Latest / Normally / Normally Podcast: Back-to-School Chaos, COVID Lessons & Political Trends

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Normally Podcast: Back-to-School Chaos, COVID Lessons & Political Trends · Normally

0:02
Speaker 1: Hey, guys, we are back normally in the show with
0:04
Speaker 1: normalis takes, but when the news gets weird, I'm Mary Causingham.
0:08
Speaker 2: And I'm Carol Markowitz and wrapping up summer over.
0:11
Speaker 3: Here, Mary Catherine.
0:13
Speaker 4: The kids go back to school finally, finally.
0:15
Speaker 3: I know, I know it sounds crazy.
0:17
Speaker 2: To those of you up north of a little north,
0:20
Speaker 2: but yes, when you get used to school starting after
0:23
Speaker 2: Labor Day, obviously it's crazy for them to go back
0:25
Speaker 2: in August. But they have been home for so long
0:28
Speaker 2: that they are like, how much longer?
0:30
Speaker 3: How much longer? Can they just hang around the house?
0:32
Speaker 1: And mine is excited. They're excited to be back in school.
0:36
Speaker 1: I am not excited because this is what I like
0:38
Speaker 1: to call form filling out season. Yeah, and I am
0:42
Speaker 1: not good at form filling out, and I spend about
0:45
Speaker 1: half of every day chasing down forms for the next
0:47
Speaker 1: two weeks. But eventually we'll be done, I believe in.
0:51
Speaker 2: I feel like you and I have the forwarding forms
0:54
Speaker 2: to husband's kind of email. Yeah, forwarding emails to husband's
0:58
Speaker 2: kind of husbands.
1:00
Speaker 1: I've forward stuff to him that he then follows up
1:03
Speaker 1: on and I'm like, what are you even talking about?
1:05
Speaker 1: And then he tells me it's from the email, and
1:07
Speaker 1: I'm like, I didn't read that before I forwarded it.
1:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I took it off my plate as soon
1:11
Speaker 2: as I forwarded it too. It no longer existed in
1:14
Speaker 2: my universe once you had it.
1:16
Speaker 1: Yeah. The thing you're following up to gone, yeah, gone,
1:20
Speaker 1: God bless them.
1:22
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, talking about following up.
1:24
Speaker 2: A few years after some news, we are still mad bro,
1:28
Speaker 2: And we normally save that we are still mad bro,
1:31
Speaker 2: especially where COVID is concerned for the last segment. But
1:34
Speaker 2: today we're going to lead with it because it's just
1:37
Speaker 2: that egregious.
1:39
Speaker 1: Well, and the New York Times is sort of leading
1:41
Speaker 1: with it, right because they are just intent on being
1:45
Speaker 1: our content provider, there.
1:46
Speaker 2: Really are, and they're like, how can we help those
1:49
Speaker 2: girls out?
1:50
Speaker 1: So they put up this editorial this week from the
1:54
Speaker 1: editorial board, not from an opinion writer, called crime keeps Falling.
2:00
Speaker 1: Here's why. First of all, the only reason they're bringing
2:03
Speaker 1: us up is to say that crime is falling, so
2:05
Speaker 1: they can say, boo, Donald Trump, right, because you're doing
2:08
Speaker 1: something about crime. But inside this editorial, in some frankly
2:14
Speaker 1: shocking and enraging ways, yeah, they just say normis like
2:20
Speaker 1: Carol and Mary Catherine were right the whole time.
2:22
Speaker 2: Right. I feel like they should have said our names,
2:25
Speaker 2: but they didn't. I mean so many things in this article.
2:28
Speaker 2: I love the way that they just kind of throw
2:31
Speaker 2: this in. During the pandemic, reckless driving deaths from car
2:34
Speaker 2: crashes and road rage incidents increased. Alcohol and drug deaths
2:38
Speaker 2: also rose. Even little things like people using phones and
2:41
Speaker 2: movie theaters seem to worsen even after COVID receded. It
2:45
Speaker 2: was as if many Americans took a so called moral holiday. Yeah,
2:49
Speaker 2: we noticed, we saw that.
2:52
Speaker 1: Did we say that might happen, right?
