“Boundaries are for everybody”
Topics Discussed
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Transcript
Beth: [00:00:00] Boundaries to me are a key to just being a successful, happy adults and I think that as we have moved into thinking about what we do here in a more professional light, it has become even more important to really clearly articulate what are we responsible for, what can we not be responsible for and how do we always say in a kind and clear way, this is where we land on that question?
Sarah: This is Sarah
Beth: And Beth.
Sarah: You're listening to Pantsuit Politics.
Beth: The home of grace-filled political conversations.
Sarah: [00:00:58] Hello, [00:01:00] everyone. Welcome to another episode of Pantsuit Politics. We are so thrilled to be here with you today. On today's episode, we're going to give you a glimpse behind the scenes and how we make decisions about boundaries when it comes to our work. This is our last episode before our annual summer break. So it seemed like the right time to talk through why and how we make the decisions to take time away from the regular show but before we get to that, we're going to catch up on the news. We're going to do a little DC update. We're going to check in on all three branches and what they've been up to specifically as it comes to infrastructure, which will be the topic of our summer series that will be taking place in July and then we're going to close out the show by talking about what the two of us will be doing with what Beth has termed our mini sabbatical but first we have a present. It feels like a present. This is a gift to all of you that we are so excited to share as we head out the door.
[00:02:00] Beth: [00:02:00] You might remember that in February and March of last year, we had planned to be on tour and that tour had to be canceled and it has been a very long time since we have done a live show with human beings in a room and all of the wonderful energy and opportunities, not only for us to meet y'all, but for y'all to meet each other that that brings and so we decided we could fit something into 2021 and so this September 25th, just go ahead and get your calendar out. We are going to be in Waco, Texas, doing a live show with our very good friend, Clint Hart and Clint is the host of the Man Unmade podcast. He is also well known as a carpenter. He has his own television show on the Magnolia network and has appeared frequently on Fixer Upper. You may have heard of it, Sarah has not. No, Sarah had heard of you.
Sarah: [00:02:58] No, I've heard, I listen, I had heard of the [00:03:00] show. I did not know Clint and he loves that. That will come up multiple times in this live show. I can almost guarantee it.
Beth: [00:03:06] But anyway, Clint is a wonderful, wonderful person who we have so enjoyed getting to know, and this seemed like the perfect way to get back out there in person seeing people. So September 25th, Waco, Texas tickets will go on sale very soon. We will tell you in all the places about where you can buy tickets, but we hope that you'll save the date now for what we know is going to be such a special fun evening.
Sarah: [00:03:31] Yeah, it's going to be a whole weekend. Look, I know a lot of y'all have a weekend in Waco on your bucket list. I know this to be true of the people in my own personal life. We're going to have a VIP event with Clint. We're going to have the live event at the Hippodrome and Waco, which is like the most amazing venue. Listen, this is going to be such a scene. I can barely stand it. I'm so excited for every minute of this weekend. I'm so excited to get to go to [00:04:00] Waco. It looks amazing even though I'm not like, again, not a big fixer upper person, but like I think this town seems so special and to be there with Clint who lives there and who knows it so well and who loves it and doing this live event. Yeah, that's going to be amazing.
Mark your calendars. Don't miss it and we're going to have lots more information, particularly when tickets go on sale. Don't worry. So just stay in touch with us for all that information. One more time. Saturday, September 25th, pantsuit politics and Clint Hart live at the Hippodrome and Waco, Texas.
Before we check in on Washington DC, we had a pretty major news story break yesterday out of Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Supreme court overturned the conviction of Bill Cosby [00:05:00] and he was released from prison. He was convicted in 2018 and had been serving jail time for three counts of aggravated indecent assault and as we all remember, this was a huge story, particularly at the beginning of the me too movement and he is walking away, not because the Pennsylvania Supreme court issued some sort of judgment on his innocence or guilt, but because Bruce Castor, I know you're all thinking, why does that name seem familiar to me? That's because he was one of the impeachment attorneys for former president, Donald Trump.
Bruce Castor, when he was a prosecutor declined to prosecute bill Cosby and said, I will not prosecute you so you can testify in this civil case at Andrea Constand, the victim, was bringing against Bill Cosby and so he did testify and he did not invoke the fifth amendment and then a new prosecutor came on the scene [00:06:00] and said, I don't have to be held to this agreement and I am going to prosecute you and they used some of that testimony from the civil suit and the Supreme court said that doesn't work. You cannot do that and you know, they had three options. They could have said, you have do a new trial. They said, it could have said you have to do a new trial, but you can't use the civil suit testimony, but they took the third option, which is there will be no other trials. So this is the ending of this particular piece of the Bill Cosby story.
Beth: [00:06:30] This is just so hard to digest. It is so difficult to look past the result here to the process because on the one hand, it is tempting and I have this reaction myself, when the news came out to just be infuriated and to think what could Bruce Castor have been thinking and what could the court have been thinking? And all of this is terrible and the next layer for me is [00:07:00] okay, like, let's look at each piece of the process here. And I don't think a lot of Bruce Castor's legal acumen after watching him in the impeachment trial. I do understand a prosecutor looking at a case that is not a super fresh allegation and thinking I can't prove this case and the best outcome here could happen civilly and in order for the best outcome to happen, civilly, I need to ensure that I am not holding up anything with the threat of a criminal trial looming.
