The Gender Election

Discussion post for October 29, 2024

This is shaping up to be one of the largest gender-divided elections since women gained the right to vote. What does that mean?

We know what we think about it as women, but we wanted to hear from the men in our lives about how the gender gap looks to them and why they think it exists.

We invited the husbands of each member of our team to sit down together and talk about Donald Trump, masculinity, and political messaging.

Plus, Michelle Obama, Beyonce, and that Madison Square Garden rally.

TOPICS DISCUSSED

• Beyonce and Michelle Obama Weigh in on the Election

• Trump’s Madison Square Garden Rally

• A Roundtable with Our Husbands

• Outside of Politics: Halloween

EPISODE RESOURCES

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

• WATCH: Beyoncé introduces Kamala Harris at rally in Houston, Texas

• Michelle Obama Delivers a Message to Men at a Kamala Harris Rally

TRANSCRIPT

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

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

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

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

[00:00:14] Music Interlude.

[00:00:29] Thank you for joining us. One week from Election Day. A lot to talk about. We're going to talk about where we are heading into the election and then we're just going to step back and hand the microphones to the Pantsuit Politics husbands, because this election has been characterized as the gender election, a phrase my husband despises. And so we thought we would ask the men in our lives to weigh in on that. And then Outside of Politics, thank God for Outside of Politics one week from Election Day, we're going to talk about our plans for Halloween. We have a lot going on right now. So before we start, some quick housekeeping. If you would like to find a truly wonderful network of support heading into the election, we recommend our premium community on Substack. We've been there for about two weeks and our listeners have really made this house a home.

Sarah [00:01:13] You guys, the chat is so good. People are posting their early voting pictures. People are posting their stories from door knocking. It is a steady drip of hopium (sic) over there in the Pantsuit Politics Substack chat. That's all I'm saying. That's all I'm telling you right now. And then, of course, we got to get through election and on the other side of it. And don't worry, because we are going to get to do that bit of processing and emotional support with our friend Vanessa Zoltan of Harry Potter and the Sacred Texts live together in Boston on November 7th. And don't worry if you can't join us live-- although you should. I mean, Boston in the fall. Come on.

Beth [00:01:54] For election day it feels right. A lot of things feel right about it.

Sarah [00:01:59] Beautiful. Democracy. Changing lives. Come on. If you can join us live, you can join us online. And all the ticket information for both in-person tickets and virtual tickets is in our shownotes.

Beth [00:02:08] Every time I start feel nervous about election week, I just remember that we're going to have this time together in person with Vanessa, with listeners and I breathe a little bit deeper. Okay. Well, I feel like I've been avoiding the election talk by talking about our wonderful community, but we can avoid it no longer. Let's just talk about this bonkers weekend and the week that we have coming up. I think we should begin with Beyonce.

Sarah [00:02:40] Always. I thought her introduction of Kamala H arris in Houston was so beautiful, like poetic. It's time to sing a new song. Like, it was just really beautiful. I was inspired, uplifted. Just incredible. Such a good job.

Beth [00:03:07] What I loved most about it was that Beyoncé said she was there not as a celebrity, but as a mother. And I think that's really true for her. And I think that if you want to say one honest, relatively non-controversial thing about Beyoncé, it's that she's always very clear in purpose. She carefully curates her image, her socials, the press that she does, the very, very little that she tells people, the very little she invites people in.

Sarah [00:03:38] I'm not even sure curate is the right verb. She just doesn't do that much, period.

Beth [00:03:42] So I think it was a very big deal for her to do this and that it was a very big deal for her to say, this is exactly what I'm doing and why I'm doing it, and don't expect me to show up and do this in every cycle from here on out. This is a unique moment and I am coming to tell myself that I did the thing I could do in this unique moment.

Sarah [00:04:05] Yeah, I really loved it. I loved the roll call of all the Houston neighborhoods. I thought there were just so many electric moments. I mean, she is one of the biggest celebrities out there for a reason. She understands how to use a crowd, use her own personal charisma and talent. And I thought she did it beautifully in Houston.

Beth [00:04:28] What did you think of the critique that she didn't sing and so the Harris campaign tricked people to come who thought Beyonce would sing and then she didn't.

Sarah [00:04:40] I mean, it's up to Beyoncé. And if you love Beyoncé and you want to see Beyonce perform, then I think you should know in your core it's up to Beyonce. And she didn't want to, so she doesn't have to. And you're supposed to be happy with that. That's in the agreement everybody signs when they join the beehive. You got to just be okay with whatever Beyonce wants to do. I feel like that's what I signed.

Beth [00:05:03] I am okay with whatever Beyonce wants to do. And I do think it strengthened that message that, like, I am not here to perform. We had at church at Sunday a pastor departing, and she gave just excellent, excellent sermon on her way out the door. And she said in part because this day was about her, that she felt a little bit like a dancing bear. And I was thinking about that reading this critique that Beyonce is not ever going to be treated like a dancing bear. And I don't think that she is going to do a concert for Kamala Harris. This was something different to her. And I like that she distinguished it that way. Similar vibes with former first lady Michelle Obama. I don't like doing this. I don't do it often. If I'm doing it, you know that this is my version of a five alarm fire.

Sarah [00:05:50] Yeah. I can see Beyoncé performing at the inauguration like she did with Barack Obama. She's performed at one of the inaugural balls. I think for their first dance she sang at last. And it is interesting to think about who performs and who doesn't. Eminem didn't perform, but Bruce Springsteen, I believe, did perform. It's super fascinating. And I wonder if sometimes it's just a comfort level of the performer. Like, I don't really want to speak, that's not my thing. I like to sing. Or if when I do perform, it's a big production like Beyonce. She doesn't do kind of stripped down performances that often. And so I wonder if it's like that balance, too. But Michelle-- I said on the News Brief, I wonder if this is what it's like to live among prophets, biblical prophets. What she does it's just not normal. I've watched a lot of political speeches. I feel like I'm just rehashing what I said around the convention.

[00:06:52] It's not a normal average-- even best of the best like what her husband does-- political speech. It's incredible. I really felt this time, though, there was such-- I felt it at the DNC, but every time she would spit out Trump's name, you could just taste it. You could taste the disdain and the anger and the frustration. And especially when she got to the reproductive health portion of her speech, you could feel her as a mother of two young daughters, young women out in the world in a changed environment. You could just viscerally feel where she was coming from. I loved her speech at the DNC, but I cried through the second half of this one. When she got into the reproductive health portion, I just cried the whole time.

Beth [00:07:50] She showed such an awareness of how things work now in this speech. Because her remarks were long, but she wrote that speech to be cut and shared at the end. And it was really effective and so smart in connecting the dots beyond abortion in a way that I don't think anyone else has done effectively yet, including us. I watched the speech and thought, dang, I wish we'd put it that way. It's really, really, really smart and resonant and shows how the reach of this issue is still underappreciated even a couple of years out, even in an election where it's been a very salient topic. And I thought that planning for it to be clipped and shared like that was brilliant.

Sarah [00:08:43] Well, and the two portions of her speech, which were why is there this double standard with Kamala and Donald Trump, and why are we facing this particular threat as women? I think, both you and I have had more and more conversations. You're going to hear some of this critique in our husband's conversations next of the identity politics that drove the Democratic Party for several years. And you certainly see it in the campaign strategy of Kamala Harris that we don't want to do that. We don't want to make it all about her being the first. We don't want to talk about, even in a gender election, this perspective of sexism or misogyny, even as it is in full and total display at Madison Square Garden the next day. And I think there's just something about the political capital that Michelle Obama has. I think it's about her identity as someone on the public stage, as a woman on the public stage that did not choose it, that did not choose to be there, that gives her a certain ability and clarity to speak to the sexism and put it all together in a way that I don't think Kamala Harris could do.

