“Being loved to death”

Topics Discussed

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Transcript

Sarah: [00:00:00] What a better way to reconcile than we say, not only do we value these lands and we believe in the power of them, we believe in the power of these lands so much that we believe that they could be an instrumental part in real reconciliation, which our country is so desperate for it. Like they could hold such a special place, not just the history of violence and genocide and death, but could hold this place in the history of reconciliation.

Sarah: This is Sarah

Beth: And Beth.

Sarah: You're listening to Pantsuit Politics.

Beth: The home of grace-filled political conversations.

Sarah: Hello, [00:01:00] and welcome to a very special episode of Pantsuit Politics. I am here with my beloved husband. Nicholas Holland. Welcome.

Nicholas: [00:01:11] Well, thank you for having me on Pantsuit Politics. It's a joy and honor. This beautiful studio we're in today.

Sarah: [00:01:18] Yeah we're in the annex studio at the Holland household AKA my closet on the floor.

Nicholas: [00:01:21] In beautiful uptown Paducah, Kentucky.

Sarah: [00:01:25] Before we get into the show, a couple of ideas I just want to workshop with you real quick. Remember, I am a professional. I thought what we could do is talk about like really specific things you love about me. Thoughts? Yeah, it's great. It's a great topic. Or I thought we could work through like our, like inside meme jokes, just like run through them where nobody really knows what we're talking about.

Nicholas: [00:01:42] Yeah, that sounds good. We should just, we all should just sprinkle those throughout. So yeah. Okay.

Sarah: [00:01:46] So people are really confused.

Nicholas: [00:01:47] Constantly.

Sarah: [00:01:48] Okay, good. Good, good, good. I'm glad you agree. I'm glad you agree with that. So that's our agenda today. Everybody we're going to work through why I'm amazing and our favorite memes

Nicholas: [00:01:57] just and jokes.

Sarah: [00:01:58] And jokes.

Nicholas: [00:01:58] From nearly 20 years of [00:02:00] marriage, that'll be a real thrill for you guys.

Sarah: [00:02:03] Okay. Okay. Before we get started, this is important because Nicholas is our, uh, Patreon officer. He's the one who really pushed us to do Patreon to begin with. Right. I mean, he pushed me to do the podcast and patreon. You're just the, you're the engine behind everything.

Nicholas: [00:02:17] I don't know about that, but I I'm the idea, man. I like to have lots of ideas that I present to you and that you mostly shoot down. I have a few occasionally really good ones. Like maybe we should start a podcast, and I don't say we, maybe you should start a podcast and then you seem to be working really hard at this. Maybe people would be willing to pay you a little money for a little extra content.

Sarah: [00:02:38] It changed our life. I can't tell you enough how much the support on Patreon means to all of us, you know, and the big change recently was we moved my Instagram news brief to Patreon. And honestly, I think the biggest exciting change for me with Patreon, especially recently is you know, I always thought, well, it'll be this place and we can give people more, but it is turned into [00:03:00] the best community like it gives us so much. It is really where we have the best conversations. It's where, like I watch you guys have the most amazing conversations.

I feel like I learned something in the comment thread of the news brief every day, someone is like, well, here's my experience in this part of the country. And let me add this layer of interesting sort of evidence to that side of the story. It's just, it's the best. It's the best. It's the best place on the internet. That's my, that's my case for joining Patreon. So today we're going to tackle a couple of headlines and then we're going to talk about one of your favorite topics, the national parks. And then we're gonna talk about what'son our mind outside politics.

okay. Moving onto the news. It's you know, it's really really difficult. The situation in Minnesota has gotten more intense and more heartbreaking. It was already so difficult [00:04:00] with the trial of Derek Chauvin, especially, you know, right now they're starting with the defense, which is just, it's difficult to listen to.

It's difficult to listen. Everybody deserves a defense, but it's not exactly easy to listen to them try to argue that that's not why George Floyd died, that the actions of Derek Chauvin were not the reason that he died. Like that's just not easy to hear. And then on top of all of that, we have the death of 20 year old Daunte Wright he was shot and killed by Kim Potter, a now ex Brooklyn center police officer, who, as of today, as we're recording on Thursday has been charged with secondary manslaughter. You and I got in a pretty intense conversation about this last night. We did, we get in a lot of intense conversations about this. About the news.

Nicholas: [00:04:44] Yeah. Well, it's just very hard to talk about this at all, because it just seems so commonplace and so unnecessary and the conversations devolve into sort of the details of each case. Yeah. Which is [00:05:00] so I guess it's important to, in one respect, but at the same time, it completely ignores that this was an entirely unnecessary death. That he was stopped for something that is silly, that people are not typically stopped for.

That he was, it at least appears from a lot of the details that it was, he was, he was profiled more or less, and that the stop itself, he had a warrant for his arrest out. There's no question about that, but there's a real question from, in my eyes as to whether any of this was necessary and the way that it went down, obviously tragic in, in, in his death. Um, but you know, a lot of this conversation now is turned to, well, it wasn't an accident. Did she mean to shoot him? You know, what it was? Was it a taser mixed up? And I think that's a conversation that's worth having about whether or not it tasers and firearms should be so similar in their design, but it's not the one I want to have right now about this.

Sarah: [00:05:55] Yeah. Well, and that's kind of yet what you and I got into last night because, you [00:06:00] know, I think this whole taser mix up thing. I mean, it's a conversation. People have claimed it's happened before, but even if you believe every person who says I'm mixed up the taser and the gun, it's still not a huge number of cases. To me, whether or not you believe she was, you know meant to pull her gun or meant to pull the taser. You know, our argument was whether or not it was accidental.

And to me, it's like, it's 12 seconds of time. That's an incredibly short period, which makes it all the more heartbreaking that, you know, you can pack so many individual actions into 12 seconds. But I think your point is the, is the right one, which is, it doesn't matter. Like it's not about what happened after he got pulled over. It's like, why was he pulled over to begin with. And why do we have, you know, you and I were talking last night, the both of us have been driving around for literal years with broken taillights and have never gotten pulled over, ever for either of our broken taillights.

Nicholas: [00:06:57] Yes. Which I think both the mysteries of those [00:07:00] taillights is that our children broke our taillights.

