Do Democrats Have a Chance in the Midterms?

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TRANSCRIPT

Sarah [00:00:00] All right, Nicholas, we just got back from spring break. You've got to be still. Sorry. I mean, he struggles, he wants to fidget. And your knee is so tense. You're such a tense little monkey. Just chill. 

Nicholas [00:00:12] Some of us don't do this every day. 

Sarah [00:00:15] All right. This is Sarah. 

Nicholas [00:00:25] And this is Nicholas, and you're listening to Pantsuit Politics. 

Sarah [00:00:51] Welcome to another episode of Pantsuit Politics, where we take a different approach to the news. As you just heard, I'm here with my husband, Nicholas, who is filling in for Beth while she's on spring break. Welcome to the show, babe. 

Nicholas [00:01:00] Thanks for having me. I'm really delighted to be here. This is my favorite podcast. 

Sarah [00:01:06] For those of you who are new here and haven't heard our origin story, Pantsuit Politics was Nicholas's idea, or at least I was writing a blog at the time, and he really, really, kept insisting I should start a podcast. I don't know if Pantsuit Politics necessarily was your idea, but the idea that I should start a podcast certainly was. 

Nicholas [00:01:22] That's true. I did not think that the blog platform captured your dynamic. 

Sarah [00:01:26] Oh, thank you. 

Nicholas [00:01:27] The personality and you would have a great radio presence, so to speak. 

Sarah [00:01:31] Well, not to brag, but I did get most talkative in high school. 

Nicholas [00:01:35] I've heard that before. And then, of course, you guys took this idea together, and it became something I couldn't have imagined. 

Sarah [00:01:42] Thanks, pal. Today, Nicholas and I are going to tackle some headlines at the top of the show. We're going to move on and do the mirror image of Beth and Chad's conversation and talk about the state of the Democratic Party. And then we're going to close the show talking about our recent vacation to Utah. But before we get to that, y'all, we are two weeks out from the launch of our new book, Now What? How to move forward when we're divided about basically everything. The book comes out on May 3rd. Nicholas, have you preordered a copy? 

Nicholas [00:02:09] No, but I will. I'll do it today. 

Sarah [00:02:12] You better preorder a copy. 

Nicholas [00:02:13] But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't preorder a copy. You should definitely preorder a copy. You should have already preordered a copy. Don't be like me. 

Sarah [00:02:20]  Yeah, don't be like Nicholas. This book is so precious to us, largely because it's very personal. We share a lot about our personal lives. Nicholas, there is a lot of you in this book. 

Nicholas [00:02:29] I am terrified. 

Sarah [00:02:31] Did you know the book is dedicated to you? 

Nicholas [00:02:33] I didn't know that. 

Sarah [00:02:34] Yeah, the book is dedicated to you and Chad. 

Nicholas [00:02:35] Oh, so lovely. Thank you. 

Sarah [00:02:37] You're welcome. You can preorder now, which is essential to helping fulfill my totally arbitrary dream of becoming a New York Times bestseller. I know the system's rigged. I don't care. I want that before my name everywhere I go. New York Times bestselling author, Sarah Stewart Holland. Doesn't it sound nice? 

Nicholas [00:02:54] It sounds nice, but when you kind of look deeper into what it means, it kind of cheapens -- 

Sarah [00:02:58] Just shut up. Shut up. That's not true. It still sounds fancy, and that's what matters. What matters is what sounds fancy in life. That's our values. 

Nicholas [00:03:06] Okay, fair enough. 

Sarah [00:03:07] So please preorder the book. It means the world to us. If you preorder, you get a link to a live virtual launch party on May 3rd. Or if you're feeling real adventurous, you can join us in Waco on April 30th. Get the book a few days earlier. See us in person. Hang out with us and Clint Harp. It's going to be a party. It's going to be a party. So are the links to all that is in the show notes. We hope you'll join us in Waco. If you can't, we hope you'll preorder the book more than one copy. You can preorder the audio book now. We're very excited about that. Do I cry on the audiobook? 

Nicholas [00:03:40] Of course you do. 

Sarah [00:03:41] Of course I do. Of course I do. Before we get started, I did want to say that we are aware of just the horrific video coming out of Grand Rapids and the killing of Patrick Lyoya. Beth and I will get together and talk about that next week, but I didn't want an episode to go by without saying we saw this terrible news and we're sending all the love that we can to his family and to the people of Grand Rapids and the community there as they deal with this. So the top news of the week, I would say, was the shooting in the subway in New York City. We talked about a little bit on the good news brief yesterday, which you joined me for, which was fun. Because there does seem to be -- and it's not good news, but there's definitely like a lot of silver linings to this particular incident. It was scary. It was chaotic. It plays on everybody's worst fears about the subway. But while there were many people injured, no one has died or is expected to die from their injuries. The shooter is in custody. So while it's awful, it could have been much worse. 

Nicholas [00:04:52] Right. They did capture him yesterday, I think, late last night. He actually called in the tip line himself and then he was captured I think a few hours later by the the New York police, 

Sarah [00:05:05] I think it's just as the subway is trying to come back from Covid, which was not exactly a pleasant place to be when there's an airborne virus. There's also been a couple of people pushed in front of cars and killed. I just think this was like the last thing mass transit needed as it's trying to come back. 

Nicholas [00:05:23] Yeah, definitely.  I think anybody who is in the subways in New York knows it's a little bit of a claustrophobic experience anyway. And for somebody who has a little bit of claustrophobia, I'd say doesn't love crowds and being packed in places, it definitely gives off a negative. Another negative thing with Covid and this just makes it seem less likely that it's going to bounce back to where it was. But people have said it before, and I think they'll say it again a lot that New Yorkers are resilient people. They are the best of us. 

Sarah [00:05:55] In many ways, yes. 

Nicholas [00:05:57]  Well, we'll see them weather this and hopefully we'll see increased safety measures in the subways and more awareness. And, hopefully, this shooter who seems to  have some history of mental illness and some interaction with mental illness treatments in New York, will get the help that he needs and will move forward from this. 

Sarah [00:06:22] The other I think big story was the economy. Inflation with a side of Elon Musk, which Leslie and I talked about on Tuesday. But inflation is high. I was reading a lot of articles yesterday about how it's even hitting the grocery store, people trying to save money by cooking at home. You are the designated grocery shopper for the Holland family. What are you noticing out there in the aisles? 

Nicholas [00:06:45] Yeah, 100 percent. I mean, I think the things that you start noticing here and there, and that seems higher and that seems higher. And then you see that everything seems higher. You know, yesterday I went and got something that it's usually $2.99 and it was $3.99 and I went, oh, that's strange. And it was like a generic Kroger brand grocery store product that we buy a lot of. And it was a dollar higher than it had been and almost 25 percent higher than it had been. And so I don't know if that's transitory or if that's here to stay, but definitely inflation is on everybody's mind. It's a big story. It's something we'll talk about in the next segment, I think, and how much that's that story is the one that's affecting the Democratic Party. 

Sarah [00:07:24] Well, so much of the White House seems to be taking a different approach. Like, I talked about this on the news brief. It feels like it's reverse psychology.  It's transitory. This time they were like, it's going to be so bad. It's going to be the worse, guys. Get ready. 

Nicholas [00:07:35] Yeah, I think everybody has abandoned it's transitory in terms of if it's going to go away, it's going to slow down because of the supply chain issues being relieved and things like that. But definitely the messaging was different, which was we all know it's going to be bad. Be prepared for it to be bad. And so the markets built it in a little bit before it even was announced. And it was  right in line with kind of where everybody thought it was going to be. And so to the extent that the markets tell us anything, it was sort of not news, so to speak, that it was high. 

