Ketanji Brown Jackson Goes to Congress

TOPICS DISCUSSED

  • Commemorating Madeleine Albright

  • Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson Nomination Hearings

  • Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian on China’s Role in the Ukrainian War

  • Outside of Politics: The Oscars and Don’t Look Up

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EPISODE RESOURCES

UPCOMING EXCITING PROJECTS AT PANTSUIT POLITICS

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT

JUDGE KETANJI BROWN JACKSON

BETHANY ALLEN-EBRAHIMIAN

TRANSCRIPT

Beth [00:00:00] Well, Bethany, I wonder if you could start by helping us think about the relationship that China has with Russia and really take us back in time before this invasion, maybe back before even Russia started its activity in Crimea? How were those two countries viewing one another and how has that evolved? 

Bethany [00:00:20] I can take you back even further. 

Sarah [00:00:28] This is Sarah Stewart Holland. 

Beth [00:00:30] And this is Beth Silvers. 

Sarah [00:00:32] Thank you for joining us for Pantsuit Politics. 

Beth [00:00:48] Hello, and thank you so much for joining us here at Pantsuit Politics, where we try to take a different approach to the news. Today, we're going to talk about the historic confirmation hearings underway for Judge Katanji Brown Jackson, President Biden's nominee to replace Justice Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court. Then we're going to turn our focus back to Ukraine, but a little different angle. We're going to share our conversation with Bethany Allen Ebrahamian from Axios about China and how the Chinese Communist Party fits into our understanding of the war in Ukraine. Finally, with the Oscars coming, Sarah, one of your favorite times of year. 

Sarah [00:01:19] It's my favorite time of year. It's my March Madness 

Beth [00:01:22] And then listener Lizzie's request, we're going to talk about Best Picture nominee, Don't Look Up and it's messaging. But, first, we're really excited about our book. Sarah, do you want to tell them where we are? 

Sarah [00:01:33] Yes. Now What? is launching in less than six weeks. These last few weeks before launch are so important to the success of our book, and we need your help. First, if you haven't preordered the book yet, it would mean so much to us if you would do that through your favorite book retailer. You can find a link to do that in our show notes. And, second, once you preorder the book, we would love for you to join our launch team. This is an exclusive group. We'll be popping in from time to time over there, doing some Facebook lives with this group. You get to read the book early, you help us spread the word about the book, you help us successfully launch the book; hence, why it's called a launch team. There is also a link to sign up for the launch team in our show notes. So any help you can give, greatly appreciated. 

Beth [00:02:10] My friend Jen is so good at saying that she's going to be my hype person and I feel like the launch team is like our hype people. 

Sarah [00:02:16] That's right. 

Beth [00:02:16] Many of you have asked what you can do to help, so here it is. Thank you so much. Before we talk about a historic nominee to the Supreme Court, we need to commemorate the life of another woman who made history. On Wednesday, Madeleine Albright died at the age of 84. She was the first woman to serve as secretary of state. She was nominated by President Clinton, first to serve as representative to the UN and then to lead the State Department. And that made her, at the time, the highest ranking woman in the history of American government. And her personal back story is so touching, Sarah, I wondered what all stood out to you about her career and her life story? 

Sarah [00:03:03] Yeah, her history is amazing. Her parents were Czech refugees. They fled the Nazis. They raised her as a Roman Catholic during World War Two to protect all of them. So her early childhood and just my favorite anecdote about Madeleine Albright is the way she would use her pens to communicate like her mood or strategy. Apparently, it all started when Saddam Hussein called her a serpent, and so she started wearing a serpent pendant. And then she was like, "Well, this is fun. Maybe I could do this for lots of things." Like, I just think it's just clever but also fun way to, I guess, flip on its head the idea that everybody is probably watching what the first secretary, female secretary of state, is wearing anyway and so why not use it to your advantage? Why not make it fun for you as well? I just think  it's reflective. You know, because sometimes it was communicated, like, do not mess with me today. Well, she had a real vibe like that, which I also appreciated. You know, she was just brilliant and such a history maker and incredible, incredible, diplomat and thinker on the world stage. And she will be missed, for sure. 

Beth [00:04:14] I keep her book, Fascism: A Warning, on the shelf behind me where I work every day. And I wanted to hear this paragraph from the preface, which I think she wrote in 2018 because I felt like, one, it was highly relevant to everything we're talking about today. And, two, because it feels representative to me of how incisive and direct and thoughtful she was. "According to an old Czech saying, it's no trick to make soup from a fish, but making a fish out of soup is a challenge. In the chapters to come, I argue that ambitious, often arrogant leaders are intentionally undermining the institutions and democratic principles that have held the world together through much of my life. Without offering anything real or better, they ask us to abandon the ideals of international cooperation, political pluralism, civil discourse, critical thinking and truth. The longer these false prophets have their way, the more damage they will wreak and the more difficult it will be to heal the wounds they are opening. The trend is worldwide, and among those most directly affected are Americans. 