Sarah: [00:07:02] Yeah. That's all true. And so, but I mean, this is the thing it's like when I was in law school and I, it wasn't law school till I learned, like, I thought everybody just got pulled over for speeding. And you know, all the people in my class were like, no white girl. That's not why people get pulled over for by the police officer, they get pulled over for all manner of reasons. And really there's one reason. Cause a lot of times they're being profiled.

And I just think like, I think the argument is even if you give police officers every benefit of the day out, which I don't, you know, whatever, I think like, why is it escalating? Why is a traffic stop escalating? Why are we pulling people over for, what in the training thought, I need to escalate to violence. Even if he was trying to get back into his car, that's not like they were pursuing some sort of mass shooter or somebody who had like, just committed a crime, even with the warrant.

It's not like it was for some recent violent action, [00:08:00] you know, that's, to me, it's like the whole process the whole, the flow of actions that come from, you can even argue, they come from training. That's problematic, like something is broken and I'm not really, it is hard not to believe the people who say it can't be reformed. Like we have to start over.

Nicholas: [00:08:16] Yeah, well, definitely. And there is some reform effort going on, uh, or at least proposed in Minnesota today. I think there's a bill being, being considered or, or one of the, there's a legislator there who's insisting that they stopped their budget negotiations to pass public safety laws, including one that would prohibit traffic stops for these minor offenses, like things hanging in your windows or a broken taillight, or even new expired tags. These are not stops that should be happening because what they lead to.

Sarah: [00:08:43] And I know that you hate Malcolm Gladwell.

Nicholas: [00:08:45] I dont like Malcolm Gladwell.

Sarah: [00:08:46] Which you don't like that this is a source of discord in our marriage, but he did such a good, I don't know. I think it might be in the book that you just have a fury about, but. About like the, the, where the traffic stops started, like where the, [00:09:00] like, we, we just traffic stop a lot for these small offenses.

It was in neighborhoods that were struggling with crime. And, but it's like, it's supposed to be in a very specific situation, like, and it's expanded to wait beyond how the like original studies in the original proponents of this approach we're looking at and it's that it's just grown way out of control. It's not serving anybody. It very, it just, it often escalate situations that don't need to be escalated instead of sweeping up criminals or sweeping up people on the run or whatever they originally

Nicholas: [00:09:36] intended. I think what you're referring to is like the broken windows policing.

Sarah: [00:09:40] No, it wasn't broken windows. It was something different, but it's like related to that. Yeah, definitely.

Nicholas: [00:09:44] Which, you know, obviously what's kind of a model, uh, for a period in the nineties and then obviously it's turned into some very problematic things and stop and frisk.

Sarah: [00:09:53] And you know, I'm reading Far From the Tree and I'm reading the part on criminality right now in juvenile delinquency and it's [00:10:00] like, they're talking about all the, like the ballooning of juvenile incarceration during the nineties. And it's just hard to beat, like, especially as a person who lived through it just to not look back and think the nineties was just a really cruel time. I don't know what was going on, but we got so many things wrong in the nineties.

Nicholas: [00:10:16] Yeah, I'd say, I think we get many things wrong in every, every decade. It's just that sometimes it takes a while for things to show that for the negative side effects to rear their ugly heads. And I do think there was some, there's no doubt that some of the national policy, as well as regional local policies with policing, that sounded great on paper and maybe in the interim period had a downward effect on violent crime, ultimately have led to some pretty negative outcomes in the longterm.

Sarah: [00:10:46] Well, speaking of negative outcomes in the long-term, the other thing we've been talking about is that the Biden administration has called for the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. This is also a good, we decided intro into a conversation about your politics and how often we fight, because this was one [00:11:00] of our first big fights because after September 11th, when we were in college, I was pretty opposed to troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. And we got in some big fights about that.

Nicholas: [00:11:12] We had some disagreements. I don't recall you, you have a better memory of us disagreeing about Afghanistan. I mean, I think the history of Afghanistan war is one that was largely wildly supported by the public because of the immediate aftermath of 9/11. The Iraq war was the one I think I recall is having more discussions ever, because I guess I wanted to believe that Colin Powell, wouldn't lie to the UN about the reasons for going to war and you were much more circumspect about the reasons and rationale for the war.

Sarah: [00:11:42] Because remember I was in senior seminar with Dr. Fryman from Transy and we were literally like our whole, the whole focus of the class was US involvement abroad like the Vietnam war, the Korean war, like all these [00:12:00] different, it was, it was so it was so brutal to be learning the history of how this fails every single time and how complicated it is and how, like, we feel this very emotional rush for war and how it like feeds certain things and it never works out the way we thought it was.

And like, to, just to feel all that and see all that and watch what was happening. And the national landscape, like it just, you know, I would love for this to be an opportunity for us to go on record with how right I was at the time, but it really wasn't about the class I was in and like learning, being like learning that history and seeing it play out in front of you was just so frustrating. But yeah, we got into some pretty hardcore fights as I remember.

Nicholas: [00:12:39] Well, and I, I guess I should, we should back up I'm I'm my politics are not too different from Sarah's I think, but in this case, I think was particularly the Iraq war. I think there was just some disagreement about the necessity of it and ultimately, Sarah was more than right. I think it's, what's shown, um, in both of these Wars is that um attempting to nation build, [00:13:00] attempting to democratize, or however you want to put it countries where if we have very little understanding of the politics and, and which are not particularly welcoming to our, our brand of, of quote unquote democratization, which is usually perceived as, as, um, invasion, so to speak doesn't really work.

And I think that's what Joe Biden sort of admitted yesterday, ultimately and, and he's been a critic Biden's been a critic of, of the Afghanistan presence for a long time.

Sarah: [00:13:28] Not from the beginning when he was on the foreign relations.

Nicholas: [00:13:32] When he was vice-president I think there are some that he pushed for, for troop drawdowns and I think he's seen, as he said yesterday, four presidents had presided over the Afghanistan war and he's not going to send it to a fifth and his point was basically this just hadn't worked. You know, we, we, we keep thinking that we can go in and we can, we can clear the areas of the Taliban. We can grow and then we can hold and, and build and the Hold amd build part has been almost a while now.

