Trump in Waco, Judge Duncan's Speech, and Republicans' Parents' Bill of Rights

TOPICS DISCUSSED

  • Mississippi Tornadoes 

  • Silicon Valley Bank Purchase

  • Israeli Democracy 

  • Trump Rally in Waco

  • Stanford Law School and Free Speech

  • Parents’ Bill of Rights

  • Outside of Politics: Disappearing Vacation Days

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EPISODE RESOURCES

UPCOMING EVENTS

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

TRANSCRIPT

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

Beth [00:00:09] And this is Beth Silvers.  

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

Beth [00:00:25] Thank you for joining us for a new episode of Pantsuit Politics, where we take a different approach to the news. Today, we have many updates for you. We're going to talk about what's happened to Silicon Valley Bank, what's going on in Israel. And, yes, we are going to talk about Donald Trump and the rally that he had over the weekend. Then we are going to add some of our own speech to an ongoing discussion about what constitutes speech. And really we're going to get into parental rights and the entire conversation we're having about who needs to be protected from what and by whom. And Outside of Politics, Americans are not taking as many vacations as we used to. We want to talk about why.  

Sarah [00:01:01] It's not okay, guys. It's not okay. 

Beth [00:01:02] But first, Sarah, I know that you love anticipatory pleasure.  

Sarah [00:01:06] It's why I love traveling.  

Beth [00:01:06] And we are overflowing with anticipatory pleasure here at Pantsuit Politics. 

Sarah [00:01:11] So true. Okay. Tomorrow, we will have our first Succession episode on our premium channels. I had to cut us off. The first episode was so perfect. We were covering too much territory before we started recording today. I was like, Beth, we got to stop because it was so good. We couldn't help ourselves. We could not help ourselves. If the first episode is any indication, you guys. Oh, my God. I took so many notes.  

Beth [00:01:36] It's such a treat.  

Sarah [00:01:37] It's going to be a treat. But, wait, there's even more than that. We have our live show next week in Orlando, Florida. The show itself is at seven, but we are inviting premium members to join us for a casual meet and greet before the show from 5:30 to 6:30. So, if you need another good reason to become a premium member, this is it. And we have a fun announcement about the show. Okay. We a new word, Beth. It's called Disney Bounding.  

Beth [00:02:04] This is a whole universe that I had no access to.  

Sarah [00:02:09] Just get on Pinterest and search Disney Bound. You will be like what? Okay, so, at Disney World and Disneyland, adults cannot come in costume. Lots of obvious reasons for that. And so, people dress like adjacent to the character; like they're not in costume, but they're in the colorways. Maybe they're wearing like a version of one of the characters, like, everyday clothes.  

Beth [00:02:30] And it's so fun because people do different spins on the characters. It's like, well, how might this character have looked in the fifties or how might this character look today? It's really a blast, this whole universe.  

Sarah [00:02:42] Do I ever need an excuse to dress up? No. I told you if you want me to come to your party, require that I dress up. For the second half of our show, we're going to do a costume change. That's the first important announcement. For the second half of our live show, we are Disney bounding. But we're not going to tell you what characters we're dressing up because that's part of the surprise. But it's been so fun.  

Beth [00:03:04] It's so fun. And I would love for you all to guess who we chose because choosing was a real exercise. And it's been a blast.  

Sarah [00:03:13] And, of course, we invite the audience who are coming to the show if they want to Disney Bound. Come on. Come all. We're so excited.  

Beth [00:03:20] Not required, though.  

Sarah [00:03:21] Not required.  

Beth [00:03:22] Always welcome.  

Sarah [00:03:22] Always welcome. Okay. Finally, we also want to share another exciting live event in Texas. On Thursday, May 4th, we are going to be with Fort Worth Crowded Table for an amazing evening. We'll be speaking, but you'll also get to enjoy live music from The Secret Sisters. I've been listening to their music all weekend and a portion of the proceeds from the night go to Cancer Care Services. Tickets are on sale now and we are so excited about this one.  

Beth [00:03:46] All the information you need: links to buy tickets, to listen to our premium shows, to check dates and times, it's all always in our show notes, along with full transcripts of our episodes. So, you can access those show notes on your podcast player and you can get the full notes and transcripts by going to Pantsuitpoliticsshow.com - our website. We are going to check in with developing stories at home and abroad next. I have just gotten a note from Maggie that there has been a shooting at an elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee. Nashville is a place that is close to us geographically, very close to our hearts. We spend a lot of time there. We don't know much at all as we are recording, but we will find out what's happening there. And I'm sure it's something we'll continue to discuss. But for now, every school shooting hurts all of us in so many ways. And it changes everything for the group of people most directly impacted. And so, we are sending you lots of love and grace as you navigate the coming weeks and months. We just have a bunch of updates today on stories that we've talked about before and that we're continuing to follow. I feel like we return to extreme weather with greater frequency all the time. This weekend, more than 25 people died in the southern United States because of extremely powerful tornadoes. Sarah, I was listening to coverage this morning of this and hearing about bathtubs lifted up off the ground and industrial coolers-- like coolers that you walk into in a restaurant-- being lifted up and then falling back to the ground. I just can't believe how strong these storms have been. Mississippi especially saw several towns decimated. And the hardest part is that the storms just keep coming.  