Because I think that if Bruce Castor just really didn't care about any of this at all in his position as the district attorney, the thing he would have done was just kept that possibility of prosecution looming over the civil trial. Having the civil trial go nowhere and then never prosecuting it criminally. I think he [00:08:00] made a judgment call. Probably, if you ask a hundred prosecutors, you'd get at least four different judgment calls resulting from those facts. Right? I think this was a difficult decision and I think it was a difficult decision for a new prosecutor to say, I'm not bound by that agreement we're going forward and you'd probably get a lot of different answers if you surveyed prosecutors about what the right thing to do in that position is.
The most important thing to me coming out of this is remembering that the truth was told in this situation and believed by a jury and I hate asking, how does this impact me too? Because everything that's happened here to me validates that, the important thing is that the truth come out in these situations and it did here and I believe our system requires us to elevate truth over punishment. I think that the truth came out about Bill Cosby [00:09:00] is much more important than the length of his time spent incarcerated.
Sarah: [00:09:05] I completely agree. Look, we can dissect Bruce Castor's call. We can dissect the next prosecutor's call. To me, the reality is that this prosecution took place when bill Cosby was 80 years old. He had been a predator for almost 40 years. Some of these criminal acts were decades old. That is always going to be difficult and whether or not Bill Cosby's criminal prosecution or the accusations about Bill Cosby kicked off me too, it's about so much more than that and there were men at the peak of their power who were held to account for their abuses and to me, that's, that is more indicative of the power of Me Too and the movement, which continues then Bill Cosby.
Although I think that what happened exactly what you said, that the truth came out [00:10:00] and we all stopped pretending, like we didn't know the stories about Bill Cosby and bought his children's books and, you know, watch the commercials and let him be like an, all these boards of colleges and all this stuff, all the while, knowing that Bill Cosby was a predator and I think that that to me is most important. I heard an interview with a victim who said, I told the truth and that's what I have control over and that's, what's important to me and the truth came out about Bill Cosby and he did serve some jail time, which I never thought was going to happen and to me that's still a success.
Whether or not he has a good enough legal team, you know, to, to undo some of this and whether or not that's the right call, that's a legal debate, but let's not mix it up with the cultural conversation we have surrounding me too, because they're different. They're different. And for, you know, we had a conversation on our nightly nuance last night about the Trump criminal [00:11:00] prosecutions. We talked about a lot of the stories coming out about Bill Gates and I think that Bill Cosby is another good example of what we were talking about, which is, you know, there's a status quo when there's a lot of money and influence and power and a lot of people depend on that status quo and the more money and influence in power you have, the harder it is for people to do the right thing and attack that status quo and Bill Cosby and his decades of abuse is a good example because for a moment in time, there was nobody, especially in television, more powerful with more influence than Bill Cosby and you still see the influence of that.
You see that with Felicia Rashad's tweet that she had to walk back, praising this miscarriage of justice being undone. You know, and I think that she, because look, Felicia Rashad's entire career was built on the influence of Bill Cosby and I think that that not to say that she hasn't done other amazing [00:12:00] things in her career before the Cosby show or after, but for better, for worse, that's what she's known for and I think that, that, you know, you just see that you see the tentacles of that reaching everywhere and so many situations where there's a lot of money and there's a lot of power and people are willing to do a lot of things and I hope that, and I believe that what me too did expose that and continues to expose that and continues to remind us that often the status quo comes at a cost and we have to decide when the cost is too high and I don't care where Bill Cosby is right now. I don't care if he's in his mansion or if he's in prison. The cost of Bill Cosby's power and influence was too high and we saw that and we know that now, and we can't, un-know it, no matter what the Pennsylvania Supreme court decides.
Beth: [00:12:51] And the fifth amendment is really important. If I think about the overall picture of the criminal legal system, upholding the [00:13:00] fifth Amendment's importance in that system for people who are not named Bill Cosby and who do not have his reach and influence power and money is so important and I think culturally, we are avoiding a lot of truth because we're fixated on what the punishment for that truth could look like if it comes out and it is just so important not to get obsessed with like the most punitive outcome we can find in every case, at the expense of people knowing what's true. So I hate this for the people who put themselves through the grueling process of testifying against bill Cosby and I also hope they know that they did not do that in vain.
Sarah: [00:13:43] I hope that what those women see is that the most powerful thing that could happen is that they were heard and that they found each other and that they don't feel so alone anymore. You know, I think that that [00:14:00] can't be missed. That's a part of the justice that should be served. It's not just that somebody gets punished and somebody goes to jail. It's at the victims, have a right to be heard and the victims have a right to be believed and I think that that happens, you know, it's not that everybody believes every victim of Bill Cosby. We know that's not true, but that they found each other, that they could share their stories, that they could see the threads that they could, you know, be connected through the incredible suffering that they went through and that they can say, yeah, me too. I went through it too. Now I know it wasn't just me.
That's that is, that is some of the hardest, most heartbreaking parts of a traumatic experience is just being alone inside of it and when we make space for people to tell their stories, we don't just make space for [00:15:00] them to find justice inside the criminal justice system, for somebody to get punished. We make space for them to find their own truth and support and community and that embracing and I just don't think that that can be underestimated.
Beth: [00:15:23] The tension, this relationship between process and outcomes, I think is also on full display in Washington, DC right now. You have, you know, the discourse focused on what will the outcomes of all of this be as you have the daily news cycle focused on the dramatic fits and starts of the process is true about criminal justice reform efforts too, and policing reform efforts so there's a lot going on in Washington right now. Maybe let's start with voting rights since we have a Supreme court decision hot off the press as we sat down to record this morning on voting rights and ongoing discussion in Congress [00:16:00] about whether they're going to do something, what they're going to do, how big it's going to be, who's going to be involved.
