Nothing Ever Changes (Until It Does)

Fighting despair, finding wins, and the case for heat over hot

When we look at the news right now — Iran, the airports, the corruption, the measles — it’s tempting to decide none of it matters because, individually, we can’t fix any of it. Nihilism is tempting, and we talk about how sometimes nihilism represents pride, but maybe in the right dose, it’s more like humility. Either way, “nothing matters” is being proven wrong every day. Special elections are producing surprising results. Courts are holding tech companies accountable. And people are figuring it out when institutions fail (I’m especially moved by the story of an underground railroad set up to bring Ukrainian children home from Russia). I say in this episode that my emotional cocktail has a splash of nihilism in it. But the main ingredient is my conviction that our attention and our care and our efforts make a difference.

Plus: please clap for my favorite segue in the history of Pantsuit Politics. From: “perhaps we aren’t sleepwalking into a dystopian nightmare” to “are we in a smut renaissance?” facilitated by the shelving of an erotic chatbot. If this doesn’t end your Friday with joy, I don’t know what will. -Beth

Topics Discussed

• Nihilism is Having A Moment

• Signs of Hope

• Outside of Politics: Smut Renaissance

Want more Pantsuit Politics? Subscribe to ensure you never miss an episode and get access to our premium shows and community.

Episode Resources

• In Praise of Stove-Touching - by Jonathan V. Last (The Bulwark)

• OpenAI puts erotic chatbot plans on hold ‘indefinitely’ (Financial Times)

• Are We in a ‘Smut Renaissance’? (The New York Times)

• Watch Heated Rivalry (HBO Max)

• Red, White & Royal Blue (MacMillan Publishers)

Episode Transcript

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

Beth [00:00:09] This is Beth Silvers. You’re listening to Pantsuit Politics. We are taking in the news. The news from Iran, the news from airports, the corruption, the measles. There is so much and it feels so big that it’s really tempting to check out. And we’re battling that in ourselves. This sense that like maybe I just can’t do anything about any of this and I just maybe should hang out until the next election and hope for the best. Today we’re going to work through that feeling. We’re also going to talk about places where political power is shifting, public pressure is finding real outlets where people are figuring things out when old systems aren’t working. And then we’re going to take a big exhale and send you into the weekend thinking about what’s being called the smut renaissance.

Sarah [00:00:53] Yeah, because I think we’re going to take an exhale and then we’re going to be, oh, then we’ll take like a gasp. You know what I mean? Because it’s a smut Renaissance. So you got to do a little, oh, like that’s, you got to deal with that thing. Just saying. I was so excited.

Beth [00:01:06] There’s going to be a lot of breathing involves. One way or another.

Sarah [00:01:09] Okay. If thinking about the state of the world makes you really want to be in a room full of people who care as much as you do, then please join us in Minneapolis for our one and only live show this year, Saturday, August 29th. Even better, you can spend that weekend with us at the Spice Conference.

Beth [00:01:33] Sarah, this week I had Zoom calls with three different people who were telling me how nervous they were to come to our live show in Cincinnati by themselves. And then they had the best time and they met people who they’re still friends with and they can’t wait to see at other events that we’re having.

Sarah [00:01:46] Amazing

Beth [00:01:47] So I just want to reassure you.

Sarah [00:01:49] Some of them are coming with the friends they met to Minneapolis.

Beth [00:01:52] It’s so exciting. It is a refreshing crowd. That’s what I want you to know. It’s a refreshing crowd. It’s going to be a really good time. All the information to get your tickets will be in the show notes. Up next, is the news making us nihilists?

Sarah [00:02:16] I mean, I do think nihilism is having a moment.

Beth [00:02:19] Yeah. And you can understand why. Because I think nihilism is the answer to impossible questions. When you look across the world and you think, I’m not in charge of the strategic objectives in Iran. I cannot do anything about our government blowing up boats in the ocean. I can’t even help the TSA officers at my airport who are showing up and working and not getting paid and finding that many of their colleagues cannot do that anymore or will not do that any more. So here we are. Just up against it. That’s what I feel like when I read the headlines every day. That I’m up against it.

Sarah [00:02:54] And I feel like there are so many stories that have been building. Like I really feel like treating our entire country like a casino is breaking through right now. And it doesn’t make me feel any better that we’ve been ringing this bell for over a year, maybe more. Like I’m not like, ooh, see, I was right. It doesn’t mean you feel any better. We could sit here and list Iran, Cuba, Ukraine, the airports, the global energy crisis, the betting markets, the people betting on bombs. We didn’t even get to, oh, I don’t know, Epstein, that’s still out there. We didn’t get to the just incredible growth and solidifying of wealth through both corporate and corrupt ways that just keeps marching on. And it just feels like, I mean, you can understand the sort of what does it matter? Griffin has this thing he keeps saying, nothing ever changes. Nothing ever changes. Doesn’t really matter. Nothing’s going to change. Like, you can just kind of feel like this path we’re on is just the path we are on. And it feels overwhelming, it feels hopeless, it feels enraging, and it makes you feel small.