Sarah [00:05:36] Yeah. Tornadoes at night, too. Just double the danger. The hardest thing I read about the town of Rolling Forks, Mississippi, incredibly rural town of about 2000 people that was hit very hard, is that the regular FEMA strategy of coming in and offering hotel vouchers isn't really applicable because there are no hotels. And so, that's just going to increase the difficulty. Of course, people and charity and resources are pouring into the town. But we saw this firsthand in my area of the state with the tornadoes that hit during December of 2021, that that is just the beginning. That first wave of relief that comes really it also brings its own problems. And it's just going to be an incredibly long recovery. We are just beginning here in Kentucky, so we will keep the people of Mississippi in our thoughts and prayers.  

Beth [00:06:37] I noticed that you cover extreme weather events frequently on Good Morning on our premium channels. And the comments to those keep reminding us that so many people at a time in the United States are experiencing extreme weather and long bouts of it where it's like you can't even define when the recovery starts because you're still in the midst of the storm. So, yes, keeping everyone in our hearts and our thoughts and hoping for relief in this part of the United States very soon. We also have a follow up to our conversation about Silicon Valley Bank. There's a buyer. First Citizens Bank shares has agreed to purchase Silicon Valley Bank. That means 17 branches are reopening this week. Everything is just going to flow over. It's interesting. This is a smaller bank than Silicon Valley Bank was. It was like the 30th largest bank in the United States. Silicon Valley was maybe 16 or 17. So, an interesting development there. We also read about how banks are trying to help each other through this moment, this crisis in confidence. I appreciated an Axios story about banks telling employees, like, don't go try to poach other people's customers during this time period. Everyone needs to settle in. We need some stability across the financial sector.  

Sarah [00:07:54] Yeah. Now for citizens is going to be about the 16th largest bank. It's paying $72 billion for a big chunk of Silicon Valley banks assets. But that's at a large discount. And the FDIC will hold on to about $90 billion worth of securities and other assets as they continue to sort out the repercussions of the failure of Silicon Valley Bank.  

Beth [00:08:19] And then we wanted to update you on what's going on in Israel. In our March 3rd episode, we talked about the fragility happening in Israel's government as protests escalated. This is because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has proposed to significantly overhaul the country's judiciary. So, if you're unfamiliar with that story, that March 3rd episode we'll give you lots of context. I think it's fair to say things have escalated pretty dramatically.  

Sarah [00:08:45] Yeah, the defense ministry came in and said, okay, if you move forward with this, then we're going to have about 10,000 plus reservists walk out and refuse to serve the government. I was thinking about this the whole time I heard reporting of just the citizens encountered in the street mentioned civil war. And I thought, wow, the impact of that comment is different when you have so many citizens inside the country that have military service either under their belt, are currently volunteering-- because Israel has mandatory military service. And so, obviously he fired the defense ministry, but that doesn't change the impact of what he said. Don't even know what the firing was supposed to do. I'll tell you what it did do. Accelerate the protest. The report is that 100,000 plus people protested across Israel. You have airport shut down, massive strikes. They're blocking major highways. And now the reporting is that he is going to back off, that we should have that conclusion by the time this episode comes out. But many journalists are saying that he is expected to freeze the legislation. So, it worked.  

Beth [00:09:52] But it's hard to know what comes after that because Netanyahu is in power and has been for the last three months based on a very fragile coalition with some far right parties in Israel. Netanyahu's party by itself does not have a majority in the Knesset to form a government. So, I am so hoping for the people of Israel that this doesn't mean they're going to have to go into another round of elections or more chaos. But some of these far right parties in his coalition have a theological opposition to the Supreme Court and view this as a high stakes key issue for them, that's why he's gone down this road in the first place. So unclear whether they will hang with him if he relents on this.  

Sarah [00:10:35] It's clear that the opposition has an opening. And I listened to a reporter describe this as sort of the twilight of Netanyahu. We don't know what happens next. He's definitely not done. But this seems to indicate that he's on his way out. How long that will take, nobody knows.  

Beth [00:10:56] I think this is also a really hard reminder for all democracies that our national security concerns have to flow in several directions at one time. That you can fear external threats and in the process of fearing external threats, so erode your internal protections that you have that enemy within as well as without. And I really feel for the state of Israel with all of the political turmoil that they have been through always, and especially because of Benjamin Netanyahu and his selfish tendencies. I don't know how else to put it.  

Sarah [00:11:36] Selfish tendencies and the enemy within seemed like a great transition to the Trump rally in Waco this weekend. 

Beth [00:11:42] I read a newsletter this morning from Charlie Sykes that said maybe Trump thought he had been too subtle lately, and so he decided to dial it all the way up. But he dialed it all the way up in Waco this weekend.  

