Why They Did It with Tim Miller

TOPICS DISCUSSED

  • Ukraine Update

  • Tim Miller on the Republican Party

  • Outside of Politics: Into the Woods

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EPISODE RESOURCES

TRANSCRIPT

Tim Miller [00:00:00] After a couple of drinks, they just start to say, "I'm so sick of the finger wagging. I don't need to drive a Prius with my Coexist sticker, drinking my coffee Coolatta out of my paper straw..." And I'm like, what are you guys talking about? Honestly, these people that I thought were my peers were speaking as if they're in a foreign country. For me, I don't like paper straws either, but Donald Trump? We're going to support Donald Trump because of it? It's insane. 

Sarah [00:00:35] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.  

Beth [00:00:37] And this is Beth Silvers.  

Sarah [00:00:38] Thank you for joining us for Pantsuit Politics. Welcome to Pantsuit Politics. We're so glad you're here with us as we take a different approach to the news. On today's show, we're thrilled to be talking to Tim Miller, former Republican, current analyst and writer and someone with a great perspective on how the Republican Party got to this point. Outside of politics, we're going to talk about the recent experiences we both had going to New York to see Into the Woods. And before we do any of that, we're going to check back in with the ongoing war in Ukraine.  

Beth [00:01:17] Before we do, I need to have a special shout out to Philip and Emily. Philip bought a Cameo for Emily from us so that we could wish her happy birthday. And he sent us the best video of his own to tell us about Emily. It was awesome.  

Sarah [00:01:31] It felt like a gift to us, not a gift to Emily.  

Beth [00:01:34] It was a present. And I was not feeling well, and it took us longer than usual to return it. And Philip was so gracious about it. And we just want to say again,  happy birthday, Emily. And thank you, Philip, for being awesome, both in the way you requested this gift for your wife and in being so patient with us.  

Sarah [00:01:55] Yes. Yes, I agree with all of that. He called us a refuge for Emily. And I was like, that is the nicest compliment I have ever received. All right. Up next, we're going to get into our processing of some of what's going on in the world, beginning with Ukraine. All right. The Russian army launched a large scale invasion of the nation of Ukraine on February 24th. So we are now 176 days in by the time you listen to this episode, which is hard to believe. Now, the invasion began on three fronts. But very quickly, as we all remember, Russia abandoned its goal of capturing Kyiv and withdrew from most of the north of Ukraine. They became really focused on the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, sort of up a little bit from Crimea, which we know that they had previous conflicts around. And by mid-July, Russia had occupied most of the Luhansk region in particular. Now, this was a symbolic victory, but they didn't gain a lot of new territory and they were losing lots and lots-- and continue to lose-- lots and lots of soldiers killed in action. And I think both it's fair to say now that the counter-offensive we've all been waiting for from Ukraine has begun. They received a lot of weapons and support and continue to receive a lot of weapons and support from the West and have begun to fight back. This caught me a little off guard, even striking targets in Crimea, sort of going behind the lines and trying to, if not, "recapture" definitely saw some discord. There was a great write up in The New York Times about the soldiers going back into those areas and just sort of creating a sense of, like, you are safe nowhere Russians if you are in Ukraine.  

Beth [00:03:42] And also, sadly, there is this kind of punishing tone towards Ukrainians who are working at all with the Russian controlled version of state that's happening there. The Wall Street Journal has a really interesting piece, too, about American veterans going over to help train Ukrainians who have no fighting experience whatsoever. All I have been able to think about as I continue to follow what's happening in Ukraine, is that there is no clean version of war ever. The more detail you understand about any kind of conflict, the less clarity you'll start to feel. And it just makes me wish that there had been some way to prevent this. Because once you're in, everybody is in so far and you lose sight of where it began and how it might end.  

Sarah [00:04:37] I read a piece about polling around Ukrainians on any sort of peace negotiation, any sort of settlement, particularly any agreement that seats territory to Russia, and it was a big, strong no. And, look, you can't blame them. Like, with when you see what happened with Crimea and then the resulting invasion, I'm not angry at anyone in Ukraine and I totally understand that perspective. And it makes an exit from the scenario seem so incredibly difficult. And I don't want that for the Ukrainian people either. I don't want them engaged in this conflict for five, 10 years. But I think you're right, I think once you're in it-- I don't know how we got clean narratives ever around war that we would go in, there would be a clear end, there would be a winner. I mean, we don't even-- and I think the idea is that that was disrupted by Vietnam. But you don't have to go that far back in history to see this. They call it the 100 year war. You think that had a clear end and a clear winner? No, of course not. Back in the Middle Ages these conflicts become so complicated and just exhausting and tragic and terrible consequences for both sides.  

