Ten Commandments, Housing in America, and Travis’s Eras Debut

TOPICS DISCUSSED

  • Louisiana’s 10 Commandments Law

  • The Supreme Court on Guns and Domestic Violence

  • Housing in America with Jerusalem Demsas

  • Outside of Politics: Travis Kelce on Stage with Taylor Swift at the Eras Tour

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TRANSCRIPT

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

Beth [00:00:09] This is Beth Silvers.  

Sarah [00:00:10] You're listening to Pantsuit Politics.  

Beth [00:00:12] Where we take a different approach to the news.  

[00:00:14] Music Interlude.  

Sarah [00:00:29] Thank you so much for joining us today. It is a big week here in America. We have primaries in New York, in Colorado, in Utah. Congress is in session. The Supreme Court will be releasing more decisions. And we have the first and earliest presidential debate on Thursday. Before we get to today's show, if you want our live reactions to that debate, you can join me on Substack and Beth on Patreon. We will be live in the chats there for those who are subscribed, and will also be a bit later with our regular show on Friday. So, if the episode is not in your feed first thing in the morning, don't panic. We just wanted to give you our thoughts on the debates. We'll need a little bit more time. We'll record early Friday morning and get that into your feeds as quickly as possible. A huge thank you to Dylan and the team at Studio D for helping us do that.  

[00:01:12] Now, today we're going to talk about this big week, as well as several other headlines, including Louisiana requiring a version of the 10 Commandments to be posted in every classroom. And then we're really excited to share a conversation with Jerusalem Demsas, a staff writer at The Atlantic and host of the podcast Good on Paper. For years now, Jerusalem has been doing some of the best reporting, in our opinion, about housing in America. So, when we wanted to do an episode about the disparity between the massive amount of housing wealth in America and the number of Americans who cannot afford housing, Jerusalem was our first call. And then Outside of Politics, we're going to talk about Killa Trav premiere at the Eras Tour because nothing else matters. Nothing else matters. That's the truth.  

Beth [00:01:52] I mean, maybe a few things matter, but it does feel like the most fun topic that we have for you today and I can't wait to get there. But a little housekeeping first. If you are a premium member, first of all, thank you so much for your support. We hope you've been enjoying our slow read-along of Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America. We're going to share our third installment of that discussion series on Patreon and Apple Podcast subscriptions this Friday. There's so much going on with us this week. You don't want to miss any of it. We hope you'll join us there. And lastly, usually we take the month of July off and share some reruns of our favorite episodes. But I'm so proud of us, Sarah, we worked really hard this year and we have all new episodes for you all month long. We'll continue our short run revival of The Nuanced Life, and we have interviews with everyone from governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania to Top Chef two-time runner up Sarah Bradley. We cannot wait for you to listen.  

Sarah [00:02:47] Next up, let's talk about the Ten Commandments, or at least a version of them. So many of you might have heard by now that in the state of Louisiana, the governor recently signed a law that requires a version of the Ten Commandments to be posted in every classroom. I say a version, Beth, because you read a thing this morning that the version they're using isn't even really like a biblical translation, correct?  

Beth [00:03:18] Right. There are numerous ways that you can describe the Ten Commandments. It's in the Bible a few times. So, my pastor always says, "Are you talking about Deuteronomy or Exodus to start with?" And then there are different moments in those two books when it comes up. And then there are so many translations and the actual text prescribed by this statute to be hung in every classroom on a piece of paper that's at least 11 by 14, isn't any of those. It's a version from a Supreme Court case. We were chatting beforehand. Alise thinks it might be the version that was in the movie The Ten Commandments. But I think this is perfect. It is a perfect manifestation of this Christian nationalist agenda that is neither really nationalist nor really Christian. It's just a weird melding of some artifacts of both into this thing that is new and pervasive.  

Sarah [00:04:19] I recently finished Bono's memoir, Surrender. Bono-- I don't know if you know this-- is a man of deep faith.  

Beth [00:04:25] I do. 

Sarah [00:04:27] And it is very interesting to hear him talk about being a rock star of deep faith and an activist of deep faith, and he has this moment where he talks about he doesn't really particularly like to hang out with Christians. He thinks they're kind of a pain in the ass. That's how I feel about this. This doesn't make anybody a Christian, doesn't make anybody like Christians more, doesn't help anybody follow the path of Christianity. Sure as hell doesn't do anything to improve the public school system. I don't know what it's for. I don't know what it's for except for to further Christian nationalism, which I'm also not entirely sure what it's for. Actually, that's not true. I do know what Christian nationalism is for. It's for power. That's what it's for. It's just an exercise in power. We can, so we do.  

Beth [00:05:14] Yeah, I think this is a version of just in-group outgroup on steroids. This is one of a number of Christian nationalist laws that Governor Landry signed into effect. Louisiana has also classified two of the main abortion drugs as dangerous controlled substances. They have mandated that teachers address students by the pronouns of the sex on their birth certificates. I mean, it's just a package of things going on here. My favorite thing that I've read about this was an opinion column in USA today that noted that while Jeff Landry was signing the Ten Commandments law and going on about, "Respect for the rule of law means that you start with Moses," a girl behind him fainted and people are rushing to help her and he doesn't notice and just keeps going on. And the writer was like, "And an analogy about priorities was born."  

Sarah [00:06:11] You don't even need the fainting. I mean, Louisiana has real problems with regards to the environment, the energy industry, climate change. That part of it is sort of sinking. I cannot believe this is the top priority. [Inaudible] because again, it's just an exercise in power. It's an exercise in culture to gain political legitimacy, I guess, political power to exercise that power. I just find it so gross and transparent. And not only absent and willfully ignorant of the political present, but just completely and totally ignorant of our political past. The most mind-boggling part to Christian nationalism, to me, is just the sense of rewriting the separation of church and state. That's not what they meant. They never said that. I mean, I don't really know how you otherwise interpret freedom from religion, from a state religion- I really don't. But they're trying. They're trying their absolute level best.  

Beth [00:07:30] He has said he is just super excited to get sued over this. It's the fight that he wants. Doesn't matter if he wins or loses the fight as long as he's a fighter. The Supreme Court said in 1980 that a very similar law from Kentucky was unconstitutional. And this is just another way of saying, well, we hope the court changed its mind because the court's composition changed.  

Sarah [00:07:52] And, look, maybe they're right. I don't know. I mean, we're here two years out from the Dobbs decision that upended established precedent regarding the right to privacy and the right to an abortion. That was objectively on shakier constitutional ground than the separation of church and state and freedom of religion. But just because the last few decisions from the Supreme Court have seemed half reasonable, I don't really hold my breath that the future ones will.  

Beth [00:08:23] On that note about the past few Supreme Court decisions feeling a little bit more normal, I would like to compliment and thank Chief Justice Roberts, who authored the majority opinion in the gun case that came out late last week. This court has developed a real habit of using the introduction to say what they believe the case is really about. And from the first couple of paragraphs, you know where this is going because of what they choose to highlight. Sometimes it's the technical legal issue, sometimes it's the precedent that this rests on, sometimes it's the facts. And in this case, Chief Justice Roberts opened this opinion now by talking about the state of Second Amendment jurisprudence. Instead, he described the conduct that gave rise to this case. The fact that we have a man who had a domestic violence protection order entered against him and why.  

