Cab Drinking High Information Voters (with Jess Piper)

The Suburban Women Problem is officially back! And this season, we’re doing things a little differently: not only will the audio hit your podcast player every Wednesday, but you can also watch a video version on YouTube! You can find that link here: pod.redwine.blue/SWP.

So this week, you KNOW we had to talk about a Fox News anchor calling us “low-information Chardonnay sippers in the suburbs.” They know all too well the power of suburban women, and apparently they’ve decided that if you can’t beat ‘em, insult ‘em! After chatting about that, we also catch up about the Trump indictments, the upcoming elections, and more.

Then, we’re joined by Jess Piper - executive director of Blue Missouri, host of “Dirt Road Democrat,” and fierce advocate for public education. Jess chats with the hosts about book bans, PragerU, AP African-American Studies, and why extremists like Betsy DeVos would rather put kids to work than fund their schools. Jess is a force of nature and we were so excited to talk to her this week.

Finally, Amanda, Rachel and Jasmine raise a glass to going back to school in this week’s “Toast to Joy.”

If you want to stand up against book bans like Jess Piper, we invite you to join us on Thursday, September 7th for a Troublemaker Training. You'll learn how to band together with your neighbors and friends and the best tactics to make your voices heard. You can learn more and register here or by going to redwine.blue.

For a transcript of this episode, please email comms@redwine.blue.

You can learn more about us at www.redwine.blue or follow us on social media!

Twitter: @TheSWPpod and @RedWineBlueUSA

Instagram: @RedWineBlueUSA

Facebook: @RedWineBlueUSA

YouTube: @RedWineBlueUSA

Transcript

The Suburban Women Problem - Season 4, Episode 1 Transcript

Rachel: Hi, thanks for joining us. I'm Rachel Vindman. 

Jasmine: I'm Jasmine Clark.

Amanda: I'm Amanda Weinstein. 

Rachel: Welcome back. It's been a whole month. How was everyone's August? 

Jasmine: Mine was kind of crazy. I did a lot of traveling, but it was all like work travel, so it was a mixture of fun and I went to a couple of new places. So I liked that. I went to Indianapolis. I went to Minneapolis. 

Rachel: All the Apolises. 

Jasmine: Yeah, I did. Apparently that's where all the conferences are being held this year. All the Apolises, Denver, Chicago, it's just like a lot of things happening all in that region of the country right now.

Rachel: Conferences are looking for other places and maybe your conferences are a little different, but I live in Broward County, Florida, and they've lost a lot of potential income because of Governor DeSantis’s… And I say governor, like with air quotes, because he's really not the governor right now. It's more of his side hustle because he's running for president and he spends very little time here.

But because of his policies, conferences are not coming to Florida. I mean, honestly, it's pretty miserable here at this time of year, so you would not want to come in August, but just regardless of other times. And now people are starting to realize it. And now people are starting to be like, “Oh, wait. Now we're having some financial consequences, and we don't really like this.”

We didn't really like it before. I mean, I live in a blue area, but when people feel consequences, that's when they actually start talking about it like an everyday conversation. You know what I mean? Like that's when it like becomes acceptable to discuss it like in social situations. 

Jasmine: Oh, absolutely. And money, money talks.

So I think if anything, you know, all these other things, it's like, “Oh, whatever. We don't really care about hurting certain people's feelings. We don't really care about this group or that group.” But when you start hitting people's pockets, all of a sudden they're like, “Wait a minute, hold up. Let's, let's pause for a second.”

Rachel: It's true. 

Amanda: That's so true. So our big economic conferences, we've had discussions of how fair it is for women to be going to places where, if they are pregnant and are happened to deal with a miscarriage that they weren't expecting, like it's pretty unfair to expect them to travel to a place where they can't expect decent miscarriage care.

And that's a real conversation that we've been having. 

Jasmine: It's a very valid point. It's also a point that I think it's going to start affecting where businesses move to. I know a lot of times businesses, people think that businesses only care about tax credits and things like that. And yes, that is high on the list.

But also, you want to move to a place where your employees are also going to want to move with you. You don't want to lose quality employees. And so you have to be very careful about, you know, the consequences of the policies that you enact and how it could affect your bottom line as a state and your ability to attract new business and new economy to your state. All right. So Amanda, tell us about your August.

Amanda: Oh man. My August was mostly me getting my kids ready for school, which I was super excited about. I love them dearly, but I also love them at school and they were also ready for school. So a lot of fun Augusting and I switched jobs.

