"Emotional leadership"

KatyeCamoHeadshot.jpg

Topics Discussed

Thank you for being a part of our community! We couldn't do what we do without you. To become a financial supporter of the show, please visit our Patreon page, purchase a copy of our book, I Think You're Wrong (But I'm Listening), or share the word about our work in your own circles. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook for our real time reactions to breaking news, GIF news threads, and personal content. To purchase Pantsuit Politics merchandise, check out our TeePublic store and our branded tumblers available in partnership with Stealth Steel Designs. To read along with us, join our Extra Credit Book Club subscription.

Episode Resources

CORPORATIONS AND POLITICAL SPEECH

KATYE RISELLI AND THE ROLE OF POLITICAL SPOUSES

Transcript

Beth: [00:00:00] And so as a voter, I see the contrast between a Republican party that's just tightening and tightening and tightening up around a loyalty test to a guy that depends on a fiction contrasted with a democratic party that includes everyone from Joe Mansion to representatives Omar, Tlaib, Ocasio Cortez. There seems to be a clear place where ideas can be open-end debated and a place where they can not and as a voter, it's really obvious to me which one of those places I belong in.

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] Hello everyone. Thank you for joining us for a new episode of Pantsuit Politics. Today, we're going to cover the decision by Basecamp and others to ban political speech on their workplace platforms. We are going to hear from Katye Riselli resili who worked for a former first lady, Laura Bush, about the leadership provided out of the first lady's office and Katye's going to give us her take on the opportunity in front of Dr. Jill Biden and our first second gentlemen, Douglas Emhoff.

 And outside of politics, we're going to go not super far outside of politics because the Kentucky Derby took place in our beloved home state over the weekend and there was some controversy surrounding the playing of My Old Kentucky home at the Derby and we're going to offer some thoughts on that.

 Before we jump into all of those topics, if you like what we're doing here, we would love for you to subscribe or follow us on your podcast player of choice. It's a quick, easy way to support our work and to make sure that you never miss an [00:02:00] episode. You also have probably heard about our infrastructure contributor program in episodes past. We're working diligently to get our summer series on infrastructure ready for everyone, and to include a lot of different viewpoints and topics because as we know, infrastructure is a big umbrella. We received so many fantastic applications and it made us very excited to try to do things like this again.

 After a lot of discussion and thought, we are excited to partner with Monte, Courtney, Jordan and Alyssa as our infrastructure contributors, we'll be working more with them and are really excited for you to hear the results of that in the summer.

Sarah: [00:02:47] So this conversation surrounding particularly big tech companies in Silicon Valley and their banning of political speech on their company profiles really took over the internet Zeitgeist last week when [00:03:00] founder and CEO of Basecamp, Jason Freed, put out a public statement, entitled changes at Basecamp about this new policy.

I chuckled under my breath there a little bit because the language in this letter is something even before we get to the policy but Beth, can I read you a little section? 

Beth: [00:03:19] I would love for you to.

Sarah: [00:03:19] Uh, so first he quotes Aldous Huxley but only refers to him as Huxley, which I like. He puts us really intense quote in there and he goes, this is the next quote, heavy, yes but insightful, absolutely. "Irrelevant reminder, we make individual choices. We all want different somethings, some slightly different, some substantially. Companies however, must settle the collective difference, pick a point and navigate towards somewhere lest they get stuck circling nowhere."

What do you think Beth, can you, first of all, can you interpret that for me? Cause I have no idea what it means.

Beth: [00:03:53] I think that you can best understand what he means by reading on in his statement where he says that people sensitivities are at an [00:04:00] 11 and I think that honestly, this whole letter can fairly be read as someone who's just tired of hearing it and wants people get back to work. A sentiment that I am sure is broadly shared across the country and also seems to me to be completely missing the point of what employees are often talking about when they're talking politics at work. 

Sarah: [00:04:24] Right? Because I think if you just read this statement from Basecamp, following a policy change also at Coinbase, which is a big cryptocurrency app that was saying, they're also going to prohibit political speech. You could be sympathetic. I particularly like the line "You shouldn't have to wonder is staying out of it means you're complicit or wading into it means you're a target." I think that's a good description of like Twitter every day.

 The problem is, you know, if you do not have context of what the employees are really complaining about it, Basecamp, then you're really [00:05:00] missing a big part of the picture and the bigger problem is in theory, the leadership at Basecamp should not be missing that context. They should have a very good idea of what the employees at Basecamp are really upset about and it's not that people are, you know, getting on the company platform and talking nonstop about Donald Trump.

 It's that they are frustrated with the diversity and equity efforts of Basecamp itself and some of Basecamps policy towards what they articulate as their values and that to me is like, that's what politics is really about. We say this all the time, it's about the, you know, the rules in which we live in community together and so there are of course office politics and in 2021 are a lot of office politics is driven by people's personal political values, but they don't see them as separate.

And I think to try to like compartmentalize them and say, Well, you can't do that here anymore, especially in Silicon Valley, which in the past is articulated a very sort of values [00:06:00] driven, purpose driven approach is why, you know, this did not go over so well and they had a third of their workforce leave in response to this statement.

Beth: [00:06:11] I don't know what you would consider a political here in 2021. If I'm in a law firm, which is my background, of course, asking about the future of work and saying, how are we going to deal with the fact that artificial intelligence can do a lot of what we have done traditionally and what kind of just transition should we make, as we see that future coming for us? Is that political? It seems quite political to me because it encompasses, you know, income inequality. It encompasses whose work is valuable and valued in a new economy. It encompasses the role of technology in a country like ours and what we want our economy to even mean as technology grows.

 All of that [00:07:00] seems inherently political to me. It also seems completely irresponsible not to be discussing that often and with a diverse group of people and, and I worry that if you have a blanket policy like this out there, what you're actually saying is the only people who can decide what political issues matter to our mission are the people at the very top of the organization. And that is unhealthy both for the organization itself, I think in the longterm and all of its constituents, but also for all of us trying to live together in a democratic society. 

