How to (Not Just) Survive the Trump Administration

Discussion post for January 24, 2025

Today, Sarah and Beth discuss their approach to the second Trump administration. Outside of politics, they discuss whether or not they read more than one book at the same time.

Topics Discussed:

• Surviving the Trump Administration

• Outside of Politics: Do you read more than one book at a time?

Pantsuit Politics Resources:

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This podcast and every episode of it are wholly owned by Pantsuit Politics LLC and are protected by US and international copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws. We hope you'll listen to it, love it, and share it with other people, but not with large language models or machines and not for commercial purposes. Thanks for keeping it nuanced with us.

Episode Resources:

• More to Say About Executive Orders (Pantsuit Politics Premium)

• Backlash, by Susan Faludi

• Joe Rogan Experience #2255 - Mark Zuckerberg

• Empire of Blood: How Dana White's UFC Conquered America (Rolling Stone)

• The New Politics of Immigration (The New York Times)

• Opinion | How Democrats Drove Silicon Valley Into Trump’s Arms - The New York Times

• Who is Mariann Edgar Budde, the bishop who angered Trump with inaugural sermon? | US news (The Guardian)

Episode Transcript

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

Beth [00:00:09] And this is Beth Silvers.

Sarah [00:00:10] You're listening to Pantsuit Politics, where we take a different approach to the news, and that's what we're going to do today. There has been plenty of news to process since Monday. Everything from attempts to fundamentally redefine what it means to be an American to palace intrigue fueled by Elon's tweets. But we don't want to just work our way through the laundry list of outrage- not today and certainly not every day for the next four years.

Beth [00:00:35] Because what we're facing is a bigger shift than the pace of news. And we've used a lot of words to try to describe it. There's backlash. It's a new era. It's a cultural shift. Today, we just want to talk about how we're personally dealing with it.

Sarah [00:00:47] And we think we have some relevant experience because we have been at this for almost a decade. So we are going to be celebrating 10 years of Pantsuit Politics this year, including a very special Pantsuit Politics birthday party in Cincinnati on July 19th. So save the date and start making your plans with your people to be with us for this very special live event on July 19th in Cincinnati.

Beth [00:01:11] We're also going to keep processing everything together by slow reading Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life on Substack. So if you haven't joined our community there, we hope you'll consider it. We have great conversations.

Sarah [00:01:22] And we're going to have a conversation about reading at the end of the show. We're going to talk about whether we read one book at a time or more than one book at a time. And one final call to action; if you want us on the ground in your community to help you process the way all these shifts are playing out for you and your people, we would love to come workshop with your school or your business or your organization and speak to the power of disagreement in all realms of life.

Beth [00:01:49] So if you'd like to learn more about having us come to your community or join your group, send us an email at Hello@pantsuitpolitics.com, Alise will get right back to you.

Sarah [00:01:56] And next up, how are we going to survive the next four years? Beth, I want to kick off this conversation by saying if you are directly affected by the plethora of executive orders already coming from the Trump administration. That's a whole other ballgame. If you're worried about having to move because you or your partner has to report to an office you haven't reported to in years; if you are worried about the office in which you work at getting shut down; if you work directly at the border or with migrant processing or with refugees; our hearts are with you. We know that the concrete impact of this administration is already being felt by so many of you in your everyday lives, and we don't want to take that for granted. We don't want to give that short shrift. We just want to say that that's not what we're talking about here today because we don't know that's the truth. We don't know what that's like. All we can say is that our hearts are with you. And we know that dealing with not just the fallout, but the unknown of what could be happening next is just so, so hard and hard in a very different way than processing the headlines.

Beth [00:03:30] I saw a still photo of an immigrant family this morning. I have no idea what their status is or what they're thinking about, but I just imagine that lots of people, regardless of their legal status, are concerned about what's coming. I saw a little blurb about schools in Denver saying to put the school in lockdown if ICE agents show up.

Sarah [00:03:52] My gosh.

Beth [00:03:53] There are so many waves attached to what this president does and how he does it. And I am very cognizant of how insulated from much of that I am. And so when I talk about how am I processing this or what you hear from me through the microphone, I just want you to know I know. I know that I'm sitting in Kentucky as a white woman with a family who goes back in generations in terms of just living in the United States and feeling a sense of peace and safety right now that a lot of people don't have. And I spend a lot of time thinking in my community, how can I contribute to people who don't feel that sense of peace and safety? That call to mercy from an Episcopal bishop in Washington D.C. this week is a call that I hope churches across the country take up. Rather than talking about how she really owned President Trump. I would like us to all take that message as a prompt. What does mercy mean and what does it require of us, especially those of us who aren't right now a federal worker or someone who is concerned about immigration raids? If you have the relative peace and safety that I feel right now, then I think that her message is for us. What does mercy require?

