The Debt Ceiling Deal and the 2024 GOP Primary

TOPICS DISCUSSED

  • President Biden and Speaker McCarthy’s Debt Ceiling Deal

  • State of the Republican Party and 2024 Republican Presidential Primary

  • Genealogy Research with Elizabeth Hodges

  • Outside of Politics: Pantsuit Politics Summer Schedule

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EPISODE RESOURCES

TRANSCRIPT

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

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

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

Beth [00:00:26] Thank you for joining us at Pantsuit Politics. Today, we're going to catch up on the debt ceiling deal and discuss the state of the presidential race as it is here at the end of May 2023. Then we'll share a conversation with Elizabeth Hodges about genealogy and how it connects to our understanding of the world. This is the last regular show before we began our summer season. So Outside of Politics, we're going to tell you what you can expect here for the months of June and July.

Sarah [00:00:51] Before we get to the news, we wanted to say thank you so, so much for all your support for our premium drive. For the people who signed up to be supporters and financially support our work here for the first time. For people who upgraded their support, we had two new executive producers join the team. We are just so thrilled with the way you guys show up for our work here, especially as we head into summer break. So thank you, thank you, thank you so much for supporting our premium drive. If you still want to give a little love to Pantsuit Politics, we would love it for you to write a review of the show on whatever podcast player you use. Those reviews take so little time, but they make a huge impact in helping new listeners find the show in this community. So, it would mean a lot to us if you could take a few minutes and do that.

Beth [00:01:37] Up next, we have a debt ceiling deal. We'll talk about what it is and what we think it means. Last week we talked about the brinkmanship around the debt ceiling. Over the weekend, President Biden and Speaker McCarthy announced that they had reached a deal encompassed in the 99 page Fiscal Responsibility Act. And I'm happy that we have a deal. It feels good to have a deal.

Sarah [00:02:09] Yes. This deal is not done. It still has several steps along the way. That's why I'm a little worried about the freedom caucus getting on board. We don't have a lot of time for any further crowing about government spending. We got to get it through the House. I think the clock started today as we're recording on Tuesday-- the 72 hours. They have to read the bill. They have to get it through the House that get through the Senate. They have to get a CBO estimate. I think the contours of the deal are predictable and an offensive. Well, let's see if that's what finally comes out of the House and the Senate.

Beth [00:02:46] So just to give you the contours of that deal briefly, this raises the debt ceiling until 2025. It keeps non-discretionary spending mostly flat, goes up 1% for fiscal year 2025. That will be a spending reduction when you think about inflation. So that's probably something that Republicans would have insisted on anyway through the normal appropriations process. Couple of things in here unrelated seemingly to the budget and the debt ceiling. We get what Joe Manchin has been asking for in two years now. We're speeding up the Mountain Valley natural gas pipeline approval process. That pipeline will run from West Virginia to Virginia. Interesting here that senators from those states are on different sides of this issue. Manchin wants this bad. Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia plans to file an amendment to take it out of the final deal. So we'll see where that ends up. We also have a little bit of that increased IRS funding. It would remove 21.4 billion of the 80 billion that the IRS had received in enforcement funding in the Inflation Reduction Act.

Sarah [00:03:47] I'm not thrilled about this. I understand we had to come to some sort of compromise because this was such a big request from the Republican majority. I can't decide if 10 billion a year for two years is a lot. I mean, I know $10 billion is a lot. It's not a lot as a percentage of the funding. So I can't decide how I feel about this. I'd prefer it not to be touched at all. But I understand that this is a huge issue. And it's just frustrating to me because as we talked about in our previous conversation, this is going to cost money the way they're doing this. And so, that part's super frustrating to me when the overall talking point is spending.

Beth [00:04:26] I think that this is very reflective of the overall deal. It's like Biden gets most of what he wants. It has to trim back a little bit so that Republicans have something to talk about too. And at the end of the day, I don't think anyone is hurt much by this. It just feels like a status quo preservation measure to me. It's the same thing with these work requirements. They're not great. Increased work requirements for food stamps and TANF programs on a limited segment of the population receiving those benefits. I don't think that these will do any good as it relates to the overall budget. I don't think there's anything fiscally responsible about this. It is a culture war win for Republicans. But the bigger thing is that they did not get work requirements imposed for Medicaid, which probably would have had a much larger fiscal impact.

Sarah [00:05:15] Yeah, basically, they just increased the age requirement. Right now there are no work requirements If you're over 49, and they're going to up that to 54. I guess the overall takeaway when you look at several of these specifics within the deal, they're going to start collecting student loan payments again at the end of August, which Republicans have been talking about. I guess the too long did not read is there's stuff to be frustrated with, but nothing to be mad about no matter what side you're on. People will find things to say this is terrible whether it's the Freedom Caucus or the Progressive Caucus, but it's a pretty middle of the road compromise. I don't love it. I don't hate it.

