The Attempted Assassination of Donald Trump
Sarah and Beth are together today discussing the attempted assassination of Donald Trump over the weekend at a rally in Pennsylvania.
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EPISODE RESOURCES
Minutes after Trump shooting, misinformation started flying. Here are the facts (The Associated Press)
Trump rally shooter appears to have acted alone, FBI says (Washington Post)
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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 [00:00:41] Hello, thank you for joining us for a special episode of Pantsuit Politics. We are currently on our summer break, but we are disrupting that break coming to you from Japan and London, respectively, so that we could discuss the horrific attempted assassination of former president and current presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Beth [00:01:05] Sarah, where were you when you found out about this?
Sarah [00:01:08] We had just woken up in our hotel room in Sapporo, Japan. And it's so weird with the time difference. We wake up at the end of the day in the United States. And so, then our morning is kind of consumed for a couple of hours with what's going on in the United States. And it's been that way since we've been here, because we've been so consumed with the news about Joe Biden's candidacy. So, it's like every morning we sort of get the afternoon news and the evening news, and then we have a break all day long when people are asleep. And sort of by the end of the day, sometimes I can get the early morning emails going out the next morning. And so, we got up-- and I think it happened after we woken up because people started texting me. Somebody says that there's been shots fired at the Trump rally. Then it was maybe he's been hit. There was blood. And so, then we just get the steady stream of information. It sort of consumed our whole day, even as everybody else in the United States had gone to sleep. Because it had happened on Saturday afternoon in the United States, but we were waking up on Sunday morning and hearing the news. What about you?
Beth [00:02:24] We had gotten on a flight to Boston Saturday in the late afternoon, and when we landed, I was still consumed in the cozy mystery I was reading on the plane, and Chad looked me and said, "Trump's been shot." And I said, "You've got to be kidding." And so, he passes me his phone, and then I get my phone hooked up. And so, the whole time we're at the Boston airport waiting for our flight to London, I'm texting with you, I'm texting with friends, I'm watching what's going on and trying to get a handle on things. And then we flew overnight, obviously, from Boston to London and got here around ten in the morning. And so, most of yesterday for us was, like, get from the airport to the city, get our bags checked, that kind of thing. It wasn't until we really sat down for lunch and there's this giant screen at the BBC just constantly-- it's was this Trump coverage the whole time. And that's when it sort of sunk in for me for the first time.
BBC (clip) [00:03:20] And we are hearing reports that shots have been fired at this President Trump rally. Now, this is taking place in Pennsylvania. And we understand that the former president has just been bundled into one of those cars. Of course, all former presidents have a massive Secret Service detail with them at all times. You can see there lots of...
[00:03:46] Music Interlude
Sarah [00:03:55] I don't know if it's still sunk in for me. It is such an insane sequence of events that the shooter was able to get so close that Donald Trump turning his head a millimeter to look at a screen, took us from him being murdered in front of everyone to having his ear shot. That's the part I cannot wrap my head around. I cannot get a hold of. It seems so surreal. The photos, the images, the idea that this has happened. Even though we've been living for almost 10 years with him on the political scene and the way that he speaks so aggressively in the way that we've had this sort of normalized political violence, I would say, beginning with the shooting of Gabby Giffords, the shooting of Steve Scalise, just the tenfold increase in threats towards elected officials; even all of that I always liken it to the little scrolling bars that you see in restaurants that are, like, "scroll the special" just on like a little loop. That's what my brain is doing. Just every once in a while, my brain will be like, oh, remember, Donald Trump turned his head and got shot in the ear instead of being killed at a rally. It's still so surreal. I'm still so deeply in shock about the whole thing.
Beth [00:05:36] Yeah, my first reaction was just to feel physically sick. I have kind of maintained this low-level nausea about it since I learned about it, because it does land in a way that nothing has landed. I mean, we really have not seen a presidential assassination attempt in our lifetimes. And something that I frequently comfort myself with is that this isn't the 1960s. Political leaders are not being killed right and left. And then when I put the context together, I realized, well, Gretchen Whitmer might have something to say about that. Gabby Giffords and Steve Scalise. There has been a lot of violence. I guess it's all been isolated enough that I have felt free to compartmentalize it. This does feel like such an escalation and leave me wondering, like, is it safe to go to the Democratic National Convention when we get back? Is it safe for them to have the Republican National Convention next week? Even though all indications so far are that this shooter acted alone, it doesn't feel like things like this ever happen alone.
Sarah [00:06:41] Well, I think one of the big differences-- and I think that's why you hear so much conversation-- is this is an assassination attempt. This is political violence in the presence of the Secret Service, which I think all of us have an enormous amount of trust for-- or we did, maybe until yesterday. I don't have any conscious memory of the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. It's so long ago and the last time we saw any sort of breach of this institution, these men and women who we believe protect the highest office holders. So, I think that's part of it. I think part of it is this idea that this happened with the Secret Service on the scene.