Sarah: [00:16:05] Yes. The Supreme court continues it's chipping away the voting rights act. I'm sorry. I just went, I went right there for the hot take. That's just how I feel. As we know, back in 2013, the Supreme court issued a decision that ended the requirement under the voting rights act for certain areas of the country to get approval from their federal government before they changed their voting laws. Okay. So what was left was section two, which was, can we strike down a law if it has discriminatory impact? And we were looking at some Arizona voting rights legislation and the democratic party was making the argument that this has discriminatory impact. Supreme court said no. Now we haven't both gone through the details of this case as it literally came out, as we started to record, and it was written by Samuel Alito, which means that it will be 1100 pages long and have [00:17:00] eleventy million words in it.
So what we do know is that this is going to make it increasingly difficult to prove discriminatory impact under section two, which means all the voting rights legislation across the country, that everybody is incredibly concerned about, the challenges to that for example, the DOJ is new investigation into Georgia's voting laws, is going to be difficult. It's going to be an uphill battle. We kind of knew that already, but we definitely know that now and so that's going to increase the pressure on Congress and the white house to get new voting rights legislation through the house and Senate.
We know that Senate bill one, was already filibustered by the Republican party in the Senate. Wasn't even the bill. I think it was just discussion on the bill. So we know that one's not going anywhere. There's some compromises under the John Lewis voting rights legislation that is being discussed in the Senate, but the progresses in the house are not [00:18:00] happy with that legislation. So we shall see.
Beth: [00:18:04] Senator Manchin has put together his own proposal but it has support from Stacy Abrams and other folks, and that Lisa Murkowski has signed on for, but I don't think they have a filibuster proof majority on board with his legislation yet either. If you take all of this in Sarah, what the courts are doing, what Congress is doing, what the administration is doing, what state legislatures are doing across the country, how do you think we ought to be moving forward in this arena?
Sarah: [00:18:35] I mean, what do I wish what happened or what do I think will happen? And I feel like those are two different questions.
Beth: [00:18:42] What do you think is the, the right next step? If you're in the United States Senate, what would you be really focused on right now?
Sarah: [00:18:50] I mean, I feel like a narrower focus on the John Lewis act. You know, we've talked [00:19:00] about this repeatedly on the podcast that the, for the people act has a lot in it. A lot that goes way beyond voting. It gets into campaign finance and a lot of other stuff and, you know, I think a narrower focus is always the best way to get anything through Congress. I think that this Supreme court decision and the realization that the courts are not going to come to the rescue when it comes to many of these pretty oppressive pieces of voting legislation coming out from the states and I think that it should, it could add to the political will. I don't know if that political will is enough still to get over the filibuster, honestly.
Beth: [00:19:42] I wonder if it's not time to just try to break a lot of the pieces of these various proposals of heart and put them up one at a time because I think what we know from the courts is that any big piece of voting rights legislation is probably going to get constitutionally [00:20:00] challenged and this Supreme court is probably going to dismantle part of it or chip away at it. If Congress did on a filibuster proof, majority legislation establishing a national voting holiday, I think that'd survive. I think there are some things that Congress could do, one at a time that would give the American public a sense to assess what's reasonable and what's true and what's actually going on. The debate about the stuff has gotten so conflated. I think Republicans have successfully convinced a lot of conservative voters that Democrats believe there should be like no requirements around voting whatsoever. You should be able to do it wherever you want without showing who you are and do it 15 times if you want.
Like, I think they've, they've successfully clouded this issue into Democrats believe that anything short of show up and vote whenever and however you want without showing any proof of who you are and that, that you're in the right place, uh, constitutes discrimination and I do not think that's what these bills, right. But given that, that narratives out there, I wonder if just breaking [00:21:00] it apart, step-by-step works and it, if you have it broken apart, step by step, then you can have state legislatures follow along on things that Congress fails to do. Because I think a lot of what the court is telling us is like, we really believe that states are supposed to control how elections are run and we're not going to get involved in second guessing state legislatures. So with all those pieces, I just wonder if the simplest approach is not the best approach here.
Sarah: [00:21:24] I think that sounds reasonable. I think the problem is that the more steps, the harder it is to do something right. When you break stuff apart, it's just, the process takes longer and the hard political reality right now is that the window to get something done is closing because the midterms are coming. I swear to you, I have gotten 10 fundraising text messages from house candidates and the last two days. So clearly they're off to the race and once that starts putting your name on [00:22:00] damn near anything is a liability, even something as simple as a national voting holiday and so I think the more we break it apart, the less likely there is to do, unfortunately, because again, that political window is closing and that would be a big enough lift with the amount of time we had if they didn't want to do anything else, but they do want to do other things.
Mainly two massive infrastructure pieces, which we're going to talk about in a minute. So, I mean, I think that that's the difficulty. I think if I'm just being the bluntest of political animals, this was not a priority of the Biden administration and that shows right now and look, you know, I don't necessarily have any criticism of that. I think that their priority at the beginning was right. COVID had to be the top priority. The economy had to be the top priority. I think infrastructure is an incrediby important priority and [00:23:00] probably was the correct next right step but you cannot do it all. It doesn't matter how right it is. It doesn't matter how important it is. That's not how the political process works. That's not how Washington DC is and that's what we're checking in with right now. Right.