[00:05:20] Madeleine Albright will be missed. But from one historic commemoration to another, president Biden has nominated Judge Katanji Brown Jackson to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer as an associate justice on the Supreme Court. And it seemed like a good time to talk more about her. We've only briefly touched on this nomination, but there's a lot to say because she has a resume really similar to what we're used to in Supreme Court justices, but also brings a variety of new and fresh perspectives, many of which have been kind of spelled out for us and in really beautiful ways during her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

Sarah [00:05:56] Yeah. She's only 51 years old, another young justice joining the court. Her parents were public school administrators, so she is one of the few justices that went to public school. The rest went to Catholic school. She also, fun trivia fact, went to the same high school as Jeff Bezos, which I thought was fascinating. She is a very elite resume as far as her college and law school education. She went to Harvard for undergrad, Harvard for Law School. She was the editor of the Harvard Law Review. She's worked in private practice, as well as clerking for federal judges including Justice Breyer. So she has a very elite resume. 

Beth [00:06:33] She does, and in addition to that, her life story is compelling, you know, she talked about her dad going to law school and him having a stack of law books on the table next to her stack of coloring books. She has an uncle who served as Miami's police chief. She has another uncle who was sentenced to life in prison in Florida for a nonviolent drug offense. That sentence was commuted by President Obama. So just lots of life experience, and some of that is coming up in these hearings in terms of her time as a public defender, in terms of her experience on the bench and how she sentenced criminal defendants. I think the salient thing to note about, particularly the Republican questioning of her in these hearings, is that biography is not the issue. 

[00:07:18] Everyone understands that she is qualified to serve on the court. Well qualified. In fact, I think as we're recording, there are experts from the American Bar Association  otherwise testifying about how well-qualified she is to serve on the court. And so having nothing biographical to go after, having nothing in her qualifications to go after, there is a real attempt to narrow in on specific moments in her career. To make policy points. To score political points. But as citizens, I think we should feel comforted that this isn't like a food fight over her personal integrity or her academic pedigree. Instead, it is just a food fight because we have decided that's what we do in committee hearings. 

Sarah [00:08:07] Yeah. It's not an accident, though, that she can forcefully and aggressively defend herself against these very spurious  teeny, tiny, piecemeal. Well, let me pull out this one thing from several years ago or this one thing or this one piece of this decision or this sentence. You said this at this sentencing hearing. Like, she just sits there calmly taking deep measured breaths and responding very, very, carefully often quoting Justice Amy Coney Barrett or Justice Kavanaugh answers at their confirmation hearings. I thought that was a very interesting approach that she's taken and very smart approach. 

[00:08:47] I did want to ask you, Beth, I think the one thing she said that sort of got my attention was when asked about sort of her guidelines around interpreting constitutional law, she said, "Well, this court has made clear that we interpret the Constitution basically in an originalist way. We look at what the people who wrote it meant and what the limitations of that time period." I certainly didn't expect her to say that. And I couldn't tell if she was just saying like, that's what they do. That's what this court has decided as the approach, or if she was just like describing it or saying like, well, because that's the way they do it, that's why we all do it. 

Beth [00:09:21] I think it was Senator Sasse who asked her what Supreme Court justice she models herself after, and she declined to answer that and said that she follows her own compass. So I hate to do to her what she declined to do herself, but I'm going to do that for a second and say that that answer and many of her answers reminded me of Justice Kagan. Where you have this kind of long term strategy in mind about protecting the institution, about making sure that you are absolutely consistent in the way that you approach answering questions like this and then approach taking cases on. Because Justice Kagan, you can see, is in for fierce protection of precedent. 

[00:10:04]  And she's like in for a penny and a pound, as my grandmother would have said. And I think that we got some indication that Justice Jackson might follow that path. I think her temperament in these hearings also feels very Kagan esque to me. That she is doing her best to show a real respect for everyone in the process, a real understanding that she would be a Supreme Court justice, not just for the progressive left, but for everyone. And if you read Justice Kagan's opinions, I think that that's really the approach she tries to take too. She's really holds her cards close. Her legal analysis is very sharp. What I have read of Judge Jackson's opinions as a circuit and district judge indicate that to me as well. So I find that encouraging. 

Sarah [00:10:56] And as much as we've spent on the ways in which she is similar to the current Supreme Court justices and pedigree, it is important to point that there are ways that she is very dissimilar. Obviously, she is a historic nominee because she would be the first black woman to serve on the Supreme Court and, very importantly, the first public defender. And that's why this was an easy opening to talk about criminal defense Democrats being soft on crime. But it is sort of equally depressing to me that she is the first black woman and the first public defender because those are just massive important perspectives to American life that have been missing from the court until this moment. 

[00:11:40] The fact that we would have a Supreme Court for hundreds of years that wouldn't have the perspective of defendants, people who are tasked with defending those at the mercy of our criminal justice system is just incredible. And in the same way, the fact that we have never had a black woman on the Supreme Court to bring that incredibly important perspective, it's not an accident to me that we're having so many conversations about the future of the court, the integrity of the court. And we're just now basically just beginning to plug these massive holes in the ship, right? Now, one of the ship is sinking because it's been missing these very important perspectives. 