[00:07:30] But this also reminds me of January 6th, where when I lived in DC, we would say nothing will happen to the Capitol because you have the overlapping of the Capitol Police and the DC police and often the Secret Service. And so, I think we rightfully still have a lot of trust in these professionals, but they're still human beings. But I think because it's been so long, in particular, the Secret Service has sort of taken on this almost mythic position. And so, to have it be breached, that's why you immediately get so many conspiracy theories because I think we tell ourselves that nobody gets past the Secret Service, that that's not possible anymore. But clearly that's not true.
Beth [00:08:11] Yeah. I still have enormous respect for the Secret Service. The one conversation with my kids I've really had about this, because we kept seeing the images during lunch, was that look at how it's the job of these people to put their bodies between danger and Donald Trump. And that's because of how special the office of the president is. That's because of how much we value elections and the ability of anybody to run. And they don't get to think about their families right now. They only have to think about this person in the office he's seeking. And when you talk to your kids about something like that, it just I think resonates in a new way for you.
[00:08:50] And so, we'll find out what happened. I know congressional Republicans are already demanding investigations, and President Biden has asked for an independent review here. I'm sure that we'll learn more about how this was able to happen. But I'm kind of like you; I try to remember that no system is failsafe when someone wishes to do enough harm. We do our best to prevent things, but someone intent on doing harm will find a way.
Sarah [00:09:19] Well, and I also don't want to go any further with talking about the attempted assassination and the work of the Secret Service without-- especially in reference to someone putting their body between someone they love in danger without referencing the person who was killed at the rally. I saw a little bit of Governor Shapiro's press conference where he talked about this man. I believe he's a firefighter, and he was trying to protect his own family and was killed. I believe there were two other people injured.
[00:09:48] It was just a really terrifying scene and moment where this violence plays out not just in video, but in these images that we're seeing everywhere. Already iconic image of Trump with his fist raised as the Secret Service force pulling him off the stage. And, of course, the image from the New York Times photographer of the bullet literally whizzing behind his head. That's so interesting in this time where video just consumes everything, that it's two still photographs that seem to be perfectly capturing this terrifying thing that happened.
Beth [00:10:30] I guess it's because of time and distance I feel like I'm processing all of this behind everyone. And it has bothered me to see reference after reference of I'm getting to see all of this analysis. Well, this is the iconic image- already iconic. I mean, this is going to be the defining image of the presidential race. And I'm just kind of, like, what are we doing? I understand that Trump, Biden, everyone who seeks the presidency functions more as a symbol than as an individual. And so, whatever you project onto that symbol will drastically impact how you see what's happened here. But when I'm just trying to get the facts, and almost every story I've read has had this now iconic image, I think, what are we doing, guys? I don't know. It has really felt strange to me.
Sarah [00:11:27] There is no pause. There is no ability to process the information outside of the emotional reaction. And I don't know if that's a reasonable expectation. This is such a horrific event. This is such an emotional moment for lots of reasons that I think getting the facts separately-- I did have respect for President Biden saying, "I have opinions, but I don't have facts yet, so I'm not going to talk," in the very beginning. And there were, of course, people on Twitter saying you don't have to tweet, you don't have to say anything. You don't have to react. It's not necessary. We can just wait because the emotions on all sides of the emotional spectrum are going to be so intense.
[00:12:17] Social media it doesn't allow for any space. Even as I was thinking, I'm not going to post anything, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't checking to see what other people are posting. Because it's this desperate need to not be alone in the moment and try to process this by yourself. It's not a great trick of our brains I think that tell us doing something is doing something. Checking the internet is doing something, but it's really not. But it's just such a hard urge to resist I think in those scary moments where you can feel the winds shifting and you just don't know what it means yet.
Beth [00:12:54] I don't know that we are going to know what it means for a long time, because there's so much that's unknown still, and there's so many decisions to make. I think the other thing that's kind of bugged me in watching this from afar and behind, it's how much people are like, well, now this means this for the presidential race. This is going to be great for him. This is going to change the RNC. This is going to stop the push to replace President Biden on the ticket. I'm like, well, I don't know. I just need a minute to think through what has just happened. And you're right, it is totally understandable to collectively want to gather around after an event like this.
[00:13:36] I think another reason this has felt really hard to me is that we just had a mass shooting very, very close to my house right across the street from one of my friends. And on the heels of that, in my neighborhood, two 71-year-olds are dead and it's being investigated as a murder suicide. And watching our community kind of deal with those two events together, and then moving into the community being so much bigger around this incident has kind of helped me deal with the variety of ways people are coping here, but also made me kind of want to retreat just to my friend groups to process it because it's so stark. The difference between something happening to ordinary citizens versus someone like Donald Trump.
