What 2025 Has In Store

Discussion post for December 20, 2024

If we know anything about 2025, it's that we know very little about what it will actually hold. Even with the anticipated unpredictability, there are indicators from this current moment that offer us some suggestions. Sarah and Beth are together to share what they are expecting in 2025 and to share their words of the year.

We’d love to know what you all are expecting from the new year. Let us know in the comments!

Topics Discussed:

• Elon Musk and Funding the Government

• What We Expect in 2025

• Outside of Politics: Words of the Year

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Episode Resources:

2025 Expectations

• Jeff Bezos on Meetings Clip (X)

• Casual Viewing: Why Netflix looks like that (n+1 Magazine)

• Tribe — Sebastian Junger

• The Never-Ending Lockdown (The New Urban Order)

• Sales of Bibles Are Booming, Fueled by First-Time Buyers and New Versions (The Wall Street Journal)

Words of the Year

• Welcome to Wolf Crawl - by Simon Haisell

• The First Books Book Club - by Sarah Stewart HollandMain Block Resources (Title Section)

Episode 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.

Sarah [00:00:29] Thank you for joining us today in this year. What a year it has been. On Tuesday show, we reflected on what 2024 has taught us. And today we're going to keep that conversation going and talk about what we think 2025 has in store. And at the end of the show we'll end with what's on our minds outside of politics. And we're thinking about our words for the year. We like to pick one word that sort of reflects the energy we're taking into the new year. And so we'll talk about that.

Beth [00:01:00] We will be taking the next two weeks off to rest and prepare for the new year and the new administration and all that might be on the other side for us, but we still have episodes for you to enjoy. A couple of conversations that we loved before and are sharing again and a couple of new conversations as well. All things that we hope will fill you up and bring you some rest and refreshment and tools for reflection as you head into 2025.

Sarah [00:01:25] If you are looking for a last minute gift for the Pantsuit Politics fan in your life, don't forget that Substack makes it incredibly easy to gift a subscription to our premium community. You can do it in minutes. We've got the link for you in our show notes and would love to be a part of your holiday gifting. Up next, let's talk about 2025.

[00:01:43] Music Interlude.

[00:01:51] Beth, it was hard in our conversation on Tuesday to keep it contained.

Beth [00:01:54] That's not our strength. We have a lot of strength, but keeping it contained is not one of them.

Sarah [00:01:58] No, containment is probably not one of them because it is. It gets wrapped up in how you feel about 2024 when you start thinking about how you feel about 2025. How do you talk about what we learned about Elon and 2024 without talking about the chaos? You think Elon wreck-- and he's already wrecked. And for that matter we can just squeeze in just a little baby news because I was so mad. I prerecorded the final Good News Brief of the year. Chockfull. It was chockfull. And I started with government funding. And then what happened? Like 9:00 last night, Elon got on X and Trump got on Truth Social and said kill that; we're not going to do that. We should raise the debt ceiling on Biden's watch. And I thought, well, isn't this a good little peek into what 2025 has in store for us? Then I had to go edit my news brief. I was mad.

Beth [00:03:07] I'm mad for you that you had to edit your news brief. I read those headlines and heard Corinne Bailey Rae singing the more things seem to change, the more it stays the same. I am having a hard time thinking through this conversation in terms of how far into 2025 we're looking to. Because I have thoughts about Ellen and Vivek and Trump and where the government might be going-- but they're maybe January thoughts. It's hard for me to see beyond the immediacy.

Sarah [00:03:38] If you have thoughts about fall 2025, then you are a more confident prognosticator than me. And that's all I got to say about that. If you have a good foundation of what you think is coming all the way until like fall of next year, godspeed. I think we're talking about Q1, y'all. That's about as far as I'm willing to go.

Beth [00:03:59] But this budget situation is a good reminder that we made this presidential transition awfully fast. It feels like Trump is in power already, even though he's not yet been sworn in. And I think January will be even more of that. That's one thing I feel confident in predicting.

Sarah [00:04:16] Well, and that's what I thought was so crazy about this little machination. You're already acting like the president. Nobody thinks this is "on Biden's watch". You're the one telling them to do it. It's wild to me. You're on a social media platform communicating publicly that you want them to raise the debt ceiling and you think Joe Biden, who you're basically pretending is already gone, will take the hit for that. Again, I see glimmers of like everything's different and everything stays the same when it comes to Donald Trump.

Beth [00:04:49] I also wonder how long Elon can get away with playing so hard. He seems to be holding nothing back. He's meeting with members of Congress. The DOGE is whatever is going to be already up and running.

Sarah [00:05:04] I didn't know that. Do they have a space? They got an office? They got a plan?

Beth [00:05:07] Well, I don't know. It's unclear to me what that means. But it is clear to me that they are in action. They are doing things. They are making plans. Those plans are being received by people with actual power in our government as a blueprint for what the next administration is going to look like, for what the next year is going to look like. And I wonder how long Donald Trump is going to put up with that. It sounds like Ellen was out in front of Trump on tanking the CR.

Sarah [00:05:41] To the Elon of it all, I don't know how long this buddy comedy will last. I think that Elon Musk has enough of what Trump wants, that it will last longer than most. The insane wealth, the global influence, the innovative ideas, the longer attention span even. So I think that aspect of Elon's personality and what Trump values can make it last longer than like Anthony Scaramucci, which I guess it's already lasted longer than. But I don't know. I think it will be very interesting. And I think what's most interesting going into 2025 is that I can't think of another comparison where we're entering an administration where it feels like someone else is steering. I mean, I would say maybe Bush because the zeitgeist at the time and the analysis at the time was that Dick Cheney was really the president.

Beth [00:06:50] And at least Dick Cheney had been elected.

Sarah [00:06:52] Yeah, right. At least Dick Cheney had been elected. But that's the closest I can think of and I don't think that's very close.

