"A road map to love our backstories" (with Laura Tremaine)
Topics Discussed
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Episode Resources
Transcript
Laura Tremaine: [00:00:00] As an entertainer, trying to like understand how a reality TV star was leading the ticket, I understood it from a Hollywood point of view, but I could not reconcile it with what I knew about conservatives and what they hold to be this high, moral ground. It was like a true breaking point for me. It was like leaving the church.
It was a huge thing, not just in my family, although it was, but like in my heart. I mean, it was sort of like leaving your roots, you know, saying like, I don't believe something anymore is one of the hardest things you'll ever say in your life.
Sarah: This is Sarah
Beth: And Beth.
Sarah: You're listening to Pantsuit Politics.
Beth: The home of grace-filled political conversations.
[00:01:00] Sarah: [00:01:11] Welcome to another episode of Pantsuit Politics. I am here today with my cousin Taylor. We are going to talk about living through a pandemic in your twenties. Then we're going to share Beth's conversation with author and podcaster. Laura Tremaine about leaving the Republican party. Can not wait for all of you to hear that. And then as always, we'll end the show with what's on our minds outside politics.
Before we get started, though, we want to talk about PatrEon just a little bit. This was perfect because Taylor is a patron. Yes, Taylor, and we just problem solved a little issue for her cause that's what we wanted to spend time this month doing is like introducing you all to patriotic and making sure you're getting the best experience.
And you were just saying that you weren't listening to the news brief as much as you used to when it was on Instagram, but we just solved that [00:02:00] problem for you. We figured out how to log you into Patreon from the browser in Instagram. So now when I put the little news brief is up on Insta stories, you can swipe up and watch it right from there, right?
Taylor: [00:02:13] Yes. So I was just telling you basically I was watching it on Instagram when I would see it, like whenever I was already on Instagram, but I was getting notifications from Patreon. And then I would think to go back to Patreon to watch it later. So now I can just swipe up and it's basically just how it was.
Sarah: [00:02:31] Right. And that's what we want. We want people to have the best experience available to them on Patreon. So we have links to a really cool Instastory highlight that at least did about how to use Patreon. Specifically, you get your own RSS code for when you become a patron and you can put that in your podcast player so you can get the nightly nuance or the news brief or whatever you're subscribed to in your podcast player app. So that's in the show notes.
Also the application to be [00:03:00] summer series contributors. Um, those are due this Friday. That's also a link in the show notes. If you want to help us up with our, help us out with our infrastructure series this summer, check that out and also one more deadline is rapidly approaching, which is we are in the voting phase for the fan art competition. It's so fun. Taylor, have you checked out all the fan art?
Taylor: [00:03:19] I'm getting on my browser right now.
Sarah: [00:03:22] So you need to get in there, the link is in the show notes and vote for your favorite fan art submissions. And we'll have all that for you everybody together as soon as well. Okay. So welcome Taylor to Pantsuit Politics.
Taylor: [00:03:35] Thank you so much for having me being on the phone with you is one of my favorite things. Believe it or not. Usually Sarah is the emotional breaks to my cheerful gas.
Sarah: [00:03:49] Ah, that is so true. That is the truest. That is the truth. Yeah, I'll be, I'll be Beth to your Sarah today.
Taylor: [00:03:55] Typically I call you in moments of emotional crisis. [00:04:00] Sarah is so I'm the oldest of two sisters. Sarah is, uh, something between like, uh, I don't want to say a mother. I definitely have a mother, but a mother figure and an older sister, basically like the best thing I got in terms of older sister.
Sarah: [00:04:16] Thank you. That's very sweet.
Taylor: [00:04:17] I'm happy to be your, a pseudo sibling.
Sarah: [00:04:21] Yeah, you are definitely my pseudo sibling. You and your sister Andrea are definitely my pseudo siblings. And so that is really important to me. And that's why I was so excited to have you on here today because I think you're so thoughtful and so self-reflective, and I thought you would be the perfect person to talk to about going through the pandemic in your twenties.
When I broached the subject to you, Taylor, you had a really interesting insight into what it really means to talk about the twenties at all.
Taylor: [00:04:56] Yeah. I mean, your twenties are just, I don't [00:05:00] even feel like there's a, uh, any one defining characteristic, except for that it's acceptable to be at any given point. Like I have friends who have gotten engaged. I have so many, so many engagements. I don't know if that's due to the pandemic, just speeding things up or just due to being five years out of college.
I have people who have moved in back in with their parents. I have friends who have bought their own houses. Like it is just so all over the place and I don't even know if that's the pandemic related or not. I just think what being 26, it's like acceptable to be in either spot.
Sarah: [00:05:37] Right. No, I think that's a really good point. I think that for all the, you know, cultural think pieces about millennials and gen Z years and where they are in life, there is a sense of, yeah who are you talking about? Because I think you're right. I think they're not every person in their twenties is moving back in with their parents. Not [00:06:00] every person in their twenties is delaying buying a home or having kids. And that it really truly a lot depends on where you live in the country.
So many of my college classmates got married, just like I did right out of college. Um, and then I moved up to Washington, DC to go to law school and all my law school classmates who had attended school, particularly in the Northeast were like, why are you married? So they're so very confused by the fact that I not only was married, but had been married for a year by that point.
But I think what will be interesting is that even if you're in all these different spots, your generation will have the pandemic as this defining moment.
Taylor: [00:06:40] 100%.
Sarah: [00:06:40] As a very formative time in your life, whether it's formative because you're getting married or engaged or having kids, or because you're not, you know what I mean.
Taylor: [00:06:47] I think it just brought clarity for a lot of people of like, Oh, Oh, okay. Like, this is really, at least for me, this is how it went for me. This is my life. It's so short. It's so [00:07:00] precarious. You know, at the beginning of the pandemic, feeling like you could walk outside and be risking your life. You know, when we were like wiping down groceries and doing all of the, like really high, I dunno, before we had developed a sense of comfort around operating within the pandemic world, it was just a real shell shock.
I don't think that this is unique to people in their twenties either, but especially as you're starting to chart out like what you want your course in life to be, it just brought into perspective like, Oh, well, what am I doing because I want to do it. And what of my expectations of life before this came from outside sources?
Sarah: [00:07:39] Yeah. That's really interesting. I think that's a good perspective and, but, and I think also the truth is for so many people, the clarity came from reduced choices, right? Like a lot of people were facing, especially younger people, either if you're still in college, Or you're getting out of [00:08:00] college and the job market is just completely up-ended.
And so you're either going to have, you know, reduced opportunity to go pursue the career that you wanted to, or, you know, if you're working in some of the, I mean, you got to think about how many people in their twenties were working in the restaurant industry.
Taylor: [00:08:15] I was, I mean, I worked at a restaurant. I wasn't happy like a month before the pandemic hit. I cried at work and I was like, I just don't know what I'm doing, which is, I don't want to say a theme for me, but like, that's not a new thought that I, this is a place that I've become more comfortable living in, but it provided a sense of permission to like stop and just sit with myself and think of like, what, what am I doing here?
Like, that's obviously a very privileged spot to be in, but the, you know, especially at the beginning, when we were getting the extra money from the federal government and unemployment, that was more money than a lot of my coworkers and I were making previous to the [00:09:00] pandemic.
So I have friends who like saved that up and moved across the country. It just kind of created some breathing room in some pockets, I guess, of the workforce that wasn't necessarily there prior to the pandemic.
Sarah: [00:09:14] That's amazing. It was like basically an experiment in universal basic income.
