The Other Side of Election Day

TOPICS DISCUSSED

• Reflecting on 2022 Midterm Election Results

• Outside of Politics: Diabetes Awareness Week

EPISODE RESOURCES

• Sarah & Beth’s Favorite Things from 2022

• The Holderness Family Podcast

DIABETES RESOURCES

• @thebetes (Instagram)

• Learning About Diabetes

TRANSCRIPT

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

Beth [00:00:08] And this is Beth Silvers.  

Sarah [00:00:10] Thank you for joining us for Pantsuit Politics. Hello, and welcome to another episode of Pantsuit Politics. We are here on the other side of Election Day 2022, and we have come together to process all the results as far as Congress, state leadership, ballot initiatives and, of course, Donald Trump. Outside of Politics, we are going to mark Diabetes Awareness Month by giving an update on my youngest son, Felix's journey with Type one diabetes.  

Beth [00:00:49] Before we begin, Maggie has put together a little present for us and for all of you, because so frequently we will mention something in passing on the show and later receive DM's, emails saying what was it? What was the thing? And is there a link and is there a discount code? And Maggie did the painstaking work all year of collecting the things that we were mentioning in passing so that we could share our favorite things with you for holiday shopping season. So it's all just in one nice, neat place. You can learn about the way to give the gift of Pantsuit Politics to people in your life, and to buy those pants that I said were so comfortable, and that skin care product that Sarah recommended, it's all in one place. Thank you, Maggie. And we will put a link in the show notes so that you can access all that information.  

Sarah [00:01:37] Next up, we're going to talk about election day. We did it. We made it through election day. We don't have all our results in, but we made it through election day.  

Beth [00:01:57] We made it through so much more calmly and smoothly than I had prepared myself, or my heart was ready for just about anything. And I am so pleased that I was wrong.  

Sarah [00:02:08] So you know I live in the gut triad. That's my Enneagram center. And I just felt joy. I felt joy in my polling place, I could tell I was the only one. I was feeling very chatty and happy and everybody else did feel stressed. But I was so thrilled to see lines at like 9:30. I was there at not a high traffic time and still there were lines. Everything went smoothly. This seems to be the reports from across the country, lots and lots of voters, very little issues.  

Beth [00:02:41] I don't quite know how much I'm reading into this, what I want to see. I see a lot of that happening around me, that these midterm results are such a mixed bag that you can really find what you're looking for in them and ignore other things. But I know that what I'm looking for and then I'm finding some evidence to find is confidence in our processes. When we've had these years of stop the steal and our elections are broken and rigged, to know that that at least is not discouraging people from participating is so encouraging to me.  

Sarah [00:03:14] Yeah, I don't think there's any way to see the turnout and not feel positively. I want more Americans voting under any circumstances, under any motivations. I'm just going to be honest. I want more Americans to vote, period. I love high turnout under any circumstances especially in a midterm. And so seeing lines across the country, seeing the process go smoothly, even I feel like reading reports this morning that there was very little misinformation that took hold. I guess I never anticipated. Although now it makes sense to me that over time it's like exposure therapy. If it's a constant five alarm fire, eventually people go, wait a minute. I'm not saying this is a turning point and every American has accepted that we have free and fair elections. Obviously, that is not the case. Obviously, some election deniers won their races. But I think overall, what I feel is this sense of enough is enough. I don't want to live in 2020 anymore. There was a great quote in one of the New York Times article that was, like, you don't win elections by continuing looking back. Americans like to look forward. And that rings true to me. That rings true.  

Beth [00:04:34] One of the most interesting anecdotes I've picked up in reading all of the Trump retrospectives is where Chris Christie was trying to explain to him what a voter in New Jersey explained to Chris Christie. He tells this story about talking to someone when he was running for re-election, about all the good things he did as the governor of New Jersey during his first term. And the voters said, "Yeah, that's what I got for voting for you the first time. What do I get for voting for you this time?" And I think that he's right about that. And it makes it really difficult because there's a lot of analysis about how Democrats ought to be out selling all the good things that they've done more. But I think that Chris Christie is right on the fundamental of Americans do want to know what's next, not what has been. And the flip side of that that's so difficult is I always do want like a repudiation of what has been wrong in the past. So the fact that we are sending some people to Congress who are election deniers, the fact that we are going to have members of Congress who were present on January six, I mean, there are some bad news in here. And we don't get the kind of like dramatic "No, we will not. That is a deal breaker for us as a country," that I wish that we could have. But I do look at all of the trends here and how silly I think it would land right now if someone came out who lost in the midterms and said that it was stolen, fraudulent, whatever. I think that would land with a real thud and that feels good.  

