Trump Ends the Status Quo in Iran

What to make of Operation Midnight Hammer

Unlike most Americans, I did not have an anxious reaction to the U.S. bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities. Months of watching Iranian reaction (or lack thereof) to Israel’s attacks have shown me that Iran is not the muscular might we had all assumed for so long.

So, what does that mean? What else should I question?

Beth and I work through that and so much more on today’s episode. We question not only what we understood about Iran but also what assumptions are no longer accurate or helpful about the broader Middle East, the reality of 21st-century warfare, and Trump’s approach to foreign policy.

Luckily, we always have Outside of Politics to lighten it up. Although I don’t mind saying, we bring some real passion and intellectual rigor to the less globally impactful (but still personally important) topic of the fortieth anniversary of The Golden Girls, the show’s cultural legacy, and how it stacks up against Designing Women - another 80s female-centric sitcom.

Topics Discussed

• Operation Midnight Hammer and Iran’s Response

• Outside of Politics: Golden Girls and Designing Women

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Episode Resources

Pantsuit Politics Resources

• Smoking is the Gateway Drug to this Conversation (Spicy Pantsuit Politics)

Main Block Resources (Title Section)

• Operation Midnight Hammer: How the US conducted surprise strikes on Iran (Breaking Defense)

• Trump floats regime change in Iran, muddying the administration's message (Politico)

• Marjorie Taylor Greene post (X.com)

• Snap polls: More Americans oppose than support the U.S. bombing of Iran (YouGov)

• Opinion | Ehud Olmert on Israel’s Catastrophic War in Gaza (The Ezra Klein Show | The New York Times)

• Live Updates: Israel Pounds Tehran Amid Growing Calls for De-Escalation (The New York Times)

Golden Girls and Designing Women

• Betty White and Bea Arthur apparently had an ongoing feud on ‘Golden Girls,’ says producer (CNN)

Show Credits

Pantsuit Politics is hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers. The show is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our Managing Director and Maggie Penton is our Director of Community Engagement.

Our theme music was composed by Xander Singh with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima.

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This podcast and every episode of it are wholly owned by Pantsuit Politics LLC and are protected by US and international copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws. We hope you'll listen to it, love it, and share it with other people, but not with large language models or machines and not for commercial purposes. Thanks for keeping it nuanced with us.

Episode Transcript

Sarah [00:00:10] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.

Beth [00:00:11] And this is Beth Silvers. You're listening to Pantsuit Politics. Today, we are considering the United States attack on three nuclear facilities in Iran. And then Outside of Politics, which I have a feeling we will need, we're going to talk about the Golden Girls, which came into the world 40 years ago this September.

Sarah [00:00:30] Every week on Substack we make a bonus episode that we call Spicy Pantsuit Politics for all of our subscribers there. It's a real circle of trust over there. We tend to be a lot more off the cuff. We tend maybe to use some spicy language. We talk about things more personally. We talk cultural trends. And the most recent episode of our Spicy Pantsuit Politics was perhaps a record in the number of comments. I think we're sitting at over 300 right now. That's more than the Crunchy Moms episode, guys, if that gives you any perspective. And the depths of the comments were really incredible because I think the depth of our conversation in that episode last week was really good. That's what we heard from you guys. We heard it was like one of our best, most vulnerable conversations we had in a long time. So if you've been on the fence about heading on over to Substack, go listen to us start off talking about smoking and end up talking about the pressure we feel in trying to consider how our words impact other people. So I thought it was a really good conversation. I hope y'all will go over there and check it out.

Beth [00:01:40] The connection that we have with our premium community really helps when we sit down to talk about something really sensitive like the conversation we're about to have here. So up next, the US bombing of Iran. On Saturday, the United States conducted Operation Midnight Hammer, which was a surprise operation attacking three Iranian nuclear sites. Sarah, before we get into the administration side of it, the politics, the legality, the wisdom or not, I do think it's important to recognize this was a very sophisticated military operation and the people who conducted it performed professionally, skillfully and safely because their surprise was so successful that they weren't even fired on in the process of carrying out the mission.

Sarah [00:02:51] It's always so tempting when you're finding out about an attack of this level, particularly when it had been in sort of this fevered space of discussion for just a few days, to think like they planned it in a few days but they did not. This is an attack that has been planned-- plan is a tough word. I don't think it means like scheduled. But considered, put on the table as an option for years. This level of sophistication takes years and years of planning because that's what the military does, right? So much of the Pentagon and why it is this behemoth is planning, considering, strategizing among a bevy of options, opportunities, crises, all of that. And so you see that really come to play. And I think the other component of this, not only our planning, but if we've had this plan for years, why now is the opportunity?

[00:04:02] So it's this planning meeting an opportunity, particularly with Israel's aggressive military actions against surrounding groups and nations over the last several months. It would have been so dangerous. You definitely would have seen return fire had Israel not basically completely decapitated Hezbollah in Lebanon in the past year. I read somebody that described it basically as a super highway. Like now they could get there so quickly and without concern for exactly what you're talking about those return attacks because of what Israel has been doing. And so you can see why someone like Trump would take that opportunity to exert force with very little risk associated with it, particularly in the short term.

Beth [00:05:08] I had a strong negative reaction to this news. And then I tried to sit down and think about the conditions on the ground and what I know about our foreign policy, Israel's foreign policy and our position vis-a-vis Iran over a number of administrations. And I just made myself a little chart. If all the conditions were exactly the same-- and that's an impossible exercise because everything is linked. But if I try just for the sake of a thought experiment to say all the conditions are exactly the same; October 7th has happened, so Hezbollah is weaker, the Houthis are weaker, lots of munitions are depleted, Hamas is weakened.

Sarah [00:05:56] Assad has fallen.

Beth [00:05:57] Assad has fallen. That's right. Russia has invaded Ukraine and is occupied there. The Ukrainian response has been much stronger than Russia expected. So all the pieces are exactly the same. Would George W. Bush have taken this shot? Would President Obama have taken the shot? Would a theoretical President Hillary Clinton have done this? What about a theoretical president Kamala Harris? And for almost every scenario that I imagined, I think it's more likely than not that those officials would have authorized this attack. That is not a defense of the attack. I am personally really rethinking my paradigm about how we engage with the world. But it did just settle me down because I think the initial reaction for me is always going to come from a place of just not trusting the people in charge right now. And I wanted to walk back from that a little bit.

