Tariffs, DOGE, and What Democrats Should Do Now

Discussion Post for February 4, 2025

Sarah and Beth are together today to discuss the chaotic beginning of the third week of the Trump administration. They discuss the on-again-off-again tariffs, the Department of Government Efficiency and its attempts to close USAID, and what they think the Democratic response should be.

Topics Discussed

• Tariffs

• DOGE

• Outside of Politics: Glitching

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Episode Resources

TRUMP’S TARIFFS

• Trump’s Love for Tariffs Began in Japan’s ’80s Boom (The New York Times)

• Trump Promised a 'Good and Easy To Win' Trade War, Then Lost It (Reason)

• How China Won Trump’s Trade War and Got Americans to Foot the Bill (Bloomberg)

• Anatomy of a flop: Why Trump's US-China phase one trade deal fell short (PIIE)

• A Wealthy and Unhappy Nation (The New York Times)

• Something Extraordinary Is Happening All Over the World (The Great Migration | The New York Times)

DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY

• Elon Musk Says Trump Has ‘Agreed’ To Shut Down USAID (Forbes)

• El Salvador offers to house criminals deported from the US in its jails (Reuters)

• Elon Musk (Book by Walter Isaacson | Simon & Schuster)

• Zero-Based Budgeting: What It Is and How to Use It (Investopedia)

• 2.2 billion gallons of water flowed out of California reservoirs because of Trump’s order to open dams (CNN)

GLITCHING

• The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron

• Don't Believe Everything You Think: Why Your Thinking Is The Beginning & End Of Suffering by Joseph Nguyen

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.

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Episode Transcript

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

Beth [00:00:08] This is Beth Silvers. You're listening to Pantsuit Politics. Today, we're going to talk about the administration's economic policy, the confusion created by the Department of Government Efficiency and what this administration is trying to actually accomplish. We also have some thoughts on what Democrats might do in response to that. At the end of the episode, we're going to talk about how we're personally doing right now. And spoiler alert, we're just a little glitchy. So we're sharing how that is showing up for us and what is actually helping us keep our feet on the ground right now.

Sarah [00:00:38] With so much news to cover, it's a good moment to let you know that the Tuesday News Brief is back on Substack. We took a break over December and January to recover from November, but now Monday through Thursday, you can check in with me in the morning to be sure you're up to date on the headlines. The news brief is a part of our daily news practice. We work hard to make sure that you're feeling informed but not depleted or anxious. And, of course, Thursday is when we only talk about good news. And I'm very excited about this week's Good News Brief. You going to hear me mention it in the episode. So make sure and go check that out.

Beth [00:01:09] We also want to make sure you know you can find anything you need from us at Pantsuitpoliticsshow.com. Alise and Maggie have been working very hard to give our website a shiny new look and feel. We have some limited edition merch that will go away on Valentine's Day, so you might want to check that out now. And you can find episode transcripts along with our massive archive. We've been doing this for almost 10 years; there is a lot of stuff to check out if you have just started listening. So we hope that you will go over to Pantsuitpoliticsshow.com and find what you need from us all the ways that we can support you through this time. Next up, we're going to talk about those tariffs. Sarah, I am really interested in talking with you about the tariff’s strategy. What I keep trying to get clear on in my mind, I'm trying not to react. I'm trying to take it in stride and be open minded. And so I am really looking for a clear explanation of the goal. And I'm wondering how you perceive the goal from the Trump administration in the proposed tariffs.

Sarah [00:02:20] I read something that I found helpful.

Beth [00:02:22] Okay.

Sarah [00:02:23] This new website. Have you heard of it called The Tangle? It's a news newsletter. I really like it. And in the little section where they give you their opinion, they have this paragraph: "Trump has been bemoaning U.S. trade policy for decades. As a private citizen in 1980s, he focused his eye on Japan, who he said was ripping off America by flooding the country with imports while restricting access to their own markets. Just as trade has been Trump's animating issue since his political infancy, tariffs have been his preferred solution. In 1989, Trump called for a 15 to 20% tax on imports from Japan, saying, 'We're a debtor nation and we have to tax, we have to tariff, we have to protect this country.' Over time, China has become the primary villain in Trump's view on trade, but his overall solution remained the same." And I thought that is helpful to me to; remind myself that this has been his outlook on the world for a very, very long time.

[00:03:19] I think the problem is that outlook is very broad. He uses it clumsily because is the focus. It is his golden ring. It is his obsession- this trade imbalance. And you can tell that his approach to this defined in the 80s, is a little frozen in the 80s. Because I think the problem is he doesn't have an answer to, okay, what next? I was reading War and Peace. There was this great line where said he was a person that didn't just ask why; he asked how. And I thought, Donald Trump never asks how. Especially when it comes to Canada. What did Canada do? And even if you feel like what happened is a win with Mexico, just not that different than what happened in his first term. It seems like him and Claudia were just playing their parts here. That this was nothing new because I don't think he has anything new to say on tariffs and trade. He's just gotten the power to do what he's always wanted to do, but he doesn't have an answer to, okay, then what?

Beth [00:04:34] Here's a fun fact. In the executive order renaming Denali Mount McKinley, he talks about how President McKinley so wisely used tariffs to protect the U.S. economy. So I agree with you about the obsession element.

Sarah [00:04:50] Some real historical rewriting happening there around McKinley, but whatever.

