Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative, I'm Bridgeton and this is
Speaker 1: there Are No Girls on the Internet. Friday, March eighth
Speaker 1: is International Women's Day, and here at there are No
Speaker 1: Girls on the Internet. We're celebrating by taking part in
Speaker 1: Iheartradios Women Take the Mic initiative. International Women's Day has
Speaker 1: always kind of meant a lot to me. It is
Speaker 1: so important to me to be honoring and lifting up
Speaker 1: women all over the world, and I think this year
Speaker 1: I'm doing that while also really wrestling with the fact
Speaker 1: that women both here in the United States but especially globally,
Speaker 1: are facing a lot right now. You know, in times
Speaker 1: of war in conflict, we know that it is always
Speaker 1: women that really bear the brunt, and I guess that's
Speaker 1: just sort of weighing very heavy on my mind as
Speaker 1: I reflect on what International Women's Day means to me
Speaker 1: this year, I do also just want to take a
Speaker 1: moment to honor the women who have supported me and
Speaker 1: helped me to get where I am today. You know,
Speaker 1: I know that I would not be doing any of
Speaker 1: what I am doing if not for the women that
Speaker 1: came before me. You'll hear a bit more about that
Speaker 1: later in this episode. But the woman that I kind
Speaker 1: of modeled my career after was the late Great Gweneifel,
Speaker 1: a journalist and correspondent on PBS. Gweneifel was the first
Speaker 1: woman to host a nationally televised US public affairs program
Speaker 1: with Washington Weekend Review. I actually have a picture of
Speaker 1: her hanging on my fridge right now. My parents always
Speaker 1: watched her on PBS, and when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: it was the first time that I saw a black
Speaker 1: woman have this big career on television, and I always wondered, Wow,
Speaker 1: I wonder if I could do that too someday. You know,
Speaker 1: she really had the quintessential big career that I always
Speaker 1: wanted for myself.
Speaker 2: Like she did it all.
Speaker 1: She moderated presidential debates. In fact, in February of twenty sixteen, Gweneifel,
Speaker 1: alongside Judy Woodruff, became the first team of women to
Speaker 1: moderate a Democratic residential debate, moderating the debate between Hillary
Speaker 1: Clinton and Bernie Sanders. You know, some little girls dream
Speaker 1: of being president, while I did not dream of being president.
Speaker 1: I dreamt of being the woman who asks the person
Speaker 1: who wants to be president, hard questions on television and
Speaker 1: I might not ever have a big career like Gwen Eifels,
Speaker 1: but she really inspired me to want to ask questions
Speaker 1: and challenge myself and others. As women, we should be
Speaker 1: seeing ourselves reflected in government, politics, media, journalism, culture, art,
Speaker 1: and every other place where decisions are being made, including
Speaker 1: the White House. NBC's Ali Vattally has been covering elections
Speaker 1: from the campaign trail for years. Her book Electable, Why
Speaker 1: America Hasn't put a woman in the White House dot
Speaker 1: dot dot Yet takes a sweeping look at one of
Speaker 1: the lingering questions of American elections. At a time when
Speaker 1: more women have run for president of the United States
Speaker 1: than ever before in our history? Will we ever see
Speaker 1: a woman president? Alie and I have been friends for years,
Speaker 1: and I hope that you'll enjoy our conversation about women
Speaker 1: and our White House ambitions throughout history as much as
Speaker 1: I did. So Allie, you have been covering the campaign
Speaker 1: trail pretty much like since I've known you so for Yes,
Speaker 1: what has that been like for you?
Speaker 3: It has been like, I don't know, six or seven
Speaker 3: years now straight of just traveling from Iowa to New Hampshire, Nevada, Florida,
Speaker 3: everywhere in between, constantly just following candidates for Republicans, Democrats, midterms, presidentials.
Speaker 3: We do it all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, one of the big questions I have
Speaker 1: for you is, having done this for so long, what
Speaker 1: changes have you seen in the way that we talk
Speaker 1: about candidates, especially women, people from marginalized backgrounds, Like, have
Speaker 1: you seen a change since the beginning of your time
Speaker 1: doing this to now?
Speaker 2: Gosh?
Speaker 3: I hope it's changing for the better. I think it's
Speaker 3: changing for the better, in large part because I think
Speaker 3: that media is more comfortable calling out sexism and racism.
Speaker 3: There's not necessarily any more this knee jerk reaction to
Speaker 3: both sides things that just shouldn't be both sides. So
Speaker 3: I look at it, especially through the lens of someone
Speaker 3: like Hillary Clinton. Right in two thousand and eight, the
Speaker 3: media ecosystem didn't necessarily know how to deal with a
Speaker 3: moment about like are you likable enough? Hillary?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: Remember that moment on the debate stage with Barack Obama
Speaker 3: or in New Hampshire. Everyone remembers the Obama piece of
Speaker 3: that moment, and he's got a little bit of criticism
Speaker 3: for that but few people remember the fact that it
Speaker 3: was a media moderator who teed that moment up by
Speaker 3: asking Hillary Clinton, voters say that you are qualified, but
Speaker 3: they say that you're not likable, how would you reassure
Speaker 3: them as if likability is something that you need to
Speaker 3: be president, it's nice to have, But like I don't
Speaker 3: think you need to be president if you're only if
Speaker 3: you're a likable person. So people forget that, and I
Speaker 3: think that we have come further, thankfully in the decade
Speaker 3: since that moment, or less than a decade since that moment,
Speaker 3: at least not asking those questions anymore. But the thing
Speaker 3: about sexism, then you know this is it's persistent. If
Speaker 3: it's not likability, it becomes something else. And I would
Speaker 3: argue that in twenty twenty, likability became electability. And that's
Speaker 3: sort of the whole premise of my book, and that's
Speaker 3: really where I start out. The whole thesis is that
Speaker 3: it's fair to want a candidate who's electable, who can win,
Speaker 3: because everyone wants to pick a winner. And certainly in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty, every single Democratic voter that I talked to
Speaker 3: just so badly wanted to pick the person who could
Speaker 3: beat Trump. But the thing about electability is no one
Speaker 3: knows who can actually win until voters vote, and so
Speaker 3: it's really where you assigning your benefit of the doubt.