Beth [00:12:24] I was talking to my 11-year-old daughter about this, and I ask her if she knew what a public defender was. She did not. So we talked about the Miranda warning that she has seen in movie after movie. And here's what that part where you have a right to an attorney and one will be provided if you can't afford it means. And I said, what you should know is somebody trying to figure out would she be a good Supreme Court justice or not is that public defenders take so many cases. They go to court more than almost anybody. They try so many cases. They actually get experience that if you work at a big law firm you only dream of, because those cases settle, they get tied up in discovery forever. Public defense is where the action happens, and it's a huge variety of cases and a huge swath of the public that you interact with. 

[00:13:11] And what I think is really encouraging and hopeful about her as a Supreme Court justice, about anyone with this experience as a Supreme Court justice, but especially her, is that we want people to sit on the court who would represent a detainee at Guantanamo Bay because they are so committed to the rights enumerated in the Constitution. They are so committed to the idea that everyone coming up against the government deserves to be treated by the government in a way that honors those rights. I talked about a Supreme Court case, a recent decision on More to Say this week, that involved a Guantanamo Bay detainee and it just became so clear to me thinking about him. Here is a person who has done terrible things, and it's awful when you have a person who's done terrible things. But when you have a government that does terrible things, that is more significant socially. 

[00:14:07] And so to have somebody sit on the court who has said, "I will stand up against the government doing terrible things even to a terrible person," I really appreciate that. So we hope that Judge Jackson will be confirmed quickly and that we can all celebrate that new level of representation on the Supreme Court. We're going to turn our attention now to Ukraine. There was a piece from David French this week. I feel like we have mentioned this about David French. He just keeps coming up in our conversations. He's really written some excellent pieces lately. And he talked about how American attention on Ukraine is waning and what a danger that is for the Ukrainian people. So we don't want to contribute to that problem. 

[00:14:49] We want to sustain our focus even though it is difficult and we want to try to understand different angles. So, today, you're going to hear a conversation with Bethany Alan Ebrahimian, the China reporter at Axios. Bethany  high impact investigations, exclusives and analysis about China, with a focus on how China projects power and influence beyond its own borders. And we really appreciated her insights. Well, Bethany, I wonder if you could start by helping us think about the relationship that China has with Russia and really take us back in time before this invasion, maybe back before even Russia started its activity in Crimea. How were those two countries viewing one another and how has that evolved? 

Bethany [00:15:47] I can take you back even further. I can take you back to the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. So for the first 15-20 years after the founding of the People's Republic, meaning after the Chinese Communist Party took over, China had a very, very, close relationship with the Soviet Union. And the Soviet Union sent scientists, sent assistance was really China's big brother. TVery, very, close relationship there. And China was very reliant on the Soviet Union, especially in the early years before China had diplomatic recognition from a lot of other countries. 

[00:16:22] But then I believe it was in the late 60s around there, there was something called the Sino-Soviet split. And I won't really get into the reasons for that. It was somewhat ideological, other stuff. But, basically, it is what it sounds like. China and Russia had a big diplomatic split. And so for a couple of decades, you know, relations between them were not close. And that's actually one of the things that played into the US eventually recognizing China because they saw this as a strategic opening to kind of pull apart the the communist bloc a little bit. 

Sarah [00:16:53] And we get Nixon's visit to China. And that was sort of the strategy there. 

Bethany [00:16:57] That's right.  

Sarah [00:16:58] Okay. That makes a lot of sense. 

Bethany [00:16:59] Yeah. And another complicating factor in their relationship that lasted well beyond the fall of the Soviet Union, was some territorial disputes. China and Russia share a very, very, long border and have numerous small territorial disputes that caused some minor skirmishes over the years, I think, even into the 90s. But by the 2000s, China and Russia had finally resolved those. Territorial disputes between two countries serve as a real irritant in relations, and it's often hard for two countries to  build a really strong relationship and build really strong trust when they have that kind of ongoing friction on their border. So by clearing up those territorial disputes and resolving them, that set the stage for Moscow and Beijing to start building, to start really going somewhere with their relationship. 

[00:17:55] And that also approximately coincided with China's gradual turn towards a more hard-line authoritarianism. We can trace that to around 2008, but really, in 2012, when Xi Jinping became general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. And in 2012, an important year for that, 2014 with Russia's annexation of Crimea, that was a very important event in the Russia-China relationship. Because Putin relied on China at that time because there were some initial Western sanctions on Russia. And that was when the mood towards Russia, the perspective on Russia in the West really started to change. It was a pretty shocking event. And I remember in 2014 seeing the word Annexation and hearing the headline, and I was like, I haven't seen that. Like, this feels like World War Two to me. When did people in Europe get annexed. And so that pushed Russia closer to China. 

[00:19:08] And that sort of closer relationship is something that Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin have really worked towards and built in the past eight years. Their personal relationship is very strong and very close. I can't remember the exact number of bilateral visits they've had with each other in recent years, it's like up in the double digits, 14 or something like that. It's not for show. They really get each other. There's a certain authoritarian learning curve that they share where they're learning from each other. Russia is learning from China's crackdown on the internet. China is learning from Russia's use of online disinformation operations.  And the thing that really ties them rather than actual shared values, for example, or specific shared strategic interests, is that they're both opposed to the US-led liberal world order. 

[00:20:05] To the extent that it exists, even though it's it's not perfect. But that exists and they don't want it to, or they want it to be greatly weekend. They both share that goal, and they both are very useful to each other in providing opposing parallel challenges to Europe and to the West. 