Sarah [00:06:55] The popular neocon perception in Washington D.C. is definitely in favor of this attack. Someone like Mitch McConnell, who's a pretty big hawk when it comes to Iran, Tom Cotton, people who aren't associated with just being complete loyalists to Donald Trump are in favor to something like this. To me, one of the most weird components of this is that you have Trump firing all those neocons on the NSC under the advice of Laura Loomer, and then exactly what those people wanted happens anyway. And so, I think this is seen and has been analyzed so strongly through the lens of the last 20 years in the Middle East, these intractable wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and people's negative reactions to them. But really I just think in particular when it comes to Donald Trump and how you make sense of this pivot from him, is I think thinking through the more immediate history with Iran. I think the fact that we took out Soleimani with very little consequence on the behalf of the Iranians. I think that fact that you see this sort of broadcast tit for tat happening between the Israelis and the Iranian over the last several months. I think that Iran is very weak right now and has been for a long time. And so I think viewing it through the lens of bogged down engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq is not quite the right lens.

[00:08:59] Now, I think that if you accept that Iran is weak, that introduces all sorts of other complicated analysis. But I think for him when you look at he took out these forces, he took out Soleimani, they also were trying to assassinate him, that they shot down some missiles, but much fewer than people anticipated. Not only with regards to Israel, but not coming to the defense of Hezbollah or Hamas, I think you just like put all those pieces together and it's certainly not hard to get to a place as a neocon. It's really not even hard to a get to place as Trump where you're like, well, I've got a completely different board in the Middle East. This comes with not a lot of immediate risks. And why wouldn't I? I don't buy all this like, oh, he's not authorized under the War Powers Act. We all know Obama did similar actions without authorization from Congress. So as far as would a Democratic President Obama or Hillary Clinton have done something similar without going to Congress first? Of course, they would have because y'all gave up that power a long time ago. I think all that is them not having to commit to where they actually stand on the bombing. They can just stand on this authorization soap box. You know what I mean?

Beth [00:10:28] There's so much to unpack here. In terms of Trump's motivation, I agree with you that he is not thinking about this in terms of 20 years. I don't think he typically works on that kind of timeline. Although, at the same time, he does seem constantly impacted by opinions he's formed over the last few decades. So it's tricky to figure out what's going on in his head. I think it's telling that he has pretty consistently, especially in the beginning of this second term, used strong language about his distaste for nuclear weapons. He is adamant that the world should not have nuclear weapons. I think it is one of his best and most admirable qualities, that he thinks the world should not have nuclear weapon. I think it’s also telling that in close proximity to this event and definitely in the time period that we know through reporting, he had basically made up his mind to do this. He's on Truth Social talking about how much he deserves a peace prize. So I think he views this action of aggression as a preventive action toward peace. And that's how he frames it up for himself. I am a person who's going to take a problem that's been hanging over everybody for decades and I'm finally going to put an end to it. And because of the board in front of me, I feel like I can do that without risking a wider war and without asking for tremendous American sacrifice.

Sarah [00:12:07] Yeah, I definitely think he sees this as a one-off action. That is the language they are using in articulating. This is an award. It almost was like they were surprised by all the language and narrative in the press, although has been largely approval. I don't see a lot of harsh criticism of the administration for taking this action. And I agree, yeah, that he feels that way about nuclear weapons and thinks this is just a one-off. But lots of people over the course of human history, lots of leaders of nations have thought, I'll just come in with all this air power and fix the problem. And so rarely is that the case? That is also true for all his broadcasting about regime change. Another thing that we often think leads to peace that doesn't, look back at the Arab Spring, at all the regime change in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, that we thought was going to solve the problems and fix the region. And often you have worse regimes in place. I can't decide how I feel about the assumption that that Iran was on its way to nuclear weapons, and that the Iranians getting nuclear weapons is something to be prevented at all costs. I understand saying that out loud, that sounds bananas because it is such an accepted principle, but I just can't decide is that different now? It feels different.

[00:13:55] It feels like we were operating under the assumption that a nuclear power changes the rules of the game with Russia and Ukraine. And finally Ukraine was like, you know what? Forget it. We're going across the border. And I don't hear any saber rattling as much from Russia about their nuclear weapons. I can't decide if things are different. I'm less concerned about nuclear weapons. I'm more concerned about the fact that we are focused on nation states like Iran, but it is extra national players like terrorist groups in the presence of changing technology like drones and A.I. bio chemical weapons that they can ask Chat GBT to whip up for them. That's what I'm concerned about while we're all concerned of-- it feels in a way like a conversation that's stuck in 1960 when we talk about nations and nuclear weapons that has not evolved, that has not taken in additional information. And that's not to say that I think everybody should have a nuclear weapon. I obviously don't think that, but I don't know. A lot of times there's just this underlying assumption that I hear in this conversation that I'm just not sure is all the way true anymore.

Beth [00:15:13] Well, I don't think our intelligence, our recent intelligence supports the idea that Iran was that close to a nuclear weapon, especially a nuclear weapons that it intended to deploy. I do think that Iran has kept the nuclear threat the possibility out there because the possession of nuclear weapons is mostly about respect and what kind of space you are afforded in the world, and Iran wants that respect and that space in the world. But I think your point is such a good one about Russia in particular. Ukraine knows there is no scenario in which Russia uses a nuclear weapon in Ukraine without terrible consequences for Russia. The proximity is too close. There is a deterrent in place against using a nuclear weapons, too. And that is a totally different calculation than a cyber attack or a critical infrastructure attack of the sorts that I think are coming. This is my big worry about all of this. So if I ask myself the question, how would I feel about this if I trusted everyone in the administration? It one gives me the perspective that I am now close to the average American voter who doesn't trust anybody of any party. This feeling of I think they're all out of their minds or all selfish or all short-sighted is where most people are on politicians in general. And so it's been kind of helpful for me to just sit with that.

[00:16:42] But if I take the posture that I would feel marginally better if I trusted the people in charge, it makes me realize that I do not think that this is out of step with what previous administrations have done since September 11th and what other people sitting in the Oval Office would do right now, given the entire landscape. And that the concern that I have that is really unique to this administration is what else they are doing to prepare for the fallout from this. Because I do not trust the officials who are supposed to be focused on terrorism and external threats. The Secretary of Defense who should right now be thinking constantly about the safety of the 40,000 troops stationed throughout the Middle East. I'm not confident with all this bluster about war fighting and the bombs. And again hats off to the professionals who know what they're doing and trained for this and took this risk. I am not confident about what happens next with this administration. Even if I can get to a place where I say, "I don't support this action, I wouldn't have authorized this action if it were me sitting in the Oval Office," but it's pretty normal for the way our foreign policy has been conducted recently.

