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- [00:00]
Jill Winebanks
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- [00:32]
Kimberly Atkins Storr
Welcome back to SistersinLaw with Joyce Vance, Barb McQuaid, Jill Y. Banks and me, Kimberly Atkinstore. Well, we are less than a week out from the results of the election, and we have all already heard from so many listeners. This has been really difficult. It's been rough. It's certainly to our listeners, you know, this is not the result that any of us really wanted, certainly not with such a resounding margin. And that that is hard. So we're going to do the show a little differently today. We're going to just talk a little bit about how we're feeling about all of this, and then we're going to spend the rest of the show answering our listeners questions because we really do mean it when we say that is a highlight of why we do what we do. And I think there's nothing better, there's no better way to do this show this week than centering the listeners who are predominantly women, who have supported us. We are grateful for that support. And support is the name of the game in the short term while each of us takes the time to recover, recoup and reset ourselves for what is ahead. So I can't think of a better way to spend the show. But first, I just want to, you know, give everybody a chance to just sort of say what's on their mind. Jill, start with you.
- [02:02]
Jill Winebanks
Well, I started out in despair and sadness. It turned my to angst and then to anger. But now it's turning into action. And I've decided that I am not defeated by this, that none of us should be, that we all should take and be motivated to do something to work so that in two years, the next election has a different outcome. I hope that things that we are predicting or have predicted will not come true, that Donald Trump will not do all the horrendous things that Project 2025 predicts and that he has said he will do. I hope that he won't be able to accomplish that, but we have to be ready to fight back now and then in the next election. And so I'm hoping that our show today will motivate all of our listeners to join us in that effort. I just want to add a quote from Adlai Stevenson, who was my first political hero when I was in third Grade. He ran for president and lost for the second time. And he said, someone asked me how it felt, and I was reminded of a story that a fellow townsman of ours used to tell Abraham Lincoln. They asked him how it felt once, after an unsuccessful election. He said he felt like a little boy who had stubbed his toe in the dark. He said that he was too old to cry, but it hurt too much to laugh. That's pretty much how I feel now.
- [03:41]
Kimberly Atkins Storr
Joyce.
- [03:44]
Joyce Vance
You know, so many things to think and to talk about. The one thing I want to say is I'm trying to think in the first person right now and to recognize. Recognize that the way that I feel may not be the way that other people feel, that we're all having a wide range of feelings. All, I think, very valid. And we're going to all work through things in our own order at a different pace. And we should give each other room to do that. It's a tough time. Margaret Atwood, who is a fabulous author, beyond the Handmaid's Tale, if you have not read her, many of my favorite books were written by her. She gave an interview with the Paris Review, and this is one of the things she said in it. She said, men often ask me, why are your female characters so paranoid? She responds, it's not paranoia. It's recognition of their situation. And I'm sort of feeling that in this moment, you know, I think especially women feel like they're at risk. Black people feel like they're at risk. Gay people feel like they're at risk. Immigrants feel like they're at risk. Jews, Arabs. I mean, in other words, we are all part of some segment of society that feels uniquely at risk in this moment. And I hope that what comes out of that is a recognition that we really do have to all stand together, that the path forward is figuring out how to forge a big tent. Every country that has come through a challenge to its democracy and survived has pulled together under a big tent of folks who've recognized that no matter what their differences are, their common desire for freedom and democracy is much stronger. That's a great binding force. That's in large part what sistersinlaw has always been about. And so I'm happy to be here with my sisters this afternoon and to work through anger and sorrow and hopefully inject a little bit of hope into a really tough situation.
- [05:39]
Kimberly Atkins Storr
How about you, Barb?
- [05:41]
Barb McQuaid
It's been a rough week. I had a friend text a group and say, it feels like somebody died. And maybe that sounds like an overstatement But I've experienced death. And in some ways it does feel that way where, you know, the realizations of what you lost kind of come in sequence. You know, there's the first, the initial shock, and then you think about all the consequences and all of the things this means and the uncertainty of not knowing all of the things that this means. It really does feel like that. And I think I agree with Joyce. It's really important to take as much time as you need to kind of just process, and we'll all process at a different rate. And some of us, you know, have to confront situations. I'm a teacher. I'm a parent. I've talked with other faculty members. I've talked to students who were, you know, have wept in my presence and tried to listen and offer comfort where I can and offer some strength. And I read something today that really resonated with me that I want to share, because it's pretty hard to realize that not only did we lose in 2016, when Hillary Clinton was defeated by someone who's perhaps the worst human being in the United States, if not the face of the earth, and you ask yourself, how could that happen? And in 2016, or at least since then, I've sort of rationalized, well, there was Clinton fatigue and Trump was an unknown commodity, and maybe people didn't understand how awful he would be. And there was her email server and all those things. We don't have any of those things this time. It really is the case that a super qualified candidate who is a woman and a woman of color lost to someone we know is the most horrible person on the planet. And that is really tough to take. I'd rather pick this guy, this awful guy, than the most qualified woman of color you can put up against him. And that's. That's really tough to take. But I read today there are many good substacks out there, including Joyce's Civil Discourse substack that I enjoy reading. But another one is Mark Elias, who has the democracy docket. And one of the things he posted today was a passage from Hillary Clinton's concession speech in 2016. And I think if she can take it, or if Kamala Harris can pick up the phone and call Donald Trump and be gracious and concede, then maybe I can go on, too. And what Hillary Clinton said was, I've had successes and I've had setbacks, sometimes really painful ones. Many of you are at the beginning of your professional, public and political careers. You will have successes and setbacks, too. This loss hurts but please never stop believing that fighting for what's right is worth it. And so we need you to keep up these fights now and for the rest of your lives. So I'm going to try and take those words to heart in the coming days and weeks.