Sarah: [00:07:35] They had to put out another statement, further clarifying, and then they started talking about societal politics, which is an additional word, but to me offers no more.

Beth: [00:07:46] It is a quality.

Sarah: [00:07:47] It's an additional word, congrats, but it doesn't offer any additional perspective, right? Like give me a break. Societal politics, as opposed to what friends? Like and this is when they said, well, this includes everything from sharing [00:08:00] political stories in Campfire, using message threads to elucidate others on political beliefs that go beyond the topic directly or performing political advocacy in general. 

And I just want to say like, is it going to improve the company's productivity by policing all of this constantly? That's the other thing to me, like not only do I think it's a fool's errand and a way to avoid the actual political environment of your company and the ways in which that has become a problem, but it's also not going to improve the productivity or your output of what you're actually doing. Like did you know the controversy that they created with this statement, I would imagine was a huge suck on everybody's energy time, focus and productivity last week, and will continue to be probably for the next couple of weeks, at least. 

Beth: [00:08:47] You know, I think a lot about how we all carry around these backpacks of the stuff that we care the most about so if you go back to that statement, sensitivities are at an 11. I get that. I understand that [00:09:00] they are, but that is just always true of human beings who work together in an environment and so if my backpack is full of my sensitivities at an 11 about police violence, I, what I really need is to have a constructive way to set that backpack down at work.

And that doesn't mean that it goes away. It means that someone has allowed me to say, here's what I'm carrying today. Yeah. That's true, whether it's police violence or the election or a natural disaster or someone's divorce, or someone's fight with their kid that morning where they raise their voice and are feeling really stressed about how they handled it.

People bring all that stuff to work. Of course they do, and they just need to be able to constructively have it seen and acknowledged and then I think most people can move along. But I think that the reason we don't ever want to handle that in the workplace is because nobody knows how to get out of it once that [00:10:00] conversation has started. And I think people fear that they're going to be trapped in somebody's therapy session all day, or with politics. They're going to be trapped in the middle of basically a cable news panel for the rest of the day, instead of getting things done. 

And in my experience, if you have some skill about how to communicate with other people, you can get out of those conversations. You know, you can kind of say, let somebody say what's on their mind and then what do you think we could do about this to support you right now? And most of the time people are just going to say, you know, I really just needed to say it out loud and then they are able to focus and do what they're there to do, or they might have an ask and if you can meet that, ask all the better for your workplace and its culture. And if they haven't asked that you can't meet, you can just say it. I wish that we could do that for you. I want to be thinking about what you shared with me and what we might be able to do and I'm glad you told me this. Thank you so much. 

I don't think it is magical [00:11:00] to say to people we've done this and now it's time to move on and I feel like that's probably the, the issue with these channels where people are typing in Basecamp, and it's just typing, typing, typing, typing, typing, and nobody is ever coming in to say, Hey, how does this relate to what we're doing here? Or what do you think the company needs to do to address this? Or, you know, the company really can't address this for the following reasons, but what a good, robust discussion this has been and thank you all so much for participating. We're going to close this channel out now, but I'm sure these conversations will surface again in the future. 

Sarah: [00:11:33] Well, first of all, I don't think E.L. Jason has those skills. I mean, not to like make Silicon Valley CEO's a punching bag, but they are such an easy punching bag and they mess this up so bad. So I think first I don't, I mean, I think with the employees of Basecamp, we're expressing is like, we can't trust you. You don't have those skills and you're not doing this and so their voices were getting louder and that's why they decided to shut the voices down instead of leading people or addressing the actual [00:12:00] concerns and like, listen, let's just be honest. A lot of this I'm sure from what I've read from the reporting of obviously anonymous employees is that a lot of this came down to issues of race and gender and identity and feeling like those weren't addressed.

And like, I'm not sure there's a corporation right now, or maybe if they are, they're doing such a good job, that's why we're not hearing about it but I mean, look, the way we talk about these things, the importance of these things are ever shifting the conversations are more intense because they do surround issues of identity and systemic oppression and I think companies are trying to navigate this new reality, especially with some corporations playing an even more active role in the political arena.

 And I'm not saying like that's not a difficult challenge and one that not everybody has figured out. I'm just saying, this is the absolute worst approach. The idea that, well, we won't deal with it. We'll just [00:13:00] avoid it. We'll just shut it down especially when we're talking about such deep and complicated issues, as identity is just, it is a choice. That's all I got to say. 

Beth: [00:13:11] I do agree that it's gotta be difficult right now because everything is really fraught and there are some really big asks out there and it's hard to overcome the inertia of an organization that's been around for any amount of time. Especially as it reaches a certain size, it becomes harder and harder to make big changes. Then, so your company goals, shouldn't be like, let's shut all this down. It should be let's help people see where we are in the process. 

Let's help people see that it is a process let's help people see that we're never going to actually solve this, which is different than a lot of what you try to do at work. Right. There are a lot of things that work that you actually say, like, how can we tackle this now and be done with it? We needed a new software for this. Let's make right. Get it done. Yeah.  this whole story reminded me a lot of what's going on in the leadership of the [00:14:00] Republican caucus. 

Sarah: [00:14:01] I'm intrigued because Silicon Valley to the Republican caucus is it's a big. 

Beth: [00:14:04] It's a journey. I think it's not a big leap though here, because what Basecamp is saying is I know you have all these feelings. We've decided we're going to just keep going in this direction that we're going in our workplace and we don't have room for those feelings and we don't have room to talk about them and we're going to decide that if you're talking about the feelings, that absolutely are the undercurrent of everything that goes on here, you're distracting from our work.

And distraction is the same word that Kevin McCarthy has been using to describe his colleague, Liz Cheney in Republican leadership. That by continuing to answer the press's questions about her views on president Trump's leadership in the Republican party, she is distracting from the work that the caucus actually needs to be doing and I think that's fascinating because if you actually follow Liz Cheney [00:15:00] much at all, she mostly talks about policy, but when she's asked a question directly, she answers it directly. 

