This is BANANAS

The fever swamps are all of our reality right now

Finding Peace in a Divided America: Join Our 30-Day Meditation Series

We are interrupting our regular newsletter to invite you to join our Reimagining Citizenship Meditation Series.

Sarah and I live in very different parts of Kentucky -- but in both Paducah and Union, we hear the same stresses that we hear from listeners all over the country and the world. People are worried that America is losing its way. They’re worried that they can’t talk to their neighbors. They’re worried about what information they can trust. They’re tired and mad and sad about the headlines.

That's why we've created Reimagining Citizenship, a series of meditations to help us all put our feet on the ground and find some inspiration and peace this summer. For a couple of minutes each day in the 30 days leading up to July 4, Sarah and I (along with some friends of the pod we know you’ll love hearing from) will help you laugh, think, feel some warmth, and make some plans.

We’re excited for all of the discussions we think these meditations will generate. To keep that conversation healthy, we’re keeping it in our premium community. We’d love for you to join us.

Warmly,

Beth

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A New Test when the Headlines are Bananas

I’m running hot this week. I blame some combination of the luteal phase, the Presidents (current and former), and the atmospheric humidity. As I write these words, my heat is trained on and exacerbated by state testing happening in my daughters’ schools this week.

My kids are in 8th and 4th grade. You would think they’re taking the bar exam right now. My 4th grader, in particular, has gone from anxious to dark. She left the house this morning a shell of her usual self. No enthusiasm, no jokes. Her outfit made far too much sense; it lacked the je ne sais quoi we expect from Ellen. She just wants to go in and get the tests over with. She is particularly rankled that she finishes relatively quickly and then has to sit still. She’s not allowed to read a book. She can’t chat with a friend. She asked about drawing on her scrap paper and was told that she absolutely may not. She has to sit silently doing nothing -- a skill that no part of her education has developed in her.

I am angry because, actually, giving Ellen a blank sheet of paper, a pencil, and an hour with no instructions would be the perfect test for her. I know she is my daughter and therefore my special snowflake…but let me tell you, Ellen can dream up something amazing with a blank sheet of paper and a pencil. That girl writes poems that Emily Dickinson would bless. She draws cartoons with complex storylines. She writes chapters that could slot into a great American novel. I’m angry because the test, at least as to my special snowflake, is measuring all the wrong things and ignoring all the things that will probably prove most meaningful to Ellen’s life.

This testing exercise and the rules and the stress it creates make me hot.

I don’t find relief from that heat in the news. Did you know that there’s a group called Veterans on Patrol recruiting people to attack Doppler radars? They think the National Weather Service is poisoning the sky. The Secretary of Health and Human Services is close to making measles endemic again. The President and his allies, including the Deputy Director of the FBI, talk about demons so often that Angelo Causone, who monitors misinformation, thinks we’ll all be talking about them soon: “It’s no longer an abstraction--it’s about straight-up demons. The fever swamps are all of our reality right now.”

There is a part of my brain (I believe it’s the prefrontal cortex) that, while hot, dismisses these stories, saying to myself some version of “you can’t fix stupid.” And then I calm down and say something equally condescending but less honest, like, “People struggle to make sense of rapid change, so they fill information vacuums with nefarious stories.” I congratulate myself for my graciousness until the next time I’m repeating this cursed cycle.

Sarah and I have been reviewing all the episodes we’ve made over the past ten years, one year at a time. We’re learning many lessons from this exercise. It’s been hard to recognize that we devoted way too much time and energy and emotion (especially emotion) to stories that didn’t have much impact in the long term. We also straight up ignored stories that are still influencing our politics and culture.

For too long, I have maintained a mental file labeled “bananas,” where stories go to die. Can you believe they think the Doppler radars are poisoning the sky? BANANAS. And I’m done! That’s my sophisticated, grace-filled analysis!

I have meticulously measured a lot of wrong things while ignoring meaningful ones.

Whether I like it or not (I don’t), whether I understand it or not (not!), an awful lot of people are drawn to oppositional pursuits. An uncomfortable percentage of these people are not stupid. If otherwise labeling them racist, misogynist, Christian nationalist, xenophobic, etc., helped, then we’d probably not be staring down future demon discourse right now.

I want so badly for my next sentence to be: “So here are three bullet points on what we can do instead!” and lead each point with a pithy sentence in bold-face type. I would like to be able to share cheery, constructive action steps.

Instead, all I can tell you is that I’m trying to approach these stories differently, emphasizing the never-quite-realized Pantsuit Politics ideal of curiosity.

• What does it mean that so many people who serve the American government in battle never trust the American government again?

• How is vaccine hesitancy related to tech fatigue, bodily autonomy fights, and a sense that every atom in the universe is for sale?

• Why do we find each other so unpersuasive that it’s easier to blame supernatural forces than imagine that we disagree on the merits of any given argument?

• What can I do in any or all of this?

• What am I missing?

• What am I wrong about?

I’m trying to find a new test, one that resists choosing (d) BANANAS! I’m looking for a blank sheet of paper and a pencil and the time and quiet to dream up something amazing.

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Spicy Pantsuit Politics

Sarah and Beth discussed David Hogg’s controversial efforts to financially back primary challengers against older Democratic incumbents in “safe” districts. His comments about that effort are worth listening to.

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Something Nice to Take You Into the Weekend

What We’re Reading and Listening To This Week

• Sarah: How Joe Biden Handed the Presidency to Donald Trump (The New Yorker)

• Beth: Not Just More Babies: These Republicans Want More Parents at Home (The New York Times)

• Alise: Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry

• Maggie: Turkish Tufts University student released from immigration facility (BBC)

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