Speaker 1: It is okay to feel sad and disappoint it. Well,
Speaker 1: please know what's going to be okay. On the campaign,
Speaker 1: I would often say, when we fight, we win. But
Speaker 1: here's the thing.
Speaker 2: Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the fight takes a while.
Speaker 2: That doesn't mean we won't win.
Speaker 1: And don't you ever listen when anyone tells you something
Speaker 1: is impossible because it has never been done before.
Speaker 3: Hello, out Louders, it's mea Friedman here dropping into your
Speaker 3: feed for a special bonus episode of Mumma mea out
Speaker 3: Loud and thanks to all the out louders who've checked
Speaker 3: on me in the group in my DMS. What a
Speaker 3: week it's been, of course, with the US presidential election.
Speaker 3: This is a special extra episode, so if you're not
Speaker 3: into US politics, don't panic. We will still be coming
Speaker 3: into your ears with a regular news free episode on Friday.
Speaker 3: But we know that so many of you have been
Speaker 3: writing a rollercoaster of emotions, wondering how we landed on
Speaker 3: the news that broke yesterday that Donald Trump has been
Speaker 3: re elected. We've heard you, and that is why today
Speaker 3: Amelia Lester, deputy editor of Foreign Policy Magazine and mum
Speaker 3: Me as US correspondent, has jumped on a call with me.
Speaker 3: I'm in the podcast studio, she's at home, and we
Speaker 3: wanted to help you understand the facts of how we
Speaker 3: got here. First of all, welcome Amelia hashtag Are you okay?
Speaker 2: Hello? I didn't think we'd be talking this soon after
Speaker 2: what happened yesterday, but I'm finding that it's helping to
Speaker 2: sift through the facts a little bit.
Speaker 3: Good because I still haven't looked at a news site
Speaker 3: or a news screen, no news coverage, and I'm getting
Speaker 3: my information exclusively through my group chats, you and my
Speaker 3: other media friends who are feeding me the need to
Speaker 3: know information. Now, as I said on yesterday's episode, we
Speaker 3: unpack the emotions today, we're talking about the facts. Let's
Speaker 3: start with the final vote count. How did it land?
Speaker 2: Well, the votes are still being countered, but it's safe
Speaker 2: to say that this is a resounding victory for Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: He didn't just squeak by. Already, we've discovered that he
Speaker 2: got fewer votes than Joe Biden got in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: Joe Biden still has the most votes of any presidential
Speaker 2: candidate in history. Turnout is looking lower than twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: significantly lower. That's not in itself surprising, and twenty twenty
Speaker 2: everyone was at home in their track suit pants. But
Speaker 2: it is interesting, given that the Democrats really hinged this
Speaker 2: election on the idea that it might be the last,
Speaker 2: it's the most important election in US history, it doesn't
Speaker 2: seem like the American people agreed with that definition.
Speaker 3: First of all, none of the polls predicted this. It
Speaker 3: was always meant to be close. Every single poll said
Speaker 3: it was going to be really, really close. So it's
Speaker 3: almost like we were geared up for a result that
Speaker 3: never came, which was either a marginal Trump victory or
Speaker 3: a marginal Kamala Harris victory. A landslide wasn't on many
Speaker 3: people's bingo card, except maybe Donald Trump himself. Would you
Speaker 3: call it a landslide? Is that what happened? And how
Speaker 3: did it happen?
Speaker 2: Yes, it's a landslide. Not only did Trump win the
Speaker 2: White House, Republicans took the Senate from Democrats, and although
Speaker 2: the House is still up for grabs, it looks like
Speaker 2: that they're going to win that too. That's significant because
Speaker 2: if they control all three arms of government, there are
Speaker 2: no checks on Donald Trump in the executive branch. As
Speaker 2: to how it happened. Very simply. Harris didn't win over
Speaker 2: any new groups of voters. This is what I can't
Speaker 2: get over. Not only did she not win over any
Speaker 2: new groups of voters, Trump won new blocks of voters,
Speaker 2: So he won working class Latinos, he won working class
Speaker 2: Black voters. Harris won women by plus three points on Biden.