Beth [00:04:54] Here's what I don't understand. If China is the biggest villain now in his mind, why is China's tariff rate lower than that proposed for Canada and Mexico? I know that I'm looking for logic where it just may not be, but I want to ask these questions and challenge myself. My immediate reaction is stupid, stupid, stupid. Nobody wins a trade war. I write down all of the quotes from people talking about how bad this is, and I'm trying to push back against that instinct that I have to see what the possibilities are here. And I just keep running up against walls in my own brain. Why does China get off easier than Canada? It makes no sense to me.

Sarah [00:05:39] Well, in particular because he is playing a similar script with China that he did in his first term, and almost no one believes that worked in his first term. The trade deficit with China increased, China's exports, increased, growth of manufacturing jobs and production did not come to pass. So we're playing the same script even though we didn't get the results he claimed we would get in his first term. Now, I agree with you that I'm trying to be really careful because to me this traditional approach to tariffs I think can seem like isolationism. But I'm really trying to question that because to the Mount McKinley Point and the Greenland and the Panama, there's also this expansionist thread coming from the administration. So I don't know how we're going to be isolationist and expansionist at the same time. But I got a little hitching my giddy up this morning because I was reading that Panama after Secretary of State Marco Rubio's visit has now withdrawn from China's Belt and Road initiative. And I thought, okay, that is in direct opposition to what you and I have often said, which is if we alienate all these allies-- not just you and I, lots of analysts-- if we alienate these partners, they're going to flee to China.

[00:07:03] And what we just saw with Panama and a lot of Central America and Latin America is he's getting what he wants. He's taking a very aggressive posture and the countries are caving to what he wants. So I think it's good that Panama withdrew from the Belt and Road Initiative. And if this was the vision of this isolationist expansionism-- because, I mean, McKinley's mistake was that we'd moved on to a different economic model, and he was trying to force his way through using the old tools. And so I can't tell if they're doing that or if they have moved on to a new model. I can't tell. I'm just going to be honest. I can't decide if they've broken the code and they see that the future and the interaction between nations as going into a new phase and they're the lead or if they're just trying to-- like I said, they're stuck in the 80s and they think this same old tool is going to work. I just can't tell.

Beth [00:08:17] I can't tell either. I have said before on this show and believed for a long time that the vision for North America should be more North American. That we should be cooperating with Canada and Mexico, not just on trade, but also on immigration, on law enforcement. I'm happy to hear that Canada and Mexico are involved in efforts to combat fentanyl. I know that started before the tariff threat, but I think anything that boosts our cooperation-- because fentanyl and trafficking in guns and people are also really, really bad for Mexico in particular. But Canada doesn't want that either. So I want this vision of North America working more cooperatively. I'm happy that Marco Rubio made his first trip abroad in Central America and is trying to work with those countries and build some partnerships. There are sprinkles of horror in that for me when he talks about shipping potentially American citizens who are incarcerated for violent crimes to El Salvador, which our own State Department says has overcrowded and unlivable prisons.

[00:09:26] There are sprinkles of horror, but I am trying to also see the vision and strategy and say how far are they really from what I think we ought to be doing? Maybe they're just taking a different path to get there than I would. I have envisioned that partnership existing among nations that are still sovereign. I don't know about this pressure on Canada to become our 51st state and how effective that's going to be. This is where I lose the signal for the noises we've talked about before, though, because there are just so many things flying around this week. The tariffs are on. There's a 30 day pause. We have an energy emergency, but we're going to tax energy. It's hard for me to know what the goal is and how effective they're going to be in accomplishing the goal.

Sarah [00:10:15] What I see is an understanding of the strength of the U.S. economy on the global stage, and I don't think they're wrong about that. I think that this is something the Biden administration, the Harris campaign talked a lot about. We are the envy of the world. Our economy is incredibly strong. And so big picture for people like Donald Trump or Jared Kushner or Marc Andreessen or Elon Musk, there is some resiliency and there is probably some untapped strength that we can throw some of this weight around because we have so much capital and so much wealth. The problem is I see it and well I don't think they see clearly. There's a really great piece in New York Times where this collection of scholars is trying to create this report card of why we are so wealthy but so unhappy in America. And they talk about the issue is we have created a lot of capital, but it is not equally distributed.

[00:11:23] And so perhaps on the macro level, our economy has enough strength to throw its weight around in the ways that the Trump administration has planned that will not affect that macro assessment. But in the micro, in the average Americans life, who is living paycheck to paycheck, who doesn't have a lot of savings, who doesn't have a lot of retirement, who expends an enormous amount of money on costs like housing and health care, there is not a lot of wiggle room. And I'm not sure they either see that or care, especially if he's just looking at indicators like the stock market. I don't think this is going to play out from the tariffs to Elons overtaking the federal government in a way that they are clearly anticipating or preparing for. The economy macro has a lot of wiggle room. The American citizens pocketbook doesn't.

Beth [00:12:23] This is not identical, but a similar vein of thought that I have been working through in considering why Trump is so attached to the tech bro's this time, I think, depends on a vision of our society that is enabled and facilitated almost exclusively by technology. And the marriage is starting to make more sense to me because of how badly he wants to keep people out. Also in The Times there was a really interesting editorial piece about migration. And the writer said don't be fooled; in a few years, the world's great economic powers are going to be competing for migrants. Because if you look at the age of these countries, their populations cannot be sustained and supported on the current trajectory. Too many people are getting too old too fast without enough young people coming up behind them to do caretaking and to provide basic services and to just work and to facilitate everything that is needed for older people to live. And I felt some anxiety reading this piece because I recognize where I am on that spectrum now, and it is decidedly in the you're going to need to be taken care of bucket not that you're going to be doing the caretaking bucket. So the writer of this piece, which we'll link in the notes, was saying we need to be building a United States that is so attractive to migrants from all over the world because more and more people are going to be moving around.

