A Complicated War and an Amateur Speaker

TOPICS DISCUSSED

  • Israel-Hamas War

  • Rep. Mike Johnson: Speaker of the House

  • Plea Deals in the Georgia RICO case

  • Outside Politics: Online Shopping and Disconnecting from our Phones

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EPISODE RESOURCES

Sarah and Beth are booking speaking engagements for 2024 now. Find out how to bring Sarah and Beth to your organization or learn about upcoming events here.

ISRAEL-HAMAS CONFLICT

HOUSE SPEAKER AND MAGA REPUBLICANS

TRANSCRIPT

Sarah [00:00:09] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.  

Beth [00:00:10] And this is Beth Silvers. Thank you for joining us for Pantsuit Politics.  

[00:00:14] Music Interlude.  

[00:00:34] Thank you for joining us today for Pantsuit Politics, where we take a different approach to the news. On today's show, we are going to discuss all of the news related to the Israel-Hamas war and the way that Americans are responding to the crisis. We're going to talk about the new speaker of the House, such as he is, and check in on the Trump trials and the continued dominance of the MAGA movement in the Republican Party. And really what we're doing is just processing a basket of hard to place emotions and ethics that the two of us are struggling with and that we know many of you are as well. Outside of politics, which don't we need today, we're going to talk about our conflicting approaches to online shopping in October. We're going to talk about cell phones. We end up talking about some very nineties solutions to contemporary problems. I don't know. It's a lot.  

Sarah [00:01:22] We got there.  

Beth [00:01:22] But we hope that you enjoy it.  

Sarah [00:01:24] Please join us on this journey. If you've been finding our coverage of the Israel Hamas war or the Speaker's race in the House helpful, we would love for you to share the show with a friend. The best way to grow our community is through word of mouth recommendations. So use that share button in your podcast app and send it to someone you think might also enjoy our approach to the news.  

Beth [00:01:42] This morning as we are recording on Thursday, October 26, hundreds of police are searching the state of Maine for a man wanted in connection with mass shootings in a bar and bowling alley in Lewiston. Area schools are closed. People have been asked to stay at home. There are conflicting reports about how many people have been killed and injured. But we know this is a very scary time in Maine and we know that every mass shooting brings new waves of grief for hundreds of thousands of people across the country. There's no way to think about people being shot in a bowling alley or a bar without feeling terrible lament and sorrow. So we are hopeful that the responsible individual will be apprehended soon. And we are holding everyone touched by this horror in our hearts. Next up, we'll turn our attention back to Israel and the Gaza Strip.  

[00:02:33] Music Interlude 

[00:02:44] Sarah, as we're recording on Thursday morning, October 26, I feel like there are two categories that we need to discuss related to Israel and Hamas. One category is what's actually happening on the ground, and there's a lot. You have a few hostages being released at a time. So clearly negotiations ongoing. You have some humanitarian aid making its way in, which means a ton of negotiation is happening with Egypt, with Israel, with Hamas, with the American administration, with other international partners. You have a serious barrage of rockets from Israel in the Gaza Strip. You have fire being exchanged at Israel's northern border with Hezbollah. You have some activities from the Houthis in Yemen. So that constant simmering risk of a wider war with these Iranian proxies acting, but all of it being contained to some extent, and you have preparations for a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip. But that being held at bay, it sounds like, largely on the advice of international partners. And so those are a lot of pieces to put together and I'm wondering what's jumping out at you as you're processing them.  

Sarah [00:04:08] First thing is I am so grateful that Joe Biden is president right now, and that there are serious people with enormous amounts of experience trying to navigate this because it is so incredibly fraught. I am terrified that the conflict will widen and will become a regional war with Iran finally taking its shot. I am heartbroken for the enormous amount of human suffering taking place in Gaza. I am encouraged by the release of four hostages. Because the pain and horror and the hell that the families of these hostages must be living through. I was talking with a friend, I keep thinking about the book The Deep End of the Ocean, which was the Oprah's first book for her book club a million years ago. It's about a mother of a child who was kidnaped. And I told her, I was like, I think it just breaks your brain when you know your family member is out there and you don't know if they're dead or alive, if they're suffering. And you feel powerless to help them. I've been so struck by Rachel Goldberg, who is the mother of Hersh Goldberg Pollan, who was kidnaped from the Supernova Festival. She spoke at the United Nations this week, and she's just incredible. She was like, where is the world? There are so many foreign nationals being held hostage by Hamas.  

Rachel Goldberg [00:05:43] Where is the world? We, the families of the 200 hostages are far away on our own planet of agony. But where are you? Why is no one crying out for these people to be allowed access to the Red Cross? Why is no one demanding just proof of life? This is a global humanitarian catastrophe.  

Sarah [00:06:07] I cannot imagine the plight of those families. Plus, we're just getting more detail about what happened on October 7th and the inhumanity and the cruelty. I read an article about how the Israeli Defense Force brought in journalists to watch some of it. They were vomiting. I mean, what they even just described on the page has not left my brain since I read it. It's just so overwhelming when you take in only the facts in this present moment. Much less the enormous complexity of the history in this region. And so when people roll in on social media and act like they have it all figured out and they know who the good guy and the bad guy are, I find it infuriating.  