We're checking in with Washington DC, not the morality of these policies, not the ethics of these policies, the political reality of getting something passed and that's hard. It's just hard to do. You can't roll in even in the first 100 days or whatever, and have this long list. You know, we, we mentioned infrastructure, we mentioned COVID. We mentioned the economy. They've also had immigration to deal with. They've also had a border crisis. They've also had, you know, several mass shootings and a rising crime, right. It's, it's a tough gig governing. There's a lot of things pulling at your sleeve and I don't think that this Supreme court decision, even though I think [00:24:00] it will increase the political will, is probably going to be enough to get this over the finish line.
Beth: [00:24:05] And that's probably right and I think the other thing always operating in the background is that the true, depressing conclusion is that someone is always going to be trying to manipulate the rules and the Stacey Abrams model is the best one. Get it done anyway. That's what she did. She got it done anyway. Even though it was hard, she mobilized people to come out and vote who typically have not come out and voted. She ensured that they were educated on the issues and the candidates and she got it done anyway and that is where these fights are ultimately going to be won or lost no matter what the rules are. They're going to be won or lost by how many people show up and vote with, with good information about what they're voting on.
Sarah: [00:24:53] Let me make clear before I say what I'm about to say next. The rules coming out of state legislators [00:25:00] are racist and oppressive and anti-democratic. I mean, like not mince words, right? Making it harder to vote is morally and ethically wrong. It's also for what, for that matter, politically stupid. There is no such thing as a pure voting law that only affects democratic turnout and doesn't ever affect Republican turnout. That's not how this works and so if you want to make it harder to vote, you're gonna make it harder to vote for everybody and yes, look, will it affect one side more than the other probably, but don't confuse that it won't affect your side too, because it will.
It's not like the Republican base or the entirety of the Republican base, especially the sort of Trump base is highly motivated, highly organized, consistent voters. We saw the [00:26:00] voting records of the people arrested on January 6th and some of them hadn't even voted in 2020. So I think that that's just important to remember too. Like it doesn't, you know, they're targeted. Yes, but there's no such thing as a 100% partisan voting law, it's always going to affect voters of both parties.
Beth: [00:26:19] Well, let's talk about infrastructure before we move on to talking about our infrastructure series and what's coming for you in July. We have had such a journey with attempts to negotiate bipartisan infrastructure packages and it seems like every day of the past month has been there's a deal or the deal has fallen apart. There's a framework or note the frame, just getting the framework has fallen apart and honestly, Sarah, I have found that so comfortingly normal and, um, productive and helpful, uh, that it hasn't felt dramatic or upsetting to me at all. I'm [00:27:00] just so happy that there's like a real negotiation underway, a series of negotiations underway.
Sarah: [00:27:05] Yeah. I like negotiations that aren't filmed that aren't, you know, maximize for drama and then tweeted about. That's the way this is supposed to go. They're drawn out. We're going to have to hear about them through anonymous leaks and reporting about how it's going and some of that's going to be completely accurate and some of it's not going to be completely accurate. That's how the process goes. I like seeing the president out on the road, talking to regular Americans, trying to sell this legislation. That's my absolute favorite thing to see.
There is something so achingly normal about that. I can't read enough about Biden, just bebopping around Wisconsin, trying to tell people how this is going to work in their everyday life. I love that stuff. I mean, the biggest piece of negotiation was always going to be, how much is it going to cost and how we're going to pay for it and Biden from the beginning with this huge package was like, we're going to tax the rich and not [00:28:00] surprisingly the Republican party, including the moderate Republicans were like, we don't like that idea. So now this compromise is going to include a lot of spending, but without using any of those tax hikes and so there's not going to be any it's it's revenue neutral, right?
It's not now we've got to listen to the experts at the congressional budget office. They're going to tell us whether it's really revenue or neutral and we'll see what happens then but that's where so much of this negotiation took place is how are we going to pay for it? What I thought was really interesting is Matt Yglesias had some analysis that because they're not using any of these tax heist proposals that saves them for the reconciliation package, right? Because this is what's happened. There were always two packages. There were sort of a traditional package and then there was a progressive package that included a lot of childcare, a lot of the more progressive climate policies and what Biden did was focused on negotiating with moderates, [00:29:00] for the traditional package and saving the more progressive package for reconciliation, because we thought we might be able to do two reconciliation packages and then the parliamentarian was like, just kidding. You're not going to be able to do that.
So they had to save it all for this budget reconciliation package. We've done some shows on that. We'll put the link in the show notes to those episodes if you want to hear more about this process, but that's, what's happened here and then, you know, they came out, they said they had a deal and then Biden seemed to link the two saying, well, I'm not going to sign the regular package until we get the progressive package out and everybody lost their collective moderate minds. Then we walked it back and we talked about some other things and now that he, that does not seem to be the case, right. That they're not going to veto the compromise if we don't get the other package through reconciliation. But again, you know, I think that always keeping in mind that we're [00:30:00] really talking about two things at once is important.
Beth: [00:30:02] And there are just lots of pieces to the way Congress is approaching this. And I sort of liked that there are a bunch of tools being used in these discussions. As we're recording today, that the news is that the house is taking up a hard infrastructure bill that is expected to pass on partisan lines even though Republicans have negotiated tons of earmarks for their districts, they're still going to vote no, even though it brings and hope it passes, cause it would bring a lot of money to their districts and that is just where we are today in Washington, DC and it is, it is strange. It is discouraging in some ways, but overall I'm just like, there's a lot of good governing work being done here by a lot of different people on something that is of vital importance to this country's economy, to our national security, to our sense of who we are and what our government exists to do and so I have followed the ins and [00:31:00] outs of, of these negotiations, but overall, I'm just happy that they're taking place.
