Drama Dream Team: Sinema, Elon, and the Tripledemic

TOPICS DISCUSSED

  • Drama Dream Team

    • Everyone is Sick

    • Twitter Files

    • Kyrsten Sinema Leaves the Democratic Party

  • Kentucky Tornado Recovery with Liam Neimeyer

  • Outside of Politics: Holiday and End of Year Gatherings

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EPISODE RESOURCES

KENTUCKY TORNADO COVERAGE AND RELIEF

TRANSCRIPT

Sarah [00:00:07] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.  

Beth [00:00:08] And this is Beth Silvers.  

Sarah [00:00:10] Thank you for joining us for Pantsuit Politics.  

Beth [00:00:26] Thank you so much for joining us for Pantsuit Politics today. We're delighted that you're here. We try to take a different approach to the news here. And one way we do that is by revisiting stories that have fallen out of the regular news cycle. So today we are going to check back in on western Kentucky. One year after devastating tornadoes ravaged that area that is close to both of our hearts. But first, we are going to talk about some news. We're going to do the Twitter files, the way everybody is sick with everything. And, of course, we will talk about Senator Kyrsten Sinema's announcement that she has changed her party registration from being a Democrat to a registered independent. Outside of Politics, we will talk about holiday gatherings that we love to host and attend and what we think makes for a good gathering.  

Sarah [00:01:09] And speaking of holiday parties, we are going to have our premium holiday party on Thursday night. Guys, we have games planned. We have some memory sharing planned. We have our outfits planned. It's going to be amazing. If you're on Apple Podcasts subscriptions, make sure to share your email address so you can get access to the event. The link is in the show notes and we can't wait to see you all there. Up next, we will tackle some of the news.  

Beth [00:01:42] Sarah, I feel like every conversation that I have right now goes like this, "Well, we had the flu and then it became COVID and then pneumonia. And then our kids tested positive for hand, foot and mouth or something." It's just a swirling stew of sickness. And then also I feel like everyone has this low level of 'maybe I'm not sick, but I'm not exactly well' happening. So I just wondered if that is the case in your community as well and how you're taking it in. Are you well right now? Are you feeling good? Is it a trap to ask you if you're well?  

Sarah [00:02:18] Yes.  

Beth [00:02:19] Sorry, I'll take it back.  

Sarah [00:02:20] I want to answer, but I don't want to answer. I want it on the record that this conversation in and of itself is a huge sacrifice for our community. I love you guys and I know this is a conversation people want to have. And also, I feel like I'm on course myself because I have a very strict policy, which is during cold and flu season, as long as there has been no cold and flu season in my own personal home, I don't talk about it because I feel real woo woo about that. And I feel like the more you talk about it, the more likely you are to get it. I understand that that is not based in science. I'm just saying that's how I feel.  

Beth [00:03:00] Well, I think the reason that it's important to talk about on the news and politics show is that we are in this adjustment period where it feels like-- I think Saturday Night Live said this really well. They were, like, COVID is back even though it never left. And just how to think about it now and deal with it and how to make policy and make decisions around it is really tricky because we are going to see strain on hospitals. Some of the things that convinced us all to take pretty extraordinary actions in our lives are going to happen now because of more than one type of virus. And so what do we do?  

Sarah [00:03:38] Yeah, I mean, it has been rampant in my community. Beginning really at Halloween, all three of our surrounding school systems had to take several days off because so many kids were out with the flu. And I think it is relevant, especially politically. We're already hearing that the House Republicans, when they take the majority in the new Congress, are going to try to force Biden to veto legislation that ends the national emergency over COVID. Which I don't necessarily think I'm opposed to because I do think it is time for us to shift and say, all right, we're not in an emergency. We are because we have a tripledemic, but is that an emergency when we're hearing so many medical professionals saying this is our new reality during the winter months is that post Thanksgiving, when people gather, we will see this sort of little alliance of respiratory viruses that are going to come and haunt us all, like the ghost of Christmas past, present and future.  

Beth [00:04:41] I don't prefer an alliance of viruses. I agree, I think that probably the COVID emergency should be ended because emergency powers should be extraordinary and that should mean something. And I think that Congress probably still has a job to do as it pertains to COVID, and maybe that is a good report on how all those COVID funds have been spent and what's happening with them and what is still needed. Where are there gaps that Congress needs to shore up, or where have funds been sitting and need to be appropriated so they can shift and be deployed somewhere else where they're helpful? But I think that what bugs me about the line from House Republicans right now is it sounds like all they want to do is end the emergency. And I think that's probably not all the work there is to do. But I do agree that we're out of the COVID emergency as we understood it, that novel coronavirus is over. I just have the what's next question about public health.  

