America at 250: Case for the Defense

Kathryn: I watched all of Ken Burns’ “The American Revolution” on maternity leave, and my husband would come into the room and he’s like, “Do most people watch a documentary about the Battle of Brandywine with the covers pulled up to their eyes?” Or like yell out, “Cross that Delaware.” I mean, if the documentary got that much emotion out of me, I’m almost a little afraid to go to “Hamilton.”

Robin: Yeah. You might actually have a coronary.

Kathryn: Hello, and welcome to Optimist Economy. I’m economist Kathryn Anne Edwards.

Robin: I’m editor Robin Rauzi.

Kathryn: On this show, we believe the US economy can be better, and we talk about how to get there one problem and solution at a time. And this is the single greatest episode we have ever produced, because we are talking about America, baby. This episode will be released the week of July 4th or the week before — I’m actually not so good with the time lapse. And anyway, Trump is trying to make America part of his brand, and fuck that guy. This is my favorite holiday. This is our country. In this episode, I will be convincing America, or convincing Robin, to feel good about America, and also convincing America.

Robin: To feel good about America. Yeah. Good luck. Good luck with this.

Kathryn: I was expecting you to be a little bit more game, like, “Good luck.” But even your good luck is — I’m a little worried about the — Jesus. Now I’m worried about the good luck being half lackluster. Okay. Okay.

Announcements

Kathryn: Announcements. Before America, there was announcements.

Robin: So, speaking of stripes and stars — stars, if you would like to rate the show on Apple Podcasts, we would really appreciate that. We’ve got about 840 reviews as I’m speaking. We would love to hit 1,000. So if you haven’t yet rated the show on Apple Podcasts, please do so. Also, bad news: we’re out of hats. We’re going to have to restock on hats. Finally, thank you to our super supporter, Michael Hayhurst in Durham, North Carolina, who made a big contribution to keep Optimist Economy on the air. Thank you, Michael.

Kathryn: Thank you, Michael. I have a quick announcement. It’s a call for one particular listener. I am right now in New York City, and I had a big event last night. I was in fancy wear. You should not have recognized me, because I actually had on makeup. I was dressed up. I was in cowboy boots, and I was running through the New York City subway when someone yelled out, “Hey, Kathryn, I’m listening to you right now.” It was one of our — one of our Optimists was listening on the New York City — they were on the Fulton platform. I was with my cousin. They yelled — not, I mean, yelled, but, like, one of our listeners saw me run by, yelled my name, and he said, “I’m listening to you right now.” And I said, “Pull out” —

Robin: That.

Kathryn: No, I said, “Pull out your phone and prove it.” He pulled out his phone, and it was the maroon and pink of Optimist Economy up on his phone. I gave him a hug. Listener, I took a picture with — my cousin took a picture with his phone, but I’m so unaccustomed to being stopped on the street or even really complimented, and I’m so uncomfortable when I’m complimented, that I was like, “Okay, bye,” and ran. I think I yelled. I was like, “Thanks for listening,” and just fucking ran away. I couldn’t handle the positive encounter.

Robin: And let me get away. Yeah.

Kathryn: I was like, “Okay, well, that sounds really good. Bye,” and I just ran. And so, Optimist from Fulton Street, you know who you are. I ran by while you were listening to me. Please send me the photo. It was such an amazing moment. I had an amazing night, and I felt like I was being carried on the wind of a supporter being like, “Hey, Optimist.” So anyway, Fulton Street platform Optimist listener, please send me the photo so I can prove to everyone what an amazing good-luck charm you were.

Robin: Okay. That’s amazing.

Kathryn: Isn’t that such a good story? Incredible. I walk around with my Optimist tote bag all the time just waiting for somebody to say something, but no. I will say that my mom and sister and I all have an Optimist Economy tote bag, and my sister and I both use it to carry gear for children, like diapers and toys. But my mom uses it for knitting. And so my sister and I were over at her house, and the three bags are next to each other. And my sister was rifling through trying to find the thing for her bag, and she turned around and she’s like, “One of us needs to get a new bag.” Little Optimists.

Retcon: More on the national anthem

Robin: Next up is retcon. Kathryn, do you have any retcon material?

Kathryn: I’ve actually already derailed production enough. I’m just going to say retcon for next time.

Robin: All right, well, I’m not, because I can just waste Andy’s time. Can I do a retcon about executive orders? Is that allowed?

Kathryn: 100 per— 100%. I need to retcon the one about parking, so yeah.

Robin: My executive order two weeks ago, I think, was about singing the “Star-Spangled Banner.” And since then I have been thinking about why it is that I’m so irritated about people who add all of these flourishes to the “Star-Spangled Banner,” because maybe it seemed very petty. And as I was thinking about this episode in particular, I thought, maybe I had already been too petty about the “Star-Spangled Banner.” But I think that when you sing the “Star-Spangled Banner” in a way that draws attention to yourself, it discourages public singing of the national anthem. And I think that there are moments when collective singing is important and valuable, and that the national anthem should be one of those things. It should be sung in a way that invites other people to sing it. So, for instance, sing it in the key of E-flat. Don’t sing it in a key that’s too high for everyone. But also just sing it so that it’s not just about you or whatever your musical genre or style is. That was just a further elaboration of my love for public singing and the importance of collective singing.

Kathryn: Oh my God, Robin. The whole point of this episode was for me to get you jazzed about patriotism, but here you are coming up in retcon with it. So I —

Robin: I think maybe I’m just pro-singing.

Kathryn: You prefer singing? Damn it. Well, we’ll get her. This is a good lead. You know, I actually would say my little tidbit there would just be: I do love “The Star-Spangled Banner,” but I actually more love singing as a group “God Bless America.”

