Tensions Abroad, In the Markets, and Around the Veepstakes

TOPICS DISCUSSED

  • Global Hotspots

    • Bangladesh

    • Venezuelan Elections

    • Riots in the U.K.

    • Escalating Tensions between Israel and Iran

  • Vice President Harris’s Veepstakes

  • J.D. Vance and his comments about “Cat Ladies”

  • Outside of Politics: Sarah and Beth’s Summer Travel

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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.  

[00:00:30] Thank you so much for being here today. We're going to talk a lot about tension today. There's tension in global markets, in conflicts around the world. There's some tension in our presidential race, especially as it pertains to vice presidents. So we're going to discuss everything from the prime minister resigning in Bangladesh to JD Vance's comments about childless cat ladies. And then we will take an exhale at the end of the episode by telling you a little bit about our time away in July.  

Sarah [00:00:57] We know that many of you have taken a break from news and politics, and are now diving back in with us and the rest of America, and we are excited now that everyone is back because we have so much planned for you on our premium channels. Beth has recorded a project 2025 mini-series. We are going to drop all of them next week so you can binge.  

Beth [00:01:19] This week we are going to share episode one of six with you just so you can get acclimated. Get excited, I hope. I have a fun little contest running in the background to see if you can spot some Easter eggs embedded throughout these episodes. Listen, project 2025 is a lot, and I want us to take it in stride. And so, I hope that this series will be fun to listen to and also really illuminating. And then Sarah and I will come back together next week in the main feed to talk about project 2025 with everyone. But if you want to go deep with me, I hope you will do that in the next couple of weeks on our premium channel.  

Sarah [00:01:56] And this binging opportunity will be available to everyone at the $15 level. So that's all our Apple Podcast subscriptions and $15 level on Patreon. We're going to do spicy together this week, but it'll be sort of a truncated premium schedule because of the project 2025 mini-series coming your way. We're also on our premium channels, going to have extensive coverage at the Democratic National Convention. We are going to Chicago. We're going to be there all week. We are very excited. We're going to have a lot of exciting interviews with people and politicians on the ground at the convention. We're going to do some live updates. We'll do the News Brief together. It's going to be all convention, all the time because we're going to be together in Chicago. The week of the DNC, and we're going to do so much of that on our premium channel. So now is a great time to join that community if you want to feel like you're there, at what I think is going to be a big party. It's going to be a big party. So [inaudible] right now. I'm so excited we're going. So we're going to do a ton of DNC coverage on our premium channels.  

Beth [00:02:57] We also have a live event scheduled for August 29th. We call this the Spicy Lives. I think there's going to be a lot to process on August 29th from the past month together in community, and we will continue our slow read of Alexis de Tocqueville's shockingly relevant Democracy in America on August 30th. So a great deal happening on premium. We would love for you to be there with us. Of course, we'll continue to be here in the free feed on Tuesdays and Fridays. Next up, let's talk about what's happening around the world as we're sitting down to record today.  

[00:03:28] Music Interlude.  

[00:03:36] Feels very important to say that we are recording at 11:15 Eastern on Monday, August 5th, as a number of very tense situations are developing across the world. So we wanted to take just a few minutes to talk about this tense situations. They all require hours of background and we aren't going to be able to do that today, but we do want to sort of hit the highlights so that we can all be conversant about what's unfolding and think about how that affects us here in the United States.  

Sarah [00:04:06] It just feels like, Beth, to me that it went from our presidential election being the absolute top story everywhere to now like it's dying down and the world is exerting its pressure points again. That's what it felt like to me. I feel like I woke up this morning was like, whoa, everything is boiling over everywhere.  

Beth [00:04:27] I'm having a hard time calibrating because in some senses it feels like everything's always boiling over everywhere, especially when I engage more with global news. There's always a lot. I think that juxtaposed with the presidential race in the United States and the frenetic pace that our race is running here, it feels even more intense. But all of this has been developing for some time. You have been following on Good Morning, that you make for our premium channels, the conflict surrounding the Bangladeshi prime minister for some time. So you want to tell us a little bit of the backstory there as we awaken today to news that she has resigned and fled the country?  

Sarah [00:05:11] Yeah, that's what I was going to say. The former prime minister. Well, I read the story in one of the Sunday Times, and I thought it was so fascinating because the Prime Minister of Bangladesh or former Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, has been in power for 15 years. So she is the daughter of one of Bangladesh's most prominent independence leaders when they broke away from Pakistan back in the 70s, okay? He was killed in a military coup and much of her family was massacred four years later. Okay, and here's where it gets kind of wild. So the leader of the BNP, the opposition party there-- now, she's very ill. I think her son is mostly taken over. But the leader, her name is Khaleda Zia, was married to the army chief who led this coup and the massacre of Hasina's family. So you have these two ladies in their 70s sort of violently battling it out with each other.  

[00:06:14] But much of the protest around Hasina, some of it has been about an end to this sort of quota system in government jobs, youth wanting opportunity. A lot of what you see is a thread through a lot of protests around the world. But some of it was that she was violently oppressing the opposition, jailing their leaders. Zia, the woman who was married to the military general and is the leader of the opposition party, has been on house arrest. She was really ill. They wouldn't let her out the country. But it's just not a demo you typically see battling it out in the country- 70-year-old ladies in these sort of authoritarian, violently oppressive roles. And so, when I saw this headline pop up this morning that she'd been forced out-- she's been in power for 15 years-- I thought it was really a pretty dramatic development of something that's been building for years and years and years.  

Beth [00:07:01] And it's wild when you read about her, she began as kind of a pro-democracy icon. She built the economy up. She improved the health care system, and then over time, the price of all of that became more evident. It reminded me a little bit of our conversations about President Lopez Obrador in Mexico and how a lot gets done, but sometimes there's a cost to that. It's an erosion of the kinds of democratic values that we really hold dear here in the United States.  

Sarah [00:07:31] Well, listen, there's not a disconnect between what's happened in Venezuela. President Nicolas Maduro came in with big promises too. Promising a lot of things and then violently oppressing the opposition. I was so, so hopeful about the recent presidential elections there, that huge voter turnout. I don't know if you saw some of the pictures. I mean, the streets were just flooded with people in line to vote. You know what I was following? I was following France. I was following Britain. I was falling some other places. And the way Modi got kind of taken down a notch or two in India, I thought, okay, this is Venezuela's moment. I'm really, really rooting for Venezuela. And, look, I think Venezuela got it right. I think they voted for the opposition leader Mercado. I just think that following what we just said about Bangladesh, Maduro wasn't going to stand for it. I mean, the U.S. now has officially considered the results fraudulent because Maduro came out and said, I won. And everyone was like, no, you didn't. And now we have protests and violent crackdowns there, too.  

Beth [00:08:29] There's been this read of the world, and especially the elections that have taken place this year, that extremism is being rejected. But extremism takes a lot of forms. And even when it's rejected at the ballot box, that doesn't mean that it's over. And you see that in the UK right now where you had for the first time in many years the Labor Party win elections. We have a new prime minister, Keir Starmer, and he is in emergency meetings as we're recording about some of the worst civic unrest the UK has seen in a very long time.  