Speaker 3: And I think the upshot of the book is in
Speaker 3: a whole bunch of different ways we give mail candidates
Speaker 3: much more benefit of the doubt than we do female candidates.
Speaker 2: It's fascinating. The book is fascinating.
Speaker 1: Can can you talk us through some of the ways
Speaker 1: that you see this playing out for women, that women
Speaker 1: are not given the benefit of the doubt the way
Speaker 1: that men are, Because yeah, I could think of some
Speaker 1: recent male presidents who I might say were not the
Speaker 1: most likable, and yet it didn't stop them from getting
Speaker 1: to the White House.
Speaker 3: I mean the first person that I thought of was
Speaker 3: Donald Trump because I would go out on the campaign trill.
Speaker 3: I covered him in the twenty sixteen election and his
Speaker 3: first year and a half in the White House, and
Speaker 3: what voters would say to me all the time was,
Speaker 3: I don't like him. I don't like the way he talks,
Speaker 3: I don't like the way he acts towards people. But
Speaker 3: I also like that he says what is on his mind.
Speaker 3: And I also like that he tells it how it is.
Speaker 3: But I like the policies. I like the judges. They
Speaker 3: found ways to rationalize the fact that they didn't like him,
Speaker 3: but he was strong and they wanted him to be president.
Speaker 3: And with women, what a study that I point to
Speaker 3: in my book has found is that it's not just oh,
Speaker 3: nice to be like everyone wants to be liked. It
Speaker 3: impacts the way that people won't vote for female candidates
Speaker 3: because in the case of someone like Trump, voters will
Speaker 3: vote for a man that they don't like, but they
Speaker 3: are less likely to vote for a woman who they
Speaker 3: don't like. And so it's not just nice.
Speaker 4: To have You have to have it.
Speaker 3: You have to be likable, but then you also have
Speaker 3: to be strong. And the moment that I come back
Speaker 3: to a lot from twenty twenty was this seminal moment
Speaker 3: on the debate stage in January of twenty twenty in Iowa,
Speaker 3: were like two weeks from caucus. All of us are exhausted,
Speaker 3: heavily caffeinated, room of reporters, everyone on stage is very
Speaker 3: on edge, all of the candidates because there's just been
Speaker 3: this leaked meeting that happened between Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.
Speaker 3: I'm sure you remember this where Bernie allegedly said to
Speaker 3: Elizabeth Warren, I don't think a woman can win the presidency,
Speaker 3: or I don't think a woman can win the presidency
Speaker 3: against Trump, and Elizabeth Warren, surprise surprise, disagreed with bot
Speaker 3: promise as a woman who was going to try to
Speaker 3: be a woman who took on Trump. And they get
Speaker 3: on this debate stage and I'm covering the Warren campaign,
Speaker 3: and they feel like she's on the record telling her
Speaker 3: side of the story, and no one is believing her.
Speaker 3: And so she goes forward and tries to take this
Speaker 3: moment and make it into one that's like a big
Speaker 3: electability argument. Here's why Elizabeth Warden can win. And she says,
Speaker 3: of all the people that are on this stage right now,
Speaker 3: and she's next to Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders and
Speaker 3: Pete budajigj and Amy Klobashar is the only other woman
Speaker 3: up there. She says, of all the people on this
Speaker 3: stage right now, only two of us have won all
Speaker 3: of our elections, me and Amy Klobashar. And that's the
Speaker 3: reaction that Klobashar had. She's like laughing, chuckling at her
Speaker 3: podium because she knows it's right, and everyone else is
Speaker 3: just up there stoically nodding. And it's a proof point.
Speaker 3: That's a way that you can prove the unprovable, which
Speaker 3: is like, I know, you don't know who's gonna win.
Speaker 3: Come I will talk this day in twenty twenty, but
Speaker 3: I can tell you that every other time I've been
Speaker 3: on a ballot, everyone's voted for me, and up to
Speaker 3: the point that I've won. Same with Amy Klobashar. The men,
Speaker 3: they don't get to say that. Joe Biden, he ran
Speaker 3: for president twice before he ran twenty twenty. He didn't
Speaker 3: win any states outright then they were failed presidential campaigns,
Speaker 3: and yet he was the guy who had the air
Speaker 3: of electability around him in twenty twenty, in large part
Speaker 3: because he was a moderately positioned white male of a
Speaker 3: certain age. And so that's a moment that I look
Speaker 3: at it and I'm like, this is the seminole moment
Speaker 3: where you look at electability as both an important metric
Speaker 3: and also a very heavily gendered one. And part of
Speaker 3: the reason I wanted to tackle it in this book
Speaker 3: is because in the media environment, especially in cable. We
Speaker 3: are moving forward so quickly, doing live shots every hour
Speaker 3: on the hour, and you don't always get the chance
Speaker 3: to unpack things through a gender lens, a race lens.
