"What's happening at the pumpkin patch?"

Silvers.jfif

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Chad: [00:00:00] I mean, this goes along with party lines and how kind of your force fed a certain menu, if you decide to choose one way or the other. Being from a small town, I also am a chemist by education, so the abandonment or the discounting of science over the past few years is just mind-boggling and maddening to me because you can be somewhat conservative and definitely understand science. 

I don't know how that one's got there, but I guess it's the same on the left where often if you're saying I am on the left, I am a Democrat. There's a certain menu of things that you have to ascribe to there too.

Sarah: This is Sarah

Beth: And Beth. 

Sarah: You're listening to Pantsuit Politics.

Beth: The home of grace-filled political conversations.

Beth: [00:01:00] Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us for another episode of Pantsuit Politics. Sarah is still on vacation. She'll be back here on Tuesday. I will be on vacation next week. We have great plans for you next week and are excited about it.

 And today my favorite person on earth is here to record with me. I'm so excited to introduce my husband, Chad, to all of you. Thanks for joining me, Chad. 

Chad: [00:01:33] Thank you. Thank you. Long time listener. First time caller.

Beth: [00:01:36] Excellent. Well, before we get started and we have a bunch of things to talk about, I want to remind everyone that applications to be part of our summer series contributor program are due on April 16th.

We are so excited about the people we've heard from so far. Remember that we are looking for a very diverse range of views. So please don't decide that you're not qualified to do this. If you're excited [00:02:00] about it and interested, we would love to hear from you. So you can go to the link in the show notes to get all of the information about that.

So today, Chad and I are going to follow up a little bit on the cryptocurrency conversation, talk a little bit about something that's happening here in Kentucky and then for our main topic, Chad is an expert on telecommunications, which makes them uncomfortable when I say it but I think it's true. And we're going to talk a little bit about polarization and the fairness doctrine and how media impacts what we hear and kind of the profit model behind all of that. Chad? 

Chad: [00:02:32] I might go for redacting that expert, or at least putting a very bold print asterix beside it. So don't, don't, don't take expert to heart there. 

Beth: [00:02:43] Chad, why don't you start by just introducing yourself to people beyond being my husband. Tell them a little bit about you and especially kind of who you are politically.

Chad: [00:02:52] Ooh, husband of Beth is definitely the majority of my CV. Politically, uh, [00:03:00] so this is probably not going to go over well, but I'm more, definitely more fiscally conservative than Beth. I'm probably more conservative overall. I come from a very small town in Kentucky much like Beth, but a very different part of Kentucky.

I like to say I'm from the Hills of Kentucky. Uh, Beth grew up in the, the flat lands and you really can't trust those flat landers. But in Kentucky, they're the flat areas, the Hills and the mountains. So I'm not from the mountains of Kentucky, but definitely from the Hills.

Beth: [00:03:32] When you say conservative, I feel like that's a word that doesn't mean a lot anymore. Can you kind of flesh that out a little bit? 

Chad: [00:03:39] I'm conservative what conservative was 40 years ago, I guess. Socially, I don't really care. I lean more libertarian in those instances, but I believe in strong defense, I believe that we should more balance the books and take care of our [00:04:00] country, both the people of our country and the, uh, the infrastructure, the national debt, the deficits, all of those things are very concerning to me.

Beth: [00:04:21] Let's talk a little bit in front of you, people about something that we talk about here in our house all the time, because I am constantly trying to get you to help me understand cryptocurrency. I loved Sarah's conversation with Doug on Tuesday. It helped me put a lot of pieces together. But I know that we had people who said, like, it sounded like a different language I did not follow.

And so you and I have spent some time thinking about just for me, how to understand what is this? And something that you correct me on when we talk about this a lot is I tend to say, well, let's, let's talk about what the blockchain is. And you always say not the blockchain, a blockchain. Can you explain that?

Chad: [00:04:59] Yeah. So [00:05:00] blockchain is just a technology. A technology platform. You could have a blockchain for really about anything. Think of a blockchain more as just a database. It is instead of that database being housed specifically on one server, let's say you're talking about health records, medical records, that server is probably going to be housed within a hospital or insurance company.

A blockchain is a database that is decentralized. So that means there's a network of computers or network of, I guess you could say servers as well, that control the information. So if one of those happened to go out or be hacked or something like that, it doesn't necessarily take down all the information.

So when your information is all stored in one server, it's subject to fraud, it's subject to interference from [00:06:00] third parties. The decentralized nature of a blockchain lets you more secure that data and make sure it's authenticated by all parties or all computers in that network instead of one central target for anyone looking to mess with that information. 

