Military Culture, Extremism, and Politics (with Amy McGrath)

Amy McGrath.jpg

Topics Discussed

  • The American Rescue Plan & Senate Procedure

  • Moment of Hope: Gender Policy Council

  • Amy McGrath & Military Culture

  • Outside of Politics: Boudoir Photos

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Episode Resources

THE AMERICAN RESCUE PLAN

AMY MCGRATH AND MIILITARY

Transcript

Sarah: This is Sarah

Beth: And Beth, 

Sarah: You're listening to Pantsuit Politics.

Beth: The home of grace-filled political conversations.

Beth: [00:00:00] Hello, and thank you so much for joining us for another episode of Pantsuit Politics. If you're new here, welcome. We're so honored to be recognized by Apple's editorial team for their second spotlight feature. If you are new to Pantsuit Politics and wanting a sense of where we came from, because after all we've been at this for five years, we suggest listening to our 500th episode.

We'll link it here in the show notes. It's a great place to get a little history of Pantsuit Politics and to hear from some of our friends and listeners about why they love being part of this community. But our goal is really to sit down together, process the news and learn as much as we can about our role as citizens.

And we hope that we have conversations that spark that learning and good questions for you too. Today, we are going to begin by thinking about what's going on in Congress, especially as it considers the next COVID relief package. Then we're going to share a conversation with Amy McGrath of Kentucky, former Marine about military culture, as it relates to the insurrection and we'll end, as we [00:01:00] always do, with a very fun conversation about what's on our minds outside of politics. 

Sarah: [00:01:05] This week, the United States is expected to surpass 500,000 deaths from COVID-19. That is an incredibly difficult milestone for any of us to comprehend. You know, the New York times filled their Sunday cover page with a graphic representation with dots, which, you know, helped me conceptualize it a little bit, but looking at a page full of dots is still such a limited way to try to understand the lives lost during this pandemic.

Beth: [00:01:44] The state of Texas is still dealing with the fallout from extreme weather. Last week most people's power is restored. The power outages were followed by a complete water crisis. So much of Texas was under a boil water advisory.

We're going to [00:02:00] talk more about energy policy in the coming episodes and about what happened with water. But even as people are getting their households stabilized, the issues compounding from that extreme weather are going to require so much focus at both the state and federal levels. In addition, we have news out of New York regarding governor Cuomo's handling and transparency specifically about nursing home deaths related to COVID.

And so we have a landscape across the country of current crises predicted coming crises past crises that we haven't fully addressed and all of this really highlights the need for federal leadership. So Congress is turning its attention to president Biden's American rescue plan, which needs to pass in the next couple of weeks to deal with unemployment related provisions from previous COVID relief bills that are set to expire.

Sarah: [00:02:57] So as you have probably read by now, [00:03:00] the process through which the American recovery plan will move is called reconciliation. Reconciliation was created in 1974, not 1774 is from clarify that one more time. 1974 to allow expedited consideration of tax spending and debt limit legislation. At the time the federal government was growing.

A great deal of the power within the federal government is related to spending. And because of the filibuster Congress's process, particularly the sentence process is bulky. That's a kind characterization. They couldn't move quickly and so they were trying to find a way to move a little bit faster and exert a little more power inside the budgetary process. And so that's where reconciliation came from. 

Beth: [00:03:46] So remember the filibuster is a way for an, an opposition party to prevent debate closure, which is called cloture confusingly, and actually get to an upper [00:04:00] down vote on a bill and to end debate you need 60 votes instead of a simple majority. Reconciliation is not subject to the filibuster.

There is a 20 hour time limit on debate. Amendments can be offered with the amendments, have to be related to what's in the reconciliation measure. That's different for most bills going through the Senate. You can offer an amendment that has absolutely nothing to do with the bill to try to get your amendment passed when it might not on its own, but with reconciliation, everything has to be germane to taxing, spending and debt limit legislation.

 Amendments can be considered with little or no debate after that 20 hour period closes, they call that a voteorama and sometimes that lasts a long time and wears everyone out in similar ways to the filibuster. But you can get to a vote where a 51 vote majority will pass whatever is in the reconciliation measure.

Sarah: [00:04:57] Yeah. So you've also probably heard the Byrd rule [00:05:00] mentioned. Now this is Byrd, B Y R D, named after Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, longtime member of the Senate. And it allows senators to block provisions of reconciliation bills that are extraneous to the budgetary change. Now, what does that mean?

It can mean a lot of things. It could mean that it's outside the jurisdiction of the committee that's recommending this budget provision. So let's say you're the energy committee and you're recommending a provision that has to do with health and human services. They're going to say no, or a Senator could say, no.