Sarah [00:05:38] Well, and it would be a less craven political move if I felt like they had that question, but I don't feel like they do.  

Beth [00:05:43] But we do know that the FDA has had a big investigation conducted by an external group to say, how do we respond to crises here more specifically around the formula shortage? But there are some recommendations that seem like they get to the heart of things over there. We know that the CDC is taking stock of what they do and what they can't do well and how much support they need from Congress to move forward and get the kind of data that they need to respond more effectively to emergencies. So there is a lot of work left. And in the meantime, none of that is comforting if you are a nurse or a pediatrician or someone working right in the middle of all of this.  

Sarah [00:06:22] Or just somebody home and disappointed because you're not getting to attend something. We talked about this a few weeks ago, that disappointment is just the worst emotion. And this new viral alliance that is taking over our holiday season is just a nonstop disappointment parade.  

Beth [00:06:38] It really is. I was reading a piece this morning about how the best cure for the flu usually is just to stay at home and rest for a few days. And I thought when? In December? When are you going to stay home and rest for a few days? That's so hard. And it is disappointing. So if you are struggling with this in your families, I wish I had a good answer for you other than you are not alone, but you are definitely not alone. And we will keep talking a lot about health care in the New Year and what ideas we might be able to bring to the table on that front. Sarah, the other thing I have been thinking about and wanting to get your opinion on is the Twitter files, which I feel has been infused with so much drama that I should have some kind of like dun-dun-duuun surrounding it.  

Sarah [00:07:21] Feels like such a nothing burger. That's how it feels to me. It feels like a multi series nothing burger. And the more he releases and the less there is to talk about, I keep thinking, why are you still releasing these? But I'm sure in certain corners of the internet it is not being treated as a nothing burger. Those are not the corners of the internet I inhabit or ever visit. But this drama surrounding them-- but I don't even like the word drama because drama implies some sort of universal experience. And it's not. Elon Musk is building this up and building this up and it feels like most everyone else is just shrugging their shoulders.  

Beth [00:08:00] You know what I think is so frustrating about this situation, Elon Musk and the two journalists that he has enlisted in this mission, Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss, have all done some good things in the world. And I don't understand why this is where they want to spend a whole lot of time and energy. That said, if you want to be more transparent about content moderation and how hard it is and what your company has struggled with, that seems like one thing to me. This, I don't understand as a CEO of an entity, why you want to make the entity look bad and why you want to kind of take down the entity as it existed before your leadership. What he gets from this, I don't know. The other thought I have about the whole thing is if we are going to have a conversation about outreach from campaigns to media, I wouldn't start with social media. I would start with traditional media and talk about the ethics of campaign outreach. For example, we know how many people in the Trump White House were lighting up every phone at Fox News when Fox called Arizona for Biden during the 2020 election. And I don't mean to do this like, well, I'm going to point the finger here instead of here, but I have a higher expectation as a consumer of information of traditional media than I have of social media. And so for looking at the ethics of campaign outreach to media, I would like the conversation to begin there. In terms of social media, I just sort of expect that a lot of weird things are going on and a lot of weird things dictate what ends up in my feed, and that's why my consumption of social media keeps going down. So maybe I'm making his point for him, but if he's the CEO of Twitter, he doesn't want my consumption to go down, right?  So what are we doing here? What's the goal?  

Sarah [00:09:56] Well, that is an interesting point, especially as Rupert Murdoch is currently in a deposition about the Dominion voting lawsuit against Fox News and probing at those questions right now.  I think part of the problem is, in the year of our Lord 2022, you can't really detach social media from traditional media because they're wrapped so closely together in the way the information is disseminated or even down to like the ground level of how journalists find sources and follow leads and all that. I think that's part of the problem. I don't think he gives a crap about any of that. I think he has lost the plot. When he tweeted, "My pronouns are prosecute Fauci," I was like, oh, dear, we have crossed the Rubicon now. If I was on the board of Tesla, I'd be like, emergency meeting. We got to talk about this right now. He's going to drag everything else down with him. I just feel like he has been radicalized in this very, very, bizarre way. Considering who he is and his position inside Twitter right now and his other corporate responsibilities, I'm just very confused by his behavior. I don't even know if confused is the right word, but I am alarmed and I think that it is problematic on so many levels. And I think that we've clearly sort of progressed past Twitter is going to die. All that sort of alarmist handwringing over the last few weeks of all the staff is leaving and it's just going to get shut down, we're going to have it. He's just going to use it to perpetuate some very, very, hard right, extreme weird opinions. And that's really what we've got to decide what we're going to do about. It's just so bizarre.  