Sarah: [00:15:07] That's the part that really sent me over the edge is when they were like, well, she's not focusing on policy. Get out of here. You guys get out of here. You didn't even put out a party platform. You got Madison Cawthorne out there with that memo that I'm never ever going to stop talking about how he staffs to media, not to legislation. And you're trying to ding Liz Cheney for not appropriately focusing on policy like I don't, I'm not out here trying to defend Liz Cheney all the time, but that is absurd, absurd.

Beth: [00:15:34] And this is the thing, how president Trump behaves with respect to the Republican party is the driving undercurrent of everything happening in that party right now and deciding that we're just not going to talk about that and keep waltzing forward. It is as futile to me as what Basecamp is trying to do, because now you've just got a bunch of people walking around with their backpacks that are getting heavier and heavier and heavier, and there's no [00:16:00] place to set them down.

And if you decide that the best thing is to send your employees with political feelings on their way, and to send Liz Cheney packing from Republican leadership, because she won't lie as one of her colleagues said, she won't lie to the American people about what happened in the last election, I don't know what your future game plan looks like. You cannot fill a workplace or a conference with people who are going to be free of opinions about the most important issues facing them every day. 

Sarah: [00:16:33] Yeah. And it feels like they're very much backing her into a corner where, unless she lies, unless she supports the big lie, which that backpack, like you said, to support the big lie. I mean, not to sing the song that I was taught as a child. Were you ever taught the song? Like you tell one lie leads to another, then you tell two lies and try to recover. You know that song?

Beth: [00:16:55] I don't know that song, but I want to learn it now because I had a five-year-old he could use some information about [00:17:00] this. 

Sarah: [00:17:00] And that's where they're at with this, right. That's why they're auditing the boat in Arizona, right? Because the lie is not self perpetuating. It has to be fed continuously and be that, you know, at the cost of Liz Cheney or the cost of the conference or the cost of primaries where they will no doubt nominate people who are, have a tougher time winning like that the lie has to be fed.

And that's what they're doing and I don't know where it ends. I truly do not know where it ends until they are free of him, but that's definitely not the future Kevin McCarthy is mapping out for the Republican caucus and so to me, this gets way worse before it gets better. And I think it's very likely that she'll lose her leadership position.

Beth: [00:17:48] I keep thinking about the clip of Mitt Romney being booed over the weekend in Utah and how he listened to the booing for a while, and then just looked at the microphone and said, aren't you [00:18:00] embarrassed? And I've, I've watched it like four times and I just keep thinking about that question. Aren't you embarrassed? 

Charlie Sykes wrote a piece about that line this morning that I read and it just, I mean, I feel that about this situation within the Republican party and also in tech companies that are trying to say, like, we're just going to fold everything up really neatly here, and we're going to be out doing all of our good in the world but internally we really just need people to like, do their coding or whatever. We don't want to hear their opinions about things. Like, are we embarrassed if we're going to live together in a society where we can have free and fair elections that benefit these corporations, by the way and we have greater economic opportunity and social opportunity?

We, we have to talk about these things and I can't believe that Kevin McCarthy is walking around talking about the big tent of the GOP when the message that has been received [00:19:00] by many of the people who voted to impeach the president and the Republican party, that their fundraising will be aided if they just keep their heads down and when he is vocally refusing to even show up at a presser with Liz Cheney, because they might disagree.

 If he had any skill, again, he would highlight this as a strength. It is an asset that we have this disagreement in our party. It is an asset that we have people who believe in the ideas of president Trump and we have people who more reflect the Bush era and the Reagan years. And we have to negotiate all of that as the world continues to develop how great for us, but no they're incapable of it because president Trump won't allow it. 

And so what you have is Kevin McCarthy really as the leader of like the followership, right? Liz Cheney is the only person acting like a leader here where you say, I have a vision, I have a set of principles. I'm going to adhere to those no matter what the circumstances are and everybody else just like, well, you know, president Trump could get pretty testy about [00:20:00] this, so we gotta move on. 

Sarah: [00:20:02] I just can't fathom how anybody who considers themselves a political animal has watched his behavior since the election and thought this is where I want to stake my political future. It's just, it really is mind blowing to me. I understand the passion of the base. I'm not blind. I get it and also, I don't see how you watch the loss of the white house in the house and the Senate, even when it's close margins, even when it wasn't as much as predicted and think the doubling down is what will get us out of this. I just, I, I, there are Republicans that I consider politically astute. I don't know how they look at that situation and think this is the path out for us. It's just it's I don't understand it. I really, really don't. 

Beth: [00:20:46] If I were a software professional, I would be looking at companies who say, we don't want to hear it here and crossing them off my list because that feels to me like a clear indication that there's not room for me, unless I to [00:21:00] believe the fiction that anything can be and remain apolitical, right. Unless I am also buying into that fiction. And so as a voter, I see the contrast between a Republican party that's just tightening and tightening and tightening up around a loyalty test to a guy that depends on a fiction contrasted with a democratic party that includes everyone from Joe Mansion to representatives, Omar, Tlaib, Ocasio Cortez and a white house with a democratic president that says, Oh, I really welcome all these ideas. 

You know, there, there are reports that president Biden is spending a lot of time and serious thought on the Republican infrastructure counter proposal from Shelley Capito Moore in West Virginia. Like there seems to be a clear place where ideas can be open-end debated and a place where they cannot and as a voter is, it's really obvious to me, which one of those places I belong in. And I do [00:22:00] think that that diverse, active solicitation of viewpoints can carry really good results and I think we have one of those good results to talk about as our moment of hope today. 

Sarah: [00:22:12] So the USDA has extended the universal free lunch through the next school year. They were facing a September deadline, but they announced that they will reimburse schools at a higher rate, expand the school nutrition program to all students through the end of next school year and it's estimated to reach 12 million kids who are experiencing food insecurity and that is something to celebrate.