Sarah [00:05:11] Because we're going to talk a lot about our attention and how we're thinking about what to pay attention and what not to pay attention to. And I never turn my attention away from people impacted in this way. It's hard. I want to ignore the stories about refugees whose flights were canceled after months and years of working through the legal process. I cannot imagine how heartbreaking that must be. I don't turn away from those for one second. I don't turn away from the members of my community who are heartbroken and are afraid they're going to have to leave Paducah because they worked for the federal government from home. That I think is a really important distinction. It's when we are talking about the way Trump yields attention, the attention merchants who were in the front row of his inauguration. That does not mean that I turn away from the heartbreak and the fear and the real and present danger that he will cause in so many people's lives. I do not do that ever. Just because I am not posting about it in my Instagram stories does not mean that I'm not reading about it, thinking about it, weeping over it, mourning it- because I am. And I know so many of you are, too. That this is playing out, like I said, in your real lives.

Beth [00:06:45] What I am trying to think about, especially as we get to that attention conversation, is how to equip myself to be an instrument for good in these times? So this week I read every word of every single executive order because I just want to understand what's happening. I want to be very clear as the courts start to take these issues up. I will pay attention to how courts are processing them, because that is a skill that I have that I can bring to other people. And so doing that inventory for myself, what are the skills that I have to apply to this moment so that I can be a person of action instead of only believing that I am contributing if I am sufficiently emoting about what's going on.

Sarah [00:07:25] Yeah. I'm trying to not just think about the skills I have, but the lessons I've learned. Look, we cannot talk about attention and how we're processing all this without coming back again to a conversation we've really been focused on over the last few weeks, which is social media. Not even weeks, years. The first thing I said to my husband the morning after Election Day was, it's the phones. I still believe that to be true. And that is sort of my central tenet as I am orienting myself for a second Trump administration. I am thinking a lot about attention. I am particularly thinking a lot about attention as the attention merchants lined up in the front row with their plus ones at the Trump inauguration. It feels like the number one act of resistance-- I've kind of been allergic to that word, if I'm being honest-- that I can do for myself as someone who is not directly impacted by a lot, at least right now of the administration's actions, is just to opt out of that attention economy that he uses so efficiently, so effectively and so powerfully. It just feels like the first thing that I can do.

[00:08:54] And, look, I've been doing that for a long time. My friend, when we are talking about this this week, she's like, "Well, did you delete them? The apps?" And I was likemI haven't deleted them because I've spent years trying to disrupt my usage, put in speed bumps, break the habit, break that sort of neural pathway like a horse on a bait, that just check it. It's like an instinct. I'm reading a book, I'm flowing across the pages, and then my brain goes, What about your phone? What about your phone? Now it's fading. Thank God I've done so much to set up my phone as a tool and not as a distraction. It was like the election of Trump and like that aha moment of I don't want to do this for another 10 years.

[00:09:44] I don't want to do this for another four years with him and I don't want to spend another ten years of my life filtering through the expectation of what I'm going to tell everybody about what I think, what I do, where I am, who I'm seeing, and how I feel about this headline. Because that is still a very powerful instinct. When I read something in the news that upsets me, my brain immediately goes, go tell everybody how mad you are about this. If they just knew. Tell everybody about this. Because if they just knew, they'd feel the same way as you. It's still a powerful instinct inside my own head. Even after 10 years of having a podcast where I can literally tell everyone the instinct to post, the instinct to express my outrage on social media is still so strong.

Beth [00:10:30] I have more of the affirmation instinct, social media as affirmation. Even with our work, if people aren't commenting on an episode, I get in my head. Was that a good episode? Was it not interesting to people? Are people not listening? And I want that feedback loop that tells me no, it was good. It was fine. It was good. It was good enough. And so I'm really working on that in myself. And part of the reason that I have taken my life off of the social media apps is because I don't want to post a picture of my family and then reach for other people's affirmation of us going to a play or being on vacation or whatever. So I'm really just trying to figure out why was I using this and is that something that I want to continue? And my answer to almost every one of those questions has been, no, it isn't. And so I think with this administration since the election, I have been calibrating a lot of my reactions on the show to this understanding that the emoting is fodder for people who love to make fun of those of us who are not part of the MAGA movement.

[00:11:39] I said to Maggie right after the election, I do not want a single clip on Instagram of us teary-eyed out there because I know how that gets used and recycled and it fuels the fire. And I'm not interested in fueling the fire. I also don't want to be so cognizant of that that it impacts how I show up here. And I don't want to be so cognizant of more progressive listeners who want us to call things out and hold people accountable with our language, even though it doesn't affect them- I don't think in any way. That people want to hear certain words from us said in certain ways and certain emotion attached to them. And I can't let that inform who I am either. So I just keep really trying to get clear on my behavior online and on this show. And as a civic participant, I wanted to be aligned with my behavior in everything else. In everything else I do I want to show up the same way across the board. I want to be thoughtful. I want to be mostly composed. If I have a giggle fit again about Habits of the Heart, we can share it, I guess. But mostly composed, really thoughtful, problem solving as my orientation and saying things that are necessary, helpful and true to the best of my ability.

