Is Democracy on the Ballot?

Discussion post for October 22, 2024

In America and around the world, democracy is being put to the test. On today’s show, Sarah and Beth discuss the upcoming presidential election, what might happen in the interregnum period, and the democratic trends around the world that may give us a hint into our upcoming results.

TOPICS DISCUSSED

• What can we expect after election day?

• Global Election Results from 2024

• Outside of Politics: Should you write your own obituary?

EPISODE RESOURCES

Process your post-election stress with Sarah, Beth and Vanessa Zoltan of Harry Potter and the Sacred Text! Join us in Boston or via live stream on November 7 - for a fun night among friends. As premium members, you can use the code FIVELIVE2024 for $5 off the price.

US PREPARES FOR CONTENTIOUS POST-ELECTION PERIOD

• More Than 165 Lawsuits Are Already Shaping the 2024 US Presidential Election (Bloomberg)

• Elon Musk’s daily $1 million giveaway to registered voters could be illegal, experts say (CNN Politics)

• Overseas voters – now a bloc that could be crucial for Democrats – targeted by GOP lawsuits in battleground states (CNN)

• Courts in US battleground states move to swiftly decide election cases (Reuters)

• As Republicans prepare to contest election, Democrats play defense (Reuters)

• A 2024 Election Litigation Hot List (Bloomberg)

• His country trained him to fight. Then he turned against it. More like him are doing the same (The Associated Press)

INTERNATIONAL ELECTIONS

• The American economy has left other rich countries in the dust (The Economist)

• The challenge of focus groups for bold ideas (Seth's Blog)

PRACTICES FOR MARKING THE PASSAGE OF TIME

• Why I Write My Own Obituary Every Year (The New York Times)

TRANSCRIPT

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

Beth [00:00:09] This is Beth Silvers.

Sarah [00:00:10] You're listening to Pantsuit Politics.

Beth [00:00:12] Where we take a different approach to the news.

[00:00:14] Music Interlude

Thanks so much for joining us today. We are two weeks from Election Day; lots of people are already voting as we'll discuss. Presidential race is a coin toss as close as it can possibly be. So today we are going to talk about what that period between Election Day and the inauguration might look like since we've had some experience with that in recent years and we have some indicators of what it might be looking like this time. And then we're going to zoom out and talk about the state of democracy worldwide and a lot of really encouraging as well as concerning signs and lessons that we can take from the many other elections that have been held this year. Outside of Politics, we're going to talk about a piece that suggests that you write your own obituary every year. Now, spoiler alert, we're probably not going to do that anytime soon here. But we do have an interesting discussion about the passage of time and superstition and the power of language and characteristically wide ranging things.

Sarah [00:01:30] Before we dive in, we have two important things to remind you of. First, we have a live show in Boston on Thursday, November 7th. During that in-between period of Election Day and inauguration, we're joining Vanessa Carlton from Harry Potter and the Sacred Texts for a great night together, where we will process the election and the days following in real time. Tickets are on sale now. Even if you can't join us in person, there is a virtual livestream option so make sure and grab that. Next, last week we made a huge move. We brought our entire premium community to Substack. Substack is now the only place you can get our two premium shows: Good Morning and More to Say. It's also a fabulous time to join us as a premium member, if you haven't already. The whole community is now together. Everybody gets everything and we're all hanging out together at Substack. It's been really fun.

[00:02:20] If you subscribe to Good Morning and More to Say on Apple Podcasts subscription, so if you click that special little button and subscribed to our premium shows inside the Apple podcast app, go ahead and cancel those because we're going to shut down the feeds in Apple podcasts that send Good Morning and More to Say to you at the close of business today. Now don't unsubscribe from this show, you guys. But if you listen to Good Morning and More to Say on the premium feed inside the Apple podcast app, cancel those subscriptions. Join us over at Substack. There's information on those moves for both Apple and Patreon people in the show notes. You can email us as well at hello@pantsuitpoliticsshow.com and Alise will help you move everything. Or, you can join us for the first time. We're just here. We're here to get you over there so that we are together leading up to the election and in the time afterwards.

Beth [00:03:21] Next up, let's talk about the election and the time afterwards.

[00:03:24] Music Interlude.