Beth: [00:22:36] I hope that that can just continue beyond the 2021/22 school year. I think this is the right thing to do for our kids and I'm really excited to see it continue to unfold. I thought so much about articles, about what happens to kids who have like big balances for, for school lunch and it's just a level of difficulty that we can move out of the way of kids [00:23:00] and so I I'm for it. Let's do it next up. We are going to talk with Katye Riselli.

Sarah: [00:23:18] We're so excited to share this conversation with Katye Riselli. She is an executive speech writer and strategic communications advisor for Senior Principles in business, military, nonprofit, philanthropy, and government. As Beth mentioned at the top of the show, she previously served as a speech writer and deputy communications director for first lady, Laura Bush from 2008 to 2013 and we are so excited to share our conversation with her. She also was on the Nightly Nuance with Beth last night, talking about the experience of military families and the upcoming withdrawal from Afghanistan. So without further ado, here's Katye Riselli.

We're  here with Katye Riselli. We're so excited to have her. Now she told us to lead with that you are the former first lady, Laura bushes, speech writer for how many [00:24:00] years?

Katye Riselli: [00:24:00] Four, about five speech writing for her after she went to, they moved back to Dallas after they left DC. Um, and before that I worked in her communications office in the East wing, um, as a deputy communications director.

Sarah: [00:24:15] And you're still a strategic communications consultant so I imagine you spent a lot of time, not just thinking about how she communicates, but how first ladies communicate. Now that we have second spouses and gentlemen, we thought we'd have you come on the show and have this conversation with us. We're so excited.

Katye Riselli: [00:24:30] I'm thrilled. I'm thrilled to talk with y'all and I, I, I do, I think a lot about it and I think right now more than anything, we know how much words matter and if what we say matters, how we say it matters and what a great opportunity we have with Dr. Biden and Doug Emhoff to step into a space that I think was really a vacuum for a lot of years, to give some guidance and counsel and, and just really remind us what the potential for those spaces are with a first lady and a second. Gentlemen.

Beth: [00:25:00] [00:25:00] Can you talk a little bit about what you saw as the animating force in the Bush years around first spouses and then kind of what you saw over the last four years or so, and, and how you think Dr. Biden and Doug Emhoff can maybe return to something or create something new. 

Katye Riselli: [00:25:19] Absolutely. Yes. Um, you know, I think one of my favorite things Mrs. Bush used to say is, is when she first, when he was first elected, people would say, well, what kind of a first lady are you going to be? Will you be like Hillary Clinton or Barbara Bush? And she would frequently say, well, I think I'll be Laura. I think I'll be who I know and when you leave, look at what she did over the course of eight years and what she continues to do years later, it's really not about trying to be somebody or someone else, but really just being herself. Um, and because as she does that, she leads the way, right? 

Like she had opinions and thoughts that she would like to say that she did share. She believed that [00:26:00] everyone should have an education and that literacy was vital. Um, and you see her make that a centerpiece, um, starting with the national book festival, you know, just days before 9/11 and then you see when 9/11 happened, you see Mrs. Bush really step into a new space because the entire administration had to. They campaigned on these ideas that were very domestic focused and suddenly we had to look outward. 

We had to talk about threats from outside of our country and she stepped into a role immediately that I really wish we'd had her last March. Um, I said it frequently over and over again, going, where is. Mrs. Bush to write the letters to the school children, to explain to my kids who are in elementary school, what is happening with Coronavirus and be the encouragement of this really scared thing that really you don't, we don't [00:27:00] even at that time to how to talk about, but Mrs. Bush put it in language that you can still see on the archive website today that she wrote a letter for elementary school teachers to use with their classes. Um, she wrote another letter for middle school and high school, um, and she would go into those spaces and be the, what I call comforter in chief.

Sarah: [00:27:20] It's so complicated because. You know, comparison is inevitable when so few people have held the job. True presidents, true first ladies through vice presidents and also there definitely seems to be a gendered component when you think these women are as varied as women themselves are in lots of ways, but there's this, this desire to put them all in a box and say like, there's one way to be and how far do they vary from that? 

But I love what you said about like, they have to respond to national events as well, and I'm so happy to see more of that, particularly when it comes to but again, I think there's a little bit of a gendered component, even though Laura Bush, you know, had a history in [00:28:00] education and now Dr. Biden does as well. But this idea of like, they can particularly have leadership when it comes to how kids perceive events. You know, the Bidens did a really great, like inaugural kids feed that I watched my kids with like lots of very specific kids programming and it was fantastic. They felt so included.

And so I think like, I think you're so right, like that sort of communications to people. I mean, it it's like, it feels like the first spouses have an opportunity with populations that are sort of outside the general power dynamic. Like they're not voters or maybe they're not citizens or like you see it I think with like the military families too, like they're not the direct players they're adjacent. And as the first spouse is not a necessarily a direct player, depending on the first spouse, but adjacent. Like they have that it's like almost comradery or something with the people that are sort of [00:29:00] adjacent to the power or the catastrophe or the circumstance or whatever. 

Katye Riselli: [00:29:05] Absolutely. You know, when you look at modern first ladies, um, even, you know, Rosalind Carter, um, in a time before social media, before 24/7 news cycles, she was able to sort of step aside during the campaigns and people felt comfortable talking to her and I think that's still true. Right? Um, it's a little different because there's a camera and a video anywhere you look and so, so things that maybe happened in private before have to be a little more contrived, but at the same time, there's a trust that comes with the first spouse. You know, Mrs. Bush used to say, you know, people elect the president, but first spouses or only the first lady is only elected by one man. Right.

Like He picked her and so, so there's some, there's a freedom I think that comes with that because, um, she didn't campaign on any promises. You know, Michelle Obama is, [00:30:00] is quoted as saying, Hey, we don't have to do anything so what we do needs to be really good, right. It needs to be meaningful and so I think there's a lot of power in that because it's not, you know, you're not looking at polls, you're not looking at metrics. You're not looking at the politics of it. You're just, you're, you know, if leadership is a team sport, which I really believe it is, then they have this amazing opportunity to use an incredible platform for real good. They can put the spotlight on things that need to be seen in a way that no one else can.