Beth [00:06:58] It's especially interesting that he's not even the chief of staff. Certainly we've had administrations where you could feel the pull or the hand of the chief of staff and everything. But Elon is something else entirely, and that he's doing this while running four companies. And I think the media power that he holds because of X is the X factor. I hate to even use X Factor. It just feels like way too congratulatory to Elon and his obsession with that letter. But I think that's right. Every time I talk about Elon Musk with anyone, I feel like the phrase for better or worse comes up. And for me it's always for better and worse because he does bring a lot to the table. It just is a whole lot. It's all the lot. And it has real upside and real downside and a whole lot of in between. And for him to be juggling all these spheres of power at one time does feel brand new to me.

Sarah [00:07:55] And it's just so wild. If we'd been back in 2023 and we're anticipating 2024 and we know that Donald Trump is going to be the candidate and he's going to occupy the attention, that would have been predictable. But if someone had told me in 2023 that at the end of 2024 Donald Trump will have won but Elon Musk is who we all will be talking about, I would have had some questions. You know what I mean?

Beth [00:08:22] I very specifically recall talking about Elon Musk in an episode. I think in late 2023 when I had read the Walter Isaacson biography, and your posture was, I would like never to talk about him again.

Sarah [00:08:39] Yes, same. You know what? I still feel that way, Beth.

Beth [00:08:41] I know you do. And I'm sorry that the universe has delivered this.

Sarah [00:08:45] Yeah. No, at the end of 2023 we were like, well, his debt with Twitter is going to come due and he's going to have all these problems. And that is just not panned out. And it was so interesting. I while thinking about the Elon of it all, dug in a little bit to his compensation package that's been struck down, I think twice now, from Tesla. Was it $54 billion or something insane? And these two guys were arguing about it on CNBC, and one was like this is out of the ordinary. This is in no universe of compensation. And that's really what the judge has been saying. Like, come on, give me a break. And the other guy was like, but so is Elon. So is Elon. Elon is out of the ordinary. And I'm like, I guess. But it's just like in all these areas, like you said, for good and for bad, he's breaking norms and it looks like the incoming presidential administration is going to be one more area that he's doing that in.

Beth [00:09:49] It represents a tension that I feel in myself all the time and that I think we are struggling with in American life. This frustration with the Uber wealthy and our fascination with the Uber wealthy and our recognition that some of them are Uber wealthy because they are pretty extraordinary people. Just yesterday I sent to our whole team a video of Jeff Bezos talking about how he runs meetings because I found it extremely useful and insightful. And we don't operate at Amazon level, but there are things to learn from what he had to say about meetings and business. And I quote him a lot when I talk about his concept of disagree and commit. That you show up in a meeting, you put it all on the table. You make your best, most passionate argument in opposition to whatever is being said. If you really don't think that that's the right path, but then what the company decides you go with and you get on board with because that's the only way an organization function effectively.

[00:10:42] So I feel in myself this sense of like Jeff Bezos is not a person who I admire in general, but I can learn a lot from him. And I think that theme of wealth as captivating, divisive, even more powerful as more wealthy people have control of the reins of government, less powerful in some ways, as Uber wealthy people who aren't in the government are showing that they're capitulating to Donald Trump; these donations to his inauguration, the settlement with ABC, where they're giving money to his presidential library in a case that I think they almost certainly would have won, is wild around money going into 2025.

Sarah [00:11:25] Yeah, as I was thinking about the new year, the two X factors were Elon Musk and honestly the assassination of Brian Thompson. That opened up a window into things that I think we knew, we were ignoring, had not been captured in a way. And as I think about the Trump administration, I've used the phrase the dog that caught the car, but that's not bold or big enough for what I'm feeling. It's almost like they're the lesser avenger who got their hands on one of the infinity stones and just didn't know quite what to do with it. This is a real fury and frustration in America around so many things. And I think wealth is a thread that runs through all of them. The cost of housing. The cost of health care. There's a big piece in The New Yorker I have opened on a tab to read, it's like the gilded age of health care is here. And I just think the Gilded Age is going to become a phrase we use more and more, and that feeds a type of rage. And that's what's so disjointed as we go into 2025. You have a populist candidate who captured the dissatisfaction, frustration and anger of the populists with donations and support from the Uber wealthy. And I cannot make those two things drive. It feels weird. It feels weird out there. I know those words we used a lot in 2024, but that feels like a very combustible, chaotic combination.

Beth [00:13:29] And combustible is the word when you overlay it with that poll showing that 41% of people between 18 and 29 think that the murder of Bryan Thompson may have been appropriate. Normally, we understand that violence is abhorred by the general populace, but that the few people who believe in it can do an enormous amount of damage. What happens if the general populace signals a willingness to tolerate more political violence? Which happened with January 6th as well and then with this murder. That's a powder keg for sure.

Sarah [00:14:10] But also people who don't like disorder and don't like their things locked up in the drugstore and don't like homeless people on the street, but you're okay with political violence? I have become confused, America. I have become confused because this feels disjointed to me. It feels inconsistent to me. You like order? You like to feel like things aren't being overrun. You're worried about crime committed by illegal immigrants, but you're cool with the assassination of the CEO of a major health care company on the streets of Manhattan? It's not that I don't understand objectively, intellectually how people put those in different boxes. But on a macro level, where's the cohesiveness? Again, you're mad about how expensive things are, but you're cool with Elon Musk running things. You're mad about the crime waves coming from the border and fentanyl, but you're fine with assassinations? I have questions.

