The Suburban Women Problem - Season 2, Episode 44
Amanda Weinstein: Hi everyone. Thanks for joining us. I'm Amanda Weinstein.
Rachel Vindman: I'm Rachel Vindman.
Jasmine Clark: I'm Jasmine Clark.
Amanda: And you're listening to The Suburban Women Problem. So we have been counting down the weeks until the election and we are now down to one. There is one week until the midterms!
Jasmine: Heart palpitations.
Amanda: Jasmine, I feel like, yeah. Jasmine, how are you doing?
Jasmine: Do you see the sweat beads on my forehead? I know the people listening can't see the sweat beads on my forehead, but I am like, ugh. All the anxiety that one can have the week before an election.
Amanda: Well, the stakes are so high, we can't take our foot off the gas now. Jasmine, I know you know this.
Jasmine: Oh yeah.
Amanda: We need to talk to everyone we know about voting. You can keep track of those conversations and raise money for abortion funds at the same time by going to RWBVotes.com.
We've talked about what's at stake in this election all year, antisemitism and racism, abortion rights, book bands, guns, election denial. Oh my gosh, there's so much bad. We can't get to like really good stuff because of it! Now is the moment we've been working for. So let's get everyone we know out to vote.
I already voted. I did vote this week finally. So in my brain, the election's already over. I have voted! It is done!
Jasmine: Yeah, I voted like the first week of early voting in Georgia, which was, like, two weeks ago. So yeah, I'm done too.
Rachel: I, I voted on October 11th, cause it was the anniversary of Alex and my first date. So I remember the date.
Amanda: Casey and I were gonna go together and then our daughter spiked a fever and so that didn't happen. Which is why you should early vote. Cause if it happened the day of…
Rachel: Exactly. That's why it's so convenient.
Jasmine: Literally that's how, that's how this works. You know, go ahead and get it outta the way cause you don't want any surprises on election day that might hinder you from voting.
Amanda: Mm-hmm. So this week I got the chance to talk to Connie Schultz about why this election is so important and at the same time how we can take care of ourselves. Elections are stressful. This we know.
Jasmine: Jasmine enters the chat.
Amanda: Haha. I know. Oh man, I'm ready. I'm ready for it to be over. Ladies, are you feeling like you're ready for it to be over ?
Jasmine: I definitely am counting down the days. You know one thing I'm really kind of annoyed with right now is polling.
Amanda: Oh, same.
Rachel: Oh really? I'm fine with it. I'm just kidding. I'm totally kidding. I talk about this all the time on Twitter. People are probably sick of me talking about it, but–
Jasmine: But it's like, it's such a lucrative business.
Rachel: It is.
Jasmine: And you don't have to be right. It's worse than being the weatherman that predicts that there's gonna be like a hurricane and it's like, 75 and sunny outside. And, and they're just like, “Oh, oops.”
Rachel: Yeah. No one knows what's going to happen. No one knows what the weather is going to be like next Tuesday. And no one knows how it's all gonna shake out. And we've seen the polls be wrong so much, because they're just not accounting for everything. But I've seen people talking about the disinformation… I mean, I think this is a really powerful way of disenfranchising people and just making them think, “Oh, it's just a blowout. It's not gonna matter.”
But there's also been, you know, um, people posting on Twitter about, you know, texts that are saying, “Oh, this is your polling place and it's not the polling place.” Giving misinformation.
Amanda: Right. And, and the misinformation is ridiculous. So gas prices are going down and so what are they talking about? Crime! Which is not going up! No, just reports on it are going up. So the crime rates are actually going down. But like they wanna talk about crime rates, but man, when it came to attacking Nancy Pelosi's husband, they suddenly don't wanna talk about that crime anymore.
As the spouse of a candidate, when I hear extremist stuff, this is what I think about. That these people, I mean, these people have been to my house. I already know that the Republicans in my district know my address. They know where I live. They have already come to my house. And I'm not just talking about the candidates. It's the candidates and it's the people that support them. When they're out there spreading this stuff that is inflammatory, that puts my family at risk, That puts my kids at risk. Right? And whatever you think about a politician, whether it's Nancy Pelosi or my husband or anyone, their kids didn't choose that. But the extremist language absolutely puts these kids in danger and family members in danger, which is just wrong.
Jasmine: It really, really is. I mean, I think that's the, that's really what it boils down to is, you know, even if you're like, “Oh well he was mentally ill” or “this was some type of psychosis” or whatever, you fed it. You knew there was an issue and you fed it. And then when something comes back and we tie it directly to something that you said, then you wanna throw your hands up and be like, “Well, I didn't tell anyone to do that.”