[00:03:34] Sarah, as you know, I have had conversations about the elections with bigger audiences and in live events and hearing from our listeners via email. I feel like one of the chief concerns people have right now is what happens after Election Day. Whatever the results, what happens after Election Day. And I know that for about a year, all I've been able to think is please let these results be decisive. Let it not be close. But in almost any scenario, it looks like it's going to be close. And so I'm wondering how you're thinking about that period between the Election Day and inauguration.

Sarah [00:04:11] I'm holding close to a quote I read in an Axios piece about election lawsuits and election security from an expert that said it's going to be intense; it's going to be volatile. But he stated that with percent certainty, he believed whoever won the Electoral College would be sworn in on January 20th. So every time I see a headline about a slow moving coup coming from the Trump administration, I remember that with a lot of work and a lot of lobbying, we shored up some of our processes and that the election security experts believe that the winner will be sworn in on January 20th.

Beth [00:04:52] I have that conviction, too, that we'll get to the right place. I do think it will be ugly and it's messy right now. Over the weekend, Bloomberg reported that there have been over 165 election related lawsuits already. We know that the Republican Party is filing in a number of swing states. Judges have mostly rejected any attempt to change the process materially right before the election. And I'm trying to figure out if this is something new or if it just feels more intense because of January 6th.

Sarah [00:05:28] Well, I think it's new. I think the approach of filing what I heard one legal expert describe as zombie lawsuits. So these lawsuits are almost like a PR campaign. So they file so much of these completely baseless accusations about voter fraud, one, to legitimize the idea that there is massive voter fraud or to de-legitimize our elections. And two, to sort of preemptively lay the foundation for the arguments they're going to make if they lose, which is it wasn't fair. See, there was this issue with this. There was this issue with that. And I think on the scale at which this is happening is new. It's not new that we've had close elections. It's not new that we haven't known the winner immediately. Our first presidential election ever in 2000 was that way. But this preemptive use of the legal system to perpetuate false ideas about voters, about election officials, about the election itself, I think is new.

Beth [00:06:34] It is very Trumpian like to say that if we've filed a lawsuit, what we allege in that lawsuit must mean that there's truth behind it. While all the people who sue him, there is no truth. It's absolutely false. It's a sham. It's an abuse of the legal system. I was having a really strong reaction to reading about Elon Musk giving away millions of dollars in Pennsylvania at rallies. And thinking about just the gut level sense of unfairness that I experience when I read a story like that. And I was trying to put that in context with all of the things that Republicans are complaining about right now. And I'm struggling because there are lawsuits pending from Republicans, especially in Pennsylvania, that entertain the notion that if you are not in the United States of America on Election Day, you shouldn't get to vote. I mean, there is a real push to de-legitimize all overseas voting.

Sarah [00:07:36] Yeah, they just keep sowing new ground. They don't have the pandemic to depend on with changes in the process due to lethal, risky virus spreading among the human populace. So they have to think up something new. And I do feel like they've largely gotten their way in a lot of places on voter ID laws and really perpetuating this idea that massive amounts of noncitizen voters are just streaming into polling places and so they've got to think up something new. They have to have new grounds to file lawsuits, to perpetuate these misinformation campaigns and this is clearly their newest one.

Beth [00:08:23] I also read an article that I keep thinking about that described how many emergency room physicians and primary care physicians are encouraging patients to vote. It's just part of being a citizen, part of being a healthy person living in a democracy. And there are groups affiliated with the Republican Party that are mad about that and are pushing against those kinds of efforts, like claiming that that is somehow tiptoeing up to ballot harvesting. I just don't know what we do when any get out to vote effort-- even an effort as dispersed and private as a physician not telling a patient who to vote for but just encouraging them to vote at all-- raises that specter of suspicion.

Sarah [00:09:10] Yeah. The robust participation in our democracy is not what they want. There is a reason they file these lawsuits in swing states and not everywhere. There's a reason that they are offended and worried about get out the vote efforts. You would think that they would learn, that those helped them as well, because this is what happened in 2020. That they went after mail in ballots and absentee voting and early voting, and it hurt them, as evidenced by Trump's rally this weekend in Pennsylvania when he went off for 20 minutes about the size of Arnold Palmer's penis. I feel rock solid in my constant refrain about Donald Trump, which is that he never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

Beth [00:10:03] So the lawsuits are coming and the courts are preparing for them. I think an encouraging trend over the last week or so is just seeing court saying, "Hey, we're going to put in special procedures to get these lawsuits adjudicated as quickly as possible." The concerning side of those court announcements have been the ways that courts are preparing for heightened security risks. And we've seen over the weekend a couple of incidents of election related violence. Experts are worried about how individuals will respond post-election.

