What’s happening in Congress is not normal

Make Me Smart September 18, 2023 Transcript

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Kai Ryssdal 

Alright, let’s go. Let’s do it. Ever happy, Jayk? Course, everybody I’m Kai Ryssdal. Welcome back to Make Me Smart. Where we make today make sense.

Kimberly Adams 

And I’m Kimberly Adams, happy Monday, everybody. Thank you for joining us. It is September the 18th. We are more than halfway through this month, it has flown by.

Kai Ryssdal 

Totally. Well, no, I mean, time goes faster when you get older. I don’t know. Anyway, whatever. So this news, we’ll do some smiles, and then we will move briskly on about our day. We’ll start with news. Okay, you go first, go ahead.

Kimberly Adams 

Well, as it says here in the notes on the document, Kai, please help we lost a plane?

Kai Ryssdal 

Cuz your news is my smile. So let’s combine forces here you go first, and then I’ll fill in the blanks.

Kimberly Adams 

Okay, so I have a piece from The Hill, “Marines issue a stand down order amid the search for a missing F35.” So there’s been a two day search, I guess, for an F35 plane, that there was a malfunction, the pilot ejected, thank goodness, the pilot is all right, and is recovering well, but this $80 million jet is just missing, and it’s gone. And we can’t seem to find it in forgive my parochial language, but the year of our Lord 2023 we can’t find an $80 million jet. And I have read several articles about it. But I do not understand, the math so not mathing. How Mr. former pilot Kai?

Kai Ryssdal 

No totally. I completely agree. And that’s why it’s in my make me smile, because you’re like, are you kidding me? So I think it’s in the lake somewhere. There’s probably a zillion little small rural lakes out in the middle of nowhere, South Carolina. And this plane is at the bottom of one and there was nobody around to see the splash or or however this happened. And they will eventually find it. But they’re searching out from the air. And I I guess they haven’t found it. My make me smile is actually the, so there’s a site called Flightradar24, which tracks aviation sort of all over the world. And you can if you’re an aviation geek, you can get all kinds of cool stuff on there. They’ve got the flight paths of all the search planes. And it’s crazy because they’re like zigzagging all over the place over South Carolina to find this plane, they will eventually find it. I’m not I’m not confused about that. I just think it’s it’s just kind of rich. But let me just let me just say one other thing about this. And this is the link to the article that you posted from from The Hill which covers Congress and all things sort of Washington broadly speaking. So what has happened is that there has been a string of aviation mishaps in the Marine Corps lately an F18 crashed, and then earlier down in Australia an B22 crashed with with 20 people on board and obviously all those lives were lost. And that’s a terrible thing. So what has happened is that the acting Commandant of the Marine Corps General Eric Smith has ordered a safety standout two days for all aviation units in the Marine Corps to not fly and just go over safety procedures, safety protocols, and oh, by the way, why safety is important. That stand down thing is not unusual. The reason I bring, the reason I bring it up is because I had to say acting commandant

Kimberly Adams

Acting commandant, I just was about to ask about that.

Kai Ryssdal

Because are you kidding me? Senator Tuberville? When is this going to stop? I just can not. And that’s all I have to say.

Kimberly Adams 

I was reading this week. And they say it’s going to take years for the military to recover from this backlog.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah. Well, that was that was, yes, that so that was the woman who is now the Acting Chief of Naval Operations. Admiral, I think her name is Franchetti, who has been nominated to replace the outgoing CNO Chief of Naval Operations, the chief officer, the most senior officer in uniform in the Navy, but she can’t do the job because you’re not confirmed. She had a confirmation hearings like 10 days ago, and that’s where that quote was from it is going to take years for the military to recover from this. It’s, oh  God.

Kimberly Adams 

You know, that actually reminds me of another piece I was thinking of putting in today but I didn’t and but now just ask to put it in the show notes and says “Congress is in crisis. There’s no clear escape,” and the subhead is a quote from Representative Mike Simpson, a Republican from Idaho. “We’ve been seeing this coming. I just didn’t think You were dumb enough to get there.” And that quote encapsulates so many different things he was talking about the looming government shutdown. And the fact that like, everybody saw this coming, we talked about it on the show right after the debt ceiling deal. And, you know, and nevertheless, here we are, the Tuberville thing we saw and everybody predicted the damage this was going to do to the readiness of our armed services. And nevertheless, here we are. And it’s, it’s wild. And I don’t want to just present this, like, oh, this is horrible. What can be done, there are things that can be done, which is pressure on your representatives and members of Congress, there is, you know, your own organizing action in your community or whatever other way that you want to engage in the democracy. There are things to be done. But our elected officials are not doing their best.