Sarah [00:14:29] I think it was hard is I couldn't even retreat to my own friend groups. I think everywhere I went there was some really, really intense upsetting, frustrating reactions. Because what's impossibly hard about this, is that you have violence against someone who has normalized violence. And that is such an incredibly difficult thing to sit with. I read Melania Trump's statement where she said, "People don't see my husband, they see a political machine." And I thought, she's right. And then I thought, and he's partially responsible for that. I think that's what's so incredibly difficult, is if you want to hold on to who you are, if you want to be a person who doesn't want violence, who doesn't believe in violence as a solution, then you're doing some really psychological, spiritual, emotional, philosophical work to hold that position when violence comes in, knocked on the door of someone who has fomented it at every opportunity. It's so incredibly hard.
Beth [00:16:10] I've been thinking about the word normalize a lot over the past 24 hours, and realizing that I don't know what that means anymore. Because I think with the whiplash of the last 10 years going from the Trump presidency to the Biden presidency with January 6th, with what happened to Paul Pelosi, with the way that some politicians are speaking about this right now, I would say the majority, the condemnations of political violence in any form, versus a few people who are just like, well, this is President Biden's fault or whatever. I don't know. I think it's all normalized now. I think everything in American life is in some space normal to someone.
Sarah [00:16:56] Yeah.
Beth [00:16:57] So, then there are calls for unity. And I think, well, if everything is normalized, what does a call for unity mean? I don't think a call for unity means let's cease having a real contest going into November. I don't think it means you can't say Donald Trump in a way that is unique in my lifetime, speaks about even regular people who don't support him as less than human. I can recognize that he is still a person. He is still that person that Melania wrote about. And I thought her statement was really, really interesting. I'm going to read it several more times. But I can recognize him as that person, but then also say, but yeah, the political machine of Donald Trump, I still think should not be the president again. And everyone should work hard against that outcome. So, what does unity mean when this great spectrum has become normal in our very big, diverse, pluralistic nation?
Sarah [00:18:02] I reached out to a friend of mine who I know to be a longtime supporter of Donald Trump. The tweet actually mentioned that she listened to our show about Joe Biden, because this is all taking place in this other completely unprecedented moment where a large proportion of the party is calling for their nominee to step aside. We went from the strongman election to the intense convicted felon call to step aside, terrible debate, attempted assassination in what feels like about two weeks. And she said I listened to your show about Biden. I thought your criticism was really fair. So, I reached out to her when this happened, said, hey, this was really scary, and I wanted to reach out to you and say, like, because you would reach out to me and say I don't want terrible, awful political violence to happen to Donald Trump. And I'm glad he's okay. And I hope that this will get our attention to a certain extent and we can start to have a contest of ideas again instead of identities.
[00:19:10] And she kind of answered and she gave me this list of issues. But it was such a fascinating list, some of which I didn't agree with, some of them I did. She mentioned the child tax credit. I said, that's a great thing. I can absolutely agree with you on that. I would love to see the child tax credit come back. And I just said, looking at the saddest things I read was a tweet that said, this shooter is 20. That means Donald Trump came to the [inaudible] when he was 11. He only existed inside this current political environment. He didn't know any different. And I thought, I can't do this for another decade. I love our work here. But this is not working. The way we are talking to and about each other, it's just-- in particular if you don't want Donald Trump to be president, because I don't. I don't want Donald Trump to be president again. I think his policies are abhorrent and harmful.
[00:20:10] But this idea that we are going to shame or force through power or political violence or whatever and get on the same side, I can't see our way through this anymore. And I don't want to do it. I don't w ant to do this "They're monsters. They're terrible. The Republican Party wants to harm America. This is the most important election of our lifetime." How far does this need to go before we realize it's not working? I guess, led by the Holy Spirit, I picked up Amanda Ripley's High Conflict, a book so many of you had recommended to me, and I read it on the flight here because I had 13 hours, so plenty of time. And it's an excellent book. It's an excellent, excellent book. I read it. And I had Joe Biden in my mind as I read all these portions about you can't shame someone, you can't humiliate someone, you can't exclude someone into agreeing with you. It makes people double down as I was watching Joe Biden do this in real time.
[00:21:14] But it's absolutely relevant to what we're talking about now. It feels like she uses the example of this man who's a reformed gang member. And that's what this feels like, feels like a gang war. What are we doing? What are we doing? Even if the only thing you care about, if you think that Donald Trump is an existential threat to this country, is anything we're doing to get him out of office or to prevent him from winning this next election working? Is excluding our family members, is shaming people on social media is humiliating our rivals, is it working? Doesn't feel like to me that it is. She talks a lot about when we're in these binaries, the people who don't fit in the binary just step away because everything is in a binary. And that's how we get to this point.
[00:22:14] We have a life and decide about people who don't pay attention because we forced them into that position. Because they don't want to be either Donald Trump is a fascist or Democrats want to destroy America. They don't think either of those positions are correct. They don't reflect their reality. And so, we're just in this, like, toxic mess to the point where we're watching an attempted assassination live on CNN, and then swimming through your preferred conspiracy theory five minutes later on social media.