Sarah [00:20:25] So that brings us through this warming. We come to the opening of the Olympics and we have the no limits partnership. And in the context of that close relationship, I also have to believe that China probably felt like the rest of the world like this was going to go a lot more like Crimea and less like a full scale invasion that led to this alliance of the West. And so I wonder now how Xi Jinping feels about that relationship. I wonder if there's so much analysis that talks about how China values stability but Russia doesn't, if he's seen the sort of inherent weaknesses in this relationship. 

Bethany [00:21:07] I mean, I think you're exactly right that China's top leadership, and frankly, Russia's top leadership probably did not anticipate how fierce they push back in Ukraine would be, how fierce the resistance would be and how strong and unified the response of the West would be. My guess is that China's top leadership, but this would be more like the annexation of Crimea and that we would see a similar pattern. A little bit of fighting, kind of a little bit of an ongoing low level unrest resulting from that. The US and Europe being kind of displeased and slapping a few symbolic sanctions but not doing much more. But this was just such a fundamentally different reaction. So I don't really love it when I hear people say China is in a tough position because, no, they could just not support a dictator. 

[00:22:07] You know, they're putting themselves in that position. But I think they definitely want to have their cake and eat it, too. And that is a very fine needle that they're having to thread by doing that. They do not want Russia to collapse. They don't want Putin to be pushed out of the leadership because that would leave China as the sole major national security threat and a strategic threat to the US and Europe, which would unify their West ability to push back against China. China finds Putin very useful. But they also realize that they they don't want to alienate Europe. Up until the past couple of years, China has managed to keep Europe. To convince them that all China wants is a nice trade relationship, that they're not a threat, that they don't need to be pushed back against. And Europe in the past couple of years has started to kind of wake up to the kind of major challenge that China does actually pose to values and to the liberal order. But there are certainly far behind the US and that realization. And China would like to keep them that way. China has publicly encouraged Europe to pursue strategic autonomy, which is the idea that Europe should pursue a foreign policy that's separate from the US. 

[00:23:42] So Xi Jinping wants both of those things. You know, he wants to have a good relationship with Europe, and he wants Russia to continue to be strong. That is what he cares about. He does not care about Ukraine. The Chinese Communist Party doesn't actually really care about what happens to Ukraine. It doesn't really care about the suffering of the Ukrainian people or about the loss of chunks of Ukraine, the loss of their sovereign territory. And in fact, there have been a number of people speculating about how much China is learning about this vis-a-vis Taiwan. I wouldn't overdo that comparison, but I certainly don't think it's bad for China, for how it views its future, for there to be a precedent of a revanchist revisionist, authoritarian power, taking a chunk of territory that it views as rightfully its own. That would not be harmful to China's goals for itself. That's the reason for what appears to be a kind of waffling on China's part or a kind of strategic ambiguity. 

Sarah [00:24:48] That's interesting. 

Beth [00:24:49] You anticipated my question because I'm going to think about the phrase authoritarian learning curve for a while. And we keep hearing, you know, China is watching as it relates to Taiwan. We don't really hear a lot of like the people of Taiwan are watching. Do you think there is a learning on that side of the equation vis-a-vis Ukraine? 

Bethany [00:25:08] Oh, absolutely. I'm in close touch with quite a number of people in Taiwan who are very concerned about the Taiwan's future, and they are most definitely watching the world's response to Ukraine. They're watching Beijing's response to Ukraine. And they're watching the Ukrainian response to Ukraine. How are Ukrainian people pleading their case on the global stage? How is the Ukrainian government fighting Russian disinformation? To what extent has the West stood up for Ukraine and where have they not? In one place where they haven't is, for example, in creating a no-fly zone over Ukraine, which is what Ukrainians really want. So that's one thing the West hasn't done, but there has been a very strong, unified economic response. 

[00:25:56] You know, some of this is, as I said, the comparison is a bit limited because China's economy is 10 times the size of Russia's. And Russia is already the largest economy to ever be shut out of the global economy in its way to these kind of sanctions. It's not possible to do that to China. It's just not possible. And it's just as it's not possible to do it to the US. You know, we invaded Iraq. and nobody wanted us to do that, and we did not suffer crushing sanctions because it's not possible. So in Taiwan's case, there will not be. It's extremely unlikely there would be such a strong and unified economic response. And Taiwanese people know that 

Sarah [00:26:37] I'm struck by when  we talk about this and you say 'They', the Chinese Communist Party. We don't use they a lot when we talk about Russia because Vladimir Putin is so isolated and the reporting is that it's gotten worse through COVID. I was listening to an expert and they said, like, we know what happens if Xi Jinping passes away. Like, we understand the process and how the replacement will come about. We don't have that in Russia. We don't know what happens if something happens to Vladimir Putin. And so that tells me there's influence, there's elites, there's a wider sort of conversation surrounding him and there is Vladimir Putin. And I'm wondering what they're taking and what the conversation is there. 

[00:27:20] I read some reporting that there's been a lot of attention, particularly in the lead up to the invasion, when there was so much public disclosure of intelligence and intelligence penetration inside Russian circles. I'm sure the Chinese are watching that wondering how  deep does that go inside our circles? I agree with you that that's not possible in China, but I do think under certain global pressure you could see private corporations leaving China. I wonder if they're watching that. Do you have a sense of how sort of the elites inside the Chinese Communist Party and inside the Chinese economy are thinking or influence seen Xi Jinping, especially as he heads into a pretty unprecedented third term? 