[00:10:00] Honestly, I don't think she could do it. Not like could skillfully, I mean just like could as in a politically pragmatic awareness of what it would cost her if she did. And I think the way that Michelle did it, I was so in my feelings last week about Trump and this sense of like I don't feel seen. I don't feel like I'm recognized as a full and complete member of society sometimes as a woman. And the way that this election is spoken about and the way she's treated and the way that we've come so far, but still here I am at 43, never seen a female president. And all these things, especially in the broader context of this threat to our reproductive health, and just the way she put it all together, that's why I couldn't stop crying because I just felt seen and I felt heard. And I felt like somebody was like you're not crazy. This is what's going on. And it just was such a relief to hear someone state that so clearly and so poignantly on such a big stage.

Beth [00:11:22] I want to say a word about identity politics. Because two things are very, very true and present for me right now. And one of those things is that there is an ongoing conversation among people in the Democratic Party, among people like us, to say, have identity politics gone too far? I think my husband says that in the conversation you're about to hear among the men. When I am analyzing that question, I am thinking about not have we become too inclusive, but have we spoken about the need for greater justice and equity and diversity in a way that our language became exclusive in the process, in a way that told people you can have no questions or input that there is a correct approach to loving people? And if you don't fit in that correct approach to loving people, you don't count. And you now are going to be the marginalized one because of that. So that's one thing that is true. And that is, I think, a worthy discussion, but worth having very carefully because people hear different things when they hear that question.

Sarah [00:12:43] Yes. A hundred percent.

Beth [00:12:44] But the other thing that's true at the same time is that Elon Musk's PAC is up with an ad right now that says Kamala Harris is a C-word. And I don't need any more context for that. I'm sure that if I dig into that, C is for communist or something. But I don't care what you're doing there. And so here we are, where one side is going, we're real little too harsh and judgy about the language that we ask people to use. And the other is calling our sitting vice president and a candidate who's tied with their preferred candidate for president a C-word in an America where reproductive rights have been taken from women in many, many states. So it is a hard time to just be a person right now. It is especially a hard time to be a woman? It's a hard time to speak in public about these issues. And I think you're exactly right that Kamala Harris is totally aware of all those dynamics. More and more, I think this is a woman who's had to make a case to a jury and she has to take the jury she gets and that's what she's doing in this election. She's taking the jury she polled and following the data that tells her where that jury is. But it is helpful to hear Michelle Obama say, I don't have to do that. So I'm just going to tell you how I see it.

Sarah [00:14:08] Yeah, because it is so heartbreaking. I want to use a word for anger, but I'm not angry. When I see Hulk Hogan do a crude gesture for a blowjob while talking about Kamala Harris. When I see these kids on these debates on Twitter and the first thing the young woman says about her is that she slept her way to the top. Or I hear it from a family member, which I did recently. And I think should we say it? Should we talk about it? It's like a curse. I don't want to give it any more energy because I find it so ludicrous. And at the same time, I'm like, still in 2024 the argument is she couldn't have gotten here on her own? And it's out there. In the far right, that is the thing they say about her. And they're getting closer and closer to just saying it outright, which I think they pretty much did at Madison Square Garden. And I'm blown away. Again, I can't even find a fury because it just makes me so sad that we're still here. And I think she has handled it beautifully and the campaign has handled it beautifully. They've sort of treated it like the sideshow it is, which I think is right. I do think it's mostly a sideshow. I don't think the majority of people think that about her, feel that way about women still, but I also don't think it's gone. And I guess I wanted it to be. Just really deep down, I wanted it to be gone.

Beth [00:16:09] I want that to be gone not because I'm the thought police or the language police, but because I'm tired of people thinking that women can't accomplish things on their own. And I'm tired of people thinking so little of men that every woman who's ever gotten somewhere had to perform sexual favors for those men in order to be recognized for her contributions. I want that to be gone, not as the politically correct police, but because it's a gross indicator of what we think of humans in general. And I would like us to stop putting that on everyone, because that's what it sounds. When you say that about Kamala Harris, it sounds like you think that about all the successful women in your life.

Sarah [00:16:50] But wouldn't that make sense coming from him and his side? Because he does.

Beth [00:16:54] He does. And nobody goes how gross that he has asked that of people, required it of people, demanded it, taken it from women. It's so frustrating right now. And there are days when I wake up and think I don't even know what to say about this. I look at the fact that Elon Musk bought himself Twitter, gave himself the handle at America for his PAC and then publishes an ad like this, and I just jump out of my skin. What is there to even say about it? What is there to even say about what happened at Madison Square Garden?

Sarah [00:17:33] And that's why Michelle Obama was so good. She said this is wrong. Let me say this as clearly as I can. This is a double standard and it's wrong. Again, it's as much as how she said it is what she said. Every time she spit out his name, I couldn't get over the way... I mean, you could tell that it was a curse every time she said it. And it just was life giving to me. It was life giving to me. And I'm so glad I needed that. I needed that pep talk. I needed that sermon. I needed that moment to make it through what happened at Madison Square Garden.

Beth [00:18:19] And I think the most miserable thing about what happened at Madison Square Garden is holding it and the clips of it alongside the real people in my life who post things on Facebook like 70 percent of the country thinks we're on the wrong track, but some of them are ready to vote for Kamala Harris. How can that be? And I put those things beside each other and I put the personalities of those people that I know, their offline embodied personalities, and cannot imagine them sitting in a Madison Square Garden cheering for the kinds of things that were said there at this Trump event. It breaks you a little bit. It breaks me to look around and have that incongruence and to not be able to figure out an intellectual or even emotional or spiritual path forward through it.

Sarah [00:19:13] Yeah, one of the most powerful parts of Michelle Obama's speech I thought was when she was like, "So you need to say this to the men in your life. When I say do something, that don't necessarily have to mean knock on doors." You need to say this to the men in your life. And I hope what we've learned from 2016 is the ability to look and say, "This affects how I feel about you. I'm not going to cut you out of my life, but I see you differently because you're going to support something this ugly. I still love you." I saw someone post, I think it was one of our listeners in the chat, that therapist have come together and said the best approach is to treat it like a cult and to say this is not true, but I still love you. I'll still be here waiting for the spell to break. But know that I cannot separate them. I cannot separate when he makes fun of disabled people, when he demeans women, when he is overtly racist from your support of him. Just know that. I can't silo those things. Maybe you can silo how you feel about him, but I can't silo your support from how I feel about you. I can't say it any more clearly.

Beth [00:20:37] And that's the kind of clarity that everyone is so afraid of right now. I think about what the past year has been like and how radioactive people feel this election is in corporate spaces, in nonprofit spaces, in civic spaces that are not overtly political. There is more fear than I think I've ever observed in connection with the election of saying things with that kind of clarity, because we don't seem to believe that honesty is kind. We think nice is kind, instead of honest is kind. And sometimes that honesty is the greatest kindness that we can give each other. I still love you. And this is affecting our relationship. It just is. You tell me in a million ways that it's affecting our relationship because you disapprove of my position. So I just want to be honest that that's a two way street, that those are the circumstances of the relationship. That that fear that I have felt palpably over the last year from people who do not want to discuss this election, has floated up to people who have everything in the world at their fingertips is unsurprising to me. It is also, I think, a call to action in a new way. I'm trying not to use words like alarming and dangerous. I know that we have been here before and survived and that we will survive again. But I don't really care if The Washington Post endorses a candidate ever again or not. I really don't care. I do care that the reason is fear about losing potential government contracts because Donald Trump's feelings are hurt. I do care that people feel like we have to walk on eggshells because the potentially incoming boss has the emotional stability of a four year old.

Sarah [00:22:44] Because in some ways I think that the corporate political posturing has been degrading to our political discourse. I don't want to fight about Starbucks Christmas cups. I don't want to fight about Chick-Fil-A. I don't want to do that anymore. I don't think it was productive. I don't think it helped anything. And also billionaire newspaper publishers backing off endorsements, which I agree they're not going to move anything but the posture-- including Bill Gates saying like, yeah, I gave her $50 million, but I don't talk about it. To me, that's different. And that's deeply problematic because even the way that Elon Musk-- and I think you have to acknowledge that he moved the Overton Window. That this posture from Jeff Bezos at the Post and at the biotech billionaire at the L.A. Times, he moved the window. Him and his other tech buddies basically said, well, there's space for us to be something other but loyally Democrat. And so I just think he made it a little more okay. Zuckerberg's done a lot of this, right?

