Classified Documents, the FAA, Immigration, and The White Lotus

TOPICS DISCUSSED

  • Classified Documents and Information Management

  • Good Economic News

  • Continued Flight Issues & Technical Debt

  • Biden’s New Tactic on Immigration

  • Outside of Politics: The White Lotus

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EPISODE RESOURCES

UPCOMING EVENTS:

CONTENT MENTIONED:

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. Welcome to another episode of Pantsuit Politics. Today, we are going to talk about several of the top news stories of the week: classified documents, canceled flights, and our southern border. Then at the end of the show, the time has finally arrived. Beth, we are going to talk about Golden Globe winning television series White Lotus.  

Beth [00:00:42] I've been waiting for so long. I'm so happy that it's finally here. I'm so happy for Jennifer Coolidge. I have watched her acceptance speech no less than five times. But before we get started, we wanted to share that we have officially kicked off our January six report book club in our premium community. We shared our first discussion, which we intended to keep nice and tight, and it came in at a really cool 42 minutes on Wednesday. So we've discussed the executive summary and the first two chapters for all of our supporters who are at that $15 tier and above. That's your option for Apple Podcasts subscriptions and it is the middle tier on Patreon. We would love for all of you to join us there next week as we read Chapters three and four. And it's not too late to be there. You also do not have to do the homework to come to the book club. We shared the highlights that we think were worth reading if you read nothing else, so that you can catch up really quickly and get what you might have missed in the hearings or what didn't make it into the hearings. We're going to make the final discussion a live virtual event so we can all meet together and we can take questions live. Once we've read the entire report and heard our book club's feedback on it, we'll do a little segment of the show recapping that here.  

Sarah [00:01:49] Thank you to all of you who joined us last night for the Republic year end webinar that we mentioned here on the show last week. We also wanted to let you know that we have another speaking event that is open to the public. For those of you in the East Tennessee area, we are heading to Maryville College, which is just outside of Knoxville. We are so grateful to be invited to be the very first speakers and their new Witherspoon Lecture Series. And we'd love for you to join us if you're in the area.  

Beth [00:02:14] We'll speak on Tuesday, February 7th at 7 p.m.. You can find the link for tickets in the show notes.  We'll be signing books after the event, so bring your copies of Now What and I think You're Wrong, but I'm Listening if you have them or you can buy them at the event through a local bookstore. And if you're not in that area, don't worry. We have live events coming up in the next couple of months that we can't wait to share with you. So stay tuned.  

Sarah [00:02:34] After this break, we're going to talk about everyone's favorite topic, classified documents. This week, we learned that classified documents were found at the Penn Biden's Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement of the University of Pennsylvania, which is a think tank founded by then former Vice President Biden in February of 2018. At the time, the University of Pennsylvania leased a suite of offices for the center, including an office for the former vice president, current president's personal use when he was in Washington. An attorney was closing the office down and found a handful of classified documents in a locked closet and turned them immediately over to the National Archives. Then we learned from an anonymous source on Wednesday of this week the documents were also found at a second location.  

Beth [00:03:21] And we learned minutes before we started recording that that second location was Biden's home in Delaware.  

Sarah [00:03:28] There we go. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland has asked John Lausch, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, in a hold over Trump appointee to review the classified material from these locations. And here we are.  

Beth [00:03:41] If we have to talk about classified materials, I am happy that we are talking about them in a context where they're safe handling is being taken seriously, that they were found that immediately the government was notified, that immediately the Department of Justice got involved and hopefully an expedient resolution can happen here. I think we're going to continue to talk about all varieties of information management for quite some time, though, because the volume of information that's being managed by the government is enormous. The forms it takes are so varied, in part because of practices and communication preferences and demographic differences in how we look at information. I mean, this is going to continue to be a huge problem for a long time, and it's a problem that private organizations face as well. We are just in the information age. It's no wonder that we're talking a lot about information management.  