Sarah [00:08:05] Well, and everybody thinks the Fed should be acting faster and raising interest rates. Like you said, you work in real estate. Are you noticing anything at your closings? You said yesterday you felt like this year is going to be a weird year for real estate. 

Nicholas [00:08:16] Well, absolutely, you see the impact on interest rates. I mean, in mid-pandemic you saw sort of unheard of interest rates for a 30 year refinance, like, below three percent. 

Sarah [00:08:31] We refinanced. 

Nicholas [00:08:32] Now you're seeing that come back to reality, which is still low historically, but it feels high to people. It's very psychological. When we first bought a home in D.C., we had I think it was a seven percent rate or seven and a half percent rate. And now to get a seven percent rate,  it's almost unthinkable. People would balk at it immediately, but I think we're coming back to that reality here in the next couple of years. You definitely see those rates creeping up into the fours and the fives sort of ahead of even what the Fed is doing because  the banks have to build in a little bit of hedge at the end of the day against the reality that probably will rise. Of course, you're not seeing that on the same side on the savings accounts, so your savings accounts are not increasing and their interest rates at the same rate. But that's capitalism, I guess, for you. 

Sarah [00:09:25] I felt the impact emotionally, especially because we're paying our tax bill and there's all this talk about inflation. And it's like unavoidable. The prices are up everywhere, and you just start to feel that scarcity fear creep into your thinking. And it's just unavoidable. I think no matter how many savings you have or how stable your job is or whatever it is, and it just gives me so much empathy for people who have even less stability, even less cushion than we do. Because if it's affecting me and I'm feeling it and it's stressing me out, I cannot imagine how people on the lower end of the economic spectrum are suffering under this. It's just so stressful. If you're living paycheck to paycheck right now and you're really on the line, as far as what you can afford, and the prices keep going up and everywhere. Everything you see is inflation, economy, inflation, economy. It's so stressful. 

Nicholas [00:10:25] And it's just cyclical. It feeds itself. So concerns about inflation, feed inflation, I think there's been a lot of speculation and maybe even some evidence of businesses sort of taking advantage of the expectation that prices will increase just to increase prices, which the Biden administration is making efforts to try to push back on, but there's only so much that they can do in a free market. 

Sarah [00:10:46] Yeah. We're going to talk about that the next segment, for sure. Now, Leslie and I talked about Elon, but now it looks like he's trying to do some sort of takeover of Twitter. Do you want to talk about Elon? How do you feel about Elon? I don't really know how you feel about him as a person. 

Nicholas [00:10:59] He confuses me. I don't really know a lot about Elon. I'll be honest with you, I have not studied Elon. We own one of Elon's cars. 

Sarah [00:11:05] We love it. 

Nicholas [00:11:06] Elon is clearly has a vision for certain things. I think that it's incredible what he's done with Tesla, it's incredible with what he's done with Space X. Those two things to imagine that it is one guy who was like, we're going to do these two things and to drive that as sort of the visionary of it. I wonder if maybe with this Twitter thing and just so everyone knows the news like, he bought his 9.2 percent stake. Which again, appears to have violated FCC rules when he did. 

Sarah [00:11:33] Word. Made a hundred million dollars in the violations. 

Nicholas [00:11:34] He has now made a filing with the SEC saying that he has made an offering a takeover offering to purchase Twitter to buy the whole thing. 

Sarah [00:11:44] I feel a little bit like I'm living in an episode of Succession. 

Nicholas [00:11:46] At a Share Premium, so I think the shares were trading around 45 or $46 at close yesterday. 

Sarah [00:11:52] But Tesla shares were down. 

Nicholas [00:11:53] He's offered 52.40, and on this news, Tesla shares are down. And I was actually thinking about this a little earlier because it reminds me and some of you may have this experience. There are maybe people in your community who are considered like experts in their field, like, the best cardiac surgeon or the best accountant or the best lawyer at X-Y-Z. And then they decide to, like, open a restaurant. Yes, right? Or they decide to open an amusement facility, you know, like an arcade or something. 

Sarah [00:12:24] Yeah. And everybody's like, everybody's 

Nicholas [00:12:26] like, Well, that's interesting. And like, you really want to think like, well, they're good at something. They're clearly smart. They clearly have good government service that clearly got some capital. They ought to go out and do that and see what happens. And so frequently, it doesn't last that long or they sell it to somebody or the next thing happens. So I'm wondering if maybe Elon has sort of bought his own press because being a visionary in aeronautics and car manufacturing is one thing, but you have thousands on thousands and thousands of people who actually know what they're doing in those spaces. And I'm not sure anybody really knows what Twitter could be, can be ought to be. There's not a subject matter experts who can be like, Well, this is how we built a rocket. Just like for Twitter, right? So, yeah, it has his own view of like what Twitter could be, which I'm a little concerned is too close to what Peter Thiel thinks Facebook should be, which is like, just open it up. Trump can come back on and everybody come back on. We'll just pile back in and we'll be a free speech. 

Sarah [00:13:23] I'll be so mad at Elon if he platforms Trump again. 

Nicholas [00:13:26] I don't think of that. I don't think that's a bad, that's a bad route. 

Sarah [00:13:29] It reminds me because I was sitting here thinking, Boy, I wonder what Jack thinks about this Jack Dorsey. And then it sort of opened up the space of this conversation. I think I heard on Klein's podcast or with the guy about cryptocurrency, and they were talking about how all these Web 2.0 people are out there in crypto now. And the conversation was like, why? Why don't you have enough money? But it's like it was. The YouTube guy was like, Well, they just want to build pile. Like, How big can I get the pile basically? Like, What? What's the point otherwise, right? Like, what are you? What are you doing? Are you trying to make something better or are you just because crypto in particular like to get the mountains and mountains of money that they consider successful? You have to get it on the ground floor, right? Like that's and you you get on the ground floor of 400 things. Two things hit and you make just Mt. Everest piles of money. 

Nicholas [00:14:24] Well, yeah, money, right?

Sarah [00:14:27] Right. You make socha. 

Nicholas [00:14:27] you make digital money, right? I mean, it's it seems very, but it's just so interesting to me.

Sarah [00:14:30] And that's kind of like, that's sort of what I'm thinking about Elon like. But but why like, what's the point of this? Why don't you? If you want to be a visionary, you know what visionary I'm interested in right now? Mackenzie Scott, that's the visionary I want to see. I want to see who can give it away the fastest right, like not manipulate it into new realms of power or new realms of wealth. Like, let's see, like that's that's the visionary action I'm looking for right now. 

Nicholas [00:14:54] How are we improving other people's lives, right? Buying Twitter and making it more open or letting people buy a checkmark or whatever it is he's proposed, which was sort of all over the map. And it also makes me wonder why he did what he did when he bought this large stake in the company because he's he didn't take a seat on the board. And now he's saying publicly, like a week later, Well, I don't really feel like I can do enough just in the open, you know, public market. 

Sarah [00:15:19] I only want to be the Elon Musk on Twitter. Like, I don't really want to be the big boss of Twitter.

