(Transcript) Ep 8: The 3P’s: Politics
Noor:
3, 2, 1.
Noor:
During Trump's presidency, I picked up a new habit I still catch myself doing when society feels extra polarized. I found myself scrolling through Facebook to figure out who my friends and family really are, what they really believe. And there was one post in particular written by someone from my hometown that stuck with me. She wrote, "What happened to not talking about politics and religion?"
Noor:
The comments were filled with agreement from people I knew who were frustrated that politics had entered their bubble of public discourse. That post gave me answers I didn't know I was looking for. When I was growing up in Southern Maryland, I didn't talk to my friends about politics and religion because I carried shame about my own religious identity. What I didn't think about is how many of my friends were generally just not having those conversations at home. In my household, politics and religion were the main topics of conversation, especially because the discourse was often focused on issues directly impacting us as American Muslims.
Noor:
And as I grew up and my friend group expanded, I noticed a pattern. The households that were talking politics, like my family did, tended to be households that were being overtly impacted by ongoing policy changes. It was the debates and discussions I was having with my family that were critical to evolving and rethinking my own beliefs about issues and change. That process of purposeful and critical examination of politics with the people who knew me best helped shape me as an independent thinker. This is what I think of as I listen to Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and her daughter Isra, as they debate over how the United States can create real and lasting change.
Isra Hirsi:
Personally, I think that there's some purpose to electoral politics. However, I don't know if it's the end all be all, or even just I don't know if you should put as much of our energy into it. And obviously she thinks vice versa. And so I think we agree on basically everything else, but how we get to the change is I think the point of contention, and I think we kind of just don't talk about it or just acknowledge that we're not going to get there.
Ilhan Omar:
Sorry. I'm laughing, and in our debates I laugh too because it's really funny to me, right? Because I was an organizer, right? An outside agitator and somebody who believed we have to rally, but it always ended with, "Hey, whatever politician, you got to implement this change." And now I am that politician. So this idea that the electoral politics part of it can't be part of the change really I think sort of stops the second stage of the progress implementation, because you do need people to be in a position to make the law, to make the change. And I think that in the evolution of Isra, she will probably eventually get there.
Noor:
Isra, you were shaking your head.
Isra Hirsi:
I think it's a little unfair to state your entire argument against me and not give me the space to argue back. You just disagreed with me, but I didn't even say anything.
Noor:
Raise your hand if this feels familiar to you. Both of my hands are raised. But more than just having different ideas of how things should get done, what we all have are different life experiences, which mean different perspectives and stories. And as a young nation, the United States has a plethora of perspectives. Congresswoman Omar has a unique one because she began as an organizer and is now an elected politician. So she knows intimately an inside layer of the United States' political story. One she believes is misrepresented and disconnected from its citizens.
Ilhan Omar:
There is misrepresentation there. I think that there is also like a disconnect, right, about what the work is and how it's getting done and the kind of material changes people want to experience. I think a lot of people would agree are exhausted with incremental changes when we're living under systems that clearly aren't working and need drastic rethinking. I was just talking to housing commissioner and I said, "I have these bills to help create more housing in our system. What's the one thing you need that none of us are proposing?" And their response to me was, "I wish we could start over."
Isra Hirsi:
Mm-hmm.
Ilhan Omar:
Right? Like trying to put things on top of a building that is falling down will never produce a nice building. And so we have these systems that are falling on top of each other, and falling onto itself. And we continue to think that it makes sense for us to pour more money into it and to continue to perpetuate its existence when it's not producing the outcome that we want. And we also know it will never produce the outcome that we want, but people function from a place of muscle memory where they continue to propose and do things that had been done before without being critical and critiquing the mistakes that have been made, and saying, "Maybe it's time to start over. We should just grab this and come up with a better plan."
Isra Hirsi:
I'm hearing revolution.
Ilhan Omar:
Well, after revolutions is where they ultimately elect people, right? So.
Noor:
And the cycle continues.
Ilhan Omar:
The cycle continues.
Noor:
When people say, "I don't do politics," I often wonder if they just mean, "I don't understand politics, and as a person who doesn't want to be wrong or challenged, the subject is too unpleasant to engage with and I just avoid it all together." But politics isn't good or bad, and it's not necessarily corrupt. Politics is quite simply the story of how the people use power to bridge the gap between today and tomorrow. That's it. That's politics. So how do you want to see that power get used to lead us into tomorrow? Well, the answer to that is also politics.
Noor:
In the practice of politics, not the theory and not the theater of it, but in the practice, power is the collective will of the people, which we the people place in the hands of one person or a few people to do our bidding. Their power is our power. The elected are there to act for us, the citizens. But power, like politics, is neither good nor bad. Power is valued by what you do with it. So then how do we talk about politics as the use of power, and how can we decode the uses of power to uncover the stories that drive the politics?