Beth [00:05:55] There are also a lot of off ramps in it. It applies the PAYGO rule to executive actions. PAYGO has been in the congressional rules for a long time. We talked about it when Kevin McCarthy's speakership battle was going on. The basic idea is that if the executive branch does something new that costs money, they have to cut that amount of money somewhere else. But the OMB can waive that requirement. And there are lots of places like that in this deal for finagling. We'll have to see what the overall appropriations deal looks like at the end. I think the smartest take that I've read on this, which is everywhere, is that this is a fine deal. The country can absolutely handle this. This probably will help limit some of the interest rate increases from the Fed because it does pull back enough that maybe it helps absorb some of the inflation that we've been trying to deal with. And also, this was a really silly way to get to this kind of measure.

Sarah [00:06:50] As we move into the next part of our conversation we're going to talk about the presidential race, which right now is basically the Republican primary. I just think that this is separate from the contours of the deal, which I think, again, it's fine. I don't love it. I don't hate it, whatever. To me, it just lowers the stakes. It just makes every debt ceiling fight moving forward just another congressional process that Americans are going to tune out. You know what I mean? If the fevered pitch of the predictions around this stay so high and then it continues to just fizzle out at the end, people are going to start tuning out. Honestly, I think people already have. I think people just sort of roll their eyes. I don't think anybody was up in their feelings as an everyday citizen about this debt ceiling negotiation. It looked and felt and ended just like a regular old congressional executive branch negotiation.

Beth [00:07:50] Yeah. Assuming that it gets through the Rules Committee and that they pass it in the House and Senate, maybe it's a good thing that everyone thought, well, we'll get it worked out. And they have. I worry a little bit about what that looks like to the rest of the world, but maybe the rest of the world starts to tune it out eventually too. Oh, those Americans, they always get it down to the wire, but then they figure it out. I mean, markets have seemed pretty stable about this. Hasn't been good. We had that, as we talked about last week, a little bit of anxiety and talk about perhaps downgrading our credit in the world. But I'm glad they figured it out. And maybe that's the best we can hope for. I was also glad to see that Speaker McCarthy talked about how professional and productive the president was in these negotiations. I was thinking this morning, like big picture, what do I care about in these dynamics? And it is not like we are going to quickly bounce back to something that feels like a more normal Republican Party after the Trump years. But a lot of this does feel like a pretty normal Republican Party. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think the way that Speaker McCarthy has talked about the deal since it's been done has felt pretty normal. And there's something good in that.

Sarah [00:09:02] I don't know if that is good for them or bad for them politically. I don't even know how I feel about it. And I worry if I'm seeing this and thinking, does this fuel their fire or does it damp down their fire, then they're definitely asking those questions. Not just Speaker McCarthy but Chip Roy and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Donald Trump and all these people running for the Republican nomination. I do think there was some normalizing of the party. I don't know if that was deserved during this negotiation because it's still a stupid debt ceiling negotiation, which I don't want to become normalized because it's stupid and dangerous and a dumb procedural way to claw back spending, which you didn't even really do. So I struggle with this. I still believe the Republican Party is broken. But I also know that for a certain segment of the U.S. population, they're never going to leave that party. They're never going to look and say, "Wow, these guys don't have any interest in responsibly running the government. I'm going to leave." I need them to function normally, which I think this was, except for what am I even talking about? This is not a normal way to get this done. So it's just this really weird paradox where it's like a normal debt ceiling negotiation. What are we even talking about? It's like we have Stockholm syndrome or something. Like, we've just adjusted to this ridiculous procedural posture and they're winning some sort of perspective that they can function normally inside this thing that shouldn't be happening to begin with? It's just so weird.

Beth [00:10:38] It is weird. It's not great. And, again, I think when something has been damaged as badly as the party and a lot of aspects of our government have been over the past few years, both by the Trump administration and the pandemic, it's just good that we got a deal here. And it's good that it's a deal that's not a big scary deal. And it's good that the players are talking and acting like professionals. We are always going to have the Chip Roy's and the Marjorie Taylor Greens and the Freedom Caucus. We are always going to have people on the left. There are lots of progressives who are really, really unhappy with this deal. I think that that shows, again, how unsustainable this situation is. Because just like you said, we are never going to have everybody in America go like, "No the Republican Party isn't working. I'm going to abandon it." We also are not going to be able to function forever in this state where the Democratic Party has to hold everybody from Joe Manchin to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. That's not sustainable either. Progressives are going to get tired of voting for stuff like this. They've had to do a lot of this in the Biden years and they're going to get sick of this. And so, I just feel like we're maybe in what I hope is a healing period. I am worried that's probably a good transition about what a presidential contest does to a healing period.

Sarah [00:11:57] Yeah. Because I'm not talking about governmentally. Functionally, happy this got done. I would like the government to continue to function. I would like us not to default on our debts. So happy about that. I don't know what this means politically. I don't know how to read the political tea leaves inside this deal in negotiation to decide what it means for the Republican Party. And, honestly, looking at the primary-- hell, looking at the impeachment in Texas, is probably a better indicator of what's going on in the party. But these are not disconnected. Or maybe they are. Maybe Americans have truly tuned this out and no one's going to be held responsible, politically or otherwise, in either party for this debt ceiling negotiation because it's become so normalized.