Speaker 2: That's not very many points, given that we were being
Speaker 2: told that reproductive rights and freedom were on the ballot.
Speaker 2: Here men switched over to Trump in bigger numbers than
Speaker 2: we've ever seen men vote for Republicans before. Young people
Speaker 2: did not show up. Old people did not support Harris
Speaker 2: in the same numbers that they supported Biden in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: Very simply, if you don't win over any new groups
Speaker 2: of voters, you can't win the election.
Speaker 3: So do you think that it's true that it became
Speaker 3: an election about gender? Did it very much split along
Speaker 3: male female lines?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 2: Because if you only see plus three on women voting
Speaker 2: for Harris compared within twenty twenty, that's not an overwhelming
Speaker 2: shift for women. Now, women already vote Democratic much more
Speaker 2: than men do. But I would have expected to see
Speaker 2: a double digit increase, just like the double double digit
Speaker 2: increase in Black men voting for Trump. To see only
Speaker 2: plus three for women just indicates that women didn't care
Speaker 2: as much as we thought that they did. So as
Speaker 2: for whether it's an election on gender, I think I'd
Speaker 2: have to say no. I'd have to say that that
Speaker 2: very diverse coalition that Trump assembled seems to me that
Speaker 2: people were really laser focused on the economy and on
Speaker 2: a sense that they kn't afford their groceries and that
Speaker 2: Joe Biden and everyone around Joe Biden has to go.
Speaker 3: So I want to ask about his misogyny and his
Speaker 3: convictions for sexual assault and his other crimes that are
Speaker 3: in court steal and that he's also been found guilty of.
Speaker 3: Did everybody just ignore that, because it seems like they did.
Speaker 2: Yes. And I had a really crystallizing conversation today with
Speaker 2: a friend who did not vote for Donald Trump, but
Speaker 2: who pointed out to me that Americans have never cared
Speaker 2: about this idea of character in the oval office. That's
Speaker 2: just never been important. And she pointed to Bill Clinton
Speaker 2: as an example. Now, Bill Clinton, I'm not making a
Speaker 2: false equivalence between Bill Clinton and a man who's been
Speaker 2: found liable for sexual assault, which Bill Clinton certainly has not.
Speaker 2: But Bill Clinton has a checkered history with women, I
Speaker 2: think it's safe to say, and he won two terms
Speaker 2: in office. And the reason is because the Democrats kept saying,
Speaker 2: of Trump, look at his rallies. Remember that Harris kept saying,
Speaker 2: look at his rallies, what his rallies. Tim Waltz would
Speaker 2: also this is fine, He's going to do more for us.
Speaker 2: He's going to fix the economy for us. And they
Speaker 2: had this fundamental belief that once Americans find out how
Speaker 2: bad this man is, they won't vote for him. But
Speaker 2: that was misguided.
Speaker 4: So did they actually buy his bullshit about being a
Speaker 4: great businessman despite the fact that he's been declared bankrupt
Speaker 4: many times his businesses have.
Speaker 3: He's essentially a fraud. But did Americans believe that he
Speaker 3: was the master on the Apprentice and that he was
Speaker 3: going to restore America to financial greatness again and put
Speaker 3: more money in their wallets.
Speaker 2: I think that voting is an emotional act, and I'm
Speaker 2: feeling that a lot more in the wake of the
Speaker 2: selection result. I think as journalists we want to search
Speaker 2: for reasons and we want to get inside voters' heads.
Speaker 2: But it turns out that in the privacy of the
Speaker 2: ballot box. People must make decisions based on emotion, because
Speaker 2: you're right that the facts don't point to him being
Speaker 2: a brilliant custodian of the economy. I mean, the stock
Speaker 2: market rode high for the first few years he was
Speaker 2: in office, and then it crashed when COVID came along,
Speaker 2: and then Joe Biden had to spend his four years
Speaker 2: in office getting it back on track. People were angry
Speaker 2: at Joe Biden, they were angry at the post COVID
Speaker 2: economic landscape, and they lashed out. That to me feels right.