Amanda: No. And I don't see very many Republicans, any Republicans really… Very few. I've seen a couple who have actually denounced, I don't know, attacking someone's spouse and trying to kill them.
Jasmine: Right. I actually wanna talk a little bit about the Fetterman/Oz debate, speaking of misinformation and about healthcare. Like, number one, I've always thought that Oz's campaign was super gross in attacking someone who has had a stroke. But I also wanna say that the progress that Fetterman has made in his recovery from the stroke is actually pretty admirable.
And as a person who is in a legislature with a very different perspective than a lot of my other colleagues, because I came in with a science lens and there's just not a lot of us in there, I think it is really a good idea to have people with different walks of life and different experiences in the legislature.
Amanda: Mm-hmm. It was amazing that everyone said the big story out of that was gonna be about Fetterman and his stroke. But to me, the line of that debate was Oz saying that “abortion should be between a woman, her doctor, and her local elected officials.” Which is, that's the big story! And he was really just saying what all the Republicans really think, but are not supposed to say because we wouldn't vote for them if they said it out loud and he said it out loud.
Jasmine: I'm glad he said it though.
Amanda: Me too!
Jasmine: Because that is the Republican platform, point blank.
Rachel: I have to say, I've been quite disheartened throughout this whole midterm at just how close it is. That we haven't had people come to their senses. I mean, whether it was after Dobbs or whether it was just after like, okay, you've had the extremists in your communities and your school boards…. This is not making you wanna think about something else?
And I've said it before and I'll say it again. When I did my Troublemaker Tour, no one said, “Hey, Rachel. The biggest thing to me is the economy.” It's not that they weren't feeling it, it's just that it wasn't the most important thing to them. When I tell people that they're absolutely shocked. And I'm not saying they weren't feeling it, but it wasn't the thing that came up. I mean, healthcare came up, choice came up, extremism came up. But no one said the price of gas and milk.
Amanda: But part of that, I think… I don't know, this is what I hope, is that even if let's say the price of gas was their biggest issue, what is the president gonna do? We know this is not the president's fault because we know there's tons of other countries with higher inflation than we have. And Biden’s not in charge of those countries.
Rachel: Yeah, I've seen the mailers that come to my house. I've seen other mailers and I've seen commercials that say really earnestly that if you send these people to Washington, they're going to work on inflation. That's like, you know, “I wanna be an astronaut when I grow up.” Like, what is your plan?
Amanda: Yeah. I've, I've seen all of their detailed plans about inflation! Like, I still have not heard any. I've never heard anyone say anything about… Oh, no, I have, that's not true. The only plan I've heard is that we just need to drill for more oil. And like literally not realizing we're the number one oil producer in the world.
Jasmine: Every other ad from Republicans here in Georgia has been about how Warnock has raised taxes, and I still to this day cannot figure out what taxes got raised. And it's just like, they just say it. And people are like, “Yeah!” And I'm like, “Tell me which taxes of yours got raised recently. Because I cannot figure out what taxes we are talking about right now. And people just say things.
Amanda: Now, the Republicans did raise taxes by getting rid of the child tax credit. They absolutely raised taxes on middle class families, and I don't know if I'm the only one to be tweeting this, but nobody else seems to be talking about how Republicans raised taxes on middle class families.
Rachel: And they also got rid of free lunches in schools.
Amanda: They literally took, like, snacks from kids.
Jasmine: Candy from babies .
Amanda: Yes. That is literally what they did.
Jasmine: Yeah. To this day, I do not understand how feeding kids became a partisan issue. Like it's literally feeding children. We have to feed prisoners because you make them go there. If you make these kids go to school, freaking feed them. I don't feel like this is a concept that should be partisan at all because I feel like at a very basic level, we should all be able to agree that kids need to eat. And we should be able to just feed children without a political battle about it.
Amanda: One of my favorite quotes, I think it's from Maya Angelou, who says, “When people show you who they are, believe them.” Right? I don't need to tell you what so and so said or what a said or what any of the Republicans said. Cause I can talk about what they did. And when I see what they do, I believe them. And I know they are not for middle class families. They're not trying to help our children. Based on their actions.
All right. We're going to take a quick break and when we come back we'll have my conversation with Connie Schultz, which was so necessary to have her cheer and relaxation and her hashtag breathe in this moment.
Jasmine: Can't wait.
BREAK
Amanda: Our guest today is one of our favorites. Rachel and Jasmine have gotten to interview her already, so I'm excited to get a chance to talk with her today too. She's an author and a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist with a column in USA Today. Connie Schultz, welcome back to the Suburban Women Problem.
Connie Schultz: Thank you Amanda. And I do believe you and I have spoken before, but I was the one doing in the interview, right?
Amanda: That is true. So now I get to interview you. Payback! Haha.