Nicholas [00:15:22] I don't wanna be. I don't want to be just a big shareholder who has a lot of say in what the board does or who the who's on the board, which is weird. I mean, he's not he's not your Carl Icahn. He's not you're, you know, he's not that kind of investor. It wouldn't appear. He doesn't want to be, even though he could be and those guys a lot of influence. They have large stakes in companies, and putting people on boards can impact the direction of those companies. But for whatever reason, he doesn't doesn't want to do that. He wants to own it or doesn't want to part of it at all. And it's sort of a share manipulation too, because something he said the day was suggested like, Well, if I can't own it, I mean, I'm out, right? So that's again, we're talking about some very kind of unfortunate and maybe not entirely in the spirit of the law effort. On his part with the 

Sarah [00:16:11] shares, God bless, as you see in their work with us. All right. Next up, Nicholas and I are going to tackle the Democratic Party. We're going to fix it. I think I feel good about it. All right, we went through a couple of topic ideas before we settle on this. We were going to talk about your crush on Sandy. Do you want to just disclose your biases now? 

Nicholas [00:16:43] I have. I do like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Sandy. 

Sarah [00:16:48] She's known to her friends and family, and Nicholas. 

Nicholas [00:16:49] She's a very interesting political figure. I think her the brand that she's built, I think that the platform she's built for herself is is in such a short time. And I think that I love that, that the Republicans all seem to be afraid of her. I think she's, you know, kind of been a really great face for that wing of the party. And if you really watch her public engagement, you know, it's very she's very much still on the ground with her community, with her constituents. Yeah, she does this stuff, but it's not really a huge part of what the work that she does every day she's still out there doing, you know, being at union meetings and being at protests and that kind of stuff. I just find her very, you love her. I mean, you characterize it as, I love her. It's just I think she's, you know, really captured something, especially in that last. That 2018, I guess, was what it was election cycle that caught on. And she challenged the Democratic establishment and I think made some good changes. And I think, you know what you see today. I mean, Joe Biden's politics are driven very much now by the progressive wing of the party. And I don't think you would have seen that without AOC and the people that she, the other people who are the squad squad, which I don't really like anyway. 

Sarah [00:18:04] But you don't like the name or something, you know, like the people. 

Nicholas [00:18:07] I don't like the implication that like, it's wrong for them to somehow have a cohort of people. I mean, it's always been the case, right, that there have been factions of the party. There's the Blue Dog. I mean, nobody talks about the Blue Dog Democrats in the same house. Not nobody, but they don't have that same sort of negative connotation of like, this is somehow just a click. They're people who share a common interest in common goals and plot out ideas. 

Sarah [00:18:30] I mean, we're not going to in the whole time with Sandy, but it is strangely relevant because you are probably more progressive than I am. Do you think that's fair? Yeah, yeah, for sure. So we were going to talk about this sort of debate as we're coming up on the midterms. It seems to just be decided that the Democrats are going to take a take a beating in November. I, you know, even though I am more moderate, I am very optimistic. And so I'm never I don't ever just sort of accept, Oh, we're going to lose everything. You're more pessimistic. It's funny. You're more progressive, but you're more pessimistic when it comes to electoral politics. Maybe that's not funny. Maybe that's probably related. 

Nicholas [00:19:08] I think the Democrats will lose seats. Period, full stop. I don't think there's any there's any way they hold them. Well, it's 

Sarah [00:19:13] historical. It's usually the first term incumbent president loses seats in the midterms. So that's not 

Nicholas [00:19:18] a lot of systemic reasons that that is the case. There's a lot of reasons. 

Sarah [00:19:21] But like, what are they? Why does that happen every time? 

Nicholas [00:19:24] Dissatisfaction. People get dissatisfied. People are dissatisfied almost 

Sarah [00:19:27] all the time. Is it just a comedown from the promises of the election? Like, it's just a knee jerk reaction to you promise the world. I, when I was thinking about like, what if people are just kind of like they just hate the presidential campaign season so much that they just like they're just so mad, like it promises the world it never delivers. Life goes on. Everything's not fixed and they just they're just mad come midterm. I was trying to think about why, why historically does this happen every time? 

Nicholas [00:19:55] Yeah, I don't I mean, I guess there's lots of political scientists out there who could probably try to help you understand that. I mean, I think there is some some of what you said, which is there's a dissatisfaction with the party in power because not everything is peachy keen. There's maybe a sense that that party, in some cases, that the party has gone too far. I think that was some some of the case in the 2022 or sorry, not trying to measure this 28 years now 2018 election was a sense that Trump had gone kind of gotten over his handlebars. There was too much going on. They didn't like the tone. So I think, you know, it's just a it's kind of just I think the American electorate likes to kind of sway in the wind as far as it's everything's not going perfectly well. Let's try the other guys or let's see if a divided government won't homework a little bit better or. But I think the Democrats, the last two times this has been a major issue, which would have been in 2000 and the first time that Obama's 2010 right after the ACA. And now this time it seems to be sort of the same symptoms or maybe the same causes, which is a sense that they're too focused on an issue that doesn't isn't bread and butter enough for a lot of people, you know, or they're too focused on the on procedural stuff, and they're not really a united united front. And there's all this kind of political ugliness and they just kind of don't like that. They shut it off. So I'm just saying, like with the ACA obviously important to a lot of people, but you know, they had to do that through, they had to do it through reconciliation. There was a lot of Sturm und Drang about are going to do this. Are we going to do that? You know, early on it was, we're going to do a single payer that didn't pan out. So then we ended up with this sort of mishmash towards lawsuits. There was all this other stuff that kind of came out, and I think there was a sense that, 

Sarah [00:21:35] but I feel like the Biden administration really tried to not fall into the trap of ACA and has delivered. I don't think, you know, I know there's a lot of Eye-rolling and Nancy Pelosi saying, like, stand on our record, we need to point to our record. But I don't think that's wrong. Just on paper, they have delivered a lot of things. They finally delivered infrastructure week if nothing else like we have in this generational investment in infrastructure. We have continued COVID investment. I know people would like this last round to go through, but there was a I mean, just a massive amount of money poured into investing in testing and investing in the vaccine distribution. We have just historic job growth. I mean, now I know that that is the sort of flipside of inflation, which we're going to get to the part of the record. That's more difficult. But I mean, the job market is hot, right? Good unemployment is like the lowest it's been since, like something like 1960 or something bananas. And I do think the criticism of the press that like they talk about inflation constantly, but they don't ever talk about how good the job market is, is probably fair. I think the way the Biden administration has handled the invasion of Ukraine has been stellar. Like now, that doesn't necessarily have to do with congressional seats, but it's not unrelated. Congress is passing funding for the Ukrainians as well. So I think the idea that stain on their record is silly is not fair. There is a lot of good record there. I just don't know if that's what connects in congressional races. Unfortunately, I think like holding up this list of bills is not 

Nicholas [00:23:20] what connects with people. Yeah, I think I guess I would say two things. One, something interesting that I read a lot of places such as Democrats, when they talk about their record in this last couple of years, they start talking about dollars. Yeah, I say it's been one point five trillion dollars. We spent data to did however much, right? Yeah. And people just go, Well, that's just spending right. They don't. And if you're 

Sarah [00:23:41] worried about inflation, they're going to say, Well, that's why we have inflation is because we're going on too much government 