Beth [00:05:52] It makes me think about when I was having an exchange with our long time listener, Berta, about Taiwan, how when you see reporting that actually speaks to Taiwanese people, their perspective on the threat from China is so different from what you might imagine if you just took in American reporting people who live in these places where the conflict unfolds. And I would love to find more of this kind of reporting around what's happening with Tigray. But people who live in these places, it's both unimaginably worse in many ways to have a threat or an active conflict unfolding around you, but also better in a lot of ways than we might anticipate and neutral in many other ways. It's just can't tell a story that encapsulates this experience. Much like I can imagine that people not living in the United States would think that living here is much better and much worse in many ways than it is with all the domestic terror threats that we have with school shootings. Your brain just adapts to whatever the reality is. And so I think our brains try to shrink what's happening somewhere else as part of our ways of adapting. And I try to figure out how is it that I can follow the conflicts in these places without doing that and also without kind of losing my grip on a sense of happiness in the world.  

Sarah [00:07:18] I think all the time about reporting I heard from Aleppo at the very beginning of the Syrian civil war that the reporting was so dire. And I remember this merchant in Aleppo and he's like, that's just Aleppo. This is how we exist here. This is the background of what has always existed there. And he wasn't dismissive, he lived there. And perhaps his perspective changed as the civil war in Syria got worse and worse and worse. But I think about that a lot. It was not what I expected to hear from someone on the ground. I think you're right. I think it is simultaneously worse and better in so many ways. And the perspective is more integrated into your everyday life than a way it can ever be if you're reading, reporting from far away. I mean all the reports from Kyiv is that life has begun and in many ways gotten back to "normal" while this ongoing conflict in other parts of the country continues. I think that integrating that in your experience is  in some ways the best and worst adaptation, right? And maybe that's what happens with war is that you find a way to continue because you have to. But in finding that way to continue, you stretch out the conflict because the stakes lower when you can find a way to exist inside this environment.  

Beth [00:08:32] It's what we did with COVID, right?.  

Sarah [00:08:36] Yeah. Exactly.  

Beth [00:08:36] I mean, that's not a perfect metaphor for sure. And I don't mean it in a way that's harmful at all. But I think that adaptation and the stretching out of it, and how it it's never really over, it just kind of fizzles is the way that a lot of this unfolds.  

Sarah [00:08:52] And I think that's what's going to continue to happen in Ukraine. The situation is going to continue. It's going to continue to evolve. I don't know if it will fizzle out. I'm not comfortable predicting what's going to happen in Ukraine between the Ukrainians and the Russians, but the situation will continue to evolve. Of that I am confident. And we will continue to talk about it here on the show. Up next, we're going to talk about a very different type of slow moving disaster, the Republican Party, with Tim Miller. Tim Miller is an MSNBC analyst, writer at large at The Bulwark and author of the new book Why We Did It: A Travelog from the Republican Road to Hell. He was the communications director for Jeb Bush's 2016 presidential campaign and a spokesman for the Republican National Committee during Mitt Romney's 2012 campaign. He has since left the GOP and become one of the leaders of the NeverTrump movement. So up next, Tim Miller. Tim miller, welcome back to Pantusit Politics. We always love to have you back. 

Tim Miller [00:10:01] So good to be back. It is so good to be here. Every once in a while I'll get a mom that'll say to me, "I heard you on Pantsuit Politics."  

Beth [00:10:11]  Not to pigeonhole our demographic.  

Tim Miller [00:10:15] I mean, I would love to say I heard a handsome 24-year-old came up to me on the street and was like, "Hey, Tim, I heard you on Pantsuit Politics."  

Sarah [00:10:22] We have those.  

Beth [00:10:24] One of these days.  

Tim Miller [00:10:24] Yeah. If you're out there, a handsome 24-year-old male listening to Pantsuit Politics, you should send me a DM. Say we are here, we celebrate girl power and politics talk in pantsuits.  

Sarah [00:10:35] President [Inaudible]. That's right.  

Tim Miller [00:10:37] So maybe they're out there, but it has tended to be moms. But I'm honored to be back. It's great.  

Sarah [00:10:42] We love to have you here. Now, we are talking during a tough week for anyone like you who has seen the trajectory of the Republican Party and wants it to be better because Liz Cheney lost her Wyoming primary on Tuesday. How did you feel when you heard the news?  

