Bonus Episode: I'm Not Okay, and I Don't Think You Are Either

Welcome to More Human, More Kind. I'm Heather Hester. I am coming to you today with a special extra episode, really a raw take on the Supreme Court decisions that have been coming down yesterday and today. This is actually something that I've never done for this podcast, but I feel like it is really important, especially given the implications of the decisions that have been made. There are a million layers to what I'm feeling right now, which I'm sure you are feeling the same way. Hard to kind of list them all in one breath, but as I've been texting with my daughter and with some friends and just reading each of these as they've dropped, I have felt everything from rage to devastation to extraordinary sadness to fear. One of the things that has been coming up over the past few weeks as we've been waiting for these decisions to drop is just how cowardly these conservative justices are, how owned they are by Trump and by all of the people who are paying them to rule their direction. How cruel not just they are, but this administration is. How petty. I was saying that as the trans decision dropped today, I just felt heartbroken. And at the same time, I wasn't surprised. I think we all knew that that was how they were going to rule on this. And it just shows you how powerful people with lots of money can control a narrative, can create propaganda, can create lies. It's not even Mistruths. It's flat-out lies that destroy people's lives, that are destroying people's lives with absolutely no care. When you think about so many of these cases, they are about human beings. About human lives that SCOTUS— well, the conservative judges on SCOTUS, because Sotomayor and Jackson and Kagan have been absolute rock stars. And I am so grateful for the way that they have dissented with such raw emotion and truth and authenticity and what this means for our future. But thinking about so many of these rulings, the E. Jean Carroll one, that's one person singled out. Birthright citizenship. That's groups and groups of people who are being singled out because they are Black and brown and from another place that this administration deems less than. For the past 10 years since Trump first came into power, there has been a bigger and bigger target put on trans people and trans athletes. And every single statistic out there shows— it's not even a statistic that can be shown because the number is so small, the number of trans athletes who are competing past high school. I was actually laughing the other day thinking when I was a little kid, uh, they didn't have enough girls' soccer teams in our town. And so for 2 years, I was the only girl on a boys' soccer team. Totally okay, right? Just letting kids be who they are, letting people be who they are. Who they were created to be, being fully, authentically themselves, being human. I'm not really quite ready to do a deep dive yet, I don't think, on the removal of any spending limits from corporations on candidates, political parties, because the wide-reaching implications that has on the future of how we do politics in this country, I think, are hard to fully state at this point. I mean, we already know that elections are— there's so many elections that are bought. When you just look at the amount of money that has even been pumped into primaries this season, it's absolutely insane. How corporations, individuals are shamelessly buying favors from the president. I just, I mean, I've never understood from the time that Citizens United was a case 15 years ago, it's never made sense to me. I mean, I get it in the sense of corruption and just flat-out insidious behavior. But when you think about it as just like in the pure sense of a democracy, of how this country was founded and what, you know, the Founding Fathers envisioned for this country, it was that it was a country of the people. Right? Each one of us getting a voice and having a say. And this is the literal exact opposite of that. And I think just the last thing I will say for today, because I know my thoughts are coming out all jumbled, is that I find it absolutely disgusting that this was dropped. The week of the 4th of July for so many reasons, whether it's the fact that the news cycle is going to be even faster than it normally is, and this will just get swept under the rug and people will not understand exactly what's going on, or that it's just such a slap in the face to any true patriot who actually cares about this country, who cares what it was founded on, understands how devastating this is, who wants to be celebrating 250 years. And it's really hard to celebrate when decisions like this are crashing down around you. I guess I will just say, we'll end this all by saying I am so deeply ashamed that these conservative justices are on this court, that they represent our country. I am so sad and heartbroken by what has come down, and the extraordinary damage that has been done to our country, to our reputation in the world, and most of all, to the individual citizens—all of us, every human being who is part of this country, who is here. I'm just sad. So while I know this was a lot of rambling and emotion and a very raw take on what has been coming down the past 2 days. I thought it might be helpful to you to hear it, to know that you're not alone in however these decisions are affecting you, whatever you're thinking about it, whatever you're feeling. And also just to say, we're not giving up. We're not going away. We're not going to stop fighting. And I'm just sending lots of love and the absolute best wishes for a happy and safe 4th of July and 250th celebration.