So that was fun. And that's been so crazy.

Jasmine: Oh, yeah. Congrats. But how is it moving from like academia to this is this nonprofit or is it private sector?

Amanda: So it's a nonprofit and we are looking at focusing on economic development specifically in rural areas and focusing on helping them transition to the kind of new tech economy in rural areas and investing in areas that have not been invested in.

Rachel: Well, speaking of which, we have a great interview to share today. All three of us sat down with Jess Piper. Jess is a former English teacher who ran for office in Missouri. She's a strong voice for public education and for rural Democrats, as we, we had such a great chat with her. But before we get to that, we need to talk about a big change that's happening with the pod this season.

We're officially expanding into video. So I will try to wear makeup more, and this is a lot of pressure. But each episode this season will be a little shorter and only one interview instead of two. And you'll be able to watch us on YouTube in addition to listening in your podcast feed. The link will be in the show notes.

So let's jump into the news, ladies. I just, I'm first going to mention our favorite, you know, the OG disinformation channel, Fox News. Recently, I don't want to get this wrong, so I'm going to read this, okay? Cause it's just such a great quote, so I need to make sure it's right. “The low-info chardonnay sippers in the suburbs.”

Jasmine: Oh, wow. 

Amanda: I believe that's us, ladies. That's us. He's talking about us. I mean, and you don't hear it with beer. Like, what is so offensive about chardonnay? First of all, I will drink chardonnay, but I'm more of a pinot grigio person.

Jasmine: I'm actually a cab person, personally. 

Rachel: Okay, see, this is not about –

Amanda: I do it in the winter, they're super off on their information.

But like, when do we hear that about the beer sipping dudes and the bros? Like somehow Chardonnay makes you low-information, but Bud Light doesn't? 

Rachel: It's so demeaning. I'm really not sure how they're going to win back suburban women voters with comments like that. 

Amanda: You nailed it. They're not, they have figured that out.

Right? Cause at first it was how to win them back. 

Jasmine: Now we're just going to insult them. Like, you know, when I was –

Amanda: Totally right. 

Rachel: Yeah. I mean the candidates need these people like need us and our listeners and our friends, they need the votes. But I guess in general, we're just going to demean them because they still shop at Target and eat at Chick-fil-A, and therefore we're done with them.

Amanda: Insult them into voting for us. And, oh, by the way, who do you think's raising the next generation of voters right now?

Rachel: Well, I mean, don't you think that's what they're upset about in a lot of ways? I mean, don't you think that these views and sharing them with children is really something that… They want to weed that out and get rid of it. And as we kind of get into, you know, it's September, we're 14 months away from the presidential election. No one wants to hear that, but it's true. And as we're kind of getting into this, you're seeing sort of which attack lines, where they're going to go and, and, you know, kind of still trying to form them, you know, but, but kind of, yeah, what is, what is going to be…. What's gonna stick, what's not? So is, and now are we just gonna do like a whole runaround and attack suburban voters or, you know, what is this? But, you know, I don't think I do, there's not a lot of coordination. We'll say that for sure. So you know, I don't think this is a winning strategy. It's insulting all the same.

And hey, I think if you have a Fox viewer in your life, this would be a good thing to mention to them. 

Amanda: When they don't understand our perspective, and let's face it, I think there's a lot of male executives at Fox News that are having a hard time right now understanding our perspectives. But when you don't understand someone's perspective, it's an easy thing to go after is either they're low information, or stupid, or evil.

And that's pretty much, especially when you look at reproductive rights, those are the attacks. We are flighty. We don't understand that this is a baby. We thought it was like a squirrel or something. I don't know what we thought was in there. And so we have low information or we're just evil, murderous people.

Like those are like the two main attacks for women. Stupid and evil.

Jasmine: To me, the funniest part about us being low information is that they're the ones that have been sued for lying and they're the ones that literally have to have disclaimers that say, “Oh, no, this is actually entertainment and not real news.”

And so it's very, it's, it's just, it's almost ironic that they want to call us the low information people when that is what they deal in. They deal in low and bad information. Like that is what they want their listeners to have at the end of the day. No information, low information, bad information, misinformation, disinformation. 

Amanda: And stereotypes!

Jasmine: Exactly. 

Rachel: They're playing on what people already think, right? Exactly, like the stereotypes. And so they're building that up and talking about that in hopes to demean and diminish those voices. 