Beth [00:11:43] Well, you know I'm obsessed with White Lotus right now and have to talk about it in every conversation. And my girls were asking me what it's about and I said, "I think the thesis statement for seasons one and two is just that money doesn't buy happiness." And I think especially for season two, there is an element that Mike White is trying to communicate that oftentimes money incentivizes people to go looking for themselves in a lot of really strange places. When most things are okay in life, it's like we almost can't handle most things being okay and so we have to invent a whole lot of storylines for ourselves that involve a lot of conflict and drama. And that is what I see looking at Elon Musk. I could just as easily see him taking a hard turn toward a different political ideology or even a religious direction. My read of him right now is that this is a person who's a little bit lost and has everything and can't figure out how to be a person with everything who's a little bit lost.  

Sarah [00:12:42] Well, and that's just a very toxic place to be in. There is enough poor little rich girl, super famous celebrity titan of industry, just in a miserable golden cage of their own making. There are enough of those stories to fill a library. This is not a new situation that he finds himself in, but I just think this addition of Twitter is new and different. Although, I don't know, I guess you could go back and sort of look at some of the newspaper wars and the newspaper publishers and kind of find some through lines.  

Beth [00:13:15] Twitter is a pretty uniquely tough soup to spend all your time and headspace in. And watching him do things like the tweet about Fauci, you know that he is still trapped in I want the eyeballs. I want to occupy real estate in people's brains. I want to kind of pick at the people who I perceive as my enemies right now. And there is a version of Elon Musk owning Twitter and even having those views where it doesn't matter because the software works and people can be on Twitter believing what they believe and saying what they say and it being not a disruptive thing. I think there is a version of him saying to the world, I really wanted to take a look back at that decision to suppress the Hunter Biden story-- however you want to talk about it, the laptop story-- for a few days and I have. And I think it was a mistake and it's not something we're going to do again. And that would be fine. It is the the supercharged trolling of it all that I find so mystifying.  

Sarah [00:14:23] Yeah. I mean, I just think a man who can have almost anything he wants but doesn't actually know what he wants is particularly combustible.  

Beth [00:14:31] Drama might be a good segway to our third story that we want to just spend a few minutes on here-- well, that we feel we should spend a few minutes on here. Sarah doesn't want to spend a few minutes on this, and I totally understand that. I'm sure that you have heard the news that Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema has changed her party registration to Independent. Sarah, you know that I have a particular interest in sort of studying Kyrsten Sinema. And I did an episode of More To Say several months ago where I went back and watched a bunch of campaign commercials from when she was running for the Arizona state legislature. What is really interesting to me about what she did over the weekend is that it is kind of like launch week again. So what she wore in the commercial that she made about this change reminded me so much of those early day campaign launch commercials. She's back to the bob hairstyle blond instead of the sort of purple, the wigs and everything. This is a very buttoned up conservative look for her that resembles her early days as a politician, not some of the days that she's had over the past few years. Her tone of voice sounds like those initial commercials to me. Even listening to her talk to Jake Tapper, there's like an affect that sounds familiar to me. And so I don't pretend to know the reason that she did this. I take on faith that she was going to have a tough primary from a Democratic opponent and believes that she has a path to keep her seat as an independent. And that's fine. But it definitely, in terms of presentation, harkens back to me that she's running again and she feels like she has to launch a new campaign right now and that's what she's doing.  

Sarah [00:16:20] Yeah. I said on my premium channels if maybe my contribution to this could just be a lot of heavy sighs, because that's really how I feel about it. Just this sense of [Sighs] fine. Whatever. I think it is a very transparent political calculation. I don't have a lot of patience for all this language that that's absolutely not what it is with like a wink and a nod. It feels so silly and foolish. I don't think that Sinema is a villain. I do think that she's done a lot of good bipartisan work during her time in the Senate. And I also think the political reality is very difficult for her and she is responding. And it's just the dressing it up as something else that I cannot roll my eyes at hard enough.  

