusers work for them, nor will violence provide the clean, easy healing it promises. What we can do is listen to the rage, honor it, speak it. Tell its story without censorship. Rage is a messenger with valuable news, if you'll stop to hear it. It is not saying that your [00:31:00] abuser deserves to die. It's saying that you deserve to live and look, here you are.

 And I love that and I thought that's it. I don't want to follow my rage at Donald Trump and even the far right, nationalistic Q Anon filled wing of the Republican party over the cliff, because my rage is not about a sense of, I want them to feel the same pain that we have all felt. It's that I want the pain to stop. And so if the rage is perpetuating pain and I've lost sight of the goal of at least lessening that pain, then the rage is not helpful anymore.

And I think you know, that's hard and that's something that I think we all have to check in with. And I think I'll have to keep checking in with myself because there is a part of me that wants punishment, [00:32:00] that wants pain for the other side, but that is not who I want to be as a person. And I can feel that and recognize it and not give into it. That's my sort of personal journey. That's what I'm trying to keep in front of me at all times. 

Beth: [00:32:22] And I don't think that we should fear action as we work through this rage. What I think would be the worst for the country is to be paralyzed in terms of what happens policy-wise because everyone is feeling this. We can be cognizant of everyone feeling it and also recognize that inertia is part of what got us here. I feel like one of the most painful lessons I learned when I first started working was how strong inertia is.

 I remember as a young lawyer, things would happen in the firm. An email would go out that would really upset everybody. And it would be all anybody talked about [00:33:00] for a couple of days. And I would think, Oh, something is really going to have to happen here and then it just wouldn't. It would fade away and everybody would go back to work or, um, some kind of controversy would go down at a meeting or with a committee assignment or something. And again, everyone just be all up in arms and I would think this is it. Now this is really going to tip the scale. And it just didn't.

 And I think that the Trump years were like that in a lot of ways. Right. And, and probably for people on both sides of the aisle or both sides of how you feel about Donald Trump, whatever that you, there was always this sense that things were really building and this was going to be the thing that just tipped it right over. And for the most part, it didn't. Whatever you were waiting for. If you were waiting for Trump to like declare martial law and just take over the country that never happened. And if you were waiting for this to be the thing that is going to make Republicans abandoned him that never happened, or the thing that's going to make your preacher stop talking about [00:34:00] him like he's a prophet, it didn't happen. 

You know, a lot of us have just been holding out this feeling of hope for something that inertia has largely prevented. And I think that's contributed to increased tension and this feeling that we're living in such a powder keg. And I don't think the way to navigate that is to just pump the brakes on everything. And that's why I'm really not troubled by how aggressively the Biden administration is moving forward with policy, because I tend to agree. 

Even where maybe I would write the bill differently or pursue a different policy objective here or cut that for now, even where I have quibbles with what they're doing. I think they are correct in the instinct that someone has to get us out and that requires action even if it's action that not everybody's going to like. 

Sarah: [00:34:59] Well, we're going to move [00:35:00] on to action action on immigration, hopefully, but before we get to that part of the show, we wanted to share a moment of hope.

I'm sharing this beautiful story about the journalist at Tallahassee Democrat, CD Davidson-Hiers, who basically became a one-woman help desk for anxious seniors. She put a call out that like, if you need help navigating this process, I'm here to answer questions. And just the calls and texts and people's kids are writing in and help and asking for help.

And she basically just opened her heart and cell phone and email and helped all these seniors navigate this tough process. You know what I've learned in my own life and watching my community and watching people around me is the tough lesson right now is the way to give the vaccine has to be a squeaky wheel. And I think it's lovely that she helped these people and sort of help them become the squeaky wheel and figure out the process and get a [00:36:00] vaccine. 

Beth: [00:36:01] Especially when you're a person in a position of a journalist or other figure who kind of writes and receives lots of questions and inquiries, it can be easy to harden around that and to kind of put up a bunch of barriers and for her to have been so open and, and saying like, let me use this position to do the good that I can is a really beautiful thing.

Next up, we are going to talk about the Biden immigration bill and related executive actions.

We're going to jump right in to what the Biden administration is proposing today in the context of where it seems America is on immigration. If you want just an overview, we do have, uh, an immigration primer. It's several years old now, but it takes you through the various types of visas and different levels of status and is a good place to just start your knowledge of the kind of systems that people have to navigate to be in the United States legally. [00:37:00] So we'll link that in the show notes, if you'd like to take a look. 

