Sarah and I made the podcast in fast-forward this week. She left Wednesday evening to serve as faculty for a Common Ground Pilgrimages trip, so the work that we usually spread out over the entire week had to be wrapped up in three days. As you probably have noticed by now, we had a lot to say. I have yapped up a storm.
I’ve tried to listen at least as much as I’ve talked this week. I called a few listeners to ask them questions about feedback they’ve shared. I’ve read a lot. I’ve messaged with people in Instagram DMs. I’ve devoted more time to email than I often do.
If I could give you a tidy summary or a bulleted list or a plan (A plan. Imagine. How great would a plan be?!?), I would. Instead, I just have notes — bits and pieces that have been both challenging and comforting to me during a hard week.
We’re going through some things
I shared this reel about perimenopause (after lots of people sent it to me!), and the floodgates opened. Women who, like me, feel that suddenly our bodies are haunted by angry, vengeful, desultory ghosts. Men who are alarmed and confused by the changes their partners seem to be suddenly navigating. People of all ages—those who made it safely to the other side, those just at the beginning, those who’ve seen the ghosts through many moods.
I’ve also heard from people making career changes, getting divorced, getting married, recovering from illness, in the throes of illness, just getting into politics, deleting their social apps, reinstalling their social apps, parenting babies who are so needy, parenting big kids and teens who are so needy in a totally different way, parenting adults who are so needy on their own special terms.
What I’m saying is that none of us really needed political violence and crushing responses to it. Our plates were already full.
We’re both tired of talking and worried about free speech.
I am constitutionally and professionally prone to believe that conversation is part and parcel of solutions. That said, I understand being a little worn out with everyone and everything. I’m an introvert and wish to live in a cave for at least ten days a month (did I mention perimenopause?). I often wish I had much, much more quiet, contemplative time to think before I record episodes. I keep coming back to this tweet (pardon the language) as a daily truth.
And yet:
We value free speech to our bones. It’s clearer to me than it’s ever been. Most of us want more and freer speech than the First Amendment guarantees, at a time when the First Amendment is feeling anemic at best.
Have I ever watched a full episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!? Of course I haven’t. With the exception of SNL, I never catch more than a clip from a late-night show (and I watch SNL in 15-minute intervals throughout the week that I keep restarting the next night because I fell asleep the night before…is this not what everyone does?). At the same time, I want Jimmy Kimmel Live! to exist and for Jimmy Kimmel to be able to say anything he wants, so long as it doesn’t incite violence.
I want massive-mega-global-conglomorate-techno-robber-baron-blobs-of-organizations-piled-on-top-of-each-other-for-no-discernible-purpose-except-more-and-more-and-more-money to have both the perspective that a late night host’s words are not the end of the world and the spine to ask all the President’s men and women bluntly, “Don’t you have better things to worry about?” What good is a multinational-mergered-behemoth if it’s going to get spooked by some stray comments from the FCC chair? This is absurd.
We’re tired of voting with our dollars, but we don’t know what else to do
The sound you hear right now is thousands of parents trying to explain to frazzled 8-year-olds why Disney+ no longer works. Incidentally, I’d rather face the President of the United States than a frazzled 8-year-old. We have to handle it all our-damn-selves.
Because the FCC Chair believes that intimidation-via-podcast is his job, because corporate executives believe flattery-via-capitulation is risk management, ordinary people are trying to figure out if anything we do matters. Since we seem to just be consumers and data points, we cancel our subscriptions like the founders intended.
It is so frustrating, so deeply depressing to think that the First Amendment is going to ride or die based on subscriber numbers. I take comfort in knowing that I’m not alone in feeling this way.
We’re still here
I thought I heard somewhere that nature abhors a vacuum. I’m left to wonder why there are so many around us. I’ve been mad all week and in every direction about the Congressional oversight hearing with FBI Director Kash Patel.
I am so tired of this nonsense, and so is nearly everyone I know, of nearly every political persuasion. I understand why people check out. If this is what civic life has to offer, what a waste of our finite days.
Fortunately, it is not all that civic life offers. Civic life also offers the chance to talk with you all about what we believe and care about, to commiserate about everything from political violence to perimenopause, to experience the full range of human emotions, to work on ourselves and to be worked on by others.
So, we’re still here, and so are you, and we are grateful for that. That’s awesome. It’s risky. It’s brave. It’s fun. It’s frustrating. It’s good. It’s both challenging and comforting. Let’s rest this weekend and do it all again next week.
Spicy Bonus Episode for Everyone
Our Friday episode this week was supposed to be a mailbag episode, but we spent 90 minutes on the first question. So, we wanted to share the rest of the mailbag with everyone. Sarah and Beth discuss their red lines, advice for serving on boards, Kash Patel, and Sarah’s split king bed.
On Taking to the Streets and Taking Separate Beds
We intended for Friday’s episode to be a mailbag episode, but then spent 90 minutes on the first question. As happens to us all, right?
This Week’s Low Stakes Controversy:
Sarah’s Common Ground Pilgrimage this week is centered around Jane Austen’s classic: Pride and Prejudice. For posterity: what is the best film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice?1
What We’re Reading and Listening To This Week
Sarah: Kingmaker: Pamela Harriman’s Astonishing Life of Power, Seduction, and Intrigue by Sonia Purnell
Beth:
Alise: The Bones Beneath My Skin by TJ Klune
Maggie: “Wars Are Not Won by Evacuations”: A Historian’s Action Plan (
)
I apologize that there is not more detail in these choices, the character limit cramped my style.
Oof, I feel all of these points so keenly this week! I need a "Canceling subscriptions like the founders intended" hat. 🫠💜
The episodes this week were some of the best I've listened to in my 5+ years of listening to Pantsuit Politics. They both challenged me and put words to things I've been struggling to articulate. I want to be able to discuss politics and current events with my family and have tried on and off when I feel I have the capacity to do so with dignity and from a place of wanting to understand. One person in the group consistently turns the discussions into ad hominem attacks on anyone who is not in alignment. I'm wrestling with whether I can continue to engage if this doesn’t change. When I started listening, this was also how I engaged and I realized it was taking a toll on our relationships and stepped back from them to take time to repair and do better on my end. I don't have answers and I know that I have some difficult conversations ahead. Thank you for showing us all a different way to engage.