Sarah [00:04:40] Yeah, I think this is reflective of some universal issues. And I also think it is reflective of a very specific political reality. Post the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago, it is not surprising to me that the Biden team said go out and do a very thorough search and make sure no classified documents are hanging out at these locations. I mean, why wasn't this office closed down when he became president two years ago? It's just stuff that I think probably falls off the radar. And because of the highly sensitive political environment, with a new Republican House of Representatives itching to investigate anything about Joe Biden, and of course the heightened scrutiny surrounding the handling of classified documents because of former President Trump's decisions, then, yeah, they went out, they searched, they found something. And I think they're hoping let's find it. Let's get it through the proper channels. Let's get it looked at by a Trump appointee hold over and let's close the story down before it can get legs. I do appreciate how many media outlets have taken pains to delineate the differences between a former president who orders documents to his home and then lied to the National Archives about how many he has versus a current president who goes and searches for them and turns them over immediately through the proper processes. But still, there were choices made. Some of The New York Times coverage was wild with the blaring, breaking news about this story, guys, this is so unnecessary.  

Beth [00:06:10] I wonder if some of the coverage is not prompted by the fact that the White House has been really transparent about some aspects of this and not others. And wherever there is a gap in the information being provided, it feels like there's got to be a story underneath that. And it's taken something that maybe could have been one media cycle and prolonged it through a couple because we have this drip, drip of, oh, an anonymous source says that documents were in a second location. Oh, now that location is the home. Okay. And then it's going to be like who was the source and why were the documents discovered? Who was looking for them, what was in them? I think if they could have tightened this up a little bit, it would have seemed more like an administrative matter than a parallel to what's become a criminal matter for President Trump. What I would stress about former President Trump's situation is that it could have been an administrative matter for him as well. And there were months where the government tried to handle it as an administrative matter. Hello, we noticed that all this is missing. Please give it back to us. Pretty please give it back to us. Could you give it back to us? And then when you did, is that all of it? Oh, we see some pretty important stuff here.  And our previous experience with you tells us that there's probably more out there. What's going on? It could have been contained for him, too, if he had handled it in this way.  

Sarah [00:07:27] Yeah. I wonder about the second location. I think you see the decision making that always sort of haunted the Clintons, where you're trying to do the right thing and you're telling yourself, like, I never get treated fairly and so I'm going to try to do the right thing, but I can't really trust the media to treat me fairly. So I'm going to try to protect myself. Which then perpetuates the cycle and you can't really go back in time and assure that you would have been treated fairly from the beginning. They just tie themselves in knots and you sort of sense some of that going on here. And as I was thinking about this, I thought, oh, man, you guys, again, you're going have to channel the Obama administration which kept things so tight. And then I thought, that's not a fair comparison because Joe Biden is not Barack Obama for a lot of reasons, primarily because he's had an enormously long career before he became president. There's just a lot more there-there as compared to Obama. And I think their ability to avoid scandal, which I don't even want to use that word, because I don't think that's what this is. But just for the purpose of the point I'm trying to make has been pretty good. And I hope that they can continue that because, again, you you have some actors in Congress, including my own representative, Jamie Colmer, who I would not say are acting in good faith and are going to jump all over anything and everything that they can. And I think that puts the Biden administration in a tough spot.  I don't really want to Monday Morning quarterback them because I think it is such a fine line.  

Beth [00:08:50] I think there is a real risk in that media strategy and that paranoia and the push pull that goes along with investigations coming for them over the next two years, especially over the next few months, as House Republicans have decided that what they really can get done are investigations. I think this administration has been effective in a lot of respects by respecting the public. And I'll say more about this when we talk about immigration in a few minutes. But I think that whenever President Biden comes forward and says, look, here's a hard problem that we have, and here are the dimensions of the hard problem, and here's what I can do and what I can't do. It's really effective. And I hope that through this issue with the documents and whatever else comes of these investigations, they'll continue to do that. Just trust the public to be able to figure out what's real and what's inflated and what we should be actually concerned about and require some remedies. And there might be some things like that. And what is smoke blowing from the Republican Party?  

