What We Got Wrong About Joe Biden and Democratic Politics

We've been stuck, and Trump walked in with a sledgehammer

I know that so many of you never want to hear another conversation about former President Biden.

I know that it’s delicate to discuss any person’s decisions and legacy when that person is staring down an aggressive form of cancer.

I know that President Trump is worse and the president right now and doing *all these things.*

I know it feels like time, energy, and emotion are finite resources that need to be strategically deployed, and, for God’s sake, it’s May.

I see you. I hear you. I feel you. I’m with you.

Also: there’s so much to excavate from 2024. Not just about Joe Biden the man. Not just about Joe Biden the president. Not just about “the Democrats” or MAGA or Donald Trump, for that matter. Political participation at scale happens every four years in America, and there’s a lot to learn about incentives, pressures, culture, communication, and conflict.

Sarah and I have been chipping away at all of this, but I’m still unearthing my own feelings, faults, frustrations to get to my lessons learned. I felt like today’s conversation unlocked some new realizations for me. I hope it will for you, too. - Beth

Topics Discussed

• Former President Biden’s Health and an Aging Democratic Party

• The Responsibility of the Media, What We Can Say, and Who Decides

• Outside of Politics: Valedictorians

Want more Pantsuit Politics? Subscribe to ensure you never miss an episode and get access to our premium shows and community.

Episode Resources

Pantsuit Politics Resources

• Reimagining Citizenship from Pantsuit Politics

Former President Biden’s Health and an Aging Democratic Party

• Small nodule found in Joe Biden's prostate during recent physical - ABC News

• Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and his Disastrous Choice to Run Again by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson

• On the Ground in New Hampshire (Pantsuit Politics)

• Mark Halperin: Biden "Was a Trainwreck" Back in 2017... While Reporters Pretend They Didn't Know (YouTube)

• Democrats Have a Better Option than Biden (Ezra Klein)

• Jake Tapper highlight reel (Brian Katz via X)

• Scoop: Democrats' oldest lawmakers are mostly running again (Axios)

The Responsibility of the Media, What We Can Say, and Who Decides

• Democrats Have Better Issues to Debate (Bloomberg)

• Many Americans Say the Democratic Party Does Not Share Their Priorities (The New York Times)

• Matt Stoller (X)

• Biden reveals cancer diagnosis amid "cover-up" allegations.(Tangle News)

• Tap Tap Tapping on Biden's Door (Sanity Clause)

• Older Generations Continue to Surrender Moral Authority to the Most Naive, Narcissistic, Impulsive, and Dishonest Age Group (Rob Henderson’s Newsletter)

Outside of Politics: Valedictorians

• Wondering What Happened to Your Class Valedictorian? Not Much, Research Shows (Money)

• Sarah’s valedictory speech

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.

Our show is listener-supported. The community of paid subscribers here on Substack makes everything we do possible. Special thanks to our Executive Producers, some of whose names you hear at the end of each show. To join our community of supporters, become a paid subscriber here on Substack.

To search past episodes of the main show or our premium content, check out our content archive.

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 [00:00:09] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.

Beth [00:00:11] This is Beth Silvers.

Sarah [00:00:13] You're listening to Pantsuit Politics, where we take a different approach to the news. Today, we're talking about the news that former President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with cancer; the blockbuster bestseller alleging a coverup around Biden's declining health, and what all this means for the media and the Democratic Party. Outside of Politics, it is high school graduation time, and we're going to talk about valedictorians. We have discovered that in Beth and I's personal life, we represent both sides of a debate, whether there should be one valedictorian or whether it's okay to have, I don't know, 30 co-valedictorians. So we'll have that conversation Outside of Politics at the end of the show.

Beth [00:00:53] Before we get started, we have to say thank you because many of you became subscribers to Pantsuit Politics on Substack last week and we are so grateful. Your support is not just appreciated, it is essential. We would not exist without the financial backing of this amazing community. We keep saying it because we want to make sure it's heard. You make this possible. We talk about support every week because in today's media landscape, it's wild, especially for a small independent podcast like ours. So your subscription is what keeps the show alive and thriving. If you've not joined us yet, we still need you. We celebrate every single new subscriber, as well as those of you who have been with us for years.

Sarah [00:01:31] And we still need you. If you have not yet subscribed, for $15 a month, you can join our community at Substack and we have created something special this summer to motivate you. Look, it doesn't matter where you live. We're all feeling a little rundown, a little depleted, if you will. Everyone's worried about the country. Everyone is stressed by the headlines. Everyone feels like the tank is running a little low. And so we decided to create a very special series, Re-imagining Citizenship, to try to fill that tank back up. We're going to do very short, three to six minute reflections every day from June 5th to July 4th, where Beth, I, Maggie, Alise, some of our beloved listeners, some very, very special guests, are going to share. Share how we're feeling about America; share stories, artwork we love that keeps us feeling connected to the country in difficult times. We're going to share what we're grateful for. It's going to be heartwarming. We hope it'll make you laugh. And we hope it will give you concrete ideas to re-engage with your own citizenship. So that's what we are doing this summer.

[00:02:43] This is a very special series created for all of our paid subscribers on Substack. Those are the only people who will have access to the series. And we've even made it a special standalone offer, so that if you like a clean inbox, which don't we all understand that, you can opt in and just get Re-imagining Citizenship in your inbox. But if you would like more, oh, listen, do we have it? We're going to have a Pantsuit Politics Film Club launching in June for subscribers. You can start your day with me at the News Brief. You can get, like I said, basically an amateur law degree with Beth during the Supreme Court season, which is a summer when they start releasing decision after decision and you're like, oh my gosh, which ones of these should I freak out about? Don't worry, Beth will let you know. And of course, we have our spicy bonus episodes, which I think it's all right there in the title. They're spicy, we get into some stuff over there. And, of course, y'all can join our incredible community. In the comment threads, in the chat. There's so much value at Substack.

Beth [00:03:43] So your support doesn't just unlock all those extras, we think those extras are great and really valuable and we do some of our best work there, but you're also keeping the 10 years and nearly 1000 episodes we've made of Pantsuit Politics free for anyone who needs them. So, please, if you have been listening for years or just a few months or waiting for the right moment to support the show, know that this is it. For just $15 a month, you can become a paid subscriber. We hope that you will join us, be part of something really hopeful and help us keep creating the work that we love to make for you.

Sarah [00:04:16] Next up, let's talk about Joe Biden. Beth, yesterday we learned that former president Joe Biden has been diagnosed with a very aggressive form of prostate cancer that has metastasized to his bones. He is looking into different treatment options along with his family. This news came in the midst of a great deal of controversy surrounding several books, but one in particular written by Alex Thompson and Jake Tapper called Original Sin, which alleges a cover-up. That's the word they use in the subtitle. A cover- up of former President Biden's declining.

Beth [00:05:08] First and obviously, I really wish him and his family well and a lot of peace and clarity as they make difficult decisions. Cancer sucks. I hate that this is happening to their family and I wish them the best.

Sarah [00:05:22] I just want to say, I think it's easy to sort of, I don't want to say blow off, but to do some machinations around someone as old as Joe Biden in a cancer diagnosis. And in so many ways, getting back to our conversation about the healthcare industry, particularly in our episode about death with dignity, there are so many difficulties and just heartbreaking decisions that have to go into a cancer diagnosis this late in life. Deciding how much you want to treat, deciding how aggressively you treat, deciding how many side effects and symptoms you're willing to take on, that's so hard. And to be doing that in the midst of what I'm sure is already a very stressful time for this family as they are dealing with all these controversies, it's hard.