Bethany [00:27:58] That's a great question, and now we're getting into the territory of Beijing palace intrigue, you know, elite power politics in China which is a very fascinating topic, totally different from Western power politics, to be sure. The thing to understand about China is that it's a Leninist system, which means that it's a top down, very heavily bureaucratic party control with very strong inner party discipline. And the system that emerged after the Cultural Revolution when Mao Zedong was in power, which was an extreme cult of the personality where one man had an enormous amount of power and wreaked havoc because of that, because there was no one powerful enough to check him. The system that emerged after that was something called, I guess, a rule by consensus or a kind of a consensus based leadership where there was strong discouragement to have cult of the personality again. 

[00:28:58] And there was the Politburo Standing Committee, which is, I think, nine people. A small number of people. That is the real power base. And while there's a general secretary, it's the kind of a rule by consensus of those top leaders without a lot of visibility into the debates and the arguments that they're having. What has happened under Xi Jinping is that he has kind of shredded that. So there is a real call to the personality now in China, very much centered around Xi Jinping. And his power consolidation means that he really is calling the shots. He has marginalized and felt any sense of opposition within the party to his power. In terms of elites, are there groups in China, you know, powerful elites who inform what he does? That's a problem. I mean, he has advisers but he has been very intent on making sure that no one can force him to do something that he doesn't want to do. And there's a real risk here. He's gone so far with it. 

[00:30:14] And this is why things happen so badly under under Chairman Mao in the 1960s and 70s. Is that people can't give him better advice. They can't really push back against him. And there's a really good example of this that kind of emerged actually over the weekend. We hear very little now about inner party debates on these major issues. However, there was an article that was published in Chinese with an English translation on a US-based website. Small US-based website over the weekend by someone named Hu Wei, who is a top research adviser to China's State Council, which is the highest government governing body, not the party governing body. And he made a very, very, strong,  really striking criticism of China's policy regarding Ukraine. Now, he didn't use the name Xi Jinping, but China's policy regarding Ukraine is Xi Jinping's policy regarding Ukraine. 

[00:31:08] And he said, here's what's going to happen if we do not join with the West in their opposition to Russia, we are going to be isolated. We're going to anger everyone was going to unite a bloc against us. We cannot do this. Also, Russia is losing. There's no way for them to win. We don't want to be on the losing side here. That's really unusual. That is really, really, rare to hear that kind of criticism. This is speculation, but my guess is that he took this risk publishing this because he feels so desperate about it. Because he wanted to get some attention. because no one is listening to him. And I don't know what's going to happen to him, but you can get a sense there of that sort of inter-party silence really.

Beth [00:31:49] Wow. I was struck reading about that article in your newsletter this morning, Bethany, and how you said, here's what to watch for what happens to this person. And that leads me to ask you about the way that China uses information. I feel as an American, especially in the midst of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, like an unwilling student in a long seminar about what disinformation really looks like. And I think we're getting a better sense here in the United States of what it looks like for a government to put propaganda out into the stream in well disguised ways. I still don't think we have any sense of what the censorship side of this, what China does really well looks like and what it means. Can you put that in some context for us? And maybe if you're willing, even share, I think you've had some personal experience with this as well. I would love to hear about that. 

Bethany [00:32:43] China has done the thing that people thought was impossible, that President Clinton said would be like nailing Jell-O to the wall, which is censoring the internet. Truly blocking out, stamping out opinions, that a government doesn't like. And China has become extremely good at that, extremely successful of that. They've institutionalized that throughout not just their law, but also inside of private corporations. And as a result of that, you know, propaganda and censorship are kind of a one two punch for controlling public opinion. And I always try to tell people that the reason governments like China poor literally billions and billions of dollars to this is because it works. It works. And in China, around the Ukraine issue, for example, what we've seen is very intense censorship of pro-Ukraine opinions, even even facts. Just basic facts that cast the Russian invading army in a negative light. 

[00:33:49] So censorship of information about maternity hospitals being bombed, children's hospitals being bombed, this kind of thing. And on top of that, an enormous wave of pro-Russia information being amplified by Chinese state media and online influences and Chinese government officials. So the Chinese internet and the entire Chinese information ecosystem, if you were just awash in it and not really trying to figure out what's really going on, it will  appear to you as though the US and NATO have been provocateurs, the Russian Army is trying to free Ukraine from Nazis and is exhibiting remarkable restraint. It's trying to help Ukrainians, etc. And that's what you will really believe. Why are they doing that? Why are they doing that on this particular case? And  there's a really important concept here to understand, which is that the Chinese government does not want to face domestic pressure to change their policy. 

[00:34:51] So if Chinese people were to realize or just understand the the enormous civilian cost to just normal people, normal families in Ukraine, and to understand that this was truly an actual invasion, that it's a war and that it was unprovoked, Chinese people are human beings just like the rest of us. They would get extremely upset. And that would put pressure on Xi Jinping to change his policy, which would restrain his ability to make choices on the international stage. And he doesn't want that. So that's the point in this case of that kind of pressure. The question of disinformation Chinese government does use disinformation domestically, although we've tended to call that more like propaganda. So like TV airings of forced confessions, for example. This information is something that the Russian government has really perfected. And I think, you know, some analysis of that would be because it's more useful in an environment where you have fewer controls. 