2:55
Speaker 2: Did we say that people calling the police on their
2:59
Speaker 2: neighbors having an extra person in their backyard was going
3:04
Speaker 2: to be a problem going forward? Did we say that
3:08
Speaker 2: societal breakdown happens when we encouraged people to turn on
3:12
Speaker 2: each other the way they were encouraged to do.
3:14
Speaker 3: I think we may have said that once or twice.
3:17
Speaker 1: Here's another good line. In twenty twenty, policy makers played
3:20
Speaker 1: a direct role in accelerating anime this breakdown of standards
3:25
Speaker 1: by shuttering services that promote social cohesion. Consider school closures.
3:31
Speaker 1: Consider that to keep schools closed after the initial months
3:34
Speaker 1: of pandemic was a difficult decision. I dispute that, but
3:38
Speaker 1: officials at least should have put more weight on obvious
3:41
Speaker 1: costs of closures, including learning loss, social isolation, and the
3:45
Speaker 1: possibility that closures contribute to crime. The obvious costs, do
3:49
Speaker 1: you say, were they obvious? I feel very much that
3:52
Speaker 1: the New York Times did not think they were obvious
3:54
Speaker 1: at the time, and in fact vilified anyone who suggested
3:58
Speaker 1: they were.
3:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, I remember this.
4:00
Speaker 2: I vaguely remember the New York Times not thinking those
4:04
Speaker 2: costs made any sense, and if you disagreed, you were
4:08
Speaker 2: a crazy person who wanted.
4:10
Speaker 3: Teachers to die.
4:11
Speaker 1: Yeah. Another quote, social cohesion is both valuable and delicate, Carol,
4:17
Speaker 1: just to breaking news. America has much to lose when
4:21
Speaker 1: it undermines people's connections to institutions like schools, churches, government agencies,
4:27
Speaker 1: and community groups.
4:31
Speaker 2: You look at that when the trust phrase Mary Catherine
4:34
Speaker 2: and everyone for himself mentality the kind you often see
4:38
Speaker 2: in post apocalyptic fiction, can take hold the trust.
4:41
Speaker 3: Praying is bad, you say, but I know.
4:44
Speaker 1: You'll really love the second lesson they took from the pandemic.
4:47
Speaker 1: The first was like public trust and cohesion are important. Okay,
4:50
Speaker 1: that's number one. Second revelation in the year twenty twenty five.
4:56
Speaker 1: The second lesson involves the importance of law enforcement.
5:01
Speaker 3: I mean, who could have seen that coming?
5:04
Speaker 2: You know, it's times like this that I miss living
5:08
Speaker 2: in left this Brooklyn. Because are they putting like fund
5:11
Speaker 2: the police signs in their windows now that The New
5:13
Speaker 2: York Times says so because they had the defund police
5:16
Speaker 2: signs in their windows in twenty twenty when.
5:18
Speaker 1: You know what I think said, I think what they're
5:20
Speaker 1: probably actually doing is that all the ones who haven't
5:22
Speaker 1: moved to Florida are so in the bubble that they're
5:26
Speaker 1: just canceling their New York Times subscriptions because of this.
5:30
Speaker 4: Spiece, right, just not left enough, yeah.
5:34
Speaker 1: It says. Among the most damaging mistakes was the belief
5:38
Speaker 1: among Democratic officials that enforcing the law could be counterproductive
5:42
Speaker 1: when it involved low level offenses such as public drug use, shoplifting,
5:45
Speaker 1: and homeless and cabinets. Some Democrats believe enforcement of these
5:48
Speaker 1: laws disproportionately hurt minority groups and did not contribute much
5:51
Speaker 1: to public safety. But it turns out they do.
5:55
Speaker 2: Oh look at that. That's a twist I did not
5:58
Speaker 2: see coming.
5:59
Speaker 1: And not. Also, they also are approved over all socioeconomic
6:04
Speaker 1: and racial groups.
6:06
Speaker 3: Funny people like police who knew you know.
6:08
Speaker 2: It's also interesting that in that same second lesson they
6:12
Speaker 2: name a few names of prominent Democrats, and they name
6:15
Speaker 2: then Senator Kamala Harris of California, Representative AOC of New York,
6:20
Speaker 2: and then Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles. What's interesting
6:24
Speaker 2: about this is they don't say, Mom, Donnie, who's in
6:27
Speaker 2: pole position to become the next New York City mayor?
