Should School Board Meetings Be Public?

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Episode Resources

AFGHANISTAN

Transcript

[00:00:00] Beth: What I'm really focused on is how do I not perpetuate this? How do I not tweet about it in a way that creates expectations and that continues this cycle, because I'm honestly concerned that the tiny percentage of the American public that's really, really politically engaged has lost the end in service of the means and who gave what speech and made what statement has become much more important to them than outcomes.

[00:00:35] Sarah: This is Sarah

Beth: And Beth. 

Sarah:  You're listening to Pantsuit Politics

[00:00:39] Beth: The home of grace-filled political conversations.

Hello everyone. And thank you so much for joining us for another episode of Pantsuit Politics. Today, we are going to continue the conversation that we began on Tuesday's episode, around what's happening in Afghanistan. Then we are going to talk about how we take in news that is really about tactics and process.

So that might sound a little dull, but many of you have asked us about what we think about the Texas Democrats who left the state to deny a quorum and all of the like breathless coverage, over infrastructure negotiations. We just had a lot of tactical process-oriented stories right now, and we thought it would be good to reflect on how to read those. And I don't know what we're talking about outside of politics, Sarah is going to surprise me. So hang around with me and we'll all find that out together. 

Before we get into all of that. We want to thank you so much for the way that you have engaged with our last couple of episodes.

And we specifically seeing many of you sharing them with friends and family on social media, but in real life too, we get emails where you tell us that you send an episode to a friend and had great conversations. Those recommendations mean the world to us. And we know the discussions that we have here together in community are better when more people are here representing more viewpoints. So please continue to share the episode. We would love for you to just set a goal of sharing it with two people today. It would really mean a lot to us. 

[00:02:15] Sarah: Look, we just got back from Podcast Movement. It's a big old fancy conference with lots of big old fancy panels.

And so many of the industry experts were like, we're trying to figure out social sharing of audio and we have all these cool new tools and this and this and that, but also what really drives podcast listening? Word of mouth recommendations. That's still, what is driving so much of what people listen to. And so when you recommend our episode to a friend or you send it to a family member, that is how people not only find our show but podcasting in general.

And so it's great for everybody.

[00:03:02] Beth: We have been really grateful to hear your thought process around Afghanistan. Sarah, I was thinking of this morning that it has taken me a full week to just make a list of declarative sentences around what I think about what's happening in Afghanistan because it is so complicated and I've spent the entire week immersed in research about how we got here and what's happening now.

And I still struggle to say here's how I feel about it. So I think the first thing I wondered is if you're struggling with that too, I just don't want to chase a take on Afghanistan because there are so many layers and I'm cognizant throughout this entire process of how difficult this is for people who have served in Afghanistan or who have any relationship with people who've served in Afghanistan.

So I just feel myself trying to be so careful in my thinking and speaking about this.

[00:03:52] Sarah: It's really interesting. There has been a notable shift in how people are processing this. And by that, I mean, How people are processing this on the internet. Right? Because for the most part, I will be honest. Afghanistan has not come up a lot in my personal conversations.

Now I took dinner to my granny and she brought it up, which I thought was really interesting. She said, I never watched stuff like that. But my friend called me and said, you need to turn on the news and watch what's happening in Afghanistan at the airport. And we kind of talked about it briefly, but overall everybody's lives are really busy right now for lots of different reasons. And so in my personal life, it hasn't come up. But online, what I've noticed is that the processing has focused a lot more on just lamenting. There's been a lot of call-outs about you don't have to have a take. You don't have to have a complex understanding of foreign policy to just stand in your sadness for the people of Afghanistan.

I like the forward momentum around focusing whatever attention or energy or money that you would like to give, to helping our Afghan allies, people who have helped the army over the last two decades, get to America and advocating on their behalf. And the takes that I have read really do hold the complexity of, we're not just talking about Biden's choices, we're talking about four administration's choices. We're talking about Congress and really giving space to the difficulty of being back here, feeling like we haven't learned anything, knowing that it's not a single narrative, that there were decision points at so many places along the way. And really just leaning into that now that you know, that's people doing this with good faith, there's lots of bad faith, anti-immigrant, racist takes out there on the internet as there always are, but it does feel different to me. It doesn't feel like there's this, you know, anti-war camp and this is the stance, and the Hawk camp, and this is the stance. It feels like there is a spectrum of opinions and there is a lot of just mourning and grieving and holding the difficulty of the situation as best we can as American people.