Sarah [00:09:04] Yeah, they've had a couple of violent knife attacks. They had one in the last few days where three little girls were killed. It's a terrible story. They were at a Taylor Swift dance workshop-- just really, truly terrible. Well, it was a 17-year-old who the judge said couldn't be legally named. Well, when there's a vacuum of information, there are lots of players willing to fill that vacuum. And so, you have all these far right groups spreading misinformation using AI generated images. And this is very similar to what happened in Dublin last year. Some young children were attacked, rumors spread that it was an immigrant, a Muslim immigrant. And you have these violent mobs, often they've been drinking, attacking mosques. This time they've attacked accommodations where they know asylum seekers are being held. And it's terrible. It's been very violent, very dangerous.  

[00:09:54] And I just feel so terrible for the people of Dunblane, this town where these poor little girls were murdered. And then they get traumatized all over again. Because one of the mothers of the victims is like, stop, what are you doing? This isn't about my little girl. It's just this second wave of trauma where they have to watch this violence spread based on misinformation around their children's deaths. I think a lot about Sandy Hook, and it's like we're in this place where if children are harmed, it's such a hard thing for people to contemplate that in our environment it immediately became something different. Some people just can't contemplate that the chaos of the world sweeps up children just like it sweeps up the rest of us from time to time. And so, they just create these stories, and these players are there to pounce on this terrible moment where everybody's like how could this happen? And they're like, well, let me tell you how it could happen. It's so gross.  

Beth [00:10:52] We were watching the Olympics last night, and the commercial came on about an illegal murderer in Ohio. And it went on and on showing pictures of this man, naming him, talking about the crimes he had committed. And I was like, what is this? It turned out to be an ad from a political action group against Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown.  

Sarah [00:11:18] Oh, my God.  

Beth [00:11:19] It was probably the worst political ad I've ever seen, though. So malicious, so personal, so inflammatory. And as we were watching it, I kept thinking about how you and I did this interview last week at the Holocaust and Humanity Center here in Cincinnati. And across from my sightline was a quote on the wall that said something like, the Holocaust did not start with bullets, it started with words. And I'm watching this commercial thinking, this is dangerous stuff right here. And then to wake up this morning and watch people storming a Holiday Inn because asylum seekers are staying there, this is how it starts. This is terrible.  

Sarah [00:12:04] You know what it is, too? It's the paradox of in an effort "avenge" these children, you completely and totally dehumanize them. That's what I feel every time they pick one of these people who was actually murdered by an immigrant here illegally. You just feel the dehumanization of that victim the second you take their death and put it in a political ad. You're dehumanizing everyone because you're using it. That use of it. At the Holocaust Museum, we talked about this during our interview at the center. We talked about Irwin Hurley. We won the Irwin Hurley Award for perspective. He was a liberator. And he talks about like being at Dachau, worrying about German youth.  

[00:12:56] And I had just gotten back from Hiroshima, where people wanted an easy villain, and America surely provides it if you're Japanese. And the memorializers were like, no, we're not going to do that because this is all of humanity's to hold. And it's like the second you do that, you stop saying, this is for all of us to hold. The death of these little girls is for everyone to hold. And then you just say, no, it's a weapon I'm going to use. And then all the humanity of everyone involved just disintegrates right in front of your eyes. That's what it feels like when you're watching these moments in the UK.  

Beth [00:13:30] I so hope that they can find a path forward here that calms this violence, because what we see also across the world is that once the violence begins, it doesn't stop. It just spirals. And that is a real concern right now given that Iran's supreme leader is signaling interest in directly attacking Israel, that there has been engagement between Hezbollah and the IDF. The situation around Israel's efforts to eradicate Hamas already had such a high human toll in Gaza and continues to. And now it is just fanning out, all in the wake of that October 7th terrorist attack. Once the violence starts, it just keeps rippling outward.  

Sarah [00:14:23] Yeah. As we're recording, Secretary of State Blinken had warned our allies that attacks could begin today, Monday, following the assassination of two Hamas political leaders. The rhetoric about that online has been so heated. It's finding its way into lots of other political conversations, not surprisingly, as this conflict has from the beginning. We're going to talk about that in a minute, I'm sure. My desperate hope is that Iran despite feeling that they have to do something, that this will be like previous moments over the past several months where they have calibrated it carefully so that everybody knows it's coming. We can say they did what they had to do, but the damage was minimum.  

[00:15:13] This doesn't feel quite like that moment before, but it's feels like that's like the best we can hope for. It's just highly calibrated violence and not an end to violence, even though there was discussions of a ceasefire. We were getting close. It felt like it was on the table. Everybody was saying, President Biden was saying the cease fire is within reach, and then these two assassinations happened. Benjamin Netanyahu comes to the United States, and I stopped hearing anything about the cease fire negotiations anymore.  

Beth [00:15:43] I hope that they remain ongoing and we just aren't hearing about it. Sometimes the best work is done when the spotlight is turned elsewhere. And I truly, truly hope that's what's going on here.  

Sarah [00:15:54] Speaking of highly calibrated negotiations that we don't hear a lot about, did you hear Joe Biden's exchange about the hostages where somebody said, "Well, what about so-and-so? Aren't you going to do anything about that?" And he was like, "You want me to tell you publicly so they won't agree to that either?"  

Beth [00:16:08] Yes.  

Sarah [00:16:09] I thought that back and forth was so good because this was going on the whole time. I will say the tweets that were like Joe Biden was writing his resignation letter and still taking calls about this hostage deal at the same time, I had to take a minute. I had to take a minute and give the man his due because this was highly, highly calibrated and negotiated and incredible and just the amount of people, much less countries that were involved in this hostage deal that freed Paul Whelan and Evan Gershkovic- incredible. Absolutely incredible.  

Beth [00:16:39] I think that the negotiations around those hostages are so fascinating to dig into because they illustrate the number of interests at work for every country.  

Sarah [00:16:53] Yeah.  

Beth [00:16:54] And they are complex, and some of them are irrational. I've heard many experts on Russia saying really hard to understand what motivated Putin around some of the folks that were exchanged in this deal, especially around the key Russian who's a murderer, who seems to be the person that Putin cared the most about. Really hard to understand why this is so important to him. Just as American politics has hinged on the psychology of President Biden for much of the presidential race. So much of what goes on around the world hinges on the psychology of the individuals leading those efforts.  

[00:17:36] And all of that collides with the economic realities that everyone is living. We haven't touched this so far, but you really can't talk about Bangladesh and Venezuela especially, but also about immigration in the UK without talking about the economy. Inflation has played a role in these tensions escalating, as has a sense of the economic vibes. Am I able to get a job? Does that job pay enough? How am I feeling about things? And that's the other major story as we're recording this morning, that the stock market is spooked because of a labor report, and the American economy being spooked adds to a spook globally.  

Sarah [00:18:22] Yes. The Japanese stock market suffered its biggest single day drop since 1987. The European markets followed. The overall vibe is that this jobs market is a red flag in the face of many yellow flags we were ignoring. Because we had about decided we were going to make that soft landing, and everybody was like, we did it. We made the soft landing. Good job Jerome Powell. And now it's like, oh, my God, Jerome Powell is the worst. He should have dropped interest rates weeks or months ago. He missed his moment. Now we're going to crash land. We're going to have a recession. I know this is going to sound like an emotional analysis, but I have to say, Beth, I think the overarching thing I keep thinking about with all these-- and not just because we keep using the metaphor of boiling points-- is the heat. I don't think it's relevant in the market, too.  