Sarah [00:13:05] The two words that I cannot detach either from the election, the incoming administration and how we're all dealing with, it is attention and gender. And that it is easier for me to posture, to approach with curiosity and learning and humility and without despondency, without despair, the question of social media. I spent a lot of time thinking about social media use in case you couldn't tell. And we've spent a lot of time talking about it. And because it's been this long arc that we've been working through, and I feel like I've gotten to a place where, okay, I'm comfortable here. I don't feel like I'm fighting it all the time. I'm getting the positive feedback. I'm seeing my brain open up. I'm seeing the emotional reaction decrease. I'm seeing more capacity for creativity and learning and just not feeling jerked around. Because I think we spend a lot of time talking about how our parents were controlled by Fox News; how they were kept angry and upset and frustrated. And I see a lot of that same situation on the left with social media. I just do. And especially now that I've stepped away.

[00:14:44] So all that to say, that part of the conversation is more comfortable for me. The gender part of the conversation is hard. It's hard because there's all this analysis that I don't think is wrong. That we went from the futurist female to the manosphere. That there is this backlash. That you do have someone like Pete Hegseth with his laundry list of assaults on women. And then you have United States senators saying they're just trying to do the same thing to him that they did to Kavanaugh. The undercurrent of which I can only conclude is it's not disqualifying to treat women this way. Clearly, Donald Trump is the president again. So that part is harder, not because I feel defeated or victimized as a woman. And I think a lot of this is a difficult personal reality, which is I live in a house with four men of varying ages. Males, I guess I should say. Four males. And earlier in my life, when my most of my primary relationships were with women-- and still this happens a lot with friendships and in text message and group threads, this us versus them comes to play hard.

[00:16:20] The sense that men are terrible and now they're ascendant and they just want to hurt us and they're to be feared and they're to be avoided and they're to be mocked. And I just don't have that luxury anymore. I cannot do that. I cannot. I just can't. It's not available to me anymore. That approach to coping with this misogynistic administration, it's not available to me. I don't know. I don't know any other way to say it. And I'm not getting yet a positive feed loop where I'm taking a different approach and I'm getting this feedback of like, see, you were leaving some things behind. This is a different way. Beyond just obviously my incredibly fulfilling and personal relationships with my husband and my children. But do you see what I'm saying? I feel trapped in between two worlds.

Beth [00:17:24] All men are trash is just not congruent with my life experience in any way. I'm the mom of two daughters. I have concerns about where we are right now, but I'm surrounded by extremely good men and I basically always have been. I've worked with some people who were jerks and who definitely were had sexist tendencies and I am still exposed to people who are pretty casually sexist, but they don't hate women. Nothing about their behavior suggests that they hate women. And so I just can't write all men off because why would I? They are some of the dearest people in my life and I want that to be true for my daughters, too. I watch their relationships. They both have lots of friends who are boys. There's just a lot of sweetness in all of it, in their friendships with boys, in their relationship with boys. There's a lot of sweetness and I want them to have that sweetness as part of life.

[00:18:18] And so, you know, I just keep thinking about with the young men that I regularly interact with because Chad and I coach elementary and middle school students, I think a lot about how am I just helping those boys hang on to themselves? Because they are right now sweet and good and strong and wild and they take risks. They're all the things. They're all the things. And I want them to hang on to those things instead of being led down this path that tells them most women think you're all trash and so what you really need to do is get red pilled on women and feminism and the world. And that's really all I feel like I can do right now.

Sarah [00:19:01] The thing I can do is what I articulated before. What have we learned? What have we seen play out? How can we disrupt that pattern from playing out again? I'm a women studies minor when it was still called women's studies. There's a really famous book called Backlash; Susan Faludi wrote. It was all about the 80s backlash to the 70s feminist movement, including but not limited to everybody's Christmas favorite, Die Hard, and the messaging that went with this Backlash. And I was talking about this book and someone was like, "I've never heard of it." And I thought, well, that's the problem; ain't it? We're just waiting for the next one to come and then we're going to react the same and we're going to push back and we're going to assert that meant that this masculinity is toxic and that the feature is female. I don't want to do this again, guys. I don't want to do this again. Is there a way we can decide that one doesn't have to be ascendant?

[00:20:05] Because the reality is we do need each other. The reality is that women can be strong and men can be sweet. And there's nothing wrong with also being strong as a man or sweet as a woman. That it is and or. That it is everyone has strengths that we share more obviously across the breadth of uniqueness and diversity as individuals than separates us. But the very real differences I believe exist between men and women. Like how do we find a path forward together instead of overcorrecting. Backlash. Overcorrecting. Backlash. Further apart. Further apart. Further apart. Now, I think what you speak to is the truth is we are getting closer individually and in relationship with each other and we all have lots and lots of examples of that in our personal lives. How do we get it to break through culturally and politically? I guess is my bigger question.

Beth [00:21:14] I think that question about ascendance is right for this moment, too. I told you a couple of days ago I've been thinking about Mark Zuckerberg saying to Joe Rogan-- and just the fact that I'm thinking about this, too, just bugs me. But it's where we are; so I'm thinking about them. I remember Mark Zuckerberg saying to Joe Rogan that he thinks Trump just wants America to win. And when I first heard it, it struck me as just incredibly cynical from him. And I probably still feel that about him personally. But I think a lot of people have that sense. Trump just wants America to win. And so then the question is win what? And can you win without being ascendant over other people? Can we win as a nation without territorial expansion that others don't want? Can we win as a nation without kicking out millions of people who've been living here some for years?