[00:35:53] So if you're trying to project your beliefs or what you want people to believe beyond your borders, you can't really do as well. But disinformation is transnational. And in Russia's case now in the past two weeks, they have really shut down their online space and censored a lot of things. But before that, it wasn't a free environment, but  people could get information pretty freely if they wanted to. And so disinformation was more useful to Russia even domestically because they didn't have that kind of control. I don't know if that answers your question that was about about disinformation. 

Sarah [00:36:30] No, I think that's really helpful. I was struck with the interview with Stephen Kotkin in The New Yorker about how he was talking about authoritarian governments, and he said that they're all powerful but brittle at the same time. The information gets worse, the sycophants get greater and they can't correct in the same way that we can. And I wonder, as you look at the Chinese Communist Party, where do you see that brittleness? Where do you see that weakness in the structure? 

Bethany [00:37:00] I have heard that argument many times. 

Sarah [00:37:03] Or I guess I should say, do you agree with it? 

Bethany [00:37:05] I only think it's true sometimes. And I think there's a big risk to applying it to all autocratic regimes. And that risk is, it presumes that at some point in time soon that government will collapse and you don't even need to do anything. It'll just it'll just collapse in on itself. And that was one of the West's biggest strategic mistake when it came to China. Was expecting that democracy would inherently win out and that authoritarian ism would inherently fall. And I don't know if that's true.  And I think it's important to presume that it's not true. On the question of brittleness, I do think that there comes a point where, you know, as in China during the Cultural Revolution, dissent, even loyal dissent, was so marginalized that basic governing decisions were being made very poorly about the starvation cutting in the provinces that they govern. So there was just a lack of knowledge. That kind of thing is brittleness. Absolutely. 

[00:38:08] But  before that point, I'm not sure. And I think  it's possible for there to be an overlay of brittleness and an overlay of resiliency. And I would say that's much more closer to what we're seeing in China. And I'll give some examples of that. Here's a actually very, very, specific example of what I would call a type of brittleness. So recently last year, I think the Chinese government issued an interesting guideline prohibiting hackers white hat hackers from selling vulnerabilities online, but rather they're required to hand them over to the government so the government can use them for strategic purposes. Well, that's great from the government's perspective. Now they can hack into more people. However, what's the problem? Well, this is actually a problem of capitalism and free markets. So white hat hackers are in part motivated to find vulnerabilities because they can get a lot of money for them by selling them. You know, selling a zero day vulnerability, it can get you a lot. A reward. It gets you a reward from that company. You report it to them and they rewarded you for it, to be clear. 

[00:39:14] And the Chinese government is not doing that. So it has removed a market incentive. And as a result of that, one can very reasonably presume, as an informed presumption, that no fewer vulnerabilities are being found because hackers are not incentivized to find them as much. And that makes all the companies in China less secure. That's a tiny, tiny, little pinpoint in a  much larger landscape of how some processes are weakened or stopped functioning in a society where there's too much top-down control and too much repression. That's certainly the case in China. However, if you can have an effective bureaucracy, authoritarianism can  respond very quickly to crises and can cut through some of the slower processes that can bog down democracies. And if anything, in the past 10 years, the Chinese Communist Party has become a much more efficient governing bureaucracy. I do not see that brittleness. 

Beth [00:40:21] Thinking about authoritarianism in the details is a helpful framework, and I think that your newsletter is such a helpful way for us to all continue to do that. Those of us who don't have the kind of history and context that you provide about China, being able to check in regularly with those detailed examples has aided me tremendously in just trying to understand what's going on in the world. So thank you for sharing your knowledge with us today and always through your newsletter at Axios. 

Bethany [00:40:47] Thank you so much for having me again. 

Beth [00:40:59] Thank you so much to Bethany for joining us. Sarah, we're going to turn to, as you said, your March Madness, the Oscars, and particularly talk about Don't Look Up. 

Sarah [00:41:09] Yes, lots of people emailed us and said, "What do you think about Don't look up?" I don't think it's going to win best picture, so let's just go ahead and clear that right away. It is nominated and  it's very reflective of writing and directing of Adam McKay. I think he's the writer and the director, you know, who did Vice and the Big Short.  He's the production behind Succession. And if you haven't seen it, if you haven't seen Don't Look Up, everybody's in it, all the stars. Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Leonardo DiCaprio, Timothée, I love him so much. Cate Blanchett, Ariana Grande, Jonah Hill. And it's about scientists discovering that there's a comet that's going to hit the planet and they're trying to get, you know, the White House and the media and everyday people to take it seriously and pay attention and try to do something. I mean, I feel like the movie's been out long enough that we can spoil the ending. But what is your stance on that? 

Beth [00:42:10] Yeah, I think that's probably true. 

Sarah [00:42:12] Yeah. So it's orbiting Earth. There's some of stuff after that that's pretty funny that, you know, plays out after the comet hits Earth. But it's a very political perspective. Adam McKay, you know, it says like it's about climate change, he is a Bernie bro. He's very progressive. He has a very intense political perspective and that comes out of the movie for sure. 