[00:14:08] That is going to be necessitated by climate, by war, by authoritarian governments for all kinds of reasons. And we're doing the opposite right now in the United States. And that is going to bite us when this stage comes and the problem becomes clear. And I read the piece and thought, I'm pretty sure that I agree with you and I'm pretty sure that the bet that this administration is making is that that will not come to pass because we are going to solve all of that need through technology. I don't know if that's consciously what they're working toward, but that's what I'm looking for right now. What is the vision that's not being articulated? Because there clearly are visions that aren't being articulated. Trump did not go through his campaign explaining to people the view that the Arctic is going to become this important part of foreign policy, but that is driving people in this administration. They didn't talk about the Panama Canal in rallies, but now that's part of the vision. So I just want to see the unarticulated vision in every place that I can so that I have a more grounded reaction. Not that I'm going to say, well, make sense. I agree now. But so I know what the goalposts are at least.

Sarah [00:15:23] Well, I guess the only thing I'm not worried about-- I don't disagree that we're going to need migrants- lots of countries are. But who's going to compete in that vision of a place to go be a successful migrant? China? Yeah, right. They're not going to let people in. Russia? I don't think so. As far as places, if you think you have trouble getting into, open liberal societies like Europe and America, how do you think China's going to roll out its welcome mat to migrants? So to that end, I agree, but I'm a little less worried. I think that it would take a lot more than Elon Musk or even Stephen Miller at the border to dampen the power of the American dream in the way it plays out across the globe. Now, that's a good thing. That's the good news, right? The bad news to me is that, like you said, I don't know how many of these visions are unarticulated when you start to look at who they're nominating and who they're empowering. To Elon's vision, I read the deeply reported piece in The Times. The idea that he thinks getting rid of fraudulent payments is going to balance the budget is the dumbest thing.

[00:16:38] I thought this dude was smart, but he's only smart at what he's smart in just like everybody else. And the idea that you would go into the federal government and do zero balanced budgeting and everybody gets to prove what money they need, what? I am having trouble comprehending how no one has checked this vision and said that's not how it's works. That's not going to work. First of all, the federal workforce is a massively important part of the economy. You want to talk about the thin line of the middle class holding a complete detachment between the rich and the poor together? I would like you to take a gander at the millions of federal employees in the U.S. economy, because they're a big piece of it. So you blow that up, you blow that piece of the middle class up, what's your plan? He didn't have a plan.

Beth [00:17:41] Add to that the federal contractors. Because we're never just talking about the people directly employed by the U.S. government. We're talking about all of the people who are tangentially touched by government contracting. And that's huge.

Sarah [00:17:55] And it's not that I don't think there's waste and fraud in the United States government. And it's not that I don't think there's probably a good application of artificial intelligence across assessing our real estate holdings and our leases and our federal workforce. But to do it this way? I read a quote from Lisa Murkowski, (who lord can't we just put her in charge of so many things?) where she was like, listen, we have to fund the government by March 14th. There ain't shit Elon can do about that. This is a trust building process. It's a handshake. That's what gets this done. And you're blowing things up. You're sitting members of Congress, locking them out of the USAID office. How is this going to play out? You're already seeing Democrats articulating, okay, fine, we'll shut it down. If you're going to blow it up, we'll shut it down before you can blow it up. We'll shutdown. We won't fund the government. You're going to need some of our votes. So what are you going to do then? I'm glad Brian Schatz and Chris Van Hollen are talking about pulling out a Ted Cruz and shutting down all these State Department nominees, just like they did previously and saying nothing's getting through. Go fool Tommy Tuberville. I don't care. Shut it down because this is moving way too fast. It's just going to get broken, which I know is his goal. But he is not an elected official. And something's got to give.

Beth [00:19:19] So he is not an elected official is a thing I say to myself every single day. Do not let Donald Trump dodge criticism in favor of Elon Musk shouldering the whole blame for this because he is being empowered by, supported by Donald Trump. Every action Elon Musk takes is at the bidding of Donald Trump. And if Donald Trump doesn't like it, Donald Trump can stop it. So I'm trying to keep all my accountability focused in the right direction for these decisions. What really I am struggling with about the approach here is that I don't think anybody in this administration knows what is going to get broken. Every statement about everything attached to the Department of Government Efficiency is so broad that it's meaningless. What does it mean when you say USAID is just a bowl of worms? Tell me. Point out a worm. Hold one up and tell us what's wrong with it. Tell us why U.S. military veterans serving in that agency abroad right now who are locked out of computer systems, unsure how they're going to get home, tell us how they are radical woke liberals.

Sarah [00:20:38] And have their security officials in charge of protecting them released from their employment.

Beth [00:20:44] Help me understand exactly what you're talking about because, again, my mind is open. I am sure there are parts of the government that are due for modernization, that are due for closure so that something new can come in place. I am open, but do the homework. Care enough about the work itself to do it well. And I just don't even think Elon could name five important projects of USAID that he believes are so bad as to be criminal or fraudulent. I want to hear some details if we are to trust that this process is going in a direction that all of us American taxpayers who are invoked every five seconds would be supportive of.