Beth: [00:06:20] So that's really helped me because I think a lot of times with new technologies, I'm always looking for the why and because it's neat and it's new, doesn't do it for me. I want the why. And so it's helped me to hear I might want a blockchain in my business or in my life, otherwise, because it has this feature of multiple computers, networks working together, which makes it much more secure.

And it has this feature of everyone being able to contribute to it at the same time. Right. There's sort of a real time aspect of using blockchain. And as [00:07:00] all of those people are interacting, there is the capacity to interact anonymously while still being certain that your funds are being transferred or that the information that's being transferred is supposed to be there. Is that a decent way to say it? 

Chad: [00:07:16] Yeah. Anonymity is an option. So with say the blockchain that, that handles Bitcoin yes. Anonymous, you could choose to have a blockchain though, that has all identifying information. Think of anyone that's used a word document or Google doc that multiple people have been editing, you can look at a change history of it and see who did what. That would be an option if you were looking to be able to see everything that's going on within that database. 

Beth: [00:07:48] Okay. So. I read an article that had a bunch of different metaphors about cryptocurrency and one of them that I liked is that you can think of cryptocurrency [00:08:00] like a token in a casino, like a chip in a casino.

It has value there. It doesn't have value everywhere else. You have to be in a certain environment to use it. And you can think of blockchain like the casino. So blockchain is the environment that hosts the use of cryptocurrency. Is that, do you like that metaphor? 

Chad: [00:08:20] I don't, um, most of the metaphors you've thrown at me. I do not like.

Beth: [00:08:24] Well, I just liked metaphor better than you generally. 

Chad: [00:08:27] No, I, I like the metaphor. The casino though, is using that metaphor of a casino is a central lone entity that's controlling everything. So, eh, I don't, I don't like it as much. 

Beth: [00:08:40] It's a more blockchain is a more expansive environment than a casino then. Yeah, I'll take that. Okay. But it's kind of the host for the exchange of cryptocurrency and that's what we need to understand about it.

 Well, it's where the records are kept well.

 And that's helpful, right? Because then if we think about what cryptocurrency is, this is what I am [00:09:00] constantly hammering chat about Chad, but what is it? If we think about what it is, it is something that has value because people have decided that it has value, right. There is a group of people who, who ascribe value to it. And so they use blockchain as the means of exchange for this thing that they ascribe value to. 

Chad: [00:09:19] Yes. So within the blockchain world, I guess you would say there is value assigned to that and what it's trading at. Of course, if I tried to go down to a merchant in rock castle County, where I'm from and tried to buy goods and services, I would get some pretty strange looks because that person has assigned no, no value to it, even though that at this point, much of the world has ascribed value to it. 

But know that those currencies inside of the system, aren't just, I guess, made up value. So take another blockchain, for [00:10:00] example, the Ethereum platform, which is kind of the, the second leading alt coin out there. So anything that's not a Bitcoin, a lot of people refer to as an alt coin. So Ethereum is a network that was created so that developers could run decentralized applications on a network.

Again, it's not all housed in one central server. So they run their applications on Ethereum. The computers that are running that network, the folks that have those computers get paid in what is called the ether to run that network because they're, they're the servers. They're just decentralized servers and those people running the applications in that network pay a fee to the network. They call it gas because it's the gas that fuels the network. So again, within that community, that's ascribed value. 

Beth: [00:10:57] Which is what all currency is [00:11:00] right. There, there is a space of people who have agreed that we put our confidence in this currency and that's how we're going to exchange value. And so this is just happening in different places on the internet.

And I want to get to the why, like, what is the point of any of this other than it's neat. And it's like a fun game. And what we were talking about last night is we were fleshing this out, is that there is a directness around cryptocurrency that people value, but you don't have banks taking fees, especially on international transfers. Can you talk about that, Chad? 

Chad: [00:11:34] Yeah. So transferring money, making transactions, especially internationally, there's just a lot of red tape to go through. You've got national laws, local laws, possible surveillance. You've got different exchange rates to go from. I was using the example of, you know, you were saying, if you're, you're putting money in dollars, you're [00:12:00] not gambling with them. Like, like you are, if you're buying cryptocurrency thinking it's going to go up or down. But you kind of are because the exchange rates relative to whatever currency you have, make a difference in the value at the end of the day of your assets. 

Beth: [00:12:18] Okay. So I hope that that is a little bit of help if you're trying to figure out this whole world and again, Why it matters to me is so that we can better understand what's happening in China right now. China has introduced digital currency backed by a nation state. So the kind of cryptocurrency that Sarah and Doug talked about has that value because a group of users all over the globe have decided that it does. 