Amanda: I mean, it’s, Fox News is like the news of just like feelings. Like I feel like all people from the suburbs are like this.

I feel that people will really like Trump's mugshot because it makes him cool. And that will get, and there's like lots of stereotyping in there of like, with all the Trump stuff, like, “Ooh, how do we use this to try and like... Stereotype people into liking this mugshot?” And it is just like, it is like…

Rachel: You didn’t think he looked cool?

Amanda: It is like dripping with racism and like Trump's new ad where he likes to call out globalists, dripping with antisemitism, all of the feelings about what we feel about people based on what they look like, who they are, their religion, where they live.

Like that's Fox News feelings of how we should feel generally about people. 

Jasmine: I think it's interesting that the party of law and order is like, “Oh, mugshots are cool now.” I mean, again, so much irony. I just, I just–

Rachel: You can't make it up. I mean, you can't, I have to ask you, I mean, we're, we're, we're finally seeing accountability or steps towards accountability.

I don't know. Accountability, I think for everyone will look a little different and be a little different, but I have to ask because we have a Georgia resident. What's, what's the mood in Georgia, Jasmine? 

Jasmine: I think it's been like a little crazy here. It's been a bit of a circus. So when it all happened, when it all went down, I think that, you know Trump getting here.

He flew in. He was in and out of Rice Street jail and about 20 minutes. So if you live in Atlanta, first of all, whether you are a lawyer, whether you are visiting someone or whether you have been booked into Rice Street, you know, number one, it's like one of the worst jails. It's just not a good place to be.

No one gets in and out in 20 minutes. You don't even get in and out in 20 minutes if you are like delivering the mail. Like it's just, it's just not a thing that happens. And so it's kind of hard on my end to really truly feel like this was accountability because everything was kind of preset for them. Everything was pre negotiated for them. 

Amanda: Right, so he got like the VIP treatment. 

Jasmine: Oh, super VIP. Like this is more than VIP. Like this is amazing. So, you know, he got that. Meanwhile, Harrison Floyd the one black guy that's indicted, he actually had to spend the night there. So we had that going on.

That was a whole story in of itself. And then the last story, unfortunately, we have people who are grifting off of this whole thing. And we have a state Senator named Colton Moore, who's out here getting people's hopes up, selling them lies and dreams, telling them that we can defund the prosecutor's office.

And it's just not true. 

Amanda: As retribution for Trump? 

Jasmine: Yes, but it can't happen. Like it's literally not the way our budget works. We don't give individual DAs their own little budget. Like that's not the way our budget works. So if you want to defund her, you got to defund everyone. 

Amanda: It makes them feel good. 

Jasmine: I know people are eating it up.

Amanda: That's like what some people want to hear, so let me say something that will make you feel good. And like, it's all about your feelings. 

Jasmine: I know. And it lies again. Low information people eat that crap up. So meanwhile, while I'm going to be sipping on my cab with all the information, the low information Fox viewers actually believe that this is something that can happen and they're giving him money.

He's raised half a million dollars off of this lie. 

Amanda: What's Colton drink? Anybody asked that? Has anyone asked what like Colton likes to drink on a Friday evening?

Rachel: Well, I think we should take a quick break now and then we will return with our interview with Jess Piper.

Announcer: Thanks for joining us for a brand new season of the Suburban Women Problem. We're so glad to be back. As Rachel mentioned, the podcast now will also be available on video as well as here in your podcast feed. Our YouTube link is in the show notes. We're about to talk to Jess Piper, an amazing advocate for public education. If you want to stand up for public schools and defeat calls for book bans in your community, join us for a virtual Troublemaker Training on Thursday, September 7th. That link can also be found in the show notes. Thanks again, and let's get back to the show.

Rachel: This week, we're talking to Jess Piper. She's the Executive Director of Blue Missouri. She's a former teacher and she's a mom who's fighting for public schools. Welcome to the podcast, Jess. Well, there's no question that public schools have become incredibly political. Even Steve Bannon has said that school boards are the key that picks the lock.

So why is education so important? 

Jess: Because it's the last good and holy thing we have left that we haven't privatized in this country. Because it teaches all of our kids, you know, democracy, because it teaches our kids to get along with people who aren't like them. And you know, it's the base of our democracy, so of course they're going to be attacking it.

