Latest / Normally / Normally Podcast: Urban Failures, Rubio’s Testimony & the Redistricting Battles Shaping 2028

Transcript

Normally Podcast: Urban Failures, Rubio’s Testimony & the Redistricting Battles Shaping 2028 · Normally

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Again.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: We are back on normally, the show is normal. It
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: is taking a whity n getting weird.
• 0:10
  Speaker 3: I don't know about I am Carol Markowitz, very Catherine.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Everybody's very worried about me because it's going to be
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: chilly at Florida all the next two days.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like five degrees here.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: People keep tagging me in these stories of like, you know,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Florida is going to get it really bad, and listen,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: it is bad for Florida, but like our coldest day
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: is going to be like high thirties, low of fifty one.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: You know, thirty sounds tough. You know, it's not the
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: ten degrees that we've had for four days here. It's true. Yeah.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: But by the way, Washington d C has been utterly
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: unable to release itself from the encasing of ice. And
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: last night Washington DC decided to clear snow on the
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: fourteenth Street Bridge, which is the major artery going into
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: town during rush hour. And I'm like, are they are
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: they simply this stupid or is this an attempt to
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: punish people for coming into the city, Like what's going
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: on here? But I will tell you the amount of
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: money these people are paying in taxes for this level
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: of service. Schools are still closed, nothing's cleared out. It's amazing.
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: That's really bad. I mean, Mom, Donnie was able to
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: do it in New York. That's how bad that is.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: Also in addition, can I say, and this is such
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: a metaphor, rass sewage has been pouring into the Potomac
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: for like a week and a half. Now why And
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: that's not it's not even a story because of the snow.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: I'm like, when are you guys gonna get to plowing
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: the poop out of the Potomac? Is that? Why? Why?
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: Why is there? There was some kind of breakdown with
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: the water treatment in DC. American cities in twenty twenty
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: became great at DEI and lecturing the rest of us
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: and shutting businesses down. They became very bad, even worse
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: than they had been at doing basic services.
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's a that's a bad scene over there.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: Nobody wants to poop.
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: Poop is like the least you know, least good thing
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: you want in the water.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: Yep, yep.
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: Anyway, bring back the fluoride.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Sure it'll all work out, fie. At least the taxes
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: are low anyway, all.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Right, Marco Rubio testified in front of Congress today.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: He was fantastic.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: I got to watch some of it while I waited
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: to see whether he was going to bump me from Newsmax,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: and I got a question.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: It was about Nicki Minaj.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: So you know that the did you go happened? Yeah.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: So he did such a great job of just very
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: matter of factly explaining why we went into Venezuela, why
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: we were the only country that could do it, why
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: it was important for us to do it.
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: Let's roll a little clip of it.
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: So you had basically three of our primary opponents in
• 3:03
  Speaker 4: the world operating from our hemisphere. From that spot, it
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: was also a place where you had a narco trafficking
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: regime that openly cooperated with the FARC and the ELN
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: and other drug trafficking organizations using their national territory. It
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: was an enormous strategic risk for the United States, not
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: halfway around the world, not in another continent, but in
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: the hemisphere in which we all live, and it was
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: having dramatic impacts on us, but also on Columbia and
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: on the Caribbean basin and all sorts of other places.
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: It was an untenable situation. And it had to be addressed.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: It's interesting that he openly calls China and Russia our opponents.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: I don't think that that's language that I've necessarily heard
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: from other people, even in the Trump administration. I think
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: that they kind of usually massaged that a little bit,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: and he didn't do that. So he said that this
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: was a threat in our hemisphere, and we did what
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: we had to do. And I watched this and he
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: just comes off as so much more sure of himself
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: than anybody else in that room. Everybody else kind of
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: is trying to get him in a gotcha. It was
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: one point I don't even remember what the question really
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: was about, but it was like, were.
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: You with Donald Trump when this happened?
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: And he's like, well, it didn't happen, so I couldn't
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: have been with Donald Trump when that happened.