Beth [00:17:13] I really liked the way that Senator Schumer responded to this and the White House. Both said Kyrsten Sinema does a good job. She's been really important to some of the big things that we've done and we don't expect this to change much. I think that's perfect. And was really impressed with those responses and I think it's true. What's interesting to me about her, it's not even her, it is the fact that the parties are so much about vibes right now that there is this clash around her. Here's what I mean. If you look at her voting record, she's a very good Democrat. She votes with the party 90% of the time. She has been instrumental to brokering some of the bipartisan agreements that have enabled the Biden agenda to be so successful. It is a style difference flowing in both directions I think that a lot of the Democratic Party gets mad at her over her style in negotiations. I think she gets mad at them over their style in the way the party sort of positions itself. It feels like a branding conflict more than a substantive conflict. Even with media, she leaves a vacuum and so the media fills it with some some pretty negative coverage of her. And then she seems to want to stoke the media around her apparel choices and some of her decorum issues. So I just think she is a really good embodiment of how strange and choreographed a lot of what we see coming out of Washington, D.C. is.  

Sarah [00:18:53] Yeah, that's true. She's definitely her own sort of weird political Rorschach test for people. It also feels like such a blatant play for a news cycle and attention. That's the also the other reason I'm just kind of like, [Sighs] do we have to?  

Beth [00:19:10] Here's a question I really want to ask you. I find it bizarre watching coverage where this is both so disappointing to Democrats and so offensive and ridiculous and also really important. Also, it's because she has no electoral prospects for the next cycle, but also, oh, my gosh, she could cost us the seat. I think that the reality here is there is a constituency for at least the idea of an independent senator in Congress. I mean, we have two already, right? Bernie Sanders and Angus King serve as independents, totally different flavors from each other and from her of independent. But I could see in Arizona there being a constituency for this, which I think is what really drives the freak out. And I think there's something to learn from that because to me, again, if she can win as an independent when she has voted and negotiated as a Democrat, what does that tell us about the brand of the parties and what people are looking for and what voters mean when they say they like independents? I just think there are issues here that are more interesting than the psychology of her decision.  

Sarah [00:20:35] I mean, I think that the interesting question is also why are all the independent senators on the Democratic side?  

Beth [00:20:41] Yeah, absolutely.  

Sarah [00:20:42] I would definitely read an article about that. I don't think that she can win as an independent. That's just my not based in Arizona snap call. I think that's the frustration, is that she will cost votes enough to throw it to the right wing. Unless they nominate a complete lunatic-- which Arizona, love you-- but the Arizona Republican Party does seem to have a pattern of behavior in recent history. And so I think that's the frustration is like in an an effort to protect your own electoral prospects, you could cost that seat in the Senate which we'll just have to see. It's two years away. I think there are a lot of interesting conversations around independent senators and the nuns of the American political populists, the people who aren't registered as Republicans or Democrats or are registered as either very loosely. But I don't want that conversation to start with Sinema to be honest.  

Beth [00:21:39] Yeah, I feel a sense of reserving judgment on this all around because if she continues to behave the same way that she's behaved and vote the same way she's voted, and she is going to continue to serve on these committees and seems to be facilitating a cooperative dialog with Schumer as the majority leader, this could be a big nothing. And it seems wise to me to leave space for it to be a big nothing, instead of continuing to have a really antagonistic relationship with her, especially if you are a Democrat who would like to see more bipartisan legislation getting done over the next two years.  

Sarah [00:22:17] The problem is, if it's more of the same, then antagonism will continue because there's a big part of the Democratic Party that doesn't value bipartisanship in the way that Sinema does. And that's what this decision is reflective of.  

Beth [00:22:29] And I don't really understand that because there are not enough votes to get anything done in a way that's not bipartisan in the Senate right now. Wouldn't you rather have the infrastructure agreement? Wouldn't you rather have the Inflation Reduction Act? I know people hated the way she went about the Inflation Reduction Act negotiations that she is like in the pocket of venture capital and private equity. She did negotiate in a way that brought more revenue in. This is what bugs me. I understand people don't like her style and her vibe and her approach, but she's been pretty effective.  

Sarah [00:23:08] Well, it's two different conversations. It's a conversation about effective governance and it's a conversation about party politics. And they're just two different conversations a lot of the time.  

Beth [00:23:17] It's tough when you're in the majority, though. There can't really be two different conversations. When you're in the majority but you don't have 60, it's a blend.  