Beth [00:12:41] Yeah, I don't think that there is going to be a huge political impact of clawing back 21.4 billion instead of 80 billion of IRS enforcement funding. Everyone's eyes rolled back in their head just as you start that sentence. As I've read more about the primary, to me, the big question on the Republican side is whether the party is interested in talking to all of the people who do not follow politics closely, who are really pivotal in general elections or just the piece of their base who follow everything in great detail. And, so far, I'm not sure that you can tell because all the conversation is focused on that base. Like we're talking straw polls and CPAC and how many people are coming to the Vivek Ramaswamy events, right? It is a very niche moment and maybe it's just too early to know what that general election pivot is going to look like.

Sarah [00:13:40] Yeah, I don't think we can talk about the general election yet. I think they're definitely consumed with the primary and that worries me because I think we see a pattern in the general of particularly independent or moderate voters looking at Donald Trump and going, "No thank you." Especially when there's a lot of energy and fervor and conflict surrounding him, which there's going to be an enormous amount of the closer and closer we get to these primaries. His criminal trial is now scheduled for March 2024. He's going to have this Jack Smith investigation, the Georgia investigation. I keep thinking this is going to stack up on him and remove or tamper down or hopefully kill his momentum or his stranglehold over the party. But based on the people who vote in these primaries, that might not be true. They might not care and they might nominate somebody who is fully under investigation. I really cannot even play this out. What if they nominate him and he's freaking convicted? Like what? Because I think that's what they're going to do. They're going to play to the base that's who votes in the primary. And that base is completely and totally detached from what can win a general. They have shown that over and over again, not just in the presidential, but in the midterms. You and I watched this Retake America video. It was linked through a David French thing, and he was talking about the future of the party and what it means in the primary. And he was saying, well, all these Retake America conventions are selling out. Well, first of all, half of the dates were in Tulsa. Tulsa, are you okay? Just blink twice. Seriously, why is all of this taking place in Tulsa? Why are there so many of these in Tulsa? It's so weird. And then I started to watch a preview just to get an idea of what it was. And it was the weirdest thing I have ever seen. I can't even adequately describe it. It was like a live podcast. And then there was some bodycam footage that I didn't really understand why it was connected to this Retake America convention. And it's all in opposition to the Great Reset that the World Economic Forum formulated post-pandemic, which sort of makes sense. There was this round up where they listed political fraud, medical fraud, financial fraud, educational fraud. And I was like, okay, well, some of that I can see the connective tissue. But then we were being told by literally anything off my pillow-- you guys, I know it sounds like I can't quite articulate adequately, but that is not a failure of my ability to articulate. It was really wild. And if that's what's feeding the base of the Republican Party right now, I do not have a lot of hope for a reasonable outcome to the Republican nomination.

Beth [00:16:37] I tried to watch this video that you sent me, and I agree I cannot describe what it is. Because I don't know what it is. It's like a mash up of infomercial, live podcast, church revival. There's a lot going on.

Sarah [00:16:49] So much. You said your brain was melting. I think that's an accurate description.

Beth [00:16:54] It melted my brain. So it is hard to watch something like that and then think about how somebody like Tim Scott makes it through this primary, because I don't know what language we're speaking. And I get really concerned when I can't pick up what language we're speaking. I can watch a Donald Trump event and think this is definitely not for me. I don't think it's healthy or good for any of us. I don't think it's particularly patriotic. But I understand what brings people here. This thing is like a reach beyond that, when you get into the MAGA created celebrity world of Michael Flynn and Alex Jones, we are now in a place that I truly do not understand.

Sarah [00:17:41] And some Trump. There is some Eric and Laura there.

Beth [00:17:43] Yeah, and it is a whole separate thing. I think Trump himself would watch this tape and think it's mostly garbage because I think he gets enough how to string something together that hooks people in. This is a different place. And I don't know, I wonder how many Republicans are going to vote in these primaries who don't see the world that way. I wonder how many Democrats are going to strategically vote in Republican primaries because especially I listen to a lot of Bulwark podcast and they've been talking about how the Republicans are still starting in Iowa and the Democrats in Iowa are not going to have anything to do. And people in Iowa are serious about their politics. It's admirable. I loved seeing that firsthand. I could imagine a not insignificant number of Democrats going to the Republican caucuses just to try to block some craziness from leaving the state.

Sarah [00:18:42] That's true. Well, the only sort of input we have is here in our home state of Kentucky, we just had a Republican primary. We had a full MAGA spending a ton of money. She was not Trump endorsed even though she had been Trump's U.N. ambassador, Kelly Craft, and she lost. She was third and she spent like $10 million. I just don't know if that's an equivalent to him. I just don't think a big spending Trump adjacent candidate is equivalent to him.

Beth [00:19:10] Who's a woman.

Sarah [00:19:11] Who's a woman. I didn't think Daniel Cameron, who's very Mitch McConnell endorsed, establishment Republican was going to run away with it quite to the level he did. So maybe that's encouraging. I just don't know. I cannot get myself in that head space. I am not a Republican. I have been a Democrat since I was 18 years old. And even though I live in a red state and I live around conservative people, I don't know. I just don't know. I do know that Trump is powerful. I do know that he didn't successfully complete a coup on the United States government, but I think he did on the Republican Party and particularly some of the state party structures. He's very powerful inside those party organizations. So I just I don't know. I cannot fathom a scenario where the legal liability continues to build and compound and increase, and he still runs away with the nomination. But that might just be a failure of my imagination.