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: And it was just a very Rubio esque response. It
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: was fantastic.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: And of course this is all happening, and this conversation
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: is going on during a time where the US is
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Lincoln has arrived in the Middle East potentially for something
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: that may happen in Iran.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really watching him as a testament to the
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: power of a likable and smart messenger who knows things.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Competency knowing things can be very powerful, and it's nice
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: to see that in a secretary. I would love him
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: to do all the jobs. Yeah, I'm not sure exactly
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: what his capacity is at this point, but I am very,
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: very glad that he's in several of them. And I
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: am also open to the idea that him holding several
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: jobs makes him even better at this kind of thing,
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: because he's seeing he's overseeing a bunch of stuff and
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: seeing how everything is working together, and he's smart enough
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: to handle that. So I enjoy hearing from him very much.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: I think he's a guy who ups confidence in the
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: administration when he's out there. And by the way, I
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: saw that he had a little exchange with Rand Paul
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: where he had to set some of his language straight
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: and say, we didn't remove an elected official in Maduro,
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: we removed someone who was not elected and was actually
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: an indicted drug traffick in the United States. And I
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: got to imagine that while he's saying that other people
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: who are unelected autocratic rulers in other countries where say,
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: the USS Lincoln is near, might go hmm. Listening we're
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: listening and to have that sort of consistency in messages.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: He Ron actually had a trumpy response today to Donald
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Trump's call to come to the table and then maybe,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: you know, see if military action will follow. If they don't,
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: they Amanian mission into the United Nations said in its
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: own social media post, Daron was ready for dialogue based
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: on mutual respects and interest, but it added in capital letters,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: if pushed, Ron would defend itself and respond like never before,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: will you will you?
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: I think it's unwise to get too chippy with Donald Trump.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: If yeah, a Ron on X's right, that would just
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: be my take. As Maduro's dancing didn't go over well,
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: and yeah, perhaps a little bit of a last straw,
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: I would I would be cautious about it.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't want to You don't want to get
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump angry. You wouldn't like him when he's angry.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: It was funny because I was thinking it kind of
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: read like one of the resistance people had a hold
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: of the X account and was like, you'll never come
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: get us. There's no way you could do anything to us.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: I wonder, I wonder if it's always poks the way
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: to provoke.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: So Rubio again doing such a great job, and a
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: obviously conversation on X becomes. Could Rubio run for president
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty eight?
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: He has explicitly said that if JD.
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: Vance runs, he's not running.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: I don't know, does he really not run if he
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: if there's like a clamoring for him, if people are
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: clamoring for you, I think you have to do it well.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: And Trump repeatedly puts him on par with Vance. It's
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: not enlisting him before Vance.
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: So most favored child for sure.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: I mean there was some AI image the other day
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: about Greenland, where, of course in the AI image Rubio
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: and Vance are standing next to Trump, not just Vance. Rubio, Yeah, Advance.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: So it is an interesting, uh way of jockeying for position.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: As we move toward twenty twenty eight, right, we'll see.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: I can't imagine that he decides no just because he said,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: you know, in twenty twenty six that he would in
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty five.
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: Things change, obviously.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: I am also of the mind that no matter how
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: much I like the Republican possible candidate, we need to
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: have primaries.
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: Primaries are a good thing. They really do shake out
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: what we believe.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: I have to say, I don't think this last primary
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: did that because Donald Trump was so the runaway favorite
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: that it didn't matter what everybody else was saying, and
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: he didn't come to any debates or whatever.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: Will JD.
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: Vance be that same kind of runaway favorite.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: I don't know, but I'd love to hear what do
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: we believe going into twenty twenty eight.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think Jamie Vance can afford to do
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: what Trump did. It's just a different position that he's in.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: I didn't like that Trump did that, although I understood
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: on the bear politics same right why he would do it.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: I wanted him to come and answer questions and to
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: debate these things with folks, and it makes us healthier
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: if we can do that, particularly in an age of Trump.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: Where As you and I both know the party's compass
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: is like where exactly ideologically, but somewhere between populist and
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: conservative depending on the day, and sometimes leaning in towards
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: like Warren economic populism at times. So I would like
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: to hear these guys discuss which things are important to them.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: I think Rubyo is likely to be more in my
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: lane than others, but I do think if there's anything
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: to be learned from the Biden process, it was Biden
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: being anointed and then Harris being annoyed. Neither one did
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: Jella favor. So yeah, let's learn some lessons.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Let's learn some lessons without having to actually go through
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: those lessons.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: Right, We'll take a short break and be right back
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: on normally.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: All right, back on normally. Let's talk about whether Democrats
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: are learning any lessons. It's an interesting time to talk
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: about that. But I have noticed a bunch of sort
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: of center left people who have been trying to get
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: the Democratic Party off of the super.
