TOPICS DISCUSSED
“Try This in a Small Town” and the Rural/Urban Divide
Critiques on and the Value of Travel
Outside of Politics: Sarah’s Summer Travel
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EPISODE RESOURCES
We’ll be opening up ticket sales for the Pantsuit Politics Live in Paducah on October 21 next week to our Premium Members first. Get information about our weekend in Paducah here.
“TRY THAT IN A SMALL TOWN”
How Jason Aldean Cynically Built “Small Town” to Appeal to Trump Country
Trae Crowder Stand Up (TikTok)
Barbara Kingsolver Thinks Urban Liberals Have It All Wrong on Appalachia (The New York Times)
Twitch streamer Kai Cenat's giveaway sparks riot in Union Square, NYC (ABC7 New York)
TRAVEL CRITIQUES
Stop trying to have the perfect vacation. You're ruining everyone else's. (Vox)
Transcript: Ezra Klein Interviews Agnes Callard (The New York Times)
Agnes Collard’s office
Man who visited every country without flying has finally returned home (CNN)
TRANSCRIPT
Sarah [00:00:09] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.
Beth [00:00:10] And this is Beth Silvers. Thank you for joining us for Pantsuit Politics.
[00:00:15] Music Interlude.
Sarah [00:00:34] Hello, everyone, and welcome to Pantsuit Politics. If you follow us on social media or are a premium member, you know that we have been for days counting down to a big change here at Pantsuit Politics. And you just heard it. Beth, today is the official launch of our new theme music.
Beth [00:00:52] We hope you like it. It was hard to figure out what we wanted to do. It was important to us to find something that represented what we do here well, that added some freshness and a dynamic experience to your listening, and we hope we got it.
Sarah [00:01:06] And as always, we were led by this community who, when we mentioned we might be changing the theme music, were like, "Please, no, don't." And then we thought, okay, wait, what if we use the melody and we just update it? And so that's what we did. We worked with the incredibly talented Xander Singh to update Dante's original melody, and we are so thrilled with the results and we hope you are too. And so this is a new day here at Pantsuit Politics. We're still going to take our different approach to the news. And today we want to talk about place (rural versus urban) as represented by one particular very controversial country music song and video, as well as traveling to new places and the politics surrounding the fact that quite a bit of us are traveling these days. And then Outside Politics, I will share about my trip to Scotland, Ireland, and London.
Beth [00:01:53] If you're interested in exploring a new, different place and a smaller town than you might be accustomed to, we have a great opportunity for you. We're hosting our very first Pantsuit Politics Weekend in Paducah, Kentucky, which is Sarah's beloved hometown. We'd love for you to join us there. It's going to be a series of events over the course of October 20th through the 22nd with a big live show on Saturday night, October 21st. Tickets are on sale this week for our premium members. Those are folks who join us through Patreon or Apple Podcasts subscriptions. Next week, they will go on sale for the general public. You can find much more information on our website and in the show notes. And before we get started, we want to say a very happy birthday to our friends over at the Popcast as they celebrate a decade of podcasting, which is a very big deal. Congratulations, you guys.
Sarah [00:02:36] Yes. As we move into talking about a piece of pop culture, we thought it essential that we wish a very happy birthday to one of the few independent podcasting teams out there doing it as long as Beth and I have. Happy, happy birthday to Jamie, Knox, Erin and the entire Popcast media team. Well done, you guys.
[00:02:57] Music Interlude.
[00:03:16] Beth, this weekend was Fancy Farm in Kentucky. Now, if you don't live in Kentucky, you don't know what Fancy Farm is. Some people in Kentucky don't know what Fancy Farm is, but it's pretty famous in my part of Kentucky. It's a long standing community picnic. There are games, there is barbecue, there is mutton. But it became famous because they had a sort of platform for speechifying and the politicians took advantage. And so, it's a longstanding political tradition in Kentucky that you come to a Fancy Farm and you do these like real roast, snarky, joke-filled speech. It's like the Kentucky version of the Correspondents Dinner. The jokes aren’t as good. And, of course, Daniel Cameron, who is the Republican challenger to our beloved governor, Andy Beshear, did a joke about Try that in a Small Town.
Clip from Daniel Cameron Speech [00:04:11] They mock our faith, our families and our values, and they try to cancel anyone who disagrees. Well, the folks of Fancy Farm have one response, Governor. Try that in a small town.
Sarah [00:04:26] And I thought, well, that's how we know this controversy has officially jumped the shark. It's making its way as a joke in its stump speeches. It wasn't supposed to be a joke. It was supposed to be a flex. But it sounded as dumb as I think the entire song sounds, for what it's worth.
Beth [00:04:44] I hate that we're even talking about this because I feel like Jason Aldean has gotten exactly what he paid for. He really does this mediocre song. It gets a mediocre reception. That's not acceptable to him. So he creates a video. It's 2023, every frame of that video is intentional. And we all just hopped on to the strings and did the destructive dance he choreographed for us. And I'm very annoyed by it.