 Jasmine: So Jess, I'm curious, I'm not sure if you follow the news down here in Georgia, but recently we had a teacher that was fired for reading a book and they basically accused her of quote, “Indoctrinating kids about gender issues,” even though the book was actually purchased at the school at the school's book fair.

And so, you know, I know that you are a former teacher and I have spoken to a couple of teachers after this incidents about just what it means to be a teacher when you're having to deal with these things. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on this whole thing. 

Jess: Well, listen, they purposely write these laws to be vague, to cool everything down, to make you so scared that you're afraid to approach any topic that might be controversial or divisive.

So it's purposeful that they do this. The fact that she bought it at the book fair, it doesn't matter to these folks. And the book, the book, I think is “My Shadow is Purple,” it's an absolutely beautiful story that no one should be scared to read. But this is happening all over the place. We see attacks on teachers all over, all over the place.

We saw this week, a couple of days ago, a librarian in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that was being cute and talked about all the woke ideology in her library, talking about empathy and kindness. They have had two bomb threats at that school since she made that video. Ryan Walters, the department, or the education superintendent, retweeted ‘Libs of TikTok,” who manipulated her video.

And now she has death threats, and the schools are being threatened with bombs. And I'm gonna tell y'all, I mean, there is nothing like “save our kids” if it's not sending in a bomb threat, right? 

Amanda: I know. Weren't they going to protect our children? I, that's what I thought I heard them say, that they're going to protect our children by bombing their school.

I'm sorry that, you know, it's so weird. I didn't know it worked like that. But you mentioned librarians and you know, the book was picked out probably by a librarian and these librarians are picking a lot of these books in schools. And I know Missouri was the first state to withdraw from the American library Association.

What exactly does that mean?

Jess: Well, it doesn't mean a whole lot, but it's, you know, it's red meat to the base, is what it is. It's our attorney general trying to be the attorney general. He's an unelected bureaucrat. He was assigned his position by our governor, and he's running for the position, so he's doing whatever he can.

I'll tell you this, though. This is awful. He is going after transgender kids, like, you know, so many red states are. And he can't get the backing of people to show up and be outraged about, you know, the six kids who want to play soccer in Missouri, who are transgender. So he called on the Gays Against Groomers group, which is a right-wing hate group that is associated with neo-Nazis and Proud Boys.

He called the Missouri leader of that group to come and to, you know, go to Springfield and listen to this hearing. So this is, this is all to say this, the things that the Republicans are doing in schools are not popular. They are not popular even with conservatives. Even in my town of 480 people, I could walk across the street and ask my neighbor, you know, what she thinks of book bans and she's going to be horrified by it, right?

So they're having to manufacture anger. And they're trying to tamp the rest of us down by scaring us. 

Rachel: I think that's really true, Jess. I mean, I live in Florida now and you can see our governor, Ron DeSantis, who is running for president, maybe you all have heard. And I mean, things, you know, yeah, things are not going so well for him, but one of the reasons why things are not going so well for him is, I mean, Republicans want to keep their money and they want to keep their tax, I mean, they, they want to pay less, wealthy, especially wealthy Republicans really love paying less taxes.

But many of them tend to be rather socially liberal and they think that DeSantis is going too far, but it doesn't matter. Ron's going to do what Ron's going to do. And he has recently, I think it's the Miami Dade school district, which is not mine, but it's close to us and they’re going to use PragerU materials.

Can you, can you tell us a little bit about the Prager University materials and you know, kind of what their goal is with that?

Jess: Well, so I had a little bit, you know, I, I had a little bit of knowledge about PragerU before we decided to do this podcast. But when, whenever I saw that we were going to talk about it, I went down a rabbit hole and friends, I do not recommend going down that rabbit hole. You will end up dumber on the other end of it. Okay. It is unbelievable. It's a history curriculum written by people who don't believe in history. One of the first times I saw it, it was this cartoon of Frederick Douglass, who I taught, cause I taught American lit.

So I taught two different pieces by Frederick Douglass with two S's and he's still, and he's not alive anymore, President Trump, you remember when he did that, I hear there's great things. But anyway. It has Frederick Douglass and these children travel back in time to meet Frederick Douglass and to learn about enslaved people.

And they asked Frederick Douglass, well, you know, slavery it's wrong, right? And Frederick Douglass says, “Yes, but…” And that but, and then he started giving us all of the reasons that these people who are anti-history, that are whitewashing history would give. It came out of Frederick Douglass's mouth via the cartoon.