Beth [00:15:16] I made a list of contradictions that I think are animating the populace right now and that will continue into 2025. And I had on my list anger about income inequality, but the embrace and elevation of billionaires in our government. Our concern about places that are vulnerable to climate change, the disasters that we're enduring, but yet people continuing to move to those places in large numbers. We want lower prices, but also tariffs. We want more workers, but also less immigration both legal and illegal. We want to live longer, but no one wants to talk about how we care for older people as a crisis in our population, which it is and is going to become more so over the next four years. And I think that those contradictions aggravate that crackling openness to political violence because we have that feeling that we just want someone to fix it all. And I don't think that's coming. I think in the most optimistic scenario, this administration has a lot of opportunities. They really do. They could put some major points on the board in the next two years in particular. But even as they do that, I don't see the capability to get at the depth that produced this administration.

Sarah [00:16:41] Well, because all of this is taking place in a landscape of media consumption and journalism and social media that has changed so dramatically and is going to continue to change in 2025. I was talking to a friend whose opinion I greatly respect when it comes to social media, and she was like, "I think we're going to just see another major evolution because people are leaving." I think that's just going to continue in 2025. I think people are leaving social media. They're not going to tell us those numbers. But I've got a hunch anecdotally. And I read this piece this week about Netflix and how the streaming has decimated the movie industry because they're not accountable to viewership or ratings or ticket sales. They're just trying to put enough crap in the library that it feels like you're getting your money's worth when you sign up for the membership. And I think that loss of cultural and societal touchstones is probably first of all why the assassination of Brian Thompson felt so powerful because it became one very, very quickly.

[00:18:01] I think it's why political violence becomes a language people understand because it bubbles through. And I think it's going to be increasingly hard to understand where anybody is at, how to reach people. The trump campaign talks a big game about how they spent and how they targeted people in online advertising. And I believe them. I think that some of what they did was very effective, obviously. But I think the shattering of the media environment and in the news and journalism environment is just going to make it harder and harder to educate the populace, to lead the populace through some of these contradictions. One of our listeners was like I think you can call to people's better angels. Look at the Blitz, look at these moments in time where there was a struggle and people rose up.

[00:19:08] But that takes leadership. Listen, I've read Tribe by Sebastian Junger. I think about it all the time and I think a lot about why Covid was not that moment. But it was in certain places. With our governor in Kentucky I think it became one of those moments. But Trump took another path, and I don't anticipate him taking any different path in 2025 or on within the administration besides dividing people when he doesn't know what to do. Now, if Elon's telling him what to do, maybe he'll feel differently. Maybe he'll find a confidence inside himself. I don't know. But that's my concern. It's like it's just going to be harder to communicate with people, to feel like they're in it together, that they share anything. And how do you lead people through those contradictions you listed if that's the case?

Beth [00:19:51] I don't know. But I do feel in my gut-- I have a lot of gut sensations happening right now, which is uncomfortable for me because I want to be able to justify my arguments with more than I just feel it. But what I feel is that something that we have not seen before, something massively disruptive, will come to journalism in the next year. And I know that industry has already been disrupted in major ways, but with another Trump administration and all of the real and perceived fatigue with covering news and politics that exists out there, but also with the way that news and politics keeps coming closer and closer to your door no matter who you are or where you live, something has got to break through this. And I think someone will crack that code. I don't know what that's going to look like and I don't know if it will be wonderful or terrible or something in between or something that just lasts for a season. But I've got to believe that there is another major change coming next year.

Sarah [00:20:54] Well, I think we're going to see the death knell of cable news. They're already talking about selling CNN. The numbers are terrible. And I think the X Factor, when it comes to any changes beyond the legacy media, final breaths, particularly with the cable news, I think that's going to just go the way of the dodo.

Beth [00:21:17] Let us hope.

Sarah [00:21:18] Well, yeah. I don't think cable news did anything positive. I'll just be honest with you.

Beth [00:21:22] The exception for me that I do want to name because this, I hope, will be part of whatever happens next, is that when something immediate is going down, cable news has the resources to send journalists to get real time information that is hard to get another way reliably. And I also think about some of the foreign correspondents who cable news provided a stable career for. The people who were able to get a paycheck without writing some sensational piece from a conflict zone. That they reliably had a job to go do good journalistic work. Cable news helped us a lot in that capacity. I think it ruined us domestically in so many ways. But there have been moments where there was a real value add. And I want that to be part of the conversation in thinking about what comes next.

Sarah [00:22:14] Well, and I think network news will still do that work. I think The New York Times and The Washington Post and then the big legacy papers will do that work. And everybody should pay for that because that's the next thing that we're just going to keep transitioning to in 2025, which is a subscription model where you pay for your news. And that's tough because it's going to create further separation in so many ways in the American populous who can neither afford nor want to pay for their news and don't value news and politics. And so you're going to probably continue to see that divide. I think the X factor within the news and politics and media and societal space is what's going to happen with TikTok. They have been granted a hearing before the Supreme Court based on what I understand from the lower court. Which took the strictest scrutiny, which means they were the hardest on the government. Like you got to really prove your case here. But this is what the Supreme Court asks for all the time. If this is so important, Congress should pass a law. Well, Congress passed the law. So I anticipate them holding up this decision. I don't know how you feel about that. And I don't know if ByteDance will blink and sell or if TikTok will go away? I don't know.

Beth [00:23:26] It is very hard for me to imagine. This court giving less credence to the national security argument than the lower court did. At the same time, this court has seemed to take its cues from Donald Trump in a number of respects, and he has waffled on this issue. I think this court could convince itself that it is a free speech crusading body. So I don't know how this case is going to go down. I can talk myself into either outcome. If it is upheld, Congress's divestment law or ban, I have to imagine that TikTok will be sold. It seems like such a valuable asset. It's hard to imagine it just going away, but it's also hard to imagine TikTok without the algorithm that comes from ByteDance. And I understand we've got a lot of genius tech minds in the United States and maybe somebody grabs it. And if somebody grabs it, it seems most likely to me that it will be someone in that Elon Musk orbit who takes it in a very conservative direction and then it will become something else entirely. I think it has to change. Whatever happens, I think there has to be a big shift in what TikTok is in the next year.