Sarah [00:21:29] He said something about the Lutheran church, which I found very confusing with that mention. Listen, he's working really hard Beth. He's sleeping at the office. He's working weekends, which federal employees don't do. He's villainizing them, which is exactly what he did to the employees at Twitter. He is "outworking" them, shutting everything down. The confusing part to me, back to our previous vision statement, is you don't get more different than '80s real estate tycoon Donald Trump and 21st century tech tycoon Elon Musk as far as how you roll in, how you act, how you see the world. I cannot square that corner. They operate differently. They see the world differently. And so I keep thinking, how is this going to play out? Here's the thing. I think this is motivated by Elon Musk ego, not as pocketbook. I don't really think this is some massive ploy.

Beth [00:22:41] Agreed.

Sarah [00:22:41] What does he need to steal money from? And, look, you got to be honest with yourself. His ego is well-placed. This management technique is how he built two companies. It's how he almost bankrupted Tesla and SpaceX before he turned them around, which is what has made him the world's richest man and most likely the world's first trillionaire. So the ego is fueled by a lot of facts. That's the hard reality we all have to face here. He's not a movie character. He has built some shit. Okay. And so to me, though, this whole approach being fueled by his ego, like with the payment processing, again, it's one thing if you can push private companies that hard and that fast and you break some ship, but you build it back in your image, fine. You miss a payment, you default. The political blowback of a missed Medicaid payment or a missed Social Security payment would be massive. But to default on some of our debt responsibilities, this is bigger than space X. This is bigger than Tesla. When I hear him say "I'm going to catch the fraud and I'm going to balance the budget," I think, him and all his 27, 24-year-old interns just really don't get it. They really, really don't get it.

Beth [00:24:06] I have interpreted these stories about Treasury through the lens of his unfulfilled PayPal vision. He believes that he had the vision for PayPal and basically got pushed out and has so much bad blood over that. And that's why I think he's headed to Treasury. And I also am not moving my personal money around. I do not believe that we are about to have all of our data sold. I believe most of our data has already been sold. I think that our government has failed us enormously. At both parties, everyone has failed us in trying to create any form of consumer privacy in the digital age. So I am not personally panicking about this. And as I try to understand where they're coming from, this feels personal to Elon to me. That he has energy around payment systems that he hasn't fully had a place to channel it, and so he's going to do it here in the government. If you were going to deploy Elon more strategically, the best place would have been for him to start at NASA.

[00:25:11] He has built a private company that in many ways has bested some of what our government can do. And if he were taking this on from a benevolent posture, someone who genuinely wants to make our country stronger and make the government work better, I would understand him going into NASA and saying, I know how to do this better and we are going to break some things because I know how to get us to a place where you do this better. That is totally against his self-interest, though. And it doesn't fit, I think, his vision of himself where he can apply his way of viewing the world to any facts. You can't get farther from what Elon Musk knows than USAID. And that's why I think it is part of that ego fueled bender. I keep going back to Greg Landsman word where he's just like I can do anything. Let me show you. He did do some homework, though, in building Tesla, in building Space X, and I just don't see the evidence of that homework here.

Sarah [00:26:16] Well, somebody has done their homework because they have enacted a massive amount of chaos and confusion. You read some of these federal employee reports, anonymous tips, Slack channels, Reddit boards, and they are in full blown panic mode. So I don't know if it's the project 2025 guy. I think that's a big part of it. But again when you were talking, I thought, that's it. That's what unites him and Trump. It is the victimization. It is the enemies who never understood me. And so it doesn't really matter if your business model was built in 1980 or 2010. The primary prism through which everything flows is that I'm a victim. They target me, they go after me unfairly. And so I have to go squash the enemies, the woke mind virus, the federal lazy employees. That's it.

[00:27:14] Maybe that's really where they align because that's why we'll always feel clouded out of the vision because the vision really is revenge. That's the number one priority. It's vengeance. Retribution. Proving everyone wrong about you. I think that's what this tariff situation was. He wants to prove to his voters that immigration and securing the border is the number one priority. Doesn't matter if the crossings are down to pre-pandemic levels. That's inconvenient. We don't care. What matters is Christie now I'm on a horse and Pete Hegseth down talking to the troops and say, look, I used our strength as the United States to get Canada and Mexico to agree to send all these troops. And so I'm really doing promises made, promises kept on immigration. That's really what this current episode is about. And I can't tell if it's just a distraction from Elon or if it's just simultaneous chaos.

Beth [00:28:16] Well, yeah. Is Elon episode too in progress? I think they want the vision. I try to remember his show running. I think they like the stories about pride flags being ripped out of offices and posters taken down from the walls. There's going to be a lot that's inconvenient in the fallout, though. I was reading this morning about Senator Moran of Kansas, a Republican, saying to Marco Rubio, please release perishable food- thousands of pounds of perishable food that the United States has shipped overseas. It is going to expire and people are hungry and waiting for it. And it's just sitting there. It's stuck. That's the homework I'm talking about. If you're going to go in and zero-base things, at least do it slowly enough. Where you aren't creating more waste in the process and causing harm as you do it. Any organization that is going to go through a zero-based budget process, which is hard at any size-- it could be hard for Pantsuit Politics and we are a teeny, tiny organization.