 You or you could have provisions that raise the deficit outside the period covered by the reconciliation. So there are these time limits contained within the provisions, the budgetary provisions. They even have a cute little phrase for this too. So let's say you're aiming at a specific provision and they decide it doesn't fit within the budgetary limits and so they'll remove it and that's called, uh, called a byrd bath. Get it, get it? 

Beth: [00:05:53] And that's different from how the Senate often works. Sometimes if you violated a rule, the whole measure can come down. The Byrd rule [00:06:00] offers a mechanism to eliminate targeted proportion so that the whole measure can continue going forward even if parts of it fail. 

So the Byrd rule, like all of reconciliation is really complicated. And this is why you're hearing a lot about the Senate parliamentarian right now. One of the components of the American rescue plan, but depending on your point of view, is essential or completely unrelated to reconciliation and to COVID, is the minimum wage increase to $15.

The Senate parliamentarian, assuming that senators disagree, which I think is a fair assumption about whether the minimum wage can be done through reconciliation, the parliamentarian will make a decision. Does this comply with the Byrd rule or not? We've had Senator Bernie Sanders come out strongly and say that he thinks the parliamentarian will approve.

It is part of reconciliation. We've had president Biden saying to governors, probably not. Probably not going to go through. There is a lot of [00:07:00] pressure on the parliamentarian in the situation, which I think again, is an opportunity for us to step back as citizens and consider the power of our elected representatives.

Because everything that we have just described falls under the heading of Senate rules. Not constitutional provisions, not federal statutes, Senate rules. They have the power to change those rules. Theoretically, the parliamentarian could be overruled by a majority vote of the Senate on this. So sometimes I worry that our senators talk to us about rules as though they are powerless in the face of those rules and they aren't, and it's worth remembering, and that's not to be cavalier about rules. I think rules are really important. It's just to acknowledge that sometimes the process is gummed up intentionally 

Sarah: [00:07:49] Well and what frustrates me about the way we talk about the filibuster and reconciliation, for one thing, we didn't really use to talk about budget reconciliation. You know, when I worked in the Senate, this [00:08:00] wasn't something that the public even, you know, more progressive activists were particularly concerned with.

There was still this narrative that exists today that, you know, policy is only worthwhile. If it's. Bipartisan, if it's supported by both sides, which, you know, it's not really a thing in other countries, other people, other places in the world don't obsess with that, but we do. And what I think is so fascinating is that we have this narrative that it's so important that we have to keep the filibuster, but it's not important enough for what most people are the most concerned about, which is how does the government spend money.

 Then all of a sudden who cares, you know, 50 is good enough. And I think that's because for a while that wasn't, it's such a complicated, quirky process that doesn't really bubble up to the public consciousness, that it was easy to [00:09:00] hide the conflict inherent in the idea that we have to have 60 for legislation, but how we spend our money can get through with 50.

And, but there is a conflict there, and it's not that I think we need to push the 60 requirement to the budget process. Believe me, I don't. But I think the conflict between these two things means that we get weird, terrible policy, because we're just trying to get it through this quirky process instead of trying to build really good policy that impacts people's lives and does what it's supposed to do. We're building it to get through reconciliation instead of building it to do its job. 

Beth: [00:09:35] Reconciliation is often thought of as a way to expedite deficit, reducing legislation, but this is another let's kind of get real moment because it was first used in 1980 for tax cuts. It was used again in 2001 and 2003 for tax cuts. And again, in 2017. 

Sarah: [00:09:55] Let me get a slate. Let me guess, was it tax cuts? 

Beth: [00:09:57] It was. And so we [00:10:00] have used reconciliation to expand deficits a number of times. Now, again, depending on your perspective, you might think that tax cuts are so fundamental to what Congress ought to be doing, that it works to do that through reconciliation.

I just think it's important to remember though, that if you're worried about how much money is being spent in this process, the process has been used repeatedly to shrink the funds available to the federal government, which is what is being proposed this time, ultimately to shrink what's in the us treasury, right by spending lots of money.

So how much money are we talking about? $1.9 trillion. It's a lot. It's a lot of money. It's a lot of money on top of previous COVID packages. We have already spent more money in response to the COVID-19 pandemic than we spent in response to the recession of 2007, 2008. There are a [00:11:00] few primary criticisms of this plan that I thought it might be worth spending a few minutes on today.

Sarah, we've talked about the plan several times in different components of the plan. We'll link those episodes in the show notes if you've not heard them. But I think as time has passed, people are coalescing around a couple of particular criticisms. The first is just that it's too much money. And I think too much money is a really hard argument to meet because we're all going to be in different places about what too much money means.

Sarah: [00:11:30] Yeah. You know, the best description I've heard of how to think about the money we're spending with regards to relief for COVID is that this is more like a natural disaster economically, then the recession we faced in 2008. So some places are hit incredibly hard. Some areas of the economy are decimated and then some people are sitting on piles of money.