Beth [00:04:14] There’s an accumulative effect happening. When you said we didn’t even get to Epstein, I thought, well, that’s because Epstein hasn’t been the headlines for a couple of weeks, but it’s not even close to finished. Congress is still investigating. At least there’s that. That’s happening in a lot of places. We thought about this for a minute. It was hard and it was terrible. It’s ongoing. We moved on. I think our listeners in Minneapolis feel that. We’re not in the headlines anymore. It’s also not all the way done. We don’t feel like our city is back to normal. Maybe there won’t be a back to normally. Maybe there’s just a new normal for us. In this administration, which did inherit a number of problems, seems intent on compounding those problems and adding to them and going out into the world looking for new problems. And that is what I find myself so despondent about most days. That we have an administration that I feel is working to create more problems than to solve problems. Because even if they were working in ways that I don’t approve of, if they we’re trying to address real situations, trying to get things done for the American people, I could respect that. I could engage with it in good faith. Hell, we tried to do that all year last year. This go forth and conquer in the world, leave our airports at a total standstill because you can’t allow members of Congress to reach a compromise...

Sarah [00:05:41] Because you want to end vote by mail, which you used to vote in our election this week. Don’t forget that one.

Beth [00:05:47] That’s what I was just searching for words for. Cast up all over our elections just because you feel like it, because you’re worried you might not come out on top, it is discouraging.

Sarah [00:05:59] I think for so long, mid to late 20th century, we created a narrative that feeds so much of the nihilism, particularly on the right, that there’s this media and they’re in control. But, man, who’s mad at Walter Cronkite now? You know what I mean? Like we all have to act as our own news editors. We don’t get like the 30 minutes where somebody says, okay, this is what’s important and I’m going to rank it in type of priority. I’m going to tell you what you need to know and you can go, okay. Like we all have to basically be editors every day taking in the complete deluge of stories and try to what? Sort it out in between running our kids to school? Like there’s a reason people just go, nope. They don’t have that skill. Why should they? That’s not their job. And so the drowning in information without voices, powerful voices that can tell, not just us telling our audience, it’s not like there aren’t good faithful actors that are trying, but who can create that narrative nationally and even I think is the media was falling apart in sort of slow motion over these years. You had presidents who felt obligated. And a responsibility to create that narrative, to say everything’s okay, we’re on the right track, this is what we’re working towards. And now we don’t even have that. Now we have somebody that’s like, well, I don’t know what the deal is, but I think I’ll hate it. Or I’m glad he died. Like, we’ve got nowhere and no one to turn to make sense of this nationally.

Beth [00:07:49] Even people like Senator Tom Tillis are on TV saying things like, well, I support the mission in Iran as long as we know what it is by the 60-day mark. I’m struggling and sometimes I keep pressing people that we talk to on this question. Okay, American service members have died in Iran and more will and we’re about to send a lot more there. What did they die for? And I know that people who work in national security probably roll their eyes at a question like that. That sounds like a level of earnestness or naivete that they don’t have the luxury of holding onto. And we need people who look at the world and see strategy. It’s hard for me to say that, but we do. We need people who look the world at a much higher level than I do, who are willing to make some sacrifices. I worry that we have gone way too far in that direction though. And we have too few people in decision-making positions who are willing to say that question needs an answer. The American people deserve an answer to that question. I’m hearing it from some members of Congress, members of congress who I usually do not have a lot of respect for. I have appreciated what Nancy Mace has been saying about the Iranian operation. She has been seeing we owe the American people an answer to why we’re sending their sons and daughters there, why we are sending their husbands and wives there. What are we doing? We have Republicans like Mike Rounds coming out of briefings right now, being willing to say to media, “I’m a Republican, but they’re not answering our questions. There’s not enough information.” On the one hand, that’s encouraging. On the other, that feeds the nihilism a little bit. Because if you’re a member of Congress and you can’t get that information, then what are the rest of us supposed to do?

Sarah [00:09:45] Beth, I know that you love the movie, A Few Good Men. Do you find yourself more sympathetic to Jack Nicholson as you get older saying, you can’t handle the truth, you need me on that wall.

Beth [00:09:59] That’s why it’s such a good movie. It speaks to a real tension.

Sarah [00:10:03] I just keep hearing him say that and going like, yeah, you know what? I do. Like, I think that we have this paradox that feeds the nihilism. Which is a political consolidation, an economic consolidation, with power going to fewer and fewer people. Simultaneously, you have this democratization of most information, this sense that we all can and should know everything. And this sort of pure democracy. That’s why we talk about polls. It’s why Polymarket is actually a good thing because we just want to know how people feel about it at any certain minute, and that’s the information we really need. And I just feel like I want to call bullshit. Like, that’s not the solution to what we all feel, which is the game being rigged against us. The solution is not to invite us all to witness the rigging.

Beth [00:11:12] And to participate in it.

Sarah [00:11:14] Yeah, the solution is to change the rules of the game. And I think the nihilism is fed by that sense of like it’s rigged, it’s getting worse, we can all see it, but we can’t do shit about it.

Beth [00:11:32] Think about that. The Polymarket theory of the case is that it is equalizing for us to get our arms around what people feel. And the best expression of what people feel is what they spend money on. As though you go make a bet on Polymarket, expressing how you wish the world to be. But that’s not what’s happening on Polymarket. People are making bets on Polymarket because they know what the world’s about to be, or they think they know what the world’s about to be. It’s a bet on what seems most possible instead of what seems the most desirable. And the consequences of that are widespread and we’re allowing them to become more widespread every day. It is depressing. This is feeding the nihilism in me to see websites that I really enjoy integrating Polymarket. We have our whole business on Substack and I really love and appreciate Substack. And they have a Polymarket integration now. And it makes me sad every time I see it because this is not the world that I want to see.