Sarah: [00:31:04] Well, and the other thing that the president said us as he was bebopping around Wisconsin, is that there would be no like seconds. We're not going to come back in the reconciliation bill and add more to the basic infrastructure negotiation he struck with the centrists in the first bill and that's a big deal because Republicans were using this as a reason, not to support the compromise. They'll still be taxing spins Democrats. They'll just do it in the reconciliation package and I, you know, I appreciate that that president Biden was like, no, what we negotiated, what we negotiated is spending on core infrastructure is what we negotiated. We're not going to note, negotiate with centrist in the first bill and then roll into the reconciliation and get everything else.
I think there will be stuff in there that was not considered core infrastructure and I think it will be interesting to see how that's funded, if it's funded through tax hikes, but it's not going to be well, we negotiated down to 15 billion on electric vehicle infrastructure from the [00:32:00] 157 billion. So we'll just get the rest of the money we wanted in the reconciliation package. They're really going to try to keep to the numbers they negotiated but again, like you just said, the house wasn't in on that negotiation, right. That's why they have their own bill coming out. So this is still very tenuous. Like I think it would be hard to vote against it in the Senate. I think it would be easier to vote against it as a progressive or a centrist moderate in the house so we'll see what happens because it still has quite a journey to take through the month of July, so conveniently timed for our infrastructure series. So you can listen to all this infrastructure and what it means as they're hammering this out throughout the month of July.
Beth: [00:32:39] This is like such a difficult message to get across but part of what's been so encouraging to me is watching the democratic party negotiate amongst itself here, because this is not Republicans versus Democrats. People who believe the government ought to spend lots and lots of money on very big programs versus [00:33:00] people who think the government ought to spend some money on important priorities, but not try to do everything, versus people who think the government ought not do anything ever for any reason and you have a bunch of different people who really do want to see something passed here, coming at it from different angles and while I know that's frustrating, if you've got like a big, clear vision of where you'd like to see this go, I think it is so healthy and good.
Sarah: [00:33:24] Speaking of healthy and good next up, we're going to talk about our boundaries and our business and our lives and what that means for you guys as listeners over the month of July.
If you are new here, this is a good moment to fill you in on what usually happens in July. We usually take at least the first two weeks of July and do a [00:34:00] special summer series. Last year, we did a summer series called How to be a Citizen, all about the Federalist papers and how we think through citizenship. There's going to be that's, there's definitely gonna be threads of that in our infrastructure series this summer as well, but that was our series last year, but that was trying to think back. I don't remember our series from 2019. It feels like 2020 just wiped my brain of so many things.
Beth: [00:34:20] We talked about the constitution and its amendments and just the structure of the government at large so we've kind of worked our way from the real foundation of the country and now we're looking at the real foundation of our economy and how we get things done in the country.
Sarah: [00:34:37] Yeah, we do. We have a thread we're following here. I dig it. Okay. So that's what we do every July. We take a step away from making our regular content for the show. It's really a chance for us to rest, sort of reset, come back, ready to keep making the show the best we can, because I don't know if you'll notice. We, we make a lot of shows. We make the nightly nuance and the news brief for our premium content Monday through Thursday and then we [00:35:00] make a show on Tuesday, Friday. So that's a lot. So we won't completely disappear from your ears in July. We have a lot of fun things planned.
So in this feed in the regular show fee, there will be content during the first two weeks of July. So first up next week, you're going to hear a compilation of the four nightly nuances that Beth did on nuclear energy earlier this year. We thought it'd be a really good chance for everybody to get primed on infrastructure, because nuclear is an important part of our energy infrastructure and also give you a glimpse of the premium content that is available through Patreon and Apple Podcast subscriptions, because this is like such a perfect peek into the nightly nuance and what Beth does there.
Beth: [00:35:38] And then the second week of July, We'll just have a little glimpse of what our friend Niala Boodhoo does on her show with Axios today. They are going to drop one of their episodes into our feed. You might remember when we had Niala on the show earlier this year and we just thought it was a real treat and we're delighted to share a bit of her work with you that second week [00:36:00] of July.
Sarah: [00:36:00] And then the last two weeks of July, we'll be back to our regular schedules, but what's going to be very special programming. We'll have our infrastructure in real life series the final two weeks. We're going to have an episode on water, an episode on energy, an episode on transportation and an episode on emerging infrastructure, broadband and childcare and we've been working so hard on the series and we cannot wait for all of you to hear.
Beth: [00:36:24] And for those of you on our premium content, we're so grateful for your support, which allows us to do this kind of work, especially putting together infrastructure series. This is really the biggest, most complex summer series we've ever done and that work is enabled by our premium supporters. Um, we will be taking the first two weeks of July off from that premium content and then in the back half of July, it is going to be like your guide to follow along with the infrastructure series. It's the place where you can go deeper with what you're hearing on the podcast every day and the news brief will return in those last two weeks of July as well, [00:37:00] with some special guests hosts filling in as Sarah enjoys both her 40th birthday and a trip that we'll talk about at the end of the podcast today. So thank you for your support and your patience and your grace as we take some time to recoup and refresh ourselves and also please know that we have lots of good stuff waiting for you.