Taylor: [00:09:18] Oh my gosh. It was amazing. It was so nice. Now this was also when we thought it was going to be like, okay, everybody just take two weeks off. We're going to be out of here on may first and well, we're all going to be refreshed and have a lot of sourdough. Like, you know, it was a different, our spots of thinking were so different back then, but yeah, at least for me and, okay, so I'm in Nashville.
We were hit with a tornado two weeks before national shutdowns happened. So I remember working the shift. It was like we had all gone without paychecks for two weeks because the tornado had shut [00:10:00] us down. Right as that happened, that we started, I started getting as well as a lot of other people, this feeling like, man, we're really about to go through something that's maybe way more serious than we thought.
We opened for brunch I was freaked out. I was like, I don't think that we need to be hosting brunch right now. I know we all just were missing two paychecks. Like this really sucks, but I don't feel safe right now. And so I left work then on, on that so that was on a Sunday. So then the Tuesday after that, our boss basically called us and said, everybody's fired, go applied for unemployment. See you on the other side. So it was, Nashville's been through a lot this year. I, of course everybody has, but the timing of those two things was really funky.
Sarah: [00:10:51] Yeah. I remember one of the best arguments I ever heard for universal basic income was though that it provides people with that, like exactly what you described it like [00:11:00] breathing room. Whereas people who usually have, you know, the upper income stratosphere, they always have that breathing room because their parents. And so for people who don't have parents with, um, expendable income or with an extra room, or like with a way to host them and support.
Taylor: [00:11:17] Or just being salaried, like just having a consistent income. Whereas, you know, if you're in restaurant work, especially serving, it's just kind of up to tips. Like there's, there's no predictability.
Sarah: [00:11:33] So that's just the unemployment and then of course the stimulus is provided people with a little bit of stability. And like you said, like, especially if you're in your twenties, I think, I think that's interesting that combination of a crisis with stability. You know, it can lead to.
Taylor: [00:11:49] And relief like, you know, it was scary to go outside. You were freaked out about what was going on in your social life but at least for me financially, I was like, [00:12:00] Oh my God, like, I feel so grateful. I feel so lucky. And so it was a real for me too, like a strange balance to strike between guilt of like the only reason that I'm experiencing this relief is because of the suffering of others and like the fact that we're going through this, but also just experiencing that relief at the same time.
Sarah: [00:12:24] So, you know, the relief, with the clarity, with the stability, where has that led you? What are you thinking about as we start to tiptoe out of the
Taylor: [00:12:33] pandemic? Yeah, so I was very lucky in that I got to nanny through school being out. It basically became a full-time gig, whereas before it was part-time, although now the kids are transitioning into kindergarten. Now, I'm ready to do something new.
One of the main things that the big insights that I got was like, I haven't traveled nearly as much as I want to. So I am going to sign up to [00:13:00] do a teaching English as a second language certification and hopefully not be in America year from now. Well, that's exciting. Yeah. I I'm ready to see how other places do it, especially following, uh, this chapter.
Sarah: [00:13:18] That's fair. That's fair. It's always listen, it doesn't matter pandemic or no, the, I love that phrase, the way to see how other places do it. Always enlightening. Yeah. Well, thanks for joining me, Taylor. Taylor's not going anywhere. We're going to talk together again on outside politics, but first I am so excited to share this conversation between Beth and Laura Tremaine.
Laura is the author of Share Your Stuff, I'll Go First and the host of 10 Things to Tell You Podcast and I think you guys are going to love this conversation.
Beth: [00:13:48] Laura Tremaine, I'm so excited to be talking with you. I loved your book, Share Your Stuff, I'll Go First. I really liked how it has this cover that makes you feel like, Oh, I might get some good questions for [00:14:00] like icebreakers and then you go in and the depth is immediately apparent and from your first chapter on, it's just, it's so lovely.
Laura Tremaine: [00:14:09] Well, thank you for saying that. That's so kind. I am for that. I think that my whole internet presence has been that way a little bit. My original blog was called Hollywood housewife and it had the same thing like that, maybe you expect one thing from that title of a blog and then the content was different. So that's kind of in my thing, not on purpose actually, but it's just always worked out that way and I don't mind it.
Beth: [00:14:29] Well, no, I love it because I think that part of what really sits with me about your work is how it contains multitudes and it invites people to come in at the level they're ready to be in. And so I thought that was just a really smart choice in terms of design and your book is so beautiful on kind of the topic of richer relationships.
What I felt could be politically transformative about it and what I'm so excited to talk to you about today is I feel like you are giving us a [00:15:00] roadmap to love our backstories, even as we see them more critically and grow in a new direction.
Laura Tremaine: [00:15:07] Well, Thank you. I hope people see it that way. I also think that some people do not naturally connect the dots in their lives the way that I do, like I'm always crafting a story. I always have a narrative going about my life or events that happened, or my growth or whatever, but a lot of people don't think that way.
And so I was hoping that people, when they read the book and do have to answer these questions about their past or about how they've grown, that they would have some aha moments, have some light bulb moments about like, Oh, maybe that's when I started to change and they've never really let themselves think about it like that because their brain just doesn't work that way. That's what I'm hoping people take from the book is that it creates the roadmap for them if that's not their natural tendency.
Beth: [00:15:55] I think that's a really hard tendency to bring to politics, even if it is your natural tendency. You [00:16:00] know what I mean? Because there's just something, you know, a lot of what Sarah and I try to do is say, let's stop treating politics as a separate space. Let's remember that it's part of us and that our entire experience informs how we view politics and we should bring all of our values and principles to that political exercise.
And I thought it was just particularly helpful to hear you talking about where you grew up, your evolving understanding of lots of different topics and not all of them explicitly political, but there's just such a gentleness in your examination. Even as you're talking about some really deep, complicated, painful things, there is the sense of look, I can own this entire story and I don't have to apologize for any of it as I'm making sense of who I want to be next.
Laura Tremaine: [00:16:48] Well, it's funny you say that about politics just being part of our lives and it shouldn't be a separate thing. I agree with you, but that's so much harder in practice and in fact, I had a lot more [00:17:00] sort of overtly or maybe even subversive political content in the roughest form of the book. Like I had more sort of politics in my stories because that's such a huge backdrop of my early life, especially, and I ended up taking a lot of it out.
Not from any pressure, not from the publisher, nothing. Just because I was writing this book in the Trump years and it felt like it was so divisive. I didn't want to turn people off from hearing the bigger, wider message I was trying to make, even though it really matters to me. Like these are points that really matter to me and they are threaded throughout my life.
But I ended up taking a lot of it out of the book, just because it's so jarring these days or, or last year, especially like 2020, 2019 when I was writing it to be reading like a certain type of story and then there'd be like a really divisive political [00:18:00] reference. I mean, to me, it's jarring, it's almost like we're living in a post-traumatic stress disorder of politics and so I just didn't want that to be the reader experience so I took it out. But I do agree with you that it, I wish in some ways that we were able to talk about these things more holistically instead of like, you know, lines in the sand.
Beth: [00:18:19] Well, let's do that. I was thinking about how you're always going first in these conversations and I wondered if it might be helpful for me to tell you a little bit about what you helped me uncover in my own experience, through your questions. You have a question in the book that, uh, framed as who taught you how to be? And I love, I love how open-ended all of your questions are, but "who taught you how to be" really set with me.