[00:09:18] He talked about how this man in a public parking lot had an argument with his girlfriend in front of their child, and when she tried to leave, grabbed her and pulled her into the car and noticed that people were watching and got a gun out of the car. And as the girlfriend ran with their child away from the car, he shot at her. And I just thought it was so important for people to realize. And Justice Roberts points this out as he writes about it. It is her courage. It is that she went to court to get this protection order that led to him being arrested, ultimately, for having a gun in violation of the order. It is her courage and the fact that other women he harmed had come forward that brought the court to what this is really about.  

[00:10:11] It is not a theoretical question of like, should we in general allow people to have guns? It is a rubber meets the road. He tried to kill her once in a parking lot in front of lots of people. What do you think is going to happen if he keeps a gun? And so, he goes through the history and does all the dance that Supreme Court precedent requires. But then he says, all this just confirms what common sense dictates. He should not have this gun because he is dangerous. And it was a breath of fresh air to read.  

Sarah [00:10:46] I have two very close family members who survived pretty horrendous domestic violence. So, it's a cause very close to my heart. And I am so relieved that the Supreme Court, including many of the conservative justices, could see that common sense dictation. And also, it's just too little, too late. I struggle to praise John Roberts not because I want to rub his face in it, not because I'm not happy he did this, not because I don't think that he sees some things clearly, but what I'm afraid he doesn't is that if you think some reasonable decisions are going to dig you out of the hole that this court has dug for itself, then you see nothing clearly. It's too little, too late. You have irreparably damaged the institution. Not just with bad decisions, but your disregard for precedent. Am I supposed to believe that the next time you'll honor common sense precedent when it comes to-- oh, I don't know-- presidential immunity that you've been sitting on in a way that is in complete disregard for what's at stake and how quickly you should be making this decision, when every other time you can just turn it around on a dime?  

[00:12:20] I'm just sorry-- because I don't think he sees that. I think every time they just get in this posture of see, look, though, guys, aren't we good?  Aren't we a breath of fresh air? Can't we see clearly. And I just want to be like, you are delusional. You are delusional if you think anybody trusts you at all. Like, it's too little, it's too late. Y'all are going to have to do more than a couple good decisions to right this ship. I don't think this court can right this ship. I think the court needs to change as an institution. They could decide every decision the way I want it to from now until Kingdom come, and I really don't think it'll change a thing. I think that we need to-- just like we talked about with Representative Cheryl, the lifetime appointments have to go, things have to change. And so, I'm just in a new place. And the best of decisions is not going to move me out of that place, and I don't think I'm alone in that.  

Beth [00:13:19] I don't think you are either. I'm just happy with this decision. A lot of people's lives are going to be saved because this law has been upheld, and I think that's really important. And I'm also glad that when he took the pen, Justice Roberts decided to do it in a way that honored the women who were at the center of this case, instead of focusing on the man who said he was a victim because he lost his firearm. Because we've seen the court do that before.  

Sarah [00:13:42] Yeah.  

Beth [00:13:43] The law requires from judges a huge degree of compartmentalization. We want them to compartmentalize in a lot of different ways. And I think where many of us feel frustrated with this court is an absence of that compartmentalization. We want them to do more of it. And so, I am willing, as a reader of the court, even though I also desire some serious court reform-- and not just reform, but evolution, because the size and the needs of the country have evolved. I desire all of that, but I'm also willing, as a reader, opinion by opinion, to compartmentalize and to say, in this case, this was a well-considered opinion that responsibly took into account all of the interests and applied the law and I'm grateful for it. And I'm especially grateful that this was an eight-one decision. That the vast majority of the court here, everyone but Justice Thomas said, no, of course, this law is constitutional. Of course, a person who poses a concrete danger to another person can temporarily, with notice and an opportunity to be heard, have their weapon taken from them. I'm thrilled that that's the holding of this case.  

Sarah [00:15:03] I think that compartmentalization is the perfect word, and that's what I think is so dangerous. I think that they have taken the compartmentalization to a truly psychotic place. Like, that's what they said. Well, we didn't mean it. I took the airplane ride, but I'm still neutral. And my wife definitely worked for the overthrowing of the American government, but this time it's fine. Like, it's just that compartmentalization has taken this institution to a truly dangerous place. And it's like this self-fulfilling, this self-feeding monster. They continue to compartmentalize.  

[00:15:41] You read it in Alito defending himself. I think that there's even an aspect of John Roberts that does that. That's the part that I see it. And even when it works in my favor, it just feels like it's still on this very, very shaky foundation that is just so disturbing to me. I used to could get there. I used to could say, this decision is great and that's what matters. But I just think the institution is limping along in such a dangerous way that I can't even feel good about decisions that I think will improve people's lives.  

Beth [00:16:17] What I would say is not this decision is great and that's what matters; I would just say this decision is great and that matters even though this court needs a lot of attention and a lot of care. That's what we need. We need to pour some care into the judiciary. And that is true at the federal level. It's true beyond the Supreme Court. There are a lot of federal court offices that need a lot more money if we want cases to move faster. It is definitely true in state courts throughout the United States. That branch of government at all levels needs some care. And this decision is a good one, and I'm grateful for it.  

Sarah [00:16:56] Let's talk about another area of American life that needs some care. Up next, we're going to share our conversation with Jerusalem Demsas. She is one of the best, most thoughtful writers, I think, out there about the housing crisis. And we'd been wanting to talk about this for a while, and we were just delighted that she agreed to come on and talk to us about it.  

[00:17:13] Music Interlude.  

Beth [00:17:21] Jerusalem Demsas. We're so excited that you're here on Pantsuit Politics today. Sarah and I have wanted to talk about housing for a long time, and we don't do it because as soon as we begin to try to put together some kind of outline, we think this has too many tentacles, we're overwhelmed. And you are really exploring all of those tentacles. So, we'd love to know, how did you get started? What made you interested in talking about housing and where did you begin that exploration?  

Jerusalem Demsas [00:17:50] Yeah, well, first, thank you for having me. I'm such a fan of the show. I think it's funny because in some ways I feel like when you're starting your career, you don't really think about all the things that affected you to get you to where you are. But when I look back at my life, it's just really clear how much housing (and like with everyone) had a huge role in how things really played out for me and in my life. So, for instance, my family we were immigrants from Eritrea when I was really young. And there was in the early 90s an inclusionary zoning program, which is like affordable housing program that Montgomery County, Maryland had created in a really good school district to make it more affordable to middle income and lower income people to live in good school district. And that's where I actually ended up living when I was growing up, where I ended up going to school.  

[00:18:39] And it's one of those things where you don't know that as a kid, right? You're just like, you're living in a house. Even when your parents are looking for housing, they're just like, what can we afford? There's a good spot, good schools, let's go there. And so, I think over the course of when I was in college, I was studying economics and you learn about these papers and, like, large averages. You're like, okay, on average this change in government policy will affect people this way. And then you dig deeper and you're like, oh, what they're saying is when people pursue the policy, people like me get to live in places that have access to good schools or safe neighborhoods or things like that. And it's just really getting into the weeds of economic policy when I was in college and just seeing how directly these policies just impact every facet of your life and constrain your choice act in ways that you have no expectation of or whatever. It's like really a very jarring experience just to sort of realize, oh, obviously I feel like I've control over my life, but also like there are all these systems at play that you're really trying to uncover. So that's really kind of like my origin story.   