[00:06:23] Beth: I think the opinions that I do have about what's going on right now are centered pretty deliberately on the way the administration has communicated because I can't unravel 20 years. And I, I, I feel comfortable saying that president by is probably correct that because of that negotiation that took place in 2020, the Taliban's expectation was that America would go this year and they were going to have America go this year, or re-engage in a full-scale war. I think the president is right that the options for 2021 realistically were to get people out of there or send lots more people in and be in a very different conflict.

Then the management of a situation that's been going on for several years. I am flabbergasted, honestly, by the way, this administration has communicated about what's happened over the past few days. I am shocked. I'm shocked at how defensive the president seems. I am shocked at how incongruent, the way he talks about this is with the images that he knows people are seeing.

I feel like one of president Biden's major strengths is his ability to communicate empathetically and humanely. And to say, I know how hard this is. Right. And, and I haven't, I just am missing that version of him in this situation. And part of what I've wondered is if this is. A place where his experience is both a strength and a real weakness, because I think he has had a very developed opinion on this for so long and feels so certain about it.

That it is harming his ability to grapple with the difficulty of what's been created around executing that decision. Again, I'm not even questioning the decision itself, but just the way that this has rolled out. And I am particularly shocked by how. He did not have all of our allies on the same page about this.

When I read the BBC and watch speeches happening in, in parliament, in the UK and this discussion of like, what are we doing when we've spent so much money and sacrifice in Afghanistan and America makes a decision and we can't get an Alliance to hang together here to try to support this government.

That is the kind of competence and expertise that I have depended on from the Biden white house. And I am just shocked. Ed how absent it has been in this situation. 

[00:09:05] Sarah: I think I have a lot of empathy for him because the anger and defensiveness, he feels is the same anger and defensiveness. I feel now mine are truly opinions, but I would say that his aren't just opinions, his, his lived experience being in the room, advocating for a position that would have affected military lives and being voted down.

And I think that he's just done. I think he is just 10 kinds of done and he doesn't want to hear from anybody allies, military leader, intelligence officers, because it's not up for a vote because he knows in the past, when it has been that the position to withdraw from Afghanistan has been voted down over and over and over again.

And if I feel anger and frustration, I can only imagine what he feels. Having watched this playout for the two decades, which he was most certainly very present for. And that's what I just now anger is a secondary emotion. I have to tell myself that literally every day. And so I'm sure some of that is guilt about being there when we went to Afghanistan and voting in favor of it.

I think some of it is maybe guilt and shame about not feeling pushing back harder when he had the chance or feeling responsible for the lives lost, which I'm I'm certain that he does, considering his life experience. Just, I think that he. I just get this sense of like, we ought not to make light of it, but that situation where you like get in the car and the dad is like, I don't care if people put it in their car seat.

I don't care if we're out of snacks, we're making it this last mile. I don't care how miserable everybody is. And that is the vibe I get from him. Just like, suck it up. We're getting through this. I don't care how much it sucks. I don't want to take a vote. I don't want to hear other opinions. This is what we're doing.

We're going to get to our destination and everybody just might as well get on board. Cause I'm not turning the car 

[00:10:54] Beth: around. I think that's very active. And it's also totally unacceptable to me. I did not give the Trump administration passes because I could psychologically dissect where Trump was coming from in certain decisions.

And I'm not willing to do that for Joe Biden either just because I think he's a vastly better person. And I do, I think he's a vastly better person than Donald Trump. And I think this administration is vastly more competent, but honestly, What's happening right now is the reason that I did not want the Trump administration to oversee this withdrawal or other withdrawals around the world.

I thought Trump had as his best instinct. I think I said this many times, the notion that we are too extended militarily, I think that was the best instinct he had. And I did not want him to act on that instinct because I was afraid. This kind of situation where you needed to plan ahead and coordinate with allies and think very carefully about which base gets closed first, just to the execution of this, I really thought was in the wheelhouse of the professionals in the Biden administration.

And I'm just, I'm not going to say this is okay with me when I know my hair would be on fire. If this were happening under a different presence. 

[00:12:07] Sarah: I think where I struggle with that is, you know, as I was reading some of the reporting and researching about the lessons learned and analysis of our reconstruction efforts and how we don't learn lessons, and we do the same thing all the time.