Sarah [00:06:00] I have released my need for repudiation despite being a person who is highly motivated by justice. Repudiation is not a thing that happens a lot in American politics; especially the bigger and more diverse we get, the bigger and more diverse and intense our media environment get. So I don't hold that. And as much as I do, let me tell you, I feel like we got it around abortion. I feel like we got it around abortion. To see states like Kansas, to see our home state of Kentucky defeat an abortion amendment that would have stripped any right to reproductive freedom from our state constitution, I wept. I wept when those results started running in. And people would look at me and say, "Well, it's so close." It's not close. It's not close. Not in the state of Kentucky unless you were looking for no one to vote for it. But that cannot be our standard. Come on, that can't be our standard. I am so incredibly encouraged by the resounding answer America has given through elections post Dobbs, which is you went too far. And as much as I was looking for  a repudiation in this election, that was the issue I was looking for it in and I found it.  

Beth [00:07:15] I wonder what's next now, because it is a strange thing to be in Kentucky celebrating that we said no to riding the courts out of judicial review. Because what it took to get to that no was framing the issue as do you support any right to an abortion or not? And all of the people who turned out to say, yes-- there's got to be some, there's got to be some flexibility here-- are still waking up today in a state where you cannot get an abortion. And so what happens next? Our attorney general put out this really strange statement about how disappointed he is in the results, but how the results should not at all change our Supreme Court's analysis when this issue reaches it soon. And I thought, well, you could have just said nothing and that would have been fine. And two, what a weird thing for us, because our court is not guaranteed to find that right in the Kentucky Constitution. And then what? The voters said you went too far. The legislature still has no incentive to walk that back. So what happens from here? I think that's going to be fascinating to watch in Kentucky and across the country.  

Sarah [00:08:28] The conversation has just flipped. For so many decades, it was, how far can we go? Where is the ceiling on abortion rights? And all of a sudden we're discussing the floor. And I think that's fine. I'm fine building it from the floor. I'm fine working that out, and I'm fine with the answer being different. I understand that my home state of Kentucky is much more conservative on abortion rights than I am. But I'm so pleased we seem to agree on the floor that no right at all is too far and I'm fine working up from there. I think that's the hard, difficult work of a democracy is saying, okay, what can we agree on and let's move up from there. I think that that's fine and I think it's long, hard work and that's what's in front of us and that's what comes next. And anybody that supports reproductive freedom understands that and always understood that, especially in states like Kentucky. But the Supreme Court decision has upended the conversation and just the political process in such a dramatic way. It does feel like for the first time in my lifetime, we have real movement. We have a real stability and visibility and transparency, at least, about what we all see going on and what we can agree on. And I'm incredibly encouraged by that. As far as the other big picture from this election, as a Democrat, I don't think I have to look very hard to find things to be happy about. I think partly driven by a media narrative and a Republican narrative that said this is going to be a tsunami. I keep thinking about Elise Stefanik. This is going to be a red tsunami. And really under any historical markers, it should have been. I thought from the beginning, though, there's some ahistorical factors at play here including abortion and January 6th and Donald Trump and a former president who has not conceded his race and keeps dragging us all back to 2020. And so I had a hunch that things were going to be different, but to have lost fewer seats in the House of Representatives than any Democratic presidents first term in like 40 years, I'm happy about that. I am happy this was not a red wave, not only as a Democrat, but as an American citizen who believes we have to have a healthy two party system and hopes that this will be the wake up call the Republican Party needed.  