Sarah [00:19:39] Well, what I really love about your work, though, is I think there's a narrative you could craft from that background, particularly as it relates to Not in My Backyard Activist and NIMBYism, which we all sort of recognize and think why are these people being such jerks? And I remember really early reading a piece by you where you were like, yes, and we have crafted all this policy that makes people's home the foundation of their wealth and their retirements. And so, yeah, it's easy to call people who are participate in some NIMBYism jerks. But it's also understandable because their wealth is built on this home not only retaining its value but gaining its value. And so, in this effort to promote homeownership, what we've really done is locked people in to this certain approach to building wealth and retirement. And I just thought that was so wise and empathetic. And I think what I see a lot in your work, especially about housing, which is there's a narrative, but what's underneath that narrative?  

Jerusalem Demsas [00:20:37] Yeah. No, with NIMBYism it's funny, I think, when I first started learning about exclusionary zoning and the laws and processes that make it easy for people to keep their communities really segregated and stagnant, whether that's racially but more commonly now it's economically, and segregated communities, it's one of the things you learn about those things in school and you're like, wow, these people are terrible. Like, these people are selfish. That's kind of like the perception you have. And at some level, it's not that the facts of their actions are not as harmful as written, but it's that when you think about how people exist in a system and then the choices they're asked to make, and that really shape what's going to happen. And so, to me, I started thinking of NIMBYism more as both an ideology and a trap that people find themselves in.  

[00:21:22] And I think a lot of people have very different reasons for being afraid of change in their communities, afraid of whether it's the physical environment changing. They're afraid of big buildings coming up or even smaller buildings, but [inaudible] they're used to coming up and they're afraid of maybe different people living there. And part of that is fear of the unknown. And part of it is, I think, discrimination that I think is like unacceptable. But part of it is also what you said, which is that we live in a society where we're told that the way to safeguard your economic future is to buy a house and to allow that house to appreciate at an extremely fast clip. And you tell people that's their retirement package, and you tell them that that's what's important for them to do, and that's what the American dream is. So, it's not just a numbers game, but it's also a value system that you've imbued in an entire population. And then you say, we think that maybe that that's not a good system, but you don't provide them an alternative while you're trying to change it. It is kind of jarring.  

[00:22:13] And I think that one of the big parts of my work is showing that a lot of our intuitions around what's going to lower your property values isn't actually true. This is something that happened, of course, in the 1970s when people were trying to prove that allowing black Americans to live in your neighborhood wouldn't reduce your property values, that if someone could buy into your neighborhood and they were black, that actually would increase your property values because it increased the number of people who are competing for your home. And that was work that civil rights workers did for years to prove that.  

[00:22:41] And now, obviously, that's true. People do not think that a black person moving in next door is going to lower their property values. In the majority of instances, it's not a common thing to believe in most markets. And now I think there's another separate battle that's being waged to prove that just because someone's middle income, just because a house is a townhome, those things are not going to necessarily reduce your property values. And in fact, we're seeing that in places where people allow for more different types of housing that increases their property values, because it makes it more attractive for new people who would otherwise never have considered buying that single family home to buy in.  

Beth [00:23:16] You do a lot of unpacking. Here's the perception that's out there. Here's the reality. So, for a couple of years now, every time we touch on housing, we hear from people who are saying exactly what you said. I've been told my entire life I need to buy a house. This is a part of my story of becoming an adult, of becoming a responsible contributor to society. It feels necessary to me to become a parent, and I cannot do it. I cannot figure out how to buy a house where I live. And then we kind of get all these different stories about why that might be. And I wonder how you would summarize the biggest trends making it difficult for people to buy houses right now.  

Jerusalem Demsas [00:23:56] First, I just have so much empathy for your listeners who are coming to you with that. And I think it's just a very difficult situation to find yourself in. I'm a renter. I've always been a renter, and it's one of those things where I think a lot of the times that people are feeling this real fear around precarity, about maybe your landlord can raise your rents without knowing. And the volatility of that and not having a fixed payment and expectation, I mean, it's really, really terrifying. And it also, again, as you said, it just makes you feel like you're not succeeding. You're failing at something you're supposed to do. And I think that to me, this is a very multifaceted question, and I think there are a lot of problems in the housing market. But at core we know that people used to be able to buy homes at a starter home rate. They would buy like a 1500 square foot property, and they would be able to do that as a one income household. And why is that feel so out of reach for people who are making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year as a household in some of these really high opportunity cities?  

[00:24:55] And this is something that's, I think, really driven a lot of the conversation. It's the fact that, like, "Hey, I'm in Fransisco. I'm a software engineer, but I can't buy a house. It's not even possible for me." And I think that a big part of the reason is that we've just stopped building housing in the places where jobs are. When in the post-war era, people were coming back from World War Two, there was a massive housing shortage then too. Four million home shortage. People are coming back. There's huge demand for housing. These are the same sorts of things you see now. You see [inaudible] homelessness. You see overcrowding in housing units. You see prices skyrocketing, rents skyrocketing, evictions. These things are happening left and right. And the response to this is we have a massive building spree. You build out the entirety of the suburban landscape in America at this time period. You have massive investments in infrastructure to make that possible, which is the highway network in the United States, is what's created to make that possible.  

[00:25:45] All of that building facilitates the ability for the American dream to be created for that entire generation of people. Those people are now dying, or they're much older now. They are sitting on a lot of housing wealth. But what happens is there's a reaction to all that building, right? Because a lot of that building, some of it is not done in the most environmentally respectful manner, and it triggers a reaction. I think a lot of people too just feel like it's a lot of change very, very quickly, and they want to slow down how the government engages in massive infrastructure changes. And so, they cede all of our political institutions from the local level, all the way to the federal level, with various ways to pause, to veto, to study, to plan. And many of these things are well intentioned. I think others of these were very clearly intentioned to just stop newcomers. I like to say most people think the last house that should have been built is the one that they bought. And so, [inaudible] no more homes.  

[00:26:39] And so, some of it's not well intentioned, but a lot of it is just a general concern that the suburban landscape is changing so quickly. And so, as a result, you see in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, sharp decline in the amount of homebuilding. At the same time, sharp increases in the number of people who want to agglomerate into the cities where good jobs are. Big job creation centers in San Francisco and Seattle and Los Angeles and DC and the North Carolina Research Triangle, all of these places where people start creating a bunch of good jobs and people get pulled there. And it's not just the people who are directly working in Facebook, right? When they move there, it also means they need legal services, they need HR, they need taxi drivers, they need restaurants. And so, it really pulls all of these people, these economic forces towards these cities. And the city stopped building.  

[00:27:26] And so, the result of that is that the same housing stock gets bid up. And clearly the way you see this is that when you go to visit someone who's really high income in New York City, they don't live no mansion. They often live in a pretty mediocre apartment. It's often so old. It's not even ADA accessible. It may not have central air. I mean, this is the result of a housing market that's so broken when rich people are living like that, you know what's happening lower down is even more unacceptable. So that, to me, is kind of like the shorter history of how we got here. And we're at a four million home shortage now, just as we were in the postwar period, and we're not reacting to it in the way that we did then. And it's good that we're just not caring about the environmental consequences of different things, but the environmental consequences of people forced to sprawl out, forced to live in homeless situations like that is also something that is has to be considered. And it's getting to be really, really bad.  