Speaker 3: You are solely looking at it sometimes through a horse
Speaker 3: race lens. And I really wanted to be able to
Speaker 3: go back over this campaign, especially because all of us
Speaker 3: were stopped in twenty twenty right after Warren dropped out
Speaker 3: because of the pandemic. I wanted to be able to
Speaker 3: go back over it with a heavy gender lens and
Speaker 3: try to explain what's unquantifiable, which is that gender really
Speaker 3: plays a role here. You can't put a percentage on it,
Speaker 3: but that doesn't mean that it's not there.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I so, first of all, I just you probably get
Speaker 1: this a lot, or maybe you don't.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I get so fed up with the kind of reporting
Speaker 1: that only frames things as a horse race, like who's
Speaker 1: going to come out ahead? Because I do think that
Speaker 1: can be important, but it doesn't really tell us a
Speaker 1: lot about where we are as a people, what we
Speaker 1: care about, what we're thinking about when you're just thinking about.
Speaker 2: It as like who's gonna win.
Speaker 1: I think so much of the nuance about things like identity, gender,
Speaker 1: race gets lost. But we know these things are so
Speaker 1: salient in our world and in our society. So thank you,
Speaker 1: like from the bottom of my heart, for like actually
Speaker 1: doing the work of trying to shade in some of
Speaker 1: that nuance.
Speaker 2: It is so easily lost when we talk about politics.
Speaker 3: But I also think that that's what people are hungry for,
Speaker 3: right Like people are very tuned in right now. That
Speaker 3: is one of the biggest out growths I think of
Speaker 3: the Trump era is the fact that a lot of
Speaker 3: people who might have been casual or non political people
Speaker 3: have started to tune in in a little bit more
Speaker 3: of a consistent way. And I recognize that there's a
Speaker 3: ton of fatigue out there right now, but I think
Speaker 3: that's also why it's important to put things in context
Speaker 3: for people and to explain, like, Okay, this one thing
Speaker 3: happened over here, but it's connected to these ten things
Speaker 3: that happened over here, and oh, by the way, the
Speaker 3: thing that runs under the lens of all of them
Speaker 3: is gender, or is race, or is something else. And
Speaker 3: I think that that's really important. Right if you're going
Speaker 3: to get to be an expert in something, you should
Speaker 3: be able to talk about all the different prongs of it,
Speaker 3: and so I think it's a real privilege to be
Speaker 3: able to explain politics through all of those lenses, not
Speaker 3: just who's going to win, even though you and I
Speaker 3: both know elections have consequences. Sure, But like I do
Speaker 3: think one of the positive things about twenty twenty was
Speaker 3: you had candidates who were running who were putting policy
Speaker 3: at the forefront. The fact that Elizabeth Warren's tagline was
Speaker 3: I have a plan for that wasn't necessarily just about policy,
Speaker 3: though she loves policy, Like these people love policy, let
Speaker 3: me tell you, they love the policy. And also, like
Speaker 3: as someone who's read many of those policy memos, they
Speaker 3: know their stuff. I mean, many of the policy priorities
Speaker 3: that she put forward ended up being the nuts and
Speaker 3: bolts of like the larger Democratic platform once the primary
Speaker 3: was over. But it was also a way for her
Speaker 3: to show expertise, and that's really important for women when
Speaker 3: they are running as well. So like you had candidates
Speaker 3: who were trying to lean in not just to the
Speaker 3: horse race, but who were trying to steer the conversation
Speaker 3: to a policy place as well, and that helps too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to talk a bit about that because
Speaker 1: you talked about the amazing moment of Warren being like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: we've won all of our races the women on the stage.
Speaker 1: Did you think when I think about all the different
Speaker 1: stereotypes and negative misconceptions about women as leaders, I think
Speaker 1: that's and you and I will probably rattle off a
Speaker 1: bunch of them, but I think that one that we
Speaker 1: used to see a lot of is like, oh, women
Speaker 1: are not competent, And part of me feels like it
Speaker 1: has ping gotten to a place where it's like women
Speaker 1: are competent, but like, yeah, she has to be competent,
Speaker 1: but also nice about it. Like I almost wonder if,
Speaker 1: like the if like the stereotype has kind of evolved
Speaker 1: to continue to oppress women and not allow us to
Speaker 1: be the leader, the effective leaders that you and.
Speaker 2: I know that we can be.
Speaker 1: But also it's like, oh, yeah, you can't just be
Speaker 1: a woman who has a plan for everything.
Speaker 2: You also have to be like demurror about it.
Speaker 3: You need to be nice about it. It's like I
Speaker 3: have a plan for everything, but no worries if not,
Speaker 3: you know, but I do think so. First of all,
Speaker 3: the good news is that any like polling or bias
Speaker 3: research that's out there shows that thankfully, public opinion has
Speaker 3: shifted on this idea of female competency, like there is
Speaker 3: now and I point to this in my book, like
Speaker 3: people think that men and women are as competent as
Speaker 3: each other. So yay for very obvious progress. It should
Speaker 3: have never had to be progressed too. But I also
Speaker 3: talk in the book about this idea, and I'm actually
Speaker 3: sure that you feel this too, Like the idea of
Speaker 3: being called a smart girl is something that I dig
Speaker 3: into in my book because it's something that I've been called.
Speaker 3: But it's an example of like words that are coded
Speaker 3: that like, if you are female, you know what it's
Speaker 3: like to have something said to you that kind of
Speaker 3: sounds like a compliment, but like isn't actually a compliment.