Sarah [00:05:13] Yeah. So if you have not been following this controversy. Good for you. Jason Aldean, who is a mediocre country music singer at best-- that's a kindness I'm giving him-- release this song Try That in a Small Town. The lyrics are very much like there's all this crime in the city, but try that in a small town. We'll take care of it ourselves. It dropped off the charts pretty quickly until he released the video eight weeks after the song came out. And now all of a sudden it's number one on the country charts. It's this massive crossover hit on the pop charts. It's everywhere. And I heard about the video, which is filled with images that are race baiting. He performed part of the song in front of the Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, Tennessee, which was the site of a 1946 race riot and 1927 lynching. Now, I don't know if Jason Aldean is that deep of a historian, but somebody was. It had Black Lives Matter footage in it that's been removed because of copyright challenges from the news organizations, which is funny on its own level. But he's telegraphing this black-white, rural- urban political controversy to get attention to his not that great of a song, obviously. When it first came out, I thought some of the best critiques was like, Jason Aldean is not even from a small town. He's from Macon, Georgia. There's some really funny stand up out there making fun of that. That if you have a stoplight for someone to pull up to, that's a big city. You say all the time you had a stoplight in your town.
Beth [00:06:40] In our county- not in my town. In the county where I grew up. There was one stoplight installed when I was in high school, and it's still the only one in the county.
Sarah [00:06:51] It's so funny. And the comedian Trae Crowder's, like, y'all know, we're making this.
Trae Crowder [00:06:56] Yeah. That means it's not a small town, the fact that you've heard of it, right? I looked up, they got goddamn Target. Might as well be Paris.
Sarah [00:07:12] Might as well be Paris. Paducah does not have a target. But I wouldn't call us a small town in the way he's trying to set this up. So at first the chuckle of just the ignorance of being from a pretty big town and exploiting this issue in the race component deserve to be laughed at.
Beth [00:07:34] Well, if you watch the video-- which I don't recommend, but you can. If you watch the video, that first verse about cussing at cops could have been played perfectly over footage from January 6th.
Sarah [00:07:49] Yes.
Beth [00:07:50] There's so much going on here where you can tell that there was a meeting and probably some sweet intern said, "Y'all think people could take this the wrong way?" And they said, "Yeah, the libs are going to hate it. And that's the point. And our people will stand with us and the libs will write their think pieces about it and I'll ride that cancellation all the way up the charts." And that's what is so dumb about this. We're just doing it. He played us the- whole country, his people, not his people, all of us. We've been played. What's interesting to me, though, is how easily that was done. Even though we have been in this pattern and this cycle for so long now. This hit. Half my Facebook feed was hashtag I stand with Jason Aldean. And half of my Facebook feed was explaining earnestly how racist this video was. And I just thought, oh my God, I want off this ride. This is so dumb. Somebody releases a music video with something offensive in it every single day. There is something racist, misogynist, homophobic in the vast majority of music because music is just people. And I can't believe we're doing this.
Sarah [00:09:01] Or there's music videos released that are pushing the envelope on what's acceptable to release in a music video-- sexually, even on the other side of the aisle. And it does seem like we should have graduated.
Beth [00:09:11] I want to graduate.
Sarah [00:09:12] Nigh on 40 years after the release of MTV to be upset about controversial music videos. I kind of had the opposite reaction. I was like, well, the Earth is just returning to its axis. Here we are fighting about dumb shit again. Ain't that great y'all?
Beth [00:09:27] We do have a low stakes controversy.
Sarah [00:09:30] This is a great place to work out our political strife. I would prefer this over January 6th. Let's fight about Starbucks cups again. That'll be fun. Now, I was saying when we're explaining the origin of Pantsuit Politics, there was a time so sweet when we were fighting about Cecil the Lion. But I'm happy to go back to that. I'm happy to go back to where we exercise some of our civil discourse over very low stakes controversies like dum-dum, no talent, Jason Aldean.
Beth [00:10:00] I think I would feel that way, except that I do think that this hit because it gets at two topics that we cannot figure out right now. One being this sort of urban-rural-- and not even urban-rural, but the vigilante justice. I think a bunch of people out there are no good criminals and I'm ready to take care of that problem myself. And the second and totally related one is just what does masculinity look like? And this song is a lot about we stand up and take care of our own here, which statistically is dubious at best. There are dangerous small towns. There are small towns that are more dangerous than big cities, and there are big cities that are more dangerous than small towns. You cannot make a sweeping statement based on geography about how likely you are to be robbed, carjacked, murdered, whatever. We do violence everywhere. And that is my problem. We do violence everywhere. And we saw not a year ago what happens when we decide that we protect our own in the form of people getting shot for knocking on the wrong door, turning around in the wrong driveway, trying to get in the wrong car. We just don't need more of that.
Sarah [00:11:20] Yeah, I thought the best progression of this conversation went from making fun of Jason Aldean (deserved) to men in particular from actual small towns (not Macon, Georgia) saying, "Let me tell you what this really looks like and what you missed here." There is crime. A lot of time when you're talking about a place like Appalachia, it's people are breaking, entering into their friends and families homes to steal, to feed their drug addiction.
Beth [00:11:49] That's right.
Sarah [00:11:49] And we're not going to go vigilante on them because they're our friends and neighbors. To me, that's the missing piece. You live in a small town where everybody knows each other. And also I will shoot you at the drop of a hat if something goes wrong. That's not my experience of living in a small town. That's not my experience at all, because it's more complicated when you know everyone around you. That adds an inherent layer of complication. Listen, Barbara Kingsolver gets at this beautifully in Demon Copperhead, her novel. I think she gets at the difference when Damon goes to the urban area for drug treatment. And there's all this conversation between some of the addicts that grew up in small places and the addicts who grew up in big cities, about out how they're still human beings. And the way this plays out, no matter where you live, does have some common threads. And so, this idea that there is some superiority of living in a small town versus a big city is just so ridiculous and so cheap. It's just so cheap. And there is a conversation we had here and it sure as hell not going to be on the back of this music video.