Sarah [00:12:37] And you’re a baseball fan and they’re doing it too right here on opening day.

Beth [00:12:41] Yes. Right here on opening day.

Sarah [00:12:44] I think there is something there that we’ve talked about this before. The only value is money. The only values system is the economy. The only way in which you should be or should desire to be is rich. And it’s making some people richer, but it’s making everything that should give value to life. Like everything’s getting more expensive. So then we’re all even more consumed with the role money plays in our lives. And we all feel extracted from and stretched. And that puts people in a scarcity mindset then become even more obsessed with that resource, with the money itself. And you see people making all this money, betting and engaging in things that we all know are corrosive to the human spirit and have known that for all of human history. And there’s just, again, no leadership. I think this is why James Tallarico is hitting. Nobody’s saying there’s more to life than this. If the primary objective of the state is to keep it citizens safe for what? Safe for what? To do what? To live so that they can kill themselves? To rack up a little bit of savings they can lose in the next crypto scam? Like, yeah, that’s a pretty nihilistic vision. Is that the reality or is that just the only vision we’ve been sold?

Beth [00:14:35] Backing next to what I meant when I said this administration just creates new problems too, everything that you just said has been true for a few years now and is accelerating in its truth. We’re adding on top of that measles outbreaks. We’re adding up on top that the fact that this administration’s immigration policy is preventing doctors from working. There are doctors here whose work authorization renewals have been put on hold by the State Department because the State Department loves to say that the Biden administration didn’t vet anyone. And so doctors are having to go back to their home countries or go to other countries or try to stay here without work. And we cannot handle physician loss in our healthcare system. We can’t handle it. We have a very tough job market right now that’s predicted to get a lot harder. And the White House’s response to that this week is to have a robot come out with Melania and introduce itself as a teacher? None of this was okay with me.

Sarah [00:15:39] I mean, nihilism has always been the vision from them. I think they dressed it up as strength. They dressed it as a return to a vision of America that most people are entranced by or convinced by. Donald Trump’s value system is only motivated by greed and strength for himself, not for everybody. So the transactionalism, like what’s more nihilistic than the only thing that matters right now is the transaction between you and I. To me, that is like the most nihilistic. Nothing else matters except for what I can get from you right now in this moment. That is a bleak vision of life and humanity and relationships and love. I was listening to your More to Say about our new Secretary of Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullins, and about Trump calling him the whole time his son was ill. And so I can see glimmers of like he can care for people, he can show up for people but I just don’t think it carries out in any way, shape or form into the country. I just don’t see it showing up in any way, shaped or form in his leadership or his actions as president.

Beth [00:17:16] As I was thinking about nihilism in this episode. I thought there is a kernel from nihilism that I try to hold onto in my own life instead of just rejecting. Because humility is a piece of this, right? If our emotions are always cocktails, I think you want just a splash of nihilism in the respect that I can’t control everything. That’s healthy. It is healthy to look at all of this and know this isn’t my responsibility. I am not in charge. There are things happening here that truly all I can do is wish for the best. What is encouraging to me and what we’ll talk about next is that I think that we’re getting that cocktail closer to right in this moment where everything is so challenging, because you can see that our collective dissatisfaction with things is making a difference. Even if we don’t personally have solutions to every problem that we enumerated. The collective unhappiness with it is breaking through in very real ways.

Sarah [00:18:18] Well, you know what I’ve been spending my whole year on is this like study of vices and virtues. And the vice you always start with is pride because it is a self-obsession. And what I see so much with this sort of like nihilistic in the Polymarket and so many aspects of this story, including the invasion of Iran, is this pride in believing you know how it’s going to end. And I think even if you don’t feel that what you would describe as pride, as this confidence, there is a type of that that shows up as despair and you believe you know how it’s going to end. You can be confident and excited about how you think this is going to end and you can be despairing. I cannot stop thinking about this articulation of fallacies I read. And they talked about what happens a lot is this sleepwalker bias. You think everybody’s just going to sleepwalk into this dystopia, right? You’re seeing how it is now and how you feel now, and you’re projecting that as staying the same into the future in perpetuity. But shit never stays the same. There is no stasis. And I have to remind myself of that. Like I look around at all these scary stories and I think there’s an easy way to look at the corruption and think it’s lost. We’ve backslid. We’re in authoritarianism. They’re going to keep making the most money for themselves as long as they can. And this is where we are. And then I think also the corruption we can see is not representative of all the corruption that there is. And there is also a vision in which somebody picks this up-- and it ain’t going to be Pam Bondi, I’m not going to lie to you-- and says, oh, we have enough evidence to start clicking through this list and holding people to account. That’s a vision too. Like there are other realities and it’s just so hard when it’s this overwhelming and you can get locked in despair to remember like, shit changes all the time. Like things shift. Somebody gets in charge. You get the right leader at the right moment. It’s really hard to hold onto that and to hold on to like. It feels really overwhelming and bad right now, but do not believe that you can tell the future and that you know how this ends.

Beth [00:20:53] Seemingly unchangeable things change all the time. I think we should stop talking about red and blue states and red and black counties. The map is changing. The parties are changing. We have special election after special election telling us that seemingly safe seats are no longer. Just this week, Democrat Emily Gregory won a special election in Florida in Mar-a-Lago’s district.

Sarah [00:21:18] In Mar-a-Lago. I love how surprised this was.