Sarah [00:23:25] Right. But I just think that that's people's frustration with her, especially going back to how this conversation started with how she started her campaign, is they just feel like it's a bait and switch. That's why people are frustrated with her. When you're talking about somebody that came from the far left wing of the party, like the green party, and now she wants to be Ms. independent bipartisanship, that's quite a journey to take people on. And I'm not sure she built enough trust along the way.  

Beth [00:23:48] Yeah, I don't know if the answer about her in particular is that a savvier politician could have made the moves that she's made without alienating as many people as she has alienated, or if we analyze her so differently because she is different, because she is a woman, because she came in with that green party background, because of the way she styles herself. I can't tell what's fair in the commentary about Senator Cinema. I just know that when I look at the substance of her, if I can get past all of the vibes and I look at the substance of her record and her work, I find a lot that I really appreciate and value. Okay. Well, we will continue to watch her journey-- I have no doubt-- into the new year. But right now we're going to take a turn and talk with Liam Niemeyer. Liam Niemeyer is a reporter covering environment and energy for the Kentucky Lantern, a new nonprofit independent newsroom in Kentucky that we are very excited about here at Pantsuit Politics.  

Sarah [00:24:52] Yes, and I know Liam because he used to report WKMS my local public radio station and did amazing work there. He wrote two incredible pieces on the one year anniversary of the tornadoes in western Kentucky. We're very committed here at Pantsuit Politcs to following this story. And so we invited Liam to talk to us about the tornadoes and the recovery happening in our communities. Welcome to Pantsuit Politics, Liam.  

Liam Niemeyer [00:25:26] Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it. Glad to be here from Murray, Kentucky.  

Sarah [00:25:31] Well, you've been doing some excellent reporting on the continued fallout from the tornado in 2021 and both Mayfield and Dawson Springs. I really appreciated how your pieces highlighted the role that poverty plays in the recovery. Mayfield has an estimated 35% of its population living below the poverty line. That's a huge proportion. And that was before the tornado. So I was so happy in your reporting to see you talk to Tom Waldrop, who has a heart for Mayfield in the way that I have a heart for Paducah. And he talked about it's almost like the tornado targeted low income housing. It was like a-- I think you call it-- a surgical strike. And so that has been a huge story as we continue to look at the recovery.  

Liam Niemeyer [00:26:18] Tom is a great guy and obviously was a great source for the story. And obviously he's been in Mayfield for a while. 

Sarah [00:26:27] His entire life. 

Liam Niemeyer [00:26:27] Yeah, basically over four decades as a realtor. So if there's any guy that knows Mayfield like the back of his hand, it's him. It was pretty incredible to hear people that know the community of Mayfield talk about the specific impacts that in terms of talking about the socioeconomic status of folks in Mayfield being an economically depressed place, the fact that most of the housing that was hit in Mayfield were lower income rentals, not even necessarily rentals that were subsidized in some way by the federal government, such as through like, let's say, Section Eight waivers. These were just generally rentals that were out on the market that were generally pretty cheap. We're talking 300, 400, 500 bucks a month for two or three bedrooms, some places that were affordable to folks that maybe had one income that wasn't even necessarily bringing in a whole amount of money. I think I mentioned in the story that the median income in Mayfield is around $36,000, which is around the income limit for a family of four to qualify for SNAP benefits for food stamps. I wanted to make sure that I was highlighting truly the economic struggles that a place like Mayfield has experienced even before the tornado while giving people the dignity of their own stories, their own lives.  

Sarah [00:28:01] I think it's just really valuable. This is the value of this long term reporting because when we see a natural disaster come in and we just hear people lost their homes, you don't get the texture of understanding that like 75% of the low income housing was wiped out. Right. And that's going to look different. That's going to look different in Fort Myers Beach, Florida where you're knocking out beachfront property. And I'm not trying to, like, do the suffering Olympics here, but I think that it's really important as we experience these natural disasters to continue to pay attention to them months and years later, because that's where you understand what does this really mean for the community on the ground there? And right now you're talking about this really difficult housing limbo. And you're seeing a lot of-- you reported on this-- a lot of nonprofits filling that need. You talked a lot about p Graves. How did that come about? Who's funding the nonprofits that are putting people in this housing limbo in some trailers.  