Tim Miller [00:10:57] R.I.P. Yeah. My Catholicism is going to come back up here, my wayward Catholicism. But I just think that Liz Cheney had to die for our democracy to live. We're going to raise her from the dead. And she's a martyr on the cross. Saint Liz. I'm feeling okay. I knew it was coming. I had a little text message chain with my buddies and somebody was, like, I'm feeling pretty good. I think that Liz might lose by only 10. And someone else said, well, let's just do a little wager [Inaudible]. Everybody guess. I bid the highest guess losing by 36. I think I'm going to come in the winner on the text chain. So I was very clear-eyed about where things were and how things are going. And so as much as MSNBC and the MSN wanted to put the camera in my face and  see my tears, I've come to terms with the state of the party quite a while ago. So you got to love her, though, for fighting the good fight. But that's just now where we're at right now.  

Beth [00:12:02] Your wager is a funny segue because I wanted to ask you about the fact that her concession speech slash here's my next chapter reference, I thought, a line right from your book Why We Did It, when she just very clearly said this is not a game. And you talk about the game a lot in your book, and I wonder how that moment landed with you.  

Tim Miller [00:12:23] I also noticed that. I was, like, is Liz Cheney reading the book? I'm also wondering. I feel like the Bulwark on our podcast-- like, I don't know if this is true, but I think we are the first ones to start saying Liz Cheney is going to follow this guy to the gates of hell. Now I hear that everywhere. And I was, like, I think these congressmen listen to the book or podcast. But, yeah, I liked that she talked about the game because it's true. It's kind of sad and banal and pathetic to think that all of these grown ass men are treating our very democracy that they all claim to care about as a pawn in their stupid political game. But it is an accurate assessment of what's happening. And I think there are a lot of other commentators or pundits on the make, particularly on the right, that want to justify  the opposition to Cheney and justify the rationalizations and contortions that  the anti-Trump crowd goes through by making this about something more than that. But it is that. These guys want power. They want to win. They've been conditioned to. And it's been a long time coming. So I get it. And why we did it is for a long time we've been treating politics like a game. And we're at a time now where the ramifications of this game are very serious. And they've always been serious, but they're very, very, serious and existential now. And I was happy to see that Liz Cheney is a rare person who has the clarity to see that and to really condemn these guys for what they are, which is just  shallow, self-interested individuals who want power and don't care about what the results of their actions are.  

Sarah [00:14:09] Let's get into your book some.  

Tim Miller [00:14:12] It's an uplifting one, isn't it? [Crosstalk]. 

Sarah [00:14:15] Yes, absolutely. Why We did it. A Travelog for the Republican Road to Hell, where you really excavate your own participation and the motivations. You did a lot of interviews, both on the record and off, of those around you. It reminded me so much of a book I read in my twenties by David Brock, another revelatory, redemptive I've seen my role here. And I just thought, it's so funny to me because I think the national perception of the Republican and Democratic parties, especially when I was in my twenties and working in DC, was that to a certain extent left over from the Clinton era, the Democrats were the calculating power hungry ones and the Republican were the earnest ones motivated by religion you might not have agreed with, but motivated by this underlying very religious ethical kind of undercurrent. And I think you just break that all the way open. And it was so fascinating to me. And it's still fascinating to hear you talk about  Republican consultants that don't vote for Republican presidential candidates. And I think you do a good job of really talking about like, well, some of this is motivated by career. Like, you're just kind of locked into this career or you're locked into the access or all these sort of different levers of human motivation come to play to these really toxic results.  

Tim Miller [00:15:37] Yeah. I never read Brock's book and I maybe should have before I wrote mine. But I always loved the name of it, Blinded by the Right, because I like the way it sounds. [Singing] Blinded by the right.  And so this has been a long time coming for sure. I do think there has been a real switch, though. Sometimes liberals or progressives will want to say it's always been like this, the party's always been like this. And the elements are always there for sure. And I get into that in the book. But I think that you hit on something, this kind of flip between when we were growing up  there was this critique from the right, but the left was about moral relativism. And there was a corrupting element of moral relativism. There was the right that argued for moral righteousness and turpitude. What was the old Bill Bennett book? It was The Book of Virtues or whatever it was called, right?  

Sarah [00:16:30] Yes. Oh, my god.  

Tim Miller [00:16:31] Yeah. And so it was all always a little phony. But there was always elements of it that was genuine. And so this is what those of us who grew up, and we're dorky young Republicans, were kind of taught. Was that we care about virtue, we care about rectitude. And it's these modern day postmodernists that are the ones that actually don't care about the difference between right and wrong. Obviously, there's always a little bit of B.S. on that. But now the interesting thing is that-- and this developed as I came into politics-- basically this started to flip during the Bush era and then particularly in the Obama era, which is actually the Republican strategists and the people in Republican Washington who stop caring about all of that, about right and wrong. And who become completely enamored with, as we talked about, the game, completely enamored with winning, completely enamored with losing. Who cares if what we're saying is what we're feeding the base is a little bit of a lie. We just kind of take Obama down a peg and I care more about the clever tactics and strategies than I do about  doing the right thing. And you fast forward all the way to now and the rules are completely reversed. Now, in some ways, it's self harmful. Democratic staffers are so earnest and are so focused on social justice and are, like, we need to do the right thing, that sometimes that accrues to the damage of their candidate's, right?  