Sarah [00:28:18] Well, and I think it's not just that it's big cities. This is one of the issues that I think really bridge the rural urban-divide in a lot of ways. We don't have enough housing stock where I live in Paducah, Kentucky. This is not an employment hotspot. And I wonder how much do you think some of this was when you said a 1500 square foot starter home. That's not the size of the average starter home now. And it feels like for a while, with low interest rates, we were squeaking by with people getting to bigger and bigger homes. I read a statistic yesterday, (I think it was the UK) and it made me think, oh Lord, what is it in America? They were talking about how baby boomers are saving and not releasing a lot of that wealth, living in these big old homes. It was like 20% of the bedrooms in the UK were extra bedrooms un-habited as regular bedrooms. And I thought, I don't even want to know what that is in the United States.  

[00:29:08] But then with interest rates rising, people get locked into these golden handcuffs. If you refinanced during the pandemic like I did, you're not going to move. You're not going to go from 2% to 8%. Even though my parents, when they were buying their 1500 square foot starter home, were thrilled to get like 12%. And I wonder how much you think the changing interest rate and the fact that people are locked in has really further accelerated people's awareness of this and the lack of housing stock, because people aren't even moving within the stock as much as they used to.  

Jerusalem Demsas [00:29:41] Yeah. No, first, that's a really good corrective. I think often in economics we focus on the really extreme cases of housing and unaffordability and we don't look at obviously a smaller increase in a place where people have lower incomes is just as-- if not more devastating to that population. And so, it definitely is the case that you're seeing, especially since the pandemic where you've seen massive home price appreciation in smaller cities, exurbs, even rural towns. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that as people were trying to figure out ways to make it slower to build, is you saw kind of-- I mean, it's been since the early 1900s, but you saw the adoption of zoning codes across the country and real enforcement of zoning regulations. And zoning regulations are basically the rules and requirements that local governments set on what kinds of houses can be built, where they can be built, what they can be built next to, can you build 10 feet from the sidewalk or five feet from the sidewalk. 

[00:30:37] Very small things are really determined by these codes at a very local level. And so, what you said about where are these starter homes? Where are these 1500 square foot starter homes so we could build? Then now it's like a 5000 square foot starter home is what you have to be able to afford. And things like minimum lot sizes and minimum home sizes and other kinds of regulations made it such that it is basically illegal to build any home that's really small. And a lot of that has to do with beliefs about the kinds of people that live in smaller homes, that they are tend to be poor, or they're middle class, or they're are from a different background than you are. And because of that, you kind of ceded all of these local governments with the expectation that we shouldn't allow for even small, single-family homes to exist. And the small, single-family homes have basically disappeared in this country. It's a new phenomenon.  

[00:31:21] Small, single-family homes, if you see them now, they're usually very old. But you're buying that old housing stock that was from maybe from 100 years ago that you're looking at. And so, that is why you see that all around the country where you can't even find this kind of stock when people are looking for it. And I think that on your question about these seniors kind of aging in their own homes, this is, I think, an extremely sad aspect of this crisis. AARP has actually gotten really, really involved in housing politics in recent years because they are seeing such an uptick of seniors who are essentially locked into these homes that are too big for them. And at first, you're like, well, cry me a river a little bit. But that's your problem. The actual problem is that often as senior get older, they become incapable of using the stairs. They're not even able to access the bathroom that they need to go to. They can't go to their bedroom. They're stuck on the first floor.  

[00:32:11] And they would like to stay in their community and downsize, but their community has only built large homes like the ones they live in. And so, they can't even age inside their own community. They're forced to either go to a retirement community that maybe they didn't want to be a part of. Or they stay and kind of suffer through a non-ADA compliant structure, and that can be really, really harmful. And we definitely have a similar problem as in in the UK around this generational turnover hasn't happened. Like in a healthy housing market, what you expect to see is that you're younger, you live alone maybe in a small apartment, or you live with friends in a group of houses or something like that. You're sharing this big space amongst a lot of people. Maybe you grow, you decide you want to have kids and you want to start your own family, you'd move into a single- family home or some larger place that has multiple bedrooms or a three-bedroom apartment, or a townhouse or whatever it is.  

[00:32:58] And then when your kids leave the nest and as you get older, people naturally want to downsize. So, we see in healthy housing markets. They often want to stay near where their community is, or they want to move closer to their family in some place, but they want to get to a smaller place. And that's what you see happening when things feel good. But, instead, now because exactly what you said, people are afraid of losing that low interest rate, but also because they can't find the kinds of housing that they would want to actually live in, you have this problem where you're not even seeing the necessary churn. And interest rates are a huge problem with this. I mean, you see people locked in at like a 1.7%, 1.9% interest rate, they are never moving. I think it's common to hear that and to get really frustrated with things like the Federal Reserve or monetary policy at the federal level. But affordability is, and of course, two directions. Your interest rate can be higher if the principal payment or the principal house value is lower. So, if we can actually attack the core problem of housing on affordability, people will put up with a slightly higher interest rate in order to move into those homes. So, I think that we need to tackle the levers we really can.  

Sarah [00:34:07] I've been trying to work on people's hard about an adjustable-rate interest like they have in Britain, and no one's interested, Jerusalem. I've been trying. No one thinks that's a good idea, even though I kind of do. At least you're not locked in forever, and you can get more healthy churn with people adjusting to the interest rate. But no one's interested; I've been trying.  

Jerusalem Demsas [00:34:24] I think it's hard because people move into homeownership for the stability, and you getting into a situation where then you have that churn that you get also a lot of unwanted churn, right? That's not people excited about leaving. So, again, I think that often what we have happening in housing policy discussions is-- and I do this myself as well-- we're all like trying to find some kind of like edge way to change the financing.  This is any housing problem we have. Whether you care about housing quality, you care about homelessness, you care about homeownership, these things cannot be solved with the housing shortage. You just have to build more homes.  

Sarah [00:34:57] Yeah, get the Bill.  

Beth [00:34:58] I'm so glad that you talked about the difficulty for older people in this housing market, because I think one of the kind of Instagram of it all ways of processing “I can't buy a home as a younger person” is to blame older people and say, look, they just don't want to move. And so, pointing out how difficult that is, I think, is so valuable. So, I also want to ask you about the Airbnb of it all, because we hear a lot about people who own vacation homes and that entire industry around housing that no one actually lives in. Where do you see that fitting into the puzzle here?  

Jerusalem Demsas [00:35:34] So the reason Airbnb is pretty clear it has modestly small but real effects on increasing rents, and it's particularly impactful in really high touristy areas because, of course, it's a very simple mechanism, it's taking homes out of the long-term rental market and into the short-term rental market. So that means you've reduced supply to the long-term rental market. And you haven't moved that to the homeownership side. So, you're not actually creating housing options for people in long-term ways. What I will say is it's small. The effect size that we're seeing is not massive. There may be some very small submarkets. We're talking about imagine if you're in downtown Rome, Italy, or something like that where you see lots and lots of short-term rentals where you can have some real impact.  

[00:36:15] But I often find that people really want to find the one bad guy in the situation. They want to find the Airbnb; they want to find the black rock. And these people have earned their bad name in many different ways. So, it's not even about defending them or anything like that. But it is a question of, like, are we willing to actually take on systemic solutions here? Because with short term rentals, I think it depends on the local area that you're in. But also, short term rentals are actually helping provide for economic benefits in a variety of ways, like, for instance, in New York City, where they have made it increasingly difficult for short-term rentals to exist. It's very, very difficult now for someone who's not wealthy to go into New York City for a night or two.  