Liam Niemeyer [00:28:54] Sure. Camp Graves it's a nonprofit that I've been following since the beginning. It was started by a guy named Michael Sievers, who lives in Southern Graves County, a tiny, small community near Water Valley. And basically he ran a local barbecue place and he [Inaudible] control business, just just a guy in the community who saw the need for obviously this sort of transitional housing, this housing for folks in limbo. And he kind of sprung into action.  I was there in January this year when  he was just standing on his property out in the county just south of Mayfield. And he was just envisioning what he had imagined for the place in terms of just simply putting, I guess, tiny homes, trailers, just having a place for people to stay. And he had used his property as a place-- I believe it was a hunter's camp-- for youth who were dealing with troubles in their life also. And he was already doing that at that property. And so he just decided to build on that in December or January of this year. He was also on the front lines of one of the few people in terms of I guess if we talk about mutual aid groups and people who are doing mutual aid out in this part of the state, far western Kentucky, West Kentucky. He was on the front lines of giving people propane and getting people heating fuel all the way from Greaves County to Marshall County. He was all over this, I guess, eight county region in western Kentucky, just simply giving people the heating fuel that they needed. He was taking donations for that, but some of that was coming out of his own funding, I believe. And so, yeah, he's been pretty pivotal in terms of when you talk about people on the front lines who are seeing the needs and trying to meet those needs. He's been pivotal, but that doesn't mean they Camp Graves as a nonprofit hasn't faced its own challenges. And I didn't delve into this as much in my reporting and my most recent story, but they've been kind of hamstrung for funding in the fact that they haven't been a nonprofit for long. And anecdotally speaking, some of the nonprofits the foundations that they're applying for funding for to build some of these tiny homes and get travel trailers on the property and things like that, they've been struggling to get that funding to actually build out and finish some of these tiny homes. Some of the tiny homes that they have built already on the property, they haven't moved people in yet because they still have to get transformers on the property. And as you can imagine, home construction right now is very busy. And it's hard to get contractors, the people that you need to do inspections and whatnot to okay stuff and just simply build stuff. And so they face their own challenges, to say the least.  

Beth [00:32:01] Tell us a little bit about Dawson Springs. That's Mayfield. Tell us about Dawson Springs before the tornado and what the effect has been and what you're seeing in the aftermath.  

Liam Niemeyer [00:32:10] Yeah, of course, Dawson Springs is a small community in Hopkins County that gets its name in basically the foundation of what it is, because it used to be a resort spa town because of its mineral wells. It was kind of like era prosperity for the town. But, obviously, as the decades have gone by, that era has faded. And coal mining in Hopkins County where Dawson Springs is, the western Kentucky coal fields used to provide a lot more mining jobs than they do now. And basically Hopkins County, similar to Mayfield, is also generally speaking a more economically depressed place. It's seen industry leave the area. There was a large factory that I think supplied around close to 100 jobs. It was a plastics manufacturing facility and that left in the 2000. And when you're talking about a town of like, let's say, 3000, 2500 people, a hundred jobs is huge.  

Sarah [00:33:21] A lot. Yeah.  

Liam Niemeyer [00:33:21] Especially in terms of when you're talking about the income multiplier effect of money going back into that community. And when the tornado came through-- and just to keep in mind for folks that aren't aware, this tornado that hit Mayfield also hit Dawson Springs.   

Sarah [00:33:38] Yes. It was a long tornado and it kept going.  

Liam Niemeyer [00:33:40] Yeah, it was over 155 miles. It was just ridiculous in terms of the length and breadth of the destruction that it caused to so many communities beyond just Dawson Springs and Mayfield. We're talking about Princeton. We're talking about Brennan.  

Sarah [00:34:02] Bowling Green.  

Liam Niemeyer [00:34:03] Yeah, Bowling Green too. When the tornado came through, it destroyed something like 75% of the housing stock that was there. I talked about housing in Mayfield, but housing is just as much of an issue in Dawson Springs as it is in Mayfield. The story that I did in Dawson Springs had more of an economic development focus just in the fact that how do you find a way forward? How do you rally together as a community when in a place that wasn't really providing jobs, to begin with, that can really support and sustain families? A lot of people before the tornado in Dawson Springs were commuting out to places like Hopkinsville or places like Princeton or Paducah for work because that's where simply the jobs were. And it remains a question to some.  

Beth [00:34:57] Well, you talked about the impact of 100 jobs in a community like this. And then you wrote about how 19 of the people who died in these tornadoes were from Dawson Springs. And that's a lot of people in a small community too. I wonder kind of what you're seeing in terms of how people are emotionally rebounding and how tied up that is with the economic development? I was touched by some of the folks that you talk to who have small businesses and how difficult this is for them to figure out how do I contribute to my community in a way that we can keep going?  