Robin: For sure. It is a great one. It’s also easier to sing.

Kathryn: It’s easier to sing for people like me who sound like something.

Robin: It’s less about war.

Kathryn: It’s less about war. It was written by an immigrant.

Robin: I think if you took a survey, people would say that that should be the national anthem.

Kathryn: Yes. Yeah. Okay, so I don’t want to enter a massive fight, but I really love the song “God Bless America,” and I think it’s incredibly moving when everybody sings it together. And you’re right, the more focus you put on the singer, the less it comes on the other people singing. Okay, patriotic songs, keeping with the theme.

Terms & Conditions: Origin of “the melting pot”

Robin: All right. Terms and conditions.

Kathryn: I did look up the origin of “melting pot,”

Robin: Oh.

Kathryn: and it’s interesting. It’s been around for a while, but it became famous in America because of a play. This guy’s name is Israel Zangwill, and he wrote a play called “The Melting Pot.” And it’s about a Russian Jewish immigrant family in the US, and the main guy has survived a pogrom, and he goes to the US, and it’s about immigrants becoming American. And so it’s like an homage to America written by — so this is the part that got me really confused. He’s not American. He’s British. And I don’t think he ever lived here, but he wrote a play about Jews in America right after the pogroms, and it was called “The Melting” —

Robin: “The Melting Pot.” And that became the meta— that’s the origin of the metaphor?

Kathryn: I think that’s the origin. I think — so from what I could understand, I’m not quite as good at the words part as you of, like, when you use website.free/biz/ads, I feel like you’re not getting the best information. Maybe the OED would say something different. But they — it said the idea of a melting pot had been used before, but it was popularized in this play in 1908 about a —

Robin: Okay.

Kathryn: All right, the Big Pilcrow. We’re going to take a break and come back for the Big Pilcrow.

Big Pilcrow: Make Robin Optimistic about America

Kathryn: Okay, and we’re back. Take it from me, someone who’s been officially accused by Congress of not being a real American, that you should be excited about July 4th. So let’s do a quick origin story of this episode.

Robin: Yeah.

Kathryn: Robin’s maybe not feeling very — Robin’s maybe not feeling very patriotic.

Robin: It’s been a rough — it’s been a rough period of time to be an American, the last, I don’t even know, a while.

Kathryn: Yeah.

Robin: We had felt like we should do something for the Fourth of July, and specifically because it’s the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

Robin: Are you going to show us your flag?

Kathryn: Oh, oh yeah. [Points to flag.]

Robin: [Points to flag.] America 250.

Kathryn: I have the official America 250 flag. When I said I could do prop comedy, this was the flag that was in my backpack when that guy was like, “Real Americans are over there.” I literally had on my person an America 250 flag.

Robin: Anyway, so we had this on the agenda, and I said, “Well, why should we be optimistic about America?” And then Kathryn had a short list, and I said, “These are just things we like about America, but they aren’t necessarily things that make me optimistic for America right now.” So she said, “I can make anyone optimistic about America,” and I said, “Challenge. Challenge accepted.”

Kathryn: Challenge.

Robin: Or I guess you accepted the challenge.

The pain is real right now

Kathryn: Yes. So I’m going to start with first an admission, or an acknowledgement, that many people have been hurt, not just in the last two years, but really

Robin: years.

Kathryn: 250 years before that. Me loving my country and being excited about July 4th and independence and what it all stands for is not because I don’t understand how that promise has not been fulfilled at points in time, for people in time, for people at this very moment in time. It’s not about a willful lack of acknowledgement that everything is great and America’s never done something wrong. And I think the culmination of feeling that a people have right now is watching someone who has no respect for so many things that are just so integral to our country, like following the separation of powers in the Constitution. Americans have always supported diversity and think it’s a strong suit, to have someone so absolutely run that notion into the ground and celebrate squashing diversity. I think to have made so much progress on the acceptance of people who don’t fit into the white heterosexual cisgender box, and then to have that both be walked back and become so threatened. All of these things are there, and I don’t want you guys to think that I’m trying to do some softball version of feeling optimistic about the country. There are people legitimately hurting right now and feel that they’re hurting because this is America, and we have elected a despot who doesn’t care about Americans.

Robin: Yeah.

Kathryn: Okay.

Robin: Yeah.

Kathryn: So let’s —

Robin: Reality acknowledged.

Kathryn: Reality acknowledged.

Not pretending anymore — and that’s not backsliding

Kathryn: So, where does optimism about the future of the US come from? I think I have a couple of points I want to make, but one thing I keep coming back to is — I don’t know which way to start this.

Robin: Mm-hmm.

Kathryn: Robin, when you and I did briefing, I had said it feels like we’re in an era of not pretending anymore.

Robin: Yeah.

Kathryn: If I think back to Kathryn in high school versus Kathryn now, there was almost like a “we don’t talk about it.” Like, racism isn’t a thing anymore because we had the civil rights movement, and a generation or two has gone by, and it was like we didn’t acknowledge that there were still deeply racist people. They were seen as fringe.

Robin: Mm-hmm.

Kathryn: Once gay marriage becomes legal, it’s an absolute celebration of people and joy, and we don’t really talk about the number of people who do not support gay people. It feels like what’s marked this period right now is that there’s just so much coming to the surface of, like, we didn’t really want to acknowledge all of these things that were in our country, and now they are incredibly loud, and it’s a big reckoning.

Robin: This reminds me of — was it a Saturday Night Live skit where they’re like, “I didn’t realize everybody was working so hard to keep these things inside and not articulate them.” Like, if you could just go back to that, that would be fine, you know?