Sarah [00:09:55] It is hard, though, to trust the public because you know so many people are going to see this and go, "See they're all the same," because that's the narrative they have in their own head about politics and in our current two parties. And so that's what was so frustrating to me in the way some of the news outlets, including The New York Times, decided to cover this because it's not what's in the article, it's the tenor you give to it. It's the energy you give to it. I think all the time about the expert on the Ezra Klein podcast talking about post-invasion media coverage in Russia. And she was like  you just walk by TVs and you can tell us something major is happening just by the way it's formulated in the way the 24 hour coverage is taking place. And it's like CNN covered this 40% more than like FOX News in this desperate attempt to seem neutral, which is their new M.O. And I just thought that when you do that, you make it seem more important than it is. And it's not really about what's in it, it's about the energy surrounding the story and why they might have gotten what was in the story right. And I think they're like you can trust the public who's going to read the story. There's that energetic level that I think is really dangerous and we quite haven't wrapped our arms around yet.  

Beth [00:11:09] Yeah, it's two distinct things, right? How the administration handles it versus how the media handles it and the media critiques. There's not a right way to do this. I do appreciate that every story I've seen about it has said Here's how this differs from what we've recently covered in terms of classified materials. Some of them have even said let's talk about the distinctions between the Hillary Clinton stories and the President Trump stories and the President Biden stories. I think that's all been pretty good. I hear your point about the energy, though, and I think that's valid. What I really hope for from the administration, though, is not trying to manipulate any of that, to not add its own spin on the energy around something because they don't trust the public. I think just straight and narrow really works well for this administration, for all of them, really. But I've seen more of it from the Biden administration. I did not enjoy the press conference yesterday where you saw Karine Jean-Pierre kind of deflecting to the White House counsel's office. She's very good when she's just laying out the facts in a straightforward way, and I would like to see more of that.  

Sarah [00:12:15] Well, and I have to imagine they're frustrated because the story's coming out when it's really good economic news. We spent the midterms with voters telling people over and over and over again that inflation was important to them. We're getting good economic news concerning inflation. The Republican Party who said inflation was also very important to them spent their first days as a Congress passing anti-abortion legislation. So there's these clear, clear distinctions. And I think being asked a bunch of questions about the classified documents, it's so frustrating. And also, unless you get past that and don't let them feel like there's smoke because there's fire, you can't get to the stories you really want to pay attention to, like the good jobs report, like the good Consumer Price Index. But that's why I'm not a press secretary, because I would just get mad and yell at people.  

Beth [00:13:03] I was really excited to see the economic news and to see it coming down in what feels like a healthy way instead of sort of jerking down. And then maybe with the potential to come back up. And I think as the overall pressures start to abate, it helps isolate those price increases that are not related to general conditions, but to something really specific like the price of eggs. Like today, I'm starting to see people write more about avian flu as the driver of the price of eggs and why that's different from the typical bundle of consumer goods that we use to measure inflation. So I think good news always leads to smarter reporting, and I would like to see more of that.  

Sarah [00:13:44] We had good news on the economic front, but quite a unpropitious start to the travel year here in 2023. Thirteen hundred U.S. flights were canceled, 10,000 plus delayed. And this time we can't lay it at poor Southwest feeds. This time it was a damaged database file that the FAA was uploading to one of the computer systems that sends alerts. We can't investigate an airline because this is squarely at the FAA's feet. And I really want to say squarely, this is us. The FAA is us you guys. This is our government. This is the government we advocate for either tax cuts or tax increases to fund. And we need to invest in here, obviously.  

Beth [00:14:29] One of the best pieces that I read when the South-West Meltdown happened came from Zeynep Tufekci at the New York Times writing about technical debt, which was a term I hadn't been familiar with before, and she made it very understandable that essentially when you make decisions designing software that ignore the long term risks and focus on the short term benefits, you create what is called technical debt and it is going to have to be repaid by users of the technology at some point. And that's what happened with Southwest, that the software had not been built, upgraded and maintained in a way that it could continue to scale and manage unexpected situations. And because of that, you had crews stranded without instructions about what to do next and where to go. You had an inability to even locate some of those crews without everybody hopping on a phone line. And that's what happened with the Southwest meltdown. And as I read about what happened with the FAA, it sounds like the same thing that we haven't sufficiently invested in software to keep it up and running and managing difficult situations. I would like to learn a lot more about what happened with the FAA. That idea of technical debt is a little bit chilling to me. Just as a homeowner, I'm noticing I built a brand new house, we put brand new appliances in it, and now we are at the point where everything is starting to break at one time. And when I look at our economy and think about how much of the software we are reliant on was built about the same time, was created at about the same time, I feel like our technical debt bills are going to start coming due in lots of places, and transportation is one where the effect of that is so obvious and so detrimental to other pieces of the economy.  