And I was thinking about, you know, being now a Democrat, a Republican until you know, 2018, 2019, and what that journey has looked like for me and reading all of the stories that you were sharing helped me think less about partisan [00:19:00] politics, which really were not a huge part of my upbringing. News was a part of my upbringing, but not so much politics.
And I realized, I think that being a Republican for me was more about the context of my life and the context of my life in a very small town was Christian, white and rural. You know, I learned a very tiny set of experiences as defining what life and policy should speak to. I was thinking about how I knew poor white people, and I knew middle-class white people.
I thought I knew rich white people, but my definition of rich was like, you have stairs in your house or an in-ground pool. That's what I thought was wealth. And so that's the lens I brought to politics that there was this very small range of difference, salt life experiences and you could choose where you wanted to be in that small range and I think that is why I registered as a Republican and voted for Republicans until very recently and now I would say both I have changed and [00:20:00] the parties have changed, but that's kind of a piece of my story that I had not articulated well until I read your book. And I'm wondering as you hear that what's coming up for you.
Laura Tremaine: [00:20:10] We have a similar background in that I also grew up in a community that was solely Christian, mostly white and rural. And I was in a family that was probably wealthy by the standard. Definitely wealthy by the standard that you just gave. My parents were both professionals and it felt like mean our family life, not necessarily in our whole community, but in our home, my parents who were not religious, although we lived in small town, Oklahoma and very, very, very religious part of the country.
My parents were not religious, our religion and our family was republicanism [00:21:00] and it was as serious in our home as you know, Jesus and prayer and all of that kind of thing would have been in other homes. You know, with, if there were scripture on the wall for us, we had Ronald Reagan on the wall. We had, you know, talked about politics at dinner, everything was oriented around politics. Our weekends were spent putting out political signs, taking down political signs, going to the football game and passing out political stickers.
I worked the Republican booth at the County fair every year of my childhood. I mean, this was how we spent all of our time in the way that a lot of families spent in church activities. When I was, I don't know how old I was, middle school, I guess. Uh, my dad was elected to the RNC. So my dad was on the Republican national committee for 16 years.
In fact, the very first time I ever flew on an airplane [00:22:00] ever was I was 13 years old and I flew to the Houston Republican national convention. I will never forget that and so like my whole early life was really like oriented around republicanism, not just conservatism, but republicanism and everything that came with that.
We also had a story in our family that fed a lot of the narratives that Republicans really espouse and really believe in like the bootstraps mentality. My dad grew up incredibly poor, like no running water poor and now he was a lawyer. He put himself through law school after his parents died. He had really, truly done the American dream thing.
And so you know, all of those ideas, I grew up with what I now see as identity politics, I didn't see it then, because it was so like, you know, presented to me and what I believe to be like, there was just a right and a wrong. Again, just how often religion is [00:23:00] like, this is the way to God. This is the way to think and every other way to think about it is less educated, honestly, or like less smart or, you know, all of the sort of labels, the monikers, you have.
Bleeding heart liberal. In Oklahoma, YellowDog, denim Democrat. Like all of those things were said in such a derogatory way that I just didn't even know until I was like in college, Beth, like I was truly old. I didn't even really know that there was another way to legitimately think about things. And also like if you're clocking that I had not flown anywhere until I flew to Houston from Oklahoma, for the Republican national convention, I obviously was not flying around anywhere.
I did not have a breadth of life experience. I had not, you know, barely been out of Oklahoma, Texas region. I did not know a lot of people who didn't look like me, who [00:24:00] didn't believe like me or vote like me, or, you know, I'd never been out of the country for sure. So like anything that we were going to talk about that was wider than that, or broader than that, it was totally, we were talking about it theoretically. You know, I just didn't have any real life examples of anything that was different.
From travel from lifestyle. You know, there is a lot of money in Oklahoma, which is a little different than what you were saying. I do think there was, I knew very, very, very wealthy people. And then I, of course, there's a lot of poverty in Oklahoma. So I did maybe see that would be the only range of experience I had until I went to college and then even still, I went to university of Oklahoma. Like I still went to school in state, to a big state school, you know, so not like crazy life experience, but that was just the first time I got even like a smidge.
And then I studied abroad and honestly, studying abroad is what, [00:25:00] you know, when it sort of, when everything started to change and all that is, is life experience and, you know, just seeing, seeing a bigger picture.
Beth: [00:25:10] Yeah, I think that bigger picture is so hard to see when you don't even know it exists. And I really relate to what you're saying about the trip to Houston, because all of my travel growing up came through farm Bureau. My dad was on the board of farm Bureau. And so when there was an annual convention, that would be our vacation for the year. And the people involved with farm Bureau were like family to us still are. It's amazing how powerful that kind of association. And I'm wondering if you all experienced this with the RNC, that association becomes a lot more than philosophical, right?
It becomes economic, it becomes social. It does fill a lot of the needs that a church fills. My family was very active in church too, but the farm Bureau association, I hadn't really thought about also definitely shaped a lot of my political [00:26:00] opinions and what you were saying about, you know, if you thought differently, it's because you, weren't informed.
That's a hundred percent about how, of how I learned to think about anything related to agriculture. If you were on a different page than we are with farm Bureau, and that definitely relates to climate. I remember Al Gore being just the villain as I was growing up. Uh it's because you didn't understand how Americans get their food.
Laura Tremaine: [00:26:24] Yes. Oh, that's so interesting that you say that because I also was sort of fed a whole thing about Hollywood elites, which this is actually still a thing that is talked about quite a bit and now that I live in literal Hollywood, I can see both sides of this really clearly. Maybe we'll get to that in a second, but like, I can see that the coasts are out of touch with the middle of the country. That's actually totally true.
So I understand that now from both sides, but I also think that in the middle of the country, doesn't have it dialed in either, right. There's just a total difference in [00:27:00] how we see the world and if you have grown up on the coast and you've never been to the middle of the country, that's the same as having lived in the middle of the country and, and never, not just gone to the coast, but never left the country at all. You know what I mean?
It's still lack of experience or lack of understanding and I think that until you're faced with a person that's sitting right in front of you, it's really hard to change your view on something. It's just really difficult when you're talking about it, like how it would apply to you or how you would make this decision or how you would, you know, think about anything. Healthcare, salary, you know, anything how you would think about it.
Unless you are sitting with somebody who thinks about it very differently, if you never meet that person, you never know that person, then you can't just put yourself in their shoes. I feel like you think you can. I mean, you might even try to, it was really hard for me at least. I had to sort of get outside of my own [00:28:00] experience and I don't like, I feel like when I talk about this and I don't talk about it too much in detail, because I want to be really respectful of my parents who raised me and love me and are smart and thoughtful in the way that they vote and the way that they think about things.
So, you know, I never want to like put out anything that feels like disrespectful of that. And also leaving Oklahoma and traveling the world, which is obviously not accessible to everyone, but just getting out of my own bubble is, you know, what made me be able to see things differently, but still that I moved to LA you know, post-college, it was 2001.
I moved here right before September 11th, and I had been a huge George W fan. I mean, I had a W sticker on my car in LA for years, and I stayed a Republican [00:29:00] until 2016. Now I definitely moved towards the middle during those years, it would be very hard not to, as I was meeting and being in relationship with people of other religions and like lots of other political philosophies.
You know, it's really hard to not become moderate once you get to know a lot of different people, but I was, I still consider myself conservative and I still consider myself I'm still registered Republican until 2016 and it was a good decade plus of being way, way, way too conservative for my Hollywood friends. You know, I did not vote for Obama either time and people thought that was bananas out here.