Noor:
With Rep I've been examining our society, culture and history through a lens I've called the three Ps. Politics, pop culture and public opinion. The three Ps represent a way to understand America. The three Ps are a way to track a dynamic. Each one influences the other and all three Ps show up in our stories, if we choose to pay attention. And we're going to start with the first P. At Your Service and iHeartMedia present Rep chapter 7, Politics.
Speaker:
Rep.
Noor:
There are four main voices that will be guiding us for our first P. And it's important to note, I'm not talking to any of these people to discuss their personal politics. What I am curious about is how each of their stories led them to engage with politics the way they do today. Here is the mother-daughter duo you just met.
Ilhan Omar:
Well, I'm Ilhan Omar. I'm a Congresswoman, I'm a mother, a hooyo, and I am an immigrant, a refugee.
Noor:
Beautiful. I loved when my Somali friends would call their mom hooyo, because I used to pick that up too, and it's just a great way of saying mama.
Ilhan Omar:
Yeah. My kids sometimes will say mom or something and I get really upset because I'm like, I want to be called hooyo.
Isra Hirsi:
Hi, my name is Isra Hirsi. I am an organizer and a student focused on a lot of different issues, but more specifically climate.
Huma Abedin:
Hi, I'm Huma Abedin, and I have worked in politics and have been a public servant for the last 25 years. I currently serve as Hillary Clinton's chief of staff, and I've worked for her for most of my adult life.
Yasmin Elhady:
My name is Yasmin Elhady, and I am a lawyer, comedian, former matchmaker, mother and wife, and daughter, more like daughter before wife. I'll take daughter.
Noor:
So, stories.
Ilhan Omar:
I mean, stories are powerful, right? We know this in organizing, right? This is why people do one on ones, to hear about people's stories so that you can connect with them. This is why we tell people that when you're advocating, you have to share a personal story, stories resonate, and there's a lot of power to someone's story. And our collective story can be very powerful.
Ilhan Omar:
I think the United States is also an exporter of information. And so when you have the ability to export information that way, you have the power to export your powerful stories. There's this African author that talks about the danger of single story, because what happens to a lot of us that come from different parts of the world, who grew up in different parts of the world, a single story about who we are and what we are about gets told. And that's the story that resonates with people and that's the story that everyone will remember.
Ilhan Omar:
If you're American, there's not a single story that's being told about you. The multifaceted experience of America is something that most people get to hear about. And oftentimes they get to hear about the good things about the United States, while people in the United States get to hear about the bad things about others in every part of the world.
Noor:
We know this is changing. Our greatest export, our story, is no longer limited to the American ideals or the dream. And yet in 1990, for Yasmin and her family, the United States was not their first country of choice when seeking refuge. They country hopped. They tried Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the UK, but the US, which again was not at all their first choice, was the only country that accepted them.
Yasmin Elhady:
So we're political asylum seekers in this country, refugees in this country, my dad was in the Gaddafi regime, basically took a different path. He saw that Gaddafi was really crazy and opposed him. But as a result, we had a certain kind of lifestyle, and that included drivers, that included the best clothing, the highest quality of foods, the most beautiful locations with the most scenic looks. My dad had private planes. I mean, it was a very different lifestyle than the one that I grew up in, because when we came to the United States, it was like your degree doesn't matter, your position doesn't matter. In fact, you're going to have to work harder than you've ever worked before to just eke out a living, just to get by. That can either break you or it can really make you rise to the occasion and completely shift your notion of what makes you worthy, what makes you whole or what makes you good in this world. And I think that both my mom and my dad had to realign their expectations and rely on something that was deeper and more lasting than all the other ephemeral things that just didn't matter anymore.
Yasmin Elhady:
We had to go to garage sales, we had to go to Goodwill. We had to live in housing that was very tight around people who didn't have a lot. That I think has been a very big lesson for me to understand. I'm saying, what is real, what is lasting? What matters? How do you love fiercely through any circumstance? How do you stick together? How do you rely on each other? How do you build trust with people? How do you build connection? How do you survive? How do you survive? And then think about thriving, but you just got to first survive.
Noor:
Yasmin is an immigration lawyer at the Department of Justice, and her own transition of surviving to thriving is exactly why she chooses to be of service to new Americans.
Yasmin:
One of the things that inspired me to enter into public service was seeing how the system could work for people that really needed it. And it absolutely inspired me to think about how do you search for the protection of people's dignity? How do you search for the protection of people's rights for their protection? How do you protect that? How do you really protect people?
Noor:
Protecting people, their dignity and their rights. That's what leads us to our collective liberation. We have to preserve each other so we can serve each other. And for Congresswoman Omar, the environment she was raised in facilitated this.