Beth [00:06:19] It is hard. And I understand the people who are out there saying, okay, well, let the Jake Tapper book rot on the shelves. What a terrible thing that this is coming out right now. We should not talk about the president's decline while he was in office. He's not in office anymore. The person who is in office is the worst. Let the family be in peace and privacy. And I totally understand where that comes from. I also think that it is just a reality that when you're talking about Joe Biden or any other former president, you are not just talking about a man or a person, you are talking about all the systems and symbols that surround that man. And so for Joe Biden, the human, I wish as little suffering as possible and so much peace. And I am sorry that his legacy is the hottest topic at a time when it is subordinate to his wellbeing and his health. At the same time, those systems and symbols get to the heart of the political forces that have driven us to a really critical moment in American politics. And I think that we have to continue to excavate and take the rich text that has been the last four years, five years in politics and do a really good after action review that points us toward a better future.

Sarah [00:07:56] Here's the thing, it doesn't matter who you are at 80 years old or 81 years old, especially in the face of a diagnosis like this. On some level, everyone is dealing with the choices they've made over the course of their lives. In lots of different ways. Maybe it was a lack of prioritizing your physical health. Maybe it's mistreatment of your family, so you don't have help dealing with a diagnosis like this, you sort of alienated yourself, whatever the case may be. And in Joe Biden's case, the choices he made were to dedicate his life to public service, to be a public figure in the face of enormous personal tragedy, previous health struggles. This man had a brain aneurysm that almost ended his career decades ago. And the decision to run for president again at such an advanced age, making his health of primary public importance. And on top of that, making his legacy, his articulated legacy, defeating Donald Trump and protecting democracy. He's an adult with lots of experience. Those are the choices he made. And so that's the reality that not only Joe Biden, but the rest of us have to deal with.

[00:09:45] We live history, but we also live the processing of history. We don't get to skip ahead. It's not like we go, the presidency's over, and in 50 years, we'll all sit down with Robert Caro or the like and discuss what really mattered. That's not how it works. There are not that many presidents, and we're still talking about almost all of them, and Joe Biden will be no different. And these books, particularly Original Sin, is revealing the reality that Joe Biden, his family, his closest advisors and his staff made choices, very specific choices to keep his declining health out of the public eye. And that is of enormous impact and importance. And it doesn't matter who's president. That is historical, that is impactful, and that is relevant to every American. Does anybody believe that the second Donald Trump's out of office, we're going to all just stop talking about him? No, of course, we going to keep processing his terrible decisions, of which there are many, just like we're going to keep processing Joe Biden's.

Beth [00:11:07] That's the argument that you hear though. Donald Trump, so terrible, that talking about anything else takes away from your ability to mount an effective organized opposition to Trump's policies that are bad. And it's that zero-sum thinking, I believe, that has contributed to where we are today. I think that zero-sum thinking, Donald Trump is so bad, led many of us, including me, to not seriously enough scrutinize whether President Biden could effectively lead the country for another four years. It's this weird tension because on the one hand, these books say there was something hidden and covered up. And on the other hand, the public decided a couple of years before President Biden announced that he was running again, that he was too old to do that. And the convergence of those things, and who is responsible for what, I think gets to the core issue animating all of our politics right now, which is trust.

[00:12:19] Can we trust anyone's view and judgment of things, or are we just going to be an America that thrives on cynicism? The Trump argument, and the thing that I want to mount the most effective opposition against is the idea that no, we can't trust each other. We can trust anybody. Everything is wheeling and dealing. What's in it for me? What have you done for me lately? All politicians are equally transactional. And this is just the way it is. And I don't think you can mount an effective opposition to that kind of nihilism if you haven't taken a look at this situation and really thoroughly sorted out what should I have known? What did I know? And what should I have done with that information?

Sarah [00:13:12] Well, I've definitely been asking that question of myself before we get to people with a lot more access and power than we have. We saw Joe Biden in February of 2020 in the New Hampshire primary at a pretty small event, we were close to both Jill Biden and Joe Biden. The thing we both clocked immediately was that Jill Biden had more energy than Joe Biden, and that Jill Biden seemed to be steering the ship.

Beth [00:13:43] I'll never forget that event. We noticed that she was steering the ship. He did the bit of introducing himself as Jill's husband. The advance work was very, very professional. It was happening at a moment when no one thought he had any juice at all. He was written out. He thanked every person in the state of New Hampshire by name, it seemed, in that event. He really had that old school I know and love the small community of Democrats who are helping make this event happen. And he seemed old, even then. And that was a very different Joe Biden than the one who commenced his 2024 campaign.

Sarah [00:14:29] Well, yeah, that's the thing. I did not clock any decline because I didn't have anything to compare it to. Now, was it a different universe than the Pete Buttigieg event we went to in Iowa? Very much so. The energy of the crowd was different. And that's something I wish I'd zoomed in on a bit more. That Pete's event of all the events we went to during that primary season-- except for maybe Elizabeth Warren's, which was smaller, but again, one of those long greet lines, I stood in line, I was excited to meet her-- had more grassroots energy. Biden's had more party energy, like old school party energy. Like you could just tell these were like the labor people from that town there, or like the democratic party activists that probably didn't want to make him mad, so showed up. There wasn't a lot of grassroots energy. There wasn't any grassroots energy that I witnessed.

[00:15:24] But to sit there and know everyone's name, I didn't see any memory lapses. He didn't freeze up. He wasn't whispering. I didn't see any of that in 2020. Other people had seen it who had a different Joe Biden to compare it to. Mark Halperin has had this viral clip talking about how he noticed it in 2017 with Biden's book tour, that he was very different than the Biden he used to see in the Senate or even in Obama's White House. So I think for people who'd seen him for a long time, the difference was noticeable, especially media people who maybe felt warmly towards him, but were not dependent on him for any sort of party benefits.

Beth [00:16:13] And that dependency is the question that I keep floating around. What do we do about the fact that a person's advisors-- not just Joe Biden, but a senator's advisors or representative's advisors or governor's advisors, all of those folks are incentivized, pressured, obligated to keep their boss in the seat and to support that person in every way, to make them look their very best. The best they can at all times. There doesn't seem to be any off-ramp when you have real concerns. Putting aside the difficult question of when those concerns should emerge, if Mark Halperin saw a different Biden in 2017, well, the public adjudicated that issue, I guess, in the 2020 election and decided that that was good enough. So it's hard to know at what point do I start to worry about a person's faculties. But if I do and I'm in the room and I am part of the group making decisions about lighting and microphone volume and how big the stairs are, how steep the stairs are, what's my path to act against all of my own personal interests and express that I see something here that's a problem.

Sarah [00:17:36] I think about that just as a person who's interested in presidential histories and presidential relationships and really just people who can speak truth to power and stand in integrity and do something that's difficult. It's probably how and why Ezra Klein has cemented my loyalty, because when he stood up and said we should have an open convention. Because you have to have some sort of ability see through the fact that the primary wasn't some sort of democratic stamp of approval. We were living through such a weird time. You had the American populace as represented by viral Facebook videos of him getting lost on stage or whatever the case may be and polling. At the same time, you had these primaries rolling out and everybody was like, I guess I'll vote for Joe Biden. It was such a weird dual track where it's like we could all kind of see it with our eyes. But you had this democratic primary process rolling through, keeping people from doing what you're saying, which is speaking the truth. I really think so much of what makes a strong politician is having people who will tell them the truth.