But then when I would go to Oklahoma, you know, I was just a raging liberal and it was, it was, I can joke about it and it was funny. I see why it was like funny and weird, but I actually hated those years. I [00:30:00] hated feeling like I didn't really belong anywhere. I hated feeling like the other side, if you will, like truly didn't seem to understand.
I felt like I really was getting, um, you know, I could see both sides. I was sort of felt like I was in a unique position. And this is, as the internet is evolving to now, I feel like we all have the option to see lots of different sides if we want to. But, you know, I was sort of living straddling people that I loved and in both sides of the political arena and I hated not feeling like I fit and I especially hated that both sides aimed their ire at me. You know, like, just because I was moderate. Moderate was like the worst place to be for some people, you know, it's like pick a team and go all in.
Beth: [00:30:48] Well, I think part of what feels like such an opening and a gift in the way that you describe all this, is that nothing that you've said to me or here or in your book [00:31:00] feels condescending toward the people who are your people of origin. And this is something I think about a lot. My political views were shaped by the room that I was in and it was a tiny room, but there can be goodness in a tiny room and there can be intelligence and important thoughts that are worth sharing outside that room. Like good things can exist in a tiny room.
And I don't think anybody has figured you're now how to live well in lots and lots of rooms at one time and that seems like the experience you were having. You know, living in Hollywood with your roots in Oklahoma and a set of policy preferences or philosophies that kind of mix the views of both places. It's like two rooms that you're trying to straddle and it makes sense to me that you would end up somewhere in the in-between them. That would feel awkward.
And as much as the internet gives us exposure to other life experiences, I [00:32:00] also feel like it just gives us doors to too many rooms and asks us to pick one, to go in and shut it and it's just. An overwhelming task once you start to open your mind up, which is why I think a lot of people don't want to visit other rooms. You know, because it is, it is really a groundless feeling that I'm not sure we're very well equipped for as human beings.
Laura Tremaine: [00:32:19] No and you know, as you're talking, I'm thinking about, I'm sort of remembering what it was like, let's say pre 2008, or maybe between 2008 and 2012 let's say, when I felt the most adrift. I feel like a little bit, probably what I was changing the most. And I feel like one of the reasons that I stopped thinking about politics so much and why I dug my heels in, on being a conservative in those years was because at that point I had been to dozens and dozens of LA dinner parties type of thing.
You know, LA type [00:33:00] social gatherings, where there were jokes made about conservatives or people in the middle of the country or whatever, assuming that everyone at that table believed the way that they believed because we're in LA, right. And so I had been to so many of those things and sometimes I bit my tongue because it wasn't worth it and sometimes I said something snarky back, and then it became a whole thing and I felt like I was a little bit ousted, I know I was a few times by people being like, Oh my God, she's a Republican. Like, and then it was like immediately, like I was a pariah.
That made me be like feeling defensive about that made me dig in harder. Right. It didn't make me, it didn't open my heart in any way. It made me like armor up more as a conservative, even though my heart was sort of changing actually and I see that happening everywhere because when you [00:34:00] get insulted and I was being full-blown insulted like passively, usually they, you know, they didn't know what I thought. And they would say something horrible just as the stereotype is that LA people, California, people are out of touch and I can assure you that this was happening to me.
And so I just dug in like, and stayed in a space probably for years longer than I should have just out of like, I'll show you or just out of like, sort of, not wanting to say, you know, at that point I'd kind of established my identity in our friend group and in my marriage and even online by then, as like a conservative in Hollywood. That has sort of become like my thing.
And so it was really hard to be like, actually, maybe I'm not so conservative anymore. It, you know, it that's the identity politics of it all right, that a lot of us are wrestling with in terms of, we don't want to change because it's hard, we're dug in [00:35:00] because we don't want to become more like the people who've been insulting us.
I mean, you know, there's just a lot of mental gymnastics at play. That's not just about like what we believe exactly about policy. The internet has made it so about so much more than that, you know, like, like you guys write about in your book, the jerseys you're wearing, the flag you're flying. You know, that is become so important to people and I understand it. I mean, now I'm on the other side of it, but when I look back, I ha I do have some compassion for the. Obama years Laura, who was like, not really letting myself think about anything too deeply because I needed to just keep my Jersey on.
Beth: [00:35:43] Yeah.
Tell me about getting to the other side of it and [00:36:00] what the other side means for you.
Laura Tremaine: [00:36:02] Well, so like I said, I had been moving towards the middle and it, and in some ways those were easy moves to make, like, especially some of the social issues. You know, I had a friend in my twenties, one of my oldest dearest friends that I wrote about in the book who told me he was gay and like in a literal instance, my entire stance on, you know, marriage equality and all of that, like literally changed in almost the snap of a fingers because this loved one in front of me was telling me who he was and telling me what his life experience was and I absolutely could not, not even not argue with it.
I just, I saw immediately that what he said was true and that I, you know, I have no choice. I have no even heart's desire to do anything, but support him. And so things that had happened long ago, that happened when I had only lived in LA a few years, but like little things like that. I mean, those are big things, but, you know, things [00:37:00] had stacked up over the years that had moved me towards the middle and in a lot of ways.
But then when Donald Trump became the presumptive nominee in the spring of 2016, I know exactly where I was. I just, it was an absolute breaking point for me. I've been posting on social media, the months sort of leading up to that, like. I remember posting like Republicans, like, have you lost your damn minds? Like, what are we doing? What, what is happening? Like I felt like I was in, you know, a fun house of crazy. Like I could not even believe it.
And then I went on a family vacation with, again, my very, very conservative family. My sister's in politics now, everyone is still very conservative. I have a brother who's a small business owner and he's in the military. I mean, it's, it's a big ball of belief system. [00:38:00] And we went on vacation that March, it was a spring break, you know, that, that March of 2016. And I remember my family, my parents who are so proper, you know, they don't even say like swear words.
They don't. You know, they they're just so the most proper, you know, conservative Republicans and we had this vulgar person leading the polls at that moment and that they were for him. And then my brother, who also is not a very political person saying some things like we need to shake up, you know, we need to really shake it up. We need a whole big major change in America.
Like they were sort of saying some of that type of rhetoric that made me realize like, Oh my God, this is going to happen. This is going to happen. If these people are for this [00:39:00] change where this party is going, where this nominee is going and I came home really shook from that trip, which was in March. And then like, as the spring went on, he wasn't the, um, Official nominee yet, but he was the presumptive nominee and I just, I had a real breaking point and I was like, this is absolutely not where I am headed. Like, I can see where this road is going and I don't want to be associated with this in any way.
I had a very visceral reaction to it. And I don't know what that was about. I'm an Enneagram one. So maybe it's just like a very strong sort of right and wrong feeling even though I had been living a lot of years in the middle by that time. But then it was like, my oneness really came out roaring. I don't know if it was because what Donald Trump was doing. You know, from the Hollywood perspective as an entertainer, I was sort of seeing like, sort of knowing I worked on reality shows for years and that was like my job.
So trying to like understand how a reality TV star was leading the ticket. I [00:40:00] understood it from a Hollywood point of view, but I could not reconcile it with what I knew about conservatives and what they hold to be at this high moral ground. And I just, it was like a true breaking point for me, even though, of course, like I said, I've had sort of been leading up to it, but here's what was actually really heartbreaking about it.
And I know that maybe people don't even want to hear about Donald Trump anymore, but for me, for me, it was like leaving the church. I'm just gonna go, I keep using that analogy because that's what it's like. It would be as if you grew up in the church and you stood up and said like, I don't believe in God anymore.
