Debt, Student Loans, and the American Dream

TOPICS DISCUSSED

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EPISODE RESOURCES

RELEASE OF AFFIDAVIT FOR WARRANT TO SEARCH MAR-A-LAGO

STUDENT LOAN FORGIVENESS

WHAT IS FUN?

TRANSCRIPT

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

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

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

Beth [00:00:25] Hello and thank you so much for joining us for a new episode of Pantsuit Politics. We are very glad that you're here today. We're going to start by talking about the Trump affidavit that was released on Friday, because we know that you have questions about it. We heard from so many of you that you wanted us to discuss it, and it's important to us to engage with this community. So we're going to talk about that first. Then we're going to discuss student loan forgiveness. And here's why, everyone is discussing student loan forgiveness all around us in all the places and not in a particularly calm fashion. So we're going to try to show up and do that today. And then outside of politics, we're going to talk about fun because goodness knows the world needs more of it.  

Sarah [00:01:04] One place where fun shows up in my life is the group text with all my girlfriends. If you find these conversations we have on Pantsuit Politics helpful, drop a link to this episode in your local group chat. I don't know if local is the right word, but your group chats. That's a great place to share our show with your friends and say, "Hey, this is what we're talking about here. They've had this conversation I found really helpful, you might too." And we love it when you share our episodes. It is the number one way we grow this podcast and build that community that so informs the work we do here. You could also pop it in one of the comment threads of one of those social posts that have been populating so many of our feeds this weekend. If you see a conversation going off course, say, "Hey, here was a conversation I found helpful to really focus and strengthen my thinking around student loans and debt forgiveness."  

Beth [00:01:56] It means to the world to ask when you recommend our episodes. Like Sarah said, it is how more people can join this conversation and enrich the discussion that we're having across the Pantsuit Politics community. So thank you so much. Up next, we're going to talk about that affidavit that was released and heavily redacted about the FBI going to find some documents at Mar-a-Lago. On Friday, when everything happens after we're done for the week, the Department of Justice released the affidavit that supported its request for a warrant to search Mar-a-Lago. An affidavit is just a fancy way of saying a person said under oath things that they believe they know and how they know them to a judge. So the judge says, yes, I think there's grounds to authorize this search. And it told us that amidst lots of other things, newspaper clippings, magazine articles--  

Sarah [00:03:03] That's the piece that got me. That's the piece that got me was the classified documents just shoved in boxes among newspaper clippings of magazines. That's the piece that got me.  

Beth [00:03:15] It's just all been haphazardly intermingled, was the term in the affidavit. All of us just been hanging out in various rooms of Mar-a-Lago for over a year.  

Sarah [00:03:24] Which is not known to be a very secure place.  

Beth [00:03:27] Well, it is a social club.  

Sarah [00:03:30] Right. So they definitely don't have any places in Mar-a-Lago that is meant to hold classified documents. I hope that goes without saying. Like, there's no secure location there. And on top of that, it's just known to be, I don't know, leaky.  

Beth [00:03:47] Kind of freewheeling. Kind of freewheeling at Mar-a-Lago.  

Sarah [00:03:49] Freewheeling, yes.  

Beth [00:03:54] The affidavit begins-- the parts we can see. Over half of it is redacted. So there's a lot that we do not know. But it begins with a little overview of the classification taxonomy, like, here are what all these terms mean top secret. And it goes all the way down to like these are materials that we derive from human intelligence operating out there in the world. It's as sensitive as sensitive gets. And what we learned is that there is this whole back and forth between former President Trump and the National Archives and Records Administration for like the better part of last year where they were saying, seems like we don't have everything. And his team's like, inadvertently, maybe some stuff came down here, we'll find it. And they end up sending in January 15 boxes to the government. And 14 of the 15 boxes had classified stuff in them.  

Sarah [00:04:55] So the description of what happened that we received from the Trump camp was not accurate, is what you're saying.  