Beth [00:22:52] I'm worried about how any external event now, whether it is a bad debate performance by Joe Biden or a fall down the stairs or whatever, or something as heinous as a person shooting into a crowd of people-- that's the other thing I keep thinking about. Someone shot from a roof into a crowd of people. Putting everything aside, someone shot from a roof into a crowd of people and Corey Comperatore is dead, two other men are injured, and Donald Trump was almost shot in front of people on television. Whatever we feel about anything else, that is horrible. And yes, we live in a country where shootings happen all the time. That is horrible. We should still be horrified. We should have fresh new horror every time it happens. And I know it's hard to sustain that, but this is a terrible thing.
[00:23:51] To get back to the sentence I was trying to complete, I am concerned that every external event is immediately put through a hall of mirrors that we are so susceptible to. Not even outside actors now, just here in America everyone immediately saying, well, what's the most complex version of what could have happened here instead of what is the simplest? When I heard that a 20-year-old man did this, I just thought, probably this is just like what happened with Paul Pelosi. You have somebody who's listened to too much and has filtered it through their own brain and all of its idiosyncrasies, and whatever chemical reactions happened there happened, and this is the result. And it's so sad and so frustrating. And yes, we can talk policy in relation to it. How did he get this gun? Why do we have any AR 15 so widely available?
[00:24:51] We can talk process. How was he able to be this close to the president? What happened with the Secret Service? And fundamentally, I think we have to remember when we're saying things like Donald Trump is an existential threat, everybody hears it and everybody processes that through the idiosyncrasies of their own brains in ways that we are conscious and unconscious of. And I know that no one really appreciates being told that rhetoric is at fault here. I know that no one wants to hear about civility or the language that we use. I mean, we've gotten that critique a lot in our work. Well, I have a hard time talking about language when substantively X, Y, and Z. Fair enough, but language is what everybody hears. The people who are not dialed all the way into the issues, and people who are so dialed in that it's become a sickness.
[00:25:47] And so, that's another thing that's really on my mind. How do you, going into this election, vigorously make the case to the American people that four more years of Donald Trump's leadership will likely escalate incidents like this rather than pull them back, but do it in a way where you still say, hey, he's still a person and he is still a person who matters a lot to a lot of people, and they are still people, and they don't count less than anybody else. It's hard. But I'm glad to see so many people seeming to ask that question. I thought Governor Shapiro in particular has been excellent in the way he's spoken about all of this.
Governor Josh Shapiro (clip) [00:26:31] We lost a fellow Pennsylvanian last night. Corey Comperatore. I just spoke to Corey's wife and Corey's two daughters. Corey was a girl dad. Corey was a firefighter. Corey went to church every Sunday. Corey loved his community. And most especially Corey loved his family. Corey was an avid supporter of the former president, and was so excited to be there last night with him in the community. I asked Corey's wife if it would be okay for me to share that we spoke. She said yes. She also asked that I share with all of you that Corey died a hero, that Corey dove on his family to protect them last night at this rally. Corey was the very best of us. May his memory be a blessing.
[00:27:38] Music Interlude.
Sarah [00:27:47] Yeah, I've really been struggling with this. I've been thinking about this for a while. I've been thinking that the approach to politics that is driven by I'm a good and right and righteous person, and you are a terrible person, again, it's just not getting us the outcomes we want. I read a really great piece about liberalism, that for thousands of years it was just are you in the in-group or are you in the outgroup? And violence will solve that problem. Be it the reformation or all the land wars across Europe over religion. And then you get the enlightenment where we say, no, we're going to have a contest of ideas. That's how we're going to solve things. Who has the better idea? And he was just talking about liberal democracies have a good track record. It's not a perfect one. We haven't reached Utopia. But there's a reason people like Putin at least fake an election, right?
[00:28:57] They pretend to have an election. You have very few monarchies left [inaudible] the only monarchies left are like little tourist attractions, because that's how powerful that idea is. The idea that we don't solve our problems through violence based on what group we're in. That's why you hear all these statements over and over and over again. We do not solve our problems through violence. We solve them at the ballot box. And I just think we've forgotten that this exercise at the ballot box is a game of persuasion, and you do not persuade people by shaming them. You do not persuade people by excluding them. You do not persuade people by calling them evil. I'm really, really worried about this martyrdom, this messianic language coming from Trump himself and the imagery that I've seen flooding Facebook is very, very concerning to me. But that's two sides of the same coin. He gets to be an angel if we call him a devil. That energy is related. That push and pull. You're the worst. No, he's the best. You're the worst.