Beth [00:21:20] Well done, Emily.

Sarah [00:21:21] This one was like, I can’t believe I won. Talk about how things can shift and all of a sudden you’re like, oh shit. Like this woman sincerely did not believe she was going to win.

Beth [00:21:34] She ran anyway. That’s the celebration to me. She ran any way. She wouldn’t have bet on herself on Polymarket, but she ran anyway and she won. And now she’s going to have to run again in November and she’s got between now and then to figure it out. And I bet she will. Since 2024, Democrats have flipped more than two dozen seats in Republican or battleground states. Republicans have not flipped any Democratic seats in those special elections. Political power is shifting. Also, the Trump administration is having to pump the brakes before they put nominees in front of the Senate, especially for the Department of Health and Human Services. They seem frozen in time about Casey Means right now as the Surgeon General, because she wouldn’t say anything definitive about vaccines, and that made Republican senators unhappy. They’re delaying trying to get a new CDC director confirmed because they don’t have anybody who seems normal and also who can work with Bobby Kennedy. And Republicans are saying, hey, there are midterm elections coming. We got to get some people in here who seem normal. And that’s good. That is responsiveness to public pressure that a year ago felt like it wouldn’t happen. A year ago when he was parading his nominees through, it seemed like public pressure didn’t matter. And here it does, here and now it does.

Sarah [00:22:59] I mean, this moment that we have all been talking about, waiting for where social media companies are held to account has arrived. A California jury found Meta and YouTube liable on all counts in a case accusing them of intentionally addicting a young woman. A New Mexico jury found meta violated state law by misleading users about the safety of its products and enabling child sexual exploitation and are ordered to pay $375 million in civil penalties. We’re going to talk about this more on Tuesday, but if you think this is the last one that some individual is going to bring against these companies, I got another vision of the future to share with you.

Beth [00:23:40] We also have legislation coming from Bernie Sanders and AOC about pausing all data center construction nationwide until there are safeguards in place about artificial intelligence. And that, again, is probably not legislation that’s just going to go past tomorrow. You could say Trump’s never going to sign that into law, Republicans will never go for it. There are problems with the legislation, whatever, but that is an act of hope. That is a conversation starting act. Most of Bernie Sanders’ career has been about starting a new conversation, changing the terms of the debate. You have this out there, it’s going to be discussed. And you can see an appetite across the political spectrum for some kind of guardrails around artificial intelligence. I think the consensus position in the United States right now is we want this for some things, not for all things. And we’re not ready for this to become the sum total of what America is. And that makes me excited.

Sarah [00:24:37] Yeah. Again, it doesn’t make me feel good that I’ve been ringing this alarm bell about gambling and now it’s hitting the mass understanding, but it doesn’t make me bad either. I’m happy that everybody’s like, you know what, I don’t think this is a great idea. Like, this seems bad. This seems like it’s playing out badly across so many avenues of life. Like, that’s encouraging. And I think it’s so easy to get into a place where you’re like we still have two and a half more years of him. He’s going to veto everything. He’s going to get probably more dangerous. And that’s all true. And I don’t want to downplay that. And also, I’m 44 years old. Two years is like five minutes. Two years goes so quickly. We all know that. And I just try to remind myself we’re not stuck with him forever. There will be a day. There will a Congress that doesn’t have Nancy Pelosi in it next year or Mitch McConnell. How about that? Like, that’s crazy. I just think like, again, there’s never a permanent place. And I think things could get worse before they get better. Let me be clear. I have been wanting to ask you what you think about the editorial in The Bulwark from JVL where he was like, it needs to be. America needs to fully burn its hand on the stove if things don’t go back to enough of a equilibrium like where we don’t learn. I can’t get the sentence out of my mind where he said, “Maybe if some lawmakers have lost their lives on January 6th, we wouldn’t have ended up back in this situation.” I do think we’re in a place now, like, it’s not going to just feel like we’re iterating constantly, but just enough to keep homeostasis so that nothing really ever changes. I think we are coming to some real changes because of artificial intelligence, because of this global energy crisis, because of the strain on the global order due to Ukraine and Gaza and now Iran. Like a change is going to come and it’s going to be painful. But anybody who tells you what that’s going to look like is a liar.

Beth [00:26:52] With love and respect to your son Griffin, things do change all the time. That’s what we’re talking about. And they have in our lifetimes. And so I know they will continue to. I don’t wish bad things for America ever for any reason. And I struggle because I think to myself daily right now that time is not on the president’s side. That is a comforting thought to me politically. It is a scary thought to be as an American. In Iran right now, time is not on America’s side. The longer this goes on, the worse it gets for us. The more lives are put in danger, the more opportunities for terrorism and recruitment of extremists flourish. Time is not on our side. And I try to remember that because he is the president, there are places where Donald Trump’s interests and America’s interests align. And where that’s true, I hope for the best. The clock is ticking on him as the central figure of the Republican party. He has so scrambled what MAGA might’ve ever meant. That means there are going to be a lot of arguments about what it should mean next.

Sarah [00:28:03] They gave him an award and they called it the America First Award. So I think it’s fine. Don’t worry.

Beth [00:28:09] I saw that.

Sarah [00:28:10] It was gold.

Beth [00:28:12] I have such secondhand embarrassment. It’s so miserable for me to watch Mike Johnson do anything.

