Pod Save America
Thanksgiving Mailbag: Trans Rights, Progressive Media, and Skinny Jeans
Fri, 29 Nov 2024
It’s our annual Thanksgiving Mailbag episode! Jon, Lovett, and Tommy dive into some of your smartest, funniest, and most thought-provoking questions. They tackle everything from concerns about the Democratic Party’s stance on trans rights and Biden’s legacy to ideas for boosting left-wing media and getting more people to run for local office. Plus, they share their thoughts on the fate of skinny jeans in 2025, favorite holiday movies, and their fitness routines. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [email protected] and include the name of the podcast.
Chapter 1: What questions are being discussed in the Thanksgiving Mailbag?
Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. Welcome to our annual Thanksgiving mailbag. You know, it's a tradition here at Pod Save America. We pulled a lot of these questions from our subscriber discord this year, which reminds me, we're currently offering 25% off new annual subscriptions to Friends of the Pod. It's a deal.
Gets you access to bonus pods, ad-free Pod Save America episodes, and more. You can sign up at crooked.com slash friends. Also, check out this week's Pod Save the World featuring Malala. Yeah. You got Malala? We got her.
Ben sat down with her a couple weeks ago. She's an executive producer on a film that's coming out about Afghanistan.
It's supposed to be incredibly good. She also talks about what happened when the Taliban took back Afghanistan in 2021, including her perspective on the fall of Kabul and the women's protest movement that followed.
Chapter 2: Why should Democrats still be worth engaging with?
We just cut a joke about Malala.
Second one you've made this year. You made one in the book. Yeah, let's leave that one in and then keep going. All right. Thanks to everyone who sent in questions. Let's get into it. Subscriber Ian on our Discord asks, I'm on the left end of the spectrum, but I'm a Democrat because I have long believed that this party was the best viable option to, quote, hitch my wagon to, so to speak.
After this election, why is the Democratic Party still worth my time and energy? Ian, anyone want to take this one first?
Yeah, I mean, I guess if Ian moved to the UK or somewhere where there's a bunch of parties that span the ideological spectrum, I could imagine thinking about this a little differently. But in the US, we have a two-party system, for better, for worse. They haven't really figured out a viable path for an alternative.
And so, you know, in practice, your choices are, you know, engage in the Democratic Party and make it better or don't. And I choose engagement, even when I feel depressed about it. There you go.
Yeah, I mean, there are reforms like rank choice voting that may open the door to other parties. There are local races where you can fight for a candidate of another party. I think our job is to try in every election to get ourselves to the best choice possible and then make the choice in front of us. At the national level, that's the Democratic Party.
And our job is to fight for a Democratic Party that can do the most good. And part of what it takes to do the most good is to win elections. And we have to do both. And it's hard and it requires nuance. It requires being receptive to all kinds of people to be open to questioning your priors and to be understanding of people you disagree with. But that's that's the job we have to do now.
I'd just say, like, I don't think anyone should feel that they owe any political party their time and energy. I do think politics is worth our time and energy because whether we like it or not, politics affects us for good or bad. Time's absolutely right. Like, you can try building a third party if you want. Like, you're free to do that.
The structural incentives in our political system weigh heavily against a third party succeeding. Very difficult. But you can try that. And I think...
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Chapter 3: How can the Democratic Party better support trans rights?
I think that if it looked like maybe if it looked like an iceberg. I think that's stupid. But beyond that, I think the truth is sometimes, especially when people want to blame identity politics for an issue, they blame either activists or left Democrats who they find annoying anyway for what is actually a media creation by the right. You look at what just happened in the past week.
why are we talking about trans bathrooms? It is not because Democrats decided to have a debate about trans bathrooms. It's because Nancy May saw an opportunity to raise money by scapegoating one member of Congress at the expense of trans people everywhere and their safety. And we have to respond. And so the question is, how do you respond?
You can't just ignore it because then you look weak and also you are not standing up for people that deserve a champion. You look at what AOC says and you say, all right, that's a path to not only respond,
but also respond in a way that makes an argument that will hopefully resonate with a lot of people without being defensive and without acting as if the way you win people back who you've lost is by capitulating a core moral belief about tolerance and acceptance and the rights of people to live as they will. So I think that is instructive about the politics.
I just want to level set with what we actually have heard and seen so far. A big part of it, as you just mentioned, obviously in the Sarah McBride situation, is right-wing politicians, right-wing media making the thing. Sometimes it's mainstream media realizing that covering the fight that's going on can get more attention. And then I also think that there's...
There's some people who just defaulted to, oh, Democrats want to throw trans people under the bus. And I haven't seen any Democrats say that or suggest that at all, right? There's two things that we're basically talking about since the election. One is Seth Moulton and a few others who have raised the issue of trans people competing in certain sports at certain levels.
And then there's the ad, right, which was, again, government-funded gender-affirming surgery for immigrants who are in detention for illegally crossing the border. That's the thing, right? And so people have either debated that ad or criticized Seth or said, yeah, maybe he has a point. And that's it.
And I have not I am not aware of any other Democrat who has said we should compromise on any other like like gender affirming care, basic rights, protections or anything like that. Maybe I'm wrong.