Sarah: [00:13:57] Yeah, people don't really stay still. [00:14:00] It's kind of an interesting way to think, like, well, clear it out and no one will come in again. Well, why? Because people are, we're just going to tell people to like.

Nicholas: [00:14:09] I think that there is some fear and some, probably some reality in that, um, the areas that we have helped to, you know, clear or build or whatever it is um, we'll probably many of them will probably end up back in the hands of the Taliban. And there's some, some, some negative, some downside to that.

Sarah: [00:14:24] Right. And let's not assume that this is all just on some road to peace. And we've all as, as like the American government really re-evaluated our complete approach to the war because part of this is they want to focus more on China and Russia, right? Like it's not that we've decided we're going to deal with our enemies completely differently although I don't expect any sort of occupation or violent action towards China or Russia.

It's more like, well, we got to focus our energies on a different enemy right now. And I think like this is one of the few times we had a disagreement where I felt more liberal than you. I think that people might be surprised to hear that [00:15:00] often, it is the other way around and that you are consistently uh, liberal. And can I fairly call it less than nuanced, less than grace-filled?

Nicholas: [00:15:15] You could call it that. So I guess I should just talk about my background because it probably it's very helpful I think an understanding. Of the four pantsuit politics partners, I guess, meaning relationships being Beth and Chad and Sarah and I, I'm the only one who really grew up in an urban setting. I grew up outside of Atlanta in a town called Decatur, Georgia.

It's at a bit of an idyllic little town still, although it's, it's changed quite a bit since I've lived there and gentrified quite a bit since I've lived there, but went to elementary school, middle and high school lived there basically my entire young life. And it's a very, um, Liberal town and that environment certainly shaped me.

Um, you know, I was [00:16:00] born at the tail end of the Carter administration and Jimmy Carter, the only president president from Georgia still has a, you know, a bit of a following there. And my parents were both fairly liberal as best I could tell, although they weren't, I knew that they voted democratic for the most part.

My mother has has over the years voted occasionally for the Republican presidential candidate or two, um, I sort of stopped asking after she voted for George W. Bush. And, but it's certainly as a, as a child, I understood that we were, we were Democrats and I think really we were Democrats or I was a Democrat in the sense that I was, I was sort of for democratic politicians. And I agree with what democratic politicians wanted to do because they were democratic politicians.

And I think as I've aged, I've realized that that's not, as we discussed with certain policing and certainly with the welfare reform and some other things that were done in the Clinton administration, the cruelty of the nineties showed me that perhaps just demonstrating that in favor of democratic politicians isn't [00:17:00] really my politics. So I do think as I've gotten older, despite what my well, people used to tell me it was, I would get more conservative as I got older. I think I've gotten more liberal as I've gotten older. And I think that's driven, and this is going to sound kind of contradictory, but it's driven largely by the fact that I felt like the conservative party, Republican party maybe were just conservatives, just, there was so much hypocrisy in the way that they kind of played the game. And so interestingly enough, you know.

Sarah: [00:17:30] And we lived in DC for five years.

Nicholas: [00:17:32] We lived in DC for five years but you know, when I was a kid in the nineties, Newt Gingrich was the Republican, you know, standard bear and in a lot of ways. Well, he was a Georgia politician. So I was kind of right there in that, you know, the thick of the people who were supporting Newt Gingrich. And, and then as, you know, even then I think I would say I was. I felt like the two parties were mostly toward the center of the political spectrum and that we could disagree with nuance. Everybody was on the same [00:18:00] page. Everyone was acting in good faith.

Well, Newt Gingrich, I think started the road down to the sort of bad faith, what I would call bad faith politics and I think even interestingly more interestingly, I went to college in Kentucky and now live in Kentucky where Mitch McConnell, the current standard bear for the Republican party who in my board.

Sarah: [00:18:19] Sort of.

Nicholas: [00:18:19] Well, fair enough. The current standard bear for some winning of their party, um, is of course the Senator and I'm unforced to see his name on the ballot every six years and I think his particular brand of politics has really turn me much more negatively toward the Republican party and maybe even pushed me more liberally, just in a response kind of stance.

Sarah: [00:18:40] Um, that, because I think like what we, what, uh, a lot of our disagreements are about is you project often I think that bad faith on like Everyone who votes Republican and I'm always the one being like, I don't think that's fair. Like I see the bad faith. I recognize the bad [00:19:00] faith. I'm as furious as you are by the bad faith of people like Mitch McConnell and Newt Gingrich. And also we can not project that on everybody who votes Republican.

Nicholas: [00:19:08] And that's fair in its own, right I guess. I mean, I, I, you have lots of friends who I'm sure vote Republican. I don't judge, I don't necessarily judge people or put people in a box. I'm not here to disown people because they vote Republican. But I find it very hard as a person who considered myself a thinking person to see how you can continue to support politicians who just have such bad faith policies and I'll I'll point to one in particular, which is,

Sarah: [00:19:36] But they don't think they're supporting the politicians they're in a community so they're just continuing to live in that community of people. Like they see the people around them. They're not thinking about Mitch McConnell.

Nicholas: [00:19:45] Fair enough. And I think that's probably fair, but at the same time, when you have somebody who um, when you have a party and a politician in particular, who's takes this very allegedly principled stand against, um, you know, uh, even [00:20:00] considering to confirming a Supreme court nominee in the last year of a president's term and then turns around and, um, and ignores that allegedly principled stand and even in fact makes light of it and jokes about it in a public forum in Paducah. In fact, it's just, it's so. It's just it's infuriating because

Sarah: [00:20:20] I think it was not a lot of grace-filled conversation in the hall and household between either of us at that point in time.

Nicholas: [00:20:25] Well, and I also just think it, it, it tears it that the, this is going to sound so idealistic, but it sort of tears it, democracy. It tears people's trust that there's any real good faith among each other and I think that's what you're seeing now being, becoming the policy the Biden administration, which is you guys have never, not since, particularly not since Obama have never really played fair, but you always wanted us to play fair and you didn't want to.

Sarah: [00:20:47] Under the promise that you would, that you would agree, but you were never, ever going to do it.