[00:22:10] What does winning mean? But I think that some people, a sizable portion of our population, want that feeling of ascendance. And I don't know how to get that feeling of ascendance without also having that ascendance be over someone else, that sort of power with versus power over dynamic. Because it's not wrong to want to win. It's not wrong to want to feel momentum and success. And I think it is wrong to frame up your life in such a way that there can be no winning ever, because that means someone has to lose and losing is terrible and oppressive. I don't want to be in that space either. I do want to find that path forward where it's like, yes, we can have that sense of even competition in some spheres, but we know how to keep it in a healthy range.

Sarah [00:23:16] What I will say next might shock you. Does the UFC offer a model for that? The ascendance over and within a healthy range. I read the Jack Crosby profile of Dana White and Rolling Stone. I found it very effecting and convincing. I keep thinking about this one part where he's talking about the fight, the actual fights and the men and women who are fighting in these mixed martial arts competitions. He says, "To know what this is like, you need to understand what it feels like to get hit in the face." The pain is easy to imagine, a sharp jolt as your brain rattles inside your skull. Your eyes well up with tears and you both smell and taste copper at the back of your nose and throat. It hurts. Yes, but there's also an immediate sense of disgrace. It makes you angry and afraid and ashamed. Another person has hit you and you couldn't stop them. A punch steals your pride and your confidence. And if you get hit with them enough, they'll even take your sanity. Getting hit hard feels awful. To do it to someone else, however, is one of the greatest feelings in the world.".

[00:24:28] I have never been hit in the face in my life. I think this probably makes me not only an exception among humans today, but definitely an exception of [inaudible] in human history. And I think about what that means. I even think about that reaction to Joe Rogan. Why should I go, urgh, about Joe Rogan? I've never listened to an episode of Joe Rogan in my entire life, and that is probably a dereliction of duty, not just as an American at this point, but as a podcaster. What am I doing? What am I afraid of? Why won't I listen to him? He's clearly doing something right. He is clearly speaking to a lot of people. I had this conversation with my husband this morning. I'm like, "I don't think Joe Rogan is a douchebag." And he's like, "Well, he's not. But a lot of people who listen to him are." And I'm like, "Okay, so what does that mean?" I'm just reading this article, thinking about this third most popular sport that I have no knowledge of, never seen, never thought about.

[00:25:23] This whole entire world where people get hit and this way it shuts them down. How hitting feels good. Like it seems relevant, and I'm trying to lean in to see what I can learn not only about myself, but other people instead of just reacting and shutting down and just letting it confirm what I already believe, feel, know, while also holding on to my values. It's a complex dance. No doubt about it. I loved when David Leonhardt was like trying not to do what everybody does, which is read things and decide the public agrees with you. And I'm just trying not to do that because there's a lot of a public out there in the manosphere voting for Donald Trump, going to UFC fights. I'm not saying I want to become them, but I do want to understand them better.

Beth [00:26:13] Well, I wasn't ‘urghing’ about Joe Rogan as much as Mark Zuckerberg at longform conversation, because I have not learned much from Mark Zuckerberg. I've read a lot about him. I've tried to understand him. I just don't think he's very interesting. I think he's a person who is still figuring out who he is. And I hope one day he finds that and he will become enlightening and interesting. But today he's not that for me. I have listened to Joe Rogan, and I think what he does is interesting and I think there's a version of that that can be really valuable. And that sometimes is and I think there's a version of it that can be pretty harmful and sometimes is. And that all of that exists; it's just all true at one time. And I'm not going to criticize anyone who listens to him. And I am sure I will pop in occasionally, as I have over the years, to hear some more because I do want to be open to the world. I want to be open to the world.

[00:26:58] I also don't want to be convinced that everything I thought before today was wrong- because it's not. And I also don't want to be so attuned to the masculinity crisis and the manosphere and the backlash and the misogyny and the Pete Hegseth, that I forget that I'm a mom of two daughters and a person who worked in a field that was dominated by men and still is in a lot of ways, and a person who still occasionally endures in semiprofessional contexts, some very sexist behavior, and is trying to make the world better on that front. So it's like this balance. I just don't want to outsource my feelings or thoughts in a direct way to anyone. We are all influenced and I am willing and wanting to be influenced, but I don't want to outsource who I am and what I'm about in that process.

Sarah [00:28:02] I just don't want to make those dudes any more money. I'm tired of working for free for Mark Zuckerberg. That's what I know about Mark Zuckerberg; is that I worked for free for Mark Zuckerberg for years. I don't want to do that anymore. That's how I feel about myself. I don't care what's going on with him personally. I'm just done working for that dude for free. And so as I think about that-- and I think you're totally right, how do you hold on to what you know is true without being threatened, without being run by your own confirmation bias? That's hard. It's really hard. And I also don't want to confirm the worst stereotypes. I'm the one tearing up here, but I'm also tough. I am. And that can exist with teary-eyed sensitivity to the stories of other people. And I would like to invite the manosphere to that. And there's a little bit of that going on when you're watching a mixed martial art fight. Like at the end, they talk about what the guys love is the underdogs. They love the underdogs who come up through a fight. They're with those guys. They're empathizing with those fighters. They're with it. They're in it with them.

