Thanksgiving Mailbag: Trans Rights, Progressive Media, and Skinny Jeans
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Yes.

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 cricket.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. 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 when they're, oh, hey, pundit, 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...

Part of the work of engaging is like you can work to change the party, support Democratic politicians who are closer to your views.

And most importantly, recognize that like political parties exist to win elections, which means that they try to reflect the views of a majority of voters. And if you're frustrated that the Democratic Party isn't progressive enough, the challenge isn't about persuading the official party so much as it's about persuading a majority of voters to move closer to where you are.

And I think there's I mean, it's easy because the Democratic Party is like the official. That's the party. That's the establishment. Democratic politicians represent it. And look, you can always pressure politicians and parties to to change. But the reason they have the position is because they think, oh, this is where most people are. Yeah. Look, the Democratic Party can't defy gravity. You know, we have to hold some space.

that we could be wrong and that it could evolve. And I know you know this, Lovett, because you've been in queer media. I am. And actually, as long as I'm at this table, so are you two. No, I do think also like part of the challenge, and we'll talk about this with other specific issues, but part of the challenge is like,

Voters are not looking at a Democrat as a series of positions. And actually, there are ways in which I think sometimes we lose sight of the fact that

a politician sometimes has the space to push forward and be more progressive than the electorate when they have the trust of the electorate on a bunch of other issues. And that really matters, right? And I think right now we have lost that trust in a kind of broad way and it makes it very difficult. It's why we're having a bunch of kind of ultimately like debates about whether it's trans issues or immigration that feel like deeply unsatisfying because I think part of it is that like there's a,

there's a need to kind of step back and figure out like, how do we build trust with people in a broader way so that they trust us when we wanna talk about difficult subjects where they may not agree? Right now, I don't think Democrats have the space to dance through life as it were.

Yeah. I mean, I think perceptions of political parties are a combination of the positions that the politicians take, what they choose to talk about, and importantly, how they choose to talk about it. And the how there is much more nuanced. And that's what is, I think, getting lost in a lot of this.

All right. Subscriber Jessica on Discord asks, I'm trans and I'm really worried about the ability of the Democratic Party to win while keeping me in mind. I would vote for them if they go quiet about trans issues. But do you think that they could turn against us or just stay silent as we lose our rights? If so, what can I practically do or am I shit out of luck? So.

I'm very sorry that this person feels as though that's where we're at. I think that sucks. I think it sucks that we just went through a huge loss in which we lost voters for a lot of reasons, a broad swath of the electorate, different kinds of people from different walks of life and different experiences. And

It's been in some debates like boiled down to, Oh, Democrats need to moderate on the trans trend, the trans issue in quotes, or that trans people need to go under the bus because there was a super PAC that had an ad that used, uh,

a statement and a position that Kamala Harris took in 2020 to paint her as extreme and out of touch, an issue that has basically nothing to do with what the experience of day-to-day life for a trans person in America is now a stand-in for the trans issue. And so...

I think, first of all, just that is a stupid way to have this conversation. That is a stupid, like, are Democrats going to throw trans people under the bus? I certainly hope not. I don't believe that that will happen. It should not happen. It is both like obviously toxic, like a terrible thing to do, but also just politically stupid. It's like we just like the Titanic is sinking and it's like, I think we should paint it. I think we should probably paint it a different color. I think that if it looked like maybe if it was like 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 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 like 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 it a 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 am not aware of any other Democrat who has said we should compromise on any other gender-affirming care, basic rights, protections,

or anything like that. Maybe I'm wrong. I think there's like a, 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 had our Democrats lost the mainstream on this issue. There's op-eds, there's debate, there's noise on social media, which obviously we get,

Democrats get blamed for all the time, but I think I'm sure that that is what this person is also seeing. Right. I'm just saying I haven't seen a policy proposal from a Democrat or even a Democratic pundit that's like, we should ban gender-affirming care, or we should ban it for children, or protections or rights or anything like that. No, and actually, I talked to Liz Smith about this last week on the show. There's a bunch of Democrats recently that actually successfully ran against Republican overreach on a lot of these issues. And I think you can make...

a compelling argument that's libertarian in a lot of ways about staying the fuck out of people's medical decisions and out of their lives and, and, and never, uh,

allowing for discrimination in the workplace or in housing or in anywhere else. I think what people are talking, what Seth Moulton I think is trying to get at is there needs to be a more honest and open conversation about fairness in sports. And the solution to that question is not going to be one size fits all. It's not going to be the same policies for college kids that you have for 11 year olds. And those are probably going to be sorted out in local communities and

and by local school districts, et cetera, but that we should also be very clear when we're debating about this, that what it would take to enforce some sort of draconian widespread ban, blanket ban on transgender athletes is what, like spot genital inspections of 10-year-old kids?