Sarah [00:16:15] Well, it just reminds me of the conversation we had during our infrastructure series that is Internet and software. We want to compartmentalize those and treat them as different, but they are infrastructure here in the year of our Lord 2023. We have to invest in those just as much as we need to invest in new asphalt on the airport runways. We recently in my community funded a new terminal. We do have an airport in Paducah, the Allen Barclay Airport, and we're going to invest in new terminal. And it was just a so complicated. The infrastructure surrounding air travel there are so many different constituencies and people with power. And you have state governments, federal governments, and it's very complicated. And you can see how that technical debt can accrue, because when you have that many stakeholders coming to agreement is difficult. But, listen, that debt is coming due, that conversation is coming due, the FAA's five year funding and authority are up for renewal by Congress later this year. So in a way this particular meltdown not well timed for the people who were delayed or canceled, but and hopefully that we will remember this, that this stuff will come under a microscope and will remember we have to invest, particularly with this Congress that wants to just cut.  

Beth [00:17:31] I also think on the political dimensions of this, that it is an opportunity for people to judge if he wants to continue to climb the political ladder.  

Sarah [00:17:40] Oh, he does, Beth.  

Beth [00:17:41] Which I think he's pretty up this.  

Sarah [00:17:42] He absolutely does. Yes.  

Beth [00:17:44] Here is a chance for him to tackle a problem not of his own making (years and years in the making) that is highly visible and manage not only the immediate aftermath well, but show that there is a plan and some follow through. So because I like him and I just do, I hope that he handles this with a lot of skill and that it can become part of his case for higher political office, not the albatross that I'm seeing it described today as people are starting to speculate on his political future.  

Sarah [00:18:18] Well, and also he's limited to the tools at his disposal, which is probably a good transition into our conversation about President Biden's immigration proposal this week. President Biden spent the start of his week in Mexico. There was a summit with president of Mexico, Lopez Obrador, and the prime minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau. He stopped on his way down there to visit the border in El Paso and announced a new immigration program.  

Beth [00:18:58] I've been struggling with what to call this announcement because in some senses it's a new immigration program, but in more senses I think it is a new approach to the existing structure. And part of what I think he did so skillfully in this announcement is point out that he can only do so much with the existing structure because the other two branches of government are really stalling any efforts to try to make transformative progress here.  

Sarah [00:19:25] Yeah. I call it immigration, but it's highly focused. It's highly focused on the flow of migrants across our southern border. So there has been a dramatic increase in the flow of migrants, specifically migrants claiming asylum that has tripled in the past decade. Presenting yourself at the border and seeking asylum is legal under U.S. law, but there's such a small number that are actually approved. And every president gets to set with Congress the ceiling for how many of these asylum seekers can be resettled. Trump wiped it out, took it down to the lowest number it's been since the program started. And Biden jacked it back up in 2021, but only about 18% took advantage of this resettlement program. And so we have a not surprisingly massive backlog in these courts, like 400,000 cases. And then, of course, so this is all before Title 42 comes into play. Beth, you are a title 42 expert at this point because of More to Say. So can you walk us through the legal journey of Title 42.  

Beth [00:20:27] At a high level, Title 42 is a very old law related to pandemics. Gives the government the extraordinary authority to say sometimes disease is such a risk for us that we are able to immediately expel people who otherwise have a right to claim asylum here from the country. And Stephen Miller, you might remember one of President Trump's sidekicks.  

Sarah [00:20:53] I don't actually. Trying desperately to block him from my brain, but...  