Sarah [00:24:47] Well, there's no stasis in tech or otherwise. So to see what's going to happen with TikTok and Bluesky versus X. But it just feels to me like I don't think this is the general populace's position yet. But I do think in sort of-- I don't know what other call it, but the elite-ish upper middle class, highly educated circles, this is where this is going to start. It started with the tech. You would read these stories about the tech billionaires who didn't give their kids any technology at all. And now I think it's trickled down to the professional class who's like, you know what? I don't think so. And so that means it's just going to keep trickling down to a place where it becomes more and more acceptable. And I think that that's the other thing I'm kind of watching in 2025, is this conversation that's happening more and more around it's not fair to ask the individual to fight these things. I think that's what Robert Kennedy tapped with Make America Healthy. I think that's what Donald Trump taps to a certain extent. And I think there's a threat of that on both sides of the political spectrum of you can't ask me to make all the sacrifices and fight this system.

[00:26:07] Somebody with some power should fight this system on my behalf and make it easier for me to exist within it. And I don't know how that's going to play out. I don't know if anybody really inside the Trump administration is going to take up that charge. But I feel like people are getting more and more aware of that. And you know what I think? One of the things that really fueled that to me as I watched people talk about it and see people rethinking things is freaking Semaglutides. I think there was this like mental shift of like you were blaming me. You were telling me I was a bad person. And what this has shown me is that this was way bigger than me the whole time. And I think that mental shift is hard to stop once it started in one area. It spreads. You know what I mean? And I feel that bubbling around so many institutions and areas of American life.

Beth [00:26:57] Related to Semaglutides, I think we are going to confront spending. We're going to have to confront spending. Everything I read about Semaglutide right now in the most callous way, not the effect it has on individual lives and people's health, but in the big picture sense is that more people are seeking more health care because of these drugs. And these drugs are expensive. And the cost of these drugs plus all of the costs that happen when someone starts to see a doctor again and starts to address issues that have gone unaddressed before--

Sarah [00:27:32] Or just gets surprise pregnant, which happens like a fair amount with these things. Talk about health care expense.

Beth [00:27:39] And the 10% increase in hospital spending that was just reported the most since 1990. And the way that all of that wraps up into mandatory government spending that is exploding while we have a plan from Republicans in Congress to make the 2017 tax cuts the law and permanent through the reconciliation process as soon as they are sworn into office. This is a crash course. The thing that I have become convinced of-- you've said you do want to hear about Elon Musk anymore. What I would love to put on the shelf of history is modern monetary theory. I have tried to get there. I do not buy it. I think our debt is going to become a massive problem for us. I think the Social Security trust fund is going to become a massive problem for us.

[00:28:39] I don't think there is an easy print more money solution to get out of this. The more that our debt becomes comparable to and eventually eclipses our GDP, which it looks like will happen really, really soon, we are going to have to figure that out. And I know that there is hope, but a serious conversation about that can happen over the next two years. I worry that it will take so much work and so much political will that even if you have a lot of serious people in Congress-- which I have some skepticism about. I think there are serious people in Congress, but enough to take on this kind of work. All of those people serve in two year cycles and I don't know how you tackle this in that system.

Sarah [00:29:37] Well, to the Semaglutide of it all, I think that they'll get cheaper in 2025 Because there's too much money to be made and there's already more competition. And so I'm trying to think like where the other places of all those areas you listed where we've got some spending issues that something could come along fueled by AI or otherwise that could upend that? Because I think there is the potential, particularly in the health care space, for Ai to continue to present options we thought were not possible suddenly. So I think they'll get cheaper, but I think we might see other things that come along and are like, whoa, this changes everything.

Beth [00:30:24] Are we going to undoubtedly see other things that come along and it changes everything and more and more?

Sarah [00:30:29] This was a huge section of my Good News Brief. Just because AI is particularly with health care. The ability for them to run through 3,000,000 kabillion proteins and figure out which one-- or your digital twin so they can plug in all this information and say which will help you in health care wise. That's going to be expensive before it makes everything cheap. You know what I mean?

Beth [00:30:50] Absolutely. And all of it takes us even farther away from what insurance is supposed to do. We're roads diverging here in terms of what health care is going to become, which I'm here for it. I think it's fantastic in most respects. I have concerns as well, but mostly the more problems we can solve before they become problems, I'm thrilled. But that diverges very much from a system where you pay in hoping that you never have a catastrophe where it pays out.

Sarah [00:31:21] Well, and I think there's just so many other areas where the spending is ballooning. I think the cost of natural disasters in the way the federal government in particular continues to bail communities out is not sustainable. The government funding package they agreed upon that Donald Trump and Elon Musk killed had $100 billion in disaster relief. How long are we going to do this? Not to mention the home insurance crisis, which we have a show planned on for 2025. Because that's going to continue to be a huge deal across the country and not just in California and not just in Florida, where you just get a letter and the letter says we're not going to show your house anymore. And then if you can't ensure your house, how are you going get a mortgage? And how much of American's wealth and retirement is built on mortgages? Man, we just watched It's a Wonderful Life with our kids for the first time. That is a propaganda piece on homeownership. If I don't know if you've watched recently, but it is really on like everyone deserves their own home. That's the answer for everything.