Our dollars have value because the United States treasury backs those dollars up. China now has introduced digital currency backed by the central reserve bank in China. And China has now introduced [00:13:00] digital currency backed by its central treasury. And so it has some of the nice features of cryptocurrency in that it's trackable, it's instantaneous in its transfer.

 But then it comes with what a nation state using digital currency could do in the form of lots of surveillance, really understanding people's behaviors. Internationally, by introducing this digital currency, China is going to have the opportunity to go to countries that are suffering from sanctions that the United States has put on them and say, we've got to work around for you.

You don't have to transfer money internationally reliant on the systems that impose these sanctions, you can do it with this digital currency. So this is something we'll be talking a lot more about in the days and weeks to come. But I think nation States getting into this game of digital currency makes the case for us, trying to understand it a little bit better. And we appreciate all [00:14:00] of you who do not think this is fun and neat hanging with us through what we know is a complicated discussion. 

Chad, I wanted to talk with you a little bit about something that's happened in Kentucky. So knowing how much you care about what I'm going to say is good stewardship of taxpayer dollars. I'm wondering about your reaction to the courier Journal's headline, a $28 Million Blunder in Kentucky. The brief story here is that in Kentucky, we have laws saying that if you are incarcerated, you're able to take certain kinds of courses, technical courses, education, behavioral courses, and earn credit toward your time served and of course that requires tracking. 

The department of corrections has been responsible since 2010 for tracking those courses and how they apply to people's time served. Well, a lawsuit was filed in 2012 as a class action because incarcerated people in Kentucky are saying that the department of [00:15:00] corrections hasn't tracked that time correctly and have held people for months and even years past their release dates.

And in a lawsuit, the department of corrections was so incapable of telling the court what the state of affairs was that the court ordered them to hire an accounting firm to audit this and the audit has taken years and $28 million so far to try to sort this out and it's not finished yet. And once it's finished, then we'll be back in court figuring out how much the state owes these incarcerated people who were kept in prison too long in damages. So I just wanted to ask you how this sits with you? 

Chad: [00:15:43] First reaction is big, big face palm. How in the world was this allowed to happen? But this is where it gets tough because I'm really trying as a person to stop assigning blame because blame doesn't get anywhere, we [00:16:00] should work to solve the problem. So yeah, we probably need to find out where the ball was dropped, so it doesn't keep happening, but Hey, congrats to the KPMG folks that are hopefully going to get great bonuses for doing all this work, but really how did we fail?

How did we fail? What can we do to keep that from happening again? And yeah, if I was an incarcerated person that, that this happened to totally understand their, their fury with what has happened. So it's bad, but let's, let's move on I guess. 

Beth: [00:16:37] Yeah. And it sounds like the current administration is working really hard to move on, to get this fixed quickly, to make sure it doesn't happen again. There are some quotes from people involved in this lawsuit, in the courier journal piece that we'll link in the show notes that indicate this comes from an attitude within the department of corrections that is about punishment, not about treating people with dignity and helping [00:17:00] them come back into society and that to me is where some education is needed.

 We have these rules that allow people to earn credit for time served because that's a win-win. It helps incarcerated people hopefully be prepared to come back into their communities and live happy, successful, productive lives. It helps taxpayers because people released early save so much money for the state.

And so the state has hurt itself in so many ways here, has harmed taxpayers in so many ways, by not honoring the spirit of this program and I just I want to make sure that as people hear stories like this, they don't think, well, we shouldn't have a complicated program like that that's hard to administer. No, like that is a taxpayer dollar saving program. It was just administered in a way that has cost a lot of money.

 Okay. Chad, let's get to what you are really here for. I want to talk with you about the fairness doctrine, because [00:18:00] this conversation comes up a lot, especially when we have democratic majorities in Congress. There is a push for renewing the fairness doctrine so that we can try to get media that doesn't fuel partisan polarization. 

And so I thought we could briefly talk about what the fairness doctrine is and to understand why we ever had the government regulating content. I thought you could help us understand spectrum. So I'll do the legal part first, and then you can do the, uh, telecom part. Does that sound good?

Chad: [00:18:32] That works for me. 

Beth: [00:18:34] This fairness doctrine was introduced back in 1949 as part of an announcement called in the matter of editorializing by broadcast licensees. And it said the government licenses spectrum, which Chad will explain in a second, and because you broadcaster have received a license, we want you to do two things.

One, we want you to present controversial issues of public importance [00:19:00] to your audience. We want you to talk about matters that are important to the public. And to, we want you to do that in an honest, equitable, balanced manner. It doesn't mean you have to give equal time or equal weight to contrast in viewpoints. It does mean you have to present contrasting viewpoints. 