Kathryn: Keep that shit locked up. Okay. But I think part of keeping that locked up was this kind of broad acceptance that the thing that we were supposed to be was accepting, and this thing that we were supposed to be was not racist anymore. And now it’s almost like, once you acknowledge that those people are there, it threatens this idea of what we’re supposed to be. So —

Robin: Mm.

Kathryn: that’s hard to live through and feel like you will get to the other side. I think that that is part of it.

Robin: It feels like a backslide, you —

Kathryn: Yes.

Robin: I have long been a believer that — I think largely because I’m gay, and I have seen where we have come in my adult life. I never would have believed that I would see legalized gay marriage in my lifetime. And I’m not that old, and I got it, right? So I know that people’s minds can be changed. But this has just felt like, oh, I thought more people’s minds were changed than apparently were, or their minds have been changed again, or the people whose minds were changed are not strong enough to stand up for these beliefs. It’s been hard. Yeah.

Kathryn: So the way that I — I mean, the only way to successfully design a solution is to effectively diagnose the problem. I think that that is part of the problem, at least the mood of, like, it’s not just that things are happening that I don’t agree with politically. There’s something that’s underfoot that is truly making me depressed. And I think for me, that’s a big part of it.

Robin: Yeah.

Robin: Do you think that there are advantages to clearing the air?

Kathryn: What we are seeing so much negative reaction to is the idea that the US is not a white Christian country that favors men, heterosexual men.

Robin: Mm-hmm.

Kathryn: Right? Like, we are stepping away from that norm. The Brookings Institute, using census data,

Robin: Yeah.

Kathryn: projects that by 2045, so within 20 years, Americans will be less than 50% white. It’s not like there will be another majority group. It will just be all —

Kathryn: It will be a plurality.

Robin: We’ll all be pluralistic.

The magnitude of demographic change across generations

Kathryn: Let me just put some perspective on the backlash — not backlash, that’s cheap — with some of what we’re going through right —

Robin: I think the magnitude of change is —

Kathryn: The magnitude of change.

Robin: That is always surprising to me, anyway.

Kathryn: Let’s do a little back-in-time test, as I like to call it. Okay, so if you think of the generation that was born before the boomers, they’re sometimes called the Silent Generation or the War Baby generation, but they were born before 1946.

Robin: Mm-hmm.

Kathryn: Okay. When they were in their 20s, 84% of them were white.

Robin: Yeah.

Kathryn: When boomers were in their 20s, 75% of them were white. When Xers were in their 20s, 62% of them were white. When millennials were in their 20s, 56% of them were white. So that is a massive —

Robin: Demographic change, yeah.

Kathryn: That’s a massive demographic change, and the Gen Z-ers are even less. So I don’t have the same comparable statistics, because they’re in their 20s now. But it is a massive drop-off in the share of the population that is white.

Robin: Mm-hmm.

Robin: So we shouldn’t necessarily be surprised that people feel —

Kathryn: Yeah. So in 2025, in a Gallup poll, roughly 9% of Americans identified as other than heterosexual. So they either identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or something other than heterosexual. It was 9%. Even in 2012, it was less than half that.

Robin: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kathryn: So it’s not that they weren’t there, but to even identify in a poll as LGBTQIA+ — that was less than 5% even 15 years ago who would say that in a poll, and now it’s up to nine, and has been rising pretty steadily. The generations that came before us — there was absolutely no recognition or acknowledgement that LGBTQ people existed. Most generations were 80 to 90% white. Black people had almost no rights, and we hadn’t seen major waves of immigration that we were going to see in the ‘80s. So I kind of think, if you were to go back in time to 1980 and say, “Here’s what’s going to happen. How do you think this is going to go?” I think reasonably you would think, “Well, it’s probably going to get bad before it gets worse before it gets better.” Some type of clash that is negative and ugly has to come from so much change within a population, and I think that’s what we’re going through. I know that it can seem like we’re going backwards, but I think that this is just part of moving forwards — to clear the air, to stop pretending anymore. I think this is part of moving forward. And that’s not to say that what’s happening is good or that it had to be ugly, but I think —

Kathryn: Maybe all I’m trying to say is, just because it’s getting bad doesn’t mean we’re going backward, because sometimes to move forward you do have to clear the air. You do have to get out the ugly thoughts and the nastiness, and that is part of moving forward. Now, I will say, an added wrinkle to all of this change is that it’s happening in America, which is one of the most religiously diverse countries in the world. So that’s hard mode, for sure.

America’s religious and ethnic diversity

Robin: You wouldn’t necessarily know that from — but it’s true, yeah.

Kathryn: Yes. So there’s a study that came out in the early 2000s called the fractionalization of — like, how do you measure diversity within a country? How do we do this across countries? So the idea was, could you come up with a statistical measurement: if you were to randomly pick two people from the country, what is the likelihood that they are of different ethnicities, different religions, or different languages? And you can stack up all the —

Robin: So this is like a way to look at diversity across countries as an index. It’s a diversity index.

Kathryn: Yes. They have a pretty good accounting of it. It was published and maintained at Harvard, with another professor at NYU, and then — actually, the Wikipedia page is the one that they direct you to of, like, “This is the easiest way to play around with the data.” It’s from the early 2000s, but other than South Africa, the US was the most religiously diverse country, and it was very religiously diverse.

Robin: And does that include different denominations of Christianity, or does that —

Kathryn: My understanding is yes.

Robin: Like if a Southern Baptist meets a Presbyterian, like —

Kathryn: That’s different, for me. I’m pretty sure it was different sects within Christianity.

Robin: Hmm. Okay.

Kathryn: So then, in terms of ethnicity, the US is more diverse than any other industrialized country except for Canada.

Robin: Canada is more diverse than the United States.

Kathryn: I think so.

Robin: Huh.

Kathryn: They have a larger Asian and Indigenous population as a share of the population.