Speaker 2: Don't you think It feels like people lashed out rather
Speaker 2: than sat down and read all the New York Times investigations.
Speaker 3: I've been trying to understand whether people voted for something
Speaker 3: or against something else, whether something about Carmela and the
Speaker 3: Democrats and what they were offering people just went absolutely
Speaker 3: not And if so, what was that or was it
Speaker 3: just that Donald Trump was more appealing? And why do
Speaker 3: you think it was a vote against or a vote for.
Speaker 2: I think it was a bit of both. And I
Speaker 2: think remember when Harris took the nomination, I can't really
Speaker 2: say won the nomination, but when Harris was declared the
Speaker 2: presumpt of Democratic nominee, and we talked at them about
Speaker 2: the fact that as a woman, as a woman of color,
Speaker 2: a woman of color from San Francisco, which is the
Speaker 2: most derided city in America in terms of this idea
Speaker 2: that it's a liberal bubble and that it's out of touch.
Speaker 2: She's this liberal San Francisco black woman who has a
Speaker 2: history of locking up black men. That's the way that
Speaker 2: the track record was presented. You have to wonder how
Speaker 2: anyone thought that was ever going to work. In retrospect,
Speaker 2: I look back on it, and I think there was
Speaker 2: a liberal bubble that developed that the party after it
Speaker 2: took them so long to get rid of Joe Biden.
Speaker 2: They were so exhausted they just said Kamala Harris has
Speaker 2: to be the nominee. But they must have been deluded
Speaker 2: to think this would ever work. Do I sound tired
Speaker 2: and cynical?
Speaker 3: Why would any woman vote for Donald Trump? Because many, many,
Speaker 3: many of them did.
Speaker 2: Do you remember that photo that I sent you a
Speaker 2: couple of days ago. It was at one of the
Speaker 2: final Trump rallies, and it was two women, probably forties
Speaker 2: fifties in the front row at the Trump rally. They
Speaker 2: looked like they were at a Taylor's Swift concert, the
Speaker 2: joy and the excitement in their faces and their hands
Speaker 2: outstretched to him. One of them wearing a T shirt
Speaker 2: that says make America Great Again, the other one wearing
Speaker 2: a T shirt that says in the make America Great
Speaker 2: Again font mean tweets. Now, what's that about? Why does
Speaker 2: a woman love the fact that Donald Trump sends mean tweets?
Speaker 2: I don't know what the answer is. What do you
Speaker 2: think the answer is.
Speaker 3: What's always worried me and disturbed me is that what
Speaker 3: we thought was a flaw and that people were just
Speaker 3: holding their nose and going, oh, he's cruel and he's
Speaker 3: you know, unkind and horrible to people, particularly women, and
Speaker 3: is so disparaging. But people are holding their nose and
Speaker 3: just voting for other reasons. I've now come to understand
Speaker 3: since yesterday that it's not a flaw, it's a feature.
Speaker 3: People are really attracted to that, And I wonder if
Speaker 3: he's just the mouthpiece for people's anger with the world,
Speaker 3: with the economy, with the state of their lives, with
Speaker 3: feeling powerless, and he embodies that anger.
Speaker 2: It's this idea of wanting to blow it all up,
Speaker 2: and feeling a strength and a security with aligning yourself
Speaker 2: of the bully.
Speaker 3: We'll protect you, we'll protect women.
Speaker 2: Is that it? That's what Megan Kelly said. That's what
Speaker 2: she said to him at their final rally together. She
Speaker 2: took his hands and she had tears in her eyes,
Speaker 2: and she said, thank you for protecting us.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the whole tradwife movement, that is this appeal of
Speaker 3: it's hard having choices, it's hard earning money and having
Speaker 3: jobs and having equality. Life was easier when we just
Speaker 3: had big, strong men to protect us. Is that what
Speaker 3: it is?