Ilhan Omar:
I was raised in a communal sort of environment, right? The household I was born in and was raised in was my immediate family with my siblings and mom and dad. But it also included my grandfather, my great grandmother, my mother's siblings, and our house was near a market, so everybody would come through as they were going to the market or come through as they were headed home. So I was just constantly in the center of conversations.
Ilhan Omar:
When we came to the United States, after living again in a environment that's also communal in a refugee camp for four years, there was a lot of isolation because you don't live in communal settings in the United States, right? If you are lucky, you will have an apartment that probably just accommodates you and your immediate family.
Noor:
Communing and connecting were core to shaping Ilhan's worldview. It's why she's been fighting for her Homes For All Act that would expand US public housing and work to guarantee housing as a human right.
Ilhan Omar:
I think that there was ideas that I had of what the United States was supposed to be because we do a really good job of exporting American exceptionalism. And when I came to the United States, I had a lot of questions how the reality of what we were living in, what I was experiencing, didn't fit into the stories and the ideals of America that I heard about and learned about through the experience of coming to the United States.
Ilhan Omar:
And so when I would ask questions, my grandfather particularly would say, "There's progress that has been made in this country, and that progress happened because people were involved in creating change. And so you can complain and keep asking questions, or you can be involved in creating the reality that you think that should exist."
Speaker:
Rep.
Noor:
Isra, what role does your mother's story play in your personal America story?
Isra Hirsi:
It sets the framework, viewing myself especially as a Somali person and as a Muslim person and as a woman, I think that she helped pave the way, but also growing up in Minneapolis there's so many other kids who looked like me, who had very similar experiences. And so it really was kind of like I have to defend my identity. I have to explain my identity. But at the same time, there were so many people who got it and who understood the experience. And so I'm very grateful to grow up in a place that has so many other people just like my mother, because I think without it, I wouldn't be so confident in my identities now.
Noor:
Politics begins at home. Now, you may not adopt the political party or persuasion of those who raised you, but you learn to engage with politics from your family, and then later from others. And even for the person who isn't engaged with politics, politics is still engaged with them. There are no sidelines to sit on here. Politicians count on low information voters as a part of the voting cycle. So the unengaged are still part of the political calculus. For Ilhan and Isra, politics is also a way for mother to teach daughter to think for herself.
Noor:
Congresswoman, why was it so important for you to have your children involved in the community at a young age?
Ilhan Omar:
I was involved in a lot of things and I was a young mom. And so it was really important for my kids to be with me, to be part of the things that I was doing, because I struggled a lot with spending time away from them and devoting it to things, even if it was to go to school or work or whatever it is that I was doing. And so as much as I could have them tagged along, I felt like I didn't have to choose a part of me to prioritize.
Ilhan Omar:
And so for me, that took different forms, whether it was participating politically, or whether it was being outside, protesting and doing that work. I think one of the first protests that probably remembers, or was old enough to remember was a counter protest that we did to anti-abortion protestors. And so there's just a lot of... I take them to door knock and do all kinds of things. So they got to experience both the policy stuff that we thought was important to fight for, and then also the importance of electing people who can push for those policies.
Noor:
Mm-hmm. Isra, you're nodding. Do you remember that moment?
Isra Hirsi:
I do remember, or maybe it's the same one, but a church in Fargo, North Dakota, that was also, I think, homophobic or transphobic or something when we were picketing on a street corner, I was like six years old.
Noor:
Protests are not only about influencing policy. They are also about creating space for people to find their voice, their empathy, their fire to fight for themselves and others. Ilhan's desire to show up naturally influenced her children and expanded the potential of their own stories.
Ilhan Omar:
Well, Isra doesn't mention this, but she wanted to be president. She wrote a list of things that she wanted to do when she was like five, and it used to be posted in her room. She also wanted to be an astronaut and all kinds of other things, but-
Noor:
Beautiful.
Ilhan Omar:
She says she was the first one in the family to want to be a politician, so I stole her dream. Now she doesn't want to be a politician anymore.
Isra Hirsi:
Yeah. I guess after seeing the treatment of her and also just the way that politics really works through the campaigns, and being able to really see behind the scenes in the United States capital, I kind of just felt a little disillusioned, but I've also come to realize that there's more ways to create impactful change beyond electoral politics. And so she can do her and I'll do me.
Noor:
Isra is paving her own path with the context of her mother's journey. That is important. We have the power to tap into the stories of who we are and where we come from. And for Yasmin, that power is also a manifestation of resilience.