Sarah [00:11:52] I mean, all the reporting like he's calmer, we're going to have a really professional campaign this time. I was like, "Friends, do you think that we have forgotten the last seven years?" Because we have not. He is who he has always been and that was on full display. Can you imagine subjecting yourself to 90 minutes of that? Oh, my God.  

Beth [00:12:12] So he did this in Waco on the anniversary of the raid at the Branch Davidian compound to reinforce this message that there is a dangerous deep state in America. And the message was, the deep state dies or our country does. It's all me or an apocalypse. He promised death and destruction if he is indicted. And there was an even more overt effort to cast January 6th as a beautiful historical event to be remembered, a day of righteous protests. Did you see a reporting about the prison choir? I wish you could see her. Sarah is shaking her head so hard that her hair is flying across my screen.  

Sarah [00:12:58] No. I talked about this in the News Brief. The January six prison choir, you guys, is people who were arrested during the insurrection. They're singing the national anthem with intercuts of Trump saying the Pledge of Allegiance. What is happening? If I was Joe Biden, I would just use that as my attack ad from here until the Election Day. I would just be like, "Is this what you want? Is this what you're interested in America?" That's the reporting from the Biden campaign as we'll just continue to behave normally and the contrast should be enough. Now, I don't know if that's true. I suspect it is. But the way he rails in this idea that you are in danger, you're a threat, they're coming for you next, it is so classic. It's so dangerous. The office of Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan D.A., got a suspicious envelope with white powder in it and a note that said, Alvin, I'll kill you. So, the predictable path of violence and threats is happening as one would suspect it would when he acts like this.  

Beth [00:14:10] And this is my fear, I do not want to contribute in any way to any kind of mythologizing of Donald Trump. I do fear the effects that he has on people, including me. I don't like who I am when I think about Donald Trump. I become self-righteous and inflexible and spiteful, and I don't like it. And so, I'm working on that in myself. I also see he just does bring out our very worst as a nation, and I don't want that again. And I really look at the Republican Party and think, you've got to be kidding me. And the solution is to try to coronate Ron DeSantis, who now everybody before he's even officially announced his campaign is like, "Hmm, I don't know if he's up for this. We thought he was going to be great, but he might not be up for this." Guys, come on.  

Sarah [00:14:58] I don't know what about that 90 minutes would make someone think that Donald Trump is up for this, but whatever. I want to say too, though, yes, it is concerning. And also, I read an interview with an expert on far right wing extremists on the Internet. And he was reporting that you do not see an uptick in organization or any sort of gatherings from those groups after Donald Trump called for it and said he would be arrested last week, which he wasn't, which was my instinct. My instinct is like they've been decimated. They're being arrested or prosecuted. I don't think you're going to see any sort of group organization. It doesn't mean you're going to not see individuals acting and sending envelopes with suspicious white powder in them. But that confirmed for me my instinct, which is I don't think we'll see an uptick in any sort of mass organization or even know large group organization. So, that was encouraging. It's not all terrible news. But, yes, I wish this was not happening. I wish he was not back on the national scene. I did not miss him one single little bit.  

Beth [00:16:01] It's just corrosive. And I'm so glad to hear that reporting. At the same time, I do worry about even just related to this Manhattan situation, an uptick in anti-Semitism, an uptick in racist attacks on this D.A. A few people can cause such harm. And Trump does seem to just press those buttons in us and it and it worries me. So just trying to guard my own heart, just trying to keep myself soft as life invites me to harden-- as my friend Anna [sp] says all the time. Maybe I should make that as Trump invites me to harden because he just says it just brings out my very worst and I don't want that. Did you know that in connection with his new campaign, Trump is now interested in allowing parents to vote for school principals?  

Sarah [00:16:48] No.  

Beth [00:16:49] Yeah. So, we're going to talk about that next because there's just a lot swirling around education and speech and parental rights, and that is clearly going to be a part of 2024, whether we like it or not. I'm going to go ahead and raise my hand for not. But we will discuss up next. I struggled putting our outline together for this conversation, Sarah, because in some senses I feel like any story about speech, especially on a college campus, gets the life so firmly wrung out of it. That what could we possibly add? But as I thought about what happened at Stanford Law School on March 9th in connection with congressional Republicans’ passage of the Parent's Bill of Rights, I think there are some things here for us to dig into. So, let me do a brief thumbnail of the facts about Stanford, just in case you've not heard this story. On March 9th, Kyle Duncan, a judge on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, spoke at Stanford Law School at a Federalist Society event. And you can imagine when you put Stanford Law School and Federalist Society together in one sentence that there's going to be some controversy. And there was. There were protests and there was disruption. Stanford Law School as an institution says, protests are welcome, disruption is not. And my reading of this event, Sarah, and I'm so curious to hear your take, is that there seemed to have been no adults at the event itself. Everyone behaved in about as bad and escalatory a way as possible.  