Beth [00:05:09] It appears that that is the case, that it was not accurate. And so now we have the intelligence community trying to figure out maybe whose had this.  

Sarah [00:05:19] Whose lives was put in danger by that.  

Beth [00:05:20] What are the results of this going to be?   

Sarah [00:05:25] All of this, just sources? Everybody? Yeah. It's really bad. 

Beth [00:05:28] It's pretty bad. And I don't know what the next steps will be because I don't think you can isolate this investigation from like a lot of other investigating that's happening in the DOJ, in Congress. There are civil suits. I don't know which thread pulls next, but it seems to me that if you are out there saying this is all political, there's no there there, you have to take a breath here. But no, there are definitely folks not taking a breath.  

Sarah [00:05:58] We've also added to our list of people and institutions at risk because of the rhetoric coming from the Trump campaign, which is now the National Archives are like, okay, now we need to do a security review. On top of the FBI, the Justice Department, I feel like the Postal Service election workers, let's just keep that running list of people and institutions whose security is at risk because of former President Donald Trump's rhetoric.  

Beth [00:06:28] I really liked what the archivist said in a statement to people who work at NARA. She was talking about how they are now receiving threats and smears and then also like thank you notes from people who think that they're out to get former President Trump. And she was like, neither are welcome. That is not what we do here. We are just here doing our jobs and please do not put us on a T-shirt as a hero and please do not think of us as a villain. That's not our deal.  

Sarah [00:06:58] Now, Trump and his lawyers did request a special master to review the material, see specifically through the lens of executive privilege, which I will acknowledge seems fair and it seems the judge agrees with me. She said she is inclined to do that. She's not going to do it yet, but she's inclined to do it.  

Beth [00:07:18] Yes, Special Master is just another legal term. That means like usually a retired judge. Someone who has the experience to know what they're talking about and look at but won't be overseeing the rest of the case. I think this is a great idea. I will say this idea from former President Trump and his legal team is a great idea. I wholeheartedly endorse it. If I were working in the Department of Justice, I would want the court overseeing almost every aspect of this. Because, again, when you have people like Lindsey Graham and Josh Hawley walking around saying, if y'all indict the president, there's going to be rioting in the streets, you want this to be pretty buttoned up. Pretty buttoned up process. And I think any place where you have even just extra judges involved seems appropriate and helpful and all of that will slow it down. Another component that Republicans are criticizing here is timing. They're saying like, how is it that he had these documents for over a year and we're just now discussing it right before the midterm elections? And I get that criticism. And also, if they had gone into Mar-a-Lago with a search warrant in March of 2021 say, then they would have said, well, you didn't even try to work this out with him. You rushed right to the most  punitive thing. There's just no quiting. 

Sarah [00:08:36] Exactly. You were slowly rolling it in. Right. The Trump camp was slow rolling the whole process and now they're complaining about how long it took. I like it. I like that. I think it's so strong an argument. 

Beth [00:08:44] But that's how it always is. That's why there is never anything to be done here except what you think is the right thing. Because  there's always a way to turn it into Trump as the victim. So we'll see where it goes. I don't know how much this will impact the midterm elections. It seems to me this is probably low on nearly everyone's list. What I am going to do with it in conversations with people in my life is just start saying the word careless, because I think that's what we know right now. We don't know a lot of things, but we know this was careless and I'm not sure how you argue with that.  

Sarah [00:09:20] Yeah. It is reflective of his inability to prioritize anything but his individual whims and ego.  

Beth [00:09:34] And I will say, when we were in the midst of the Hillary Clinton email situation, that is how I felt about it. Careless. I felt like it was careless and that it was about prioritizing convenience over kind of the annoying document protection things that the government ask of you. I do not think these situations are the same, but I don't need to argue with people about that right now. I can just say, like, we'll wait and see. I feel like there's a lot left to learn here. But yes, I thought that was careless and I think this is careless unquestionably so.  

Sarah [00:10:07] Orders and magnitudes more careless.  

