Latest / Normally / Normally Podcast: Fake Election Polls EXPOSED, Ohio Attack Ad Backfires & Anti-Trump Americans Regret Fleeing

Transcript

Normally Podcast: Fake Election Polls EXPOSED, Ohio Attack Ad Backfires & Anti-Trump Americans Regret Fleeing · Normally

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Hey guys, we are back on Normally, the show with
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: normal-ish takes for when the news gets weird. I'm Mary
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Katherine Hamm.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: That was very quickly said, Mary Katherine. I'm Carol Markowitz.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: How's it going?
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: It's going. We are in, my youngest son is in
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: playoff football season and he, his very strong football team
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: lost their first playoff game, which moved them to the
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: loser's bracket. I'm sure you know what that is, but
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: I had to learn all about it. So the losers
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: bracket plays every single day. And so far, so good.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: They're like in win number, I think, four last night. Okay.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: But tonight's a tough one. Tonight's the team that knocked
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: them out of the playoffs in the first place.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Okay. It's going to be tough.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: It's going to be hard. I love it. Can I
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: just tell you how much I love watching football on
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: an October night?
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's so great.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: It's pretty magical. Pretty magical.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Um, I, on the other hand, uh, spent last night
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: while your son will be like impressing everybody on the
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: football field. My son got his haircut by his mother
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: last night. The results are, sure he's out. We'll see how,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: we'll see how he looks when he comes home today.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: What made you do that? I would just never be
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: so brave. So what made me brave is that I
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: had girls with very forgiving hair. And then I had
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: a boy and I was like, I've been doing this
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: for years.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: Oh, man.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: But it's much harder.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: Boys and girls get their haircuts at different places because
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: it's a different skill set.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: But I can learn.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: It grows pretty fast.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: I believe in you. I've done it once before.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: The result is fine. It's just not like. professional yet.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: I'm going to get there. I'm going to get there, Carol.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: I love it. I love that you are learning a
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: new skill on your son. Does the husband start getting
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: haircuts by you or no?
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: What's that?
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: Will your husband start getting the Mary Catherine haircut?
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: No, I feel like the kid's hair is more forgiving
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: than his and than him. They are more forgiving than
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: he is.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: That's okay.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: We'll make it through, guys. We'll make it through.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: I believe in you. I really do.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about politics.
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: Why not?
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: October 21st right now, we are heading towards the midterm.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: And the big story is there was a totally horrible
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: ad in Ohio against gubernatorial Democrat candidate Amy Acton, where
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: her mom basically calls her a liar. And look, These
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: kinds of ads have been going on, right? Donald Trump's
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: niece cut an anti-Trump ad. They got the whole RFK
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: family to join up against him. So it's not, like,
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: without precedent.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: Except in this case, it's kind of ugly.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, and, like, I always think family ads are weird. Like,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: family going to camera, trashing a family member... is a
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: high-risk move.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: You.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: You want to really have the goods on that if
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: you're trying that, because people don't, despite the fact that
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: our country really likes Bravo, they actually, I don't think,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: want to be brought into people's family drama in a
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: politics situation, especially if it's really messy. And in this case,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: it's long been known that Acton's biography includes this very
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: rough childhood that has a lot of accusations back and forth,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: alleged abuse, alleged neglect. poverty, her mom sticking up for
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: someone who might have abused her. There's all sorts of
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: stuff going, charges going back and forth. She is estranged
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: from her mother and has been since she was a
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: child due to all of this stuff that was adjudicated
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: at the time.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: And therefore, I immediately watched that ad and thought, an
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: estranged mom going straight to camera trashing her daughter is
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: does not seem like a person who's likely to be
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: greeted warmly or as trustworthy.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: I have to admit that wasn't my first instinct. And again,
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: it was because we've seen so much of this. Like,
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: you know, the Kennedy family all coming out with statements
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: against RFK or, you know, again, Trump's niece being like
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: the just celebrated Mary Trump. She was all over television
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: in the last few years because It was a way
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: to hurt Trump.
