The Trump Verdict, Justice Alito, and “All Eyes on Rafah”
TOPICS DISCUSSED
Donald Trump Convicted of 34 Felonies
Justice Alito and the Flags
Developments in the Israel-Hamas War
Outside of Politics: Graduation
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EPISODE RESOURCES
The radicalization of “Hillbilly Elegy” author J.D. Vance (The Washington Post)
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TRANSCRIPT
Beth [00:00:00] As you will hear, we are going to break into our own show today because after we recorded this episode, near the end of the day, the jury did come back with a verdict. And so, we have discussed that, and you'll hear that in just a moment.
[00:00:14] Music Interlude
Sarah [00:00:21] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.
Beth [00:00:23] This is Beth Silvers.
Sarah [00:00:24] You're listening to Pantsuit Politics.
Beth [00:00:26] Where we take a different approach to the news.
[00:00:28] Music Interlude.
[00:00:28] Thank you so much for joining us. As we are recording on Thursday, May 30th, in the afternoon, we are refreshing our browsers to see if the jury in former President Trump's criminal trial has returned a verdict. They have not yet. But we will talk about that case a little bit, then turn our attention to the Supreme Court. This week, we have learned, among other things, that Justice Alito's marriage is nothing like mine. I'm excited to talk with you about that, Sarah. We'll also talk about developments in the Israel-Hamas War. And Outside of Politics, we're covering graduations and what they mean to us in our relationships. But before we start, Sarah, you're going to sound a little different today. Why don't you tell everyone why?
Sarah [00:01:17] Yes, I just interviewed my Meemaw [sp], my grandmother, who's 88 years old, in my bedroom. And so, I just had to stay in my bedroom because it was going to take too much time to move all the recording equipment. I interviewed her inspired by Wiser Than Me for the relaunch of The Nuanced Life. So that will be an episode you will hear in June on Fridays, which is when those episodes of The Nuanced Life will be in your pantsuit politics feed. So, get excited about the Nuance Life on Fridays this summer. So, if you've never listened to The Nuanced Life and aren't sure what you're in for on Fridays this summer, think of it as a deeper, extended version of our Outside Politics segment. And so, we're really excited. We know many of you are excited.
[00:01:56] Every bit of support you give us here at Pantsuit Politics means so much. All of you that have subscribed to our new Substack-- we're at almost 10,000 subscribers, Beth. It's very exciting. We're having a lot of fun over there in the chats and the notes. So, if you haven't joined us yet on Substack-- thank you so much. Thanks for supporting us as we relaunch The Nuanced Life this summer. And we love all of y'all. We're having a good time this summer. We're excited about it.
Beth [00:02:18] We try to have a good time in spite of the news. So, we're going to dig into that next, the processing of the Trump trial, right after this.
[00:02:25] Music Interlude.
[00:02:33] Well, Sarah, for the past couple of days, my life has revolved around notes. The jury has a note, and then we wait to see what the note says. And it's a question.
Sarah [00:02:43] So much refreshing.
Beth [00:02:44] I have to tell you, though, the notes make me feel really good. However, this turns out I appreciate how thoughtfully this jury seems to be discharging its responsibilities. They're asking for portions of testimony. They ask for a piece of their jury instructions again. I just feel really good that our justice system had this trial, kept it from going too far off the rails. The jurors are doing their job, and that's really all we can hope for.
Sarah [00:03:14] I was so thrilled when they recessed yesterday, because I thought, I can't keep refreshing this in the middle of this party I'm having last night. And I got to find a way to live my life. Checking on the Trump trial, it's really destroyed my attention span and my focus, my motivation. I need a decision. So, I'm doing what every American is doing, which is paying attention to the bits of information that make me feel good about my desired outcome, and ignoring the bits of information that make me feel bad about the desired outcome. I'm just trying to feel my humanness. I'm really feeling that Bonnie Raitt quote, "You can only go as fast as the slowest part of you can go." And the slowest part of me is really slow, because all it's doing is paying attention to those jury deliberations. So, I'm just trying to give myself grace around that.
Beth [00:04:04] I think grace just has to be the word in general right now, because our brains can only take so much. And there's a lot going on and a lot going on against the backdrop of summer for us. Our kids are home from school. Everything about our daily rhythm has changed. And so, trying to kind of hold these moment defining possibilities with what feels to me a little like chaos right now is a lot.
Sarah [00:04:34] Yeah, I Feel caught. I feel in suspension. I feel like life is both going on around me, and half my brain is somewhere else. And there's just nothing I can do about that, I feel like. I would love to have the mind discipline, emotional control like a monk. That could just turn it off and walk away. And it's not that I'm refreshing every five seconds. It's just that I don't go very long before I think about it again. I wonder what's going to happen. That's the reality of it right now.
Beth [00:05:08] Yeah. It's just hanging over things and it's hanging over things without having any idea what comes next. Like I can't say, well, if the jury does this, then here's what will happen. I have no idea. So, it's going to continue to hang out over there. I think just until November, I'm going to be in this state of like what matters and what has an impact, and how are people going to process this? How am I going to process it? I don't even know.
Sarah [00:05:32] Yeah, I'm trying to hold it loosely. It feels very much like election time. It feels like another election night where you just have to remind yourself there will be a Wednesday, there will be a Thursday, or God knows, whatever day we're going to get it. There will be a day after that.
Beth [00:05:45] There will be a day after that. And that's why I try to celebrate the process working, because whatever the outcome is, the process is more important to me than what happens to Donald Trump. The man frustrates me when people like Marco Rubio and JD Vance, as they are auditioning to be the vice president, are taking swipes at the process and undermining its legitimacy because I think he could be acquitted.
Sarah [00:06:09] Yeah.
Beth [00:06:09] Are you going to say this was rigged if he was acquitted? What are you doing?
Sarah [00:06:13] Yes, that's what they did with the election. Same case.
Beth [00:06:16] Yeah. It's so frustrating.
Sarah [00:06:17] Same strategy work, even though now that hurts them. It's like, I can't believe there was no anticipation that perhaps degrading Mail-In ballots and early voting could be a bad idea should there be another election, but it does not seem to have prevented them from that strategy.