Liam Niemeyer [00:35:28] To say the least, the trauma is very much still there. I remember during my interviews with folks that there would be moments where they'd be talking about that person's home being destroyed or people that they knew that lost their lives in the tornado, and they'd be saying it in sort of a casual way, recounting it, and then all of a sudden it would hit them. The emotion of that night would hit them and they'd realize everything that they've been through. It's obviously going to take years to rebuild the communities in terms of housing, which, again, housing is something that we can all see. We can all see walls going up, roofs being repaired, things like that. It's harder to see jobs come back and where jobs are simply going to come from, which was kind of one of my main points in the Dawson Springs piece. Like I mentioned just a moment ago, it's also going to take a long time for people just to heal emotionally. This is a life changing event that is going to stay with people their entire lives. And that's something that Jenny Sewell-- long time Dawson Springs  resident. She runs the local funeral home there in Dawson Springs, and she's the incoming mayor. But just the fact that she mentioned that she ran the local chamber of Commerce for 14 years, she's very economically minded. But she prefaced all of this to say that for all this talk about bringing jobs back to the area or bringing new economic development back into the area, you can't really do all that until you've given enough time and space for people to heal enough to begin to look towards the future. And just a year after the tornado that's not nearly enough time at all. I was there the morning after the tornado came through Mayfield and it was completely transformed. It was unrecognizable. And no one deserves that. No one.  

Beth [00:37:40] Well, I know this kind of reporting has a personal cost to the people doing it. So thank you very much for staying with it and for sharing what you've seen with us here.  

Liam Niemeyer [00:37:50] Of course. And I appreciate you making some time for me just to talk about this. And I hope that word about the stories and  the folks that are still struggling out here can reach a wider audience. There's still obviously people struggling in eastern Kentucky, too, and elsewhere in the country. As we're facing a future with disasters that are fueled by climate change, we're unfortunately more likely to see more of these natural disaster type of events in the future.  

Beth [00:38:25] Thank you to Liam for spending time with us. We will continue to keep you updated on the recovery from the tornadoes in western Kentucky, and appreciate all of the care and concern that you have extended to those communities. We're always on the show talking about what's on our minds Outside of Politics. And right now it's just December, so it's everything. All the things are happening in December and we are particularly preparing for some holiday parties. Are you doing your annual open house this year?  

Sarah [00:39:01] Absolutely. Never miss a year. Have never missed a year. Even during COVID, we had an outdoor hot chocolate stand where people could even drive by and pick up a little hot chocolate kit or stand outside around bonfires because we love our annual holiday open house. We held it the Sunday before Christmas every year. And it is a Holland family tradition. It brings us a lot of joy.  

Beth [00:39:23] Okay. So tell me about it. What hours do you do it? What kind of foods do you put out? Are there activities? Like how do you plan in your open house?  

Sarah [00:39:30] Okay, so it's just an open house in a pure sense. Our home is open to you from 1:00 to 4:00. We have a table full of what we in the South call heavy orders. Just some like dips. Nicholas usually makes a couple of finger foods. I make a dessert and we have some cookies, so it's just a table of some sweet and savory treats. We have eggnog, we have some drinks, and then people just come and go as they please between the 3 hours. Some people will come at the very beginning and just pop in and out. Some people will come and stay for an hour. And it's really fun because it's just an open house, so it's really not about coming to see us. It's the most fun to watch people visit with each other. And so that's really the the setup. There are no activities. There's no sort of pre-ordained schedule. It's just our home. Our doors are open from 1:00 to 4:00, please come and stop by if you can.  

Beth [00:40:18] I love that. We have a best dinner party plan. I've talked about this before on the podcast. So best dinner is just the idea that a listener gave me on Instagram. You just bring your favorite thing. You just bring a dish that you love, and then we don't coordinate at all. So if everyone brought a different kind of potato dish, it would just be a potato feast. And that would be fine. [Crosstalk] If it was all dessert, it's fine. And so the spontaneity of it is really lovely. So we're doing that and also doing favorite things. Everybody's bringing three gifts of their favorite thing. And there's going to be a little switcheroo that my friend Michael is going to run because I don't understand how gift exchanges work at all. My head cannot do it. So I'm really pleased that he is going to host that part of it.  