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: So I wasn't like, oh, people are not going to
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: like this.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: But then when the story kind of broke where her
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: mom had allegedly, there's a lot of allegedly here. Let's
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: just allegedly all of it. Allegedly, her mom's boyfriend or
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: husband had raped Amy Acton. And she had said this
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: at the time. This isn't something she's saying in retrospect.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: And the mom took the boyfriend husband's side. So when
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: you have that story again, all allegedly, it does make
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: for a different tale than even the RFK or the
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: Trump family coming out against them. But I definitely my
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: first instinct was like this could sink her. This would
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: be bad for her. And now it looks like it
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: could be bad for Vivek Ramaswamy.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I guess, like, this is my— I find the
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: Kennedy family gross for doing that. I believe— I think there
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: was Herschel Walker's family was used.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: There's a lot of these, yeah.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: It happens a lot, and I almost always find it icky,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: regardless of who the person is that they are testifying against.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: And again, if you're going to do it, you've got
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: to really have the goods.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: And you got to really be certain that this person
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: is assailable and your person is not assailable.
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: And in this case, definitely not worth it. So I
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: kind of hoped because it had no tag of who
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: it paid, who paid for it. When we first saw that,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: I kind of hoped it would be one of these things.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: It was like some freelance person who had found mom
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: and put her on camera and they're just making an
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Internet ad. But it appears very much that Vivek Ramaswamy's
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: folks were involved in this. that he wishes to continue
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: with this particular closing argument for his... Weird. It's really weird.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: It's also like, I know where, like you said, the
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: Bravo thing, we're in an era where we know so.
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: Much about people, like way too much.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: I don't want to know so much about everyone. And
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: there's no way to like turn off the valve. It's like,
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: Every newspaper, every headline is just way too much information,
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: and it's gotten into politics to such an extent that
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: TMZ is now covering politics because it's become a sideshow.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: I don't like any of that.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: Also, Amy Acton was health director for the state of
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: Ohio in 2020. You're telling me you can't find stuff
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: to nail her on?
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: A Democrat as the health director in 2020. Right. There's plenty.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: She was part of the initial closing of schools, which
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: you could argue for. However, it did start the cascade
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: that became the problem. Yep. So make some other argument
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: against her.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: Right. Her mom doesn't like her is not a great one.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: There's also plenty of family estrangement in the country. And
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: not everyone's going to look at that and be like,
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: you know, I think people will be like, This is
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: something we see happen and we don't need to necessarily
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: be listening to her mom.
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: Like Trump's staffer, Natalie Harp, that the press is harping
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: upon frequently. She has an estranged brother who is not
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: friends with, not communicate with anyone in their family anymore.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: A dispute that happened like in 2020 or 2021. And
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: I believe it was the Washington Post fleshed that whole
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: story out. It's been a strange family member, a painful
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: story from a time where she was not a public figure.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: And she remains not a public figure. She is a staffer.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: So I just think it has diminishing returns.
• 8:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: A detente on this would be to everybody's benefit. It
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: will just never happen.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: It's too.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: They enjoy it too much. There would never be this
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: kind of soul searching on the left where like maybe
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: we shouldn't have Donald Trump's niece be this activist against him.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: But all right. How about some good ads? Any good ads?
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Actually, I saw one. I believe this is from the
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Choose Freedom Pack, I think is their name. And it
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: ran during some NFL games. And I just love the
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: tone of this ad. I might actually be the audience
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: for this ad, even though I'm not a normal dude,
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: but I'm a normal lady. I watch football and I
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: liked this ad.
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: Michael is a normal guy. He loves a tailgate and
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: he kind of hates politics. He was ready to skip
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: voting this year, but he remembered Democrats are crazier than
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: his ex. They care more about their pronouns than his
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: paycheck and push record high inflation and benefits for illegals.