It was a huge thing, not just in my family, although it was, but like in my heart. I mean, it was sort of like leaving your roots, leaving your, you know, saying like, I don't believe something anymore is just like one of the hardest things you'll ever say in your life, [00:41:00] whether that's about a belief system or whether that's about your marriage or whatever, you know what I mean?
And so it was, it was like a death. It was like a divorce. It was like a leaving the church, all of those analogies. I was in mourning and I don't care for one second if anyone thinks that's dramatic, I was, how old was I? 37 years old. And it was, it was like a death and I mean, I've heard you talk about it, but I know it was a big deal for you too.
It was just really, really hard. I felt, I felt like so hard to articulate this, but you know, it felt like it felt like a real break in my whole life, um, of who I was and who I am. And so when I saw that that was happening all around the country with that nominee and that eventually even more so that president, that it was dividing families and people didn't [00:42:00] recognize their party anymore, or some people who'd never been political in their life were so happy to finally identify with this new kind of party.
I, I just, it was, uh, it was a rough few years and now no rough about it at all. Now I feel like, uh, you know, when you come, I've never been divorced, but like, you know, after every, you come through a divorce and then you're like, yeah, this, this break was for the best. That's sort of where I am with it now. But I, I think that there's people in this place that I'm describing now and if you are so sad about it, if you're still so sad about it and you like cry and you feel like you are being drama city or you feel like you're the one who's contributing to the divisiveness because that's kind of the message I got. That I was part of the problem because I was taking such a strong stand and it's hard y'all it's so it's, it really is hard.
Beth: [00:42:56] I think that leaving a church analogy is a good one because [00:43:00] sometimes I'll hear people say kind of casually, like we'll just leave the church then. You know, and I think, Oh my gosh, like leaving the church for my family as a kid would have been equivalent to like moving to Mars. I mean, it really would have changed almost every aspect of our lives. And when you've had a, a dad who's been on the RNC for 16 years, I can see it being the same way.
It's a lot of your connective tissue, um, in life and, and cutting through that over something that feels both intensely personal and also like we should be able to discuss it more at arms length. It makes sense to me why it was so painful and so hard for you. I want to ask you about Trump, even though I can't believe I'm choosing to talk more about Trump, but I do think that's where so much of this sits and I struggle still as critical as I have tried to become [00:44:00] in terms of understanding systemic racism and the limitations of my experience growing up and all of the forces swirling around everything.
I still struggle to hear people who have not been Republicans say, well, Trumpism was there all along. This just revealed it in a way that no one could look away from, but the strains that created him were there all along. Something about that, that still cracks at my heart a little bit. And it's not that I even disagree. It just hurts to think about. Um, and I wonder what your experiences with that.
Laura Tremaine: [00:44:42] Yeah. I mean, I, it, it hurts me too, and I also don't disagree. Especially, you know, I mentioned my friend who came out as gay, but like learning about race stuff was also a big, huge turning point for me. I should mention that. I was learning about that on a podcast series I was doing about racial bias. I was reading a lot of books. I became very interested in [00:45:00] that topic and America's history in that topic. And that was also really, really huge part of, uh, my evolution on political thought as well, for sure, for sure.
I definitely think that part of the resistance to changing a belief system is because it's hard to you know, admit that you might've hurt someone with your older belief system or that the people who taught you how to believe that way, you know, they were wrong. It's hard. I mean, why do we want to, you know what, we don't want to say that, or we don't want to think that, you know, I mean, that's just like human nature.
I understand that. I do think that Trump being so outlandish and being such a, you know, cartoon of a politician, I mean, we got used to him, but in the beginning, if it hadn't been that far jump in political [00:46:00] style, I don't know that I would have, you know, opened my eyes or heart to some of the other things.
I mean, there were some doors that I were willing, I was willing to open in terms of some social justice things or some, some social issues and change, but I had kept some doors pretty firmly closed of like, well, I'm not even going to look into, you know, lots of different issues. Healthcare's one, let's just say taxes. Like, I mean, there's some things that I was like, I'm not even going to open the door to even research that further. You know, those doors were closed to me. Having someone that was, I mean, close to me by my choice I mean, you know what I mean.
Having someone that was so different, I, one of the, you know, sort of silver linings there, one of the good things that came out of it is that then I was like, this is a total deconstruction. Like I need to re-examine everything I believe and think about if this is where the party is going. We're asked, I think with, you know, more moderate candidates or, or more moderate people, it's [00:47:00] easy to just LA LA LA LA, keep your eyes close to them. So it, so. If people really wanted a big shakeup for one reason, another reason to get a big shakeup, you know, is to think like, well, let's go back to the beginning.
You know, like, let's go back to the building blocks of what we actually believe in. I don't know that I would have done that without someone as divisive as Trump. I think I would have probably continued to stay real moderate, i.e. I only look into the issues that I want to look into, you know, so, I mean, he did force that, I guess is what I'm saying a little bit for me.
And it does hurt. Yeah. It does hurt to think like, shoot, I'm so sorry that I thought a different way, but I didn't know it was ignorance and now I hope to never have that as an excuse again.
Beth: [00:47:49] And there's a piece of me that really struggles with figuring out how to express in our particular world where every word [00:48:00] is analyzed and ascribed some meaning and sometimes you're not even aware of, of what it's, what someone else is hearing when you're saying the word. Right. And I think that's good and I try to lean into that and learn from it. And at the same time, I still feel like, I don't know how to say this.
You know, when I think about race and my upbringing, I definitely grew up with whiteness as the default. Uncritical whiteness. I never thought about the fact that I was white ever. It would have seemed silly to talk about being white. So that comes with like all kinds of decision-making that is actively harmful to people who are not white, that I did not see. It was like I was inside a matrix that I could not look at. And at the same time, part of what I learned in my tiny room was how to love people really well and that's never seemed complicated to me.
I, I did not learn to hate anyone in my tiny room. In fact, I learned to see every person as a full, complete person, and I can [00:49:00] imagine easily versions of my life, where I'm married someone of a different race and had children with someone of a different skin, color, ethnicity, background, someone who speaks a different language like, and I can imagine that unfolding and my family putting their arms around that person and loving them as well as they could.
And so I, I think that when I talk to other people about this, I never want to present this version of the world where it was like, and I think this is why so many people don't change because it feels like you almost have to say everything about that was wrong and everything about where I am now is superior to that and that is not how I feel. I still do see, you know, my goal, I think is like a blending of information from all the different people I get to learn from and places that I get to learn. Does that make sense?
Laura Tremaine: [00:49:51] It makes sense. I will say for me, I also was not taught to hate anyone. Hate was not a part of my growing up at all. I, we also didn't talk about race [00:50:00] at all. So it was still the purest meaning of the word ignorance. Like I just had a huge gap in my knowledge there and I was also taught a lot of love in my community and I was religious and I did go to church a lot. And so I had, even though I wasn't getting that from my parents. In my community, I was getting a lot of God and politics, God in America.
Right. Very intermingled. And so it was, it was taught to me, not any kind of hate, but even on the love side of it, that people who are full of love vote a certain way. Now, a lot of that's tied to abortion, a lot. I mean like 60% of that is tied to abortion, but also it is sort of tied to this is the way God would vote. Jesus would vote. I mean, it was very, those things were very tied together. And so there is like, [00:51:00] uh, a tug at us if that's your most formative years that to think like, well, if I'm going to think the other way that that's like the wrong path. That's being led astray, Satan is tricking me.