[00:30:17] What happens if we say, no, he's not the worst. We just think his ideas are bad. We think the tariffs will harm the economy. We think further restricting abortion will put women at greater and greater risk. We think that America first puts America in danger. We think we need immigration reform, but not a closed border. I don't want to be in this [inaudible]. That's what's been so upsetting to me about the conversation around Joe Biden. To hear Democrats just say, well, there's nothing we can do about it. We're just stuck in this. We're going to lose this election. It's another Trump term. And this is it. Like this sort of fait accompli. Griffin has been so upset by this turn of events, as we all have, and been really consumed by the Democratic Party and what it's going to do. And I said, the only thing I can tell you is nobody wins an election in July. The election is in November.
[00:31:21] I told you at the beginning of the summer when he got convicted, I told you when we started having this conversation about Joe Biden, the only thing I can promise you is that everything will not be the same right now. That's the only thing I know for sure. Something else will happen. Lord, I hope we don't stay on this same pace of change, this same pace of events, but things will change. Things will challenge us. And I'm just desperately trying to find a path for it, a path to a different way, a different way of reacting. And I'm not an elected official. Rhetoric is about all I've got. Rhetoric and organizing. I read a really great Twitter thread that the difference between peace keeping and peacemaking. And I do want to be a peacemaker. I don't want to just sustain the status quo. I want to improve things. And I'm just trying to think about what that means.
Beth [00:32:20] I really appreciate what you said about Trump as the devil and Trump as an angel, or as Jesus's second coming whatever are two sides of the same coin. I think that's exactly right. Going back to liberalism and the enlightenment and persuasion, I think what I see right now is that we left persuasion behind a long time ago and became a marketing culture.
Sarah [00:32:43] Yeah.
Beth [00:32:43] And in the past few years, I think we have left being a marketing culture and it has become mostly about the manipulation of current events. So, a number of people, especially in Congress, are driving less and are reacting more. So, it's like whatever happens, instead of what we make happen, and how do we use what happens to reinforce our narrative? That's what I see in like the Marco Rubio sort of God saved President Trump. Or Lindsey Graham, God isn't finished with President Trump. I mean, I hope that's true as a human being for him and for all of us. But politically, that's not political leadership, that's manipulation of current events. Because leadership is then saying what happens next? That's what's been really difficult in observing the conversation about President Biden. There is a lot of resignation. Well, it happened, it'll probably happen again. But what are we going to do? Well, that's not leadership. You're just looking to manipulate current events.
[00:33:46] And that's why it's so frustrating when President Biden goes out and does an okay interview or an okay press conference for people to say he's doing exactly what he needs to be doing. Well, sure. But you're not contending with all of the facts and you're not driving me anywhere. You're just trying to manipulate what happened today. And so, how do we get then if we can name that. We did marketing and then we did manipulation. And what we want to do is persuasion. And that is categorically different. How do we get to persuasion? And I think it means that like right now, today, both parties have some real decisions to make about where they take this election from here. It does not have to be that, well, this assassination attempt happened, and now there's an iconic image, and we need to pull up a negative advertising. And Joe Biden's going to be the nominee and Trump's going to be the nominee, and Trump's probably going to win. He's going to take the House and the Senate, too. But what are you going to do? Because that empowers the sick people in the world who take arms in these moments. That says that Thomas Crooks has more agency in this election than our political leaders. That can't be it.
Sarah [00:34:59] Now, I think that's 100% correct, because you know what's underneath this that I keep thinking about, too? I saw so many people say, like, we have this violence driven by rhetoric. It is rhetoric that's at the center point. We are not Iran with an economy crippled by sanctions, where people are taking to the streets because they can't feed themselves. We are not Haiti, where there is barely a functioning government. We don't have 30% unemployment among young men. We don't have. That doesn't mean we're perfect. But the idea that people are reacting to circumstances is really not what's going on. People are reacting to rhetoric. Everything feels broken because of the way we talk to each other. Because the truth is the economy is the envy of the world. We have free press. We have freedom of association. We do have free and fair elections.
[00:36:10] Again, don't hear me say we don't have problems. That's not what I'm saying. We still have oppressive systems. We still have massive problems with homelessness and suffering. That's not what I'm saying. But when you look at world populations, when you look at other countries who have real uprisings, people taking to the streets or political violence, we don't have the same issues. What we have is a status quo most people are happy to keep. We've talked about this with January 6th. As awful and terrible as that was, my life didn't change day to day. My kids were still safe. My kids were still fed. My kids still went to school. The status quo that we float along in this country where most people-- not everyone, some people struggle to feed their children. Don't hear me say that I think everything is perfect here. I'm just saying that our status quo is the envy of most of the world most people want to have.
Beth [00:37:15] For most of time.