Sarah [00:28:19] That is the vision of the future, I just... Okay, I will say this. Tell me if you agree with me. When you talk about Mike Johnson, what’s the right word for what he does? I don’t want to be crude even though we are going into a smut section. Belittling, humiliating, bowing down? You know what I’m saying? Like I’m trying to put some words around what’s happening here.

Beth [00:28:46] I guess the only phrase that feels right to me about Mike Johnson is a deal with the devil.

Sarah [00:28:52] Okay. And they’ve all made it. So many of them have made it.

Beth [00:28:54] Because you look at him and you think, how is this worth it?

Sarah [00:29:00] Yeah. Again, tell me if you agree with me. I do think that based on human psychology and American history, there will be a moment where the dam will break. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I am not internalizing the lessons of Trump’s control of the Republican Party. But I do think there will be a moment. I think it would have happened on January 6th if not for Mitch McConnell and that is his historical legacy. That was a freaking sliding door moment and they took the wrong path and they have suffered for it and I don’t feel sorry for them. But I think there will be another moment where it’ll be like do you have no decency sir? Where everybody’s like okay. Enough. Could it come after the midterms if the Democrats dig up enough, like if we find out he’s the freaking Polymarket better or one of his sons. Will there be a big enough moment? And my instinct says yes. What is it like the famous phrase about from Ernest Hemingway, how to go bankrupt suddenly and then all at once? I think that will happen with MAGA. I do. I think it’ll be suddenly and the all at ones.

Beth [00:30:15] I think that’s right. I don’t think that it will happen the way any of us would script it. And that is part of why I’m so insistent on keeping all the doors open and saying that good things in the world are games of edition. You want more people and you want to give people room to change their minds. I want to have room to changed my mind. I got to afford that opportunity to everyone around me. I think it will come. I also see it accumulating. I see the preparation for all at once. That happens with somebody like Marjorie Taylor Greene. It happens with someone like Joe Kent. Neither of those people are people that I want to follow anywhere. But I see the value. I see the chips, the cracks, the value in what’s happening with those two speaking out against this administration. I see the value in what Thomas Massey is doing. It is not being done the way that I want it to be done. It is not perfect. It is another person I would choose for it. Doesn’t matter. This is where we are. This is what we have.

Sarah [00:31:19] Here’s the thing. We have to remember that there is an equivalent to what I said about we don’t know all of the corruption. Like if it’s bubbling up, all the bad things are bubbling up in a way that we can barely wrap our arms around. And I think that’s true. I’m horrified by this Polymarket thing and I think we will learn so much more and it will be so much worse, the corruption with this administration. But also that’s true with the good things too. There’s things happening, there’s movements being built, there’s people organizing, there’s people deciding to run for office, there’s people developing ideas and businesses and technologies right now. This is the practice I’ve learned at the Good News Brief. Like, it’s so easy to miss that stuff. And even if you were following, like some of it’s just not going to make the news. I’m still not wholly unconvinced that whoever will be our nominee in 2028, we’re still not talking about yet.

Beth [00:32:17] I think that’s right.

Sarah [00:32:18] I just think that it’s easy because we have a negativity bias to think it could be so much worse. And also remember we don’t have all the information on the other side either.

Beth [00:32:34] I also think about things like Ukraine, which always makes me feel that pull to nihilism. I’m so sad that it’s still happening. I’m sad that the world hasn’t figured out a conclusion. I’m just sad about the loss of life and the impact this is going to have for generations. And I read this story about an underground railroad that’s been built to bring children back from Russia and Belarus, children who have been just kidnapped, taken from their homes. There’s an organization called Save Ukraine that said the official channels are not working here. We’re not getting people fast enough. We’re re-uniting families through diplomatic efforts. And so they figured it out and they said it’s like a secret special operation for every child. It’s different every time. There is a network of people who are figuring it out. They’ve brought back more than 1000 kids. About 100 kids have come back through official negotiations. So is that story a story of institutional failure? Sure, it is. But it is also a story of maybe new institutions being built. And I have to have room in my heart for that.

Sarah [00:33:47] Look, two things I want to say. One pretty dark one. One’s lighter. I read a thing in Ukraine I can’t stop thinking about that there seems to be basically the Jack Nicholson equivalent of a commander in Ukraine in charge of drone warfare. And the strategy is simple. It is to kill individual Russian soldiers faster than they can recruit them. That’s dark. That’s some like you want me on the wall and you don’t want to know the whole truth. And you know what? That’s right. I read that and I’m like, I am interested in that I want Ukraine to win. But also, do I need that information? Myself as a mom in Kentucky, like, what’s the value in me being able to find that information on the internet? And still I’m not mad at that dude. I want him to win and the strategy is working. It’s working. That’s the harsh reality. And so I come holding that and then I see Kate Bowler speak in my town last weekend and she says this thing. She says, we criticize institutions. She was talking about the church, but she pointed out all these institutions. It’s something we’ve been talking about since we started Pantsuit Politics 10 years ago. Institutional collapse, institutional distrust.