Beth [00:12:58] It's cheap because Barbara Kingsolver is one of the few voices out there saying in a vulnerable, complicated way, there are great things about being from Appalachia. There are great things about living in a small place. And there are. And I think that's why this worked and why he knew it would work. People are yearning to be told, you can be proud of your place. People want to hear you can love America and not be racist. You can love your small town. The elites are not better than you. The people who live on the coast are not better than you. And I know all that is really annoying to people who live on the coasts, who are tired of hearing that they don't live in real America, and that the cities aren't as part of the heartland or whatever. So there's this tension. And Barbara Kingsolver and Ezra Klein had a really nice conversation about this, that was a good beginning for one that maybe we could be having around this dumb song. I also think, though, that if we want to talk about what's beautiful about living in a small place, it is that helper attitude, not the I will kick your ass attitude. And I get that people watching over the weekend this thing that unfolded in Union Square in New York City over the Twitch. I don't even know how to say these words right. Twitch is the realm that I'm getting too old for.
Sarah [00:14:20] The TLDR, someone offered to give a PlayStation away on the internet and said "Meet me in Union Square," and chaos ensued. Surprise, surprise. Let me tell you, if you said meet me in Noble Park in Paducah and I'll give you a PlayStation four, chaos would also ensue.
Beth [00:14:34] Well, that's exactly what I was going to say. That if you told a bunch of people anywhere, including in the country, "I'm going to show up and give out a whole bunch of free stuff," and then you showed up and did not do that, they would also be mad. I don't like the violence that unfolded from that more than anybody else does, but that violence is not limited to New York City. It probably feels scarier just by sheer volume of human beings there and everything going on around those human beings. But the fact remains we are just becoming violent as a people. Maybe we've always been so, but it feels escalatory to me and I would like us to settle down a little bit. And I don't think everybody walking around singing along to Jason Aldean helps us with that. But at the same time, there is violence in many genres of music and I cannot sit here and police them all.
Sarah [00:15:23] Well, listen, I've lived a lot of my life in a big city and I've lived a large majority of my life in a small town. And there was a moment in that conversation between Barbara Kingsolver and Ezra Klein where he pushed her and he said, "Some of the people who do the meanest, most hurtful things to Damon are his people from the small town." And she dodged that question because it's a hard one to answer. When you are always on the defensive because you live in a small town, it's hard to own the weaknesses. Now, when country music shines, it does that. The best songs say, I love this and this has problems. I don't expect Jason Aldean to do that. He's not up for it. But you can do that. You can say, "I love this place and it's flawed. It's got a dark side." The best storytellers can hold both of those things and Barbara Kingsolver does inside that novel. And I don't blame her for dodging that question because I think she came to that interview to really make a point about small towns and she made it. And it's a hard one to answer. It's a hard one to answer to say this is how the dark side of humanity can play out in a small town. It's not all Andy Griffith.
Some of it is people in each other's businesses when they shouldn't be. Some of it is out grouping and really, really harmful, hurtful, dangerous ways to individuals. And, also, I don't blame big city people who are usually on the offensive, I would say, in the elite media. They're getting propped up a lot for feeling like the only thing that gets told about them is this dark side. Because the truth is-- and we're going to talk about this next-- in my travels and when I lived in a big city, people have come to my aid over and over again in really big ways. So helpful, so ready to get you to a train on time or make sure you make a reservation or whatever it is. And that was my experience living in Washington, D.C. People were helpful. No matter where you live, there will be loveliness present and hatefulness present because there will be human beings present. So let's have that other conversation, not about where you live, but where you travel to.
[00:17:39] Music Interlude.
[00:17:56] Beth, let me tell you what happened. I was checking Facebook at the very beginning of our trip and this graphic and headline comes across my Facebook feed. It says, The Case Against Travel. It has this fun little graphic. I'm like, oh, well, I'm game. Imma click it. And I'm telling you, most of the time I don't check the author of a piece. It's just not a practice I have. But I got a few sentences into this piece and I thought, "This is Agnes. I know it's Agnes." And I scrolled up. And by God, was it not Agnes Callard? Now, if you don't talk about Agnes Callard like she's your pal like me and Beth do, I get it.
Beth [00:18:36] Thanks for outing us, Sarah. In case you didn't think we were nerds yet, here you go.
Sarah [00:18:42] She is a moral philosopher. I heard about it for the first time on Ezra Klein's podcast. Y'all, I'll never forget it as long as I live. I don't even remember anything else they talked about. But there was a moment in the podcast where he was asking her about her office, which we will include links to pictures of it. It's to be seen to be believed. And he was saying it's so full color. And she said, "You know, I don't understand why people don't wear color. They charge you the same, whether it's purple or white." And I thought this is a point. She's making a point. For most of human history, you got charged more for color.
Beth [00:19:15] We talk about her all the time because she's interesting like that. Everything she writes, you can't stop thinking about for at least a few days. You want to talk about. She raises really interesting questions.
Sarah [00:19:28] And she went viral earlier I think last year because there was a piece about how she left her husband for a younger man and then somehow convinced her husband to live with said younger man. So like the three of them live together.