Beth [00:20:15] Also encouraging from our governor's race in Kentucky is how many Republicans in exit interviews said, "I voted for Daniel Cameron in the primary, but I'm going to vote for Andy Beshear in the general election." I read an article in the Kentucky [inaudible] about this race and a Republican strategist was was doing the whole like "Daniel Cameron is really going to unite the party and bring so much energy." And here's what he said about our governor. He said, "Andy Beshear is a nonpartisan technocrat who shows up after a disaster with water bottles and hugs." And I thought, is that supposed to be insulting? That sounds fabulous to me for a governor. A nonpartisan technocrat? Yes, please. Someone who knows what he's doing, cares about doing the right things for the right reasons. And I think water bottles and hugs after a disaster is exactly what people want. So many people in Kentucky have actually met Andy Beshear because he does show up with his body when things are bad to try to help and comfort and lead. So if that is the mood of a significant number of Republicans in Kentucky, that gives me a lot of hope for how people are feeling. But I don't think Kentucky is always a good indicator. When you talk about like Tulsa, when we visit other states, I do remember that Kentucky as red as we are on all the Electoral College maps, it feels a lot more purple here than I think it feels in many spaces.

Sarah [00:21:42] Well, and I think it's also because of our off year electoral calendar. It's just that we vote more often and it's just a different vibe. It's not that I don't think if Donald Trump is on the ballot, he won't win the Republican primary in Kentucky. He probably would.

Beth [00:21:57] Agreed. I think that's right.

Sarah [00:21:58] I just think there's still way too many outstanding factors, particularly when it comes to his legal liability. I'm going to be so depressed if he is like fully on trial, has been convicted. I mean, he's already been found legally liable for defamation with agent Carol. If this just continues to pile up and he runs away with it, it's going to be depressing. But I'm trying to emotionally prepare myself for that.

Beth [00:22:27] But I also don't want to come in and bust on the people who are trying to challenge him and say that there is no path for a Nikki Haley or a Tim Scott or an Asa Hutchinson. I am guilty of getting in that space where I believe I know what's going to happen. And I do want to make room in my heart and the universe for people to surprise us here. And I think Tim Scott especially has a compelling story, a lot of name ID. I don't think he would be a great general election candidate for a lot of reasons, but I think him coming out of the Republican primary as the nominee would be just a giant leap forward in that healing process for all of us to get to kind of a more stable place between the two parties.

Sarah [00:23:15] I think Tim Scott is so boring and there's no way he wins the Republican primary. I just think he's boring. And I think we overweight charisma in American politics in the most normal of circumstances, and it's definitely weighted heavily if you're up against Donald freaking Trump. I mean, when I talk to my Republican friends and family members, the only person they're willing to entertain as someone they would vote for besides Donald Trump is Ron DeSantis. He's still got, I think, some juice for all his flops, for all his missteps, for the fact that I also think he is boring on the trail and does not have a lot of charisma. He has built enough energy around what he has done in Florida, both culturally and related to the pandemic, that I think he is the closest, that he is the only candidate within striking distance that people will entertain. Now, could that be the same in July, August? Who the hell knows? I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility. I just think the more people that get in the race or if people don't start to solidify around Ron DeSantis or Asa Hutchinson, (who the hell knows?) but then it's going to be even harder. People are going to split off. No one's going to gain enough momentum to really slow his train down.

Beth [00:24:41] The other big buzz right now around the presidential race is the speculation that there could be a third party run. There's a group in D.C. (No Labels) who does a lot of really good work, especially around legislation, that is seeming to lay the groundwork for a possible unity ticket where they would have a Republican and a Democrat run together. There is always chatter about independent candidates emerging from the woodwork. We get the occasional question about Liz Cheney. Could Liz Cheney jump in as an independent or could she jump into the Republican primary? Maybe let's start there. What do you think would be the impact, if any, if Liz Cheney were in this race as a Republican or as an independent?

Sarah [00:25:21] I think if Liz Cheney thought she had a chance in hell, she'd already be out running. I don't think that she has any traction inside a Republican primary where Donald Trump has already proclaimed his candidacy and where you have people selling out the Reclaim America Tour in Tulsa every other week.