Sarah [00:18:05] Yeah, I don't think there's an administration who probably wouldn't have taken this opportunity, like I said, when you have regime change in Syria, which opens up all this airspace. Not to mention you have Israel basically test-proofing the idea that the Iranians are weak and are not going to fire back in the way people thought they had. But to me, that's like what-- why is that not paradoxically an argument against the strike? They're weak. They are not an existential threat. Either they're weak or they're an existential threat. I feel like nobody is pointing out the tension here because this to me isn't about us. It's about Israel. It's the fact that I do think Perhaps with this situation aligned as it would, other administrations would have taken this opportunity. However, I also think other administrations have refused to be manipulated by Benjamin Netanyahu in this way, who has requested aggressive military action from the United States and been turned down, who also wanted to set up this disgraceful aid distribution system (and I'm using those words very loosely) and Biden said no you're not going to do that.

[00:19:34] That's not going happen. And so, to me, this is another conflict. You get Mr. I hate wars I want peace also I'll do what these neocons want. You also get what I'm sure the broader region saw with Israel when his trip there in May which is we'll restrain Israel. The U.S. Isn't going to just do whatever Netanyahu wants. And then on a dime, where are we? We're right back in the spot where we're doing Israel's bidding. That's what this feels like to me. This feels like this is something Israel's wanted. Even though, again, how many times do they need to say, we're taking out the existential threat of Hezbollah, of Iran, of all these pieces in the region, when really they're just wiping the board with very little effort. So were they a threat? Because if they were, you sure are taking them out really easily.

Beth [00:20:26] I would like to read a book about Iran and its proxies on the other side of all of this to try to trace back how substantial the threat from Iran ever really was by itself. It's a really big country with lots and lots of people, but I think there has been a little bit of a mirage happening. Let's take up that question of what was the threat to the United States and why does that matter after a quick break. All kinds of discussion right now about whether what the president did was legal under US law and our constitution. Was it legal under international law? Was it wise? And I feel like what this discussion has made me realize, and I feel kind of silly about this because of how much I read constitutional law, but asking whether an executive action in the military context is constitutional is like how many angels fit on the head of a pen? Because you are always going to have disagreement about it. And what good does the answer to that question do? Unless Congress speaks with one voice and says, no, we did not authorize this and we do not authorize it, and you will not get funding for it going forward.

[00:21:59] That's the only possible path forward here that actually rebukes this action. And that's not a very good path forward for all the people who need to be protected because it doesn't undo what was done. And I'm not sure if I were a member of Congress how comfortable I would be signing on to legislation from my representative Thomas Massey, who's been very outspoken against this and representative O'Connor right now. They've done the right thing. It is the right response for Congress to say, we did not authorize this. We do not authorize it. Do not do anything else. Except that if I'm the commander in chief and I've got troops sitting out there and Iran is still going to respond and retaliate for what I've done, I don't so that I can have my power restricted in that way. And if Congress actually passed that and the president vetoed it, Supreme Court's not going to touch this. I don't know. I'm just not sure how useful a framework constitutionality is, and that does seem like a problem. But it also seems like the essence of living in a system of three co-equal branches.

Sarah [00:23:11] My immediate reaction was another instance where this is action not authorized by Congress. But then I took a very cynical moment to remember that that's been that way forever. What's the last time Congress authorized action? It was like 1945. So if we're talking about would other administrations have done this? Yes. Would have other administrations done similar actions without the authorization of Congress? Yes. And is this Congress going to claw back that power at this moment in time? Of course, not. Okay, so these are smart people. Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries are intelligent people. They know all that to be true. So what is this? What is AOC calling for impeachment? Well, it's a really, to me, political way to take a stand without making your position on the Iranian nuclear program and whether or not you would have taken this strike off the table. You don't have to take a position on the action if you take a decision on the constitutionality of the authorization.

[00:24:29] Now look, I'm less cynical about the likes of Tim Kaine and even Thomas Massey because at least they're a broken record and they've been on this beat for a minute. Which is true, they should call this power back. But no one thinks this is the moment and this is Congress in which that's going to happen. So say something about Iran. Say something about nuclear capacity. Say something about I think the warning again is really not about state actors at this moment in the Middle East. But I think the warning is about all the times before that we've seen either through the Taliban in Afghanistan or Hamas in Gaza or Osama bin Laden in the early 2000s, putting together non-state actors and terrorists together to take other types of actions. Because I think this conversation about like, oh, is this going to lead to a protracted conflict or drag us into a war in the Middle East? Well, two things. One, I'm not sure it is because I think Iran is weak. And two, I think we're doing again what we do with him, and I keep trying to think of a way to articulate this, but it's like we set the expectations so far out of whack because when he takes an action, because he's the one that took the action, we say, well, this is the end of the world.

[00:25:59] Again, still waiting for those empty shelves from the terrace. Do you see what I'm saying? And what I am worried about is we're going to do it again. We're going to say you bombed Iran and that means it's World War III, and we're going to be in this protracted conflict in the Middle East, which is also what they said about the assassination of Soleimani and it didn't happen. So I think things have changed in that region. It's not 2000. And in the same way, I do think that there is a risk for a resurgence of terrorism. It's not going to look the same as it did in the 90s or the 80s or the 2000s, and warning that we're just going to go right back to that, I think sets him up for a win in a weird way.

Beth [00:26:44] Look, I am a child of Desert Storm on CNN. I'm 44 years old. Neocon is my native tongue. What I have learned over the past decade, and I think what the world is learning, is that war in this traditional form and these types of operations in the way we framed them up for all of my childhood and young adulthood, makes everybody poorer. It displaces millions of people. It damages the earth. And no one ultimately wins because it can go on forever in a way that's pretty cheap and pretty easy. There is just nothing attractive, I think, for Iran about responding proportionally in the way that we would have anticipated for all these years. What I think is more likely is that Iran takes a minute, regroups, and maybe a couple years down the road, attacks the water supply of, I don't know, Tallahassee. There is a method of attacking others now that has less of that risk to you, that has of that deterrent effect that we're talking about with nuclear weapons. And that is my concern, that our eyes in this administration are so trained on the big, explosive, traditional view of military action that they will miss all the back doors that a state like Iran has been preparing for a very long time to slip through. So do I think that they should have gone to Congress about this? Yes, I guess. But then this wouldn't have happened because if they had gone to congress first, they couldn't have pulled this action off.

Sarah [00:28:44] They almost didn't pull it off because he couldn't keep his mouth shut.

