Pantsuit Politics

A Failed Execution in Tennessee and a Livestream Firing Squad

We did not expect to be discussing the death penalty less than a month before midterm elections, but here we are. Today, Sarah and Beth discuss: Our individual perspec

Why this Federal Prosecutor Resigned and is Running for Congress in Kentucky

Beth talks with Zach Dembo, the Democratic candidate for Kentucky's 6th Congressional District, running against Republican Ralph Alvarado in one of the closest House race

Live, Laugh, Love was never just a sign

Sarah and Beth talk with Kristin Kobes Du Mez about her new book Live, Laugh, Love, exploring the history and influence of white Christian women's culture in America:

Cornell and the Culture that Let it Happen

Sarah and Beth discuss the horror described in Jane Doe's complaint, the campus culture at Cornell, and the challenges of addressing sexual assault in college environment

Viral stories tell us more than headlines do (+ Taylor Swift's Encore)

Sarah and Beth discuss the viral stories that took over the weekend, and what they reveal about conflict, context, and civic life heading into the midterms: - The New Yo

What Eight Years as a University President Taught Robbyn Wacker about Values

Beth talks with Dr. Robbyn Wacker, a former university president (most recently at St. Cloud State University) with a background in gerontology, about the book she's writ

The AI Conversation, Continued: Kill Switches, Frontier AI, and What to Do About it All

We're picking back up on artificial intelligence — Mustafa Suleyman's warning about conscious AI, the difference between chatbots and frontier models, recursive self-impr

Caitlin Clark, Sydney Sweeney, and the Sports Culture War

Sports, race, gender, religion, cancel culture, and Donald Trump — this week they're all the same conversation. We cover Caitlin Clark's fouls and the House Republicans w

Nobody Trained AI on a Soul

After a weekend when an Anthropic researcher quit and warned AI could wipe out humanity within a decade, Sarah and Beth take on the questions listeners sent them about ar

Bush Wasn't a Bad Man. He Was a Bad President.

Twenty-five years ago today, and Sarah and Beth close out the re-share of their 2018 series on September 11 with the two hardest parts. First, the road from 9/11 to Iraq,

9/11 Wasn't Unimaginable. It Was Unprocessed.

This week marks twenty-five years since the September 11 attacks, and Sarah and Beth are re-sharing the five-part series they made in 2018 to do what they felt the countr

Mailbag: The Lindsay Clancy Trial, Tariffs, and Evangelicalism in Politics

It's a mailbag day, and Sarah and Beth work through everything the Substack Premium community sent in — starting with the Lindsay Clancy jury deadlock and whether the leg

Meta's $17 Billion Settlement and Flock Cameras

Meta just settled with 47 states for roughly $17 billion over claims it built a product designed to addict teenagers, and Flock cameras are facing a backlash that runs fr

Make America Unvaccinated Again

Sarah and Beth dig into the new executive order on childhood vaccines and the request for information the Department of Health and Human Services issued on August 24 — wh

Dolly Parton Was Never Afraid of Change

Sarah opens by calling it what it is — a national day of mourning — and she and Beth spend the hour on the only thing anybody's feed is showing them: Dolly Parton, dead a

Why Everything Feels Unhinged for Women

Sarah opens with a simple question — what's going on with the ladies? — and she and Beth spend the hour discovering that you can't answer it without first describing the

Has America's Time Come? The Odyssey, the $40 Trillion Debt, and a New World Order

Beth watched Christopher Nolan's Odyssey this summer and could not stop thinking about it as an extensive metaphor for American politics. We ended up talking about disori

Was This Summer the Worst?

Sarah and Beth are back together after summer break, and they're starting with the question everyone seems to be asking: was this summer the worst? They work through the

Feeling Powerless in a Red State? Meet the Mulligans

Beth is out this week, but we're sharing a conversation we both had with John and Cindy Mulligan of Owensboro, Kentucky. After years of feeling like all they had were opi

Democratic Socialists Are Winning. Now What?

Beth is still on vacation, so Sarah drafted a guest co-host she's been married to for 23 years. Sarah and Nicholas run through the headlines — Iran's "low-key" chess game