Beth [00:06:58] That is to me the second category that requires some discussion. The response in America to these events. Before we go to that, I do want to say one more thing about the handling of this by the administration in terms of what's happening on the ground. I was very encouraged this morning to see that President Biden is already talking with leaders in the region about what comes next and about how there is no return to the status quo pre-October 7th, that there must be a negotiated two state solution, that there must be a state for Palestine with leadership that has diplomatic relations of some sort with Israel, because we cannot go back and repeat this cycle. It's hard to find encouragement in a situation that is as gruesome and terrifying truly as this one is right now. But I am happy that that is the kind of conversation that is unfolding among world leaders. And I am encouraged that is coming from the president of the United States.  

Sarah [00:08:07] Well, because that's the intersection here of these two components. Of what's actually happening and how we're talking about it. I think what's so frustrating is discussions around a Palestinian state, discussions around ceasefires. I just feel like, do people understand that that was the status quo? That Israel left Gaza, that there was this sort of quiet for quiet. This was Netanyahu's policy. We're just going to quietly manage them and hope they leave us alone. That was it. And I think that we've seen Hamas is not playing by the same rules. I think the way people just reduce it down as if it's this simple solution-- there's a beautiful piece in The Atlantic by Ned Lazarus called I Don't See a Better Way Out. And the subtitle was, I envy those who know exactly how Hamas can be stopped without any more killing, because I don't. And I thought it did such a good job of capturing this is a lot of things, but simple is not one of them. Even between the two of us right now, what we just said about what the administration is doing, it's like that. It's like that graphic where it's like what you see in someone's life is like the very tip of the iceberg and, the iceberg goes all the way down to the depth of the ocean. Like, we don't know. We have no idea what's going on with these negotiations, with the conversations with the Israeli military. And look, I know just enough about the tunnels built by Hamas and the intensely dense cities on top of those tunnels to be dangerous. I know just enough that must be an impossible task, an impossible military strategic task to try to deal with that reality on the ground. And so people who just throw around white supremacy and colonizer and fascism, I just can't. I'm sorry, I can't do that right now. I can't not do that right now. And I say this as kindly as I possibly can. That belies ignorance more than it does any sort of ethical righteousness to me.  

Beth [00:10:20] There was a graphic that circulated several years ago, trying to illustrate the relationships between Iranian proxies in the Middle East. And it really just kind of looked like a toddler's scribbles. Because these groups share many interests, but there are major divergences too. For example, Hamas originates from a Sunni Muslim organization, the Muslim Brotherhood. But Hezbollah and the Iranian regime are Shia muslims. That's a big difference. And the Houthis are Shia also. But they're Zaidi Shia, which is a totally different sect. And so just from a religious perspective, everybody's on the same page. The stakes are quite different. Lebanon cannot handle a war right now. Lebanon is in very, very bad shape. So Hezbollah might be interested in aiding Hamas, but they have different stakes than Hamas. You just can't frame this in any way that is clarifying from where we sit in the United States. I can't. I know there are experts who do understand these things, conducting these negotiations, though, and considering the strategy and advising Israel. And so that gives me comfort. The citizen discussion does not comfort me right now. I agree with you. I am discouraged by the citizen discussion of these issues. I was on Instagram earlier in the week looking at an account that I follow for entertainment, just for fun, and there was a post that was just a lot of like cease fire now. And it actually brought me to tears because it's disorienting for me to not think, yes, exactly. A cease fire is called for.  

[00:12:15] It's been disorienting for me in Ukraine because, of course, I want peace. That is the sincere desire of my heart. I struggle. I would love to just not have weapons anymore anywhere. That is where my heart is. And I don't know what you do. Your ethics are always tested by people who don't share them. I don't know what you do in the face of the kind of terror that Hamas brought to Israel on October 7th. I don't know what you do when someone like Vladimir Putin will take and take and never be satisfied until it's all his. I do think there is some kind of defense that has to be mounted. And I don't think revenge is a proper motivation for military action, but I understand it. And it's not mine to call for a cease fire. I cannot grasp this enough to say out loud from my safe home in Kentucky, which is almost five times the size of Israel. That's what I keep thinking about. What if this happened here? I don't even have a scope for that. This is so small. Israel about the size of Vermont, Gaza about the size of Detroit, Lebanon about the size of Connecticut. I don't have a frame of reference for this kind of violence coming to the door. And so I cannot sit here and say, well, there needs to be a ceasefire. And then what really breaks my heart are the people who I have to tell myself are so steeped in the work of racial relations between black and white Americans that they are coming from a good place. But I am so sick over the groups that are out there glorifying the actions of Hamas and the pain that those groups are causing to so many of their fellow Americans. And the absence of context that those groups have while they are yelling at the rest of us about context, it's horrifying.  

Sarah [00:14:30] Yes. That's what sends me right over the edge. And I think that the idea that everything in America is defined by race, particularly race relations between black and white Americans. But then you have the same people arguing that same things like, well, I know the Holocaust was bad, but... Excuse me. Excuse me. I struggle with that. First of all, I don't want to hear the Holocaust was bad, but... Ever. There should be no buts because no one would stomach slavery was bad but... Nobody would do that. And this is not the oppression Olympics, okay? That's not what I'm arguing here. What I'm arguing is that the context is more complicated. Always. Always. And in every single situation. And in a language the Internet can understand, a red flag is this paragraph that I'm going to read from The Economist. "Russia and China are winning, too. There is a perception in the global South that this complex story is actually a simple one of oppressed Palestinians and Israeli colonizers. China and Russia will exploit this caricature to argue that America is revealing its true contempt for brown skinned people and Gaza, and its hypocrisy over human rights and war crimes just as they claim it did by supposedly provoking a war in Ukraine." That's what we call a red flag. This is easily exploitable by Russia and China to say, "See, they never do anything worthwhile. They're hypocrites." Then we are lost to ourselves into the world. That cannot be our posture. That cannot be our posture.  