Sarah: [00:37:03] So the Biden administration has proposed a piece of legislation to Congress that they would like to see pass, it's called the U S Citizenship Act of 2021. And I think this is sort of the one of the most important things to remember, we hear these words pathway to citizenship, immigration reform, and the truth is the reason our immigration system is broken and sort of the, the basic foundation that I don't feel like it gets articulated a lot when we talk about immigration, is that we have millions of people in the United States illegally. Most of which overstayed their visas. And we have no path to citizenship for these people. That's what path to citizenship means. It means once you've been here illegally, you cannot become a citizen and that's messed up.

And the idea that these millions of people and their families are what going to come back to where they went, came from, or just stay [00:38:00] here illegally in perpetuity, which is basically the system we have right now, ludicrous. And the thing I most appreciate about this piece of legislation is that it acknowledges that that is ludicrous and that we need a road map to citizenship for the people who are living here undocumented and give them the ability to apply for green cards after five years, this is part of legislation after five years, if they pass criminal and national security background checks and pay their taxes. So it's not like we're just throwing the doors open, but people who are living here and contributing to our country, we open up a path to citizenship.

Obviously the dreamers, immigrant farm workers, people who meet these requirements can get the green cards immediately. They don't have to wait the five years. It just acknowledges like this is a problem and instead of continuing to ignore these millions of people, we're going to start creating a real policy around how to get these people to citizenship.

And there was a really great piece from George Will's. [00:39:00] George will not a thing. I say a lot based on a report from the Cato Institute that was good. Again, not a thing I say a lot. Um, they were just talking about that this is popular. Uh, in 2020, 77% of Americans called immigration a good thing for our country and that's up or 20 points since 2010. People want to see that there is a path to citizenship for people, and that's what this policy does. And I think that that is one of the, the biggest and most important things we can just acknowledge at the outset of this conversation. 

Beth: [00:39:32] And that's really not a new idea. I spent last night on the nightly nuance on Patreon talking about Biden's executive order with respect to Liberian refugees, which might sound like an awfully niche topic in the realm of things to talk about right now.

But I think it's a good example of how we have understood in this country, for at least the past 20, 30 years, that if a family has stayed in this country for a long [00:40:00] time, it probably doesn't make sense for anyone to deport them. We granted in the nineties, temporary protected status to refugees from Liberia because that country was in the middle of two devastating civil Wars.

And after a peace treaty was created, there was a recognition that those civil Wars had gone on for so long that people who came here fleeing the devastation of those Wars, compounded by the Ebola crisis, had been here long enough that going home, even if it was safe to do so might not make sense. 

And so the George W. Bush administration granted this deferred enforcement status to these folks saying we're going to wait a while and see what happens and then Congress got involved and said, actually, you can apply for lawful permanent residence here. And Biden [00:41:00] just created a new executive order to help implement what Congress did to say while we're sorting out the details of everyone applying for lawful permanent residents, we're not going to interfere with their employment authorization. 

So it was kind of wonky and difficult to understand exactly why this was needed. But the reason I think it's so significant is because it's kind of a reminder that as a matter of policy, we understand if you've been here a long time, for whatever reason, you are an American. You are important to our communities. You are important to our economy. We are important to your identity we hope. And so let's find a way for you to be here and be as productive and happy and integrated into our societies as you can possibly be. 

Sarah: [00:41:46] Well, that focus on families, particularly families that have been here a while like that is huge and another big part of this legislation is clearing backlogs, eliminating these insane wait times, increasing the amount of people that can [00:42:00] come per country, because there are caps depending on the country you're coming from. And I think this one's really important, they're eliminating the so-called three and 10 year bars.

So what happens if you have accumulated more than six months of legal presence, then you are barred from reentry for three years. If you've accumulated six to 12 months, you're barred for 10 years. What does that mean if there are parents and children? It means those terrible stories where the children that were born here and are American citizens, parents are deported and they can't see them anymore because they're barred for 10 years from trying again.

And I think that there's all these sorts of things to me that are signals that these are our values as Americans and we have turned from them. This legislations makes explicit that families based on permanent partnerships, including LGBTQ plus families, that they get protections as well and embraces diversity so we're not going to be doing the Muslim majority country ban anymore. We're increasing [00:43:00] diversity visas to 80,000 from 55,000. And I just think you know, we have a story as Americans, that we are a country that values immigrants, that we were built on immigration. And that story has not been true for a while.