Beth [00:19:41] Not in like a romantic way, but like in a we're all pals partnering around, creating this family together. It's fascinating.
Sarah [00:19:49] She's smart and she is convincing. And you will read things and you're like, that feels convincing and also very wrong at the same time. So she writes this piece this summer called The Case Against Travel. And, listen, some of the lines cut deep. I'm going to read this part right here. "Tourism is what we call traveling when other people are doing it." Ouch, Agnes.
Beth [00:20:09] It's true, though.
Sarah [00:20:14] She said, "And although people like to talk about their travels, few of us like to listen to them. Such talk resembles academic writing and reports of dreams, forms of communication driven more by the needs of the producer than the consumer."
Beth [00:20:27] This weekend Chad asked me if we were talking a lot at church about that conference that I just attended. And I said, "Well, no, because if you weren't there, you don't really want to hear about it." He goes, "It's like talking about a vacation." I was like, Whoa, even reading our mail, Chad. That's exactly what we're about to talk about."
Sarah [00:20:43] Well, it's funny, though, because my reality is that's not true. I get inundated with requests to talk about our travels and to hear what worked and what didn't. Obviously, Rick Steves has built an entire career about talking about travel. And so Ross Douthat at The New York Times responded to it. And he got to me at one of the underlying problems, which is how she defines travel. She leaves out business travel or travel for necessity. And she quotes this other philosopher and she says the last phrase is crucial. Touristic travel exists for the sake of change. And so she built her entire argument on the idea that you are traveling because you want change. And I understand why she built her argument that way, but I don't think it's fair. I don't think that's the reason a lot of people travel. I don't think that's the reason most people travel.
Beth [00:21:33] I didn't read it that way. Can I just push back a little bit because I read it as her saying, we claim to travel because we are transformed by it. We actually travel because it's fun and because we want to escape our reality. And we should be more honest about that. I read her piece less is the case against travel and more as the case against ascribing some kind of virtue to travel.
Sarah [00:21:57] Yes, I totally agree. By the end of the piece, it did feel like she was doing kind of like, I'm busting on you for feeling like this. This is crap. You're lying to yourself. So just be honest with yourself. It's fine if you feel that way.
Beth [00:22:09] Yeah, that's how I read it too. Like it's supposed to be a little bit provocative. It's supposed to challenge some of your priors and then asks you to decide what you want to do with all that. She's a philosophy professor. It just comes across in the writing.
Sarah [00:22:22] I love it. And on the heels of Agnes comes Rebecca Jennings at Vox, and she writes, "Stop trying to have the perfect vacation. You're ruining everyone else's."
Beth [00:22:29] Such a Vox title.
Sarah [00:22:30] Such a Vox title. And she talks about so many people have seen these viral moments on TikTok. Their own vacations aren't living up to them. So then they have a viral moment complaining about how the Amalfi Coast is a lot of lugging your backpack upstairs in 100 degree heat.
Beth [00:22:45] Yeah, I think her piece was really about how travel is consumerism right now. That we stayed home during the pandemic. For the people to whom the pandemic was financially kind, and there were many of those people-- not most, but many. For those folks who were able to save a bunch of money during the pandemic and are sitting on disposable income and have the means and the flexibility to travel, it is another form of consumerism. And the TikTok behavior affirms that. I thought I was paying for this luxury dream that was going to be easy and comfortable. And I am mad that this product experience I thought I was buying isn't living up to what I believed it would be.
Sarah [00:23:28] Well, not surprisingly, as an American who travels, I felt a little defensive in this piece and in Agnes's piece and of Americans generally. I will say I saw some people act ugly on my trip. None of them were Americans. And so I think this idea that we're the only ones who are traveling in large numbers and the only ones who act out is unfair. I also feel like the same people who are sort of with disdain talking about how many Americans are traveling, how they're just flooding Italy are the same people who, with a snide voice, will talk about how few Americans have passports. Which one is it? Do you want us to travel or do you not want us to travel?
Beth [00:24:05] It's common in the world to say that only 10% of Americans have a passport. That's not true. It's in the thirties somewhere as to Americans with a valid passport. Probably more people have expired passports and those numbers are climbing. Our poor State Department cannot handle all the people who want passports right now.
Sarah [00:24:20] And to me, I think, yes. I think some of this is people have money from the pandemic. But there is another impact of the pandemic, which my husband and I talk about all the time, which is we survived a pandemic. And what did we survive a pandemic to do? Work more? I don't think so. And I think all the time-- I think I've talked about it on our show before-- of the barber who cuts my husband's hair saying, "I thought I couldn't take a month off. And the pandemic showed me that I could, and I'd be fine." And I think there are a lot of people who realized I thought this was impossible, that I would lose customers, that my business would fail. The pandemic showed them that is not true. And so they're like, okay, well, here's my chance. I'm going to go see Paris. I've always wanted to see Paris, and now I'm going to go see Paris.
Beth [00:25:04] I think that's completely true. A lot of soul searching, a different relationship to work, a different relationship to our homes. When you're working at home a lot, it changes your relationship to your home. It's really difficult to be at home and to not engage in some form of labor. Now, it's true you're going to labor when you travel as well, but it's in a different way. And I get why people felt trapped and ready to get out. And that, especially the pandemic, facilitated that urge to go along a bunch of different dimensions.