Speaker 2: I'm actually so glad that you raised that. A friend
Speaker 2: of mine, who was an editor at The New York Times,
Speaker 2: leaving work yesterday after this marathon over day, said to
Speaker 2: me the exact same thing. She said, This is why
Speaker 2: we're seeing this fascination with tradwives, because we've decided, we
Speaker 2: collectively women had decided it's all too much, it's too hard.
Speaker 2: And that's why we're fascinated with the childwives, because they
Speaker 2: seem to live an easier life than us. And that's
Speaker 2: why we're okay with jd Vance talking about the childless
Speaker 2: cat ladies.
Speaker 3: I wanted to ask you about young people because they
Speaker 3: were galvanized by Obama as a change candidate. I don't
Speaker 3: know if they were galvanized by Joe Biden, but they
Speaker 3: clearly weren't galvanized by Kamala Harris. Greta Tunberg, the young
Speaker 3: climate activist who lives in Sweden, posted to Instagram the
Speaker 3: day before the election sort of a manifesto about how
Speaker 3: if you don't like either of the candidates because they're
Speaker 3: not perfect, you don't have to vote at all. You
Speaker 3: can actually just boycott the election. I know that a
Speaker 3: lot of young people are disillusioned and upset about the
Speaker 3: war in the Middle East and don't like that the
Speaker 3: Biden administration has been a supporter of Israel, and there've
Speaker 3: been a lot of student protests about Kamala Harris being
Speaker 3: another symptom of that and another perpetrator of that support.
Speaker 3: Do you think that had an impact?
Speaker 2: So I have another anecdote. I'm sorry to keep bringing
Speaker 2: the anecdotes, but you can imagine that my American text
Speaker 2: message chains have blown up in the last twenty four
Speaker 2: hours and I'm hearing a lot of interesting perspectives from them.
Speaker 2: This is from a friend of mine, who is a
Speaker 2: professor at an Ivy League university, so one of the
Speaker 2: top universities in the US, and she teaches first year students,
Speaker 2: and she wrote to me and said, my students are
Speaker 2: completely unfazed. Many of them didn't vote. This is just
Speaker 2: what they think politics is. And when politics is gross
Speaker 2: and both sides are equally bad to them, they just
Speaker 2: tune out. They couldn't wait for it to be over
Speaker 2: so they wouldn't have to hear about it anymore. Oh wow,
Speaker 2: I was shocked.
Speaker 3: I'm shocked too, because it's not like Trump's position. You know,
Speaker 3: he's a far more fervent supporter of your Israel than
Speaker 3: the Democrats, and so they decided it sounds to just go, well,
Speaker 3: I don't like anybody, so I'm not going to vote
Speaker 3: at all. What struck me about Greta Tunberg's message was
Speaker 3: this idea of moral purity and that being a symptom
Speaker 3: of the left, and that if there's no perfect candidate,
Speaker 3: we don't want to play, we will boycott, we will
Speaker 3: sit this one out. Because now that Donald Trump's president,
Speaker 3: what do you think he's going to do to the environment.
Speaker 3: Not on his list of things he gives a shit
Speaker 3: about because he can't make money out of it. What
Speaker 3: he can make money out of is doing terrible things
Speaker 3: to the environment and allowing other people to do terrible
Speaker 3: things to the environment. You know, I've been reading some
Speaker 3: commentary that says this idea of moral purity on the
Speaker 3: left with canceling people for using the wrong pronouns or
Speaker 3: emphasizing things around identity politics, and how these more niche
Speaker 3: issues for them, these specific minority groups are the most
Speaker 3: important thing, and that's driven people to the right. Do
Speaker 3: you think there's truth in that or are we all
Speaker 3: just like casting around for explanations.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I have two components from my answer to this,
Speaker 2: and I want to remember to hit them both. The
Speaker 2: first thing I'd say is, that's so fascinating the idea
Speaker 2: of the left being caught up in these relatively niche
Speaker 2: issues and us in the mainstream not recognizing that, because
Speaker 2: there's an argument equally that on the right. Why a
Speaker 2: lot of people were drawn to Trump were for cultural
Speaker 2: reasons that the Democrats weren't even really talking about. For instance,
Speaker 2: he ran an ad in Swing States Trump did which
Speaker 2: was about trans athletes in schools. Now, this is not
Speaker 2: an issue that really the Biden administration took a particularly
Speaker 2: strong stance.