Beth [00:28:48] Right. Do I think they should have briefed both the Democratic and Republican leaders of Congress? Of course, I do. Do I think that we should be bombing anything in the Middle East, maybe ever again? No, I do not. All of this has just happened as it's happened, and my primary concern for the nation is in our prospective security. And my primary concerned politically is exactly what you said, that focusing on the constitutionality of this looks avoidant and looks like to the public just another way to say, well, we don't like Trump. It is always against the man, not about the subject matter. And I got really concerned when I found myself looking at a tweet from Marjorie Taylor Greene that was a very coherent expression of a worldview about foreign policy and thinking, wow, I haven't heard a coherent expression of foreign policy like this for a while. She wrote a long post talking about why this is not our fight and what our priorities should be. And she is obviously not my cup of tea, but I thought, you know what? I struggle to find something to disagree with in this statement. And the fact that that is coming from within the MAGA base instead of from the Democratic party, I think is a real political problem.

Sarah [00:30:18] And, look, this sickness, this Trump sickness, where if he does it it's bad, has its equal and opposite measure on the other side. And if he does it it's good. This flabbergasted me; although, I do not know why. There was a YouGov poll support among Republicans for bombing Iran went from 25-53 approved-disapproved to 68-13 approved- disapproved in a week. It's like the economy's shit until Inauguration Day and the economy is great. That's got to stop. We're not going to get anywhere with Iran or the Middle East or the rest of the world and certainly not with the coming age of robots if we just decide if our guy does it, it's okay, and if our guy doesn't do it, it's terrible. That's why I'm really trying to scratch at like do I really-- everybody just says, well, we have to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. Do we? I'm trying not to get stuck in these assumptions that we have from the 90s and the 2000s. Not because I think every country should have a nuclear weapon. First of all, I am not convinced they were that close to getting a nuclear weapon. I'm certainly not convinced that we prevented them wholly and completely from pursuing a nuclear weapon after this strike. It sounds like they had plenty of time because of his mouthing off to go hide a bunch of stuff places we don't even know where it is.

[00:31:49] Again, I'm less concerned about Iran. I think Iran is very weak, if not on the precipice of regime change, depending on how they respond or don't respond. But that to me was clear. When this Israel-Iran situation several months ago started firing up and it was like, well, we're going to hit you. Okay, get ready, here we go. Boom! And then we didn't. Okay, nobody got hurt. Okay, we going to go hit you now. I thought, what is this? This is not some existential threat. This is wild. What's happening here? The broadcasting and the war games just so everybody can save face? I don't know how long Netanyahu can play this out. There was a really great conversation with a former Prime minister of Israel on Ezra Klein's podcast and he talked about the fight. He needs the fight to survive. No one can critique him if Israel is caught up in this fight. Well, he's taken out enemies pretty easily. So how long is he going to be able to assume the posture of we're in a fight, an existential fight for Israel's existence when he's taking out the biggest, baddest of these existential threats with not a ton of effort? And I'm looking at all this and I'm thinking like, okay, but what-- again, I think you're so right. If somebody else was doing this, how would I view this? And it feels to me like we're living in a new reality and everybody is still pulling lessons from the old reality, particularly when it comes to this region of the world.

Beth [00:33:21] Yeah, and the record scratch I hear in my brain when you talk about Iran being weakened, which I agree with, is that sometimes a weakened state is the most dangerous state. If this regime has less and less to lose all the time, maybe that makes the case for doing something like this. Because with their backs against the wall, what does the Ayatollah determine? I don't know. There's so many components of this that I feel silly trying to analyze because I'm just sitting in my house in Kentucky and I'm not read in on intelligence briefs and military options, what the universe of options presented to the president where. But I did see an expert who I generally trust talking about how this seems like a low to medium option of the options that were probably presented to Trump, relatively restrained compared to what might be on the table in a moment like this, if the US were to say Israel, our ally, is at war and we will join them. I speak out of all sides of my mouth on this issue because I also I'm compelled by the idea that what we mean when we say war is strained beyond recognition in these discussions.

[00:34:43] Of course, we'd be at war if Iran bombed a nuclear facility in the United States. Of course, we would. And I don't think Iran is a lesser country or a lesser people or less deserving of sovereign territory and the sense of safety and security its citizens should have. So, yes, it was an act of war. What does that mean in our constitutional order? And I don't know the answer to that. But I do know, I think, that if Congress tried to answer that, it wouldn't. It would always evade the question. And I understand why. The last authorization for use of military force was actually in 2002. I looked it up while we were talking because we had said the '40s. It was 2002, which now I remember because there were decades after that of fighting over what it meant and did it extend to the actions the leaders were taking? Congress comes in, tries to reinsert some control, but recognizing again that they want some flexibility. If your person who you trust is in the Oval Office, you want that person to be able to act based on what's happening on the ground and what the present threat is and whether you can deal with that threat as safely as possible. And the more I read about this, the more convinced I am that just about anybody in the chair might think. "I have this power at a moment in time, and I am called to use it because of the moment in time." I don't think that's a good legal analysis, but I think that is a very human instinct.

Sarah [00:36:20] Well, speaking of moment in time, as we're recording, there is breaking news that Iran is retaliating against military bases in Qatar and Iraq. So the escalation fully anticipated by so many experts has come. And to what you were saying before, I read a really good piece in Foreign Affairs, and I thought this quote was so good. It said, "It is tempting to read the immediate turn of events as the most pertinent. That is true only until the next. The story does not end. Force invites counterforce. Success generates reactions that yield its opposite. The closer Israel gets to total triumph, the closer it will be to complete uncertainty, to perils unleashed by pent-up humiliation, anger, and fury. That sort of victory is not a safe place." And that's the thing, this total sort of domination and triumph, not to mention, again, the horrific situation in Gaza right now, that rage is going to go somewhere. Everybody's just not going to swallow it. That's not how this works. And I think you can take lessons, some lessons always from the history in this region, that it will find an expression.

[00:37:36] But I guess what I'm just worried about is all these assumptions about how relevant are all these assumptions and all this effort about preventing new nuclear capabilities in a country like Iran when there are so many nuclear weapons out there in the face of increasing technology like artificial intelligence? What does it mean when we put all our eggs in the basket of preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons and we're not thinking about the changing face of warfare with regards to drones and biochemical weapons and all this stuff? I think that's the beef with the neocons and that's definitely my beef with neocon. Like there's an assumption about the world and how people respond to force that feels flimsy to me. I think that's what Donald Trump named so successfully in his campaigns when critiquing these exact neocons and the military generally. And so I can't see what comes next. I think this has been the problem in the region since October 7th. What's the next day analysis? What's the plan? Where are we going with any of this? If you get regime change, regime change to what? Ask Egypt if they feel better after regime change. I think that's true of Libya. We got rid of Gaddafi. To what end? To what came next? And I don't have a lot of faith in Donald Trump. And honestly, I don't have a lot faith in all the neocons in regards to what comes next.