Nicholas [00:23:45] spending and they don't relate that to actual potholes being filled, so to speak or bridges being built and. And there is a lot of that going on. But you know, one interesting thing that I'll just speak from my own experience is, you know, I don't know. About a month or two months ago, I got a request for proposal from the State Department of Highways to do legal work, you know, provide rights and everything to do legal work on the Brant Spence Bridge. Like, I received that because I receive all of them. I'm not in Western Kentucky. I'm not going to do legal title work for the Brant Spence Bridge in northern Kentucky. But it's interesting because that's how you start work. When you start on a bridge, you start talking about, Well, what do we need to acquire as the government? What do we need to condemn, you know, to build this bridge? And what legal work do I need to do? And that takes time. It takes months and months, you know, it takes a couple of months just to do that. There are fees and then you do the work and then they actually go out and they purchase the property or they have to go into litigation. So I mean, people are going to see that money on the ground for a while. And and what has been top of news is unfortunately, how are the Democrats not getting along right? And we can all talk. About whose fault is that is that the Progressive's fault, because they wanted to hold up one bill for the other? Is it the moderates fault because they didn't really keep their end of the bargain, so to speak? I think, you know, we heard so much about Joe Manchin. We heard so much about Kirsten Cinema and we didn't hear enough about we did this good thing. Look, we all got together. We did this good thing, and it's going to be good for America. I think they try to push that through. But the the horse race quote unquote story was the Democrats can't get this done. The Democrats can't get what they really want. Done the big piece of this done. 

Sarah [00:25:25] OK, but here's the thing here's what sort of bothers me. I feel like it always turns into will. They won't cover what we've done, which I don't think is unfair. But I also think that there are problematic strategies messaging coming from the Democratic Party. It's not accurate or realistic to blame every electoral problem the Democrats have on media messaging or even like the sort of. Unfair and disingenuous messaging of the Republican Party, which I think is there to like, I think that that is true too. But, you know. Here's where I will, if not throw the progressive wing of the party under the bus at least offer up some with love in my heart. Criticism, which is, I think, the perception of the Democratic Party, which is fueled by the Republican Party and fueled by media messaging. And let me just give that, you know aside, is also, you know. In some fairness, based on progressive messaging around defund the police and, you know, abolish ICE and I'm not, I'm not even mad at them like I think we need people pushing the party to the left. I'm so happy that the progressive wing of the Democratic Party has pushed the president to the left. I think what bothers me is. There's never any sort of goodwill given to the moderates who say, OK, well, we also need people saying that's too far for some people, like that's a good conversation to have, but that's too far for the majority of Americans. And if you say that, it's like, well, then you get it, you get attacked as you know, not caring about people or, God forbid, being racist or sexist or whatever when there's no I feel like goodwill of like, this is a this is a conversation. This is a back and forth. You push to the left, I push to the center, we end up where we need to be. And it just feels like the moderates are always villainized. Not that again, progressives aren't villainous. Lord knows AOC is villainized, but every which way, right? But it just feels like we also have to acknowledge that. You know, I think we got out in front of our skis a little bit and that we went further than a lot of the American population is willing to go, including growing segments of the Democratic Party, like the Latino Coalition, right? Like that bay, Donald Trump increased his vote share with them. There are some incredibly conservative, socially conservative components of. The Latino part of the Democratic Coalition, and I just think like it feels like that gets ignored or sort of pushed aside because it doesn't fit with this. Narrative we've all agreed on or some of us agree. 

Nicholas [00:28:27] Yeah, I mean, I guess what I would say to that is it's a little bit the same problem that the Republicans have, which is that the base a big part of the base of the Democratic Party is very progressive, especially in the major cities, especially in pockets. 

Sarah [00:28:42] Is it a big part of the base or is it just a loud and powerful part of the question? 

Nicholas [00:28:47] I think that's the same question the Republicans have right now. 

Sarah [00:28:49] I think that's true. 

Nicholas [00:28:50] How big is the Trump part of the base? Well, it's hard to really gauge it, but it's big enough. 

Sarah [00:28:54] Well, and it just even that part of the conversation bugs me. It's like because their base is different than normal. I don't ever want a conversation again. Comparing like Marjorie Taylor Greene is part of the base to AOC is part of the base because they are so they don't do not deserve to be in the same print piece, much less in the same comparison. 

Nicholas [00:29:10] Yeah, but isn't that driven by some, by just your own politics and your own knowledge? 

Sarah [00:29:15] No. Absolutely not. 

Nicholas [00:29:17] Okay, fair enough. But I think that to go back to what you said, which is there's bad messaging or there's messaging that breaks through. There has been, I think, and I don't disagree with you too much of a focus on trying to find a soundbite or a three word phrase or whatever it is that works and breaks through for the Democrats. And so things like defund the police, which are much more nuanced than just defund the police. Obviously, Biden in his State Union address said don't defund the police, fund the police but he was trying to say fund them in different ways, fund them in ways that aren't just about enforcement. Fund them in ways that are more about community building fund them in ways that are about mental health engagement. Things like that where, when you just hear defund the police, it's just so easy to twist that to. They don't want to patrol people to patrol streets. They want anarchy. They want whatever it is. And that's obviously not the case. But you can't explain that once you've put that into there. 

[00:30:17] Right. 

Nicholas [00:30:17] It's yours. You have to own it. And so if you can't explain it, it doesn't explain what it is. It explains something different, I think, to most people. And so it's same with abolish ICE. I mean, obviously, ICE is a new agency, relatively new agency. And so I think the abolition of ICE is one thing. But what people really want is change immigration policy. We're too engaged with enforcement and not to engage with the real effects of what that enforcement has caused, which is labor shortages and a lot of different things. So I agree with you. I think the messaging has been bad. I think the messaging that's broken through can be damaging has been damaging. But I think that the reaction to that from the moderate side of the party has been, well, let's just moderate everything. Let's just talk about, let's just all come to the middle and talk about things in the middle. And I don't know that that really is going to win you elections. It's certainly not going to fire up people in the primaries. 

Sarah [00:31:10] Well, it just depends on where you are. It's going to win you elections in some places. 

Nicholas [00:31:13] And that's true. And I think that that's what you touched on is that there are definitely a lot of people. Who gave us the majority in 2018 who now feel like they have been thrown under the bus or they've been abandoned and Stephanie Murphy, I think in Florida she's not running again. She was one of the ones who came in 2018. She is not running again, and she has basically said it's because I feel like I've been abandoned by the the party platform and the party leadership who seem to be okay with primarying people who have won congressional districts with more progressive candidates and not understanding that people like me. And she actually called out Abigail Spanberger, who won by saying, we're going to be in the middle. We're going to take votes that the Democratic Party is not always going to agree on. And then we go and we actually do what we say and people get mad at us. 

Sarah [00:32:05] Yeah. 

Nicholas [00:32:06] So the Democratic Party is, I mean, it's a big, big, big tent and that is part of it's strength and part of its problem. And until they can get their arms around, what are they going to? How much leeway are they going to give people to be different from the expectation of the party leadership? 

Sarah [00:32:27] Well and I think Nancy Pelosi gives them a lot of leeway. I think she does a good job of protecting moderates, although it's I mean, maybe Stephanie Murphy would feel something different. But I think historically you see that. And here's the thing, if I'm painting with the broadest of broad brushes I feel like if you are. Sort of all the way on the right, on the Republican Party, and you're being fueled by your base, it's like you can't do anything different because they're terrible. And if you're on the Democratic base, I think there's a little bit of probably more than a little bit of they're terrible. But there's also like, but we're on the side of right. And so you can't criticize the progressive less or if you're not on the side of right, you don't care about poor people, you don't care about immigrants, you don't care about people of color. That's sort of the pushback. And to me, I don't feel like there's an honest conversation, and I think this is what we get into with like what you see with Donald Trump explaining his vote share like, look, I understand I'm more radical on immigration than most Americans like open borders. 