[00:29:31] But if you are going to do that, you start a year ahead, right? If you were going to take one federal agency through a process like that, the lead time would and should be enormous because the work is consequential and you want to make sure that you're doing it correctly. If they had said Department of Education is going to go through this now. We're going to see where everybody's going to prove out what they're doing. We're going to see where this money is going. We're going to see under what conditions the money is going out. We're going to see what positions are needed and which are not. I would have said okay. Okay. Because hopefully in the process we'll all learn something about the Department of Education and hopefully in the process it will be made better, even as some of it is being made worse. It will be stressful, it will be tough, but we can do stressful and tough and sometimes we need to. To do it in the context of foreign policy first and government-wide all at once-- that's the other missing piece. This isn't just happening at USAID. It's also happening while two million people are considering whether they want to retire early or go to the private sector at the same time or.

Sarah [00:30:46] Or get bullied and questioned by Elon's interns.

Beth [00:30:48] Right. So insulting.

Sarah [00:30:51] The way you can tell they didn't do their homework is Sean Duffy (actual reality show pioneer may I remind you) scaled back and was like air traffic controllers JK we don't want you to take the fork in the road. You're not allowed to retire early because it seems like firing the FAA administrator and then having the first domestic crash in, what, over a decade with a massive loss of life is something that I think we actually should still be paying attention to. I wonder a little bit if I can get all the way into my conspiracy mindset is they knew that was really bad. They had no one in charge. And so let's do the tariffs. Let's keep the shock and all going from Elon so that we all forget they fired the FAA administrator and invited air traffic controllers to leave. How long before we find out that air traffic controller was doing two on one because somebody took the fork in the road? I don't know. But that to me seems like something that should be a continued focus.

Beth [00:32:14] And this is where I want members of Congress to flex every power they have. There should already be hearings happening on that plane crash. And when other officials come before the Senate for confirmation, I want questions like Mr. Duffy, do you know the process that a person goes through to become an FAA official? What does it take? What's required to be an air traffic controller? Just walk me through it. How long does it take from recruiting someone new to the field to getting them in a chair and ready to go? This is my big problem with Robert F Kennedy Jr. I understand that this administration is going to put somebody at the Department of Health and Human Services with a view on public health that is different than mine. I can live with that. What I can't live with is that person not understanding the difference between Medicare and Medicaid. And I really need our members of Congress to show up and demonstrate to the public that these folks are incompetent. We can disagree. That's fine. That's baked in. We were going to disagree. But they're incompetent and that's dangerous in a whole different way.

Sarah [00:33:26] Well, and it looks like they're all going to get through. It looks like Tulsi has got the wind at her back. RFK was just passed out of committee along party lines. So I guess Bill Cassidy got over whatever concerns he had as an actual physician about this anti-vaxxer. And Kash Patel seems like he's going to happen to.

Beth [00:33:46] Kash Patel was treated like he was the most normal nominee of all time. It's bonkers.

Sarah [00:33:54] It's not bonkers. It makes perfect sense. It's like in 2016 Hillary had to be a baby killing monster to make him seem normal. And so it's like the more extreme the pick, the more we act like he's the most normal of normal nominees, right? Like it's all a part of the gaslighting. But I want to be so careful, though. Because with the tariffs, I felt like I fell for the trap that everybody fell for, which was going, my God, the sky is falling. And then he got to come out and go like, see, look, well I got something out of it. The sky didn't fall. And so I want to be careful with these picks because it feels like at this point if Tulsi Gabbard doesn't flip halfway through and go work for Russia and we don't get a polio outbreak or a terrorist attack on a Kash Patel, then we're all going to look like fools. So I'm really trying to be careful here. Even with Elon, if we expend all our five alarm fire energy-- first of all, what happens when something terrible falls out, which I think the airplane crash qualifies as? And second, but what happens if it doesn't? You know what I mean? That's my worry right now.

Beth [00:35:16] I don't feel five alarm fire today. I just want the details. I want competence and explanations. I want them to have to make their case. What I'm frustrated by is the speed of the rollout. Means they aren't even being asked to explain themselves. And we all do get swept up in the easier, thornier personality driven problems with the folks involved here. And I just am getting right with they're going to appoint people whose personal back stories are as loathsome to me as possible. And that's just how it's going to be. I'm not going to look to our government and see people that I want to serve as role models for my children or anyone else's. Okay. I do want those people to know what they're doing.

Sarah [00:36:18] I just feel like I read so many of these like how voters are feeling, though, and people are like I like how fast it's happening. This is what I wanted. I wanted big radical change and I wanted it quickly. And I voted for Donald Trump because I knew he doesn't give a shit what people think and he's going to make that happen.

Beth [00:36:37] I'm getting real tired of seeing those cast as news. That's not news. People don't know yet. We are three weeks in. We don't know yet. We don't know what's changed. We know that a lot of people are really freaked out. We know that a lot has been gummed up. What they've mostly done is stopped things in place. But they have not done the hard work of then deciding how to restart and what actually goes and what stays. They're just freezing things and breaking things. And to read that Susie in Omaha thinks that's awesome is not news. That does nothing for anybody except further divide us because the people who are genuinely freaked out by all of this think Susie in Omaha sucks. And it's easier to be mad at Susie in Omaha with her little cartoon sketch than to think through what are the goals here? What are they trying to accomplish? What is actually happening? What am I worried is going to happen but hasn't happened yet? What might be happening that I'm not aware of? What should be filling the two inches on the website where I'm seeing what Susie in Omaha thinks about Donald Trump? I am so frustrated with all of the places where I feel like we aren't learning and we're just doing what we did the last time and doing what we did throughout this entire election. I think a lot of the reason that Donald Trump won this election is because we had so many focus group type profiles that sort of masqueraded as analysis from the public instead of actual information about the candidates and what they were going to do once they were in office.