Beth [00:20:56] He was really eager to use Title 42 from the beginning of the administration, before anyone had heard of the novel coronavirus, and tried with several different diseases to get some momentum around using Title 42 as an immigration tool. So when the pandemic began, of course, this was the moment. Title 42 as it is being used as an immigration tool since the early days of the pandemic, applies to a very small percentage of people who attempt to come into the country at the southern border, but it is a tool nonetheless. And it is a tool and they need tools at the border. At the same time, it's a fairly ineffective tool because they expel people quickly and then the people just try to cross again. And so the data around it is really confusing because there are these huge numbers of people, but you don't know how many of those are the same people who are just going back and forth over and over again. So the Biden administration in April said we're going to stop using Title 42. The pandemic as this kind of emergency that would justify this sort of authority is over. And immediately, there are lawsuits. There were already lawsuits pending trying to get the government to stop doing this well before April. We've had conflicting results from district courts. And currently the state of affairs is that one district court judge said Title 42 never should have been used this way. The way that it was used violates the Administrative Procedures Act. And the administration is directed to stop using Title 42 immediately as an immigration tool. And another district judge said the way the administration tried to stop using Title 42 violates the Administrative Procedures Act, and the administration is directed to continue using it. We get to the Supreme Court on kind of a procedural issue because we have some states with Republican attorneys general who want to come in to that action to appeal the judge who said you have to stop using it because they say the administration can't represent their interests in this lawsuit. So the Supreme Court has just put everything on hold. It's preserving the status quo, meaning that the administration still has Title 42 out there as a tool and at some point they'll decide if those states can intervene in the lawsuit. I know that that's complicated. What it means practically is that the Biden administration knows that the use of Title 42 as a tool is available to them still, but in a very precarious way. And I think that's what you see with this announcement. Okay, we are going to make the best of a bad situation. We know Title 42 is a bad tool, but it also gives us an opportunity to deal with the immediate pressure on the southern border. So how can we use it?  

Sarah [00:23:53] So this is how they've decided to use it. They're going to expand Title 42, but they're putting it together with a new humanitarian parole legal entry pathway, which is a lot of words that they shove together but we won't get to that. Okay. So this is very focused. This is focused on asylum seekers from Cuba, Nicaragua and Haiti. If asylum seekers from those countries enter illegally, then they're going to use Title 42 and immediately expel them. You're out. And then they will not have access. If they enter legally, then they lose access to this parole pathway.  So what's the parole pathway?  If you apply and you pass various screenings and can demonstrate that you'll have financial support in the U.S., you can enter the country and receive a two year work authorization while you wait for your asylum claim to be processed. But you have to wait in Mexico. So once approved, you can get a flight directly to the U.S. But, again, if you try to enter illegally, then you're immediately expelled under Title 42 and you cannot use this process, which also has an app, which I think is actually the most exciting part of this.  

Beth [00:25:03] I do too. I totally agree with you.  

Sarah [00:25:04] Bring the app. Why are you making people show up in person? It's 2023.  

Beth [00:25:08] Well, this is what I really want people to understand because all of these words are confusing and it is a confusing process. But the idea of saying how can we use technology to have people who want to seek asylum set up appointments before they make a dangerous journey and so that we don't have all of this pressure of thousands of people at one time showing up. Let's use the kind of technology that we used to see a doctor or get our hair done--  

Sarah [00:25:35] Or get a cab.  

Beth [00:25:36] And give people the opportunity to say I would like to come do this. Are there any red flags that would prevent me from coming to do this? Okay. What time should I show up to do this? I just give this an A-plus. Now, execution I don't know how it will go, but in terms of an idea with the tools and constraints that they have, I think this is so smart.  

Sarah [00:25:59] And they've executed this on a smaller scale with Venezuela. So they set up a program for asylum seekers from Venezuela with this parole program and Title 42, and it did drop illegal border crossings from Venezuelan migrants from about 1100 per day to 250. So they tried it out small and they're going to try to expand it. Look, there are lots of immigration proponents who are opposed to this. My former boss, Senator Menendez, who's the son of Cuban immigrants, and not surprising that he is opposed to this. But I just think and this is basically what President Biden said, I have a bunch of crappy tools. Congress won't do anything. What do you want me to do? I am trying. I have a limited set of tools. I've got to use what's available to me until Congress decides to act on this, which doesn't look promising for the next two years. I'm going to be honest in this situation. It's not just that it's so many people, this is so dangerous. These crossings are dangerous. Thousands and thousands of people and children disappear trying to make this crossing and they are in dangerous situations. I am so delighted that Mexico has joined in as a partner in this and we're trying to help people find spaces. But something's got to give. And using Title 42 of course it's not the best option, but it might be the best option available.  