Okay. I don't believe in Satan like that anymore, but those grooves in your brain are hard to shake if that's what you learned when you were young. Right. And so. I just, it's not so easy as like I change belief systems or, Oh, I'm going to, you know, vote a different way. Like it is like you're moving out of goodness, to me. It was out of like good people are this and also, so that's what I was learning in my faith community, and also in my home community, it was smart people are this.
And Beth, I care so much about being smart. I do not want to be seen as not [00:52:00] smart, you know, as like people who haven't thought it all the way through. People who don't think critically, they think with their heart instead of with their brain. I mean, lots and lots of that messaging of like liberals are actually like literally dumb. Which of course is not true, but that also is a thing that took me a long time to shake and so there, I did know some sort of Democrats growing up, let's say, even though Democrats in Oklahoma are more conservative than, you know what I mean? Like it's just such a conservative state.
But the Democrats I knew growing up where maybe, you know, they had some other foible, they had some other, you know, uh, thing about them that was not great. You know, I'm not going to like, get into details here, but like for, for me growing up, it was [00:53:00] righteous to be Republican. I, it was like the way again, it was like the way to God. And there was no middle ground. There was no, like, it's funny because I, you know, what I'm describing is actually the opposite of critical thinking.
Because critical thinking skills would be able to hold multiple ideas in your hand and, you know, pros and cons and like, you know, talk it through. And I just, that was not, there was no talking it through. There was no like middle way to think about tax increases or not. There was no middle way to think about Ronald Reagan or, um, yeah, it was just, I was never taught a middle way.
And that's what made it hard when you, when you get to a place where you sort of wake up in the night and think, Oh my God, is there something about this I don't believe anymore/ you don't even know how to think about it if you've been in that small room like you're [00:54:00] describing. Someone has to teach you how to, you know, think about it, which is like, which is the bonus to the internet.
Is that whether we have so many resources now. If you are curious about a train of thought, there is somebody that's there to talk to you about it. You know, if you can't afford travel or, you know, re you know, deep research or whatever, like all this is available to us, and this is why I think it's hard in this divisive time to look around and be like, you have all this information, and you're still dug in on XYZ. I mean, I can't get dug in on hardly anything these days, because there's always a counter-argument right.
Beth: [00:54:37] For sure and that's why I think it is a, it's such a big ask. Um, even with all of us at our fingertips, it's such a big ask and, and I don't know about you. I could not have walked through the process, so I would describe myself today as a very uncomfortable Democrat. And I don't know if that's because I'm hanging on to some old pieces. [00:55:00] You know, certainly I was an extremely uncomfortable and often embarrassed Republican before I became an uncomfortable Democrat.
But maybe that's just a way of saying I'm always going to be examining different sides and working on my own identity, but getting there, I could not have done without therapy because learning like I really value being smart too and I value being a very particular kind of smart. I value being calm. I value seeming like I'm making very rational decisions. I value seeming like I am more head oriented than heart oriented, even though everything in my natural personality is more heart oriented.
I value those things and, and I don't know that I could have made my political transformation without working with someone who helped me understand, like you valued those things because they worked for you. That's how you felt loved and successful growing up as a child. And then being able to kind of marry all that up and see like, Oh, well [00:56:00] there are like elements of patriarchy and capitalism.
And like, you know, there, there are all these different factors that I haven't just existed as this special person in the world that my context has shaped even those personality traits that led me more toward the Republican party than the democratic party. And that that's just, like you said, that's a, full-on deconstruction. That's hard.
Laura Tremaine: [00:56:23] It's so hard. Especially when you think about like the value of being smart. Like the older I get, the more I'm like, why did I value that to the detriment of other people? Like why did I think that being smart, thinking with your head was better than making decisions with your heart. I mean, it's not, this is, these are, it just depends on the context. It depends on the question, but again, these are middle ways of thinking. I don't think that a lot of people are given the option of a middle way.
If your church or your parents or your local party meetings or [00:57:00] whatever are preaching at you, this is the way, a lot of people are busy and they, you know, they're busy or they don't have the capacity or they don't have even the desire. They just take that this is the way rhetoric and run with it. And then, you know, and then we have nobody in the middle or nobody being willing to say, aye, I believe this part of this side and this part of outside.
You know, I mean, Beth, I'm not registered as a Democrat. I still couldn't do it. Yeah. I get that. I registered as an independent, just as like a stop gap. Like I was like, I, I cannot have, this R by my name. This was in 2016, but I'm sure not ready to put a D there yet. And I still haven't. I still have not changed that registration because of everything that you're saying and it's just like, we all want to believe this is what I think is funny about people, myself included.
We all want to believe that we are not falling [00:58:00] victim to identity politics. We are all victims of identity politics. We care a lot about what our registration says about us or what, the way we think about a certain topic says about us. And I am, as I get older into my forties, I'm starting to lose some, the idea of or loosen the priority of being seen as smart. Like, I, I am smart. Like I've, I know that. And also, no one's giving me an SAT anytime soon. Like, you know what I mean?
Like that value of being smart, that also can't really be tested in the way when I learned that value. Like as a kid, there's no number that's going to come alongside my name anymore. I just, yeah. There's different types of smart and I don't need to prove that to anyone anymore. I've, I've proven it.
Beth: [00:58:55] And it has helped me to examine that particular portion of [00:59:00] my identity and understand both that it has been very helpful in creating a life for me that I love and that it has been very harmful to me. There were a couple of years of my life where I threw up every single day. I was just so stressed and that that's nobody's fault. And I think that like, starting to understand that all of these things that have happened to around and for me are happening too around and for everybody else too.
And I, and I think that's the grace that, that your 10 questions really elicited for me, that everybody has answers to these 10 questions, including the people who taught me how to be, and including the people who are still teaching me how to be.
Laura Tremaine: [00:59:47] Thats right.
Beth: [00:59:47] And so no one's infallible and there aren't any villains in my life either and I think that helps me sink a little bit more into being a person who has changed a lot and will [01:00:00] probably continue to change.
Laura Tremaine: [01:00:01] Do you feel like your uh, audience, people who listen to this show and people who, who follow have they also struggled over the last few years? Because when you, if you don't mind me asking, because when y'all started, you know, your whole thing was that you were right and left. Like, do you mind just even sharing, like, do you think people resonated with your journey as you have changed or are people still divided?
Beth: [01:00:29] I will say our audience that has stuck with us, a lot of them have resonated with my change. And then we have people in our audience too, who are very much of the mindset that like, how could you ever have been a Republican? Like, I'm glad you get it now. Some of them kind of skeptical that my growth would continue beyond Donald Trump, that it was like a Trump specific turn away. But then I would go back to being like, well, what about the deficit? You know, when we started getting into more like the Biden era.
So I think our range, but that range exists pretty [01:01:00] much in the center to the left side of the spectrum with, with, with notable exceptions and I think we lost people, you know. I, I think we lost people and that's just, that's part of the journey too.
Laura Tremaine: [01:01:10] I have not a lot of time for someone who is like, what you just described of like welcome. I'm glad you see the light now. Like I don't, don't think that that is a helpful attitude. And I, that can go the other way. I mean, if you remove Trump from this, which is, it's hard, it's hard to talk about all this without talking about Trump, because it definitely was a catalyst for my change. Definitely. Like I already said, if there hadn't been him, I don't think that I would have really examined a lot of my positions.