[00:18:54] I think for better or for worse, the higher you reach it in the halls of power, the more and more important like very, very close people I'm talking spouses, childhood friends, people who knew you before-- I do believe that a lot of the fundamental strength (and I'll be bipartisan about it) of a Ronald Reagan, a George H. W. Bush, a Bill Clinton, a Barack Obama, is because they had wives who would look them dead in the eye and tell them the truth. And I do not see that with Joe Biden. I'm just going to be honest. I don't know their marriage, obviously, but there seems to me to be a very large role of both Joe and Hunter Biden, if the reporting is to be believed, to say that was buffeting him, preventing him from getting honest advice. And this reporting, particularly at the event I was at-- I was the Hollywood fundraiser that is now becoming very pivotal in this history. I was in the way, way back with Nicholas and our agent Caroline and her husband. And of course we noticed he would just freeze. He would whisper. Barack Obama rescued him constantly throughout that conversation.

[00:20:11] And I think it's a testament that George Clooney, who President Biden did not recognize behind the stage, one of the most famous people on planet earth and somebody he'd had a relationship with for decades, in the face of a lot of people going, you can't say it, you can say it, said, no, I'm going to say it. But it still took the debate for him. And it really still took the debate from me. I saw that fundraising. I didn't come on this show the next week and say, oh my God, he has to go. I don't know what I thought. I go back and I try to put myself back in that auditorium where I thought, oh no. But it just felt so inevitable. It felt like what am I going to do? What am I going to do about it? And I guess that's how you get in that weird spot with the primary in the face of all this flashing red light saying everybody thinks this guy's too old to run. You just get this weird group think, but also powerlessness to combat the group think. And again I'm not in the room with him, much less somebody who's like an advisor or a staffer who's measuring the steps.

Beth [00:21:30] I think about Speaker Pelosi, and in one of the books that I read about the 2024 election-- I apologize, I do not remember which one, because I've read several at this point and I'm going to keep reading. In one of her books, it talks about how she discouraged President Biden from debating former President Trump by saying that he really shouldn't give Trump the dignity of being on the stage with him. Now, in hindsight, I read that as perhaps her knowing that it wouldn't go well and trying to find a way for that to be Joe Biden's idea and for Joe Biden to maintain the high road. Whether it was or it wasn't, that kind of thinking that President Biden was owed a level of respect permeated the entire run-up to the 2024 election when he would not debate Dean Phillips, Marianne Williamson, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. It was this sense that, well, he's the incumbent president and we owe him this respect. Of course, he will be the party's nominee.

[00:22:40] And I just think that whether that ever made sense for democracy, it doesn't anymore. It doesn't in our media environment. It doesn't at the rate of change. It doesn't with the level of cynicism permeating the populace. So I think we have to let that go. And I think that that means not just at the presidential level. But we're seeing this happen in the DNC right now. We talked about this on the spicy episode last week for premium members. This effort by David Hogg to try to fund primaries in safely democratic districts, just to have a challenge, just to more competition, I think is really important. And I don't believe that all of those incumbents will lose those primaries, but I think having them is important. Having people show up to debate, to check in, to make sure people are current on the issues, as well as in their own cognitive and physical abilities, I just think that's going to be necessary from here on out. That has to be at the top of the lessons learned list. I think it's a fair critique to say that the Democratic Party did not only do that gatekeeping, that a lot of the media was complicit in it too. Because those primary challenges were not taken seriously at any level.

Sarah [00:23:54] Yeah, let's talk about the media's role in all of this up next. The media of it all. I am looking forward to reading Original Sin. And also, there's a highlight reel of Jake Tapper himself defending, critiquing, being almost rude to Laura Trump when she brings up Joe Biden's capacity. It's a pretty damning reel from the guy who's now writing the cover-up book.

Beth [00:24:37] And I just can't really look at anybody else without looking at myself here. We didn't have Dean Phillips on; we didn't reach out. And We had a little bit of back and forth about what debates should happen. But we weren't slugging it out here over that. And I get that we don't have the level of influence that Ezra Klein has over the Democratic Party, but I just have a hard time saying that Jake Tapper or anyone else gets an F on the last election without acknowledging that I was too late and too soft in this whole process in my own analysis. And I do think that that comes a lot from that beating heart sentiment, which was it can't be Trump again. So anything that takes on any amount of risk that it would be Trump again has to be guarded against. And in this situation, as in so many facets of life, I don't know how many times I have to learn this lesson, the thing that you try to prevent from happening is usually just going to contribute to the inevitability of it happening if you're not willing to take risks to produce a different and better outcome.

Sarah [00:25:55] So when I think about the debate happening around these primaries, when I think about the conversation happening around capacity, not just with Joe Biden, but with John Fetterman, with Kay Granger, with Dianne Feinstein, with the aging democratic party, I think Nancy Pelosi is the most consequential politician of my lifetime. And I also think she's 84 and should not run for the House of Representatives again. I don't think it's an accident that some of the most intense cases involving age and capacity come from California, where you have a lot of safe seats. A place where you don't question because there's so much group think. There's just a lot a group think. Interestingly, California could also be the place that these changes are coming from. The California Democratic Party's convention just recently voted on a resolution from I think some of the San Francisco delegates to discuss age caps. But when I think about that, when I think about this entire situation as a Democrat and as a member of the media where, let's just be forthright, there's a lot more liberal or progressive sentiment than in other areas of American life; I think what I see over and over again, and the Venn diagram of these spaces, is that it's just not okay to ask questions.

[00:27:40] It's not a place welcoming of debate because it has become so consumed with morality. I really appreciate Matt Iglesias writing for Bloomberg that let's not let this debate about Joe Biden's age and capacity overshadow the fact that he also had policies that were bad. Policies that weren't meeting the American populace where they're at. And that is the same for the Democratic Party, right? There's that poll that we talked about on this show back in January, that America sees Democrats' top priorities as abortion, LGBTQ policy, climate change, the state of democracy, and healthcare. Those are not the voters' five most important priorities, which are the economy, healthcare, immigration, taxes, and crime. So, we're not listening. And not only are we not listening, this is the part that I'm like really honing in on. We're no debating. I was reading Isaac Saul from Tangle email (which I really, really liked that newsletter) and he talks about in 2021 when he sent a thing that said is Biden okay, he got so many angry emails and hundreds of people unsubscribed. It really hit him hard because he just asked the question is Biden okay?

[00:29:00] And I know over the last 10 years and particularly over the last five, I have felt uncomfortable asking all kinds of questions. Not just about Joe Biden, but about race, about progressive policies surrounding climate change, about gender. The message I got was don't even dare ask. Don't ever dare question. The debate itself is unethical. Asking questions means you don't think there's a problem at all. Asking question means you've given an opening to Donald Trump who is the antichrist and that means you do not care. And that can't be true. And I've just been like with a horse with a bit, a horse with a bit, a horse with a bit. We have to have room for debate. We have room to say, no, I don't see it that way. And I disagree with you. And I don't think that that's the top priority because there is a finite nature of politics, including in primaries, with money and attention and time, but there's not a finite space for ideas and debate. There has to be room for that. And the situation with Biden to me feels like a manifestation of what I have felt so profoundly inside democratic politics, particularly since Donald Trump has been on the scene, which is there's just no room for debate.