Sarah [00:10:39] Yeah, I really try to check myself. I heard an election expert say they're also different. You really can't draw many conclusions from one election to the next. I mean, how different are our lives from 2020 at this point, much less from 2016? And I try to work through both scenarios. What if everything is terrible? What if it's a whimper? What if we did learn enough from 2020 that the courts are prepared? Democrats understand this playbook. I heard Chris Hayes complaining that there hadn't been enough media coverage of these lawsuits of this 'slow moving coup'. But I think the people who need to understand what's happening in this playbook do. And I do think that the closing arguments of the campaign, particularly the Harris-Walz campaign-- and the national media itself has kind of hit on this, putting the screws to J.D. Vance. Did he lose in 2020? Are you going to go after your enemies? Do you respect the rule of law? Do you respect the elections? And the answer is no. The answer is no and these lawsuits are a reflection of that. And I largely expect them to go the same way. I was so encouraged by Judge McBurney in Georgia saying, "No, you can't hand vote all the ballots." You can't hand count all these.

[00:12:19] Because that's what I was worried about. I was mostly worried about low level officials gumming up the works and I'm still worried about that. But I do think that the people that need to be, the judges, Democratic lawyers have their eyes on this. That's what else Robert McBurney issued an opinion in Georgia saying no you have to certify. Shall certify means certified. You don't get to play election investigator and decide it's not good enough for you. That's not your job. And so I do largely expect the processes, especially because they've been beefed up since 2020, to hold. But I'm trying to work through in my mind all these different scenarios. But the truth is we don't know. As much as I try to play them out and game them in my head, the most important thing is what catches you off guard, catches you off guard because you never expected it in the first place.

Beth [00:13:10] And I try to remember that there are lots of things that could catch me off guard that won't catch the FBI off guard because the FBI has for four years been thinking about pursuing people who commit acts of political violence, preparing for additional political violence. I read a disturbing account from the AP of an indictment against a former military member who has for years been preparing to be part of some kind of revolution. And it was an interesting human story about this guy and the way that he was stockpiling weapons and the way his children interacted with him and the way that the children's stepfather played a role in bringing his attention to law enforcement. It was an interesting story. But my take away from it was, number one, they found this guy and it's incredible that they found this guy before he did something even more harmful than what he was on track to do. And you cannot control for all of the people who are out there. And so when I started to feel anxious about post-election violence, I just try to step back and remember it mostly gets perpetrated by people that we can't control for. And law enforcement is really attuned to this now. It's not going to take them by surprise again.

Sarah [00:14:32] Yeah. And I think that's true for all Americans. The piece of that law enforcement puzzle is regular citizens not blowing it off and saying, oh no, as the stepfather, that's concerning. I need to turn that in. And I think everybody is finally attuned-- maybe not everybody, but most people understand that this is a real threat and that if you hear something, you should say something. And I think that's going to be a really big piece of this, too. I'm trying to remain optimistic. I'm trying to remain hopeful. I'm trying not to fall for any of the narratives that say this is what's going to happen because we don't know what's going to happen, and that is anxiety producing in its own way. But that's because of our negativity bias. We don't know what's going to happen. And that could be, like I said, a whimper as well, that this all goes relatively smoothly.

Beth [00:15:28] I hope so. I don't know if it is wishful thinking, if it's doling out a little bit. But I was thinking over the weekend about how this election has not felt as awful to me as the 2020 election felt. And as bad as a lot of the rhetoric is, and as terrible as the commercials are-- and the commercials are terrible in my media market-- it still just hasn't felt as vitriolic to me. And I don't know if that is because I'm just used to Donald Trump on this third go round or if it's because I got excited about the change in Democratic candidate and that change made the whole cycle feel different to me. But I'm not as stressed this time. As close as it is and is worried as I am-- and I am-- I don't feel it in the visceral way that I felt it in 2020. I don't think.