Beth [00:42:36] It feels to me like another iteration of Idiocracy. Just this sense that we are too stupid as a people, as a collective, in America at least. We are too stupid and too decadent and too spoiled and entitled to care about anything real. And so when the scientists surfaced this comment, everybody first blows it off, and then they see a political opportunity to make it like a wedge issue. And so the title of the movie Don't Look Up, it's like this movement where people are actually saying, just don't look at the sky. It is not a subtle movie, is what I'm telling you. 

Sarah [00:43:14] I do think there are parts of it that I liked. I didn't dislike the movie at all, necessarily. I think there's a little more nuance than I was ready to give him credit for. I like the scenes where you were always watching people from around the world. Watch what was happening and just sort of  the victims are powerless or just swept up, just like the reminder that like this is bigger. You know that one of the scientists sort of get swept up into it at some point, I thought that was like a clever statement. I thought the  betrayals of the president and the White House and the sort of tech sector were a little overwrought. I watched it and I thought that he has a perspective that some people are stupid. I didn't feel like the point was everyone was stupid and doesn't want, doesn't care and doesn't want to pay attention. I might be giving  Adam McKay more credit than he deserves at this point with regards to this, the perspective of this movie. 

[00:44:28]  I guess my question is like, I don't know  how he wants us to leave the movie. Are we supposed to leave the movie empowered? Because this is not how I felt. And it feels like everybody who works in climate science they're kind of real about this, like, all is not lost, and people who push that perspective are damaging the climate movement. I think Adam McKay is very invested in the climate movement and doesn't want that. So I'm kind of like, how did you think people are going to leave this movie? Like empowered to go join the sunrise movement?  That's  my question. What were you trying to do here besides make a movie about how terrible our reaction to global warming climate change is? 

Beth [00:45:14] I share a lot of that perspective, I thought that Leonardo DiCaprio was fabulous in this movie. I really liked seeing him go from behind the scenes nerdy scientist to celebrity and the realizations he had about himself along the way and the lack of self-awareness for a while and kind of how he evolved. I thought Jennifer Lawrence was good. I mean, I always liked Jennifer Lawrence, but I liked showing that someone who takes it really seriously just can't do media because we want media to have this chipper, upbeat packagable hook and we ultimately want to leave everything feeling good. So I thought that was a smart way to approach her character. 

Sarah [00:45:54] But it's like, how do you make that point when you're making a movie like this? Isn't there some irony there that you're arguing that mass media only cares about a positive spin and you've made a absolutely mass media movie on Netflix with every star imaginable about how the world's going to end? That's, again, my question. 

Beth [00:46:16] Yeah. And I've seen people describe it as a dark comedy. I didn't think it was funny. I didn't think it was empowering, as you said. I didn't think it opened any doors. I didn't have a new understanding of someone because of watching it. I definitely don't think someone who is already disposed to think climate change folks are alarmist are going to change their opinion after watching this movie because it is made with such disdain for people who don't take climate change seriously. So to me, the doors that are closed in that debate were slammed shut in this movie. Not that it's his responsibility to open doors, but again, I agree with you. I don't know what the point is. 

Sarah [00:46:58] Yeah, because if you're going to make a movie with very distinctive political perspective, then I'm assuming you want it to do something except for just make you feel better about how shitty people are about climate change. Like, I don't know, that's it. And I read a Vanity Fair profile of Adam McKay. First of all, did you know that he's 6'4? That's a tall dude. Who knew? And in particular, I was interested in the breakdown of his partnership with Will Ferrell. Partnership and friendship. They are no longer speaking. And I thought that that was interesting. And he kind of talks about the Big Short. And the Big Short is fantastic.  

Beth [00:47:34] It is. I love the Big Short. 

Sarah [00:47:35] The Big Short does such a good job of like having a distinctly political perspective, but also educating and feeling like, okay, I get this. Like, you feel more empowered around the subject of like financial markets when the time the movie is over. And you get to look at Ryan Gosling the whole time. So that is a win-win, you know what I'm saying? But he talks about  people thought Vice was way too heavyhanded and unfair. I think Don't Look Up is more popular than Vice. And, listen, he got nominated for Oscars for both of them, but I kind of wish he would go back towards the Don't Look Up. Not because I think media has to have this positive perspective, but I think, you know, criticism, especially in the form of satire -- I forgot who maybe this was a Malcolm Gladwell podcast, but somebody did a really great -- or maybe it was This American Life, I don't remember. A long time ago did a really great podcast episode about satire. 

[00:48:30] It's a delicate business, because if you're not careful, and this happens I think a lot with starting out live. You just give both sides something to feel superior about without being very clear that, like, no, no, I have a I have a perspective here. Satire, making people laugh in order to get them to think is a delicate business. It's hard to do. It's hard to do well, and it's certainly hard to do if you have a outcome in mind for how you want people to to feel at the end. I'm not sure Adam McKay had, and if he did, I definitely don't know what it was. But I just think if you're going to make a movie that's so distinctly political, you might want to think about that. 