Beth [00:39:21] I'm sitting here processing being wrong in the space of the 40 minutes we've been recording about whether Iran would respond in this traditional way that we'd expect, and now it has. So I'm thinking about that, and I'm think about the safety and security of the people at those bases in the Middle East. I'm wondering what I don't know about how our military is contemplating bioweapons, cyber security, AI. I'm sure there's a ton that I don't know. What we do hear from some folks who listen to the show on background who work in the Department of Defense is that certainly they've seen resources cut to agencies that are very important to threat prevention. Again, politically, I'm looking for someone who can pick up the sense of engagement with the world and the sense responsibility in the world that made that neocon worldview appealing. But that has a greater orientation to peace and that has greater vision about how to achieve an actual sustainable lasting peace. I know that the neocons would say, well, that's the goal here. It's peace through containment. It's accepting a world that is always dangerous and that always has bad actors in it and containing that. I just don't see that that case has been proven out. It's kind of like trickle-down economics. You can listen to it and it makes sense. A lot of smart people will tell you this is the way it goes. And you can nod your head and say, yeah, I see that. And wouldn't it be nice if it did? I'm just sitting here at age 44, feeling like those theories have not proven out. I don't have a new theory yet, but I would like one.

Sarah [00:41:20] It feels very adjacent to the economic analysis and critique of globalism, right? That we've had this long period of growth of incredible wealth that proves the theory. Now, I don't think neocons have as strong of a foot to stand on. We have a certain type of peace, but again, we were in these completely tractable situations for decades at a huge expense to both our military forces and our country. But I don't know the counter case. I don't know what would have happened if the neocons didn't get away with what they wanted to do. Would it have been worse? Would it have been better? Who knows? And I think that Donald Trump is always sort of cashing in on the deposits made from the exact systems that he is critiquing. He's taking the immense wealth of the global financial system built on the back of America and its currency and being like I want everything to stay the same. Don't you dare raise oil prices or prices at Walmart, but I want to change. And it's a little bit like that now.

[00:42:47] He wants to undermine the neocons while also using the arguments and the risk assessments and the military plans that they've been building for decades to assert dominance. Now, he has some leverage with Benjamin Netanyahu right now. We'll see if he uses it for anything. I'm not particularly hopeful. But watching him accept reality, be careful in some respects, but also take his moment and exert this enormous authority, I don't think it's that far out of line of how he has acted with regards to the military and foreign policy up to this point. But we'll see now that they are retaliating. I anticipated Iran retaliating. And it felt very much in the moments, before we started recording, where this attack was clearly being broadcast and there is reporting that these missiles were blocked largely, that it's very much like Israel-Iran. Like we have to do something, here we do, we're going to go, we're going to do something, and here it comes.

Beth [00:44:01] That mowing the grass phrase that keeps showing up.

Sarah [00:44:03] Yes, like here it comes. It feels very similar to that to me.

Beth [00:44:09] I knew that in Qatar they were on high alert that they had evacuated some places that Americans were told to shelter in place. I knew the risk was there. I'm a little surprised that it's happened so quickly. I am curious what the president's reaction to this is going to be. This could be something that's different than what he's faced before, because you're right, they really did not respond to the Soleimani assassination very aggressively at all. I would like to understand a lot more about the Ayatollah and what his objectives are presently. And I'm probably just going to have to wait a while for someone to write about that. But this is certainly a world changing time. The status quo in the Middle East has been over since October 7th. And I just think we're finding our way to what the new one will be. And it will not be perfect. This is the hard part for me about Donald Trump and his support and the movement of those numbers from we all oppose this to we all thought it was great. We thought it was a good decision.

[00:45:18] He does consistently want the best parts of the status quo with none of the baggage of the status quo. He never speaks in terms of trade-offs. And whatever settles on the other side of all this as a new status quo in the Middle East will be filled with contradictions and trade-offs and a sense of its own fragility. I think that's what I really had to sit in for a while before I could do some actual analysis about this for myself. I'm at a place in my life where the fragility of life sinks in in deeper and deeper ways all the time. I can cry in a second about how fragile everything is. And I would admire in any president being able to speak to that and the complexity of authorizing this kind of action, even if in your best judgment, it is the closest path to peace. It's also heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking to damage a country in this way. It will, as you said, foment all kinds of anger and fear and insecurity and desire for revenge and retribution for generations. A good for what and a good what's next, I think is required given all that we know about the truth of that from the last 20 years.

Sarah [00:46:52] Well, and I also just found myself sort of hardened in the same position I have found myself often with breaking news and particularly Americans' reactions to it. A lot of my friends reported their sons being like, oh my gosh, does this mean we're going to get drafted? Like just this very U.S. centric reaction, which of course makes sense. They're young kids in America. How else are they going to react? But I think there's this weird thing that happens that we talk all the time about how we're inundated with the suffering around the world. And so to me, when this happened, the way everybody defaulted to what does this mean for us? I wanted to be like, well, you watch the news- nothing. You see what war means to people. Real war. Yes, this is an act of war and also we've all watched what's played out in Ukraine, and Gaza, and the Sudan. You're not positing philosophically what this means when war comes knocking at your door. You're running. You're in a basement, you're in a parking garage, you're stacked up on a highway trying to get out of a major city. And so there's always a part of me that's like especially when you start to think about the politics of something like this and what this means, it's just that disconnect we always talk about. It's this huge impactful thing and also it's not going to change anybody's daily life for the most part in America if you do not have a family member in the service.

Beth [00:48:41] Or in Tehran or that kind of deep relationship with.

Sarah [00:48:45] So it's like we know enough to know that. We have all watched this suffering play out on a global level and still we can't see past the trees when we're talking about it a few degrees closer to us. I think and that's probably going to continue to be true because the nature of warfare has changed dramatically. And paradoxically, it has not changed that dramatically for you if you live in Ukraine or Gaza or the Sudan or Iran right now. So it's such a weird media environment to live in. It's such weird reality to live in. I think people are sincerely anxious about what this means and World War III and all these things. And also you just want to be like for real? I know you get a newspaper, look at what this means for the people of Ukraine. You won't be talking about this shit on Facebook if it really comes knocking at our door. You'll be not on a phone at all. You'll be trying to get the hell out.