[00:24:08] And I think once that became more loud, like, you can survive it, they took their opening. Because I don't think they cared about Democratic politics. I don't think they care about the future of this country. I don't think they care about anything except their bottom line. Now, this is an illustration for the same thing that I feel is true about Elon Musk, which is they're not as genius as we make them out to be. Because they should understand that a Donald Trump you're so afraid of that you have to back off this is going to be so bad for an economy that depends on stability. And so I think you guys aren't as smart as you think you are. But I agree it's not surprising. It's not surprising that they are going to always put their financial priorities first. That's how they got to be billionaires.

Beth [00:25:01] And I truly don't care what their personal politics are. I don't think they should have to be reliably Democrat or reliably Republican. I don't think if you own a company you should be so afraid of your employees that it forces you into a political position that's otherwise not authentic for you. I think it's worse to be so scared of what the president of the United States might do with that political power that you change your views or express them differently or restrict other people's ability to express their views. I mean, have you ever worked for someone like this who thinks that the whole company is basically their personal checking account and who is so sensitive and believes so much in loyalty? I have. It sucks. It's terrible to work for someone like that. It's terrible to work in an organization where people feel like they have to suddenly show their loyalty to the big boss to get what they want, where everything is a transaction. It's always what have you done for me lately?

[00:25:58] Where you can piss that person off and lose every ounce of goodwill and sweat equity you've contributed to that point. It's terrible. That's a terrible way to run even a very small organization. To run the United States government that way is a travesty, especially in a world as unstable and fragile as this one. And I know that I'm preaching to the choir, but it is really hard for me to understand. This is where I think people's personal work experience should tell them I watched The Apprentice, and that's a bad way to do business. But people's personal work experience should make them look at Donald Trump and go, I would never want to work for someone like this. It runs a business into the ground for someone's ego to be the motivating factor of that business.

Sarah [00:26:48] Yeah. Well, I mean, that's what happened with Trump. That's what happened with his personal business. That's how he ended up on The Apprentice. It's just sadly that entertainment that we describe as reality became confusing for millions and millions of people because it is, in fact, not reality. It's television. It's the second word that's more important.

Beth [00:27:09] Well, that's what we are going into Election Day.

Sarah [00:27:12] I'm actually feeling much better. I'm feeling very positive. I am torn up on some level. But big picture, I'm actually feeling pretty good, Beth, I'm just going to put it out there.

Beth [00:27:23] This is how it's going to be, right?

Sarah [00:27:26] Yeah. Check back with me in like 3:00 this afternoon. It might be totally different story.

Beth [00:27:30] This is the thing, the last two weeks before the election, you just have to know, like, your vibes about it are going to be all over the place. If you pay attention and you care about this stuff, you're going to be all over the place. It's going to be an emotional roller coaster. You're going to think everyone's headlines are terrible, and the stories that they're choosing to print are the dumbest, and why did you tweet that that way? And everything feels like it matters, especially when the polls tell you that it's on a knife's edge. And probably it is. Maybe it is. I don't know. I think any outcome is still possible. So I just think we just have to know that kind of what you would tell your kids. Sometimes this feeling means you need to eat. Sometimes it means you need to put the phone down. Sometimes it means you need to walk. But a lot of our feelings two weeks out, one week out from the election are just not real. They're just feelings.

Sarah [00:28:19] Relevant, but not reality.

Beth [00:28:21] They are present for us and they matter and we should respond to them, but we should also have some perspective on them. So we wanted to calibrate in another way by bringing our husbands in. We could spend the rest of this episode speculating and digging through polling. But instead, we wanted to look at one of the trends that all that election data has put in front of us, and that is that men and women are feeling differently about this election. So Saturday morning we gathered up the Pantsuit Politics husbands on Zoom.

Sarah [00:28:52] All four of them.

Beth [00:28:53] All for all four of them. And said, what do you think, guys? And that conversation is up next.

[00:28:58] Music Interlude.

Sarah [00:29:05] Hello, everyone. Welcome to the first ever Pantsuit Politics Husbands Roundtable. We have invited our entire team's spouses here to the podcast to talk about this election. We're going to let them introduce themselves, who they're married to, of course. But we would like to know more about you than that. And we'll start with Kevin.

Kevin Napp[00:29:27] Good morning. I'm Kevin Napp, I'm married to Alise and we live in North Carolina. So we've had the opportunity to actually vote already. So I know a big part of this morning's conversation is around who we are voting for or who are likely voting for. So we have already voted. I voted for Kamala Harris, and my background growing up, fairly conservative. And there's been a lot of changes and views in how I thought about politics and elections and candidates over the last-- I think really last 10 years. And I'm sure we'll get more into that later.

Chad Silvers [00:30:04] Hi, I'm Chad Silvers. I have been on the show several times with Beth, mostly talking about fun things like golf and Survivor. I am from a super small town Kentucky. I went to the University of Kentucky and still live in Kentucky with Beth, Northern Kentucky. I have been consternating Beth for a while, complaining about both candidates and both parties. So this ought to be fun today.

Daniel Penton [00:30:31] I'm Daniel Penton. I'm married to Maggie Penson. My hometown is Stone Mountain, Georgia. I joined the U.S. Coast Guard pretty soon after graduating high school. I did a little bit of college first, but I went to the Coast Guard, started doing taekwondo, took over at Taekwondo School in Titusville, Florida, after getting moved around by the Coast Guard. I became a world champion martial artist, and then I really became politically active more in 2016. Also came from a very conservative background. I voted for George W Bush in 2004. I wish I could take that one back. And in 2016-- well, I remember the exact moment that I became politically active is when I was watching the RNC convention and Donald Trump said, "I alone can fix it." If he had said that the American people could fix it, that'd be one thing. But he said he alone could fix it. And that's when I knew he had at least authoritarian aims, if nothing else. And so we actually reached out and volunteered with the Hillary Clinton campaign and had her staging area for the Get Out to Vote campaign running through our House in 2016. So that's how far I've switched from one side to another.

Nicholas Holland [00:31:42] My name is Nicholas Holland. I was not raised in a conservative household. I was raised in Georgia as Daniel was, in Decatur, which is in the [inaudible] county, which is one of many counties which might help to decide this election. I have never voted for a Republican for state or federal office. I don't think. In my memory I door knocked for John Kerry. My first election was when I could vote, was 2000. So imagine that being your introduction to electoral politics as a voter. And to give you more about my politics, maybe a little bit better view is the last time there was a meaningful Democratic primary, I voted for Elizabeth Warren. I'm married to Sarah Holland. I've been on the podcast a few times. I've been on her Instagram a few dozen thousand times.

Chad Silvers [00:32:30] You're the guy carrying the bags in the photos, right?

Nicholas Holland [00:32:35] Yeah, mostly. I always have the backpack straps on.

Daniel Penton [00:32:40] They keep us around to carry heavy things, right? What else are we supposed to do?

Sarah [00:32:44] That's right. Thank you for your introductions and a little bit about your politics. This election, I think in particular, is so interesting. The very other many men in my life, Griffin Holland, who I talk politics a lot, is already frustrated with the conservative bent of both candidates. And so I'm wondering, as you both people who have a strong conservative background, Nicholas doesn't, how are you feeling about in particular sort of the more conservative posturing of Kamala Harris and the toughness, the tough on crime, the tough on immigration, the-- I don't want to say masculine, but the very conservative orientation of both candidates often around issues.