Sarah [00:16:24] I was for a while. I felt really, really anxious. Not quite as bad as 2020. 2020 was really bad. I had to run 30 minutes every single day if I did not want to find myself in the middle of an anxiety attack by the afternoon. And I'm not quite there this time. I did sort of reclaim my space over the weekend. I got an app that turned my cell phone into a dumb phone and I deleted all social media. I have to. I just can't. I cannot be on X. I cannot be on Twitter. I cannot be checking the New York Times every half hour. I just have to put my phone away for my own mental health. And I'm just trying to remember that it is different. To me, what feels different and what has felt different for a while is that particularly to younger people, I think this is the ever shifting prism or filter of our opinions. I think it's easy to think for me as a mom my kids have been in this political environment for nine years and be really sad and depressed about it, to think that Donald Trump has defined so much of their childhood. Last night we got in a very intense argument with my dad at the dinner table and I was quoting Donald Trump's Access Hollywood quote. And Felix was standing there and my dad said, "He's right there." And I said, "He already knows." I said, "Felix, did you hear that before?" Yes, he already heard it.

[00:18:01] So in some ways it's so easy to get depressed about it, to think this is what they've grown up in. But paradoxically, what gives me hope is that he is a total joke to them. And what I hear from them is their peers feel the same way, even peers whose parents are supporters. They're in this conflict because their parents are saying he's the savior, but he is a joke to young people. Maggy send us an article this morning about how Trump is losing on TikTok. It's because he's a joke. There was a moment where all my kids were doing an impression of him and I thought, this has to be something important that now my nine-year- old can do a Donald Trump impression of him because he's such a joke. And I understand that's a weird place to settle, as we just talked about the slow moving coup. And that's always been the paradox of Donald Trump; that he is unserious but also dangerous. The fact that he is so ridiculous has sort of permeated. Everybody knows at this point. In 2016, which was the last time he won, you could convince yourself that he might be different. But we know who he is. And to young people, he's a joke. And I just think that has to be impactful and has to matter.

Beth [00:19:22] You know what else I find encouraging about the kids? I had an experience over the weekend that reminded me that older people who are not interested in politics-- and I'm including myself in older people now, like let's say 40 and up-- tend to feel just assaulted by elections. That that it is happening at all. That there are any commercials. That they ever get a fundraising email if they do. All of it feels like an invasion of their peace until the process ends. And I don't think our kids are going to feel that way. And I think that's healthy. I'm sorry that it came at the price of Donald Trump. And certainly I would not run this experiment again to see if we get that same outcome if I were in charge of things. But my daughter and her friends talk about the news all the time, and I just don't think that they are going to grow up and be like, ugh, elections are so annoying. I hope they get to experience what I used to feel about elections. I used to think that elections were fun. I looked forward to them. I thought they were interesting and I always had a preference. But I never until Donald Trump came along worried about who was going to win the presidency. I just didn't. I hope that they get to experience that again, where they're still engaged and they still talk about it and still important to them, but it doesn't feel so high stakes.

Sarah [00:20:52] Well, and to that point about if you turn it ever so slightly, it looks differently, I read a lot of articles this weekend about his pursuit of retribution both when he was president and what he said he's going to do should he become president again. And the authoritarian approach of attacking the media. And yes, in some ways that has worked. That the trust in mainstream media is so low and that is terrible. And at the same time I thought, good luck trying to shut down the media environment now. Godspeed. The way it is decentralized, the way you have endless news influencers on podcasts and TikTok and Instagram and YouTube, you couldn't. You couldn't do that. Not that they don't in China, obviously, but that's a big leap right from where we are to China considering our not only decentralized media environment, but our decentralized elections and our decentralized state and local governments. So as dangerous as I find his rhetoric, I do try to ground myself and remind myself that there are lots of things different from 2016. And he might be the same, but lots of things have changed since that time.

Beth [00:22:27] I don't think he's the same either. Chad this morning for the first time saw a clip of him at the dancing rally that we talked about last week. He hadn't seen it yet. And he was like, whoa!

Sarah [00:22:38] Yeah, thirty minutes.

Beth [00:22:39] And then he saw the Arnold Palmer clip and his response to that-- and I think Chad, my husband, is often a good representative of people who are attentive and smart, but not hobbyists and not following it super closely. He said, "Beth, just age only goes in one direction." It is exactly what we said about Joe Biden unfolding for Donald Trump before our very eyes. The combination of him getting older and facing a whole lot of stress is going to produce one result and that result is going to get worse and worse. And so I think that also gives me a little bit of comfort. A lot of things are different environmentally than they were in 2016, and he is a different candidate. Now, the polling will make you feel like you're on crazy pills seeing that he still maintains such a large, seemingly intractable block of support. I just have to hope that there's something that's not being captured there, because my everyday life experience is that even people who are never going to vote for Kamala Harris see that.