[00:19:07] It's just hot. People don't make rational decisions in the summer, especially one of the hottest summers on record. People are out there protesting in this heat. They're trying to vote in this heat. They're turning violent in this heat. They're getting attacked in the heat. There's not enough water in places. And I think this sort of driving sense of panic is fed by the heat. And I know that sounds silly; although, I hope it doesn't. I hope we have enough evidence at this point to understand it really does psychologically weigh on people and play with people. And when I look at this long list of thine just talked about, I just think it's just hot. The heat's got to break. But I also think it's just going to play out a lot in our presidential race. I think we went from this place where it's like, oh my God, we got relief, the vibes are so good, here we are. To "Oh, yeah, there's a lot at play. There's a lot to negotiate." The presidency is a big, serious job. And all of these flashpoints around the world, much less within the U.S. economy itself, I think, weigh on voter’s minds as they think about that.  

Beth [00:20:12] And at least here in the United States, August is a transitional month in what is a transitional year for the globe. We've talked before this year about how many major elections are taking place. It is an unusual year. It's both true what I said at the beginning, that there's always a lot going on. And that there is something. A lot of very consequential things going on right now, a lot of decision points. A lot of places where it feels like you're waiting on something to shift.  

Sarah [00:20:39] Well, you know what it is too, maybe, what we said last week. We were talking about it feels like we're sort of breaking loose from Covid, like something's shaking off and we're finally getting to this next phase. That's not just true for us. That's true around the world. And that's not always going to feel great and light and easy, you know what I mean?  

Beth [00:21:00] I do know what you mean. I think all change has upsides and darkness, and we are in all of it right now. I was hesitant to talk about these stories today, because I feel like we'll know so much more tomorrow, and even more next week, and even more next month. And I wonder if part of the problem specifically related to the stock market is that we always want to rush to the conclusion, because being in the middle of the transition is hard. Chad this morning said, "Looks like we're going to have this correction in the stock market and everybody's going to try to make it political. Because one perspective on what's happening is that people just kind of went bonkers about AI and invested too much money too fast.  

Sarah [00:21:45] I think that's correct. I think that is a correct perspective.  

Beth [00:21:48] I mean, it could be. But we sort of want to get to the meaning of it immediately, and we want to get to the consequences of it. Now it is Jerome Powell is the worst. Well, that's silly when we didn't think that last week. We've got to look at this a little bit longer term. I read one analysis this morning (this is a Bloomberg guy) saying that the fed seems offsides about the interest rate right now; that they are still really concerned about inflation, so they were not taking the labor market trends seriously enough and they should have acted last week to start lowering the interest rate. Of course, there will be accusations of Partizan politics no matter what the fed does right now. If the fed starts to lower interest rates, you know that former President Trump will say that that's just a nakedly Partizan move to benefit Democrats. But then you've got Elizabeth Warren railing that the fed should have lowered interest rates a couple of months ago. We just want to make too much meaning of things.  

[00:22:52] I think right now a lot of people are doing their best in really difficult situations, and some people are doing their worst in really difficult situations because they see an opportunity to go full tilt in a direction that they've been wanting to go for a long time. I mean, that takes us back to Bangladesh, too. These are conflicts, decades in the making, old, old stories taken up by students. Another theme throughout the world. So I'm happy that we have at least the hostage deal to see that in the shadows over long periods of time, with all of the mercurial leaders making calls and doing what they can do, we can still occasionally get to some good outcomes. Sarah, as we were just chatting about these topics before the show, you noted that Vladimir Putin, as one of his mercurial interests in the hostage swap, was interested in sending a message about U.S. politics.  

Sarah [00:23:52] Well, who knows? This was just some of the reporting that people said the more Donald Trump said, "I'll get the hostages free. Putin won't work with anybody but me. He's waiting for me," that the one thing you can count on with Vladimir Putin is that he does not like to be told what he's going to do. And so, he kind of was sticking it to Donald Trump. I don't know how much this is right. I do believe that around the world, people who were counting on the June analysis that Donald Trump was coasting to election are probably doing some new analysis now that that has dramatically shifted. And we've gone from “sure thing, Donald Trump's up in every poll,” to a tight race. Now we have new states on the board: Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona. Now we're talking about all kinds of new places where Donald Trump was killing Joe Biden because we have a new candidate. And so, it wouldn't surprise me that Vladimir Putin is doing new analysis with regards to that, just like everybody else is.  

Beth [00:24:55] And I think Trump is probably doing some new analysis about his running mates. And that is what we're going to talk about next, the state of the presidential race and the focus on running mates of our two candidates.  

[00:25:07] Music Interlude.  

Sarah [00:25:16] Beth, it feels like to me that this went from a race about former president to a race about vice presidents on so many levels. It's like all of a sudden it's a vice-presidential election. It will be the first time a vice president is running while in office since Al Gore. We have the veepstakes on the Democratic side. We have J.D. Vance. And even that, they waited till the convention to reveal. And it was like this big deal. It's interesting to me that despite the fact that Kamala Harris is not in her 80s, that her vice-presidential pick is such a big deal. It makes sense to me that J.D. Vance is such a big deal because Donald Trump is now the oldest presidential candidate. But it just feels overall, it's like all we're talking about all the time vice presidents, vice presidents, vice presidents.  

Beth [00:25:57] I've been trying to think about the rubric that Vice President Harris would be using for this choice. I think all of the analysis that we're hearing is very conventional. What state, are you more centrist or progressive? Fundraising capacity. TV time. And I think all that's relevant. But I just wonder if her rubric has to be a little different, given that this person is going to be her running mate for a much shorter period of time than the person typically would be, and this race is something that we haven't seen in our lifetimes. That we really have about a 100-day presidential race instead of a two-year presidential race or an 18-month presidential race. So what am I looking for, really, if I'm her, and how much can I afford to think about the 100 days versus thinking about the next four years?  

Sarah [00:27:00] Well, and I just think it's pent-up primary energy. We didn't have a primary on the Democratic side. We didn't even have the convention that we talked about, and it seemed like it was on the horizon because we rallied around her so quickly, which I think was the right thing to do. Hear me out. But there's still disagreements within the Democratic Party about a lot of things, and they had to find an outflow somewhere. And after about a week of just everybody loving and talking about how great our bench is and how deep our bench is, and look at Josh Shapiro and look at Mark Kelly and look at Andy Beshear and look at Tim Walz. Everybody was, like, look at how great all these people are. Now we've decided to fight about them. Glad we got there eventually. I know we would, Beth. As a Democrat since the age of 18 years old, I knew we'd get there eventually.  

Beth [00:27:46] Some of what's becoming clear to me in this strange 100 day election, is one, being the president is a really big job and I feel very relieved that President Biden is not trying to do that job and campaign. And there's a part of me that wonders if we need to sort of rethink the two term situation, because it is a lot to campaign for president and also be the president. That's a lot.  

Sarah [00:28:12] Well, it's so funny you say that because last night at my family dinner, my uncle was like, "I mean, we're just not going to have a vice president because she's only running for president." And I was like, "What do you think the vice president does? Because let me tell you what it is, not much." But it was just funny the way he said that. I'm like, do you think she's got her hands on some levers? Of course, she's going to be running for president. But it isn't much harder question when the person running for president is the president who is doing all that stuff because they do have some work to do.  