Daniel Penton [00:33:43] I would like to jump in and just say that I feel like Donald Trump represents a very particular kind of masculinity that I grew up with as a kind of masculinity that recognizes two acceptable emotions for men to feel or express. The acceptable emotions for men under this framework are anger and dominance. And Donald Trump has spent his entire public persona trying to demonstrate those two emotions at varying degrees of success. If you are dominant, then you're a real man. And if you're not dominant, then you should be angry about that for whatever reason. It's a pretty constipated way to go through the world, to live your life just emotionally constipated. There's so many emotions that are left on the table to be experienced. But at the same time, I think that Kamala Harris is by virtue of being a black woman, going to seem more liberal to anyone who's looking at her and not listening to her.

[00:34:50] And so she's talking to the conservative side to show that she is actually much more moderate. And that was her problem in in 2020, was that she is a law and order Democrat. And that's not an election that we wanted. We just had George Floyd-- my brother objects to this, but I call it a lynching. If the state executes someone in public, it's a lynching. Without trial. That's the issue. And we weren't we weren't hungry for that in 2020. But I think that there is an appetite for that right now. But I do think that there's some interesting gender dynamics going on there.

Chad Silvers [00:35:31] I agree with Daniel's assessment. I think Kamala Harris has triangulated at this point that there just isn't a lot of energy for a lot of the social issues that drove a lot of Donald Trump's first term and a lot of the beginning of Biden's first term. And focusing on those issues doesn't win the voters that she's looking to vote to turn around the undecided voters. Because right now the big issues in this election for reasons that are somewhat a mystery-- not a mystery, but they remain so salient even though many of them are abating as we speak. It's the economy. It's inflation. It's jobs. It's the housing market. And so that's what she's talking about. That's what all of her policy proposals are focused on, is economic stuff. And I think it definitely rubs a certain subset of her base the wrong way. I think Sarah alluded to it with Griffin. There's just a sense that she's not talking about transgender issues. She's not really talking about race issues. She's not talking about women's issues except for abortion. She's not talking about equal pay or anything like that. Abortion's big because it does drive voters. It does drive women voters. But other than that, the focus which she does in spurts, most of what she's talking about is your kitchen table issues. And that's really what most of what Donald Trump's talking about, too; although, he's also driving the fear narrative of the last transgender stuff and wokeism, anti-wokeism stuff. That does fit his base.

Kevin Napp [00:37:11] I think it's also interesting to see the number of Republicans or former Republicans that are campaigning or on the campaign trail or TV ads that focus on that idea as well. I'm not sure how effective that will end up being. And I've seen some writing on even within the party of disagreement on that strategy, too. But it'll be interesting to see what, if any, effect that strategy has in the long run.

Sarah [00:37:39] I bet you think why a few ads in North Carolina, Kevin.

Kevin Napp [00:37:41] A lot? Absolutely. Yeah, a lot. And a lot within the message of I used to believe this, I used to vote for this and now voting for Kamala or have a big change. So, yeah, we'll see. We'll see what that does.

Beth [00:37:56] We have a bunch of listeners right now who are just really frustrated that they spend so much time trying to understand people who disagree with them. We have a lot of women who spend so much time looking at these gender gap stories thinking, how can I help? What do I do here? And they feel like there is no reciprocation of that whatsoever. That no one on the right is sitting around going, wonder why people are voting for Kamala Harris the way people on the left sit down and agonize over why people are voting for Donald Trump. They don't think that many men are sitting around going, "How do I help women after the fall of Roe," the way that women are sitting around taking in stories about gender gaps and going, "Oh my gosh, are the boys okay? What do we need to do differently?" I just wonder what your experience is of that, if you all see it the same way?

Kevin Napp [00:38:50] It's a really good question. Again, not for all, but I think for some there is a high level of boiling their decision on how to vote down to some really basic and often I think very like self-centered items. So if there is an idea that by voting for Donald Trump that, for right or for wrong, if this is right or wrong, that the economy is better and therefore I'm making more money or my business is better or my portfolio is better than I can turn a blind eye to everything else and just go that direction. Also on that self-centered lens, you're right I don't think that that same conversation and dialog is happening or that there's a care or a concern for it, too. And I wish there were some more conversations around that and more engagement. But yeah, I think as much saturation as there is right now in terms of media and ads and conversations, I don't know that it penetrates as deeply as we think that it always does.

Chad Silvers [00:39:56] Yeah, I think it's a tough question because I think it gets into people's motives a little bit. I think the candidates drive that to some degree. Which is to say, if you're voting for Donald Trump, he's telling you you're doing that because you're going to make America great again. He's telling you're doing that because the other side they are a bunch of idiots. They're morons. They've ruined everything. They're going to ruin this country.

Daniel Penton [00:40:20] And they're evil.

Nicholas Holland [00:40:21] Right. And so I think there probably is less good faith because I think Donald Trump represents a very, very right wing part of the party. I think they give almost no quarter to sort of dissent or like a decision like, oh, it won't be so bad if she wins. It won't be the end of the world if she wins. Everybody has to act sort of at the same level. I guess I think is driven by the party. The reason that there's not a reciprocation there is because there's a belief that voting for Donald Trump is inherently right, voting for the other party, is inherently evil, wrong or whatever. And I do think that that that sort of heightened rhetoric does come out of the left to some degree. And I think that's part of what hurts us now is that we were having that same rhetoric when Trump was running in 2020 or 2016. And depending on your opinion, I guess, the world didn't end. There was a lot of rhetoric in 2016 that and thought it was right, but Donald Trump's going to you know in the federal government as we know it.

[00:41:33] A lot of his lesser worst instincts were dampened by staff who were like, wait, we can't do that. And so the fear now, of course, is he's not going to hire those people. He's not going to hire John Kelly. He's not going to take the advice of anybody on the Hill about who he should hire. He's going to hire his people and they're going to do his bidding and he's going to run through there. But I think there is a little bit of that sense and people who are going to vote for him or thinking seriously about voting for him and decided you guys told us it was going to be terrible last time and it wasn't. And then we elected Joe Biden and have you seen grocery prices lately? And voting for Joe Biden was actively bad for me because now I can't afford to go out to dinner with my family and not spend $150 or whatever. So there really is, I think, a subset of people who say it wasn't as bad as I said under Trump the first time. They kind of have Covid foggy memories. And their [inaudible] bias is it's been bad under Joe Biden.

Chad Silvers [00:42:34] Yeah. I like to think that one of the faults or fumbles with the Democratic Party maybe going back three cycle is the hyperbole about how bad somebody is. Calling your candidate evil or spreading that message, it doesn't stick because like you said, Nicholas, it proves to be maybe not as extreme as maybe they let on to be or they tried to position it as. I like to think a lot about why people do the messaging they do. And your comment about the grocery prices. I think that some of the most effective advertising that has been in this election is here's the cost of whatever, and is it worse? Now the problem is either candidate going to fix that directly? Is voting one way or the other going to make the price of your average grocery visit cheaper? Probably not.

Daniel Penton [00:43:43] But it doesn't matter.

Chad Silvers [00:43:44] That's right.

Daniel Penton [00:43:45] But it doesn't matter because every time this happens, Donald Trump says everything is terrible, everything is so bad. And as soon as he's getting elected, then he's going to flip this. And actually, no, everything is great. Now I'm in power. He always does this. Or I see Republicans do this is. They're very effective at the liar's dividend. It's, well, you say that unemployment is at four, but actually there's so many people who've given up looking for work that the actual unemployment number is closer to ten. And then once they get elected, okay, unemployment's at four. They try to make everything seem worse so that they can get into power. And then they have amnesia about how bad it was because now they're in charge everything must be great. And I just think that Donald Trump just says who he is all the time. When he says that America is a hellhole, that's talking about his life. When people on the left don't understand why people on the right don't seem interested in trying to understand the Harris voter, there are just easy answers available in the Republican Party for why these people are like this.