Kai Ryssdal 

Can I, alright, so yes. And I would, I would like to I would like it if newspapers and websites around the country would modify those headlines from Congress is messed up. And lawmakers aren’t doing their job to Republicans in Congress, are paralyzing the government. Because obviously, it’s Republicans in the House, who can’t, you can push back in a minute, it’s Republicans in the House, who can’t agree on a funding bill. It’s Republicans in the House, who are going to paralyze things even more, by impeachment of the president on what has to be called? Well, let me let me be generous about this, for which there is no direct evidence, right? It is a Republican in the Senate, who’s holding up military promotions, Democrats for all their foibles. And look, this is arguably a weakness of theirs, are trying to get things done by adhering to norms. But the Republicans can’t govern, discuss.

Kimberly Adams 

So I’ll say two things about that. First of all, in the story that I did for the evening show today, my editor and I had quite a discussion over like the last couple of lines, in which I was talking about how shutdowns affect recruiting and retention for the federal workforce, and how in this particular economy, if there’s a shutdown, it will be very easy for outside employers to come in and poach skilled workers from the federal workforce, because they can offer jobs that are not as I think we put it subject to the whims of Congress. I originally said at the whims of Congress, and my editor rightfully pushed back and said, It’s not Congress. Right. And so, but at the same time, we can’t say, in fairness, when it’s moving that quickly without additional context, you know, because of Republicans in Congress,

Kai Ryssdal 

I Sorry, sorry. Go ahead. Sorry.

Kimberly Adams 

So what we ended up saying was because of some members of Congress, right, but in In fairness, yes, the issues that we are talking about are coming from, specifically the House Freedom Caucus, which are Republicans. And the issue that we’re talking about here with the holdups on, you know, military nominations, and things like that is coming from a Republican in the Senate, however, and call this playing devil’s advocate and both siderisms, if you will, when you are not the party, in control, because they do have power in the house, but very little power, because they can’t get their stuff together. But they don’t have control the presidency, they don’t have control of the Senate, you have very few levers to exert your political will. And this is one of them, the debt ceiling was another. And I can’t really from a political standpoint, blame the Republicans for using the tools at their disposal, the tools that are available to them to achieve the goals that they say are important, this particular group, and that they claim they were elected to push at the federal level. Now, they may be like causing wreaking havoc on the rest of the country while doing so. But they’re effectively doing what they’re like they were elected to do.

Kai Ryssdal 

Well, well, I guess that’s my point. Right? Two things. Number one, we live in a representative democracy, which means we the,

Kimbelry Adams

ish,

Kai Ryssdal

Ish, fine, but that’s the form of government we have right whether it exists in practice is another thing. But in theory, what happens is that we the people cede part of our governing authority, because it all comes from us right to our elected representatives, who we then trust to You exercise their best judgment to, among many other things make the government function. I would suggest that Republican members of Congress are not, in fact, and specifically the house are not trying to make the government function. They cannot govern. They, I mean, demonstrably they can’t. I’ll be so surprised if if Kevin McCarthy is the Speaker of the House in like three weeks.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah, I was gonna give it two but you’re being more generous.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah. Well, yeah. You’re gonna you’re paying more attention to the calendar, right, because we’re gonna get to the showdown. Yeah, I just, it’s, it’s. and So point number two, is I think it’s incumbent upon us as members of the press to as, as Margaret Sullivan said this weekend in The Guardian. Yes, we should be informative, but we have to be truthful first. That’s a paraphrase. You know?

Kimberly Adams 

So how different is that? Oh, sorry. You go. Go ahead.

Kai Ryssdal 

No, no I think I think, I’m done.

Kimberly Adams 

How different is this level of because it’s effectively obstruction, they are happy to grind the government to a halt, in order to achieve their political goals or to prevent the political goals of others from being achieved. How different is this from Mitch McConnell, saying that his old job was to make sure that Obama didn’t get anything done, but because I felt like that was viewed as political savvy. But this is being viewed as just messy.