Beth [00:28:41] I feel a lot more comfortable with the vice president running for president than the president running for president. I would like to talk about that a little bit more in the future. The other thing that it's clarifying for me is that the presidential primaries, as much as I have always enjoyed them, are a really bad place to work out intraparty disagreement. It's too big of an office. The universal luck bestowed on Vice President Harris right now is that she did not have to run a primary again and figure out, okay, which of the groups under this big tent am I going to make the happiest? And then run against all those things she did to make them happy in the general election, because it is a very different constituency of voters that you have to really appeal to. And so, as I'm watching the turn from what a great list everybody [inaudible] great, to knives out, about school vouchers, and Gaza.  

[00:29:44] And I just think like it was a better place a couple weeks ago when anybody would be great. Because it is a different analysis when you're looking at being the president and the vice president for the whole country and getting to that office through a few counties, then in the presidential primary. I think you're exactly right that this is pent up primary energy and its super misplaced. I think that that pent up primary energy is so well served when you're talking about House and Senate races. That's where you fight about the vision of the party, especially the legislative vision. When I read about, like, Mark Kelly's labor voting record, I think, well, that's super relevant to being a senator; feels not very relevant to being the vice president.  

Sarah [00:30:36] You mean school vouchers aren't relevant to being the vice president of the United States- your stance on school vouchers? My name is Sarah Stewart Holland, and I hate primaries. I think that's what I've decided. I don't think they're good. I'm just going to go on record. Can somebody tell me where they're good? Because they're either rewarding the extremes inside the party. They're a popularity contest. They're gerrymandered to shit. And that's all people are worried about, so they can't actually do their job in the House of Representatives. Can someone show me a positive primary trend where they're, like, look at primaries doing a good thing right here. I don't think Iowa and New Hampshire serves much of anything. I mean, I had fun, but I don't really think that's what we mean here. I had fun in Iowa, Beth, but I don't really think that serves the greater political, civic culture. Do you see what I'm saying here? I maybe think I'm coming around to they are. That's my stance. I think they're bad.  

Beth [00:31:29] I'm thinking about what you said about school vouchers for a second, and I think it's related to how I feel about primaries. Yes, I think how you feel about school vouchers is relevant to being the vice president. It's just to what degree? And I think the problem with presidential primaries right now is that they have, in so many ways, on the Democratic side of the aisle, in particular, become a test of legislative priorities. Which is different than the job of the president and the vice president. There has to be some kind of vetting process. I think again about Ron DeSantis, who Republicans thought we're going to lead them out of being stuck with Trump into a new era that will appeal to swing voters but still push conservative priorities. A little bit of vetting shows that Ron DeSantis is not that guy.  

Sarah [00:32:18] Hold on. I got to tell you something I read. Because I'm behind him on New York Times, so I'm reading these old Sunday New York Times. There's this big spread where they interviewed all these random people, random convention delegates at the Republican National Convention. And do you know who most of them said they wanted up next?  

Beth [00:32:36] Ron DeSantis, I'm sure. 

Sarah [00:32:38] Ron DeSantis, Beth. They said Ron DeSantis. So I'm not sure we learned anything there. And it's like when we say, like, work out within the party. We're not working on anything. Somebody is going to win, somebody's going to lose. And the losers are going to be twice as mad about whatever purity test. They were mad beforehand. They're just going to be matter because they lost. So what are we actually working out here? You see what I'm saying? I'm just not seeing an upside. That's all I'm saying.  

Beth [00:33:02] I totally understand. I think there has to be some kind of framework. I just don't know what it is.  

Sarah [00:33:06] I don't either.  

Beth [00:33:08] And I don't think that what's happening mostly online about these candidates is very productive. When I talk to people like this weekend at the pool, everybody's kind of, like, "Who do you think it's going to be? Oh, that'd be fine. That'd be fine, too. Okay. Well, and this would be my pick." But it's not the kind of intense conversation.  

Sarah [00:33:30] They're not consumed with john Fetterman's concerns about Josh Shapiro's personal ambition. That didn't come at your poll?  

Beth [00:33:35] It did not.  

Sarah [00:33:36] Interesting. Can I just get something off my chest? How dare John Fetterman come out like that after the way he behaved in the fallout after the debate? Let me get that off my chest. I don't know what's going on with John Fetterman, but he's mean. He has become mean. He has become a mean person online. The way he attacked Nancy Pelosi. What? The way he attacked anyone who barely had a mere mention of concern about Joe Biden post-debate. I don't know what's going on over there. I don't know what's going on with him personally, but his posture inside these inter-party squabbles, I do not find productive or positive.  

Beth [00:34:18] I wonder if he is going through an exponential version of what I think happens to many of us who care about politics during election seasons. Everybody's elbows get sharper. Everybody gets a little more sensitive. I was thinking over the weekend about some things that just, I'll be honest, made me mad last week. And I was meditating on Taylor Swift's lyric "I was tame, I was gentle 'til the circus life made me mean." And talking to myself about how am I going to not have this email stuck in my head all week? Or how am I not going to take so personally the way someone said something? It's really an intense time if you care. And I can imagine that especially since Fetterman has been so outspoken about Israel and Gaza and taking it so hard from people who he had previously been aligned with about that issue, that it's just that compounding, right? I think people's feelings just get hurt over and over, and we're not all great at dealing with it when our feelings are hurt.  

Sarah [00:35:37] Well, that makes me think that there must be something personal, deeper going on between him and Shapiro. I mean, they're obviously in the same state because they are aligned on that issue. They've both taken a lot of heat on that issue, so why wouldn't they all of a sudden be sort of teammates. And instead, what you see is him going pretty public with some real personal beefs. I mean, they've listed all these things. Like he has concerns about Josh Shapiro on the parole board, and he did bring up his personal ambition. But to me that's like, well, that's what you decided to tell the press. But there's an undercurrent here, if you if you catch my drift.  

Beth [00:36:12] And there's an undercurrent in the very organized opposition to Shapiro over Israel. Because I'm sorry, there is not going to be a Harris fill in the blank ticket that is where the most progressive members of the Democratic Party are on Israel and Gaza. That ticket cannot get elected in the United States.  

Sarah [00:36:37] It doesn't even exist among this bench.  

Beth [00:36:40] It doesn't. There are people who are softer in their tone about it. But I saw people were mad when Vice President Harris spoke out against the flag burning and the property defacement that happened when Netanyahu was visiting Congress. She cannot be elected president if she comes out and says, good job flag burners. That is not where the vast majority of the country is. And the president has to speak for the vast majority of the country.  

Sarah [00:37:10] That's what I keep telling Griffin. I'm like, I am not going to argue with your position anymore. What I need you to understand is it's not where the majority of Americans are. You can feel that way. Understand that you are in the minority. I just need you to understand that. We don't have to fight about it. I'm not going to convince you, and you're not going to convince me. That's the problem with this squabble inside the Democratic Party. That the progressive wing of the Democratic Party does not want to accept, no matter how much evidence is put in front of them, that oftentimes they are the minority. You have Bernie Sanders coming out and saying 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, and that's what they care about. That's not true. That's not founded in fact. Are there Americans who live paycheck to paycheck? Absolutely. Is that number higher than it should be? Of course, it is. But that is not a true statistic.  