But I also feel like I have plenty of very liberal people in my life, especially since moving to LA that the older we get, or if you really press them on an issue, they're not quite as liberal as their Twitter feed might suggest. You know what I mean? Like they [01:02:00] also, a lot of people sort of bend towards the middle if they're really pressed on something. And I would never say to them, like welcome to the. Welcome to this, you know, welcome to opening your eyes.
Beth: [01:02:11] The fashion of reason.
Laura Tremaine: [01:02:11] I'm so glad that I just don't think that that is, you know, I don't think that that is a helpful attitude. I mean, honestly, that attitude in some ways, and I've gotten it too. It's the only reason I'm picking on this. I'm not picking on any followers of you who say that, but like, I just, that, that is the same thing of what I described about the LA dinner parties of like, I don't know. I don't even know how to articulate that other than it, it bugs me. It doesn't make us more united to be like, thank goodness you opened your eyes. That makes me be like, I don't want to be here.
Beth: [01:02:49] Well, I saw a graph today that helped me think about this. So it, it was charting that, you know, we thought for so long in terms of the left-right duality and the [01:03:00] writer was advocating for not just the left-right spectrum, but adding like a Y axis that is democratic to anti-democratic. Because we do have this kind of drift toward authoritarianism in parts of the country, in a lot of the country and a frightening amount of the country, in my opinion.
And I was looking at that chart and I thought this is a good start and there are lots more dimensions. And one of the dimensions that I find either connects me most with someone or disconnects me most from that person is certainty. Because I don't think you can go through the kind of change that we've been talking about without humility becoming like an incredible driving value and that sense of, Oh my gosh, what else don't I know. Okay what context am I not aware of now? Right. And so I find myself really recoiling against certainty, no matter what ideology is [01:04:00] behind that certainty.
Laura Tremaine: [01:04:01] I agree with you, even though I also, you know, used to suffer from certainty and absolutism, but I totally agree with you, but I also think a big part of it for me is disdain. I cannot take disdain from both sides. Again, this is me just speaking from my experience of growing up in one place and living in the other place that had disdain for the other place, both of them, even to this moment. And so I, I hear it. And when I hear it, I recoil, like you're saying, I just, I cannot take a disdain.
It doesn't mean that you can't have a strong opinions or you can't feel like disgusted by certain things that happen. You know, you will be, will find me on Twitter being disgusted on the regular, but true disdain for the other side, which my feed is full of a lot of disdain. That is the worst. That's like the worst political emotion to me.
Beth: [01:04:56] I, I love, um, I forget the name of the [01:05:00] scientist. Sarah would know if she were here, but the, the person who studies marriages who's found that contempt is the sign that a marriage is going to fall apart. And I do worry that that contempt, that disdain, that we have for each other right now is like the, the most worrisome undercurrent of what we have happening in this country.
But that kind of takes me. So let's go to the opposite of that as we wrap up here cause I wanted to ask you one of your own questions as it relates to politics, as we wind up. And I thought this was the hardest question to translate to politics, but also one that I loved thinking about. So what are your magical moments?
Laura Tremaine: [01:05:35] Oh, God, gosh. In politics? Um, well, I'll start with, you know, the serious one that I already referenced. I know exactly where I was the night that I decided to change my, my registration. And I was actually at a fundraiser with my dear friend, Jenna Fischer, who wrote the forward to my book actually and she's an actor and she had invited me to [01:06:00] this, you know, charity fundraiser thing.
And we, and I was in a fancy like ball, gown dress and I went out afterwards and I had been stewing all day on some news and stuff about Trump. And this was when, you know, this felt very shocking at the time that like Trump might be the president. And I went outside with my husband and I had this very, very pretty ball County dress on and we took a selfie and I'm crying kind of. Why I did this, I have no idea because I liked my dress and we took a selfie at this fancy hotel, like out in the sort of courtyard area. And you can tell that I'm crying and actually hold tight to that picture because I do think that was like, Oh, that's it.
A lot of times people can't identify like their, their actual moment when something changed. And obviously there had been things leading up to that, but then I was like that it that's it. That picture, or is like, there's a delineation between a political Laura before that night in a political art after that night. And it was painful [01:07:00] again, I, I was crying and fearful actually. I was fearful for what it meant for my place in my family. And, you know, I was embarrassed a little bit that I was going to have to say, Hey everybody, I'm not this thing anymore.
Yeah. I had really sort of built brand on, but you know, built a part of my personality on and I, you know, I just have that selfie still and I think that was it. Who has a picture of their moment they changed, right? So that's one magical moment. And then I have this, these other collection of funny, magical moments from I went to all the Republican national conventions when I was young, starting with Houston. Um, I did San Diego. Here. I'm not going to get these in order, but I did San Diego, um, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, St. Paul. I did all these national conventions and I have a collection starting when I'm 13 years old of sort of interactions with, uh, celebrities at those, you know, I was like a little girl and because my dad was on the RNC, like we had like a [01:08:00] green room access and we have like a special room that we could go to or whatever, like a lounge.
And there was, there were always celebrities in those rooms. And the one that I remember the most was this is so funny, and this is my, maybe not even what you're asking, I'm telling it anyway. Cause when do I ever get a chance to tell this story? But, um, Bruce Willis was at that Houston Republican national convention. He sat in the president's box or in the Vice-President's box. I can't remember. And he waved and winked at me. And I was literally a little girl on the floor of the convention, waving a little flag. And you know, this was the era of Diehard, right.
This would have been 92, I guess. And I was like, I mean, that was a really big deal to me that I also remember like some, sometimes there were journalists like Connie Chung or what I know that was just a huge deal for me was actually now that I think back I was enamored with not just famous people. I can, I guess, famous people. It's hard to put them all in the box. They're all different. I loved [01:09:00] like, you know, Bob Dole, like, I mean, you know what I mean, whether it was a famous politician or a celebrity famous person, like I just was so wide-eyed, starry-eyed about that.
And then of course the fact that I would move and live and work in Hollywood, maybe that was like a little thing, but I just, I have these magical moments from those conventions that I you know, I look back on fondly, honestly, from those times. I mean, it did feel like family and patriotism in a good way, you know, in a very pro America, we are the best. We know what's best, you know, my little girl self or even teenager cause I kept going, um, you know, felt, it felt so good to feel like I was in the right, you know?
Beth: [01:09:51] Yeah.
Laura Tremaine: [01:09:51] And you lose some of that. Not only because our country has changed so much, but as an adult, maybe it's harder to [01:10:00] feel quite so in the right if you're paying attention.
Beth: [01:10:04] I love those answers. I, it reminds me of seeing Colin Powell with my parents at one of those farm Bureau conventions, and just being star struck by Colin Powell. He embodied like all of the smartness that I wanted to embody. You know, I thought I want to be like him. That's probably a magical moment for me. And the other one that comes to mind for me is like, what I get to do now helps me stay connected to how much it matters like the way that we just talk about each other in the context of politics.
Like the other day, Sarah and I recorded an episode and I said something and I, it's not something I prepared to say or thought much about, but I just was saying like about transgender issues. It's just not hard to love someone who has transitioned. And we immediately got an email from someone who said, I pressed play on your episode right after my child told me that my child is non-binary. [01:11:00] And the first thing I heard was you saying it's not hard to love someone after they've transitioned and that just felt that just felt really magical to me.
And then I thought if that kind of magic, if we could all understand how that kind of magic is at the tip of our fingers all the time, because you don't have to host a podcast to just say something that strikes someone as the kindness that they need in a particular moment you know, I think we would not have the sort of difficulties that we have. If you could just access that kind of magic, it would change a lot of things I think.