Robin: Yeah, sure. I can believe that.

Kathryn: Yes. And they have very large immigrant populations, just like we do. But the thing about Canada — not a very populous country.

Robin: Not a very populous, yeah. No, it’s about the size of California.

Kathryn: Yeah, so it’s a smaller country and it has a large, diverse population. So Canada is more ethnically diverse than us, but of the kind of Western industrialized world, it’s Canada and then us. But yeah, we are a place undergoing pretty incredible demographic and cultural change, and we’re doing it to a degree that almost none of our peers have seen anything like, in combination.

Robin: Mm-hmm. And this makes you optimistic.

Kathryn: It’s a pretty incredible demographic transition. It’s a pretty incredible existing mix of diversity, and we’re doing it in a place that’s — oh, how to say this without sounding offensive? — doesn’t have an anchoring gene. We occupy a geography. We are in America. When you ask people what they are, they’ll tell you, “Oh, I’m part Irish,” or “I’m part French,” or “I’m part German.” No one says, “Oh, yeah, I’m part American,” because that doesn’t really mean anything. Because we’re all visitors here. We all arrived here, or descended from people who arrived here, or we’re one of the Indigenous tribes here — but you can’t lump them together, because there’s more than 500 Indigenous tribes in the US. I think the mix of — there’s no de facto genetic combination that would make one person more American than somebody else, because there’s no version of that that’s considered the most American. We all come from different places.

Kathryn: Like, what does it mean to go back generations? If you go back and you’re French, you’re always French, and everyone is French, and you can come up with a more French or less French person based on their degree of Frenchness. What does that mean in America? Most of us barely know what our grandfathers or great-grandfathers did. Okay, actually, perfect story. I went to a wedding in Italy. My Italian friend was getting married. This is such a win in life, to both know an Italian while they’re getting married and get to go to Italy for a wedding. And it’s at a castle in this village near where his family has had a home for a long time.

What “being American” even means — the Italy side quest

Kathryn: We get there a day before everybody else, so we spend the night in the castle, and there’s a guy, Gio Von Giorgio, who is the caretaker, and this is his family’s castle that he has inherited, and they run as a wedding venue now. And so at one point he’s giving us a tour of the castle, and he stops in front of this absolutely amazing tapestry. He was like, “So this is my family tree. It starts in the 1100s, and it’s two branches, one from Italy, one from France. You can see the branches come together. And then up here at the top is the later generations.” And I was like, “Oh, where are you?” And he laughed. He’s like, “I’m not on here. This stops in 1850.” And my husband and I were like, “It stops in 1850?” I don’t think any American can reasonably say they know what their family was doing in 1850, because everybody came here and lied about it. He thought that was hilarious. He’s like, “Well, how far back can you trace your family?” I’m like, “Reasonably? I don’t know. Three, four generations, five tops, but maybe into the 1860s. But even then, it’s real, real speculative if any of this is true.” Because everybody came here to remake themselves and lie about where they came from. Have you ever read a Dickens novel? If someone falls from grace, they end up in America or Australia. He thought that was the craziest thing he’s ever seen, but I thought his family tree was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. I was like, “This is — what the hell? How do you know your family all the way back to the 1100s?”

Robin: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kathryn: Anyway, I think that it’s a lot of change to happen in a place whose national identity is not fixed by some kind of gene.

Robin: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kathryn: That means it’s like you’re fighting for space of what makes American. It’s like open ground. We can all claim it, because there’s no genetic fallback of, like, “But I’m French because my people are French, and we’re Huguenots, and we go back this far.”

Kathryn: I think that’s part of what we’re going through right now, is through this incredibly wild moment in US history that is very hard to live through.

Robin: I mean, if you grow up believing that the United States is not about a biological identity of any kind, but that it is agreement about a system of governance, I think that makes — it’s just that that feels very vulnerable to argumentation. Where, if you’re French, you’re French, and nobody gets to argue with you. Granted, the French are having their own arguments. I do not mean to diminish that. But if your whole country is built on an idea, and then you’ve got a lot of people saying that idea isn’t valid anymore — which is the moment I feel like we’re in — that’s what makes me anxious, and it’s what makes me spend weekends doing things to distract myself from the news. It’s a lot to take.

Kathryn: It’s a lot to take, and I wouldn’t want to minimize your feelings. I do think that in some ways I find comfort in thinking that the problem is so much bigger than just one asshole on Pennsylvania Avenue. Like, this is an era of American history of really big change. That’s not going to be conflict-free, and it kind of robs him of agency and influence to be like, “Ugh, whatever. You’re a byproduct of the times.” You’re not special. You’re not influential. You’re just riding high on a wave that was there but latent, and bully for you, you did it. But I don’t really think of him as being a catalyst for change — which would make me really depressed if I actually thought he was a catalyst for change.

Robin: Right. Hmm. I mean, I do feel like a lot is — I just feel like a lot of things are changing, and not necessarily all for the better.

Kathryn: Oh no, shit’s getting terrible. But I’m not — okay, come on. Let’s remember that we have a very particular brand of optimism here. But yeah, shit’s getting terrible, and that’s bad. But don’t empower the people who have that narrative with more than they deserve. They don’t deserve that much. This is a fucking generational transition of America, American identity, what is acceptable in America, what it means to be an American. We’re in a massive generational conflict as we turn from one moment in time to another, and he’s like, “Yeah, I did that.” I’m like, “The fuck you did. Come on. We did it to ourselves. We’re doing our best.” I just wouldn’t want to empower him with influence he doesn’t deserve.

Robin: Well, I mean, and I guess what you’re saying, whether or not I believe it, is that it’s all kind of still up for grabs too. Like, it’s not like we’ve turned this corner and we can’t go back or take a different direction.