Beth [00:25:40] So, two things to me affirm your conclusion. The first one is that if Liz Cheney has a constituency, I'm probably it. And I would not vote for Liz Cheney for president. I greatly, greatly admire, greatly admire the way that she has conducted herself since January 6th. That does not change where she stands politically on a number of other issues. And it doesn't change her connection to the Bush-Cheney dynasty, which I'm not holding against anybody. I'm not trying to Monday Morning quarterback that. I just don't think it would be good for America to go in that direction with our leadership. I feel like if I am feeling that way, that's tough because I'm a pretty small constituency to begin with. And if my constituency is fractured, that's not a good sign. The second thing that affirms this for me is that she spoke over the weekend at a college graduation and a bunch of students like turned their chairs backwards and protested by having sayings on their caps about her being imperialist and colonialist and racist and homophobic and whatever. Anyway, there was sort of conflict about why people were protesting her. Is it progressive people who think she's too conservative, or is it Trump people who think she's too liberal? And I just feel like when you fracture everybody to that degree, a presidential run in national race is tough. I wouldn't think that's where this is going. I know a lot of us, like in the West Wing version of the world, think that would be kind of a nice punch back at Trump. But you don't pick a president to punch back at Trump. You pick a president thinking about the future, not the past. That's why I think this COVID thing with DeSantis has limited utility. Hopefully, we don't have to talk about COVID in 2024 and beyond the way that we have for the past few years. I wouldn't want to be running on something that's in the rear-view mirror.

Sarah [00:27:37] Well, that's what Donald Trump is going to do. He's definitely going to run on 2020. He just can't help himself, which I think is a losing strategy. I'm not worried about him winning the general. I'm just not. But I do think it would be damaging and stressful and anxiety producing. I'm just not interested in the presidential race between Donald Trump and Joe Biden in 2024. I remember vividly when he said immediately, "I will just run in 2024," Jon Favreau tweeted like, break off the New York Times needle and stab it directly into my eye. And I still feel like that several years later, it's becoming more normalized. And he's already proclaimed. And I'm like, "Oh, I cannot believe we're going to be back here." But I just think that's the most likely scenario at this point. I still think it's very, very early and lots and lots of things could change. But that's where we're at right now.

Beth [00:28:22] And you groaned about the Unity Candidate idea as well.

Sarah [00:28:27] Yeah. No, I do not want to see a third party candidate because the margins were so close in 2020. I'm not here to upset the apple cart and create a lane where Donald Trump actually could win the general election.

Beth [00:28:37] I think that's right. I would love to see us have more than two candidates for president, more than two healthy parties. I would like to start with two healthy parties, though, and I don't think that we are there. And I think when we don't have two healthy parties we're definitely not in a place where putting a third variable into the mix would be helpful. I'm bummed that we have likely Biden just cruising to the nomination again. I think he's been a good president, but I wish he weren't running again and I am very bummed at the prospect of Trump being the Republican nominee. But it is early. So we'll follow up on this as the race continues to evolve. I think we could see quite a few more Republicans jump in over the next couple of months and we'll keep talking about it. Next up, we're sharing a conversation with Elizabeth Hodges. She is a historian, former museum educator and senior librarian in the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Allen County has one of the largest genealogy centers in the world, which you'll hear us talk about, and they graciously offered to help us investigate our own family histories a bit, which was a lot of fun. And we wanted to bring Elizabeth on to talk about genealogy as a broader topic. We thought that you would enjoy hearing about her work.

Sarah [00:29:57] Elizabeth, welcome Pantsuit Politics.

Elizabeth Hodges [00:29:59] Thank you for having me.

Sarah [00:30:01] We're so thrilled you're here. Listen, I love ancestry work. I a little bit wish I had your job. That's the truth. And so, when we got an invitation to Allen County Public Library and then Susan Baer reached out and said, "Would you like them to do some ancestry research? We have the biggest ancestry center in the country or outside of Utah." First tell us how big the center actually is.

Elizabeth Hodges [00:30:24] Okay. So we are the largest public collection of geology reference in the country, possibly the world. I'm not sure of any--

Sarah [00:30:32] I'm willing to give you that. I'm not a creditor, but I'm just willing to say you are.

Elizabeth Hodges [00:30:37] Yeah, I can give you numbers. So our physical collection is 1.34 million items. So that's little more than half a million books, little more than around 800,000 microfilm and microfiche items. And then our digital stuff, the things that we digitize, that's just shy of like 6 million. It's a lot of stuff.

Sarah [00:31:05] It is. Like rows and rows of yearbooks. Actually, it was really funny, my oldest son, the first page of his middle school yearbook had typos. And he was like, why does this matter? And I'm like, "Let me tell you why, because this is going to go in a place like Allen County Public Library, and there are people who will be looking at it for a hundred years for records of what happened in 2023. So the typos matter. Dang it."

Elizabeth Hodges [00:31:26] Yeah. But then we tell people spelling doesn't count genealogies.

Sarah [00:31:30] Oh, that's such a good point. Because people spell things all manner of ways. Beth, you had that in your ancestry, right Beth?

Beth [00:31:38] I do. I had a grandfather who just thought the way that we spelled Thurmond didn't make any sense. And so he changed it from Thurmond to Thurmn.

Elizabeth Hodges [00:31:47] Which is the same thing.

Sarah [00:31:49] That is perfect. Elizabeth, though, I would imagine the way you react to that is how this work informs so much of how you see the world. You think ancestry in history is this like carved in stone the way it was. But the more you get into the stuff, you're like, it's very ephemeral. It's all stories. So how do you do the research knowing that everything is just mainly a suggestion?