And so that's [00:12:00] really, really hard to think about as far as relief, but either way to me, so often we are trying to hit that mark just right. We want, we don't want to spend too much money on offering relief for stimulus, but we don't want to spend too little either. And I think the reason I'm not particularly inclined to lean into that criticism is because I think for years, we've worried about spending too much money out of misplaced economic theories surrounding inflation and lots of other things.

And I would rather us lean the other way. You know, to me, if you use zoom way out and you look at crisis in American history, the places where we were like, Ooh, I don't know. It might be too much money. And maybe we even did spend too much money. It still came out okay in the long run, those investments still paid off, maybe not immediately, but eventually.

And so I, you know, I just think in these moments where we're facing so many [00:13:00] problems as a country, some of them acute and some of them chronic, worrying about inflation and spending too much money is just not the way to approach them.

Beth: [00:13:09] One of the too much money arguments is that the estimated output gap right now is about $650 billion. And the output gap means if you're looking at real gross domestic product, the sum of all of the goods and services and exports created in the American economy. And you're looking at what the gross domestic product could be if we were at full employment, if the economy was just like really cooking and you take the difference, that's the output gap.

So where are we versus where could we be, $650 billion output gap. Now there are so many assumptions baked into every layer of that analysis. I think sometimes those numbers can sound a lot harder than they are. So we have to kind of take that for what it's worth. But a lot of [00:14:00] people are saying $1.9 trillion is a lot more than $650 billion.

Why are we filling a $650 billion hole with $1.9 trillion in relief? And that's where, when I really dissect this plan, I think there are aspects of it that are fairly categorized as disaster relief just like you said. I think there are elements that are plain old stimulus tools that we have tried to bring to past recessions. And I don't know how applicable those are to this one. 

And there are aspects that are really setting the table for the entire build back better agenda. And the idea that the Biden administration has a pretty clear vision of trying to restore American manufacturing, trying to increase wages overall, trying to decrease some systemic income inequality. And I think there are table setting measures for that agenda in this bill, because as we were just talking about really hard to get legislation through the Senate. So when you take your shot, you got to make account. 

[00:15:00] Sarah: [00:14:59] Well, and to me, it's like the conversation around, well, is it well-targeted enough? I just kind of want to be like, well, did you think that everything was great before we started? Were you looking around at the United States and saying, yeah, we don't have, we don't have any infrastructure problems. We don't have any income inequality problems. We don't have any problems addressing climate change. So we definitely just want to look at that output gap and be like, let's just get right back to where we were and at the beginning of 2020.

 Like i just, of course not, who thinks that? I mean, I know there are some people that think that. I disagree with them strongly. I don't think that. And so this combination of we had problems and we only get this one shot to not only deal with the crisis in front of us, but at least start to chip away at these problems that were there, that the crisis either revealed or exacerbated then of course, yeah, this is what we're going to do.

Beth: [00:15:55] Another one of the criticisms and you heard this from Senator Romney, is that the bill is not well [00:16:00] timed. I struggle with that critique because I think there are aspects of this bill that are not well-timed because they should have been done six months ago. Everything related to school reopening vaccine distribution, vaccine manufacturing.

What are we waiting for? That needed to be done before now. So it's not well timed, but it still needs to happen. I do think it's fair to look at the funds, put into programs like the small business programs created by the first COVID relief bills and the paycheck protection program and ask, why are we still sitting on so much of that money?

And some of it is because programs like unemployment are tied to the passage of time. So we had to make more unemployment funds available because when we need to pay people in February and March, the money needed to be there. Paycheck protection is a little bit different though. And I think there have been issues with those programs and it seems unclear as to whether all that money will end up [00:17:00] being spent and that goes to design flaws. 

And so I don't want to just layer on to programs where we've seen it there are design flaws and not be able to reroute those funds without another act of Congress. And so I think there's still room to do some important negotiating around the American rescue plan. And I hope that that negotiation can happen productively. We seem as a public to be really stuck on the size of the one-time individual checks that will go out and the $15 minimum wage provision. 

Sarah: [00:17:34] Yeah. I wish this, this could be a revelation in the way so many things surrounding COVID has been like, I don't want this to just become this one-time conversation.

That's why, you know, we've spent some time on reconciliation and the filibuster. So instead of just saying, well, we're having to react to this crisis, is it the perfect reaction? I wish we were having a conversation about how can we put ourselves in a [00:18:00] position. So the next time that we are responding and lord help us, maybe even preventing the next crisis instead of deciding whether our reaction to the current crisis is perfect. 

Beth: [00:18:10] We will continue to talk about this and keep you updated on how it is moving through Congress. Before we transition to our discussion with Amy McGrath about military culture, take that kind of hard turn. Uh, Sarah has a moment of hope to share with us. 