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: Woke Yeah, ramparts train, yes, runaway train. Yeah.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: A couple of these folks have been saying quite loudly
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: as opinion turns against Trump on immigration enforcement. So at
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: a time when they could be celebrating a short term win,
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: a lot of them are saying, hey, watch out, this
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: is not a long term win. Yeah, this is a
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: swing away from these tactics. It's perhaps something you can
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: capitalize on, but you will not capitalize on it unless
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: you deal with what you did in the past. And
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: Thomas Edsel, writing for The New York Times, chimes in
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: today with a piece saying entitled, I wouldn't say the
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: Democrats are in good shape, which is not what the
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: resistance wants to hear right about now, as they think
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: they are sort of taking a victory lap over Minneapolis.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: I would dispute that conclusion from them. But basically Edsel says,
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: if Democrats are to succeed in excising the Trump malignancy
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: from the body put their party faces a major hurdle
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: their own malignancy. That's my editorial public distrust, if not
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: downright animosity. And he references like four different studies that
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: show how much people were turned off by woke DEI
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: sort of supermind virus behavior, and it notes that even
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: as support for Trump has deteriorated, each analysis found that
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: the public, including many Democratic voters, had a dismal view
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: of the Democratic Party, in one calling them weak or ineffective.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: They note that this was an interesting one deciding to win,
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: which is a Democratic pack did this analysis? Since twenty twelve,
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: highly educated staffers, donors, advocacy groups, pundits, and elected officials
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: have reshaped the Democratic Party's agenda, decreasing our party's focus
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: on the economic issues that are the top concerns of
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: the American people. The authors tracked keyword usage in democratic
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: platforms from twenty twelve to twenty twenty five. Are you
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: ready for what they found?
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: I'm ready.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: Let's go. The frequency of the word hate increased by
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: one thousand, three hundred and twenty three percent, White, Black, Latino,
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: Latina by one thousand, one hundred and thirty seven percent,
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: LGBT and LGBTQI, et cetera by one thousand and forty
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: four percent, and equity by seven hundred and sixty six percent.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: On the other hand, over the same period, use of
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: father down one hundred percent, crime and criminal down thirty percent,
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: responsibility UH decreased by eighty three percent, middle class by
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: seventy nine percent, and veteran by thirty one.
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they let the right take all of those words.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: It wasn't your imagination. Yeah, father, They just we.
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: Don't have fathers anymore, no fathers.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: Like it's wild what they did. And these guys are
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: making the point which I don't I am not sure
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: the left can handle that you have to earn back
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: trust by admitting that you did something wrong. Yeah, And
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: they're pointing out these guys who even these guys who
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: want to turn the page like a Stephen Pinker who's
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: in academia is like, in academia, it's almost getting worse
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: because Trump is saying do sensible things, and they're feeling like, no,
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: we can't do anything Trump right, right, and therefore they
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: can't sort of dig themselves out of it. They just
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: get into a more progressive loop.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know that was really the thing during the pandemic, right.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: It was like we saw them do this where Trump
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: was like, we should open schools, and they were like,
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: absolutely not, not schools, and you sent me. A few
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: days ago, Josh Crusher pointed out the American Redistricting Project
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: that Texas is picking up four seats, Florida's picking up
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: two seats, Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, North Carolina, Utah picking up seats,
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: and then all these red and blue states are losing seats. California, Illinois, Minnesota,
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Wisconsin all losing seats. Now,
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: what happened there. What happened there is that they just
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: couldn't adjust to sanity. They pushed people out. I mean,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: it's something that we watched happen all across the country.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: I know, you know, the New York or California gets
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: the most attention, but people left all of these blue states,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: and I think that that we've gotten to where they
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: need to learn for all of us. They need to
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: not just be anti Trump as a position.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not sure that's going to happen. This is
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: the no, right, this is the reapportionment you're talking about,
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: which will come in twenty thirty. Right, So the census
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: in twenty twenty, whether you think it was ill intentioned
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: or just really hard to do, a census in twenty
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: twenty was done badly, and as a result, Republicans actually
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: were on the losing end when they should have gained
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: a bunch of seats. Now those seats matter because it
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: matters for the number of electoral votes in each state.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: So as red and southern and sun belt states gain
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: numbers and reapportionment, they gain electoral votes, making it easier
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: for Republican candidates to put together to seventy. So as
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: twenty thirty looms, a lot of these blue wall states
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: are like, oh gosh, we are not going to be
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: the playing field anymore. If this continues, and this is
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: continuing trends that had already happened, but COVID made more
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: obvious because people were moving down to the South for weather,
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: for cost of living, for non unionized work. It's a
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: really different playing field down there, and COVID just exacerbated
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: that and accelerated that, and then twenty twenty kind of
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: covered it for a while. But twenty thirty is going
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: to look very different, and they are, as some have noted,
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: going to need to moderate basically for the chance at
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: winning any presidency post twenty twenty eight. Like this last gasp.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: Now it's never really the last gasp.