Beth [00:27:21] What I really like about what the president is doing here is that he is isolating a component of the broader immigration problem. He has, from the beginning of the administration, been focused on why are so many people leaving Nicaragua, Guatemala, Haiti. And Vice President Harris has been working on securing private sector investments in those countries to try to improve industry, improve the economy, and hope from that that government will improve. And that's great. And that's never going to be a total solution. It's going to take a very long time to bear fruit. And so he is saying, I hear that the American public is at this moment most concerned about what they perceive as chaos at the southern border. I don't know how concerned the broad American public is about the fact that people come in and we do a poor job resettling them, or that people come in and we do a poor job keeping track of their visa status. But the public is in a laser like way because of media attention, political tactics, and also the very real pressure that communities along the southern border face. The public is focused on having it feel like we have our act together to control the flow of people into the country. So he's saying, okay, I'm going to isolate that variable and ask what I have the authority to do and I'm going to try to do it. And I just really appreciate that.  

Sarah [00:28:50] Immigration is such a paradox. We had this big law in 1965 and we said we're not going to discriminate against people in our immigration law to maintain some sort of homogeneity and not focus on countries. And also, so much of it is driven by specific countries. Even if you go back to the charts and look at the flow of migrants and refugees, you can just chart the global news and where is there a coup and where is there a challenge? And that's never going to change. And we have very limited control obviously over other sovereign nations and what's going on there. We're not trying to discriminate. And also you do have to focus on certain countries and stop acting like we're just going to treat everybody the same. Because the dramatic inflows and outflows happen based on these crises and how do we address that without being discriminatory, but with also acknowledging that this is the complexity of immigration, is that at certain times the flow is going to increase from certain countries because of crisis within those countries.  

Beth [00:29:57] And asylum law requires that level of specificity. To know if you have a valid asylum claim or not, the circumstances from which you are fleeing are relevant. And so I completely support the request to Congress for funding for more immigration judges so that some of those decisions can be made. I also wonder if there's not a way for Congress to streamline some of those decisions by creating some kind of body that quarterly maybe looks at conditions in countries where we're seeing this large influx of asylees and saying, here's what we think of the situation and we're going to say yes to this or not based on the current conditions.  

Sarah [00:30:40] Yeah. I would not want to be on that committee for what is worth.  

Beth [00:30:41]  I would not either. What a horrible predicament. But better that than what we have today. What we have today just serves no one's dignity, including the people who are asked to enforce these laws at the border.   

Sarah [00:30:57] Yeah. We are encouraged by the step forward. We will continue to pay attention to the execution of this new program. And we just always hold the truth that immigration is always a challenge and an opportunity here in the United States and in every other country. Beth, the time has come. It is time to talk about White Lotus. New Golden Globe winner for Best Limited series, along with Jennifer Coolidge, who won for best supporting actress. Now, do you want to just tell the people what White Lotus is about? I mean, good luck, Godspeed to try to sum it up. But I think if anybody can do it, you can do it.  

Beth [00:31:40] I've been waiting so long for this moment. White Lotus has had two seasons now, two very short seasons on HBO. It is written by Mike White. I think the thesis statement of White Lotus is that money doesn't buy happiness, and that's about it. It originated during the pandemic because HBO was looking for a show that could get made during the pandemic. And they knew that Mike White was a very fast writer, and they went to him and said, can you come up with a concept that could take place in one location? And there is the White Lotus, the hotel in which all of this unfolds. And so he takes guests at a luxury resort in Hawaii in season one and in Italy in season two and tells their stories. And as you watch, you kind of think why aren't they ever leaving the resort to eat? Why are they always at the resort?  

Sarah [00:32:35] They do that more in season two, for sure.  

Beth [00:32:37] The constraint of the pandemic, I think, contributed to an amazingly creative process on his part. And it really is just a bunch of stories all connected through the hook of someone being murdered And you know in episode one that someone has died, but you don't know who it is or why. And the rest of the season gets you to that whodunit. But I think the murder is the least interesting part of what's going on in these shows, and that's why I like them so much.  