Sarah: [00:18:24] Yes, we have a new gender policy council, and we've had gender policy councils in the past and sometimes they're like out in the hinder lands and barely funded and not very well staffed, but that does not seem to be the case this time. This gender policy council is well-funded. It's home is in the white house.

And much like the Biden's approach to climate and racial justice, where the policy representatives of that priority are spread across departments. Men present at lots of meetings. This is also true of the gender policy council, which will have high level representation and [00:19:00] counsel and economic advisors and the defense department. I am very encouraged by that holistic approach. I think that that is where you really start to see the impact of these priorities. And I'm just, I'm, I'm hopeful. 

Beth: [00:19:11] I'm glad to see it. Next up, we are going to share our conversation with Amy McGrath. Amy McGrath is someone that we have come to think so highly of as a friend, as a person who has done some really important political work in Kentucky. She is a former Marine fighter pilot. She was the first woman to fly a combat mission for the Marine Corps. She served in the Corps for 20 years flying 89 combat missions. 

And that is why we thought of her as we were discussing the information coming out about veteran involvement in the January six insurrection. We want to continue to think about what we can learn from that event and taking a look at military culture and extremism on the rise in the military is important to us. And so we wanted to get [00:20:00] Amy's perspective.

Sarah: [00:20:13] Well, we are so happy as we always are to be here with Amy McGrath, a Kentucky girl, like us who has dedicated herself to elevating the conversation, elevating the politics of Kentucky and our nation through a run in the House and for the Senate seat against Mitch McConnell. Thank you for being on Pantsuit Politics. Again, Amy.

Amy McGrath: [00:20:34] Always a pleasure to be with you.

Sarah: [00:20:36] As we are sitting here, you as a former Marine and member of the armed services, post insurrection, we're seeing, you know, percentages that change anywhere from 14 to 20% of the participants in the January 6th insurrection and we'll probably get more information to that, but as you said before, that's higher than the population of the United States, which is about 5% of [00:21:00] those who served in the military. And before I ask you what you think about that I'd like to ask you how you feel when you read those numbers? 

Amy McGrath: [00:21:09] Very sad and very worried. You know, I'm proud of being a veteran. I care about the reputation. Of veterans, um, particularly Iraq and Afghanistan veterans of sort of my generation, what we stand for. You know, I, I think that it's the values of, of what we do stood for and being Patriots and loving this country and the, and defending the constitution, you know, are inherently the opposite of, of what you saw on the 6th of January.

I th this incompatible with hate. And then also worry, you know, the disinformation is very, very real and people believe it. And [00:22:00] so that's why, you know, you, you see what you saw and then, so I'm, I'm, I'm worried and I'm sad. And I think, um, something needs to be done about 

Beth: [00:22:09] it. Can you talk us through the military perspective on the commander in chief role? Because it has been important to me to understand everyone's interpretations of Donald Trump while he was president. And I think I've given short shrift to some of how the military views the commander in chief in that process. 

Amy McGrath: [00:22:31] Well, gosh, how much time do we have? I mean, first of all, it's just to go back on, on the 6th of January and what you saw and the fact that you have 14 to 20% veterans who have been arrested. Uh, of, of the folks who have been arrested in that, in that incident, you know, 14 or 20% of them have, have been veterans. It's important to note that, that they have been both officer and enlisted, they've come from all four services. [00:23:00] Um, they are mostly Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and gen that generation, I think there was one Vietnam veteran.

Um, I think all of that is very significant. And, um, this w what has happened with the commander in chief in the last four years is that this, this has sort of the white supremacist and right wing violence, um, groups, uh, extremism has been allowed to fester within the veteran and military community and, um, and really in society, right.

We've, we've done a, a really good job of going after other extremists, uh, in our society. And, um, we've allowed the right wing a pass and president in the last four years has not only given [00:24:00] sort of permission for these groups to exist, right in his language, both sides are fine. You know, I love you guys, you know, the, the sort of language that he has given them permission to, stand down, but, but standby, you know, th this sort of thing, but he's also encouraged it.

Right. And he's encouraged any occurrence did on, on January 6th. And that matters in his role in commander in chief. I mean, he is the head of our military. And I think, you know, what was hard for me as a, as a candidate to explain to, and to talk, when I talked to voters is a lot of voters, a lot of the, maybe every day, Americans don't quite understand the impact on our military when the commander in chief, for example, tweets out that he's going to pull troops out of Syria and leave the Kurds high and dry.

 [00:25:00] You know, think about what happens to our military who's over there living side by side with these guys, putting their lives on the line. And the commander in chief says up there, they're all leaving. See ya with no, uh, planning, with no heads up to the troops on the ground. And for folks here, back here in Kentucky, I mean that, that's kind of a blip, like, you know, the average voter doesn't doesn't really care or understand, or he's the commander in chief. He can do whatever he wants. Right.