Beth [00:10:55] My dad has talked a lot about the fundamentals of local races and how people want you to work for it. They want you to work for reelection, for election. They'll want you to knock doors. They want to see your signs. They want to know that you really put some effort into getting these offices. And I wonder in the Republican Party if there is any conversation to be heard right now about how they didn't really work for this midterm. They just walked around telling us that it was going to be a red wave. You heard all of the criticism of Democrats, but you did not hear proposals for what Republicans would do differently. It has been a party of being for several years now just we are not the Democrats, not politically correct, not bowing to liberal work, woke corporate, whatever. I mean, all of the sort of mad libs of it. But there hasn't been much effort in the party. I was just reading Axios Vitals this morning, I was struck by one of the opening paragraphs, which is, "If Republicans control the House, it'll be the first time in a while that we've had a party in control with no clear health care agenda." There isn't a clear health care agenda, and health care is going to be huge over the next year because premiums are coming back so high for people. We are coming out of this pandemic. There are all kinds of diseases growing in the world and spreading, we have got to talk about health care again and they don't have a health care agenda. And I just wonder, I've been thinking a lot about what are the incentives for the party as a party. Now, if you are part of the GOP and you care about the longevity of the party, what are the incentives for the party? And I would hope framing some kind of a coherent agenda is at least on the table for consideration.  

Sarah [00:12:44] I think you're right. And as you look at these races, it's hard not to conclude that the only campaign strategy was tie yourself to Trump and contrast your position with the big, scary Democrats. And so as we look over this map, we're going to have a runoff in Georgia, another runoff in Georgia between Herschel Walker and Senator Raphael Warnock. We do have a flipsy. We have Democrat John Fetterman picking up the Pennsylvania Senate seat. And I got to say, I was a little surprised by how quickly that was called.  

Beth [00:13:20] I was extremely surprised by everything about that race, including that Dr. Oz conceded. And then he conceded graciously. And I am grateful for that.  I've been lighting a little candle every time I see someone graciously conceding from either party. I'm so grateful for it. But particularly there because his incentives were different, I think, and I'm glad that he did the grown up thing.  

Sarah [00:13:44] We have an exciting development in Alaska. They're electing their senator based on ranked choice voting. Now, Senator Lisa Murkowski and her GOP challenger are the ones advancing, so we know they're going to hold that seat. But Alaska is out there doing the work for us, holding ranked choice voting elections, and I'm very grateful for that. Just put that on the record. So we're still waiting for results in Nevada and Arizona. Depending on that, then we'll see if the runoff in December in Georgia will be determinative of Senate control. It's going to be close no matter what. It looks likely that the Republicans will hold the House. I don't know what happened to New York. I mean, I do know what happened in New York. They submitted a plan for congressional maps and it was deemed too partisan by the state court. So they had a special master come in and redraw the district lines pretty close to time. And so there was a lot of flips there. And let me just say, I want that. I want nonpartisan district drawing and I am willing to support that even when it is at a loss for my party. I just want to put that on the record. I think it was a chaotic process that didn't need to be that chaotic, but I do want nonpartisan district drawing. I want to get away from gerrymandering. I'm happy with competitive districts. I'm happy with more competitive districts. So I think we're seeing that play out in New York. And it's hard because I think they're going to take a lot of heat for that in [Inaudible]. But I'm happy with nonpartisan congressional maps no matter what.  

Beth [00:15:13] Well, I certainly agree with that. I also wonder if New York Democrats have a version of what I just described in the GOP going on, that voters want them to work for it more. I've seen a lot of reporting on how, particularly in the gubernatorial race, there was not the kind of effort from Kathy Hochul that people want to see and that might have had impacts down the ballot. I wonder how much Sean Patrick Maloney was busy working on the national level and neglected his district?  I think that there there are probably a ton of lessons learned for the Democratic Party in New York coming out of this midterm.  