[00:45:06] They want to murder babies. That's the obvious answer. They're bloodthirsty monsters. And that doesn't get passed through the filter of critical thinking in people's brains. They don't think, wait a minute, you mean half the people in America are bloodthirsty monsters? They don't think that. They're just, oh, okay. Yeah, liberals are bloodthirsty monsters who want to murder babies. And that's their fallback whenever you push them on their positions. They can't back up any of the policy decisions that they agree with. They just will fall back to, well, it's because of abortion and I don't agree with murdering babies. I don't either, what are we doing? What are we talking about? It is quite frustrating. And with the prices, their groceries are more expensive because there's a war in Ukraine and grain price. There's so many things going on that I point right back to Donald Trump and say this was his doing and now he's made a mess and blaming the other side for it. And it's very effective. I agree, Chad. It's very effective.

Kevin Napp [00:46:11] But it also goes back and also goes back to the media narrative, which is Kamala Harris needs to have specific policies to show what she's going to do about grocery prices. And Donald Trump could say, I'm going to slash energy prices 50 percent in my first 30 days in office with no actual plan to do so. And even if he did have a plan, it would be a fairy tale. And he's reported as Donald Trump says he's going to do X, Y, Z, and he had this roundtable and they talked about energy prices. And his responses are gibberish. But she goes and she gives a plan. Is it a good plan? I think it certainly could be debated. Is it a plan that reduces the deficit? Probably not. If that's important to you. But it's a plan. And when she fumbles it a little bit or she doesn't have specifics, that's the media narrative about her. Which I think is kind of Daniels point to some degree earlier, which is the media is maybe seeing this as a horse race or maybe making it a horse race because they're not really reporting this equally. But Donald Trump's just a uniquely frustrating candidate, I think, for all Democrats in a way.

Daniel Penton [00:47:22] Because he's so profitable for the media. That's the problem. I feel like Ukraine is the most important issue that we're not talking about because I think that if Donald Trump is elected then he'll flip our policy position and back Russia, which is the most likely path to either World War Three or to Europe falling. My dad was stationed in Germany during the Soviet regime in the 70s and he had orders to die in place. And the only intention was to slow down the Soviet advance because Russia had this plan that if they could take Europe in eight days, then they could hold it. And if they couldn't take it in eight days, then they couldn't hold it. And so the American plan with the German base was to hold. If you can slow them down for 12 hours, 24 hours, by us time to get reinforcements, then we can stop the Soviets. And I see Vladimir Putin as a Soviet operative who's trying to restore the Russian empire by any means necessary. And if Donald Trump is elected, then we'll either have to decide if we're going to back up our NATO allies because he's not stopping with Ukraine or he'll just take Europe. Those are the options that are available. It's how I see it. Now, it's an open question. The Soviet Union is gone. I don't think that Russia is as powerful as the Soviet Union was. I think that Europe's got a lot of things going for it. But now we're talking about a conversation about military strategy, and we're not talking about trans issues. You see what I mean?

Sarah [00:49:02] Yeah. Well, I wonder, Kevin, I know you work in higher ed, how often is it defined that clearly-- Daniels military background. I'm sure inside his family a known quantity everybody understands that background. How often, Chad and Kevin, do you feel like it comes down to sort of like whatever you feel in the conversation is the easiest way to put some framework around this? I feel like that's what I do. I say, well, I only understand it through the lens of being a political podcast co-host or I think about it as a mom or I think but I think we all do this. But I wonder, [inaudible] different backgrounds, how often that comes up?

Kevin Napp [00:49:42] Yeah, for sure. And I think most of my conversations at work probably tend to be more hesitant is probably the best word for a lot of reasons. I mean, part of that's personality, too, to be honest, right? I'm not walking into my workday and ready for a political fight every day. But I can I can think of two recent conversations where I waited for the right moment and then was able to have a very open civil conversation around politics and learned a lot about some coworkers and honestly pleasantly surprised on one and then a little bit concerned on the other. I think that that cautious approach has opened up more dialog than coming in with a hard stance and a fight mentality almost. But it's interesting. I mean, one coworker that I talked to you about this recently described Donald Trump as the asshole that we needed. And that was my opening. I was like what do you what do you mean by that? Why do you think that? And then through that, they were able to like articulate why I didn't feel that way and why that's important to me based on my faith and my family and other reasons. So yeah, in a work setting, there is absolutely a level of neutrality, not only from me keeping the peace mentality among coworkers, but also just as a position within education. And that bleeds over. So like as a entity not wanting to alienate a consumer or alienate a prospective student, that then bleeds over, I think, into the interpersonal side of your coworkers, too.

Sarah [00:51:30] Yeah. I was going to say I can't believe they haven't put the asshole we need it on a t-shirt yet, but I bet you it is somewhere, Kevin. We could find that t-shirt. I bet we could. The other thing I wanted to ask as I was looking at on our little squares on the zoom, I realize we have two fathers of daughters and two fathers of sons, which is interesting. Kevin, this is your first election as a parent, right?

Kevin Napp [00:51:54] It is, yes.

Sarah [00:51:55] Yeah. The Presidential. So I wonder as you think about that, it makes me a little teary, when our kids are voting in their first presidential, do we think it's still going to be like this? Do you think it's still going to be this masculine, feminine gender divide? Because the gender divide is growing in polling data. That's not a media driven narrative. That's just the reality. It's that the divide is growing. And I think as a mother of sons, I think about this a lot. This message, this type of masculinity that Donald Trump offers is landing, and particularly it seems like for some young men. And I wonder how you guys think about that as dads and where you think we're going and maybe, I don't know, make me feel better so I'm not so verklempt about what it's going to look like. Although I'm acting like my son's first presidential election is so far away, I guess, and it's not. The next one is going to be Griffin's that's going to be voting. Help me. Okay. That's my question. Help me.

Kevin Napp [00:53:06] It's a really big question. And we could probably spend another hour or two just on Daniel back to what you were saying earlier. Just on the, I don't know, call it a shift or how we were raised in regards to faith and politics. I think that is a big part of this conversation. Again, we don't have time to get into all of that, but that's where my mind initially goes Sarah When you ask that question of what does it look like for our kids in the next generation? And I think it does start with how we talk about politics and faith and work at home and then how those things coalesce and come together. Because for me it doesn't start with voting for Trump or not voting for Trump. It starts with the party and where that has gone as the starting point and unwrapping so much of that. Right. And I think for a lot of negative reasons so much of my growing up there was so much connection and ties to faith, church and politics and politician, and breaking those apart has taken a long time. But I hope that that will continue we raise our kids.

[00:54:15] So I think there certainly are some concerning things that I think about once I look at the world and look at the messaging and look at how we define and talk about masculinity and how I think about that and the ways that I was influenced by that. And I'm not saying that was all from the home, there was ways from school and from church and from media and from the things that I consumed. But I'm not just saying this. I probably feel more optimistic about some of those things because I also see how this next generation of parents are parenting their kids. And maybe it's just the circles that I run in, but I feel encouraged by a lot of the ways that I'm seeing some of those messages change around toxic masculinity and what we talk about with our sons, what we allow them to do or see or play with. So again, there's I'm getting into. I'm probably talking too high arching here. But yeah, I would say this, there's more positives in terms of I think how we can change that narrative around masculinity and what that looks like in the future.

Sarah [00:55:23] Well, that gives me hope. You work with young people. If you feel hopeful, that seems like a good sign.

Kevin Napp [00:55:27] It takes time to work, I'll say that, but it's there. Yeah, I think the building blocks are there.

Daniel Penton [00:55:33] And it's a really promising sign that the most popular couple in the world right now is in a situation where she is way richer, more famous and more powerful than he is. I'm talking about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, and he is not intimidated by her success.

Sarah [00:55:54] It's true. And in a very masculine field.

Daniel Penton [00:55:56] In a very masculine field. He is not less of a man because she is so successful and rich and powerful. And I think that that's very important to see. It's good to see. And I think that that would be-- if I was something about like looking for examples of more positive masculinity the way that Travis and Jason talk about everything, they don't put each other down. They don't put other teams down on their show. They are trying to have better conversations than I'm the best. You're the worst. I'm dominant. All of that.