 But that really hurts our military and the military, the active duty, they don't have the ability to, to say no. They don't have the ability to stand up and say, no, sir, because you know, they have to, they have to fall in line and they also don't have the ability to, um, to stand against some of the president's [00:26:00] rhetoric. There's a real conflict there. You know, it's been, it's been very hard.

I've talked to a lot of my friends who are active duty in the last four years and they felt like they aren't unable to have conversations about things like white supremacy and because those issues, which I think are basic leadership issues and ethical issues have now become political issues. And so there feel like they can't, they can't go there.

Sarah: [00:26:29] It seems like to me, that part of what's happening is we have a narrative and you've talked about this before that, you know, being a veteran or being a member of the military, it's like, We create this narrative that it makes you impervious to psychological issues. I think that's where some of the terrible issues with PTSD come from in the military.

You know, we decide that once you're in the military and we have this sort of hero narrative that is really harmful to the members. It creates this story that like [00:27:00] things don't work on you including polarization, including our political environment and I think we have this twofold issue where we ignore the psychological issues that play on our veterans because we have this sort of almost hero worship.

And we ignore the fact that it also creates fertile ground for certain issues. Like there is fertile ground inside military training for issues and to pretend like it's all positive and no negative is also no service to the, to the people who have put their lives on the line and have been inside those institutions.

And it's like, we have two sides of the same coin. We build it up to much and ignore the like that there can be no negative impact from the way we talk about militaries. And we also ignore the negative impact inside the institutions themselves. 

Amy McGrath: [00:27:48] Well, I think it's always important to note that the military is a cross section of society. Hmm, we get, we take all the all kinds of different people come in the [00:28:00] military. You know, different ethnicities, different backgrounds, different religions, some with no religion at all. Some people have psychological, um, problems before they came in the military that were exacerbated. It's a swath of society.

We have people who are conservative. We have people who are liberal. And I think that's, that's really important. And then, you know, I, I do believe that there is some degree of when folks look at military members and sometimes they feel like they can do no wrong, you know, and, and that's just not the case.

And we, we are we're, you know, like all Americans susceptible to the same, um, disinformation and misinformation that all Americans are susceptible to. Um, and I think that, uh, some of the disinformation is, is, is targeted toward veterans. And I think that some of the studies that we've seen in the past, uh, kind of show that. Um, I think [00:29:00] one of the things that we can do in the military to try to target disinformation and misinformation is do a lot more training on it. You know, we, we, you know, we in the military 10, 15 years ago saw that there was, there was real security threats online. And so we did training on to, you know.

Sarah: [00:29:19] I mean ain't training kind of yells thing?

Amy McGrath: [00:29:21] Well, and we, we sort of, those of us in the military, we kind of roll our eyes and we're like, Oh, geez, more training. And we sort of laugh about it, but, but you know, It worked. We have, we have less security breaches now, you know, everyone from, you know, PFCs or privates all the way up to, to, you know, generals, know what to click and what not to click, you know, when it comes to, um, online cyber awareness. We, we have a real problem in our society right now with disinformation.

And no one has been able to figure out how to fix this. You know, everybody says they want to, you know, fix the internet kind of thing. How do you do that? I think that my, my belief is we have to, we [00:30:00] have to have more, um, literacy training on, on this, um, so that people can decipher and learn how to navigate better and know what it, what information is real and what's not because that's the source of this sort of radicalization. 

Sarah: [00:30:15] And that would trickle out in the same way that, you know, the upside of the way we talk about veterans is that they are very trusted inside their own communities I think in a lot of ways. And so if they receive training on misinformation and the members of your family, or the members of your community who are veterans, who said, no, I learned about this and this is what we have to watch out for. I think that would have a ripple effect. 

Amy McGrath: [00:30:36] I do too, leadership always matters, you know, are the leaderships talking about this? Are they, um, all the way up and down the chain of command? And I also think that, um, You know, we need to study it to my knowledge. We've only done a couple of studies on. Sort of radicalization or extremism, um, in the military and they were done a couple of decades [00:31:00] ago.

So we have to figure out, I mean, I think we have to do the similar  and I know that the secretary of defense, Austin, secretary Austin has just called, I think yesterday or the day before for a, a 60 day stand down to talk about this or commanders talk about this, figure out, you know, You know how bad this is.

I think that's a really good thing. And frankly, the last administration wouldn't have done it. When you don't do things like that, when you don't do public stand downs, when you don't tell commanders, Hey, take some time to talk about this, then nothing is done and then it's allowed to, it's sort of given permission like, Oh, that's okay.

And, um, so I think it's a good thing what the secretary of defense is doing right now. And I think that we need to do some studies to find out how bad it is and at the same time, start trying to train people about disinformation. 