Sarah [00:37:16] For most of time and for most of the world, our status quo, right? That's because that's why we get on social media. We're not looking to take to the streets and risk anything. We have too much to risk. And so, it is about rhetoric and it is a persuasion. If you still think the status quo has to be improved, then it has to be a contest of ideas. Then it has to be policy. It can't be rhetoric. Rhetoric is not getting us what we want. If you hear everything I say and you're like, oh, the status quo is terrible in America. We have climate change, absolutely true. We have racism. We have horrific rolling back and reproductive rights. Absolutely true. But rhetoric and violence have not, are not and will not improve those situations. It's just not working. It's not working. It's got us to Donald Trump on his way to perhaps the second term under an attempted assassination. And instead of horrifying everyone, it's what strengthening everyone's positions, making everybody double down?
[00:38:22] I cannot do this for another 10 years. That's how long we've been dealing with Donald Trump. He's not going anywhere. I'm just going to have to accept that. I wanted it to be different. I know we all did. We wanted him to go away. We wanted him to lose. We wanted him to go to jail. We wanted him to be quiet. Well guess what? That's not going to happen. It's certainly not going to happen now. And so, I'm just literally racking my brain [ inaudible]. Coming to you, as I often do. Like, I can't. We got to do something different. I can't do this anymore. I cannot let this man live rent free in my head as this devil. Because I don't want him living in people's head as an angel. Again, because I think those are energetically related. And so, I'm just trying to find a way out. I want out.
Beth [00:39:11] Yeah. And as often is the case, out is through. We have to go through this [inaudible]. We have to go through this selection. We have to go through this election with Donald Trump because a lot of people do want him to remain in public life, and they want him to remain in public life in some form for generations because he represents their ideas. And I love a lot of those people, even though I do not understand their attachment to him and some of the ideas that they hold. But that's where we are. And we're going to the Tower of London this morning just kind of hits a certain way when you're thinking about political violence, because you remember that once you start saying everything is justified here, it doesn't end. The only end is who had the most weapons and was willing to use them in the most heinous ways, but the only way it the ends.
[00:40:02] To your point, I don't want to squander America like that. We have so much going for us. I don't want to squander it. It is a waste to let our politics descend into who has the most weapons and is willing to use them. Now, I know immediately there will be a reaction to that sentence that is concentrated around America's foreign policy. And I get how strongly many people object to America's foreign policy. And I share some of those objections. At the same time, I don't want to squander living in a place where get to object to my government that way. And you do, too. But leadership has never been about telling people how fundamentally broken things are. It is about saying, here is what's working and here is what's broken, and here's how we can take what's working and put it in service of repairing those broken things. And honestly, in that vein, you feel really good about the way a lot of people are reacting to that. A lot of people in positions of leadership are not only saying, but also doing good.
[00:41:19] Again, I think about Josh Shapiro. It took a lot for a Democratic governor to not only acknowledge the death of a citizen of his state, but to talk about that citizen in heroic terms when he was in a Trump rally and to reach out to that family and to say, "I asked her permission to speak about the death of her husband to you." There's so much there that is substantively good and right. Yeah. And exemplary of who we want to be. And I think that more people who say, like, I'm just going to take what's happening in the world on its terms and contend with it through my own sense of what is good and right. And sometimes that means isolating variables. It means everything is not about everything. It means this man's death is about this man's death. That encourages me. That makes me feel more hopeful, because I know Josh Shapiro is not the only person who is behaving that way right now, and that's what I want to see more of.
Sarah [00:42:17] Yeah, and high conflict. She talks about avoid fire starters. Like the people who are throwing gas on the flames. That's not the take right now. They are the worst people. They are the ones who don't support gun control. And they don't care when it's a school shooting. I can write all the comments. They had a similar threat, which is they are terrible. They deserve no humanization or empathy, period. And I will not be that person. I will not be that person. I will not. And I will cling to people who choose a different way, and I will do my best to follow them and lead when I can and find with curiosity and empathy places of connection with my fellow citizens. That's what I want. I want to feel that I live in connection with my fellow citizens. Not total agreement. Just connection. Traveling in a moment like this is both surreal and a blessing. I'm in Japan. One of their former prime ministers was assassinated, Shinzo Abe. Like that happened here.
Beth [00:43:30] Recently. Yeah.
Sarah [00:43:31] I'm walking the streets [inaudible]. Recently. There's been a lot of attempted assassination. That's the other thing I think often happens to us in the news event. It becomes all consuming. You can't see past your own history. You can see the other experiences around the world. This has happened recently in other countries, because they are also under the influence of social media where it is easy to go on and say us-them. They're the worst. They're the risk. I'm the safe place. I'm the good person. And I get that reaction. It is a completely human reaction. And what I hear every time in those comment threads is, I'm afraid. I'm afraid. I'm afraid. It's like this refrain, it's just a river of fear and anxiety because the world is a chaotic place. It is a chaotic place where you turn your head to look at a screen and your ear gets shot instead of your brain. It's chaotic. It's a chaotic place. It's a scary thing to remember and to be reminded how chaos reigns and how a simple, simple thing can change everything.