- [08:56]
Kimberly Atkins Storr
Yeah, for me, this has been really rough. I have to admit. I have not been engaging in reading all of the Monday morning quarterbacking. I am generally just in the bit of social media scrolling that I've done. I am very aware that there is finger pointing and who is to blame and what the Democrats did wrong and what missed opportunity and all of that. I don't have it in my spirit to even begin doing that kind of legal analysis right now. I am just still vibrating and reverberating from what has happened, what the nation did. And everything that I say right now has nothing. It's not saying it has nothing to do with Donald Trump, but I'm not talking about Donald Trump right now. I'm talking about the American people. Because what happened is I and a lot of other people have spent, and including all four hosts of this podcast, has spent a great deal of our careers, our lives, our energies just laying bare with evidence, with the law behind us, with experience, with history behind us, what the stakes are for us in the way that we are governed. Nobody has done that harder than black women. Black women have been. You know, I've said before on this podcast, it was a joke. Like if you're in a tenuous situation, like if you're, if you're in a, if you're in a restaurant, right, and some, some kerfuffle breaks out, some disruption. Look at what the black women do. Like if they just sit there and continue to eat their meal, you're fine. If they're keeping an eye on it, be be aware, be alert. But if they start reaching for their purses and their coats, gtfo, get out as soon as you can. Because we have always had to assess, figure out and find a strategy for the perils that we face. And the fair perils that we face are the same perils that other people face in our society. We just tend to get the brunt end of it first, right? So we've had to be that bellwether. It's been a matter of our own survival. And over time, I think some people, certainly some of our, some people who likely voted the same way as we did, came to understand and even appreciate that. But after all of that and after all of the hand wringing as to what groups would do what and everything else. At the end of the day, when you look at the exit data, people in marginalized communities voted overwhelmingly to protect democracy. And the people who were not, didn't. And it is like a blow from a two by four to the face to know that America had a choice between a convicted felon, a lifetime swindler, a liar, a adjudicated sexual abuser, someone who's, I mean, it's too, you can't even name all of the racist, xenophobic, sexist, disgusting things that have come out of his mouth. And when given a choice between him and a qualified black woman by a margin of 4 plus million people chose him. What, what does that say? What does that say to little girls who look like me, whose parents and grandparents, like mine did, told them they could do anything? What does that say to all of the work that we've been trying to do here? What does that say when we can no longer say anymore, oh, he didn't get the popular vote. Oh, is this, you know, illegitimate? Nope, Nope. This happened exactly as it should. And I'll speak a little bit more to one when I'm answering one of the questions that I picked to answer, but it is hard. And so one thing that I had learned in recent years, but then I'm really exercising now, is that my energy is not a renewable resource and I'm going to be very careful with it. And so in the days and maybe weeks ahead, my number one focus is going to be restricted. I, you know, you, I'm not being a quitter. I understand that I don't have the luxury to be, but what I am doing is protecting my energy. I am now reading a book called Rest is Resistance by Trisha Hersey, which I think is truly important for people who can relate to what I'm feeling right now. It really does explain how we need to care for ourselves, our bodies, our minds, our spirits, before we can be good to anyone. And so that is part of why I wasn't even sure I was going to record this episode of the podcast, to be frank. But I'm here. But it is in that spirit that I'm here. I'm here for the collective sisterhood of my fellow sisters and all of our listeners. And I'm eternally grateful to that. So I thank you and I ask your time and patience while I figure out what even I'm thinking about all of this.
- [14:18]
Barb McQuaid
Thanks, Kim. We're glad you're here.
- [14:21]
Jill Winebanks
Thank you for being here, Kim.
- [14:22]
Kimberly Atkins Storr
Thank you all for being here, all of us.
- [14:24]
Barb McQuaid
You know, what I think in response to some of the questions we put out on threads and Twitter and elsewhere, a lot of the responses are, you know what? I just need to be together and listening with all of you this week as I process all that happens. So being here for each other I think is really important.
- [14:49]
Joyce Vance
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- [15:10]
Kimberly Atkins Storr
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- [15:49]
Jill Winebanks
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- [16:33]
Barb McQuaid
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- [17:24]
Jill Winebanks
Well, here's one question that I loved that I got on threads from Dawn5411. She asked could Biden resign and make Kamala the first woman president in history? And that is a possibility. And I would add to that if he does that, I want President Harris to order the archivist to publish the Equal Rights Amendment and make her legacy B that she protected all women by passing the era were long past due for that protection. Someone reminded me that very recently their mother became a widow and was unable to get a credit card because her credit had always been through her husband because she grew up in an era where women could not get credit cards on their own. So we need the Equal Rights Amendment. And I hope that President Biden allows a woman to be president, even if it's only for a few weeks, and that she uses that time in office to do good things, including the Equal Rights Amendment.