Sarah [00:15:47] I do want to say, before we move on from the House, that there's a very close race in Colorado with Lauren Boebert. Last time I checked down, like a spattering, a mere spattering of votes. So hopefully we'll have a call in that race. And I do hope she loses. I think she's bad at her job and deserves to lose, for the record. I did think as I was looking through these House races that this was interesting in 36 House races that the Political Report rated as a toss up. Side note, that's too few. To our previous point, Trump endorsed just five Republicans and each one of them lost on Tuesday. So I do think under any rubric, the Republican Party is doing some analysis. I like how the dispatch keeps calling it knives out. But I think one of the best things I read was in a New York piece, it was Scott Jennings who used to work for Mitch McConnell. And he was like, just fill the void. Don't give him time. That's what happened that day after January 6th. Instead of just finishing the job, instead of Ron DeSantis coming out and saying, "I'm running", or Glenn Youngkin coming out and saying, "I'm running, fill the field, don't give him space. Don't let him announce first," and get that momentum. Like, fill the void because that's what we learned after January six. If you don't, he's pretty good at recovering. And I think that is very, very, good analysis. And I hope they're listening. I hope Liz Cheney's text messages is full of apologies and what should we do next? And I really, really, really hope they can move on from Trump.  

Beth [00:17:18] It's just a weird time right now because, again, my head is just all in incentives. The media incentives are to get DeSantis and Trump squaring off. Because a million think pieces can be written and a whole lot of eyeballs can be attracted based on a DeSantis Trump matchup. And at the same time, if you look at their results across the whole of the country and think about where is the whole of the country on executive leadership, I think you've got to look at the gubernatorial races more than the House races as you're thinking about who would perform better in 2024.  

Sarah [00:17:59] Well, let's take a pause and will pick up with that conversation after the break.  

Beth [00:18:14] So DeSantis wins decisively in Florida. And it is unclear to me that DeSantis does well outside of Florida in any scenario, because the unique factors that make him so strong in Florida I think would be severely overstated anywhere else, even in Kentucky. I don't think Kentucky wants the kind of governance that we saw Ron DeSantis exercising in Florida. I think that is about Florida. And reading it on the bigger map is kind of just what everybody's itching for because a challenger to Trump would be really super fun.  

Sarah [00:18:49]  I've heard two pieces of analysis that every cell in my body went, that's true, just immediately. I heard on NPR, Mara Liasson saying, "I think the DeSantis results are a reflection of the collapse of the Democratic Party in Florida more than it is a reflection on the national Democratic politics." And I went, yep. I don't live in Florida. I don't know what the Democratic Party in Florida is like, but every cell in my body went, yeah, that's true. And then you sent a thread from Rick Wilson, who's not my favorite, but he's like Florida Republican Party got the best [Inaudible]. Makes sense, right? They've all moved down there. It's a nice, sunny place to live. Like Trump's down there. They've got all the consultants. They have this Republican Party just functioning at a very high level. And the Democratic Party in Florida has sort of collapsed. And to me, that sounds right. I just think we forget and underestimate-- and it's not sexy-- media coverage, how much just the mechanics of campaigning really matter. To Kathy Hochul's race, to whatever the results in the Arizona gubernatorial race, that'll be a component. Like just the mechanics of the organization on the ground how your actual campaign runs. And Ron DeSantis has got a lot of lucky breaks. I'm not saying he doesn't take advantage of all of them, but he is untested. Same for Glenn Youngkin, untested on a national field like in. And to me, when I look back, I was telling my husband this this morning, I was like, when I look back, the people who do good in presidential politics are the ones that are in tough states. You see a Barack Obama winning in Illinois and he will tell you, he will say Illinois is a good microcosm of the country. You have southern Illinois that's incredibly rural, incredibly conservative. Then you have Chicago and you can kind of play your politics across this wide field and test them out. Same for Bill Clinton with Arkansas in the nineties. He was a Democrat winning Arkansas in the nineties. These politicians who have to really test their politics on a state level are the ones who do well on a national level. And that's not Ron DeSantis. Not in Florida. Not right now.  

Beth [00:20:50] I don't think so. I mean, how he will handle the hurricane cleanup effort is TBD to me. I haven't seen anything that I feel is real concerning about him or really amazing about him and managing that crisis. So I think he's a little more tested than Glenn Youngkin just because of the weather events in his state. But it's unclear to me if Florida is really on board with DeSantis because of the forget everybody, I'm going to keep everything open during COVID. Or if it's more of that, forget everybody, we're going to go to battle with Disney. Or forget everybody, we're going to make sure everyone in our schools conducts themselves like good Christians. I'm not sure what his popularity hinges on there, but any way you slice it, it feels pretty unique to Florida from where I sit.  