[00:32:29] But that's going to get a lot more complicated as climate change continues to increase these once in a lifetime, but not really once every five years, storms, natural disasters. So the spending there is going up in a way that the government is just continuing to bury its head in the sand about and the military. I think that this shift to drones and technology and we couldn't afford to give Ukraine everything it wanted. What would happen if we needed everything? We don't have the capacity to scale up and meet the needs of a crisis. What does that mean? And that stuff's expensive. But that's the future of warfare. And it's all these areas you can, again, hear the strain, you can hear the creaking, and it feels like the solution is spend, spend, spend, spend. And there are aspects of modern monetary theory that I still think are applicable. I am not concerned in 2025 or any other year that the dollar will stop being the global reserve currency. I'm just not. China's economy sucks. They're going to come in and be the global reserve currency? I don't think so. Europe is really struggling. I don't anticipate another option really being presentable. And so that aspect of modern monetary theory, I agree with. Now, do I think we should just print more money and risk inflation after the political cost that the Biden administration just suffered? No. And I don't think anybody in Congress feels that way either. But the level of cost that sort of-- you read enough long reads and you've looked through enough issues of the Atlantic and it's like one thing after the other after the other.

Beth [00:34:18] And we just need to change our default modes around this, because my experience is whenever I talk about needing to cut government spending or address the debt, what many people hear is a threat to a program that makes a meaningful difference to them. The way that I'm thinking about this is that the American public is spending so much money to prop up systems that we are unhappy with. And we are almost always on the back end of a problem instead of the front end. What I hope can happen over the next couple of years where you have a lot of Democrats sounding willing to work with Republicans to address issues like this. It's a good opportunity for Democrats to do some very hard work on spending and take some big risks that I don't think they could achieve if they were in the majority. I hope that people can sit down and say, what if we redeployed some resources first to see if we can't get in front of more of these problems? To do what's happening in health care, but to do it with intention and to do it with a willingness to have some fallout. The problem with so much legislation is there's no willingness to have any fallout. That's why the C.R. makes everyone unhappy, because everybody had to get something. There had to be gain. It's all accumulation and government, too. It's the government version of overconsumption. We just add and add and add. And what I hope is that everything could be on the table over the next couple of years to figure out what can be subtracted, not to take away from people, but to actually make life better.

Sarah [00:36:04] It's hard to convince people that subtracting can make their life better. I read a great book called Subtract, and it's just not how our brains are built. Our brains are acquire, acquire, acquire. And I think it's not how Donald Trump's brain is built. It might be how Elon Musk's brain is built. He loves to role in and slash and burn. But we'll see how much he can perpetuate that inside the behemoth that is the United States federal government. I'm wondering what you see is cultural and societal trends outside of like policy and government. We're not going to have Taylor Swift to occupy the field anymore unless she decides to get married and have a baby, which I am currently trying to manifest. Just for fun. Just for happiness and joy in the universe. You know what I mean? She doesn't owe it to me. I just think it would be nice.

[00:36:52] I know you mentioned quickly on the Tuesday show and I totally agree that there seems to be sort of a religious resurgence. When Savannah Guthrie wrote that book, I was like, whoa, what's going on here? And then Mark Wahlberg went on all these talk shows with his Lenten cross on his forehead. I think he has like an app. Lots of apps. Daily spiritual apps. And you, look, I'm interested. I'm fascinated. I don't think this is some sort of sneaky agenda of the Christian nationalist. I think this is a sincere trend building where people are asking like what kind of life do I want to live? What kind of person do I want to be? Is religion an answer to that? And for thousands and thousands of years of human history, the answer has been yes.

Beth [00:37:45] I read a Substack piece this week that crisply communicated what we continue to circle around with social media by saying that it felt to this writer pre-pandemic that the digital world existed in service of the real world and that the pandemic flipped that. And now the real world exists in service of the digital world. And that is miserable.

Sarah [00:38:14] I don't like it. I reject it.

Beth [00:38:17] I was thinking in my own life about how important it is to me to dig in to spiritual practice in 2025, and that made me think about how I went back to church after the 2016 election, after being away from church for a very long time. 2020 was the pandemic, so my relationship with spirituality necessarily changed because I couldn't go anymore. So I have had evolutions in my own faith journey around these markers in time where lots is changing societally, and I doubt I'm alone in that now. In addition to Savannah Guthrie and Mark Wahlberg, which both struck me as really significant too, you send us an article maybe about TikTok influencers talking about the Bible. I don't know exactly what this looks like, but I do think it's something different than Christian nationalism and politics. I think that's pretty much not religion. I think that's the use of religious symbols for a political movement. But I think there is a religious strain happening out there. Many, many articles about how young men are very attracted to religion right now. And I see it happening for women, too. And I hope that it's healthy. There will definitely be versions of it that aren't. For sure. But I hope that there is a healthy version of it out there too, because I think whether it is through faith or through another vehicle searching for community and purpose feels like where we all need to go.

Sarah [00:39:56] Yeah. When I see this and I think it's not just religion, I think you'll see some spirituality wrapped up in all this.

Beth [00:40:05] That's great.

Sarah [00:40:06] I agree that Christian nationalism is more about politics than it is anybody's search for a higher power. But I do think-- and I'm greatly concerned. Not to drag us back to the previous part of this conversation, but that the sort of MAGA world has grabbed the conversation about what does it mean to be a good person and live a life. The way they captured the crunchy moms, which is another conversation we plan on having in 2025. The way they've kind of occupied the field with hippies and people who really were like I want to make choices that are aligned with my values whether you agree with them or not. For better or for worse, the MAGA. Trumpist, Elon universe has invited those people in indefinitely. Robert Kennedy and Make America Healthy Again. A hundred percent has invited them in and said, I wonder about this, too. I'm scared about this, too. I'm concerned about these bigger questions. Instead of what I think they felt coming from the far left, which was, if you don't agree with me, you're a bad person and your deeper questions are really just because you are racist or sexist or whatever.