- [18:38]
Barb McQuaid
Next is a question from Mr. Ricardo Pulido, who asks, many had said that a second Trump presidency will lack the guardrails that were in place during his first administration. What type of existing guardrails would hold during a second administration that he would not be able to circumvent? Yeah, I think this is a really great question because it's forward looking and I think it's hopeful. You know, the guardrails that are missing I think this time are with the Supreme Court immunity, so there's no criminal prosecution. We've already seen that impeachment has become kind of a toothless weapon of Congress when the party in power occupies the seats in the Senate. And you know, Trump has said he learned the first time around when he appointed institutionalists to his administration that they were obstacles. And this time he's learned how to find the right people, which many perceived to mean loyalists. But there are certainly some things outside of the federal government where I think that there is a place for protecting the rights of people. I've read already that California Governor Gavin Newsom has asked his state legislature to convene next week to talk about things they can do to safeguard the citizens of their state. There are states that have been stockpiling mifepristone in case it becomes illegal through some FDA regulation by people working in the FDA if appointed in a Trump presidency. There are laws that have already been passed in states at the state level based on state constitutions protecting rights to reproductive freedom. And we've seen that. I also think we should look for attorneys general to be very active in this next administration. They were in the first Trump administration, and they have the ability to bring lawsuits when they perceive that there are harms being perpetrated against the citizens of their states. So I think we're going to see very active work there. So, you know, environmental rollbacks that are harming our clean air and water. I think state attorneys general could file environmental litigation there to try to protect the waters and the airs within their states. I also think we are going to see a very robust response from advocacy groups like the aclu, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Lambda Legal. There are all kinds of really great advocacy groups out there that can bring civil rights actions when they see people's civil rights being violated. And so I think that there is hope, even if within our federal government, we're concerned, state actors and nonprofits, I think, can help fill the void.
- [21:35]
Joyce Vance
We had a lot of questions from our listeners about the existing criminal cases against Donald Trump and what would happen them. Like Melinda, who asked on Twitter, does the January 6th case just go away? Or Lynne Capone Reitler, who asked, can Trump pardon himself from conviction from New York? And it's, look, I'm not here to be Pollyanna. I think that the answer is these cases are over. In large part the January 6th case. Jack Smith, Friday morning, late morning, filed a notice with the judge indicating that the government wanted until December 2nd to advise her on how they would dispose of the case. That came following reporting from NBC, later confirmed by others yesterday that said that Smith was in the process of negotiating with his superiors for how he would wind down that case. So that's the big one. There's also the case that's now sitting in front of the 11th Circuit, the classified documents case that Judge Cannon dismissed, where DOJ had appealed her dismissal. You know, that's the one. I'm a little bit equivocal here. This is an interesting case because Trump has two co defendants. If I were the government, even if I was going to dismiss as to him, I would want that case to go forward as to the other two. But leaving that aside for the moment, there's this provocative possibility that Jack Smith could write a final report because that case involves mishandling of classified documents and obstruction of justice by the guy who's about to become the commander in chief. And I recall that Smith had said, I think it was in a pleading, it might have been in open court, that he was prepared to present evidence about Trump's motivation. Well, I think that's information that since there won't be a trial, needs to be reserved as part of the public record. Look, there's. There's this whole argument about people who are never going to have their day in court shouldn't be unfairly tried by prosecutors. But this is a unique situation. This is a case where it's the defendant who's bypassing his right to have a trial in court. And so I think the public has some right to know. The Georgia case is on hold, will be, I think, for at least the next four years. And then there's the New York case. We're just a couple of weeks away from sentencing. In that case where Trump has already been convicted, I don't see anything that says that Donald Trump can't be sentenced. He might go ahead and take a sort of a preemptive appeal trying to get some courts say he can't be, but at least for now, he can be sentenced. I think the problem is execution of that sentence. He's not going to prison, you know, during the transition period or being put under any other restrictions. And so I think, you know, unfortunately, the sad reality here is that Trump wins.
- [24:26]
Barb McQuaid
You know, may I interject that? Let's hear it for the civil cases, because the civil cases aren't going anywhere. There's the Clinton vs Jones case that said even a sitting president has to defend himself from civil cases. So the Eugene Carroll verdicts, I think will remain. The appeals will continue, but nobody's taken those cases away. The $470 million judgment in the attorney general case out of New York for business fraud, that's not going away. Maybe there'll be an appeal, but just like any ordinary litigant, he's going to have to deal with that one. And then, of course, there's the defamation case brought by the exonerated five who were defamed again during a presidential debate. So that case will continue. So it is beyond disappointing. It's maddening that these criminal cases are going to end or be on ice the way they are. But, you know, the civil cases can accomplish some of the relief that people are entitled to.