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: But with Republicans, he's making more. Companies are adding American
• 9:25
  Speaker 4: jobs and the border is closed. Michael won't quit on
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: his team or his country. It's that simple. Vote Republicans.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: That's a great ad. I was going to say, what
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: state is that in? The fact that it's a nationwide ad.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: So smart.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: I love it.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: I like that we're just conceding. We know this isn't fun.
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: You don't have to like it.
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: Nobody likes it.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: But the he won't quit on his team or his
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: country is a very nice button to put on the
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: end of that. It's a little motivational. It's a little
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: heartstrings without getting too schlocky. And I think it might
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: be effective for that demographic. I agree.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: I think that is a really... Good way to put it.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: I had a column in The Post last weekend, like
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: summing up the Trump administration accomplishments that I like. And
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: I didn't even get to all of them. But my
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: point was very much like the borders closed. A lot
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: of things that he promised he did, even things that
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: I don't like necessarily, like tariffs, which I didn't get
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: into in the piece. But like he ran on tariffs.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: The things that he ran on, he has done. He's
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: been doing. Gas prices are high. It's definitely a problem.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: But voting for Democrats to fix gas prices is like
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: make it make sense.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Well, and perhaps it's always my just basement dwelling expectations
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: for any politician. But if I get like one or
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: two things that I like.
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: Oh, yeah.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: Especially closed border. Like, who thought that was going to happen?
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: The closed border was quick, effective, competent.
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: Too quick.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Matters for the entire time that he is president and
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: hopefully moving forward because now he's changed the baseline of
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: what's acceptable. And then knocking woke back. Huge. I don't
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: think ever would have happened without him. Not even just
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: necessarily the things he does, but as an avatar of like,
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: we are finished with this particular thing. Now they're going
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: to try and come at you again, which is my
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: main motivation for not voting.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: For these people. In other political news, the Cook Political
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: Report shifted its rating of Minnesota's U.S. Senate race towards Republicans.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: Like this is earthquake over here. The Washington Post says
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: another sign that a contest Democrats once expected to win
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: comfortably has been increasingly competitive in the closing weeks of
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: the campaign. That candidate is, of course, Michelle DeFoya. She
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: is a really good candidate. She's doing just an incredible
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: job on the campaign. And it's very interesting that that
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: might be where Republicans make a win. It's kind of wild.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: There's a story out today in The Wall Street Journal.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: that her Democratic opponent, Peggy Flanagan, lied about her academic record.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: And I find all of this kind of stuff, as usual, baffling. Like,
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: why anybody lies about any of this? Like, Katie Zakaria
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: lying about, you know, being a lawyer and having not
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: passed the bar. Like, I have never met anyone who
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: cares about, you know, how you did in college. Like, why?
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: Why lie about this?
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, you're going to get found out at some point.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: Although I would say like so many academics have gotten
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: away with plagiarism apparently for so long that maybe people
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: think you don't get caught for this stuff.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: Maybe. Maybe that's it.