Sarah [00:18:33] Yes, there is reporting that Judge Duncan sort of yelled back, called people names. Then an administrator came up once Judge Duncan asked for sort of an intervention and then-- I think a fair description is piled on-- and said, "Is it worth it that we brought you here? Is the harm worth it?" I think the first thing I want to say is, isn't on a college campus. This is a law school. These are not teenagers. These are young adults and older training to be professionals. So, I think that is an important distinction because I think both of these incidences that we're going to talk about are illustrations of extreme rhetoric and how that plays out. And I thought that the law school's dean, Jenny Martinez and her sort of memos, like a 10 page memo to the law school community, was excellent.  And everyone should read it. If your gut instinct is to say, oh, freedom of speech, this guy is awful-- and he is. I'm not a fan of Judge Duncan. I don't think he's a good jurist. I think his decisions are offensive, but I still think he's a circuit court judge at a top tier law school. And so, screaming is really not what I'm looking at for from either side. And I thought her defense of freedom of speech but argument that this is different, this is an educational setting, we do not jeer others down, that's not an argument and that's what you're here to do is to be trained in logical argument, I thought it was a good manifestation of the problems surrounding the progressive left. They tackled this today in the morning. And Nate Conrad wrote a great piece about the changes in the new left since the Obama administration that looked for compromise, that did outreach, that was fundamentally optimistic. And now we have this very identity based politics that is pessimistic and sees systemic problems and harm everywhere and, in my personal opinion, is deeply problematic. And so, I thought her deconstruction of that, an argument for a debate of ideas was really, really good and moved the conversation in a very positive direction.  

Beth [00:21:19] I think Judge Duncan's conduct also is a manifestation of some problems on the right. You talked about the problems that this illustrates on the progressive left. Judge Duncan, instead of saying to himself, "Well, that was rough and that was an ill-advised group of law students, and I didn't appreciate the way the administration handled it and perhaps I won't go back to Stanford Law School," and then going quietly back to his work where he is an appointee for life to an extremely powerful position; instead, he keeps it going. He writes an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal that I thought was childish and defensive to the point of being offensive. And that's a lot of what happens on the right now. The left goes too far, and so it justifies any response from the right. It justifies a federal judge calling an assembled crowd names. That's so silly. That is not where we should be. So, I just am really frustrated that in the moment no one handled this well. And I am happy that the dean of the law school made such a forceful statement about how you can have an inclusive environment that still includes speech with which you strongly disagree and even speech that you find harmful. I loved how she said our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion is not going to take the form of having the school administration announce institutional positions on a wide range of current social and political issues, make frequent institutional statements about current news events, or exclude or condemn speakers who hold views on social and political issues with whom some or even many in our community disagree. I think that pressure for every institution in its commitment to be inclusive, to also be constantly announcing and really denouncing things happening around it is not serving us. And I'm glad she said so, so clearly.  

Sarah [00:23:19] Yeah. Well, it's vice versa true. Whatever the far right does well that justifies more extreme positions from the new left. There was an editorial from Elie Mystal and he was talking about how Marjorie Taylor Greene behaved during the State of the Union. And he said, "I see no reason for Stanford law students to comport themselves better than Republican members of Congress." Really? Really, you don't? I could list a thousand.  You think that they get to set the standard of behavior that however ugly Marjorie Taylor Greene acts, that gives permission for everyone else to act just as ugly. Gross. No. That's not how I raise my children. That's not how I want anybody to act or civil society. That is a race to the bottom.  I was thinking about this and I had a conversation with Griffin, and we were talking about the really harmful legislation coming out from so many state legislators-- and we're going to get into the federal version of that in a minute. And I said, "I don't like using the term evil. I think that gives people too much power." It involves some sort of other worldly force and that's not what's happening. These are human beings. And I said, "What are we going to do? Do you accept that there are members of our society who will never accept gay marriage and transgender rights?" And he was like, yeah. So, we're never going to convince them. You understand that, right? Like, this is a fundamental value for them. He was like, yeah. I'm like, okay, so what are we going to do about that? How are we going to have an open and free exchange of ideas if we accept that we cannot shame, pressure, punish people into that belief system, that they are going to continue to be citizens with power inside our country? And he was like, I don't know. And I was like, well, I think we need to figure that out. I think we need to think about that and accept that in an exchange of ideas, some of those ideas are going to be heinous. We put them in the light and we say, "See how heinous?" We don't say you can't talk. But that's not what we're doing here, especially at a top tier freaking law school.  

Beth [00:25:31] It's so funny that you and Griffin had that conversation this weekend because Jane and I had a similar one. I was reading Justice Jackson's dissent from a Supreme Court order in an abortion case. This is a case where a teenager sought a judicial bypass to the requirement that her parents’ consent to an abortion. And the details around it are pretty technical. But Jane asked me what I was doing and wanted to hear about it. And so, I started telling her about the case. And she got so frustrated and she said, "Oh, these laws are so stupid. Why are men in charge of everything?" And I said, "Honey, men aren't in charge of everything anymore." And she said, "Yeah, but these laws are mostly for men." And I said, "Jane, I want to be real clear about something with you. There are many, many, many women who believe that an abortion should never happen under any circumstance. There are many women behind the push to say, no matter what, you carry a baby to term and you give birth to it and you parent it. And we cannot have any impact if we are dishonest about the problem or if we are reductive about whose beliefs are involved in shaping these issues. So, you cannot just say, well, this is a men issue. This is an everybody issue. You don't get anywhere unless you're really clear and respectful of where those folks are coming from. You don't have to be respectful about their tactics. And that doesn't mean that you agree with them, but it means you figure out what is going on as accurately and as specifically as you can."  