- [25:26]
Kimberly Atkins Storr
So I got several questions. We all got several questions that are very similar to the one that mountaintop climber. I believe that's how you say that handle. Who? Who asked? I generally, I genuinely want to know why no one is seriously questioning these results, meaning the election. I'm not pushing any conspiracy theories, but logically explain to me how a voter can vote for Gallego over Lake and Trump over Harris. Lake and Trump are essentially the same person. That doesn't make mathematical sense. Well, mountaintop climber and all the other people who are wondering if something is off about these results, the answer is no. I will start by saying that what we have seen from the process of the election, if there's any small fragment of good news to take away from it, is that our election systems were proven yet again, as they were in 2020 and 2016 and before that, to be secure. There is no centralized way to rig an election on a 4 plus million vote scale. There just isn't. The election went off without a hitch. We have the levers in place to do that. I'm not going to sit here and say, oh, I don't feel good that there wasn't fraud just because my side didn't win without evidence of that. And there's just no evidence of it. Now, to get to what I think you're getting to is that this may not make mathematical sense to you, it may not even make a lot sense to you, but it has been something that makes political sense for a lot of people for a long, long time. People see congressional races differently from presidential races, differently from their local races. People actually in big swaths of this country, including places like Massachusetts, really enjoy voting for people in different parties. That actually makes them feel good. That actually makes them feel like they are ensuring that there is checks and balances or that they are not, you know, partisan, or that they can be for one thing and not another. Even though we know that Senate control is very important, as was the presidency, and that one side will be furthering the agenda of the people of that same party, people don't see it that way. People vote for people for Senate and House that they like or don't like and can see it totally differently by other things. So, yeah, there are a lot of people who, according to exit polling, didn't like the way America was changing, but they still might like to have a Senator Gallego. They can think in that same thing and think that it makes absolute sense. That's why you saw, you know, folks like Larry Hogan make us race in a blue state like Maryland. People can totally rationalize that in both directions. So I can't give a full history, historical primer, primer about vote splitting, but it's long been a part of our electorate. It's long been something that campaigns like Trump's bet on, and that bet paid off. So, no, I don't think there were any shenanigans with the election.
- [28:50]
Barb McQuaid
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- [29:41]
Jill Winebanks
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- [30:22]
Joyce Vance
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- [30:51]
Kimberly Atkins Storr
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- [31:36]
Jill Winebanks
Well, I got a lot of questions that made me try to consolidate them into a forward looking, hopeful answer. One of the questions was explain the National Popular Vote act and how that would help support the one person, one vote election of the President and Vice President. I want to expand that into what organizations are working to prepare for the future. What can all of us, all of you, do to help in that effort? So let me start with the National Popular Vote act, which is an act that if adopted by enough states would require that each signatory cast their electoral college votes for the winner of the national public popular vote, not the vote of their state, but the vote of the country. And this is a way to get around having to have a constitutional amendment to eliminate the Electoral College, which we have seen as unfair. Now, this year, the winner of the popular vote was also the winner of the Electoral College. That hasn't always been the case. And so this would make it true that every person's vote counts the same, that people in teeny little states don't have an outsized impact on the election over the people in the larger states. So I think it's a good thing. I think we should continue to pursue it and that we should all make sure that our representatives in the House and the Senate know that we support it. But I also want to look at some of the things that the American Constitution Society is doing. The aclu, let me just start with those. And some of the women's rights organizations as well. The American Constitution Society has been building a bench of nominees for both the federal courts and for the state courts. I want to emphasize the state courts because we don't often, or not often enough think about how important state courts are to our lives. And there are right now a large number of cases pending and that cases a large number of nominations for the courts. And I think everyone listening to this should immediately contact your senators and make sure that they spend the time between now and January 20th getting every person who has cleared their hearings to be confirmed. We need to make sure there are very few openings left. There are a number that will be left because the nominees have not gone through the investigation phase and won't be. But there are at least 17 nominees awaiting a floor vote, including four from the circuit court and the others are from the federal district courts. And you can see how much impact Judge Cannon had from the federal district court. And so you know that those are important. So please, please make sure you write to your representatives and let them know that the Senate should confirm those people and support in the future the American Constitution Society, which will continue to recruit nominees for the federal bench for when Democrats are back in control, just as the Federalist Society has. The ACLU has done amazing work, you know, for one, on immigration. You know how much is being done on that and how important that is. They have spent the last year preparing to take action to protect against deportation of US Citizens and of those seeking asylum here. Our laws require that we have a hearing before anyone is deported, and we can't let it happen otherwise. I think there's just a lot that can be done if you are supportive of the ACS and the ACLU and women's organizations as well, to protect women's rights, not just to their reproductive health care, but to all of our rights. So please take those into account and do that.