Sarah: [00:37:18] Yes, this is, you know, this, we wanted to talk a little bit about boundaries and this is an important boundary for us. You know, I remember the very first time we felt comfortable as content creators, sort of putting a boundary out there. We decided we would put out into the world that we love hearing from all of you but if you do not need a response to just put in the subject line, no need to respond and it was such an incredibly powerful act and like insightful because so many people emailed us and said, Oh, my gosh. Thank you so much. I've wanted to email you, but I didn't want to bother you. And I didn't necessarily want you to feel like you were obligated to respond. So being able to [00:38:00] say no need to respond, like allowed me to email you.
And I thought, oh man, this is what a good boundary does. Like it frees everybody up and that's how we got Alise. It's such a good reminder. Like that's also how we got at least, cause she was like, oh, they seem overwhelmed. Maybe I could help them. Look where we are now and I think that that's just, you know, these boundaries that we put into place truly aren't just for us, they;re for everybody in our audience as well, because the churn of content that we set up as the standard on the internet, like over the last 10 years, look, it's burning everybody out.
There's long read after long read about content creators being burned out, about editors being burned out and as a listener and a content consumer, I get burned out and so I think just putting in place these boundaries that say it doesn't have to be a constant churn. We can all take a moment to take a breath, take a break, catch up on stuff we wanted to catch up on and not feel like any moment we [00:39:00] take to catch up is just putting us further behind because the content never stops.
Beth: [00:39:04] Boundaries to me are a key to just being a successful, happy adults and I think that as we have moved into thinking about what we do here in a more professional light, it has become even more important to really clearly articulate what are we responsible for? What can we not be responsible for? And how do we always say in a kind and clear way, this is where we land on that question? And so the July break is one example of that, where we can say in a kind and clear way, we need a break. You probably need a break from us. So we're going to take these two weeks and have some quiet around this space and then we're going to come back for the last two weeks and give you something special that we've been working on for months to prepare and that has felt really good to me.
The email situation has felt really good to me since we said, please tell us if you need a response or not and we have [00:40:00] moved, just to be transparent with you about how we handle email, to reviewing listener messages once a week on Wednesdays. That Wednesday review is one of the most important moments in my week, because it really helps me connect to how people have processed our episodes, what's on their mind that we need to think about in our new episodes, how people are feeling about the world in general. Even though we don't respond to every message, we read every word of every message that's sent and every person on our team takes a look at those messages to say, what do we need to learn from this and how do we need to respond in a way that benefits more than just the person who sent the email, but the entire community and that system has worked really well and that's a boundary that at one point would have sounded kind of rude to me.
Oh, you're only going to look at them one day a week instead of as they come in and, oh, you're not going to respond to everyone, but I think we've really found a way to make sure that those messages in order to [00:41:00] everyone's benefit, instead of just being the constant grind of lots more emails coming in and lots more emails going out.
Sarah: [00:41:08] And, you know, another big boundary that we changed this year is moving the news brief to our premium content and that was a big deal. That felt huge to me, but it was just, it was another moment where I learned so much. I learned when you create content and when you're, you know, transparent and you love it and you say, this is a lot of work and it needs to be valued for the lot of work it is. Overwhelming the responses. You're absolutely right. We're happy to pay, like we're happy to pay. This is premium content that we want and we're happy to pay for it and it just changed so many things for me in how I thought about the news brief, how I did the news brief, how I feel continuing to do the news brief.
Like it's just such a different experience now feeling like I'm just putting it [00:42:00] out in the world just to put it out in the world, as opposed to like, no, I'm creating it for a particular audience and I think like the more boundaries we put up in our business, again, it's not only been good for us, but it's really helped me understand and feel more connected to our community as opposed to just churn and burn turn and put it out there, hope it connects. It's like, oh no. Now we're creating something for this community. That's the difference to me now versus like where we started.
It feels so much more conscientious because we have those boundaries because we hear from our community because there's this flow back and forth but look, as the community has grown, the boundaries were essential, right? Like as the community has gotten bigger and bigger and bigger in order to keep that connection and in order to keep our. Soles and tack, like we had to do that. There's a look, there's a lot of sort of emotional labor, right? Because what we do here is [00:43:00] we come and we process the news. We're not reporters, there's a lot of emotional labor and being a reporter and going out on the road and reporting this story but that's not what we do here. Right. What we do here is processed the news. We're trying to, to feel the stories, to take in everyone's feelings about the stories and what's going on in our country and, and put some structure around that. And that's, that's a lot, right. That's a lot and it's particularly was a lot in 2020.
It was particularly a lot surrounding the election surrounding any election and so finding some spaces to, to step back from that a little bit and think about, okay, well, what am I, what has that been like for our audience? What has that been like for me? What have I learned? How do I want to integrate what I learned? You know, we've been talking a lot about integrating after the pandemic, the things we've learned and I, you know, integration takes space and that's just what I want to make sure that we always have both as content creators and for that we give all of our listeners.
Beth: [00:43:58] I think it might be helpful for us to talk about [00:44:00] boundaries around feedback for a second, because whatever you do in your life, you're probably getting feedback somewhere or at least you're interacting maybe on the internet in ways where they give you some feedback on your thoughts and opinions and your photos and learning to manage boundaries around feedback has probably been one of the biggest growth areas for me as we do this work. We talk a lot about making sure that we don't take feedback personally, that we take seriously what people share with us that we want to do a better job doing our work and also that we don't personalize the feedback, whether it is positive or negative feedback, right.