And I was horrified. Even worse. They have a podcast. So I clicked on that and they have these five minute podcasts, because these folks don't have any energy to listen to more than five minutes. But it is the complete whitewashing of history and there's one version that came out a couple days ago and it talks about if you've been to college in this country, you've probably heard that Europeans came over here to colonize and to oppress. And they said, “So called indigenous people,” that's how it started.

And then they went into the whitewashing of, you know, indigenous people were killing each other before we came over here, we just kind of continued what they were doing. And by the way, the reason that there's all this moral panic over is because European people felt bad about it. Like you can't…. Friends, I'm telling you, go and listen to a couple episodes. To think that they're going to give this to kids in school. You want to talk about indoctrination? You talk about crap like that. I have never in my life heard the crap that I heard once I went down and listened to that PragerU stuff. It is atrocious.

Jasmine: So while Florida is like, “Ih, hey, let's just introduce all of this.” I'm going to just call it propaganda. Cause that's what it sounds like to me. While Florida is doing this, Arkansas is like, “Hey, guess what? You won't get credit for that AP African American studies class.” Meanwhile, you can get credit for.

European history or all these other histories, but the African American one, no, like, but I also heard if I recall correctly, that some people were like, “You know what? We don't care. We're gonna do it anyway. And we're still going to offer this.” And so that's a glimmer of hope for me. But I mean, what are your thoughts on that, Jess? Because. I know my thoughts . 

Jess: I just did a podcast with Joyce Elliot who's an African American woman from Arkansas and she was a teacher for 30 years. She was a legislator for 20 years, and now she's running her own empowered group trying to organize voters. Joyce Elliot, who when I interviewed her, looks the same age as me.

This woman is an icon. She attended a segregated school. Joyce attended a segregated school. To say that this is ancient history is absolutely insane. And then to say, Sarah Huckabee Sanders went to Central High School. She went to where these folks were denied entry. And she has talked about it all this time, and now we can't talk about it?

And I love what you said, because it's exactly right. Every school who had planned to teach it, is like, “Forget it. We're going to teach it anyway. I don't know what you're going to do.” But here's the thing you really need to know, is that the Department of Education has, has in Arkansas has become an arm of propaganda for Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

And they put out a statement saying that they need to know, people need to know that they may be going against the law by teaching this class and that they also need to see all the lessons and all, all of the, you know, information in the course. Friends, these are the people that don't read the freaking syllabus.

Wait, what do you mean you need all this stuff? It's there. What is wrong with these people? Right? 

Amanda: But this is also our history. Like when they're saying that there's no AP African studies, American studies, like. They're, they're banning our history and replacing it with European history. It's so, and our kids need our history, like, and parents want, I want our kids to know our history.

I think it's important just because it is. And I also think it's important for their education, for their college, to move around in this world and understand the world that they're in. I really don't understand how they go off and be productive people in society without really understanding our history.

And at the same time, you have Missouri along with other states like Arkansas and Sarah Huckabee Sanders, you know, having all of these bills to ease child labor laws. So we literally have there… To me, they're very similar. Like we have them chipping away at education because instead what they're doing is, you know, putting children into work, who are never given the opportunity for education to do something greater.

So I'm wondering kind of like, what do you see is like, are they making, are they really making this tie of taking kids out of school and putting them in slaughterhouses? Is this really their plan? 

Jess: Yes, they've laid it out for us. We don't have to have a tinfoil hat on to see exactly what they're doing.

And this has been a plan for a long time because Betsy DeVos was caught several years ago on a microphone. They were asking her about school choice, right? And then we know that means that schools get to choose their students, but they said... 

Amanda: 100%. 

Jess: Right. They were like, “There's no school choice in rural America.

What's your plan?” And she said, “Well, this is what we've envisioned. A kid can be on a tractor and can be in the fields listening to eBooks on headphones. And maybe after he's done, you know, working in the fields, he can go to John Deere and get, you know, an apprenticeship and learn to work on tractors.”

And I was like, “There! They caught, we caught you right there!” My daughter, my kid is not worth what your kid is worth. You've already defunded the schools. They're down to four days a week, right? And they always say, you know, there's, there's other academic opportunities that you can get on that fifth day.

Really? Because I worked in those schools and those kids were working at Casey's or at McDonald's on that Monday, right? So that's a lie. And a kid listening to an ebook on a combine, that's a really bad idea. Like, you know, let's…

Amanda: Talk about industrial accidents! You're asking for the things we've seen in the news.