I thought, why is anyone surprised? Why, you know, if, if you are frustrated by the reporting and the analysis of the. Reconstruction of Afghanistan. Let me invite you to read the Imperial life in the Emerald city inside Iraq's green zone. It's by Rajiv Shawnda. Saccharin is great and you will be pissed off the whole time because every mistake we made in Afghanistan, we made an Iraq just like we did in every other effort.

And there's a part of me that thinks what if Joe Biden's right. Why would we think we roll into every one of these efforts thinking, oh no, this time we'll do it better? And then we sit here and say, we don't learn anything. It goes the same way. And we think that that's true of the withdrawals. Like, oh, maybe we could do a withdrawal better.

We can't do an invasion better. We've learned that how many times we can't do a reconstruction? We've learned that how many times, and it's not because of necessarily, although I think administration decisions play a role, huge role, but it's like to a certain extent, these are huge bureaucracies and huge industries and they play out the same way.

So why do we think the withdrawal would be any different or less chaotic than it was in Vietnam or Korea or Iraq? Like that's, what's so frustrating to me. Like what if he's right, like, or what if he's not, what if it could be marginally better? Would we all feel better if this happened at a trickle over six months, I'm not sure I'd feel a lot better for the people of Afghanistan.

I don't, I mean, I know I'm defensive of him, even though I'm angry. I'm not angry at Joe Biden. Now I'm angry at Joe Biden 20 years ago. I know he was just one Senator, but he's still, you know, I'm angry at the decision to go. I'm angry at a lot of things, but like right now, it, it does feel like. Maybe we don't learn because we spend too much time in the detailed analysis of what's happening now, instead of saying we've done this a million times and it happens the same way every time.

[00:14:24] Beth: That could all be completely correct. And we're all frayed about where we are politically in our own ways. Where I am most frayed in terms of my relationship with politics in the United States government and state governments, that my tolerance for bullshit from the government is at zero. I felt this way about coronavirus. I just want people to say.

We were wrong at the beginning when we told you not to where I'm asking now the right thing to do is to where I'm asking, by the way, that's going to happen again around 50 dimensions because we don't know exactly what's going on here. It's going to be hard. I can handle Joe Biden saying there was no way to get out without chaos.

I can totally handle that. What I can not handle is that happening after the fact, instead of before, when he assured us that it was unlikely, the Taliban was going to take control again immediately. I just want people in positions of leadership to level with us. And part of the reason I have been. I'm so grateful for his leadership to this point is I think he's good at doing that.

I think, there are several places where he has said, this is going to be hard. This is going to take a long time. The economic recovery is not going to be overnight. He was right about that. Right? When some of those horrible jobs reports came out, he said, the steps that we've taken are going to take a long time to bear fruit.

And now we see that they have borne some fruit like he was correct about that. And he may very well be exactly correct about, about this, that there was no other scenario. Exactly the best they could, maybe that's true. But I am really frustrated with the communication around it. Especially when I feel like communication around this has been, has been a competence.

And I'm not saying any of this to say like, so let's just vote out the Democrats next year and let's invite and shouldn't be president anymore. And he's totally incompetent like there you're right. There are so many bad faith takes about this. I am saying as a person who voted for him and would have.

And who desperately wants him to be successful, that this has been just a huge miss for me. And I am especially disappointed when I hear him blaming the members of the Afghan defense forces without acknowledging the conditions that they've been operating under. I think it's totally fair to blame. The government and the president of Afghanistan for fleeing his people in the middle of all this it's disgraceful.

But to blame those soldiers who were surviving on a box of potatoes, maybe a day and no sleep, and dealing with the president who fled them, that is not okay. And I think that hurts our military members who worked with those folks too. 

[00:17:16] Sarah: I mean, this is. Jumping ahead. So I'm just going to say, mention this to say, I think this is a part of our conversation in the main segment, which is leveling with people is never as simple as just leveling with people when you are transparent like that, even in your mistakes, it's always political.

It has political ramifications, right? Sometimes they're good. I mean, I think that if I was working for Joe by. The argument I would make right now is a pragmatic one. Not like, admit you're wrong, do the right thing. It's you are wasting valuable political capital and media cycle after media cycle that you wanted to dedicate to your once-in-a-generation infrastructure deal.