Beth [00:10:10] But so we will continue to follow this and try to give you as much information as we can. But there is just a lot that we don't know. And I think there are good reasons for us to not know it. I think it's bananas that people are running around saying to the press, they should give us more and like stop redacting so much. But the point is, these things are secret. That's the whole point of the whole thing. If you could have this affidavit out there in the public completely unredacted, then there might not be a problem with these documents being at Mar-a-Lago. So we'll stay with it. We'll continue to talk with you about it. Up next, we're going to discuss student loans. Last Wednesday, President Biden announced a three part plan to cancel $10,000 of student debt for certain borrowers. And I think it's fair to say that everyone promptly lost their minds. So let's walk through what the program actually does first, and then we'll discuss kind of how we're thinking about it and processing it. The first component is what the White House calls targeted debt relief to address the financial harms of the pandemic. So all student borrowers with household incomes that are less than $125,000 for single people, less than $250,000 for married people would be entitled to $10,000 of debt relief. If you got a Pell Grant to go to college and that Pell Grant is a grant from the federal government, a grant not alone that is based on financial need. So if you receive that grant and some student loans, you'll be qualified for $20,000 in relief.  

Sarah [00:11:51] It also makes the student loan system, in their words, more manageable for current and future borrowers. So it caps the monthly loan payments at an amount equal to 5% of the borrower's monthly discretionary income and forgives the remaining loan balance after 10 years of payments, provided the remaining balance is $12,000 or less. The Biden administration has also proposed a rule that borrowers who have worked at a nonprofit, in the military or in federal, state, tribal, local government receive a credit towards loan forgiveness.  

Beth [00:12:21] So that would be strengthening that service driven public loan program that's already in effect, that lots of people have not taken advantage of who do qualify for it. The Biden administration has been quietly working on that program for quite some time, and this proposed role would be another expansion of that. And then the third prong is protecting future students and taxpayers, in the Biden administration's words, by reducing the cost of college and holding schools accountable when they hike up prices. I think it's fair to say that there's a little less substance around this third prong. It is more aspirational. The administration says they will advocate to increase Pell Grants. So those Pell Grants for low income borrowers have been stuck at a certain amount for a very long time and have not at all kept pace with the price of college tuition almost anywhere. So they want to advocate to increase those. And then the Department of Education is going to continue to make rules to try to see that people who pay for college get some value back for what they've paid. But it's hard. Everybody who looks at the economics of higher education feels pretty stuck on how to make college more affordable for more people while maintaining the kind of quality education that you get at a lot of American universities. That's a hard one.  

Sarah [00:13:39] So there's a few other pieces of this. The Biden administration is extending the pause on student loan payments despite saying the last one was the final pass. That first was granted by the Trump administration during the beginning of the pandemic. They're extending that through the end of the year so student borrowers would resume payments in 2023. There will be an application process. So this isn't an automatic relief. The details are not clear yet, but if you think you qualify, you can sign up to be notified at www.studentaid.gav/debtrelief, and we will put that link in the show notes.  

Beth [00:14:13] So there are so many components of this conversation as it has unfolded primarily on social media, but in life as well. Let's start with the legal authority, the Heroes Act of 2003. It's been around for a while. Gives the Secretary of Education authority to alleviate the hardship that loan recipients may suffer when there is a national emergency. And so what we have here is the administration tying this forgiveness to the pandemic. And that's one place where you could see a legal challenge. You could have a group of people take the president to court. And I know there are groups contemplating this to say this isn't an actual emergency. Now, can we get there? Like, do they have standing to make that argument? There are like many, many, hurdles to a court striking this down. But it also is a possibility that a court would find that this exceeds the secretary of education's authority or that otherwise administratively this has been done improperly.  

Sarah [00:15:17] So we don't have any challenges yet, but that's definitely something we'll all have to keep an eye on as this moves forward.  