Sarah [00:41:03] Well, we're having a couple other parties. I'm going to have some friends over, girlfriends, over for a mug exchange. And then another friend of mine, we're going to have just a get together in the new year. We love a holiday party around these parts. I love a holiday party. Let me just talk everyone through. Dirty Santa/white elephan/gift exchanges. I feel like people over complicat it. You number the participants, you draw numbers, you go in that order. Things can be exchanged once a round. That's it. That's where I feel like people get confused. Like you can just exchange it once around, you can't keep changing it back and forth. Now some people add an additional layer of complexity and they say a gift can only be exchanged three times total over the entirety of the game. I do not play that way. You are welcome to if you want to, but that's about it. I don't understand why everybody adds all this complexity. I think it is a recipe for conflict, which is supposed to be sort of the fun. But if you're like an Enneagram nine, I understand why that gives you heartburn.  

Beth [00:42:01] Well, I put my fingers in my ears while you were going through that, because I just can't. I can't do the rules. I don't understand how they work, and I'm just accepting it and embracing it.  

Sarah [00:42:10] The favorite thing is it's fun though. I did that with my book club one year and it was very fun.  

Beth [00:42:16] I like that a lot. We are having a New Year's party. Our friends Jen and Brian are hosting Christmas Eve and they make a pinata for Christmas Eve every year, which is super duper fun. So we have lots to look forward to. What do you think is the most essential ingredient for a good holiday party? Is there one essential ingredient?  

Sarah [00:42:37] Food. Food is the essential ingredient-- food and music. I like a background music. I also like a low lighting. I like a nice lighting. I think that's underrated during party hosting. I do like a background music. I am particular to a jazzy Christmas playlist. But, yeah, I think food is just the central component. I have to work so hard every year to keep people out of my kitchen during my open house. I will literally turn the lights off and put the food and drinks in other rooms and still everybody crowds in there. People love it. I mean, it's just probably like deep, deep in our brain stems, right? People gather. Food. That's it.  

Beth [00:43:15] Go to the fire. Yes.  

Sarah [00:43:17] Yes. Go to the heating element. Eat.  

Beth [00:43:19] I think that's true. For me, the essential ingredient is just letting go of needing to take pictures of the whole thing. I make better food if I'm not concerned about photographing it. I have a better time if I'm not trying to capture everybody doing everything. I feel so much better about all of it if I'm not thinking about decorating too much. I'm just like I decorated my home for Christmas, I'm done. That's all I'm doing. Really putting my phone down helps tremendously.  

Sarah [00:43:49] Yeah, I'm very blessed that Nicholas takes care of almost all the food for our holiday parties. That is an enormous lift, and I don't have to do anything about it. And it's fabulous. So I can spend more time on that sort of party vibe and the decorating and making sure everything's the way I want it to. And I really try to at least one moment think, oh, there's a lot of people right here, snap a few pictures. Because I do want to memorialize it in our yearly photo book. So I don't try to capture every moment, but I do try to take a moment and just like sweep the room, take some pictures, and then I've got it captured. But it is hard and it goes so fast, like, when we're welcoming everybody in. Do you want a drink? And can I take your coat? Just constantly shuffling people through the door and you look up and it's been 4 hours. It's crazy. It goes so fast.  

Beth [00:44:31] Well, we'd love to hear about your celebrations and your gatherings. We hope that you're spending lots of time with people you enjoy this December. We would love to have you attend our community holiday party this Thursday night. It is for our premium members. You can sign up through Apple Podcasts subscriptions or Patreon. The links to do that are in the show notes. We cannot wait to see you there and we will be back in your ears on Friday. Until then, have the best week available to you.  

[00:45:12] Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our managing director.  

Sarah [00:45:18] Maggie Penton is our community engagement manager. Dante Lima is the composer and performer of our theme music.  

Beth [00:45:24] Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers.  

Executive Producers (Read their own names) [00:45:28] Martha Bronitsky. Allie Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sara Greenup. Julie Heller. Helen Handley. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holladay. Katie Johnson. Katina Zuganelis Kasling. Barry Kaufman. Molly Kohrs. Katherine Vollmer. Laurie LaDow. Lilly McClure. Linda Daniel. Emily Neesley. The Pentons. Tawni   Peterson. Tracy Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katie Stigers. Karen True. Onica Ulveling. Nick and Alysa Vilelli. Amy Whited. Emily Helen Olson. Lee Chaix McDonough.  

Beth [00:46:05] Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Michelle Wood. Joshua Allen. Morgan McCue. Nicole Berklas. Paula Bremer and Tim Miller.  

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