Beth [00:06:34] We have heard from several of you that people in your lives have adopted the idea that this is a sham trial. It's rigged. There's no legitimacy to the proceeding. I would just encourage anybody who feels that way to get on the docket for this case. It's free to access New York court records. And if you take a look at the judge's decisions in this case, I think they've been very measured. Donald Trump has won some issues; he's lost some issues. During the trial, some objections were sustained and some were overruled for both sides. Evidence the prosecution wanted in was excluded. Some of what Donald Trump wanted was excluded. It's been remarkably normal despite its abnormality. And I don't know how you can spend any time with the actual records of this proceeding and conclude that it was something other than a regular criminal trial.
Sarah [00:07:25] Well, I think that might help our listeners feel better, but I don't think there are people who think it's a sham. We're going to get on to the trial records. That's the problem. And even if they did, it's such an intimidating-- our process is great, but it is also intimidating to people uncomfortable with it. To me, what I would say is he's showing up. He's sitting in the courtroom participating in this as he is legally required. So, there is some aspect of this that is real because his body is in the room participating in it. At the end of the day, if it was a sham, if it was completely made up, do you think he would come? Do you think you would participate. He's paying attorneys. He's showing up. Some aspect of this is taking place in the real world. That has to be acknowledged. It's just almost like the physicality of him in the room seems like a small thing you can point to, to people, and say, "He's there, he's participating in it. Some part of it is real."
Beth [00:08:26] And I think the other reason that it's difficult to say anything that is satisfying is because there isn't anything satisfying.
Sarah [00:08:32] Right, exactly.
Beth [00:08:33] And I don't know that the best use of our lives is arguing that point with people who refuse to acknowledge it. That's why I try to respond with things like, well, just check the docket. Like, I'm really comfortable that this is proceeded in a way that upholds the ideals of our justice system to the fullest extent. Yeah. And I just want to project that confidence without beating people over the head with stuff that they don't want to listen to. And that's this weird thing we're going to have to navigate between now and November. There's so much that we know about these candidates, but there is a lot more that we all feel about these candidates, and it is very hard to argue someone out of their feelings. And sometimes I think it's just helpful to say that I'm not going to argue you out of your feelings on this. And so, I don't want to damage our relationship. How can we talk about this without damaging our relationship? Because it seems to me that you are really attached to how you feel about this.
Sarah [00:09:28] I also just try to get it back to policy, even though I understand that that emotionally is not why a lot of people vote, I get that. But I think with such known candidates, sometimes it's helpful to just say, "Hey, we both know these two men, so we're not going to change our minds probably about that." I'm happy to talk about what they've said they're going to do. I'm happy to talk about that I think shutting down the border is a bad idea, and that would be really harmful to our economy. Do you want to talk about that? Because I'm happy to talk about the actual policy recommendations. Maybe that would be a more productive way for us to have this conversation, because I still think people want to talk about it as known quantities as they are. It's still stressful, it's still hard and people want to exercise those thoughts. They just do. I do. And we do this podcast and I still want to talk about it with people.
Beth [00:10:14] I do too. It is always on my mind in some form. I don't think I'm obsessed. I feel like we try to keep politics in a container in our lives, but it is an important part of the mix of containers. It is 5:37 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, May 30th. At the moment that our sound team reached out to say they had finished producing this episode, we received a verdict in the Trump trial. And so, we are breaking into our own episode with that news. Sarah, I would like to know where you were and what you were doing when you learned that there would be a verdict today.
Sarah [00:10:52] I was trying to put my life together because I've been procrastinating and refreshing the New York Times, and I was just like, okay, I cannot do this anymore. I will probably not going to have a verdict. I put my phone down and I was trying to get my life in order so I can leave town tomorrow. When I started getting texts. Verdict in 30 minutes. Then I went to my television where I could not get my cable to work because I had to unblock the screen blocking I use on my kids and then the password was wrong. And I'm literally, like, my heart is pounding. My heart is pounding. I make all the boys come into the room. I text my husband and say, "Can you come home? I don't want to be the only adult here." And he's like, "I'm sorry, I can't." And I was in a fervor.
Beth [00:11:33] Similar situation here in terms of we have had a very busy day as a Pantsuit Politics team. And so, we have this little window of time before we have a live event to do tonight when I thought, I'm going to get my house cleaned up, it's a disaster. So, I'm folding laundry and we got the notice that there wouldn't be a verdict today that they were going to send the jury home at 4:30. And I thought, okay, well then tomorrow's just going to be like this too. And then I just happened to get on Twitter and see that actually the jury has a verdict. And so, I just kept working on my laundry and I brought it upstairs and I'm home alone as well. Jane's outside. Chad is with Ellen at a harp lesson. And I sit down with my towels in the floor to fold them. I couldn't get CNN to turn on the TV for some reason, so I logged in on my phone to stream it. And I want to know your reaction when they actually started announcing guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty. I let out a sob. I shocked myself. I felt my whole system of energy in my body come out through my throat, and I just sat in the floor with my towels in my lap and my phone beside me, sobbing as Jake Tapper read those counts out.
Sarah [00:12:53] Yeah, we finally got it on ABC news, and they'd read guilty through the first five. And you had texted me that Twitter said taking 30 minutes to fill out the form perhaps means that there are guilty and not guilty verdicts, and that might be what takes so long. So, I was sort of like girding my loins. There might be a mix. And so, we pull it up and there's five, and they can't get the graphic updated fast enough. And so, David Muir is like at 23 through 25, guilty, guilty, guilty. And so, it was probably within two minutes of me turning the TV on that I realized they were all guilty and I just started crying. And Griffin was sitting there and Griffin had come down.
[00:13:36] And he's like, "It's going to be not guilty. Come on, mom, it's going to be not guilty." And I was like, we don't know that. My husband texted me it's going to be not guilty. And they're sitting there and they're, like, this is a big deal for mom. Felix and Amos and Griffin are sitting there and Griffin's like, "This is a big deal for mom." Because my hands immediately go to my mouth. And then I start crying, and I look at him and I'm like, "No, this is a big deal for you because I want you to realize it matters. There's something here that matters. There is accountability. You can't just be corrupt and get out of it. And I want you to see this. It matters to me because I think it matters to you. And I don't want you to think everything is broken all the time. And I want you to see this and realize something matters. It matters. Something, anything matters."