Beth [00:16:14] And, look, this is not a new strategy by these actors. The bipartisan consensus about the 2016 election-- and it is hard to get to a bipartisan consensus about that election. But the consensus is that part of Russia's strategy was to sow racial dissension in the United States, because they know that is an issue that we will tear ourselves apart over. And sow every opportunity to prey on our weakness. And yes, the history of slavery and the Jim Crow South and so many policies built on racism in the United States is our weakness. It is a point of extreme vulnerability for us from a security perspective, just as it's a point of vulnerability in our living up to our ideals in so many other ways. They are using that against us right now, and we make it too easy. When what we could just do is comfort one another and be thankful that we don't have to figure out the strategy. I'm thankful that I don't have to know when a cease fire is appropriate. I'm thankful that I don't have to figure out the military response here. I am thankful for the work being done to get aid into the Gaza Strip because I do not want anyone who is a noncombatant, a peaceful person to lack food or water or medicine. I also want to be honest about the fact that under the governance of Hamas, people have lacked food and water and medicine for a long time. And it's not just because of the Israeli blockade. It is also because of the cooperation of Egypt and because of the continued extremism of Hamas.  

Sarah [00:18:01] And corruption. Not just extremism, corruption.  

Beth [00:18:04] That's right.  

Sarah [00:18:05] Let me offer a more hopeful vision, because it is not as if the global community has not pointed out the hypocrisy on race relations to Americans and we said, you are right. We're going to start working on it. That was some of the motivation during the sixties, and I don't see that as hypocrisy. I see that as acknowledgment. Yeah. You know what? This is weakening us in more ways than we want to acknowledge. And now we're going to acknowledge it. And if it's going to affect our national security and we're not treating soldiers coming back from World War Two fairly and we're not living up to these ideals we said we were spreading around the globe, fine, let's do that. Instead of we're the worst and we can't fix it, can't you see that. Instead of saying, You know what? Let's offer a vision to where we say there are complicated histories here between black and white Americans. But America is more than that history, and America is more than that white supremacy. And America is also more than just black and white. That we have an incredibly diverse populace that complicates that narrative. And instead of just trying to say, no, we're going to put this narrative, force this narrative over everything. We're going to acknowledge that it exists. It coexist with complicated racial histories, with Jews, with anti-Semitism in the United States. With Asian Americans, with immigrants, with migrants. Instead of saying, we can't fix it, we're broken, we're hypocrites. We have no place in this conversation. Because I don't think it's a permanent state. And I think our history shows that. And so I think that there can be a way and I think this is what fuels much of the Biden administration to say we're trying and we're going to continue to try it, because we do think there is an ideal here worthy of not only American effort, but worldwide effort, because there is not a better alternative.  

Beth [00:20:04] When you understand the stakes involved here and the emotions that are very present for lots of Americans. For Americans who are Jewish, for Americans who love people in Israel, for Americans who are Palestinian, for Americans who have relatives in the Gaza Strip right now, the stakes are very, very high. We have been reading Vanessa Zoltan's book, Praying with Jane Eyre, and she describes how in her Jewish family, after dinners with people who weren't Jewish, the conversation would turn to, "Do you think that they would hide us if that became necessary?" And it's been so eye opening to me to read about the presence of this every day, because this book was written long before October 7th. That this just is part of the lineage. That has been just very eye opening and heartbreaking for me. So mindful of all of that, it's hard to have any kind of discussion here that properly acknowledges how personal this is across the group of people listening. And we're just trying to hold all of that together. And it is especially frustrating now to have to transition to domestic politics because our domestic politics are not living up to the seriousness required in a moment like this. But we are going to make that turn next.  

[00:21:31] Music Interlude.  

Sarah [00:21:48] Well, Beth, it worked. We manifested a speaker of the House. Do you feel better?  

Beth [00:21:53] I can't decide if I feel better. I think it's important that the House be open. So in that regard, yes. I knew that there was not going to be a speaker of the House that I was going to say, "Well, that's our person. I feel great about this." So my expectations were set appropriately, I think. What frustrates me so much coming out of the Republican conference deliberations is that instead of coming to a microphone and saying, this has been really hard, we think it's been important, but it's been very hard and we know that there is very serious work to do now. And we're not going to lie to you, that work is going to be hard because as this process has demonstrated, we are not on the same page about some important matters, but we're going to do our best. Instead of that, we have been treated to a complete rewrite of the past 20 plus days.  

Sarah [00:22:51] Matt Gaetz said it was the most productive two weeks in Congress's history, just so you know.  

Beth [00:22:56] Well, I'm glad you said that, because I think that is very clarifying as to what the priorities are.  

Sarah [00:23:01] Exactly. The priorities is a MAGA take over the Republican Party. Because what, the MAGA wing of the Republican Party has such a great track record? That's the part that's super fascinating to me. Listen, I guess I feel better. I didn't want to watch this bullshit anymore because I thought it was frustrating, infuriating and dangerous. So I am encouraged that they elected somebody. And I would be more horrified by his politics, which are horrific, if I did not also believe that this man is so inexperienced and so underwater from the first second he banged down that gavel that I can't feel threatened by him. Beth, you and I have been podcasting longer than this man has been in Congress. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. But hey, don't worry, because he also podcast. Did you know that? Did you know that he has a podcast with his wife called Truth be Told? Since 2022, just FYI. I wish y'all could see her face right now.  