Kai Ryssdal 

Well, so so let’s, that’s a great example, actually, because I would suggest that, that it’s okay to do what you want to do to achieve your political goals, right, within reason, right? As long as the system can function, and right now, the system can’t function. But but going to x means deviating from the norms to prevent somebody else from achieving their political goals, which is exactly what McConnell did in, to continue from your example, making him a one term president, but also, not even giving Merrick Garland a hearing by saying, oh, well, we can’t do in an election year and all this jazz, which is historically, which is ahistorical, right. That’s not that’s not how any of this works. We can’t, we can’t function that way. And I think as you see, we’re not functioning.

Kimberly Adams 

You yeah, I guess I really hesitate to lean too heavily on historical norms as guidelines for forward looking behavior. Like, yes, there is a place for it. But I’m a black person in America. And so if we talk about all of the change that has allowed me to exist in the way that I exist today, it was because norms were up ended, as a black person, as a woman as a, you know, whatever other category you want to put me in. And so like, I always get a little squeamish when it’s like, this is not the way that we’ve been doing things, we need to, you know, stick to stick to the way that we’ve been doing things. Like yes, for decorum. But then if I’m if I’m going to make that argument, that argument falls apart when I talk about, like my own identity in this country. And so I can’t then tell people who do want a country where abortion is universally outlawed, who do want a country where we can walk around with, you know, assault weapons on our shoulders, who do want a country where, you know, you can’t teach about LGBTQ plus issues in schools, who are advocating that this is the way that we should be, and we’re happy to up end whatever norms exist in order to accomplish that, who it is not, for me to say that those perspectives are less valid than my own. But, you know, I do hope that we land on the right side of history here and that the arc of history bends towards justice. But I always do get a little iffy when we’re like, this is abnormal. This is ahistorical well, yeah, it should be in some cases, but which cases and who gets to decide?

Kai Ryssdal 

Yes to all of that. And obviously as as a white male in this economy, I have a completely different and and and far less germane to the conversation viewpoint. So so let me go somewhere else, while agreeing with everything you said. The the reason we have had just to get us sort of back to democracy and government and all that function. The reason we have had peaceful transitions of power in this country for centuries, is because people respected the norms, because the person who lost said I lost. I don’t like it, but I gotta go. Because our elected leader ever said, “that guy lost. This guy won.” Yes, guys. Totally different conversation. Right? And that but arguably, right, that arguably that arguably is is why all of these band aids are being ripped off now.

Kimberly Adams 

It’s adherence to the rule of law or not. That’s what we’re really talking about.

Kai Ryssdal 

Right? Yeah. Right. Anyway,

Kimberly Adams 

So many more things to say I’m gonna skip my other news item and get to yours.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah, well, well, look. No. So I actually think we should just leave it right here.

Kimberly Adams 

Alright yeah we’ll come back to the other stuff later.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah we’ll talk about the other stuff later. Because because this was important stuff. And I’m really glad we had this conversation, because that’s a little bit of what this podcast is for, because it’s a side of you and me that listeners don’t get to hear on the other platforms that we have.

Kimberly Adams 

And also, we’re processing it too like everybody else. Yeah. Like, we’re turning it over in our heads and trying to figure out like, what do we say in words out loud.

Kai Ryssdal 

Right. Right. Exactly. So tomorrow we’re going to we’re going to be parallel to this if not on the topic we’re going to talk about Bidenomics and and in some regards the politics of this economy, we’re going to do it with a political economist, his name is Mark Blyth we’ve had him on before he is delightful and smart and has a great accent fun to listen to. And and what that all means. So that’s what we’re gonna do.

Kimberly Adams 

Wrong sting. Oh we’re not doing smiles. Oh, we’re gonna end it for real there.

Kai Ryssdal 

We’re just gonna end right there. I think smiles do the conversation we had a disservice.

Kimberly Adams 

Right. Okay, fine. Got it.

Kai Ryssdal 

Make Me Smart is engineered. No, it’s not. It’s produced by Courtney Bergsieker. Today’s program was engineered by Jayk Cherry. Ellen Rolfes writes our newsletter. Our intern is Niloufar Shahbandi.

Kimberly Adams 

Marissa Cabrera is our senior producer. Bridget Bodnar is the director of podcasts and Francesca Levy is the executive director of Digital. Okay I’ll have to save my smile for tomorrow. Oh, wait, not even. That’s Tuesday. Later, this week, you’ll hear it.

Kai Ryssdal

They’ll hold. They all laugh.

Kimberly Adams

They’ll hold. Yeah.