Is that what Republicans are fighting for? So like, that's the kind of, that's the way you make the case against some of these policy ideas. Well, and again, like this, I think I mentioned this on one of these pods, but there's a great Vox piece after the election where,

raising the question like, well, Biden had a policy that was like a compromise on sports. And basically all these red states were trying to ban, do an outright ban, like Tommy just mentioned, on transgender athletes competing in sports. And the Biden administration policy was no blanket bans are allowed, prohibited. You can't do that. But individual schools can make exceptions for fairness and safety.

And that has to depend on a lot of that depends on the age of the person. Right. And so like in most kids 10 or under, like it wouldn't apply. Right. Because because there's not an issue or certain sports wouldn't apply. Right. Because it doesn't it's not a safety issue there. Right. Or it's not even a competition issue. And so that was the Biden proposal. And then, you know, folks on the left got mad about it and folks on the right obviously got mad about it because they just want bans. And, you know, no one talked about it.

They wanted the issue. The Republicans wanted the issue. This does get back to the trust issue, too, because it's like, you know, we have had trans visibility and acceptance in some quarters for a very short period of time, right? And we're in the middle of a backlash. And if what you had were Democrats out there saying, everything about my view on this issue is about making sure that trans kids don't

feel as though they can live as themselves and that kids who are trans can play sports when they're growing up and that trans teens can access the care that their parents and doctors approve and trans adults are treated fairly and that trans people feel safe to go to the public restrooms and like that trans people get to live full and rich lives and by the way not just tolerated but

celebrated for the diversity they bring to our world and the good that it does. And in order to get there, we are willing to entertain that there are some difficult questions around competition at higher levels of sports that we should

reasonably like sort of talk about in recognition of the fact that that is a distraction from making sure trans people feel safe and supported and that there's growing acceptance instead of the backsliding that we've seen. Like if that was where we were at, I would say, okay, great. But I think that's why it's like when, and I talked about this with Moulton, like when someone like Seth Moulton just sort of says, well, like, I don't want

a trans kid running over my daughter playing sports, right? It's hostile and you're targeting a tiny subset of the population and basically like kind of

I don't know, like making this debate something like that sort of like in response to this election, which was brought about by so many different factors after an election in which Donald Trump lost the last time and gave no quarter on fucking anything. Did you I don't know if you talked to him about this because I haven't heard the interview yet. But did you see he did an interview with Rolling Stone where he said,

He's like, the New York Times called me up and didn't say, like, what happened in the election, what went wrong, what did Democrats need to do? He's like, they specifically asked me about the issue of trans rights and asked what I thought about sports. Well, he's like... And it became this thing. He's like, I've, you know, I've, like, sponsored and voted for all this, like, you know, pro-trans rights legislation. And I still think...

the 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.

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No matter what happens to your phone this holiday, whether it crashes down the chimney or gets broken like a New Year's resolution, Verizon's got you. This Black Friday, trade in any phone, any condition from one of our top brands and get a wonderful new iPhone 16 Pro with Apple Intelligence on Unlimited Ultimate and iPad and Apple Watch Series 10. That's up to $2,000 in value. So you'll save big on three amazing Apple gifts. Hurry into Verizon this Black Friday. Service plan required for iPad and Apple Watch. Up to $2,000 value based on iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch.

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Emmy Award winner Coleman Domingo returns to television in the Netflix limited series The Madness. Domingo portrays a media pundit, Muncie Daniels, caught in a deadly conspiracy. He must fight for his innocence and his life after he stumbles upon a murder deep in the woods of the Poconos Mountains and discovers he's the only witness to a crime. As the walls close in, Muncie strives to reconnect with his estranged family and his lost ideals in order to survive. Watch The Madness, November 28th, only on Netflix.

Subscriber Sam asks, do you believe Biden's legacy will be similar to that of LBJ's? A.K.A. 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? From Ben R. I mean, look, you guys know this. I don't.