Beth [00:14:27] Yeah, I was shocked by my own reaction. And in the 10 minutes that we've had, I've been trying to think about what produced this kind of physical, raw emotion in me? And I think some of it is that relief that our system can work. I think some of it is sadness that this is where we are. I think a lot of it is sadness. I had just a few minutes before, had a conversation with Jane that I told her the verdict was in. We didn't know what it was yet. And she said, "So, like, is he going to go to jail?" And I said, "Well, wait, first of all, we don't know if he's going to be convicted. And, secondly, we won't know the sentence for a while if he is. And, thirdly, there's a range of options in their appeals. So, I don't know." She said, "But, like, can he run for president from jail?" And I said he can. And then I go into full mom mode. I'm like, "And that's important, Jane, because we want to live in a country where you can't just put someone in jail and prevent them from having a voice in the political process. So even though it sounds crazy, that's really good and healthy that we have that in our country."
[00:15:37] And she goes, "Okay, but can he be president from jail?" And I said, "I have no idea, Jane." And that's just a question that we haven't contemplated as a country. So, I think some of that emotion is just the sadness that we're even having to talk about that. And then I think there is a degree of fear in me about what happens now. How people react to this. We watched his remarks as he came out of the courthouse. And you can see he's always a walking bucket of bitterness, but it's so hard. He just looks so hurt right now. And I feel like he gets more dangerous the more he's backed into a corner. And so, I think that it's a mix of like relief, sadness, and fear that I'm feeling as we're sitting here.
Sarah [00:16:31] Yeah. And then my phone blows up. I get a lot of text messages of, "You were right. We were not ready. I wasn't ready." My friend Laura texted me from the Upper West Side. She's like, "I'm literally cheering with a stranger in the street. Like, I'm just standing next to a stranger and we're just celebrating happily together." And my cousin said exactly what you said, "Oh my gosh, I think I'm feeling some grief." The boys and I were sitting there and they were asking the exact same questions. Can he be president from jail? Can he run from jail? And I'm trying to answer them. And then I don't know if Amos or Felix asked who is worse, Richard Nixon or Donald Trump? And I said, "I mean, a lot of people died because Richard Nixon would not end the war in Vietnam." And Felix said, "Yeah, but at least he admitted he did something wrong."
[00:17:20] And I thought, this is my nine-year-old son. This is not the lessons I want him learning about presidents. That he can name at nine, "Well, yeah, Richard Nixon was this terrible, awful president, but at least he admitted he was wrong," while we're watching the conviction of another former president for a felony involving hush money from a woman he arguably sexually exploited. They are so flippant about the fact that he has sexually assaulted women. It's just in their language. I'm not trying to put Pandora back in the box. I grew up with Bill Clinton talking about his sexual affairs exploitations, and I still loved and respected the presidency. But it's just hard. It's just hard. And I just come off this hour and a half interview with my grandmother for The Nuanced Life, where she said Donald Trump basically ruined her 80s because he just lives rent free in our heads all the time.
[00:18:23] And it feels like finally this external factor-- because, I mean, he lost and we were all celebrating in the streets and here we are still dealing with him. And I'm not saying this is going to fix it, but it just feels different than an election. It doesn't feel like ultimately a game of persuasion in this very-- not flimsy, but different judgment. This feels like judgment. My friend texted me and she was like, "Justice." It feels like justice. It feels like an objective process that I know millions of Americans don't think were objective, because he stood out there and said it's a disgrace. It's rigged. But, God, this has to affect things. These people who are on the fence between Biden and Trump, you're going to go, yeah, the guy who just got convicted of a felony.
Beth [00:19:13] Thirty four of them.
[00:19:14] Thirty four felonies. That we're here sitting like, okay, well, now we have to talk about how the Secret Service might protect him from prison. It's just so mind blowing as everything surrounding this man has been since 2015.
Beth [00:19:31] So as we have gotten closer to this possibility, I've had a million thoughts as I'm sure you have too and everybody has. And one of them was, well, maybe Joe Biden will be under pressure to pardon him. And should he do that or not. And then I realized nobody focused on this because everybody thought this case was the weakest of all the cases. This is a state law case. He cannot pardon him. Joe Biden can't do anything. And if Donald Trump wins, he can't do anything about this now. I hate to think about all the things that would be tried. And I hate to think about something reaching its way to the US Supreme Court from this case.
[00:20:14] There are so many ways this could go awful. There's that fear again. I feel it in my chest, in my throat as I'm talking about it now because this will continue to stress the system. I mean, this is big. This is very, very, very big in a way that I don't have language for. And there will be more because he never accepts anything we have learned. And so, I don't know where this goes from here. But I just keep thinking we talked so much about the Georgia indictment because it was so significant that it was a state law case. But now we have conviction in a state law case and that's huge.
Sarah [00:20:58] It's huge. So, yeah, my kids are like, well, what happens? So, I'm like, well, he'll appeal. Nobody can answer how long that will take. And he has a right to an appeal, just like everybody who's convicted in a court of law. I don't think they would hold him. He's not a flight risk. And Griffin's like, "Why not?" I'm like, "That's the A question." Why isn't he a flight risk?
Beth [00:21:23] Yeah. Can you run for president from Switzerland or something? If he hopped on a plane, well, he would probably go to Hungary. But, yeah, I don't know.
Sarah [00:21:34] I don't know. And I think about the stress on him because he doesn't like to lose, he doesn't like to be a loser. And I do think that you're right, that he's dangerous. And I do think that he has been nothing but a stress on our system. And I it's like, you know what? I don't even need him to go to jail. I think he should. I think he will. But just seeing all those guilty verdicts, I could not stop staring at the television. Just seeing all 34 guilty charges, it was such a relief. It felt like something to just grab ahold of, and that's what I'm doing. I'm just grabbing ahold of it.