So broadcasters complained that this was overly burdensome, that it inhibited their speech. That it was just too much reach of the government into what they could put on their airwaves. And they also said in the 1980s, especially that the growth of media was rendering this whole idea obsolete.

With this debate raging in 1987, Democrats in the house and Senate passed legislation to codify the fairness doctrine. It had just been the policy of the FCC and they wanted to put it into federal law but president Reagan vetoed that. And then after his veto, the [00:20:00] FCC abolished the doctrine on the grounds that it violated the first amendment and stifled debate, even though it was supposed to promote debate, they said it stifled it.

And so the fairness doctrine lingered for a while, just through administrative processes and technically came off the books in 2011. Before I turn it over to Chad to talk about that spectrum and the broadcaster license, I wanted to distinguish between the fairness doctrine and equal time rules. The communications act still applies to equal time rules.

 If you are a radio or broadcast station and you have a candidate on your airwaves, say in prime time, you have to give the opposing candidate equal time at the same price, if it applies. And that is still the rule. But what we're really talking about with the fairness doctrine is everything else, not just candidates, but issues and all the kinds of political commentary that we're used to being a multi-billion dollar industry at this point.

Chad: [00:20:57] So you get into talking about multi-billion dollar [00:21:00] industry and that's where the fairness doctrine needs a little bit more clarity. So the fairness doctrine applies to free broadcast networks. So in the forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, when that came out, your broadcast networks consisted of radio, AM and FM radio, and a handful of broadcast television channels.

So the FCC grants free licenses to television networks to broadcast because it is in the public. Good to have news, information, entertainment sent out. So as a consumer, you're able to pull those over the air with a television antenna, radio antenna for free. What happened though is technology. So [00:22:00] cable news came along and now of course the internet.

So those channels or content that you're paying to receive don't fall under the fairness doctrine. So you hear this resurgence from time to time of, we need to bring the fairness doctrine back. I don't know that the fairness doctrine coming back would, would make much of a difference. I mean, really with what you see on CBS, regular CBS, NBC, ABC, or Fox is generally not overly polarized.

 You could see it a little bit when you get into the groups that own a large number of these local networks, Beth, you probably noticed when we watch John Oliver or something like that, they'll do a montage of a bunch of different networks across the country all parroting the exact same message. And that is where a large company owns a lot of different [00:23:00] networks in different markets.

 So they kind of put their own message out that way, but it's definitely not as polarizing or as polarized as what you see on cable news. And we all know that cable news doesn't really hold a candle to the internet with YouTube and all the, uh, independent content providers that are out there.

Beth: [00:23:21] Here's a question that I have. As I understand it, the ability of government to regulate broadcast license holders at all, comes from the notion that spectrum is a scarce resource. Nothing about our media ecosystem seems scarce right now. Can you help me understand the scarcity aspect of spectrum and whether most of the media that we interact with now is, is premised on spectrum.

Chad: [00:23:52] So spectrum is, is definitely finite and what is usable spectrum? So when we talk about [00:24:00] radio weight, any electromagnetic wave, there is a range of usable spectrum. So go anywhere from radio waves onto, I mean, a microwave is electromagnetic radiation. Speaking of television, so I don't know the exact age of everyone in the audience, but what was it? 15, 20 years ago, I guess 20 years ago, everyone had to switch to get a digital television tuner. 

HD was in progress of becoming the dominant method of TV transmission. So what the government did there, they moved everyone over all the TV networks over to different spectrum and let that old broadcast spectrum be freed up.

So that, that happens from time to time to move people around so that we can use the spectrum the very best way that we see fit, the [00:25:00] government sees fit and sometimes there's some international agencies that are involved there, but spectrum is definitely scarce. I mean, January of this year, The FCC announced that bidders had bid 88, 0.9 billion with a B dollars on 280 megahertz of AirWave licenses in what was referred to as auction 107.

So this is higher bandwidth that would be used mainly by cell phone providers, cell carriers, um, for, for 5g rollout. But yeah, I mean, $80.9 billion to have a license to use a radio frequency. Sounds like it's pretty valuable to me.

Beth: [00:25:44] I get that it's valuable. It's just hard to see it as scarce. Is technology allowing us to use that scarce resource more efficiently? Is that why we see so much more media out there? 

Chad: [00:25:54] Yeah, we were just able to utilize different frequencies in different [00:26:00] ways. Um, you don't want to get into the physics of of radio waves and how those work today right? 