[00:18:03] And Republican candidates have become totally nihilist. They're like, oh, everything is relative. Who cares? Even the law is relative, right? The rule of law doesn't even matter now. If he's the president, he can get away with it. And so I think that this sort of culture, I had a front row view of how it just slowly debased over time from maybe being disingenuous but actually caring about values to now actively vice signaling and actively saying, caring about--  you see this on Twitter sometimes with conservatives caring about values and stuff is just lame. Like, these Democrats can't even take a joke anymore. Even the normal good Republican. There's a book by Noah Rothman, who I usually like, but he has this book coming out right now that the whole book is about how, like, Democrats can't take it. They're the new Puritans. I'm just like, what?  

Sarah [00:18:53] Oh, my god.  

Tim Miller [00:18:54] What are you talking about? Actually caring about being nice to people is bad now? Are hamburgers eating people? We're in a total upside down place. And I think everybody wants to attribute that just to Trump. But I think that this was a long time coming and Trump just took advantage of a very debased conservative political culture.  

Sarah [00:19:19] Yeah, fertile field.  

Tim Miller [00:19:20] Yeah.  

Beth [00:19:20] Well, your book talks about all the people who enabled Trump to do that, and you provide this taxonomy of motivation, like, here are the categories of people. And I feel like each chapter is filled with both empathy and indictment for the folks in those categories. I'm curious, which group did you find the most difficult to understand and write about?  

Tim Miller [00:19:43] Yeah, I loved Michael Cruz. That is like my Catholic family. I love this. He's like your priest and confessor in this section. And I was like, yes, that's what I was going for. We're getting in the confessional, people. Like let's just attach this out. The demonizers were the one that was the biggest surprise to me and was was the one that I had the most trouble understanding because it was just so separate from me. And so let me explain. We know that, again, the book is not about voters. I think a lot of times voters are the victims of the Republican political class who lie to them.  That's what this book's about. The book is not about the people who actually hate the left. You know, the Stephen Millers. This book is not about them. It is about people that I knew or thought I knew who were gentle people, nice people who I thought were like me playing this game of politics where we disagree with the Democrats. I don't hate them. I never hated Obama. If Obama was, like, do you want to come watch a basketball game with me? I'd be like, that sound so cool. Yeah, for sure. I bet we'd get along. I never had that view. I never really hated Bill and Hillary. They were saying things that would annoy me or [Inaudible] or whatever. But I never had that. And for me, I was playing this-- and obviously this is not necessarily a compliment for me, but I'm just trying to be honest about my perspective. Like, there's always a little bit of WWE in what we were doing, and I guess performative.  

[00:21:13] I had Democratic friends and I'm gay, I lived in a big city. This notion that the cultural left was out to get me never resonate. So it kind of took me aback when I started interviewing my former friends who are like me. D.C. living, upper middle class, doing well for themselves, have Democratic friends. And after a couple of drinks, they just start to say, "You NeverTrumpers and the Lincoln Project and the media, you're all out to get us and the mask is off. And my kid has to read these DEI packets at school and woke culture gives me no choice but to side with Trump and my wife's friends think I'm a racist." And I interviewed my friend Caroline and she's, like, I'm so sick of the finger wagging from the-- I don't need to drive a Prius with my Coexist sticker,  drinking my coffee Coolatta out of my paper straw. And I'm, like, what are you guys talking about? Honestly, it was just like they were in a completely-- These people that I thought were my peers were speaking as if they're in a foreign country from me. I don't like paper straws either, but Donald Trump? We're going to support Donald Trump because of it? It's insane. And so that was the hardest for me to grasp, was just that over time, slowly but surely, their resentment of their fellow elite peers had begun to consume them to such a degree that they were able to rationalize supporting Donald Trump, who is a much more patently cruel and mean spirited and hateful and divisive than any of these people that these folks seem to be mad at. Because whatever they're, they're uppity in their Priuses. I don't know. The whole thing was hard for me to understand, but I came to get it. But really that was the one that caught me the most off guard.  

Sarah [00:23:12] Feels like there's resentment. When you said that, that's the exact emotion I was thinking about in my head, is that there's just so much resentment. And there's a part of me that wonders  having also lived in that DC culture and coming from a different background as a Democrat than a lot of my Democratic colleagues. I did not go to an Ivy League school. I grew up in Kentucky, and so I was an outlier as far as background among my Democratic colleagues. And I can see if you're coming from a rural community, if you did not go to school in the Northeast or a fancy school, as I would say--  

Tim Miller [00:23:51] Look at us, we're such outsiders, we can't even name one of these. What are these schools called?  