Nicholas: [00:20:52] And that's the same thing with this infrastructure conversation, which is, and I think that it's, it may be bad for this infrastructure bill, ultimately, because I [00:21:00] think that there's probably some, some legitimate criticisms of some of the things that the Biden administration wants to do. And there may be some room for real compromise, if there was a sense of that, compromise was actually going to get you a vote, right.

Even more infuriating, right is these guys don't even vote for bills, right? They didn't vote for this most recent stimulus, whatever you want to call it. Economic impact, bill, um, relief. And, but now they're, they're doing tours of their States calling it Christmas in July.

Our congressmen here in Paducah, Jamie Komar is calling it Christmas in July and telling and saying, well, all this money coming to McCracken County, which is the County we live in and the surrounding counties, this is, this is going to be great for your communities. He didn't vote for it.

Sarah: [00:21:42] Oh, that's infuriating.

Nicholas: [00:21:43] He can take some credit for it.

Sarah: [00:21:44] Well, and I, you know, as you're, as you were talking, I was thinking like, And that's what, that's why there was polarization. I hate to use that word. I don't really, but like the tearing at that fabric, because I think I was making that argument. And I think a lot of people were making that argument. Well, that's not me. [00:22:00] That's Mitch McConnell, but then Donald Trump pushed it so far I think that people could no longer reserve for some goodwill for Republican voters in the face of Republican leadership, you know what I mean?

Like I think there just, there became this break where it was like, I cannot separate you. Donald Trump made it a really, really difficult to separate people from their vote right. And you couldn't say like, well, yeah, you're not paying attention to the inside baseball of what Mitch McConnell's doing and you don't realize like what a hypocrite he is and so I can reserve some Goodwill for you when you can see what Donald Trump's saying all over Twitter every day.

And how am I supposed to reserve any Goodwill for you when you can see with your own eyes, how he behaves and what he does and the policies that he supports. And I think that's where it became really really hard if it possible to, to.

Nicholas: [00:22:51] I mean, I think I crossed the bridge before Donald Trump. I mean, I, I was. Not obviously thrilled with Donald Trump's presidency in any respect. But I think I kind of crossed [00:23:00] the bridge before the 2016 election of these guys. And I hate to say it like they don't play fair cause politics isn't supposed to be fair, but they don't, they pretend I want to play by a set of ground rules that they just routinely ignore.

Sarah: [00:23:10] But like the voters, I mean separating the leadership from the voters I guess.

Nicholas: [00:23:14] I mean, but I have a hard time. You're not wrong. I have a very hard time.

Sarah: [00:23:17] You do, you don't, you don't like to do that.

Nicholas: [00:23:18] Because I guess maybe just because I feel like that people ought to be paying attention. And I get that people don't have time and I get that it's complicated and I get, I get all that in a cerebral level, but at an emotional level, it just feels like.

Sarah: [00:23:32] Anger is a secondary emotion though. Nicholas what's behind the anger?

Nicholas: [00:23:36] Sadness. I'd say probably just like, you know, like a feeling of like, I feel like we could be a better country if we could be, if we get all act out of some set of good faith principles. That we're not always, you know, this whole thing that we're taught as kids like, Oh, compromise is the, is the, it's the root of our democracy. Well, is it? I-

Sarah: [00:23:54] mean, I mean, I think that's our book and that extra credit book club kill switch. Adam Denilson is arguing like, [00:24:00] no, it's not. And it's like, we overemphasize compromise.

Nicholas: [00:24:04] And I think it's been to the detriment of policies that I would typically support.

Sarah: [00:24:09] Yeah. Well, and I think that's the brilliance of the Biden ministration saying, Oh, we're compromising, we're listening to voters. We're not listening to you guys anymore. That's the difference, right? We're not listening to congressional leadership and say in assuming that they represent everybody, because the truth is because of gerrymandering and a lot of different reasons, they don't really represent everybody. They represent some extreme factions that get louder voices.

Like, I don't really think, you know, Marjorie Taylor Green. I hate to even mention her name. Like, it's not like she represents the majority of Republican voters, even Republican voters, I don't think that she does. Maybe I'm being, yeah, I think that's a whole nother story though.

Nicholas: [00:24:45] I mean, I think

Sarah: [00:24:45] She in Georgia too. Good job Georgia.

Nicholas: [00:24:47] She is, well, John Lewis is also from Georgia.

Sarah: [00:24:51] And you have two democratic senators.

Nicholas: [00:24:53] We do, which is just a real shock to the system. I was shocked, shocked. I think I've got these [00:25:00] where I grew up and so, and I kind of know the politics there a lot better than most of the rest of Georgia, or maybe I'm immersed, immersed in it at some point. Yeah. It's, it's, it's in the main, I would say I understand that not every Republican voter supports every Republican policy. But in my mind.

Sarah: [00:25:17] I mean, obviously you live in Paducah, it;s just like rage through the streets every day.

Nicholas: [00:25:21] My moments of lack of nuance come when the Republican leadership pulls stunts that just seem to be just sort of anticlimatic, just dramatic.

Sarah: [00:25:31] He doesn't even have to stunt it's like every time Mitch McConnell speaks, I'm like, god.

Nicholas: [00:25:35] That's what kind of gets my heart really going.

Sarah: [00:25:38] You have high blood pressure, so you really need to not do that. I sure why, if I need to advise you against that. Okay.

Nicholas: [00:25:44] Got it.

Sarah: [00:25:47] Is there anything else you wanted to add?

Nicholas: [00:25:50] About Afghanistan, about Republicans? No, not particularly. I don't think, I don't think this is going to go well if I get too much more riled up.

[00:26:00] Sarah: [00:26:00] Uh, do we, do we have a moment of hope for this episode? We're both fully vaccinated. Let's let that be our moment of hope.

Nicholas: [00:26:06] That's a good moment of hope. Yeah. Hopefully vaccinated 1.5 million Kentuckians are adult Kentuckians are vaccinated, which is almost, I mean, Kentucky's populations about 4 million. So we're getting close to half of at least one dose for adults in Kentucky, which has been awesome. Let's go governor Bashir and, and all the people who have been helping to get those vaccines in arms. It's been great.

Sarah: [00:26:28] Yeah, we love it. All right. Next up. We're going to talk about national parks.