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: Politics, never really the last gasp. You know, you and
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: I have talked about that.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but it is interesting. So one of these experts
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: in this New York Times piece says, we are going
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: to have to call out the mistakes and overreaches of
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: the left that cost us the trust of voters in
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: the middle before we can rebuild it. I don't think
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: we have seen a tendency to do that at all.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: And then this is the interesting part, Carol, think twenty
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: twenty six is not going to go well for the
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: party in power, as it almost never does. In a minute, right,
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: they're going to have the same problem they had in
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty two. In twenty twenty two, they did better
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: than they expected and it kept Biden in place. He
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: was like, we don't need to change anything. So I
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: think and this point, this piece makes this point as well.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: If they do well in twenty twenty six, it will
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: tell them they don't need to change, and they will go,
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: let's just ride this train into twenty twenty eight without
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: making apologies, without changing much of anything.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, Look, and that doesn't mean that they can't
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: win in twenty twenty eight.
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: Obviously.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: Again, you and I talk a lot on here about
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: not counting one of the two.
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: Major parties out.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: Ever, like the people who people who really I didn't
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: think Trump would win in twenty sixteen, but the people
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: who like were like, it's not possible for him to win.
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: We've got that was like, what are you talking about?
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: There's only two parties? Yeah, that was that was the
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: third option election night when I was the craziest person
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: on set on the part of the nine person panel.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: I was on on CNN and said, I don't know,
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: I think he's got like a forty percent chance of
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: pulling this off.
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: That that seemed reasonable.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: Turned out I was much much more right than most
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: people there. Yeah, I just assumed it. I assumes that
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: Hillary like had a ground game and stuff, and.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: No turns out no, you know, moving to Florida, being
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: one of those people who left the blue state for
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: a red state, I have, for the first time in
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: my life, really met moderate Democrats, and they I understand
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: how they are so out of place and they don't
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: have anywhere to go. I mean, I think most of
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: them end up being Republicans eventually, But I really had
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: never really known like kind of the more normy Democrat,
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: the one who is horrified by what's going on in
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: Minneapolis but also thinks you have to enforce federal law.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: Like these people exist.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: I don't know how the Democrats ever speak to them
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: or find their way back to them. I don't know
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: how that happens.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's gonna be tricky. And I grew up with
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: a ton of them in North Carolina. I knew Progressives,
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: but I also knew like redneck, good old boy hunting
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: Democrats who were not the fake kind like Tim Walls,
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: but were like really that's what they were.