Kathryn: This is exactly what I mean. We’re not at the end of the book.

Robin: Mm-hmm. Okay.

Kathryn: And if we’re optimistic, we fight for things that we want, and some of us are.

Robin: Yeah.

Robin: Okay, so my first —

Kathryn: attempt at optimism is: there’s a lot of shit going on, but we aren’t done yet, and if we fall into cynicism, we have more to lose than if we keep fighting. Don’t give up on your country coming back to something that you recognize, you know?

Robin: Mm-hmm. Sure.

Kathryn: I’m not saying you have to have a barbecue. I understand. But don’t give up.

Robin: I’m not opposed to barbecues. And yeah, I can get on board with that. I actually have a lot of friends who have moved overseas, and I have been asked multiple times, like, have we thought about moving out of the country? And my patriot wife — I don’t think she would allow it. It’s our experiment, and we do feel committed to seeing it through.

Kathryn: Yeah. That felt like maybe a third of the way there, but that also felt like maybe that’s what you thought before and I haven’t convinced you of anything. So let’s keep going.

Robin: Okay. All right.

Why Congress is so broken — and the doom loop explained

Kathryn: The other thing I wanted to say was, I do think a lot of pessimism that people have about America rests on how bad Congress is.

Robin: Yeah. Right now.

Kathryn: Yes, and the feeling that Congress is incredibly weak, that they don’t listen to the American people, that they’re in the pockets of rich people, and that if our whole system of representative government rests on power answering to the people through elections, like, Jesus, this is a really hard moment to feel confident in that check on power.

Robin: Yeah.

Kathryn: I almost think I articulated that too well. I’m starting to be like, “Ugh, God, that is rough.” That is rough. I’m just going to tell you right now, that’s —

Robin: Yeah, I mean, especially the House. You just feel like the House was supposed to be our voice. One of the things I was struck by — I can’t remember, not that long ago, but I hadn’t really taken on board — is if a member of Congress steps down or is pushed out or dies, you can’t appoint a replacement. With a senator, the governor gets to appoint a replacement. Members of Congress have to be elected by the people. They have to have a special election, and they’re supposed to be the closest to us in terms of representing us. And, you know, I think as the country gets bigger and bigger and districts have more and more people, maybe Congress isn’t big enough, but it also just seems completely dysfunctional. And in fact, not only do they not really want to represent everybody, but they don’t want to represent their constituents. They take pride in being like, “I’m an individual, and I stick with what I believe, and I do my thing.” And you’re like, “No, that’s not your job. That’s not your job.”

Kathryn: Well, perhaps it would make you feel comfort to know that Congress’s approval rating is in the teens, so a lot of America —

Robin: Also, yes, right. I’m not alone in this.

Kathryn: Yeah. I would say it would be worse if this is what was going on and their approval rating was in the high 70s, and it’d be like, “My God. What is happening?” There’s a general dissatisfaction with so many branches of government right now. Okay, it doesn’t feel great, but at least other people agree this shit’s messed up. So that’s — I mean, again,

Robin: Small —

We have more common ground than we realize

Kathryn: Small wins. Take the wins where you can find them. I think a lot of people benefit from America being told that we’re in an incredibly divided time. Parties have never been so divided, and yet you will see these polls that are like: 80% of Americans want a higher minimum wage, 80% of Americans want paid family medical leave, 80% of Americans want corporate money out of politics, 90% of Americans want Social Security to have taxes raised so they don’t have to cut benefits. Americans are actually much farther along and united than their Congress is, and I’d go back to what we talked about in the Progress Is a Long Game episode, of: it takes a long time for Congress to catch up to the people, despite being what should be the people’s House. You can feel that they are just totally disconnected from the people, and Americans have moved on. They’re tired of shit costing so much. They’re tired of how obvious rich people’s influencing politics is. They’re tired of the redistricting. They just want Congress to find solutions to problems that are plaguing them, and everybody in there is, like, a million years old and not doing it.

Robin: Yeah, I feel like it’s a game to them. The arguments in the Supreme Court in particular — it’s just a game. How can I rig this argument so that I get what I want, and make it a constitutional issue? Congress is sort of the same way. It’s like, who can I influence? Who can I convince to vote for this thing, or just to not take any action on — I think that’s probably the biggest thing, is just make sure they don’t do anything. And then large corporations, et cetera, just continue to do what they’re doing, because nobody will rein them in.

Politics doesn’t like solving problems — the ERA and immigration

Kathryn: Nobody will rein them in. Yeah, I was reminded of this political scientist interview I watched about the Equal Rights Amendment. The ERA — I think the way a lot of people internalize it is, like, the height of third-wave feminism is that they were going to get an Equal Rights Amendment, but it was so radical it was defeated by the states. But what really happened was that it was overwhelmingly bipartisan, passed the House, passed the Senate — almost no one voted against it. And the defeat of the ERA came really in the final moments before it was passed or ratified as a constitutional amendment. Basically, politicians realized they had more to gain if it was an issue that they could use to win elections rather than a problem to be solved.

Robin: Witness immigration in 2024.

Kathryn: Yes, it’s that.

Robin: We had a bipartisan bill to reform immigration and threw it away because it was a better issue to run on than it was to solve.

Kathryn: Yes. So for y’all who might not know this, in the last year of Biden’s presidency, there was a bipartisan Senate-led effort to pass sweeping immigration reform. And the bill was sunk because then-candidate Trump said, “Don’t pass immigration reform, because then I can’t run on immigration.”

Robin: Yeah, and that’s just a way to make sure you never solve any problems.

Kathryn: Yes. Okay, so I feel like we’re getting pretty far in the problem-diagnosis stage.

Robin: That’s — okay.