Beth [00:15:23] Another component of this conversation is just asking the question, is it a just thing to do? Are student loans such a problem that taking the extraordinary step of debt forgiveness is a fair solution? And there are tons of ways to analyze this. I think all of us can start with the proposition is higher education generally more expensive than the economic benefits of receiving higher education? And that is really fraught because so many of the people who hold student loans through federal programs have not received the benefit of the higher education because they didn't finish college for whatever reason. And so when you're analyzing all this information, you got to look at the different buckets of people who are included among federal student borrowers.  

Sarah [00:16:19] That's what I just kept thinking about during sort of the fallout from the announcement as I was reading social media posts and having conversations with you over the weekend. We are just asking the two word student loans to do a lot of work there. In the same way we ask like medical debt to do a lot of work. The universe of experience that is contained inside those words is pretty vast. I think we reduce a lot in medical debt, but we do even more reduction when we say things student loans. It's why a lot of the arguments that were seen sort of fell apart for me when you could tell it was built around the idea that people graduate. David French wrote an article that I thought, well, you're basing all this on the assumption that people are graduating and getting the benefit of that education. I think that the Biden administration did a decent job of trying to target this and trying to provide relief to the people most burdened by debt. I mean, I was even thinking, like, why don't we always list the Pell Grant part as the second part of this in all the coverage, right? It's like the Pell Grant is like an "Oh and also Pell Grant recipients." But that is a sort of group of borrowers that are particularly burdened that almost always come from low income settings. And so I think that when we talk about it, it's just when we say student loan forgiveness, like, we're using three words to contain so much, even as someone who thinks this is a great idea, I read and shared Ann Helen Peterson's write up on my personal channel and on politics channel, she had just listed people who responded to her. And I was blown away at the depth and diversity of experience and just things I'd never thought about, like people's experiences that I had not contemplated because they are so far away from my own experience. And I think now that's just really important to remember. I think we're trying to sum up a really complex situation in some really simple language.  

Beth [00:18:27] The data around this is really hard to get your arms around because of the complexity of the experiences of people who receive student loans. One part of this that I think is an area where we could build on this policy, whether you think that overall this is a good idea or a bad idea, I hope most of us could agree that loans coming from the federal government to assist people to receive higher education and hopefully make their lives better and make them more productive members of our society, those loans should not have a negative amortization.  

Sarah [00:19:03]  Yes.  

Beth [00:19:03] So what that means is that as you are paying off your debt, even if you're paying it exactly on schedule, you're complying with all of the terms of the loans, the interest rate is such that the loan is growing as you're paying it off. That shouldn't happen with the federal and that is predatory. And there are lots of private student loans out there that do this. And I don't think that's great either. But I particularly think that a federal loan should not negatively amortize. And so I think it's good that this is a first step toward eliminating that burden for people.  

Sarah [00:19:38] Because you particularly see it in public interest careers: public defenders, teachers, social workers. And I think that's what they're trying to get at with the capping at the 5%. I think that's a great, great program. And my Facebook feed was full of a lot of people in my life that are going to be affected by this. And a lot of them are in public interest careers. A lot of the teachers in my lives are required to get masters certifications for their careers and then don't make enough money to pay them off. And so that's a problem. Even if your interest rate is not the reason you can't pay that down or if is just because you don't make enough money and even in some of these public interest programs, which are confusing and hard to apply for or they change the terms. I had a friend say, oh, I did it for one. Then I pursued another master's thinking the same program would continue and then they suspended the program. So you hear all these stories where it feels like the rules got changed on people halfway through the process. And that is frustrating. And that is a situation where it feels like people were treated unfairly and had no choice of their own. And I think that's the other thing, right? When we say student loans and there's language about loans and debts, it's all this underlying assumption that it's just all individual choice. Everyone is just signing up, eyes wide open for what this means. And I just think that's a really reductive and unfair categorization of what happens in people's lives when  they sign up for student debt.  