Connie: Yes!
Amanda: No, actually you were lovely to talk with. I'm very excited.
Connie: Thank you.
Amanda: So this is our last full episode before the midterms and it feels surreal. We've been working so hard for so long, and we're almost at the finish line. We'll get into the mental health of it all in a minute. But let's start with this. Why is this election so important? And if we are talking to someone who's on the fence about voting, what can we say to convince them?
Connie: Well, of course, depending on their state, if they have a Senate race right now, as we do in Ohio, the Senate is in the balance here. We have the thinnest of margins, right now it's at 50/50 and we have a Vice President to break ties. So all you need look no further than the Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade, the Dobbs decision, to understand the impact of the United States Senate because that's where the Supreme Court nominees get confirmed.
And so we have the Court we have right now because of that. That alone, it drives so many women right now that I know, certainly not just of my own generation, many young women and the daughters in our families. I mean, we, this has just felt like a very different election because of that.
Look, we don't wanna be someone who isn't voting. And I always try to be mindful of how hard it is for some women to make the time. I mean, when I was a single mom, I was a single mom for a decade, and I was thinking about this the other day, that I remember standing in line at Hyman's Grocery store, the original store in Shaker Heights, at about 6:30 in the evening, and it suddenly dawned on me because I saw someone wearing their voting sticker, that we had to vote that day. And this is somebody who always voted, always. I just, my life was overwhelming.
I grabbed my daughter, I told the cashier, “I'm so very sorry. We're gonna be back. Please don't put my groceries away.” And we ran down the street together to vote. Because I wanted, not only did I wanna be the person who still voted, no matter what, but I wanted my daughter to be with me cause she was still young. My son was grown. But in that moment, I must tell you, it has stayed with me, because it makes me think often about how hard it is for mothers in particular to find the time to vote, or for women who are taking care of everything and everybody, right, to make the time.
And one of the arguments we have to make is that it is worth your time to do it, and it can't just be about the outcome of a single race. Because we will have our disappointments, but who do we wanna be? Do we wanna be people, the people who keep trying, who are invested in the future of our country, invested in future generations? Or are we gonna give up?
Amanda: You know, sometimes I find that some politicians, not all, but some can talk about this as “you need to do this and why can't you just, you know, not be lazy and get to the polls?” But it's real. That's not the situation at all. Life is hard, especially for parents and mothers of kids, and especially young kids. That we know. Just even having really young children, you're less likely to vote, not because you care any less, but because it's really hard.
So we have to think about, you know, if we wanna convince people, sometimes it might just be, what can we do for our friends? Can we say, “Hey, I'll watch your kids, or I'll be in the car with them if you don't wanna bring screaming children to wait in a 20-minute line.” Which, I get that, I totally get that, right. If your kid’s got a fever, which happened to me one time. My kid spiked a fever that day and I was like, I can't bring a kid with a fever into the polls with me. So someone watched him for a little bit. But there are things that we need to do and reach out to people, I think reach out to people and say, “What can I do? Can I help?”
We've been saying from day one that women are going to be the key to this election. You recently tweeted that “Women are not a culture issue. We are the future.” Could you say a little more about what you meant by that?
Connie: Sure. I was talking to both Democrats and Republicans as you recall. I… How do I say this? I'm not a fan of calling us a culture issue. Either the issues that matter to me and to my daughters, especially to women of reproductive age… which my one daughter always says, “Mom, must you describe us that way?”
But with a lot in, you know, a lot at stake here, I don't want us to be referred to as a culture issue. I don't want you to be afraid to put an ad out that about abortion rights for women. I don't want you to shy from the issue because you're trying to court voters who are, who are opposed to our. I understand we wanna win elections. I'm not singling out any particular campaign, but I do wanna make it clear that women vote. And in Ohio we know the numbers are up and the number of newly registered women who will be voting is up. And I want them to at least act like they're aware of it. And that they understand the importance of speaking to us.
We can handle, just as we juggle so many things in life at any given time, we can juggle multiple issues. We understand other issues matter as well. What I'm saying is we will not be sidelined as an issue when we're talking about women's reproductive rights because that is an economic issue.
Amanda: Absolutely. Oh man, that's what I was thinking when I read that and thought, “Oh, I never even thought about that, that some people think women are a cultural issue.” But that's my bias as an, as an economist, cause to me, women are an economic issue.
Connie: Yes. And, and as you know, just who's managing most of the family budgets. Who's most worried and trying to figure out how we're gonna make ends meet. It's always been women, right? Women care about this. And if women can't be in charge of their own reproductive health and when, if and when they want to have children, it so seriously affects the economy of the family, which means it affects the economy of our state and of our country.