[00:33:30] Don't bother me, I get that that is a radical position, but I don't feel like there's an honest conversation among progressives, especially like people with those sort of who really want to overhaul immigration and have like a really radical, radically different approach to immigration to say, like, please understand that will change the politics of our country. Not everybody who's going to come from Mexico or Honduras is going to be a Democrat, like it's going to be even progressive. Many of those people will be very conservative on abortion, even on immigration policy. And I just feel like that's like the thing that you can't say out loud or is sort of ignored or just like pretending like that's not going to be an issue to our detriment. Like, I think like there's a sense of especially in the progressive caucus that like if it's the right thing to do, like if you're a good person, this is what you want. 

[00:34:24] And if you ask about sort of the electoral consequences of that or the electoral strategy surrounding that like you, it's just we'll know it'll work. It's electoral. It's a winner electorally. Well, maybe where you live, but not everywhere and definitely not in a presidential race. Like, we talked about this on Pantsuit Politics, we're more radical on criminal justice, we're more radical on reproductive rights, we're more radical on immigration than the majority of Americans. And I just feel like that. That's where the moderates, I think, get frustrated is like, are we talking about where we should be or are we talking about where people are? Because I think that's a conversation that often is missing within like the democratic conversation that bridge, how do we that difference between where we want people to be and where they actually are? And are we trying to convince them, are we trying to just push and hope they catch up like, I feel like that's what gets missed so often. 

Nicholas [00:35:22] Well, and I think that you're seeing that tension in a couple of different places right now with the Biden administration. So right now, they're talking about ending Title 42. Which is a policy that if, I think if you ask the loudest critic of that policy, they would say it was a policy that was bad immigration policy cloaked as public health policy. So it was COVID will enter the borders through immigration and so we're going to close the border because COVID. And now that the Biden administration is talking about ending it. And so you have a tension there. You have lots of Democrats who are like Mark Kelly, who is very progressive on most issues, saying, this is really bad for me electorally. This is really bad. Please don't do this. This this seems hasty. Yeah, it was bad policy, but it's worse electorally, politically to end it now. And in. 

Sarah [00:36:16] But you're going to have progressives that say, come on. What Governor Abbott is doing is way worse. Like with the Mexican trucks and the. 

Nicholas [00:36:25] Right. But I think what you see, some of what you see is COVID politics, which is the power of transportation, extended the mask mandate on air flights on airplanes and in airports, which I'm all in favor of. I think we should just do it forever. 

Sarah [00:36:40] No we all have to fly to Europe, and I do not want to wear a mask 

Nicholas [00:36:42] Everybody can wear a mask on a plane, and that'd be fine. I don't want to breathe your air. But people are saying. 

Nicholas [00:36:48] But you are more radical than most Americans on that.

Nicholas [00:36:50] Right. But sure, if COVID is over for immigration, why isn't COVID over for us on these airplanes. That's kind of there's that tension. And I think you see that in the energy sector, too, where you have Biden is announcing, we're going to allow people to have E85 or higher ethanol gasoline during the summer months, which has typically been an environmental issue and is getting pushback from progressives like this is a bad idea. And the messaging is wrong because the messaging should be. Gas is expensive because we haven't moved more quickly to renewables, and that's really should be the messaging where instead the messaging is gas is high, we're going to do everything we can to get it down and make this as easy as we can. 

Sarah [00:37:25] But again, that's where do we want, where people are or do we want more people should be? That's what's so hard.

Nicholas [00:37:29] Agreed. And that is the tension. 

Sarah [00:37:31] But you can't get people to where you want them to be if you lose all the time. I think that's where I'm as. That's where my moderate streak comes out is you can't get people anywhere if you're in the minority all the time. And. I think that's what's so hard, and I mean, look, we're not breaking any new ground here, I know this is what they fight about at those retreats. I know this is on every Democrat's mind. And the truth is you and I have both been Democrats to know we're never going to be in lockstep like Republicans. That's not who we are. It's not who we have ever been. And that's okay. I prefer that to the other way. I would absolutely always rather sort of be mad at each other and fighting and mouthing off to the press than to have censures and kicking people out of the party. And sort of the approach, the sort of rhino approach of the right right now. 

Nicholas [00:38:26] Absolutely. I think that I don't think there's any call for blood under these people. I think even [Inaudible] would admit. 

Sarah [00:38:34] I love her. I love Sandy. 

Nicholas [00:38:35] I understand Joe Manchin. I don't like Joe Manchin. I don't like where he's at with this. I think he's wrong. I think that he underestimates the wisdom of the voters in West Virginia if he was to do this thing and was actually to see the result. But I understand his calculus. 

Sarah [00:38:49] Yeah, but I don't talk. I'm not trying to lecture Joe Manchin on underestimating the wisdom of the West Virginia, but he knows them better than you and I do.

Nicholas [00:38:56] For sure. But that's why I'm saying I think ultimately where I come out is if we want to stay in the majority and we want to get good things done. Don't let the enemy of, don't let perfect be the enemy of good. 

Sarah [00:39:07] Now you sound like a moderate there not a progressive. 

Nicholas [00:39:10] Well, you know you sometimes you have to do that. 

Sarah [00:39:13] You did live in Georgia. So there is that. 

Nicholas [00:39:15] I mean, yeah, I mean, where I grew up, it was the bluest piece of the state and still is. I mean, I grew up just for everybody who doesn't know in DeKalb County, Georgia, which was, got a lot of press when we're not. And what's the fellow's name down there? 

Sarah [00:39:33] Jon Ossoff. 

Nicholas [00:39:33] Jon Ossoff. Sorry, he was. He ran for everything. 

Sarah [00:39:36] I recite [Inaudible] 

Nicholas [00:39:37] One, that's a big county they gave Joe Biden, that put Joe Biden over the top in Georgia as well. And so it's been interesting growing up there. It was a very, very liberal enclave, and it continues to be a very, very liberal place, probably more liberal than it was when I was growing up there. Also more affluent than it was when I was growing up there. So I've lived in a place where my politics aren't really necessarily the surrounding areas. Politics in north Georgia, southern Georgia, those places were very red and have been for ages. So maybe it's informed by the fact that I know you can't get everything done just by being the raging progressive liberal. But it sure would be nice if we could. 

Sarah [00:40:18] Doesn't stop you from being real mad a lot of times. 

Nicholas [00:40:20] It does. I get mad. 

Sarah [00:40:21] You get so mad. You were so mad about the story in The New York Times about the Republicans who killed naming the courthouse after the black judge because he one time put down a legally sound argument about prayer in schools, I believe was the issue. And it was a Georgia congressman that stopped it all. 

Nicholas [00:40:38] Yeah, I don't remember all the details of that story because my eyes started going a little bit. 

Sarah [00:40:41] You'll get a little red? 

Nicholas [00:40:42] A little red. 

Sarah [00:40:42] A little hot. 

Nicholas [00:40:42] The story was, basically that, this was a lot of people supported this. This fairly. 

Sarah [00:40:52] It's like the one thing they do all the time is name things without debate. 

Nicholas [00:40:54] They were going to name this after the first African-American Supreme Court justice in Florida and rename the courthouse after him and one Republican congressman found 

Sarah [00:41:04] From Georgia, one even from Florida, 

Nicholas [00:41:06] Found an item in the news from sometime in the late 90s. I think about how he upheld a ruling that prayer in schools was inappropriate, which is not. 