[00:49:53] So it's such a weird, disjointed, and it feels like it's weird and disjointing because we're at this crossroads of leaving the neocon approach to war and warfare behind as we reach the finale and finish it off and also turn the corner into a completely different kind of warfare. Because a lot of that's what my friends and I said to our sons. A lot of them are like, "Don't worry, they fight with drones now." Who knows if we'll ever get a draft again because it's so different. Although, then I thought, well, that's not true for the people of Ukraine. They're inventing drone warfare and also cannot get enough people into the service because they're wearing out their draft numbers so much. So it's such a weird tension in 2025 when you talk about war, aggression, acts of war, any of this.

Beth [00:50:54] I think service in the military will look very different in the future, but I still think that we'll look for a lot of people to be a part of the military. I think it's possible that we could have a draft again someday. I think it is not useful as I discussed in an episode of more to say with my daughter, Jane, for TikTok creators to talk about World War III nail inspo. I think that's all bad. I do think there's something healthy in a reaction of feeling sad and anxious or heartbroken or feeling something. It's kind of like if you are a supervisor and you stop feeling something awful when you have to fire someone, you need a new job. I don't think it should ever be that as a country we don't feel something when we ask service members to get on a plane and fly across the world and drop a bomb. I don't think we should ever stop feeling something when we inflict the kind of damage that we just inflicted on another country whose people are as much people as we are. It's just finding that spot of being able to recognize, yeah, I will still have to go to Kroger tonight.

[00:52:19] And this is a historic moment that will have consequences, some of which I can foresee and many of which I cannot. And I am both part of them and relatively powerless to do anything about them. I can make my opinion known to my members of Congress. The major call to action for me as an American citizen from the whole first quarter of the Trump term is to think about how Congress can act like Congress again. Because that makes a moment like this feel even more powerless when you see that this is a Congress that has not been interested in its constitutional role of checking the president in any way, to the point where the president doesn't even feel like he needs to give many of them a heads up about something like this. If I were a member of Congress, if I had representative in front of my name, and I learned this from a Truth Social post that had been screenshotted and shared somewhere else, I would be losing my mind right now about that because that is not the design of things. But that's the only place as an American I know how to exercise any pressure. I don't have the expertise or the information to weigh in on what should happen next. I can try to elect people who demand that they have at least the information to weigh in on what happens next.

Sarah [00:53:52] Well, my sort of hopeful moment is that these moments of what can feel like chaos to some, opportunity to others, definitely transition. They can be also very propitious. You know what I'm saying? Like in the Middle East, things are very different. That is an opportunity. President Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize so badly. So badly he wants it. And you know what? If it results in some sort of reordering an actual peace in this region of the world, I want it too. Because there is an opportunity here. There's certainly an opportunity in Syria. There is an opportunity, I think, to put together the Gulf nations in particular who want this sort of prosperity for the region, to which Iran has stood in the way of, to come together with the United States and formulate, again, that vision for what comes next. There is leverage here. There is a moment here. And I desperately hope that Trump and this administration take advantage of it.

Beth [00:55:21] Yeah, there is no reason that the Gulf states could not function similarly to the EU and be an incredible, prosperous powerhouse in the world. Again, it's all about vision and who can rally people to a vision. And is there anyone in this region capable of rallying people to a vision that transcends deep, historic, cultural, religious, ethnic fissures, and I hope so.

Sarah [00:55:55] And it's not going to look how what we want it to look like. I am very invested in Syria. I want that country to turn a corner. Would it look like the leadership currently there if I was starting from scratch? Maybe not. I'm not from this area of the world and what I've learned as an American through these conflicts is that it's never going to look like how we want to look white. This is a different part of the word. The promise of the Arab Spring and the tragedy and heartbreak that has come after it should be a lesson for all of us. Not that protest is unfounded or it can't make a difference, but it's not that simple. And a lot of things have to align. And I just see in this moment that that is possible. There isn't a lot of realignment. And will it come with emboldened terrorist organizations or will it comes with a prosperous Middle East? That's going to take a lot of vision and a lot of leadership. And I want that. Absolutely I want that.

Beth [00:57:06] We recorded this episode early in the afternoon on Monday, June 23rd. There was breaking news as we were talking. I'm sure there will continue to be breaking news over the next 24 or 48 hours and beyond. So we'll keep discussing this and we hope that this initial conversation had some value for you. We always end our show talking about what's on our minds Outside of Politics. And I read just a real delight of a piece this morning from CNN about how it's been 40 years since the Golden Girls debuted on NBC. And I wanted to talk about the Golden girls. I loved this group of women. They were supposed to be in their fifties who shared a home in Florida and would sit around in their nightgowns eating cheesecake talking about a range of things, including some very political things, including some, very difficult at the time, progressive storylines. It was just a formative part of my childhood. And so I want to say happy 40 Golden Girls.

Sarah [00:58:19] If you are of a certain age, for example, Beth and I's age, then perhaps you were obsessed with the Golden Girls, like my college roommate Erin was, or perhaps you are on a little bit of the opposing team-- I don't know if they were ever set up in competition. Clearly the Golden Girls paved the way for Designing Women, because they came out the next year. Golden Girls was on NBC. But CBS had this history of strong female characters at the time before Les Moonves came in and tore it all down to turn into CSI, behemoth, whatever. That's another conversation for another time. But they had Rhoda, they have all these things. So CBS had long history of really strong female characters. You had Mary Tyler Moore, you had Rhoda, you had Maude, which was what made Bea Arthur famous. She had that incredibly revolutionary abortion storyline on Maude back in the day. So I was a Designing Women person. I have seen obviously episodes of the Golden Girls, but I do bristle a little bit because I always feel like they get more praise when I think Designing Woman was a better show. I said it. I said what I said, I'm sorry.

Beth [00:59:41] I cannot believe you're turning this into a competition. I have room in my heart for all these women in both of these shows because the Golden Girls to me was so revolutionary because it was older women, genuinely older. Now they don't seem old to me now. I'm like Rose was 55.

Sarah [00:59:57] That's crazy.

Beth [00:59:57] In my mind, Rose was in her late 60s. There's a real disconnect for me here with the ages.

Sarah [01:00:03] I just want to say pause there because there is such a conversation to be had about retirement and the vision for retirement and when you would go into retirement. This is how Nicholas's grandparents they retired like 55. They lived 50 years of their lives in retirement. It's wild to think about to me. Is it not crazy to think about moving to retirement in Florida at 55 years old?

Beth [01:00:34] I mean, without the Florida part, that sounds awesome to me. But I don't think it's on the table at all.

Sarah [01:00:39] I don't want to retire at 55. I'd be bored out of my damn mind!