Beth [00:24:05] I don't know another way to say this. Making the show is a full time job, and I don't think I'm dumb. I don't think that someone else can do this in less time than we spend on this. Oh, my goodness. It upsets me so much.  

Sarah [00:24:19] Well, we will know everything we need to know if he keeps podcasting, that's for sure. If he thinks he can keep podcasting, literally increase his fundraising by a factor of, I would say, close to 100, if not more, also triple his staff and fund the government in under 20 days and podcast, then that will  truly tell us everything we need to know.  

Beth [00:24:40] So Mike Johnson is from Louisiana. You might not have heard of him. Many of his colleagues in the Senate had not either. He's never met Mitch McConnell.  

Sarah [00:24:49] What? Stop. That's amazing. I love it. The blank slate seems to be the thing that won it for him, right? Nobody knew him. Nobody could be mad at him. First of all, that's not going to last very long. Okay? Y'all, in order to do this job he is going to make some of you mad, which I think might be that he just doesn't do the job. I think that's our most likely scenario, is that we've elected a speaker of the House, but he won't do any of that Speaker of the House job. Maybe he'll staff up. We're not going to fund the government. They're not going to get these appropriation bills through. Like, this is a joke. This is a joke to me, honestly.  

Beth [00:25:23] Well, he's previewed that a little bit, right? I'm not sure what else he means by decentralization other than I'm not going to do this. We're going to have more member involvement and everything. Cool. Well, I guess it's going to take 20 days to get even the most basic things done in the House. Now, I don't know how the House is going to act quickly.  

Sarah [00:25:39] They can't agree. They can't agree on anything.  

Beth [00:25:41] They agree on their support for Israel and I'm glad of that. That's the first resolution he rolled out.  

Sarah [00:25:46] Okay. Well, that's encouraging.  

Beth [00:25:47] The conference is behind that. But what this means for Ukraine, I don't know. I am very bearish on getting the government funded in any meaningful sense. I wish him good luck. I hope that he can pull all of this together. But I have a feeling that his definition of pulling all this together is so vastly different from mine...  

Sarah [00:26:09] Yes.  

Beth [00:26:10] That I am not optimistic.  

Sarah [00:26:12] Did you also know that he was a radio show host?  

Beth [00:26:14] I did know that.  

Sarah [00:26:15]  I know he's a lawyer, technically. And he wrote the amicus brief for the January six lawsuit before the Supreme Court. But he just seems like the fullest embodiment of Christian nationalist, far right wing activists. I mean, he was only elected by like 86,000 people.  

Beth [00:26:33] Let me bring this into sharp relief with a quote from him in 2016.  

Sarah [00:26:38] Oh, goody.  

Beth [00:26:38] Some people are called to pastoral ministry. I was called to legal ministry.  

Sarah [00:26:43] Oh, that's a fun term.  

Beth [00:26:45] And I've been out on the front lines of the culture war, defending religious freedom, the sanctity of human life and biblical values, including the defense of traditional marriage and other ideals like these when they've been under assault.  

Sarah [00:26:58] I wonder how actual constitutional scholars feel when someone like Mike Johnson describes themselves as a constitutional lawyer. It's not like he's arguing for the Supreme Court. This is what he's doing. He's leading organizations that send state legislators legislation that they can just sign their names on and turn it. That template bullcrap that you see spread across the country. That's what he did.  

Beth [00:27:20] What I think is interesting about this, we've been talking about what is Trump 2.0? I think it's this. I think people said they wanted Trump without the mean tweets, and that is Mike Johnson. It is the extreme policy perspective in a more palatable format. Because what is the meaningful difference between Mike Johnson and Jim Jordan? He's nicer. That's what you hear from people, right? He's nicer. He's less well-known.  

Sarah [00:27:47] Well, but that meanness is what they like about Trump. This is a problem. Their coalition falls apart a little bit. If you don't have the outsider businessman aspect, which swept up a lot of, I think, probably independent voters. If you don't have the fighter. I'm going to say Afghanistan was a mistake. I'm going to say NAFTA was a mistake. I'm going to say you've been screwed over by this-- what's our country man friend The Rich Man North of Richmond.  

Beth [00:28:16] Oh, the Oliver Anthony.  

Sarah [00:28:17] Which I know that that's not his actual-- y'all I have a long, complicated history with Oliver Anthony. But you know what I'm saying. Like that vibe. If you don't have the I'll fight for you, I'm going to say I'm going to be politically incorrect. You don't have that. That's part of the coalition. That's a big part of the coalition, actually. And this little Mike Johnson's not going to get that done. So if you don't have that and you don't-- now, Christian nationalists were a part of the coalition, but not enough to win it, not enough to win any real elections in this country and not even in his own town. He was in a majority black district that they gerrymandered out the hell. So this is not a political strategy. This is a culture war strategy. That's why he's a talk radio host and a podcaster. Like, that's what this is. And that is not the job of the Speaker of the House. I would give anything, Beth, to just sit down with Nancy Pelosi with a glass of wine and be like, "So what do you think?" I can't even. The capacity of that woman. And Hakeem Jeffries is doing a great job too. No shade, but she just did it for so long. Like, what must she think about somebody with this little experience coming to do this work?  