Beth: [00:31:54] I want to ask you about military recruitment as well and [00:32:00] whether you think we need to change that process, given everything that we're learning and given the way that not only did we have this meaningful percentage of the Capitol mob coming from veterans, but also we had people like pretending to be veterans. People who've never served a day in the military.

I read a story about a guy who went to a wedding dressed in all these metals that he didn't earn as though he were a uniformed officer and this kind of fetishization of military service by people who haven't served. I just, I want to understand how we can kind of get at this desire to go out and embrace the most aggressive version of what military service looks.

Amy McGrath: [00:32:43] Yeah. I think, you know, there's always been folks who, first of all, the military, as one of the, the highest respected institutions in our country. And so I think you see a lot of people that, you know, may not have been able [00:33:00] to make it into the military want to sort of be a part of that team and, and want to be a part of that tribe kind of thing. And, and so there, that's where you get that.

 I think that we already do, in recruiting, we already do, um, screening for recruits coming in. Uh, in, in many areas, uh, medical and, and other areas. Um, and yeah, you know, that's one of the things that I think we, when I say do more studies, I think we ought to take a look and take a step back because one of the things that like, you know, you do in a, in what we in, in aviation, you call safety stand down, where you sort of stop and look at everything.

What, what are we doing in recruiting? Like, are we looking at these folks to see whether they have real extremist views. And what does that mean? I think that these are things we have to talk about because, because that's really real. You know, I mean, w let me give you an example when I, [00:34:00] I had a security clearance.

I had like top secret security clearance for decades. And one of the things that you have to do when you get a security clearance, you have to fill out these, this huge form and they do interviews and track your, you know, your background and everything. But you have to certify that you have never been involved in, in violent, you know, or thought about a violent overthrow of the U S government, you know.

 And, and maybe that's something that, that, that we need to make sure that, that all recruits going into the service. I mean, I am not an expert on this because I've been out for so long, but I think it's worth taking a step back and looking and making sure that we're screening people appropriately. 

Beth: [00:34:48] Do you think that there's anything that needs to change on just like the cool factor side of military recruitment? I think about when we used to get to go to movie theaters, seeing like these really exciting [00:35:00] montages that were sponsored by like the army to recruit people. And I totally understand that. And I also worry about it a lot. 

Amy McGrath: [00:35:07] I think it's a, it's a balance because you know, you're, you, you are recruiting people who want to see the world and want to do cool things and are physically fit and have the sort of adventure, um, attitude. Uh, at the same time, I think it's also really important to make sure that we are recruiting people of all different types. Um, and that's why, you know, over the last few years, I, and I think the military needs to continue to do this in their recruiting efforts. Make sure that they're reaching out, uh, and, and having, uh, folks of different ethnicities and different backgrounds in their recruiting commercials and ads and that sort of thing.

The Military needs to be, continue to be, a swath of real American society. It cannot, it cannot be, um, [00:36:00] one ethnicity or from one region. It has to be from everywhere we have, in my opinion, we have problems. So I think we have to make a deliberate effort to, to make sure that we have people from all walks of life.

Well, 

Sarah: [00:36:12] and I think you see this really difficult line to walk, not only in the way military is portrayed in the recruitment commercial, but the way it's portrayed in political ads. I mean, you and another candidate we've had on the show who we just adore MJ Hagar, you know, you talked about your military experience in your ads and they were affecting, and then you also see ads that like push it a little far and people are jumping out of airplanes.

And then they're all of a sudden, like attacking Antifa in a field. Like there's always this tension right in the way that we talk about the military, because it is important. And we do want to not just, you know, allow people to go to the Mitt, like search out the military as a last option, but you want to recruit people, like you said, who are bringing like a lot of expertise or [00:37:00] experience, right? Like you want that balance. 

You want that balance in the way we talk about the military as an opportunity. You want that balance as the way we talk about the military's role in our society, as in how we talk about the institution itself, that sort of, that honesty, that tension that holds the truth, which is that it's not all good and it's not all bad.

It is important to have people in Congress with military experience and also not because they're going to save the day and be perfect all the time and because they're tough and can whip up the other side, you know. Like I just think you see that tension in lots of places. And I don't think we've kind of figured it out yet about how we talk about the military versus like valuing it without glamorizing it. And I mean, I think you see that even in those numbers in January 6th, that people who were actual veterans and the people who were faking it, like we just, I'm not sure we've quite perfected that tension yet. 

Amy McGrath: [00:37:54] I agree. You know, I think that in terms of, of [00:38:00] political ads and things like that, I think it's one thing to kind of show people what you have done and be proud of that and you know who you are. And I think it's another thing to, um, run an ad, you know, that kind of, uh, weaponizes shall we say your, um, background to hurt your political opponent or opponents?