Yasmin:
I think that resiliency was very important to me. I grew up in Alabama, my parents moved from kind of the waste station of where Libyan refugees first came in, for them was Lexington in Kentucky, a very large population of Libyan Americans who found refuge there. And then they followed one guy to Huntsville, Alabama, who was going to be a professor there. And my dad was working all kinds of jobs, opened up a deli, bus driver. He was a butcher for a while. He was a tree stump removal operator. I mean, just the amount of different things that man did. I think that when I got there, I realized, okay, I have to be resilient again. I have to understand that these people don't even see me as human beings sometimes because they see me as an alien, they see me as different. And how do I overcome all of that to rise to the occasion?
Noor:
For Yasmin, one of the ways she rose to the occasion was by making people laugh. To her, comedy is an entry point for connection.
Speaker:
Yeah. Alabama, A is for all are welcome, all are welcome as long as they look like us, talk like us, and pray like us, otherwise, you're going straight to hell.
Yasmin:
I feel like you have to have a sense of humor, first of all, when you see things around you fall apart. And I think that I'd always use humor as a way to feel joy, as a way to experience joy, and as a way to experience truth, and to experience it in a way that didn't have any defenses up. Because when you're listening to comedy, you're disarmed, right? Your guard is down. You're listening. You're just listening. You want to laugh, you want to smile. So you're more willing to accept truth in that.
Yasmin:
I think that I'd always use comedy as a way to seek connection and to observe the same things that we were all observing, and to realize, oh yeah, I can relate to that. And I think for me, Saturday Night Live was a huge inspiration. I used to just act out all the skits. I used to play each character in the skit that I liked. It was hilarious. And then I realized I could do it and make people laugh and they could see me as human.
Yasmin:
You didn't know anything about me, if I could keep you entertained, just to be able to see me as fully human and to see yourself in me. I don't have to have a name if you see yourself in me. I like that. I thought that was really powerful. And to be honest, I mean, there was this interview with Trump and Anderson Cooper and it went sideways. It was an interview that was like, "Hey, what do you think about Muslims?" And he's like-
[SFX: *TV TURN ON* TRUMP CLIP]
Cooper:
Do you think Islam is at war with the west?
Trump:
I think Islam hates us. There's something there, there's a tremendous hatred there. There's a tremendous hatred. We have to get to the bottom of it. There is an unbelievable hatred.
Yasmin:
For me it was like an Earth shifting moment. Because it felt like my own tragedy again, it felt like the same feelings that came up when September 11th had happened and I felt so out of control and I felt like people were talking about me and they were speaking about my life and my narrative and having an effect on me that I didn't even know. People that don't share my belief, people that don't share my respect, people that don't share my view at all of what it means to be human, and are willing to degrade other people's humanness. They're willing to degrade other people's worth so that they can have some kind of political clout, so they can gain some kind of power. It just felt tragic. And I felt really out of control. After 9/11, obviously being in Alabama, it was tough. Being visibly Muslim in Alabama was a very tall ask.
Noor:
How so?
Yasmin:
I got physically attacked multiple times. I got booed out of a Walmart. I had beer cans thrown at me.
Noor:
You got boo’ed out of a Walmart?
Yasmin:
Yeah, me and my mom when we had to go pick up groceries. Yeah. They were like, "Boo, get out of here, go back to your country, get the F out of this country. You're not welcome here. We don't serve your kind here." And they were like booing and clapping at other people who said that. And they said, "That's right." You know? And it felt dangerous. It was the first time I felt like my life was not as important as other people's lives, that I was expendable. And that people both feared me and also wanted to humiliate me at the same time, which is a very hard I think line... that was a bad time. That was a bad time. I just remember thinking how out of control I was, I couldn't protect my mom. I couldn't protect me. And I didn't even know what it was about. I was like a kid.
Noor:
Yasmin's story is chilling and familiar. The harassment, surveillance and even murders of American Muslims post 9/11 has left our communities tense and traumatized. And we know it's not just Muslims who experience targeted violence in the US. Black Americans, Asian Americans, LGBTQ+ folks, disabled people, immigrants. The list goes on and on, and it's layered. People are not limited to one identity. Violence is motivated by fear, and this fear of others is based on what people imagine in place of what they do not know. So ultimately people fear their own imagination, and that gets in the way of seeing people for who they really are.
Yasmin:
I think one of the major obstacles that we live in right now is that we cannot see the humanity whatsoever in people who are diametrically opposed to us. We are erasing each other's humanity. We are erasing each other's possibility. We're taking away each other's potential because we view their hate, and yet we can't see our own hate. We see their judgment and we have no perspective on our own judgment. I think that's it.
Noor:
Yasmin believes we need authentic representation of who Americans really are, and I believe that image is always evolving.