6:30
Speaker 3: I think because they.
6:31
Speaker 4: Don't want to cause a rift with him in advance
6:34
Speaker 4: of that, you.
6:35
Speaker 3: Know, election win.
6:36
Speaker 2: So they picked two people who are not in public
6:39
Speaker 2: office anymore, and AOC who should really be watching her
6:43
Speaker 2: back when The New York Times is concerned.
6:47
Speaker 1: No, it's very interesting as usual. Yes, you don't want
6:50
Speaker 1: to hold anyone to account who might actually have power currently, right,
6:55
Speaker 1: just like by the way that happened. I think the
6:57
Speaker 1: most infuriating thing about this editorial is that it notes
7:01
Speaker 1: at least twice that these were noble facts in twenty twenty. No,
7:06
Speaker 1: it's like, I mean, I like we kind of knew this,
7:09
Speaker 1: did you? Yeah, because it acted like you did.
7:12
Speaker 2: It right, and those of us who did know again
7:16
Speaker 2: were treated like pariah's, like dangers to society because.
7:22
Speaker 3: We were right a little earlier than they were.
7:25
Speaker 4: Yeah, a lot early. Why for real?
7:27
Speaker 1: Yeah. Another thing I'm still mad about is the American
7:31
Speaker 1: Academy of Pediatrics, which continues to disgrace itself. Yeah, it
7:37
Speaker 1: has not yet made a turn like the New York
7:39
Speaker 1: Times to say like, oh, by the way, maybe some
7:41
Speaker 1: of the decisions we made in COVID were bad. It's
7:44
Speaker 1: just barreling straight on through. And I think I referred
7:48
Speaker 1: to it as a zombie of public trust. It just
7:51
Speaker 1: walks around in the skin suit of this organization that
7:55
Speaker 1: people used to trust, and there's no reason to trust
7:59
Speaker 1: these people. In point, the American Academy Pediatrics said that
8:02
Speaker 1: children ages six months to twenty three months should receive
8:05
Speaker 1: a COVID nineteen vaccine, in contrast with federal health officials. Now.
8:09
Speaker 1: Of course, to mainstream news like ABC, this means that
8:12
Speaker 1: AAF is correct and the federal government is wrong. But
8:16
Speaker 1: what they don't point out is that no other country
8:20
Speaker 1: has a blanket recommendation for healthy infants to get a
8:23
Speaker 1: COVID vaccine, not even like Canada, nobody Germany. Yeah, no one.
8:28
Speaker 1: Now this is important information to tell your readers, but
8:31
Speaker 1: they're not interested in telling their readers that.
8:33
Speaker 2: No, they're not, and they're not worried about the kind
8:36
Speaker 2: of blowback here, right. They think that they're the authority
8:38
Speaker 2: and that's it. But we are, like you said, at
8:41
Speaker 2: outlier when you look at any other country, and we
8:44
Speaker 2: were even during the pandemic. During the pandemic when things
8:48
Speaker 2: were still kind of you know, hot, other countries decided
8:52
Speaker 2: not to give the vaccine to healthy children, America plowed
8:56
Speaker 2: ahead with it anyway.
8:58
Speaker 3: Absolutely had some problems because of that.
9:00
Speaker 2: We had myocarditis issues in teenage boys that other countries.
9:04
Speaker 1: Did not have.
9:05
Speaker 2: David's wig had that great piece about myocarditis and how
9:09
Speaker 2: they literally lied about how bad it was for boys.
9:12
Speaker 2: The CDC at the time to release the data including girls.
9:16
Speaker 3: So didn't seem that bad, you know, now we know
9:19
Speaker 3: that it was so.
9:20
Speaker 2: Look, especially with something like COVID, where the vaccine does
9:24
Speaker 2: not stop spread, it's a question of the benefits and
9:27
Speaker 2: the drawbacks, and the benefits to children never made sense.
9:32
Speaker 2: Kids had a zero chance of a negative effect from COVID.