Beth [00:29:24] I would love to have a glass of wine with John Boehner and discuss this.  

Sarah [00:29:27] Right. I would smoke. I would take up smoking [inaudible]. But I don't like smoking. It just kills you. To sit, light up a cigaret with John Boehner right now and just be like, "What you think buddy? What you think."  

Beth [00:29:40] I comfort myself by remembering that he is a speaker of attrition.  

Sarah [00:29:44] Yeah.  

Beth [00:29:45] He was not the first choice. He was not the second choice. He was not the third choice. Some people rise to the occasion, and I hope that Mike Johnson will be one of them. It's a long way, but I hope he will rise to the occasion.  

Sarah [00:30:00] He doesn't have to rise, Beth. He has to fly. He has to develop the capacity to fly in like 24 hours.  

Beth [00:30:06] Well, best of luck to the new speaker in doing things that are good for the country that's all I got. I am interested in hearing your take because I've been talking about this on More to Say, but we haven't discussed together the plea deals reached in the Georgia racketeering prosecution of 19 defendants related to our 2020 election.  

Sarah [00:30:31] Well, this is the perfect crossover to me. Matt Gaetz went on Steve Bannon's podcast and he was like, if you don't think that moving from Kevin McCarthy to MAGA, my job then shows the ascendance of this movement and where the power of the Republican Party truly lies, then you're not paying attention. I don't think you're paying attention, friend, because your leader has his lawyers dropping like flies and singing like canaries. One of them cried. Casting her lot with this MAGA movement was such a bad life choice. Meanwhile, he's getting fined for gag orders, like, all really like the same day. They were like, "This is where we want to take the party." Jesus take the wheel. I don't know what else to say, you guys. They don't want to win. I don' have to say this. I don't know what else to say, though. They don't want to win elections. They want to fight on Steve Bannon's podcast. They're coming for our jobs, Beth. That's what they're doing. They want our jobs. They don't want their job.  

Beth [00:31:25] They do want our jobs. They want our jobs, plus their jobs. I think that some of them truly believe that if they would just go MAGA enough, then they would win all the elections. I don't think that there are people who actually don't want power there. I think they're some of these folks who think the problem is we haven't gone hard enough. The problem with Trump's first term is that he let in too many people like H.R. McMaster, who actually cared about a functioning government. And if he would actually have gone in and blown it all up, then for ever the throngs would be with him.  

Sarah [00:31:58] That's called being an ideologue. That happens on the left, too. There's a thread here, just saying. That we're not seen this enough. We're not going hard enough. I think you're exactly right, that they think they just haven't done enough, because here's what happens from my experience in Washington, D.C.. There are two types of political consultants. Well, you know what it is? There's political consultants and there's political strategists. There is a person who will tell you what you want to hear, what feels good. And those people will help you lose elections. And there are people who will tell you the truth.  

Beth [00:32:34] See the Republican primary currently for many, many political consultants.  

Sarah [00:32:38] Exactly. And this is what happens. You get high on your own supply. And so what's happening. No one is listening. No one is paying attention. Or it just feels good. Listen, I'm sure it does feel good to a certain aspect of basic human psychology to be all up in MAGA, to fight, to feel like you're tough, to feel like God's chosen Trump as some sort of like Christian prophet. Like, it is intoxicating. There is a moment in Rachel Goldberg's press conference before the U.N. when she's talking about these hostages where she says hate is intoxicating. I get it. It's easy in a way. You can get drunk on it. Like it feels so good for a while. There's this beautiful, beautiful moment in  Beth Moore's memoir. She's talking about self-delusion. She says the maddening complexity is denial could on occasion offer a little relief. It makes a poor lifestyle, but a pleasant lunch. And all these guys are out to lunch.  

Beth [00:33:52] Well, that is the horseshoe effect that a lot of people are writing about in American politics, right? That once you embrace the fullest expression of either right or left and you are fueled by your sense of moral certitude, of righteousness, of anger at everyone who disagrees with you, then you meet at a point where it becomes difficult to distinguish between right and left anymore. And I think that is certainly the animating calculus. I think Steve Bannon counts on that. I think the horseshoe is what he's going for. Right.  

Sarah [00:34:27] So is RFK.  

Beth [00:34:29] Yes. I think i, a different package. Yes. And I get it because there's more of a sense of belonging and groundedness when you're sure about something. It feels really good to be sure about something. It feels terrible to say, "This is hard. I don't know. I don't think there's a good answer here." I mean, going back to our first segment, the amount of time that I am spending right now just searching for what my faith counsels about war, I really need to speak to someone about this.  

Sarah [00:35:04] We should call Beth Moore's people. I feel like she can help us.  

Beth [00:35:06] It feels like being torn on a cellular level, to try to put together all of the things that I believe about some of these difficult situations. In an easier vein, it is not fun to be, like, I think Joe Biden is doing a really good job with this. I disagree with him about the way they pulled out of Afghanistan or I disagree about some of the components of the soft infrastructure proposal. Like, it's not fun to have a complex view of a person. It is way more fun to be like, "Love that dude," or "He's the worst," because then you link arms with other people and here you are all together. And so I can especially imagine that if I were sitting in the House of Representatives where I have to run for office every two years, which means I don't even get moved in before I am in the next cycle, and where I have to have an enormous amount of money for anyone to even know or care who I am and where only about 5 percent of my district ever reaches out to me about anything that's probably on the high side, but the people who do call really have my number and light me up. I can imagine that it is a perverse set of incentives that gets you to a place of feeling really sure about one animating ideal and MAGA is pretty easy. MAGA makes for a good lunch. That is an excellent metaphor and it is making for a mess of trying to govern a country as large and diverse and complicated and powerful as this one.  