Sarah [00:27:04] Well, because the mistake we made in the abortion rights movement is we really made it about identity. We deputize people based on their identity. We said this is a debate of identity, not ideas. And so, you hate women. Well, then what do you see? You see women coming forward and saying, "I'm a woman. I don't agree with that." I've got Roe right here, and she doesn't agree with this anymore. That's why it can't be. It cannot be a debate of identity. It cannot be. That's not ideas. That's different, and it's corrosive. And it is also a terrible frickin political strategy. It's not a winning strategy to say, "Well, if you are a human being, you get it. And if you don't, you're evil," because there's always going to be a human being with that identity who feels differently. And then you've deputized them. And then you've given them all the power. Well, this is why we all go to I hate kids. You want to kill kids. Well, I'm a parent. I have kids. Okay, well, then what are we doing? We're all in this circular firing squad based on our identity. Does it mean perspective is not important and valuable inside a debate of ideas? But that's different.  

Beth [00:28:22] And so, deputizing people based on identity is exactly what the attempt is going into 2024 around all of these Parents right bills. The idea that if you are a parent-- which on its own excludes a lot of people who are raising children in school systems right now. But if you are a parent, you must have the upper hand in every discussion about what is healthy and good for your kids at school. So, congressional Republicans last week, 213-208, passed the Parents Bill of Rights. I do want to say before we get too deep into this, that five Republicans voted against this, and it is a very surprising list Biggs, Buck, Gaetz, Lawler and Rosendale. That is not a moderate caucus there. Lawler voted against the legislation because of an amendment targeting transgender kids that he thought was harmful and went too far. The others voted against it because they think that this legislation is too much federal intrusion in education. And I don't give this caucus props very often, but there is actually some ideological consistency that I would like to call out and applaud. I take it where I can get it.  

Sarah [00:29:30] That's right.  

Beth [00:29:31] There's no chance that this law passes the Senate. What it does is fuel the fire in states where these laws are passing statehouses. And it just affirms this desire of base Republican voters for more control over school curriculum and the way teachers interact with students and the way LGBTQ students and faculty are treated and the books that are available to students at schools.  

Sarah [00:29:57] I really think this is going to help our teacher shortage. What do you think?  

Beth [00:30:00] Oh, yeah. People will rush to the profession as they hear that parents know better than they do.  

Sarah [00:30:04] Right. A long time ago, when I was a mommy blogger, I wrote this piece that said I welcomed unsolicited parenting advice. And my perspective was that I'm not an expert. I'm just not. I think we have a cultural narrative that everybody's an expert in their own child. And in a way, that's true. There is a paradoxical truth here that you understand your child in ways other people don't. And also, I'm not a child development expert. I am sure as hell not a curriculum expert. I'm not a reading expert. I cannot help my child with his geometry homework. I pay a diabetes consultant and my child has a disability I don't understand all the time. I don't understand any of the time. And so, I think that that's the undercurrent of this that really bugs me. Again, it's the deputizing of the identity, that makes you an expert. It makes you not only an expert, but the authority on all of this, on everything, which is so, so problematic to me.  

Beth [00:31:14] While we were speaking at a college campus last week, we were talking about how to preserve relationships with your parents when you have different political views. And I was talking about ways that I think are really helpful to saying to your parents, "I love you. I'm not rejecting you. This is how I got here." And then I said, but also, some people have terrible parents, and I think that is missing from these discussions. I understand the pull of even some of the notification things. If my child showed up at school and wanted to use a different name and different pronouns, I would very much like to know that as a parent. But I'm a good and safe parent. And not every parent is a good and safe parent. And this is the problem with deputizing based on identity. Not every parent is a good and safe parent. Not every parent calls to mind all the things that you might imagine when you think about a parent. The other thing that really just rubs me wrong about this particular legislation is how much of it already happens. How much opportunity parents already have to see what's happening in school? Teachers would love it if parents would just read their weekly emails about what's happening in the classroom. And this acts like teachers are sitting around hiding everything that's happening. If you want to be involved in your child's school, there are 600 ways to Sunday to do it on your schedule, using your specific gifts and skills. But the thing is, you do have to contribute to have that influence. This perpetuates the consumer culture.  

Sarah [00:32:49] Yeah. I mean, where are you not allowed to meet with the teachers?  

Beth [00:32:52] Give me a break.  

Sarah [00:32:52] Why does that need federal authority behind it from a party that's supposed to be constantly concerned with the limiting of federal authority. Now, I do want to own-- I don't know if it's full-fledged hypocrisy. I do feel like these are different. But I think what's so hard is I think this bill is ridiculous. And also, I think the Utah legislation empowering parents within the social media space is fantastic.  

Beth [00:33:20] Will you do a little rundown of that legislation for people who don't live in Utah and aren't familiar with it.  