Sarah [00:33:10] And the stories do not just involve the guests. The stories often predominantly feature the hotel staff and the interactions between the guests and the staff. Jennifer Coolidge is the only carry over from season one to season two and is brilliant in both seasons. We're not going to give any spoilers. We'll keep the spoilers to a minimum because the plot is really not the point with White Lotus. The point is really those bigger questions of what makes somebody happy? Why do people make the choices they made? Why do they make the self-destructive choices they make? There's a lot of generational questions, I think, in the second season. But the first season, too, I was terrified of those teenage girls in the first season, they sent me right on edge.  

Beth [00:33:56] At the same time they were hilarious and funny and provided so much relief in really tense moments because of the way they talked about other guests. So that's how it is with all these characters. You feel such a push-pull with them, that they are captivating and you love them and you want the best for them and you are infuriated by them at the same time.  

Sarah [00:34:16] Well, in the cinematography of both seasons of White Lotus, there is an enormous amount of water. Waves crashing on rocks, cameras being submerged under tidal pools, and the ebb and flow of the tide. And I think that's not surprisingly a very visual metaphor for what happens when we throw people against each other, what happens when we throw people against very difficult circumstances? How do they react? How do they respond? How do they try to get back up to the surface for fresh air? It gets so heavy at certain points towards the end of season two. Nicholas and I were like, okay, we get it with the waves and the crashing and the water, my friend.  

Beth [00:35:02] Well, what's really fun about that for me is that Mike White was a Survivor contestant and has reflected on how Survivor influences his work. And if you watch Survivor, you know exactly what he said in interviews about this, that they'll be like some mundane chatter about who didn't go get the wood for the fire. But then the camera cuts to a shark in the ocean and it just adds this level of tension. And he said, that's basically what I'm doing. I'm using the visuals of the waves. There's a bird that happens a lot in season two. And once you see that survivor connection, you can't unsee it. And that just brought me a lot of joy.  

Sarah [00:35:40] But I think it is asking really interesting questions. You mentioned on a previous episode that there's this really interesting question in season two about mimetic desire. Do you want something because you want it or do you want to just because you've been told to want it? I'm watching right now I Hate Susie with Billie Piper, who I adore. And there's an incredible episode entitled Shame, where she's having this conversation, while masturbating, with her manager in her head about why  is this what you want to masturbate to? Where did this come from? Is this you or is this just what you think you're supposed to want? And her sort of working out like what do I actually want? It feels like that theme is everywhere. You and I are in deep conversation right now about the newest episode of Ezra Klein with Dan Savage, where he talks about the gay community and how everything and sexual encounters is driven by what are you into, and how a lot of straight people can't answer that question because they don't have to. Because there's no just sort of logistics to work out. There's a default setting that people stumble into. And I think that interesting question about desire definitely fueled by the pandemic, because, again, a disruption of status quo leaves you questioning what do I actually want? And it feels like everybody is asking that. It feels like White Lotus came along at just the right moment to say, "Oh, would you like to watch a TV show about what you actually want? I've got one for you."  

Beth [00:37:03] But what I love most about it is that it is a show full of questions, not answers. There is nothing in my viewing of it that seems prescriptive at all. I don't feel like Mike White is trying to tell us how the world should be or how people should be or what decisions they should make. I think he's just trying to observe a bunch of dynamics that we feel stress around. I love the relationship between a grandfather, a father and a son in season two and how it asks a bunch of questions about intergenerational conflict and doesn't try to resolve them. And there are two couples that take entirely different approaches to their relationships, and it asks a bunch of questions about infidelity and power and secrecy within marriage, and it doesn't answer them. And that makes it to me such a rich viewing experience.  

Sarah [00:37:53] Well, it reminds me so much of this moment where Dan Savage says, "We tell people that there's one way to fall in love and be monogamous." Like this passionate beginning of your relationship in the sex industrial self-help complex lies to people and says you can maintain that. You can get back to that stage. Like you can get back to that original romantic story. I think there's definitely some of that in season one. And I thought, oh man, that is so, so true. And such an interesting commentary and what that does to people when they're just trying to get back to it and try to get back to it. And have I lost it and did I do something wrong. They're an excellent complement to each other-- season two of White Lotus and the next episode of the Ezra Klein show.  