Beth [00:22:13] We'll talk more about this after we've had a minute to process it, but we wanted to share our initial reactions with all of you. And now back to our regularly scheduled episode. Another thing that I find myself really wanting to talk about, and I've been really looking forward to processing with you, Sarah, is what is going on with Justice Alito? We have now had two New York Times reports and kind of corroborating reports from the Washington Post about flags displayed, one at Justice Alito's home in Virginia and one at his vacation home. Justice Alito, after the first New York Times report dropped, went to Fox News to explain his version of the events that led to the upside-down flag being displayed outside his home.
[00:22:58] Both the upside-down flag and the flag displayed at his vacation home have been associated with Stop the Steal movements, although Justice Alito now says that the second flag to his wife who displayed the flag does not carry that meaning. He has in a letter to members of Congress who said he should recuse from the Trump cases, now said, "My wife really likes flags and I ask her to take this one down after I became aware of it, the upside-down flag, and she refused. And she owns this property jointly with me and has a right to refuse. And so, there's nothing else I could do."
Sarah [00:23:33] Here's what I think. I don't have a lot of thoughts on the specifics of the situation, because I am blinded by my seething hatred for Justice Alito. And I'm just going to say that as openly, fairly, and honestly as I can. What I do see here as a pattern among Alito, Thomas, Roberts, to a certain extent, Kavanaugh-- particularly the conservative justices-- is that they didn't act like Supreme Court justices but wanted to be continued to be treated like Supreme Court justices. They wanted to shred precedent, change the institution itself. To just change what the institution is thought of. How it's perceived to have function for years. They wanted to shred all that and still be treated as Supreme Court justices have been treated for years, and you cannot have your cake and eat it too. If you want to act as brazenly political figures on the Supreme Court and off the Supreme Court. Because they wanted it both, right?
[00:24:42] They wanted to be political on the court, but nobody examined their politics off the court. Well, baby, that's not how the world works. So, if you want to play in this field. If you want to decide that your politics are better and smarter and that you know what's best for the country, fine, then you're going to have to have you're going to find some accountability, be it through the press or otherwise. I remember when we lived in DC, people talk about Justice Souter would just walk around and nobody know who he was. Nobody knew nor cared. They lived very private lives. And those days are over. And it's your choices that put you here. And so, I have no sympathy for you as far as people checking your homes, checking your politics, checking your vacations, checking your books, getting in your face. Like, you wanted to be political animals, well, this is the life of a political animal, so you reap what you sow.
Beth [00:25:36] I do not admire Justice Alito. I don't hate him. I am trying to understand him. And he does choose to make public remarks with an unusual frequency. So, there's a lot of material if you're trying to understand him. And when I read this letter, which includes a paragraph complaining about all that his wife has suffered because he's on the Supreme Court. That people come to their homes, that she is insulted, that she is personally offended often by people because of his views expressed on the court, I hear an echo of the J.D. Vance article from the Washington Post that we've talked about so many times, where someone has been held in esteem and then has lost the esteem of the people who they wanted to continue to hold them in esteem and becomes pretty radicalized by that feeling, by that feeling of being ostracized or criticized. And I think that that's what's happened with the Alito's. And this letter, it's so much like his response to the ProPublica reporting. I don't think this is a problem because I don't think it's a problem. And I decide.
[00:26:52] This letter says, I am confident that a reasonable person looking at the facts here would not think that I am biased. So, I don't need to recuse myself. And the tone of his opinions, the opinions that he's authoring for the court now have that same vibe. It's very conclusory. We give a presumption of good faith, and so good faith exists. The party that I want to win is entitled to a presumption of good faith. And so, we're done here. That's what he did in the South Carolina voting rights case. And that's exactly what he did in this letter. Justices are presumed not to be biased, and therefore I am not. And I don't know what ends this cycle. Because the more he does this, the more backlash there's going to be, the more protesters on his lawn will show up. And that means the more radicalized he's going to be. And are we just going to keep looping around that hamster wheel without anyone other than members of Congress politely suggesting that he recuse himself? What are we going to do?
Sarah [00:27:53] Yeah, the pressure building on Senator Durbin to do something has gotten pretty high. I feel it. If the court is not going to police itself, which it has shown that it will not, then Congress is going to have to do something. These are co-equal branches of government. I'm not sure we've acted like that for a long time, but they are. The court owes some responsibility. I mean, that's the problem, right? There's just no accountability at the court right now. These are lifetime appointments where we're just spinning the wheel of fate and hoping it works out more fairly. Until somebody puts their hands on the wheel like Mitch McConnell, it's not sustainable. It's not sustainable for the court. It's not sustainable for our democracy.
[00:28:38] And so I imagine what will happen is Alito and Thomas, and to a lesser extent, Roberts and Kavanaugh and Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett will continue to push this. I do think some of the people I just listed are more concerned with the health of the institution than others, because some of the people I just listed are younger and plan on being on the Supreme Court for much longer. So maybe just that most basic personal motivation will lead to some change. But this is not sustainable. What's happening right now is not sustainable if you care at all about the Supreme Court or the judicial branch of our government.
Beth [00:29:18] And we need to care about it. It is really important. Judiciaries distinguish countries that can function as democracies from those that cannot. This is really important. And in terms of the court self-policing, what's happened with this letter from Justice Alito is that the code of ethics, the court so reluctantly adopted for itself is being used as a shield instead of a mechanism of accountability. He has trotted out the language of that code of ethics to say, "I have a duty to sit unless I am disqualified, and I say I'm not disqualified. And so, I'm not. So, I have a duty to hear these cases that seem to directly implicate something that at least the person I live with feels awfully strongly about, strongly enough to advertise her feelings on it."
Sarah [00:30:03] The idea that family members are this compartmentalized, completely separate entity from the justices, it's so outrageous. But, again, I think that's a remnant. That's a remnant from the before time. Well, baby, you don't live in the before time. You live in the after time because you put us here. You drag us into this new era of the court. And so, this idea that Justice Thomas can appoint this person as a clerk who's basically an adopted daughter, someone who describes that way, that he can just say, well, that's different. It doesn't count.
Beth [00:30:45] Because I trust myself.