Beth [00:21:10] As you watch the backlash to this program, I don't want to be unfair and reductive about people's emotions in response to it that are negative too. So I can sit here and hold on to a bunch of things at one time. If I were a policymaker, would I have done this? Probably not. At the same time, I am very happy for the people that this is going to materially help. I'm not against helping people. I think that there are many, many, things that the government could do every single day that would be life changing in an instant for people in very dire circumstances. Where you could hear that this is going to help them and you could say, I'm so glad this person is going to be helped. And at the same time, I'm not sure that this is the right thing for the government to have done on balance. That's how I feel about this. I described myself in a previous episode about student loans as pretty neutral on it because I do think every problem surrounding higher education is a hard one. I think every problem surrounding all of education is a hard one. It's just difficult. We've built these large systems that are theoretically there to serve everybody. They don't do that consistently. The people who are part of them are trying very hard to make them do that. The resources are never enough. It's challenging. So as I've watched this unfold, probably just because of sort of my social network, the people who make up my feeds, I have seen a lot of really dismissive language toward folks who don't support this.  

[00:22:41] And when you said, Sarah, that borrowers have felt like the rules have changed on them in an unfair way, I think that's 100% true about many people who have student loan debt. I think some of the emotional outpouring from people who don't support this policy comes from a sense that they have endured unfair things and no one has come to the rescue for them. And I don't think that that is worth arguing with because you say this a lot. We can't really argue with people's experiences. Like sharing experiences is a good way to talk politics. And it's a frustrating way because you can't argue someone out of their own experience. I get why people are looking at this thinking this is totally unfair. This is the government bringing a bunch of money to a problem that's not going to help me and I've been through some stuff too. So I am both happy for the folks who are going to be helped by this, sympathetic to the folks who think this is a bad idea. And then on balance, I think the economics of it and the effect that it's going to have, I think that's a very hard question, which is why you see policy experts and economists of both parties feeling all kinds of ways about it, because this is tough to predict the effect it'll have on the overall economy.  

Sarah [00:24:01] When we're talking about the response, it's really difficult because you have people speaking from their own personal experiences. And then you have, I think, this other situation that I would describe as the Dave Ramsey situation, who as an individual I do not think is moving this conversation forward in a helpful way. So much citing of Dave Ramsey in my feed. And look, I think that Dave Ramsey and his financial approach has helped a lot of people. But in the same way, I think you can see a successful nutrition and diet program help people, and also have an overall bad cultural effect because there is this undercurrent of moralizing. And there is-- I don't even know if it's an undercurrent of moralizing with Dave Ramsey. I think it is a feature, not a bug, of moralizing around debt. And even like the GOP tweeting, like, You pay your debts, period. As if like good people pay their debts. When I think we've made a lot of progress on debt, we're not debtors [Inaudible] anymore. I think that's a positive development in human society that we have acknowledged that it isn't as simple as good people pay their debts because debt is more complicated than that.  Dave Ramsey didn't invent moralizing around debt. I mean, debt is interwoven in a lot of the major world religions, how we think about debt, how we treat debt, how we talk about debt. And I think all of that is coming to play here, right? I think it's really not just about student loans when people start to get upset and talk about it. It is about that your moral posture towards debt. It is about an ongoing and increasingly difficult conversation we're having about the American dream here in this country.  

[00:26:04] I thought The New York Times did a really interesting piece on how candidates are using that language. Instead of we are here to participate the American Dream, it's we're defending the American dream as if it's something that's sort of carved in stone and we all have to protect it. But I think particularly when it comes to higher education, there is some really difficult questions that we are asking as a society about how important higher education is to the American dream. And then you add in again this sort of religious moralizing baggage we all bring to conversations about debt, and you just have a powder keg. And I think that's okay. I think we're talking about really difficult things. I'm not neutral on it. I think it's really important. I think the cost of higher education is something that we have got to pay attention to. And my only concern is that I hope that this is not the end of the conversation and that I wish there was more specifics about how we're going to deal with the cost of tuition instead of just dealing with the debt incurred through higher education. I think that there are spaces for agreement. Interestingly enough, in a lot of the conversations I saw on social media, is when people would say-- including Dave Ramsey-- well, why are we still putting out loans if we're going to forgive them? And people were like, great, let's make it free. And there was a lot of agreement on both sides. Like, yeah, community college, a lot like trade school, they should be free. I think that's a great place to start.  