And so you need to get this train right. And do what works, no matter how morally outraged or angry you are. You know, I think that's hard. I think he feels things profoundly. I'm familiar with that approach to life and. I think it's, it's difficult when you feel like you're doing the right thing, what you feel like will give an inch politically to your political rivals or whatever, by admitting you've made some mistakes.

[00:18:23] Beth: I totally understand that it's never as simple as just being transparent. I also think that he ran on doing that a lot better than it's been done in the past. And I know he ran on America's back globe allies. You can trust us again. We're all in this together. And our allies do not feel like America is back.

I mean, what's happening right now is what America first policy looks like in practice. That's what, this is the public one. The government said, okay, we'll get out. And the chips are falling for the rest of the world, not just the people of Afghanistan, but the rest of the world, Theresa May gave a really impassioned speech that will link a video clip to in the show notes where she said, Russia is not going to be blind to the implications of this.

China is not going to be blind to the implications of this. Countries around the world just watch America. She didn't say this, this is my paraphrasing of what she said. These countries around the world, just watched America give the middle finger to their NATO allies who stuck with them here for 20 years.

And what are we going to do about that? It's a big deal. And these are things that he has the team and the capability to deliver on. And I just feel like they've treated this, like it's the lowest priority. And I get that their inbox is stacked with fires. I totally understand that. But if he has known for at least 10 years, what the right thing to do is here and what he wanted to do.

And I'm just, I'm very upset that it wasn't done better. Well, we'll continue this conversation. I think Sarah, you gave us a good segue there into discussing how things unfold and at what point we should start paying attention and worrying about them and consuming lots of stories about. 

[00:20:05] Sarah: Before we get to that, I wanted to share quickly that after we spoke about optimism and grief got a lot of really great recommendations and a listener sent me Tara, Brock's the power of spiritual hope podcast and episode from her podcast. It was so good. And I thought she used a really beautiful phrase and she, when she said we should be present for goodness.

And she used that as a strategy to move towards hope because I know when I say. We need to have hope or even use the word hope. There are people that are not there yet that don't feel hope who feel frustrated and stressed and traumatized, and hope feels like too big of a lift. And so I thought her phrasing was such a beautiful entry point to say, well, you don't have to feel hope yet, but just to be present for goodness, just as to when you see something beautiful or experience it a great piece of art or.

Have a great conversation or have an aha moment just to stand present in that I know Beth, you've been talking about your gratitude journal practice. I think a gratitude journal, like anything where you're really taking note and just absorbing those good moments, is really a great way to move towards hope.

If that feels too far away and in that vein, Abby sent us a list her cousin curated for resources and actions for his teenage son who, so he could feel empowered instead of depressed in the face of all the recent climate change news. And so we're going to share that on our website and in our newsletter and the link is in the show notes, but I just thought what a beautiful moment of goodness to say, my kid feels overwhelmed by all of this climate change news.

What can I put together to remind him that there's still goodness, and there's still hope? And Abby generously agreed to share it with all of us and I've already passed it on to my 12-year-old. And I thought we would invite everybody. To be present with goodness, just for a moment.

[00:22:25] Beth: Sarah. Can we just open the segment with any take that you have on the Texas Democrats that left the state of Texas to deny the Republicans, their quorum in voting on laws that would make it harder to vote in Texas and then Republicans wanting to arrest those Democrats and like Texas, they do it all bigger there and the drama around this has been bigger too.

[00:22:48] Sarah:  I think it's really, really terrible. I mean, I don't understand. The political strategy of creating martyrs, but that's certainly what the Texas Republicans have done by forcing them from the state. Important fun fact, not the first this has happened to Texas where the Democrats flee and get chased by law enforcement.

So I just, to me, I always try to think through the political pragmatism. And I just think like, you're just giving, if you're mad and you want them to come back then. Giving them so much political energy and press busing name, Texas Rangers, or whoever to arrest them, seems like the exact opposite of what you'd want to do.

But the Texas Republicans did not ask me what I thought before they took this strategy. 

[00:23:38] Beth: I have felt about this story. The way I have felt about a lot of the daily emails that I read, giving us just breathless back and forth on the progressive versus the centrist in the house. And who's going to win out on whether we vote for the bipartisan infrastructure bill first, or the $3.5 trillion reconciliation and bill.