Beth [00:30:45] When Donald Trump was re-elected, I said that my key takeaway was that I needed to be softer on people, but harder about politics. I tend to be a soft person. I try to be careful and gentle with my language. I try take responsibility for people's experiences to a fault, even when that's really bad for me and for them too. And I think that that is related to this really unhealthy thread that has run through all politics, but we're focusing on Democrats right now. It manifests totally differently in the Republican Party. And again, focusing on democrats doesn't take anything away from what you think about Republicans. It's just doing the work in the places where you think you can be most influential. So as part of my harder on politics posture, I have spent more time on X this year than I did in the past couple of years. And I follow a lot of people on X who say things extremely bluntly, extremely provocatively. I know I'm going to get my hackles up when I open up X and that people are going to put things in ways that I never would. So this morning I'm doing my what's the conversation looks like scroll.

Sarah [00:32:02] Exposure therapy?

Beth [00:32:02] Yeah, exactly. And I come across this from Matt Stoller, who is one of those people who I think is a super sharp guy who punches hard. And he writes, "It was pretty likely Biden was going to die if he won a second term, which is something no one wanted to talk about publicly because the Democratic Party is full of children who think bringing up sad things in life is rude and icky. This is also why elite Democrats got super angry for pointing out that Ruth Bader Ginsburg was being selfish for staying on the court when she was likely going to die during Trump's term." Now, would I ever myself put those sentences together and say it that way? No, I would not. Do I need to read sentences like that to push on my own analysis? Probably. I probably do. I think there are lots of times when I have not trusted myself, our conversation, the audience to say something more forcefully. So again, I'm not trying to do these episodes where we rehash the Biden stuff to be like, "Ugh, I was so wronged by these people and they should never do anything again," and then we've solved the problem and moved on. To me, it's interesting because there's so much blame to pass around, including in my own direction.

Sarah [00:33:22] Well, listen, Ruth Bader Ginsburg is an excellent example for me personally. I'm going to take a big inhale before I say that. I encourage you to do that as well. I have no warmth in my heart left for Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I am still furious at her. Now, is it a good mental health practice for me to be furious at someone who is dead and gone? Probably not. But every time I see one of those murals of her or her special color, I just want to puke. And I've never said that on the show because I know that's not a safe thing to say in democratic politics because some people still have so many warm feelings with her and think she was some legend. And I don't feel that way and haven't for a while. I have felt furious at her and angry and disgusted by the idolatry surrounding her and her legacy. But did I say that? No, I didn't, because I knew it would piss people off because that's an okay thing to have. That's not an okay debate to have. Even though shockingly, when I do say it sometimes in spaces, lots of people feel the same way. They just don't say it either. This is such a dumb example. I feel right now around James Percival Everett's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, which let me just, spoiler alert, I hated it. I hated that book. But I feel like I can't say that because it's a book about slavery written by a black man.

[00:34:40] I'm just being honest. Like that's where we're at. That's where I felt for a long time. I felt like you can't say Joe Biden is too old because people will tell you you're ageist and a bad person, and you can't disagree with a novel because people call you racist, and you cannot disagree with Ruth Bader Ginsburg's legacy and the fact that she should have retired when Barack Obama asked her to because it's sexist. It's like this ever-tightening screw, and so you start not to trust yourself. I mean, that's the group think of it all. That's what I feel when I look back at Joe Biden and I think about it's like I couldn't trust myself. I couldn’t' see what was in front of my eyes because I could feel the chorus of 10,000 voices telling me that I was a bad person who wanted Trump to win if I articulated any of this. And I think that's what's just so frustrating. And that's true of his policies, too. There were really bad choices made. So don't come at me and say, "Who cares? Joe Biden was a good president." No, he wasn't. He made some big mistakes. Even though I was on the show talking about he was going to be the best president of all time, I was wrong.

[00:35:47] He got the immigration stuff really wrong. He got a lot of stuff really wrong- every president does. And deep in my heart, there's a part of me that thinks this isn't even a problem to solve. A lot of people for always will hold on to power for too long because once you get there, it's hard to give it up. George Washington is the exception that proves the rule. And so there's a part of me that's like calm down. This is a thing. It will always be a thing, but I do think that in a democracy, we should be able to innovate. We should be able look at a problem and not have that nihilistic view you were talking about that this is just the cynicism. They're all the same. All politicians are the same. If we have a problem where there's no mechanism to look at a public official, an elected official, that's a powerful thing, and say, "You no longer have the capacity to do the job you were elected to do," then we need to talk about that. We did talk about with [inaudible] Einstein. We talked about this is the issue. You get to a point where someone doesn't have the capacity and they're the only ones who can step away. And if they don't have the to see that they should step away, well, we have ourselves a conundrum, don't we? And we need to talk about that. And we needed to debate ideas be they age gaps, be they term limits, be they better mechanism to recall someone from office. We need to about that and debate openly and honestly as best we can when you have a Republican party who also goes on background for the last 10 years saying they think the guy in charge is terrible and it's bad at his job but won't say it publicly for what it's worth, and still have that debate among Democratic politicians.

Beth [00:37:39] That constriction against disagreement is why the Republican party is the MAGA party now, is the Trump party now. While he was in Saudi Arabia, I kept finding myself thinking like what's a healthy thought for me to have about this trip? And so what I came up with is I hope that there will be places where Donald Trump's personal interest and the interest of the American public intersect. That's what I hope for. That's the best outcome I can think of in all these deals that he's putting together in Saudi Arabia. I was listening to a conversation on one of the many Bulwark podcasts, and they were talking about Representative Don Bacon, and expressing frustration that he hasn't just changed parties. They were like someone like Don Bacon should just become a center left Democrat, or even a center right Democrat. But that's where he should be in the political landscape. Why won't anybody do this? And I thought, probably because he would not like to receive death threats. Probably because He already gets calls that are like, I'm going to rape your wife and blow up your house. I mean, it's terrible. It's terrible the pressures that elected officials are under. And it's horrible that that debate and that free exchange of ideas is stifled by violence, by money, by primary threats. There are a million things that are narrowing what the lane looks like within both parties.

Sarah [00:39:13] Can I add something to your list? By shame. Shame is the fuel of this fire in so many ways.

Beth [00:39:22] So that's where I was going on the democratic side of the aisle. What frustrates me most right now in response to this election is that you have Democrats, most of the ones that I like, the more moderate Democrats, who are concentrating the argument around how we message instead of what our policies are. And I feel like they concentrate around how we message because there is still a lot of shame and pressure in talking about the substance of the policies. I think there's a lot of energy and excitement around Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, not only because their policies appeal to a lot of people, (which I think they do. I'm not one of them, but I think they do) but also because they just say the policy. There was a news cycle around Elissa Slotkin criticizing that tour by saying oligarchy is bad messaging for Democrats. I don't want to debate the words. And I don't want to debate what platforms you're showing up on and what podcasts you'll do and which podcasts you won't do and whether you're using enough Twitch or recording yourself on your morning walk to the Capitol enough or hosting your own show.