Rachel: Yeah. I was just going to say that seems like a really bad idea. I mean, having an almost teenager myself, I do not want her operating heavy equipment, much less while she’s supposed to be like focusing on something. Betsy DeVos owns more yachts than they're larger than my home. She literally, she, I mean, if you don't know, her family is billionaires many times over. Her brother is Eric Prince of Blackwater, like a mercenary group. I mean, it's really like the family is quite evil. 

Amanda: So it's a lot easier for her kids to listen to an ebook on the yacht than on the combine, I think. I mean, but I think it's, it's interesting you brought up that, you know, she fid not have a probably great experience or understanding of like, what's going on in rural areas.

And I think there's also a lot of misconceptions. We've talked about, you know, misconceptions with suburban areas. And I think one of the misconceptions about rural is how you think politically, right? So a lot of those misconceptions means you don't even exist, Jess. I don't know how you're here today.

Jess: I'm a unicorn. No, I think that is, too, why my voice carried so far is because people don't think that we exist and we do, I mean. I ran and lost, but one in four people in my community voted for me. I talked about abortion. I talked about the fact that healthcare should be free. I talked about the fact that, you know, that childcare should be free, that college should be free.

And they were like, “Yeah, one in four.” That's big. We aren't all farmers and we aren't, we aren't all Republicans. There are a lot of us who have realized that 20 years under a GOP super majority in Missouri has ruined my roads, ruined my hospitals, ruined my, my schools, you know, so there are lots of us that are aware of what's going on.

Amanda: And I think it's interesting when you talk about the issues, but most of the people, most of your neighbors don't want to ban books. That when it comes to the issues, we see eye to eye on a lot of stuff. You just have to talk about it. 

Rachel: We have to talk about it. Jess, thank you for joining us today.

This has been wonderful. We could talk to you forever, but if we did that, we had to miss our opportunity for rapid fire questions. Are you ready? 

Jess: I'm ready. 

Rachel: Okay, let's go. What song do you listen to when you've had a really hard day? 

Jess: Killing in the Name Of by Rage Against the Machine. 

Rachel: That's perfect. 

Jasmine: I like it.

Rachel: You were an English literature teacher for years. What is your favorite book? 

Jess: I loved, I was an American Lit, but then I also taught British Lit and I love anything Charlotte Bronte or any Bronte sisters. I named my daughter Charlotte in their honor. So Jane Eyre, probably my favorite. 

Rachel: Okay. Okay. Okay.

That's pretty good. You have to deal with a lot of trolls. But what's one positive interaction you've had on social media lately? 

Jess: You can't imagine how many positive interactions I have. I have people constantly, that are lifting me up and in solidarity and who say the nicest things. So, you know, we see those negative things.

But the positive things are like, “Please keep going. We need your voice. We need you in Missouri.” And it's lovely. 

Rachel: Well, we always end our podcast by sharing a Toast to Joy. It can be something from your personal life or something you saw in the news, something, anything positive that brought you a little joy this week.

So what is your Toast to Joy this week, Jess?

Jess: So yesterday, Tashara Jones is the mayor of Saint Louis, and she has been under fire for Saint Louis being, you know, one of the most dangerous cities in America. And she's tried to change that for years by trying to pass common sense gun legislation. And yesterday, I think she just was finally… enough.

And they signed legislation to ban ARs and AKs inside the city, which of course, she's going to have pushback. But I was like, that's how you do it. You listen to your community and you know, the fight you're going to be in and you do it anyway. And God love Tashara. She is a wonderful person and she brings me joy.

Jasmine: Here's to her. That is very bold, but it's a very good step in the right direction. I love when people are just kind of like, you know what, I'm going to keep pushing forward, no matter, you know, how hard this is. So that's amazing.

Rachel: A hundred percent. I'm just gonna do it anyway. Jess, thank you so much for joining us.

Jess: Thank you guys. It was so good to meet you. Talk soon. Bye. Bye. 

Rachel: That was so good. Jess is just, I mean, she is such an inspiration to me because she just keeps on. I mean, she doesn't care. 

Jasmine: She's fierce on Twitter. Like I first saw her on Twitter and I was like, “Oh man, this woman does not back down.” And I love that because I feel like sometimes when it feels like you're just being hit from all sides, she just, she stands on her principles and she's always giving like knowledge, like she's not just making up stuff. It's not emotional. 