Sarah [00:23:54] I know, right?  

Tim Miller [00:23:55]  I don't know now. What are these prep schools called? I can't even name one.  

Sarah [00:23:58] I definitely didn't go to or know anyone who went to a prep school or boarding school. I got into some pretty intense disagreements and in particular in my Senate office, because I felt like the judgment directed at my part of the country was really intense. And I so I think I can sort of feel the bubbling undercurrent of where a lot of that resentment comes from. And I don't condone it, but I can understand it because I do think a lot of it is baked in. It's like you go and intern at the Senate. If you're from a conservative state and you're interested in politics and you want to go intern as a college student and you want to start on that path, like, what's available to you? You're going to go to a conservative Republican, your a conservative Republican congressman and that's how you're going to get started. And it's like it feeds itself until you're in the sort of inertia that you describe of like, well, I built this whole career and it pays my kids colleges. And so what am I supposed to do, go start over at a Democratic congressman's internship?  

Tim Miller [00:24:56] Yeah, I also guess I get where the resentment comes from. It's just that it was allowed to spiral so much in people that do exist and have pretty great lives.  Like, and coexist with Democrats.  I don't know. For me, I'm like the opposite of me, right? I came from Colorado. I lived in the suburbs and I'm gay. And so I was a Republican that didn't come from this Southern culture or anything where I would feel looked down upon. So I kind of look at that and I'm like, I just don't know. As a gay person, I'm like we were being denied marriage rates for a while and none of us were storming the Capitol hall.  

Sarah [00:25:41] Right.  

Tim Miller [00:25:42] I don't know. I understand the resentment.  But it's also kind of, like, guys, can you just take a step back? But I think it feeds itself, right? What I came to learn is  it's a you.  

Sarah [00:25:52] Yeah.  

Tim Miller [00:25:53] Coming from Kentucky then worked in Democratic offices, a lot of times you probably felt like you were looked down upon or whatever, but you also met good people, I assume, and you were able to see the humanity of people. And so these folks now we're also separate that they live in their little conservative bubble. They go to conservative Republican bars. They have Republican friends. They have Republican social media circles. And they sit around and they convince themselves of this. The left starts to become like caricature. 

Sarah [00:26:23] Caricature..  

Tim Miller [00:26:25] Yeah. Jinx!  And I think that unfamiliarity breeds resentment, you know.  

Beth [00:26:33] So as you go through these categories, you talk about the demonizers, you talk about the people who think of themselves as saviors, like I've got to be here to help check his instincts. A bunch of categories. Throughout all those categories, it really jumped out at me how often you used drugs and addiction as a metaphor. And I was thinking about it because I think that metaphor, at least to me, implies a tenuous relationship with agency. At what point did these folks start to lose agency or did they? And I wonder how you think about that.  

Tim Miller [00:27:06] I actually have a ton of empathy for the rage addicts who are being fed this by people in the political class. And so I think that's a really challenging question when it comes to the people who are on the Mall. One of my characters is Caroline who I mentioned. She was a good friend of mine and worked for moderate Republicans. And she found herself on the permit in the mall on Janury six. This is a person who agency, who made choices that I just fundamentally disagree with and who I think should feel some responsibility for what happened that day. I tried to share that with her when we met for very, very long, many, many drinks session in Santa Monica that I write about. And I was trying to help her accept responsibility for that, but it didn't work-- I don't think. Hopefully, I made a little progress. But the people from the other side of that coin, I was like obviously have no empathy for people who, like, committed violence against police, whatever. But if you're the shaman who's just some guy wearing horns who's been convinced that the country is being stolen from you, and now you find yourself in the capital, like, should that person really be going to jail? Is that that person's fault that they're there? I guess. They have agency. I guess so. But that is really Donald Trump's fault. Donald Trump is the reason why January six happened. And I think that a lot of people throughout the country have become addicted to their machines and addicted to the rage that we're feeding them on their machines that is exaggerated at times, lies at times unnecessary, not relevant to their lives. It is a real metaphor because I think that they need addiction therapy to get off it. And the joke phrase people use it is, like, get out and touch grass. They need to get out and touch the grass. But maybe they need to also do some sort of group therapy. And so I don't want to say that they don't have agency, they do. But I think in a lot of ways they're being victimized by the Republican political and the conservative media class.  

Beth [00:29:22] What about those people themselves, though? Like, did Caroline lose agency in this process?  

Tim Miller [00:29:27] I don't think so. No, no, no. I think that they're the dealers.  