Sarah [00:38:26] I don't know. I just struggle because I think last time I spent a lot of my analysis deciding that people who agreed with the administration, disagreed with me, were dumb and they just didn't understand how things work. And I'm pretty committed to not doing that again because it doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter. They vote just like I do. And I am trying to take seriously what many, many Americans have communicated, which is they are unhappy with the size and scope of the federal government. And for better or for worse, I don't think we should discount how easily all the top line of this bender is going to communicate Donald Trump heard you on that and he's doing something about it. I just don't think we can discount that. I think it's real. I think for people who don't pay that close of attention, what they're picking up right now is that Elon Musk and Donald Trump are going in and cracking heads and taking names, and that's exactly what they wanted.

Beth [00:39:31] I agree with all of that. I just think that is a political analysis, not an analysis of what's actually going down in our government. And I want that information. I want the information. I want the coverage of what is actually going down in our government, not how everybody feels about it. We will know. That is what we're so good at getting. All of social media is just how does everybody feel about this? It's not a mystery. The places that have the resources to do real hard reporting right now. I want them to do it. And the members of Congress who can go into places where they have actual power to exercise, I want them to exercise it.

Sarah [00:40:09] Well, I think that's what's hard, though. When you talk about members of Congress, I think what we've seen here is that so much of the power within our institution, less in the Constitution and more in the attention economy. Because they don't give a shit who's in Article One or who's in Article Two and whether this agency was defined by law and what are the protections in place. They don't care. They're shredding norms left and right. And so if you're a member of Congress who wants to put the brakes on this, then you have to acknowledge that just standing up and trying to protect the size of the federal government through some constitutional range is not politically viable. And politics is a part of your power. And so to me, for example, with USAID, I would say if I was a member of Congress, I would say this agency protects Americans from pandemics, terrorist attacks and child trafficking and Elon Musk just shut it down. That's what I would say.

[00:41:09] That's the message I would communicate. I would say there is absolutely waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government. And I'm here for real conversations, even about shutting down the Department of Education. Let's talk about it, because nobody's getting the results in education they want. So maybe some dramatic change is in order. But this agency tries to prevent pandemics, terrorist attacks and child trafficking, and Elon Musk just shut it down. So I think there has to be a balance between describing their vision and figuring out what's going on, but also taking the political power that you're going to need to fix anything that's actually happening to describe to the people who voted for Donald Trump, especially the ones who don't pay that much of attention.

Beth [00:41:54] Those three buckets, though, that's exactly what I'm looking for. Be specific. Don't just tell people we need it because we've had it and because Congress authorized it.

Sarah [00:42:03] But that's what they're doing right now. It's so frustrating to me.

Beth [00:42:05] It's so frustrating. Show the picture of the shipment of food sitting somewhere undistributed. Talk about the person from your district who can't get home right now, who's overseas and their government has abandoned them because of this effort. I want everybody here. The administration, if they want to make their case, again, my mind is open. Make your case, but make it in the specific and oppose in the specific as well. We had an election. The generalities should be done now. This is why I like reading from people like Lisa Murkowski, because I believe that she goes to precisely what is happening. Let's get real about the exercise of governing now. That's what I'm looking for.

Sarah [00:42:50] Yeah, I think there's just too much. But this is how we did it and they don't care and they're doing it a different way. And you guys, that's not going to play politically. I'm sorry. I hate it as much as you do. But if again the Democrats and the Democratic Party is suffering politically because we have put in the position of defending the status quo, back to the New York Times piece, which no one's happy with. No one's happy with. From the federal government to the cost of living, to taxes, to your kids' use of social media, to the education system, no one's happy with it. So don't ever come to the mic and let your message be they're shredding something that's always been. Because most Americans are going to go, so what?

Beth [00:43:32] And look where the status quo is working. We need to be more specific about why. I've read a lot of pieces over the last six months about the decline in deaths from fentanyl, the decline in opioid abuse. It's really hard to put your finger on why that decline has happened. And that's a problem because if something in the status quo has broken through and gotten at something that was feeling really intractable for a couple of years, then I don't want people to say, well, declared victory; we did it. It's solved. Because clearly not. There's still clearly people suffering and wrestling with this issue. But hey we found something that's working and we want to scale it up and we want to draw on the expertise of the people who've been involved in developing these efforts. And if we just tell them we're going to pay you till September, take a vacation and then never come back to government service, then we lose that. Something real is lost. We don't make the positive vision case ever either.

Sarah [00:44:31] Yeah. I dedicated the News Brief this coming Thursday to an incredible story about how we've shrunken juvenile incarceration. But it was a lot of things at once, and often it was people pushing government to do better from the outside. And so I think you have to hold up those cases too and say there is room for communities to say this isn't working for us. We want it done differently. One of the biggest pieces of this story is just the truly horrific abuses that we're having happening in California's juvenile penal system. And so we just have to be honest. And I just think Donald Trump puts so many people so often in such a defensive posture that they lose the ability to make the case because their entire case is he's bad. Elon's Bad. Elon's evil. He's evil. They're going to ruin everything. And politically, again, that just doesn't work.