Beth [01:00:42] I'd stay busy. I'd say busier than the Golden Girls did. But I think that the idea that you would retire, that you have lost your husband by 55, which I hope does not happen to me, and move in with your friends is just a really interesting concept and it captivated me as a kid. I loved watching these older women sit around. I especially loved their relationships with each other. I loved how they were always annoyed with each other, but they deeply loved each other, even though they were on each other's nerves. Now this article from CNN did let me know that that annoyance was not all acting, that Bea Author genuinely hated Betty White, called her the C word at every opportunity. At every opportunity despised her. And after seven seasons, NBC would have renewed the show and every single person was in except Bea Author who was like, "I'm not doing this anymore." So really interesting stuff there. But I loved it. And I love Designing Women because here are women in their 30s and 40s working, trying to work through friendship but also manage the rest of life. And so all these women to me were incredible avatars of what life could be like, of what personality could be like, of what friendship could be like. Designing Women I loved for the relationships. The chemistry on that show was unbelievable because a lot of them were actually dating in real life or married in real life.

Sarah [01:02:12] Yeah.

Beth [01:02:12] So it's incredible.

Sarah [01:02:13] Now, not always their romantic lead on the show. Dixie Carter and Hal Holbrook were obviously married. But Jean Smart had a child with Annie Potts's portrayed boyfriend on the show. He just recently passed away. They were married this whole time. To the Jean Smart of it all, this was always my beef and maybe Bea Arthur and I feel the same way I don't know why she hated Betty White so much. Also, there's an entire conversation to be had about this particular storyline or this particular narrative that happens when there's a group of women performing together on a TV show, be it Golden Girls, be it Designing Women, be it Sex and the City, be it Girls, there's always this undercurrent of like, well, so-and-so really hates so-and-so that drives me crazy. And then I don't remember from male-centered shows you don't hear about infighting between the two lead investigators on Law and Order SVU.

Beth [01:03:08] I would read that, though.

Sarah [01:03:09] One of them is Mariska Hargitay, so it doesn't even make sense. But you know what I'm saying. I don't feel like you get this cat fight narrative from male-centric shows that you do from female-centric shows, especially in the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s. But that aside, for me, the biggest difference is that, yeah, they're kind of mean to each other. There's so much slut-shaming in both of these shows. That really does not age well. It's inappropriate. There's a lot of body shaming, particularly on Designing Women as Delta Burke changes sizes over the course of the season. But, for me, the biggest difference when you go back and watch, is that I know Betty White has a stamp and she's an icon and we all love her. We've also have a renaissance of Jean Smart and they are playing very different characters. I think there's a sense that like it's the same. Like you have the ballsy liberal Bea Arthur, Dixie Carter. You have the dumb-dumb, which is either Betty White or Jean Smart. But Jean Smart is not stupid on that show, but Betty White kind of is. That's what always bugged me about it. It's like Betty White's a genius, but that character is not interesting. She's just dumb. She's sweet, but they're just making fun of her all the time because she's dumb.

Beth [01:04:24] Hang on. Justice for Rose. I think that Betty White was dumb from the Dorothy perspective. I think the reason she was so beloved by audiences is because of the naivete and the charm and this romanticized idea that you could just grow up in Minnesota and not have to worry about much. And that you could just tell your Minnesota stories and they would all be full--

Sarah [01:04:48] St. Olaf.

Beth [01:04:50] This was before social media, like before the flattening of everything. I think there is a real nostalgia around the idea that you could be a Rose in the world. And I think a lot of women would like to be a Rose in the World. We just talked about young conservative women and how much they are expressing a longing-- women much younger than us, expressing a longing for simplicity and for family and for not having to engage with the politics of everything. I just maintain I don't think Rose was dumb. I think Rose was simple. And I think Betty White was an expert at pulling that off. And I have just this morning going into my deep dive on this read that that was part of the problem, that she did get more applause from audiences. She would also break character, apparently, while they were filming in front of live studio audiences to engage with the audience. And that drove Bea Arthur crazy.

Sarah [01:05:52] Fascinating.

Beth [01:05:52] So, yeah, a lot going on there, but justice for Rose.

Sarah [01:05:56] Well, that's the thing. Charlene, as portrayed by Jean Smart, Designing Woman, she's not even simple. She's certainly not dumb, but she is open-hearted in a way that I find really difficult to pull off. Again, I'm not breaking any new ground here telling y'all that Jean Smart is a genius. But when you go back and watch it, especially because Jean Smart is the only member of the cast who is not, in fact, Southern, it's freaking impressive because I'm watching her and I'm like not only is she not being simple or dumb, that she's being open hearted, but she's also hands down one of the most comedically gifted of the cast. I think Dexie Carter, rightfully so, who doesn't love a Terminator take down, even though it is hilarious that she was in fact a Republican and not interested in any of this liberalism. The story is that if she had to do something like supremely liberal, then Linda Bloodworth Thompson would give her a singing part because she really liked to sing. So she'd get to do Ave Maria.

Beth [01:06:59] I'd love that trade.

Sarah [01:06:59] Yeah, like you get to sing. I'm sorry you have to say all this shit you don't believe then you'll have to sing. So it's not that she's not incredible. And obviously we all love Dixie Carter and Julia, but you go back and watch it-- and Annie Potts is also exceptional, exceptional. I mean, they're all very, very good. But watching Jean Smart, you're like, damn, what she's doing is-- you just watch enough TV over the time and you realize that's hard to do. It's just really hard to do what she is pulling off there. And so, but again, all of these characters I think especially Golden Girls because it was a more popular show lasted I think as far as viewership. Similar amount of time, but I think they were still pulling in higher numbers than Designing Women, especially once Delta Burke left. But both of these shows are so important because they were walking so Sex and the City and Girls and all these other shows could run for sure.

Beth [01:07:57] Well, I think Charlene had a softness that stood in such contrast to the rest of the cast. Suzanne did a little bit too. Delta Burke was amazing on this show and it was not good for her. And she really made a contribution with this character and I hope that she feels that later in life. I do think the show lost its way a bit after Delta Burke left. It was interesting to me in refreshing myself on the history here that CBS pseudo sabotaged Designing Women by putting it up against Night Court, remember Night Court on NBC, and so the ratings were terrible. And so there was this whole campaign for viewers to write into CBS to save Designing Women. And they did. CBS got like 50,000 letters in the mail. Again, just putting this in the context of time, getting 50,000 letters in the mail meant something. That was a big deal. And so it saved Designing Women. I'm so glad it did because all of these people were formative. And I think all of these people taught me that there are a bunch of different ways to be, and a bunch different possibilities for what your life can look like. And I still hang on to (although I hope it happens for me way later in life) the idea that I could be in a house with my friends just discussing the world over cheesecake. I hope my husband's there too, but I love this vision for what later chapters can be.

