I am behind in my listening but revisiting 2016 feels like trauma but you had a good friend sitting by your side to help you thru. Thanks for being there for us ladies! You have no idea how much your words mean to so many of us walking thru this world right now.
I wish I could remember the episode I listened to first, but I think it was sometime in 2016? At the least, it was when you still introduced yourselves as Sarah from the left and Beth from the right. And I loved getting to follow Beth's journey of leaving the Republican Party, because in many ways you helped me on my own journey out of the party. Beth, thank you for sharing that path with us, despite the hate mail.
I too was raised as a Christian Republican, and while I am still a Christian, I am definitely not still a Republican (college Austin would have been shocked to see 39-year-old Austin holding a sign at a No Kings protest next to a woman in rainbow-flag glasses!).
I'm sure it will continue to be quite a journey. I'm sure there are more things I will change my mind about, and I welcome that. Thank you for the ways you have both modeled empathy, kindness, balance, and sharp intellectual critique of American politics. I look forward to hearing more conversations about where we are and where we're going.
January, 2016 is when I found the podcast, thanks to Decode DC. Jimmy Williams had y'all on to teach him how to podcast, since you were rising stars and everyone knew it. I was hooked immediately. Started listening right away and found myself going to the 2015 episodes to make sure I was fully caught up. By the way, here is that DecodeDC episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0EntO8DA0O11ND4ZNAtoiH
I have a lot of stories about my slowly dawning realization that Donald Trump would win. One of them: I think it was summer 2016. I attended a conference about recommendation engines. I was trying to help my company make a recommendation engine to recommend TV shows. One of the speakers was from Europe somewhere. I want to say The Netherlands, maybe? He worked for a company that sold recommendation engines to newspapers so that they could customize the front page of their web sites and more to the preferences of the user. That's how I learned that the news I saw was not the news you saw. I knew that for Facebook, but at that point I didn't realize that Google News was customized, for example. So I'm sitting there with an "oh my god, we're all fucked" look on my face. I look around the small audience for this talk. They all had their mouths open in shock. And then the speaker says, "Well, I'd love to take questions, but I have to catch a flight, so bye!!!!" and ran away before we could all shout "But this is how we got Brexit and Trump! How do you sleep at night?"
This really connects with me. I was just watching The Social Dilemma for the second time this weekend. I watched it with Jane when it came out to explain why we won't let her have social media, and now it's Ellen's turn for all the Silvers' Tech Curriculum. As we watched this documentary from 2020 about all the ways that tech is about tiny, gradual shifts in behavior, I felt really overwhelmed by how long we've known this and where we are today.
Ughhhhh this is hard. In 2016 I was in my early 20s and had spent my entire life inside the evangelical megachurch. I felt very unsure about who to vote for, but I just wasn’t very politically engaged back then. I wasn’t paying attention. In the end, I voted for Trump, because that’s who everyone I trusted in my life was voting for. The night he won, I realized I had made the wrong choice. I felt absolutely sick, and I’ve been paying attention ever since.
When we know different, we act different. I think all the time about the really really good people I know who have consistently voted for and supported him. It's really hard to hold the two things in my head: They see something different than I do when I look at Trump. And they're still people I care about a lot. But I'm glad you're here now. -Maggie
2016 was so hard for me personally on top of the Trump shit sandwich. In February, I lost my uncle/godfather, in June I lost my dear great aunt, and in July, most devastatingly, I lost my beautiful grandmother. On top of that, my favorite team, the Cleveland baseball team formally known as the Indians, lost in the World Series to the Cubs (the Cubs?! Really?!?!?). Ugh 2016.
Listening to this episode was hard. I did not think these moments were flare-ups at the time but the start of a dark path that we are still on. And I felt gaslit by even progressive people in my life for YEARS as they still kept putting faith in people and institutions that would fail. Did anyone else feel this way? I feel like it’s taken this second administration for some people to actually fully accept the path we are on, and have been on for some time. And we can’t course correct something we can’t see.
I really struggle with this dynamic you're naming, Jess. On one hand, I completely agree that we can't course correct on something we can't see. On the other, I feel like faith in institutions and people is required to get to better outcomes.