[00:38:02] And this idea that like, well, if you just put the progressive policies on-- this is what Griffin comes to me on. If you just put this forward, this is what people would vote for. No, it's not. Because progressive policies, even if people support them in polling, when you put them in front of [inaudible] and you start to make them happen all at once, it's just too much change for people too fast. They don't like it. I like change. I like radical change about half the time, but most people don't. And I've had to accept that I'm in the minority when I'm willing to upset the status quo that much and that quickly. And that's what the Progressive Caucus, progressive voters, the progressives on Twitter, they just don't want to hear it. They don't want to hear. They don't want to accept it. Then you're called a neo lib, and you're called a pragmatist, and a centrist, and the Democrats they don't ever do enough. And Joe Biden is going to do all the stuff. Listen, I can parrot all the talking points. I just disagree with him.  

Beth [00:38:46] That's how I feel. I understand the arguments; I disagree. And I especially disagree on the politics. I think about the childcare tax credit, which I support, and how many people who I know personally also think that families need some relief in this country, but they did not like receiving a check from the government that they felt they didn't need. They just didn't like it. A lot of things are true at one time. Policy is really complex in its formulation, but even more so in its implementation and how it's received. And so, I do think this campaign against Shapiro feels awful to me. Given that he is not that distant from anyone else who will be on this ticket on the issue of Israel, has said that Netanyahu is a terrible leader. It just feels like this is because he's Jewish and I hate that.  

Sarah [00:39:42] Yeah, I was really hoping we'd lean into that moment where we were like, we understand the assignment. We're going to vote for Harris. And I have seen tweets that are like, I don't care who she picks; I'm voting for her because I understand the assignment. I would like to go back to that political posture. Do you know why Nancy Pelosi succeeded in that moment? Because she is a political animal, and she doesn't take holy pictures on Twitter or anywhere else. She understands the assignment- it's to win. Do you know what state you need to win to win this election? Pennsylvania. Do you know what Josh Shapiro approval rating is in Pennsylvania, Beth?  

Beth [00:40:10] It's in the 60s.  

Sarah [00:40:10] It's in the 60%. Yeah. So I don't know. It just feels like let's not miss the forest for the trees, friends.  

Beth [00:40:18] I would love for it to be Josh Shapiro. I would love for it to be Pete Buttigieg. I'd be fine with the other names out there. It's fine. I am mostly interested in reading the book in a year or two about how she makes this decision, because I do think it is a different and harder decision in the next 100 days. And one of the reasons that it is a different and harder decision is because Trump's selection of JD Vance has been a breakthrough pick. Not, I think, in the way that Trump intended, but it has really broken through the fog. People know about him. It's landed.  

Sarah [00:40:55] True. Because I think it was a pick-- we've talked about this before-- with the understanding that Joe Biden would be the running mate and that Donald Trump would not be the oldest candidate, and therefore the likelihood that he would not complete his four-year term, and that the vice president would be a very, very important selection, just wasn't on their radar. And so, they picked a very young guy with not a ton of governing experience. He's been in the Senate for, what, like two years? Otherwise, he was a venture capitalist and an author and a cable news talking head. And that seems to be the part of his bio that has really become problematic, Beth. 

Beth [00:41:40] So let's listen to the remarks that have broken through, because I do think it's important to hear it in his voice. I don't want to mischaracterize, let's just use his voice. This is a 2021 interview with Tucker Carlson, back when JD was a candidate for Senate and Tucker still had a show on Fox news.  

Audio Clip (JD Vance) [00:41:58] What I was basically saying, is that we're effectively run in this country via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made. And so, they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too. And it's just a basic fact. You look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC, the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children. And how does it make any sense that we've turned our country over to people who don't really have a direct stake in it?  

Beth [00:42:26] This wasn't a one-time situation. Later on Twitter, he called a renowned New York Times economist one of many weird cat ladies-- a man, actually, but he was still one of many weird cat ladies who has too much power in the country. So, Sarah, I tried to not let the circus life make me mean this morning and spent some time thinking, what's the most generous read of these comments? And I listened to J.D. Vance talking to Megan Kelley about what is in his heart on this topic. It didn't help a lot. So they had a conversation about birth rates. J.D. Vance thinks that it is a civilizational crisis that birth rates are on the decline in the United States. Now, he has disavowed the great replacement theory, this idea that we need more white children, because he is married to a woman who is not white, who is the daughter of immigrants, and he has three children with her. So he has said, that's not my jam, but I do think people need to have more babies. I love family, I love babies. That's what JD Vance has to say.  

Sarah [00:43:40] Look, we've talked about this. The demographics in the United States and around the globe, including many of the places we talked about in the beginning of the show like Japan, is real. It's real. People are having less children, but not because of some conspiracy. It's because people get richer; their lives get better; their children live longer, and they have fewer kids. And no one anywhere through means both carrot and stick have found a way to reverse that trend. Period. There is no data in any country that shows you can reverse that trend. Leadership would be acknowledging that reality and saying, we're not going to go back. We're not going to go back to where people were having four or five or six kids. We need to think about the challenges facing us, with smaller workforces globally and think about how to deal with that. But it's so much easier to go on there and do your best Handmaid's Tale impression and insult people who don't have children and be mean. He's just being mean. I don't know any other way to put it. You're being weird and you're being mean.  

Beth [00:45:06] I think that Pete Buttigieg has done a better job than I ever could explaining why you shouldn't go out and talk about families this way, because you don't know what people are dealing with. You don't know who desperately wants children and are struggling to have them. You don't know who's lost a pregnancy. You don't know that as you are calling Pete a childless cat lady, he has just suffered a really painful setback in his adoption process. You don't know. Families are wonderful and they are also where we hurt each other so badly and mess each other up so significantly. I bet JD Vance, when he was making these comments even a week ago, did not anticipate a devastating piece from a London paper about a former governor of Kentucky who adopted quite a few children and dropped one of them off in Jamaica at a school for troubled boys and has just deserted them. He's just left them there, according to this reporting. And the place was horrible and abusive. It's one of the most disturbing pieces I've ever read in my life.  

[00:46:13] Families are great, except when they are not. And parenting is wonderful, and it is also so incredibly hard. Where I can find space for a real discussion, is when I hear JD Vance pushing back against what is an argument out there, that we shouldn't have children because of the climate crisis? I also disagree that that argument carries the day. I respect it, I understand where it's coming from. But on balance, I disagree. We've talked about this before. I think that where he takes that makes a lot more of that argument than exist in the mainstream of the Democratic Party and goes into a profoundly sexist place. Because what I hear from him is not pro-family, it is pro-birth. It is a vision of the world, policy-wise, in which mothers stay home with young children. He says that this comment was motivated by a conversation with his wife about her career. He supports Josh Hawley's version of the child tax credit, which is about marriage bonuses. It is about mom and dad are married to each other, and mom stays home with the kids. And it just leaves a huge percentage of the country out and boxes in a huge percentage of the country to choices that are not the choices that they would make otherwise.  