Speaker 3: On trans athletes in schools.
Speaker 2: Whether or not trans girls can play on girls' sports teams,
Speaker 2: and he was saying that the Biden administration was going
Speaker 2: to make it an uneven playing field because they were
Speaker 2: going to let trans girl athletes compete alongside biological girls. Now,
Speaker 2: this is not something I ever heard Kamila Harris even
Speaker 2: talk about on the campaign trail. But I think that
Speaker 2: you're onto something with this idea that on both the
Speaker 2: left and the right, and we're talking here about the
Speaker 2: more extreme factions of both sides, they're talking about issues
Speaker 2: that we're not even awarer really on the mainstream radar,
Speaker 2: and that those issues are serving to radicalize them. Now,
Speaker 2: on the right, they're radicalizing them into magaworld. On the left,
Speaker 2: they're radicalizing them into not voting. And by the way,
Speaker 2: related to this is a really interesting idea that I
Speaker 2: heard advanced overnight, which is that if Trump was running
Speaker 2: for president in any other country in the world, we
Speaker 2: would call him far right and fascistic routinely. If he
Speaker 2: was running for president in Hungary, we would call him that.
Speaker 2: But because he's running for president in the US, we
Speaker 2: all can't quite believe that's what he is, so I
Speaker 2: never hear the terms of our right applied to him.
Speaker 2: But it's absolutely accurate anyway. That's just an aside on language.
Speaker 2: But I think it's a really interesting point to make
Speaker 2: that there's these kind of niche issues on both sides.
Speaker 2: The second point that I wanted to make about young
Speaker 2: people and the purity politics is the most convincing rebuttal
Speaker 2: I her to that came from Alexander Orcasio Cortez, who,
Speaker 2: as you know, I think is the most gifted communicator
Speaker 2: in American politics, and she said in an Instagram live,
Speaker 2: you never get anywhere by seeding your power.
Speaker 3: What does that mean?
Speaker 2: Meaning if you see the right to vote, you were
Speaker 2: giving up power in the name of advancing your own aims.
Speaker 2: You're not going to get anywhere if you give up power,
Speaker 2: and that pragmatism seemed to be wholly missing.
Speaker 3: You can't advance your own aims by not being on
Speaker 3: the field, you know, by saying I'm actually sitting this
Speaker 3: one out because neither of the teams are perfect enough.
Speaker 2: It makes no sense. The other factor I want to
Speaker 2: bring up with young people, which my friend's text message
Speaker 2: to me made me think about is COVID and the
Speaker 2: effects of COVID on this particular group of young people,
Speaker 2: because think about it, these students that my friend is
Speaker 2: talking about started high school at the beginning of the
Speaker 2: pandemic or near to it, and I can't imagine how
Speaker 2: that shaped how they think about other people in the
Speaker 2: world to have gone through. Remember, the COVID experience in
Speaker 2: the US was its own particular thing. It was hard
Speaker 2: on everyone everywhere, but in the US it really radicalized
Speaker 2: people and it dur have people mad a lot of
Speaker 2: the time. So I'm wondering whether the pandemic's long shadow
Speaker 2: has shaped their worldview in a way that we can't
Speaker 2: even fully assess. What do you think of that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that the days of multiple terms for
Speaker 3: any government are probably gone. Also, just because a four
Speaker 3: year term or even a three year term feels like
Speaker 3: a really long time when we're living our lives in
Speaker 3: increments of text messages and you know, flicking through reels
Speaker 3: and tiktoks. So I think that this idea of we're
Speaker 3: going to be in it for the long haul just
Speaker 3: doesn't apply in politics. And I think this idea of change, change, change,
Speaker 3: the idea that a changing It's going to be different,
Speaker 3: It's going to be different, It's going to be different.