Amanda: Oh, perfectly stated. Have you had any interesting conversations with women lately about the election?
Connie: Amanda, my only conversations with women are interesting.
Amanda: Haha! Yes.
Connie: Each and every one of them.
Amanda: Well, so what have you been hearing from these women?
Connie: Well, it's, it's about Dobbs all the time. Including young women who are my students, right, at Kent State. I think it's really hard for younger, many younger women to believe this is even happening. I get impatient with women of my generation– I'm a boomer, as you know– who insist that we've been warning about this all along. That's not true. Very few of us thought it could get this bad. Most Republicans didn't even expect that this is going to happen with the Supreme Court.
So I think it's not helpful– scratch that, I know it's not helpful– for us to act superior and wag fingers and suggest everybody should have seen this coming. Nobody could have predicted this in the way that it's a bit unfolding.
So well, yes, there are definitely some voices of despair. What are we going to do? And my answer always is, we're gonna do this a day at a time, an election at a time. And right now we've got the midterms and we're gonna do whatever we can to encourage other people to vote to protect women's reproductive rights.
Amanda: Oh, so well stated. I feel like moms feel that because I feel like it's a little bit like momming… like I have days where I'm exhausted and I want, and I need a break. And we do need breaks from this. But we don't stop being moms our entire lives just like we can't stop fighting for the rights we want to see for women and what we want this country to look like. And yes, it might be exhausting and I get that, but we gotta keep going.
Connie: Yeah. And I understand the exhaustion piece of it. I also know what we're capable of in that moment when we think we can't do anything more and we push ourselves because we have a real deadline, right? I mean, sometimes it's just like what I think of our families, what our children are needing from their parents. They need their costumes ready by this date. This time and date. We need this election by this time, this date.
And so I have found always for me, and I understand I'm a deadline oriented person because I'm a journalist, but it helps me to remind myself, this is temporary. I've got an end game here, and there is a deadline. What can I manage to do knowing that after that deadline we're gonna be able to take, we're gonna be able to pause, and we're gonna be able to breathe. We're not gonna be completely happy with the results. We never are.
I was doing something today that made me think of this conversation you and I were gonna be having. I'm going through bins and bins of old photos, trying to organize them, trying to give, you know, some to my kids. I'm a photographer. I've always been taking… I mean, I'm an amateur photographer, but I've always been taking pictures. But I was seeing all these pictures of myself at younger phases of my life and thinking, “Oh, I was a lot younger at 43 than I thought I was. I was a lot younger at 48.”
But the thing was, when I was looking at those pictures, I asked myself, “Would I want to be back in that time?” No! I mean, there are pieces of it I would love to have back. I would love to have my mother back who's in some of the photos, right? I would like to have my very limber limbs. But I would not want to give up what happened next, and all that has happened.
And working politics is a lot like that. We can have regrets after every election, but there's no… there's no good that comes from spending much time on that because just like life, there will be moments where we're really happy about outcomes and other times when we're really unhappy about them. But as with life, the only way to address any of that is to move forward and to keep moving forward, right? And to decide, what's our next role going to be? How are we going to keep working? Allowing for the break. Allowing for time to heal for some. I mean, some have really put so much time into this cycle and you do need time to repair, but I, I think it can help. And this time I will say, I think, cause it may not be true for everyone, that if we allow ourselves the break, we also then allow ourselves to get roughed up again and to try again.
Amanda: And I, I think we can sometimes, Yeah, you can kind of get like the weeds of things and when we don't get that win, and I think especially for women… I mean, we're living in a country where we are the only industrialized nation without paid leave. We're the only industrialized nation without healthcare that we need that, you know, that would include access to reproductive care.
And I think sometimes it can feel exhausting and like, are we ever gonna get that? And I think seeing a bigger picture of… we're not gonna get it if we don't fight for it, that's for sure. And no one's coming to save us. That women have to do this. And I think there's something both exhausting, and empowering in that, that we have to step up. It's us as women. But we also need that time to breathe.
Connie: You know, one of the things that gives me hope too, whenever I start to feel really discouraged about the state of things, with every major election year, there are millions of new voters for the, who are voting for the first time. Yes, young voters, right? There are so many things we can't predict.
But that makes me hopeful because spending so much time with the younger generation as I do, I often just feel like… give them time, give them a chance to get into leadership, and we are gonna see the change I've been hoping for my entire life.
Amanda: Oh, I feel the same. I feel like sometimes there's a narrative, and it's typically on the right, of “young people these days and aren't they terrible?” And I know when I hear that, that you are not around young people. I know my kids. I know their friends. I know the college students I teach. I'm like, “You don't know these kids.”