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: Perhaps there's been a precedent set that people don't get caught.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: The Michelle, the move of that race in the ratings
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: toward Michelle Tafoya, toward the right, is very important because
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: it is a real outlier. Almost nothing or nothing has
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: moved in that direction for the entirety of the last month.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: It's all been trenches of House races moving towards Democrats.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: And Minnesota is like just such a reliably blue state.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: I don't even know who was the last Republican that
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: won it. I mean, it wasn't like Reagan's landslide in
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: 84 was everything except Minnesota.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: Many, many decades ago. And the thing that's interesting about
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: it is that it tells you there isn't just an
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: anti-Trump or a Trump referendum happening. There's also an anti-incumbent
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: sentiment that can run against Democrats who have been in
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: charge of somewhere and have obviously been doing badly, as
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: in Minnesota, for a long period of time. That's why
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: the Oregon governor's race is possibly within striking distance, which
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: seems insane because it's Oregon. But But the candidate out
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: there is attractive, competent. The Republican has run several times before,
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: so she's well known. And Tina Kotek, the governor, has
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: done the wokest, most terrible job running the state. And
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: there are a lot of normal people in Oregon. They're
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: just not in Portland. So that is Christine Drazen is
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: the Republican candidate's name. And so it'd be nice to
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: see one of those companies. Punish people in those blue places.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: Especially, again, Michelle Tafoya, like her, if she wins, that
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: would just be huge. She's a really, really interesting person.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: And I think Minnesotans should check her out. But back
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: to her opponent, Flanagan, she said in March 2026 during
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: a legislative hearing. I graduated Phi Beta Kappa because I
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: saw myself reflected in my teacher and I saw myself
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: reflected in my curriculum. Turns out she did not graduate
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: Phi Beta Kappa. The Wall Street Journal asked Flanagan's campaign
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: on October 12th to provide information. Eight days later, her
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: campaign acknowledged she never belonged to Phi Beta Kappa. Weird lie,
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: but also used to be like, I only did well
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: in school because I saw myself reflected in the teacher curriculum.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: And it turns out you didn't. So you didn't do
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: well in school. So which is it? Yeah.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: This is crazy to me.
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: I'm actually one credit short of a double major in college.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: I just like it was some diversity credit that I
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: didn't know existed in that major. And I was kind
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: of freelancing. I would just never say that I had
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: two degrees because I don't.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: But also, who cares? Who would be like, you know,
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: Mary Catherine, I was going to hire you for this,
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: but you said you only have the one degree. So
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: you can't, you know, they're also.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: Your requirements for literature.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: And therefore, yeah, they're also going with that. She was
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: nominated for Phi Beta Kappa, but couldn't afford the application fees,
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: which Are $ 99 now. And they, you know, the Wall
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: Street Journal says, although it was likely considerably less more
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: than two decades ago, many chapters also waive the fee
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: or make other accommodations in cases of financial hardship. So,
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: you know.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: I also could not afford to apply to a bunch
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: of Ivy Leagues, but I don't get to say.
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: I could have gotten in. Yeah. Right.
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: I talk about that all the time. I applied to
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: four schools. Applications were expensive. I was not going to
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: apply to like 12 or 15 or whatever. We used
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: to have to pay per application.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: So I was I was one baby. I was one
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: and done. I was like, you know what? It'd be
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: fun to say I got into the other schools, but
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: I also don't have 60 bucks a pop to spend on.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Michelle Tafoya is a former NFL sideline
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: reporter and a great follow on X, really smart. I
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: think she'd be great for Minnesota. I think that Minnesotans
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: should absolutely consider her. Like, wouldn't it be nice to
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: have just like, just try something different? Someone normal. Why not?
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: You know, like, what if you just did normal for
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: a while?
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: She also, Michelle Tafoya, we should say, did great in
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: her debate against Flanagan.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: Clips have been phenomenal. She just nails her to the
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: wall about her concerns about resources for Minnesotans.
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: And then says, like, well, you're the one who oversaw
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: all of this fraud, so sell it to someone else, Peggy.
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: Love that.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: All right. We're going to take a short break and
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: be right back with more on Normally. We are back
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: on Normally, where an Oregon... politician, Nafisa Faye, held a
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: rally in Minnesota where she spoke Somali and flew American
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: flag upside down. This went sort of viral online and
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: Democrats in Oregon did not believe that this video was real.
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: In fact, an outlet in Oregon called the Oregon Journalism
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: Project claimed that... Well, they were given a different picture
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: by this politician and told, these meanie right-wingers are AI-ing
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: me to say that I'm not patriotic because I was
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: standing in front of this upside-down flag. So in the picture,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: the flag is correct. That organization dutifully reported that that was...