When we decided to have you on the show, we talked about, you have a history of telecommunications as well, but Chad did telecommunications and we really didn't want to give people two weeks of telecommunications because it is not that interesting. No offense.

Nicholas: [00:26:57] Uh, well, that's not fair. I think there's a lot to [00:27:00] talk about telecommunications. I was a telecommunications lawyer for about four and a half years when we lived in DC,. I worked at a big law firm on K street that did telecom policy and lobbying, uh, and, um, worked on several what I guess you would call high-profile mergers and I was involved in wireless telecom as well as satellite telecommunications and wireline, which is of course the plain old telephone system.

But it's, I've been out of that world for a long time and it moves fast. And so trying to get caught up, even in kind of what's going on in telecom today is a, is a big lift, but I think a lot of what's going on is that we're still acting under a law that's 25 years old in a world that's changed a lot as with regard to telecom and internet, um, which I'm sure Pantsuit Politics will cover one day, but not today.

Sarah: [00:27:47] So instead we decided to talk about something you feel very strongly about, and it happened to coincide with a piece in the Atlantic that we both found really interesting and we're gonna talk about national [00:28:00] parks. So our national park system is 85 million acres, 423 national park sites. We are in the middle of trying to check off as many national parks as we can as a family cause I gave you a scratch off national park poster for Christmas which has just really lit a fire under us. We are ready to yeah.

Nicholas: [00:28:20] Has not, not just us, but a lot of people have been in a pandemic have been re rediscovering the national parks and national parks have been in the news in the last couple of years, because of course, one of Trump's premiere, I guess he would call it a premiere.

Sarah: [00:28:34] Would he? I think he doesn't even mention it that often.

Nicholas: [00:28:38] He has a mixed record with the national parks. Of course he there's two national park sites barriers and one that I can't bring to mind right now that he actually shrunk during his time. He went from a, I think he shrunk it about 85% of barriers and so that was, that was, he had a mixed record, certainly about national parks, but one of the things that he signed into law, with a lot [00:29:00] of bipartisan support was of course the great American outdoors act, which set aside $9 billion for national parks projects that had been sort of put on the back burner.

Um, one of the things that I think we'll talk about it a little bit is the visitation of national parks has increased 50% since 1980, I think is the number is the number, but the actual funding stayed relatively flat and so there were lots and lots and lots of projects that were going to maintenance in particular that was just going undone and, you know, staffing of course it was, was of course limited because they weren't, weren't able to increase staffing. And so that bill, that law now provided a lot of funding for the national parks and also provided a longer term source of funding for national local and regional kind of parks through kind of a trust fund that's funded by off shore oil, offshore drilling.

Sarah: [00:29:51] Well, so we just returned from spring break, where we went to South Florida to see three national parks. We went to the Everglades, Biscayne Bay [00:30:00] and Dry Tortugas and it was like, I thought it was such a good cross section of just the, even in one state, the diversity of the national park system, because, you know, we went to the Everglades, which is huge, just thousands and thousands of acres of this river of grass.

Then we went to Biscayne Bay, which is thousands of acres under water and then we traveled two and a half hours on a boat ride out to Dry Tortugas, which is small. I mean, I think Dry Tortugas also includes a lot of water ancherage. But then theres the islands. And then we there's like a big Fort, like it's, it's sort of a Nash. It was like, you know, when people think of national parks, they don't think of a small Island with a giant brick Fort on it but that's what it is.

Nicholas: [00:30:43] Fort Jefferson is built on the Dry Tortugas on the largest Island that make up the dry Tortugas. And it is interesting to think about, you know, the theory, I guess, behind. National parks in some ways is to appreciate nature in its untampered with state. [00:31:00] And this is very much not that.

And a lot of the money that goes toward the Dry Tortugas and keeping it up is keeping the Fort, which is more of a historical site, you know, it's more of a, like a Fort Sumpter type of thing, or even

Sarah: [00:31:11] the biggest brick building in both Americas.

Nicholas: [00:31:13] Even I learned. Okay. Yeah. Even like Fort Zachary Taylor, which is in also in the, in Key West you know, it's a similar type of site, but it's not a national park. It's a state park, but there's a lot less focused, I think now on the Fort part, whereas in dry Tortugas, I'd say it's about 50/50, and people who go there to, to see the Fort and people who go there for the, the natural habitat. Yeah the snorkeling.

Sarah: [00:31:35] But even the snorkeling is good because of the Fort. Cause they like structures to build, like, to coral, for coral to grow on. So I thought it was like a really good cross section, but I mean, look, what we're going to hot Springs this weekend and hot Springs is, but it's the same thing. Like it's a natural place, but it's also like a historical site because of the baths that were built up around the Springs.

So it's true. I mean, I think the national park system, [00:32:00] like the diversity, not just in the landscape, but the way that they are handled. I mean like the smokey mountains is one of the most visited national parks because it has a highway right through it.

Nicholas: [00:32:10] Right, right and no fees.

Sarah: [00:32:11] And there's no fees and like, and then when you get out West, which I think people usually associate with the national parks, then you get into the, like the Yosemite, the Yellowstone, Death Valley, all the national parks in Utah, and then you're getting into the vistas I think people more readily recognized, but there really is just so much out there. We also looked up all the States that didn't have national parks, which was kind of a surprising right list. Like Louisiana. Why don't you have a national park? That's surprising to me,

Nicholas: [00:32:36] right? There are sort of different designations. There are national parks per se, and then there's other national park sites. There's the national recreation areas. So for example, Kentucky has a national park at mammoth cave, which is another fairly developed site so to speak. Yeah.

Sarah: [00:32:52] Yeah. Cause, Oh yeah, there were cave Wars did y'all know this. They like where there was like violence surrounding the caves and who controlled them for a long time.

Nicholas: [00:32:59] And we also have land [00:33:00] between the lakes, which is a national site, but it's a national recreation area. And that designation is a little bit given to sites that are more about recreation versus conservation. Um, so a lot of this stuff around the national parks has been, you know, improving maintenance, improving conservation. There's a lot of push to get more science back into the national parks versus just tourism.

Sarah: [00:33:20] Cause it's hard. Like if you're conserving things and you want to build appreciation, But bringing humans into that as a conservation challenge every time.