Sarah [00:56:37] Well, and Daniel gave his tell that he has girls because he was the first one to bring out Taylor Swift.

Daniel Penton [00:56:43] There you go.

Nicholas Holland [00:56:45] Yeah. But I also think not to be a bad improv partner, but the real issue here is how does this election turn out and then how do the next four years turn out? Because let's say, for example, that Donald Trump gets elected and it's a debacle; he really does try to tear off everything and the reality of that is that prices for everything go up, which I don't think is going to happen because as soon as he realizes that will make him unpopular, he will back off on that altogether. He has no idea what he's going to do, first of all, in office because he doesn't know what's going to be popular day to day, which really is what drives him. But that part aside, it was a debacle. I think you see the end of Trump politics and that Trump wing of the party in a way. I also think you see the real end of Trump, the Trump party regardless, because no one can match Trump's energy and no one has Trump's charisma or willingness to lie, not even his running mate, not even all the pretenders. I don't think you'll ever see anyone do Trump politics like Trump does it. If he loses, he almost certainly if he's still alive I think will try to run again unless he is just drooling somewhere.

Sarah [00:58:02] He says he's not going to, Nicholas.

Nicholas Holland [00:58:03] Right. Believe him. There's a lot of pretenders in the wings, but I don't think any of them really have the make up for it, to really get up there and just bluster and be a moron.

Sarah [00:58:17] But the question is, even if they're faking it, how much do they use that masculine framework? How much do they keep pushing this? Republican is the party for men and Democrats is the party for women. That's the question, right? That's what's going to affect our kids.

Chad Silvers [00:58:32] That's not a new thing. I mean, for decades, it's been f you need a father figure, it's the Republican Party. In times of international crisis, anything foreign policy, you think Republican.

Nicholas Holland [00:58:46] The tough guys are the Republicans. I think that's right. Yeah.

Chad Silvers [00:58:49] But I don't think this-- again, I like to try to see through things. Like Trump as the paragon of masculinity is frickin laughable to me.

Nicholas Holland [00:59:05] To you, but not to a lot of people.

Chad Silvers [00:59:07] If you think masculine like tough guy like this dude, no. No. And that's the part that's so frustrating. There's so much pretending going on. And I won't say that it's all on the Republican side, but the masculinity side, the conservative Christian side, I cannot believe that so many people have been fooled or fall into believing that this candidate and the other candidate surrogates that are out there preaching the same thing are ones that believe in their values or that is the tough guy that they think that the voter thinks they are. It's just flabbergasting.

Beth [00:59:58] I want to dig into that a little bit more with all of you, because what I am trying desperately to understand is why people are willing to pretend. I think you're right. There's a lot of pretending going on it, and I think everybody kind of knows it. Another thing that we're hearing from listeners right now is if I talk to my family and friends about something that they've posted that's false, I can show them a video. I can tell them I saw or heard it with my own eyes. And they just don't care that it's false. And I want to know what need is being met with all this pretending. Why do people want to look at Donald Trump as the paragon of masculinity or the second coming of Christ? I want to know what is motivating all this pretense.

Nicholas Holland [01:00:46] The leading thing for me is Trump knows that politics is entertainment to a large degree. And so we talk about we're pretending that Donald Trump's a tough guy, or people pretend Donald Trump is a tough guy, or people have this imagination that Donald Trump's a tough guy. Isn't that what we do in every movie? I mean, we watch a movie and there's tough guys on the screen. Those tough guys are actors. A lot of these guys went to acting school. A lot of those guys were theater kids, okay? They didn't grow up tough guys, but we believe it because it's on screen. And that's kind of what Donald Trump knows, is that if he cannot project that image, projecting it is often enough. And I think to the other question, Beth, or maybe the other part of question is I think people want easy answers. It's why conspiracy theories are so popular. It's why someone who says I can fix it is appealing because it's not fun or appealing-- and Kamala Harris has learned some of this, but not all of this. It's not fun or appealing to hear somebody give a three or four minute speech on how complicated something is.

Sarah [01:01:50] That's why people listen to our show. What are you talking about?

Beth [01:01:52] I was going to say don't take down our business model, Nicholas.

Nicholas Holland [01:01:56] But that's what people want to hear. They want to hear this is easy, I know how to do it. I'm not going to tell you right now, but that plan is there. We have a concept of a plan of how we're going to fix health care. And it carried him through a term almost. Without Covid, there's a decent chance he gets re-elected. I really think that. I mean, it was close enough.

Sarah [01:02:18] Well, is there an undercurrent of masculinity there that it's like paradoxically meeting a need and telling you that is the need, that someone should be able to fix it. That there should be a simple solution. Men can fix it. Men can find the simple solution. Men are fixers, right? Except for, I guess, Olivia Pope. But I think that standard of the right person, a.k.a. a man, can come in and see how simple it is and see how easy it is with just enough strength and authority to fix these things that other people tell us are complicated, don't you think that's part of what he's feeding? Is that kind of a metanarrative?

Daniel Penton [01:02:57] For sure. Part of the problem right now in America is that people are on their phones and when they're on their phones, they're isolating themselves. Phones are isolation machines. And if you asked me right now how to instantly become part of a group that would accept me, all I would have to do is put on a red hat and walk down the street. It creates an immediate culture community of people not to fix problems, but to belong to something. That's the problem I need to fix. It's my sense of purpose, meaning identity. It's something that I have to define. And he has created a way for me to put on a red hat and become part of something immediately. I don't have to wrestle with what it means. I can let him tell me. You know what I mean? Whatever he says is fine. Whatever he says is right. Dan Carlin [sp] was talking about this type of phenomenon, but he was talking about it back in Hitler's Germany. It's called purism, where whatever the Führer says is right and everyone just goes along with whatever the Führer says. And I think that that's where the Republican Party under Donald Trump is. Is he's the Führer and whatever he says, if he says this crowd size is the biggest, it's the biggest. If he says it's this, if the sky is green, the sky is now green. Whatever he says they're going to go for because it keeps them in that identity space where they get to belong to something. They get to believe in something. They get to have a mission and a purpose.

Kevin Napp [01:04:41] Now, there's a lot of disaffected young men who don't have huge friend groups and don't have a lot of purpose. And it gives them that purpose and then they can go and they can listen to the podcast they listen to. I think it's interesting that one of the things that you see in comedy in particular right now is a swing to sort of being edged Lordi. Like the Theo Vons of the world and all these people who are, you know. And they're using comedy, but it's also subversive in a right leaning way. It's a little bit racist, but it's okay because we're all in on it and we've got somebody here who's willing to go along and laugh at the same jokes. I think you look at shows like Kill Tony. I don't know if any of you guys watch any of this stuff, but it's very much giving people permission to just be a little bit racist. And I think there's that and that's connected to Joe Rogan, it's connected to MMA, and then it's then connected to the MAGA movement, so to speak. There's a subculture of it.

Daniel Penton [01:05:47] Yeah. I think it's also hitting in need of like emotional security. I don't know that they would define it that way, but the idea that even if I know this is false or I disagree with it, then I really have to dig deep into what I believe. And then how are those beliefs going to unwind? And it's easier to unengaged. It's easier to not acknowledge the truth of the statement, the video, the proposition of whatever, and continue on. Because once you start unwrapping some of what a candidate says, it's going to take time and effort to then really dig down to like, all right, what do I believe? And then how does that change what I've been taught, who I voted for in the past, what my family thinks, what my friends think about me. So, yeah, there's a lot of emotional work there that I think a lot of folks, men or women, are just not going to engage with. And it's a lot easier to continue on and to ignore that work.

Beth [01:06:48] So I would love to know, stepping back from these two candidates, in the year 2024, I would just love to hear from each of you. What is one message that you would really love to hear from a candidate just for you personally? Not I think this would be resonant or I think it would be effective with the general populace. But just for you, what is one thing that you'd like to hear from a candidate that would really be meaningful?