Sarah [00:25:38] As to Agnes's point, is any single trip transformative? No. Probably not. When she said, think about the people you know, will they come back from their trip different than how they left? Will their politics have changed? I thought, well, maybe not. But I do think cumulatively it adds up. You're not going to stand in front of one piece of art and be transformed-- you might. I've felt energetically and emotionally transformed by some pieces of art that I'd studied in college and finally got to see in real life. And I'm going to talk about a transformative experience I had in Ireland up next. But I just think cumulatively, that's what adds up. And I was thinking about this. What does it? What changes you over time when you go to someplace different?
And then just so happened, Jo Piazza from Over the Influence Substack, wrote about she travels with babies. I'm saying babies and toddlers. She was in Italy with tiny little kids. Not something I think I'm up for energetically, but I love the way she described this. She said, "For me, travel is not about running away. It is about being incredibly present and mindful in whatever new thing you may be experiencing. This mindfulness and gratitude for the present moment helped to halt the wicked cycle of cynicism souring my mind. For some people, mindfulness means sitting very still. For me, meditation equals movement. Scientific studies have shown that mindfulness, training the brain to stay in the moment by letting go both the future and the past, helps reduce both anxiety and depression. You have no choice but to be present when you travel, especially as a single woman. Your survival often depends on keeping your wits about you all the time. And for me as a journalist, my success in gathering stories requires me to pay very close attention to everything happening around me."
[00:27:16] She's talking about how this helped address her postpartum depression. And that mindfulness is required not just for beautiful moments, but because of the challenges of travel. There's always something you have to figure out. There's always something that's changing. It's like this constant problem solving, puzzle making situation to the nth degree. For me, over the course of my vacation, I was leading about 80 people and I knew exactly what she was talking about. To me, it's not the change, it's the challenge. And it's a challenge I don't live in my everyday life. I think it's probably more akin to the challenge of living sort of the everyday existence our ancestors lived. You're trying to worry about every meal. Worry about your safety. Worry about getting back. It's like very visceral. It's like a visceral challenge and sort of that souring of the mind she's talking about where all the challenges feel like they're in your head. You know what I mean?
Beth [00:28:10] I do. I'm not sure how I see this because there are forms of taking a vacation that I prefer that are about getting away from all those puzzles. I don't go to the beach to be transformed or to be challenged. I go to the beach because it is a form of nature that I don't get to experience very often. And I feel in my body the difference in being in a place that is very different from my own place. It's only different in the landscape form, though. Being in Paris, I'm in a place very different from my own place in the density of people and the types of structures. Everything, including the chairs, are different from the chairs that I normally sit in and in my place. I could see if I lived in a place like Chicago, how that puzzle is always a part of what you're doing. Like when I'm in Chicago with my sister and brother in law, we have to make a plan to go somewhere in a way that we don't have to make a plan to go somewhere. Even to Cincinnati here, which is a decent sized city, nothing like making plans in Chicago
Sarah [00:29:12] I know exactly what you're talking about.
Beth [00:29:16] So I think some of what you're doing with travel is deciding how different do I want my day to be, and for what purpose do I want it to be different? And what I appreciate about Agnes is there's value in all of that, but it's not like a moral value. It's okay to have that desire to be on the beach, to experience something different. If you live on the beach, it's okay to have the desire to be somewhere else. It's okay to want to go to Disney because that's a very different day that creates new memories and a new form of presence for families. I think what she got at that I have been needing someone to say is, like, it's all good, it's all fine, and it's not better than something else.
Sarah [00:30:00] I really appreciated your conversation with Bethany about pain and how that impacts travel and feeling this pressure to travel and to participate in the conversations around travel as if this is what's everybody is doing. And I think we just have to watch that at the other end too. If it feels like everybody is doing it, that's okay too. Vox has a real need to sort of react to whatever everything is doing. They wrote the piece that we should all decide Lin-Manuel Miranda is cringe. I don't want that either. You know what I mean? I don't want it to become cringe just because everybody's doing it. I'm happy people are traveling. Not everybody will keep doing it. Some people will act ugly and realize, I don't want to do this anymore. That's okay too. When you're going to move that many humans around the globe, there's going to be some emotional impact to the both of the people on the ground and the people traveling. It's judgment at both ends, right? It's the you're only sophisticated or operating at a higher level if you're traveling. But then there's this really fine line that no one knows where it is. And I guess just a select few get to decide that. You pass over that into consumerism and then all of a sudden your base cringe, lame, whatever. Again, it feels like a really fine line between traveling as sophisticated exercise and traveling as consumerist act. We are all to judge.
Beth [00:31:27] I think that that line is easily seen when someone is trying to go viral by complaining about a travel experience. That's pretty clear to me. Where I think it's worth considering is in that bigger picture, the travel by volume. Yes, Americans are poked at for not traveling enough and for traveling too much. It is also true that the amount of travel Americans do-- and Agnes makes this point in the piece-- changes the places we are going to. And we need to think about that. It is kind of weird to be in a place like Tallinn, Estonia, and see a KFC. It's weird. And I don't want to be so arrogant as to think, well, that's only about catering to Americans. Maybe the people of Tallinn actually want a KFC and welcome it. Perhaps they do. I don't know. But I think those macro issues, what's the impact on the planet? How do we behave when we're there? How are we respecting and impacting the local culture? What does Airbnb do to the world? That's all we're thinking about. We don't have to internalize that as judgment on individuals for the trips they take. But that's all we're thinking about in the abstract. I think it's worth it when everybody's doing something, when there is a trend, to just come in and analyze the trend and see what the darker sides are too. I was excited to talk about these pieces because we have done a lot of pro travel. We've had Rick Steves on twice. We've done a lot of travel is great for you. Travel expands your horizons. Travel makes you develop greater empathy for people. So I think looking at the other side of that is an important and robust part of the analysis. That doesn't mean that I think there's a status in not traveling, just as there's a status in traveling. I think that's what we got to be careful about, like dumping all of this on to individual people and their choices.