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: a deep fake, the one with the upside-down flag. But
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: it turns out the upside-down flag was real. The one
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: they were given was fake from the candidate, from the politician,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: who they reflexively believed over the right-wingers. And then they
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: had to retract that story.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: How embarrassing. Oregon Democrats tweeted, The racist deep fake video
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: of Washington County Commissioner Nafisa Faye circulating on social media
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: is abhorrent. There is one more reason AI needs to
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: be regulated— To prevent bad actors from causing real harm
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: through misinformation. Yeah, maybe. Maybe Nafisa Faye should be regulated
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: because she is a bad actor causing real harm through misinformation.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: Is it still abhorrent? Is what she did still abhorrent?
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: Is flying the American flag upside down abhorrent now that
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: you know it's real?
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah. No, they don't think it's abhorrent and they don't
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: think that her AI-ing anything is abhorrent.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: You can tell because they stealth deleted their objections to this.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: I believe a congresswoman was among them as well. And
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: the Oregon Journalism Project, which is staffed by a bunch
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: of like old school traditional journalists, says... After publication, readers
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: raised questions about the conflicting images. OJP then obtained new
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: images that showed the flag of the Minneapolis event had,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: in fact, been upside down. For that reason, we have
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: unpublished the original story. OJP regrets the error. These are
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: the people who lecture us about not checking.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: All the time.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: And look, sometimes they're right. Like the Tallarico insanity with
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: the recorded phone calls with the alleged mental health stay, right?
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: Sure. And we say, that's very bad. We're here to
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: tell you that's wrong.
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: And the OJP and its veteran journalists should be checking
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: to see if the candidate that they happen to like
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: is lying to them to save herself when she gives
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: them this picture.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaking of fakery, this one's a doozy. A company
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: called Wedgwood ran, I mean, they didn't run anything. They
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: reported fake polls and those polls were were included in
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: various polling compilations, including by NateSilver538. All of the polls
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: were fake. They had a real effect on real-world things
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: happened because of those polls. There's a whole write-up by
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: a candidate named Mallory McMurrow, who was targeted by these
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: polls and writes, as one of the candidates featured in
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: these polls, The infamous one in late June that showed
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: me plummeting into single digits, which was at odds with
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: our internals. Here's the impact of this quote unquote experiment,
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: because that's what they're saying. It was an experiment. Donations
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: dried up. Volunteers were devastated and pleading for guidance on
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: what to do. Reporters hounded me with calls to drop out. Sure,
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: a point was proven. Polling is broken. But tens of
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: thousands of people poured their hearts, time, energy, hard-earned money
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: into something they believed in for a year and a half.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: And it was treated like a game. our volunteers gave
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: their all, and then some, and I feel like so
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: many of them were let down. She then goes on
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: to endorse and say that she's fighting for Abdul El-Sayed,
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: who benefited from these fake polls, which is, you know,
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: one of those you kind of get what you deserve
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: at that point.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm not a fan of Mallory McMorrow, but this
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: is very sad that this happened to various campaigns across
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: this country. You've got a bunch of people who are
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: working hard for a candidate they believe in, and McMorrow
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: herself was kind of sort of ended up being the
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: third way candidate right in the middle of El Sayed and, uh,
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: on the far left. And then Haley Stevens on the, uh,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: on the moderate, uh, side. And then Mallory McMorrow was
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: trying to swim in the middle and just like, it
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: didn't work out. But part of the reason it didn't
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: work out is because she was momentum out of the
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: race and demoralized out of the race by something fake.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: And I, I don't know what your stance is. I
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: tend to not, uh, tweet like retweet one off. I
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: don't know as the name of pollster because there are
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: some that like I know like they've been wrong on
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: this or wrong on that, but they've been in the
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: game for a long time. And so I don't I
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: don't generally if I came across a Wedgwood, I don't
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: think that it wouldn't pop for me. And I'd be like,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: that seems odd. Right.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: I've never heard of this. And we've been around for
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: quite a bit. There is just a lot. You know
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: what it is? You and I would not retweet it.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: Because even if we wanted it to be true, we
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: wouldn't want to be lied to. And I think that's
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: the difference here. I think people who retweeted those polls
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: that showed, for example, Mississippi as a close race, Mississippi Senate,
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: it's not that close. And Chuck Schumer and the Democrats
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: poured money into Mississippi due to this poll and polls
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: like it. So I just wouldn't want to be lied to,
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: even if it felt real good at the time.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there are huge implications for this. And one of
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: the things I think that the people who talk about
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: politics need to take from this is, look, the polls
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: are not always going to be right.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: And it turns out sometimes they're going to be just
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: straight up fake.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: And the story about it being a social experiment to
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: prove how bad the polling environment is broken.