Nicholas: [00:33:28] Right so that's, you know, you'll, you'll hear this said a lot that national parks are being loved to death. That the increase in tourism to the sites and that naturally leads to people sort of using the permitted sites, overusing the permitted sites, but also going into the unpermitted sites and sort of, you know, bushwhacking, so to speak if that's a term we can use.

I think, uh, you know, what the push has been, and it's always kind of been pushed back on is to try to get some of these sites that are sort of seen as overused on a kind of a lottery [00:34:00] system, on a kind of reservation system where they're not just being just using, using, and used and used, but it's not, they've never, they haven't kind of hit the right way to do that, that doesn't lead to, you know, pushback from regional, these, these particularly in the, in the American West so to speak the, um, which has a problematic, probably phrase in the first place. It's a huge tourist industry. You know, there's so many national parks in the West. You look at this, this scratch offs calendar.

Yeah. Either California, Utah. Uh, we have-

Sarah: [00:34:31] Well those are the two states with the most, right.

Nicholas: [00:34:33] I think that's right. I think we'd have quadruple the sites that we, we could visit on a day to day's drive. You know, so, you know, we are, I think at the same time that we are considering and pushing to, to see a lot of these sites, we have having to consider the impact that, you know, we're, we're we, as humans are having on these sites and how to, how to damper that impact and that I think it's kind of a natural lead into what this article that was written by David Truer at the Atlantic, which [00:35:00] essentially somewhat convincing, like to me anyway, argues that the national park sites should be effectively turned over to the native American tribes in the US for there to administer.

And, you know, the basis of his reasoning is I don't think he puts it as reparations, but he spends a lot of time talking about the history of the American Indian, Native American reservations and how they've shrunk and how they were forced off the lands through various means; Wars, being forced to sign treaties that were not honored, being forced to turn over lands in exchange for healthcare or food, just to survive harsh winters after they were forced off their, their original lands, where they were able to typically able to survive these harsh winters so it's a really, really good article for a history of that, that process, I guess.

Sarah: [00:35:49] Well, and I think the history part is really important piece to start with, because this reminds me of an experience we had while we were on vacation. We went to dry [00:36:00] Tortugas. It is this massive brick Fort, and it was built by enslaved people and indentured servants from Ireland and Scotland, and really brutal, terrible conditions.

And we talked about that and both Griffin and Amos were like, well, I feel bad now. I feel guilty being here because I know that people suffered to build it. And I think that's, you know, I think you can, you have to acknowledge that piece of almost any national park. That you visit and that if you're enjoying this beautiful Vista.

I mean, he, he starts with this historical vignette from the Mariposa battalion who came into the US and the first white men to come into the Yosemite Valley and this beautiful quote, which I would bet I have not seen the Ken Burns national parks documentary, but I bet you money it's in there. I can hear, I can hear the narrator in his voice saying this quote and it's beautiful. It's about how seeing it, and you're looking to God.

And then the next quote is about this just horrendous quote about native people and how they should all be killed and the same guy, you know, and [00:37:00] I think, it's so it's really hard to hold those things. And it's hard to talk with your kids about this is I brought you to this beautiful place and I want you to see it and connect with it and see how beautiful it is. And also it's a place of great suffering and the history that brought us here is complicated.

And to ask an 11 year old or a nine year old to hold that is hard because it's hard for me to hold all of that. And I think you know, I was listening to Tressie McMillan Cottom on Ezra Klien's podcast. And she was saying that the promise of multiculturalism is not that everyone gets as comfortable as the privileged people.

Right? It's not that everybody rises up to this place where we don't ever have to think about this stuff again. It's that the privileged people come into the place we're all living in, which is it's uncomfortable. There are no easy answers. Conversations are hard. That's the reality, right? That you've been that privileged so often protects us from, and it's not that we're trying to, we're not going to get to a place where it's uncomfortable or [00:38:00] uncomplicated.

And I think the national parks and it's definitely as illustrated by this article are really intense manifestation of that because it is, they are places that are so beautiful and so grand and can connect you to something so much bigger. And also they're the sites of enormous pain. And I mean, really the truth is every spot on earth is a place of enormous pain in a way. Right?

Like I think that that's just the reality of human existence, but it's hard to, like, I didn't really know what to say to Griffin and Amos except for, yeah, I know but we, we can't, you know, in an effort to not feel that discomfort, we cannot ignore the painful reality of the history of this place. But I also don't think that the best way to honor that history is to like never see these places. And, and that's definitely not what David Truer is arguing. He's not arguing shut them off. He's just arguing them entrust them to people who have a [00:39:00] different approach and understanding of the land.

And I love the part where he says like, you know, Native Americans, despite genocide, first of all, and then horrific attempts to assimilate them from like basically kidnapping their children and putting them in boarding schools and not letting them keep their language, like they have maintained this approach to the land and the rest of us have caught up.

Like their understanding of the land and how to interact with it is where our understanding has finally caught up to. I mean, I think that's the why we're loving the national parks to death in a way is because people there's so many more, more people, so many of us, but that's so many of us are coming to that understanding that land is a way to connect and as a, as a thing to behold and participate in. Although I just, I unfortunately think there's a lot of consumerism still embedded in that, unfortunately.

Nicholas: [00:39:52] Definitely. There's a lot of consumerism involved in, in some of these sites in particular, you know, it's an Instagram site [00:40:00] to go get your picture taken and do your picture. Take your picture as if one more picture of arches national park, your picture on your iPhone of arches national park.

Sarah: [00:40:10] Listen I took dozens of pictures of Dry Torguas and I posted them on Instagram, no judgment. So.

Nicholas: [00:40:16] Not to be too critical of that, but I think there is a ton to be done, you know, even if you disagree with his ultimate conclusion, which is that they should be turned over to there to American Indians, or I'm not sure, I guess, I think, he uses native American, so I'll use native American, but yeah, to the tribes, if you disagree with that, even there's a ton more that can be done in terms of education.

And I think that Sarah points out an interesting part of that, which is of course, that there were enslaved persons who helped to build the Fort Jefferson. Roughly 20%. I think if the workforce was enslaved persons, that that's sort of just a kind of a blip in the conversation. You know, that a lot of the, a lot of the emphasis is put on the, the white leaders who had so much wisdom as to put a [00:41:00] Naval base here or to put a navel, I guess the Naval base is probably rightbut a fortress there to protect our Naval waters instead of the peoples who built the ding-dong thing. Yeah.