Sarah [00:30:46] I trust myself, and you should too. It's just so outrageous. It's outrageous and infuriating and toxic. It is toxic to the court. It just is. And I have to believe that Justice Roberts and at least Justice Kavanaugh has shown an inkling of interest in that future health of the court.
Beth [00:31:19] Justice Barrett to be fair.
Sarah [00:31:20] Justice Barrett, who's who I was going to list next. Guys, you want to stay on this? You want to live out that lifetime appointment? You want to keep that intact. This is not the way. Which is fine with me. I don't want the lifetime appointments to be intact. I'm happy to walk through this fire and be seething with rage at these people if it forces us to a rock bottom where we get rid of lifetime appointments. That's fine with me. At the very least, there is sitting out there the work of a bipartisan commission of people--
Sarah [00:31:55] Knock, knock, knock on that door.
Beth [00:31:57] Who have deeply engaged with issues surrounding the court. And just maybe pulling that out of the drawer in Congress would be a good next step.
Sarah [00:32:08] Yeah. Dick Durbin, I think that's a great idea. Like, why don't you just call the people who wrote the report up to talk about it? Let's just have a little combo about it.
Beth [00:32:15] And, look, I have a lot of respect for Senator Durbin and a lot of faith in him. And I understand how complicated this is. And I understand that I just said about the Trump criminal trial, it is important not to knock these institutions around. We need them. We need them to be healthy. And I struggle. I just talked about this on a more to say episode. I struggle when I read this court's opinions, to read them divorced from all this context that we have about these justices is what I'm seeing in these opinions as loaded as it feels, and I don't know.
Sarah [00:32:51] It reminds me of when people always say, you don't want to get too famous as an actor because then people see you and not the role. You definitely get to a point where you're like, well, that's just Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt, right? That's not who this is supposed to be. That's just them. And that's why they often take such transformative roles. And I do worry that Senator Durbin, who I also have an enormous amount of respect for, is living in the before time. I think lots of senators are living in the before time, and they think that we're still dealing with the court of 2000 or 1990, and we're not. It's different. Everything is different. And I am sorry that the change is taking place. I'm sorry that the change is taking place so quickly, but to pretend that is not is really, really damaging.
Beth [00:33:34] This morning my daughter Ellen, who is eight, and I were doing some conversation questions while we were waiting for something. And one of them was, do you want to be famous? And so, I said, "Do you want to be famous?" And she said, "No, but I don't want to be like regular either." And I honestly think that's a little bit what's going on at the Supreme Court right now. They don't want to be famous. They don't want to have the protesters in their yard. They don't want to be totally political animals subjected to the accountability that people who are just straight politicians have, but they don't want to be regular either. And Justice Alito in particular, I think, increasingly demonstrates an attitude that he is above reproach because the Senate confirmed him to this position and he has a black robe. And I just think that's not going to work.
Sarah [00:34:22] No.
Beth [00:34:22] We're going to take a quick pause and come back and talk about developments in the Israel-Hamas War.
[00:34:28] Music Interlude.
[00:34:39] There's no good transition here from U.S. domestic policy to the Middle East. But a number of things have happened since the last time you and I talked about Israel and Hamas, Sarah. And I'm wondering which of those things has captivated your attention most?
Sarah [00:34:57] Well, I have been watching for months this deliberation about moving into Rafah, which the Israeli Defense Force has said that is going to be a phase of this conflict for a long time. That we're going to start at Gaza City, we're going to move our way down. I think the complications that have happened along the way from the reports about UN aid workers, to the death of the World Kitchen Aid workers, to this-- it's not a threat of famine. It is a famine where people are starving and suffering with the disruption of the aid trucks. Then now to this bombing in the tent city in Rafah. It's just what all war is, which is just a slow-rolling heart rendering disaster. Where people suffer. You feel powerless. You constantly question, what is my role in this? Am I doing enough? Am I doing too little?
[00:36:08] And it does feel like recently, with all eyes on Rafah, it has bubbled up into the at least social media zeitgeist around. Because it has accelerated. It has degraded. It has become more violent and more heartbreaking. And I just don't think any of us know what to do. It is such an impossibly hard position to be a citizen in a democracy that is participating in this conflict. The reporting is that it is the bombs that we have given/sold to Israel that were dropped on Rafah. What does that mean for me? I had an impossibly hard conversation with my son about this. What does this mean? What can we do? Is there anything we can do? And I just think we're all in the middle of that conversation, either in our own heads or with other people in our lives on social media. And it just adds to this overarching sense that it's a really hard time to be alive right now. I think it always feels like that as a human, but it particularly feels like that right now.
Beth [00:37:25] Quite a few years ago now, I was at an event where Rand Paul was speaking. And he talked about American made and provided weapons being used to kill children in Yemen. And I left that event just devastated about that section of his speech. And devastated that he was the messenger for that while he was also kind of tacitly supporting Donald Trump. He was much more lukewarm about it. This was when Trump was first running for president. But it was hard to hold all these things together because you kind of want to be with someone or against them. And I feel like that's the constant pull that you got to choose a side in a war. And I was telling my kids about this this morning because they asked what we were going to talk about today. And I said what makes this so difficult is that this war is not just between two sides. It involves so many people who just desire to live peacefully as next-door neighbors.
[00:38:40] It involves so much history. It involves so many people living throughout the world who have attachment to these people and these places. And so, you can't just easily say, well, this is the good guy and this is the bad guy in this war. What you have to realize and maybe what at a distance this war really forces me to grapple with is, like, is there any ethical version of a war? When you talk about what constitutes a war crime, you think, well, what isn't a crime connected to a war? It cannot be that a precision strike targeted at two people ends up causing 45 people at least to die truly horrific deaths. And we say, well, that wasn't criminal in some way. I understand that it's a mistake. But it's a foreseeable mistake. And it's a mistake in this larger context of an awful lot of people who are just civilians being brutally, brutally killed or having to live brutal existences trying not to be.