Meaning like I'm going to jump out of an airplane and point a M 16 at a picture of my opponent, or, you know, I'm going to be a Congresswoman that, that has, um, You know, holding a, uh, an AR 15 at the heads of three other Congresswoman, because I want to act tough. You know, that, that is, I think that crosses a big line in my personal belief.

And, you know, I, I think that as far as the, that there's always going to be folks out there. [00:39:00] I, I have found in my experience that sometimes the men that, it's really interesting in the military community, that the men that, that, that men and women, I guess I should say that sort of walk around saying, you know, look at me, look at what I've done, are typically the ones who, um, haven't done much.

And it's usually, you know, the, the, the, the ones that have really you know, done a lot of very elite things um, they typically aren't aren't so, you know, rah, rah about it. Uh, and, and so, you know, when, when you, I think folks who haven't been in the military that, you know, put on the fatigues and act like it, um, that's, that's just sort of what, what they need to do to act masculine and, um, And that's, that's sort of the, unfortunately the way our system, part of our society is right now.

Sarah: [00:39:58] I'll tell you the moment where I [00:40:00] think you and your campaign touch that tension so perfectly, if I can just brag on you for one minute, because it wasn't about being tough or strong. But when that moment in the debate where you articulated, like we need leadership. Like to me, when the military speaks of exactly what we're talking about, the beginning, how they value leadership, how they value, discipline, how they value training and that's what my experience in the military showed me is like, this is, this is the positive.

 It's not that we're tough and strong and, you know, there's some sort of inherent characteristic. It's that my experience taught me the value of leadership at the top and how that trickles down and what training can do or can't do and the limits of all that to me, like, that's what I want to hear. That's what I really value from a military perspective, not the sense of like, well, I can just kick ass and take names. You know what I mean? Well, yeah. 

Amy McGrath: [00:40:52] And, and, you know, I think, I don't remember quite what part you were talking about in the debate, but, but what I was, I recall what I was [00:41:00] trying to convey was that leadership is responsibility. It's not just pointing to the other side and making the other side look bad and you know, and always blaming others. If you're going to be a leader, you own it, man. You own the good you own the bad you own the mediocre, you own it. And that's what I learned in the military and that's what you want. 

You want somebody who's going to have a vision who can communicate that vision, who can rally people behind them who owns, whether it, whether it worked or not and, and I didn't feel like at that time in the debate that the person I was running against took any responsibility. I felt like there was just this, this flailing of pointing at the other side, to me, the values that I learned in the military, the, the values of, of integrity of character, and [00:42:00] honor. 

Those are the same values that led me to run for political office. Not just because of the issues, but because I didn't see those values in our political leaders. I particularly didn't see them in our political leaders in Kentucky. 

Sarah: [00:42:16] To take it back around to January 6th, I think if we want to push back on that sort of one dimensional praise that we give members of the military then we also have to push back on the one dimensional idea that anybody that was involved in January 6th, who was a veteran, that's all they were cause that's not fair either. Right? They also, they may came into the military with trauma. Maybe they left the military with trauma. They have complex identities outside their label as veterans and participants in the January 6th insurrection. Right. 

And so I think that we have to do that both ways. We can't just say, well, we don't want one dimensional [00:43:00] praise of the military without also accepting that one dimensional criticism is also sometimes a part of the problem. And it pushes everybody into their positions and it breaks down any chance or hope we have at conversation or improving the institution of the military. I think we have to hold ourselves responsible that way too. 

Amy McGrath: [00:43:18] And again, there are still so many people involved in that th in that incident, whether they were veterans or not, we, unfortunately, this was all aided and abetted by people who should know better, um, by members of Congress, uh, who knew that there was no fraud in the election, by the president himself. Um, and you know, that the disinformation and misinformation has real consequences. 

And it's, you know, we sort of knew this was going to happen. Um, I don't think we knew the extent of it, but I've been at least pleased to see that some, the big [00:44:00] tech is taking some of the seriously now and taking away the ability for these, uh, extremists to exist on places like parlor. I think that's a big step in the right direction. 

Beth: [00:44:15] Well, Amy, thank you so much for spending time with us again. We really appreciate it as always. And I want to tell you, before we let you go, how big a deal it was to me that you ask one of my college classmates about my mom during a campaign event. Thank you for that.

Amy McGrath: [00:44:29] I love you guys. I think what you do is awesome. I love your newsletters, how informative they are. I wish that all Americans would be that informed, frankly. And I just think it's great so continue doing what you're doing. It matters. 

Sarah: [00:44:46] Same, right back at ya. That's right back at ya.

Beth: [00:44:59] Thank [00:45:00] you so much to Amy McGrath for spending time with us. We're going to continue to think about this interview. Several things that Amy talked about really landed with me as I think more about military recruiting and understanding the military as a microcosm of the broader population. 