Yasmin:
I think it's so important that if you're in the public space, especially in public service, it's so important that those spaces look like the America that we all represent. Sometimes someone's presence is just enough to understand, oh, we're all here. We're all taxpayers. We're all American. And we're all people who love this country intensely and want the best for it. In general, when you're talking about work that's in the public sphere and for the federal government, I think it's really crucial that we have good representation from people who have different ways of thinking, different ways of being, and are all in their Americanness.
Noor:
For many Americans, Congresswoman Omar is a part of that more authentic representation of the United States. The day Ilhan Omar was sworn in as Congresswoman, she made history for many firsts. The first Somali American and first African refugee in Congress, the first woman of color to represent Minnesota, and she's the first person to ever serve while wearing the hijab.
Noor:
And in 2019, on the day she was sworn in, surrounded by mostly white men, the house voted to amend a 181 year old law, which prohibited headwear on the house floor. The law was changed because of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, that is power. Interestingly, when it comes to change, the Congresswoman thinks a lot about timing. Not about being the first this or the first that, but rather when is the right moment to press hard for change?
Ilhan Omar:
I think that I'm very clear and intentional about the moment that we're in, right? And what needs to be said. I obviously have a lot more to say and a lot more things to push for. This is a debate that Isra and I have oftentimes, things are timed. I sometimes feel like I'm being called to address or speak to something that is ahead of its time. Right?
Noor:
Wow.
Ilhan Omar:
And that I think does create a challenge in trying to develop this narrative of care and compassion and try to give a backstory of why these things matter to me, because it's easy for people to sort of come up with their own ideas of why I care about a particular thing, or develop their own theories of the things that I should care about or speak to that are not a priority of mine. Right? And so holding back on speaking things that are not necessarily needing me to speak on is also something that I'm learning and working on.
Noor:
This is a lesson she's learned well in the halls of power, the importance of clear communication, because when you are in a position of power, there will be efforts to misconstrue your words and intent. It was Ilhan's family that helped gear her up for politics and service. They challenged and criticized her to demand the best from her.
Ilhan Omar:
I was raised in a very sort of honest, poetic community. I was raised in a household that was full of opinions and people were allowed to be as unfiltered as they could be. Were also very critical of one another. Right? Trying to have you be the best that you can. And there there's always a gray area for everything. We're like natural debaters in our household. You were asked to constantly defend your ideas and why you think this opinion that you have is something that is worthy of sharing.
Ilhan Omar:
A lot of my friends when I was in high school would call me the professor, because I was constantly trying to get people to talk about things. I was never really offended, right? I was fine in being part of this conversation. And I think now I look back on it, and a part of me when I was younger, it's very challenging to grow up in a environment that's just critical. I think now being who I am and dealing with constant critique, and it's not so kind critique, I think because I was conditioned to have tough skin that a lot of it doesn't actually phase me and people are oftentimes surprised by it. Right? My reaction to the stuff that I deal with. And I tell them, I actually think it's easier to take critique from people you don't know or don't care for, because I'm used to taking it from people whose opinions actually matter to me.
Noor:
So as someone who is really at the forefront of politics, pop culture, and definitely public opinion, how do you see the dynamics of those three Ps playing out in your life and on a broader scale?
Ilhan Omar:
Yeah. I mean, I think sometimes politics and pop culture do bleed into one another, and they are both creatures of public opinion. They're subjected to the scrutiny of public opinion. And I think that there are a lot of times where there's a reliance on one another. People who are the creators of pop culture to also influence a lot of the work that we do politically. I think some of us straddle both of those spheres as well.
Noor:
All right, let's start breaking down the three Ps. Let's go back to 2001, 9/11 happens, it's a national and global catastrophe. Tensions are high in the US. For many Americans, it feels like a time when the nation comes together. For Arabs, Muslims, and those who could be mistaken for them, many of us feel othered overnight. And the government puts that othering on paper. The Patriot Act is passed the next month in October, a law that allows for intrusive surveillance of American Muslims, and a law that violates our civil rights.
Noor:
Many Americans believe we do need to be cautious of Muslims in the country. I remember seeing a news headline, "Is your Muslim neighbor a terrorist?" And praying my friend's families wouldn't see it, or worse ask themselves that question.
Noor:
Part of the nation's unity also included a massive influx of pop culture creation where Muslims and Arabs are terrorists, and surveilling and destroying them results in a win for America. TV shows like 24 or Homeland, video games like Call of Duty, or Oscar award-winning films like The Hurt Locker, Argo, or Zero Dark Thirty, which the CIA assisted on behind the scenes to ensure they appeared favorable.