And I think they get to start right out the gate with being more liked than the president. I mean, before I could have even told you who I was going to vote for, I could have told you, I wanted Joe Biden this as the first lady of the United States, right? Like I knew who I wasn't voting for this time and it was going to be the first election that I wasn't an active duty military spouse and I all of a sudden had an opportunity to have an [00:31:00] opinion vocally and the when asked, I could always say, well, I'll tell you who I think should be the first lady and it's Jill Biden. I want Dr. Biden's voice to step in and comfort a country that is reeling. I want her commitment to maintaining her own identity and her professionalism while supporting ardently, supporting her husband over decades of really high profile public career. Right? Like that's what I want my girls to see. 

Beth: [00:31:33] I think that's really beautiful. Olivia Newsy recently wrote a piece about how, if some, what did she say? If some politicians campaign in poetry and govern in prose, Joe Biden does both in eulogy, which I thought was just a beautiful way to talk about the Bidens and their experiences. I had never considered until you said it, what it would have been like in March of last year to have a Mrs. Bush [00:32:00] or a Mrs. Obama talking about mask wearing and the burden on mothers of the pandemic and what teachers are going through and I wonder what prospectively, assuming that we are moving toward a post pandemic world, which I just have to tell myself every single morning when I brush my teeth, what prospectively can you imagine Dr. Biden providing that sort of leadership about?

Sarah: [00:32:28] I would add that Doug Emoff in March would have made a difference just for that perspective as well. 

Katye Riselli: [00:32:33] Absolutely. Absolutely. I think, you know, there was a vacuum there for a whole host of reasons, I think in some communities, but Karen Pence really did speak up, but, but it didn't carry. Right. Um, she was an ardent supporter of military families and it just, you know, it's hard to break through the noise of the last four years. So there was probably good things to be completely fair that were lost because it was [00:33:00] just so noisy. But when it became definitely silent and we all went home and we started working behind computer screens, we needed somebody to say you are not alone, right? 

Like that's the power of that platform is to say, we see you. I think that's what Jill Biden is doing when she pops in on announce to these Black owned and Immigrant owned businesses. Right? Like she stopped in Richmond at a business when she was visiting the VCU cancer center. Um, she went to the sweet lobby in DC for Valentine's day treats. These unannounced visits, they're behind the scenes, but she's essentially saying, I see you. I see these small businesses that are trying like heck to stay alive and she understands the value because she was doing it for awhile, that [00:34:00] where she spends her money matters.

And she there's more meaning to it than just the $2. It's that she's going to invest and she's going to spotlight these places and by doing that, she keeps it in the conversation. So, you know, there's so much to be said for what could happen, but I would really like to see voices, their voices used to talk to depolarize immigration. I think, you know, to talk about refugees and children and, and turn it less into soundbites about us versus them and more about us.

 Because us versus them as divisive. And the thing is, is division always is less. You always end up with less than where you started, but, but we're not, that's not who we're created to be. We're created to be multipliers. Right and that's where our power is. So, so if you want to see Dr. Biden and Doug Emhoff, I want to see them speaking to these places where, you know, basically standing in the gap where there's [00:35:00] maybe even the most lightning rod issues and saying, it doesn't have to be like this because this is an us versus us conversation so it's ultimately, we all win when we work together.

Sarah: [00:35:12] I think that's a good transition. So I think you're completely right. The role of first spouse is to say, I see you is hugely important and can impact communities across the country. Now let's talk about the reverse of that gaze, which is we see them. They get a lot, a lot of observation, how they dress, how they act, what they choose to do, which charities or causes they adopt, how they parent, how they eat. I mean, you name it. They're under the gaze of the American public where, you know, I fully believe this. We just talked about this recently on one of our episodes about, uh, the Royals and I bring this up every time we talk about celebrity, which I think is absolutely applicable when you talk about first spouses, we are working things out on them.

We are [00:36:00] deciding how we feel about, I mean, how much cultural trauma about women outside the workforce did we work out on Hillary Clinton? So much, so much. What is the importance of that, that? That way we look at for spouses and forming a sort of opinion on their emotional lives, on their marriages, on their careers, especially being on the inside, watching that play out with a person, you know, you knew to be a real human being, do you think we've evolved any in the way that we talk about and think about first spouses and do you think that we'll ever get away from it, or if it's just an issue of like, we need to at least be cognizant of what's going on here? 

Katye Riselli: [00:36:43] We can talk about this for a really long time. I think if anything what's evolved is that the social media and the 24/7 news networks that has really changed how much we see the [00:37:00] first spouses, right? Like I think about my first year at the white house, I had a startack flip phone in 2001. Like we didn't, we wouldn't have an iPhone for years. When I worked at Homeland security, I had one of the first generation blackberries and people were like, what is that and is it safe to use for, you know, national security?

But I say that to give context for, we now have moved into just, if you go from Mrs. Bush to Mrs. Obama, you have social media, you have videos. I didn't have a camera in the white house. I have pictures from traveling with Mrs. Bush all over the world on a CD and now it wasn't that long ago. Right. So see, there's a little bit, and I get that context space because I think it's so important to think about the fact that we see even more today than we saw 20 years ago. And so we need to be mindful of that, but we also need to be mindful of, we should have more [00:38:00] compassion. Right. 

Um, if we should have more compassion for mothers, because we all of a sudden see what mothers struggle with in California and Virginia and all the States in between, we need to have more compassion for the first spouses, because we are all looking in a way that this fishbowl just got real big. Lady Bird Johnson. She's quoted as saying, you know, first lady needs to be a showman salesman, a clothes horse, a publicity sounding board with a good heart and a real interest in people from all over the country. 

Sarah: [00:38:32] And apparently a hell of a historian. Have you seen this podcast where she recorded all this audio of her advising the president? I'm intrigued.