And this'll be the first of many questions that we continue to ask in terms of what we can learn from the insurrection and how we can continue to work to build up trust, just like we were talking about in the first segment, in our government, in our shared priorities as a society.

Sarah what's on your mind outside of politics? 

Sarah: [00:45:41] Well, as longtime listeners of Pantsuit Politics know, we used to have another podcast called the Nuanced Life, where we would share people's commemorations. We just decided that there weren't enough opportunities in modern life to celebrate important milestones.

We have baby showers and wedding showers and graduation and retirement parties, but you know, [00:46:00] like bigger things happen and other important things happen in our lives. And we wanted to open up the opportunity for people to commemorate those moments. Now, the Nuanced Life is sadly over, came to the end of its very important life cycle, but we wanted to keep commemorating here on Pantsuit Politics occasionally and Amanda sent us the most fun commemoration. 

She's a 1981 baby like us so she's turning 40 this year and she has always wanted to do boudoir photo shoot. And so she put down a nonrefundable deposit before she could talk herself out of it. And she says that she'll give some pictures to her husband, but she's really doing it for herself and a really fun way to celebrate a new decade.

And I just thought that was the most fun idea to celebrate your 40th birthday and also love to share this commemoration because fun fact of that is how I celebrated my 30th birthday was with a boudoir photo shoot. Have you ever thought about doing a boudoir photo shoot. 

Beth: [00:46:57] I mean a thousand percent now, I don't like to have [00:47:00] any photo taken of me. I don't like to look at photos of myself, but when you said you had done this, I 100% understood why cause you love to be with the camera.

Sarah: [00:47:08] I love having my pictures taken. Yes. It was the best part of my wedding day. Besides I guess marrying my husband. I love having my picture taken. I like looking at pictures of myself.

I hope that doesn't make me vain, but you know, I did it on my 30th birthday. I had just had my second son and, you know, my body had been sort of, I don't know. I guess decimated is probably the right word for it by reproduction and all that, that entails. And it felt like a really fun way to sort of reclaim my body for me and to sort of embrace this new body I had.

And my friend Emily was sort of exploring this was, I mean, this was 10 years ago. This was kind of new on the scene and we went to a hotel room and it was so fun. I [00:48:00] bought a bunch of, you know, fancy new lingerie and they're not, you know, they're super tasteful. In fact, I'm definitely going to post my favorite one on Instagram for all of y'all to see.

I love it. I turned it into a book for my husband and I never once regretted. I thought it was so fun. I thought it was such a fun way, like a lot of other ways we've talked about on the show, like Korean spas and just a chance to give your body like a new fresh look, a new perspective on your body. And also always I think with those new perspectives is, uh, an opportunity for gratitude and opportunity to be like, man, how lucky am I to have this amazing body?

Beth: [00:48:38] I think that's a beautiful perspective and I wish I had it. I connect with my body through yoga and in other ways, but the photograph situation is not my favorite. And honestly, I am jealous of how you feel. I don't think it makes you vain at all. I just want to say, do you not feel apologetic about this Sarah or Amanda or anyone else.

Because this is a place where I miss out on a lot of joy. Like [00:49:00] I can see when we have to get our photos done, you love it. You are living your best life. You are thinking about different expressions. I am surviving it and wish that the ground would open up and swallow me the whole time. And you can tell in the photos like, Beth was here. Sarah loved it. Like that's how it comes across. 

And I hate that. And I really, with my kids encourage their vanity. Like I let them like take a zillion selfies on my phone and apply filters and like have fun with it because I want them to feel as free and lovely as they are when they look at pictures of themselves. So I celebrate you and Amanda and everyone else out there taking your boudoir photos. 

Sarah: [00:49:44] Well, I know that you're, you know, you're a very curious, you're always up for new information and new perspectives. Like, do you think that this is like an unmovable perspective that you'll always have, or have you noticed shifts over time?

Beth: [00:49:57] I think that if I gave it focus, I [00:50:00] could change. I am like up for in fact I'm just kind of a change addict. Like I love change. Yeah. And I do love new experiences and I love doing things that I'm afraid of. So I could absolutely do a one 80 on this check back. 

Sarah: [00:50:15] Just want to suggest that don't you have some very trusted photographers in your life.

Beth: [00:50:19] I do. I don't think I'm going to jump right into the boudoir photo session, but we'll think about it. 

Sarah: [00:50:26] I love it. I love it. 

Beth: [00:50:28] Well, thank you all so much for joining us for another episode. Thank you, Amanda, for sharing that experience with us. Thank you, Amy McGrath for thinking about some hard questions related to military service with us.

Thank you to all of you for spending time with us today and trusting us with your precious and scarce attention. We'll be back in your ears on Friday between now and then 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. 

Beth: Our show is listener supported. Special thanks to our executive producers. 

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