All right. So for a while things were looking up. We had an amazing victory in Kansas that I don't think anybody expected. Women were registering a vote and record numbers. But recent polling has us a little nervous, as you mentioned, it's pretty close here in Ohio. And a lot of these races across the country are very close. Is this normal kind of horse race politics or do you think something has changed?
Connie: I was talking about this with Sherrod this morning and I was reading… after reading another story, I said, “I am so tired of this horse race stuff.” These polls are unreliable for the most part. The mood of the country's unpredictable. I'm going to do everything I can to stay calm and cool and encourage people to vote. And then wait for election day because it does us no good to be tracking along with all these different polls in the hopes that we're gonna somehow see that crystal ball moment and know how it's gonna turn out. I don't think we know in a lot of these races.
Amanda: No, I think that's right. And as a data, I mean, I'm a data person, but there's a margin of error that you don't often hear with the polls. So if it’s within the margin of error, which it typically is, even when it kind of goes down, like statistically speaking, you can't say whether it went up or down.
It's not as exciting to report that, I guess, for, you know, some of these polls. And then you also see, like, if it goes down a little, you project out, “Oh, it's going down.” But that's, you know, there's some volatility in this data. It goes up and down. So it makes me, as kind of a data person, less nervous.
Connie: Yeah. But, and also I would say, in leadership, I really hate seeing a lot of verified accounts on Twitter doing their hand-wringing in public. “Oh no, it's getting worse. Oh, no, we're all gonna lose.” I just don't see that as helpful in any way, shape, or form.
Amanda: Oh, I agree.
Connie: Right? Why do that? Because I'm afraid we'll discourage people from voting, first of all. But secondly, part of leadership is bucking up and having faith in the numbers that you know from, from reliable sources. That you know how volatile the American public can be about all this. And doing everything you can to encourage turnout.
Amanda: Yeah. I don't think it's any good information either. It's just saying, “Oh, things are bad or things are good.” How about you… like, if people are worried about whatever it is, inflation, the economy, reproductive rights… talk about that, right? Let's talk about what we're gonna do to change that thing. Like that's so much better information than, “Oh no, the sky is falling.”
So speaking of “the sky is falling,” it can still be very stressful when we hear from people that this sky is falling all the time! So what do you do for mental health to, you know, keep sane and keep… I have to say, you are always very cheery.
Connie: Well thank you. In public.
Amanda: Oh, oh, alright! I like that.
Connie: I mean, we all have our moments.
Amanda: We do.
Connie: You know, sometimes I draft a tweet, I go for a walk and come back and send, probably after editing. I don't wanna ever give the impression that I don't have my moments, cause I do. But my mom said I was “hardwired for happy” and I feel lucky for that, right? I think I am more upbeat.
But we all need ways to comfort ourselves, to steady ourselves. I mean, I love that Sherrod home right now, even though he is working the state and he is gone most days. But he's home in the evening. And I love my dogs. I love walks, I love the fall. I look more to the... I look for the joy in every day. Because I can find it somewhere. It may not be in my own life, but it may be watching an interaction between a mother and a child, or an elderly couple who are together on a bench. I just saw that recently, holding hands, and it just steadied me.
I also have this habit on campus, it drives my students nuts, but I mean, they laugh about it. So many students that I don’t know that I pass on the way as I'm walking into Franklin Hall. They have their earbuds in and I just say, “Hello, Hello. It's a wonderful day. It's great out, isn't it?” Just to, just to be that really annoying Mary Poppins person.
But I did it recently with a young woman. I was looking up at a tree and she stopped and she was standing next to me. I didn't know her. And I said, “It's just so beautiful.” And she said, “Yeah, it is.” And I looked at her and said, “you know, I hope you have a really good day today.” And she teared up and she says, “Nobody has said that to me in such a long time.” And it made me think about, if nothing else, we can think of ways of being kind to other people, including strangers, once or twice a day.
We can write handwritten notes sometimes. That's what I do when I'm feeling discouraged. I have a stack of my notes in every room in this house except bathrooms, and I sit down and I think of someone and I'll write a note. Because first of all, people so seldom, you know, they don't expect handwritten notes much anymore. But it also keeps me focused.
I don't mean this as anything good about me. What I'm saying is, when I'm starting to feel down, I try to change my focus from how I'm feeling about what's going on around me, even in the world at large, and focus on somebody else I should be thinking about and sending them a nice note.
Amanda: I love that. It reminds me of a Friends episode where Phoebe said, “There's no unselfish good deed” or something.
Connie: I love that.