Katye Riselli: [00:38:40] Yeah. Yes, yes. Yes. There's so, so much more behind the scenes. I think that we're going to, that we just didn't get, right because we didn't have the tools and the resources we have now. So to go back to what that fishbowl is like, you know, it's, it's a really nice prison. Michelle Obama said that. So I think [00:39:00] my full of best opinion on the Royal interview, but I'm taking over everything, but I sat there listening to Megan going, this is like being the first lady. This is like being in my experience of senior leader spouse in the military. Your life is always, you are always on, you don't walk out of the house without being on and even the places that are quote unquote private, have the potential to not be private. Right.

 Um, and so I think, you know, if we're going to be really good stewards, real active participants and, you know, steward our citizenship and participate, we need to humanize these people, even as we talk about them, right? Like we need to remember that their moms and daughters and friends and sisters, and, and really what makes them, in my opinion, so exceptional is their humanity that they bring to the table. They're not a robot. They have emotions. Um, the most powerful moment for me [00:40:00] among a whole host of them was the night before the inauguration, when they did the moment of silence at the reflecting pool, and I sat there with tears streaming down my face with my seven and ten year old and my husband and I said that was cathartic because we've been waiting over a year. 

Sarah: [00:40:19] Yep. And it was so short. It's not like it was like hours long. 

Katye Riselli: [00:40:23] No, but it was leadership. It was like, it was emotional leadership in a way that we haven't had and I think, you know, you can get into the gender roles issues, but we look to these unelected partners for emotional leadership.

Sarah: [00:40:38] Oh, I love that. I love that and I love that as we look to them for that emotional leadership that we need to be constantly humanizing them and remembering that they're human beings. I mean, I think that's hard in any leadership position, but I think particularly this one to constantly be present and mindful of their humanity, it would feel like humanity would be able to stay [00:41:00] front of mind in a role like that but weirdly I think often it is the opposite. 

Katye Riselli: [00:41:03] It's the difference between transactional and, and not transact, right? Like it's not, we're checking the box. They have this schedule. It's yes, there's a schedule and they need that rigor and those are the boundaries and the lines that help make the white house run and when you don't have that, you have chaos and so I am all for the return to that. But at the same time that we have that we, we, we have people who are people you know. They're mothers and grandmothers, um, you know, Doug Emhoff is a dad. Um, and Oh, by the way, they just picked up their lives and moved to the other side of the country. So, well, it's different for everyone, you know, when we give them the freedom and the permission to be human, we get the opportunity to have leaders who will actually lead us and be helpful to us.

Beth: [00:41:54] I have to ask you about, uh, one of my favorite new couples in Washington, DC, and [00:42:00] that is our new transportation secretary and his husband Chasten Buttigieg and as someone who has the perspective that you have on the spousal roll, I'm really interested in hearing how you think it will shift in terms of the role and change America to have more couples representing the LGBTQ perspective and just more, more couples like vice president Harrison and Doug Emhoff, where we see, you know, multiple identities represented, gender roles, being upended from where we've been previously. Just what do you see as the future here?

Katye Riselli: [00:42:38] Gosh, isn't that just what we love about where we are is that we're beginning to see more in these places where we shine a really bright spotlight, 24/7, we're beginning to see more of America there. Right. It doesn't look that different. There can only be goodness that comes from that. I think personally, I have a whole lot of compassion for [00:43:00] anyone who shows up as the spouse in a senior role. I'd had a whole career on my own and walked straight into marriage later in life while my husband was in a senior leadership position.

 And at the time over a decade ago, I was the exception in those circles as someone who'd had a career and my peers were uncomfortable because I had just walked out of the East wing of the white house. So there's a whole lot to be said for remembering that these new spouses are walking into a place where they're pioneers and really probably are incredibly feel incredibly lonely, and they feel the weight of what they could be and could do but they're also wrestling through going, this is hard, this is uncomfortable. 

And to the extent that they've already done it, they there's muscles are there, but at the same time, It's new. Anything new is hard and [00:44:00] anything hard during a pandemic, um, with current events as they are like, it's harder. So I think there's a lot of hope in that. I think there's opportunity for more of us to have more compassion on each other and I think by highlighting our differences, it, it, it forces us to really grapple with who we, who we say we are and what we say we believe and whether or not we're going to live that right. 

Beth: [00:44:25] Yeah, I love that. I just love what you said about seeing more of America represented in government leadership and I'm excited for the way that that can trickle down to spouses in roles. Like the one you have occupied, I think about ministers, spouses and how all of this sets an example for them and it, it does make me really excited. 

Katye Riselli: [00:44:47] You know, we learn from each other in so far as we're willing to learn. So if we are willing to look at things that are different or new and say, this is an opportunity to learn, then we have an opportunity to grow but when we look at those things [00:45:00] and go, this is different and new and I don't know if I like it and we get stuck there. Well, we're not learning and we're not growing.

Beth: [00:45:07] Yeah. Yeah. And while I get a little snarky about the pageantry side of things, and I'm not interested in royalty, whether it's the actual monarchy or the royalty that we tend to ascribe to some of our political figures. I think you've highlighted, in a really touching way, the opportunity that, that interest in first spouses creates and how that, that opportunity can be used to provide real moral and emotional leadership that the country needs. 

Sarah: [00:45:39] Thank you, Katye. 

Katye Riselli: [00:45:41] No, thank you. I'm thrilled to chat with you and I really appreciate the opportunity. I do think, you know, as we engage and as we talk about this, you know, we've given everybody a platform and everybody, a microphone with social media. So the more we help people understand that they can be [00:46:00] advocates for compassion and they can see these things and use them in their own lives, it's a powerful way to affect change and so I appreciate the conversations y'all have, and I'm thrilled to get to be a part of this one.

Beth: [00:46:23] Sarah, outside of politics. I really wanted to get your thoughts on the Kentucky Derby. First of all, let's just set the scene. Did you have a Derby party? Did you watch the Derby in community? What was your day like? 