[00:41:25] And so I really hope that there's an expansion of that and not this knee jerk any religion, any spirituality is to be scoffed at or to be judged. People want to be invited along to a conversation, to a journey. They want to feel like they can make that journey themselves. And I understand that for so many people the experience inside a religious institution was the exact opposite. I also grew up in one of those communities, but I think we have to acknowledge that kind of greater yearning. And maybe it's because the entertainment space has shifted so dramatically. I kind of always talk about it as a person who loves TV and movies as a bad thing, that we don't have these shared entertainment experiences, that we don't have these places where we're together talking about things through the lens of a movie or a TV show. But maybe it's not all bad. Maybe the vacuum has left space for people to do that in a different way. To pursue it individually instead of just through the lens of entertainment and recreation. Books do that for me for 100%. Books do that for me in reading. And so, I'm hopeful. I'm an optimist. I like any form of deeper reflection, self-improvement. I don't care what you call it. And so if America wants to pick up some of that, I'm here for it.

Beth [00:42:52] I know there are people listening who work in health care or public health who die a little inside every time we mention Robert F Kennedy Jr. or Make America Healthy Again. Because they live the reality that a lot of health care is not an individual pursuit. That getting a vaccine is not about self-actualization. But so much of this falls apart if we decide we're going to do our own research and ask these deeper questions and live in our concerns.

Sarah [00:43:24] Medical freedom; that's the lingo.

Beth [00:43:28] And I don't think they're wrong. And I share those concerns. I share those alarm bells going off. What I want to figure out is a way to acknowledge that we have a problem in this country. We have a distrust. And maybe some of it isn't even a problem. We have people who are saying I'm ready to question everything. For whatever reason, they're ready to question everything. And so what do we do in response to that that's healthy, that is politically savvy to be really callous about it that helps when elections for the people who we think will make good policy but also is more connective. So when I think about cultural trends in addition to what I think could be a religious resurgence, I also think there will be more gathering in general. There Eras tour was so successful that certainly people are going to try to recreate that in some form. Now, I don't think it can be recreated and I don't think it needs to be. I love the podcast every single album where they talk a whole lot about Taylor Swift. But I recently really disagreed when I heard them saying that she has set a new standard for touring. I think she has reminded people that there is a lot of joy in coming together around live music.

[00:44:53] And maybe this is my personal bias, but I don't care if it's at the level of production of the Eras tour or if it is in a smoky bar and it's just a guy with a guitar; I love being with people to experience music. I love what feels like a big group sing along. One of our listeners was describing a caroling party that they have every holiday. I would like to be invited to a caroling party. That sounds incredible. So I hope that we take the Eras tour and learn not the lesson that if you spend $150 for a ticket, you're entitled to three and a half hours of music and multiple costume changes and an amazing set where it looks like the performer is swimming under the stage. I hope we just say, wow, it's really fun to travel, to see live music, to go to see live music with friends, to create culture around live music and live performances. And I hope that live performances really see a renaissance, too. One of my favorite things that Chad and I saw this year was a second city tour through Cincinnati. And that live improv is special. It was in a really small theater. And the performers talked at length about how special these shows are because they never happen the same way again. And I think we want more experiences like that.

Sarah [00:46:16] Yeah, we'll see. You're not going to get it on Netflix. The content is just fading. We're not experiencing some sort of like golden age of streaming movies and TV. I was just talking to a friend. She was like, wow, I really love Bad Sisters. And I was like, well, I heard the second season was good. And she's like, yeah, wasn't? And like shrinking. And I was like, I heard the second season was good. She's like, yeah, it wasn't. You know what I mean? I think that the idea that you would like follow along all six seasons like we did with The Sopranos is gone. And this sense that even a movie that's great to watch it alone on your phone-- Griffin's watching all these Christmas movies on his phone and I'm like stop it. That is not how those are supposed to be experienced. So I think the way that we are all dissatisfied, I was reading an article about how Netflix took over Blockbuster and Blockbuster was described as managed dissatisfaction. Well, that's what Netflix is now. Our relationships with so much of entertainment is managed dissatisfaction. We don't love it. So I do think it leaves open possibilities for live experiences in theater and live music. But we'll just have to see what people's threshold and comfort is with that.

[00:47:42] We're all going to have a little more money now that we're not trying to get to the areas tour. But other concerts were really struggling while she was blowing it out of the water. So we'll see what happens next. I think the thing I'm thinking about overall, Alise said the other day rudely that it's 2025, that we're a corner through the 21st century. And I'm really thinking about that a lot as we go into this new year that. It's time to leave the 20th century behind. We're no longer newly in the 2000s. It still feels that way to me sometimes even with Covid. Like we're in it now. We're fully 25 years in this century. Things are different. Everything's different. What does that mean? How do we integrate all the ways that media and journalism and culture and politics and the Trump era and the Taylor era and all of these ways have changed us and changed our politics and changed the globe and changed our economy? Instead of so often feeling the weight of what has been and the picture, the narrative, the storyline of what has been particularly I think so heavy in the 80s and the 90s and the early aughts and just in realizing like we're past that now. It's the long ago. The 80s were long ago now. And really thinking about that 25 is such a nice round number to really think through this 21st century that we are all well and good inside now.

Beth [00:49:18] This sort of threshold moment or turning point has me thinking about how the most power belongs to people who are unpredictable. So I think that's definitely true in Congress. I found the No Labels conference that I went to last week really instructive. Watching people there who are not moderate; they're not centrist in their viewpoints, but they are willing to be unpredictable. They are interested in being in Congress to get things done, not just to be content creators or, as one senator put it, legislative terrorists. They are there to get things done. And there is power in being unpredictable. There's media power in it. There's legislative power in it. There's electoral power in being unpredictable. But I think that's absolutely true. I think Chappell Rowen captivated people this year culturally because she's very unpredictable. I think the more we all start to use large language models, I've been using quad quite a bit, the more important unpredictability is to me because now you can get a reasonable first draft of anything.

[00:50:34] That is a complete snooze fest. It's competent, but it's a snooze fest. And so I don't want it to always be that unpredictable means disruptive and certainly not destructive. But freshness is important. One of the lawmakers I'm keeping my eye on for 2025 is Maria [inaudible]. I think you could just go ahead and start to call her MGP because she's got something that is fresh. It's very, very fresh and it's unpredictable. She says things in every interview that take you a minute. And that is extremely powerful. If she's scandal-free, I think she is lightning in a bottle because she is really, really new. And I hope we see more of that because I think that's what these times call for.