Sarah [00:41:15] And I just want to say, like, why were you looking for that, sir? No. Yeah. Like what? What? Out of everything of this man's biography could have possibly triggered your search through his media clippings? Do you do that for every time they name something because you wouldn't do anything else if that's true? 

Nicholas [00:41:35] Yeah, it was. It's a very strange. And then it just became like a self-imposed litmus test. If you read the article, it's almost like people who voted against it didn't know that why they were voting. 

Sarah [00:41:46] They just knew Republicans were voting lockstep. 

Nicholas [00:41:48] Lockstep. One of the sponsors of the bill said, I had no idea it was so confusing. I didn't know what was going on because she thought it was going to be like. 

Sarah [00:41:56] They had bipartisan support. 

Nicholas [00:41:59] Tthirty five to zero. And it ended up being, it ended up failing ultimately. So. 

Sarah [00:42:06] And I don't think you'd see a moment like that in the Democratic Party. 

Nicholas [00:42:09] I don't know. I mean, I think it just depends. But again, I think there's a lot of unfortunate things going on. 

Sarah [00:42:14] We don't trust each other enough to do that. 

Nicholas [00:42:17] The Republican Party has its own issues and we have had a lot of conversations about the Republican Party, such as it is. And I think you have maybe a little bit more sense that the more moderate wing of the Republican Party act in good faith more than maybe I think they do. I think that the moderate wing of the Republican Party takes cover from. 

Sarah [00:42:37] It's not even on. 

Nicholas [00:42:38] A radical. 

Sarah [00:42:39] There's just a few moderate senators who I will defend. I don't know if they're the moderate wing of the House. I don't see it. So. 

Nicholas [00:42:45] Right, and I think one of the things that we talked about, just so everybody has a little color on this is that, there was a lot of during the confirmation hearing, Western confirmation hearing of soon to be Justice Jackson. She was questioned a lot about her rulings on, or her sentencing in child pornography cases. And when Romney and Collins and Murkowski voted in favor of her confirmation, Marjorie Taylor Greene put out this terrible tweet that said they're basically pedo lovers or something along those lines. It was it.

Sarah [00:43:21] See aforementioned thing where I said, do not ever compare Marjorie Taylor Greene to [Inaudible]. 

Nicholas [00:43:26] But at the same time, and then the Republicans all came out and they were all aghast that she would say this. And that's not where we're at and that's not who we are kind of thing. And I kind of wanted to look at all of them and go, but you guys started this. 

Sarah [00:43:39] You know she talks like that. 

Nicholas [00:43:40] You knew this with all this stuff about. 

Sarah [00:43:42] It's fine when she's accusing Democrats, 

Nicholas [00:43:44] About this judge was in bad faith. You know it was all theater. You know that Marjorie Taylor Greene staff didn't go out and find all these rulings. She doesn't probably have a staff to do it. So it was somebody else's large staff. And let's go find dirt and let's just make a big stink on it. And then when she does what she naturally does, which is, take it that next step, you all act like, my goodness. And to me, it just seems craven. And like, they act all surprised, but they put up. I hate to sound too much like the playground bully, but he started it. Like, y'all started this. And so now it goes so far, you kind of have to own it, and it seems like they try not to own it or understand that this their. 

Sarah [00:44:22] And it was fascinating to me that, like the Madison Cawthorn controversy was like they finally got mad at somebody because this dude who they know who is young and ridiculous and extreme said, I staff up with communications, not legislative staff. And the thing you finally got mad at is he accused that he said something about all of you. Now he talks this way about Democrats all the time that he says, that they want to destroy the country, that they're all socialists, like all these ridiculous things. But he implies that you guys do coke and orgies, and then let's shut it all down. Like, I love that it finally came back and hit you a little bit and then you got mad. But you know how he operates. It's not a secret. He broadcast it everywhere. This is the way he talks and the way he acts. 

Nicholas [00:45:07] Sure. And let's not go too much down the rabbit hole of the Republican Party, because that's not really what we're supposed to be talking about here. But I encourage you all to look up a recent clip can remember the fellow's name. 

Sarah [00:45:18] Jonathan Swan. 

Nicholas [00:45:18] Jonathan Swan, who we love. 

Sarah [00:45:20] Beth loves him. 

Nicholas [00:45:21] Because he does. He asks the hard questions. He's had an interview, a live interview, face to face interview with Mitch McConnell and asked Mitch McConnell some uncomfortable questions about  how do you justify the way? How would you say on January 6th Trump tried to overthrow the government and then two weeks later say if he was the Republican nominee, you would vote for him and you would support him? And it's a very uncomfortable situation, and McConnell really avoids the question. 

Sarah [00:45:46] He does. Jonathan Swan did the best job I've ever seen of somebody holding Mitch McConnell to account, who is also very prepared and always like just he just has no problem saying, I'm not going to answer that. No, like he just has no scruples when it comes to interviews. But Jonathan Swan was prepared in a way for that and which everybody should be. It's not like it's a secret that this is how he responds in interviews, but I thought Jonathan Swan did the best like was the best prepared and really just kept sticking it to it and sticking it to it and sticking it to it. 

Nicholas [00:46:19] And that's a different question for, or a different conversation, for a different time. Should we let people get away with this as much as we seem to let people get away with this, which is to do things that seem contradictory and even to some degree, craven? And just look the other way and go, well, that's just the way that it's always been done. And that's Mitch. So we got way off topic there a little bit. But. 

Sarah [00:46:40] But Democrats, 

Nicholas [00:46:41] Democrats or Republicans have, I think, similar problems. I think the Republicans problems are probably. 

Sarah [00:46:48] See, I disagree. I do not think we have similar problems. 

Nicholas [00:46:51] Okay, well, we can agree to disagree. 

Sarah [00:46:53] We hate that phrase of pansy politics. You're not going to get invited back if you keep that up. No, I don't think it's the same. I think what the Republican Party and the way they handle dissension is why their party is in such a terrible state right now. And our party we might take a shlacking in the midterms. But I don't look at the Democratic Party and think, my gosh, we're just in terror. We're in a terrible state. Where we're we always are, which is fighting, disagreeing. But that's what we advocate here on Pantsuit Politics, is that there should always be conversation. There should be give and take. We don't bury our disagreements. We don't silence dissent. We work it out. And it might not always be the best electoral strategy, for sure. And arguably, that is what a party is supposed to do is win elections. But I'm still, like, so proud to be a Democrat. Absolutely. 

Nicholas [00:47:44] Sure and I'm still hopeful about Democrats and I think that some of this too is just generational. 

Sarah [00:47:48] Yeah. And I mean, it's like your mama, it's my mama. Since I was 18, I can talk about it. Nobody else can, but I can. I don't think we're perfect, but I'm definitely still happy to be a member of the Democratic Party. 

Nicholas [00:47:59] So official policy is we're not perfect, but we're better than the other guy. 

Sarah [00:48:02] Well that is usually the policy in a political party. Nicholas, we just returned from spring break. 

Nicholas [00:48:20] We did. 

Sarah [00:48:21] We went to Utah. 

Nicholas [00:48:22] We went to Utah. The last time we did this, I guess it was spring break. 

Sarah [00:48:25] Yeah. And we just gotten back, 

Nicholas [00:48:27] Gotten back from the Everglades and 

Sarah [00:48:28] We talked about the parks as [Inaudible]. 

Nicholas [00:48:30] And I was right. Yes.