Sarah [00:23:51] Yeah. My dad talked about the Arnold Palmer last night. He was like, "I hate it. That was so gross. He shouldn't have done that." And I think there are so many moments now where if you are a hardcore Trump supporter, you have to twist yourself in knots to justify his behavior. Always true. Definitely true. The Access Hollywood tape. But it just continues to get worse and worse because again, he never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity. I would say that that's probably gotten worse since age only goes in one direction. He's finding more and more opportunities to miss.

Beth [00:24:26] And so the question is if he were to win, how harmful would that be for the United States as a democracy? And as we consider that question, Sarah, you found a piece in The Economist that we wanted to discuss about how democracies doing all over the world. So we'll discuss that up next.

[00:24:43] Music Interlude.

Sarah [00:24:52] I guess I had very many economists and Sunday New York Times to catch up on this weekend because of fall break. And my favorite thing about reading both in print is there are just so many stories, particularly globally, that I miss when I'm just checking the app or getting my daily news headlines. In particular, we've been talking about this for a long time, that this was the year of democracy. That a majority of the world's population was going to vote this year. And we're getting close to the end of this year, which means I think their statistic was that 90 percent of the votes around the world have been cast. We're last in line. And you're seeing the results of all that. I was reading about France forming a government. I was reading about the coalition in South Africa because we've had some upending elections over the course of this year. It was encouraging to think about everyone voting. And honestly, I think it's encouraging to look as everyone has voted, even as some of these elections were not free and fair, even as some of the results have been disheartening for sure. I still think taking a lay of the land is encouraging as we're coming at the end to finish off this year of democracy here in America.

Beth [00:26:05] This article points out that voter turnout is up for the first time in 20 years based on the average for all these countries that have held elections. And that to me is so encouraging. That takes me back to how my kids don't feel an election is a giant intrusion on their personal peace and safety. They know that this is important. This is part of life. And we're seeing an explosion of early voting in the United States. As of Monday morning when we're recording on October 21st, more than 14 million people have already voted. That's incredible. That's fantastic.

Sarah [00:26:37] Yeah. And turnout rose in all these other countries as well. France had a very contentious election with high voter turnout. Indonesia, South Korea, Mexico, who elected their first female president. Even the EU parliamentary elections saw voter turnout rise. I think that's encouraging. I think this sense that we were all in it together this year, it felt like every week, every weekend there was another global election and it felt really empowering. Again, what I keep thinking about is even in authoritarian countries, even in Russia where you get Vladimir Putin elected by 95 percent-- it's ridiculous results-- that even he feels like he has to fake it. Even in these places where they are oppressive and communist and authoritarian, they fake it. They have a fake election because that wash of democracy is so important.

Beth [00:27:39] That's what I loved about this article. I've been thinking a lot about-- this is not a fresh insight on my part, but just that truth that often the people who have the most experience the greatest sense of scarcity. Whether you're framing that as more money, more problems or thinking about people who are already living incredible lives, being worried about college for their kids, there are so many iterations of that. Sometimes I worry that we as Americans do not appreciate the resilience of what we've built. It's like two things. I believe in a republic, if you can keep it. I believe that what we have is fragile and requires tending and safeguarding. And I also think here and worldwide people are voting and people are insisting that their voice be part of governing. I want to find that sweet spot of this matters, and also I don't want to be breathing into a bag if Donald Trump is re-elected.

Sarah [00:28:42] Yeah. Look, some of these results are hard to look at because you see that even when people turn out and try to get rid of a dictator like in Venezuela, once people have the reins of government, it is hard to get rid of them. And I think you can look at these elections and see lots of scary reminders at what is at stake. Now, you have places like Senegal where they got rid of their strongman. He's the youngest democratically elected leader on the continent of Africa. And that's huge because they have a very young population and very old leaders in Africa. So I think there's always spots for hope. As you look at this. But it is hard not to look at some of these elections and realize like now the stakes are high because they will use these elections and they will use expanded power if they can.

Beth [00:29:44] And what does it mean when people turn out and vote democratically for authoritarian leaders? That's hard. What will it mean if we, again, have a free and fair election and now with all the information that we have in America, people choose Donald Trump? That is a coin toss outcome at this point, and I have to really consider how you frame up democracy in your mind if that's what people choose.

