The Breakroom

Donald Trump learned lots of lessons from his first term, but so did I.

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 12: Rehearsals for the inauguration on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on January 12, 2025 in Washington, DC. The Inauguration is set to be held in eight days on January 20, 2025 where US President-elect Donald Trump will be sworn into office. (Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)

A Note from Sarah

As Donald Trump's second inauguration dawns, there has been much analysis about how he is stronger than he was at his first inauguration:

He has a clear electoral victory.
He is in total control of the Republican party.
He is surrounded by administrative loyalists who are less able - or even willing - to act as guardrails.

All that is true. Yet, I find that my feelings about how much Donald Trump has changed are inexplicably tied up with how much I have as well. Donald Trump learned lots of lessons from his first term but so did I.

I've faced political defeats and personal struggles.
I've had my heart broken by the world.
But I'm still here.

Resigned... yes, but also smarter, tougher, and clinging to the hope that I'm not the only one ready to take the lessons from the previous eight years and continue to be changed by the next four.

A Note from Beth

I don't know where I first encountered the sentence "The anticipation makes the pleasure," but it's stuck with me and has been reinforced by experience. As we approach Inauguration Day, I'm thinking about the power of anticipation. My inboxes have been full of curious dread since November. I exit my echo chamber enough to see certain enthusiasm, too. If Trump 1.0 is any indication, we'll all get the feelings we're anticipating.

I'm trying to find that thin space between feeling and fact. What would it mean for me to be neutral about Trump 2.0 as of today because he hasn't been inaugurated and can't have officially acted yet?

There's an artificiality in that posture (of course he's acted, I yell at myself. He's nominated Pete Hegseth and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard. He's negotiated with Netanyahu. He's waved his magic phone to create the Department of Government Efficiency). Aspirational fairness often requires artificiality. Judges routinely throw out real evidence because it was improperly obtained. That evidence is the "fruit of a poisonous tree." This phrase keeps coming up for me. I don't want my opinions about Trump 2.0 to be the fruit of my own poisonous tree, birthed by dread instead of observation and analysis. If there's ever been a time for aspirational fairness, I think it's now--not because President-elect Donald J. Trump deserves it, but because the American experiment requires it.

I've struggled mightily to write a short paragraph about the inauguration. I'm annoying myself at every turn. I'm imagining how I'm annoying you before you've even glanced at my words. I think that's how it's going to be for the next four years--a constant ethical, intellectual, political, civic, spiritual wrestling. It somehow feels better to me to anticipate that wrestling than to decide in advance what will be wrong and right, damaging and restorative. I'm up for wrestling, and I know that you are, too. And I'm glad that we're together for whatever happens next.

We’d love to hear how you’re reflecting on, thinking about, and mentally and spiritually preparing for the week and weeks ahead.

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On Tuesday Sarah and Beth talked about the LA fires, and building and insuring homes in the era of climate disaster.

One of our listeners reached out with some context about the challenge of building in California and the double bind of hardening homes and structures to withstand both fire and earthquakes:

As a licensed architect in California it’s been frustrating to hear all of the misinformation and confusion surrounding the building codes and standards we have in our state. This is a very helpful article to explain why some homes survived the fires in LA. I’ve seen a lot of misinformation and just bad ideas circulating so I thought I’d share. In short, California’s modern building codes are designed to prevent homes from burning down, but there is currently no requirement to retrofit existing homes to meet these standards. And as most of California’s building stock is old there are a significant amount of homes at risk.

These Homes Withstood the LA Fires. Architects Explain Why (Bloomberg)¹

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An Inauguration Weekend Care Package

Recognizing that our next chapter has not been written yet, and we have a role to play in where we go from here, we've collected some episodes² about American civics and citizenship to cultivate awareness and a sense of responsibility as we all choose our work and cultivate communities in the days and weeks ahead.

Also, if you’re not in that headspace yet, we have our crowdsourced playlist from Election Day:

Last, if you need some of Beth’s parody:

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What We’re Reading and Listening To This Week

• Sarah: “Now is the Time of Monsters” by Ezra Klein (The New York Times)

• Beth:

  • How Hard is it to Run the Pentagon (The Economist)

  • ‘I was terrified about parental backlash’: taking contested history into schools (The Guardian)

  • Lorne Michaels Is the Real Star of “Saturday Night Live” (The New Yorker)

• Alise: The Grey Wolf by Louise Penny

• Maggie: Overwork: Transforming the Daily Grind in the Quest for a Better Life by Brigid Schulte

Copyright (C) 2024 Pantsuit Politics. All rights reserved.

1. These pictures!!!!!!!

2. Some of these episodes include interviews that we enjoyed from around the country during our 2022 American Nations series. We know you’re all A+ students, so we wanted you to know that it’s not cheating to skip to the interview.