Beth: [00:26:08] Now, you know, me and physics. I struggled to trust physics. It's a long standing joke in our marriage. Okay. Here's what I really want to ask you and I don't think I know your answer to this. Do you think that aside from the sort of legality and the pragmatism of the current media environment, Do you think that media is responsible for the polarization that we are experiencing right now as a country? 

Chad: [00:26:35] No. In general, the media is taking advantage of the situation they see before them and how to make money off of it. I mean, it's, it's hard to say, but I think we in general are to blame for it because from a psychological standpoint, we we'd like to hear things we agree with and they they've seen an, uh, ability [00:27:00] to, to profit off that. So if we just would pay less attention or, you know, as a society demand better debate and not just listening to our own ideas, maybe it would fade away.

Beth: [00:27:29] When I ask you to introduce yourself politically, you talked about where you grew up and I wonder if you feel like media is just reflecting back to us, what our communities have kind of bred into us and if so, like where did that originate? Because you definitely have a more fundamental mistrust of government than I do, even though we both grew up in rural Kentucky.

It is more culturally ingrained, I think, particularly in your geographic area then mine to fundamentally [00:28:00] mistrust government, and if that didn't come from cable news and it couldn't have have, right based on our ages, cable news was relatively new for our lifetimes, where do you think that kind of thing originates and, and how might we influence each other around it?

Chad: [00:28:17] Oh, I don't know. I'm going to have to push back a little bit on feeling that that geographic area, I guess, has more of a distrust. I, I, I think it's, I don't know more folks, certain areas believe they know how to handle themselves, their environments um, more so than someone far away that is a bit disconnected from how their lives are.

So on the question of where those types of feelings originate. Uh, I don't know. I don't know that it's, it's ingrained. I think it may be ingrained a little bit in everyone, but having [00:29:00] that reflected back to you and again, being in a bubble where that's the majority of what you get makes it very easy to to, to go hard one way or the other. I mean, social media certainly shows us that every, every day that you dive into a Twitter thread about 30 comments deep, um, it's, it's not a pretty picture. 

Beth: [00:29:23] So I think about media and the gun control debate when I think about your upbringing, because I don't think that you are at all influenced by somebody like Ted Cruz talking about guns on television. I think if anything, you probably find that really obnoxious. 

When we first started dating and I came to your home for the first time, there was just a, like a gun lying on the table. And I remember that we were going to go with your parents to a pumpkin patch and your dad was like, let me get my gun. And I remember looking at you and saying like, what's happening at the pumpkin patch? Should I be [00:30:00] concerned about this?

 And it was just like a constant part of your culture and so when I think about things like that, I have this reflective instinct to blame media for capitalizing on those divisions and making them worse but I also try to remember that I do not think media is what is most influential in the decision-making process or of where people start at least.

Chad: [00:30:26] Yeah, I love the gun story. Definitely different than Beth grew up, but I grew up, my dad was a Kentucky state police for 30 years, so there's always been a gun around. He was a hunter. I took more hunter education courses by the time I was 10 years old than most people would see in their lives. Just always had a gun around. So it was something that was just a tool, both for protection sport, just part of life. So you grow up learning to respect them and [00:31:00] just something that's there. Again, I still don't know where, where it comes from, how it's grown. I'm really bad. I can't answer that one for you. 

Beth: [00:31:11] Yeah. I want to understand what's underneath everything, because I feel like if we can understand what's underneath all of that stuff, then maybe we could influence each other around it.

 I do though get a lot of email from listeners that say like, especially about something like COVID, that say my family was not like this, but they are taking in this steady diet of media that is built around such a very narrow world view that it has really changed them. And I wonder what you think about that and if that's something you've observed in anyone, or just as somebody who thinks a lot about television and the power of television, what you think about that?

Chad: [00:31:55] I mean, this goes along with party lines and how kind of your [00:32:00] force fed a certain menu if you decide to choose one way or the other. So again, Being from a small town, I also am a chemist by education. So the, the abandonment or the, the discounting of science over the past few years is just mind-boggling and maddening to me because you can be somewhat conservative and definitely understand science.

So that's, I don't know how that one's got there, but I guess it's the same on the left where, you know, if you often, if you're saying I am, I am on the left, I am a Democrat. There's a certain menu of things that you have to have to ascribe to there too. 

Beth: [00:32:46] Yeah, we've talked about this a lot with COVID because you have, have a greater understanding of the public health aspects than I do and I think you've been really quick to point out where some of it is just kind of a [00:33:00] performance versus actually following what would seem to prevent the transmission of COVID-19. You want to talk about that at all? 

Chad: [00:33:08] Yeah, we're getting a long way from, from spectrum and the fairness doctrine. 

Beth: [00:33:11] But characteristically wide ranging is what we do. 