Sarah [00:33:25] Yeah. So, the governor signed this bill into law that put some pretty strict age requirements into social media usage. It requires parental consent for social media usage. It requires time limits and curfews, which I thought were the most interesting part about it. I do that with my kids, but I thought it was so interesting to see that required by state legislation. And I'm like in my head thinking, okay, well, what's the difference? I do think the way you interact with your local school system and empowering parents to go head to head with social media is different. I think there really could be an increased role for social pressure and just real authority when it comes to these very powerful multinational corporations running an addictive technology. I do not want to sound like the lawmakers in front of the TikTok CEO, like, I don't know what I'm talking about. But I think we're turning a corner here. I think we're all coming to Jesus like this is addictive and we gave it to little kids. There's lots of class action lawsuits. Utah signed it, but other states are considering it. And so, I'm just trying to think through, arguably justify in my head why I feel different about the empowering of parents when it comes to social media usage than I do with local school systems. I mean, I think the first and most obvious way is there's a massive amount of regulation regarding our education system and almost none when it comes to social media usage.  

Beth [00:35:00] I think that's right. I think that the use of social media for all of us and especially for kids, is more like smoking in the days before we had a bunch of information about what smoking could do to our bodies. I think we are at the very cusp of learning all of the ways in which this is harmful for us physically, as well as emotionally, and spiritually, and financially and just about every other way. I'm not sure what I think about that Utah legislation. I haven't been since I started reading about it. Because that is another place where I think, well, if a parent decides I'm willing to allow my child to have an Instagram account for their pet sitting business or whatever, is that within a parent's scope to say, "Here's specifically how we're going to use it, for what purpose and under what circumstances and that that's my job, not yours (state) to decide." And I don't know. I don't know where I fall on it, because on the one hand, I think parents probably can be trusted with those sorts of decisions and should be. And on the other hand, it is really hard for me to know what you're up against as a parent when you go down that road. I probably lean against that legislation on balance, but the spirit of it I get.  I try to put myself in the place of understanding the spirit of some of these parental rights/notice laws. And, again, I sort of run up to I get the spirit of it, I get the temptation, I get the pull, and I think this is a bad way to use the law, because I keep going back to what a blunt instrument the law is.  

Sarah [00:36:44] I think the [inaudible] with this is the social component. What you hear consistently is it's so hard to tell they can't have it when everybody else does. Now, look, I was raised by a woman whose power seemed to grow if she was going against all the other parents and what they were doing. That seemed to fuel her in some way. But I understand that is not the reality for everyone. And so, to me, it's just the ubiquity of it is going to take like a lot of power and authority to break that stranglehold where you hear like, well, extracurriculars are organized over Snapchat and all this stuff. And I think there might be a space-- at least at the beginning. I wish there were some sort of like reverse sliding scale, like, we're going to go in hard and break that status quo. I told my husband this week and I said, "I wish there had been a disruption to the online status quo and our usage of social media in the way that there was in our real life over COVID." I'll never forget his barber saying, I thought I couldn't quit. We're going to get into that in the next segment. Talking about vacation days. "I thought I couldn't take time off. I thought I wouldn't be able to do it, but the COVID forced me to. I had to close my business and I survived fine." And now he goes on vacations. And I wish there had been that with social media where everybody could see like, oh, actually I can just walk away for a month or a week at a time and everything will be okay. My business will survive, my brand will survive, my online persona will survive. And it's like if I feel that as an adult, how much more is that felt by teenagers who feel like everything social is the end of the world. And so, I do wonder if we need to like come in strong, cut everybody off, and then we'll scale back. We'll scale it back up. I don't know.  

Beth [00:38:28] And it's just tricky because another thread that I feel about both of these stories is that we are all trying to protect too much. Judge Duncan doesn't need protection from insults being hurled at him by Stanford Law students. Now, giving a speech to a room where you can't get a word out is a different matter. That's not about protection, that's about decorum. He can he can leave and not try to do it and be upset about it or someone can intervene and say, let's have this event. But he does need protection on an ongoing basis, just like those law students don't need protection from speech that they disagree with, from a federal judge and specifically from the reality that in their careers they're going to deal with all kinds of authority figures who have perspectives they don't like. I don't think our children need protection from specific books or from people going to the bathroom in a way that they don't agree with or whatever. On the whole, I think we need to do a lot less protecting of our children. Another thread that we pick up as we travel around the country is that there are parents who are really, really involved in their children's lives. When those children become adults, young adults in places where they're supposed to be independent and really figuring things out on their own-- and if you don't allow your kids to navigate some issues on their own as kids, they're not going to be able to do it as adults. I worry if we are going into a campaign season where every issue becomes not just the issue but the issue on steroids. That if what we're saying is what we have to protect everybody from everything, we're going to have such an ugly conversation that really sets us back very far. I am sure we'll return to that discussion as it unfolds. We very much look forward to your thoughts about all of this. And I love, Sarah, that you gave us such a good segue to start thinking about what can we step back from as we transition to talking about disappearing vacation days? The Washington Post had a piece that the vacation rate has fallen steadily since 1980. So, in 1980, in a given week, you would find about 3.3% of the workforce on vacation. Now, it's about 1.7%. We are taking shorter absences more frequently, but we're not taking week-long vacations.  