Speaker 3: What's interesting about this is that it was so upside
Speaker 3: down because in some ways the change is going backwards
Speaker 3: because it's going back to Trump, and Carmela was an
Speaker 3: incumbent but was also a change because it was moving
Speaker 3: away from Joe Biden. So it was a very confusing feeling.
Speaker 3: And I think whoever was going to come across as
Speaker 3: the biggest change candidate was probably going to win. And
Speaker 3: I think that's true in any election, which is why
Speaker 3: I think an incumbent can't campaign as a change candidate.
Speaker 3: She tried, and she felt like, one, do you think
Speaker 3: that it would have been different if Biden had stayed.
Speaker 2: Yes, because then I think it would have been two
Speaker 2: old white men competing, So you would have taken the
Speaker 2: whole racism, sexism, misogyny dynamic out of the race. Which
Speaker 2: is not to say that by one of one, but
Speaker 2: that's where my head's out on that question. The change
Speaker 2: candidate thing. One decision the campaign made is haunting me,
Speaker 2: and that was the decision to bring in the Cheneese,
Speaker 2: to bring in Lynn Cheney, the daughter of Dick Cheney,
Speaker 2: who was very prominent in the George W. Bush years.
Speaker 2: He worked for George W. Bush and was sort of
Speaker 2: the architect of the Iraq War. You're just making me
Speaker 2: realize now that bringing up on stage people who remind
Speaker 2: Americans of this real low point, like an objectively low
Speaker 2: point for the country, which was when it was mired
Speaker 2: in war in Iraq and it was post nine to
Speaker 2: eleven and the economy was stumbling. That just seems in
Speaker 2: retrospect like a really crazy idea.
Speaker 3: Well, they half understood because they Hillary was nowhere to
Speaker 3: be seen.
Speaker 2: That's true.
Speaker 3: She was, you know, ive act and kept way out
Speaker 3: of sight. The celebrities weren't. I know a lot of
Speaker 3: people who were really fearful every time Kamala got a
Speaker 3: new celebrity endorsement or wheeled out Oprah or you know,
Speaker 3: had Beyonce at a rally, or I think even Katy
Speaker 3: Perry at the end, because that didn't work for Hillary.
Speaker 3: That sense of the elites celebrities, it just doesn't work
Speaker 3: when you've got Donald Trump driving a garbage truck and
Speaker 3: pretending to work in McDonald's and cosplaying being working class again,
Speaker 3: it just felt like upside down world. Where he's got
Speaker 3: a gold toilet and his actual friends are billionaires who
Speaker 3: he does favors for.
Speaker 2: Katy Perry really gave me twenty sixteen. He Begb's when
Speaker 2: she appeared on stage that last night in Philadelphia, the
Speaker 2: same place where Hillary had her rally the last night
Speaker 2: before the election. With Katy Perry, it's like Katy Perry
Speaker 2: herself feels like a portal to twenty thirteen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was listening the other day that Katy Perry
Speaker 3: is like. It was her fortieth birthday a couple of
Speaker 3: weeks ago when the Washington Post declared that it wouldn't
Speaker 3: be endorsing a candidate, and everybody came for Jeff Bezos,
Speaker 3: and she was with Jeff Bezos at her fortieth birthday
Speaker 3: on a train on the Rony Express with a whole
Speaker 3: lot of celebrities. So yeah, I know that she offered
Speaker 3: early in the campaign her song, her terrible song, Woman's World,
Speaker 3: which felt so retrograde like fight Song back in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 3: and the Harris campaign said no and instead went with
Speaker 3: Freedom by Beyonce. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: all of those rules about what works, what is an
Speaker 3: acceptable way for a presidential campaign and candidate to behave,
Speaker 3: They're all thrown out the window, right, He's just burnt
Speaker 3: down all of.