[00:40:37] I mean, just stop. I can't stand this discussion that we're having because it misses the point. I want people to debate the ideas really vigorously. And I want there to be room in the Democratic Party. I think the debate around Ezra Klein's book (not to keep shouting him out) is healthy because there is a substantive debate now over that abundance agenda. And I'm looking forward to adding our two cents on that. That's what everybody needs because the issues are complicated. And I think that shame spiral that happens so quickly within democratic politics makes it safer to talk messaging than the actual what we're here to do. And I am really interested in the what we are here to do being a fight, being a political brawl within the democratic party because the country deserves that.

Sarah [00:41:32] Yeah, I feel just completely frustrated by both ends. I feel like you can talk about messaging or you can about morality. Are you a good person who cares about other people? Or how are you spending this on the podcast? Like you said, does anybody have any ideas? I want to talk about ideas. I want to talk about ideas around the public school system. Because it's floundering. That brings tears to my eyes because I'm living it. It's floundering. What are we doing? Yeah, I don't want to do messaging on one side and I don't want to do morality on the other. And that's where I feel trapped. I'm really fascinated by some of the things that are happening in the UK right now because in a weird way, because of Brexit, it's almost like they're further down this path than we are and there's so many really interesting debates happening in the UK right now. Did you see where there were like piles of garbage and strikes in Manchester?

Beth [00:42:39] Yeah. My nightmare, literal nightmare.

Sarah [00:42:42] So as I understand it, part of the problem was out of this moral motivation, they passed a version of like equal pay legislation. Sounds great, doesn't it? Women, everybody should get paid the same. Well, it was like bankrupting these local municipalities because it was like equal pay across jobs, across types of exposure to risk. Like it's bankrupting them. They can't keep up. They can't keep up with these moral expectations for policy, that they're supposed to fix everything, that it's supposed to fixed every problem that marks human psychology in the human race, including sexism and racism and all the isms. It was just so fascinating to me to watch this, to read about this and think like, oh God, legislation that I would support that sounds so good on the face of it has created this havoc in actual public services. And, look, there's a lot of that in the UK. Listen, my health insurance is too expensive and I want to talk about national health insurance, but like it's not a paradise over there. They're struggling with all kinds of things. Like that's the debate I want to have. I want to talk about policy.

[00:44:16] I want to talked about what people expect from their government as far as outcomes and what we expect as far as how hard those outcomes can be to achieve. If you know what I'm saying, I do think there's a critique here of the democratic party and progressive politics, that it moved from equality to equity. Equity and outcome for everyone in a way that left the American populace behind. It left them behind. And I want to grapple with that openly and honestly and debate these ideas and let people to debate these ideas, no matter who they are. I was reading a critique of the group think that got us here from Joe Klein on Substack, and he was saying, does anybody really believe that Governor Newsom or Governor Pritzker would question Wes Moore on any issues evolving race? No, because that's not welcome inside the Democratic party right now. And I think we have to talk about that. And I have to grapple with that. And we have to push ourselves to say, we are not scared of ideas. We are not scared of ideas. We're not scared ideas about Joe Biden's acuity. We're not afraid ideas about public school. We're not scared of idea about immigration and border control. And our answer to any debate of any idea is not, yeah, but Donald Trump is worse.

Beth [00:45:57] Not scared, in general, is a good posture. That's what you want from leaders. I was reading this really interesting essay on Substack this morning. I'll try to find it and we can put it in the show notes. It was saying that younger people right now don't respect older people because older people seem to always be trying to figure out what younger people want and just catering to them. And this writer had been in the military before going to college and went to an elite school. And in the military, the attitude was your superiors know things that you don't, and you need to listen to them. And when he got to college, the attitude was, you guys are the future, what do you think? What do you want? We're so glad you're here to clean up our messes. We failed you in a lot of ways, but you all are so bright and shiny, you're going to really make the world better. And that's not what you're looking for from the people who are a little bit ahead of you on the path. When you said that about the UK, I immediately thought, well, they're an older country, so of course they're a little bit ahead of us on the path in a lot of ways. But it's also interesting to me that the country that still had a monarchy, which is why we exist, is less respectful to their leaders.

[00:47:06] They don't like the way things are going down. They're going to have new elections right away and they're going to a new prime minister and they going to kick people around. Their politics is rough and tumble. It's brutal, the arguments that they have in parliament. And I think that there's something important to learn from that to say the issues matter enough, that we need to get a little bit more combative about them. This is the problem. We're personally combative. We're terrible to people who run for office; but it is about the person, not about their ideas. And so directing it more towards what are you there to do, I think is the turn that we need to make as a country. That it would be a more mature politics if we were a little more brutal about advocating for the positions that we believe in and a little bit more honest about it. This grief that I have been living for several months has been associated in part with childcare regulations. So I volunteered my time for several years with my church's childcare center, nonprofit childcare center. We had to close it. It's a long story; it's a painful story. It's one that I don't need to go into today, but I can tell you the part of that story is that it is really difficult. To abide by the regulations placed on childcare centers in the state of Kentucky.

And nobody's going to want to change that because if you loosen regulations around childcare, what kind of monster are you in the public light? How could the state ease up on some of those regulations or its enforcement of them? The risk is so high, something could happen to a child, right? And no one wants anything to happen to your child. And if something does, they definitely don't want to be the one holding the bag for that. And it makes it nearly impossible to have a functioning childcare center. That is a debate worth having, but you have to have it in a mature way where you trust yourselves, your colleagues, the public, the parties, everybody, to get in and choose what problem we're willing to take, what risk we're going to take on, what we are just not going to be scared of, to circle back to that good phrase from you. What are we not going to scared of because we think that there is a higher interest at work that's being left behind? I feel like we can handle that as a country I would like us to get there.

Sarah [00:49:32] Yeah, because people see the Democratic Party as weak. That's like the number one word when you poll right now. And I think feeling scared of your own voters and your own interest groups is definitely what is perceived as weak and rightfully so. Donald Trump is not scared of anybody. Donald Trump is not scared of anybody within his own party. He doesn't feel any loyalty to anyone. Now, I don't think we should go all the way in that direction, but I think there is something to be learned with calling people's bluff and say, fine, go after me. Nicholas and I were talking about Robert Moses, the famous subject of Robert Caro's biography, the New York City bureaucrat. And he was saying eventually it was FDR who called his bluff. Robert Moses would be like, I'll just quit. And finally FDR was like, go ahead. I don't care. You just have to finally say fine. I think that's what I had enormous respect for with Gavin Newsom in that podcast because he was like you know what, fine, be mad. I'm going to try it. Be mad at me for talking to Steve Bannon. I'm going to debate these ideas. I don't mind a little over-correction.

[00:50:35] I'm happy to hear that Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson are going to go on Megyn Kelly's podcast (good for them) to talk about this book and take hard questions about why Jake Taper was on CNN defending Joe Biden all the time and now writing this book. Let's put ourselves in the hot seat. And sometimes I totally agree with the imbalance, that metaphor between the military and college. But, man, sometimes it's the younger people whose, for a better word, sort of lack of respect can sort of open your eyes. Because let me tell you something, the most aligned my son, Griffin, and I have been in politics in the last four years was when we both wanted Joe Biden to drop out. Because the whole time he was like, he's not great. He's just protecting the status quo. He's not doing what he promised to do. He's doing anything big. He was unimpressed the whole time.