But I think that's a lot, a lot can be done at a lot of the parks that were, um, American Indian homelands to improve education about what happened. There is, I think there is some effort, you know, there are, there are some trails, there's a trail of tears, monuments uh, there's one near us actually, that kind of marks the, the trail of tears and provides education about that.

Sarah: [00:41:30] So I'm going to, yeah, I think that's hard too, because I think he makes a really good point in this article of like, it can become where American Indians are like past, right? Like the only orientation is through the history.

And I think that one of the strongest arguments in the article is that like the tribes are still here and the people are still here and that, and like, there was a part where he talks about like, the population is larger than American Muslims and I'm not going to lie. I was surprised by that. If [00:42:00] you'd asked me what has a larger population, American Indians or American Muslims, I would have said American Muslims.

And so like, just say, just emphasizing, like the administration of the parks, because it's not just, it wouldn't just be about emphasizing the history, but about emphasizing the presence and the, you know, important belonging within the nation right now, and the presence of those, of those tribal nations within our country.

And I just, I thought, I thought, I think that's really important too. I think the American Indian museum in Washington DC does a really good job of that, of like balancing the history with the the presence of tribal people now, today, living breathing, contributing to our country. And I think that's really important too.

Nicholas: [00:42:44] Definitely, like I said, if you agree or disagree with the ultimate outcome of the article, it's definitely worth your time 100% worth your time. And I think he makes a very compelling arguments that this would be a kind of a, uh, opportunity to, to value that history [00:43:00] and to turn this back over to the peoples who originally lived on them.

Sarah: [00:43:03] Right. And I just think it's like, it's an, it's a step towards reconciliation and I think it is if we value the national parks, then in what bigger way could we emphasize the ways in which we value land and the power that we think those lands have, and that, you know, even though he talks a lot about Teddy Roosevelt, lots, you can't talk about the national parks without talking about Teddy Roosevelt.

And, you know, the conflict between this man who, you know, believed in the power of nature and also was like, believed in the power of colonialism and violence. Right. But I think like, How could we, you know, reconcile those things, what a better way to reconcile than we say, not only do we value these lands and we believe in the power of them, we believe in the power of these lands so much that we believe that they could be an instrumental part in real reconciliation, which our country is so desperate for.

Like they could hold such a special [00:44:00] place, like not just the history of violence and genocide and, and death, but could hold this place in the history of reconciliation where we say the lands now belong back to the tribal people. They administer them. We, there is like trust given, back lands, given back. I just think, I think that could be so healing and like really beautiful.

Nicholas: [00:44:22] Right. And his argument of course, is not that these, like Sarah mentioned, it's not that these would be closed. In fact, they would open to, I think he even says to the Instagram influencer to that, to that, to whoever, but it would be administered by the American Indians and the tribes, which, who have a history of administering lands and how having their own governments.

You know, governments which have been recently recognized by, rerecognized by the Supreme court, history of rights ideas. So the idea is not that these would be codes closed off to other people simply that the, the administration of them would be turned over and of course that would still require funding because these things aren't, they don't pay for themselves.

Despite being loved to death, they don't yet pay for themselves and probably never will. [00:45:00] So they, they will require funding and they will probably require in the future of conservation efforts and efforts to limit the number of people who are, who are loving them to death, so to speak. Um, so. It's really, again, worth your time to consider and read and I think.

Sarah: [00:45:13] And go visit your local national park, unless you're one of those sad States that doesn't have one. You'll have to go somewhere else.

Nicholas: [00:45:18] Almost nobody is outside of a day's drive. That, you know, at least in the continental United States, there's a, there's a national park within your reach. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Sarah: [00:45:36] Okay. Nicholas what's on your mind outside politics?

Nicholas: [00:45:39] So we spent about a day and a half in the car driving to and from Key West Florida in the last week. And we decided that there would be no better entertainment than to listen to Jimmy Buffett's the entire way there. We heard a lot of it's five o'clock somewhere.

Sarah: [00:45:57] Yeah. Which is my Jimmy Buffett song.

Nicholas: [00:45:59] Well, [00:46:00] no, right. It's an Alan Jackson song. It was written by somebody else, but he's in it and it's become, it's kind of become a signature interestingly enough, if they sell a lot of.

Sarah: [00:46:06] Our favorite Jimmy Buffett song is boat drinks.

Nicholas: [00:46:09] It is. Boat drinks is a, is a, it's a family favorite ever. We started going to Fripp Island and we would play boat drinks, or I have probably bought drinks for you originally. Yeah. And you thought it was sort of obnoxious.

Sarah: [00:46:19] But now it's come around.

Nicholas: [00:46:20] You've come around to, but, but really I think what we thought about and kind of what as I was driving and thinking about was just what a kind of a salesman and a BS artist.

What I said is it truly is now mine.

Sarah: [00:46:33] I said, halfway through there, as I said, He is a siren. He is like the truest siren song in the like, Mythical sense of the word. Like he sings these songs, you start thinking yeah. Like I'm the, I'm the palest human on planet earth. Like I can't live Jimmy Buffett's life, but I'm like, yeah, I should do this. I should like, definitely do my podcast from key West. This is the life I want to live. Like, it sounds [00:47:00] amazing. I want to drink boat drinks and live in Margaritaville. Yeah.

Nicholas: [00:47:06] Well, I mean, I guess I would say two things about that. One is that I don't think Margaritaville is a particularly hopeful song. He's wasting away again in there.

Sarah: [00:47:14] How do you get that? Its sounds so fun.

Nicholas: [00:47:17] Sounds like the life you want to live and to say nothing of Jimmy Buffett has lived much more of a life and just as musician, although he's become fabulously wealthy.

Sarah: [00:47:25] Well. Yeah, we looked it up. He's worth a $550 million. One of the wealthiest celebrities out there.

Nicholas: [00:47:30] But now you hear him sing these songs about, you know, Particularly, I think we were talking about five o'clock summer, which is not his song, but it talks about, you know, the boss is on my rear and what a drag it is and I'm just going to go have a long lunch and drink, you know, day drink. And,

Sarah: [00:47:45] uh, which neither of us do.