Sarah [00:21:40] Now, not for nothing, as I am thinking through this analysis and looking at Ron DeSantis, I am happy to have a conversation about Gretchen Whitmer, who won her re-election campaign in a state that is not deeply blue. Although, now you have Michigan Democrats capturing for control of state government for the first time in four decades. So as I look to 2024, I would love to have a conversation about Gretchen Whitmer and her leadership in Michigan.  

Beth [00:22:11] And you remember during COVID, we were constantly like, "Michigan, are you okay?"  

Sarah [00:22:15] Are you okay?  

Beth [00:22:17] So the fact that she recovered from that, that she has not backed off an inch despite this elaborate plot to kidnap and kill her, that she just keeps going and lifting people with her, I think is really exciting. I'm excited for her. I'm excited for Tony Evers in Wisconsin. That was not an easy race to win, especially now that we know that Ron Johnson has pulled out the Senate race. You see in governors where people know that the rubber meets the road on leadership. And I think it's exciting to see that Gretchen Whitmer has really won people over.  

Sarah [00:22:53] Beyond the state leadership, we also had several ballot initiatives across many states on Tuesday. Back to your point about how health care is going to become increasingly important, voters in South Dakota approved about 56%, a measure expanding the state's Medicaid program under the Affordable Care Act. We have seen this in red state after red state. The legislature refuses to do it. So people are like, fine, we will do it ourselves. Why will you not take the money and let more people get on Medicaid? So I thought that was interesting to see. Massachusetts voters approved a ballot initiative imposing a 4% surtax on individuals annual income higher than $1 million. I thought that was interesting. Little tax the rich energy coming from Massachusetts. And beyond even the specifics of these initiatives across the country-- I love us. I love America. Like you see in Kentucky and in West Virginia, voters sending legislators right back into their supermajority, sometimes even expanding their supermajorities, but rejecting all the amendments those same legislators put on the ballot. We voted down both amendments in Kentucky, West Virginia had like four, voted down all of them, but sent them all right back. I'm like, friends, I would like to have a conversation about this.  

Beth [00:24:17] Well, when we talked about South Dakota approving Medicaid expansion, that is the same pool of voters who re-elected Kristi Noem by like 30 points.  

Sarah [00:24:26] I don't know. I'm so confused. I mean, I'm not confused. We were on the Holderness Family's podcast, had a great conversation with them. And we talked about, like, so much of this is just life experience and family history and habit. Like, we have so many emails from listeners who are like, you don't understand how hard it was for me to start voting differently and the pressure that my family members put on me to like come back into the fold. And it's just identity. It's identity partisanship, not policy based partisanship. But it's just so-- I don't  want to say discouraging. I don't feel discouraged. I just feel like going to my friend Lacey's perfect quote for all time "Humans, they're awful and also awesome." I don't know what's weird.  

Beth [00:25:15] Well, it's also, I think, a function of how in some states you can check that straight ticket box for candidates, but you can't do that on amendments. You have to directly answer the questions.  

Sarah [00:25:27] That's true.  

Beth [00:25:28] I also think it has to do with what we believe the job of our representatives is. And I think because our representatives are actually showing their faces more to communicate about how they feel about big social issues than they are talking about the actual votes they're casting in the work of their committees. A lot of people feel like, I want to vote for someone who talks and sounds the way I want them to talk and sound. And I'm not going to think about what that means for who chairs the Commerce Committee in our state. So that's where you really need more local media and you really need more people actually educating voters about what the work of being a representative is. Not to say that people are dumb. I also think people do just kind of like for things to be pretty divided. I think people enjoy the sense of checks and balances. I think a lot of people feel really good about themselves when they split ticket vote and there's nothing wrong with that. And so there's some complexity that I think tells us that we are still a thoughtful populous and we have a lot of embrace that, too.  

Sarah [00:26:33] Well, speaking of that, some of these people wouldn't have had anybody else to vote for even if they'd wanted to. Let's say they're mad about all these amendments and wanted to vote differently. Even as a Republican, they wouldn't have had anybody. Much like you and I, 70% of my ballot was unopposed in the partisan races. And I've had lots of conversations since election day about what people chose to do. I'm wondering what you chose to do in all of those unopposed races on your ballot.  