Sarah [00:47:39] I think you're 100% right that this is sexist. The reason I think that this particular remark has touched off such a firestorm is because we, post Dobbs, are really struggling with so many issues surrounding abortion, fertility, infertility, the role of mothers in our society. I think about the freaking controversy around Ballerina Farm and that piece that came out about her, and then she comes and defends herself and says, "I should be able to live this life. It makes me happy." I think about that piece around adoption. I just finished Hollywood Park, a book by Mikel Jollett about growing up in a cult. And this cult, they took the children away from their parents and put them in a group, because he felt like we should just raise the children together. It was this horrible trauma, horrible trauma. Taking children away from their parents is a horrible trauma, even if the parents are abusive. It just is. But then one of the women who helped him and was one of his "teachers" in the cult turned into being a stepmother and was a better and more loving, warm presence in his life than his narcissistic mother.  

[00:49:03] And he goes through and through and round and around about family, and what do we mean by it? And what does it mean to be a mother and all of these things. And it's just all swimming in my head with a childless cat lady. And I pick up my Well Read Mom magazine-- y'all know I'm a part of this Well Read Mom, which is a very Catholic organization. And so, there's this article in the middle of all this childless cat lady discussion that says to be a woman is to be called to motherhood. And I thought, whoa, what are we doing here? What's going on? I was really worried. Beth, I was worried. And then I get to this part of the article and I thought, oh, okay. I'm going to cry, so just prepare yourselves. But then it took another turn. It says it's not a matter of having one's own biological children.  

[00:49:52] This is a quote, "Only the mother likeness must be that which does not remain within the narrow circle of blood relations or of personal friends, but in accordance with the model of the Mother of Mercy. It must have its root in universal divine love for all who are there belabored in burden. One who is mother only to her own children is not a mother, says George MacDonald's narrator in his novel Sir Gibbie, she is only a woman who has born children. To be a mother, wrote Edith Stein, is to nourish and protect true humanity and to be especially receptive for God's work in the soul." And I thought, oh my gosh, took me on a real journey here. That's not where I thought we were going. And I think that's what people are just viscerally reacting to. Because that word childless, parried like an insult, says you don't offer anything unless you biologically bore children.  

[00:50:46] And there's all these people, men and women who are mothering all the time, everywhere. To my children, to your children, to people in schools, to people in hospitals, to people in hospice. They're mothering. Shit sometimes they're mothering cats. And that's enough to love to like I just think that's what was so mean and why it hit everyone. Because it was used as like, you don't have value, you're childless you don't see a stake in this country. You're not trusted to make decisions. When there are people everywhere who are mothering children not their own, who have born children, who are mothering institutions. And it was just such a small-minded, hard-hearted way to think about not just women, not just mothers, but all of us out there trying to care, trying to make the world better- Democrats and Republicans.  

Beth [00:51:50] I think that's true. And we could spend a lot of time on, from a policy perspective, how this all translates for JD Vance. And even the notion that parents should cast their children's votes for them, effectively negating one person one vote. I mean, there's so many directions this could go. If I think about the politics of it, and part of why I think the vice presidency has been elevated in this election as you started the segment with, I think that what he said and how he said it tracks with the impression that he leaves. He runs all over me when I listen to him talk. I've been thinking about how interpersonally it's very easy to treat other people like amusement parks. Where you want to be in relationship with people who thrill you, maybe even scare you a little bit. Sometimes it's so thrilling, but then comfort you immediately and bring some nostalgia to the table. It's like spin me up then settle me down. Buy me an ice cream cone, entertain me with something.  

[00:53:05] We really, especially in a society that sort of emphasizes main character energy, can treat other people like they exist for our amusement, and then every aspect of them should line up to what we expect. And I just feel that's so hard from J.D. Vance. That he looks especially at women and thinks, you should be available for what we need from you. I think that comes across in the way he talks about almost every issue. I think it tracks with the narrative of his career. I don't mean to be insulting him so personally. I don't know him, but I do get the impression that he doesn't know a lot about himself, and what he has known of himself has been very much about treating other people as amusement parks.  

[00:53:59] And his political career has relied on using his Appalachian ties to the extent that they exist for his gain, not for that group's gain. Using the issue of marriage and family for his gain, not for the gain of the people who actually enter into marriages and create families. He just feels like someone who's willing to use everyone to me to the fullest extent, and I find it so off-putting. And I think that that's why this rollout of his candidacy has been a disaster, because it's palpable. And that is not a contrast to Donald Trump. You choose a vice president for good contrasts. And this to me is so aligned with who Donald Trump is, that it's a really ugly contrast.  

Sarah [00:54:48] Yeah. The Megyn Kelly interview that I found most illuminating was one that went around Twitter from when his book first came out, and she said, I just wonder if you're okay. You don't seem okay. You don't seem like you've dealt with all this stuff in the book. And he kind of like sits back for a moment and he's like, I think you're right. I don't think I have really dealt with all the trauma that I talk about in the book. And I thought, well, that's probably the most reflective interview clip of JD Vance. He just needs lots of therapy. And, look, I'm not Appalachian, but I'm a Kentuckian, and I feel like Appalachians are like my cousins, like they're a part of my family because we're tied up together as Kentuckians. And there were a lot of beautiful defenses of Appalachia in its culture when J.D. Vance came on the scene.  

[00:55:32] But there are some hard parts of Appalachian culture. There are some hard parts of the posture inside that community. There's a strong sense of insiders and outsiders. There's a lot of well-documented books and documentaries about that if you would like to be pointed in that direction. There's a lot of-- not just in Appalachia, but in lots of parts of the South that you don't get too big for your britches. And if you do say, oh, I don't know, join the military and become a venture capitalist, there's some pretty brutal takedowns of you don't belong here anymore. You were never part of us. And I just think about how that would play on a psyche like J.D. Vance's and how it would harden all these aspects and how he would be ready and willing to treat other people that way if you've never dealt with that treatment coming your way over the past several years.  

[00:56:29] I know how hurtful it's been to people. It's just this doubling down of I've been treated this way, so I'm going to treat other people this way. And the cycle and spin up of just meanness is hard. I know that his rhetoric in this entire discussion about this has hurt so many people, childless and not childless, cat ladies and not. And I ache because there was moments where we had that levity, where presidential elections and politics can be a place for us to come together instead of tear each other to shreds. That's why they feel so good when they bubble up every now and then. And I would like to see more of those. I don't know if JD Vance is going to bring any about and I sure as heck don't think Donald Trump will, but I hope that we can stay focus on the positivity surrounding Vice President Harris over these next 90 something days.  

Beth [00:57:23] The most empathy that I can find for JD Vance is thinking about I'm also not from Appalachia, but I did grow up in a very small rural community where if you were one of the kids who was smart and a leader, you did not have a sense of belonging to the community. You would get praised all the time, but it felt like rejection at the same time. It was celebration and being ostracized altogether. And I think when you don't feel at home in your community, that is damaging. And I've dealt with that. And I had what JD Vance did not have, which was an incredibly stable, loving nuclear family. What he is pushing for with all these policies I grew up in. And so, I'm sure that it's been hard on him. I just don't think that being Donald Trump's running mate is going to get to any of what's missing there, and that's too bad.  

[00:58:22] And I think for the country, arguing about what constitutes a family inside the political context is so bad for us. I think it makes a lot more sense to argue over policies that support families of all varieties. How do we make it a little bit easier for people to get what they need? How do we keep people safe inside their families recognizing, as you said, that it is a trauma to remove people from families and sometimes that's the best we can do? There are plenty of hard questions that politics can get to around families. I think centering the debate on these pieces, as he does, that are about what I believe is the idyllic vision of a family, is not where politics can do good work. Well, I am sure that we will talk more about all of that, especially next week as we get into project 2025 a little bit. And I'm anxiously awaiting the Vice President's announcement of her VP pick so we can see where that conversation goes next.  