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 politically.

really ugly and messy no matter what. And Joe Biden was just the one who

uh, who did it. The harder question for Biden about his legacy though, it's 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. Um, but we'll see. Uh, Trump will almost certainly pull us out of the Paris climate accords. Um, that could go in concert with rolling back parts of the IRA. You almost certainly cut off additional funding to the Ukrainians. That doesn't mean you can force them to take, uh,

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 but the the fact that joe biden's term in which he wanted to restore the soul of the country and protect democracy is sandwiched by donald trump is and and that will be in part because joe biden did not step down and waited so long um to step aside is right now the central story of his presidency and that's a shame because he did a lot of really great things but

Well, and that's the other difference between him and LBJ because LBJ decided not to run and step down much earlier. Still wasn't enough for Humphrey. An argument that was used to keep Joe Biden in the race for a year, about a year and a half. Right.

But yeah, that's a tough part. And just to clarify one thing, I mean, like early on, the days after October 7th, of course, like support for Israel was the right thing. Like I'm not saying that every step along the way he's been wrong, but I mean, the just utter inability to put any pressure on Netanyahu to save lives is what I'm getting at. Because there's people who listen to the show and...

you know, semi texts about how critical I am of Netanyahu and the war. And there's a lot of nuance to this, but I don't think nuance is really required when you look at sort of the last few months and how clearly devastating this has become for the people in Gaza. I also found myself, especially when

we were debating Joe Biden's age when Joe Biden was the candidate, that one thing that I found myself saying was, well, you can't point to me a place where Joe Biden's age prevented him from succeeding domestically, right? Like he did what we asked him to do. He passed more than anyone expected him to pass. He played his hand domestically as well as any president could have. And that was one of the reasons it was actually so hard to challenge him if he refused to step aside. But over the last year, the fact that he is such a terrible communicator,

When so much of what this has been about is communication has been like a really difficult part about it. And I, I don't think it's a communications issue. I think it's, I think it's both. It's obviously it's a policy problem, but it's all like, I think one of the reasons, well, Gaza, Gaza's policy is a policy problem. He's just saying writ large, writ large. He's been such an ineffective communicator. And I think Kamala paid dearly for the fact that we just didn't have somebody making an argument for the last year. And that was like a terrible argument.

a terrible cost and, and, and that's his fault. Right. So I'll put you guys down for a top five, top 5%. Bidco on Twitter asks, do you worry that we won't see the same energy behind the anti-Trump coalition as we did in 2017 going into 2025? Why don't you answer a couple of these? I mean, I think it'll, I think a lot of it depends on, uh,

what Trump does and it depends on what form the energy takes. Like if Trump does what he promised to do during the campaign and the anti-Trump coalition reacts by like tuning out of politics altogether or just fighting with each other the whole time, yeah, then I would worry. I also think the response to Trump may be different this time because we have learned what works and what doesn't. You know, like we have won a midterm when he's been president. We have beaten him in a presidential election. And

I'd love to see, you know, another huge women's march in January. But if it's smaller than before...

Like that doesn't really worry me. If Trump tries to take away our health care again or enact a national abortion ban or order the military to shoot protesters and we don't organize and then like make noise and flood the streets in response to that. Yeah, then I would worry. So some of it's just like lessons learned from having gone through this before. And I could see some of those lessons just taking us in a different direction. I would only worry if people just tune out altogether.

Yeah. I mean, I think we're sort of relying on the fact that like the hyper engaged voters that we thought would deliver the presidency are the reason we had faith in them was because they showed up in 2018 and 2022. We're kind of counting on that. I do think in terms of 2028.

I think one lesson of this race is counting on anti-Trump or anti-Republican fervor, it just will not be enough. And we need to have... And we're not running against him again. And we're not running against him, of course, but also we need to be excited about...

about the vision of whoever we put forward. And we just can't just, it has to, we need to look inward. Tommy, I have a question for you from Zippy by Day. Okay. Zippy by Day, also a subscriber, asks, I'm beyond sick after 2024. The only thing worse is Dem still hitting me up for money. I feel like there's a culture issue with the DNC, maybe politics in general, but how do we become the party that doesn't come off as fake?