[00:27:36] I think that's a great conversation to have because what I do see is everybody gets stuck in time and their perceptions around higher education are really, really, closely linked to their experiences in higher education. That's not surprising. I'm not really sure there's a way to get around that. But whereas even in our generation, there was still a higher proportion of people not attending college, that's flipped by now. And it's definitely going to be flipped by the time our kids go to school if we don't have a serious conversation. Where the majority of people are going to be pursuing some form of higher education and incurring debt for that, and I think that that's really difficult. And I think you see that come to play inside this conversation. So you have all those components, right? Like, ancient really difficult religious conversations about debt transitions in the future around higher education, emotions and expectations around our lives, and what role higher education should play in the pursuit of the "American dream". I mean, you just have all that come into play. And so it's not surprising that all of our social media feeds were popin since this announcement on Wednesday.  

Beth [00:28:57] And I think that's the best we can do in the midst of that powder keg, is just try to bring the temperature down and say, "Hey, there are a lot of really hard questions here." I don't think that the ancient wisdom of the world, for what it's worth, applies to the concept of debt if loans are negatively amortizing. Like, if you are paying the debt down and it continues to rise because of the terms of the loan, then I think we need a different framework to talk about that question. Maybe some of the reason that this is hitting everyone so hard is because whatever your situation is, your ability to participate in the economy and show up and do a job that supports the kind of life you want to have. It entails some sacrifice for everybody and it has entailed some hardship for everybody. And it's entailed moments when you have felt like this seems easier for other people than it is for me. And that's probably always true. And it's also probably always true that it's been harder for lots of people than it's been for us, and we bring all of that up. I just don't want to have a culture war about student loans when you can make really reasonable proposals on how to get here. I mean, a chief criticism that I have of this action is that it's pretty arbitrary.  

[00:30:13] I think in the long term it could increase the cost of college. There are economists who think that's true and there are economists do argue against that. I don't know. But my gut reaction is that this could contribute toward the price of college continuing to escalate. I would love to see Congress get involved here. If Congress did this, I would feel differently about it. I also think Congress needs to get involved to make student debt dischargeable in bankruptcy. It's bananas to have a president saying we're going to forgive $10,000 in debt that a bankruptcy judge can't forgive when a person's life has reached the point where they really can not manage their debts anymore. There's just a lot of work to do here, and we don't get that work done in the conversation we're having. That's my big reaction. Being pretty neutral on the policy, I just feel like we're returning to the bad place that we've come to with every other culture war kind of conversation here. And that always gets us stuck. And we're in a time when so many positive things are happening. I feel like there are some really positive trends that could accelerate right now. Why we're going to get stuck over $10,000, $20,000 of debt forgiveness, I don't really understand.  

Sarah [00:31:26] I don't know if we're stuck. I mean, I would have said that we're stuck on so many things that Congress has made progress on and this administration has made progress on. Maybe this is just part of the process now in America. Like, there's no way for the loud voices not to come to play. I think the reason I'm less discouraged than you are is just it doesn't feel like it's the same old people yelling the same old things. It feels like a lot of people who I never see participate in these conversations are participating are saying, "This will affect me," or "Why are you mad about this?" It feels like for at least a part of the population, there's a little bit of trust being built in the government again, which I always think is positive, and just a lot more participation from people who I feel don't usually participate in the conversation. That's maybe why the heat is a little higher, but I always think that that's positive when there are people who I never see talk about politics or policy chiming in.  