Amanda: So I took my Girl Scout troop recently to the food bank and it just makes you, even though you're like, you're hearing like there's an increasing number of families going to the food bank right now. Oh man, like this is gonna sound like a downer, but it made me feel really good to go and donate food and to be of help. And to show my girls that we are part of this. So if we do see something that we don't like or if we're unhappy or whatever, we have to be part of that change. We have to be something that makes the world better, but it actually makes us feel so good doing that.
Connie: If nothing else, that lifts you outta yourself, right?
Amanda: It does.
Connie: I think it can really help sometimes. Remember that if nothing else, we are all united in our struggle to try to get through every day, leaving it better than how we found it, right? In big ways and small ways. And we've all had that moment when somebody did something for us, they thought it was a little thing and it changed our day, right? And that way we get to experience the power we have to do good in the world every single day.
Amanda: I love that. Okay. You've done this two times already, so you know that before we go, we always ask some rapid fire questions. Connie, are you ready?
Connie: I'm ready. Sort of.
Amanda: Haha. Are we ever really ready? All right. Is there a movie or TV show that's been getting you through this election season?
Connie: Well, I love The Good Fight.
Amanda: Oh, me too. Oh my God. I'm obsessed.
Connie: I love that. And I love British mysteries. Because nobody dies really gruesome deaths. The old school, like they're made in current time, but they're set in the forties and the fifties and the sixties and they're British and I like that. And I just needle point when I watch it. And I also watch Nora Efron movies. When Harry Met Sally, it is impossible to see that too many times, right?
I do the things that I know are gonna make me feel good. I do watch a lot of documentaries, but I'm not recommending any of those right now because that's not what lifts you up. That's when I'm learning. I feel like I always should be learning. But I do let myself have fun.
Amanda: Ah, that's true. Oh, so there was a scene in the Good Fight. I don't know why I'm bringing this up, it's gonna make me cry, but there's a scene, so it's one with Eli Gold and it was with a lot of, I feel like this season, I don't know what the theme is, but I feel like a lot of the season is chaos is becoming our new normal.
Connie: Yes.
Amanda: And you hear this din of a crowd and it's just kind of noise. And then as the scene plays out, at the very end, she starts saying a prayer in Hebrew for her dad. And then you start to hear the crowd more clearly and they're yelling, you know, “Jew will not replace us,” right? And I was like, it's like a minute 30-second scene and it made me bawl my eyes out. And it's just like, I don't know, it's almost like a validation of like someone sees what's going on and that this is terrible. Like that this is happening right now and like this is becoming more mainstream.
Connie: Amanda, I'm really glad you brought up that scene and I wanna say to all of the people who are not Jewish who are joining us on this, that I'm sure we know this, that we need to be speaking up. But I'm seeing so many of my Jewish friends on social media asking why more of us aren't being vocal about this.
And so I would just wanna encourage all of us to think about how sometimes, the truest way to show that we care is to actually say it, right. We just have to say it. And it's not enough to condemn acts of antisemitism, there are so many of them right now and the speech is horrible, but also to lift up our Jewish friends and our colleagues and members of our community. We don't have to know a single Jewish person to oppose this. We do not have to be Jewish to be outraged. And I, I understand the group we're speaking with already knows this, but it is so important to speak out.
And something else I was just thinking about with this, you know, talking about all these women with Red Wine and Blue, all this activism, no matter what happens on election day, I hope that everyone can consider how many they've met, how many wonderful women in particular they've met for many newly found activism within their hearts. Nobody can take away the relationships that you've been building. Nobody can take away the meaningful time that you've been spending together. I'm saying this as somebody much older than many who will be hearing this, you will never forget this period in your life with these very strong women. And my hope is that many of you will carry on these friendships for the rest of your lives.
Amanda: I love that. And after a pandemic where we are separated from people like, man has it been a great way to reconnect and rebuild kind of what the pandemic took away. All right. I think I took us off track here, haha.
Your hashtag #breathe really resonates with people. What's been bringing you that moment of peace lately?
Connie: Well, first of all, breathing, Remembering to breathe.
Amanda: I just breathed when you said it.
Connie: Good. I hope a lot of people do. It really is restorative. There's science behind that, right? And because I'm asthmatic, I think it's, when I first started thinking about it during Covid and then I, people started responding to it. It's one of the reasons I'm going through old photos. I'm trying to find some fun stuff too, right, that I can post with #breathe.
So I would say, and staying in touch with the people you care about most and being open to people who need to talk with you, but you're allowed to have a certain time of day when you're taking care of yourself. I'm not always good at that. That's why I'm saying it, cause I want others to be better at it than I am.
Amanda: What's one thing you'll be doing on election night to stay calm?
Connie: Staying out of the public. Sherrod and I have decided that we're gonna stay home and watch returns. We might have some family or friends with us.
Amanda: Oh, that's smart.