[00:59:24] Music Interlude.  

[00:59:24] We always end our show talking about what's in our minds Outside of Politics. It's a little bit of an exhale from the intensity of everything we've discussed so far. And in July we both took trips. Sarah, you went to Japan. I want to know how on earth you planned three weeks in Japan. Just the language barrier in itself intimidates me dramatically.  

Sarah [00:59:51] Well, it took a long time and I was very intimidated. I was very worried. The biggest surprise is that the language barrier was not much of a barrier. Even when we went out into other parts of Japan that weren't the big cities like Tokyo and Kyoto, some of the hotels I reserved places at sent me emails and said no one speaks English here, so come prepared. And that was not true. There were several people that spoke English there. And between Google Translate and what I can only describe as charades, we got through just fine. Most of the signs had both our alphabet and the Japanese alphabet, so everything was really easy to read. The hardest part of planning the trip is that I have an internal auditory dialog is the only way I can describe it. I process things because it sounds like I'm saying them in my head, and I didn't know how to pronounce so much of the Japanese locations we were going to until I taught myself.  

[01:00:48] After sitting down and planning it, and then just feeling like it was going in one ear and out the other, taught myself how to pronounce the places we were going, and then I could plan the trip. Because I was getting nowhere, and I was getting there very fast because it was just so hard to hold the information. But that is true, I feel like, anytime you start fresh with a country. You have to learn the regions, you have to learn the top sites, you have to learn the way they get around. I've told Nicholas, like, I just want to go on a Rick Steves trip to Spain because I have learned Italy and France and the UK, and I don't want to learn another country. I want someone to just take me around Spain and Portugal. So it is very hard to start from scratch with a place like Japan, even if you have Tokyo and Kyoto and the big places. So it took a long time. I will be selling this itinerary, everyone, don't worry. It was a lot of work, but it did not feel as overwhelming as I anticipated it feeling once we got there and started going. How about your trip to Scotland?  

Beth [01:01:49] Well, much easier to plan because everything's in English. We've been there before.  

Sarah [01:01:53] I mean, kind of. Sometimes Scottish people would talk to me and I would think, I don't know if we're speaking the same language because I don't understand anything you just said.  

Beth [01:02:01] That the brogue is real, for sure. But the planning is pretty straightforward, especially compared to something like Japan. And Chad and I had been, so I had a real sense from our trip seven years ago of where I wanted to spend most of our time. And I knew for me that was the Highlands. We got one day in the Highlands on our last trip, and that was not enough for me. I just feel such a sense of peace and just overwhelming awe of how beautiful that area is. So building the itinerary was kind of a matter of we want to get Chad to the British Open, the golf championship; we want to expose the girls to London; and then I really want to spend time in the Highlands. And that's how I put our itinerary together.  

Sarah [01:02:47] Now, you said that this was sort of an exile for both of us, but the intensity of American politics followed both of us on the trips. I joked at one point that I feel like Joe Biden was on the trip to Japan with me. So what was it like for you taking in the US news from another country?  

Beth [01:03:02] I found it helpful to have a different perspective during this really intense time, and to be immersed in history that I understood fairly well already. So I wasn't in pure learning mode about the English monarchy or about the tension between England and Scotland. I had enough familiarity to be able to sort of reflect on what I could bring from that history to what's happening in the United States. I think I was probably on my phone too much on the trip, but also really invited out of it. I think I would have been obsessive and much more myopic if I had been here in the US while all of this was going down. So it felt like just a good calibrating force for me. What about you?  

Sarah [01:03:52] Well, it was just good because at a certain point, about midway through the day, everybody in the U.S. went to sleep, so I could refresh Twitter but nothing else was going to be there. And so, it did keep at least the intensity of my checking on what was happening to the morning. Because we would wake up to, like, a backlog, because we were about 13 hours ahead of everything that happened in the United States. And then we could follow it until everybody went to bed, and then we were free the rest of the day to enjoy Japan. Although, we talked about it, it really did consume huge portions of our trip. We were doing a little review and writing in this travel journal Alise gave me. And Griffin said, "I wish I hadn't paid so much attention to Joe Biden while we were gone." I'm like, I know. But it was so hard. It felt very high stakes. We didn't know what was going to happen. And so, it was what it was.  

[01:04:38] I wouldn't have been consumed with it. I didn't really resent having to work because I would have been following it anyway. That was not the big deal to me. It was just feeling like I could not let the news go, because it is really nice to take a break from the news in July, what we've traditionally done. Now, I did realize looking back like, well, we didn't do that in 2016 because we weren't working full time at the podcast. And 2020 was like a fake out because it wasn't really a real presidential race. And the way they traditionally are because of Covid. And so, I think we just got lulled into complacency and now we should definitely remember that we should not take July off during a presidential year ever again, because it's not going to turn out really well.  

Beth [01:05:20] Yeah. And I do think these breaks make a difference. I do not feel right now the way I typically feel at the beginning of August. And so, I'm trying to think about that and what it means for me. I noticed so many things while I was gone that I thought were smart and sensible, and I would love to see us do here. For example, we carried reusable grocery bag with us everywhere because you have to pay for plastic bags in the UK. And I thought we should just do that here. It just makes a huge difference. I don't know why? They're not expensive, the plastic bags, but something mentally you're just like, I'm not doing that. I'm going to use my reusable bags. So I wondered if there were things like that from Japan whose culture I know so little about that you thought we should do that here?  

Sarah [01:06:06] It's an amazing country. It is a very community-driven country, not a lot of individualism. Even we were talking about yesterday the way they dress. All the men wear white short sleeve shirts to work and dress pants. It's just like a flood of people all dressed the same. The women all dressed pretty modestly in very similar ways. And so, there's just a lot of focus on how this affects the group. They had a really terrible domestic terror attack in the 90s that used trash cans. So now there are like almost no trash cans. So we carried bags, but they were trash bags. And even just the removing of your shoes is very focused on not the convenience for you as an individual, but how it affects the group coming into the house. I wish we did that more in the United States. I wish we designed our houses the way they design theirs so that there's a place at the entrance for everyone to leave their dirty shoes and put on clean slippers. I don't like doing it in dressing rooms. I don't think that's necessary, but I do love it in the houses.  

[01:07:06] And I think they really live by my great grandmother's founding idea, which is anything worth doing, is worth doing well. So a lot of restaurants serve one thing, but they serve it really, really well. They do it really well. And there's just a focus on convenience and hospitality. The freaking konbini, they're convenience stores, the 7-Eleven, the Lawsons, the family marts are incredible. You just know wherever you are middle of nowhere. Which is something I have a beef with Scotland. It can get really remote. We almost ran out of gas. And it's hard to find food; you cannot find food. Not in Japan. It doesn't matter where you are. There is a convenience store. It is well stocked. The food is good. It is open 24 hours a day. Period. Full stop. There are vending machines with cold drinks, coffee, water, sodas everywhere in neighborhoods, right next to our apartment buildings, in the middle of nowhere. Everywhere.  