Elizabeth Hodges [00:32:16] Well, if it makes sense. So this is where you have to use in context clues for researching. So, okay, this person married to this person, they have X number of kids. This is around the time that they're going to be born. Age is also squishy because here's the thing. If you're looking at the census, depending on who was talking to the census enumerator, that person might not know how old those kids are. Some of these men don't really know.

Sarah [00:32:46] Nobody was counting the months back in the early 1900s.

Elizabeth Hodges [00:32:50] So basically, it's like, okay. If these things kind of make sense together, they're with the same people. They're within the same age range, right place, right occupation, then it's probably the right people. It's not always going to be like, yes, this is a smoking gun always. But context clues are kind of important.

Sarah [00:33:15] So y'all generously agreed to do some of this genealogy research for us. And we gave you very different prompts, though I have actually done an enormous amount genealogy research. I got into this in my twenties and it was such an interesting experience because I thought, I'm going to dig into this research and I'm just going to get in touch with my, like, European ancestry. I'll find my people. I'm just going to feel really connected to that. And I just kept going further and further back. And by the end, I was like, you know what, it just makes me feel more American because. My family has been here really since before the revolution. I have several Revolutionary War ancestors, but there was one person-- my maternal grandfather's mother died when he was very young, and I have a lot of information about his father, but not his mother. And so I said, "Okay, Elizabeth, this is where there's a big hole in my family tree. Can you go find me some information about Leslie Dooley?" And you found so much fascinating stuff about her family, including another Revolutionary War hero.

Elizabeth Hodges [00:34:16] Oh, yeah. No, Leslie had a really short kind of sad life like many women. But Leslie had a grandfather that was a policeman who was murdered. Her father was a policeman who was murdered, but he might have instigated that altercation.

Sarah [00:34:34] Yes, you took out some good gossip on that. I was very excited to hear about all that.

Elizabeth Hodges [00:34:39] He had this rivalry with another local sheriff and the guy's sons were walking out of a vaudeville show. He sees them, starts shooting at them.

Sarah [00:34:51] Seems ill advised.

Elizabeth Hodges [00:34:52] Seems like a bad life choice. They get into a fight, he gets stabbed. One of the sons who stabbed him did go on trial for this, and they felt him not guilty. Considering the time during like the town marshal, it was kind of wild. So it must have been overwhelming he started this fight.

Sarah [00:35:17] I'm so excited. Totally different situation, Beth. You just gave her a list of names.

Beth [00:35:20] I did. Because beyond my great grandparents, I really know very little about my family, which you make me feel weird about all the time, Sarah. But I felt very validated when we were reading Colin Woodward's book about American nations and how a trait of Appalachia is a lot of people are just like, "I don't know, we're from here." That ancestry is not a big interest in these families, and it never has been in mine. I've always kind of gotten this like vague maybe we're German kind of sensibility, but no connection to a culture really outside of Kentucky. My husband and I did 23andMe in its very early days and his came back a big red dot right on top of Scotland. It's so clear that is who my husband is. Mine came back and it looked like someone had thrown paint against a sheet of paper on the wall. There were dots all over Europe, all over Western Asia. I remember when we saw like a cluster around Saudi Arabia, my husband was like, "What is this?" And I said, "I have no idea." So I just ask you, like, where are my people from? And I'm really excited to come up with some information about that.

Elizabeth Hodges [00:36:33] Your family Beth, as far as I can tell, they've been in Kentucky forever.

Sarah [00:36:39] I had a hunch.

Elizabeth Hodges [00:36:40] Because it goes back so far. I mean, it took me going back for just one line in your family all the way to someone who was born in like 1718 to get out of North America.

Sarah [00:36:52] Yeah, I bet you're like me. I bet you're probably like an eighth or ninth generation Kentuckian.

Beth [00:36:56] Yeah, I'm excited to learn more about that. And you said that that person who was born in the 1700s was Swiss.

Sarah [00:37:03] Swiss? That's fun.

Beth [00:37:06] I know. I love that.

Sarah [00:37:07] You love Switzerland.

Beth [00:37:08] I love Switzerland.

Elizabeth Hodges [00:37:09] Yeah. He would have been born just outside of Zurich. He was like a German person living in Switzerland. So Swiss/German.

Beth [00:37:16] I think that's really interesting. And I appreciate you working to figure this out for me, because I would love to just be able to say like, "Well, let's go visit here because I have some people from here." We will take the kids to Scotland because Chad connects so strongly with that ancestry. And I would just like to add something to our mix here.

Sarah [00:37:33] Well, and also I just think it's so interesting to look, I really am drawn in particular to the stories of my great and great, great grandparents in that really transformative period of American history from like the mid 1800s to the mid 1900s. I'm so fascinated by their lives because I think you can see how that stuff bubbles up in your family, how that sort of trickles down even in attitudes about money or attitudes about parenting. And I think not to mention understanding that all my great grandfather and all his siblings but one had type one diabetes. That's helpful to know just stuff like that.

Elizabeth Hodges [00:38:10] Here's a little bit of a tidbit about my family. So my great grandfather was Creole. So I'm originally from the New Orleans area.

Sarah [00:38:18] How fun. I'm jealous.