Noor:
Vilifying Muslims in our media aided in justifying the controversial wars we were entering. All the while, public opinion of Muslims is changing, including Muslims themselves who experience internalized Islamophobia. Surveilling Muslims becomes normalized, and an anti Muslim attitude becomes the ground on which many political candidates run on. Donald Trump went further and made it a central component of his platform. And once in office, he enacted a Muslim ban.
Noor:
The normalization of a fear of Muslims reached a new legal level of threat. First, we were watched, surveilled, homes were searched and mosques were infiltrated by undercover feds pretending to be Muslim converts. And next our presence was banned. All of this was made acceptable to millions of Americans by shifts in public opinion, which followed changes in pop culture, which had followed changes in politics. Until finally, the resulting changes in public opinion created enough space for drastic changes in politics under Bush and later Trump.
Noor:
This is a dynamic. Each of the three Ps affects the other two, which then affects the original P you're considering. So let's take it even further. How do politics, pop culture and public opinion contribute to the different stories of how people get put into power? As a political communicator who has been by Hillary Clinton's side for over 25 years, Huma Abedin is deeply engaged in each of the Ps.
Huma:
Pop culture has inserted itself into politics in a way that it wasn't, I always thought that pop culture almost had a separate life and moved along this trajectory. And then if you were in politics, you kind of were focused on this issue and that issue and this issue, but a lot of times the topics were dry. Wasn't that interesting. A lot of people didn't really understand how policy was made.
Huma:
I think there's always been a fascination, I believe, at least in my personal experience, that there is this mutual admiration club between politicians and pop culture celebrities. Our campaign did it just like every other campaign. It's like, you want to have a big turn out in Iowa, see if you could have some big celebrity come there and get people together because you need the pop culture to get people there. But I know it's certainly during the Obama campaign, I mean, I think many of us remember when John Legend went to perform in Iowa early on, and it was all this excitement and this energy. Now he happened to be a really exciting candidate, but so much of the pop culture figures, celebrities were really excited and compelled by him. And it certainly was the case with the Clintons in all the years I've worked for them.
Noor:
Even before Bill Clinton became president, he was tapped into pop culture. In 1992, while he was campaigning, he appeared on The Arsenio Hall Show, playing saxophone to a roaring audience. And yet the celebrity era of politics can be traced back to even earlier with the Kennedy/Nixon election of 1960.
Noor:
Famously, the two candidates were about to have the first ever nationally televised presidential debate. When the young Senator was asked if he wanted makeup, JFK knew it would help his appearance on camera and eventually agreed to it. Vice president Richard Nixon didn't want to appear unmanly. So when asked, he said “no”.
Speaker:
Senator Kennedy, your comment.
Speaker:
Well, Mr. Nixon, go back to 1955.
Noor:
While JFK looked dapper before the cameras, his opponent Nixon appeared sweaty and somehow untrustworthy. Nixon lost the election, and ever since, US politicians, no matter how rugged and manly, choose to wear makeup when they appear on TV. The story of US politics in relation to pop culture and public opinion changed that fast and has never looked back. 20 years later, by the time President Reagan, a former movie actor, was elected in 1980, the modern era of celebrity politics was the New Normal.
Speaker:
[inaudible 00:42:15] to make America great again.
Speaker:
And we will make America great again.
Noor:
And then of course, there's Trump, a reality star turned politician whose presidency was even predicted by the writers of the Simpsons 16 years before he was elected.
[SFX: SIMPSON CLIP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tek_llHMDsI]
Lisa Simpson: As you know we’ve inherited quite a budget crunch from President Trump. How bad? “We’re broke!” The country is broke!?
Noor:
This wasn't just good TV. It was engaged in dynamic storytelling. The Simpsons writer, Dan Greaney, told the Hollywood Reporter the episode was a, quote, warning to America. He was plugged into the story of our nation at the time. Now, stories are being broadcast through every medium possible. Politicians are active on social media, often becoming pop culture themselves. And our constant sharing has given our public opinions more power than ever.
Ilhan Omar:
The way social media influences whose voice is amplified and valued, and how we are asked to constantly interact and react to things is something I think that is foreign to a lot of politicians that have been around a lot longer than we have.
Noor:
For Congresswoman Omar, engaging online comes with the job. It also contributed to getting her the job.
Ilhan Omar:
And I think the interconnectiveness of these spaces that we are in creates some discomfort for the political work that many are trying to do, because politics is about reacting, right? To public opinion. And when those public opinions are constantly in your face, there isn't a lot of time to be analytical and curious and to sort of slow down and look at things from different point of views. You are constantly being asked to respond to things. There is, I think, something beautiful about that. Because I think in a representative democracy, there's some accountability that's being created. But there's also danger because you want people who are creating public policy to be thoughtful and to take their time and to think about the impact of whatever policy that they are implementing. Not just for the moment, but what it would mean, you know, years from now.