9:36
Speaker 2: As we've always liked to say zero cannot be reduced
9:38
Speaker 2: any further through vaccines when they were given out and
9:41
Speaker 2: the idea was will stop spread with this, it didn't
9:44
Speaker 2: stop spread.
9:45
Speaker 3: We have to learn some lessons.
9:47
Speaker 2: And the fact that AAP won't be held accountable for
9:51
Speaker 2: pushing just nonsense like this is it's.
9:54
Speaker 3: Sort of sad.
9:55
Speaker 2: And I hope that they don't get, you know, the
9:58
Speaker 2: kind of prestige and press that they inevitably will get.
10:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, I hope. I mean certainly parents are
10:05
Speaker 1: turning away from them. Yeah. And by the way, when
10:08
Speaker 1: this inevitably leads to people having less trust for other
10:13
Speaker 1: treatments that AAP suggests physician, heal thyself literally, because this
10:20
Speaker 1: is you have caused the problem. And they caused the
10:23
Speaker 1: problems starting way back in twenty twenty when they recommended
10:26
Speaker 1: that schools open and then Trump says schools should schools
10:29
Speaker 1: should open, and they were like, never mind, schools should
10:31
Speaker 1: not open, right, and not to mention.
10:33
Speaker 2: They recommended that they said that masks did not harm
10:37
Speaker 2: the speech development of children, and they had to delete
10:40
Speaker 2: things off of their website where they literally.
10:43
Speaker 4: Previously said that kids need to see mouths.
10:45
Speaker 1: For speech development.
10:47
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, well, no, I look forward to the New
10:50
Speaker 2: York Times article wondering.
10:51
Speaker 4: What happened to the APIs seven years?
10:54
Speaker 2: Right?
10:55
Speaker 1: Can I point out also just how insane the experts
10:58
Speaker 1: continue to be on my and Kelly k Ga Georgia,
11:03
Speaker 1: she's fantastic, but she flagged in the Washington Post about
11:06
Speaker 1: about silly story about a summer surge and how schools
11:10
Speaker 1: would be affected by a summer surge. In that article,
11:13
Speaker 1: a pediatric infectious disease specialist at john Hopkins says that
11:18
Speaker 1: the reason that kids need not just a vaccine for
11:22
Speaker 1: COVID but an updated booster is that they play a
11:26
Speaker 1: key role in giving a child's body a robust immune
11:29
Speaker 1: response so that they don't die or get severe illness. Yeah,
11:35
Speaker 1: that that's actually insane. Yeah, to look at the data
11:40
Speaker 1: on children and conclude that they need continued boosters to
11:43
Speaker 1: prevent death or serious disease from.
11:45
Speaker 4: COVID, which they're not getting already.
11:48
Speaker 1: This is a fantasy world, yeah, that you have created.
11:50
Speaker 1: But you're a pediatric infectious disease specialist. That's why I
11:55
Speaker 1: won't be listening to you.
11:56
Speaker 2: Well, we'll be right back on normally where we're going
11:59
Speaker 2: to talk about some other things that are happening around
12:03
Speaker 2: the country, like Gavin Newsom has decided mean.
12:05
Speaker 3: Tweets are the way to go.
12:06
Speaker 2: We'll be right back, welcome back to normally where Gavin
12:13
Speaker 2: Newsom is having some fun on the internet and hoping
12:17
Speaker 2: to rile up Donald Trump and his base.
12:20
Speaker 3: And I don't know, I'm fine with that.
12:23
Speaker 4: You go ahead, you have your good time.
12:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, I actually think some of it's funny, right right,
12:29
Speaker 1: I think it loses its luster pretty fast. But they
12:34
Speaker 1: are correct in that, like, well, you can't really object
12:36
Speaker 1: to this if you love Donald Trump's tweets. Right now,
12:40
Speaker 1: Here's the question. As we've noted in the past, Trumpian
12:44
Speaker 1: rhetoric and strategy rarely works for anyone but Trump. So
12:50
Speaker 1: the question remains for Newsom and crew outside of attention,
12:54
Speaker 1: which they are indeed getting for this. Yeah, are they
12:57
Speaker 1: picking the right fights? Are they making progress changing the
13:01
Speaker 1: tides for the Democratic Party? Is he just goofing enough
13:06
Speaker 1: to make himself the at least attention economy front runner
13:10
Speaker 1: for the Democratic nomination in twenty twenty eight.