Sarah [00:33:23] Well, and I think two things. One, when you're complaining about influencers and the expectation they've set around travel, I mean, that is a complicated relationship inside the travel industry as travel influencers. And where are you supposed to send those complaints? This is not a corporation. They don't have a customer service line. If you felt like you were sold a line of goods by influencers, then I'm not exactly mad at you for saying, "This is not what this is like." I love those reels that are like Instagram versus reality about a location. I think those are great. And not in a snarky way. I think it's good to see this is the challenge of traveling. It's not a picture postcard every time, and that's what I like about it. And I think to the argument of we're changing these places, of course we are. Places change. I was in these three places this summer, London, Scotland, Ireland, that are driven so much by history. And there's this undercurrent of as we're studying and examining and looking at these waves of change that have washed over these places, that we've found the end and everything is going to stay the same. And we can all look at these cultures or histories and we'll just examine them from this place of stasis and everything will stay the same moving forward. And I think, why do we think why do we think that things aren't going to change, including the historical places we go to look at? I think some of the most fascinating stuff about travel is the history of how it's changed. You want to read some fascinating history of travel? Look at the cave wars in Kentucky when they were literally killing each other over who had access to the best caves for people to come and look at. And this is not when everybody had a car and an interstate to get there.
[00:35:03] So it was interesting to me to be at the Cliffs of Moher and hear about this guy who got it in the early 1900s. People are going to want to come see this. What is that going to mean? And it's like, well, he mined this local rock, which I guess changed the ecology and depleted the natural resources, but also now looks like it's a part of the place. This safety barrier that's made from local rock you probably couldn't get now. Right. It's just this very complicated interplay. And I think some of travel is we cannot expect these places to stay the same either if everybody goes there or no one goes there. Because that's true too in Ireland, right? They need people to come or these places would not exist. And there's some tension there. And we're not going to find a perfect balance. And there are going to be KFCs and there are going to be places that you have to lug your suitcase in 100 degree heat. And some of these places are going to keep getting hotter. And that is the reality. And I think I love that part of travel. I love that part of facing the place dead on. I'm not trying to get a movie. Now, I love it when a place lives up to that experience where you feel like, oh my gosh, I felt like I was in a movie. That's like peak travel, but I don't need that every day. I don't expect that every day.
Beth [00:36:22] Yeah, I think the travel as a window to movement and a sense of belonging in the world is really good and interesting. And that's where I think there can be some value in it. When you think about the luxury as an American of being able to move so freely in the world, that there are so many places in the world as an American we can go without getting a visa because we have these agreements in place with other countries that let us be there for less than 90 days for business or pleasure. That's amazing. And I think that it's especially important as an American when you're out and about like that and thinking about the fact that so many people will speak English and so many places will do everything they can to cater to American expectations. Okay. Well, what does that inform about how we welcome people into our country? What does that say about how we view people who need to move because of climate or conflict or persecution? How should we think about people who are stateless, who are born in a region that is disputed and so they can't even have a passport? I think travel can have a lot of virtue in it depending on what we make meaning of from it. Going to the beach changes things as well. It's not like that's a trip with no cost. Everything has costs. So it's like, what am I going to do with the cost of this to try to put goodness back into the world that I've just taken from?
Sarah [00:37:48] Well, I thought, as is often the case, you find wisdom in the extremes. And I read this story as we were preparing for the show, and I thought this would be a great place to end on. There is a Danish man, Thor Pedersen, who left his family and friends in Denmark 10 years ago, and his goal was to visit every single country in the world without flying. And it took him 10 years. He was on container ships and he had all those problems you're talking about. He couldn't get visas. There were these tiny nations who wouldn't admit anybody, especially post Covid And I thought it was such a fascinating and beautiful thing to hear his story. And I thought this quote from his interview with CNN was just beautiful. He said, "I set out on this journey with a motto, a stranger is a friend you've never met before. And I have been shown time and time again that this is true. If you engage with people, they're usually all in. I stayed in the homes of many, many strangers during my travels. And I made it through every country in the world, the ones with armed conflict, the ones with virus outbreaks, unharmed. Either I'm the luckiest man on the planet or the world is a much better place than most people are led to believe by the scary, dramatic news on social media and news channels." I thought it was really lovely and the perfect antidote to Jason Aldean and this idea of the people over there live scary lives and I need to stay with my people over here.
[00:39:14] Music Interlude.
[00:39:25] So, Beth, I did some traveling this summer, maybe you've heard.
Beth [00:39:28] I have. I was aware, vaguely.
Sarah [00:39:31] For those of you who don't know, I went to Scotland, Ireland, and London this summer with my family. And at different times, 13 of my closest friends at different parts of the trip.
Beth [00:39:44] I love that you convinced the whole of your inner circle to go across the ocean with you.