Speaker 3: And it's one of the things that I dive into
Speaker 3: in the book in relation to how we talk about
Speaker 3: female candidates, because you're right, there's almost an apology that
Speaker 3: has to come after you assert yourself, or after you
Speaker 3: show how smart you are, or after you actively pursue
Speaker 3: the goal that you're trying to go towards. And there's
Speaker 3: a great op ed that came up during the twenty
Speaker 3: twenty race that said something to the effect of, you know,
Speaker 3: she's the most beautiful woman in the world, but also
Speaker 3: she's very ugly. She's you know, she holds it, she
Speaker 3: knows how to shoot a gun, but also she's never
Speaker 3: held a gun. Like all of these random examples that
Speaker 3: the author gave, and the final one I thought really
Speaker 3: was a gut punch because it was she wants to
Speaker 3: be president, but she'd never run for it. And that's
Speaker 3: almost what we demand in women, is like, we want
Speaker 3: you to assert yourself, we want you to try, we
Speaker 3: want you to be the best. You should strive to
Speaker 3: be the best, but also don't make anyone feel uncomfortable
Speaker 3: that you're in your pursuit of doing those things. And
Speaker 3: that's you know, I think that's something that women who
Speaker 3: are listening to this and who have been in these
Speaker 3: spaces that are still so male dominated. I think that's
Speaker 3: something that a lot of people resonate with. And it's
Speaker 3: part of why I think that the more diverse your
Speaker 3: newsroom gets, the better you'll be it calling out the
Speaker 3: narratives when they start against female candidates. And also you
Speaker 3: won't fall into those traps in the first place, at
Speaker 3: least I hope not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Oh, that is a gut punch, and I feel
Speaker 1: like I really saw it with Vice President Harris. I
Speaker 1: remember reading someone saying like, oh, she's really like the
Speaker 1: insult that they gave them. They didn't they didn't come
Speaker 1: out and say that it was an insult, but we
Speaker 1: can read between the lines. It's like, Oh, she's ambitious,
Speaker 1: she really wants to be president. And it's like, do
Speaker 1: you think that the men on stage like accidentally filled
Speaker 1: out their paperwork to run for president and they don't
Speaker 1: actually want it.
Speaker 2: It was just some big mistake and now they're.
Speaker 3: On stage day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like, of course she wants to be president.
Speaker 1: That's the point. Everybody on that stage wants to be president.
Speaker 1: That's the point. The fact that it is lobbed at women,
Speaker 1: coded as an insult or coded is like, this is
Speaker 1: why you shouldn't trust them, because they have high end,
Speaker 1: they have high ambitions for themselves, and they want power
Speaker 1: and they want visibility and they're making themselves big, and
Speaker 1: that's something that is to be distrustful of if you
Speaker 1: are a woman or a person, or like a woman
Speaker 1: or a woman of color in particular, Like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't see that same thing lobbed at men, even though,
Speaker 1: of course they want to be president.
Speaker 2: Of course they're ambitious.
Speaker 3: Yep, exactly. And that was the word of the vice
Speaker 3: presidential deepstakes, if you remember, right, Biden says he's going
Speaker 3: to pick a woman. A bunch of really amazingly qualified
Speaker 3: women get put on both the public list that the
Speaker 3: media likes to make but also the campaign's list, and
Speaker 3: it's everyone from Stacy Abrams to Kamala Harris, to Elizabeth Warren,
Speaker 3: to Amy Klobashard to Val Deming's, Tammy Duckworth, Gretchen Witmer,
Speaker 3: all of these really amazing women that showcase just how
Speaker 3: much work Democrats have put in to filling the pipeline
Speaker 3: with really good talent and diverse talent, and all of
Speaker 3: them going forward and voicing the fact that they want
Speaker 3: to be vice president, raising their hand and saying, yeah,
Speaker 3: I would do that job and I would be good
Speaker 3: at it. And here's why that got turned into, oh, well,
Speaker 3: they're ambitious, and now we're back to those words that
Speaker 3: sound like they should be compliments, but really they're not.
Speaker 3: And that was I think one of the things that
Speaker 3: felt particularly gendered about process that shouldn't have had gender
Speaker 3: perpolating behind it. At all was the vice presidential beepstakes,
Speaker 3: and that word ambition just reared its head in such
Speaker 3: a negative way. But I think the silver lining to
Speaker 3: it was that what we saw happen was Democratic groups
Speaker 3: formed this whole group of you know, strategists and operatives
Speaker 3: and Emily's Lists and other groups that have been working
Speaker 3: to elevate women across politics. They formed we have her Back,
Speaker 3: and you watched it happen. When they would do live shots,
Speaker 3: they would be asked, Okay, you know who's better suited
Speaker 3: to be vice president? Karen Bass Kamala Harrison And instead
Speaker 3: of comparing, contrasting, tearing one down to elevate the other.
Speaker 3: I watched Valerie Jarrett do this time and again on MSNBC.
Speaker 3: She would say, well, Karen Bass would be a great
Speaker 3: choice for X y Z reason, Kamala Harris would be
Speaker 3: a great choice for ABC reason, and they would both
Speaker 3: be amazing vice president. Period. They did not say anything,
Speaker 3: and they did not pit these women against each other.
Speaker 3: That's not to say that it didn't happen, because politics
Speaker 3: is still politics, but when it came down to it,
Speaker 3: you watch democratic women, especially try not to make this
Speaker 3: seem like a cat fight. And I think that was
Speaker 3: a really big silver lining that makes it better going forward.
Speaker 3: But yeah, Kamala Harris has been a really fascinating person
Speaker 3: rising to the role of vice president because her ambition
Speaker 3: and having run for president beforehand, which by the way,
Speaker 3: Joe Biden did right before he got to be vice president.
Speaker 3: That's somehow being held against.
Speaker 1: Let's take a quick break.
Speaker 2: At our back.
Speaker 1: For women, both in politics or government or just professional
Speaker 1: women in general.
Speaker 2: I'm sure that you get this as a journalist.
Speaker 1: I think that we have this this cultural attitude that
Speaker 1: effort is bad, Like if people can see the effort,
Speaker 1: that's no good.
Speaker 2: It's supposed to look effort.