[01:08:03] You're not going to be out and about-- so it's this weird balance. They're worried about everyone. There's this emphasis on quality, but also they are thinking about you as an individual. That you're out there, you're going to be able to get what you need. This sort of hospitality mindset that even with the language barrier, it made travel so easy. I just knew end of the day we can go into a convenience store and get an amazing iced coffee and a smoothie and a delicious onigiri and we'll be good. It just makes that level of sort of baseline stress travel just disappear because they're so focused on hospitality and convenience and quality. It's not crappy food. It's good food. That part was incredible. And good news, the Japanese 7-Eleven, I believe, is now bought the United States 7-Eleven. Like we've gone in reverse. We started 7-Eleven. They got it. They perfected it, and now they're buying ours. And I think the 7-Eleven in Los Angeles are going to start looking a lot more like the Japanese 7-Eleven, which is very exciting. I hope they eventually come to Kentucky.  

Beth [01:09:07] Did you have any moments that felt surprisingly familiar to you or what a small world kind of moments while you were gone?  

Sarah [01:09:14] Yeah, I mean, there's towns around the size of Paducah feel like Paducah. You can drive to everything. There's lots of parking lots. They have busses and trains that we don't have, obviously. But you just kind of get to like a local restaurant in a town about Paducah size and it feels sort of similar in that way. But so much of their architecture is different. Obviously, the signs are all in an alphabet we don't share. So much of the trip felt very different and very special-- not quite as much as when we went to Tunisia. We went to Tunisia before Griffin was born. And they were a French colony, so if you don't speak Arabic, you speak French. That was like being on another planet. It was very, very different. Japan was not as much because so much of Japanese culture has been exported. I mean, think about if I start listing things: karaoke, sushi, Hello Kitty, anime, Pokémon, Manga, it's a lot of things that we understand and consume from Japanese culture and vice versa. They have KFC, they have McDonald's, there were Starbucks everywhere. So there is that sort of like baseline comfort level you can always find. What about you?  

Beth [01:10:23] Well, Scotland has so much in common with Kentucky. We're geologically linked.  

Sarah [01:10:29] Yeah, I went there and I thought, I know why our people got to Kentucky and said, this will do.  

Beth [01:10:33] Yeah. And I mean, you can go back to Pangea. We're cousins in the world in so many different ways. So a lot of it felt familiar. My favorite sort of small world moment was at Urquhart Castle off of Loch Ness, which I love that whole area anyway. I love the mystery of Loch Ness. I love the spookiness of it, the black water. And we were there on an absolutely gorgeous day. But we're at the castle, and this couple approaches Chad and ask him to help them recreate a photo from 10 years ago that they took at this exact spot. And Chad was all in. He's like, okay, horizontal or vertical? How close was the camera to you? Like, let's get it exactly right. And I posted a picture of him taking their picture on Instagram because it was just a sweet, fun moment and those were a listener's parents. She reached out and said, that was my mom and dad, and my husband took that photo 10 years ago. I cannot believe it. So that made me so happy to have all worlds collide in such a special way.  

Sarah [01:11:28] Now, we should be in the spirit of disclosure, transparent that it's not always fun and happiness and beautiful days and peaceful memories when you travel with your children. We had a lot of sibling squabbles. Lots and lots of sibling squabbles. My children have, for the most part, been trained or practiced or I don't know if we've just yelled it out of them this idea of, like, I just want to go back to the Airbnb I'm tired. We don't get that as much anymore. But there was so much bickering, just bickering. Constantly bickering, bickering, bickering.  

Beth [01:12:04] We also had a lot of bickering. We didn't have complaining about walking. A little bit about food, but not about walking or being tired or even the train travel and the air travel. We were on trains a lot on this trip and our girls liked it. But the squabbling with each other was really hard and sometimes with us too just the attitudes, it was tough. I forget that traveling is awesome, but also hard on everybody. And when you're a kid, you don't have the, I don't know, cerebral infrastructure to be, like, but it's worth it. I'm going to stuff down that I am tired or that I'm uncomfortable or that I just don't feel this right now because I know I've got a limited amount of time and this is a unique opportunity. Like, that's just not all built for our kids. And so, the one real regret of the trips that I have is I just had moments where I really snapped at them, and I hate that. But I was on a tighter string, too, and it broke a few times on this trip.  

Sarah [01:13:08] Yeah, I have absolved myself of so much guilt around that. Talk about small world moment, we were in a shrine and this woman was screaming at her son who was in tears, just crying in the middle of the street, and all the parents were just looking at her like, mm-hmm, tell him. We didn't know she was saying. I had no idea what word she was using, but we were, like, we recognize that. We were at Kings Island this weekend. We had just finished being so frustrated with Felix because we had to finally drag him on a rollercoaster. And then he was riding everything. But he was terrified that at first one had to, like, basically physically drag him on it. Did he then turn around and ride it again? Of course, he did. Did I say, you go tell that man I'm not a terrible mother who was worried about me dragging you on this roller coaster? Of course, he did. But we had just had all this drama, and we walked by this man over this kid, the kid's crying. There's a pretzel next to him, and he's like, "You wanted that pretzel. You're going to eat every dang pretzel." And Nicholas and I were, like, universal experience. Universal experience.  

[01:14:08] It's like, how bad can we feel when we all do this? Back to my previous analysis, it's also hot. And when it's hot, everybody's strings are a little bit shorter. I can really get in my head and think like, oh my gosh, I yelled at them. But I have a friend of mine who's a psychologist and we were doing this like Bible study, book study once, and I said something about yelling. And she was like, the way you phrased that is like the standard is we shouldn't yell ever. Does that seem reasonable to you? I'm like, I think you're right. I do. That is my standard. It's like, of course, we should never yell at them anywhere ever, which is probably not a reasonable standard.  

[01:14:57] So I really try to remember that this is just part and parcel of travel. There are going to be times where people are tired and we snap at each other, and we still had a great time. And we still made very, very happy memories. And I can't wait to go back to Japan. It was an incredible experience and we were at the same car trip yesterday reviewing some of our mishaps and culture shocks and memories of Japan. We're already thinking where we can go next. What are we going to go do next?  

Beth [01:15:24] Well, thank you all so much for being here with us today. We are happy to be back, even though we didn't have the break that we anticipated having. We still took a lot from it and we'll continue to be thinking about it and reflecting on it. We are finishing up our limited run summer series of The Nuanced Life. We have two more episodes that you'll hear this Friday and next Friday. And one final thing to share with you before we go, we want to celebrate all of the incredible teachers and students and lifelong learners in our audience. So we're running a little sale on our Cameo page for the month. I love to make a Cameo. Those connections to listeners, just when I get to hear this person is going back to school. She's amazing. It's her 13th year of teaching, and all of these kids love her because she sings this song every day-- like those details about listeners just really energized me. I hope it's a win-win.  

[01:16:16] I love doing these. I hope you love receiving them. So we've reduced our Cameo price by 25% just for this month, in hopes that we get to make a lot of back-to-school pep talks for teachers and students in the community. So if you know a fan who would enjoy a back-to-school pep talk, head over to our Cameo page. You'll see that link in the show notes for our back-to-school special all through August. We'll be back in your ears here with The Nuanced Live on Friday. Until then, have the best week available to you.  

[01:16:41] 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. Ashley Rene. Michelle Palacios. 

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

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