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Miss me with that. A sub stack called 50 plus
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: one reported that it had kind of sniffed out Wedgwood
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: and and had sent on Tuesday, October 20th, a request
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: for comment to Wedgwood polls about the fact that they
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: didn't think their stuff was real. And then they suddenly
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: went public with this statement to kind of save their
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: butts with this idea that it was an experiment. But
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: one thing I think we should take away with it
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: is whether faked or inaccurate, the polls are just a
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: tool for talking about this stuff, for doing some assessing,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: and media especially should not let them shape narratives. I
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: think that these fake ones probably contributed in Mississippi to
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: these stories about momentum, in Kansas. Iowa governor, I think,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: they put out one that was fake there as well,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: and it's just There's got to be probably something prosecutable
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: as fraud here.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: I hope so. Very, very bad.
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: There's also just the reality that a lot of these
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: polls have started to mean less. And I think that
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: that's not a bad thing. I don't think it's the
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: worst thing if we don't have super accurate data about
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: who's going to win or who's going to lose. And
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: people are just, you know, forced to go out and
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: support their candidates.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: Well, so that's what I always say. And it sounds
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: a bit like a cop out, but I actually believe it.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: I know it's a cliche to say the only poll
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: that matters is Election Day. But I like that we
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: are not able to exactly predict what the American people
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: do at any moment when they go to the ballot
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: to the ballot box. And if we can at any
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: point perfectly predict that, our betters are going to be like, well,
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: why do we let the little people do this anyway?
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: Let's just run the model. Right. And when we model,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: then we can put the guy in office. And I'm
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: not here for any of that. So polling error doesn't
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: make me upset. And we should get out there and
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: play the game. And journalists should be wary about how
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: much they're using that polling data to inform the story
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: they're telling about races.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: Right. I also, I've always said this, but I think
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: Democrats motivate their base with winning polls. Like, look at
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: us winning. We're going to win everything. It's going to
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: be the bluest thing you've ever seen. And Republicans motivate
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: their base with, look at how much we're losing. Like,
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: you know, we're losing these deep red seats. You've got
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: to come out and vote. It's a different strategy. And
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: I just think that the polls, you know, I really
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: wouldn't mind if we kind of abandoned polling altogether. But
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: maybe we're not there yet.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: On the accuracy front, let's give a shout out to
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: Real Clear Politics, whose average does not include Wedgwood. And
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Tom Bevin, the founder of that site, did a little
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: victory lap today saying, oh, we don't need to adjust anything.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: We're good.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: That is nice. Yes. Good job. Good job, RCP.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: Just totally criminal, nasty stuff.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: Bad.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: Bad.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: All right. We're going to take a short break and
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: be right back with one more segment of Normally.