Sarah [00:30:14] Well, I think what I see as I look across these elections is that just democracy is a spectrum. I know. In the 21st century we love to talk about spectrums and all kinds of things, but I think democracy is the same. That's why we get different grades based on the health or the robustness of our democracies. But I do think as you look and you see how often there's interference and I think you really see through the filter of these elections this sort of global interplay with China and Russia and the United States, I was so discouraged. I had a friend say that she was in a conversation about Bangladesh, which is such an encouraging story. The young people rose up and got rid of this oppressive leader and elected this old Nobel laureate professor to lead, their running the government themselves. And in this conversation, my friend heard from someone with a lot of contact with Bangladesh, well, it was just the United States that got rid of her. Like it was all the United States.

[00:31:25] It was so discouraging to hear when democracies are robust, when people are fighting hard, that there's still this clinging to the idea that it's never democracy. That narrative has taken hold that the superpowers, be they China or Russia or the United States, are always really behind it. To me, even though election interference hasn't played out in the way that we expected it to-- which is great news. It's such great news that in Taiwan they stood up to Chinese interference. And then Moldova they countered Russia's efforts. But that narrative is still underneath so much of this, I think, in a discouraging way.

Beth [00:32:13] It's also hard for me to put things like Elon Musk's contributions in context. I've really had my brain broken by the information reported by the Kentucky Lantern here in our state about Jeff Yass financing commercials for the school choice amendment in Kentucky. And thinking here's a person who, as far as I know, has no connections to the state, I do not understand at all his connections to this issue. It is weird to think about the incredibly rich being able to not only spend so much to influence election outcomes, but also to control platforms where people are exchanging information about elections. And so when I think about that, I have greater compassion for believing the United States just dips its hand into other countries and promotes its preferred outcome. Because I get that the United States is kind of the Elon Musk of countries. Too many places around the world. So the information environment is hard. The wealth disparities are hard. All of that has always existed and will always exist. I think we're just living in a time when the form of that is changing and it can make it difficult sometimes to know, am I looking at a fantastic news story or a really dark one?

Sarah [00:33:41] Yeah, and I think that's the tough one about the incumbency. Like in some places, I was so excited to see the incumbent suffer some setbacks. Be it in India with Modi not barreling through to an even stronger position or in Turkey where Erdogan won, but the parliamentary elections were not what they expected and his party suffered some setbacks. There's a lot of places where you want the incumbency to suffer. Now, that's a harder one here in the U.S. where we don't want populism and anti-incumbency fervor to take Donald Trump to a second term. Isn't that the best and most important takeaway from any year of democracy? It's complicated. There aren't easy lessons. I am encouraged that there wasn't more intervention. I'm discouraged that you still have savvy populist leaders or dictators postponing elections.

[00:34:45] I went to Tunisia several years ago, so it's a country that's very close to my heart. And I'm so discouraged that this shining star from the Arab summer is now taken over again with sham elections and a leader that everyone expected to really usher in a new era of democracy in Tunisia. And that's not been what's happened. Because I think we talk about democracy and we talk about the globe, but just like in every state it's so different and the reality on the ground and the populous and the history, it's true obviously for every nation that when we're talking about intervention or we're talking about these leaders, when we talking about the populace, are they struggling with economic setbacks? What's the demographic? Is the demographic changing? All these things are true, so any simple conclusion you want to reach is impossible.

Beth [00:35:37] Seth Godin had such a fun blog post this morning. He was talking about Halloween and he said, look, if you told a bunch of people with no context, let's invent a holiday where we send our kids around to knock on doors and beg for candy from strangers, people would probably vote that idea down. And the point that he was trying to make is that leadership means you figure out what people actually would enjoy or need or desire but they can't articulate it, and you build a good story around it and you put it in front of them and you show them. And I thought that was interesting, just preparing for the show and thinking about what democracy means because so often we vote for people who hold positions that when we vote on those issues individually we don't agree with. We are inconsistent in our voting behavior. We show up in droves to express support for people who do not value democracy. So it is all very complicated because people are very complicated. And that's what makes it so fascinating and gives me hope in the long term, even when the short term feels pretty precarious.

Sarah [00:36:47] Well, and I think the one overall very important takeaway is we're at the end. But a peaceful transfer of power from our election would be quite the conclusion to this year of democracy. Everyone is looking at us. We are, I think, under any measure, the world's most important democracy. And so with our election coming up, it is an opportunity, I think, to make a very important case for the strength of democracy, for the offer and benefits of democracy, and the world after voting itself in such large numbers, will definitely be watching our election.