I think there's like I think that's that's true about elected Democrats. I think there is like a kind of I don't know, a pundit debate about how our Democrats lost the mainstream on this issue. There's op eds, there's debate, there's noise on social media, which obviously. Yeah. We get Democrats get blamed for all the time. But I think I'm sure that that is what I'm just saying.
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Chapter 4: What is Biden's legacy and how does it compare to LBJ's?
But what he said, even though it was in response to a question, was like just the fucking off worst way to say it.
Yeah. I mean, you'll you'll hear you'll hear before this came out. And what I said to him, I was like, he's like, we have to debate. And I just said, like, you said it in a dickish way. He did. And then and then he's like, well, now that's the problem. Right. People are policing how we say things. Well, I'm not you're not an undecided voter. You're a member of Congress.
People are holding you to a higher standard. Anyway, you can listen to the conversation. But like, I hear that. And I'm just that that I think is why I think sometimes people are like, wait a second. We just lost the country. And we're talking about trans sports, like that's where you went from here. It just feels like a side issue.
subscriber sam asks do you believe biden's legacy will be similar to that of lbj's aka he had a lot of good domestic policy but the one thing people will remember him by is his foreign policy in parentheses gaza failure tough question is that from you i mean look you guys know this i i
believe that Gaza is and will continue to be a massive stain on Joe Biden's record. I don't know, the LBJ comparison is not totally fair here because Joe Biden ended the war in Afghanistan, which no other president had the courage to do, which was the right thing to do, unequivocally in my view. Obviously, it hurt him politically because of the way the withdrawal was handled.
And well, and also, there's also, I think, a fair argument that ending a 20-year war is always going to end really ugly and messy no matter what. And Joe Biden was just the one who who did it. The harder question for Biden about his legacy, though, is not just Gaza. It's what happens to parts of it that Trump doesn't like. Is he going to repeal the IRA? Is he going to repeal the CHIPS Act?
I doubt he repeals the highway bill, but we'll see. Trump will almost certainly pull us out of the Paris Climate Accords. That could go in concert with rolling back parts of the IRA. He'll almost certainly cut off additional funding to the Ukrainians. That doesn't mean he can force them to take deal with Putin, but it seems like that's the path things are headed. So I don't know.
But I think that Gaza, it was an inexplicable policy decision six months ago, let alone the just unequivocal support for Netanyahu now. I'll never understand it until the day I die.
Yeah, look, I think Joe Biden's, more broadly, it's like, I think we don't know. And we don't know in part because we don't know how bad this next Trump term will be.
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Chapter 5: How can Democrats improve their media presence?
I mean, they're just so strong. They're so strong. And you think, well, I've been going to these, you know, broey fitness classes and doing my squats with my big heavy weights. Haven't been doing the stabilizing muscles. Haven't been doing the isometrics. Those are the muscles that are going to keep you alive. Keep you from falling out of tubs. Would we say those are broey?
I think West Hollywood berries.
I don't know. I'm just going to throw it out there.
A lot of towel snapping in the locker room.
Yeah, I was telling these guys when we started recording, I had to wear a tux this weekend that I hadn't worn in years, and I was holding space.
In the middle. In the middle. I, yeah, so I did berries for a couple years and then I was like, I got so tired of that. And now I just, I've stopped running basically because I'm getting old and it's like too much on my knees. I need to find a new like cardio thing. I guess I could just take a walk. George W. Bush switched to bikes. Bikes is interesting. I could do bikes. I trust you on a bike.
No, I don't either.
Are we checking his phone right into the canyon?
I got to teach two boys to ride a bike soon. That's going to be...
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Chapter 6: What are the challenges of fundraising in the Democratic Party?
Chapter 7: How can left-leaning media reach broader audiences?
Are we checking his phone right into the canyon?
I got to teach two boys to ride a bike soon. That's going to be...
well that part me you need some training you got training wheels too okay yeah maybe training wheels for all of us um but now i just i work out like four or five days a week okay lifting kind of stuff light lifting but also half of it now is like fixing my shoulder from when it broke four years ago and i'm still i'm still trying to like do physical therapy on that while also lifting
I'm still doing Barry's a lot and I'm doing Pilates a lot. And that combination is great. And I love it. I'm so into the reformer.
Let's go, people. Let's go. Leah Kahan on Instagram asks, favorite holiday movie? National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation for me. Great one.
I think probably number one. What else did we put up there? Die Hard. It's always up there. There's the Die Hard Discourse. One that doesn't get a lot of shine, but I feel like is quite clearly a holiday movie is The Nightmare Before Christmas. Do people like that?
Yes, that's a great choice. That's a great choice, and I do think that's a holiday classic. I haven't seen that in a long time. That's a great choice.
Christmas Story is a classic. It's one that's always on, and I'll always watch it, and I'm always like, meh.
I know it's, it's more of the, um, it's the nostalgia. Yes. About like remembering stuff from my youth. Because when you, when you're old enough to really watch it again, you're just like, what is this story? It was not, it's the, it's not really cohesive. No, no.
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