[00:36:56] It's like you get $500 a night hotel rooms at this point, because they've also made it illegal to have new hostels in New York City. [Inaudible] we don't see lots of hostels around the place. You're also very, very difficult to build new hotels. It's extremely difficult to build new hotels. And many neighborhoods don't allow hotels for various reasons, and they also don't want short term rentals. And at some level, I think it makes sense that there are some people who would care more about the people who exist there benefiting. But I always get a little concerned when I see these sort of like anti-outsider sentiment really building because there's two ways to view a problem in a market like housing. You can either blame supply, which is we can all do this together, we can build more homes so everyone can prosper. There's enough for everyone. Or you can blame demand. And by blaming demand, it means you blame other people.  

[00:37:43] And we saw that during the pandemic, people in Idaho saying things like, go home, Californians. Ex-governor of Utah made a joke-- I don't think he was seriously-- about, like, don't come to Utah Californians; we don't have room for you here. And this kind of, I think, intra American like hostility, when it really pushes up in times of strife, it can be really dangerous. We saw this with the Okies when they were coming to California, there were basically internal migration controls that were created in order to stop people from coming there. And, to me, I get really scared when I hear this kind of rhetoric about, oh, we don't want outsiders here, take care of our own people first, because it really treats the whole situation like it's zero sum. No, everyone deserves housing, and it's also possible for them to have it.  

[00:38:27] America is not full. There's a lot of room to build homes. And in places where people live, we can turn over that housing stock. When something gets old, we don't want to preserve 150-year-old home that's extremely expensive to maintain, that has really bad cooling, that's not accessible for various people at various age levels. And instead, that could be two townhouses. And that kind of churn that we can create in the housing market can make it possible for various different age groups, various different economic groups to all live comfortably. And so, I think the Airbnb thing is not fake. People aren't wrong to be concerned that there's some impact, of course, on someone taking units out of the rental market. But I think the increased focus on it is just kind of a desire not to focus on the harder problem.  

Sarah [00:39:13] So let's talk about that harder problem. Let's talk about building because this is a bipartisan issue, but we have different approaches. And for the most part, I think the narrative is that red states, places like Texas, even Florida to a certain extent-- I live two hours from Nashville in Tennessee, which has experienced dramatic growth-- do a better job of building and handling this than blue states. California is famous for its housing costs and homelessness issue, same with Oregon. So where do you think that narrative is true and where do you think that narrative needs challenging?  

Jerusalem Demsas [00:39:45] Yeah, it's unquestionable at this point that red states make it easier to build new things. And that can be things that people like and things that people don't like, but it's just easier to build in places where there are not so many regulatory constraints, where there are not so many roadblocks needed through the process. And I think it's really hard sometimes people to think about what this looks like. But a very simple example is, imagine you own a single-family home, and you want to build a mother-in- law suit in your backyard. You have a kid and you want your mom or dad to move in and help you out with it. To do that, in most places, you need to go to your local zoning board and ask them for an exception. It's called a variance. And to do that in most places, you have to have a hearing. And so, you come to a hearing, you present your plans to everyone. Some people can do this on their own, but some people will need assistance and then have to pay for a lawyer and a plan and all this kind of thing to help them do this.  

[00:40:32] Then there are now half dozen different ways that someone can stop you. Someone on your block doesn't like the idea of you building that. They ask you, hey, have you considered this kind of historic preservation of the property? You want to make sure that it looks the exact same as the building's next door? Okay, you do that, add $10,000 to your project, whatever. You're fine. Maybe you're rich enough. You can pay for that. You decide to go ahead forward with it. Someone else is well meaning but they've set up a whole process for environmental review. Hey, have you considered all of the impacts that this could have on the local water supply or anything like that? And these are not always badly intended questions, but the extremity with which each new build is put under, the amount of questioning you're asked, resort to most people just give up. Most people don't even attempt to do that. It's so hard.  

[00:41:19] So that means your mother or your father now they're staying in the house where they were. So, they're keeping a house that would otherwise have churned the houses up. They're not moving to where you are. You haven't created a new housing opportunity that maybe later would be rented out to someone else. So that pattern is repeated thousands of times. And that sort of thing is very endemic to blue states, because Democrats and liberal ideology since the 1970s has really, really been key to this idea of we need to plan, we need to study, we need to make sure that this thing that we're doing is not going to harm all these different causes we care about. And whether it comes from a laudable goal or whether it comes from one where you just don't want something new happening in your community, either way, what ends up happening is that every single new thing you do becomes subject to this kind of review.   

[00:42:03] And in red states, I think it's just a situation where that kind of liberal ideology has not really spread. It's not that I think that they're definitely more interested in affordable housing than blue states are; I think it's that their approach and their focus on how you should allow the private sector to sort of do what it wants to do is going to result in very different changes in the built environment. And so, I think the place where it's complicated a bit, though, is that red states are only now experiencing the rapid level of population growth that many blue states have already experienced. So, Austin, Phenix, Nashville, Miami, these are big cities. They've been to big cities for a while. But approaching the levels of demand of like San Francisco, Seattle and New York in blue states like this, is like they had not experienced. I mean, Phenix is basically a new city almost entirely.  

[00:42:48] So it's a level where you are now just kind of experiencing a level of kind of anti-growth sentiment. And I do see that. I'm reporting a lot of red states as well. I was just in Austin; I've been to Florida and to Tennessee. And when I go to these places, it's almost like seeing like 1970s, 1980s, 1990s in these blue states. And it's not clear how to play out. You do see some NIMBYism. I think you also you see this despite there have been making some big change in Austin. But you see a lot of pushbacks growing. You see the same thing in Phenix and in Arizona, where the Arizona governor actually vetoed a major bill that was supposed to help build more starter homes. And I think that it remains to be seen how these states actually end up. Is it the case they'll learn from the mistakes of places like Austin? Maybe. Montana is one of the big leaders right now on housing policy. That's an all-Republican legislature and governor. And their entire rallying cry was, like, we don't want to be like California. Don't let what happened to California happened to us.  

[00:43:48] And so, that kind of sentiment is like very, very compelling to people. They've seen the policy failure of California. They don't want to repeat that. But I think it's very, very hard to get around the anti-growth sentiment that builds because people really don't like construction, they don't like the localized impact. And the thing about housing is that you don't know who's going to live in on the house you build. A multiplex that has like five different homes in it. An [inaudible] are going to move next door, but you do know that there will be construction. So, it's localized impacts and harm, but very diffuse benefits. You don't know if you're going to like that person that's going to be your new spouse or if it's going to be like the most annoying neighbor you've ever met. It could be either. So, to me, I think it's a very difficult problem solved in the long run. And we'll see in like 10, 20 years, if the red states have done much better, I think it'll be a laudable achievement.  

Beth [00:44:38] Would you share a little bit more about that Arizona veto? I think this situation is kind of a fascinating microcosm.  

Jerusalem Demsas [00:44:45] Oh, yeah. So, Arizona, it's a purple state, but it's a Republican controlled legislature and a Democratic governor Katie Hobbs. And the Arizona Sarah Holmes Act was a really, really ambitious bill that basically wanted to make it legal to build smaller lot homes, smaller starter homes. So that was like a homeownership goal, mostly trying to increase homeownership in Arizona. And you got a really interesting coalition. It's a Republican led coalition on this bill, but you got a lot of Democrats voting for it as well. And it moves to the governor's desk. And it's really unclear what she's going to do. And she ends up vetoing it. And her argument for why she did so was she had multiple things. But I think the main argument she made was that we haven't studied this enough. We haven't seen what the impacts of this might be, and also that the Department of Defense has sent a letter to her saying there might be some impact on our nearby bases and other military installations if we allow for zoning to get that close.  