That we understand that when people reach out, they're reaching out because of things going on with them, that we'll never have any view of and I think something that I've learned, especially over the past year, that I don't think you and I have talked about, Sarah is just recognizing that as much as I work to not make my reading of the feedback personal. There are folks who [00:45:00] send in feedback who clearly want it to feel personal. There are moments, we have an extremely generous, supportive community and even in that extremely generous, supportive community, all of the dynamics that govern all of human relationships show up and I'm noticing more and more that I think there are times when I just need to step back from a message and be honest about the fact that the person sending the message is trying to make me feel some kind of way and any feedback is an invitation for you to feel some kind of way and the boundary for me is recognizing that invitation there and stepping back to make a choice about how far into that feeling I'm going to go. Does that make sense?
Sarah: [00:45:48] Yeah, that's really hard. We've gotten so many iTunes reviews that attack me for crying recently. I mean, it just, it feels like the more I get upset about it, the more they flow in, that's probably not an accident, but [00:46:00] yeah, it feels like they want me to feel bad. Like they're trying to shame me. There's just no, if ands or buts about somebody showing up with a one star review and being like, they're not serious people and she cries all the time. It's just, it's harmful and it's hard not to let it hurt your feelings no matter like that it's, you know, some conglomeration of numbers and letters and not even a real name behind it and so I think, I think that's important. Instead of trying to like prevent it, just acknowledge that that's what's going on there and to see it for what it is, does lessen the impact of it. Not a lot, but a little.
Beth: [00:46:32] And honestly, it's a lesson that if I could go back early in my career as a young lawyer, It would have been so helpful to me to just be able to say, listen, Some people are coming at you and it's not personal, but some people want it to be personal and just know that and that's true on the incredibly warm, generous side too. You know, there, there, there is, we are in a very transactional culture. It's been so hard for me to [00:47:00] learn that w, you know, we get these incredible gifts from people where they just share themselves and their art and their talents and their businesses with us, and to not be able to like personally reach out and thank every person who does that has been a real lesson for me.
I try to go back to Diana Butler Bass's book on gratitude and remember that is, that is not a transaction. Your thank you is not supposed to be equal to what you've received. That's not why we give gifts to each other, but in both directions, the really positive and the really negative, I have had to work on myself and, and step back and recognize like you constantly have to be making decisions about how far you want to wade into this with other people and the decisions that you make impact not only you and the other person in that specific incident, but they impact the entirety of what you're doing here for everybody.
Sarah: [00:47:51] You know, in some weird way, the fact that our community is so [00:48:00] open-hearted and so amazing makes it even harder to like piece that stuff out because you feel guilty. You feel guilty, like, you know, they're so amazing how dare I turned from this one piece that seems kind of personal because you know, most people in our community are just like in it to win it with us, any be like, you don't even know how many times we get like criticism, honest criticism that is wrapped up in you're amazing. You saved my life. I love your show. I just want, you know, this one little thing and so it's just like, when somebody comes at you hard, it's hard not to do the light, but everybody else is so nice. When that is true and also when the people come at you in a very personal way, it's not undone by the fact that, you know, the majority of people in our community are incredible.
Beth: [00:48:46] And that's just true in life and I think that's why we're sharing it. Not because we want, again, we're not trying to make you feel some kind of way about the behind the scenes aspects of our work. Just to acknowledge that you're dealing with this too, just in your own way, when you're, [00:49:00] when you're not hosting a podcast, you still have people who do incredibly generous things for you and people who come at you in ways that feel like really unfair and obnoxious and, and a whole lot in between and truly what we get that I craved in my career before this one and never received are those messages of like, I'm really invested in you and I care about you, and that's why I'm criticizing this piece because I want you to learn from this and I want your work to get better and, and to me, that is just, it's such a gift that so many people do that with us and I hope you see the result of that in, in our work.
Sarah: [00:49:37] So we appreciate all of you. We appreciate you giving us space through every form of support, whether it be on Patreon or Apple podcasts, or just listening every week or listening or watching us on Instagram or subscribing to our newsletter, literally every single piece of that matters and you know, [00:50:00] this is the most rewarding work and it is made even more rewarding and special by being given the opportunity to step back from it and to take a break and to take a rest and to reflect on what we've done up until this point and what we want to do in the future. So thank you so much for that.
All right, Beth, what are you thinking about July?
Beth: [00:50:36] I'm probably being way too optimistic about how much time July contains, because I have a stack of books, such a stack of books that I want to read. I have a list of house projects. I'm going to declutter some things. I want to spend a lot of time outside and in the pool. I have a trip to Chicago planned for my niece's baptism. I just have a lot of little things, but it's like, [00:51:00] it's the longest list of little things. So I'm planning after we finished recording today, when I feel like our break sort of kicks off to sit down with that list and pair it down to something that feels more realistic and really prioritize and say like, how do I want to feel at the end of July and what, what here will help me feel that way.
Sarah: [00:51:19] Um, I'm not a good person to help you with that. As we all know, I usually bring four to five books on every trip, whether it be like a weekend trip or you know, whatever the case may be. I like, I mean, I took a book to read when we went to holiday world cause this is, this is my mindset. This is the, this is the internal dialogue I have in my head is that I will always have time and make time to read. Sometimes I do, but it is usually overlooked, overly optimistic. I usually also take like four to five journals everywhere I go. I'm just.
Beth: [00:51:51] I cannot validate that for you and she writes in all of them. It's very impressive. It makes me feel a little bit guilty, but I'm very impressed with you.