You know, our per capita legal legal immigration rate had already dropped by two thirds in the 2010s. And now it's close to zero. Our legal immigration, our per capita legal immigration rate is almost zero. The lowest it's ever been. And I just think that that is something we need to really face openly.

And honestly, that immigrants have been essential to our success and thriving as a country, they make our country better. And we tell ourselves that we still value immigration, but we have slowly [00:44:00] basically eliminated it and made it incredibly difficult to come here. And, you know, especially in the Trump administration with the limits on refugees, the cap on green cards, you know, HB one visas, you name it, they limited it and took it down and reduce it and reduce it and reduce it to there's almost nothing left.

And like, it's not just about like a shiny idea. The pragmatic reality in America is that our birth rates are dropping and our population is aging. And this keto report, they talked about an 80% of America's countries the number of prime age workers from 25 to 54 declined between 2007 and 2017. 

It's not just that we need to live about to our ideas it's that we need people in this country in order to continue to grow and thrive and flourish, we need immigrants. And in order to become the place will remain the place that people want to come to. We need good policy. 

Beth: [00:44:59] So I want to [00:45:00] be, it's clear that we don't have the actual text of the bill yet. We have a four page summary of the bill.

There are lots of details that we don't know, but in addition to that overarching philosophy that Sarah just described about. Wanting more people to come into the country. Legally, this bill also talks about improving security at the border and improving border communities, and it imagines a heavy investment in technology to do border security in a more modern and hopefully effective way. It talks about training for agents and officers who work at the border about standards of ethics and professionalism, about clear standards of care, what should we expect when a child, a family, an individual is detained at the border. What kind of treatment do we want?

And I think it is so important to legislate that and to make it very clear after everything that's happened, [00:46:00] it expands tools for prosecutors to charge cases of smuggling and trafficking to charge international gangs. So it is not just kind of a flowery we want to welcome everybody into the country.

It does address the other component of this, which is that sometimes we want to keep people out too, and we want the process to be legal and we want it to be a coherent set of understandings about how you get to come to America and be an American citizen or a lawful well permanent resident 

Sarah: [00:46:32] here. Well, and my favorite section really spoke to my future problem, solving heart Beth, as I'm sure it did yours. And you've talked about this so many times in the podcast in the past that there's like a whole section on let's. Let's get to the root cause of particularly migration. Let's talk about and fund a plan to address the crisis in El Salvador and Guatemala and Honduras, and really try to get at [00:47:00] the corruption and violence and poverty there as best we can.

But at least it says, like, it just says it instead of saying like, don't come here. It says like, you know, the truth is a lot of people have a deep desire to come to America and make a better lives for themselves. But some people are just forced out and would stay happily in their home countries if they could. And so I just appreciated the, also just the willingness to openly say like there are some, some of causes of migration that we can at least recognize and help address. 

Beth: [00:47:33] And there are lots of different ideas around that. Some of it is increased direct aid to those countries. Some of it is a program to, uh, bring children to their U S relatives from those countries.

There is a program to reunite families, all kinds of provisions about refugees and how we take in refugees from those countries. You know, the Trump administration had decided to stop allowing children in El [00:48:00] Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to seek asylum here. And this would allow children to do that again and work hard to make sure those children have representation in presenting their asylum cases in the United States.

So there's some good stuff. I am sure that there are some ideas that aren't going to get through Congress here as well. I think it's important in everything that we see from the Biden administration to remember how long Joe Biden served in the Senate. And that vice president Harris recently served in the Senate and they both understand fully that the Senate is not going to take anything they send over and say, yep, looks good.

Let's pass this. Leave. The Senate is going to make its mark and the house too. It's going to be negotiated. A process needs to happen. That's good. I just think it's exciting to have a starting place. Like I'm excited to have a starting place that says, how could we address the root problem here? This bill also contemplates improvements to immigration courts.

Sarah, this is the component that I have the most questions about [00:49:00] because as I've talked about a lot on the nightly nuance, I think it is not working to have immigration courts exists within the executive branch. Today an immigration court is not a court like you think of when you talk about a case proceeding in federal court with a judge, it is an administrative process.