- [36:24]
Barb McQuaid
I have another question here from someone named oeunscripted who asks, how are we going to ever be able to say again that the truth matters? I think this is such an important question. You know, again, people have a lot of different reasons they vote. Some vote in their perceived economic best interest. Some vote out of, you know, habit, party loyalty, whatever it is. But there really was a lot of disinformation floating around during this election season. And, you know, we'll never know exactly how much influence it had. But let's just start with what we received from Russia, who we know has made it part of its efforts to fight information warfare. Just this week during on Election Day, we had a number of incidents of disinformation. We had two Russian videos posted on X. One in which some men claimed to be Haitian immigrants who had voted illegally in Georgia. Fake. There was another purporting to show a man destroying ballots cast for Donald Trump in Pennsylvania. Fake. Put up by Russians. There were two FBI bulletins that the FBI had to debunk and say were fake. Put out by Russia. There was one that said the threat alert at polling places was very high, so people should stay home. There was another that said voting machines were malfunctioning and switching votes. False. And false. And the FBI said so. Leading up to the election, we found out that Russia Today had hired a social media company to pay right wing social media influencers to repeat Russian talking points. We know that a group called Doppelganger, which is a Russian group, was posting using artificial intelligence to recreate images from the Washington Post and Fox News to make it look like these news outlets were reporting stories that were actually created with false news that was pushing Russian talking points again, but looking like the real thing. So Russia is not our friend. Russia is pushing all kinds of disinformation and their goals are threefold, as determined by special counsel Robert Mueller. One, to influence the outcome of the election in favor of their preferred candidate, Donald Trump, because they believe his America first agenda will leave them free on the world stage to destabilize NATO, invade Ukraine, and have their way with Eastern Europe. Number two, to sow discord in society. Wildly successful. Congratulations. Well done. Look for all the fault lines in society, whether it's guns, the LGBTQ community, immigration, abortion, and then just put all kinds of awful things online to get people amped up and mad at each other, successful. And then the third is to undermine public confidence in free and fair elections, to post false claims to make people think that elections are rigged and cheating goes on. And then amplify all of those false claims by Donald Trump, who and his supporters, who push false claims not in service of Russia, but in service of themselves. And they're willing to say things that they know are harmful to the country, but they do it to advance their own careers or their own political agenda. You know, eating dogs and cats in immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, or weaponizing the Justice Department to go after Donald Trump, or calling Kamala Harris a Marxist communist and Comrade Kamala. I mean, false. All of those things are false, but they further the goals of Russia in those three areas. Russia likes to call people who assist them by carrying their messaging water as useful idiots. Donald Trump is a useful idiot, as are all of his supporters. So how do we get back from that? I think there are a couple things we need to do, probably too much to discuss in this space, but from the regulatory side, the supply side on social media, I think we need to go after the algorithms and require social media companies to be transparent and to share publicly what their algorithms are. We're not going to get that out of the federal government, where Elon Musk is now the Trump whisperer, but I think states could pass legislation that require that. How about California, when you reconvene next week, and think about ways to protect the public. Looking at that one, requiring social media companies to publish the algorithms protecting our private data and the way it is used against us to micro target us for ads that will hit us right where we live and make us inclined to take the bait. How about cleaning up the bots that are online that amplify false claims? I think those are all things that could be done by the California state legislature. And then on the other side, I think we ourselves need to build resilience by learning better methods for being good consumers of media and improving our own media literacy. But truth matters. And as Liz Cheney said, we cannot abandon truth and remain a free country.
- [41:43]
Joyce Vance
Well, you know, speaking of misinformation, I've got one from friend of the podcast, Dalia Lithwick, who we all know well, an amazing writer who writes about the Supreme Court and the rule of law. And I have to say, I seem to have had a knack today for picking out questions to which the answer is yes. And you could just say yes. And not go any further. But I thought her question was thoughtful and important and something that gets passed over a little bit too often and too easily these days. So this is her question. Is there something to be said about the rise of antisemitism globally and in the US and the rejection of democracy in favor of illiberalism and strong men? And I think there is something to be said. There's a lot to be said about a country that has just selected a candidate who believes in the politics of hate and the politics of division. But even, even more than that, we're living through a moment where there is a real rise globally in this desire to have strong men as leaders. We see it, for instance, in Hungary with Viktor Oban. We certainly see it with expansionism and invasion that Putin has brought into Eastern Europe and perhaps will try to continue to expand. And so I think it's important to acknowledge in that context, and I'll speak just for myself, because as I said at the start, I've really been trying to not impose what I'm thinking on others, but at the same time, to be very true and very honest with myself about what I'm working through as part of this. And a big part of it, I think, has been as a Jewish person being lumped in with other groups that maybe don't necessarily want me in their group or wouldn't include me on their own and having their views sort of assumed to be my own. And so I think what I would say in answer to Dalia's question is, yes, I'm concerned nationally and internationally. Obviously, after watching what happened in Amsterdam last night, where there were antisemitic attacks following a soccer game, that it took the Dutch authorities far too long to get under control. And thinking about that in the context of our own country, where people most likely to experience hate crimes as a percentage of population are Jewish people, those crimes have risen dramatically. And so now we have a president in our country who's very transactional, who during the campaign reached out to Jewish people. His outreach was, if you don't vote for me, you should have your head examined. And I'll just say, as with so many other people who are really struggling right now, this is a great time to reach out to your Jewish friends and to let them know that they're still welcome in your world. Like with so many other people I know from different groups who are really struggling right now, this week with what place is left for them, I would encourage you to pay attention to and to be concerned about the rising tide of antisemitism and how that intersects with authoritarianism and potential dictatorship.