Elizabeth Hodges [00:38:21] Yeah. He was Creole passing as white. So my great grandfather and his siblings and his mother and the rest of the family, they were from just outside the city. And my great grandfather's siblings and his mother, they all moved to New Orleans in 1938, changed their names claiming they're white. It's a whole thing. Now, my mother's DNA, when she first did an ancestry DNA test, didn't come back with any African percentages, but then it updated. So the more people test, the more the ethnicity estimates change. And now it's like 7% African in various places in Africa. Seven percent is not like a small percentage when we're talking about like the margin of error. But it would make sense if you have multiple people who are mixed race. So that would be my grandmother, my great grandfather. His mother would have been mixed race as well. And I've been able to go back far enough to someone who would have been a slave. But that goes to show that the DNA, the ethnicity estimates update the more people test.

Beth [00:39:30] That's fascinating.

Elizabeth Hodges [00:39:30] And Ancestry has the largest datasets because it's the most popular test. So even with that, it will still continue to update.

Sarah [00:39:42] Interesting.

Beth [00:39:44] I also wonder about how you think about race and ethnicity when you look at things like this person was Creole passing as white? If we all knew more about our heritage, I wonder if our kind of conversations about race would look markedly different.

Elizabeth Hodges [00:40:01] Yeah, for some people it kind of depends on the person. When you uncover things like that, either they completely shut down and they're like, "No, I don't believe this." The DNA doesn't lie. But at the same time, just because nothing shocks us, we have to keep in mind that it will shock other people. You'll have some people who when hearing that maybe they're not as white as they think. We'll have people here who will believe that they're Native American and then turns out not so much.

Sarah [00:40:32] We talked about that. Everybody has an Indian princess, even though Indians didn't have princesses.

Elizabeth Hodges [00:40:36] Exactly. Either they're very white or maybe they have some American ancestry in there. And that can get some certain people really uncomfortable. Other people that are like, "No, this makes a little bit more sense. Maybe that's why we didn't talk to this one side of the family." I know when I found out the stuff about my great grandfather, I explained it to my grandmother, who was in her late eighties, and this is a woman who is elderly and she grew up in the South and she could take this really badly, the opposite happened. She was like this helps me understand why my father was the way he was. He was an incredibly secretive man. He had this woman who he was having a relationship with, who was one of his tenants, which was real cringey. And she was married, had children with her husband. There were these kids that he may or may not have fathered, one of which we know for a fact he fathered sons because of DNA. Well, at the time when my great grandmother died, the story was that she fell out of a moving car in the driveway. It had something to do with going to mass, going to church and fried chicken. The story is really convoluted.

Sarah [00:41:59] When the details are gray, you're always like, oh, okay, well, that is a red flag.

Elizabeth Hodges [00:42:03] It was really specific. So she was leaning on the car doors in the fifties and she fell out of the car, hit her head and said, "Oh, you go on, I'll go inside and just rest," fell asleep and died. Well, I never really questioned the story because it was just so specific and just so out there. Like it probably was real. No one ever questioned. I got the death certificate and that's not how she died. She overdosed on a nerve pills.

Sarah [00:42:32] Stop it.

Elizabeth Hodges [00:42:34] Yeah. And the time of death was also really weird. It was like 6 a.m.. So that kind of makes me think that my great grandfather was out with his lady friend, and he wasn't there.

Sarah [00:42:51] You say nothing shocks you, but you had to get to a point where nothing shocked you. What were the patterns you started to notice that you thought, oh, okay, I see what's happening here before it even starts happening.

Elizabeth Hodges [00:43:01] Yeah. So when people come in needing help with, like, DNA so they don't know parents.

Sarah [00:43:08] Or they found out the parent wasn't the parent?

Elizabeth Hodges [00:43:12] Yeah, stuff like that. Which for some people that could be life shattering to have this person you believed were your parents not your parents or maybe your biological parents. Even if you know that you're adopted, finding out your biological parents are not great people, it's life shattering. And it's one of those things where-- and this is something that we talk about a lot with kids because we go to law school groups and who some of these kids have some very messy home lives. And we have to tell them, look, this idea of like this "normal family" that's not real. That's post World War Two propaganda. There is no such thing as a normal family.

Sarah [00:43:55] I love that you're having school groups and that's what you're telling them surrounded will all these history books. It makes me want to cry.

Elizabeth Hodges [00:44:02] Yeah. No, there's no such thing as a normal family. Like historic families are absolutely not normal. Because people are not the same. People are not normal. They are messy. They are complicated. And even talking to my grandmother about her father who had this secret life, he had a secret family. He changed his name. He was pretending to be white. And for her, she's like, that makes sense because he was living in a really dangerous time period. It was the Jim Crow South. He wouldn't have been able to marry the woman he married to begin with. He was running ,several businesses. She's like he was a terrible husband, a terrible father, but he was a good provider. She's like, we don't all always fit into these perfect little boxes of, yeah, this is an exceptional person or this is a terrible person. It's not that black and white.