[00:29:12] And so I'm just trying to see all that and open myself up to that version of being with it with another person and to say just because I'm with it in a way you think it makes me a snowflake doesn't make me a snowflake. I'm not scared to watch one of these fights. I'm not scared to listen to Joe Rogan. I'm not scared to engage in debate. But I think that's the problem, like the stereotype became that we won't engage; that you're a bad person and we cut you off. Because I think another very interesting part of what's happening right now is this break up with corporate America. Not just with the free speech and the Facebook of it all, but with like the DEI and the diversity and the hiring. Marc Andreessen did an interview with Ross Douthat at the New York Times that I thought was fascinating. Because we went from corporate America saying, no, diversity is how we keep hires, how we have a strong workplace, we have to make these employees happy; to someone like Marc Andreessen and Mark Zuckerberg going it went too far. They were trying to shut our companies down. We had to fight back. And it just strikes me as a divorce where there's probably truth on both sides. I hate to be a both sides person.

[00:30:27] And I don't know because I don't work in a corporate environment. I don't I don't know how that played out. I think Mark Anderson used the words like the inmates were running the asylum. That the generation of employees who valued a certain outlook, including an outlook that is harshly critical of capitalism itself, became ascendant. There it is again, right? The ascendancy. They were up and we couldn't be up and we're the ones that belong at the top as CEOs, not them. And so the reporting about Mark Zuckerberg is that he'd been wanting to do this for a while, just didn't feel like he could. So he took his moment. He took his moment to become ascended, to assert his power in the situation because he felt like his power was being taken away. And I think there's a through line to social media. There's a through line to immigration. There's a through line absolutely to gender. This feeling that you were taking something away from me, you were taking power that I should hold away from me.

Beth [00:31:39] I think they're missing the mark a little bit with the DEI focus. The executive orders on DEI are straight from Project 2025. This is exactly what those authors believed should happen. These programs should be shut down, that they are divisive, that they are race essentialist, and that that's actually racist. So that's where it's coming from. But I think what people are struggling with more maybe is generational difference. I think probably what the tech guys are struggling with less than let's make sure that we are hiring in a diverse and inclusive way is once they've hired people, hearing that as a justice proposition, we need to be able to work from home. Or as something anti-colonialist, we need to have this particular set of rights within the workplace. It is the everything is everything that I think is the real struggle here. I also think it is silly to talk about DEI as though that means much of anything. Initiative to initiative. Company to company. Program to program. That programing looks like a million different things. Some that you really want in most organizations mentoring, professional development, just being willing to learn things.

[00:33:04] If you serve different populations, learning about different populations needs and being able to work with them, whether they're customers or clients or whatever, a lot is contained under the label DEI and not all of it has anything to do with the list of grievances these guys and mostly guys have. So I think that that misses the mark. I think it's useful to talk about generational differences and useful to talk about what part of work is politics and what part of work is just work. Those lines are hard to discover. I have argued to people, you don't have to be an activist at a rally or in the street to do as much good as sometimes you can do in a board meeting. And that's true. And the immediate impact of good workplace policy that recognizes that people are full and complete people with a variety of needs that the workplace needs to take into account, that's really powerful. And so I don't know exactly where those lines are, but that to me is a really worthy discussion and the real one. And instead of having the real one, it's just a reassertion of dominance here.

Sarah [00:34:18] Yeah. And that's what I just am trying not to get trapped in again. I don't want everything to be defined as opposition to them because they're evil. I don't think it was politically successful. I don't think it's politically productive. I want to see what comes next. I want to offer a different solution, a different vision, even a progression in the description of the problem. I think back to the first thing we cited as social media, the states banning cell phones in schools is a policy I support. I would like to see the progressive left and the Democratic Party support those and work to those. And there are blue states and red states that they're passing, which shows you it's a good policy. But that's not what the attention merchants in the second row of the inauguration want. They don't want that. Great. Because that means that even more even better.

[00:35:17] I don't want it to just be like because it makes you mad it means it's a good idea. Do you know what I mean? Because that's what they do. And there's no vision behind that and you can see it just as clear as day. You talked about this with Project 2025. It wasn't a cohesive vision for what America could be. It was just here's what we think. Some of the problems are mostly what will just piss you off. And I don't want to be a part of that. I don't want to be a part of this dominance argument. I want to be productive, not just in the fight. I want to be in the fight. I'm trying to see clearly where there is a place to assert with strength a political objective or even a just a political take. But I don't want to just get trapped in this back and forth because it's not just a trap that makes me feel like shit, it's a trap that makes them more ascendant. It works to their benefit with the way the current attention economy is designed. It just does.

Beth [00:36:26] I think it also just prevents us from thinking creatively. I'm even annoyed with myself as I was describing Trump's executive order on the death penalty, which really upsets me, I think it's awful in a number of ways. I described his objective as showing that he's tough on crime, but that's not even it. He wants to be tough on punishment. There's nothing about preventing in here. It is once we've decided someone is a bad human, we want to treat them as harshly as possible. Included in that order is a directive to the attorney general to track down the 37 people whose death penalty sentences Biden commuted to ensure that their living conditions in prison are commensurate with the heinousness of their crimes. That is just being tough on punishment. That doesn't serve any societal good, doesn't keep anyone safer. There's lip service to that being a deterrent.