Laura Tremaine: [01:11:37] I absolutely love that so much. I'm so glad you said that.
Sarah: [01:11:49] Thanks so much to Laura for coming on the show. So Taylor, I'm excited to hear what's on your mind outside politics.
Taylor: [01:11:56] Oh my gosh. Okay. Well, I am two weeks [01:12:00] out from my second Maderna shot. Nice. Uh, as we talked about, some of my friends have moved home. I am currently living with my mother. So my best friend from growing up, or I guess my oldest friend and I went to the skate rink, our neighborhood skate rink that we like definitely went to seven-year-old birthday parties too. Over the weekend. It was so much fun. I went two nights in a row. The first night I didn't do well. I barely moved. I got a bruise on my butt that's the color of a Smurf, but I left feeling like, I want to, No, I got to go do better.
So I went back and by the end of it, I was kind of skating on my own. I'm really proud of myself. I haven't felt that like motivation of like, I need to go, I want to get better at something in a long time. And also I learned that I love gen Z teens, like the teens, teen girls. One girl tried to buy my friend's jacket [01:13:00] off of her like with cash. One girl was like, you guys are so beautiful to my other friends and I. And then my, so the second night I went with a different friend, uh, she was trying to learn how to skate backwards. And this group of girls was like helping her, guiding her. They were so cool. One was very red pleather pants, like the Britney Spears music video. The other one looked like the fourth Haim sister. Another, the other one had like no makeup. She was just chilling, like. Cargo pants. These were, they're the spice girls to me.
Sarah: [01:13:34] Sounds, sounds very much like you described the spice girls.
Taylor: [01:13:36] They are my personal spice girls. I love them. It was just so fun. It was so nice to like witness other people in the wild. Yes. First night, one night, one per also I think part of it was just social anxiety of like, I haven't had this many eyeballs on me. Not that they were even on me, but like, I haven't really felt like it. I felt like I was on the spot.
Sarah: [01:13:57] Uh, did you not rollerskate as a [01:14:00] child?
Taylor: [01:14:00] Sarah? No. You know me.
Sarah: [01:14:05] We listen. You know why? Cause, cause you grew up in a city where there's like lots and lots of options for birthday parties. But if you grew up in a smaller town options are limited. Rollerskating rink is like headliner a lot of the time. Um, also it's like a part of the curriculum at Griffins elementary school. Like they teach them to roller skate.
Taylor: [01:14:24] That's good. I wish I had that.
Sarah: [01:14:28] I mean, I loved it. My problem with roller skating, an ice skating and now that I've done the happy hip course, and I realized my imbalance and like weaknesses, I have a tendency to just only want to lift my right foot or maybe it's now I'm trying to think about it, but there's like, I get in this space where I'm like skateboarding, where I'm just, and it gets, it's a really exhausting and it wears my ankles out. That's what I really need to work on.But I love, I love roller skating. I think it's, it's like super fun. I can't do any of the fancy tricks, but I can do.
Taylor: [01:14:56] Oh my gosh, there was a group of people. It kind of reminded me of [01:15:00] like Black fraternities doing strolls. They were like, they were so in sync and like doing these routines, it was just, it was amazing.
Sarah: [01:15:09] Yeah. It's fun. And I totally agree about like being out in the world. I just got back from vacation. We were in key West key. We had a big sunset celebration every night for the cause this like, obviously very beautiful place to watch the sunset. And we went down there and there was just like a crush of humanity. I, you know, I, I. Just a quirk of my personality. I'm not a particularly anxious person and I'm pretty good at identifying it and moving on.
I don't know if that's, you know, because I experienced a school shooting. And so I had to like really process and learn and work through the anxiety at a younger age than most people. I don't know what it is, but like, you know, Nicholas is still working through a lot of anxiety about being in crowds. I don't even, I got my two shots. I don't even think about it. I literally do not think about it. You know, even with my kids are ready to get an email that was like, treat your kids like you would during flu season, because that's about the risk level they're at right now.
[01:16:00] And so like, I just was out there and it was so nice to just especially cause it was outside. I'm not sure how I'd feel if we were inside, but outside, like just to see the faces and watch people and just see humanity on display. Again, I just, I mean, I know I'm one of the very few people who's like, man, I miss being in a crush of humans, like watching how they interact with each other.
I just love it. Like with their crews and with humans and like watching people be kind to strangers. Even listen, I'm not going to lie. It's not like everybody's kind to a stranger even kind of watching people like remembering like, Oh yeah, people get real mad. And like, it's just like, that's like our, just a weird experience after not being around a lot of people first. Yeah. So long. Yeah.
Taylor: [01:16:49] Not that people are probably going to come for me, but I was masked. I want everyone to know I was indoors, double, double poked and mask. So I'm, you [01:17:00] know, keeping up the social norm.
Sarah: [01:17:02] Yeah, totally. There was lots of masking, listen, we were even masking in places that I didn't understand where I'm asking, like we were on an airboat and I think it's just the state regulations and I think it's easier to make a broad rule than to expect people to enforce a bunch of exceptions. And I totally get that. And also at the same time when people are literally like holding their mask on their face, because we're on an air boat and the wind is so fast, I was like, y'all call this with, okay, it's fine.
I'm going to do it. I'll happy to do it. And also this is very silly because COVID could not keep up with this Airstream and under any scenario. But the mass compliance in Florida was very high, very high. I was very impressed by the people. I mean, I saw a way, way more masking than I expected to. It was pretty much a hundred percent everywhere we went. So do you have anything else you want to talk? Anything else you want to add to the rollerskating or anything else?
Taylor: [01:17:58] Uh, no, I just missed out, [01:18:00] but I will say something about the pandemic I realized how I like to dress. I just started dressing to entertain myself there for a period, a lot of Poshmark. And I just, yeah, I like so excited to wear all these outfits out into the world.
Sarah: [01:18:17] I love it. I love it. I agree. Like getting dressed and remembering other people will like see it and not just from the waist up is a very exciting experience.
Taylor: [01:18:26] Yeah. I kind of am like, okay. I just crafted my, all my favorite outfits that I, I feel something when I'm wearing them. Right. Like in the thick of it last summer I bought a bikini because I was like, I've never worn a bikini and like, that feels like it would be exhilarating. I only wear it like in my house, but I have it.
Sarah: [01:18:51] There you go. There you go. Well, thank you for coming on Pantsuit Politics, Taylor. I really appreciate it. [01:19:00] I hope everybody enjoyed our conversation and enjoyed Beth and Laura's conversation. I will be back here on Friday with Nicholas. Taylor, you said it's a shame it's not a video feed cause half of Nicholas's communication is just.
Taylor: [01:19:12] Nonverbal faces. Yeah.
Sarah: [01:19:14] Yeah.
Taylor: [01:19:15] Just the faces.
Sarah: [01:19:16] I'll try to convey that. Are you excited about the, of Nicholas coming on Pantsuit?
Taylor: [01:19:19] Yeah, I can't wait to hear how it goes, Sarah and Nicholas are. Yeah, they're just some of my favorite people for reference. So when we, I talked about how Sarah and I got close. When Griffin was born, she and Nicholas were both studying for the bar. I was about 15 and they said, Hey, come live at our house for three weeks and help us take care of this three month old baby. And that's kind of when I started to like really get to know Nicholas as a person. Y'all are just a dynamic duo.
Sarah: [01:19:49] Thank you. So that's Friday. Can't wait. Everybody have the best week available to them and we'll see you then.
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