Sarah [01:09:32] Listen, don't even get me started on Les Moonves and how he took out Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, not just through Designing Women, but also through Evening Shade. Remember Evening shade? She had a massive contract. I loved that show, yeah. Every time she'd put up a new show, he'd be like, no. I can't even get started on what I missed out on because Les Moonvez went after her. I can even because I love the show so much. I think I totally agree it taught me that I could be angry and it taught me as a woman that I can be expressly political because, listen, I do think the one way in which Designing Women is very different from Golden Girls is that I think, I feel very strongly about this, that it was probably impactful if you could dial down on the data hard enough with regards to the Clinton presidency. You would be surprised how often he comes up because Charlene worked for him when he was the governor of Arkansas. And so think about it, it's so hard to think about now when it's decentralized. But during network television they were showing up and saying Bill Clinton's name, repeatedly. Like a couple different episodes, he comes up and I think like you can't play that-- first of all, they also talk about Donald Trump. Oh my God.

Beth [01:10:45] And Clarence Thomas, they weighed in directly on that.

Sarah [01:10:48] Big deal. I mean, the pilot of Designing Women is Julia going off in 1986 about how women don't have to have a man present to be social, to be having a good time, to be having fun. And I just think that was revolutionary. And Linda Bloodworth-Thomason never took her foot off the gas as far as that like labor rights, abortion, AIDS, gay rights, prayer in school, you named it. She tackled it, but I do really think there's no way that didn't have impact that they were out there talking about him on a network show before he shows up as this fresh face on the national political scene.

Beth [01:11:33] It makes me sad that there aren't shows like this that I watch now. I know there are still sitcoms on that have a lot of episodes. The fiction that I watch on television is all limited series. Maybe I get a couple of seasons with the characters, but there aren't many episodes per season. There were 180 episodes of Golden Girls. There were 163 episodes of Designing Women. Those women could mean something to me. I could extrapolate how they might view a situation outside of the context of the sitcom because they were so present. And to see them on that schedule, a week at a time, I'm spending 30 minutes with them it just means something different than getting a few seasons of Ted Lasso. The shows are still good and sometimes they're better. They're better in a lot of ways when you keep it contained, but I do miss this.

Sarah [01:12:33] Well, it's so interesting my husband and I were just talking about this. So you know the longest running sitcom, right?

Beth [01:12:38] I don't think that I do.

Sarah [01:12:40] Well, the longest-running sitcom broadly defined as The Simpsons.

Beth [01:12:45] I would never have thought of The Simpsons as a sitcom.

Sarah [01:12:47] It's insane. They're online.

Beth [01:12:48] Yeah, the same as forever. It feels like its own universe to me, honestly.

Sarah [01:12:54] But do you know the longest running live actions sit-com?

Beth [01:12:59] Is it something like the Big Bang Theory? That's been on forever, right?

Sarah [01:13:02] It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Beth [01:13:05] Interesting. I didn't know they filmed in front of a live audience. Good for them.

Sarah [01:13:09] Well, no, they're live. They're not in front of a live audience, but they're film-- you know what I mean? It's not a cartoon. It's The Simpsons and it's not South Park. It's live people. And thinking about that, thinking about like, yeah, I would have told you the same thing, except we had just had this conversation with my husband where I was like, crap, that show's still going? And it is. And I think the biggest difference is not really even how long you run for, but it's the structure of the episodes and the nature of the conflict within the episodes. When you go back and you watch Designing Women, first of all, it's not 30 minutes. It's like 18 because they had so many freaking commercials and it's wild to see how much they pack in. In my mind, these would be like kind of drawn out conflicts.

Beth [01:14:03] Little movies.

Sarah [01:14:04] Yes, exactly. Little movies. Like, oh my God, well Julia has this conflict and Mary Jo has this conflict and they're fitting it all in in like 12 minutes. It's insane. And expressly political conflicts and there's just real stakes in the way that there weren't real-worldly stakes in The Office. Certainly not in Friends, definitely not in Seinfeld. Like that's it, right? Golden Girls and Designing Women existed in the world that we lived in. Whereas, it feels like Friends and It's Always Sunny they're in a place time doesn't touch and certainly politics don't touch.

Beth [01:14:45] You also could miss one and that was okay because the story wasn't so tightly building on itself the whole time. And I loved that. It did build, but I was trying to look up how old these characters were, not the actors who played them, but the characters themselves. And it's very sketchy. And sometimes there were inconsistent references to their ages because they were little movies. Every episode was like pretty self-contained. And that was kind of freeing, too. So it was both really attached to reality, but it also felt like an escape from reality and not a chore to watch.

Sarah [01:15:21] It was in the world, but their world was, like you said, not self-contained, but almost like not real. Even to the point of like where they lived was not real. In what house does it look like that on the outside of Designing Women, but on the inside it's this grand open floor pan with like a half a kitchen and a countertop? Like that doesn't make sense. Every time I look at that house I'm like, "This is hilarious. This doesn't even make any sense. This whole setup makes no sense at all." So it's like suspended reality, but presence in our world that I think really characterized that particular time in TV. And I can say that people can't piece together the overarching plot through reruns the way God intended with some of these sitcoms, as opposed to just streaming them from beginning to end. Most of my interactions with Designing Women were through reruns. I watched some of it live, but I wasn't allowed to stay up that late. So I watched so much of it in college and reruns. And then when it all came out streaming, there were some episodes that were not rerun that I saw for the very first time, the one about labor, the labor strike. I was like, holy shit, I've never seen this one before. So why was that one not in the rerun schedule? And also the reruns are always out of order. So you're trying to put together, wait, when did Charlene have that baby? And when did she marry Bill? You always felt like it's a puzzle piece.

Beth [01:16:54] Thank you Golden Girls and Designing Women. You are the best.

Sarah [01:16:57] For sure, for sure.

Beth [01:16:59] And I would take any long read about male co-star drama anytime. I think all that's very fascinating. I think work dynamics are very fascinating and this is a very unique kind of work.

Sarah [01:17:08] Especially when your job's that weird, for sure.

Beth [01:17:12] Yeah. Thank you all for listening. Thank you for contending with the most serious topics in the world, and then some of the least. We appreciate it very much. Lots more of that on Substack if you'd like to join us there. And we will see you back here on Friday for another of our flashback episodes.