[00:45:32] And so if the stakes are as high as we all believe them to be, then we have to use any tool in our tool belt to stop it. To prevent it. To fix it. And sometimes that means calling out the problem. Sometimes that's, like you said, being open to other solutions. And I do feel like there is no break glass moment. If they shut the government down, to me, that's it. We're communicating here now. We're using the tools in our tool belt to say like, no, we're breaking glass. I know we've been telling you for 10 years that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy, but the moment is here. This is it. What's happening cannot continue. Tragedies will proliferate and it's time to break glass and shut it down. And so that's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for action. Less protests, less incendiary language, less no for real this time we mean it, but actual action.

Beth [00:46:33] And so you think that a government shutdown is the right next step for Democrats?

Sarah [00:46:38] I do.

Beth [00:46:39] I think I do, too. Because the alternative is a line item government shutdown; is an expansion of executive power to only close the parts of the government that he doesn't like and to massively increase the rest and to do tremendous harm in the process. And I think a government shutdown does tremendous harm. It's wasteful. It's expensive. I have railed against it on this podcast over and over throughout the years. But right now, I think it is probably the right next step.

Sarah [00:47:09] And I think it's just disruptive of people's ideas about Democrats. I think it is disruptive of this narrative we've been stuck in since 2015. Again, I think it communicates that break glass, we hear you, we think things are broken, too. But if they're not going to claim their strength and authority because that's the other thing, that's what plays well in this political moment is strength and authority. If the Republican Party wants to give over its power as the most important branch of our government, that's fine. We're unwilling to do that. We still believe in the Constitution. We still believe that there is strength in authority because you, the voters, gave it to us. And we are not going to lay it down at the feet of Elon Musk and Donald Trump. This is power that has been given to us by the people, and we are going to use it in any way we can.

Beth [00:47:59] Yeah, I saw a clip of Senator Kennedy from Louisiana this morning talking about USAID and he was saying the people who are upset about this, with respect, call someone who cares. This is how it's going to be. And next is going to be the Department of Education. And I thought if I were responsible for spending PAC money right now, I would make one of those click-click commercials where they show Kennedy saying that, the absolute disdain for people's concerns, next to me going, hi, I'm someone who cares. It's me. You can call me because I care, too. And I think what's going on is unacceptable. And I think it's taking a sledgehammer where a scalpel would do.

[00:48:43] I think that there are things that we need to do, but we need to do them wisely. And then I would talk about, for example, the 2.2 billion gallons of water that have just been wasted in California because Donald Trump wanted to again show-run, cosplay himself adding water to Los Angeles. Except that that water doesn't go into Los Angeles' system at all. Just really specific examples to show people he's telling you he's doing one thing when he's actually doing another. And here is a Republican senator who says call someone who cares. Well, that's me. I'm the person who cares. I think there are so many opportunities here to reframe for people what's actually going on. And I hope that there are folks who will take advantage of that.

Sarah [00:49:30] Yeah, because I would stand up and say, look, he wants to be king; he thinks he can fix it. Fine, shut it down. Let's see what he can do by himself. Because otherwise all this is abuse and exploitation of not only our federal workforce, but everybody who is affected by the federal government. Spoiler alert, that's basically everyone. So let's find out. Let's find out if the brilliance of Elon Musk is right and we can just go down to zero and add it back a bit at a time. Let's find out. They want to do this? Let's run this test case. Fine.

Beth [00:50:07] Will be very interesting to see what Democrats decide to do over the next week or so, and we will certainly be back here to talk about it. We always end our episodes with a little bit of an exhale. And today we just kind of wanted to share the ways in which this news environment is working on us. So, Sarah, I was telling you I feel like I've been a little glitchy lately. I mostly feel okay. When I have a conversation, I feel calm. I am not doomscrolling. I have much better habits in self-care in place this time than I did in the first Trump administration. I feel very advanced in the way that I have set up my life to be able to handle this. But every once in a while I do something. Like yesterday I microwaved a spoon. I had a spoon in a bowl of oatmeal and I wanted to put it in the microwave to heat up some apples that I'd cut up on top of my oatmeal. And the spoon that I had used to mix cinnamon in remained in the bowl in the microwave. It wasn't great.

Sarah [00:51:13] Well, I told that everybody in the News Brief that it was July. And then I was flipping through my very brand new spanking focus planner and for one week last year I made it September. I wrote every day in as like September, whatever. Now there is a normal amount of glitching that happens around this because I did that five year journal and it was really fun. I would go back and look because you answer the question for five years like a little sentence on each page. And it was almost like on cue at certain weeks, I would just revert back to the old year. I would just go back. But this isn't even the year. This is the month. It's normal if you're like January 2024. I don't know why I decided it was July and then September. That does feel like an extra level of glitching.

Beth [00:52:04] I also am doing the thing where I will find myself standing in front of a cabinet and thinking, what does this cabinet have for me? Why did I walk over here? I know I had a purpose. I've lost the purpose completely.