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: And who Tim Walls was trying to emulate.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: So I knew both of those people, and this is
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: a good segue to our last segment, where we will
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: find out if progressivism in the form of Spanburger, the
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: fake moderate, is going to dominate Virginia and become the
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: model for the future. So we'll be back with that
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: on normally, Oki dok. Carol, I have told you a
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: little bit about the new adventures that we're having in Virginia,
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: at which point you said, moved to Florida, which is
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: I think I just say that though that's always the advice, yea,
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: you know, while while it's ten degrees outside noted, noted,
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: there's some more adventures going on in the legislature. Among
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: the many things that they have suggested, one is a
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: constitutional amendment which would allow redistricting before twenty twenty six.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: So Virginia has a way that it does redistricting. You've
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: seen this mid decade redistricting arms race that everyone's in. Well,
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: Virginia now with a Democratic trifecta, wants to get in
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: on the action. So last special session in the fall,
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: they passed this constitutional amendment to do redistricting. They want
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: to pull like a ten to one Democratic Republican stunt
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: in Virginia and they got it. They want to do
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: it by November, so this is a tricky timeline. They
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: passed it in the fall of last year, but they
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: have to pass it again in the new so it
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: comes in, they pass it again, and they're going to
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: try to put it on the ballot in April. But
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: it of course is being challenged in court. And yesterday
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: the first level of court, circuit court, a county circuit
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: court judge, came down with an order that basically said
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: three of four of the Republicans complaints about this are correct.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: This is I'm putting an injunction on this. Y'all can
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: appeal up to the Supreme Court of Virginia and we'll
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: figure this out. But it is very interesting because I
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: was talking to Kim Kuchinelli, former ag in Virginia, to
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: get a sense of like where this might head, and
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: he was noting, as were some other legal friends who
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: do this work, that judges often don't rule on three
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: things at once. So this makes the bar higher for
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: Democrats to win in the next level of court. And
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: the thing is Democrats do did what they always do,
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: which is assume the rules don't apply to them. Yeah,
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: and they passed it in such a time crunch that
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: they couldn't do the things they were required to do
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: by law and by statute and by constitution to get
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: this on the ballot. Because the thing is, when you
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: put a constitutional amendment on the ballot, you want everyone
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: to know about it. So they have a requirement that
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: you pass this thing and then there's an intervening election
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: and then people can vote on it later. Right, you
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: also have to post it for ninety days on courthouse doors,
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: just like the old days, so people can see it, right,
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: And they didn't do that, And they definitely didn't do
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: it given the forty five day early voting. This judge
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: was like, yeah, I mean, you guys passed it in
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: October and a million people had already voted by that,
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: so it seems like you can't really count that as
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: the intervening election. A lot of observers in Virginia, and
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: maybe they're right, but the dim observers seem very hubristic
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: that this thing is going to immediately get overturned and
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: the Supreme Court is going to say no, go ahead.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: Ten to one. Sounds great, yeah, But I for one
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: hope that there are a little bit more sticklers for
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: the actual written down law that requires Democrats to play
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: by the rules to get a constitutional amendment past.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: Man, if I had to be relying on that, though,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: I would start looking at Florida listings. Dude, I know, right,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: like I hear you know, and it all sounds really unfair.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: But well, yeah, we'll see, because yeah, there is a
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: part of me where I look at these Democrats They're
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: like so confident that this will be a return, and
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: I'm like, but it seems really clear that you guys
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: didn't follow the rules. And they're like, yeah, we don't care, Like, right,
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: what rules? Why would we follow? We don't do rules. Yeah,
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: so we will see what happens. But this is yet
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: another chapter in the redistricting wars, which are, by the way,
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: really complicating my job as a commentator because you don't
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: even know what the districts are until spring of spring
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: or summer of twenty twenty six, so that you can
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: study before fall of twenty twenty six. Yeah, thanks the
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: low guys, right, thanks a lot.
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm worrying about Virginia.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: I have a Fox piece in the next I don't
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: know days about it, how I just things seem to
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: be moving rapidly in the other direction.
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: And I know you're there to fight the fight, and
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: I believe in you.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: I do well here. But yeah, it's not good look
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: at it. We could look at it in this way. Yeah,
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: and that is perhaps this is the warning shot for
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: everyone around the country pre twenty twenty six and twenty
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: twenty eight that like the thing they tell you you're
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: getting when they say they are moderate democratic? Yeah, yeah,
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: what's not what you're getting? And I think if the
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: more people who see that, the better. And I would say,
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: speaking of watching all these democratic observers, left leaning folks
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: who follow Virginia politics, they all seem very salty that
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: we're paying attention to this.
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: Right, Like why do you even care about where you live?
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: State legislatures are not really used to having a bunch
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: of heat on them. Certainly, this legal process is not
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: one that people are used to having a bunch of
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: folks pay attention to. So I think the fact that
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: the spotlight is making them smart seems good A good sign. Yeah,
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: I like that. Let's go where.
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I believe in MK.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: I think you got this. Well, see, we'll we'll do
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: our best over here.
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: Well, thanks for joining us on normally.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays, and you can subscribe anywhere
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: you get your podcast to get in touch with us
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: at normallythepod at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening, and
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: when things get weird at normally