Sarah [00:45:01] I love that. I also wonder how this affects your view of just the world and the news and politics. Because so often as a person who loves history and thinks a lot about what my family went through, when people talk about dumpster fires or oh my gosh, everything's so terrible, I kind of want to be like, "Guys, it's been so much worse. People have been through so much." I mean, my great, great grandmother buried like nine of her 11 children. I just wonder how if you're watching what people went through and did to survive through all these parts of American history, how it feels when people start talking about this moment.

Elizabeth Hodges [00:45:40] It all comes full circle, basically, where in some cases rise of the women, horrific, historically horrific. But then forever gay in that we get we take a couple steps back but then within another generation. So it's kind of painful to watch in that respect. But also when we're talking about immigrant groups and how they're treated. Every new generation, there's a new group of people being told you're not wanted. At one point it's going to be the Irish. And then within a generation these Irish people are telling the Italians to get out of their church. It's just kind of a vicious cycle that will continue on. There have been certainly bad times and there will continue to be bad times because that's just the way of the world. Much like people, nothing is ever going to be perfect because there's always going to be people doing things to hurt other people.

Sarah [00:46:41] I just think when I look back on stuff like that, yeah, I totally agree that history rhymes and repeats itself and you see these sort of cycles, but also you also just see we have made enormous progress. We do not have industrial schools in America or in Ireland. I'm sure there are places where children are treated like that. We know that, but there are fewer of them. And I just see what people survived and they used some truly terrible coping mechanisms, be it alcohol, be it abandonment, be it silence. But they did have a will to survive some pretty horrific things and to continue to live and continue to try to, as best they could, move forward day to day. And so I just find that will of the human spirit pretty inspiring. And I would imagine that you see a lot of that in your work. And we appreciate your work so much.

Beth [00:47:32] It's a beautiful thing that a public library can offer this level of very intense, personalized research to people. So thank you [crosstalk].

Sarah [00:47:42] And thank you for helping us so much.

Elizabeth Hodges [00:47:45] We usually don't do the research for people, but we give people the tools.

Sarah [00:47:50] Don't call up Elizabeth and think she's going to give you the Pantsuit Politics treatment. You'll have to go get your down tools.

Elizabeth Hodges [00:47:55] Yeah, but we will help you find your family's story and give you the tools to do that.

Sarah [00:48:00] What a beautiful gift. Thank you so much for coming on Pantsuit Politics.

Elizabeth Hodges [00:48:03] Thanks for having me.

Beth [00:48:13] Thanks so much to Elizabeth for this conversation and for all the work that she has done for the two of us, helping us understand our own families better. Sarah, Outside of Politics, we're into a little housekeeping. A little discussion about June and July. I'm excited for our plans this summer.

Sarah [00:48:29] Yes. Usually we both take off the month of July for summer break and host a special summer series that we have prerecorded. But this year, we're doing things differently. I'm going to work through June and you're going to take June off and then you're going to work through July. And I'm going to take July off. And we're not going to do a summer series. We have prerecorded several interviews and episodes to share, but we're also going to be co-hosting with people and staying in your feed through most of summer. We are going to try out a different approach to our summer break this year.

Beth [00:49:00] I think this will give us a lot of flexibility to keep pace with what's going on, especially as we see more people jumping into the presidential primaries, but also some rest. And we've tried to think hard in what we've planned for you about where you're going to be this summer. We're going to have some episodes about travel, some episodes about parenting, some episodes about bigger picture topics that sometimes we don't get to in the regular year, but with that ability to come in and talk about current news. And we've tried to make sure that even when one of us is off, you'll still hear that person's voice in conversation quite a bit while they're gone.

Sarah [00:49:34] And we'll overlap during the last week of June and record a few episodes together as we mark the anniversary of the overturning of Roe v Wade. So we'll be there for that. Just a little coming together before I go on break in July. And so, I think it's going to be really fun. I'm really excited to share a couple of the interviews, particularly Richard Reeves, which is his book of Boys To Men you've heard me talk about for months, and I'm going to sure my interview with him in June.

Beth [00:49:58] So the short version is please keep listening through June and July. We'll have new episodes for you on our premium channels. Instead of having both Good Morning and More to Say, we'll just have one new episode a day for our premium community so everybody gets a little bit of a break. We know your listening time is more limited in the summer typically, but that way we can stay current there as well. And we're just so appreciative of all the support that we receive for taking time away from the show. We always, always get emails saying it means a lot to me that you all walk the walk on a more balanced life. And this is this is a big part of our attempt to do that. Thanks to Maggie and Alise, who will be helping us out and also taking some time away. We hope that all of you similarly find some balance in your summers. We're so glad that you joined us today. Friday, we'll have a new conversation with Rick Steves about responsible travel, which is great timing as we head into the summer months. And we're going to talk about the roadblocks to travel that many of us experience and how we've navigated those at different points in our lives. You won't want to miss that. Between now and then, we'd love it if you took a minute to review the show on your podcast player and help more people find Pantsuit Politics. Plus, it just is very encouraging to us and our team. Until Friday. Have the best week available to you.

[00:51:29] Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our managing director.

Sarah [00:51:34] Maggie Penton is our community engagement manager. Dante Lima is the composer and performer of our theme music.

Beth [00:51:40] 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. Danny Ozment. Jen Ross. Sabrina Drago.

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

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