Speaker 1: You're supposed to like you don't really want it, and
Speaker 1: that you know, if you're good at something, it's just happenstance,
Speaker 1: it's just natural. Like I've never had a gun before,
Speaker 1: but I'm great at shooting a gun. Like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think work, we're told as women that you have to
Speaker 1: hide all of the inner machinations that make you ambitious,
Speaker 1: that make you show up as a professional person who
Speaker 1: wants to achieve things and and you know, have a
Speaker 1: big flashy career or a big flashy life or something
Speaker 1: I think it's I think it goes back to this
Speaker 1: like cultural attitude that we are not supposed to see
Speaker 1: that from women, and when we do, we don't like
Speaker 1: it and we have to like ding it down.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so you know what, like to the extent
Speaker 3: that we can as individuals, like we have to lift
Speaker 3: up the work, right, Like I do feel like we're
Speaker 3: in a period where I think it's like all of us,
Speaker 3: Like I look at my girlfriends who are hard workers.
Speaker 3: They strive for their goals, they reach for them, Like
Speaker 3: I am definitely someone who tries hard. I will I
Speaker 3: will say that openly. I do my research when a
Speaker 3: story is breaking. For example, when I knew that Speaker
Speaker 3: Pelosi was going to be making an announcement about her
Speaker 3: future plans, the first thing I did was pick up
Speaker 3: a book that I had read about Pelosi six months
Speaker 3: ago that I didn't remember every detail of. But I
Speaker 3: was like, okay, how can I scan for the fine
Speaker 3: points that I had marked off the pages on, Like
Speaker 3: it's okay to do your research, like to anyone who's listening,
Speaker 3: Like I would never be able to show up on
Speaker 3: television every day and know random facts about the legislative
Speaker 3: push that Nancy Pelosi made in two thousand and eight,
Speaker 3: just off the top of my head. You have to
Speaker 3: work at it. And I actually think the more that
Speaker 3: we normalize that for other women, the harder it becomes
Speaker 3: to ding people for working hard and for showing up
Speaker 3: and being smart. And you know, we can kind of
Speaker 3: take that back. Like, I do want to believe that
Speaker 3: that power is within us. So I'm not willing to
Speaker 3: seed the space to the patriarchy on that one for
Speaker 3: me or for anyone else, like who's running for president
Speaker 3: or who's just like you know, going about their day
Speaker 3: trying to be the best version of themselves.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it.
Speaker 1: Goes back to what you were saying about the we
Speaker 1: Have Her Back coalition, you know, I do think that.
Speaker 1: I mean, on the one hand, I hate that it's
Speaker 1: kind of on us as individuals to combat this this
Speaker 1: stigma that I think is like highly institutional and systemic.
Speaker 1: But I do think like modeling how you can talk
Speaker 1: about other women who are ambitious and like not not
Speaker 1: give not give people thought her to be like ooh,
Speaker 1: catfide or like ooh like you know. So I work
Speaker 1: for a gender justice organization, Ultra Violet, and we have
Speaker 1: a norm where even if we're talking about a woman
Speaker 1: that we don't like or that we don't agree with her,
Speaker 1: our values don't align. We think she's like not good
Speaker 1: for the country or whatever. As a lawmaker, we don't
Speaker 1: call her unqualified, we don't call there are certain things
Speaker 1: that we don't call her or that we will never
Speaker 1: like even imply because it. It adds to this. It
Speaker 1: adds to this the.
Speaker 2: Stigma that I think holds us all down. That's with it.
Speaker 1: And so even if we're saying like, oh, this woman,
Speaker 1: we don't like her, if we say that she's unqualified
Speaker 1: or this or that or this, that can come back
Speaker 1: to get us. Because we're all women and all of
Speaker 1: our oppression is really linked in that way. We're just
Speaker 1: we're just adding fuel to that fire to have somebody
Speaker 1: be able to lob that at another woman and keep
Speaker 1: her down.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Look, so much of this is systemic too. Like
Speaker 3: I always think about the idea of a lot of
Speaker 3: my friends, I feel this way a lot, the idea
Speaker 3: of imposter syndrome, and really that almost puts the onus
Speaker 3: on us, like it's our fault that we don't feel
Speaker 3: like we are qualified enough or that we are taking
Speaker 3: up space in the right way, and really like the
Speaker 3: owners should be on the systems in which we are operating,
Speaker 3: because I can guarantee that every single one of my
Speaker 3: friends who has the feeling of being an impostor in
Speaker 3: the spaces that they're in, that's not the case. They
Speaker 3: are more than qualified to be there. Their voice should
Speaker 3: be value there. It's the systems that we need to
Speaker 3: push back on and the systems that need to stop
Speaker 3: making us feel like we are outsiders to them. So
Speaker 3: I think that that's really important. It's not fair that
Speaker 3: we have to reshape these structures, but that's sort of
Speaker 3: the onus that we have right now, whether it's fair
Speaker 3: or not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's it's like, that's the trip of
Speaker 1: living in a patriarchal society. I guess it's like it
Speaker 1: shouldn't be on us, but it is, and like it's
Speaker 1: like part of the work, part of showing.
Speaker 3: Up in and what a trip it is, and.
Speaker 2: What a trip it is.
Speaker 3: But you know what you bring us something that's so
Speaker 3: interesting too, because there is in the book, I do
Speaker 3: explore a lot about democrats, in large part because six
Speaker 3: of them ran for president in twenty twenty but I
Speaker 3: also talk about Republicanism and gender and identity, and there's
Speaker 3: a really fascinating thing happening on the Republican side right
Speaker 3: now where they are electing more women, but the groups
Speaker 3: that exist on the Republican side to try to get
Speaker 3: more women in their pipeline. Thankfully, now there's a recognition
Speaker 3: among Republicans that women can run in really tight races.