Chad: [00:33:13] Characteristically wide-ranging. Yeah, some of the COVID stuff early, I just kind of shook my head at, but I guess I understand the psychology of it early on. We were very worried about not we as a family, but just as a society, it was put out there that, you know, spray your packages down when they arrive and they needed to sit for a long time for the virus to die.

Not necessarily. It was very hard to get them to get a lab to grow the virus. So I don't know I think that was overreaching. I mean, some of the mask stuff is, is difficult. I mean, when I see someone driving by themselves with a mask on, without a passenger, you have to shake your head just a little bit but [00:34:00] better safe than sorry for the most part. 

Beth: [00:34:03] I think my question is, do we trust each other to handle complexity and an answer I've heard back from a surprising percentage of our audience is no, we don't trust each other to handle the complexity. Because I see people who are so dialed into this worldview, that it's a hoax that is overstated, that it was a ploy to try to bring Trump down.

So, no, I don't trust people to make decisions like don't wear your mask alone in the car, but put it on as soon as you encounter another human being or we just went to a baseball game and we were socially distanced. There was no one in the row in front of us. No one in the row behind us. Only two people at the very end of our row, definitely more than six feet away from us.

We were outside on a beautiful breezy day and sitting only with our four family members and the ballpark personnel wanted us to keep our masks [00:35:00] on and we did to be respectful, but that seemed really silly and and I think that is the kind of tension that we've kind of been hearing from listeners. Like, I don't want to ask people to hold that tension.

And I wonder if, if that's exactly the wrong instinct, that if we would have performed better behaviorly throughout this whole thing, if we had more clearly said there are some tensions to hold, there are some risks to assess and here's how you do it. Here is how you interact normally in society. 

And I know we're far afield from spectrum, but I don't think we're far a field from the impact of media, because I think that our media environment is so pervasive that if we agreed that we were trying to give people factual information, we would have been much better capable as a public of receiving those messages and acting accordingly, instead of it all becoming sort of this meta battle of like, which team are you on around the pandemic?

Chad: [00:35:59] Yeah, I think you're [00:36:00] discounting how much, many people like to just get a rise out of someone else. So I think a lot of the mask testing is really just to get someone upset. I mean, I read something on switching topics totally, but electric vehicles and someone was at a charger and someone in a pickup truck pulled up to one of the spots and parked and.

Just, you know, did not seem like, uh, an overtly aggressive person that was trying to do it just to to do it, but I think they did it to get a rise out of the person that was charging there and they did. So maybe we just liked to poke at each other too much. 

Beth: [00:36:40] Help me with electric vehicles because I feel so much interest around people like you, who I know to be more politically conservative certainly than I am, much more than Sarah and a lot of our audience. Loving electric vehicles like loving the technology, [00:37:00] being really interested in solar panels. Like Elon Musk is such an enigma to me. I would love to hear you talk about that for a second. 

Chad: [00:37:07] Well, I do drive a truck and a Tesla, so I like to say that we average out to like two Camrys, but why do I like driving an electric vehicle? I mean, I like driving a little faster than I should. Um, the thrill of that acceleration, um, taking it to the track and, and running, whole bunch of fun. Yeah. The technology of self-driving and everything that they have, wonderful. 

I think the idea of solar kinda tickles my, uh, libertarian side of wanting to be self-sufficient wanting to, yeah. I have a positive in fact impact on the environment, but also to, you know, not be at the mercy of whatever other power you want to put there. 

Beth: [00:37:57] Okay. Well, I know that a lot of people wanted to [00:38:00] hear us talk about how we work through disagreement in our house and I'm curious how you would answer that question. How do you think you and I best overcome the areas where we really disagree? 

Chad: [00:38:12] Would you pick a disagreement to talk about? 

Beth: [00:38:16] Well, I think this is my perspective. You characterize it, however you think. I think a lot of our disagreements are more personality based than actual substantive disagreement. I think we view other human beings and how we interact with other human beings quite differently in ways that make us really good at parenting together. Cause I think we give our kids a very robust picture of human nature, but I think that it tends to make us politically like gravitate towards different people and different messages.

I think our biggest disagreements center more around kind of the meta issues like that, the [00:39:00] democratic brand versus the Republican or libertarian brands, which candidates are we going to vote for? Like, we kind of agree on who not to vote for, but we tend to not agree on who to vote for. I think a lot of that is more personality centered than a real difference in what we think the world ought to look like but I'm curious if you agree with that. Yeah, 

Chad: [00:39:21] I do. I would stop and say that you characterize our biggest disagreements that way, because I think I remember our biggest disagreement and argument being about the French mathematician and philosopher Rene Descarte, that lived in the 16 hundreds. Uh, but that may be a story for another time.