Sarah [00:39:50] Yeah, totally. Nicholas left after Ireland, and so I convinced my parents and three of my girlfriends to meet me in London with my kids. And they did. And we had a great time. Now, I will say upfront, you were right about Scotland. Those highlands are really remote. We almost ran out of gas. The grocery stores are far, far away. The restaurants are even farther.
Beth [00:40:11] And it's magical.
Sarah [00:40:12] And I was not prepared. I liked it. I like Edinburgh a lot. And I expected to be all in on Scotland because my middle name is Stewart and I'm like 79% Scottish. But it wore me out actually. The driving in the lanes and the pass lanes and having to plan all the time to get what you needed to get as the person in charge of the 10 people traveling was a little bit exhausting.
Beth [00:40:38] Yeah, I can see that. I think it is so magical how remote it is. But also I experienced it in a really easy way. Chad and I took a bus tour up through the Highlands, so someone else was thinking about the details for us and it allowed us to just soak it in. And we're actually planning to go back to Scotland in July of this coming year, and I'm excited to have more time to just breathe that air. I think it's really powerful.
Sarah [00:41:07] Well, I think the mistake we made is I thought we would have sort of a hub and go out from there. But I think it's so remote, you just need to drive and stay nights different places, which is what Rick Steves recommends. But I was trying to start off our trip what I thought would be easier by staying in one place. It just turns out in Scotland that does not make things easier and that makes things harder. So after Scotland, we went to Ireland, where I had my most transformative experience. Jumping off 40 Foot in Dublin. Did you watch Bad Sisters?
Beth [00:41:35] No.
Sarah [00:41:36] Okay. For anybody who watched Bad Sisters, this is like a key plot point. It's also in Ulysses. It's a very famous place where the people of Ireland just have this perfect little cove, this little swimming hole that nature has created for them. So they have added ladders and steps and a changing area. When I got there, the people from Amazing Race had just been there. They had to jump in and swim out for a clue, I think is what the guy told me. And it was the part of the trip I was like laser focused on. So this doesn't often happen. Like the piece of the trip that you have the high expectations of exceeds it. Often, it's the opposite. And we got there and it was cold and rainy, like 57 degrees. We had to get in our swimsuits and jump into the equally cold Irish Sea. It was about 57 degrees. That's like 14 Celsius. And they tell you one minute per degree. That's how long you should be in the water. And I made it almost the whole 14 minutes. And I didn't get out because I was cold. I just got out because Felix needed me. But it was incredible. Beth, I'm telling you the therapist would be out of work if everybody could jump off 40 Foot every day, which many, many Irish people that I met there in fact do every day.
Beth [00:42:47] And why did you find it so soothing for your mental health?
Sarah [00:42:53] I don't know. Well, first of all, you know what will complete a stress cycle. Jumping in 57 degree water. Your body's like, okay, everything is wiped clean. It's just so all encompassing. It's that thing Jo Piazza talks about. Like you can't think of anything else except for working your way up there, jumping in, swimming, getting out. It's just a singular focus for that time that you're in the water. And there's a lovely community. Like the people there, the Irish people who do it every day were so kind to us and helped us figure out where the best place to jump in was because it was low tide when we got there. They were just so great. And it was just wild, like truly wild swimming in the purest sense of the word. My trunk got really warm and I thought I'm dying or is this the appropriate response or is my body just diverting the resources? But it's like you get in the water and after a few minutes you're not cold. I don't know how to explain it. It is really weird, but in a good way.
Beth [00:43:58] Your description makes me think a little bit about hot yoga. You stress your body through the temperature in a way that causes it to respond differently. And you can't think because all your resources are going to that response.
Sarah [00:44:11] Yeah, totally. And what I found so interesting is we were traveling with four teenagers and they were into it. Griffin wanted to do it every day. We did it again in Dingle Peninsula off Ventura Pier. It was it was amazing. And he was like, why don't we do it again? Are we going to do it today? You could tell because they probably need some regulation, right? Their bodies are going through a lot of stuff, just a lot of stuff. And it was just such a contained pretty safe outside of some jellyfish experience for them to get that need they have to test themselves, to face stressful situations, to exert their bodies. It was checking all these boxes for them. And they were loving it.
Beth [00:44:56] We do begin our journeys as humans in water, and kids are always made better by water. I feel like any problem you're having, especially with a little bitty one, you put them in a bathtub, in a shower, in a pool, water is going to help.
Sarah [00:45:10] Or just drinking. Felix will pitch a fit and I always give him a glass of water and that helps.
Beth [00:45:13] And it makes sense to me too that teens in particular get so stuck in their heads that something that puts you fully in your body would be an exciting and really unique opportunity.
Sarah [00:45:28] Yeah. And we work in swimming wherever we go. I knew we were going to do it. We did a little bit in Scotland. We swam in the south of France last time. I really do try to work in swimming. That is always my kids favorite part when they're swimming in a unique way or a unique place. It feels like you're participating instead of just consuming on your trip, right? That's where you kind of cross over the threshold. And what I loved about it too is, like I said, we were surrounded by local people. It was really fun to hear what their experience going out there every day and what it's like on Christmas Day when everybody comes out and jumps off 40 Foot. It was really, really fun. I do think maybe Rick Steves doesn't put it in his book because he's keeping it a secret. I'm on to you, Rick. So y'all don't tell anybody. All the thousands of people that are listening to this podcast, just go do it, but then keep it a secret.