Connie: You know, part of it, especially with Sherrod, people gauge his reaction. “How should we be feeling about this?” And I'd like to remove him from that for a moment, because I don't think that's the point.
But also we just want, we'll be in touch with a lot of people. People will be calling us and texting and we want the quiet of our own home with our dogs. So, it’s never completely quiet because we have the two maniacs with us, Franklin and Walter. But that's what we're gonna do to stay calm and we're gonna be in touch with people we care about and be open to people reaching out to us, which we're sure it'll be happening a lot. I'll be on Facebook, of course, as I always am. You know, it's open to the public and I'll be on Twitter as well.
Amanda: That's awesome. Yeah. Casey's first win at the State House level was when Ohio went redder. He was one of the very few races that didn’t.
Connie: What year was that?
Amanda: Uh, 2018. So that was after Trump.
Connie: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Amanda: So we went, we went redder in Ohio, but Casey won anyway. And so we were happy and excited, but we were trying to also match other people at that time were not. And friends that we had were not excited because, you know, they were disappointed. And that is hard. When you're in it, it's hard to kind of match.
Connie: I remember that election. Sherrod also won reelection that night, but he was so down about his friends. I mean the whole ticket, right? The whole state ticket.
Amanda: Yes. There were not a lot of wins for Dems in Ohio that night.
Connie: I had to kind of give him a pep talk cause we were about to go see all the staff who were waiting to see us and it was a happy night for them. Right?
Amanda: Right. They've worked hard. Everyone on the staff has worked hard. They deserve this day to celebrate. But you have friends who are not celebrating
Connie: And I do love this about my husband, that for him it wasn't enough. That he was really optimistic about the state. So I, I get both pieces of that, but I'm his wife and I'm in charge on that night, and I have chosen that we're gonna stay home.
Amanda: Smart. We did that over the pandemic. So his last election, we were, cause it was the pandemic, we were like, “well no party, we'll just have a little fire pit.” And I think we ended up like having, like taking pictures in our pajamas around a fire pit. But it was much more relaxing. And so I think we're gonna do the same thing, a fire pit where we have like some friends coming over, but like the friends who get, like, “Look, I'll be in my jammy pants. So if you're comfortable with that, you can come over in your jammy pants too.”
Connie: Well, only friends should be allowed on a night like that. If they're not comfortable with it then that's a different conversation.
Amanda: Yep. All right. That is the end of our rapid fire questions. Where can people go to find out more about you and your work?
Connie: Well, I'm pretty easy to find. I'm at USA Today.
Amanda: I've heard of it.
Connie: Yes. Uh, I'm in a bunch of papers around the country, so I don't know where people are, you might be able to find me there. And I'm on Facebook pretty much every day at some point, and it's open to the public. And I'm on Twitter. And Instagram is not really political at all, for me, photos not as much, but I'm very active on Twitter and Facebook.
Amanda: All right. I am so glad I got a chance to talk with you today. I could actually ask you many more questions, but I know I have to let you go now. So thanks for coming back to the Suburban Women problem.
Connie: Of course. Thanks for having me. I'm just gonna say to all, all of you who are listening, to consider how lucky you are in this way and only this way. All of you who are involved with this already, you've gotten to know some amazing people, some amazing women, and I am so happy for you in your lives. So I hope you think about that as we get closer to election day. We will still have one another when it's over.
Amanda: Oh, that's true. No matter what happens. And then we go on to fight another day.
Connie: Yes, we do.
Amanda: Love it. Thank you, Connie.
Connie: Thank you.
BREAK
Jasmine: Welcome back everyone. So Amanda, number one, I love Connie Schultz, and I really enjoy–
Amanda: She’s fabulous.
Jasmine: I know, right? And I really enjoyed your conversation with her. You know, I think every time we get an opportunity to chat with her, she always comes with gems like every single time. I love it.
Amanda: She's always very cheery and I always walk away from the conversation. No matter what you talk about, I'm like, “Oh, I feel happier for some reason.”
Jasmine: Yes, exactly. That's what I'm saying.
Rachel: She’s a real mood boost. Yes. I mean, I think it's like that soothing, like, “maybe everything is gonna be okay.”
So it's important to find joy in this time and I think Connie is always good at that. But now I think we need to, uh, as we end every episode, share our toast to joy for the week. So, Jasmine, I know it's been a crazy and hectic week, but what is your Toast to Joy?
Jasmine: I'm gonna have to really dig deep for this one. Cause “crazy and hectic and chaotic” is my entire life right now. But I will say I had a conversation the other day with a student and it was a very quick conversation, I usually do like 15 to 30 minute meetings with my students. And you know, she was asking me about her project that's due for my class.