[00:35:17] But she named so elegantly. We have institutions to provide shelter to those who need it. The institution is to provide cover and shelter for a big group of people, many of which who would not be able to do that on their own. And I thought, right, we name what’s wrong with them, but we forget to name the purpose. And the institution of the military in Ukraine has an objective and that’s how they’re obtaining it. And maybe this group is creating a new institution that’s achieving the objective, which is to bring the kids home. We get so wrapped up in the distrust we forget what the purpose is. And I think that even this goes to my conversation with Isaac Saul. Like what is the purpose of an institution of the news? It’s for us to be informed voters. And if the information flow comes so quick and is rewarding conflict in a way that it causes people to be nihilistic and disengaged, we’re not reaching the purpose. Like, what are we trying to do? And our answer has always been to make more money. And I think we need to find out some bigger purposes for our institutions and remind ourselves like they’re to provide shelter, they’re here to do something, not just make everybody more money all the time.

Beth [00:36:29] Every story that gives me hope right now is a story of collaboration. Collaboration often among people who would not otherwise be aligned. I think about how we are all feeling the frustration of consolidation, that our markets are no longer competitive, that everything is in the hands of so few companies. And then we have an administration that doesn’t care about that at all unless they’re mad at the individual players involved with those companies. So I got excited about this story where DirecTV is collaborating with state attorneys general to try to block a big merger in the media space and how people are seeing that as a possible new model for antitrust enforcement. That state attorneys general, who don’t always have all the resources they need to go after big actors, can partner with other people who have a lot of cash and a motivation and maybe the motivation is different than the states, but who cares? We can align for a specific objective and get something done. And I just think anywhere that that’s happening is cause for celebration, is cause to splash more optimism in our cocktail and dilute that nihilism and know that what we’re feeling is not being felt alone. And we’re not being silver linings optimists here. We have a lot of different mechanisms right now firing up to counter the things that are not working. And that’s exciting.

Sarah [00:37:56] Well, listen, collaboration that fuels creativity, that’s what you’re naming. It’s a creativity. It’s an innovation that fuels because people are coming together and looking at problems. Look, crisis present opportunity. Come on, I didn’t coin that phrase. Like that’s not new. We are experiencing an enormous amount of change. Some of it will come at high cost. And also those moments in human history present enormous opportunity for those who are willing to step up, take the risk, take the chance, work with someone they haven’t worked with before, see a problem through new eyes, try a different solution, understand that we’re not going back, we’re only going forward. There’s a lot of that opportunity here, and we’re going to know how it’s going to play out. We’re not going to know how it is going to look. And that’s what’s so scary about it. But it can also be exciting. I think it really can. Even some of the scariest things like artificial intelligence, like I can see applications of that technology that are exciting and that really change people’s lives. And even in my darkest moments, I’m never-- here’s been a lot of moments in human history where people felt outgunned, where they were at the mercy of powerful people with anywhere from psychopathic to straight up crazy like King George personalities, right? And I’m not trading places with any of those. I don’t like where we’re at, but I’m going to go back and trade places with the cleaves in England or the serfs in Russia, or even moments in America. I don’t want to go back and trade place with the suffragettes when they didn’t even have a vote. It’s like I told Griffin. Like, yeah, man, it sucks to be at the whims of powerful people, but if you got to pick, this is not a bad time in history. We have a lot of tools at our disposal. We can connect with each other and organize with each in ways that are infinitely easier than other people have faced at moments in history, so I think it’s important to keep that perspective.

Beth [00:40:10] Once in a very great while, the universe delivers a podcast host the perfect segue between topics. And I have that here. Since we’re talking about how public opinion matters, public sentiment matters, I personally don’t have a solution to everything going wrong, but I’m not alone in what I’m feeling and it makes a difference in the universe. Here’s what happened. OpenAI says, remember Sora that was going to be the most exciting invention in human history. Sora that made that video that looked like Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise fighting on a roof, but it was just AI. They’re not going to do that anymore. They’re letting Sora go. They are also letting go of the idea of an erotic chatbot.

Sarah [00:40:52] Thank God.

Beth [00:40:52] They have shelved that erotic chatbot indefinitely. Here is a quote from the Financial Times. “The sexual chatbot faced growing pushback over how it could encourage unhealthy attachments to AI systems and expose minors to problematic sexual content.” Maybe we are waking up from our sleepwalking. I’m really excited about this. And so now we must go to our important Outside of Politics question. Are we or are we not in a Smut renaissance?

Sarah [00:41:31] I mean, we’re not talking about A.I. smut, we’re talking about real smut. Heated rivalry is real smut. Are you comfortable classifying heated rivalry as smut?

Beth [00:41:40] Here are the questions that I have. I want to differentiate amongst some things because I read the New York Times piece about the Smut Renaissance that begins with heated rivalry but sweeps up a bunch of things.

Sarah [00:41:52] Sabrina carpenter.

Beth [00:41:54] Sabrina Carpenter, Wuthering Heights.

Sarah [00:41:58] The New Movie.

Beth [00:41:58] A.I. OnlyFans. It was a big tent. And I thought to myself, I don’t know that all of this qualifies as smut. So I’m wondering where you think there’s a line between smut and erotica, romance, porn. Like, how do we delineate here?

Sarah [00:42:19] Okay, so I just read Patti Smith’s Just Kids, where she talks about her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe. Do you know who Robert Mapplethorpe was? Does the name ring a bell.

Beth [00:42:28] No.