- [44:59]
Kimberly Atkins Storr
I am going to answer a question from Katie Fisher, who asks, how do we get out of our echo chambers without having to entertain racists and misogynists in our lives? Like, I really don't want to be their friend or welcome them into my home, but I also don't want to get murdered for standing up for what's right. Listen, I understand this sentiment. The results and the data from the exit polling of this election is, as I said, at the top, is really alarming for what it says about our fellow Americans. But I would suggest that perhaps. Well, I will say it this way. I think about the issue, the problem of race and misogyny in this country a little differently. I don't think it's right to think of people as, like, I don't want to let a racist in my house. You know, I don't. You know, you're thinking of, like, somebody marching down the street in a little hood and, you know, just spouting racial slurs all the time or making decisions like, I'm not gonna do this because I don't like black. That's not what racists look like. Misogynists aren't saying, oh, I don't think, you know, well, some very prominent ones are saying, oh, I think a woman's place is here. But most of them are. If you talk to them, if you know them, if they're in your churches, in your schools, or your neighbors, they're your colleagues, and they are perfectly reasonable people who treat you kindly and who love their families, even if there are black and brown people or LGBTQ people in them. Them. But who, in their core, feel like the country is moving in a way that. To a way that they don't recognize and they don't like it the same way. From the last question, I said, somebody can say, you know what? I like Ruben Gallego. But they can also get in the voting booth and say, you know what? I don't want to vote for Kamala Harris. I'm just not ready for that. That's a bridge too far right. I think people are much more complex than racist or not racist, misogynist or not misogynist. So what I think to your answer, how to get out of your echo chamber. One is just to get out of it. I think one thing that will be helpful is to ensure that everybody has, in their circles, people who come from different perspectives. I, for example, never had the luxury to think that people were just either racist or not. And you can just find the non racist and hang with them and avoid the racist. I know that racism comes from people in different ways. Some subtle, some inherent. Remember when Hillary Clinton tried to say that and everybody ran her out of town? Because people like, don't tell everybody about the inherent racism. We all have our own biases and it's about how we check them, what we do about them, and we can't. It would be really easy if we can just section off people that we don't want to deal with. But that's not life. And I've, I've known that from life experience. You have to learn how to get on in this world with people as they are. And one way to better understand that is to surround yourself with more black people, more Jewish people, more immigrants, more people who have different experiences than you so you can get a better understanding of what things are. But in terms of our echo chambers, listen, if there are people in your life who believe in things that you think are misguided, if you there are people who you think are misinformed, they're going to listen more to you than they would to me or any of the four of us. So break conversation. If they're in your family, break bread and talk to them. And maybe they will listen to your. If you listen to what they say, then maybe they will listen to you and begin to change their mind. That's the most powerful way. If you're talking about our discourse. Other things that you can do to break out of your echo chamber. Put your social media down. Social media is an. Is an amplification tool. It is not an information source. It is not even entertainment anymore. It is a place where you go and the algorithms give you exactly what they think you want. That is, that's what they are. And so realize if you spend all your time with these algorithms telling you exactly what you want, then results like this will be surprising to you. Whereas if you diversify the information that you get and remember to use social media carefully, it is a tool, but don't confuse it with community. That would be one way to do that. But there are lots of other ways. Those are just a couple examples.
- [49:23]
Joyce Vance
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- [49:50]
Jill Winebanks
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- [50:18]
Kimberly Atkins Storr
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- [50:34]
Barb McQuaid
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- [51:09]
Jill Winebanks
From Victoria and I'm going to follow Joyce's rule of finding questions that I can answer with a yes, can or should a Vice President recuse her or himself from counting the vote when she is running? Actually, well, let me take that back. I have to answer that question. No, she should not recuse herself. And that's because there is a history. Richard Nixon, when he lost, was the Vice President and he had to certify the vote for his opponent. And I think that, you know, when Michelle Obama said when they go low, we go high. This is one of those times when they go low and even though they might do things to stop the certification that goes against them, we should not. We have to follow the rule of law. And the rule of law is that the Vice President is the President of the Senate and the Vice President is the one who certifies the results that are counted. And whether it's that person who has lost or won, they do the certification. So I think that the Vice President should not recuse.
- [52:32]
Barb McQuaid
Our next question comes to us from ISK7781 who says please find a way to reach low information voters. I have many educated friends who are not racist or sexist but voted for Trump. But boy oh, boy. They don't have a clue what they voted for because they never dig deep into politics or policy. Yeah, this is something I'm hearing from a lot of people as well. The low information voter. And you know, democracy depends on an informed electorate. So what do we do about people who are disengaged from politics and don't pay attention? And I think this is really one of the goals of politicians who rant and say horrible things. It is to get you so disgusted with politics with both candidates that you disengage. Remember, Steve Bannon, Trump's advisor, famously said, you got to just flood the zone with garbage. He used an expletive. And in my research I have learned that there are people who have studied, you know, disinformation and authoritarians who talk about the idea of if you have leaders giving conflicting claims, at some point they don't know what to believe. They accuse their opponents of the things they're doing so that the members of the public become very cynical about all leaders. Everybody's corrupt in the system. It doesn't matter who cares. And so many people don't vote at all because they can't stand any of it. And those who do vote, even though they don't have a lot of information, may be swayed by the ads they see on television, which do not present any sort of nuanced perspective. It is all just big picture messaging. Well, I think if that is the game, you've got to meet people where they are. And so I think we still need to provide accurate information to people. But if television ads is where low information voters are going, then talk to them about real facts. You know, one of the things that really galls me is the people who said, well, I voted for Trump because I care most about the economy. You know, Donald Trump is not going to take care of you in the economy. You know, people who are middle class or struggling financially, he's an enemy of labor unions, he is not going to raise the minimum wage, he's not cutting your taxes. He's going to cut taxes for large corporations and high income individuals. So it really galls me, but I think that if you're going to be an effective messenger, you've got to reach people who are there for young people. I think that's on social media. Getting on social media with ads that will appeal to people, maybe encouraging young people to be the ones making their own videos and other things. Of course, when you've got an ally rigging the algorithm, then social media can be very difficult. But I Think that understanding that there are people who pay attention deeply to the news, like all of us and probably all of you who are listening here and there are other people who may simply not have the luxury of time because they're working two jobs and raising kids and caring for elderly parents and other things. I think effective messaging reaches people where they are and provides information. But this narrative that Donald Trump has peddled that Democrats look down on you, that they're elite somehow is such a false understanding, such a false narrative. And yet I hear that from people that, you know, you elites look down on us elite. Who's elite? The billionaire in the White House.