[00:37:32] But we have really clear data on how if incarceration and the death penalty were effective deterrents, we would be deterred as Americans because we really lean in to punishment. That's what he wants to be. And so I don't want to just be like, he's evil. That's the worst. I want to say what actually keeps people safer? What actually does deter crime? What actually prevents crime? And there are some good initiatives going on out there. I will sit at the table with you and acknowledge that there are places in this country where there is way too much crime and where people don't feel safe in places that they ought to feel safe. And it's wrong and it hurts people. Yes, let's talk about it. But then I want to have ideas, not just this back and forth, who's a better person or who cares more about victims? All of that frames the debate in such a narrow way that it doesn't go anywhere.

Sarah [00:38:24] Well, I think it goes beyond you're a bad human. It's that you're not a human anymore at all, as far as we're concerned. Trump is very, very comfortable dehumanizing people. His opponents, criminals, immigrants, he's comfortable saying they are not human beings deserving of basic dignity. It's just not a value he holds. It is one I hold. And so I do want to reserve the emotional calibration and ability to say this is dehumanizing. America is an idea, not an ethnic identity. And your approach to birthright citizenship crosses the line of basic American values. But you have to calibrate and it can't be about him. I think you're right; it has to be about the outcome. I think it's hard because I'm not sure statistics about how things are preventative connects with people in this current orientation of our attention economy. That's what's hard. What's hard is an attention economy built on conflict, built on extreme takes, built on that emotional reactivity is more inclined to elevate dehumanization than attempts to prevent dehumanization.

[00:40:03] That's why what Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde did was so important and impactful. Because it was said with moral clarity, without emotion, but there was tension. I can't imagine it was easy knowing who filled that cathedral to say what she said even with the enormous moral clarity she brought to the situation. But those situations are special because they are unique. I met a friend that said, "They don't even belong in church." I'm like, no, it's the opposite. It's because they were in church that it mattered. Not because church is the only place you can find moral clarity or speak truth to power, but there was a combination of factors there. It was not said, I don't think, to get anyone's attention but his. It was a unique situation. It was a situation that was in person. There was just so many layers that I think are instructive to that moment. But if it just fuels this sense of that's how you do it, you call them a piece of shit to their face, well then we're missing the point. We're missing the point.

Beth [00:41:29] I did read that she said she intended it to be heard far and wide because she feels like a lot of people have license to act cruelly right now. And I think it's important to be able to talk about that. The reason I think she was able to do it less emotionally is because I think she knows that probably he's not going to listen and be like I have a total change of heart. But she will continue her good work in the world anyway. We got an email this week saying something like I just can't be as positive as you guys are about the incoming administration. And I wanted to just reach through the screen and say, friend, we are not positive about this at all. We are not positive about this. We're just trying to be okay. We're just trying to meet the reality and know that we're going to do our good work in the world to the best of our ability anyway. And then think what is that work and what is the substance of it, and how do I take care of myself enough to be equipped for it? And how do I I keep a sense of clarity about what work needs to be done and how can it be done most effectively? So it's not that we're positive in any sense. And it's not even that moment to moment I'm okay. I just don't think performing my grief or confusion or anger is what does that good work in the world right now. And that's what I appreciated about the way that she said that. It was clear. It was composed. And she did what was hers to do in the moment, regardless of the outcome. And I think that that's such a good lesson for all of us.

Sarah [00:43:12] Now, I think you're naming something very important there. The cycle I would get caught up in is feeling entitled to an outcome because my rage and anger and frustration was so strong. And then that anger and rage and frustration being fueled because I did not get the outcome that I felt entitled to. And that is a cycle that is not just psychological, but is the, in fact, business model of the attention economy. Wrapped up in the entitlement that comes along with the capitalistic endeavor. I'm spending my time here, I'm spending my money here, and so this is what I deserve. You saw a lot of that in the TikTok shutdown I think. The sense of like I deserve this; I am entitled to this. And let me just say, when I look back to the Sarah of 2016, a lot of this is just my own personal journey. Nothing will wipe away a sense of entitlement to the fairness of the universe more than a child being diagnosed with a chronic illness. Okay, I'm just a different person. It takes a lot to upset me because I am dealing with a child with diabetes every day. And that just changes your perspective.

[00:44:42] I've had my heart broken in many different ways over the last ten years, not just by that, but everything that happens in life. And I try to keep that as a part of me. That's how you can-- or at least that's how I've found that I can be open, that I can see things clearly and maintain a sense of I'll be okay. Because the truth is I won't be. And I know that. It's really not optimism. It's acceptance. It's acceptance that I am no more or less entitled to a peaceful, easy, happy life than any other human. And what I learned day to day is the more I accept that and understand I cannot prevent pain; I can only control my reaction and prevent suffering. That informs not just my personal life, but absolutely how I respond to the politics of a second Trump administration. That's what I'm holding. It's not an optimism that I think things are going to work out. I don't believe that people will suffer. People will die because of the decisions of this administration. That's just the reality. It has always been the reality that people suffer and die because of the decisions of people in power.