Sarah: [00:46:33] Well, we did have it. I'm just going to call it together and it was very low-key. We did not dress up. There were no decorations. We did have mint juleps and Derby pie, and we did place bets. I pick the winner, which I do every year, not to brag, based solely on the name and the colors. I have a streak going here. I'm very proud of myself, but yes, we did watch it with a couple of fully vaccinated friends. What about you?

Beth: [00:46:56] Also had fully vaccinated friends over. Very, [00:47:00] very low key. Very small. Chad was out of town so my energy level was at about a two because, you know Being home with the girls solo, Godspeed to all of you out there who are parenting by yourselves for any duration of time. It always makes me really tired, but we had a few friends over, I made lots of food. I always try to follow some of the official Derby menu. I really enjoy seeing what they suggest that you make every year so I made some of that. I think my star, where these Turkey meatballs that have like Apple and onion in them and a peach habanero sauce, it was delicious. 

Anyway, I was following on Twitter, the controversy surrounding the playing of My Old Kentucky home, which happens at the beginning of the Derby every year. It also is played at the end of every basketball game at the university of Kentucky and just lots of events around the Commonwealth and it has a difficult history because the language in it was overtly racist. They've tried to kind of fiddle with the language a few [00:48:00] times to make it a little bit more palatable. Stephen Foster, who wrote it was reportedly inspired by Uncle Tom's cabin. 

Um, and so there are people who argue that it's actually a very anti-racist song, at least an anti-slavery song, but it was written to be performed at minstrel shows and so there were, you know, white people wearing black face and it was kind of written to be a lament about, uh, the state of slavery in the United States at the time that Stephen Foster wrote it and so it has a large number of activists saying it's time for this song to go. 

Sarah: [00:48:38] The response last year was to play sort of a melancholy instrumental version with nobody singing along. I thought that was a really appropriate response. You know, to be honest, I think that the debate surrounding the song is a stand in for a bigger and more interesting debate I think about the role of the Derby at all, particularly in the community in Louisville. [00:49:00] I mean, for anyone who's ever been to the Derby. It's in a low income community of color, there was a lot of conversation about that surrounding community working at Churchill Downs for really low wages and that the community surrounding Churchill Downs feels exploited. 

I heard a, several of the protesters, um, who were there at the Derby this year, you know, expressing that. We feel like the Churchill Downs and the Derby and all the racing sort of exploits our community. They come to us from labor. They don't invest in the surrounding area and that, it's just one more sort of gleaming example of the racialized economics of a lot of things in the South and so I think to me, I think the debate surrounding the song itself is really just a stand in for a bigger and more important conversation surrounding Churchill Downs and the Derby and the history of the institutions interaction with that [00:50:00] community that it's in and how that can either be improved or changed or discarded. You know, I think it's that community really deserves a seat at the table when talking about, thinking about making decisions about the future of the Kentucky Derby. 

Beth: [00:50:16] I think horse racing in general is really hard. We enjoy getting together for the Derby every year and at the same time, I watch it every year thinking, I don't know how far down the road it's going to be, but people are going to look back and see this as completely barbaric and the worst of like aristocracy being celebrated at the expense of others. Like I know, I know that it is so problematic and I just try to hold those things together and take a breath and keep going in my life, recognizing that fixing the Kentucky Derby is not my work to do.

Sarah: [00:50:48] And I think, look, it was really interesting because I have a friend who, who was over to watch the Derby and she is a, like a passionate, passionate animal person. She [00:51:00] particularly is passionate about dogs and she has whippets and she was like, you know, the horses at the track remind me of my dogs and I expected her to be like very critical of racing, but she was like, they have to run fast. They have to do it like it is the only, like it is, you can see that it is a like instinctual need.

And so I don't know if it's like horse running needs to go away forever, but I think the realities of horse racing and there it becomes gambling and a profit margin and all that that comes into it. Um, it gets really complicated. You know, it very much reminds me of how, the way I feel about Garden and Gun, which is a really popular magazine that sort of celebrates the South and, you know, I've read it from time to time. I think they've done some good work. They highlighted, you know, people in my community, but it always feels a little off in a lot of the ways that sometimes the writing [00:52:00] surrounding sort of Southern culture feels off.

 Which is one, there is not, um, sort of inactive acknowledgement of the racial politics of the South, which I just, I, I don't, I feel like it needs to be said every time and I also think it's this sort of celebration of culture, which is often sort of a celebration of wealth with this undercurrent of, you know, if you're talking about some beautiful generational family home In a Southern state, where was that wealth built? How was that wealth built? You know, like it just feels kind of weird to have these conversations or celebrations or, you know, long reads, whatever the case may be without holding that tension.

And, you know, like nobody wants to read a magazine with that tension in every page and I get it, but like, I feel the same way about the Derby, right? Like it's just, it has a, not just a complicated history, a tragic, difficult history for the horses and humans involved in the same way that any [00:53:00] long term Southern institution is going to have and I'm not arguing that we should abandon every, every one of those institutions. But I'm also saying like, we gotta start holding them a little more loosely, give them a chance to evolve and improve or die if that's the appropriate response.

 And that's hard. Like, you know, there's like a few things people know about Kentucky and a lot of them are negative, right. I don't exactly want my state to just be known by Kentucky fried chicken. You know, it's nice to have the Derby. It is beautiful and it's fun to see the hats and there's lots of like lightness, but it's built on this foundation of real heavy history and oppressive politics and, you know, racialized and segregated communities and I just think that that. You know, that's just the reality, right? It's that conversation we had a few weeks ago that we're not going to get to a place where everyone joins the privileged and they're uncomplicated easy [00:54:00] conversations. It's that in a multicultural democracy, everything from public school to the Kentucky Derby to Silicon Valley is going to have to get really comfortable with being uncomfortable and I don't think the Derby's any different. 

Beth: [00:54:14] I was thinking about My Old Kentucky Home specifically because I do get teary when I hear My Old Kentucky Home played and I was trying to kind of pull that apart over the weekend. Is it the melody? Is it the lyrics? And I really remembered Sarah, the story that you tell about going to church with Nicholas, when you were first dating and telling him that you really felt the Holy spirit and he was like, that's just music.