Beth: [00:39:41] What Chad is referring to is that he believes our ceiling fan turned to the opposite direction makes our room warmer and I refuse to get on board with that. Um, but Chad, when you, when we really, when we do really strongly disagree, like we had an argument about the last election and who to vote for. What do you think is the [00:40:00] most helpful thing we could share with people who are navigating those kinds of disagreements and maybe in a much more intense way than we are that helps us get through it?

Chad: [00:40:09] So, yeah, we, we had an, uh, a disagreement about it. I mean, I think the biggest thing is to, to sit and listen to the other person, not to put a label on them and discount them, or discard them as, as being in your mind to unsaveable. You know, respect what they have, what their thoughts are, what their thought process is, even if you don't agree with the result and I think we do that. We can talk through stuff. 

Beth: [00:40:41] I think we can talk through stuff though, because we keep the goal of like learning from each other and learning what we can learn about our relationship through those conversations. I fully understand and work on accepting that you are probably just not going to [00:41:00] vote for Democrats. And I think it has been a journey for you to accept that for a while at least I am.

 Because that is a very big difference from where we began in our relationship. I sort of liked that we're growing that way and kind of pushing each other around this because I don't want our relationship in any way to stay exactly where it was when it started.

I think that's easier for us though, because I do feel like I really learned something every time I talked to you about an issue, even when I think you're wrong and you aren't consuming a media diet that feeds you such a narrow worldview, that I'm not learning. You know what I mean? You don't say things that I think, Oh my gosh, that is like such a boring talking point.

Like stop turn off Tucker Carlson and turn on your own brain and I never have that reaction to you. And that kind of takes me back full circle in our conversation because as much as I see the Genesis of all of our political origins coming from something other than media, I do wonder about media's ability to [00:42:00] sort of distill it down to its most base form.

Chad: [00:42:06] Yeah. Easy, um, easy soundbites that that's, what's easy to sell. And as far as my media diet, I've shown you my Facebook feed. Somehow, I don't know how I've got into this, but I have very far right and very far left like right back to back with each other. And it is, I laugh a lot about it that most of the time I'm grabbing something to show Beth just to laugh at how absurd it is in, in either direction.

So I'm definitely, definitely middle of the road there, but no, I'm never going to say I would never vote for a Democrat. I really, and it's not like a humble brag or something, but I wouldn't vote on party lines. I would rather see what the person is all about. Unfortunately, with the way the two party system is it's kind of one or the other.

And unfortunately you get a lot of the party line [00:43:00] baggage attached to you as a candidate. So it's making it more and more difficult to get, I think really good candidates in either the Republican or democratic party. So that's why I thought a different choice was the right choice for the last presidential election.

Beth: [00:43:19] Do you feel like you're throwing your vote away when you vote for a libertarian? 

Chad: [00:43:22] No, because I was using just my voice and I got to use my voice. I did not throw it away with two other candidates that I didn't fully agree with. 

Beth: [00:43:35] Well, I did like getting to tell Jane that Chad voted for a woman for president.

Chad: [00:43:40] Exactly. Look how more, I don't want to use the word progressive. I hate the word because it's, I don't know. I just don't like it.

Beth: [00:43:48] Do you like the word conservative? 

Chad: [00:43:51] Not necessarily, no, but I think the word progressive was a marketing ploy that's genius. It's got here a lot of people using it [00:44:00] and it kind of instill some value in just the word itself, which again, drives me crazy.

Beth: [00:44:07] Well Chad, I'm glad that we got to talk about this. I'm very interested in hearing from people who are navigating similar dynamics in their households and I know that many of you are stuck in an environment where it feels like you're living on two different planets. 

And I think the best thing we can convey is because we watch our media together. You know, we both watch John Oliver. We both look at Chad's banana's Facebook feed. We both read similar news outlets, I read a lot more of it, I think, but we're, we're not on different planets in terms of the facts coming to us and that is how we're able to navigate the disagreement that does exist between us.

Chad what's on your mind outside of politics?

Chad: [00:44:54] You were talking about or two planet. I am excited that our [00:45:00] world of being in the house all winter is finally expanding to warmer weather and we can get outside and do everything. That's um, that's part of being out of the house. Now for me, that means a lot of mowing and work outside and this year construction for me, that's on my mind.

Beth: [00:45:22] Can you kind of talk about our setup here and why there is so much mowing and so much like woods splitting and just general working the land for you? 