Sarah [00:36:45] I couldn't agree more. I like teared up when you were talking. Not because of the bozos in the house, my anger is a sense of the suffering that is happening right now and you people can't get it straight. Because there is nothing easy about watching Palestinian children die by the thousands or reading the accounts of inhuman brutality toward Israeli children or thinking about the Ukrainian children who were kidnaped and taken to Russia. Like, it's impossible. It's impossible. And to me, there's this this undercurrent of I don't even know how to put words to it. It's almost like survivor's guilt. My children live in safety, and I have to acknowledge that children all over the world don't. And I can't hold it all. And I understand that. I understand that. What I don't understand is then thinking you have the answer. Because, of course, children are suffering and dying all over the world. That has been the default for most of human history. What we have procured for ourselves here is the exception. It's the exception. I don't know how to say I don't want that. I don't want children to die or suffer. Of course, I don't. But I don't want that to sound like-- I don't know. I think it is a really hard place to be in and to acknowledge that violence and pain and suffering and death is a reality that we all exist in. But then you also have to be careful not to say do what the the MAGA even the horseshoe does, which is to say people get to do that now. Like, that's the place they get to exist in. Like, that's obviously they're going to be violent because of all the suffering. I think you're right. I mean, I'm looking to faith leaders and peace activists and the words of people like Martin Luther King who can say no. No, like, this is the line. This is the line where we do not downplay or sweep away the suffering and violence and harm coming to people all across the planet. And also, we do not justify the perpetuation of violence in the face of that.  

Beth [00:39:18] And I have no idea what that translates to from a policy perspective. And there's a part of me that just has to say, like, it doesn't. Maybe it just doesn't. That doesn't mean it's irrelevant, but I don't know what it means. I have to offer the prayers for the people in our service at church this weekend. I started writing it and I wrote the word guilt. I was thinking about all these things that we can be thankful for this time of year. I get choked up right now looking at the leaves on the trees because it's so gorgeous where I live right now. And then I feel terrible about how gorgeous it is here. I started making a list because I wanted to acknowledge conflicts beyond those that we hear about in the news. And I didn't know where to stop. The Uyghurs, the Armenians, so many people living with Boko Haram. I just don't know where to stop when you start to really sit with all of that suffering. And I can say I don't want this for the children. But then when I sit in my faith space, I also think, well, I don't want IDF soldiers to die. I don't know what circumstances made these Hamas militants who they are. Something horrible, right? Something beyond my comprehension. The what leads you there. And then to bring that back to the domestic side, I can find it in my soul to look at Matt Gaetz and Steve Bannon and Donald Trump with compassion and to say, I don't know the rock in your shoe. I don't know the path that brought you here. And I don't know how to have my ethics tested by yours. And I don't know what the path is to say you are unacceptable to me, not as a human, but as a leader. You are unacceptable to me. I think I find all of this so stressful because answering the question that always gives me clarity, who do I want to be in this? It feels not available right now. I don't know where to begin.  

Sarah [00:41:23] I keep thinking about the two elderly hostages that were released and how one of them turned back and said shalom to her Hamas capor. And I just think peace is a big word and we ask it to hold so much. We ask it to mean the absence of conflict. But I think peace means something more complicated than that. It means how we respond to inevitable conflict. It doesn't mean that we get to a place where there is no violence or suffering. It means that we find a path. I don't even want to say a path forward. A path through it. And I think the reason that those individual questions are so difficult is because there isn't an individual path. There is only a collective path. It is why I'm often going to Jewish rabbis and reading their words, because the collective wisdom and the emphasis on collective wisdom inside the Jewish faith is enormously comforting to me. And it's not absent in other faiths either. I was reading Rabbi Jonathan Sacks to Heal a Fractured World, and he talks about a collective soul. And I think that's just what's so difficult right now is we don't have a single soul. I don't think ever and particularly not in a moment like this. And so if we don't have a single soul, then our hearts are breaking, not just for entire Palestinian families wiped out, but for the family like Rachel Goldberg's who is trying to live in the hell knowing her son is out there and not knowing how he is, not knowing if he is alive or dead. It's breaking. It's a rendering. It's why we need those biblical moment where people tear their clothing. What else am I supposed to do to represent how this feels but to claw my skin, to rip my clothing, to say we do not exist as individuals. We are connected to each other. That's why this clown show is so infuriating. I wish I was not connected to them, but I am. I have to love my enemy as myself. I hate it. But I don't know what else to do.  

Beth [00:43:37] Yeah. And I even feel conflicted about sharing what I have in this conversation, because I also have this keen awareness that none of this is about me. Who cares that I find it spiritually torturous? Who cares that I am sad looking at the leaves? Like, who cares?  

Sarah [00:43:52] Yes.  

Beth [00:43:53] And I think that that's the other-- there's no sense of proportionality. There's just no way you have that sense that we're all connected in all of this. And there is not a top of the box of the puzzle to show how or to show what that means or where you should insert yourself into it or not. And all I know to do here is to be open about the way that we're thinking about it. I can contribute by doing the research on the region and trying to share what we know. But I am not a war reporter or a reporter of any type, and so what I can contribute to the body of information is narrow. And what I can contribute to the body of emotional processing is fraught. And also talking about anything else feels wrong, sick.  