Sarah [00:51:26] Yeah, I think anybody who is coming out of 2025 strong will have that particular lightning in a bottle that they feel authentic, that they feel fresh. And that's why, as interested as I am in conversations about what happens next in the Democratic Party, some of it is just like, well, whoever is next is what happens next. Whoever the next nominee is will define the next era of Democratic politics. If they win, I guess, that is. But you know what I mean? Like that's so much of it. It's like you don't know. You don't know until they show up and everybody goes, what was that? And those are the best moments in any year. But I think definitely this year. I think when you have someone like Donald Trump who's been on the scene for so long but partnered with somebody like Elon Musk, who delights in being disruptive, it is a very interesting situation.

[00:52:24] And culturally where so many things have been upended, where the places online in particular that we used for years to replace those third places, church. civic organizations, community organizations, just gatherings together, is falling apart. You can feel the wheels coming off. You can feel the managed dissatisfaction. Well, where are people going to turn? Who's going to invite them to a new story, to a new place to have conversations, to connect, to ask those deeper questions? And, listen, that's why I love a new year. I can't wait to see it. I can't wait to find out who will be the person, what company, what technology, what subtraction? That would be something I would be very excited to see in 2025. Who shows up and says I'm not going to create something new, but I have something we could take away that will change everything. It'll be interesting. It'll be interesting to watch as every year is.

Beth [00:53:27] When you say managed dissatisfaction, the two party system feels like the ultimate example of that to me. And I wonder if we are ready for something different than realignment. And that this last election where both parties behaved cautiously. Donald Trump was a cautious choice for Republicans. That feels strange to say, but he was. And Joe Biden was a cautious choice for Democrats; and when that caution could no longer be held, vice President Harris was a cautious choice and she ran a cautious campaign. And the caution is resulting in a lot of managed dissatisfaction. And so I wonder if this will be the year where we start to see real progress toward something new politically, too. I hope so. But we'll be here for all of it, and I'm looking forward to it.

[00:54:24] Music Interlude.

Sarah [00:54:35] Beth, have you selected your word of the year?

Beth [00:54:37] I have cheated and I've selected two.

Sarah [00:54:39] That's not allowed. I'm just kidding.

Beth [00:54:42] It's the year of disruption. We're going for newness and freshness. That's what I just heard.

Sarah [00:54:46] We have two presidents, Elon Musk and Donald Trump. So you might as well have two words.

Beth [00:54:49] Why couldn't I have two words? Here's what happened. Maybe in September or October I just felt in my body my word for 2025 is magic. And that still feels right to me about my home, about my kids, my husband, my most personal relationships. That's where I want to be magic. For everything else, I have selected the word calibrate. I want to calibrate my responses to the Trump administration. I do not want to do four years of everything and everybody sucks. That's not interesting. It's not helpful. It contributes nothing to the world. So I want to calibrate my responses. I got a lot of things that just feel out of balance to me right now. As I think about 2024, very little in my life changed. If you made a list of who is Beth Silver, almost nothing was different than in 2023. But how I feel about those things and the dynamics within those things all changed dramatically. And I just want to calibrate to the new normal or calibrate to a healthier spot or bring more balance into relationships and projects where I lack balance right now. So calibrate is where I am. What about you?

Sarah [00:56:06] Well, I have a word bubbling up. I don't know if it's going to be the word. Mainly because this year I think I'm going to have actual resolutions and goals; the word took over for a long time because I pumped the brakes on these hard core goals. And over the years, I've kind of lean more back into actual resolutions instead of just a word. And so the word that's bubbling up is read, which sounds crazy. I read a lot of things. I don't know why I picked read. I don't know. It's just the word that keeps coming to mind. I am taking a more designed approach to my reading life. Specific I don't know the word I want. But usually I just read. I read what comes in front of me. I have one goal. Often I will have a longer read. I read Don Quixote this year, but I kind of sat down and mapped it all out this year. For one reason I'm doing a couple long reads because Substack is a great place to find really cool long read campaigns or whatever you want to call them. So I'm doing one for Hilary Mantel's trilogy about Thomas Moore, starting with [inaudible] It's called The Wolf Crawl. Listen, that's funny. And I think I'm going to do the one they're doing for War and Peace as well. So I'm doing some long reads but then I thought, man, I have some big plans, including a book club that I'm hosting on my Substack. How many years have you heard me talk about this idea for a book club, Beth?

Beth [00:57:30] It's been a while.

Sarah [00:57:32] It's been a while, guys.

Beth [00:57:33] It's been percolating.

Sarah [00:57:34] It's been percolating for a long time. I've always had the idea that these authors who we all roll our eyes at, the James Patterson's of the world, the ones who are churning out three books a month or something bananas. I'm always like, I bet their first book or the book that made them famous is great. I always think about John Grisham because The Time to Kill is a great book.

Beth [00:57:54] It's a very, very, good.

Sarah [00:57:54] It's a great book. Now, towards the end, that really stuck. But that book is great. I'm working with Lisa from The Bookshelf on Church because Beth got tired of me dragging her along with all of my reading plans. She just wants to be left to read her Louise Penny and stop with my 15 different writing ideas a day.

Beth [00:58:10] That's not entirely fair, but I do think this is a better structure for us.

Sarah [00:58:14] She's like just like being read my Louise Penny for the love. So I'm going to do like a romance. We're going to read a Danielle Steel. Have you ever read Danielle Steel?

Beth [00:58:22] No, I haven't

Sarah [00:58:23] Me either. I'm really excited about it. Passion's Promise. This is one she like wrote in the early 70s.