Sarah [00:29:35]  But, listen, we've all watched The Wire. That's more complicated, too.  

Tim Miller [00:29:39] Yeah. No, sure it is. Yeah, it is. Like, the dealers are users and sometimes you need cash. But no, the people that I talk about that I interview are all capable of recognizing what they're doing. And I think that they've been caught up in this culture where that not just excuses but incentivizes feeding this rage juice to carry the metaphor to the audience. But I understand them, and I endeavored in the book to make them three dimensional humans and to not caricature them. So the liberals reading this don't just kind of get exactly the character that they want of evil Republicans.  

Beth [00:30:30] I feel like you did that, by the way except for Sean Spicer, which is I think Sean the only one maybe.  

Tim Miller [00:30:34] Thank you.  

Sarah [00:30:34] Oh, bless.  

Tim Miller [00:30:35] Yeah, okay, I'll take that cricism.  

Beth [00:30:38] It's not criticism, it is just an observation.  

Tim Miller [00:30:42] I felt like people needed a little candy [Crosstalk].  

Sarah [00:30:47]  Oh, bless.  

Tim Miller [00:30:47] It's like Sean gave people a-- but he is kind of a caricature. So in some ways I created a real human description of him because he's become his own caricature, which happens to people in media.Anyway, so in that sense, I think that these people all have a devil and an angel on their shoulder. They have good and bad inside them and are making bad choices. And so to that extent, I think that they do have agency.  

Sarah [00:31:15] So our book title is Now What?  

Tim Miller [00:31:18] Yeah. I'm happy that you wrote that, not me.  

Sarah [00:31:21] I've started to think  when we talk about the brilliance of our our founding fathers, it was not in their solutions, but in their diagnosis of the problems of democracy that they were at their best when they were like, man, what are we going to do about this problem? What are we going to do about this problem? Because I think we see it play out over and over again, all the things they were concerned about. I think your book is that. So where are you? Where are you on the now what? When you look at this trajectory, you have Liz Cheneys out there trying their best. You have people forming  the forward party. There's still people out there trying to do the work and also just the legal system seemingly moving the gears, cranking up for some actual real life consequences for Donald Trump. Where are you on the now what, the what comes next?  

Tim Miller [00:32:04] Well, you notice that's not in the book.  

Sarah [00:32:06] No.   

Tim Miller [00:32:07] The editor wanted a final chapter. A final now what chapter that would have competed with you guys. And I was like, nope, we're leaving this book in the muck, in the mire, because that's the reality of where we are. And the point of this book is to be an honest assessment of the culture and not have some Pollyanna view about how it's fixed. I have some ideas. But I want to preface this by saying that where we are at is generations in the making. And I think that's the one area my fellow Never Trumpers sometimes misdiagnosed this. I do think like if Trump just poof disappeared that'd be great. But it wouldn't fix everything. It wouldn't even fix half to think. Like, he has some unique derangements and psychosis that I think would protect some of the worst case outcomes if we just got rid of him. And so I think that'd be good. But the culture that enabled them has been a really long time coming. And so it's going to have to be a long time fixing, right? The metaphors is like if you have a contaminated pool and you pour like a gallon of clean water in there, well, the pool's still contaminated. It takes a lot more than that to fix it. So  some things I think creating spaces where people can disagree in good faith is really important. Trying to engender a culture of mutual respect is important. I think that on the left sometimes there's this temptation that I have, by the way. Also, I guess, if I'm on the left, whatever you want to call me now to just  say that everybody that went along with Trump is evil and immoral. And I can't deal with you anymore. I can't look at you. I can't talk to you or I'll treat you as inhuman. I think that's bad.  

[00:33:49]  I think that is exacerbating the problem. We need to recognize that people are complicated and and give people a path for redemption. I think there are certain things in our democratic system we could change. I'm pretty skeptical about the third party thing. I like the open primaries, the jungle primary thing, for example, as we've seen Liz Cheney gets crushed by 40 points or whatever in a partizan primary. But David Valadao in California is a Republican and pitcher who hasn't shown as much courage as Liz Cheney, of course, but he wins in a jungle primary. And I think that a jungle primary for those who don't know, is where all the Republicans and the Democrats are all together in the first round of voting and then the top two, no matter what party they are, go on. I think that system could incentivize third parties, by the way, and I think it makes politicians incentivize them to talk to the media and voter and solve the extremes. So that I think would be good. I wish that there are some billionaires out there that would fund some media outlets that appeal to people on the right that are not based in conspiracy and hate. That would be nice. Pollyanna, again, but you just have to say it. Leadership matters, being responsible matters. And the thing that isn't new is there are always people that were bigoted and there are always people that wanted to believe conspiracies were true. That's not new in 2022. What is different is that for a while people in power felt like they had an obligation to the whole country and to do things that were right and that they didn't just have an obligation to be a mirror to their own voters grievances and hatreds and  false beliefs. And how do you find leaders who are willing to do that? Boy, that's a really inexorable challenge.  