Speaker 2: It he has and can I I'm not quite ready
Speaker 2: to talk about like what Trump will do. I want
Speaker 2: to say one thing about feelings. I've got this gut
Speaker 2: why it didn't work for Harris. I dug around her
Speaker 2: YouTube channel the other day. It was a couple of
Speaker 2: days before the election, and I wanted to feel something.
Speaker 2: So I went to her YouTube channel and I was
Speaker 2: clicking on some of the videos. I wanted to feel inspired,
Speaker 2: part of something that was bigger than myself in the
Speaker 2: way that all great political movements need to make people feel.
Speaker 2: And there was nothing on there. Now. They had ninety days,
Speaker 2: they did not have a lot of time. But why
Speaker 2: didn't I ever feel anything when I heard her speak
Speaker 2: or when I watched her campaign videos. I'm a sucker
Speaker 2: for those. I love a good political ad with people
Speaker 2: drinking coffee and going to work and then soaring music
Speaker 2: and then we are bigger than any one of us.
Speaker 2: I love those moments. I didn't get any of those moments. Instead,
Speaker 2: I got Katie Perry, fresh off the train with Jeff
Speaker 2: Bezos regaling us with an not particularly in tune woman's world.
Speaker 3: Do you know when I did feel something, and when
Speaker 3: I think it was the height of it is when
Speaker 3: she was declared the nominee, and around the time of
Speaker 3: the DNC, when it was Tim Walls who was the
Speaker 3: coach of America, when it was Karmala is Brat, when
Speaker 3: it really did feel like that, it felt like a
Speaker 3: step change. It was, here's this new vision of the
Speaker 3: future versus this old cranky uncle who's ranting on Facebook.
Speaker 3: But it didn't last. It didn't last after the convention
Speaker 3: and Trump got that after his assassination attempt. I felt
Speaker 3: that for Trump, not personally, but I felt the culture
Speaker 3: go that way. And then I felt the culture go
Speaker 3: that way for Karmala. But then I agree with you completely.
Speaker 3: The last few weeks, I just I never felt it again.
Speaker 3: It dissipated, and then maybe a little bit around the
Speaker 3: time of the debate, but then nothing. I just I
Speaker 3: felt like there was no cut through, there was no there.
Speaker 5: Was no vibes, no And something you said there about
Speaker 5: how you felt something around Brat me, remember that I
Speaker 5: felt something, you know, when I felt a little teary.
Speaker 3: It was fun, it felt joyful for the first time
Speaker 3: US politics was like, oh my god, instead of these
Speaker 3: embarrassing old men fighting and Biden and Shuffler, I mean it,
Speaker 3: suddenly it was like, oh my gosh, it could be
Speaker 3: actually cool and fun.
Speaker 2: Here's when I felt something. It was actually a few
Speaker 2: days before the end of the campaign, the SNL skit take.
Speaker 6: My Pamela, the American people want to start the chaos
Speaker 6: and and the dramaa with a cool new step Mamala
Speaker 6: pick backing our pajamaa's and watch a rum Pamela.
Speaker 2: Yeah, keep calm and carry on. Ala. I felt something
Speaker 2: very different to what I think you need to feel
Speaker 2: on the verge of winning a presidential election, which is
Speaker 2: it was a small, intimate, beautiful moment between two black
Speaker 2: literally sitting at a vanity like it's the smallest moment.
Speaker 2: It's a private moment actually, and the skip was Camel
Speaker 2: talking to herself. And I'm actually getting chills thinking about it,
Speaker 2: because I feel like that's not what you want a
Speaker 2: giant political campaign to climax with. I thought it was
Speaker 2: a beautiful moment. It made me tear up. The respect
Speaker 2: and admiration that you could feel between these two women,
Speaker 2: the genuine feeling and emotion between two women who are
Speaker 2: at the top of their game, really respecting each other
Speaker 2: and having this moment. But that's not enough to win
Speaker 2: an election. That's not going to win it.