Beth [00:32:28] I think that what tempers that for me is knowing that the people who are in our feeds are a very small percentage of the overall population. While trust may be being rebuilt in the government for people who are in our social circles, this could look like another time when the government kind of puts its fingers on the scale for higher educated people, people who tend to donate to campaigns or vote in elections. And I don't want to just be outright dismissive of those concerns. I've really been discouraged by people that I am typically pretty aligned with, both on policy and on temperament, just kind of the moralizing in favor of this approach. I feel like we're bringing a set of attitudes and tactics to this conversation that we've brought to every political firestorm for the past couple of years. And it doesn't serve us. Where I share your optimism is if this is President Biden saying, you know what, I probably can't do much about this legally, but I'm going to pull a thread and see if that has a domino effect and gets Congress moving, and gets a more rational conversation going, and heck maybe even brings some participants in higher education to the table to talk about what we can all do together. I think that would be a tremendously positive thing.  

[00:33:54] We've already been hearing from you about your thoughts and experiences here, and we'll look forward to continuing to do so. You can always reach out to us at Hello@pantsuitpoliticsaho.com. We read every message and value them and you always expand our thinking. So we would love for you to join this conversation with us. Next up, we're going to talk about fun. What's fun? Can we have it? Will we ever have it again? Is it available to us? That's up next. Sarah, I sent you an article over the weekend from Jessica Bennet in The New York Times where she talks about how she was kind of a fun hater, that things that people find fun, she doesn't typically find fun. Amusement parks, card games, loud party is not her thing. But she described that during the pandemic everyone, including her, started to feel starved for joy, for delight, for euphoria. And then that was counterbalanced by this feeling that fun would be distasteful because there's so much suffering in the world. I just thought it was really interesting and I wanted to hear your perspective on it.  

Sarah [00:35:04] Well, you and I have had conversations in the past that we're not exactly who people call to mind when they think of the word fun. I like to think I'm funny. But I don't know if people would be like that Sarah, she's fun. Mainly because I'm just not a partier. I like to throw parties. I like to host parties. But I'm not a partier. I think that's a distinction, right?  

Beth [00:35:26] I think so. I love to host a gathering. Probably a gathering, not a party. There I am not being super fun. And then I like to sort of back slowly away from it and watch people eat the food that I've prepared and talk to each other. But yes, I agree that no one has ever been like, Beth, the top word that comes to mind about her is fun.  

Sarah [00:35:45] Well, particularly because spontaneity is not my specialty. I like plan. In fact, there is an accompanying quiz with this article you guys that is actually fun. You see, like a personality quiz I think is fun. That's probably indicative of something. My fun approach was achievement. Do you want to share your fun results?  

Beth [00:36:08] Mine was low key. I can do spontaneity. It's just always going to be kind of in a range, a very low key range. I like spontaneity. I like a party. I like to go out and do things and try things and see things and see people. But it's just going to stay in kind of a cool, calm place.  

Sarah [00:36:27] So that was my favorite thing about this article is I just felt like her taxonomy of fun was more expansive. So she's like, there's this effervescent sort of crowd fun that I think most people identify, like, being at a baseball game or being at a like a rave or an amusement park. But there are other types of fun. I really like her description of contentment fun, which I definitely thought might be the results of my quiz because I do love like reading by the fire or quiet gathering. Like, I just love a contentment. And she said, like, as you get older, that's more the fun you're interested in. And I think it's really beautiful and important. I have identified in myself this need I feel to sort of just be soaking up life. So while I'm not a partier, I do think I am appreciative of the light moments of the times in a day or a season where you just get to say, "This is just about being here and enjoying it." Enjoyment I can absolutely center. That is something that motivates me. And so if fun is just enjoyment of life, then that I will claim.  

Beth [00:37:46] Well, she talked a lot about how fun is really difficult to define, that it's not a state of being, that it's not a verb. She settled on you kind of know it when you're having it. But there is this beautiful quote from an Australian professor, Allan Key that fun is pleasure without purpose. I feel like that marries up with your enjoyment framework.  