Kathryn: Okay. But I will say, this is obvious. I don’t think you and I are high-level political scientists. It is so obvious that people are disgusted with Congress because they are bad at their job, and they’re bad at their job because being bad at their job gets people angry, and getting people angry wins elections, and we’re in some kind of doom loop of not solving problems. As problems don’t get solved and people get more and more pissed off, then you just get angry at people that don’t look like you and be like, “Actually, it’s their fault for being an immigrant, or being Black, or being gay, or whatever.” I feel like we’re looking up at the doom loop going around us being like, “Jesus, this is tough.” So I’m not saying that I’m happy about the doom loop.

Robin: No one’s optimistic about the doom loop.

The obvious way out: vote them out

Kathryn: Except that it has a very — if not easy, obvious solution, which is: vote in different people. I know that sounds naive to say, like, “Oh, and we just have to vote for other people,” but on some level, we ultimately do hold the cards. We elect awful people. The mechanism is there, I guess, is something that I feel good about — that we have elections. If you don’t like something, like, fucking vote them out.

Robin: Yeah. And I think that also means, frankly, challenging people in your own party. I would love to see additional parties, personally, but the incumbency — if you’re not solving problems, then kind of get out of the way for somebody who will.

Kathryn: I could not agree more. The Optimist Party. Let’s just solve some shit. Don’t look at me, don’t talk to me, don’t come up and greet me in the subway or I’ll run away. We’re here to solve problems.

Not the worst it’s been!

Kathryn: I really love American history, and I think in American history it’s very hard to claim that this is the worst it’s ever been. I don’t think we’re anywhere near the — it’s not great moments, but we’re not — I don’t know if we’ve really scratched the top five worst moments for democracy in US history. I don’t know, maybe, maybe he would disagree.

Robin: I don’t know. I was actually trying to count. I was like, “Well, are we —” I think what I find troubling is that when you’re in moments where the humanity of your fellow Americans is questioned — whether those people are Black or because they are gay or because they are trans or because they are immigrants — that just always feels really high-stakes to me, because that’s the kind of thinking that leads to really bad stuff. It leads to wars, it leads to genocides, it leads to internment camps. And some would say we’re seeing those things, right? It’s hard to compare things to, say, the Civil War, or frankly, the war against the Indians. I mean, there’s horrible things. Like, the bar —

Kathryn: So the election of 1876, that one’s a real bad one in terms of low moments of US history.

Robin: Yeah.

Kathryn: Which one’s the Great Compromise? ‘24, 1824, that was another terrible one. Yeah, the whole Civil War, that whole period.

Robin: Yeah. Anyway, okay.

Kathryn: Anyway, listeners must like this a little bit if they actually listen to us, but I think that — we know the path out.

Robin: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kathryn: The people’s agenda — more than 75% of Americans want this agenda — is a really good agenda. And the inability of Congress to function, the way that elections are threatened, all of it has solutions. And we have in hand what people want. I think what’s interesting to me is that this latest wave of affordability — and this word that has become inescapable in our society and economy — what I think is really interesting about it is that it’s a majority issue.

Affordability as unsustainability — a majority issue

Robin: Mm-hmm.

Kathryn: It’s not that childcare is unaffordable, or that parenting is hard — everybody has put themselves under the umbrella of affordability.

Robin: And they have their version of it, of like, “Here is what is breaking me.” Not like, “I’m a housing person. I’m a student-loan person. I’m a childcare person.” It’s just the notion that — well, it’s this notion that the economy is not functioning for American people, right?

Kathryn: It’s funny, the word “unaffordable,” the way that people describe it — it’s really “unsustainable.” It’s not that I can’t have certain things, it’s that I can’t keep going like this. There’s a total unsustainability to my basic economic life, and I think that it is mirroring the unsustainability of the terrible policy regime we have right now. This is crashing into something. I don’t know what it is. But the idea that the basic political motivation of Americans right now is to express how unsustainable their life feels has to usher in some kind of change.

Robin: Right. We hope.

Kathryn: We hope.

Check-in: Is Robin feeling any more optimistic?

Kathryn: Okay, let’s do a quick check-in. Robin, are you feeling any more optimistic about the US? I have a couple more tricks up my sleeve, but how are you feeling?

Robin: Well, it makes me optimistic that there are people like you and others — I know there are others — who are —

Kathryn: Us.

Robin: There are dozens of us, dozens of you, who can see beyond the bullshit and sort of not get dragged into the mire of what just feels like is endless setbacks. So I think that helps. But I’m sure I’m not the only one who just feels like we are just holding on until the midterms by our fingernails.

Kathryn: Don’t put too — I always say, don’t let’s put too much of our self-worth on the midterms, though. Be prepared for the midterms to be slightly disappointing.

Kathryn: Getting a note from production: “I don’t yet feel optimistic about voting because of gerrymandering and SCOTUS.” I think this is a very valid concern. Sophie’s worried about gerrymandering and SCOTUS. But to be fair, that makes it harder to win an election, but that doesn’t mean they don’t — they haven’t determined the outcome of the election, right? They’re trying to cook the books in their favor, but that doesn’t mean that the election doesn’t happen or we don’t get the chance to vote anymore. And I know that there’s attacks on every aspect of voting, and I’m not trying to minimize them. But the reason why they’re attacking voting, y’all — they’re playing their fucking hand. They know what their weakness is, which is that the American people need to approve of what they do. And people don’t want it. People don’t want what they’re selling. Y’all, they are telling us that they’re wrong. They’re telling us that they’re weak. They’re telling us that they stand on unstable ground. They’re telling us that they are trying to co-opt America, and America is not on board. So don’t let them fucking think that we’re on board. So yes, that means we have to win bigger to overcome every obstacle they’ve put in our way. But they’re only putting up those obstacles because they know that otherwise they’ll lose, which means we are closer than they are willing to admit out loud, because they are showing it with their actions.