[00:51:32] And I think some of the strength in balancing that respect for what's gone before, and I think with Britain I'm specifically talking about, they did through Brexit what we're trying to do now. They just removed themselves from the economic model and took on, pushed back against progressive policies and people's unhappiness with the progressive policies in the economic reality. There are a lot of similarities, I think, between Brexit and Trumpism and MAGA-ism. And so they're like a little in front of it. But I think there's a balance between learning from someone who has the benefit of experience and also taking in a younger perspective that is unimpressed. I think that is the strength of a combination like Alexander Ocasio-Cortez, one of the youngest members ever elected to Congress, and Bernie Sanders, one the oldest members of the Senate, right? You're just going to get both ends of the age spectrum and something like that, and that movement. And I think they're not fighting about cultural stuff because what's going to be the overlap of agreement from two people as different as AOC and Bernie Sanders? Well, probably something that hits a lot of Americans where they're at.

Beth [00:52:55] That's why I think that it's not as straightforward as an age cap. I don't think I support that kind of policy. I don' know that I think that kind a policy is constitutional. I have a lot of problems with just putting an age limit in place and being hard and fast about it. Because I do want people who have lots of experience and wisdom to offer. I also want the Congress to represent the populace. I want older people to feel represented just as I want younger people to fell represented. What I am really strongly against is incumbent protection. Whether you're doing that through the way you draw districts or the debates you're willing to hold or the funding mechanisms, all of the efforts to act like once someone has been elected, they're untouchable until they decide different, I think is a real failure at all levels.

Sarah [00:53:45] I totally agree with that. And I never heard it put quite this way, but Matt Yglesias in his piece was talking specifically about Joe Biden. And he said age plausibly played a factor in Biden's indecisiveness on some of these issues. And he has always had a reputation as a sluggish decision-maker who is more focused on foreign affairs and personal relationships in Congress than on domestic policy. And I thought, well, that's it, right? Even if you want to argue an incumbent has a powerful base of support, powerful experience, I bet you they have weaknesses that are pretty exposed, too. Like Amy Klobuchar, I knew she was a terrible boss before she ever ran in the primary. There's always these open secrets once someone is an incumbent, once someone has served. That's what a primary is good at because you're in the community that knows the open secrets. And hopefully somebody has the nerve to stand up and say, yeah, but we all know this about you.

Beth [00:54:46] No one is going to be perfect. Everyone's going to have weaknesses and vulnerabilities. It's fine for some senators to be more focused on foreign policy than domestic policy. I hope some of them are now. We need a lot of that diversity, but it also means that we need turnover.

Sarah [00:55:00] Yeah.

Beth [00:55:01] I think that's the issue. Everything feels really stuck. And that bred this environment where someone like Trump can come in and say, well, I'll get it unstuck. I will get it unstuck. If nothing else, I will unstick it. I think Project 2025 is broadly a bad vision for the country. What I think is true, a sentiment that pervades it, is the idea that it is hard to make change. The status quo is reinforced in every aspect of the federal government. Now, I'm also constitutionally rather conservative and think that slow in the federal government is by design. As we can see right now, you have somebody who comes in and gets it unstuck, that has massive ramifications that you can't put back in the tube once they have been unleashed because the federal government is such a powerful entity. And so, to my mind, the best way to deal with the need for the government to evolve and change and progress and be responsive to the public is through our elections. But if we keep tightening our elections, that is the 2024 lesson to me. We keep restricting the capacity of our elections to be responsive the public, and that's a loser.

Sarah [00:56:23] Yeah, because what election? You're going to call it an election when it's like a gerrymandered, one party, no one questions, run as long as you want, you really won't have an opponent. Is that an election? Are we comfortable with that? Because we're talking about this primary with Biden, but what primary? Dean Phillips was a person of huge integrity and great bravery in doing what he did, but he was never a serious challenger. So there wasn't really a prime. That's why it rang so hollow when he stood up after the debate and said, "Millions of Americans elected me." But there's something there too, right? There's something that these Democrats, including me, just walked there and they check the blocks for his name anyway.

Beth [00:57:10] And, look, this whole thing would look so differently if he had debated Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson once. It would look so different to everyone. That would have mattered. I truly believe that we would not have Robert F. Kennedy as the secretary of health and human services if he has been on one single debate stage. We have got to trust the public to just size it all up and see it. And I get that the public makes bad decisions often. I get it. But deciding that the public makes bad decisions so they can't be trusted, so we have to carefully stage manage everything, will ring all the alarm bells for the public. And that's why we are, I believe, where we are today.

Sarah [00:57:54] Yeah. I think it's so hard coming out of the pandemic where we're still unpacking the debate, calculus, ultimate conclusions of different sections of the populace. It's not like the public all made one call. And deciding that ultimately it just has to be exposed to the light. We have to put it in the light. If it's in the dark, it's never going to work. And what I have heard and felt so much on the show and what I was trying to get to earlier is just this sense that we don't put anything in the light. It doesn't matter what you say. It matters who you are when you say it. And it can't be that way anymore. It doesn't matter if I have an idea about race because I'm a white woman and I don't get to say it because that means I don' really understand. Doesn't matter if a man has an idea about gender because he's a man and it's a patriarchy and so he doesn't really get to say it. It doesn't matter, we're not going to debate the ideas, we're going to debate the debater.

[00:58:59] And that happens, that's on steroids inside a party. It's on steroids based on who you are, how powerful you are, where your district is, where your state is. Is it a safe seat? Is it a swing district? Are you the incumbent? Who's the opponent? And so you just add on all these other layers of filtering of like do you get to stay the thing based on who you are, how much power you have inside the party, well, then you're really lost. Then nobody can be honest. Then nobody could have a debate. Then nobody really gets at the thing. And like you said, unless you are a person like Donald Trump who just says the thing. I thought it was a really good comparison between Mitt Romney, who's a nice and decent person and didn't want to throw George W. Bush under the bus. So when he ran and didn't ring true, even though I believe Mitt Romley is almost incapable of lying as just a human, but it didn't ring true because George W. Bush had messed up all kinds of things. And Donald Trump cashed that check big when he was the one to show up and say he messed it up. This is a disaster. Everything this party's done is wrong. Not necessarily all the way true, but true enough for people that he felt like a truth teller.

Beth [01:00:18] I think this is why resistance bothers me as a term as well. This sense of we have to let things be in the light, we have to let the public screw up, Brexit again is a great framework for where we are. A lot of people in the UK thought Brexit was the dumbest thing to ever happen in the country. Couldn't believe it. A lot people who voted for it immediately said, "Well, I didn't think it would win. I would have voted differently if I thought it could have won." It was banana. And the people who have been most successful politically since then are the people who have kind of said this was bananas but it is what we decided, and so we got to figure out what we do next. Not we have to resist it, not we have try to vote again, not we hope that was a blip in our country, but like, hey, that meant something. We had the vote, leave one, we got a leave and we've got to figure out things from there. And I think that that's kind of where I am with Trump. I think he's terrible. I can't say it strongly enough to make anyone happy.