Speaker 3: They're a large part of the reason that they flipped
Speaker 3: so many seats in twenty twenty. A lot of the
Speaker 3: competitive seats this cycle had women running in them on
Speaker 3: the Republican side especially, So all of those things are true,
Speaker 3: but they're having a kind of debate about can we
Speaker 3: call other women unqualified or unviable? And they're having it
Speaker 3: because of people like Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren Bobert
Speaker 3: who have embraced non reality and who have embraced conspiracy
Speaker 3: theories and elections in nihilism, and it's a party that
Speaker 3: the whole It's the thing that the whole Republican Party
Speaker 3: is dealing with right now, like the role of Trump,
Speaker 3: the role of elections in nihilism, the role of the
Speaker 3: fringe of the party. They're all figuring it out right now.
Speaker 3: But when it comes to women, I've watched these women's
Speaker 3: group try to draw the line by using words like
Speaker 3: we only endorse viable female candidates, or we only endorse
Speaker 3: qualified female candidates. They're trying to make that delineation because
Speaker 3: they think that some of the women who have risen
Speaker 3: to popularism in recent years and months are not qualified
Speaker 3: and should not be indicative of the kind of Republican
Speaker 3: women serving. So it's fascinating that those are one of
Speaker 3: the words that you guys think about actively, because in
Speaker 3: watching it on the Republican side, that's one of the
Speaker 3: words that they use as sort of like a line
Speaker 3: of demarcation, like we only support serious candidates, which is
Speaker 3: to say they don't support the conspiracy theorists, and like
Speaker 3: that's a line that needs to be drawn in Republican
Speaker 3: politics right now. But it's fascinating the way that they're
Speaker 3: drawing that's so interesting.
Speaker 1: And it's like, I mean, especially coming out of mid terms,
Speaker 1: where people are like, oh, there's going to be a
Speaker 1: bad way, and I would say that like people kind
Speaker 1: of rejected that like election denihilism vibe. But I think
Speaker 1: people kind the voters kind of were like, no, thank you.
Speaker 1: And I do think like figuring a it's interesting how
Speaker 1: they're they're using these I don't know if euphemisms is
Speaker 1: the right word, but using these ways to draw a
Speaker 1: lot in the sand and to like explain like, oh,
Speaker 1: these are the kind of candidates that we're looking to
Speaker 1: support and uplift, not these other ones.
Speaker 2: They're not gonna they're not gonna come out.
Speaker 1: And say we don't want to, you know, get in
Speaker 1: bed with an election denial of denial candidate or a
Speaker 1: conspiracy theory candidate. But like the way that they're using
Speaker 1: language is sort of like, but you know what we're
Speaker 1: trying to say, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, well well, and some of them will say that,
Speaker 3: I mean, some of the women that I talk to
Speaker 3: and quote in the book will say that is not
Speaker 3: the kind of a female candidate that we want to
Speaker 3: put our money behind, to put our resources behind, to
Speaker 3: help out of primaries. And I specifically say to help
Speaker 3: out of primaries because a large part of the reason
Speaker 3: that groups are so important in elevating female candidates and
Speaker 3: people of color, basically anyone who's non white and non male.
Speaker 3: The reason it's important is because they're operating in structures
Speaker 3: that are just tilted against them, Like, this is a
Speaker 3: system the end of the day. It was built by men,
Speaker 3: built by white men, for white men, to keep power
Speaker 3: for white men. So anyone who's not that is already
Speaker 3: kind of going against the system as it was built.
Speaker 3: But in primaries is really where we see gender and
Speaker 3: race play a role that can be counter productive to
Speaker 3: the candidate. And that's why it's so important to focus
Speaker 3: on primaries because when people get to general elections, their
Speaker 3: tribal If you're a Democrat, you're probably voting Democrat. If
Speaker 3: you're a Republican, you're probably voting a Republican. I love
Speaker 3: independent voters, but increasingly it's a smaller and smaller slice
Speaker 3: of the pie. And so that's why the focus is
Speaker 3: so important on primaries just generally, because that's really where
Speaker 3: the dynamics are. It's not as tribal there because you're
Speaker 3: picking among multiple people in your own party.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is going to be I'm not even really
Speaker 1: sure how to ask this, but it fits so nicely
Speaker 1: in the intersection of your work. There are so many
Speaker 1: women candidates who do embrace things like election denilism and
Speaker 1: conspiracy theory. Are men there are a lot of men
Speaker 1: who do it too, but plenty of women become like
Speaker 1: rising stars and have big platforms and big profiles on
Speaker 1: the basis of their embracing conspiracy theory and elections nihilism.
Speaker 1: Do you think there's something about women where when they
Speaker 1: have embrace this ideology, it like.
Speaker 2: Helps them more? Like what do you think is going on.
Speaker 3: Well on the Republican side, Definitely, I mean, but again,
Speaker 3: it's not just women on the Republican side who are
Speaker 3: being forced to grapple with what I would call like
Speaker 3: republicanism in the age of Trump. Because the more I'm out,
Speaker 3: the more I hear voters who say that, like, the
Speaker 3: word Republican doesn't mean conservative anymore of them, the word
Speaker 3: Republican means Trump. So the party itself is going through
Speaker 3: a reckoning the fact that there are women at the
Speaker 3: forefront of that movement, but there are also men at
Speaker 3: the forefront of that movement, you know, Like, I don't
Speaker 3: know if that's necessarily a gender question, but I do
Speaker 3: think that it speaks to something that Secretary Hillary Clinton
Speaker 3: said to me when I was talking with her for
Speaker 3: this project, which is the entire idea of electability has changed, right,
Speaker 3: Like the idea, and she brought up an example, not
Speaker 3: using a specific candidate, but she pointed to the Republican
Speaker 3: side where she thought at one point that a woman
Speaker 3: holding a gun prominently in a campaign ad might not
Speaker 3: have been viewed as electable several years ago, but certainly
Speaker 3: helps a woman's electability now in the Republican party. So look,
Speaker 3: the upside of that is that we are starting to
Speaker 3: see more kinds of women as electable. The downside is
Speaker 3: that right now in Republican politics, it is also popular
Speaker 3: to deny results of legitimate elections proffer lies to an
Speaker 3: electorate about those elections. That's problematic from a small d
Speaker 3: democracy standpoint, and that's just like a Republican thing that
Speaker 3: they're dealing with right now.