Sarah [00:35:44] Well, and I think that that is an excellent point to end on as we sit here with Liz Cheney's loss. That's still leadership. What she's done is still leadership. She didn't need to win her primary for that leadership that she's exhibiting right now to matter. That's not required of her or any of us. I think the game tells you you have to win for it to matter, but the game is dangerous and our human brains.  And I think you do such a good job of in your book, Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell, that everybody should read. I think that you do a good job of illuminating that. And we thank you for that and thank you for coming on our show.  

Tim Miller [00:36:20] Thanks so much. And I hope that even for non huge political nerds, there are lessons because this is true in a lot of parts of our life.  Like, you're obsessed with winning, obsessed with what-- so it's getting recognition and you block your brain out from thinking about  what the impact is of what you're doing. So I hope that people enjoy the book despite the fact that it's depressing and that there can be some things that folks can take about it that's relevant to their lives. And I  appreciate you all have me up.  

Sarah [00:36:50] Thanks. Knowing as we do that you can't live in the woods, we both recently did take breaks from our daily lives to travel to New York City to see the revival of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Broadway show Into the Woods. You went with your sister? I went with Griffin. You were a devoted, memorized every lyric fan. I had never seen it before, so we had the full experience between the two of us.  

Beth [00:37:26] I have loved this show since PBS broadcast the stage version in 1991. I have I've had the show with me for 30 years. Bernadette Peters was the witch in that version, and my mom loved it, showed it to all of her classes every year, taught a whole unit on it. It was just a fixture of my childhood and influences me in so many ways. I was thinking as we were preparing for this conversation about how when we first started the show, we talked about the Affordable Care Act, and I was like, It's kind of like the woods. There's some good things, there's some bad things there. So there's some things that are neither. And I thought that all the metaphors in my life, I can't unravel Into the Woods from my language and my perspective on anything. All of those little bits of wisdom that float throughout the show, it's just all such a part of me. So when I learned that there was this limited run revival taking place that had Sara Barreilles as Baker's wife and Phillipa Soo as Cinderella. I called my sister and I said, "I think we have to go see this. I think we have to." And she said, "No, I think that's right. We have to." Our trip was a little chaotic, but we had a really good time. It was wonderful to spend so much time with my sister and it's extremely special to see it on Broadway with her.  

Sarah [00:38:41] Yeah, I definitely fell for it hard. The entire musical, had not seen it. I knew it was about fairy tales, that's about the extent of it. But it is Griffin's favorite. He loves it. And so I knew we had to go. And I have had a lot of Broadway experiences, but I think never as pure as this one. I saw a show that has proven itself to be good and strong and amazing. But I saw it not knowing anything-- and with a supremely, supremely, good cast. And so it was really amazing. I will say, not only did I fall for Into the Woods. I fell for Sara Bareilles very hard. It's not that I didn't know her and love her, I love her. I think she is just the most beautiful singer. Sings one of my absolute favorite Christmas songs. And I've seen Waitress, not with her, which I now really regret, but I never seen her live. And I think her voice-- I'm just completely enamored and in love with her performance. I cried so hard at her last song. I think is that moment in the woods. I just thought it was so beautiful and she captured so much. She sings the song so well, but it also sounded very much like her and her style of singing, which is hard to describe. I read a write up yesterday and still can't quite wrap my brain around what she's doing there. But it's brilliant and it's affecting, I can tell you that much. But I agree, it's like once you have the language in this show, you see the metaphors everywhere. I posted on Instagram it's like the matrix. Like, all of a sudden you have, oh, yeah, the children will listen. Children will listen. And all these like little pieces in lyrics and insights that you're like, man, this is very relevant. It's funny that it's Griffin's favorite show and that you loved it so much when you're younger. Probably just because of my stage of life, I felt so much like it was a love letter to parenting, just to how hard it is. It's making me tear up a bit how complicated it is and how it holds all these light and dark pieces in this act that you're trying to do, in this this task you're trying to accomplish. And I just thought it was so beautiful. And he captured it so well.  