All of that drama to me seems to be. Mostly about who can fundraise off what's going on. And as a citizen, I just don't have any interest in being part of that cycle where people are taking a whole lot of action that ultimately doesn't move anything forward. And does it permanently stop anything from moving forward that they want to stop?

Now, there are examples where tactics that I don't like have the results that people desire from them. Okay. So I don't, I don't get this right all the time in terms of what's effective and not effective, but I am finding that for my own wellbeing as a person who really wants to understand the news in a healthy way.

How it's happening. Stories are not useful to me. I love how it happened. Story. Once something is passed, once something is over a retrospective on what enfolded and goddess there, I love that I will listen to it. I will read it all day, but how it's happening bit by bit is not good for me. And I, and I can't find a reason that understanding that like positively influences my understanding of anything.

[00:25:19] Sarah: Well think about the difference between reading. All the Twitter takes and articles about Christian cinema over the course of the last six months. And then just reading the Politico tick, talk about how the negotiations went behind closed doors. Like I love that moment where they said somebody would like to try to drag them back and she'd go, no, don't do that.

We've already decided that we're moving on. Like you, you come, you would come up. You think they were two different women. If you read only one type of article and then. Only the other type of article. And I think there's a reason for that. I think you're right. I think examining what has happened versus trying to form opinions and provide analysis on the flies that's happening is really problematic.

And I don't think it's just problematic for how the government runs. I think it's problematic for all of us. And the truth is, you know, I have a 50,000 foot. Perspective on that and a ground-level perspective on that. And what I mean is over the last few weeks for a lot of sort of random reasons, I've been reading a lot about South Africa.

I've been reading a lot about Japan. I've been reading a lot about Lebanon and there's all these places across the world where either because of sectarian reasons or because of single-party rule that, that these groups just get in places where there is zero movement. There's just no negotiation.

They're just at a complete and total standstill. What I mean by, I see this at the ground level too, is this was my experience as a commissioner under all the open meetings law, where we were required to allow the press and the public, nothing happened, people perform for the cameras or, or just did their speech and moved on.

I had at one particular commissioner who drove me. Insane. He was the worst. I don't know how to put that in, more nicely than that. But you know, what was weird is when we were closed doors meeting, we could get somewhere, we had conversations. He didn't perform for the cameras. He wasn't being influenced by outside sources.

And how would always think, like, why can't we just do everything in here? Well, that's because it's illegal. You know, there are all these sunshine laws in the 1970s, they required open committees in Congress. A lot of states passed open meeting laws. So that commission meetings, school, board meetings, all these places have to take place in front of the camera.

And in front of the public, I mean, there's even all this amazing reporting on like what happened once they started C-SPAN and, you know, Congressional research analysis that took 200 academic articles and showed that it halts negotiations when everybody has to perform to the public when it's subject to media analysis.

And that's like in the seventies before we had Twitter, dear God, and it leads to increased partisanship. And I think it doesn't just do that to the people. Trying to govern. It does the same thing to all of us following along, nobody's doing analysis on the fly because that's possible, you know like you have to have the complete facts.

You have to have the perspective of time to a certain extent in order to come to any reasonable, any reasonable conclusion as reclined wrote an article. Several years ago, talking about like, what's wrong with Congress. And one of them was too much sunshine can burn, right? Like things that used to get negotiated behind closed doors, where there is some sausage being made, where there are where tit for tat is where people might find offensive is like how you actually get things done.

Harder to have a delicate conversation or any sort of negotiation in front of the cameras when then it's just posturing or it's just, you know, soundbites or it's words I'm not talking or acting. In the interest of governing, I'm talking and acting in the interest of fundraising or procuring mass bought on Fox news.

We all know who in Congress is doing that, or while governing the state of Florida. Did you see that thing about how governor DeSantis has been on Fox News more than he's met with his public health officials? He's on it every single day. So that was excellent reporting, but I was just, that's the thing it's like, that's what it becomes.

It's just a performance. It's not actually negotiating a, trying to get to yes. It's just trying to get on the air.

[00:29:36] Beth: Yeah. Because a lot of C-SPAN now, right. Senator giving a speech to an empty room, hoping that a clip of it goes viral on Twitter and or viral enough to be able to be included in their newsletter to raise the money off of again, it's just, it's really frustrating.