Beth [00:46:06] Even the good ones.

Sarah [00:46:08] Even the good ones. Especially the good ones.

Beth [00:46:11] Yeah.

Sarah [00:46:12] That's what keeps me grounded as much as possible in the tumult.

Beth [00:46:21] And, look, it is trickier when some of what is creating suffering is directly political and your part of it. I think it would be very difficult to be a military member who is deployed to the southern border. I think that some of what we ask ICE agents to do and DHS workers to do is a form of injury to their spirits and I feel for that. I can imagine if I were a public health worker today who's really concerned about bird flu or something none of us have heard of yet and I've just been told that we can't release anything to the public, I can imagine that that creates like a real dark night of the soul moment where you're trying to figure out what am I obligated to do and to whom? Where does my loyalty lie and what am I called to do? And who am I called to be in this moment? Those are really hard questions and some of them are directly political. And so, I want to offer the support that I can to people in those positions by doing my homework and again, bringing the skills and the talents that I have to the table.

[00:47:36] That is what I can do for people in those positions- not tell them what to do or how they should feel or what the right thing is, because I don't know. I'm not sitting in their chairs or standing in their shoes right now. But offering what I can in their decision making process and offering empathy and care and strength and knowing that for right now I am okay. And keeping myself okay helps in a lot of ways. And there might be a moment when I'm not because as much privilege as I have to stay in sort of the DEI realm, I think that none of us are going to be untouched by the actions of this administration over the next four years. Just as we're always touched in some way by what every administration does. But I do think that some things are going to get really difficult in ways that impact a whole lot of people. And so maybe one day it'll be my turn to receive more than I give. That's not where I am today. And I want to be cognizant and strong in the face of that.

Sarah [00:48:45] Navigating complex moral injuries is just the reality of modern life. Whether you're an ICE agent or in the military, that is it. We are not fending for food now or yet. I don't know. I'm reading Station 11; who knows? We are not protecting ourselves from invaders no matter what those executive orders say. We are mostly navigating complex moral injuries and ethics in modern life. I was reading an article this week that talked about it used to be the opt in Internet, and now it's the opt out Internet. You had to choose to participate. Now it feels like you have to choose to step away. And what I love about what we do here is podcasting because it is still mainly built by experience and personal recommendation. It's not algorithmic. It's the RSS feed at the end of the day. It's that what we do here with all of you is primarily opting in still. It is still a little corner of the Internet where we often. And that feels important and special to me.

[00:50:06] And actually I apologize a lot when I criticize social media. I talk about my position and my resistance to the attention economy because of what we do, but I going to stop doing that because I don't think they're the same thing. What we do here when you listen to our voices is not the same thing as what I did for 10 years on Facebook and Instagram. It just isn't. It's special. It's different. I love the conversations we have with all of you. I love the conversations I have with Beth. And I think it is a fundamental reason that I can stand here and face this incoming administration and say, here we go. I'm stronger. I'm ready.

[00:51:05] Outside of Politics we like to take an exhale. I need it. We're going to talk about a question I had from our friend who said, "How do you read all these books?" And I said, "Well, first of all. I am reading several books at once." And I thought this would be a fun thing to talk about. Whether you read a lot of books at once or one book at a time. I am currently reading seven books. I think it might be eight. I don't know. I'll have to look at my Goodreads. A lot. I read a lot of books all at once pretty much all the time.

Beth [00:51:43] I'm reading three books right now and I hate it. I like to read one book at a time. I hate, hate, hate reading multiple books at a time.

Sarah [00:51:52] Even nonfiction and fiction?

Beth [00:51:53] Even nonfiction and fiction. I just like to be absorbed in a thing and give all my attention to that thing and then conclude it and move on to the next thing that I'm going to be really absorbed with.

Sarah [00:52:03] I mean, I am a completist. I love to complete things. But I think because one of my strengths finders is information-- I like a barrage of information, and so I'd like to take in a lot at once. Mainly because I find-- I've thought about this a lot because I knew we were going to talk about it as I've been reading all my books this week. They talk to each other in a way that I love, and it really doesn't matter how different they are. They talk to each other. I find connective tissue between Peter Teal's Zero to One and Tolstoy's War and Peace. I swear to God, I do. They're chatting. I'm reading Paradise Lost and it's everywhere. I see that book mentioned in so many articles, and I see the threads in other books I'm reading when they're talking about good and evil and hell. I love the way it all kind of-- I do look like that guy from everything sunny in Philadelphia in the meme with the Post-its and the strings. That's what's happening in my brain and I love it.