Sarah [00:41:03] This makes me so sad. And also, it's very surprising to me because there's so much post-COVID reporting that people are travelling. They are ready to hit the road. They're ready to pay whatever you ask. I put myself in that category. And now as we come in to spring break, I thought it was so interesting to think through how much are people really traveling. Now, I want to share. I looked this up. There's been many studies, and the research indicates that the ideal length of time for a vacation is between 8 to 11 days. Now, that is a little shorter. I really believe in the European model. I want to be gone for like two weeks minimum. And I remember I had a friend who I went to college with and she married someone from the U.K. and she was, like, it's life changing. You just don't understand how long it takes you to cycle down and really relax. But I think 8 to 11 is probably right. I think we're telling ourselves we're getting away for a day or two, but that's not long enough to really unplug both technology-wise, physically, psychologically. You need more time. So, this makes me really sad.  

Beth [00:42:12] So, The Washington Post points out that this is probably a lot about workplace policies, because most workplaces now, especially for blue collar and production workers, have gone to a paid time off policy that encompasses your sick leave, your personal time and vacation altogether. You just have a bank of hours and you spend them how you spend them. And so, people keep those hours for when they really need them. I've gotten really sick. Someone has died. I am up against a wall and just must take a day off or I'm going to explode. And people are holding on to those hours for those limited use scenarios, understandably, because that's what the policy incentivizes them to do.  

Sarah [00:42:53] You guys, that Enneagram Sixes are never going on vacation if that's the policy. Like ever, never, no, never. I am married to an Enneagram six and it took most of like the first decade of our marriage and really COVID to shake him loose from this idea of, like, I can be gone for like 3 to 4 or five days max. Five workdays, that's it. And he's realized like, no, I can, and it's okay. Now, he doesn't have that kind of work policy, but that is like, oh my God, that sort of personality. That's like worst case scenario. I always have to be prepared. What can happen? Like, that's just terrible. They'll never take a vacation day.  

Beth [00:43:28] On the other side of this, is somebody who doesn't have to deal with PTO. I think I find all of the flexibility and freedom we have in our work to be a barrier to taking real time away, too. So, I will tell myself, well, like a vacation from what? I get lots of time to do what I want. So, yesterday was a Sunday. We're recording on Monday. I worked for about 4 hours in the afternoon because I wanted to go exercise this morning before we recorded the podcast and knew I would have some other things to do. I have that ability all the time. I was thinking this morning as I was watering my plants, I used to do a commute. Now I have this time to water my plants and get some laundry going before the workday starts. And I think that because I have all of that freedom and I feel so grateful for it and so aware of how constrained my day used to be, that I feel real guilt for unplugging. Guilt both to my work here in our company and also to all the people who don't have that freedom.  

Sarah [00:44:32] Oh, my goodness. Yeah, I don't feel that. I don't think that's going to come as a surprise to you or to anybody listening. I think I just grew up with people who took a very different approach to vacation. I mean, first of all, my mom was a high school librarian, so she got the summer off. And so, I saw people taking European style vacations. That was the model I grew up with. When I graduated from high school, my mom and my grandmother-- my grandmother was also I think retired at this point or close, but she also worked in the school system. We went to Europe for a month. And my parents took every spring break, we went often places on Christmas time. It's really interesting. I don't know where that came from because I wouldn't think that they really didn't grow up with that model. Although, my mom and her siblings and my grandparents were going on ski vacations in the seventies, which wasn't super common. And so, I just grew up with this different approach, like you travel. My stepdad is a big traveler. My dad is a big traveler. Like, you go and see. This is going to sound weird, but I don't really think about it in relationship to my work. Like, they're very siloed in my head. You know what I mean? Like, they're different. There's different segments of my brain. I see them as interrelated as travel is life giving to me. I like a lot of stimuli. My strength finder is input. I love input. Give me the input. And travel is just like peak input for me in the best way. Food and culture and art and architecture and fashion. Just being in a new place, whatever that new place is. Even like Charlotte, North Carolina is so stimulating to me and I love it. And so, to me it's so life giving. I guess I just think about it as like a foundation. It was really hard for me when we had little kids and we did not travel. I know that sounds so privileged and snotty and terrible, but I hate that people really do have that capacity but gets trapped in this crap system where they have to weigh that against the risk of having something terrible happened and not being able to take time off. So, how do we change this? How and do the system out like it?  