[00:40:00] And I just don't know. I don't know if there is a version of war that is ethical at this moment in human history with these kinds of weapons. And so that takes me to like, well, then the United States should turn it off, turn off the money, turn off the provision of weapons, stop sharing intelligence. And the only thing I can see that leading to is more war in this and many other circumstances. I take all this in alongside the reporting that a number of European nations are pressuring the United States to allow Ukraine to use our weapons to hit targets in Russia. And that's a situation where it's easier for me to see the right side of the conflict. But there are still an awful lot of people getting hurt here who want nothing to do with this. And so, I don't know. I just feel lost in these impossibly hard questions and the terrible sorrow about what's unfolding.
Sarah [00:41:00] I had a really hard conversation with Griffin about this over the Memorial Day weekend, and I said, "I just do not think there is a scenario in which we, the United States, make this end that does not involve more violence." Now, perhaps that is acceptable to some. We can talk about that. But it would require more violence. The difficulty is if you live as we live, which is in a time of peace and prosperity-- which is hard to say. I understand we have been involved in conflicts. We have soldiers that have suffered greatly. We have inflicted suffering. Also, I'm saying peace and prosperity as like you have all these surveys that say everyone thinks we're on the downhill slope. On and on, I could list the qualifications. But I live, you live, most people listening to this podcast live a human existence that is the exception.
[00:42:02] It's just the exception. Definitely for most of human history, which involved an enormous amount of violence and conflict and risk and nothing that anyone would classify as peace and prosperity. And I just think when that's what you've lived in, you just think that it's almost like survivor's guilt, like that's what should be available to everyone. It's definitely what should be available to the world's children. Every child should live as my child lives. Which is true. Which is what we all want. But then it's like it shifts. It stops being like a vision, and it starts to be this weapon we use against each other. It starts to be this expectation which leads to guilt and resentment and shame and all these things that motivate no one to be better or do better.
[00:42:59] Because I had this hard conversation with Griffin and I told him, I'm like, "I want this to be like the hard conversation we had about capitalism where I just said, okay, we're going to do something instead of just fighting about this. You're going to go to the PCM and you're going to volunteer." And it did help. It helped so many things. But what is the version of this for Rafah? What is the version of me doing something? Should I take my children? Should I lay our bodies across a highway where they ship these weapons out? Should I sell my belongings and donate all the money I have? I don't know what that looks like. I don't know what that would affect. Do I pressure our government to a place where they use violence and force to prevent more violence and suffering?
[00:43:43] I don't know, and I think maybe it was better when people didn't feel this responsibility for the world power under which they were existing at that moment in time. Because I think it's too much. He kept saying, "So what are you saying? We can't do anything? We just have to accept this." And I have to look at my child and say I can't do anything about this. I cannot do anything about this. There are children suffering and dying as I am holding this microphone to my mouth on a beautiful summer day and recording a conversation with you, and I can't do shit about it. I just can't. It's an impossibly hard thing to face. And I still donated money, and I still try to vote the right way.
[00:44:36] And I try. I try to do anything at all, and I question constantly if it's enough. How will history judge me? This is the refrain on Instagram. Are you now the German neighbors who watched and participated as a genocide happened in front of you. But to me the question is, am I the German neighbor, or am I the rest of the world's population that was living at that moment in time and understood, to a certain extent, what was going on in Germany. And then I think, is this just all too much? What are we doing? What are we doing to each other in this moment in time? I don't know. It is breaking my brain and my heart and my spirit to a certain extent.
Beth [00:45:40] The brokenness is where I am because I both feel that I cannot do anything. And if I could, I don't know what the right thing to do is. I don't. I don't know. All I want, if I had all the power in the world, I would want to just say, stop. Everybody lays down the weapons. Everybody stop. The hostages go home. We rebuild Gaza. We figure out a Palestinian state. And we all agree that we commit forever to try to repair what's been done here and to allow all of the people who share this region to co-exist peacefully together. But the specifics of that, I have no idea. And I recognize that a white, middle aged Kentucky woman is not the person to make any of that happen. And so, I just get lost in the questions. The only thing that I have decided for myself about this that I feel pretty sure of, is that I cannot choose a side. I cannot accept that daily Instagram invitation to post something that indicates that I think that one side has the moral high ground in this dispute.
[00:47:15] I think, to be as clear about it as I can be, that Israel is now waging this war unethically. I'm not an international lawyer. I cannot put all the right words around that. But I think they're waging this war unethically at this point. I also think that Israel suffered tremendously on October 7th and faces a continued existential threat to its country, and that the leaders of Israel have a responsibility to try to keep their country safe. And I think that the Palestinian people deserve someone who has that responsibility to them, whose responsibility is to keep them safe, to provide for them. I think the international community trying to bring as much aid to the table here as possible is important, and I support those efforts. And that's what I know. I'm devastated.
[00:48:08] I'm devastated by all of it. The hostages, the deaths, the years-long suffering that so many people have endured because of this inability to live peacefully together. And the powerlessness that probably even Joe Biden feels around most of this. Because I do believe that a lot of what I articulated is where the president is, and I cannot imagine how frustrating it must be to be the president of the United States and the commander in chief of the United States military, and to say to an ally to whom we have provided weapons and money and intelligence and support, "You need to change course," and have that ally say, "Screw you. I will do this my way." I can't imagine what that must feel like. But there is a reality in that. This situation we are participating in and we are not in control of, and that is just where we are.
Sarah [00:49:13] Well, it's like I would wave that magic wand for a lot of things.
Beth [00:49:15] Absolutely.
Sarah [00:49:16] I would wave that magic wand for Ukraine. I'd wave that magic wand for Sudan. I'd wave that magic wand for Haiti. I didn't even know there were tribal conflicts in Papua New Guinea until people fled them and then got buried in a landslide. The world is full of suffering and conflict, and I think what frustrates me is the sense that your moral or ethical worth is based in this one.
Beth [00:49:39] Yeah.
Sarah [00:49:39] If you're not saying anything, you're not paying attention. Well, is that true for everywhere or just here? Children are dying and suffering everywhere. Children are being bombed. You know what it feels like? It feels like the conversation we have around grief, and how you want to fix your friend's grief instead of just witnessing it. And so, for me, my eyes are on Rafah. They have been on Rafah. They will remain on Rafah when everyone's forgotten about that artificial intelligence generated image. All I can do it feels like some days is just not turn away because it's so hard. Just the same as if a friend is suffering something that you cannot fix or change, and that in some way you have to participate in. I said that to a friend once who was experiencing something impossibly hard. I said, "All I can tell you is that I will not turn away." And when I get in these moments, all I can tell myself is I know my own heart. I know my own heart, and I know where it has always been for the Israeli people and for the Palestinian people.