[00:45:41] And I remember looking [inaudible] I actually rarely heard of the department defense getting involved in something like this. And the Biden administration policy is pro-housing. They've come out and said explicitly they want state local governments to make it easier to build more homes. And so, when I reached out to them, I basically found out that what had happened is there's both been a miscommunication between [inaudible]. But there's a miscommunication I think about what the effect of this bill would have been, but it also is a situation where I think the argument I was making earlier about how there is this real bias towards, well, let's just study it. Let's take some time, let's study the process came into play. Because the DoD wasn't saying we're opposed to new homes. They were saying in the old system we knew who to talk to and how to engage if we were worried about development pressure coming near training areas.  

[00:46:25] In this new system, we're not really sure what happens. So, we're going to send a letter to the governor and be like, maybe don't do this because it might hurt us, but we're not sure. Maybe it will, but we're not sure. And so, that means that now this massive potential achievement-- I mean, this was a hugely bipartisan achievement to get this bill forward. It was Republican led. There were progressives on board. It was supported by a coalition of activists and business owners. And it was a very, very difficult political battle. The fight died not because anyone was, like, we know this will cause harm, but because people said it might cause harm and we're not sure.  

[00:47:01] But the problem in our political system is we don't have that kind of attitude towards the harm that will happen if we don't act. We have all this concern about like, oh, if we do something and it results in some problems, that's bad. But if you don't do something, you will see homelessness. If you don't do something, you will see rising unaffordability. And so, that is just not as keenly felt by lawmakers. I think with someone like Katie Hobbs, the problem that she had in particular is that it felt like a very unfamiliar coalition to her. This kind of bipartisan coalition. You have business, you have progressive, you have all this stuff coming together and asking for this. And I think she just felt it was too much, too fast. And she was clearly very surprised by the level of blowback she received.  

Beth [00:47:41] Well, and I love this example for a bunch of reasons. I think in the weeds is where it all happens with housing, and that's hard. That makes it really difficult to tackle. But in a piece that you wrote about this before Governor Hobbs vetoed it, you were talking about how some of the activists who really pushed hard to get this legislation across the finish line said, "I can't prioritize this in a way where I'm going to say, if she vetoes it, I won't ever vote for her again, because there are so many other issues that I just I have to stick with her even if she doesn't do this." And I thought that said so much about why housing remains this persistent challenge across the country.  

Jerusalem Demsas [00:48:22] Yeah. I this was actually really interesting.  As you said, I was interviewing an activist who had worked very, very hard on housing policy in Arizona. Who's a Democrat. And I was asking him like, okay, well, like, if Katie Hobbs vetoes this bill, are you going to reject her? And she was like, no, I'm in Arizona. There's immigration. There's abortion. There's all these different things that matter to me. And it matters to me that my governor's Democrat there. And got me thinking. At first, I was like, oh. In some ways you can look at this thing like, this is really bad. This is really, really bad for housing because it means that no one's ever going to prioritize this issue. But another way, it actually is what has made it possible for it to be a bipartisan issue. Everyone knows they're not going to lose their elections over this. If you're at the state level, you're not going to lose the governorship over this. People are not going to turn on you over this in your State House races, even. And as a result, that allows Republican Democrats to work together. They're not worried about the electoral consequences.  

[00:49:15] If a Republican crosses party lines on something about election interference or on abortion, or immigration, that could lose them an election. And so, they're not going to compromise Democrats about that. And so, there's this really interesting space that's been created. I mean, and basically every single state up to my last count, there has not been a single housing bill that's passed by bipartisan support. And that's a very unique issue. That's not normal. You do not see that regularly happening on major issues like housing. And I really think it is because exactly what you said, people are not going to make that the reason to vote for someone or not.  

Sarah [00:49:48] I think it was the New York Times that did a piece where they were, like, this gives state, particularly state legislators and congressional leaders, some real opportunity because they can provide cover for local leaders who do take a lot of heat about zoning and housing policy. In some ways, they don't have a lot of control at the upper levels of government, and in some ways they do. Because they can affect policy on the macro level and take some of the heat off local leaders back who can just blame them. Because, like you said, they're not going to lose this election, a congressional election, over housing policy. But they could provide cover for local leaders who might. So, I think that that's really important.  

[00:50:25] And my question to you, too, this was a piece I read this morning that I thought, well, this is the wild card hanging out there around housing policy. I wonder how you think about the increased risk homeowners are taking on with the effects of the home insurance market and climate change. When you have places with a massive amount of population growth like Florida, where home insurers are going, no, we're not going to anymore. It's too much risk. I mean, that's what I think is so crazy about Phenix. [Inaudible]. I don't get it, but they are. And this is like a huge component if you're asking people-- like, they can't afford expensive housing and then the expensive housing is not going to come with homeowner's insurance.  

Jerusalem Demsas [00:51:09] Yeah. I mean, this is a real problem. There was this story that NPR did once about how the Department of Housing and Urban Development had a program where they were trying to increase homeownership amongst first time homeowners. And the thing is, affordable housing means it's cheap for a reason. Maybe it's old, maybe it's ugly, maybe it's in a bad place. And one of the reasons is that it can be in a bad place and that it's like prone to risk. It's prone to fire risk or water risk. That's a big reason that housing might be cheap. And so, they were trying to help people get homes, and they ended up selling a bunch of people homes or facilitating their home purchases in places that were getting flood and did flood. And so, they got into homeownership, which is supposed to be the stabilizing institution, and then their home floods, and they are basically completely in a worse situation than they were before.  

[00:51:57] And to me, at this point, there's not someone who's doing the real policy change that would make sense to reduce this. Because the reason people are moving to Phenix it's because they can't afford to live in California. They can't afford to live in Seattle. They can't afford to live in these more expensive places. We see massive population exodus of middle-class Californians, and a lot of them are going to central states. You see a lot of people from the north heading to these states where it's cheaper. I mean, it's warm, of course, that's one aspect of this, but it's also just that people are looking for a new, affordable single-family home and they can purchase. And getting through that for $400, $500, $600,000, you're able to do that. Especially in 2020 to 2021, people were going gangbusters for those kinds of houses.   

[00:52:39] And so, I think that people are making some sort of like we'll make some small considerations on climate. So, I know there's a tool-- I believe Redfin is testing this, where they're showing you information about the climate risk of your property. That changed their behavior a little bit. It seems when they get that information, it's very preliminary stuff. So, I don't want to make vague pronouncements there. But in general, people make housing decisions based on where they want to live for work. That's the primary consideration. Where is a good job? Maybe secondarily, they'll move for family. But most people don't just move to move for amenities. Even on important issues they might care about politically, there are people who are very, very pro-choice who remain living in places where they cannot get abortions if they need to. So, to me, I think that can be quite rational for people because of course, maybe you'll never need an abortion, maybe none of your kids will be trans or whatever. Or maybe you're in a state where climate risk had happened, but it's 100-hundred-year concern. Like, are you not going to buy this house that works perfectly for your family right now because of that?  