Chad Silvers [01:07:16] I've got two things I would love to hear from a candidate. I think the first one is that it's not about me. I think the jump into identity politics has been a big part of the downfall of the process. Both sides. The other thing is, stop giving your money to campaigns too much. Again, just checked, I just looked we've been on for just under an hour; I've got three emails and two text messages. I'm not kidding.

Nicholas Holland [01:07:47] Chad, it's Kamala.

Sarah [01:07:49] That is Kamala. It's Tim Walz.

Chad Silvers [01:07:51] No. I'm in some circles of hell where I've--

Nicholas Holland [01:07:53] Chad, it's Tom Massie.

Chad Silvers [01:07:55] I am in some circle of hell where I'm on both sides’ lists. I get them both. it's horrible, guys. It's horrible.

Daniel Penton [01:08:03] Stop. Unsubscribe.

Chad Silvers [01:08:06] Seriously, there's too much money in it and too much asking of the populace for money to run these campaigns. It should not cost this much. Wait, wait. Hold on. Am I talking about groceries or am I talking about a campaign? We may never know.

Sarah [01:08:25] We're in a race to the top now. I mean, even with Elon, even with the big dollar donors, the money they're giving is just getting higher and higher and higher. And then the small dollar donors is getting higher and higher. We're in a race to the top. We're going get to Mars before we reach the top of the fundraising.

Chad Silvers [01:08:41] But in all seriousness, I want someone to say that it is not about me it is about governing and running the country. I want a candidate that once elected, I will not hear from them because they are doing their damn job.

Daniel Penton [01:08:57] Hallelujah. I was going to piggyback on what Chad said specifically, and I think these are two issues that would just be big losers for a Democrat to come out and say. It's not about me, and it's not about your identity. I think that Chad's point that identity politics is failing is right. Because right now the only unprotected class in America is white males. And you know I can't put on a shirt "boy power" or "white boy power". I can't do that.

Sarah [01:09:39] Please don't do that.

Daniel Penton [01:09:40] That's not acceptable. But I could put anything else on a shirt as a protected class, and it would be acceptable walking down the street. And I think that's where men feel left behind; is that we're constantly told that everything is our fault. We've done everything that is wrong. White people are wrong. Men are wrong. White men are the most wrong. And I would love for us to all care about each other regardless of how we show up in the world. So that's one thing that I would love to hear, is that we are cared about as American citizens. That's the most important identity for us to have, not our personality or individual choices. And then the other thing that I think is a total loser but I would love to hear, is that interest rates have gone up and federal spending needs to decrease because we can't borrow like we were borrowing when interest rates were near zero and continue to have a well-functioning government. We have to be financially responsible and not burden future generations with unnecessary debt that is certain to come from this season. I feel so strongly that no one is ever going to say that in this type of campaign season. But if they said those things, that would be like a bomb to my soul.

Kevin Napp [01:11:19] My answer is less policy driven. But a candidate that is more self-aware and has like a self-aware message of both the party and themselves, that hits home for me and other circles, right? Like advertising or ads out there that recognize where they are within the market and can speak to that like in an honest and authentic way goes a long way for me. And I think a candidate that would go a long way as well, like understanding of faults and weaknesses and can speak to that and can articulate well how to address those things or fix those things and approach that in a way that is that is true, direct and honest, which again, is obviously like rare and almost nonexistent in politics. But yeah, I think that that messaging would be refreshing in a way that-- back to my comment earlier, I think there are folks out here at least in Trump's earlier elections that wanted something completely new and completely different. And then what we got was, yes, was that. But also so damaging and so harmful in so many ways.

Nicholas Holland [01:12:59] So I think there still is an appetite for new and for fresh. But how can we do that in a real, authentic, genuine way that is not Trump. I think a couple of things primarily I think I want politicians, all of them really, to start being honest with American people about where we are on certain issues, because one of the biggest things that really is coming down the pipe is a crisis in Social Security. Everybody always says it's always far off. It's always a lie that the results, you know. But it's not right now. It's a real problem. And it's coming for us and someone's going to have to do something and it's going to have to be a bipartisan solution and it's going to have to involve some pain for Americans. And I don't think anybody wants to face that reality or say that out loud right now. Everyone is ignoring it. No one is talking about it. It is not even a blip on the radar. There's one story in the last few weeks of what Donald Trump's proposing would bankrupt Social Security in six years or something along those lines, as of my recollection. The truth is Social Security is not on great footing now. And something has to be done. And it probably is going to involve some combination of cutting benefits, extending the retirement age and increasing taxes. And nobody wants to be caught with a hot potato, but someone's going to have to be. So I think what Kamala has done in some of her proposals its going to increase the deficit. What Donald Trump has proposed in a lot of his policies is going to increase the deficit probably more. And there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of energy for this sort of deficit hawkness that might have been there on either side right now. Because if Donald Trump says we're going to do it, the Republican Party goes okay and they don't worry about the consequences. But they're coming.

Chad Silvers [01:14:22] Yeah. Neither party wants to do anything that's going to keep them from winning an election. They're in the business of winning elections. And it's not thinking about the country or the population overall. Nobody's looking forward. You can't take anything away from people.

Kevin Napp [01:14:39] Yeah, but it's going to come.

Daniel Penton [01:14:41] I mean, look what happened to Macron.

Sarah [01:14:42] Yeah. That's what I was going to say. We can watch how it goes in France and see if we learn any lessons there.

Chad Silvers [01:14:47] Fair enough.

Daniel Penton [01:14:47] You want your enemies in power? Adjust people's benefits. I was reading The New York Times I think it was after the DNC or after the debate, and there was a 77 year old couple and they were like, well, I didn't hear anything in there for me from Kamala. And I was blown away. You're 77. You're done. There should be nothing in there for you. You should be worried about the next generation. What do you mean there's nothing in there for me? You want to scoop up what's left? What are you talking about? I think this is the challenges. We have a what's in it for me mentality all the way up until we're dead. And it's like friends, what's in it for you is knowing that you set up the next generation to have it better than you got. Which is what you mentioned, being a parent. That's all I want for my girls. I want them to have it better than I got. I want them to have more opportunities than I had. I want them to be able to live the American dream. And to that extent, I do want there to be a woman president because I want my daughter to see one. Because when you see someone break the four minute mile, all of a sudden everyone can do it. When you see someone land on the moon, all of a sudden no one does that. That's fine. Moving on. We're going to do it again. Okay.

Nicholas Holland [01:16:17] Listen, we did it best.

Daniel Penton [01:16:18] We still could. We just lost an appetite for it.

Sarah [01:16:21] Thank you guys so much for coming on here. I think it's worth saying that Travis Kelce is not the only man out there supporting women killing it in their careers. We're so proud of our team. We're so proud of the work we do here. It takes a lot of flexibility. Like all of you getting asked at the last minute to take part in your Saturday and come here and talk with us about this. We're so, so appreciative for the roles all four of you play in Pantsuit Politics. And thanks for coming on the show.

Beth [01:16:53] Yeah. Thanks, guys.

Nicholas Holland [01:16:54] You bet. Anytime.

Chad Silvers [01:16:54] Absolutely.

Beth [01:17:04] Thank you Nicholas, Chad, Kevin and Daniel. It's a hard ask of people who are not in relationship with each other and who do not regularly air their political views to come speak so publicly. So we appreciate all of them for that. Sarah, we always end our episodes talking about what's on our minds Outside of Politics and what a gift from the universe that Halloween is right before Election Day. Be a little break. A little pause.

Sarah [01:17:30] I love Halloween. I'm entering a new Halloween era. Griffin's officially not trick or treating. He's 15. Amos is coming to the end.

Beth [01:17:41] Yeah.

Sarah [01:17:41] He's 13. Felix is nine, but we don't do family costumes anymore. Obviously, they don't need me to go around trick or treating with them. So I'm shifting from the trick or treating to the home where the trick or treaters come. And I've purchased a popcorn machine.

Beth [01:18:04] I love it.