Chad: [00:45:32] Oh yes. Working the land. Um, definitely not on the scale of a lot of people, but we were fortunate enough to get a house in the neighborhood, which I love being closer to other people for the kids, for them to have people to play with, get outside and ride their bikes in a safe area. But being from a smaller town growing up where I really went out into the woods and played all day [00:46:00] every day, most of the year, I like to have a little more space.

 We were lucky enough to have some folks behind us that had a couple acres, um, elderly man and woman, the husband passed away and the wife moved into a nursing home. I was able to convince them to sell some of their land to us. So we, we got a couple acres behind our house. So it's, it's kind of like a, um, a residential mullet. We've got neighborhood in the front. More land in the back. So we've got some room to play. The girls playsets back there, we're putting in a pool, but there's just a lot. It was, it was untamed. Lot of brush from 10 or so years of not being taken care of after that gentlemen passed away.

 So slowly but surely I'm reclaiming it and making it usable, but still, you know, nice and wild. We have deer coming through and foxes, [00:47:00] coyotes, like not everything you necessarily want, but it's, it's more of a, a rural space as opposed to, you know, suburbia where the, the front of our house is. 

Beth: [00:47:13] I've legitimately never heard you call it, uh, a mullet. Uh, so I'm going to be thinking differently about where we live now I think, but it really is the best of both worlds. Here's what I want to know. All of that outdoor work. Tell me your percentage of it feels like work to I really enjoy doing it? 

Chad: [00:47:31] The older I get the more work it is because unfortunately the aches and soreness isn't getting any, any less, but no, it's the reward of seeing it done. I mean, the reward of doing anything with your hands and seeing the result of it is so much better than, Oh, I got through all the emails in my inbox today. So it's, it's more tangible work. Splitting wood is a pretty good [00:48:00] stress reliever too. You really get to take out some aggression. 

Beth: [00:48:04] Well, because of our different personalities, I will tell you, one thing that you have really taught me is to love and value this home that we have created together. We, we bought the land, we worked with a builder to build the house so we chose everything that's in it, bought this land behind us and they've made all these choices about what to do with it.

 And I think I'm such a wonder in a lot of ways and always more in my head and I don't do as good a job as you do at just valuing the things in front of me. And I think that the past year, especially has really, you've really rubbed off on me where I look at where we are now. And I, I feel so much affection for it and so proud of it. And as much as I'm ready to be able to move a little bit more freely in the world, I also am just really excited about spending the summer in our backyard.

Chad: [00:48:53] That may be a little Stockholm syndrome speaking. You've been, you've been a captive audience for this time, but yeah, [00:49:00] I think we've done a great job, made some good decisions. So I hope to be able to keep you around for a little while.

Beth: [00:49:06] What is the thing that you have learned the most about our marriage in the past year?

Chad: [00:49:10] I think the thing that I've learned the most in the past year is, um, gosh, it's not about us. It's more about our children that they can't spend three to five seconds without someone acknowledging something they've done. 

Beth: [00:49:25] Yeah. I was, I've been thinking about this a lot and how I think in terms of parenting, the thing that the last year has taught me is that our children are fine. I think I tend to parent them, like they are going to have these big disadvantages in life, like, like as a mountain to be climbed for them. And what I've learned over the past year is that even with genuine adversity, our kids are fine. 

Like probably the thing that I need to work on is just not over-parenting them. And really it has made me realize that they don't think that [00:50:00] they've actually done a thing and it counts unless we see it and comment on it and, and I need to work on pulling back from it. Yeah. 

Chad: [00:50:07] They, they know that you're going to give them the feedback all the time. When they come to me, I'm like, yeah okay, go, go do something. And I tend to try to teach them big lessons all at once, which Beth gets a good, good laugh about. I'll go into pretty long, a pretty long monologue about some concept that yes is probably way over their heads thinking they're going to pick it up, but Hey, every day with parenting, it's something new to learn and something new to try and I guess if we mess up on the first kid, we can try on the second. 

Beth: [00:50:44] I think we're doing okay. Well, thanks for doing this with me, Chad, and thank you all for listening and Sarah, we'll be back here with you next Tuesday and Friday. Sarah and Nicholas will be together next Friday so you can get a glimpse inside her relationship as well. We so appreciate you. [00:51:00] Have the best weekend available.

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

Alise Napp is our managing director.

Sarah: Megan Hart is our community engagement manager. Dante Lima is the composer and performer of our theme music. 

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

Executive Producers (Read their own names):  Shari Blem, Martha Bronitsky, Linda Daniel, Ali Edwards, Janice Elliot, Sarah Greepup, Julie Haller, Helen Handley, Tiffany Hassler, Barry Kaufman, Molly Kohrs.

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