I agree with that Beth. I think my comment reads as more cynical than I feel. It’s just been an exhausting time of hearing “that won’t happen” in response to concerns, only for “that” to happen, over and over. But I know we can only solve these problems with one another, and through the structure of our institutions. I do take faith when checks and balances hold, and find my best hope in community.
These flashback episodes are so enlightening. It is interesting to posit that “we should have known how these events would lead to what happened” - we wanted SO badly to believe that checks & balances and public scrutiny would keep Trump in line. I admire our optimism, and I knew it could happen but I hoped that it wouldn’t.
In 2016 I graduated high school and started college. I turned 18 and voted for the first time. I didn’t know anything about politics except for the vibe I got from my parents that all democrats were bad. I voted libertarian. Donald Trump was an absolute no for me, but I bought into the messaging that Hillary Clinton was too shrill, too masculine, too progressive. The morning after the election, I walked into my honors seminar and one of the professors, one who I loved and took many classes from, was dressed head to toe in black. That’s when I realized the magnitude of what had just happened. The second time Donald Trump won, I walked into the class I was teaching, dressed head to toe in black, because I didn’t know what else to do.
I definitely resonate with "the vibe I got from my parents that all democrats were bad." Honestly watching my parents in 2016 go from agreeing with me that Trump is awful to falling further and further into full MAGA is what broke the spell for me. I lived in CA so safely voted 3rd party bc I still had this fear I'd go to hell if I actually voted Democrat. Then 4 years later found myself in AZ and everyone said it was a swing state so I voted Democrat for first time and was not struck by lightening!
I dug back into a lot of USB drives to find my old podcast downloads and I believe the first PP episode I listened to was Political Correctness: Much Ado About Something. (which absolutely sounds right ha) That was January 19, 2016. That was the month I kicked off training for my first 24-hour event, so y'all should know that you've been along for literally thousands of miles and hours of running since then. lol
I feel like that Jeb moment, looking back, kind of encapsulates something that was going on in 2016, mostly earlier than that, though. There was sort of a strategy to tear down all of the “real” candidates for the R nomination, backing them into a corner of being left with only Trump, because he clearly could not win. Clearly. Also, it will be forgiven, but not go unmentioned, that the cultural portion completely ignored the ending of a 108-year World Series win drought.😄😉
Yes to the Jeb moment telling a great big story. I will never forget the episode of The Circus on Showtime called The Prisoner's Dilemma about all the "real" candidates.
I'm pretty sure I will die angry at Mitch McConnell and the ways he used his position of power to block Obama and enable Trump. Specifically blocking appointing a Supreme Court justice, as you mentioned, and also not voting to remove Trump in the impeachment process after January 6. There are many other things to be angry at him about, but these two moments stand out to me as particularly heinous.
Sometimes I wonder if McConnell blocking Obama was a turning point in some ways and lead in some way to what we are dealing with now with the massive shift in partisan politics? Maybe not? But it was absolutely a very poignant moment for me.
With Trumps impeachment, it’s so odd but Bill Clinton impeachment is so much more vivid in my mind, maybe because I was a tween and had never experienced this before? It feels like Trumps almost came and went? But absolutely still raging about it when I do get reminded of how they did not impeach him.
We have a lot of people we work with producing the podcast who are Gen Z, and I think they are so smart, and so insightful, and they do a freaking amazing job. And also they make me feel so old when things like this come up. -Maggie
It's a deep cut, but I'm partial to Obama saying to farmers in Adele, Iowa "have you been to Whole Foods and priced the arugula lately?" That makes me laugh until I cry. And I wouldn't know it except Sarah brought it up once.
I am behind in my listening but revisiting 2016 feels like trauma but you had a good friend sitting by your side to help you thru. Thanks for being there for us ladies! You have no idea how much your words mean to so many of us walking thru this world right now.
I wish I could remember the episode I listened to first, but I think it was sometime in 2016? At the least, it was when you still introduced yourselves as Sarah from the left and Beth from the right. And I loved getting to follow Beth's journey of leaving the Republican Party, because in many ways you helped me on my own journey out of the party. Beth, thank you for sharing that path with us, despite the hate mail.
I too was raised as a Christian Republican, and while I am still a Christian, I am definitely not still a Republican (college Austin would have been shocked to see 39-year-old Austin holding a sign at a No Kings protest next to a woman in rainbow-flag glasses!).