And I can't identify the causal chain. Like, I don't know if you change this, it would fix these other things because there is a part of me that thinks where we are now. If we had, if we pulled those transparency laws back, Even at like the school board level. If we pull some of that back, Don't we still have people seeking public office who are going to really be there to try to land a seat on cable news eventually, or their own podcast or their own book deal.

Probably not even ours. Right. And, and, and because that is so associated. With the way that we view politics now. And I worry about diminishing trust in government too. Like I think it is really important that the white house publish, who goes to the white house every day. I do think those visitor logs really matter, even if they are rarely looked at by anyone other than ethics, watchdogs, I think they really really matter.

And I think the school board conducting a lot of its business, even in front of the. Completely irresponsible crowds that are going to school board meetings right now, just to yell at them about masks. I think it makes a difference to watch a school board meeting in its entirety and see these people listen to somebody yell about masking and critical race theory and all these things they know next to nothing about.

And then move on to, what do we want to do about kids who have accumulated lunch balances? How do we want to do outreach to those families? Because an, you know, a lunch balance probably indicates other stresses around this family. How could we meet those needs? So it's important. I think for the people who will pay attention to that stuff, having some transparency makes a difference.

I get really angry. When the Supreme court just votes on something, it doesn't give us an opinion about it. I don't like the shadow docket. Right. I want a lot of transparency around those processes. So I agree with everything you're saying and struggle with. What's the right balance. And I don't get to decide any of that as much as I get to decide how I take this information in.

So what I'm really focused on is how do I not. You ate this, how do I not tweet about it in a way that creates expectations? And that just continues this cycle because I'm honestly concerned that the tiny percentage of the American public that's really, really politically engaged has lost the end in service of the means and that the means and who gave what speech and made what statement has become much more important to them than outcome.

[00:32:22] Sarah: I will say that as nice as it is to think that people come to the meeting and then hear the other things on the agenda, let me tell you what happens.

[00:32:30] Beth: They leave. I've watched it. I know. They leave.

[00:32:32] Sarah: My reality. They leave. And I used to say, we should put this dramatic stuff, the controversial stuff at the end. So they have to sit through every other thing.

We do a hundred percent agree before they get there. But honestly, I don't think it matters because those people are allowed minority. Anyway, they're going to complain whether they have to write the letter to the mailbox, they'll dig it up, they'll create the controversy. I think for the rest of us, you know, I do think that it would make a huge difference because when you have to perform in public like that, we like to think it creates transparency.

But what it really creates is fear and scarcity. And unless you are an incredibly highly evolved individual, it is hard not to be in front of cameras and start to perform and start to feel. Worried and second, guess everything you say and like heart, start to hear the Facebook comments in your mind. As you're speaking, it's just, it's a mental exercise.

That's exhausting. It's part of the reason I have no desire to run for office again. And I think changing those laws would create so much space for people to be authentically themselves. And to in some of that authentically themselves is going to be corrupt. Well, I'm not going to scars and a jerk.

So just know that like, that's just the human condition. Some of those people are going to be corrupt and try to hide things. I'm willing to take that cost for what I think the benefit will gain. I think it's just, you know, a person in the world. I agree. I think political engagement has become a hobby.

It's always been my hobby. Let me own that. You know, I've always been fascinated and interested in politics and I'll always read the takes and the analysis, because it's interesting to me, it's not because I'm a better, more caring person. I don't pay attention to the financial pages and they affect my life a great deal as well.

But I do think it's become a form of hobbyism because it's an industry that makes a lot of money for a lot of people. And so what I just try to think about is that politics is always. About power and the exchange of power and why I might not have control over these decisions or these strategies. I always have power either as a voter, as a constituent.

Or as somebody who can raise a ruckus in the media, if I care that much about it, I always have power, but I have a finite amount. I don't have an infinite amount. I don't have an infinite amount of power or energy or time or even money to dedicate to everything that outrageous me as I scroll through Twitter.

And so, and I think that's true of politicians. And that's why when you come into a room and you feel like they don't care. I mean, sometimes they don't, sometimes they have bad will and they don't care, but sometimes they just have a finite amount. Not sometimes every time they have a finite amount of political capital to spend or political will to engage.

And I think that's the inherent struggle of governing of campaigning of politics is that it is about that exchange of power. And we all have power, but it is a finite supply. A lot of the time.