It's almost like the department of justice asks itself for permission to deport someone. And there are lots of layers to that. There are reasons for it. There are efficiencies one might hope to be gained, but that's clearly not working. The backlog of immigration cases would suggest to me that those efficiencies aren't being realized.

And so I would love to see an even more dramatic overhaul of immigration courts than this spill seems to propose. But I'm, open-minded and interested in getting more details about this 

Sarah: [00:49:47] part. Yeah. I mean, I think any, again, It's like, you don't want to just do this is so much better than what we have. Yay. Round of applause, moving on. But sometimes it's hard not to have that reaction. Anything is better [00:50:00] than what we had. Any acknowledgement that there are bigger issues, that there are structural problems that there are institutional reforms that need to happen at every step in this process. It's just hard not to just be like, hallelujah. Moving on. 

Beth: [00:50:13] Well, and it's hard to assess in a really granular way without all the details. But I was thinking about how there's a lot of money in this bill, but it cost a lot of money to have a dysfunctional immigration system. It costs a lot of money to deport people. It costs a lot of money to do the kind of detention that's happening at the border.

And so I don't know how to assess. The cost side of this without understanding the status quo cost side as well. You know, I think in terms of all those dollars for training and ethical procedures for officers at the border, I hope there is also some component of mental health support for people who've been in at the Southern border for the past four years.

And I know that, you know, this is a place that will get me in hot [00:51:00] water with some of our listeners, but I do think about people who've worked with ICE and customs and border patrol and how, anytime you're in a system that's inflicting trauma, you're being traumatized by it as well. And I hope that there is some opportunity to meet the needs of people who've been working in these agencies under a very different philosophy and their families from, from everything that's 

Sarah: [00:51:24] unfolded.

You know, I think that that acknowledges important because I think that we have to see in the same way, our previous conversation about sort of rage and culture that has infiltrated some of these agencies. It's not just that we need to acknowledge what you were just talking about, which I think is absolutely true, but that there is a culture at these agencies that's going to have to be rooted out in a big, big way. 

Beth: [00:51:56] Absolutely. And I think the Northern [00:52:00] triangle, as much as I love what's in here, my sense is that we are going to fail at addressing those root causes without serious partnership with other countries. I don't know how we do any policy effectively concerning El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras without Mexico being enthusiastically supportive and taking some responsibility as well, perhaps Canada too. Now I don't think this bill is like, we're definitely going this alone. I can't imagine that that will be the approach of this administration, especially when you look at how they're staffing their national security functions with people who very much like to work with allies.

I just think that's an important component of all of this. For the most part, though, my reaction is we must get something done on immigration, because again, if the longer we're stuck and this has been a long period of being stuck on immigration back to the Bush years, and perhaps before that, we have just been stuck on immigration and the [00:53:00] longer we're stuck there, the more we're going to have things like the solar winds attack happening and we're going to be flat in the face of them.

So just some momentum behind this is important to me. So we'll continue to watch how this progresses, but, but it does make me optimistic that there's a starting place. And I hope that Congress will be able to take this up. I recognize that it's difficult to think about immigration with COVID-19 still being the dominant issue, but I hope this goes high on the priority list next to it. And I'm glad that Biden administration has made it. So.

Sarah: [00:53:47] Beth what's on your mind outside of politics, you, you had something you wanted to share.

Beth: [00:53:51] Chad and I watched the tiger woods documentary on HBO Maxx. It is only two episodes, which is about perfect for me for a [00:54:00] documentary. I really appreciated the length and the timing of these episodes. It was fascinating.

Chad loves golf. He was at some of the PGA tournaments that were shown in this documentary so it was fun for him in that way. I knew very little about Tiger Woods other than just the headlines of he's this incredible phenomenon and then there's this kind of like salacious set of allegations about affairs and a divorce. And then I sort of remembered that he got arrested, but I didn't have the car crash in my mind before we watched the documentary. So I had just this high level of understanding.

 I thought it was so well done. It is such a story about America to me, the way that we love the rise of a hero, the way we love to see a hero fall, the way we root for that heroes come back is also a story about families. The dynamics with his father and mother are explored in this documentary in a way that I could have taken [00:55:00] more of, because I am really interested in the messages that kids receive. You heard you had his father, like setting him up to golf in their garage when he was like two years old, but then also telling people, you know, if he wanted to pursue bowling, that would have been fine.