Sarah [00:52:15] Well, I think for me the time was just really disrupted because Felix I don't think has he now gone for a full week? I don't think so. No. Maybe yes. Maybe last week he went for five days, but that was the first week. So we had Martin Luther King Day. Then people were sick. My kids have been sicker this cold and flu season than in any previous year. So that was super disruptive. Also I think I'm glitching because let me tell you, if you want January to go as slow as it possibly can, plan a trip to Paris in the first week of February, because that will make it crawl. And so it was just like everything was going slower, but it's supposed to be the new year. Just everything around time, my brain is inside out and upside down.

Beth [00:53:06] Eternal Christmas break probably is part of why I glitch. Now that the snow that we had here that kept our kids home from school for so long and sporadically they went back and then they missed again, we've had sickness here, too. It is an extraordinarily busy time of year for us with two academic teams that we coach. I have a lot going on in my community involvement. And so I do feel pretty pulled. I wanted to share two things that are helping me. One, before I look at the news I take a deep breath and I say to myself, you're probably not going to like this. And setting that expectation is surprisingly helpful. It just reminds me like, you know what, the person that you voted for lost the election and you're probably just not going to like what's on the front page this morning. And that is the way it is and there's nothing to be done about it. And so that has helped me.

Sarah [00:54:02] Well, I've added morning pages back to my routine and have been pretty committed to my meditation practice. And those two things, particularly the morning pages, when I just feel like my brain is a hive of bees when I can just sit down-- if you don't know morning pages, it's from The Artist's Way. You sit down and you just do stream of consciousness and you fill three pages of a journal. And I've been pretty committed to that. And not only do I feel like it kind of clears my mind and helps me focus, but it really does open up some creativity and some energy around things. I really, really like it. I've done it before. I forget how much I like it. And then I let it slide and I come back. I've also, like you said, really builds up my exercise. I've been really good about exercising and sleeping. I just want my Oura Ring to be proud of me basically at any given point. I want it to be like I see you, girl. I see your effort and I think it's great.

Beth [00:54:55] The other kind of question that I'm asking myself that's been really helpful is when I find myself really worked up or overcome or something, I try to just name the feeling as specifically as possible. I saw a sheet in my daughter's folder from school where in one of their social emotional learning sessions, they got this giant list of feelings and it reminded me that we do have a richer vocabulary than we use often to describe our feelings. So in moments when I am super overwhelmed, I'm just trying to very precisely name what is this feeling? I was just in a meeting that I got really emotional in and I kept thinking, okay, what is this feeling? I'm not mad. I'm not anxious, I'm not worried. What is this feeling? And it took me a while to come to it is loneliness. I'm in a room with a lot of people, but I see the situation so differently and bring such different experiences to it that I'm just feeling separate from the group. And that's lonely. And being lonely when you're with people is the worst. Okay. Now that I know what this is, I can cope with it differently than before I was able to name that. So that balance of setting expectations appropriately and then when I still get overcome-- I think you probably get this from the morning pages, too. Just seeing clearly what it is that is occupying my attention, it helps.

Sarah [00:56:27] The other thing that's really been helping me, I've been reading Marcus Aurelius Meditations, and then I read this other book by Joseph Nguyen, Don't Believe Everything You Think. And they're very related. It's not anything I haven't heard before. It's present mindfulness, to be able to do exactly what you described. Observe how you're feeling. But I just think there's pieces of both of them that moved me up a step or two. I really like in the Don't Believe Everything You Think he distinguishes thoughts from thinking. So a thought or an emotion that sort of just arises versus when you're think, you're trying to control, you're trying to plan, you're you are actively pushing the thinking process forward. And he's like that's what makes us miserable all the time. That's where we go off.

[00:57:18] It's when we're trying to think. We're trying to use the process of thinking to fix the thought, fix the emotion, fix the situation, fix the person, whatever. And, of course, the Stoics had some real thoughts on that. Had some real thoughts on basically trying to control anything, you're going to die. Just get used to it kind of situation. But having those voices reinforcing each other, I even the other day started to get spun up and I kind of pictured both of them sitting there being like, hey, remember what we said? Because I think it's really easy to read that stuff in a calm moment and be like I get it all and forget to put it in place when you're spinning up or glitching or whatever. And I think I'm trying to make that next step, to not just know it, but to integrate it. And in those moments be like, wait, hold up. This is what you're doing right now.

Beth [00:58:15] And, similarly, when I read good advice I try to remember that that good advice was not written in perfect circumstances either. At Sunday at church we were reading from the Book of Romans, and it's Paul being like, hey, be at peace with each other. Be overly generous. Be forgiving. Be gracious. And I found myself in the pew being like but not right now, right? That's great for other times. But if Paul were here... And then I remembered where Paul was and that none of this was written in good circumstances, that's why it needed to be written. And so all of the things that feel trite or cliche have endured because they're correct. And that posture applies just as much to me today in my present situation as it did at the moment that it was written and has per all of the hundreds of years between.

[00:59:15] We appreciate you spending time with us today. We are super interested in whether you're glitching. And if you are, what's helping you in the glitching process? If you found this episode helpful, we would love for you to share it with someone. I think a big part of keeping my feet on the ground during this administration is just remembering that I'm not alone. I am not the only person who takes in these headlines and thinks I do not care for this. I'm not the only person who's worried. It always helps me to sit down with Sarah and then to hear from all of you after our conversation. So I hope that you will share it with the people in your life and continue the discussions. I will back with you on Friday while Sarah is enjoying some time overseas. We're wishing you safe and wonderful travels, Sarah. Until then, everybody have the best week available to you.