[00:50:52] Because I am a political person and I have known about this conflict and thought about this conflict and read about this conflict. That doesn't make me a better person, it just makes me a political person. And it still makes me detach in a certain way because I don't have family there. But it's like all I can do is just say as long as the conflict exists, I will witness it. I will pay attention. I will do what I can, which is almost nothing, and face that heartbreak instead of compartmentalizing it and deciding that it has nothing to do with me and turn away. And try to hold as much grace as humanly possible for people who take a different path. Because I get it. I want to say and do the right thing as much as anybody else. I want to say and do the right thing and stand in the judgment of history and feel like I was on the right side. We all do.
[00:51:45] And it makes you feel not just grace for the people right now, but grace for the people in previous moments in history that you sat in judgment of and thought you understood. And I'm not making concessions or excuses for any moment in history when people saw something horrendous and didn't stop it, or didn't try to stop it. And I think that's why that vision of Tiananmen Square is so seared in all our memories, because that's what it feels like to be a human on the world stage, with your grocery standing in front of a tank. It makes me grateful for the places like this where we can at least talk about it and process it. And I wish there was more. I think that's probably what I share with every person on planet Earth and in human history. I wish there was more. I wish it was different.
[00:52:37] Music Interlude.
Beth [00:52:47] We always end our show with what one listener wisely referred to as an exhale, by talking about something Outside of Politics as much as anything can be Outside of Politics. And today we're to talk about graduations. Sarah, you recently traveled to Atlanta for a graduation, so we'd love to hear about that and about the kind of bigger picture thoughts it sparked for you.
Sarah [00:53:07] Yeah, I was just thinking about high school graduation because my husband and I were having this debate basically. He's like, what's the big deal? And I'm like, look, I understand that graduating from high school is not like an intellectual achievement on par with receiving a doctorate. I get that. Although now that I am guiding, alternatively dragging, coaching, counseling three children of my own through the public school system, maybe that's why I feel differently. I'm like, but it is a rite of passage. Because if you don't have a bar mitzvah or you don't have a [inaudible], there's no place to celebrate this passage into adulthood. And there's just so much wrapped up in high school graduation now. So, I just think it's this very important rite of passage.
Beth [00:53:56] I'm just never one to look down on a celebration. I know that there are people who get annoyed with kindergarten graduation and fifth grade graduation and eighth grade graduation.
Sarah [00:54:07] True.
Beth [00:54:08] I just don't feel annoyed. I know that those ceremonies are super not fun to attend. I was just talking to my Jazzercise instructor this morning and she went to a graduation. It was three hours long because there are so many kids and that is a lot to sit through. It is especially a lot for other kids, younger kids, siblings to sit through. And so, I don't think we're doing all this perfectly, but we're doing it. And I think doing it is important. And I think when we've decided to do it, then you just have to show up for it. It's important to show up and say, "I'm going to do this with you," even if you think it's silly, right? Often the student will say, "I don't care about prom. I don't care about whatever." Even if you think it's silly. I just think it's important to say maybe, but it means something to some people, and it might mean something to you eventually. And we don't lose too much by going all in on the things that could mean something to us.
Sarah [00:55:02] Well, sometimes you have so many people in the family. Sometimes it's a graduation party because Nicholas has 3 million siblings, in case y'all didn't know. And so, we had this big graduation party. Because, like, sometimes they're limited. Because this is the other thing, I would like to talk about the logistics of a high school graduation a little bit if we can.
Beth [00:55:19] Yeah.
Sarah [00:55:20] So our high school graduation this year, they had to put it in the gym because of rain, and no one could hear anything because of the din and the noise of the gym. Now, I have to give a major shout out to my nephew's high school graduation-- I believe it's River Ridge, I think was named the high school in Woodstock, Georgia. Beth, 40 graduates and we were in and out of there in about an hour.
Beth [00:55:41] Excellent.
Sarah [00:55:42] Right. I really do want to send a thank you note and be like slagging it. For one thing, they did this really nice video, which is another thing I want to talk about, where they said please do not clap until the end. And no air horns or noisemakers are strictly prohibited. That was completely ignored. Some people did use air horns and noisemakers. So, they got through the principal speech, the student president, the valedictorian and the salutatorian in about 15 minutes.
Beth [00:56:17] That's impressive.
Sarah [00:56:17] Very short. Good. They got to have their moment. It was lovely. And then they were reading the name so quickly there were no pictures taken on the stage. They were reading the names so quickly that even though people were completely ignoring the role and clapping and applauding and using air horns, they were moving so quickly. You couldn't get into it; you know what I'm saying? They didn't give that a time to build, which I think is the key. Because I do wonder, even though I think it would be nice, maybe we should abandon this whole don't clap till the end. Because I don't think it works anywhere. I think everywhere people clap. So maybe we should just let that expectation go at this point in human history.
Beth [00:56:57] I have a radical proposal.
Sarah [00:57:01] Okay. This is like the written state of the Union. Do you want to go back to that?
Beth [00:57:04] I do want to go back to your written state of the Union 100%, probably for many of the same reasons. I think it would be nice at the beginning of every class of senior year, to take the officers of that class or whomever, the graduation committee, and say these are the traditional elements of a graduation. How would you like these to proceed for your class? Are there things you want to add, things you want to subtract? Do you want to have the last week of school be like different sections a day at a time of a graduation? What part do you want your friends and family to attend?
[00:57:38] Do you want to receive your diplomas all at once? Or would you rather have your friends and family come to a very small gathering where 10 of you get your diplomas with a teacher you love, or something like that? I just think giving them a little bit more freedom to figure out how this could go down and be willing to adjust different blocks of it-- because, listen, most of the people in the audience are there for their one person. They don't care about the principal speech. I don't know, I just think there are lots of ways that this could be mixed up class by class, where you could see it be a ritual that they are both getting the benefit of all the tradition and history of, but also feel like they're creating too.