Beth [00:46:13] Was there anything else that really stuck out to you from your time away?
Sarah [00:46:17] Well, I talked about it on our last episode that we went to a Holy Eucharist service at Westminster, which was incredibly powerful and impactful to just be worshiping in a place where so many people have worshiped before. And I had a similar experience at Shakespeare's Globe. Did you do that when you all went to London?
Beth [00:46:33] We did not. We didn't plan anything. So we didn't do a lot of the things to do because we're spontaneous travelers- Chad and I.
Sarah [00:46:40] Oh, my Lord. It gives me anxiety. Well, we went and saw Comedy of Errors, and it is a wild thing to sit in an audience full of hundreds of people laughing to jokes that were written 500 years ago. You're like, this is incredible. The performers are exceptional and truly I don't know how it became a thing in school that you read Shakespeare. We need to stop that. You need to watch Shakespeare. That's how it's meant to be taken in. There was this part in the play where so often one actor is playing two different parts in Shakespearean performances. And so he wrote jokes surrounding that. So were there is this long like little piece of the performance where an actor is insulting the looks of another character. You know that the same guy played that guy, and so you're laughing.
And I thought, man, if I was reading this, I'd be like, "Why are we spending five pages on how this guy looks? This is so boring," because you wouldn't get it. You wouldn't get that it's the same performer, right? And just to see that is so-- I mean, even when you're like, "I only a little bit understand what's happening right now because of the language," when you can watch it performed, especially by people who are as talented as the performers are at The Globe, it's just so fun. And all the people are sitting at the bottom. My favorite part was they would push a ship up to dock on the stage and the people were the sea, basically. Like they pushed through the audience who were the sea to dock on the stage, which is very similar to an experience we had at Guys and Dolls, which I highly recommend. If anybody is going to London, it's like a participatory performance where the audience stands around the stage and the stage rises and falls. It's hard to describe, but it is a must see. Both of those performances were incredible and I highly recommend them if you're going to London any time soon.
Beth [00:48:36] Well, I'm so glad that you had such a great experience.
Sarah [00:48:38] Well, it was great. It was challenging. Look, I don't know if I will be a tour director to quite that many people again. At one point, I sort of had a meltdown and said I need everybody to get hungry at the same time, because 10 people getting hungry at different times of day is not working for me. And we had like a 20 year old and a three year old, so it was a wildly different sort of menu of needs. And that part was challenging. There's always challenging parts. Like I said, we almost ran out of gas. People got tired. People get overstimulated. But I really I think that's part of it. And I love that part of it. I love the challenge. I do want to come home stripped bare, exhausted and ready to sleep for a couple of days and then start looking through the pictures and getting-- Elizabeth Holmes had this beautiful thing about like, I'm ready for the hazy, beautiful pictures to fill in the spots when you get back. You start looking at the videos and the photos and you're like-- same thing happens with weddings, I think. You're so tired and overwhelmed and then you start looking back and you're like, "Well, we really had a good time." So, yeah, we did. We had a beautiful trip. We had a lot of traveling mercies, very few challenges. But when you're far from home, any challenge is a challenge, right? It just is. And that's the part of it that I think I really love to meet and rise to. Well, thank you for joining us for this episode of Pantsuit Politics, where we went all the way from country music to Scotland. Although, listen, there is a--
Beth [00:50:08] That's not a very long thread, really.
Sarah [00:50:11] That is not a very long journey, actually. But that's another episode. And we do have more travel related content on our premium channels. Beth is doing an incredible deep dive on passports on More to Say tonight. And then tomorrow, Wednesday, August 9th, Nicholas is going to be joining me on our premium show, More to Say. And we're going to talk in-depth about how we plan these trips, what we've learned over time. I'm going to go into a little bit of detail about how we make our lip sync videos. And then, of course, I sell these itineraries. So if you're like, "Sarah, I just want to follow where you went through Scotland, Ireland, and London," the links for all that and more will be in our show notes and you can find itineraries for this trip, last summer's trip, our trip to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. So if you're interested in that, that'll be in the show notes as well.
[00:51:05] Music Interlude.
[00:51:05] So thank you for joining us. And don't forget to get your tickets for our Paducah event. They're on sale this week for premium members and will be on sale Monday the 14th for everyone else. Head to the show notes or our website for more details. We will be back in your ears on Friday. And until then, keep it nuanced y'all.
[00:51:20] Music Interlude.
[00:51:37] Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production.
Beth [00:51:40] Alise Napp is our managing director. Maggie Penton is our director of Community Engagement.
Sarah [00:51:45] Xander Singh is the composer of our theme music with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima.
Beth [00:51:51] Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers.
Executive Producers: Martha Bronitsky. Ali Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Helen Handley. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holladay. Katie Johnson. Katina Zuganelis Kasling. Barry Kaufman. Molly Kohrs. Katherine Vollmer. Laurie LaDow. Lily McClure. Linda Daniel. Emily Neesley. Tawni Peterson. Tracey Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katie Stigers. Karin True. Onica Ulveling. Nick and Alysa Villeli. Amy Whited. Emily Helen Olson. Lee Chaix McDonough. Morgan McHugh. Danny Ozment. Jen Ross. Sabrina Drago.
Sarah: Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Michelle Wood. Joshua Allen. Nichole Berklas. Paula Bremer and Tim Miller.