Sarah [00:42:29] Really famous 70s, early 80s photographer had a very infamous indecency trial based on his photos. My most sort of top of mind understanding of him is that he had taken pictures of young children and there was a picture of a little girl where her genitalia exposed. And there’s another little picture. And so that’s what I associated with him. Like Robert Mapplethorpe took pictures of the kids people didn’t like. Robert Mapplethorpe took pornography. And I don’t understand, this was always my confusion in law school. And they’d be like I know it when I see it. And I’m like, yeah, I do too. They’re really having sex. Why is this so complicated? In pornography, they’re actually having sex. I don’t understand why there’s some great confusion. Like Robert Mapplethorpe was like, they’re artistic photos. I’m not going to lie to you. They don’t look like what you see in their run-of-mill penthouse, but they are engaging in sex acts and he took pictures of them, okay? Now, I guess if you get into like Playboy and then your nudes, that’s when you start getting into like erotica, the erotica smut spectrum. But to me, like, there’s always a hard line, like, is there actually sex happening? If there’s not, then we got something different going on, okay? So, all that to say, I think erotica to me is something like Dipsy, which we used to advertise on the show. It’s not actual sex, but it is an emphasis on fictionalized sex acts. Like the emphasis is on the sex. And maybe there’s more of a, I know it when I see it, versus like a Emily Henry where the story is the story, the sex is like it’s a feature, not a bug. It’s a bonus. But it’s not the selling point. Like there is a romance, there’s a story. And even I think on that angle there’s like smutty or like you have the open door scenes, you have closed door scenes. Like I think Sabrina Carpenter is actively pushing on purpose into like more smut. I don’t even know she’d be insulted if you called her a little smut, I think she’d like, yeah, what’s your point? So I think that that’s different. I mean, but I think Heated Rivalry is pretty smutty. Like the sex is the thing.

Beth [00:44:47] I haven’t watched it. Everyone I know loves it. I will watch it someday. I just haven’t had a lot of time with kids not in the house and I know enough about it to know that I’m going to watch it without kids in the House. I have no problem with smut.

Sarah [00:45:00] No, me neither.

Beth [00:45:02] I don’t think this is necessarily bad.

Sarah [00:45:04] I’m happy. I want people to have more sex. People aren’t having no sex. If the smut gets y’all to have more sex, freaking great.

Beth [00:45:09] It doesn’t surprise me at all that in a time when we’re constantly talking about slop and nothing is real and everything’s digital and let’s get together on Zoom, doesn’t surprised me at that we are longing for visceral, raw, connective experiences. That’s where the article lost me a little bit because I think if you watch Heated Rivalry and then you go have sex, that’s one thing. If you watch Heated Rivalry as part of a lot of things that you do alone on your phone, that’s a different thing. That’s a different thing. And I just am not comfortable classifying all that under the same umbrella. A renaissance of like Danielle Steele novels makes total sense to me in this era. It doesn’t make sense to be that anybody is looking for more straight up digitally generated porn.

Sarah [00:46:06] I mean, listen, we read Daniel Steel last year with my First Book Book Club. Shockingly, a little sex in a Daniel Steel novel. I was like there is more sex in Emily Henry book than this book. A lot of self-discovery going on in a Daniel Steel book. That’s some of the side sell of so much romance, I think, is the love story, there’s the smut, and then there’s like the self- discovery, and that shifted over decades, which is a whole other Outside Politics and super, super interesting. Listen, even if you’re just using Heated Rivalry to get yourself to know yourself better. The idea that it’s an embodied experience-- and I’m not saying that’s always positive. Obviously, pornography leads to all sorts of addictions that derail people’s lives. We’ve talked about the one with the gooners. Jesus, that’s really bad. It’s really bad. I’m not saying that we want that. But I just think the danger-- and I don’t even know if it’s a danger. It’s just anytime you talk about sex and smut and lust and-- because you know I love to throw in another vice when we get the chance-- is that it is embodied, but it’s disconnected. It can often be disconnected. It can be embodied, but disconnected from your fellow human beings. And you know for better or for worse, I think that a connected relationship creates a more integrated and fulfilling sex life.

[00:47:36] I don’t think that’s shocking, probably, hearing anybody of me say that, but that’s how I feel. That’s what I want for my kids, that’s what I want for everybody. I know that’s not achievable for everybody, but I think we’ve gotten into a place with so many issues where if we articulate a goal-- it’s sort of back to the institutions. If we articulate a purpose or a goal or a standard, we’ve decided that that is immediately exclusionary. And I think what we’ve actually done is like the paradox of that. By removing any standards or any goal or any mission and removing any boundaries and making everything okay or everybody not welcome, but present, it’s sort of like the tensionless existence that we’ve talked about like people don’t want that either. And I’m not saying finding the happy medium in a multicultural country as big as ours is hard. I believe that it is, but I still think it’s worth pursuing. And I think with the smut, that’s what we’re trying to scratch and itch. And I think the itch is like, what do we want? What’s the goal? And it’s going to be a little bit different for everybody, obviously. But just because it’s a little different from everybody and because there’s not a universal solution, I don’t think means that a desire to strive or articulate maybe not a goal but like a direction is worthwhile.

Beth [00:49:18] I read a critique of Wuthering Heights when it came out, I can’t remember where, that said, this feels like a movie someone wants to be hot who doesn’t know what is hot. No, I haven’t seen it, but that critique stuck with me because I think that’s true of a lot under this umbrella. People make things because sex sells or because they think we’re having a smut renaissance or because it will get conversation going about what they made, that’s different than it actually being hot. That’s different then having something where there is that weird combination of factors where there’s some mystery and there’s subtlety and there is tension and you don’t know exactly where it’s going and maybe you don’t see it all. But you know enough to be excited about it. And maybe this is as simple as like that’s the difference between a well-written romance novel and a poorly written one. A well-made film and a poorly made one. But I think it’s worth, as we think about that direction that you were just naming, remembering that it doesn’t have to be so try-hard to produce that excitement and that vulnerability and that rawness of experience that we’re searching for.