Kathryn: So don’t fucking give up. That is what they want. They want you to feel defeated and give up. Sophie, if Donald Trump could do one thing right now, it would be to say, “Sophie, your vote doesn’t matter. Illinois, Chicago, garbage country. Don’t, don’t vote, Sophie.” He doesn’t want you to vote. “Yeah, Sophie, I control SCOTUS, so you don’t matter. Don’t think about it, Sophie. Just stay home, okay?” He does not want a resident of Chicago to vote and put up huge numbers in Illinois. Sophie, don’t give in to the man.

Robin: I don’t think I’ve ever heard you do the president’s voice before. That’s —

Kathryn: I actually am just —

Robin: It’s —

Kathryn: the guy from SNL.

Robin: I was going to say, you sound a lot like the one on SNL. Ah.

Kathryn: City no good. Sophie, stay at home. Don’t vote that day. Probably get shot on the way. Very violent. Yeah, so just don’t — that, that — like, you guys, just play Trump’s voice in your head telling you, “Give up and don’t vote.” That’s all the motivation you need to be like, “And you know what? I’m actually going to throw two July 4th parties.”

Robin: At Kathryn’s house, the party starts on the second and just keeps going.

Kathryn: It does. But yeah, y’all, just imagine his voice in your head saying, like, “I’m so glad you’ve given up. Give up, Robin. Don’t.”

Things that are just great about America

Kathryn: I’m going to do a real quick rundown of some things to keep in mind about America.

Robin: Okay.

Kathryn: Okay. Ready? We’re fucking awesome. We have the greatest city in the history of the world, which is New York City. You can’t match it. You can try. You can be like, “I don’t know, Paris is nice.” Like, okay, 1700s aristocrat, I’m sure it’s lovely. I am talking about New York City in the 21st century is amazing. And if you don’t believe me, watch videos of the Knicks winning and people celebrating on the streets. I’ve —

Robin: You cried.

Kathryn: I did. I arrived in New York the next day, and it was like arriving to an entire city that had just had the largest Thanksgiving dinner of their life. Like, people were subdued and full, just kind of calm. Ugh. All right, so let’s just review. Our country’s awesome. We have the greatest city in the world.

Robin: Mm-hmm.

Kathryn: Okay. Other things great about America: we make the best music and movies, which, like, going two-for-two is — going one-two on music and movies is amazing, because it’s such a dominant culture of the world.

Kathryn: We invented the high five. How’s that? How’s that? Americans, that’s us. The reaching out a hand

Robin: and slapping —

Kathryn: the air, and someone slaps it back, that is America. It was created in Dodger Stadium.

Robin: Yes. That does sound like a Dodger Stadium thing.

Kathryn: There are many origin stories of the first high five, but the two most documented candidates are October 2nd, 1977 at Dodger Stadium, when LA Dodgers outfielder Dusty Baker hit his 30th home run of the season, and as he crossed home plate, his teammate, rookie Glenn Burke, raised his hand in the air, and Baker reached up to slap it.

Robin: Mm-hmm.

Robin: We didn’t have a high five before 1977?

Kathryn: I know. Think about it. We didn’t have a high five at the bicentennial. How did people celebrate our 200th birthday if they couldn’t high-five each other? I don’t know. Did they just put elbows up? Like, hug?

Robin: I guess there was a time before the fist bump, so I guess there was a time before high fives.

Kathryn: I didn’t know the high five was an American thing until I was in Europe, and I met a British guy who was a listener of the show — and if you’re listening, hello. And he made this joke. He was like, “Oh, really? Was it awesome? Do you want a high five now?” And I was like, “Yes. I feel so seen.” And he was like, “That’s such an Amer—” I was like 21, and I was like, “Oh, is it an American thing to high-five?” And he said, “Yes.” And I was like, “But that’s so sad for you.” It’s like a pure expression of joy. Why wouldn’t you embrace that?

Robin: Yeah, I’m going to watch the World Cup differently, I think, now. I’m going to be watching for high fives. Like —

Kathryn: Yeah. I mean, the World Cup’s the greatest test of how many high fives there are, but a high five is invented on an American baseball field. So —

Kathryn: I feel for people who aren’t enthusiastic about the US right now, but we come from an awesome, difficult place, and sometimes it’s more awesome and sometimes it’s more difficult, but it’s always a little bit of both. And it’s not his fucking holiday. It’s our holiday. This is an expression of us as a people. And so I think if you want to have a bedazzled red, white, and blue July 4th, if you want to spend July 4th inside watching “Independence Day,” as I often do —

Robin: With —

Kathryn: you —

Robin: the alien movie?

Kathryn: Yeah. You know, I’ve actually staged it so I’ll watch the part that takes place on July 2nd on July 2nd, and I’ll watch July 3rd on July 3rd, and then I’ll watch July 4th on July 4th. We throw a huge July 4th party every year, and I will put “Independence Day” on and just have it play on repeat during the party.

Robin: Have you seen “Hamilton”?

Kathryn: Nope.

Robin: Because you’re not a musicals person. I don’t know what’s wrong with you. Because —

Kathryn: Don’t say — I just — she’s like, really? Like, I feel like we just lost a lot of listeners. “Not a musicals person. Who the fuck is this girl?”

Robin: Really, I think that that would change for you if you saw “Hamilton.”

Kathryn: You sound like my sister six years ago, just shoving that soundtrack down my throat saying I need to listen to it.

Robin: It’s a musical made for you. I don’t know why you have not gone.