Sarah [00:58:18] Well, I hear my mother's voice in my head very loudly right now saying, "Who's going to do all the work for that? Because I think that's just tough. The problem is, the graduation is being run by full-time employees who have other jobs. And so, I think the River Ridge was so good because you could tell they have it down to a fine science. Every year they're like, I think that's the graduations you go to is honestly where they're the same in every year they go. Hold on, could we tweak this a little bit? we're going to keep this. This is working. Let's make this just a little bit better. But I think if you were starting from scratch every year, it would be brutal on the teachers and administrators.
Beth [00:58:50] Well, see, this is my other radical perspective on our school system. I think the students should have more responsibility for almost everything. I've been thinking about all of the vandalism the bathrooms at my daughter's middle school has endured, and it just makes me feel like, why do we have kids come to school expecting that two or three adults are going to clean up everything after them every single day? Why aren't the kids helping clean up? If you had to help clean up the bathroom, you would stop vandalizing it, I think. There's a lot to be learned in planning and executing events. Those are good skills for seniors to have. And they're seniors, they're about to be adults. They're about to go out into the world.
[00:59:33] Some of them are going to serve in the military. Some of them are going to live on college campuses. Some of them are going to get apartments and jobs. They can surely take more of the work of these events. And I just feel like there are lots of places where we are asking teachers and administrators to step up and volunteer for things that are far beyond the scope of what they're actually there to do. And parent volunteers. A very small handful of parent volunteers. When students, especially high school seniors, can do a lot more and probably get a lot more out of the experience if they've been more part of making it.
Sarah [01:00:12] Well, I like your Montessori middle school where people clean up, but I do think it's going to have to start before their senior year.
Beth [01:00:18] A hundred percent. Yeah. You build to that. Sure.
Sarah [01:00:19] Well, I think the problem with the senior year is it's just so busy. I mean, I think this would be great if they weren't also like dealing with FAFSA and deciding where to go to college and figuring out-- a large majority of them, not every senior, obviously. But even the seniors who are applying for apprenticeships or going to vocational schools or getting a job, there's a lot going on. Especially if they're playing sports and they're in these finals and we've packed their lives outside of school so full that some of that's going to have to give if we want them to step up and participate more in the running of the school. Because they're [inaudible]. They are already done. They don't want to be in the building. They don't want to be doing more things at school. They want to be at school even less than they already are. And I think that's the tough one with a senior year. And I felt that in my senior year, it's like you want to be gone and you also want all the things. You want all the ceremonies and all the celebrations. You want to be there and you also want to be gone all at the same time.
Beth [01:01:20] Well, any proposed difference, you'll be able to poke a million holes in them. And I hear that they're busy. Maybe the juniors get involved. Maybe it's a gift from the junior class to the senior class. I don't know. I don't have all the answers. I just think graduation is very important. It's something we should show up for. And also, that it is. Ripe for disruption, ripe for some rethinking.
Sarah [01:01:43] I have been thinking a lot about the grade younger helping. Because I didn't do this when my son was in fourth grade, but apparently, they helped with the graduation. I don't know if some of this got disrupted from Covid and they're starting to build it back up, because I didn't help because Griffin it was like they didn't have one. And so, I just wonder where there is more of that to be built in. Because they put project graduation on for the first time. And for those of you who don't know what project graduation is, when we were growing up-- I don't know, Beth, did you have a project graduation?
Beth [01:02:12] We did.
[01:02:13] You went to the school after graduation. They didn't want people going out and partying and driving and drinking. And so, they was like a big lock in. They locked us all in. I got a TV, I got a microwave, and I got like 150 bucks. All the parents work their butts off. They raised all this money, all this stuff. We played games all night long. We hung out and it was so much fun. It's like one of my glowing high school memories, and they put that back on. It was all a parent volunteer, and I thought, well, I need to go to her and say like, okay, well, the parents younger-- like the grade below, the juniors need to do this and start building that sort of institutional knowledge about how to run this well, so you're not doing it your kids’ senior year. Because I really do want that to be a thing for my kids when they get there. But it just takes time to build those events and build the institutional knowledge and make sure you have a succession plan.
[01:02:58] This is far afield of graduations, but I do feel like in a lot of places we've been talking a lot about this in my community. There's not a lot of succession planning going on right now. There's not a lot of who comes next. How do we pass on this information? There used to be a lot of processes around that, and I just don't think there's as much of that as there used to be. And I don't know if it's because we're reexamining our outlook on life and how long you can work and how long you can live. But it's a problem. And I don't think it's a new problem necessarily, but I'm just seeing it a lot of places in my life where if you don't say this is how we do it, it's too intimidating people don't do it. And I think there needs to be a lot more like hand-holding. And I think graduation might be a good place to start.
Beth [01:03:38] Part of the reason that I think it's tough to do succession planning is because too few people have to take so much responsibility for almost everything that happens, and that looks awful to everybody else. No one wants to step up and replace it the way that it's been done. And I really think that part of what we have to get our heads around is that this way that we're living right now, where our kids have almost everything created for them and delivered to them and performed for them is wearing us out. And school seems like a fantastic place. And my daughter's elementary school does this pretty well, where sometimes the younger kids do things for the older kids. It's not always just that the older people serve the younger people. Sometimes the younger people serve the older people too. And living into a way of being where everybody has something to contribute and more people can contribute, and that makes the future job not look so awful because there are more people contributing, and maybe the expectations for what gets delivered are a little bit lower, I just think all that would be very helpful.
Sarah [01:04:57] I agree.
Beth [01:04:58] Well, that's far afield of graduation, but not to. And I always like talking about things because we never know where we're going to end up. So, thank you all for joining us. Thank you for being here as we contend with a lot of tough news right now and try to continue to enjoy ourselves as we do it. Please make sure that you are subscribed to Pantsuit Politics for all of our political analysis, as well as the return of The Nuanced Life on Fridays, this summer, which will be right here in this feed. We will be back in your ears definitely next Tuesday, perhaps before then, depending on what the jury in the Trump criminal trial chooses to do. Until then, have the best weekend available to you.
[01:05:36] Music Interlude.
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