[01:01:30] I think the position that he puts the Supreme Court in and the way the Supreme court itself has narrowed its path because of him is terrible. I think it is all so consequential and damaging. My vocabulary is strained to say how much I disagree with the way he approaches life. And he won this election. And so I am really looking for the places where I can say, I agree with that, or there's a kernel of something in that that I think is right. Or here's what good could come of that. And here's, what's totally wrong. Where's another vision? What is the alternative? If I think that his approach to immigration is inhumane, which I do, what am I willing to put forth myself? Who am I willing to get behind who sees a different path forward here, not just he's the worst, he's the worst. That is to me the second lesson learned from 2024. The first is we got to be more competitive. We must have more competition in general in our elections. And the second is that competition has to be real and substantive.

Sarah [01:02:35] I think the lesson for me as a Democrat about not just the 2024 election, the last, like, five years of politics-- and interestingly, it came from a comment from one of our listeners on Substack around Pope Leo. Go figure. I was looking at all the conclave coverage through my like default mode as a Democrat who supports a more opening of the priesthood to women. Who supports affirming LGBTQ members of this church. Just my purely identity politics driven lens. Let's just call it what it is. Because again, that's the default mode. I'm not a Catholic. So what is the wash I put over? Who's a good pope and who's a bad pope? And a listener said, look, the majority of the Catholic Church now resides in developing countries and they don't care about those issues. They care about feeding their children and they care about an end to conflict that is affecting their day-to-day lives. And I thought, well, isn't that right? They care about a pope who gets it, who understands them, who sees their experiences and who sees that identity-driven issues are not high on their list. And I thought, wow, okay, yeah, this is an important reminder.

[01:04:17] I still need that reminder. I still need this groove in my brain that says our path to incredible, liberal advances through civil rights and identity politics. That's just a groove in my brain that has been worn. Those were the successes came. They came from lawsuits. They came from activism. They came from breaking down structural inequality. And I am having to pull up the pavement and been like, yeah, the structural inequality, it's not gone. We don't live in a utopia. I was just reading a piece right now about even income inequality is not what we think it is. We get stuck. We get stuck in a narrative and it stops speaking to people's lived experiences. I think public education, particularly with regards to Democrats, is a perfect illustration of this. We used to kick ass on this issue and now we are struggling because we're not speaking to people’s lived experiences. I do feel like it's retraining my brain. And it's hard. It's hard to say the solutions we used to think were the key to progress, lawsuit, Supreme Court decisions...

Beth [01:05:59] Money.

Sarah [01:06:01] Money politics.

Beth [01:06:01] It's always about the money.

Sarah [01:06:03] We got to get money out of politics, except for Kamala Harris spent $1 billion and still lost.

Beth [01:06:07] Well, but also that the support for public schools equals believing that they need more money. Support for international diplomacy means that we need to spend more money on it. Support for everything is about funding. And that makes sense because that is the primary power that Congress has, the power to spend money. But the party's identity cannot just be that we only make policy through funding decisions. And that's the only answer that we have to any question. Of course, I believe that public school teachers should make more money. Of course, I know that schools are being asked to meet needs all over the place and haven't been funded for them. But the answer to people's concern, all the ways in which public education is blinking red is not only money. And if that's your answer, you're going to lose because that sounds like not an answer.

Sarah [01:07:05] I think that's it. I think we've just gotten to a space where answers sound like not an answer. It just sounds like you don't have a new idea.

Beth [01:07:16] Yes. you thought everything was perfect before Trump started smashing it up and just want us to go back to that. And that's not what the public is communicating.

Sarah [01:07:22] No, it doesn't work. We're not going back to manufacturing utopia either. I don't care how many tariffs you put on China. You don't put Pandora back in the box. You have to deal with here, now. And I want to hear democratic politicians and Democrats themselves, because look, it's not the people in power flooding the poor Tangle guy's inbox. It's the people who are going to be mad at me for what I said about Ruth Bader Ginsburg. There is a lot of self-policing inside progressive politics to say, you didn't say the right thing. You don't care about the right thing. You're a bad person. I could burst into tears right now. I don't want to disappoint anybody. Of course, I care about racism and sexism and all the things. I'm not a bad a person. I care about these things. It's why I show up in politics, which is a bruising exercise.

[01:08:16] It's what I ran for office myself. But enough is enough. People care. They're trying. You might not like their ideas. Find a better one. Don't call them a bad person. It's exhausting. And I feel this intense emotional release just saying this stupid thing about Ruth Bader Ginsburg who's been dead for what, four years, five years? That's not right. I should not feel this pent up emotionally about being honest for the first time about the fact that I think all the documentaries about Ruth Bader Ginsburg were dumb. We've lost the plot. That's all I'm saying.

Beth [01:08:54] And that to me is why it's worth continuing to revisit the decision making around Joe Biden because everything is stuck and there are a bunch of places that just need to get uncapped and then things are going to spew. Then you are going to be like, and let me tell you how I've been feeling about this for 16 years.

Sarah [01:09:09] That's what I always said when I knocked on doors and asked for people vote. I would like get bees out the mouth because they'd be like, "I have all these thoughts about government politics and I couldn't tell anybody." What does it say that I have a damn politics podcast and I felt like I couldn’t say things?

Beth [01:09:23] And so getting it all on the table and battling it out about the things, not about the people, I think is the prescription. I think that's the prescription and it's going to feel really untidy, but the untidiness I think will be refreshing and welcome.

Sarah [01:09:43] Yeah, that's it. That's exactly it. We have to rip up the road before we can decide where we want to lay the concrete next. It's going to be a construction zone for a while. It's just going to be a construction row. Put your shoes on, there's probably rusty nails around. We're not going to all decide to be nice to Joe Biden and move on. We're not all going to decide what the 2028 party platform should be. It's going to messy. There's going to be rocks thrown. People are going to get frustrated and angry. Everybody's going to have to exercise these demons and let the bees flow out of their mouth so that we can finally, hopefully start thinking up some new ideas.

Beth [01:10:33] And the construction zone cannot be made of Instagram reels.

Sarah [01:10:44] No. Please God no! You can't have a debate of ideas in the comments thread on Instagram in case anybody needs to hear that hard reality. I'm tired now and we're going to talk about valedictorians next, but this is what we're trying to do. We're trying to take a different approach. We're going trust you guys with this very long, hard conversation that started with Joe Biden and somehow ended in public schools. We truly can't wait to hear what you say. Honestly, it's not people in our community that often get so frustrated, although sometimes it usually is just the commenters on Instagram. So I'll just won't read those about this episode for sure. I will read your emails though, and we'd love to hear from all of you on Substack. Next up, let's talk about valedictorians. Beth, it's graduation season.

Beth [01:11:49] I have an eighth grader moving on to high school. So we're in mini graduation mode here.

Sarah [01:11:53] Now, we're not talking about that this time, but I sometimes think those mini graduation ceremonies are dumb. I'm sorry. I feel bad saying that, but the preschool and the kindergarten and the eighth grade and the fifth grade? Or we just do high school. We just do that one. So we established while discussing this idea that my high school had co-valedictorians. I was one of four valedictorians because we all had a 4.0. My high school did weight grades. And that you were in fact the only valedictorian at your high school. That doesn't surprise me because we did not grow up that far apart. And I did not know a lot of schools in Kentucky that had weighted grades in 1999.

Beth [01:12:42] We did not have weighted grades, which was a contentious subject.

Sarah [01:12:45] Okay, so you didn't have them.