[00:44:45] And I was reading about a woman in DC. I saw that [inaudible] Buttigieg had posted about this woman, and I looked up her story and she's walking through the park and a tree branch fell on and killed her. And I know that's so scary to think about. And so, we want to wrestle control. We want to say if we were in charge, if our people were in charge, if these terrible, awful, evil people were gone, then I would feel safe and chaos would not reign. But that's not true. That's not true. And it's a terrible reality. I hate it. Believe me, as a recipient of the chaos lottery myself in my life, I wish it was different. But if I could wave a magic wand and remove every Trump voter, that wouldn't change anything.
[00:45:33] Or if I could just change their minds, I could just make everybody vote Democratic until the end of time, it wouldn't change the reality that chaos would still reign and terrible things would still happen, and we wouldn't have all the solutions and things would still be hard, and foreign policy would still be problematic, and there would be policies I hated, and there would still be suffering, and people would still struggle to feed their children. I know that sounds existential, but in a way, it makes me feel, if not hopeful, at least like I'm standing on a steady foundation. I have to accept what I'm facing instead of trying to numb myself in a stream of self-righteousness that tells me there's something better out there. If I could just get to it, if I could just get rid of some people, or change some people's minds, or win the Civil War, then everything would be better. But that's not how it works. That's not how it works.
Beth [00:46:35] When we were in an airport bathroom yesterday, my nine-year-old Ellen, saw one of the posters about human trafficking. And I think it's great that they have those in airports. I also did not wish to parent through that moment at the beginning of our vacation. And Ellen asked me about it, and you could tell that she also did not want to have like a deep conversation, but she was curious. And what do you say about human trafficking to a nine-year-old in the airport on the first day of vacation? So, I said, "Ellen, can we talk about this another time? But fundamentally, human trafficking is a thing that happens when one person decides they are more of a person than other people."
[00:47:14] And that was good enough for her in the moment. And it's something that I kind of heard myself say and then I keep rolling it around in my mind, because I think that's the essence of a lot of what we talk about politically. Most of our non-chaos lottery problems happen because one person thinks they're more of a person of another people. We will still have horrific, uncontrollable, chaotic events in our lives no matter what we do. And what we do really matters because we can make those things easier to endure, or we can make them much harder. We can manipulate them to hurt other people, to take more of our personness over theirs, or we can use them as moments to sit back and say, well, we really all are here just having human experiences together trying to get through to this.
Sarah [00:48:10] I hear myself say, let's talk about ideas, let's talk about policy. And I have also been alive for the last 10 years and realize how incredibly difficult that is to do when it comes to Donald Trump and JD Vance and Matt Gates and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert. I can name the full cast of characters that make that feel completely impossible. And yet I don't know another way. I don't want to go back to human history when we chose other ways. To when we were talking about this in our car. And Nicholas said, well, I'm just so tired of taking the high road. Why do we always have to be the ones to take the high road? And I'm like, well, yeah, isn't that always true?
[00:48:59] Doesn't it always feel like you're the only one taking the high road. That's true of what parenting feels like to me. Feels like I'm the only one ever taking the high road. If you're taking the high road, you're going to feel that way. That's just built into the experience. If you're living by your values that say, I don't dehumanize, I don't treat people as less than, I'm not more human than another human, it's always going to hurt. It's always going to hurt. It's always going to suck. It's always going to be painful. That's the entire point. That's the entire process.
Beth [00:49:32] I think deciding that I'm not more of a person than anybody else means that as soon as I make that list of people who make it hard for me, I have to remember that someone else, someone just like me, probably in a bunch of respects, has their own list, including names of people who I really admire. That's just where we are. We see a lot of things really differently, and we are all hearing a swirl that reinforces the way we feel about that. And when we get out of that swirl that reinforces it, what we see from someone on the other side is so dramatic, so overheated; that instead of persuading us, it just makes us want to go back to our swirl with even more conviction. And so, that's why to me I appreciate everyone who's using the phrase lower the temperature, even though so many people are that it almost feels cliche and overdone already. But I do think that's right.
[00:50:31] I think it's right to just say, like, you can understand that the stakes of any presidential election are very real and very high; and at the same time acknowledge we've done this before, we'll do it again and we just keep going. When I've talked about the Supreme Court, I've tried not to have a posture of desperation coming out of this term because while I disagree strongly with much of what the court did this term, I also watched them undo what has been done before, which tells me that it can be undone again. We can change our mind again. There's another day. There's going to be another court. Things will matter. And yes, there will be consequences in the meantime and they will be awful. Even if we were doing exactly what we thought were right every time, there could be some awful consequences of it, though.
[00:51:17] That's just the reality of not being omniscient and all-knowing people. We just have to keep doing what we think is best and holding on to the fact that other people are doing what they think is best, too. And that doesn't make everything equal. And I'm not trying to give false equivalency. Sometimes I just have to go back to the things that are the most simple and true and clear for us, and put one foot in front of the other and hope that we are making a good contribution. And like, like we've said a million times, that we are putting good stuff in the river.