Noor:
Huma echoes a similar sentiment from a different vantage point.
Huma:
On my boss's front, on Hillary Clinton's front, her tactic, her strategy rather, strategy is the right word, for decades was to ignore the noise. We were living in a world back then where it's like, oh, they're walking into this shop on the upper side. What do you think that means? Is she running for president? I worked for somebody who for 15 years, essentially, from the minute her husband walked out of The White House in January, 2001, the question was, would she be our first woman president?
Huma:
Imagine the pressure, the caldron, the expectation that comes with that. So she just ignored it. The noise became a monster. It became, "She's a murderer, she's a liar, she's a thief. She's rotten, she's this," all these she's, she's, she's that we just ignored, but that monster got very big and got very ugly. And it in the end became a weapon against her.
Huma:
But upon reflection, I don't know. I mean, we certainly talked about it in 2016, should we have been more responsive on some of these crazy lies? But now we're learning that people believe lies. I feel as though public opinion in some ways, it's a huge black cloud of unknown. What is that cliche saying that you're entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts? No, that has changed. Now you are apparently entitled to your own facts as well. Not just your own opinion. It's very scary.
Noor:
Huma Abedin was also married to a politician who handled public opinion very differently. Anthony Wiener, a former Congressman who helped shape politics into the combative theater it has become, and whose political career ended in controversy and a series of sex scandals.
Huma:
When I was married to Anthony, who at the time was a Congressman representing Brooklyn and Queens from New York, he made a name for himself in part, I mean, he was a very charismatic politician, but in part because he would give these speeches on the floor of the House of Representatives where he would do these interviews, he'd be so angry and he would be so upset on somebody else's behalf. And you were like, oh yeah, he's speaking to me because I'm angry and this person's angry on my behalf.
Huma:
Look, I think when Anthony, obviously the difference was the damage was self-inflicted. I still view him in many ways as a tragedy. When it's too much, I don't know when it's too much, but in both of those cases these are huge examples of the world on fire. How do you navigate it when you're in it, when you're just in it you're just trying to get through the day. So you're not thinking of it from a larger perspective.
Noor:
And we need larger perspective. We need our politics to be an expression of the story of who we are in this moment. To meet the challenges, overcome the obstacles and plan for the future, we need to constantly revisit the America we are all fighting for. How can we trust that our elected officials are actually being thoughtful in serving their constituents? Our US political system is littered with money and lobbying, clout chasing, and celebrity, and slogans over dialogue.
Noor:
We are in a gamified version of democracy, and it doesn't have to be like this. We need it to not be like this. Shouting at each other won't win the future we need or even want. It just guarantees more fighting. And I don't believe calls for civility are the answer either. People are hurting, we are hurting. As MLK warned, a riot is the language of the unheard. In other words, a riot is also a form of communication. It's a breakdown in communication, and it's communication and follow through that we desperately need in order to protect our individual and collective story.
Speaker:
Rep.
Noor:
What is your current story of the United States of America, and what is the version of the story that you want to live in?
Ilhan Omar:
I think my current story of America is one that is fighting against its potential. I think that there is an opportunity for us to sort of fulfill, right, what the ask was from Martin Luther King that just said we just need you to be what you say on paper.
Ilhan Omar:
There are lots of good American ideals for us to hold onto. Whether it is having values of human rights, of liberty and justice. Now, if we can make the systems actually fulfill those promises, it's great. Right? So many people look to America for these ideals. We hold these ideals dear. I see my colleagues get on the House floor and speak about these ideals while we have prisons that are overflowing, when we have people who are homeless on the streets, where we have an over bloated military budget. And I'm like, where in your values, where in these ideals is this thing that you're proposing fit into, or this thing that you're celebrating fit into? And so if we can just come home and fulfill what we say on paper with our policy initiatives, I think we would have a perfect country.
Noor:
And what does it mean for us to be who we are on paper? Well, the constitution, like stories, is a living, breathing document, meant to evolve and grow as we do as a nation. The intention, the claim, the promise is equality for all. So how do we share our country, and how does the US live up to its ideals and promises?
Yasmin:
I've always believed in the United States as a place of possibility, of great potential, of an open-ended potential as well. I think that I will always need to believe in that story. It could be my myth. You can call it that. But I have to believe in that story so that I keep going every day. I know that I saw that in my own life, because I had the opportunity to see it in my own life, through a lot of struggle and through a lot of pain. And yet I'm still standing. You know me, ever the Muslim, I always think about this verse from the Quran. Maybe that you love something and it's not good for you. And maybe that you hate something and it's actually quite beneficial for you.
Noor:
Mm-hmm.