But at the end of the conversation, she just said, “I just wanna say how much I truly appreciate this class because prior to this class, I really knew nothing about politics. And a lot of times we feel like our classes are busy work, but this class... It's not that. I truly feel like I have learned something from you, and I really feel like I can be a much better advocate for nurses because of this class.”
Amanda: Wow. That is high praise. College students are like the hardest audience. Like I have had kindergarten audiences and first grade audiences and adult audiences. College students are the hardest, hands down.
Rachel: Really?
Amanda: Oh yeah. Oh man.
Jasmine: They're so, they're… they're very critical.
Amanda: Yes.
Jasmine: And so to get that from a student, you know, it really, number one, reinforced that I'm headed on the right track in that class, cause it's my first time offering that class. But also, at the end of my life, whenever that is, I want to know that I made an impact in some way. And so when, when I hear things like that, that lets me know that what I'm doing is not just in the moment, it is something that is laying a foundation and it is impactful. And if I can go to sleep at night knowing that I have made an impact in some way, that just really makes me feel better. And so that was, that was great.
Amanda: Aww.
Jasmine: Rachel, what's your Toast to Joy?
Rachel: Well, my Toast to Joy is I was having a conversation with my grandmother who has recently turned 96, about a month ago. She grew up during the Depression, she was born in 1926, so it started not too long afterwards. And she often tells stories about the Depression and just growing up and how people would help each other.
So, I mean, like I've, I've heard those stories my whole life about, you know, neighbors helping neighbors and helping other people. But I believe that this period will be looked back on as a really turbulent time in US history. And, you know, we're, we're living through something that's gonna be written about and talked about for a really long time, I think.
Being kind and doing something for others is a really important thing that we can do. And even in this time when it's so polarized and I look out my window and I see the signs for Yesli Vega in my neighbor's yards, but also knowing we live on the street together. So like some people that we want to win are going to win and some people are going to lose and it's going to be hard, but we have to pick up the pieces as we move forward as a country.
And I don't mean, you know, just take it. I am not a “just take it person” if you are new here.
Jasmine: Haha. You are not.
Amanda: Can confirm, yes.
Rachel: But you can start with kindness and you can also end with kindness. And it doesn't mean you have to be a doormat. So my Toast to Joy is choosing kindness. What would it be like if we were more kind and more helpful? There needs to be more understanding and give and take.
Amanda: I love that. I also think this when I hear people say things– on both sides–where they sound frustrated and a lot of times legitimately frustrated. But I often wonder, what have you done to change it? What have you done?
So my Toast to Joy is kind of similar, where, um, I don't know, I think it showed up in like one of my feeds, like someone had a remote control boat race and I was like, “Oh. I want a remote control boat race! That sounds really fun.” And so our neighborhood has this little neighborhood pond and so I put it out there to our neighborhood Facebook, and I was like, “Hey, does anyone else wanna go race remote control boats with me?” And oh my gosh, we have so many new families with young kids that they were like, “Yes!”
And I was like, “Here's an Amazon boat. Like you can get two for the price of whatever.” And so, most of the people bought the Amazon boat I recommended, not realizing they would all be on the same channel. So most of the remotes controlled most of the boats. So you never actually knew which boat you were controlling!
Jasmine: Oh my gosh.
Jasmine: That probably actually made it more fun!
Rachel: That's the chaos we can all get behind. Okay, like that is the only kinda chaos that I am for.
Amanda: Haha. But it was so much fun and I think the parents liked it as much as the kids. And they were like, “Hey, can we do this in the summer when it's warmer and bring mimosas?” And I was like, “Yes. Yeah, I will do that. I can do that with you.” But it was nice. This is something nice we can all do. And I don't know the political leanings of every single neighbor, but I know they're not all like mine. But it's fun that we can just go do something together and like we can know each other as people and I love that.
So building that community spirit is one of my favorite things, and I think it combats a lot of the stuff that we're seeing and the yucky stuff in politics.
Rachel: Absolutely.
Amanda: So before we go, we want to share some tips about your rights on Voting Day. If the polls close while you're still in line, stay in line. You have the right to vote. If you make a mistake on your ballot, you can ask for a new one. If you show up to your polling place and you're not on the rolls, you can request a provisional ballot. If you run into any problems on election day, you can call the election protection hotline, 1-866-OUR-VOTE.
Thanks so much to everyone for joining us today. This is our last regular episode before the midterms. Obviously, if you have not voted already, do it yesterday or tomorrow.
Jasmine: Please. Please do it.
Amanda: Or if you have already voted, ask a friend if you can help them vote or watch their kids or something. So we'll be back posting a short special episode on Monday, and we are so grateful to all of our listeners for joining us this week on The Suburban Women Problem.