I'm sure it will continue to be quite a journey. I'm sure there are more things I will change my mind about, and I welcome that. Thank you for the ways you have both modeled empathy, kindness, balance, and sharp intellectual critique of American politics. I look forward to hearing more conversations about where we are and where we're going.
I still can’t believe that Brexit happened. We will have to deal with the consequences of this for decades.
January, 2016 is when I found the podcast, thanks to Decode DC. Jimmy Williams had y'all on to teach him how to podcast, since you were rising stars and everyone knew it. I was hooked immediately. Started listening right away and found myself going to the 2015 episodes to make sure I was fully caught up. By the way, here is that DecodeDC episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0EntO8DA0O11ND4ZNAtoiH
I loved doing that episode with Jimmy, and now I feel even more grateful for that opportunity :)
I have a lot of stories about my slowly dawning realization that Donald Trump would win. One of them: I think it was summer 2016. I attended a conference about recommendation engines. I was trying to help my company make a recommendation engine to recommend TV shows. One of the speakers was from Europe somewhere. I want to say The Netherlands, maybe? He worked for a company that sold recommendation engines to newspapers so that they could customize the front page of their web sites and more to the preferences of the user. That's how I learned that the news I saw was not the news you saw. I knew that for Facebook, but at that point I didn't realize that Google News was customized, for example. So I'm sitting there with an "oh my god, we're all fucked" look on my face. I look around the small audience for this talk. They all had their mouths open in shock. And then the speaker says, "Well, I'd love to take questions, but I have to catch a flight, so bye!!!!" and ran away before we could all shout "But this is how we got Brexit and Trump! How do you sleep at night?"
This really connects with me. I was just watching The Social Dilemma for the second time this weekend. I watched it with Jane when it came out to explain why we won't let her have social media, and now it's Ellen's turn for all the Silvers' Tech Curriculum. As we watched this documentary from 2020 about all the ways that tech is about tiny, gradual shifts in behavior, I felt really overwhelmed by how long we've known this and where we are today.
The podcast moment I will remember forever from 2016 is “This is Sarah, and I’m an American.” “This is Beth, and I’m an American.”
When was this moment?
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5CVw1DGFieVawP6mwNqanO?si=FyeEg3-hQpeeuezD7s1gMw
It was right after election day in 2016.
Ughhhhh this is hard. In 2016 I was in my early 20s and had spent my entire life inside the evangelical megachurch. I felt very unsure about who to vote for, but I just wasn’t very politically engaged back then. I wasn’t paying attention. In the end, I voted for Trump, because that’s who everyone I trusted in my life was voting for. The night he won, I realized I had made the wrong choice. I felt absolutely sick, and I’ve been paying attention ever since.
I think it's a beautiful thing that you shared this here, Katie.
When we know different, we act different. I think all the time about the really really good people I know who have consistently voted for and supported him. It's really hard to hold the two things in my head: They see something different than I do when I look at Trump. And they're still people I care about a lot. But I'm glad you're here now. -Maggie
When I was at a No Kings protest yesterday there was a man walking around yelling “If you voted for Trump, we forgive you! It’s not too late!” 😂
2016 was so hard for me personally on top of the Trump shit sandwich. In February, I lost my uncle/godfather, in June I lost my dear great aunt, and in July, most devastatingly, I lost my beautiful grandmother. On top of that, my favorite team, the Cleveland baseball team formally known as the Indians, lost in the World Series to the Cubs (the Cubs?! Really?!?!?). Ugh 2016.
That's a lot of life in one year, Melissa.
Listening to this episode was hard. I did not think these moments were flare-ups at the time but the start of a dark path that we are still on. And I felt gaslit by even progressive people in my life for YEARS as they still kept putting faith in people and institutions that would fail. Did anyone else feel this way? I feel like it’s taken this second administration for some people to actually fully accept the path we are on, and have been on for some time. And we can’t course correct something we can’t see.
I really struggle with this dynamic you're naming, Jess. On one hand, I completely agree that we can't course correct on something we can't see. On the other, I feel like faith in institutions and people is required to get to better outcomes.
I agree with that Beth. I think my comment reads as more cynical than I feel. It’s just been an exhausting time of hearing “that won’t happen” in response to concerns, only for “that” to happen, over and over. But I know we can only solve these problems with one another, and through the structure of our institutions. I do take faith when checks and balances hold, and find my best hope in community.