13:13
Speaker 3: That's exactly right.
13:14
Speaker 2: I like Megan McCain posted this, It's hilarious that Democrats
13:17
Speaker 2: just lost nominating a lifelong career progressive politician from San
13:21
Speaker 2: Francisco with a shitty governing record, and six months later
13:24
Speaker 2: are like, wait, let's do the exact same thing next,
13:27
Speaker 2: plus mean tweets yeah.
13:28
Speaker 1: Like I don't. I'm not sure it's gonna work right,
13:33
Speaker 1: And you have other larger problems here, including in California.
13:38
Speaker 1: Someone I can't remember who it was, someone joked the
13:40
Speaker 1: other day like, isn't there I think it might have
13:42
Speaker 1: been Frank J said in the argument against Newsom, just
13:45
Speaker 1: a point at the state of governance. And in fact,
13:49
Speaker 1: that is a good point because just today Marcus Lamonis,
13:52
Speaker 1: who heads Bed Bath and Beyond, put out a statement
13:55
Speaker 1: saying that they will not open retail stores in California.
13:59
Speaker 1: This isn't about politics, It's about reality. California's system makes
14:02
Speaker 1: it nearly impossible for businesses to succeed, and I won't
14:05
Speaker 1: put our company, at our employees or our customers in
14:08
Speaker 1: that position.
14:09
Speaker 2: Doesn't sound like a win for California. Although you know,
14:12
Speaker 2: Newsome tweeted out a meme that calls it the Free
14:16
Speaker 2: State of California, and all the comments were predictably like.
14:20
Speaker 1: Bro, going back to our first story of the day,
14:22
Speaker 1: you surveiled people who went to church.
14:25
Speaker 3: You arrested a man in a kayak.
14:28
Speaker 1: Unbelievable stuff.
14:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting because Democrats are super excited about this,
14:34
Speaker 2: and they're mostly super excited about Republicans getting mad at it.
14:38
Speaker 2: But I honestly don't see people getting mad. I see
14:41
Speaker 2: people kind of laughing at it and saying like, all right,
14:45
Speaker 2: if this makes you feel better, you go ahead and
14:47
Speaker 2: do that, you crazy kids.
14:49
Speaker 1: Well, and I think like we've been in this position
14:51
Speaker 1: before where much of the party and the party base
14:54
Speaker 1: was like, I just want you to fight. I want
14:56
Speaker 1: you to fight. Whether it was like Obamacare repeal, show
15:00
Speaker 1: isn't going to happen at the time, but you wanted.
15:02
Speaker 1: People wanted to see life from these people, and they
15:05
Speaker 1: wanted to see them. I get it. We've been in
15:08
Speaker 1: that position. But fight, fight, fight doesn't always win battles.
15:13
Speaker 4: Sure doesn't, and so sure doesn't. So how are the
15:16
Speaker 4: numbers looking for the Democrats?
15:18
Speaker 1: Well, this is this is the problem, right, Like, you
15:20
Speaker 1: got a deeper issue here than memes are going to solve.
15:23
Speaker 1: Although I hesitate to say that because Trump is really
15:26
Speaker 1: a meme heavy operation and it won the presidency. So okay,
15:31
Speaker 1: just like stipulated, but they have a deeper problem here.
15:34
Speaker 1: The New York Times reported on new data, the Democratic
15:37
Speaker 1: Party faces a voter registration crisis, and it's pretty devastating.
15:42
Speaker 1: This piece is in depth. The basics are of the
15:47
Speaker 1: thirty states that track voter registration by political party, Democrats
15:50
Speaker 1: lost ground to Republicans in every single one between the
15:54
Speaker 1: twenty twenty and twenty twenty four elections, and often by
15:57
Speaker 1: a lot. The New York Times terms it a stampede
16:01
Speaker 1: away from the Democratic Party. Now, Democrats still lead overall,
16:05
Speaker 1: largely because some big blue states like California to party
16:09
Speaker 1: specific registration. In Texas, for instance, doesn't, so they still
16:13
Speaker 1: technically got an edge here. The trajectory in every state
16:17
Speaker 1: where you can track this is terrible. As Charles Barkley
16:21
Speaker 1: would say.