[00:35:27] Beth: I think that's a really important perspective on the finite ability of any human being, to have energy for all the things that they need to care about.

And whether you're sitting on a school board or sitting in the United States, Congress, the legitimate list of things you need to care about is too long. It's impossibly long. And so grace around that is helpful. And that's where I think. How it happened. Stories are helpful because on the backend of a negotiation, once it's been resolved, understanding what had to be traded off is really valuable.

What's not valuable to me. Is this whole discussion about what was, quote, “lost,” in having a bipartisan infrastructure negotiation? When people say we lost this from Biden's infrastructure proposal to what actually got through the Senate, you never had it, friend. You had it on paper as an idea and that's it.

But the votes were never going to be there. 

[00:36:27] Sarah: All of that. And that's a bad-faith argument. Cause that's not somebody that doesn't live in Washington, DC. Those are people that know better. They know how the system works. They know the president's budget. Yeah. Not a lot, just it's a story generator. And those initial proposals are just a starting point.

It's like, you know, it's like how you can torture yourself, looking at your Zillow house value all the time. That's not real money. You don't have that until somebody is willing to pay that. 

[00:36:54] Beth: Dad said the smartest thing the other day about someone that we know, he said, this person is just losing a lot of sleep over things they have no control over. And I think that's why I wanted to talk about this because I want to be done losing a lot of sleep over things that I have no control over and over things where learning about them only makes me worse, not better. So I have no control over what's happening in Afghanistan, but learning more about that makes me better.

It makes me a better citizen. It makes me a better thinker. It makes me a better person. It asks me really difficult questions about what it means to be a human and what we owe each other that is worthwhile. What Kevin McCarthy's script strategy is around the house. Republican caucus does not make me better at anything.

And in fact, it makes me angrier and more bitter. It makes me use language I don't like to use. It makes me just an outrage machine and I have no interest in being that. And so I am trying really hard to turn down all that noise in service of the things that I think are really important. 

[00:37:55] Sarah: Well, that's how I feel about proposed legislation at state legislators. People can propose anything they want. They can propose a lot of crazy legislation that doesn't mean, and they do, but that doesn't mean I have to pay attention to it. And I mean, there's a balance there. You don't want to get too far along. Before it's too late to stop it. But I think that usually, it's an issue you care deeply about there's advocacy groups paying attention to it.

That's my favorite thing. The moms demand action does is it's like this has been proposed. We're not worried about it. We'll tell you when it gets further along, like, I think that's really valuable. Skill. And maybe like, that's something you can bring to the table is like pay attention as things get closer.

But to just monitor constantly like proposed legislation is a recipe for 

[00:38:42] Beth: incredible stress. And I would put that as kind of my final, like PSA here. I think that there is so much value in the advocacy that takes place on social media. I really do. And I think it comes with a lot of footnotes that don't translate well on social media.

And I worry that there are a lot of people who build enormous internet footprints by keeping people frantic about things that aren't real yet, or that are real but are not going to materialize in a way that has the dire outcome being sold. I feel this way about internet fundraising. A lot of good gets done by people sharing with each other on the internet.

And a lot of it has a complete lack of oversight and accountability and transparency, and it feels really great in the moment to contribute, but you have no idea what you're actually contributing to. And so I just think exercising a lot of care about where you give your emotion and your dollars based on what you see online is incredibly important.

So I'm interested in hearing from all of you, what you think about process stories. I think there is a role for this journalism. I'm not mad at any reporter for writing this stuff. I think that, that there is an element of accountability. On our end as consumers of news, and more importantly, as citizens and constituents of people involved in these stories, how do we think about them?

And we would love to hear your thoughts about that and next up stick around because we're all going to be surprised by what Sarah has to share outside of that.

Sarah, the anticipation is too much. What what's on your mind outside of politics? 

[00:40:29] Sarah: Well, last night we watched as my beloved friend, Mike Baker, alias Rumi kitchen's journey on America's got talent, came to an end. For those of you who have. Been following along on Instagram. My dear, dear, dear friend from college was a part of a musical group that made it to the quarter-finals on America's Got Talent.

It was exciting and stressful to watch him. But what I keep thinking about is that it just made me really mean, like I was like really. Not my highest and best self. The first episode he was on, I just hated everyone else. I thought they were all terrible and did not deserve to be there. And I've always said actively.