These flashback episodes are so enlightening. It is interesting to posit that “we should have known how these events would lead to what happened” - we wanted SO badly to believe that checks & balances and public scrutiny would keep Trump in line. I admire our optimism, and I knew it could happen but I hoped that it wouldn’t.
In 2016 I graduated high school and started college. I turned 18 and voted for the first time. I didn’t know anything about politics except for the vibe I got from my parents that all democrats were bad. I voted libertarian. Donald Trump was an absolute no for me, but I bought into the messaging that Hillary Clinton was too shrill, too masculine, too progressive. The morning after the election, I walked into my honors seminar and one of the professors, one who I loved and took many classes from, was dressed head to toe in black. That’s when I realized the magnitude of what had just happened. The second time Donald Trump won, I walked into the class I was teaching, dressed head to toe in black, because I didn’t know what else to do.
I definitely resonate with "the vibe I got from my parents that all democrats were bad." Honestly watching my parents in 2016 go from agreeing with me that Trump is awful to falling further and further into full MAGA is what broke the spell for me. I lived in CA so safely voted 3rd party bc I still had this fear I'd go to hell if I actually voted Democrat. Then 4 years later found myself in AZ and everyone said it was a swing state so I voted Democrat for first time and was not struck by lightening!
I dug back into a lot of USB drives to find my old podcast downloads and I believe the first PP episode I listened to was Political Correctness: Much Ado About Something. (which absolutely sounds right ha) That was January 19, 2016. That was the month I kicked off training for my first 24-hour event, so y'all should know that you've been along for literally thousands of miles and hours of running since then. lol
I feel like that Jeb moment, looking back, kind of encapsulates something that was going on in 2016, mostly earlier than that, though. There was sort of a strategy to tear down all of the “real” candidates for the R nomination, backing them into a corner of being left with only Trump, because he clearly could not win. Clearly. Also, it will be forgiven, but not go unmentioned, that the cultural portion completely ignored the ending of a 108-year World Series win drought.😄😉
Yes to the Jeb moment telling a great big story. I will never forget the episode of The Circus on Showtime called The Prisoner's Dilemma about all the "real" candidates.
Go Cubs Go!
Sarah I am still mad (pissed!) about Mitch blocking Obama from nominating a supreme court justice and honestly think about it more than I should.
I'm pretty sure I will die angry at Mitch McConnell and the ways he used his position of power to block Obama and enable Trump. Specifically blocking appointing a Supreme Court justice, as you mentioned, and also not voting to remove Trump in the impeachment process after January 6. There are many other things to be angry at him about, but these two moments stand out to me as particularly heinous.
Sometimes I wonder if McConnell blocking Obama was a turning point in some ways and lead in some way to what we are dealing with now with the massive shift in partisan politics? Maybe not? But it was absolutely a very poignant moment for me.
With Trumps impeachment, it’s so odd but Bill Clinton impeachment is so much more vivid in my mind, maybe because I was a tween and had never experienced this before? It feels like Trumps almost came and went? But absolutely still raging about it when I do get reminded of how they did not impeach him.
I think there's a limitless threshold for how often we should think about this one.
I plan to die mad about it, and I probably got another 50 years
Is every three-ish days too much? Asking for a friend…
You are not alone.
2016 was when I found this podcast 🙌🏻
Me too!
I used “Please Clap” in conversation and none of my Gen Z coworkers got the reference. 😢 but I do think about (and say it all the time)
We have a lot of people we work with producing the podcast who are Gen Z, and I think they are so smart, and so insightful, and they do a freaking amazing job. And also they make me feel so old when things like this come up. -Maggie
I’m gen x and I had to google this. Did he seriously say please clap?? Omg.
https://youtu.be/OUXvrWeQU0g
Thank you, Sarah and Beth, for bringing this moment back- it helped all the other triggering ones 👏
It was the greatest political moment of the century. (kidding...I think)
Howard Dean scream anyone?
Trying to share the gif but can’t figure it out! Gen X strikes again…
It's a deep cut, but I'm partial to Obama saying to farmers in Adele, Iowa "have you been to Whole Foods and priced the arugula lately?" That makes me laugh until I cry. And I wouldn't know it except Sarah brought it up once.