Sarah [01:18:06] Very excited. We had a neighbor across the street who always did popcorn and Dippin’ Dots. It was super fancy.

Beth [01:18:12] That is fancy. Dippin’ Dots are expensive.

Sarah [01:18:14] They're expensive. I'm not doing that because I have kids to send to college. But they moved and I was like I think I would like to be the popcorn house.

Beth [01:18:23] Love it.

Sarah [01:18:24] For lots of reasons I have a beef with sugar and candy generally because I have a diabetic child. But even before then, I tried not to like-- I saw this Instagram where the mom was like just give them the candy. And I wanted to be like, sweetheart, that's so easy for you to say. Not easy in my house. And so I like the idea of, like, giving something else. A little fiber, just give something else in the mix there so people aren't puking or really off their rockers by the end of the evening. And I mean, honestly, I think it's going to end up being cheaper than Candy. Because I've got enough popcorn and bags for like 400, which I don't think I'll get two. And I'm like 60 bucks in. I couldn't get candy for 400 people for 60 bucks. No way.

Beth [01:19:09] Especially not this year. You know what happened with the cocoa fields in Africa? It's like chocolate is way, way expensive this year. I agree. So I've been running a little AB testing for a couple of years now by having a candy and a non-candy option. I'll have chips or Fruit Roll-Ups or something. The kids are always taking the non-candy option.

Sarah [01:19:30] I think so. I think you just want a little something, something. You know what I mean?

Beth [01:19:35] Yes. They want the candy, but they're getting it everywhere and so they like something else. So last year we did hot dogs, which was so fun. And so I'm just going to do hot dogs again this year. I don't even think I'm going to buy candy. Last year I passed out candy and offered the hot dog. I think this year I'm just going to go straight hotdogs, maybe some chips.

Sarah [01:19:52] I mean, I have some candy. Do you know where I get my candy from?

Beth [01:19:55] Your kids?

Sarah [01:19:56] The parades. Yeah, I have them gather all the candy during the parades, which is stupid. And I want us to stop doing that in case anybody wants to know my opinion on that. The throwing of the candy that just end up littering the streets. I hate it. I wish we'd stop, but I just have my kids gather up all the candy from the parade and then I pass them out on Halloween.

Beth [01:20:14] It's a good idea.

Sarah [01:20:14] I don't feel bad about it either. At the Christmas parade, I'll keep all that candy and I'll put that piece in Easter Eggs. Thank you very much.

Beth [01:20:20] Well, I love sitting outside and handing things out and being by the fire. So I think this era it's sad in a way that they're done trick or treating, but it's way more fun to sit with your friends at the firepit than to loiter around.

Sarah [01:20:31] Yeah.

Beth [01:20:31] That's also true.

Sarah [01:20:33] Yeah. I'm really excited I don't have to like prompt them to say thank you, say trick or treat, blah blah blah. No. I'm excited. I'm really excited. I'm going to dress up like a witch. I got some wardrobe plans. I got some plans. I got some layering that I'm actually pretty excited about. I might end up looking more like Stevie Nicks than a witch, but there's a Venn diagram there, so it doesn't even matter.

Beth [01:20:53] All feels appropriate to me for this year, too. That feels like very much my vibe right now as well. We are celebrating Halloween as well with adults because I think that's the funnest way to celebrate Halloween. So we had our murder mystery party this weekend. I did a Christmas one last year. I intended to do one at the pool this summer and I just did not get my act together that. I have no better excuse than that. I just didn't get it done. So I thought, well, how about Halloween? Which turned out to be very fun. So it was about 25 people. That's probably too many. I would not recommend going that if you're considering murder mystery.

Sarah [01:21:26] I thought that seemed too big.

Beth [01:21:28] It was a lot of characters to keep straight. It was fun. I enjoyed it very much. I won't do another one that big again.

Sarah [01:21:33] Okay. What do you think is peak number?

Beth [01:21:35] Ten.

Sarah [01:21:36] Okay. Makes sense.

Beth [01:21:38] Yeah. Because you want to really dig into the story. And when you got so many people, there are necessarily a lot of storylines and it's just gets confusing. But it was still really fun. The biggest thing that was reinforced by this party that we learned with the first one is everybody just has to go hard. It's not fun if anybody's weird about it. Like you just have to go hard. One of my neighbors who was new to the murder mystery scene with us, his role was to be like the town conspiracy theorist. And so, honest to God, about 20 minutes before the party, he shows up at my house and with binoculars looking around the street and then digging through the bushes. And it was hilarious and awesome. And that's the spirit that you got to bring into it.

Sarah [01:22:23] Okay. You want people to go all in.

Beth [01:22:26] All the way in, totally unselfconscious. Don't have conversations out of character, just go for it.

Sarah [01:22:35] Okay This is helpful because I think maybe I want to do one at Christmas, but I got to think about this. Who would be all in. That's helpful.

Beth [01:22:42] And people will surprise you. People you would think won't go all in we'll do it. Like especially if you have kind of an anchor or a couple of people who really go for it, they just bring everybody else along. But it was so wonderful to have this party this weekend and not talk about the election and not talk about work and not talk about how busy the kids are or about school. It is so lovely to have a party devoid of small talk. Here's what I'm telling you. A party with no small talk is amazing. I had a bunch of people here this time who didn't know each other. And so we play the game and we get to the end of it where the mystery has been solved and we've given our prizes out and everything, and then those people who didn't know each other had a really easy way to meet each other because they could reflect on this experience we all just shared.

Sarah [01:23:33] Okay, that makes sense.

Beth [01:23:34] And it didn't have to be awkward small talk. It's great. I can't endorse it highly enough.

Sarah [01:23:41] I love it. I think that's great. I do really want to try it. I'm getting a little bored with the parties I've done every year. And as I'm entering this new phase of parenting, I'm ready to shake it up. I'm ready to do some different things. Because I've done the first day school, last day of school, Christmas open house. I've perfected them. They involve little effort, but they're also kind of boring because I do the same thing every year. You know what I mean? Like there's no creative challenge. Boring is probably not the right word. The parties themselves aren't boring. I'm happy all my people are there, but there's no creative challenge. And I probably would have gone more into the creative challenge if diabetes hadn't zapped a lot of my creative energy. But now that we're getting a little bit closer on that and I can kind of breath a little bit more, I'd like to do some different gatherings.

Beth [01:24:24] I'm trying to think about what else I can do because I don't want to over rely on this to the point where it's not fun anymore. But I'm with you. I want to have a gathering that has some fun on the front end too, where I'm kind of puzzling through like how do we make this special and feel different than your ordinary get together?

Sarah [01:24:41] Happy Halloween, y'all.

Beth [01:24:43] Happy Halloween. I hope it's so fun out there for everybody. I hope everybody gets good weather. I hope you have cooperative children. I hope your children go to sleep after Halloween. We have to trick or treat and then go to school the next day. Is that your situation, too?

Sarah [01:24:54] I know it's a tough one. Then we have the four day weekend now.

Beth [01:24:58] Yes.

Sarah [01:24:58] So it's kind of a fake out. So, at least there's that.

Beth [01:25:01] Bless all the teachers who are dealing with that. It's a situation.

Sarah [01:25:03] Ain't that the truth.

Beth [01:25:05] Everybody have a great Halloween. Thank you for being here with us today. We really hope this episode was helpful to you. We would love for you to share it with friends. We'll be back with you on Friday. We are starting to book some speaking engagements for 2025 and just wanted to put a bug in your ear about that. Please remember that we do a lot of speaking that's not about politics, but it's about disagreement and conflict and building relationships. And we think post-election, that's going to all be pretty important no matter what happens in this race. Stretching into 2025, disagreement, conflict, building relationships are going to be critical. So if you'd like to get on our schedule, please reach out to Alise Napp, our managing director. Her contact information is in the show notes, too. Everybody, have the best week before the election and Halloween week available to you.

[01:25:47] Music Interlude.

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

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

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

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

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