Beth [00:26:58] I considered writing people in, but I know that those writings do not count if the folks have not registered as write in candidates. And so I decided not to do that. So I skipped the races where I could not in good conscience check that box. And and I checked the box in the races where I did feel good about the candidate. And what I'm thinking about now is who in my life did I want to write in and how can I tell them that and encourage them to consider, especially some of these local offices, council positions where I thought we really had poor choices as candidates. And I would like to see something different next time.  

Sarah [00:27:37] Yeah, I did the same. I did write in a couple, but I have friends who wrote in for every single race and just said I could not cast a single vote for a Republican, but I did. Our PVA is doing a good job. I voted for him. Our county clerk is doing a good job. I voted for her. But it was interesting to hear people how they walked in and kind of struggled with that, like,  what do I even do? I will say that I was very encouraged among my, very democratic, very progressive friends post election day, where I felt a definite shift. I felt a shift from basically, like, absolutely not, they're all evil. Don't even talk to me about Republicans, too. I'm willing to admit some people do a good job and I would just like normal George W Bush Republicans back. Please and thank you. It did fit with this election cycle with the results coming in, in a way that many of us did not expect. And there is a lot of anxiety that the stakes relaxed and people could sort of clear the anxiety from their eyes and look around and say everybody's not going to be a Democrat. That's just the reality. Everyone is not going to be a Democrat. And so we do need Republicans and we do need to talk in a way that will allow people to be reasonable Republicans instead of just our enemy. And I was really encouraged by that. All of our premium listeners know I've been in a very like I love America's space since election day. This election and the results, I don't even know who's going to control calls yet and I still feel so optimistic and so encouraged by these results.  

Beth [00:29:17] I think it's probably easier to feel that in Kentucky than in some states right now. I know that our folks in Texas and Oklahoma, there are people around this country who are extremely discouraged right now. I read a thread from a candidate in Missouri this morning who it sounds like worked so hard to reach out to her community and heard some really heinous things in the process about how Democrats are all going to hell and just confronted the worst of what you think about if you're a Democratic candidate trying to make progress in a solidly red area. And that is very hard. So I don't want to be dismissive of where anybody is, of your joy or of their frustration and sorrow and pain. That is why my questions are all forward looking. I recognize that you cannot influence people if you resent them. And so I like being able to check some boxes on my ballot that are not Democrats. I still feel weird saying that. I'm voting for Democrats on my ballot. I'm still kind of getting used to that. It's a strange thing for me.  

Sarah [00:30:30] Well, and to our ballot, being in Kentucky is not this like blissful place. In the state of Kentucky, I'm happy because we didn't put in our Constitution that there's absolutely no right to abortion. This is not Michigan, Vermont or California, where they codified a right to abortion. And I still had basically no Democrats to vote for it with a chance in hell of winning. And I still feel optimistic.  

Beth [00:30:54] Yeah, my district is still represented by someone who I find completely incompetent to do the job. And I didn't see those numbers move a lot, and that's discouraging. I had hoped to see the numbers move a lot. Charles Booker did not improve much on Amy McGrath's performance, despite a lot of effort to do party building and fundraising in between. So  it is tough and also we just keep going and that's the only option. And so how do you create an environment where our state legislature, if it is unwilling to walk back its draconian abortion laws, at least thinks twice before trying something similarly draconian. How do you create an environment? Sarah You predicted that J.D. Vance will start acting like a normal Republican now. How do we create an environment that incentivizes him to do that instead of to be another josh Hawley? I don't know, but that's what I'm looking for.  