Sarah [00:48:31] Because we are park people. We are attempting to visit every national park before we retire. We're making really good progress. We've been through like 13 in the last year. 

Nicholas [00:48:41] We have, I think, picked a lot of the low hanging fruit in terms of. 

Sarah [00:48:46] It's true. 

Nicholas [00:48:47] Geographically. 

Sarah [00:48:48] I think we should just basically move to Alaska for a month because you can only drive to like two of the six in Alaska and you just take planes. So that's the big that's the Mount Everest of the situation. But right now, we went through Utah, you can see five national parks in the state of Utah Arches, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, Bryce Canyon and Zion. We saw them all in a week. And with really not that much driving the driving was not bad. 

Nicholas [00:49:10] It was 10-ish days. It was a week plus. 

Sarah [00:49:13] Yeah, that's true because we left on Thursday. No we left on Friday and got back Saturday, 

Nicholas [00:49:18] So we did about a day and a half in each park. And they really are geographically not that far away. Arches and Canyonlands are literally 30 minutes away. I think it's another memory, serves another three hours drive to Capitol Reef couple two and a half hours down to Bryce Canyon. Bryce Canyon designs about an hour and a half two hours, so we didn't do a ton of driving. The last trip we did to national parks, we did a lot more driving. 

Sarah [00:49:42] Yeah, and we're going to talk about some of the choices we made on this trip. Just so Nicholas can bring up his ham radio, which is why he wanted to talk about outside politics. And I said, no, you're welcome. 

Nicholas [00:49:52] I didn't have a ham radio. I had one, but I wasn't using it. But one of the things that you will find in a lot of these parks, which isn't surprising after you've been to a couple of them, is that the cell service is. 

Sarah [00:50:04] Not great. 

Nicholas [00:50:05] Pitiful. 

Sarah [00:50:05] Utah has so many things reliable cell service, not one of them 

Nicholas [00:50:08] Or non-existent, and we were traveling with Sarah's parents. They were traveling in a separate car from us, which was a lifesaver. Sometimes it was very helpful to split up groups to. 

Sarah [00:50:19] You mean set up siblings. 

Nicholas [00:50:20] All of the sibling rivalry during longer stretches of the trip. And we had a couple of what are call GMRS or FRS radios, which is.

Sarah [00:50:30] Commonly known as walkie-talkies.

Nicholas [00:50:31] Commonly known as walkie talkies. But some of them are required to have a license for, do your own research. 

Sarah [00:50:36] My gosh. 

Nicholas [00:50:37] But they were very, very, very helpful. I think. I mean, at the end. 

Sarah [00:50:40] Many times I hard. Aren't you glad I brought these walkie talkies? 

Nicholas [00:50:43] I like some credit as do you. 

Sarah [00:50:45] I do. I like credit. 

Nicholas [00:50:46] Everybody likes a little credit. And the walkie talkies were helpful because when we didn't have cell service and couldn't text each other, we had, a walkie talkie to say, hey, we're going to pull over here. We, people are hungry. Are you guys hungry? Do you need a rest stop? Just to have that immediate and not have to, are they going to pick up or they're not going to pick up? It was nice. And I think, in the future we'll proably have them when we expect cell service to be decent if we're traveling caravan style. 

Sarah [00:51:11] Let's go to the important part where I get credit for planning this amazing. 

Nicholas [00:51:16] You do an incredible job of planning these things. And so just so you know, understand sort of the separation of the planning. Sarah does all the hard work. 

Sarah [00:51:24] True. 

Nicholas [00:51:24] And then she says, what hikes do we need to do? 

Sarah [00:51:26] Yeah, yeah. That's accurate. 

Nicholas [00:51:27] So Sarah finds the hotel. She does her reservations. She. 

Sarah [00:51:33] Does the flights. 

Nicholas [00:51:34] She does. She finds the flights. 

Sarah [00:51:35] Most of the restaurants. 

Nicholas [00:51:36] Books the restaurants, that kind of stuff. She crowdsources from you guys. 

Sarah [00:51:39] Yeah, it's amazing. 

Nicholas [00:51:40] Lots of helpful. 

Sarah [00:51:40] This is -- I'm still speaking. I want to talk about my process. 

Nicholas [00:51:44] So go ahead. 

Sarah [00:51:44] So and everybody's like, how do you do this? It literally is my full time job. Not really. But it feels like that. It feels like when I'm really in it, I'm not like reading for pleasure. I'm not watching TV. It's what I'm doing with my extra hours in the day. This one wasn't as bad because it's like a known road trip, so most people will tell you like you can either fly into Vegas, go to Salt Lake, fly in and out of Vegas or fly in and out of Salt Lake. So that's what we did. So there was lots of like road trip itineraries. The one I did on the Pacific Northwest was harder because there wasn't the exact trip I wanted to take, so I kind of had to plan it myself. 

[00:52:17] Our trip in Europe is hard, but it's also easier because you just do what Rick Steves tells you to do, which is my approach to Europe just picked by the [Inaudible] book and just tell it, do what he tells you to do. But for this one, it wasn't that bad again, mainly because I once I get the loose itinerary of where we'll be day by day, then I just crowdsource. And you all send me prolific lists of restaurants. And especially if a restaurant comes up over and over and over and over again, that's when we go to. And that worked out beautifully. I will say this about Utah, which, I'm going be honest, I did not expect to have good food like I didn't expect to have bad food, but I didn't expect to have like food experiences. But we did. 

Nicholas [00:52:57] I will say that Utah's food experiences is a credit to immigration in this country. 

Sarah [00:53:03] Word. 

Nicholas [00:53:04] Because one of the greatest things we had or probably the best thing that I remember, something that I would literally fly back for just to eat again was at Hruska's Kolaches, which is one of the, there's one in Provo. He did a couple of more. And they had a. 

Sarah [00:53:15] Carnitas. 

Nicholas [00:53:16] Carnitas Kolache. And it was the most delicious thing. 

Sarah [00:53:21] So why do we only buy one we should have waited in line and got another one. 

Nicholas [00:53:23] Those are from the Czech Republic and we had.

Sarah [00:53:25] Curry Pizza.

Nicholas [00:53:26] We had Curry Pizza. We had... 

Sarah [00:53:28] Amazing Mexican.

Nicholas [00:53:29] Mexican. We had good Italian. So it was it was really a tour of Utah's cuisine. 

Sarah [00:53:39] It was so good. 

Nicholas [00:53:41] It was very good. We also went to a few just American all-American hamburger diners. They were good. We had American Indian food the first night we were there, Black Sheep Cafe right? Isn't that what that was? 

Sarah [00:53:53] Yup. 

Nicholas [00:53:53] So we had a really good food tour. 

Sarah [00:53:55] It was so good and it just is the most beautiful stay like I had. I've been out west. My dad lives in California, and when I first started visiting him when I was really little, he lived in Arizona. So it's not like I haven't been out west before, but I have not been to. We've been to the Grand Canyon when the boys were little to sort of for a quick trip, but I had not been to, Utah before and seen these. I mean, just the rocks. I do feel like a geologist now. I feel like I can tell you all about the different layers and how the arches are formed. Man, shout out to the listener who suggested Gypsy God. My god, it was so awesome. It's like it picks up your GPS and it plays along with wherever you're driving in the park and it tells you. He gave us an acronym. Oh oh, what mighty rocks we have seen that tells you all the layers. 

Nicholas [00:54:43]  Oh, what mighty cliffs --

Sarah [00:54:45] We have known. 