Sarah [00:44:48]  Really?  

Beth [00:44:49] Yeah. And so here we all are. It makes me think about I've really been missing my therapist lately. He retired a couple of years ago. Once we were discussing, I don't even remember what awful disaster had occurred, but a natural disaster, and he said, "For a few years now, it just feels like the earth is groaning." And that has been really present with me for the month of October. It feels like the Earth is groaning and all of its people too.  

[00:45:20] Music Interlude.  

[00:45:39] We always end our show talking about something Outside of Politics, a hard pivot, a needed one I think because we can't stay in that space 24/7. We do have to be able to parent and go to the grocery store and do laundry and do our jobs. And so, Sarah, for our frivolous Outsid of Politics conversation, we are going to talk about shopping in October and how we've taken very different approaches to online shopping in October.  

Sarah [00:46:07] I gave up online shopping in October because we talked about this I think here in one of our premium shows, that I experienced some very compulsive moments surrounding online shopping where I finally stopped shopping because my phone died. And I thought, okay, friend, let's take a minute and think about this behavior. It is not serving you. And so I thought, okay, I'm trying to stop for October. No Amazon, no online shopping, no Instagram purchases. And so I didn't, I bought, I think, three things on Amazon, two which relate to Halloween costumes because I couldn't wait till October 31st to buy them or it would be too late. And one to replace something I lost on a trip. So it felt really, really good. I got to be honest. I'm going try to keep this up because I also got rid of a bunch of stuff in my closet that were impulse purchases and around my house. And I thought, see, this is why I didn't do this in October, because I just get influenced and then I have stuff that I have to deal with, and I've spent very valuable money I could spend on something else. And I just got  to watch myself.  

Beth [00:47:20] Well, I leaned way into online shopping in October. My goal has been to finish my holiday shopping before Thanksgiving and preferably before the month of November. And I'm real close.  

Sarah [00:47:32] That's awesome.  

Beth [00:47:33] And to be fair, I have purchased a lot of things that were shown to me on Instagram, but I have felt kind of great about it because most of those are pretty small businesses and they are things that I was looking for anyway.  I keep a note all year of ideas for gifts. And I had things on the note, and then I would see a version of it that I really liked and I would buy it. And I have enjoyed getting that done and having things trickle in and really looking at them and thinking, is this the thing? Okay, yes. Then I'm going to go ahead and wrap it.  

Sarah [00:48:10] Yeah.  

Beth [00:48:10] I feel just relieved, honestly. The junk mail came with the buy your Christmas cards now at this discount. And I was like, great, I'm going to go do that immediately. Went right to the computer, entered the very complex codes. Shutterfly, you could make that a little easier. But my holiday cards have arrived. They're ready for me to get set up and out. And so what I want the most as we get into November and December, is to focus on people and cooking for people, because I enjoy that a lot. And so having this piece of it out of the way has been awesome. And being able to knock it out from my house instead of running around to chain stores where my options are fairly limited has been really nice.  

Sarah [00:48:54] Now, listen, I'm going toask you a hard question.  

Beth [00:48:57] Yeah, you can.  

Sarah [00:48:58] Was all the online shopping christmas shopping?  

Beth [00:49:01] Almost.  

Sarah [00:49:02] Okay. That's good.  

Beth [00:49:03] There are three things I can think of that were not. Halloween costumes. So the girls will say, oh, I need this or I need that, and I'll just order it. And then I bought myself some pants that I really like. They're non jeans, but casual. Wear them out of the house pants. And I bought so many bras. So those are the things I can think of that weren't.  

Sarah [00:49:26] I just had to-- it was compulsive. And I'm still dealing with compulsive behavior. Feel like I'm always coming on this podcast saying, "Well, I found this new app and I think it's really helpful." I finally resorted to scheduling my phone to go to grayscale because grayscale will stop you in your tracks. It's not fun to be on an iPhone in grayscale, not even a little bit. And so I didn't know you could do this. You can set up a shortcut and schedule your phone to go at grayscale for certain amounts of time, which is really cool. And that seems to have helped. And I'm still using the one second app to make me pause before I go on Instagram. Like How many freakin speed bumps can I put in place to keep me from using my phone in a compulsive manner? I'm beginning to wonder.  

Beth [00:50:09] It is so challenging and I struggle because I worry about letting people down if I'm not near my phone. What works best for me is to put it away just to not have it in the room with me.  

Sarah [00:50:22] Oh, I have that. I have a special aero box where we can all put our phones in the box and like legs up. I have every tool imaginable.  

Beth [00:50:29] But then I worry, okay, if the kids aren't with me, I need to have the phone. If Chad's out of town, I need to have the phone. Well, how are my parents doing? I probably need the phone. What if Chad's mom needs something? What if our neighbors need me? What if someone from our team sends a Voxer and they're waiting on an answer from me and they can't move forward unless they hear from us? I tell myself that my phone is my representation of care to other people, and I need to just give myself some hours and probably just say to my people, like, during these hours, I'm going to put it in another room. I need to put some boundary around this room.  

Sarah [00:51:06] Now, I don't know if this is because we just experienced 1990s nostalgia at our live show. We really didn't had a lot of good times with that.  

Beth [00:51:12] Are you wanting a landline? I want a landline.  