Speaker 3: Just to wrap up, can we think of anything positive
Speaker 3: to say?
Speaker 2: I know that's what we said yesterday.
Speaker 3: But you know, in the cold light of day, the
Speaker 3: day after the markets are up cryptosauring there are a
Speaker 3: lot of signs that the business world is very, very
Speaker 3: happy with the result. Are there any bright spots?
Speaker 2: It's not a bright spot, But I'm going to tell
Speaker 2: you what another friend texted me because I found it
Speaker 2: not a bright spot but comforting. And she wrote to
Speaker 2: me that she'd been talking to her therapist about what
Speaker 2: to do and how to think about this, and her
Speaker 2: therapist said that you need to accept what is happening.
Speaker 2: That's not enough. And so the thought that her therapist
Speaker 2: came up with is this is happening, and I still
Speaker 2: need to keep doing the right thing. I appreciated the
Speaker 2: acceptance of reality. I'm not into unlike in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 2: where I was seeking out opium, like this idea of
Speaker 2: like we can still fight, we can win, We've got
Speaker 2: to resist pussy hats No, none of that. It is
Speaker 2: what it is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it doesn't feel like that, does it.
Speaker 2: No, he controls it all. There's no silver lining. But
Speaker 2: what are we going to do. We can't just roll
Speaker 2: over like We've got to keep doing what we think
Speaker 2: is right and in our small ways and in ways
Speaker 2: that we can. And I found that kind of soothing.
Speaker 3: Thank you, I love you. If we can't have optimism,
Speaker 3: can at least be a little bit soothed.
Speaker 2: Lots of love Now before I go.
Speaker 3: Yesterday, we watch the world change in a way that
Speaker 3: has left many women feeling shocked and confused. Many of
Speaker 3: us are fearful of what's to come because across the ocean,
Speaker 3: a new president was elected, but the waves of this
Speaker 3: decision have reached us right here in Australia. As you
Speaker 3: just heard. When America takes a step, the world feels
Speaker 3: its impact, and for many of us, especially women, it
Speaker 3: feels like an unsettling backwards step, and at an uncertain time.
Speaker 3: More than ever, we need to ensure that women's experiences
Speaker 3: and perspectives don't just fade into the background. And today
Speaker 3: the role of independent media has never been more vital.
Speaker 3: Now's the time to ensure that our stories are told,
Speaker 3: our voices are not just heard, but amplified, and we
Speaker 3: need to make sure our issues don't disappear from the conversation.
Speaker 3: Muma Mia. This is our core purpose, it's actually our
Speaker 3: only purpose, to make the world a better place for
Speaker 3: women and girls of female writers, podcasters, and content creators
Speaker 3: are committed to covering the stories that matter to women,
Speaker 3: to standing with you, and to helping you make sense
Speaker 3: of this world that we're navigating together. We're rolling up
Speaker 3: our sleeves today and every day to ensure that our
Speaker 3: coverage is sharper, Our support for women's voices is stronger,
Speaker 3: and our pledge to you is unwavering. So a few
Speaker 3: believers we do in the power of independent women's media.
Speaker 3: There is something that you can do to help. For
Speaker 3: less than two dollars a week, you can support our
Speaker 3: mission to keep women's voices at the heart of the
Speaker 3: conversation by subscribing to Mum and Meya. Every subscription strengthens
Speaker 3: our ability to deliver the content you rely on, like
Speaker 3: what you've just heard, and helps to raise women's voices.
Speaker 3: Let's stand together, Let's keep going, because now more than ever,
Speaker 3: our voices matter. There's a link in the show notes
Speaker 3: where you can subscribe to Muma Maya for less than.
Speaker 2: Two dollars a week.
Speaker 3: That's less than a coffee. We think women's voices are
Speaker 3: worth at least that much. Lots of love, and we'll
Speaker 3: be back in your ears tomorrow