[00:51:50] Music Interlude
Sarah [00:51:58] So where are you at with this election? And, if he wins, it will be our last election. Because I think that's the problem, right? If you tell people I want to have a contest of ideas, I want to be in the business of persuading my fellow citizens, we get to a point where it becomes we can't do that because it's all or nothing. This is it. This is our last chance. The democracy is over if he wins again. There's no more United States. It's going to be a dictatorship. This complete escalation that I think is part of the reason that he is-- or was at least before this event-- was polling high, because I think it pushes people out of the conversation. The people who do not see him as either an angel or a devil, which I think is millions and millions of Americans, they peace out. They go, okay, forget it.
Beth [00:52:56] I do not want Donald Trump to be the president. I think that if Donald Trump wins the election, he will attempt to seek office again if he is able to. Now, who knows what events intervene? But sitting here today, the best projection that I can make going forward is that I don't think Donald Trump will ever voluntarily relinquish power. And I think that means that our systems will get stress tested again, and we'll have to depend on a whole lot of people to do the right thing. And it will be harder for a whole lot of people to do the right thing, because I think he will surround himself with more people who are inclined to hold on to power with them than not. And yet, I still believe that we will rise to the occasion. We will meet what happens. That's what I think. We will still have agency. There will still be another day. There will still be lots of individuals who surprise us by the good that they do. And there will be people who surprise us by the bad that they do. I think however this election turns out, we probably are headed for some more dark collisions around power because I don't think he will willingly concede this election either.
Sarah [00:54:08] That's it. That's exactly what I was going to say. Like, does it matter? But whether he wins or loses-- if he loses, we're still in the same spot, which is he will not concede. That was the story before the assassination attempt at the head of the New York Times. That they are planning to contest this election, no matter the results.
Beth [00:54:29] Yeah.
Sarah [00:54:29] So the conversation to me is, how do we convince, how do we do the work? How do we organize so that millions of our fellow citizens believe that this election is free and fair, no matter the results. And maybe that's not going to be the work of this election. That's going to be the work of many elections. That's a big lift. And it's going to take great leaders, but it's going to take all of us engaging in ways with people who we currently see as the problem, the enemy, less than, fools, idiots, cult members, MAGA crazy. Whatever the list is, whatever the descriptor in your head, they are voting members of our society. I read a piece in New York Times about this poor Arizona county clerk who they tried to get her to resign. And these were her neighbors that she'd known for decades. She was a Republican, and they just did not believe her that these votes were fair, that they were being counted, that she was doing her job.
[00:55:39] And that's hard work to walk back from that. And I'll be lying to you if I told you I knew what it looked like. But sitting around and waiting for Joe Biden or someone else, or the perfect person to come along and fix this, is not working either. We need leadership. We all need to step up. We need to listen to our fellow citizens. We need to be involved in organizations. We need to pull a Jamie Golden and go be an election worker. It all has to be a part of this. We have to engage instead of excluding each other.
Beth [00:56:23] Well, and I just think we have to reject the idea that there is a universe where everything would be okay if everyone would just do what I think, because we're going to have a problem around this election no matter what happens. Even if Joe Biden is replaced as the Democratic candidate or not, that is the Covid of this election. That is the thing that Trump will be able to say has some conspiracy around it, right? If he's the candidate, Trump will be able to say, you're not even really voting for the person who's going to be the president. You don't even know who the hell that person is. Like, it's that easy. And if Biden is replaced, then that will be the intervening thing.
[00:57:05] There are some circumstances that are just hard calls and they just are what they are. And yes, someone else will make something of them. And I think sometimes the vitriol really is coming from that place of fear in an attempt to control for everything. And just like, oh my God, but it could just be this way. It couldn't just be that way. That way also has a lot of risk. That way also has a lot of risk and a lot of harm attached to it. So, you just have to do what you think is the right thing and go for it knowing that there's going to be another day, we're going to have another opportunity-- or someone will, if not us.
Sarah [00:57:42] Yeah. Well, when I was scanning X, Twitter or whatever you want to call it, when I shouldn't have been, I did find something that brought me enormous comfort. It was from the J.R.R. Tolkien account, and they tweeted an exchange from the Fellowship of the Ring. Brought me enormous comfort, so I thought I'd share it, Beth. It says, "I wish it need not have happened in my time, " said Frodo. "So do I," said Gandalf. "And so do all who lived to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us." Thanks for being here with me, Beth, in this time.
Beth [00:58:32] Thank you. Thanks to our families for tolerating us. Where we're supposed to not be working. Thanks to you all for tolerating this sound quality from a London [inaudible] bathroom. Appreciate it very much.
Sarah [00:58:42] Yes. Thank you to the internet for connecting us from Japan to London to join you all. Thank you for being patient with all of this. Sometimes all we have is together. We'll have a new episode for you on Friday, and until then, keep it nuanced y'all.
[00:58:56] 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.