So is it the money part's the problem or the fakeness of the problem? I was going to say, because both could be problems. I think both, you know. The money stuff. I don't know who we take this up with. You've been pitching Democrat Plus for a while where you just pay a flat fee and you don't get any more fundraising. I think that's worthy. But yeah, the fundraising has gotten offensive and infuriating. And it's not just like a...

people like us thing it's like you hear this from everyone you donate to one campaign and suddenly your your contact information is sold on a list to every other interest group and it really does feel bad in a deeper way that's a huge problem can we make it an issue in the dnc chair race that's a good idea that's a good idea we should do that yeah i think it like speaks to something it's like it like it speaks to kind of the democratic party's problem writ large too which is like

like really good at doing something, doing the best version of something that sucks. Like we're really good at that. Like let's figure out the best version of this thing that's not working and do it a hundred percent. And that's what we're doing with the fundraising. And I do think it speaks to like the fakeness. Like it's like, like how, like you're somebody that really cares about politics and you get a thousand texts. It's like, it's Hakeem Jeffries. And if you don't do this, I will, I swear to God, the things I'll do. Yeah.

Especially the post-election ones are just fucking, that's just like a real kick in the ass. I don't even know who these people are. Let's start naming names.

Let's not. All right. Another good one from subscriber Jessica. I feel like we talk about supporting left media, but the thing is that the biggest right wing podcasts slash media are all, quote, not political. When you look at Dave Portnoy, I knew him as the guy who does pizza reviews and I knew Andrew Schultz as a decently funny comedian. How do we go about getting left aligned nonpolitical media?

I mean, there's a couple pieces of this. The first is something we've talked about a lot, which is that just the Democrats should not be attacked for going on shows. So if you go on a Barstool show, if you go on Joe Rogan, you are not responsible for your interviewers' views. Obviously, there's limits to this. We're not recommending that

2028 primary candidates go on the daily stormer or like, you know, or even the daily wire. I mean, the daily wire, that's actually fine. But I also think that there's another part of this, the deeper problem, which was Joe Rogan and Dave Portnoy, the head of Barstool sports, sports felt excited enough or proud enough of supporting Trump to talk about it publicly. And there were a lot of progressive Democrats in, in,

of influence in media in particular who did not feel that way. Part of that was Gaza. I think part of it was Biden, but there was a cultural shift where there are some hosts. I'm not going to name names because I don't want to be a dick to anybody, but there's like some big named, very popular culture or sort of politics adjacent shows that would not take interviews with Kamala Harris. We know this from talking to her team. And part of it was that

They felt like they might be penalized by their audiences. They or they just felt like it wasn't fun or exciting and they just didn't want to be a part of it. And that sucks. I also think it's even though the way the questions phrased left aligned nonpolitical media. That's it. That's a tough one. Yeah. Right. Like I think I think you're right. Like you want to look for funny people who aren't huge Trump fans basically. But.

You have to be open to them when I say you, the left, has to be open to them like not agreeing with us on everything, having some heterodox views on politics, making some jokes that we don't like or even find offensive.

like this is the i mean everyone's like why joe rogan where's our joe rogan it's like well we had joe rogan he was our joe rogan and then and then everyone said fuck you no and they made a big fuss out of bernie sanders going on his show also everyone loved that stavros clip last week i wonder how many of those people know that his old show was called come town for a year i probably weren't having hillary clinton on that in 2016 you know what i mean i was getting like messages for years go on come town

Super funny show. They're really funny. But yeah, it's the, there's something about like Democrats being like, how do we appeal to men? How do we reach the men? And none of the people that do ever ask that question. And so it's like, you,

No, you're not going to artificially create a bunch of apolitical, gigantic hits that are then receptive to having Democratic candidates on. You have to build a political movement and like a culture on the left in which you're welcome in those spaces because you're not seen as being an imperious and scolding sour jerk. Well, just the way you made that comment to Moulton, where you say, well, you said that in a dickish way.

Like if Democrats could respond to people who say shit like that, I mean, like, hey, that was dickish or like that was not you thought that was funny. I think that was funny. That was stupid. Right. As opposed to being like you are bad and we never want to see you again. Yeah. Or like I'm going to like it's I mean, how many times over the last couple of years has there been like entire news cycles devoted to criticism of a comedian for saying something stupid?

Yeah. And the other question is, you know, someone like a Kaisen at the biggest streamer on Twitch or one of them who in the Democratic Party is interesting enough that he would want to talk to them. I'm not totally sure. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Interesting enough or like willing to risk getting a question that's like, go on around. I mean, you had, you know, listen, we're not like praising Trump here, but he was asking Theo Vaughn questions about what it was like to do cocaine.