Beth [00:49:06] I thought Vice was exceptionally heavy handed, but still provocative. I thought the exploration of executive power in Vice and that idea of a unitary executive gave me a lot to think about, even though I didn't think it was funny because it was so heavy handed. And I think about Succession and how he has a real disdain for these characters. But there is tenderness built into like he still sees them as human. And I just thought Don't Look Up was was maybe too influenced by the pandemic. This idea that, yeah, that people are so ready to fight with each other, that we are completely disconnected from our own self-interest to the point of being disconnected from our own interests and survival. And while that is in some ways understandable and perhaps correct, it doesn't help. And maybe some of it is. Post the intense days of March 2020, I am not in the mood to look around and decide that everyone is terrible. I want to figure out what we do about that. 

Sarah [00:50:13] Yeah. I don't think it's correct and I think it's intellectually lazy.  I think you're right. I think with Vice at least he was asking interesting questions. I'm very confident he is not involved in succession at the level that he is involved in these movies. I don't think he writes episodes. I'm not sure he directs very many. I just think it's his production company. But something that's like you can feel the difference, right? Like, there's not a lot of Adam McKay presence there. It's like it's interesting in his break up with Will Ferrell. Will Ferrell's name on it, but he has nothing to do with that show because of the way their production company was ran. And when I read his profile and his history of a lot of art, like, I read it and thought, okay, well, now that I understand where you are in your life and what you were struggling with, this movie makes a lot more sense. It did not make a lot of sense as a commentary on either climate change or the pandemic. But you working out some of your stuff from Vice and what you feel like was unfair criticism of Vice and perhaps like the shifting direction of your career, well, now that makes a lot more sense. 

[00:51:14] And that's often true when you know the background of where people are coming from. And this is all just me reading, I don't know, Adam McKay from Adam. I mean, I just read one celebrity profile of him. But I just think the movie it wasn't not entertaining. I guess it's when something like that high of a production level is going to be entertaining no matter what. When you have Meryl Streep on screen and Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio, like, it's not going to be bad. I was sad that so many people watched it and felt like, yeah, that's how it is, because that was not the experience I had. I didn't watch it and go, "Yep, we're the worst. Human beings are terrible and we all know it after the pandemic and climate change." It's not the reaction I had to the movie. I thought, well, I see where you're coming from. I disagree. 

Beth [00:52:01] I also don't feel despairing about climate change. I feel like we are in an era where there is much greater acceptance. I understand there's not the urgency that everyone would like to see, but private industry is moving on climate change. The world is moving on climate change. This administration is moving on climate change. You don't hear a lot of Republicans walking around just claiming climate change anymore. I just think we are moving in a much more solutions oriented direction on climate change. And so it was hard for me to watch in that way too. I don't think we're refusing to look up anymore. 

Sarah [00:52:39] Yeah. I guess, you know, what we struggle with here too is there's no one they. Like, who are you even talking about, right?  I think that's what bugs me is this idea of like -- you know, and the movie is more nuanced. He does not imply that everyone reacts exactly the same way. And that parts of the movie where he -- I wish he'd done more of that. Like, this is how people in this place would react. And this is how people -- and because that's the truth of climate change. Some people are going to be massively affected. Everyone's going to be affected, but it's going to play out differently in the way people-- this is what we learned in the pandemic, right? Everybody doesn't react to a stressful global event in the same way. To me, that's an interesting question that I would have been interested in a deeper exploration of, like, why do we all react so differently when all of our lives are on the line? As opposed to we all react the worst when our lives are on the line, which is definitely sort of what parts of the movie felt like. 

Beth [00:53:35] Well, I am certain that many of you have feelings about this. Every time we talk about a film or a TV show, we hear a broader spectrum of opinion than almost any other topic. So we will look forward to hearing your thoughts on this movie as well as everything else we discussed in today's episode. We have really good stuff coming for you next week that we're excited to share and talk about, including five things you need to know about electric vehicles. Between now and then, please do not forget to preorder Now What? How To Move Forward When We're Divided About Basically Everything. That's the thing. We're in a moving forward kind of space around here and we would love for you to preorder and join our launch team. Thank you so much for being here. Have the best weekend available to you. 

[00:54:27] Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alice Napp is our managing director. 

Sarah [00:54:32] Maggie Penton is our community engagement manager. Dante Lima is the composer and performer of our theme music. 

Beth [00:54:38] Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers. 

Executive Producers (Read their own names) [00:54:42] Martha Bronitsky, Linda Daniel, Ali Edwards, Janice Elliot, Sarah Greenup, Julie Heller, Helen Handley, Tiffany Hassler, Emily Holladay, Katie Johnson, Katina Zugenalis Kasling. Barry Kaufman, Molly Kohrs. 

[00:55:01] The Kriebs, Laurie LaDow, Lily McClure, Emily Neesley, The Pentons, Tawni Peterson, Tracy Puthoff, Sara Ralph, Jeremy Sequoia, Katie Stigers, Karin True, Onica Ulveling, Nick and Alysa Valelli, Katherine Vollmer, Amy Whited, 

Beth [00:55:19] Jeff Davis, Melinda Johnston, Ashley Thompson, Michelle Wood, Joshua Allen, Morgan McHugh, Nicole Berklas, Paula Bremer and Tim Miller. 

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