Beth [00:58:28] I do like a romance novel, though, honestly. I'd probably enjoy it.

Sarah [00:58:31] Well, we're going to read it with a new romance writer's first book so we can compare. Do you know how many books Danielle steel has sold?

Beth [00:58:39] It has to be so many.

Sarah [00:58:41] You just guess. You guess.

Beth [00:58:42] How many books in total has Danielle still sold over the course of her life? My gosh.

Sarah [00:58:50] Passion's Promise came out in the late 70s. This is the one that really took off for her.

Beth [00:58:54] I don't even know how to guess this number. Like, 50 million?

Sarah [00:58:57] A billion, Beth.

Beth [00:58:59] Good for her.

Sarah [00:59:00] She sold a billion books!

Beth [00:59:01] Good for her. Get it Danielle Steel. Do your thing.

Sarah [00:59:02] She's the best-selling author alive.

Beth [00:59:06] That's incredible. Good for her.

Sarah [00:59:07] Is that not insane? She still writes like seven books a year.

Beth [00:59:12] I think that's great. I think we'd all be happier if we read more romance novels, honestly.

Sarah [00:59:16] So we're going to do romance. We're going to do a Western. We're going to read Louis L'Amour. We're going to do James Patterson. And one of his early books that made him famous Along Came a Spider. Remember that Ashley Judd movie?

Beth [00:59:26] I do.

Sarah [00:59:28] And we're going to do a spy novel. We're going to do Tom Clancy, The Hunt for Red October. I'm excited. Might be a little too close to home with some of the things going on. But because I'm doing this, because I have my other book clubs, because I still do Well-read Mom, I was like, I need to make a plan. I need to see how this is charting out. We have our big trip in October to Switzerland to do Frankenstein. And so, I think it's the culmination of all these plans and thinking about this and thinking about my reading life in a more focused way is probably why read keeps bubbling up. But I have a lot of resolutions. The word could shift and change. Last year the word was less and I told y'all, what if it means we make less money? And then we made a lot less money. So the word is powerful.

Beth [01:00:15] I've worked really hard at not holding you accountable or responsible for that. I just want you to know I think you should free yourself from that. It's okay.

Sarah [01:00:22] But it doesn't bother me. It's not like I'm crying into my pillow at night. I think it is an acknowledgment of the power of the word man. It's not a joke. You got to feel what the word is telling you. You got to feel what word is talking to you because it's real. I think it's kind of cool.

Beth [01:00:37] When I heard you say read, I thought it was going to go in a much less literal direction. Because I feel like in our conversations about politics we have both tried to maybe move into more of a reading posture, not in terms of let's take in lots more information, but let's take in lots of different kinds of information and let's try to put down some of our personal instincts or inclinations or long held views on how things are and read what's happening today right here and now.

Sarah [01:01:17] Maybe that's why the word keeps bubbling up for me. I don't know. Stay tuned. I guess in time it could change. But that is what's bubbling up right now. And I really think that's the best words of the year. Like maybe the universe is trying to give you a heads up. That's fine, too. But just kind of listening and thinking, I find that I see the word, I hear the word, I read the word and then I'm like, bam, that's it. Even though I tried to talk myself out of less, I knew it was less. And it was less the whole time, Beth. And it was accurate. So we want to hear your words of the year because you always have such good ideas. I'll read some people's words and I'm like that's a really good word.

[01:01:57] We want to hear from you. If you would like more information on my First Books Book Club, that will be in the show notes along with the articles and everything else we talked about over the course of this episode. This final episode of 2024, we will have lots of really cool conversations, both ones we've loved throughout this year and new ones for you over the holiday break. And listen, this is not some heavy stuff. This is stuff that's just going to feed your soul. It's going to keep you nice and cozy over the next two weeks. So check it out. We are so, so grateful for each and every one of you that you have hung with us and connected with us and emailed us and talked to us or sent us a Christmas card, a holiday card over this year. We don't know what next year will bring, but we will be here together and for that we are incredibly grateful. So we will be back to talk about the news in the New Year in January, and until then, have the best holiday season available to you and keep it nuanced y'all. Music Interlude

[01:01:57] 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: Ali Edwards, Nick and Alysa Vilelli, Amy & Derek Starr Redwine, Amy Whited, Anya Binsacca, Ashley Rene, Ashley Terry, Barry Kaufman, Becca Dorval, Beth Loy, Brandon & Jessica Krausse, Catherine Kniss, Chelsea Gaarder, Christi Matthews, Christian Campbell, Christie Johnson, Christina Quartararo, Connie Peruchietti, Crystal Kemp, The Adair Family, Ellen Burnes, Emily Holladay, Emily Helen Olson, Gabrielle McDonald and Wren, Genny Francis, The Charney Family, Heather Ericacae, Jacque Earp, Jan Feltz, Janice Elliott, Jeff Davis, Jen Ross, Jeremy Sequoia, Jessica Whitehead, Jessica Boro, Jill Bisignano, Julie Haller, Julie Hough, Karin True, Katherine Vollmer, Katie Johnson, Katy Stigers, Kimberley Ludwig, Kristen Redford Hydinger, Kristina Wener, Krysten Wendell, Laura Martin, Laurie LaDow, Lee Chaix McDonough, Leighanna Pillgram-Larsen, Lily McClure, Linda Daniel, Linsey Sauer, Bookshelf on Church, Martha Bronitsky, Megan Hart, Michelle Palacios, Michelle Wood, Morgan McHugh, Onica Ulveling, Paula Bremer, The Villanueva Family, Sabrina Drago, Samantha Chalmers, Sasha Egolf, Sarah Greenup, Sarah Ralph, Shannon Frawley, Stephanie Elms, Susanne Dickinson, The Lebo Family, The Munene Family, Tiffany Hassler, Tracey Puthoff, Veronica Samoulides, Vicki Jackman.