Amanda: Oh, you can see that! Like very much the teacher. It's like she is very much the teacher. 

Rachel: Yes. She talks about like whenever she was campaigning and she would go knock on doors and she would, not like the regular thing where you knock on, you know, a lot of people like have a map and they knock on friendly doors.

I mean, she's in the rural area, so she knocked on every door and she tried to have conversations with people and like, she's honest that some people are receptive and some people told her she was the devil and she was going to hell, but kind of like Sarah Longwell, how Sarah like wants to do focus groups so she can hear why people think the way they do, I mean, that's why Jess did it, which I mean. God bless you if you can do it, but you basically like, listening to what people were saying, and maybe she couldn't counter it for that person or change their mind, but it's still important to hear it. It's still important to know where it comes from. We will never change anything if we don't know why this, these views and this ideology exist, it's really important. And I applaud her because that, I mean, after a while, that's got to really take a hit at your mental health. 

Amanda: I think she is built for happy. I know Connie Schultz says that about herself. And I, that was like in my head that she just seems like built for happy and like, there are trolls out there, but there's a lot of good and I'm going to take that good and I'm going to run with it.

And I think that's really, it's really inspirational and you can see like where she really has a desire to do well for her community and to make it better. And she, I mean, she's a teacher, so she clearly sees that like education is how we give people opportunity wherever they are and whoever they are.

Rachel: Whether they know they need it. Well, on that note, I mean, I think we need to do our Toast to Joy. Jasmine, what is your Toast to Joy this week?

Jasmine: So my Toast to Joy is more like, I don't know if it's joy yet, but it is something that is happening, so I'm going to just go with it. Classes start for fall semester for me.

And so I am just gearing up for another great semester. I had the opportunity of getting a fellowship, a teaching fellowship last year, and I am now going to begin my capstone project for that fellowship. So I'm a little excited, but I'm a little bit nervous, but all together, like I'm just looking forward to a great semester.

So this is a toast, like almost like wishful thinking, like toast to a great fall semester.

Amanda: I like that. It's like a toast to hope. 

Jasmine: Exactly. 

Amanda: That's very cute. 

Jasmine: There we go. Amanda, what's your Toast to Joy? 

Amanda: Mine is similar. I'm just going to go younger. So all three of my children are officially in school.

They wake up every morning. They get on a bus. There's no more daycare. They're all in school. I am very excited and they all had great first days and they were actually very excited to go back to school. I love them very much, but I was very excited for them to go back to school too. So that is definitely my Toast to Joy. 

Jasmine: I think that is a feeling like, first of all, the moment you don't have to pay for daycare is like something to celebrate. I don't think people who don't pay for daycare realize just how expensive it is. And just like that one expense going away, I think is, I know for me, I was celebrating cause I was just like, “Oh, more money that we can actually use to eat food because daycare is so expensive.”

But also, you know, I'm sure that it's exciting, having them all get on the bus with their little cute outfits and their little cute book bags and stuff. I can just imagine… Aw it’s making me… As I have a freshman in high school and a senior in high school, I'm getting all the feels. 

Amanda: Oh,  I love it. I love putting them on the bus every morning.

All right, Rachel, what's your Toast to Joy?

Rachel: Yeah, I mean, you know, I had a great summer, but I think my Toast to Joy is pretty boring and kind of who I am is my host of joy is to routine. To school and being able to get back to work on a more regular basis, although I still feel like I'm playing catch up after summer but getting back to a routine and she started seventh grade. She's running cross country.

I'm just so proud of her for trying something new and we are looking forward to a great year. It's our first, her first will be her first full school year at a new school. And she drives me crazy every day. But also she is a reminder of, you know, that it's okay to try new things and do new things and her excitement about that is really contagious.

So my Toast to Joy is all those things. To school, to routine, to having a child that's a little different than you who can teach you things. 

Jasmine: I love it. 

Rachel: Thank you so much for joining us today. We are so excited to be back for season four and we'll see you next week on another episode of the Suburban Women Problem.

Announcer: The Suburban Women Problem was created by Red Wine and Blue. Our producer and editor is Amy Thorstenson. Our project manager is Lyndsey Quist and our editorial assistant is Abigael Martin. For more information about upcoming events and trainings, or to learn more about Red Wine and Blue, follow us on social media or at www.redwine.blue.