And one of the family friends was interviewed saying like his father was really full of it, a lot of things and that's one of them. This was clearly very important to them. It made me think about conversations you and I have had before about how, I don't know that I would want for my children to be like Olympic athletes, because there's just so much that gets sacrificed in the process of becoming the best at something.

So I thought it was, it was fascinating and I had never considered, which doesn't say great things about me, the incredible pressure that was on him as a black professional golfer and the way he was treated at Augusta and the way that people felt entitled to criticize him as [00:56:00] reports of affairs were coming out and just the pressure cooker that this man has lived in. And it, it gave me incredible compassion for Tiger Woods and appreciation for what he's accomplished and sadness for how bits of that have been taken away, the impact on his body of being the best professional golfer. I mean, there were just a lot of layers packed into two really good episodes.

Sarah: [00:56:24] Well, as you know, I just like sports, but I love a sports documentary. And over my many, many hours of viewing sports documentaries, I have come to appreciate the pressure. I think what we do instead of just, I don't know if it's necessarily rooting for the downfall, because I think there are athletes who do not find themselves in the positions that Tiger Woods did or Lance Armstrong did, or even [00:57:00] OJ Simpson. I'm not trying to link Tiger to OJ Simpson, Oh, Jesus. 

You know, I just think this where there does, it's like, it's not that we root for them to downfall it's that we create this one particular kind of success. Like there's just where there is success and there cannot be any vulnerability, particularly with male athletes. And I think there's probably an argument to be made, when you are the first or when you are a minority or when you are in some way, a different version in that particular field, but there's just this, this success that must not, must not have any vulnerability to it. 

And I think of the, and how destructive that is. It's just so destructive because when you can not have any vulnerability and when success is built on this idea that you are always right and you are always succeeding [00:58:00] and the image that is presented is only strength.

It's like, I don't know if we root for their downfall or if it is just inevitable. When I think about other sports stars, who, who, who have welcomed some of that vulnerability and who I think are either given more grace, give more grace themselves, and then therefore it is welcomed and seem to have more fun, just flexibility. But when I see like certain, some of those stories, and I think I would even maybe put Michael Jordan in this category, there's just a hardness there. And it turns into brittle and therefore the, the shattering takes on this almost inevitable path. 

Beth: [00:58:43] I think that we are hopefully seeing a sea change in that embrace of greater vulnerability. There was an Instagram influencer who I follow over the weekend, who posted something about how I know I should be posting more. I just don't want to. I don't want to, right now, [00:59:00] I don't want to share things about my kids. I don't want to put a picture up of my weekend. I don't want to show you what I'm having for breakfast.

Like, I just don't want to do this right now. And I about stood up and cheered in my bathroom. It's like, Just thought it was a really brave and important thing to say. And I wonder about like, what would have happened if Tiger Woods could have just said, you know, I don't really want to be a brand. I just want to be a golfer and. I don't really want to tell anybody about what's going on in my marriage or I 

Sarah: [00:59:34] don't want to get married. I don't think he wanted to get married. That was the fundamental problem. It's not that you can't sleep around. He should have just been allowed to continue to sleep around. 

Beth: [00:59:46] So just so many things that I, I hope we're making those cracks. And this is a thing, you know, we talked in the first segment about how some things don't need to be personalized by those of us who aren't in this space. This is a thing that I [01:00:00] think it would be great to personalize for those of us who aren't in this space, because I think that influencer culture has really led everyone to feel like they're constantly maintaining their personal brand.

And I think that that was going on anyway, before we had social media just differently. That sense of, you know, I'm not at work to make friends. I just come here to do a job. I leave everything behind whatever. I think it's really important for us to come up with new ways all the time for us to just be our whole selves wherever we are.

I think you're so good at this. And I think sometimes that makes people really uncomfortable about you. And I love that and it's challenged me in a bunch of ways and I hope that we can all just kind of continue down that path. 

Sarah: [01:00:40] Well, thank you. I think. 

Beth: [01:00:44] No, it's definitely a compliment. Thank you all so much for joining us for this episode of Pantsuit Politics.

We'll back with you here on Friday. We are planning, tentatively a check-in on confirmation of the Biden administration. We'll see what else develops this week. If you have any questions, please let us know on social media or on [01:01:00] Patreon. We are always glad to hear from you. Have the best week available to you.

Beth: Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production.  

Sarah: Alise Napp is our managing director. Dante Lima is the composer and performer of our theme music. 

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