Beth [00:53:09] I just feel like I have enough of that already with all of the articles and opinions and orders. We read all day. If someone says, "What's your job?" It's reading and talking. That's pretty much it. I read and I talk. And so I already have all of this input and books feel really different to me. I get up from my desk. I go somewhere else to read. I try to put myself in a physically different frame of mind. I really do try to quiet the screens and quiet the noise. And so I don't know. You just like input more than I do in general and we know this from our travel. You like to be in conversation with someone all the time and be thinking about something new. And when we're driving there, you're listening to a thing that we're going to talk about when you get there because you've taken it all in, and I love that for you and about you. I just get really overwhelmed. At some point my threshold gets exceeded. And so I feel like my threshold is already met by everything I am doing to just make the next thing that we're making. And so when I'm reading, which I really enjoy, even if it's nonfiction, I enjoy it. But I just want to be able to channel my energy toward that thing without having it also feel as diffuse as everything else I take in in the week feels.

Sarah [00:54:30] You know what's so interesting now? It's like what we take in over the course of the week, I have started to pull away from the space of my desk, too. Obviously, I get the Sunday New York Times, so I read that like on the weekend in a chair away from my desk. I've started using Instapaper again where I save articles and Apple News. So at my desk, I'm skimming, I'm skimming, I'm taking it all in and seeing the trends. And then when I want to read something, when I read a long read or an article or something, I'm on my iPad, I'm away from that. And I feel like that really helps me because I like it all to be in conversation together. And also I just hardcore scan when I'm sitting at a computer screen trying to read something. I can't go in depth. I don't know what it is about my brain.

Beth [00:55:16] I have a little trouble because I am a prolific note taker. And so figuring out how to sit in like a comfy chair, but also take the level of notes that I want to take for some of our work is tricky for me. I do really like reading Foreign Affairs magazine that comes. And it's another book. I mean, it's a lot. And I will take it slowly. And I don't mind to read that when I'm reading books because it's so easy to chunk it out. And I feel like I take in that topic and I let it roll around in my head a little bit. I feel really grateful that I get to read as much as I do, especially when I look at data about trends in reading and how many people say they would love to read more but they can't find the time. I'm really grateful that I get to read so much. But I do really like to just give it all to the one book at a time. It's almost feel like I'm dating that book And I just want to go along with that book and then I'll move on to the next one.

Sarah [00:56:08] Well, you know what else? I think it is my attention span for reading is high, but my attention span in one sitting for one thing is pretty low. So I like to read and feel like I've completed that reading for the day. So I do a lot of like daily reading goals, especially with long reads where I'm reading a certain amount of pages a day. And it feels accomplishing and productive in a way that I don't feel like I always had this need to read hanging over my head. Because the need to read will just stop me from reading. But if I feel like I did it, I read my six pages in this book, I read one chapter in this book, so now I can move on to the next thing. And so I have to have a lot of things going to sort of feed that. And I really like holding The Times, holding The Economist, and I'm liking more and more the way I'm using Feedly because I'm seeing things I wouldn't have seen otherwise.

[00:57:00] Though getting a lot of that through like newsletters was not working for me. I wasn't seeing a lot of what was being published. When I flick through The Economist, I'm never going to see those online. I just don't see the stuff they're talking about. It's like totally out of the realm. That happens a lot with the New York Times. There will be pieces in there that I never saw on the home page, and I like that. I want to get input and influence that is outside of my ecosystem or my echo chamber, even though I know The New York Times is a specific kind of echo chamber. But you know what I'm saying? I want to see more different stuff. And I just feel like that happens when I'm reading a bunch of different books at the same time. And it definitely happens when I'm reading a whole magazine as opposed to just skimming a homepage.

Beth [00:57:45] Yeah, I get that. Now, one difference is that I have a limitless attention span for one thing in one setting because I will get really into it and I will sit and just go. I struggle with fiction a little bit because I feel like I am neglecting my family because when I'm really in it, I am gone. I am absorbed. I am in the world. And I love that feeling for me, but then I feel a lot of tension around that in my other responsibilities in life. So I think that that might be part of the difference. I do think that it is helpful to actively seek out beyond the main page of websites. And I've kind of been working on my own habits around that as well. So with The New York Times, I scroll off that Today page a lot and go section by section to just check out what I'm seeing. And I do that with some other publications as well. And More to Say helps me with this because I'm often trying to do research beyond just the story that kicked off whatever I'm talking about. And that takes me all kinds of weird places on the Internet and into scholarly journals. And then I've got 15 footnotes from that that I want to check out. And so I feel like I have a lot of places that I get to go with my reading every day. And I really, again, enjoy that and appreciate it. It feels like a privilege. And then I want to sit down with my cozy mystery and just tune in to that one story if I can.

Sarah [00:59:10] I think the attention span is probably like a huge part of it. That makes a lot of sense to me. I can't wait to hear from all of you. Listen, I wonder who reads the most books at one time. That'll be fun to see and hear from all of you in the comments. We love communicating with you. We love hearing your thoughts on the shows of what you can hear throughout this episode, how much they inform our own thinking, how we kind of chew on feedback and input. It really, like I said, I think it makes what we do here very special and it is a privilege and one I'm very grateful for. So thanks for being with us today. If you found this episode helpful, we would love it if you would encourage someone else to opt in and listen to Pantsuit Politics. Share it with a friend. Will be back in your ears on Tuesday with another episode. And until then, keep it nuanced, y'all.

[00:59:54] 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:

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