[00:53:39] People don't evaluate risk in that sense. And so, you're going to continue to see people moving. I mean, this happened in California. A town would burn down, they go back and rebuild it. It would burn down the next year, they'd go back and rebuild it. And this is the flip side, I think, of the environmental concerns about building housing more densely in existing urban and suburban areas. If you don't build it, there are people will sprawl out. They're not going to just leave California. And you can't block them from living there because you haven't made any other place available for them to live. So, the home insurance market really, really scares me. I wrote a policy brief when I was, I think, 21 years old for [inaudible] I was working at, about the reinsurance market and the climate risk reinsurance market. And it's extremely scary because at some point I think the taxpayers in general going to end up holding the bag repeatedly. So, we will bail out our fellow Americans, which I think that we should. I think that's a good thing to do. But basically, all our flood insurance goes in Florida and all of our fire insurance going to California, and California is not even attempting to solve its own problems. So, we're just paying repeatedly over and over again for a state that is willfully denying reality on housing policy.  

Sarah [00:54:46] Yeah.  

Beth [00:54:47] So given all the tentacles and all of the ways in which some of the pushback to working on housing supply is justifiable or at least raises good issues in need of consideration, I'm not going ask you to, like, wave a one and solve this for us. I would like to ask if you were advising someone going on to a city council, here is a way to prepare yourself to make better decisions about housing. What would you tell that person?  

Jerusalem Demsas [00:55:20] Only two things. One, is you should support any and all efforts to move housing policy to the state level. Even people who care very much for this issue deeply are trying to solve it at the local level, you just cannot really make serious gains on this at a local level. Housing markets are at multi-county level. It's not going to be at the town level that you're affecting a market at a level that you would need to in order to address this problem. And this is increasingly seen, I think, across the country where you see local leaders. Yes, they're trying to do things at the local level, like reducing different kinds of regulations, but they're supporting states in their efforts to make this a statewide conversation. Let's solve this at a regional level. Yes, in your Colorado, of course, you want to preserve your beautiful natural outdoors. How do we do that? We say this part, we're not going to develop; and that part, we are. But if you're a small town in Colorado, you can't make any claims about what other towns are going to do. All you can say is we're developing here or not.  

[00:56:12] And so, why not just say no? Because it's not that big of a deal. One town does it, right? And so, that gets repeated over and over. But I think that kind of more granular I think what you're talking about, when I go to city council and zoning board and local political arenas all the time to report on these issues, it is very, very, very difficult, I think, as a local official, to have a sense of what your community wants. And there are a lot of levers pushing you to believe your communities are more opposed to new things and to change than they actually are. The types of people who engage in local politics, even at the bare minimum level of just voting in a local election, are so small and so skewed that you just have no sense of who your community is. And I don't blame them for this, but I think it is really hard. You're not going to have polling at that kind of a level either. And so, you have a situation where I think sometimes people have an overconfident sense of what their community sounds like, and they're often way out of step. You've just heard from like 10 people in your inbox, they're always saying the same kind of stuff. That's not a representative sample of your community.  

[00:57:16] But also, I think that there's often a sense and a desire to view yourself as just sort of implementing what the community is literally saying at a given point in time. But people are saying many different things. They're saying, solve the housing crisis. They're saying, I don't want trees to not exist on my block. They're saying, solve that pothole that's in the road. They're saying, fix the issue with these schools that are not getting enough enrollment. It might have to close down. The kids have to go 45 minutes to go a different school. They're asking you for a lot of different things. And the role of the policymaker isn't just say, well, we said no to this apartment. No, it's to say, you say no, this apartment, that's property tax revenue we're not getting for the projects you care about. That student that will help with the enrollment rate that we're trying to get to. That's a climate crisis you're not helping solve, because those people will all sprawl out into suburbs.  

[00:58:00] It's your job as a local official to think about these things in a way that's more elevated than maybe you're hearing when you just get an email from 10 people, or you show up to a city council meeting and a few people are yelling at you. And I think that a lot of work has been done, particularly by political scientists. I mean, Katherine Einstein is a really great professor at Boston University. And her work on this called Neighborhood Defenders, with her coauthors, is basically looking at how unrepresentative people who show up to local meetings are. And that is the sort of thing that I actually think has really empowered a lot of local elected officials to say, hey, I don't want to go against my community. These people, I should hear them out. Of course, they're part of this community. They're not the only ones that matter. And so, I think that that's been a real corrective, that I think that can help a lot of people psychologically overcome some of these difficult conversations.  

Sarah [00:58:49] Yeah, I love that. Well, thank you so much for coming on Pantsuit politics.  

Beth [00:58:53] Yes, thank you.  

Sarah [00:58:53] What a delight.  

Jerusalem Demsas [00:58:54] Thank you. It's been so fun. And I feel like you guys let me get all deep in the weeds.  

Sarah [00:58:59] We try to do it all. Well, thank you.   

Jerusalem Demsas [00:59:02] Thank you.  

[00:59:02] Music Interlude.  

Sarah [00:59:11] Thank you again to Jerusalem for joining us. Now, let's talk about what really matters. Am only slightly being facetious. You know what? I'm not being facetious. It's hot. The headlines suck. There's all this terrible stuff going on. And so, I will not apologize. I will not apologize for being wholly and completely delighted by Killa Trav premiere at the Eras Tour. I will not apologize.  

Beth [00:59:39] Even Liz Cheney was posting about it. See, even Liz is in on the joy.  

Sarah [00:59:44] Liz Cheney understands the stakes of life and everything in America right now and she's still happy. So, I think I can be too.  

Beth [00:59:53] She put it perfectly. She thanks Taylor for giving us a million reasons to smile. It's lovely.  

Sarah [00:59:59] See?  

Beth [01:00:00] And then she said PS, Donald Trump, this is what a big crowd looks like.  

Sarah [01:00:04] She did not.  

Beth [01:00:07] Liz is like ABC, always be closing. That's how Liz is.  

Sarah [01:00:10] I love that. Especially in light of that apprentice book coming out saying that he's just still so consumed by celebrity. He even brought up Taylor Swift.  

Beth [01:00:19] Am going to read that book  

Sarah [01:00:20] She was beautiful. But she's probably liberal. So, Killa Trav, Travis Kelce, her boyfriend-- fiancée. I'm just going to say now. I'm going to put it out there. Okay. But I do want to establish how long I've been on this tip. Beth, how long have I said that Travis and Taylor are getting married.  

Beth [01:00:41] Pretty much from the first football game.  

Sarah [01:00:43] From the first football game, because here's what happened, and I cannot find the reel. And I feel really bad about that. But when they first started dating, I was consuming all the Taylor-Travis content because it felt really great, like I got a really good drug. And I stumbled upon this woman. It was like a talk show, maybe a local talk show. I don't remember. But it was this woman saying, look, they've been dying like a week. And she was like, they're getting married. I'm telling you right now. They're at the right age. They both love their families. They're both got their jobs. They both had serious long-term relationships that ended, about the same amount of time. And she ticked their everything. And I was like, you know what? She right. Every cell in my gut-driven Enneagram self was like, yep, that's it. They're going to get married. They're going to have lots of sex and babies. And I think right now that they're already engaged and we just don't know it yet. Just like they were dating before we knew it.  

Beth [01:01:41] Yeah, I was going to say they hadn't been dating for a week. We just knew about it for a week. And good for them. Good for them. I always love watching the two of them. I love anytime they're in the news. I love anytime they break the internet because it just makes me feel joyful about how fun it is to be in love. And this time in particular, I was thinking to myself, everybody's pillow talk is now going to be like, do you love me? But would you put on a top hat and do a little jig in front of lots of people for me?  