That was good content. Yeah. It's also something about, again, it goes to me to like this like deeper issue of like what Democrats stand for and in ways that people believe it. Because like the reason I think Bernie Sanders can go to these places and succeed in these places is because you know he has a core mentality

motivating reason he's in politics that drives everything he does. So when he's asked a question, he can bring it back to that. People expect that. He also has the freedom to think out loud, get some things wrong, make mistakes, talk about things because people know where his heart is. And like people don't know where we are. Like, I don't know. I don't like if I tell like what what is like the what is the central cause of like the consensus Democratic Party right now? I don't know. I

I don't know. That's a huge problem. Yeah. Well, it's also always evolving and it's based on what everyone will, you know, will abide.

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Learn more at phrma.org slash IPWorksWonders. No matter what happens to your phone this holiday, whether it crashes down the chimney or gets broken like a New Year's resolution, Verizon's got you. This Black Friday, trade in any phone, any condition from one of our top brands and get a wonderful new iPhone 16 Pro with Apple Intelligence on Unlimited Ultimate and iPad and Apple Watch Series 10. That's up to $2,000 in value.

So you'll save big on three amazing Apple gifts. Hurry into Verizon this Black Friday. Service plan required for iPad and Apple Watch. Up to $2,000 value based on iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. Trade-in and additional terms apply. See Verizon.com for details. Apple Intelligence available now.

Emmy Award winner Coleman Domingo returns to television in the Netflix limited series The Madness. Domingo portrays a media pundit, Muncie Daniels, caught in a deadly conspiracy. He must fight for his innocence and his life after he stumbles upon a murder deep in the woods of the Poconos Mountains and discovers he's the only witness to a crime. As the walls close in, Muncie strives to reconnect with his estranged family and his lost ideals in order to survive. Watch The Madness, November 28th, only on Netflix.

Subscriber Jay Walker, what is the best way for us to influence who gets named the next DNC chair? Who to call slash email? There's about 450 DNC members. So you write your note, you put it around a brick.

You know, I read this one. My gut reaction was like, ah, maybe there is none, but then I don't know. I mean, it's about 450 voting DNC members. Your win number is 225 people. It's not a policymaking job. It's fundraising and grassroots and press. And so you could imagine a scenario where there's some kind of groundswell of like online support or grassroots support. People start organizing in states on behalf of a candidate. And all of a sudden people are like,

let's say, think that there's a huge Martin O'Malley fan base out there and they think that he might be able to raise small dollar money from a new crop of people like that could influence opinions. Yeah. Well, I mean, the 450 members are like almost by definition, political insiders, and they're probably on social media and very engaged in politics. So this is actually one place where, you know, people, average people can make some some noise and probably the people who are going to vote on this

will hear you. I was looking online for like a list of all the Democratic National Committee members. They published a list from like 2020 when they did the elections, but I assume that as we get into the actual contest at some point, they'll publicize the list of members for 2024, but you know, it's every state party chair, it's every, you know, elected gets a vote. Like there's just a lot of

A lot of people that we know are DNC members, but then there's some at-large ones. Subscriber Catherine, what's the best way to get people interested in running for local office? Something like VSA, but for hyper-local districts to start ensuring they don't fall to the radical right. What's the best way to get people invested and interested? Easiest one all day. Run for something. I know. Great organization. Yeah, they do local races. They do younger candidates. What's their website? Runforsomething.org, I assume?

Runforsomething.net. Runforsomething.net? A rare.net. Yeah. I also, like, it's not a criticism of that question specifically. We get a lot of questions that are about, like, how do I make other people feel something? And I think sometimes it's like, I think the only question you have to answer is, are you going to run for something? Right? Deer collar? Like, do you want to run for school board? But seriously. Deer collar.

It's like, how do I get other people to do something? Why don't you do it? You're going to really yell at the questioner a little bit, huh? Sometimes. No disrespect. No disrespect. Just a thought. Just a thought. Why not you? Why not now? All right, some lighter questions. This is from subscriber Defiant Emily. Can I keep wearing skinny jeans in 2025? Was this from my wife? When do we stop being allowed? Can someone give me some backstory? So...