Sarah [00:31:50] And let me say to the people in Texas and Georgia and North Carolina and Florida, you are doing that. Beto's campaign mattered. It mattered. Every message I saw across my Instagram that said, "I voted for Trump and I carry a gun and I'm voting for Beto," (and there were a lot of them) mattered. Not just for the people who saw it on Instagram, but to that person and to everyone in their life who knew that, that matters. Every new voter registration in Georgia, in Texas, in North Carolina, in Florida, they matter. The young people who turned out in huge, huge numbers. Generation Z is turning out to vote. That matters. That's how you create that environment. You don't do it by winning every time. That's not how politics works. The hard, long work of campaigns that have impact without results that we can celebrate is the real work of democracy. And that's what I'm encouraged. I'm encouraged by Tim Ryan's campaign, even though he didn't win. I am. And I just think that we have to feel that impact. We cannot just mourn that we didn't win because that makes it harder for the next Beto and the next Tim Ryan and the next Val Demings to come along and go, "No, I'm going to do it and I'm going to do it even better this time. And I might not win, but it matters." I think that that is encouraging. Even those people running in those states is so encouraging. And we learn a little bit more about what works and we learn a little bit more about each other. And to that candidate in Missouri, we learned some heartbreaking lessons about how much pain and hatred and ignorance is in our community. And that matters too. And I think that's what we all have to keep in mind as we move on from election day. Beth, can I add one more moment of hope for the end of this election day talk?  

Beth [00:33:56] Of course.  

Sarah [00:33:56] You guys, I love this so much. It was in the Dispatch and it made me laugh because it said it's been less than 48 hours since election day and our politics are healing. Glenn Youngkin confirmed that he sent speaker Nancy Pelosi a handwritten apology last week after he seemingly made light of the recent attack against her husband. And I think that is beautiful. And she confirmed that she has accepted his apology.  

Beth [00:34:25] I love that. I would like to see more of that.  

Sarah [00:34:27] First of all, I would like to see more handwritten notes generally in the world.  

Beth [00:34:29] In general.  

Sarah [00:34:32]  But I think that's really lovely. I love that they shared that with all of us. Not for nothing, I also think what happened, the tragedy that happened to Paul Pelosi probably mattered in this election cycle. But I think it was really, really, great that he reached out and apologized. And I just thought that was a nice note to end on. Outside of Politics today, we thought we would give a little diabetes update because it has now been six months since Felix Holland was diagnosed with Type one diabetes and November is Diabetes Awareness Month.  

Beth [00:35:13] So for people who have not been with us for the past six months, Sarah, can you just share a quick Felix Holland is... And here's what happened.  

Sarah [00:35:23] Felix Holland is my youngest son. He is seven years old. And I do want to share his diagnosis story quickly because it's important for awareness to remind everybody what the signs and symptoms of type one diabetes is. Now, we call it type one diabetes, not juvenile diabetes anymore, because you can be diagnosed into your late twenties, early thirties. So it doesn't just affect children, but it does primarily affect young people. We noticed that Felix was exhibiting extreme thirst and had begun to wet the bed again. So what he was doing was trying to clear all the sugar out of his system because his pancreas has been attacked by his immune system and no longer produces the cells that help transform sugar into energy. So he was just asking for drinks all the time going to the bathroom all the time. We caught it very early. We tested his blood sugar and with a home blood glucose monitor, which I now encourage everyone to own. When he woke up in the morning, it was 312. It should be about 90 to 180. So we took him to his pediatrician. They tested again. It was high. We went to Vanderbilt, received excellent care, and we're very lucky he was not in diabetic ketosis and only missed a day of school. And away we went on our diabetic journey. He wears a continuous glucose monitor that tells us his blood glucose about every 5 minutes. But before that we had to wake up in the middle night and prick his fingers and take his blood glucose. Every couple of hours we were giving him multiple daily injections for about two months, which is tough. It's a lot of alcohol swabs and insulin pens. And it's tough that the learning of diabetes management is a tough road to hoe. You lose a lot of sleep, you have a lot of stress, it's really hard. I am happy to report that here at six months we are living a very, very, very different life as far as diabetes management. We now have an insulin pump, the Omnipod Five, which if I could just like embody as a person and kiss on the mouth, I would. This is incredible technology.  

[00:37:23] This is a tubeless pump. So it sits on different parts of his body, kind of moves around, but it has a motherboard. Have I have to taken it apart and shown you Beth?  

Beth [00:37:33] No.  