Sarah: [00:54:37] Yeah. That's, what's being, that's what people feel when they hear powerful music. That's just the impact of music. Yes. Yes. 

Beth: [00:54:43] I think that's it with my old Kentucky home too. It's not the most brilliant song ever written. The lyrics have never made a whole lot of sense to me and now I understand why. And so it's just music.

Sarah: [00:54:53] And so if in the shared singing that people know the words, like there's definitely something to that. 

Beth: [00:54:57] It kind of like the national Anthem, right? Yeah. It's not a [00:55:00] particularly great song. It's extremely difficult to do well. I don't know why we picked such a hard song for that role, but it's just the tradition of it that feels really good and if the tradition of it feels really good, but not to everybody, then I'm delighted to look for a new tradition that feels better to everybody. And I am delighted to let My Old Kentucky Homego. If we can find a shared song that doesn't create pain for people, because me having like a misty-eyed nostalgic moment, uh, is not worth it, bringing up all of this pain for other people and of course, just the song isn't the thing to your point, Sarah, I think that's an excellent one. It's like it's one step along a very long path that I can't perfectly formulate toward a better Kentucky and I'm for that. 

Sarah: [00:55:53] Well, I think what's hard is there might not be a song. Even in Kentucky, certainly when we're not having national [00:56:00] conversations. We are, again, experimenting with multicultural democracy for like the first time in human history and I think the idea that we're going to find one song or one policy or one flag or board, we probably couldn't even pick a flower, you know, like, cause it's all going to be really complicated and really hard and I think more than like trying to find something that you know, checks the boxes for everybody, we're probably going to have to adjust what it means to check any boxes. Right? 

Like if everybody gets like a half of a check mark, is that good enough? Or is it good if 85% of people get a full check mark? You know, like I think that's the really difficult place that we're at in America is that we are realizing because voices aren't silenced for the first time maybe ever and have the ability and the power to make their voices heard because of technology and lots of [00:57:00] changes in our society that it wasn't working for everybody. We just told ourselves that, and we silence the people who disagree, just like they're trying to do at Basecamp. Right. And I think like coming to that realization, Is really, really hard. 

Beth: [00:57:14] What you said about Garden and Gun reminds me, I powered through The Improvement Association, the new podcast series from Serial Productions over the weekend and something about it felt a little bit off to me too and I realized as I listened, it was that the Improvement Association, if you haven't listened yet, is this very deep exploration of a particular County in Northwest Carolina and it felt like really strange to me to have someone who was clearly an outsider to the Southern experience, reporting on that.

And it felt really strange to me to you know, imagine what is behind Serial Productions creating this like really stereotypical Southern [00:58:00] gospel music soundtrack for it. And, you know, Serial does a beautiful job making podcasts, right? And so there were lots of interesting little notes about kind of funny things or uniquely Southern things that came up as the journey went along and this reporter did a great job. Zoey Chase clearly is an outstanding reporter. So good at what she does, and it is an enjoyable thing to listen to and it just felt kind of weird to me because I kept thinking this feels like a person from the outside, coming to a place and, and giving it an objective view, I guess, but more like studying other human beings as though they were a different species because of these regional differences.

 Again, I think she handled it as well as anyone could, but I just kept thinking like, okay, with everything we know now, would it not be better to really let [00:59:00] people tell their own stories and really have somebody and, and probably around this particular community, it needed to be a partnership between a white journalist and a Black journalist who really get all of those dynamics and isn't like amused by some of them and appalled by others, but just who have lived it to tell this story. I think that's really hard and it's a huge ask but as I think about My Old Kentucky home and some of the criticism of it and the writing around it, and your point about the people who live in the community where Churchill Downs sits, I think that there does need to be a conversation that takes the people most directly affected, the people who really knows this stuff and brings them together to discuss what we do next time.

Sarah: [00:59:50] Yes. I read a opinion piece in the Couier Journal, called Churchill Downs takes more than it gives. That's why the Kentucky Derby is a no-go for me from Cassia Herron. And I think that's that's we [01:00:00] need more of that. We need more voices from the community surrounding Churchill Downs saying, well, this is what my lived experience is like, this has been the impact on us and that has to be an essential part of this process, as we're thinking about the Kentucky Derby, but as we're thinking about podcasting and entertainment and Silicon Valley, and all of it is the, the prioritization of the voices of the people impacted. 

Beth: [01:00:27] You know, Katye was talking with us in the previous segment about the emotional leadership that a first lady can provide and I really think that that's all we're asking of like Basecamp or the Republican caucus or the people who make decisions about the Derby, just some emotional leadership, just recognizing that the feelings people have about things are not going anywhere. And so we've got to be able to explore those feelings in a meaningful way.

And does that mean that everybody is going to say like, job well done and come to a consensus at the end? It doesn't. Um, that's going to be a process that we have to attend for the rest [01:01:00] of human history, most likely, but acknowledging it and trying to do it well, I think really can shift things in a positive way, and we appreciate all of you spending time here with us as we try to do some of that work around politics. We will be back here in your ears on Friday. Have the best week 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):  Martha Bronitsky, Linda Daniel, Ali Edwards, Janice Elliot, Sarah Greepup, Julie Haller, Helen Handley, Tiffany Hassler, Barry Kaufman, Molly Kohrs.

The Kriebs, Laurie LaDow, Lilly McClure, David McWilliams, Jared Minson, Emily Neesley, Danny Ozment, The Pentons, Tawni Peterson, Tracy Puthoff, Sarah Ralph, Jeremy Sequoia, Karin True.

Beth: Amy Whited, Joshua Allen, Morgan McHugh, Nichole Berklas, Paula Bremer and Tim Miller

Sarah: To support Pantsuit Politics, and receive lots of bonus features, visit patreon.com/pantsuit politics. 

Beth: You can connect with us on our website, PantsuitPoliticsShow.com. Sign up for our weekly emails and follow us on Instagram.

Alise Napp2 Comments