- [56:21]
Kimberly Atkins Storr
But can I just break into that, Barb, and say something about the whole notion of, of low information voters? That is a real thing that is found primarily in state and local elections. I will be the first one to say that before I went to vote I had to figure out what these questions were. These, you know, ballot, initiate all this stuff that I sure. And I made the best decision that I could without as much information probably than I should have. That's a low information voter.
- [56:48]
Barb McQuaid
Yeah.
- [56:49]
Kimberly Atkins Storr
What I think, and I think this is part of, and I hate to, I think people need to be shaken a little bit and wake up a little more. I feel like in a lot of these questions that we're getting, there's this built in assumption that there's something, you know, like in the question that I answered about I want to avoid all the racism misogynist. I'm like, baby, you can't. In America, like they're all around us and it shows up in ways that are different. I want to say, oh, where are these, all these low information voters voting for Donald Trump. People voted for Donald Trump because they wanted, they thought that they did have the information that they need and they got it and they made that decision. You can be somebody who believes, you know what my biggest issues are? Immigration and cramping down on the CL and the crime in those inner cities. Those things are scary to me. So I'm going to vote for Donald Trump. That's not a low information voter. That's a voter who made his decision or her decision based on the information she had and she wanted. I know people want to believe that people were duped into supporting Donald Trump, that people were supporting, surprised at what Donald Trump is bringing. That for the past 10 years they've had their head under a rock in that Donald Trump is not the most known, the most self defined, the most identified American existing. They he is. So we need to get out of this idea that he duped people. He did not. There might be a small number of people. People vote for different things, but I need for people to understand that this is America. I think people still want to have an idea, and I get it. That America is this better place, that America is better than this. I don't think it did. And if this election does not show them that, then I think we're going to keep repeating this cycle and we're going to keep coming up after election Day feeling like this.
- [58:30]
Joyce Vance
Yeah, I'm going to pile on a little bit here. You know, Kim, I've been thinking about that a lot and trying to write about it, and I'm not able to put it into, you know, good words yet. So I may not be very articulate about saying it, but every time I read something where people say, well, the people who voted for Trump, they were rejecting the system, they were rejecting the establishment. They wanted, you know, something new. And I think, hell, nah, they didn't. You know what they want? They want a restoration of what's always been there. Right?
- [59:00]
Kimberly Atkins Storr
Correct.
- [59:01]
Joyce Vance
They want the patriarchy. They want the white dudes running the country. That. That's their comfort zone. And so at some point, I'll get around to writing that up in an articulate fashion. But I think, and maybe rightly so. Right. We really need to have a moment where we think about who we are and what it means to be a country where we agree to let a majority of our citizens decide who our next leader is going to be. And they pick this dude, Donald Trump, who will not have their best interests at heart any more than he will have mine. It is a profound moment for a profound reckoning. Barb, I'm sorry to step on your question.
- [59:36]
Jill Winebanks
Well, I got a way into. Sorry, guys, but I reserve two minutes for rebuttal. You get it. You can have more. I mean, this is really an important question, and I think definitions matter, because when we say low information voter, it could be a disinformation voter rather than low information. So, for example, you heard people say, I saw a couple interview family, a husband, wife and son, immigrants, illegal. I mean, they came in without documentation many years ago and have benefited from being in America. And they said that they were voting for Trump because he would stop the criminals from being the people who we're letting in. He has convinced. He. Donald Trump has convinced a huge number of people that the facts are that the only immigrants coming in now are people who are coming because they're escaping the laws of their country because they have committed crimes. There's very little evidence, actually, I'd say there's no evidence that the people coming here are criminals. Most people are coming because they are in dire economic straits or dire violence conditions in their own home countries. And the fact that people believe this, the fact that facts don't matter anymore, that what all four of us perceive as truth is not what's widely perceived as truth. And I think we need to work on both getting the facts out and on how to talk to people who have a different view. I haven't mastered that yet. I have failed in talking to very dear friends who have probably voted for Trump, although they won't admit that to me. I sincerely believe they have. And some who I know have. I don't know how to convince them that they're voting based on wrong information.
- [61:43]
Kimberly Atkins Storr
Well, that's how. That's. I'm sorry, I'm just going prepared. The thing is, we have research that shows that telling those people that they're wrong is not going to work right. Listening to them and maybe, you know, having a. And it's hard, that's a lot of emotional labor. But if it's a family member or a friend listening them to them, hearing them out and why they're talking about the way they did, and then you talking about how you think in a reasonable way is going to be much more effective, but making them feel heard and making them seem. Feel seen as people. But you're not gonna, you're not gonna in, you're not gonna factualize your way out of this. And, and I also, we really need to understand that when someone says, you tell people, you know, immigrants aren't committing crime, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, people are going to vote against their interest all the time when they feel like they are part of this group that they want to protect. So just. You know, I've talked before about this book, Dying of Whiteness. It was about the profound unpopularity of Obamacare in the heartland among people who had it all explained to them how much Obamacare would help them, would take them out of poverty, in some cases, improve their health, improve the extent of their lives. But the fact that they thought that people who they didn't think deserved to have access to Obamacare was going to get it was enough for them to reject it. I think we really need to look at ourselves in the mirror, people in that it's not just a matter that people, people just got the wrong information, they were on the wrong social media site. If they just saw logic and reason, they would have thought differently. I think you need to rest and sit the way that a lot of other disenfranchised and marginalized people have been sitting and thinking and saying no, they got exactly what they wanted and they knew exactly why.