Sarah [00:37:33] I had never shown you the inner workings. It's amazing. You take the sticker off and it's like you can see the motherboard. It also contains the mechanisms to insert the cannula into his skin, every single one. It's incredible. And so it has this little computer in it. And that talks directly to his continuous glucose monitor. Every 5 minutes, that little insulin pump says, hey, what's your blood glucose? And this continuous glucose monitor says, oh, it's a little high. It's about 143. And the insulin pump goes, okay, I'll just give you just like a little baby. Tiny, tiny, amount, .05 units. That's not something we could have ever given with a manual daily injection. It's just too small of an amount and it's like, okay, we'll do that. And they just pump into [Inaudible] all day long. They work together as this beautiful little team. It's like an artificial pancreas. Now, we still have to carb count, so we need to figure out how many carbs he's going to eat at meals and what's called pre-bolusing. So we have to, about 15 minutes before he eats, give him a big injection of insulin through the insulin pump so that his body can be prepared for the carbs he intakes at every meal. But diabetes does not dominate our lives in the way that it did very early in his diagnosis. And so everybody in our audience who lives with type one was like, listen, let me call back to you from the Promised Land. This is going to get easier. This is going to get easier to manage. I know you were around. You came to our house during the days of multiple daily injections.  

Beth [00:38:59] It looked very stressful to me. I was worried about everyone all the time. And there was nothing to be done about it. And that is the hardest thing. To see that everyone is struggling and to know that there's no shortcut here. You just have to get through it. That's tough.  

Sarah [00:39:15] And we were so lucky. I mean, it was incredibly stressful and just pretty awful. And we had fantastic insurance coverage. Some people wait a year, year and a half to get an insulin pump. We got it about eight weeks and only because we were on vacation. We had to get back from vacation to get it. We are so grateful and we got very lucky for how easy our journey has been. And still, it was very, very, difficult. But the hardest part of this update since I've been on the show and talked about Felix's diagnosis, several of you have reached out and said, "Thanks to your story, I understood what was happening with my child and we got to help." Sooner I expected that to happen, and every one of those messages breaks my heart. This is not a club I want any other members in. But we have listeners that have just been so incredible, like immediately giving me their cell phone numbers, telling me whatever you need. Every time we blow our A1C out of the water-- at six months it was 5.42 people who know what that means-- they're yelling. I can hear them being, like, yes. I text them and I'm, like, look what we did. And just the support they've given has been incredible. And the type one diabetes community is pretty phenomenal. And so you know we're making our way. I'm so grateful for where we are right now and the support of our listeners and the support of that community.  

[00:40:40] And I hope everyone out there learns a little bit about type one diabetes. It makes everyone who is a member of that community's lives so much easier when you don't have to hear things like, oh, did he eat too much sugar? Or trying to feed sugar-free things to him when it doesn't really matter because those things still have carbs in them. Just that kind of stuff like just the baseline education in the community makes everything so much easier. And so that's where we are after six months with Felix, who is incredible and who has ridden this out better than pretty much anybody else in our family. He's like such a warrior and so amazing, and I love him so much. So thank you for all your support. I thank you for letting me share a little bit on Diabetes Awareness Month, which is in November, which is this month, which is an important reminder that holiday shopping season is upon us. We shared about our holiday gift guide at the beginning of the show, so please check that out. And thank you for joining us for another episode of Pantsuit Politics. We'll be back in your ears on Tuesday. And until then, keep it nuanced y'all.  

Beth [00:42:05] Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our managing director.  

Sarah [00:42:11] Maggie Penton is our community engagement manager. Dante Lima is the composer and performer of our theme music.  

Beth [00:42:16] Our show is listener supported. Special thanks to our executive producers.  

Executive Producers (Read their own names) [00:42:21] Martha Bronitski. Linda Daniel. Allie Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Helen Handley. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holliday. Katie Johnson. Katina Zugenalis Kasling. Barry Kaufman. Molly Kohrs. Laurie LaDow. Lilly McClure. Emily Neesley. The Pentons. Tawni Peterson. Tracy Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katie Stiggers. Karen True. Onica Ulveling. Nick and Alysa Villeli. Kathryn Vollmer. Amy Whited.  

Beth [00:42:55] Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Michelle Wood. Joshua Allen. Morgan McCue. Nicole Berklas Paula Bremer and Tim Miller.