Yasmin:
So that helps you take a step back and examine, okay, the story of America has to be, in my opinion, in my own humble, tiny life experience, it's got to be the story of a place that is willing to evolve and change and progress to become its best self. It's willing to take time to examine its history. It's willing to make changes, and sometimes it has to get real hot and real messy and real ugly to push and drive that conversation forward.
Yasmin:
But if you are stuck in the sadness of that moment, the defeat of that moment, if you let it defeat you completely, then you're losing out on all this potential that could be. Then you're so paralyzed and stuck in today that you've robbed yourself of tomorrow, and you're taking away something from the children that need to see, they have to see, they need to see that hope and the potential of something better. Why are we doing this then? What's the point of all of this?
Ilhan Omar:
When things are hard, and I ask myself, is this worth it? I'm reminded of the fact that there is a reason that I'm alive, that I've been given the opportunity to start anew, to get an education, to be in the position that I am today, and that I should carry on.
Huma:
Even though I have lived in a country and been involved in politics forever and know that we have an ugly history and we certainly have our challenges, but my point is I have bought the American story. I bought the American story when I was a kid, when I was exposed to all kinds of other stories and possibilities and places, and I can be 46 years old and tear up when I see somebody else who has sacrificed, who has been a patriot for a country that I feel strong allegiance to. That means something.
Yasmin:
So how do we hold ourselves to the best version of American ideals? How can we hold the United States to its best form? Even if it stumbles, even if it kind of sometimes walks wobbly like a toddler and falls over and doesn't make always the best choices, how do you get back up and make better choices as a country, as a young country? And I use a toddler reference very purposefully because this country is only, it's not even 300 years old, guys.
Yasmin:
In the world of civilization, that's a blip on the screen. We're like, atchoo, it's like literally somebody sneezed and the United States came to be, and it gets to be better every single day. It gets to have the input of being this amazing, radical experiment and melting pot, an incredible radical experiment in total protections, freedoms, in honoring the vision of people who maybe didn't have all the same ideals that we had.
Isra Hirsi:
I completely agree with what America is and the story of America. However, I guess the America that I want to see is a America that doesn't exist, is an America that is beyond the state of white supremacy or the colonial existence, one that doesn't take land. One that doesn't disrespect and imprison Black and brown people. I think that thinking beyond just the values, but more about what does this look like for everyday people? And what does land back look like? What does thinking beyond colonialization and imperialism look like? I think we need to really reenvision a country, or not even a country, a place where people can express themselves freely and feel safe. That's definitely the America that I want.
Noor:
To express ourselves freely means knowing the power we have individually. Looking at a story through the lens of politics, pop culture and public opinion helps me understand how their dynamic directly impacts me. I can start separating influence and propaganda from the sound of my own thoughts. And in turn, I can intentionally choose how I engage next, instead of reacting on bias or belief. This is why for this chapter, I needed to talk to people not about their positions of power, but how they engage with their individual power to better serve in those positions.
Noor:
While working on this episode, several US Supreme Court decisions were announced, ones that are already endangering citizens and placing limits on their life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. So I kept asking myself, what is my role in this uncertain moment, and really what can any of us do? After much thought and reflection, I've come to the conclusion that the best thing I can do right now is to show up and serve. To be intentional about how I internalize the stories that work to influence my thinking, my actions and the choices I make. The goal is to create more space so that we can authentically connect and build the world we want to share.
Noor:
You fight enemies by creating alliances, by forging unbreakable bonds of community, by acting with dignity and grace in the face of prejudice and bias. We can each commit to using stories to bond, to heal and to inspire, because it is only in our collective equality that we may all be free. I'm Noor Tagouri, At Your Service.
Noor:
Rep is a production of At Your Service, School of Humans and iHeartPodcasts. This show is written and produced by me, Noor Tagouri, and Zaron Burnett. Editing, production, sound design and scoring by Chris [inaudible 00:59:12]. Theme song written and composed by Maimouna Youssef, AKA Mumu Fresh.
Noor:
Our senior producer is Amelia Brock. Our associate producers are Tyler Donahue and Betsy [inaudible 00:59:23]. Mix and master by [inaudible 00:59:25] Frazier. Audio assembly by Mary [inaudible 00:59:28]. Fact checking by Marisa Brown. Our executive producers are Adam Kafi, Zaron Burnett, Jason English, and me, Noor Tagouri.
Noor:
Special thanks to Virginia Prescott from School of Humans and Will Pearson from iHeartPodcasts. I'd also like to thank Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, her daughter Isra Hirsi, Yasmin Elhady and Huma Abedin. If this podcast resonated with you and you'd like to support our show, please rate and review and share it with someone else you think may enjoy it. Tune in to Rep next time. I'm Noor Tagouri, as always at your service.
Speaker:
Rep.