Beth [00:37:43] Yeah, we always end our shows talking about what's in our minds Outside of Politics. And this week we wanted to talk about a piece by Kelly McMasters from the New York Times, who has developed a practice of writing her own obituary.

Sarah [00:37:58] Yes, her mother worked in hospice, so when she was 12 her mother had to do it like as I think a part of her training or something. And so she started doing it. She doesn't do it every year, but I was so interested in this perspective. I will confess that while I consider myself a logical and analytical person, I do have a pretty large superstition around death. I don't know if you've ever noticed this, Beth, but I will not say I'm dead if I think something's funny. I really don't even send the crossbones or the skeleton as an emoji. I don't like it. I have what I personally believe to be sort of a pretty robust manifestation practice, ability-- I don't know. But I told you when I picked less as my word of the year that it made me nervous. And I'm not saying I personally caused the apocalypse in the podcast industry. But a little bit my brain tells me that I did. So she didn't have me. I was like, I'm not doing this. There's no way I'm writing my obituary. That is too powerful of an energetic thing to do. Until she said you could write it into the future, so you could write what you want your obituary to look like if you'd like to die at 95. And then I was like that I will do. That sounds lovely and I could maybe do that, but I'm not writing one like I would die this year. That's way too powerful of an energetic thing to send out there. I'm not doing it. Just saying. That's my superstition I hold closely.

Beth [00:39:41] Well, let me just put on public record that I do not hold you responsible for the ad apocalypse in the podcasting industry or the other obstacles that have befallen us as a small business this year. I don't personally ascribe that to you. I'm also not going to do this. But I think for me it's less about believing that I could accidentally manifest my own death and more about how I think I am in a transition in terms of my own relationship to time that I haven't quite figured out yet. I try to be very present always with my family. And I've really tried to ramp that up lately. And the more I do it, the sadder I get about the fact that time is passing. We watched a little bit of Wild Robot this weekend. Have you seen that? It's a cartoon. Somehow we haven't finished it yet. A robot gets dropped off in the middle of a beautiful forest. And the robot is from a society where she's supposed to be a helper to everyone. And so her task completion is her mission. And this gosling becomes her task. She learns that this gosling whose family has been killed by her falling out of the sky, needs to be able to eat, swim and fly in time to migrate. And so she becomes the gosling's mother, essentially, this robot. So this cartoon that I think that I'm going to halfway pay attention to while I'm playing Wordle or something wrecks me. Just the 45 minutes we watched of it absolutely tore me apart. I have not cried so much in so long and I think it's just the age that I am, the age my kids are. And so I don't want to meditate on my own death today because right now I'm just like, wow, everything is in transition all the time and I'm taking it hard.

Sarah [00:41:46] Yeah, I did personally attack you.

Beth [00:41:49] You did. You're not helping me with this.

Sarah [00:41:51] Because I did a thing where I wrote down the next 10 years because I just felt like some things stacked up on me with the election and I wanted to be aware for the next ones. And we were playing in a team retreat so I was like I want to have a vision of what's going on personally for me in the next 10 years that I can predict. So I wrote down the big birthdays: Nicholas and I turning 50, the boys turning 13, 16, 18, 21. I wrote down people entering middle school, high school, college, graduating high school, and I put them all on this list so that I could see everything, the summers. And it was very intense because not for nothing the next two presidential elections, your oldest and my middle children will be entering high school and then our babies will be entering high school. And so just seeing it all laid out. And then I didn't give you enough warning. I just laid all this at your feet in a very cruel and mean way, and I knowledge that, because I felt attacked myself by myself is what happened. And so I just needed to share that with everyone else.

[00:42:57] But just realizing that, yeah, it's less than 10 years. In nine years, our kids will be out of the house. They won't be grown. Let's not get ahead of ourselves here. But they'll be on their way. And thinking about that and realizing that is very intense. And to think about the passage of time, I kind of had a moment this morning where I thought, well, that's why middle age and later life can be so hardening is because you see the regrets, you see the mistakes, you see what you would want different and you can't tell yourself that there's this endless possibility for the world to make it up to you. Which is not how you should think about it anyway, that life doesn't owe us anything. The world doesn't owe us anything. But it's tempting to think you can right the ship or you can get to the place, or you can figure it all out. And I just really don't want to harden in that way. I don't want to get older and feel like the world, the universe, whatever, gave me a raw deal in some ways and hasn't made it up to me. And it's hard. Time goes so fast and you feel like you're grasping sand at the same time. You still want to have a vision for what the future will look like and how you can get there. This growing old stuff is not for the faint of heart. I'll tell you that much.