So skinny jeans had their moment. Now the pants have gotten gigantic, at least for Gen Z. They're just, they're gigantic and things are happening. I can't say I love it, but. Trends are trends. I do think that like,

I sometimes don't understand what we mean by skinny jeans because sometimes I think it means, oh, do you mean like super skin tight, spandexy, see the whole leg jeans, which I've never personally been a fan of, but I wear skinnier jeans. And sometimes I feel like, is the mockery about me? Is everyone talking about me? Are my jeans part of the problem? And I can't see it. I have jeans blindness because you know, because you get to a point in your life where your style freezes and

And you then like, for example, we all wear no show socks, right? That you're a first wave millennials. And I will continue to. Well, I start, I was like, you know what? I'm going to try to wear some crew socks. I'm going to evolve on the sock front. Not currently. Okay. Just gave you a quick look. Eyes up here, buddy.

But I was like, you know what? I'm going to try it. And I felt super uncomfortable because it wasn't my style. I felt like I was trying to seem like something I'm not. But then I started, I kept at it. And I was like, you know what? I kind of like these crew socks now. But I'm not giving up on the skinnier jeans. I'm not. I think wear whatever socks you want. But I did see an article once about how cringe no-show socks were. And I wanted to find that person and tell them how lame they were. Because if you care about someone else's socks, you are the problem. But the jeans thing...

Yeah, I know what you're saying. There was like a jeggings phase. Yeah. But now I feel like everyone's a carpenter.

Yeah, there's a lot of very wide leg, a lot of loops for hammers from people who have never done a job that didn't involve email. Are you painting today? A lot of foremen running around. Yeah, a lot of... Poor people. A lot of jeans my mom could have worn when dropping me off at soccer practice in 1996 around Los Angeles. That's been a thing. Yeah, but you know what? Wear whatever jeans you like. Yeah. You do you, Defiant Emily. Yeah, Defiant Emily. Selka on Twitter asks...

In a nod to the popularity and influence of the bro podcast in the 2024 election, what are the guys' fitness routines? I'm in a tweener phase. I used to be going to this one gym. Not really going there anymore. I had to figure out a new thing. I'm bored. I had like a couple of lingering injuries that have been annoying. You guys got any advice?

I do have some advice. Tell me. Pilates. Okay, Hannah's really into Pilates. Pilates. Pilates all day. I'm becoming a Pilates person. I'm doing it all the time. It's awesome. I'm on the Reformer. You know it's a tough class because it's you and...

of the most like kind of strong, sharp, pointy women you'll ever see in your whole life. Just points you didn't know people could have. New points. Just so pointy. Where are the points? Elbows. Just abs points. Abs to a point. 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, I think, I mean, I don't know. I'm kind of bro. 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...

In the middle. In the middle. 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. Well, George W. Bush switched to bikes. Bikes is interesting. I could do bikes.

I don't trust you on a bike. No, I don't either. No? 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 you-- - Me. - You need some training, you got training wheels too. - Okay, yeah, maybe training wheels for all of us. 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 trying to like do physical therapy on that while also lifting. - I'm doing, I'm still doing Barry's a lot and I'm doing Pilates a lot and that combination is great and I love it.

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. Number I think probably number one. What else we put up there? Die hard. It's always up there. There's the die hard discourse. Oof.

Um, one that doesn't get a lot of shine, but I feel like is quite clearly what a holiday movie is the nightmare before Christmas to 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. It's a 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? Yeah.

It's not really cohesive. No, no. It's a series of vignettes, which is why it's okay for it to always be a lot. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it is a series of vignettes. There's a lot of leg lamp stuff. Yeah, a lot of leg lamp stuff. But I love Vacation. I think that's right. Christmas Vacation. It is awesome. So good. So funny. Polar Express. That's kind of mid. Well, it's on the list. I'm Googling here. Let's see. Elf is great. Spirited. I don't know if anyone saw that. It's kind of a new one. What's his name?

Top there you get Hanukkah movies no I

What about Home Alone? Oh, yeah. Home Alone is great. Yes, of course it's a Christmas movie. Although, as I've often said, that is a movie about a child defending his home from his parents having to pay their insurance deductible. And I don't think that gets enough discussion. Because those parents look like they have a great umbrella policy. All right. Last question from Maha on our Discord. What do you have to look forward to in 2025? Movie premieres? Albums? Games?

So Andor season two, cannot wait. Cannot wait for Andor season two. Severance season two. Me too. Severance season two.

Holy shit. I cannot believe we get more. Oh, it was a great cliffhanger ending to incredible. It's incredible. White Lotus season three. White Lotus season three. Yes. And last of us season two. Oh, wow. That's a great year of television. Good year. You know, they always say it's over. It's never over. They're always they're also thrown in a new Game of Thrones prequel. OK, I know it's going to be out there. Something something of the night of the Seven Kingdoms or something. OK, I'll watch it for sure. For sure. I'm going to try.