Sarah [01:02:08] Click your heels.  

Beth [01:02:08] And I can unequivocally say, Chad Silvers would do that. Yes, he would. And I get to have that here every day and some privacy. Lucky me. I'm just always thrilled by them because it reflects back to me how good my life is and what a great feeling. Yay, America, we need more of that.  

Sarah [01:02:28] I just love these two because I think they're such dorks. Well, they're so famous.  

Beth [01:02:33] And beautiful.  

Sarah [01:02:34] So it's like super fun to see. This is the other reason I thought they belong together because they are both uncool. That's how I feel. And one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite movies, the only real currency in this bankrupt world is what two people share when they're uncool. Because they're so famous and they're so good at their jobs. But you can just see they're kind of dorky and I love it. My husband and I are also nerds. And so, just seeing that connection, knowing that she dated so many guys who didn't want to be seen with her, who were kind of always hiding away. Famous guys. He's also famous, but doesn't do the same kind of dance with her to keep everything hidden, to keep everything shied away. That he just delights in her. He clearly, clearly delights in her and her in him. And it's just fun.  

[01:03:24] And the way that they, I think, really expertly let us delight alongside them, because that's a dance to to make. It's a risk to take. To say we're going to share some of this that we feel with everybody else. Because I've never seen anything like this. I've always been super interested in celebrities. I definitely remember Brad and Gwyneth. That's how old I am. Forget Brad and Jen and then Brad and Angelina. I remember all the way back in the day, and it was never like this. We were never invited alongside a love story in quite the same way. And, again, I understand and I appreciate that this is risky for them and it must feel very intense. But they are, for the most part, steering that ship really, really well. And I respect it and I appreciate that they are letting us celebrate alongside them.  

Beth [01:04:22] It's also different from other celebrity couples because her work has always been so intertwined with her personal life. There was going to be a song about him, whether he got on board or not, so you might as well get on board. I feel like that's his energy in general. Celebrate it. Love it. Be excited about it. In one of the many millions of tweets that I have consumed about this event, my favorite one said-- and I'm sorry, I don't remember who tweeted it. But it said, like, "Travis is the first guy who wanted to be with Taylor and with Taylor TM." And I think that's right, because he also wants to be Travis and Travis TM. And he holds those in relation to one another, I think, in about the same proximity that she does. It all just seems to line up really well. And that's so fun to watch, and I truly hope that it works out for them and that they are engaged and that they live happily ever after. I want this to be exactly what it seems like because it is a beautiful thing to get to witness.  

Sarah [01:05:26] Listen, I've workshopped this in my head if they want to call me. I think it's really good that they're friends with Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds. I think it's good to have some couples in your life who understand this level of fame, who understand what it's like to be married, be a part, be in this level together. I feel like that's a good sign. Not to mention Jason and Kylie, his brother and his wife. I love that their families are both very active in their life. I think that's a really good sign. Listen, I think we're a go. That's all I'm saying. I think we're a go. I thought that from the beginning. I cannot wait for married Taylor songwriting. I certainly can't wait for Mama Taylor songwriting. I'm just so happy for them. And the heel clicking, the top hat, the carrying, the blowing of the kisses, just put it in my veins. That's all I've got to say.  Put it directly into my veins.  

Beth [01:06:15] I also think instead of having to worry about how many times Travis has won the Super Bowl, he should just insist on being introduced forever with Hugh Grant's description of him. That he is her "excellent if gigantic boyfriend". Taylor is excellent. The way that Joe Biden is always like, I'm Doctor Jill Biden's husband. He should just be like, I'm Taylor Swift's excellent if gigantic boyfriend. Perfect.  

Sarah [01:06:37] Yeah, fiancé. I'm telling you, fiancé. It just makes me happy. It just really makes me happy. I think it's really, really fun. And I would just like to thank Taylor and Travis for this delightful journey. And I can't wait for the wedding, even if we aren't invited.  

Beth [01:07:01] I have to say something about your cool remark. I just like that they redefine cool. It's hard to take that too seriously because they are both so beautiful. It's a different thing to be beautiful and dorky than not so beautiful and dorky. And yet I feel like a lesson of 2024 from the two of them reinforced by Inside Out 2, is that ennui has its place, but it's not the leader. It's not the leader. It's mostly on the couch scrolling the phone. I like that they are both eager and enthusiastic and genuine and earnest. I think all those things have made the two of them such great role models, even though they're not even claiming to be that. They're just living their lives. But it's fun to have your children see these two people who are not too cool to just be happy about everything, whether it's winning the Super Bowl or selling out crowds at stadiums or falling in love with each other.  

Sarah [01:08:01] Yeah, I'm glad you brought it Inside Out 2, because I was literally thinking that, like, I don't really mean not cool. I mean, there's no ennui. There's earnest enthusiasm. Unapologetic, earnest enthusiasm about the love, about the job, about each other, about the crowd, about even the sort of virality of the moment. And I think if you're a John Mayer, if you're a Jake Gyllenhaal, it's all ennui. Because it comes from insecurity, right? It's a sense of, like, ennui shows up when you hit adolescence. Boy, I wonder why? I think, like, it's this sense that I have to show that I don't care so that they can't hurt me. And there isn’t none of that with Travis and Taylor right now. There's no sense of, like, I better keep my cool about this. And I think that's such a great thing. I mean, I have no ennui. Zero. I'm all earnest enthusiasm all the time. And so, I love that about them. And I think that it's definitely not a diss. I think that especially with celebrity, especially in music and probably in football, I'll go less so because I think it's a team sport.  

[01:09:13] There is this sense that if you're really the icon, if you're really at the top of the game and you can't care too much, that there's this sort of deeper, probably examination of genius and talent and the naturalness of that that we've built up as sort of the ideal. And I think both of them just shattered that. No, we're killing ourselves out here and we're happy about it, and that doesn't mean we're any less talented. It just means we work really, really hard at everything, including being in love with each other. We love it. And we appreciate all of you who are patiently walking alongside of us with our earnest enthusiasm for Taylor and Travis. It's not over yet, you guys, because they're definitely going to get married. And we will definitely cover that union here with bated breath at Pantsuit Politics.  

[01:10:03] Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you so much to Jerusalem. As always, we can't wait to hear your thoughts. We'll be back in your ears later in the day on Friday to cover the first presidential debate. And until then, keep it nuanced y'all.  

[01:10:29] Music Interlude.  

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

Beth: Alise Napp is our Managing Director. Maggie Penton is our Director of Community Engagement.  

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

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

Executive Producers: Martha Bronitsky. Ali Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holladay. Katie Johnson. Emily Helen Olson. Barry Kaufman. Katherine Vollmer. Laurie LaDow. Lily McClure. Linda Daniel. The Pentons. Tracey Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katie Stigers. Karin True. Onica Ulveling. Nick and Alysa Villeli. Amy Whited. Lee Chaix McDonough. Morgan McHugh. Jen Ross. Sabrina Drago. Becca Dorval. Christina Quartararo. Shannon Frawley. Jessica Whitehead. Samantha Chalmers. Crystal Kemp. Megan Hart. The Lebo Family. The Adair Family. Genny Francis. Leighanna Pillgram-Larsen. The Munene Family.  

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

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