Beth [00:44:30] Yeah, I've changed a lot of just practices in my life this year because I feel like this has been a year of like I don't like a lot of things. I don't like the way things are going in a lot of different arenas. I have not numbed as much with work as I usually have, in part because work has been really stressful this year and not a fun, numbing agent. And so I think all of those things, just have me paying closer attention, which is good and healthy. And on the other side of this transition that I'm in, I feel great about where things are headed. I'm not even sad like I don't want my kids to grow up or I don't want the seasons to change or whatever, I do want all of that. I just am taking it really hard and feeling it in a really intense way. So we talked about email on our last Outside of Politics and I said I thought I might start emailing my mom and sister, and so I did. And the first note I got back from my mom was so beautiful.

[00:45:33] She shared a story about how she used to write my dad a letter every day when they were in college and they were in different campuses. And it touched me so much for a lot of reasons. But one of them was just thinking about how I bet that feels like a month ago to my mom. Like I have that perspective now of understanding how I will someday talk about emailing Chad during classes in law school and it will sound like another century to my kids or grandkids, but for me it will feel just right here where I can almost touch it. So anyway, for these reasons, I'm not going to bring an obituary practice into my life in this window. Maybe eventually. I see the beauty in what Kelly McMasters is doing here. I admire it. And maybe someday, but not today.

Sarah [00:46:28] I might do it to the future. I can see writing it for like my 95 year-- I actually want to live to be 115. I want to be a super centenarian. I watched Velma this weekend, which is all about growing old and has a really beautiful reflection on that and thinking about what that could look like and what that will mean. That's another superstition I hold. I also don't say, why can't they just stay babies? I never say that. You'll never catch me saying that. Or I wish they wouldn't grow up because that happens to parents and I'm not trying to invoke that for my own children. So I think what we've learned here is that I'm way more superstitious. I really reject superstitious. I just believe in the power of language. How about that? I think that's where I'm going to settle. So if you believe in the power of language, this is a pretty heavy practice.

Beth [00:47:17] I also believe in the power of language. I do wish for you to feel less of a sense of responsibility for all world events through the power of your own language. I want to find that balance of empowerment without such heavy responsibility.

Sarah [00:47:32] Yeah, but you want me to pick a different word next year, too? Don't lie.

Beth [00:47:37] You're going to anyway. I don't have to. Again, I do not hold you responsible for the apocalypse for sure.

Sarah [00:47:45] I'm telling y'all, I shouldn't have picked less. I knew I shouldn't have picked less, too. I knew it in my heart.

Beth [00:47:52] If you're listening and you have practices that maybe have aided you through transitions and how you are experiencing time, that would personally be helpful to me. But always love to hear you all share how you're thinking about the big picture of your lives, and appreciate you spending some of your precious time here with us. If you found this helpful, we would love for you to share the show with a friend and continue the conversation. And please don't forget to check our show notes for information on spending time together post-election as we deal with this interregnum in Boston with our good friend Vanessa Zoltan. We also have information there about our big move of the premium community to Substack. So thank you all for your patience with that transition and your enthusiasm for it. We'll be back with you on Friday. Until then, have the best week available to you.

[00:48:37] Music Interlude.

Sarah: Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production.

Beth: Alise Napp is our Managing Director. Maggie Penton is our Director of Community Engagement.

Sarah: Xander Singh is the composer of our theme music with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima.

Beth: Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers.

Executive Producers: Martha Bronitsky. Ali Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holladay. Katie Johnson. Emily Helen Olson. Barry Kaufman. Katherine Vollmer. Laurie LaDow. Lily McClure. Linda Daniel. The Pentons. Tracey Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katie Stigers. Karin True. Onica Ulveling. Nick and Alysa Villeli. Amy Whited. Lee Chaix McDonough. Morgan McHugh. Jen Ross. Sabrina Drago. Becca Dorval. Christina Quartararo. Shannon Frawley. Jessica Whitehead. Samantha Chalmers. Crystal Kemp. Megan Hart. The Lebo Family. The Adair Family. Genny Francis. Leighanna Pillgram-Larsen. The Munene Family. Ashley Rene. Michelle Palacios.

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