Beth [00:38:34] They really are. Because if you want to be sort of shorthand about it, season one of White Lotus ask real questions about power because of economic status. And season two asks deep questions about power because of sex. But there's so much more going on with these characters. And you can see Mike White's concerns about the world playing out. You can see his deep love of family playing out. I just think it's a beautiful show that everybody should watch and then we should all talk about, but not the way the Internet talks about it. What I don't like in the White Lotus craze is all of the investigation of like, oh, I think he was trying to actually say this. I think this is what actually happened to these characters. And I feel like the point of White Lotus is that there isn't an actually. That life is just a sea filled with choices that take you down different paths.  

Sarah [00:39:31] Well, it reminds me of the conversation surrounding the Banshees of Inner Sharon, which won best comedy at the Golden Globes and is a fantastic film. And if you go into that film thinking that it's a story of real people, you are going to be so confused and weirded out. But if you go into that film understanding that it is a fable, it's a fable, which I really think White Lotus is. He uses the hook of the death, but it's a fable.  

Beth [00:40:00] It's like a fable, but choose your own moral.  

Sarah [00:40:02] Well, and maybe fable is not the right word, maybe parable is the right word. Because the parable is not trying to present an axiom, a parable it's just trying to ask questions. So often the way that Christ-- which we've gone all the way from Mike White to Jesus Christ, congratulations if you had that on your bingo card, because that's what I'm interested in. And those are the stories I want to hear. And I think human beings respond best. It's back to the trust the public, trust people to present them with interesting questions and let them find their way, because that's how human beings like to be. They don't like to be led. They don't like to be preached. They like to be presented with an opportunity to grow and to ask their own questions and to learn and take their own steps forward. And I think Mike White understands that. Before we head out, we wanted to send all the love and light to the citizens of California. I'm tearing up because California is such a tortured place in my heart. I spent every summer of my childhood in California, and so I love it. And also it drives me crazy. But I am just so heartbroken over the the flooding and the loss of life and the fact that the rain will not stop. I was momentarily-- I don't know what the word I want is-- blessed, I guess, myself by this great story in The New York Times that the redwoods have seen this before and they will see it again. This weather cycle is a part of the weather cycle of California, and something about the solidity of the redwoods response made me feel better. But I know it's an incredibly difficult time to live in the state of California. And we are just thinking of you and sending all our love to those dealing with the extreme weather right now in the state of California.  

Beth [00:41:40] We have so many listeners there and we hear from them that the problems that extreme weather creates are so varied. And it sounds like you feel like you're just on a tightrope every day, unsure of what trap is underneath that section of the tightrope. So just lots of love as you navigate that.  

Sarah [00:42:00] Before we head out, don't forget to head to the show notes and check out the link to buy tickets to the Witherspoon Lecture Series at Maryville College. If you're in the East Tennessee area, where we will be speaking on February 7th, we are so excited to see all of you there. Thank you for joining us for another episode of Pantsuit Politics. We will be back in your ears on Tuesday. And until then, keep it nuanced y'all.  

Beth [00:42:29] Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our managing director.  

Sarah [00:42:34] Maggie Penton is our community engagement manager. Dante Lima is the composer and performer of our theme music.  

Beth [00:42:40] Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers.  

Executive Produce (Read their own names) [00:42:44] Martha Bronitsky. Allie Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Helen Handley. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holiday. Katie Johnson. Katina Zuganelis Kasling. Barry Kaufman. Molly Kohrs. Katherine Vollmer. Laurie LaDow. Lilly McClure. Linda Daniel. Emily Neesley. The Pentons. Tawni Peterson. Tracy Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katie Stigers. Karen True. Onica Ulveling. Nick and Alysa Vilelli. Amy Whited. Emily Helen Olson. Lee Chaix McDonough.  

Beth [00:43:22] Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Michelle Wood. Joshua Allen. Morgan McCue. Nicole Berklas. Paula Bremer and Tim Miller.

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