Beth [01:12:46] We did not have weighted grades. That was a contentious subject somewhat. It was probably becoming so about the time that I graduated. It was a small high school and I don't know. I don't know if that was a policy or if it was just the truth of it, but that's just how...

Sarah [01:13:07] Well, so if you didn't have weighted grades, so you were the only person in your high school class that got a 4.0?

Beth [01:13:14] I guess that's how it turned out. I don't know. I don' t know if there were things--

Sarah [01:13:18] Do you remember previous years where there had been more than one valedictorian?

Beth [01:13:19] I can't remember times when there was more than one while I was there, no. And this is not to take anything away from the people I graduated with. It was a small school, but it was competitive. I went to school with some hella smart and hardworking people. But yeah, it was just me.

Sarah [01:13:36] Well, this is a debate in my home because my husband's high school did do weighted grades and he was the only valedictorian and he rolls his eyes mightily because it's gotten kind of crazy. Well, that's how it is now in our town. The city schools that my children attend have one valedictorian based on weighted grades and the county schools have like 25 valedictorians.

Beth [01:14:04] Okay. I can Imagine even if you have weighted grades that it can lead to multiple valedictorians, right?

Sarah [01:14:09] I don't think so. I think that it's not just weighted if you have AP. There's only one. That's all I can tell you. I don't do the math, but there's only one. And, look, it's contentious because it's a game. It's a game you play based on how many AP courses you take because those are weighted. And so there's a part of me that's like let's teach people that there can only be one sometimes and to prioritize what's important to you. And then there's a part of me that's like, but this is a game. It's not hard work. It's how many AP courses you take. It's how you prioritize them over the course of the year or over the of your years. And so, I don't know. I really can see both sides of the debate. I really can.

Beth [01:15:05] Well, here's my confession that has maybe been stuck for years and years continuing the theme of just expelling your demons. My life is not better because I was a valedictorian. It might've been worse. I don't care about any of this. I really don't. I wish that I could go back in time and put my hands on the cheeks of younger Beth and say, "Your grades are only about options, nothing else. And it's stupid that you need these grades to have the options because these grades represent such a tiny slice of who you are and what you're capable of." But please take everything else out of this. Again, take the morality out, take identity out. Like the stress that I put on myself about grades is the dumbest. And thank God that I was in a tiny rural town in the 1990s instead of in the pressure cooker of larger schools today. Because I made myself sick over all of it. Physically sick over all of the distinctions that are made in academia, and for what? My life is not better for any of that.

Sarah [01:16:17] Well, I did put that in there that I remember the study. It's very much like permanently lodged in my brain. Somebody like went and followed 81 high school valedictorians and salutatorians from graduation onward. And they were successful; 95% of went on to graduate college. They had successful careers; 90% of them are now in professional careers with 40% in the highest tier jobs. But how many of these number one high school performers go on to change the world, run the world or impress the world? The answer seems to be clear, zero. The researcher said, even though most are strong, occupational achievers, the great majority of former high school valedictorians do not appear headed for the very top of adult achievement arenas. And that's always the argument I made towards my husband was particularly like, at what cost? I'm glad you got that. I did not throw up before a single final exam, anything related to my high school GPA. Not once ever. The closest stress I got is I dropped choir at my senior year because he kept marking me down because I was talking too much in class and flirting with the guys behind me. And I said, you're not going to ruin my GPA. I'm out of here. And I wish I'd gone all four years. I really liked choir, but never was I throwing up in the bathroom because I was so stressed about an exam and a grade. Never, no, never did I do any of that really in any of my academic career.

Beth [01:17:41] I threw up every day of my senior year of college.

Sarah [01:17:43] That's insane!

Beth [01:17:45] Yeah, it is. I'm not bragging. I recognize it's a problem. And look, I just think that if you have worked really hard to achieve valedictory status this year, I congratulate you. I'm not trying to take anything away from the people running this treadmill. I just look back and wish I had gotten off of it.

Sarah [01:18:04] Well, yeah, I think you phrased it 100% correct. That's what I tell my kids. This isn't about your worth as a person. This is about your options. You want more options? This is the key. Now, I don't think any of my kids are going to be valedictorians, but that's just what I've communicated to them. If you want to get out of Paducah, if you want to have a lot of options of colleges to pursue, if you want to have a lot of options for graduate school to pursue, then this is what it does. It just opens up more opportunities for you.

Beth [01:18:35] I got that word from Tamela, who was a long time Pantsuit Politics listener we met in D.C. once. She was telling me that that's how she communicated to her nieces and nephews about it. I was like, that's so smart. I'm putting it in my memory forever. But I think that is also not to get back into politics too much, why people are very unhappy at all levels with the public school system, because the gatekeeping around the options is absurd. It's absurd and it is not making anyone's life better and it does not leading to more learning. I got the calculus award in high school. Could I begin to even tell you what a calculus problem looks like today? No, I didn't learn things. I performed and I was a great performer. I was great test taker. I was a great short-term absorber of information. I just wish I could do it over again and be focused on the learning.

Sarah [01:19:30] Education is wasted on the young. I think that might be an eternal problem. Perpetual problem. Put a pin in that, everybody. We are going to talk about the public school system on our episode after Memorial Day. Clearly, we're excited to talk about it. We keep trying to sneak it into this episode. The thing I got from being valedictorian or co-valedictorian as the case may be was a love of public speaking. I am still so proud of my speech that I gave as a 17-year-old. I wrote a dumb one about what success was and then tore it up. I think I even broke the rules because I was supposed to get it pre-approved and then I rewrote it at the last minute. I know y'all are going to be shocked by this. I cried through the majority of the whole thing. I think that was actually a really good gift to me too, to get up there and cry and say what I wanted to say and be emotional and everybody loved it and I'm still really proud of it. I have it on YouTube guys, I will put the link if you are desperate to watch my four minute valedictorian address. But I think was the biggest gift to be a valedictorian that didn't have anything to do with the grades or the classes. It was like getting there, getting to public speak. Rewriting it, crying, expressing myself emotionally and being really proud of the results.

Beth [01:20:42] Look, the leadership opportunities that I had in high school and college were worth their weight in gold. Everything I did, even though that also contributed to a lot of stress, those gave me life lessons that I continue to think about today. And I loved giving a speech at graduation, too. I don't have mine memorialized the way that you do to everyone's shock, I'm sure. And I did not cry when I gave my speech. But I was not sad to be leaving. In fact, my speech was about how important it is to move around and see the world and care about the world and live in the world. It will surprise no one who listens to More to Say that I opened with a Jerry Seinfeld quote. I had to begin with something funny and seemingly unrelated and then weave it all together at the end. So I have been the same person my whole life, I guess, in many ways, but I also loved that opportunity. And I love at mini graduation coming up, my daughter is the class host for the graduation. Those types of things are wonderful. I just wish we could think about that more as leadership talent and less as, well, you have this academic success so you get this opportunity. Again, the gatekeeping all around I've had enough of.

Sarah [01:21:52] We'll get into that in our next episode, guys. Don't worry. Thank you so much for being with us for this very long episode where we exercised demons and spilled some bees. Remember, if you want to explore bold, inspiring ideas about what citizenship can be, subscribe to our sub stack to join us for Re-imagining Citizenship where I hope we're pulling up some road and allowing for space for people to think of new ideas. Begins on June 5th, we'll be back in your ears on Friday with another episode, and until then, keep it nuanced y'all.