Kathryn: Okay, so just a note to the Optimists: production has just interrupted the recording to make sure that it’s clear to me that I need to go see “Hamilton.” Okay. So stay with —

Robin: Okay.

Kathryn: Musicals —

Robin: Also American.

Kathryn: Yeah, also American. There’s a couple of forms of art that we have invented, other than just musical genres. I didn’t realize this. We invented the short story.

Robin: Hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kathryn: It was a truly American writing invention, the short story. And we weren’t the only ones that did it, but the demand for the short story was in periodicals in the US. So, not bad.

Robin: Not bad.

Kathryn: Take the ones where you can find them.

Robin: We are storytellers overall is what I’m getting out of this, which tracks.

Kathryn: It tracks.

Robin: I mean, we tell stories about ourselves to ourselves all the time.

Kathryn: And here’s the story that I’m telling for Optimists. There is no act of resistance greater than people deciding that they get to determine what America is, they get to determine what it means to be American and who gets to be American, and one person being more American than another — than to celebrate your country in their face. Like, “You know what? You think you love your country more than me, and I don’t matter? I’ll see you one and raise you another. Hold on.” [Points to flag.]

Robin: [Points to flag.]

Kathryn: And that’s just my road flag. That doesn’t count all the flags I have at home. This is the flag I took on the road to record in New York. I’ve always got a flag on me, baby. It sits there.

Kathryn: So that’s — I think it’s not all I got. I just feel like we should stop letting me talk.

Robin: Okay. It’s been a minute. It’s been a minute. I get that you love America. I get it. I get it. And I am happy that America has you.

Kathryn: I am happy that America has you, because I actually don’t think it would be a chill place if everybody was like me. And I think there’s people who are like — I think this is what it means to be American, is that you could be like me, but you could also be like you and be like, “Hey, I’m into it. I wish it were better,” in a chill way. So I think there’s room for all of us.

Robin: Good. One would hope that there’s room for all of us here. All right, we’re going to take a little break. We’ll be back in a second.

Executive Orders: End gerrymandering; mandatory hearings on supermajority issues

Kathryn: So this is the end of the show where I stop talking and we give executive orders.

Robin: So, in light of this episode, I was thinking about what I really would want out of a better America, and I decided: nonpartisan, independent congressional redistricting done by commission, applying some really good algorithmic optimization so that our districts are compact and contiguous and have population equally distributed, and just get rid of the gerrymandering. It’s maddening. My mother once said to me, “I’ve elected five different congressmen and they’re all still in Congress.” And that was true — they had been redistricted so many times. I’m not far behind her. It doesn’t matter what state you’re in, it’s bullshit. Anyway, that’s my executive order.

Kathryn: So good.

Robin: order.

Kathryn: In the Rauzi Republic, that’s what’ll happen. The Rauzi Republic. Okay, maybe mine will be: there needs to be some type of official polling system. It could be Gallup or Pew or whatever, but once Americans are in, like, 80-plus percent of support for an issue, Congress has to have hearings and develop legislation for it. You can’t have this many people in support of something that’s not like they’re in support of something crazy, like, here, give everybody a million dollars. It’s like, we really just want paid family leave. This is such a reasonable want. I suppose that would be my corollary. But my actual executive order is for every Optimist to go out and enjoy July 4th however they choose to enjoy it.

Robin: Nice.

Kathryn: And if you are like, “I don’t want to be very patriotic,” just know I am more than making up for you, brother. So you just enjoy the holiday however you want to enjoy the holiday.

Robin: Excellent.

Kathryn: I hope so. All right. Spiritual sponsors.

Spiritual Sponsors: Knicks celebrations; bourbon in Louisville

Robin: I feel like I should have a patriotic spiritual sponsor and I got nothing. Can you go first?

Kathryn: My spiritual sponsor is the Knicks-in-Five celebrations in New York.

Robin: Oh my God. There have been roving gangs of Knicks fans in my neighborhood in Los Angeles too. I had no idea there were so many New Yorkers in my neighborhood specifically.

Kathryn: I mean, I don’t even think it’s the Knicks in five. The Knicks won that one. All of the celebrations for the finals have been great. I don’t know if you saw — I think it was when they won game four — that Spike Lee was driving through the city like the Pope, just hanging out in the top of a car in Knicks gear, and people were surrounding him and cheering him on as if the Pope. It was like the pontiff himself is going through Brooklyn at 1:00 on a Friday night, but it’s actually just Spike Lee after a Knicks win. And I was like, “What a ridiculous fucking city.” Seriously. So, spiritual sponsor: I am not a huge basketball fan. I would be loyal to the Rockets and soon-to-be Comets, obviously, but that much celebrating, it was ridiculous. It warmed my heart, so.

Robin: That’s great.

Robin: So my spiritual sponsor — I will be spending this week in particular in Louisville, Kentucky, so my spiritual sponsor for the 250th anniversary of America is definitely going to be bourbon. Whatever bourbon they got in Kentucky, and I understand they have a lot of it.

Kathryn: The Optimist Economy podcast is edited by Sofi LaLonde. Our video production for social media is by Andy Robinson. We shout them out because they make this possible, and y’all, this is another episode where, if this sounds good, it’s because they are fucking heroes. I’m in a hotel room in New York. I am holding up a microphone with a knockoff Stanley cup. Anyway, this is a disaster. They do such a good job.

Kathryn: T-shirts and tote bags are available on our website, but not hats — too long.

Robin: Hats.

Kathryn: Go to optimisteconomy.com for more. Fulton Street subway guy, send me the photo at optimist.economy@gmail.com.

Robin: Mm-hmm. Video clips from our show are available on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn. If you’re on Substack, you can join our Optimist Economy chat there. And if you have the means to contribute at whatever level is comfortable for you, we’ll take your gift at optimisteconomy.com.