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: We are back on normally with a really fun story
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: from Wired. If we if we may do a little
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: dance on this one. The headline, the irresistible headline. They
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: fled Trump's America. Now they regret it. The Internet told
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: them Europe was a social paradise. Turns out the trains
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: are awful. The health care isn't free and people can
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: be mean. Oh, it's so good.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I thought it was great. There were
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: so many amazing tidbits in it. Let me read one.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: Annie says she experienced a high amount of anti-American sentiment
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: straight away. Quote, I found it particularly surprising how people
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: feel so comfortable mocking my accent and culture, even in
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: a workplace environment. The UK is very much a place
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: of it is what it is. But as Americans, we're
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: always taught to improve and strive for better things. Annie
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: and her husband now have an exit plan for summer
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: next year. The earliest their employers would allow them to
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: relocate back home. I also just love that there's another
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: piece of this where the Reddits of the world are
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: telling them, like, you really can't be coming back now. Like,
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: it's wrong. You know, like, so on subreddits dedicated to
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: this kind of discussions, you can now find a number
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: of stories about difficulties building a new community, trouble finding work,
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: icier cultural norms, whatever.
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: Insane.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: Insane.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: Why are these good lefties discounting the lived experience of
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: their fellow lefties? Because what happened is these people got
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: a dose of actual perspective on the prosperity of American life.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: And when they get to Europe, they realize, oh, gosh,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: I don't have a dryer anymore.
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: Oh, yeah.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: And if you do, it doesn't dry anything. Right. I
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: don't have a dishwasher. These are luxuries here.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: The quaintness is not paying off because people aren't warm
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: and open in the same way that they are.
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: In the U.S.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: We do have a very gregarious culture.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: That's part of what we do.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: I liked the part where the one person said that
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: working in the work culture of Europe and the U.K.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: was hard because like the default is to not collaborate
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: and do things as opposed to the U.S. where it's
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: just like, can we just move this forward?
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: Right. Would be very frustrating.
• 29:54
  Speaker 4: So funny.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: My actual favorite in the piece is the guy who
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: moved from New York to Poland because of right wing
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: populism in the U.S.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: I was going to tell him.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: He says what is happening in the U.S. is also
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: happening everywhere now to the point I'm even a little
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: hesitant in what I say to you or anywhere online.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: He moved with his.
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: Polish wife to Krakow where they have a young child.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: But despite these personal ties, has found it difficult to
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: adjust to the culture and bureaucracy. Now Nick feels trapped
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: in Europe, where he says the politics aren't much better,
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: conceding that Poland, both politically and culturally, has strong right-wing popularity.
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: You know how Poland's posting like, ha ha, we don't
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: have any immigrants online. There's foreign ministers posting that.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: I feel like we could have Googled Poland before we...
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: jumped into that. I also like the line about him.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: He says, as of a few months ago, Josh is
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: back living in the U.S. where he says he feels
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: happier and finally accepted it at home. In retrospect, this
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: is a good tip for everyone post-election. In retrospect, he
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: wonders if he got caught up in the frenzy of
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: discourse when he chose to leave in the first place.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: Once I was in Germany and had some distance from
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: the situation in the U.S., he says, I felt perhaps
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: I had overreacted. Perhaps.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: Maybe you've overreacted. Maybe you overreacted. Yeah, you know, I
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: love this story. I'm surprised WIRE ran this story, but
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: I'm glad that they did. We needed this kind of thing.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: We really did. You know what?
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: You know what is sad, too, is like they're all
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: running from fascism, right? And the fascism is us, Carol.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: We are the fascists.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: The duly elected president and us. We are the fascism.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: But then they get over there and, A, they feel
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: like they're too scared because there's no freedom of speech
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: over there to say what they want to say. But
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: also they're afraid of their fellow lefties back home shaming them.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: in like outlandish ways for even saying that they'd like
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: to come home. It's not us who's exerting the pressure.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: Now we're doing a little.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: Mocking. Okay.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: I think we're much kinder. Much.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: You do this.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: Like it's okay. You don't need to stay anonymous for me.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: It's your, it's your people that you're staying anonymous to avoid.
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: Yep.
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: Yep. Leftist fire, you know, circular firing squad. They really
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: don't ever miss. So good luck with that guys. And
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: thanks for joining us on Normally. Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays,
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: and you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts. Get
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: in touch with us at normallythepod at gmail.com. Thanks for listening,
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: and when things get weird, act normally.