Speaker 1: Gender aside, Yeah, that is so interesting, and it's like,
Speaker 1: even though that's not necessarily you know, particular to gender,
Speaker 1: I do see it as just like another way that
Speaker 1: it can become a trap for women, right, like another
Speaker 1: way that like it can be this tightrope that women
Speaker 1: are expected to walk that men.
Speaker 3: Just are not. Yes, yeah, well there's also something interesting
Speaker 3: on the Republican side of this too, where I found
Speaker 3: a study in my book where if you are female
Speaker 3: or a person of color. And I think the study
Speaker 3: was around demographic biases that may exist within conservative voters.
Speaker 3: One of the ways that candidates of color and female
Speaker 3: candidates can overcome any demographic biases that exist is by
Speaker 3: being more hyper conservative. So if you're Carly Fiorina or
Speaker 3: if you're Ben Carson, and those were some of the
Speaker 3: names that were tested by in this one study their
Speaker 3: hyper conservatism, showing that ideologically they ascribe to all aspects
Speaker 3: of publicanism that can overcome any bias that might exist
Speaker 3: because they are black or because they are female. And
Speaker 3: I thought that was a really interesting study that sort
Speaker 3: of explains why you have the rise of certain very
Speaker 3: hyper conservative women on the right. It kind of explains
Speaker 3: Sarah Palin and Marsha Blackburn and Marjorie Taylor Green and
Speaker 3: Lauren Bobert, Like there at least is some explanation for
Speaker 3: it because on the Republican side, otherwise they do not
Speaker 3: want to talk about gender and identity politics. That is
Speaker 3: like a bad word. Don't get into it, don't talk
Speaker 3: as a woman, don't talk you know, they don't want
Speaker 3: to hear that. It's just are you you know, their
Speaker 3: metrics for assessing candidate viability are just different.
Speaker 2: That is so fascinating. So I have to ask Bough.
Speaker 1: The book is called Electable by America hasn't put a
Speaker 1: woman in the White House dot dot dot yet, And.
Speaker 2: That title makes me say that you are so like you.
Speaker 2: What are your thoughts? Do you think we're going to
Speaker 2: see a woman president in your lifetime? Our lifetime? Like?
Speaker 2: Are you hopeful? What do you think?
Speaker 3: I need to see it. We have to see it.
Speaker 3: We're gonna see it.
Speaker 2: I thought we had our time.
Speaker 4: And then then you know, I mean, look, I say yet,
Speaker 4: because I need to be optimistic about this.
Speaker 3: I do think that you have people, even Liz Cheney
Speaker 3: right now, who have made the point in recent months
Speaker 3: that men have been running things for a while and
Speaker 3: it hasn't always gone so great. I do think that
Speaker 3: it's time to maybe try something else. At the same time, though, too,
Speaker 3: there have been just systemic issues with why a woman
Speaker 3: has not been able to ascend to the White House,
Speaker 3: And in large part it's because we haven't seen a
Speaker 3: ton of women serving in elected office until like the
Speaker 3: last forty or fifty years. And I know that sounds
Speaker 3: like a long time, but it's actually not that long,
Speaker 3: and women are filling the ranks of both parties so
Speaker 3: much right now that finally there are long lists of
Speaker 3: women who we can say, Okay, they can run for
Speaker 3: president on the Republican side, they can run for president
Speaker 3: on the Democrat Democratic side, to the point where I
Speaker 3: think in twenty twenty four and twenty twenty four is
Speaker 3: tough because two men still govern this process, and so
Speaker 3: at a certain point it becomes a numbers game, and
Speaker 3: I think that gone are the days where you're just
Speaker 3: going to have only fields of dudes running for president.
Speaker 3: There are going to be women who are running. I
Speaker 3: also think that what Biden did by electing by choosing
Speaker 3: Kamala Harris and then Kamala Harris and Joe Biden being
Speaker 3: elected in twenty twenty, the fact that we have our
Speaker 3: first female vice president is huge. Women of both parties
Speaker 3: that I talk to for this book agree that she
Speaker 3: makes it easier for those who come after her simply
Speaker 3: because she goes to work being who she is every
Speaker 3: single day, and it allows the American mindset to see
Speaker 3: female leadership at its highest rungs. Quite frankly, that's also
Speaker 3: something that Speaker Pelosi has done for this country because
Speaker 3: she was elevated first. But I also think that, especially
Speaker 3: if it's Biden and Harris again in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 3: it's going to be really hard for Republicans to just
Speaker 3: nominate another ticket that looks like Trump and Tense, that
Speaker 3: just looks like two older white men. Again. I do
Speaker 3: think that we're now in a place where gender and
Speaker 3: diversity is an asset. And I look at it in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty when Biden chose Harris, I mean the fact
Speaker 3: that he had just consolidated his power, he had just
Speaker 3: won the primary, and he comes out and he says,
Speaker 3: I'm going to choose a woman. To me, it was
Speaker 3: a sign that times had changed, because if you look
Speaker 3: at the last few times that men had selected women
Speaker 3: as their running mates. We're talking about Walter Mondale in
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty four when he chose Geraldine Ferraro and his
Speaker 3: campaign was in the ten. He was not doing well.
Speaker 3: He needed something that could excite his base. They thought, hey,
Speaker 3: we'll do a woman, and it was sort of a
Speaker 3: throw spaghetti at the wall kind of moment, see if
Speaker 3: it sticks. It didn't, but it was also the mindset
Speaker 3: the next time we saw that happen, which was on
Speaker 3: the Republican side. Two thousand and eight, John McCain picking
Speaker 3: Sarah Palin, shocking everybody, but the mindset was the same.