Beth [00:46:53] Well, I think, first of all, if you are a person who has the ability to influence company policy, spending some time recognizing that it is in fact a foundational element, because you don't have to be a person who loves travel, to be a person who benefits from prolonged, sustained times when you're not working. Yes, I am so looking forward to the summer and I don't really want to travel much this summer. I just want to unplug. I want to not feel like I have to check my phone. I want to not have to keep up with the news for a little bit. I want to not have many responsibilities beyond just feeding myself and my family and exercising and enjoying the sunshine. And all of us have a way that we can step away that really benefits our work. I think this is the problem. From a corporate perspective, when people aren't working you feel like you're losing something. And you've got to recognize that you are gaining something as well. Yes, you are losing something, but you are gaining something as well. The other thing this article pointed out about PTO policies that I think is really key is that if you have created a culture of scarcity and someone is able to be gone for a week, they feel like they've diminished their own worth in the company. If I wasn't here for a weekend and everything went okay, then maybe I'm not valuable. And when it's time to do layoffs again, I have to go.  

Sarah [00:48:12] It's so messed up. I hate that so much. And also, I want to say to your point about being unplugged, I think there's a real gendered and personality-driven perspective that I see, too. When I gave birth to my children, I stayed at my mom's house. I'm not super capable of relaxing inside my own house. I love my house. I love it. I have nightmares where I'm accidentally tricked into selling it. Okay. But there is a momentum to my being in my house. There's laundry, there's house projects, there's a drawer that I want to clean out. And that stuff makes me feel good. It really does. And so, it is just hard for me to sit still and relax. And so, it's like, you don't have to travel far. But I think especially for women or whoever is sort of the household manager to-- and household managing is different things, maybe you and your partner manage things-- to just go somewhere different. It could be down the street. My friend Elizabeth Pastoral [sp] was telling me her and her husband for her birthday around Christmas, just go stayed at a hotel because they live in New York City. You don't even have to go far, right? Like, just go in a hotel. Just time away. Time away from that momentum of household management, because that's like the whole other level of this. It's not just stepping away from your job and how that makes you think about your work, but also stepping away from your everyday life and the monotony of those tasks.  

Beth [00:49:46] So, to the question of how do we fix this, I think PTO is a failed experiment and we need to go back to giving people dedicated vacation time and personal time and sick time. And we probably need to not count sick time because we are in a world where we're just getting sick a lot and for longer periods of time and where we know that we don't want people infecting other folks and places and we've got lots of technology to help us figure out what to do.  

Sarah [00:50:11] You can drop attendance rewards at school, too. That just means that child went to school sick. Thank you very much.  

Beth [00:50:17] We must build in redundancy in our systems, both to ensure that when people are out the work can continue. And to tell them you have a role too; you are someone else's redundancy. We value some redundancy. We are not trying to operate as lean as we possibly can here. There are all kinds of policies that can make a difference around this and make everybody a lot healthier. And I know this is the Outside of Politics segment, but hand in the air, I promise our politics will be so much healthier if our workplaces stop operating this way.  

Sarah [00:50:51] Oh, my Lord. I mean, there's tiers of this, right? If people just went to a hotel in their hometown, things would get better. If people just went to like a regional close by resort, things would get better. If people traveled around this country and went to states that they have a narrative about in their head and spent some time on the ground in those cities-- like even with Trump in Waco. If we had not spent such lovely time in Waco, that would have felt different to me than it did in the news cycle. That changes everything. And then, again, international travel, don't even with me. Going to another country, seeing people speak another language, just the experiencing of humanity on a global scale-- I mean, so important we wrote about it in our book-- it's like tiers. We can unlock all these levels, like in a video game.  

Beth [00:51:45] But, look, I think the most foundational of those tiers, the one that would really make things better, is if everybody -- not just those of us with the resources to travel and stay in hotels and spend time away from our homes -- could experience a form of power in their workplace that didn't feel so oppressive. And that didn't make them feel like they are always teetering on the edge of whether their livelihood is going to be interfered with or not based on how someone judges their productivity.  

Sarah [00:52:16] You mean just treated as whole and complete and integrated human beings.  

Beth [00:52:19] Yes. And if we said to people, you whole and complete human being need several weeks a year when you are filling yourself up instead of working yourself down for us so that we can all be happier, it would just change everything. I really believe it would.  

Sarah [00:52:37] Filling ourselves up. I love that. That is a great place to end.  

Beth [00:52:41] Well, I hope that you feel somewhat filled up by this time that we have spent together. That's always our goal. We are so happy that you've joined us. We would love to see you soon in Orlando at one of our upcoming events, and on our premium channels to talk about Succession. So many places where we try to fill up around here. Again, all that information is in our show notes. Or you can go to Pantsuitpoliticsshow.com. We will be back in your ears on Friday. Until then, have the best week available to you.  

[00:53:26] Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our managing director.  

Sarah [00:53:31] Maggie Penton is our community engagement manager. Dante Lima is the composer and performer of our theme music.  

Beth [00:53:37] Our show is listener-supported special thanks to our executive producers. 

Executive Producers Martha Bronitsky. Ali Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Helen Handley. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holladay. Katie Johnson. Katina Zuganelis Kasling. Barry Kaufman. Molly Kohrs. Katherine Vollmer. Laurie LaDow. Lily McClure. Linda Daniel. Emily Neesley. Tawni Peterson. 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.   

Beth Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Michelle Wood. Joshua Allen. Nichole Berklas. Paula Bremer and Tim Miller.  

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