Sarah [00:38:06] Yeah, because we spend a lot of science and time recently on happiness. What does happiness mean? How do we define it? How do we measure it? But less on fun. I like fun better than play. There's been a lot of writing about play and how we should play, and I don't enjoy the play movement. I feel like it's a lot of pressure and probably because my fun orientation is achievement focused and play is not. Any sort of achievement is frowned on when we're talking about "Play". But I don't like it and I feel like it's limiting to me when I am having fun, but it wouldn't be categorized as play by most people. So I like this better. I like this focus on fun a lot better.  

Beth [00:38:47] I just never know what the play movement means because everything that sounds like play to other people to me has a component that I'm like--   

Sarah [00:38:58] No, thank you.  

Beth [00:38:59] Like a lot of competition, which is a pass for me. Sometimes it feels like play is a lot of work, like the planning of the play and the things feels like work to me. It's not low key. I think play is not low key and now that's my problem. Maybe that's what this quiz has revealed for me.  

Sarah [00:39:13] I think play always implies a lack of mastery. And the mastery is what's so fun for me hence the achievement focused. When I feel like I'm doing it, I'm good at it and I'm enjoying it, that is like, yes, please. And play I always feels like try something new. Try a craft you never tried before. Why? I'm going to be bad at it. It's also my struggle with games. I love to play a game. I don't want to learn a new game. This is an important distinction that I have named in myself later in life.  

Beth [00:39:46] So here is a part of this article that I found very challenging and inspiring at the same time. She kept a log of her fun moments for a few days, and I loved that she was noticing fun and things that are typically not fun. Like, she noticed that she had fun gossiping with someone for a minute. I thought that was really provocative. So I'm going to try to do this. I want to try to intentionally notice my fun this week and just see what jumps out at me because maybe I don't even recognize all the opportunities for fun that come up.  

Sarah [00:40:19]  We'll share our quiz results with the link to the quiz on Instagram and then we'll open it up for people to share their fun moments. We'll all bring a little awareness to our fun this week. I think that would be-- wait for it-- fun. 

Beth [00:40:33] I think that would be fun. Here's a fun thing. We got such a beautiful email from a listener, Christine, who has been with us for six years. She has been listening to Pantsuit Politics since she was 23. And she said that now that she's moving toward her thirties, she has realized that we helped shape her twenties and empowered her to take a well-educated and graceful stance on politics. And that touched my heart and felt very fun to me. And I just wanted to say to Christine, thank you so much for sharing that. And to all of you who share things like that with us, we truly, truly, appreciate it.  

Sarah [00:41:03] I also just thought it was the ultimate compliment because it feels like we're growing. Like, we're growing or else she would have outgrown us. And that to me is just the ultimate compliment, because that's always what I hope that we do here at Pantsuit Politics. That we don't get stuck doing something, that we're always pushing ourselves and having different conversations and different types of conversations than we were at the first episode in 2015.  

Beth [00:41:30] I think that growth is fun and I appreciate you all being here for it. We'll be back in your ears on Friday. Until then, have the best week available to you.  

[00:41:47] Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our managing director.  

Sarah [00:41:52] Maggie Penton is our community engagement manager. Dante Lima is the composer and performer of our theme music.  

Beth [00:41:58] Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers.  

Executive Producers (Read their own names) [00:42:02] Martha Bronitsky. Linda Daniel. Ali Edwards. Janice Elliot. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Helen Handley. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holladay. Katie Johnson. Katina Zugenalis Kasling. Barry Kaufman. Molly Kohrs.  

[00:42:21] The Kriebs. Laurie LaDow. Lilly McClure. Emily Neesley. The Pentons. Tawni Peterson. Tracy Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katy Stigers. Karin True. Onica Ulveling. Nick and Alysa Villeli. Katherine Vollmer. Amy Whited.  

Beth [00:42:38] Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Ashley Thompson. Michelle Wood. Joshua Allen. Morgan McHugh. Nichole Berklas. Paula Bremer and Tim Miller. 




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