Speaker 3: He was falling behind Obama in the polls. He needed
Speaker 3: something to excite the base. He chose someone who was female,
Speaker 3: who use the phrases like she wanted to finish the
Speaker 3: work that Hillary Clinton had started. Because Clinton ran an
Speaker 3: eight and fell short to Obama. I mean it was
Speaker 3: very throw spaghetti at the wall. See what sticks. Now,
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty, you have Biden purposefully choosing a woman,
Speaker 3: saying that her gender, her lived experience, the different things
Speaker 3: that she brings to the table, our assets. It's not
Speaker 3: just yeah, we'll see what happens. We'll pick a woman.
Speaker 3: It's no, we want to pick a woman. We want
Speaker 3: to pick a woman of color. She provides us drinks
Speaker 3: that we would not otherwise have. That is a really
Speaker 3: big moment of progress and one that it's hard for
Speaker 3: me to see not sticking. And so I do think
Speaker 3: we're going to have a female president, and I do
Speaker 3: think we're going to see more female vice presidents. I
Speaker 3: would love to see both happen at once. That would
Speaker 3: be really cool. But progress is slow, but it's coming.
Speaker 3: I have to believe it.
Speaker 1: I'm happy that you're doing this work of like modeling
Speaker 1: the progress that we have made and signaling to the
Speaker 1: progress that has yet to be made in the future.
Speaker 3: You know, I do think this book came about at
Speaker 3: a dark time for everybody, because the pandemic happened. I
Speaker 3: was asked to do this book in March of twenty twenty,
Speaker 3: and a week later I flew home from being on
Speaker 3: the road with Biden and Ohio and Elizabeth Warren had
Speaker 3: just dropped out and all of us never left our
Speaker 3: houses again for the next few months. So it was
Speaker 3: a dark time, and I remember the only thing that
Speaker 3: I said to my editor was I don't want to
Speaker 3: do this book. If I can't come out in a
Speaker 3: place where I feel optimistic, I can't not find the
Speaker 3: silver linings. I remember some of the early calls that
Speaker 3: I made to some of the smartest sources that I have,
Speaker 3: where I just said, make me feel good about this,
Speaker 3: like it's going to happen, right, Like I feel like
Speaker 3: it's going to happen. Point me to some examples that
Speaker 3: make you feel like it's going to happen. And I
Speaker 3: came out with a lot of examples, and yes, it's
Speaker 3: important to show why it hasn't happened yet and to
Speaker 3: shine a spotlight on moments where unfortunately the isms sexism, racism,
Speaker 3: all of the others won out. But I think once
Speaker 3: you show people that those moments have happened, once you
Speaker 3: see it, you can't stop seeing it. And that's part
Speaker 3: of helping this road to progress too.
Speaker 1: That's so powerful. And Alie, I have to say, and
Speaker 1: not to get to like sappy or whatever, but we
Speaker 1: kind of came up in the in the sort of
Speaker 1: political media space together, and I remember when we were
Speaker 1: working together at MSNBC. You I can just tell that,
Speaker 1: like you were going to be a real mover and
Speaker 1: shaker in the space.
Speaker 2: And so watching you like you were on the campaign trail.
Speaker 1: You were like, I follow you on Instagram and I
Speaker 1: see these images of you, like you know, setting up
Speaker 1: producing like shots and setting up shots like talking like
Speaker 1: you are in it, and watching this trajectory has been
Speaker 1: really incredible and powerful. It's like I can't help but
Speaker 1: wonder how many little girls, Like when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: I used to watch Gwen Eifel on TV and be
Speaker 1: like I could be her someday, And I wonder, like,
Speaker 1: are you the Gwen Eifel for a new generation of
Speaker 1: which finding their voice in political media?
Speaker 2: I say yes.
Speaker 3: First of all, you just gave me chills. Second of all,
Speaker 3: my god, immeasurable, immeasurable goals for me to put up.
Speaker 3: I mean, my God. But I think about it too
Speaker 3: as like there's just more of us now, right, Like
Speaker 3: there are just more women who are out there who
Speaker 3: are empowered to be experts, who are empowered to ask good,
Speaker 3: tough questions. I think that's good for everybody. I mean,
Speaker 3: I love looking around and seeing in a scrum or
Speaker 3: in a gaggle when I'm with a candidate, like a
Speaker 3: bunch of other women around me. I think that that
Speaker 3: is just such an amazing thing. And I love it
Speaker 3: even more when it's a female candidate. It's the center
Speaker 3: of it. But I mean, yeah, you and I both,
Speaker 3: I think, have really climbed through our industries. And I
Speaker 3: think about the way that we first met too. I mean, right,
Speaker 3: we were doing a shoot for Liz Plank. Right, Liz
Speaker 3: Plank brought us all together the Queen to talk about
Speaker 3: hate online and like the nasty things that people said
Speaker 3: to us, and it sort of brings us full circle
Speaker 3: a little bit too, right, because we were there trying
Speaker 3: to reclaim some of the nasty words that people were
Speaker 3: throwing at us, just simply for being smart and female
Speaker 3: and a line. Right. Thankfully, there are girls on the
Speaker 3: internet now, right who can have each other's back and like,
Speaker 3: you know, not not let that stuff just go unchecked.
Speaker 3: But like that's how we met. We met by calling
Speaker 3: out sexism online. And now you get to be a
Speaker 3: proof point that like it's not just dudes in a
Speaker 3: toxic environment, like it's women are here and making it better,
Speaker 3: which I would argue is just happening all over.
Speaker 2: I mentioned it at the start of the show.
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