I'm very excited to watch Say Nothing, Patrick Radden Keefe's book that's been adapted. I think it's on Hulu right now. I'm very excited to see Gladiator 2. You guys have seen it, right? I haven't seen it. I cannot wait to see it. You should hold space for Gladiator 2. I'm going to see Gladiator 2. The only question is do I see Gladiator 2 before I see Wicked a second time? But I'll probably see Gladiator 2 first. I'm going to go see Wicked.

The funny thing about anticipating albums is that's just not how it works anymore. All of a sudden, it's just a Friday. Yeah, I have no idea. Poor Drake is doing a Twitch stream with some Canadian nerd, and all of a sudden, Kendrick just bodies him for the 13th time. That's what happened this past week. I imagine we'll get Reputation Taylor's version at some point in 2025. There's the Villiers album. Does she have to steal that one back from him? The Villiers album.

Which one? Keep going. Does she have to do that one back from Scooter Braun? Wasn't it the whole point of what you're doing? That's the last one. The last one, yeah. I'm reading it. It just came out, but Neil Stevenson has a new book called Polostan, which I'm very excited to read. Polostan. Neil Stevenson is a great science fiction writer. He wrote this book, Termination Shock, which was...

There were two books about climate change at around the same time, Ministry of the Future and Termination Shock. Termination Shock was the action version and the other one was boring. So I really like Neal Stephenson. I'm excited about that. Did you know the guy who did Parasite has kind of like a follow-up movie coming out? It's called Diarrhea. Once they're left to happen. Well, it's a...

It's his next film. Speaking of Korean cinema, we get season two of Squid Game. I believe. Check the facts, but I think that's right. I think that's right. Can someone fact check Mr. Lovett, please? Can we check the facts? Can we get Daniel Dale in here? This year. We'll watch it even sooner. Even better.

That's so exciting. I think that's it for 2025. I don't think I'm looking forward to anything else. That's what I got. That's what I'm looking forward to. I'm trying to think. That's about right. I'm also going to read Taffy Brodiser-Ackman's new book. Oh, that looks good. I'm going to read that because it's called like the Long Island Challenge. Yeah. Long Island Problem. The Long Island Issue. Long Island Compromise. Apparently Wicked Part 2 comes out in November 2025. I feel like all of a sudden we're doing a New Year's episode when really this is like a Thanksgiving meal. I thought about that too.

I wonder what they're going to do with that Wicked part too because the famous challenge of Wicked is that the first act is incredible and the second act you're like what are we doing here? Oh really? What are we doing here? But I think they'll get a new Ariana song. That's my prediction. Hold space for that. And I will. Hold space for everything. Happy Thanksgiving. That's our episode and we'll talk to you guys next week.

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Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are David Toledo and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farrah Safari. Reid Cherlin is our executive editor and Adrian Hill is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis.

The funny thing about the holding space thing...

is that it's actually i watched the video like like a half a dozen more times this weekend well i think what makes it so funny is like the reporter says people are really holding space for the lyrics that define gary which in and of itself is obviously like slightly annoying and silly but not that big a deal it's that cynthia revo says i didn't know that was happening which is like not just like i didn't know like no she she reacts like it's something she got an oscar like like she randomly finds out like hey this is being used to like

secret prisoners out of North Korea. - Right, we're using Abu Ghraib to fucking torture people. That's what it sounds like. - And then she almost doesn't, she's like, "Is that happening?" And then she goes, "Yeah, there's a few posts." - Well, it's also like I'm in queer media, so I'm an expert on people holding space. It's such a subjective and ephemeral description. It's like people are holding space for the lyrics. I actually believe if you take away the jargon,

I think one of the reasons people are loving Wicked so much is it is about a fascistic state and it's rising and like, and the people deciding that this person was evil, but they're all wrong. And it's the wrong is like fully accepted. I don't have no idea what the story is. It's the prequel. I know that. I know that part. That's all I know. And it's beautiful and it's incredibly well made. Yeah. But if you just said, yeah, a lot of people are listening to the blah, blah, blah song because it means a lot to them in this weird political moment. And,

And the idea that you'd be like, I didn't know that was happening is such a funny thing to be like. Honestly? Just holding the nail, holding the one finger. Ariana Grande having no fucking idea what's going on. I want this to be in a time capsule about this period in politics in the United States because it's perfect.

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