Beth [00:40:53] It is for sure a meditation on families and intergenerational trauma and parenting itself. I think it has so much to say about COVID 19. I saw it so differently this time than I ever have before because of how relevant I think it is too. I think the giant is very much just a fantastic container to consider how we respond to external threats that we don't understand well. Of course, he wrote it against the backdrop of AIDS. He has always said it's about more than AIDS, but there is just this allegory component to it that felt fresh to me because of COVID. And I think reviving it right now is brilliant. I heard it differently as a mom too, though, especially the song where the Baker and the character who turns out to be his father are speaking to one another about running away from problems and what that creates. That had always been kind of a mentally skip it moment for me, watching it as a kid, and that was probably my favorite scene as we saw it on Broadway. And it's just the design of it is the way that they modernized it. It is just so smart. My sister and I were delighted by every little decision and touch. And we were shocked at how many people around us were like-- you had never seen it before-- the people behind us said that they were getting ready to leave at the end of Act one. And we turned around and we were like, No. No, no, no, no. Don't go anywhere. There's so much more and this is where it gets really important. So for it to appeal to both you and me is, is such a testament to what they've done here.  

Sarah [00:42:32] Yeah, we should say that Sara Bareilles is only there through, I think September 4th is what I read. But they have just announced an extension cast because it it's going to be longer than they thought it would be. It's going to be there through parts of October. And I think it remains popular, perhaps longer. But [Inaudible] to see it if you can because it really-- oh, god it was so, so beautiful. I felt like I got therapy but also felt better in a really good way. It was joyful, but I felt like I cried and released some stress. Man, it was so, so good. And the cast has recorded a cast album which I'm simultaneously excited about and a little sad because when she was singing that song, I thought, I can't hear this again. Well, it turns out I can, and I probably will listen to it a million times and strip every piece of emotion out of it. But that's okay.  Cannot recommend it enough.  

Beth [00:43:23] I don't think the emotion can be stripped out of it. I do think there's so much there. Again, I've been living with this for 30 years and I learn something new and experience it in a different way every single time. It's so good. Now, I recognize that a small percentage of our audience is actually going to go to Broadway and see Into the Woods. So let me say this to you. I love this show. I could do a whole podcast that never ends on Into the Woods. That's how much I love it. The bigger thing I would love to communicate today is if there is a thing that's your thing, grab your people and go. It felt really silly to me to make this trip to New York to see a single Broadway show, and I can't put into words how delighted I am that we did it.  

Sarah [00:44:05] Yep.  

Beth [00:44:06] It is worth the money. It is worth the time. And I get there is tons of privilege speaking here that we were able to do this, but whatever it is, it is just so worth it to have that instinct. This would be great. Like, as much as you can say yes to that instinct, I cannot tell you how thrilled I am that I took this time with my sister to see this thing that's so special to me.  

Sarah [00:44:30] Because I had a friend that just went and saw Red Hot Chili Peppers for the first time. She was so excited. Her whole life she'd wanted to see them. And my husband I were talking about this. It's like there's some real surviving a pandemic energy out there right now. There's no frivolity after you've lived through to 2020 and 2021. You know what I'm saying? Like, let's be done with that. Life is short. And I told my husband this morning I feel like in a lot of ways people are understanding what I learned in a very hard way with the school shooting, which is everything can change. Everything can change so quickly.  I feel like that [Inaudible] Into the woods too.  Like, it all can change. And so life has to be lived right now. And so I just thought, yeah, I didn't regret a single moment of Griffin's and I trip to New York. I regretted not taking Amos more than anything, too. So I agree. Whatever it is, Into the Woods or Red Hot Chili Peppers or I don't even care--  

Beth [00:45:26] The new  bakery downtown. Like, it doesn't have to be a good thing, right?  

Sarah [00:45:30] Who cares. Take your people.  

Beth [00:45:31] Yeah. I think when you feel I want to experience this thing with this person, whoever it is, however a little sense it makes, that is the message of Into the Woods that you keep going back. And I think that just continuing to go is a really beautiful and truly political act also.  

Sarah [00:45:50] Yeah. Thank you for joining us for another episode of  Pantsuit Politics. We will be back in your ears on Tuesday. And until then, keep it nuanced y'all.  

Beth [00:46:07]  Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our managing director.  

Sarah [00:46:12] Maggie Penton is our community engagement manager. Dante Lima is the composer and performer of our theme music.  

Beth [00:46:18] Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers.  

Executive Producers (Read their own names) [00:46:22] Martha Bronitsky. Linda Daniel. Ali Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Helen Handley. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holladay. Katie Johnson. Katina Zugenalis Kasling. Barry Kaufman. Molly Kohrs.  

[00:46:40] The Kriebs. Laurie LaDow. Lilly McClure. Emily Neesley. Tawni Peterson. Tracy Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katie Stigers. Karin True. Onica Ulveling. Nick and Alysa Villeli. Kathryn Vollmer. Amy Whited.  

Beth [00:46:58] Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Ashley Thompson. Michelle Wood. Joshua Allen. Morgan McHugh. Nichole Berklas. Paula Bremer and Tim Miller.  

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