- [63:31]
Barb McQuaid
All right, and now my two minutes of rebuttal. I agree with all the things that you're saying, and I think all of these things can be true. I think that the reasons people vote are complex. Certainly there's racism, certainly there is sexism. And as a woman, believe me, I have been living with this for almost 60 years and waiting for the day we would finally see a woman president. And I thought this was finally it when we had this incredibly qualified person who gets rejected by this buffoon. And so certainly that is at play. But when I talk about the low information voter, one of the things that really irks me is they are voting more on feels than on information. And the feels that has been fed to them by Donald Trump and others is that Democrats are the elites who look down upon you. And so stoking that grievance, that's what Steve Bannon does on his podcast. That's what Rush Limbaugh did on his radio show. And to get people angry and wanting to fight back for their honor against this party, that is calling them dumb and insulting them and insulting their intelligence, that's a fantasy that doesn't happen. The Democratic Party is the party of labor unions, inclusion in the middle class. The idea that somehow Big Daddy Warbucks is on the side of the working class, and it's the Democrats who look down upon you is absolute fiction. And so when people are voting without information, they are doing it instead on guts and emotion and feel. And that has been the strategy of this MAGA movement that I think we have to look for ways to defeat.
- [65:18]
Joyce Vance
So I think this is the last question we've got time for. And there were a number of questions around this central theme of how do we carry on in this very difficult moment? Democracy must prevail on Twitter. Said, what do we do next? I really like the way the Mrs. Gravely on Twitter put it when she just asked me straight into the point, when are you going to teach us how to knit? Desperately in need of a new hobby. I mean, y'all, we're going to have to, you know, everybody in their own time is going to grieve and get angry and be in despair, despair and denial, and then we are going to do what we do best, right? We did not give up during the first four years of Donald Trump. We are not going to give up now. I am confident that we will all get there in our own good time. And so that question, what do we do next? Which feels in some ways largely unattainable right now in this moment. What I have is confidence that I'll have a better answer answer to that question at some point in the next couple of weeks. But I know something my mom taught me and my cousins as kids, which is that when you're not feeling very good and you're sort of feeling sorry for yourself and feeling down, the best thing that you can do is find something that you can do to help somebody else. And so I remember how that has really worked for me at different points in time where I've done things like volunteered to go and read to grade schoolers, something that always both cheers you up and makes you really happy that you're not a third grade teacher and have done things like packed food for meals on wheels and other just small, simple, not particularly time consuming things that really do help you get a little bit outside of your own head. So maybe that's my personal path forward for the next couple of weeks. I hope to have a more sophisticated answer down the road. And I am certainly up for online zoom knitting sessions anytime. That's how I started the pandemic and made some really great friends. And, you know, that's not a, not a bad prescription for right now. What are y'all going to do to get back in the game?
- [67:26]
Kimberly Atkins Storr
Take care of myself.
- [67:27]
Joyce Vance
It's a good answer.
- [67:31]
Barb McQuaid
When I get down, I write. I've been writing.
- [67:36]
Joyce Vance
Do we get to read it?
- [67:37]
Barb McQuaid
Yeah, I've had some pieces published. I'll put them in the show notes.
- [67:43]
Joyce Vance
Can we link them all in our show notes? That would be great. I'd love to read them all. I haven't seen them. Jill, what you doing? What you thinking about?
- [67:50]
Jill Winebanks
Well, actually, I hate to say this because one of the first things I did was get busy again on the children's book I was working on, which I had sort of taken my eye off the ball because I got engaged in worrying about the election and canvassing and doing all those things. I have returned to working on that and I will keep going. I also have redoubled my efforts to be active in the organizations that can help fight this for two years. I'm honored to be part of the board of advisors for the ACS in Chicago and the Better Government association. And I'm going to work really hard to make those organizations effective.
- [68:43]
Kimberly Atkins Storr
Well, thank you for listening to Sisters in Law with Joyce Vance, Bart McQuaid, Jill Winebanks, Emmy Kimberly Atkins Storr. Don't Forget to follow SistersInLaw, because we will still be here. We will still be back. We will be dissecting the legal issues that lay ahead and boy, will there be a lot we will be talking about continuing to talk about democracy and what needs to be done. We're still going to be here and we hope that you will still be here with us. And don't forget to Support our sponsors, Factor 1, Skin Aura and Honey Love. Their links are in the show notes and they really help make this show happen. So please show them some love. Take care of yourselves, all of you, and we'll see you next week with another episode. Hashtag sistersinlaw.
- [69:32]
Barb McQuaid
He said it's been a long time coming but I know my change is going to come.
- [69:46]
E
Oh yeah.
- [69:55]
Barb McQuaid
He said it's been too hard living.
- [70:00]
F
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- [71:13]
E
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