And when I really saw it, especially the night of the quarter-finals performances is my sweet baby Amos roots for everybody. He thinks everybody is trying their best and doing really good. And that is usually my posture, but something about having my friend involved.

Put me in a very different place. And so Amos would be, I would be like, "she's boring she has to go" and Amos was like, "I thought she did really nice, why are you, why do you think she's boring? The next person, I was like, they suck, Mike was like, you've turned into the Simon of Paducah and I was like a little bit I have.

Cause I just didn't care. I was like, Mike should win it all. Everything out of the judge's mouth should be, you're not as good as Johnny Showcase and Rumi Kitchen. And we want to see them perform again like that's the only thing that would have been an acceptable outcome for me. That's it just it's really, really good my kids don't play sports because I'm worried about what would come out in games when they were playing other, other children. Now I will say I did stop myself from saying mean things about the child performer. And, but it took a lot of, a lot of energy.

[00:42:23] Beth: My experience of you is admittedly, limited to particular contexts.

But in those contexts, I would never say as one of my top 20 adjectives about you, that you are competitive. So I'm wondering if this is less, that you would be competitive sports mom and more that the scale of this is so big and your love for Mike, so great that it is just that you desire this outcome badly for him.

And it makes you want to eliminate all obstacles for him along that path. 

[00:43:00] Sarah: Well, I think it's just that, like, I'm protective of him, even though it's not like, I mean, I think I was maybe more invested of this than Mike. He wasn't, they were really excited to be there, but you know what I mean? Like he was also making friends with the contestants and not be mean to them because he's a good human being it's that, you know, it's like when I love something, I want everyone to feel the exact same way about it.

[00:43:20] Beth: I would say that in my list of top 20 things about you.

[00:43:22] Sarah: Right. And so when I, I love Mike. And so now this was the world's opportunity to feel the exact same way about Mike and stupid Howie Mandel passed on that opportunity. What a shame for him, even though I know intellectually, well, it wasn't about Mike.

It was just Johnny Showcase. Mike wasn't even using his name, it's an alias, but I don't care. It still counts. 

[00:43:48] Beth: Well, and also you have no opportunity to be in relationship with Howie Mandel or any of the other contestants, right? So you don't have that. 

[00:43:54] Sarah: I don't want one now. 

[00:43:56] Beth: You don't have that calibrating force of also, I see how these people operate. And also I see what an amazing opportunity to just get to perform once on this stage. Like, I can see how being at home, taking this in, all of that perspective can wash away and you can just zero in on, no Mike is objectively the best and everyone should feel that way. 

[00:44:19] Sarah: Right. Right. Let's just end there because that is the proper take.

[00:44:23] Beth: Sarah, if someone is listening, who also has a friend, a Mike, on America's Got Talent, what would you say to that person? 

[00:44:32] Sarah: I would say that I hope they channel the energy of the contestant and not the energy of “mean friend” watching at home. 

[00:44:39] Beth: Well, we hope that you're channeling your energy in a lot of productive ways this week and that something in our conversation here will help you do that. Thank you so much for spending your time with us. Thank you for your emails and your engagement online. And please do continue to recommend us to your friends. As we mentioned at the beginning, it means so much to us. We will be back in your ears on Tuesday. Have the best weekend available to you.

Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production.  

Alise Napp is our managing director.

[00:45:19] Sarah: Megan Hart is our community engagement manager. Dante Lima is the composer and performer of our theme music. 

[00:45:24] 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, Amy Whited, Emily Holladay, Katy Stigers.

[00:46:00] Beth: Melinda Johnston, Joshua Allen, Morgan McHugh, Nichole Berklas, Paula Bremer and Tim Miller.

[00:46:07] Sarah: To support Pantsuit Politics, and receive lots of bonus features, visit patreon.com/pantsuit politics.  

[00:46:12] Beth: You can connect with us on our website, PantsuitPoliticsShow.com. Sign up for our weekly emails and follow us on Instagram @PantsuitPolitics. 




[00:46:22] Beth: I'm sorry, I'm gimme just a second. There is a fruit fly in here. Do you know how I feel about fruit flies? I hate them so much.

[00:46:28] Sarah: I didn't know what you were looking at.

[00:46:30] Beth: It like keeps coming right here by my microphone. Oh, it's like I'm being tortured.

[00:46:35] Sarah: Oh, I hope I didn't miss the delivery guy.

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