Nicholas [00:54:45] We know now. 

Sarah [00:54:46] We know now, seen or wherever. But to tell you all the like white stone. And what was the M one? I like that word. 

Nicholas [00:54:52] You got me. I don't remember. 

Sarah [00:54:53] Dang it. 

Nicholas [00:54:55] We were geological experts for those twenty minutes. 

Sarah [00:54:56] Until we flew home and slept in our own houses. 

Nicholas [00:54:59] But that's GYPSY so like GPS with two Y's between.  

Sarah [00:55:03] Yeah, it was really great. It was a really great tool. We'll be using that in all our parks. Our kids did not love it, but that's okay because they don't pay for anything so they don't get a vote. 

Nicholas [00:55:11] Yeah, I think it was really just the pre-teen who decided he didn't like it. 

Sarah [00:55:13] And then the other two picked the pond.

Nicholas [00:55:15] Poisoned the well. 

Sarah [00:55:16] Posioned the well. 

Nicholas [00:55:16] And they didn't like it. But he was very interesting. It's based on your GPS. So as you drive…

Sarah [00:55:21] It's so cool. 

Nicholas [00:55:22] And you hit a GPS point. He starts talking about whatever it is you're looking at or getting ready to look at. And it really did take a lot of the load off of figuring out, well, what do we need to go see in this park? We didn't have it until we got into arches already. One of the listeners advised us about it and,

Sarah [00:55:40] It was Kathleen. Kathleen is the one who told us about it. 

Nicholas [00:55:42] Yeah, and it was great. It was really super, super duper helpful because we just at that point, like Sarah said, we just kind of did what he kind of like Rick Steves in Europe. We just did what this guy told us to do. He gave tips on parking design, he gave tips on what to do in Byrce first. What hikes to do in Bryce. And I do like I said, I do kind of the, what hikes are we going to do? My process is. I look at the, I look at guidebooks I try to see, what's going to fit in our our physical ability level, which is usually moderate to moderate, strenuous and we don't do anything crazy. 

Sarah [00:56:16] We do not do Angels Landing.

Nicholas [00:56:17] But we try not to just do just. 

Sarah [00:56:18] Because you don't like heights. 

Nicholas [00:56:20] So the other thing that to mention that you mentioned Hell's landing is in two of the parks, there are some reservation system. So Arches National Park has a reservation system. If you want to get in the park on a certain day, you have to have a reservation. So. 

Sarah [00:56:34] We were like probably the first reservation we had it at six a.m. the first day they did it. 

Nicholas [00:56:37] We were among the first reservations for sure. We had an a reservation for April 3rd. And it was like a six a.m. reservation, and I think we were probably the first 15. And you have an hour to enter the park once you've done that. Once you've entered the park in an hour, you can come and go from the park anytime you want to. So. 

Sarah [00:56:54] Do you go back to bed and come back. 

Nicholas [00:56:56] If you get a six a.m. reservation. You can stay [Inaudible] to go, check you guys in, come back and sleep for a couple hours and then you guys can reenter the park if that's what you want to do. We just went on and did the delicate arch trail and actually we didn't reenter the park. After that, we had done a half a day before. And so then we went on to Canyon Lands after we finished delicate arch. 

Sarah [00:57:14] We had a fantastic time. I would highly recommend this trip. 

Nicholas [00:57:16] And the other reservation system is for Angels Landing. Angels Landing is not for the faint of heart. It is a very high, very steep. 

Sarah [00:57:24] It's like hold on to a chain. 

Nicholas [00:57:25] And on both sides near the end. It is a basically a drop off and there is a chain system which is basically like a handrail, so to speak. Sarah will tell you I am not good with heights. 

Sarah [00:57:37] He didn't even climb over the big rocks to get to Delicate Arch. 

Nicholas [00:57:39] I don't love heights. And I really don't love heights when kids are involved because they're all over the place and they're precious cargo. So I didn't go over to delegate Arch and I would not try Angels Landing. But if you are inclined to do so, you are required to have a reservation now to try Angel's Landing because it was getting so crowded they were worried more people were going to get injured and there have been people who have fallen to their demise there. So lovely. 

Sarah [00:58:05] I was going to say, [Inaudible] what the heck. 

Nicholas [00:58:07] But do go to the Utah parks, it is incredible country. It's hard, I mean, coming from the Southeast. Living my entire life in the Southeast and mid-Atlantic. It's just. 

Sarah [00:58:17] They're so big. The rocks are so big. 

Nicholas [00:58:18] The geography out there is unbelievable and wide open country and the ranges and the buffalo, and it just doesn't seem like it should all be in one big country. But it is. 

Sarah [00:58:27] Yeah, we loved it. We loved it. What's going to be our next one we think? 

Nicholas [00:58:30] We talked about doing Texas doing Big Bend and. 

Sarah [00:58:34] Guadalupe. 

Nicholas [00:58:34] And that little thing, but that's still a lot of driving. We'll probably hit some of the ones that are over closer to us. 

Sarah [00:58:41] You want to do Yosemite. 

Nicholas [00:58:42] That's not closer to us. But like Cuyahoga will be probably [Inaudible] in Minnesota. We still haven't done Calgary in South Carolina, so there's a few we could probably still pick up. 

Sarah [00:58:55] I want to hear from any of you all have done all the ones in Alaska. I need to hear from somebody that's done all the ones in Alaska. 

Nicholas [00:59:00] How do you even do it? Do you just how are you? Is one of you a pilot? And so you just rent a boat plane and fly around for a couple of weeks because that's all we talked about. We're like, well, how do we know that's a pilot. 

Sarah [00:59:12] We just take him with us? 

Nicholas [00:59:13] That's what we'll do. That seems reasonable and likely with the oil price range. Not really. 

Sarah [00:59:18] Well, I do love. I love traveling with you Hun, it's fun. 

Nicholas [00:59:22] Well, you make it easy. 

Sarah [00:59:23] Thanks. 

Nicholas [00:59:24] You play it so well. 

Sarah [00:59:25] Thanks for coming on Pantsuit Politics. 

Nicholas [00:59:26] Sure thing. I know that I didn't come anywhere close to filling Beth's shoes here, but hopefully you all enjoyed.

Sarah [00:59:33] We will be back together, me and Beth next week. So exciting. So we hope that you guys will tune in until then, have the best weekend available to you. 

Beth [00:59:51] Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our managing director. 

Sarah [00:59:56] Maggie Penton is our community engagement manager. Dante Lima is the composer and performer of our theme music. 

Beth [01:00:02] Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers. 

Executive Producers (Read their own names) [01:00:06] Martha Bronitsky, Linda Daniel, Ali Edwards, Janice Elliot, Sarah Greenup, Julie Haller, Helen Handley, Tiffany Hassler, Emily Holladay, Katie Johnson, Katina Zugenalis Kasling, Barry Kaufman, Molly Kohrs. 

[01:00:23] The Kriebs, Laurie LaDow, Lilly 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 [01:00:43] Jeff Davis, Melinda Johnston, Ashley Thompson, Michelle Wood, Joshua Allen, Morgan McHugh, Nichole Berklas, Paula Bremer and Tim Miller. 

Sarah [01:00:53] As you have just heard, I'm here with my husband. Cookie, stop, you can't pet her. She wants to be in here, but you can't get pet her. 

Nicholas [01:01:00] This is getting weird. 

Sarah [01:01:01] Okay, sorry. You can't laugh be quiet. 

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