Sarah: [00:51:58] I like to have a journal [00:52:00] available to meet my need wherever I am. So we also have quite a July planned. We are taking a big family vacation, the boys and I are going to California to visit Disneyland with my dad and my nephew and then we will, Nicholas will be joining us in Seattle and we are going to go travel through the Pacific Northwest. We're going to go to five national parks in two weeks. I'm going to take a big chunk out of my national parks, scratch off poster. So we are really, really excited about that. I don't, I am, I am packing July full, but I'm also hopefully with enough agent insight, understanding that like, I don't expect to finish July, like feeling like I've meditated and relaxed to a higher plane.
That's not the July I have planned. That's okay. That's okay. I don't feel so wrung out and depleted physically, as I did [00:53:00] at certain points of 2020. I do feel a little depleted sort of mentally and intellectually and that's what I'm hoping to pack in still like just seeing people and seeing places and reading books and thinking big thoughts and so that's what I, I hope to feel at the end of July, although I'm sure I will also feel a tad bit cranky from that much travel with my three children, but it's okay. I'm just eyes wide, open eyes wide open about that.
Beth: [00:53:30] Yeah. When I say, how do I want to feel at the end of July, it is also not as though I have spent the entire month in like a spa in Sedona. It's more that I recognize that between navigating COVID preparing our infrastructure series, writing our second book, I have not had this space to engage with all kinds of music and books and writing that I know will be really enriching for me and I just want to be [00:54:00] able to dive into that stuff. I've neglected a lot of things in my house. I want to start the school year feeling like our house really has some good structure and things feel good here and so it's, I don't have like a deep soul needs that need to be patched up in July. It's just, it is just like mini sabbatical.
Just that chance to reset, find some new creative energy and get back to it. I love our work so much, and I know that I'm really bad at taking time off because every conversation we've had as a group, I'm like, well, I could do that in July. No big deal. Um, cause I, I love what we're doing. I'm so happy with how it's going right now and I think just a little disruption in all of the content that we make every single week is just going to open up a lot of possibilities for all of us and a lot of new ideas.
Sarah: [00:54:44] My kids don't go back to school till forever. It's literally a full three months of summer break. It's fine. Uh, so they don't go back till August 18th. So we'll have two weeks still to get ready for the school, but I am doing some fun things while I'm out on vacation. The one I'm [00:55:00] particularly excited about is my friend, Sarah, who is an artist and just has a really incredible style and who often comes and helps me in my house. I had taken every piece of art in my house, off the walls. It's in my office. Don't worry for those of you who see the gallery wall in my office. That's not going anywhere cause that took way too much work.
That's there till I leave this house and I'm having several rooms repainted because children are disgusting and my children have been in this house all the time for like a year and a half and so everything is like doubly disgusting. I don't know how walls get greasy, but mine are. Um, so I'm having several things repainted and then Sarah is going to come on vacation and hang everything in all new places. I'm so excited. I'm going to have like a new house without buying a thing. It's going to be all the stuff I already own and love only in all new locations cause you know, you stop seeing stuff after a while. Like it hangs in a spot for long enough and you just don't see it anymore. I'm a very excited to come home to this fresh visual space because [00:56:00] again, I work from home and everybody's been doing all the things in our house for so long. So I'm really excited about that.
Beth: [00:56:07] That's really fun. What other special things are coming up for you surrounding your 40th birthday during this month? Because we're not going to be making a podcast that week to talk about it. So let's let's layer on the birthday love here.
Sarah: [00:56:19] That's true. I mean I tur 40 July 28th. The last Wednesday of our break. So I'll be back for Tuesday, that Tuesday episode. So that'll be fun, but yes, we will be on the trip. I'm probably going to have a party when we get back, but I want it to be true. I had a big 30th birthday party and so this for my 40th birthday, I wanted to be traveling and so we will be, um, in Oregon. I'm very excited about that. I think we're going to be according to my itinerary in Crater Lake, which is supposed to be just, transcendently beautiful so I'm very, very excited about that and then [00:57:00] when we come back, I'm going to have a big, uh, karaoke party and I'm visiting several friends while we're up in the Pacific Northwest friends that don't get to see very often. So I'm really, really excited about that. Um, maybe I'll tell the people at Disney that I'm celebrating a big birthday where one of those big dumb buttons, um, predict.
Beth: [00:57:19] That is awesome. Well, I can't wait to hear about how all of it went when you get back, especially the karaoke party, and I can come in for the karaoke party, maybe fun on a weekend.
Sarah: [00:57:27] That would be fun.
Beth: [00:57:28] I hope you have the best time on your trip. I'm excited to hear about it.
Sarah: [00:57:31] Yes. We're excited and I have a girls weekend with some of our friends from college who are all turning 40 this year. I feel like, again, listen, y'all, aren't going to be done hearing about me turning 40, uh, again until October 2022. We'll still be celebrating. I got some other trips planned. Listen, I'm not done. I'm not done. I'm I'm all in on this 40th birthday on this 40th decade. I'm very excited and I should say you have developed the best [00:58:00] 40 birthday gift for me, which is like, I have a 40th birthday advent calendar guys. It started today as we're recording on July 1st and I get a special message and a poem Beth selected and a song that was popular during a certain years of my life, which is just, you know, we all know that I have an advent calendar devotion and so I'm so excited to work my way through that through the month of July too. So I thank you so much for that incredibly thoughtful gift, uh, to keep me celebrating over the next few days.
We are so excited for the month of July. We are so excited for our infrastructure series. We are beyond excited about our live event on Saturday, September 25th and we're just excited every day to be in community with all of you. We love our work. We love you. We hope that you appreciate this little break over the next two weeks and that you enjoy the series and we will be back in your ears in August. Until then have the best July available to [00:59:00] you.
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