Sarah [00:50:38] Yeah, I learned this from a friend of mine. This is my favorite game. When you ask if a couple has heat, because people can be hot, but not have any heat. And, look, Heated Rivalry is a sensation because there is heat, okay? Not just cause there’s smut, it’s because there’s heat. And I feel like the classic, classic example is like Barack Obama and Michelle Obama. They got heat. We can all see it. And I think that that’s what I’m trying to articulate. Like that’s what you want. It’s okay to say that’s we want. We don’t want to just be hot. We don’t want to just look smuts and Mar-a-Lago face ourselves into oblivion. The hot is not the point. The heat is the point. The heat is what we want and it’s okay say that because I think if you don’t, then it gets all turned inside out and backwards. And, look, I think there’s some responsibility with the feminist movement and the sex positivity movement. And this idea that we all just wanted freedom to pursue whatever sexual predilection we wanted. And then we all got there and everybody goes, I don’t know if this is what I want. I think you can hear people, especially young people, either being totally like melted into this Andrew Tate vision of gender, or just expressing like a dissatisfaction or like that sort of nihilism from the first thing, like they’re just opting out. Like people are having less sex, they’re dating less, they’re getting married less. And this sense of like, what’s the point? What’s the point? But the heat is the point. The love is the point. The companionship is the point. I want that for my kids. I want that for everybody. Like, we didn’t make that up in modern America, you know? Like, there’s thousands and thousands of years of history of people finding that together. And that’s really beautiful.

Beth [00:52:44] Now, heat, I think, is I know it when I see it, but it’s hard to describe. Jane and Ellen got in the car yesterday and were making fun of me because I had gone down a Spotify trail of songs I liked and it just kept feeding me new songs and I was saying good job Spotify, well done. And Jane picked up my phone and it had become categorized as 90s pop lesbian music or something like that, 90s, pop lesbian rock or something. And she was like, what is happening, mom? And I said, Jane, those are the best love songs. 90s lesbian music is incredible because it has heat, because it that tension, it has struggle, it has mystery, it’s all right there. It’s so good. And I felt that way when I read that book, Red, White, and Royal Blue, about a prince from the UK and an American son of the president having a relationship. I feel like that has to be part of the draw of Heated Rivalry. Those relationships where there’s some obstacle and some tension and self-discovery, all of those ingredients are there for heat. I think that’s just really different than OnlyFans. So I’m still quibbling with the New York Times piece that kicked off this discussion.

Sarah [00:53:59] Listen, first of all, small correction. It’s not just the 90s. Brandy Carlile is still out there writing the best love songs. A Party of One is the most beautiful song about long-term committed relationship ever written. That’s my take right here, right now, okay? Up on the rock, like don’t get me started. Okay. So that’s the first thing. I do like the way they named those playlists and it is hilarious, I agree. Because here’s the thing, like, you can talk about a smut renaissance, you go down this dark path about looks maxing. And also don’t miss the power of Heated Rivalry that this gay story was being gobbled up by a bunch of straight women. I think that that wouldn’t have happened when we were growing up. Like, that’s just a huge breakthrough. And I know it’s really, really scary out there if you are gay, if you love someone who’s gay. But you don’t put that back in the box. You don’t roll that back. That’s done and dusted, baby. And that’s really, really powerful. And I think it’s really beautiful. I think all the time about Tracy Clayton saying, you can watch things made for black people. We’ve been enjoying your media made for white people, and the same is true with sexual orientation. How great that we all learned it’s hot, it doesn’t matter. That’s really beautiful because that, to me, that’s the fine line, right? That’s how we get to a multicultural where instead of coordinating each other off and saying, what makes me different is what makes special. No, what makes different is we share, actually. It’s not that different, really. Heat is heat, baby.

Beth [00:55:46] I was thinking the same thing.

Sarah [00:55:48] Yep, heat is heat. Baby, it don’t matter.

Beth [00:55:50] Well, I’m wishing everyone the exact right amount of heat for the rest of the week and maybe 10% more. That’s what I’m looking for all of us.

Sarah [00:55:59] Let’s do 20. Live large, y’all.

Beth [00:56:01] You only live once. Okay, we are so appreciative that you spent this time with us. We’ll be back with you on Tuesday. We are going to spend a lot more time talking about those trials with Big Tech and mental health and children’s safety, all wrapped in a discussion of accountability and punishment. So we’re excited for that. We’ll see you then. Until then, have the best weekend available to you. Lots of heat in it.

Sarah [00:56:25] I was going to say have the hottest weekend available.

Beth [00:56:27] Have the hottest week available to y’all. I’m here for that.

Show Credits

Pantsuit Politics is hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers. The show is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our Managing Director and Maggie Penton is our Director of Community Engagement.

Our theme music was composed by Xander Singh with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima.

Our show is listener-supported. The community of paid subscribers here on Substack makes everything we do possible. Special thanks to our Executive Producers, some of whose names you hear at the end of each show. To join our community of supporters, become a paid subscriber here on Substack.

To search past episodes of the main show or our premium content, check out our content archive.

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