Sarah [00:51:16] I have a landline. I have a phone that sits upstairs that we already have the number. It's on a bunch of stuff. I could put it in my kid's phone. Nicholas could call me and know that I will pick up that phone. I just need to move it downstairs and get a really maybe cute phone I like. That I enjoy a little temptation bundling there that I could set out and would be cute. My friends and I've been talking about this. We were talking about music. Why did we put all our music on our phones? Why do we want our phones to be our cameras and our Walkman and our actual way for people to get in touch with us? Like it was a trap, guys. It was a trap to keep it in our hands all the time. And I don't want my phone in my hand all the time. And even when I got out my videos from college and I saw all these camcorder videos that I made, it so awesome and it's so different than the video you take on your phone because you always have to turn the video off because you're using your phone for something else. Whereas, the video I took at college I would turn it on for a half an hour at a time. Now it's way boring to watch, but it's super fun too because it captures the moment. It's actually capturing what was happening in that time period, not just like these beautiful little Instagram reels. And when we were at Yosemite, the amount of people, particularly young people, I saw with actual physical cameras and not a phone was pretty dang high. And so I'm just like, what can I take off of this? What tool can I extract from the phone and put it back where it belongs?  

Beth [00:52:36] Yeah, it's a great question. I had my hands X-rayed recently. I have arthritis at the bottom of my thumb joint on my right hand. That is the phone. That is holding the phone. That's outrageous. I'm so mad about it. I'm mad at myself. I'm mad at the world about it.  

Sarah [00:52:53] Yeah.  

Beth [00:52:54] And I don't want that for my daughters.  

Sarah [00:52:57] And I don't want the dang swiping remote. That's not the solution I'm looking for. Have you seen those? You wear on your thumb.  

Beth [00:53:05] No.  

Sarah [00:53:06] Oh, my God. It's a wireless remote. You put it on your thumb so you can prop your phone up and do your swiping for like an hour or whatever and not have to hold your phone. I was like, no.  

Beth [00:53:17] No, no, no. I have been thinking so much about a landline. It's uncanny that you say that. I'm just have started to realize there's no escape from this phone for me unless I am confident that people have a way to reach me otherwise.  

Sarah [00:53:31] Yeah, I think I might do that. I have a really cute place. Listen, my house was built in 1995, you guys. Every room has a phone jack. Literally, every single room in my home has a phone jack. It's hilarious. Everyone has a phone jack and a cable jack, believe.  I was even talking to Nicolas this morning. You know what I miss? I miss DVR. I don't know why we thought streaming was better than DVR. DVR was the best. TiVo was the best. You don't have to make the decision every time. Your TiVo was like, here you go. Here's what I recorded for you. And you're like, thank you.  

Beth [00:54:03] Do you not still have some capacity for that? We do.  

Sarah [00:54:06] No, because we don't have cable.  

Beth [00:54:07] Okay. Well, we do. And it is nice. It is nice to just be like, oh, well, Survivor was on Wednesday and we have a new one. We're going to watch it now. Hurray!  

Sarah [00:54:15] Yeah, I miss it. But I don't want to go back to cable. I don't know. We went from, oh, cable so expensive boo. To now we've come back around to, like, well maybe it's cheaper than having every single streaming service.  

Beth [00:54:27] But, look, I also feel totally differently about TV as a parent than I thought I would. I expected to be like, we got to limit their TV. Now I'm like, "Please watch TV. It has a beginning, middle and an end." You know what I mean? It's not an endless scroll. Like, sure, yes, please sit down and watch your show. How great for your brain is that?  

Sarah [00:54:45] What happened? We're in the upside down.  

Beth [00:54:48] I know.  

Sarah [00:54:49] Well, I can't wait to hear from our audience. I bet some of them have landlines. I bet some of them have extracted tools from their phone. I want to hear about it.  

Beth [00:54:55] Well, thank you for being here today for this wide ranging episode. We are really trying to work through some stuff right now.  

Sarah [00:55:02] We got to find another word for that.  

Beth [00:55:04] I know.  

Sarah [00:55:05] We contain multitudes and they're wide ranging. Hit us up in the comments for another way to describe the fact that we talk about everything in our brains on episodes of Pantsuit Politics. Please, we need some more words.  

Beth [00:55:16] If you in some way found this episode valuable, we would love for you to share it with someone  that you know, because I think a lot of us are working through a lot of things right now, and it's always nice when we're able to do it together. We will be back in your ears on Tuesday. Until then, have the best weekend available to you.  

[00:55:33] Music Interlude.  

Sarah: Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. 

Beth: Alise Napp is our managing director. Maggie Penton is our director of Community Engagement.

Sarah: Xander Singh is the composer of our theme music with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima. 

Beth: Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers. 

Executive Producers: Martha Bronitsky. Ali Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holladay. Katie Johnson. Katina Zuganelis Kasling. Barry Kaufman. Molly Kohrs. Katherine Vollmer. Laurie LaDow. Lily McClure. Linda Daniel. Emily Neesley. The Pentons. Tracey Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katie Stigers. Karin True. Onica Ulveling. Nick and Alysa Villeli. Amy Whited. Emily Helen Olson. Lee Chaix McDonough. Morgan McHugh. Jen Ross. Sabrina Drago. Becca Dorval. Christina Quartararo. The Lebo Family. 

Sarah: Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Michelle Wood. Nichole Berklas. Paula Bremer and Tim Miller.

Maggie Penton2 Comments