Nicholas: [00:47:48] He probably, but he doesn't have a boss that's on his behind he, you know, he, like

Sarah: [00:47:52] I said, I said that, I said, he's a siren. Let's give it up. And he was like, he was like, He doesn't live that life. Sarah, he has like Broadway [00:48:00] musicals and restaurants. He Tours. He has a, we did look it up though. He does live on water and he does take part of the year to be on his boat. That's true. That's true. I mean, I'm not trying to.

Nicholas: [00:48:11] He's a real sailor. I mean, he really does.

Sarah: [00:48:13] He does and he's an excellent songwriter. Yes, no doubt

Nicholas: [00:48:16] Not to take away from him, but he also, you just, you couldn't just give it all up and go with lemon cue. Particularly you couldn't give it up and go live in Key West. It ain't cheap to live there for one thing.

Sarah: [00:48:25] It's expensive there. We looked it up on zillow.That's my favorite hobby when we travel is to open up the Zillow.

Nicholas: [00:48:27] I think my favorite thing about Key West is that you kind of thought it would be like six, six dashed roof huts on a beach. It's obviously not that. It's very developed.

Sarah: [00:48:38] I really thought it was going to be so much smaller.

Nicholas: [00:48:42] Like primitive.

Sarah: [00:48:43] Not Primitive, but I thought it would be like a couple city blocks. It is not, no, it's not. It is like 25,000 people. It has a Publix.

Nicholas: [00:48:52] It's not a huge place but it's bigger than,

Sarah: [00:48:55] yeah. I did, that's not what I expected.

Nicholas: [00:48:57] It has a Kmart too. It still has a [00:49:00] Kmart which was one of the more depressing experience I had while on the Island, because this Kmart, I mean, it looks like somebody had bought a Kmart and just set up like a, kind of like a flea market in it. It was just, I mean, not, not that bad, but it was very, it was not well-stocked.

Sarah: [00:49:15] I mean, I did love, I don't want to let me be clear. I loved Key West.

Nicholas: [00:49:18] Not dragging key West, but the Kmart in Key West was sad. Yeah, I think that's just the state of K-Mart right now. And there being no Walmart on Key West, I think it stays open because you need a general store.

Sarah: [00:49:27] Well, I mean, we started it and the thing about Jimmy Buffett too is not this, that his songs are like convincing, but they're also ear worms to the like 10th degree. They they're stuck in your head. We were days back home, still singing Jimmy buffet.

Nicholas: [00:49:40] We were also singing Kokomo a lot.

Sarah: [00:49:42] Yes, because we did a lip sync video to Kokomo, which I'll put the link to in the show notes. I'm very proud. So cause Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell a few years ago, went to Africa and they found a sync video to Totos Africa, which I loved and the second I saw I was like, Oh, we're going to do that. And so we did Kokomo [00:50:00] and our 11 year old was less than thrilled. Yeah.

Nicholas: [00:50:03] He's, he's a very, he's turning very much into a tween and he has, he decided that we were trying to embarrass him, forcing him to do things. It was funny. He would come around in these flashes, he would say, Oh, I'll do that. And so he's in the video and he's even smiling, but then, you know.

Sarah: [00:50:21] You're the real star though.You're the real star of the video. You leaned all the way in which you would not have done 15 years ago.

Nicholas: [00:50:27] No, I would have been Griffin 15 years AGO.

Sarah: [00:50:29] I would have been, even though you were not 11, 15 years ago.

Nicholas: [00:50:31] An overgrown man-child.

Sarah: [00:50:32] Yes

Nicholas: [00:50:32] Complaining about his wife, having to making him do all this.

Sarah: [00:50:34] This is a good intro to how we should close out about how awesome I am cause like, look how much, it's my influence.

Nicholas: [00:50:39] You did turn it around and make it about that didn't you?

Sarah: [00:50:40] Yeah. Yeah. Your, your new embrace of enthusiasm is from me. Yes.

Nicholas: [00:50:48] I'm not going to say that it's not. Or do you think, do you think my face suggests that I'm skeptical a bit?

Sarah: [00:50:52] No.

Nicholas: [00:50:52] No, I mean, I think that's right. I mean, I don't know about new embrace of enthusiasm, but just like, I think some of it's just [00:51:00] uh, recognition that I can fight this all along, but ultimately, ultimately it's going to probably happen. So I'm like, I tell our kids, we can smile for the camera now, or we can smile at camera in 15 minutes because we got to get the picture. So just smile for the camera.

Sarah: [00:51:18] Are you in claim? Are you insult? Are you insinuating that I'm some sort of bullfozer?

Nicholas: [00:51:22] No, not a bulldozer, but you, you know, you get your mind set on something and it's not an unreasonable request, really. I mean, it was fun. And I think the end product is a lot of fun and I don't regret it, but I mean, you just, you have to kind of realize like, okay, she wants to do this. She's really got her mindset on it. She's really committed a lot of mental energy to it.

She's not going to let this go, just go with the flow and try to get over cause all of it is, Oh, it really is about embarrassment. Right. And feeling like you're being silly and at the end of the day, like who cares?

Sarah: [00:51:50] Right. Well, I will say that, you know, look you've been a bulldozer from kind of, I'm glad I gave up on your and being like, no, really you should start a podcast. No, for real, you should try to start a podcast. No, really like podcasts is the [00:52:00] future. You need to start a podcast.

Nicholas: [00:52:01] Yeah. I mean, that's like, that's like my one great contribution to society and I'll go down in history. Make my Wikipedia that, my whole Wikipedia page. One time mentioned to his wife that she should start a podcast and born, you know, XYZ, died whenever.

Sarah: [00:52:20] I love you Nicholas Holland. You're the best decision I've ever made.

Nicholas: [00:52:22] Well, ditto.

Sarah: [00:52:24] Thanks for joining us, everybody for this special episode of Pantsuit Politics, Beth and I will be back together on Tuesday. I'm counting the seconds. I miss her so much. Two weeks is a long time, not to be like, obviously we've talked, but I missed the podcast. So we'll be back together on Tuesday and until then keep it nuanced, y'all.

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