16:22
Speaker 2: I love that word.
16:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, terrible is a great word to describe this.
16:26
Speaker 2: Pennsylvania, the Democrats had a five hundred and seventeen thousand
16:31
Speaker 2: advantage in twenty twenty, only a fifty three thousand dem
16:35
Speaker 2: advantage now, and of course, obviously Trump won Pennsylvania, so
16:40
Speaker 2: I don't even know what that fifty three thousand advantage
16:43
Speaker 2: necessarily means for them.
16:45
Speaker 1: Well, and there's one thing they noted in here, which
16:47
Speaker 1: is the Bucks County switch, which is one of those
16:49
Speaker 1: color counties outside Philadelphia. This is really important for winning Pennsylvania.
16:54
Speaker 1: It's the kind of county that had swung blue during
16:57
Speaker 1: the Obama years pretty hard. And remember thanks partly to
17:02
Speaker 1: Pressler who was out there doing the hard work of
17:04
Speaker 1: registering people. I remember seeing that stat last summer that
17:07
Speaker 1: Bucks County, of competitive Philadelphia summer tilted Republican registration for
17:11
Speaker 1: the first time since two thousands. And that's when I
17:13
Speaker 1: saw that stat. That was the moment that I was like,
17:16
Speaker 1: I think he's gonna this is a big deal. He's
17:19
Speaker 1: on track here.
17:20
Speaker 2: The question becomes Democrats must be looking around and thinking,
17:25
Speaker 2: you know, we need some energy. And Gavin Newsom has
17:28
Speaker 2: some kids in his office tweeting out as him and
17:34
Speaker 2: being Brett as as the kids said last summer, and
17:37
Speaker 2: I think that that that's why they're so excited about this.
17:40
Speaker 2: But then when you actually hear from Newsom on it,
17:42
Speaker 2: he doesn't quite kind of align with what his online
17:47
Speaker 2: personality is saying.
17:48
Speaker 3: Let's roll this.
17:49
Speaker 2: Clip of news from talking.
17:51
Speaker 1: With those books on acts that are clearly president Well,
17:55
Speaker 1: you just talking about that. Is that like a strategy.
17:58
Speaker 3: I hope it's a wake up call the president.
17:59
Speaker 5: I states, I'm sort of following his example. If you've
18:04
Speaker 5: got issues with what I'm putting out, you sure as
18:06
Speaker 5: hell should have concerns about what he's putting out as president.
18:10
Speaker 5: So to the extent it's gotten some attention, I'm pleased.
18:15
Speaker 3: But I think the deeper.
18:16
Speaker 5: Question is how have we allowed the normalization of his tweets,
18:23
Speaker 5: true social posts over the course of the last many
18:25
Speaker 5: years to go without similar scrutiny.
18:29
Speaker 2: And notice, yeah, there's been no scrutiny of Trump's mean
18:32
Speaker 2: tweets at all.
18:33
Speaker 4: Haven't got a single article about it.
18:35
Speaker 3: What is this even all about?
18:37
Speaker 1: I loved it. Also, it's always like this is so
18:40
Speaker 1: bad that we've got to do the bad thing to
18:43
Speaker 1: show you how bad it is.
18:45
Speaker 3: Right, Well, that's the thing.
18:46
Speaker 2: It's like, are you saying it's bad and you're doing
18:50
Speaker 2: it to just show him? Or are you saying it's
18:52
Speaker 2: bad and you're going to be like him? Because you
18:55
Speaker 2: know Charlotte Mane and the God, for example, was like, yeah,
18:58
Speaker 2: I think that you know, when they go low, we
19:00
Speaker 2: go to hell.
19:00
Speaker 3: That's not the same thing.
19:01
Speaker 2: As like, oh, I want to teach Trump a lesson
19:04
Speaker 2: to be better. That's not the same thing at all.
19:06
Speaker 1: Also, do sort of prefer them owning that they're going
19:10
Speaker 1: to go low instead of the fake Michelle Obama thing,
19:12
Speaker 1: which is when they go low, we go high. It's like, no, ma'am,
19:16
Speaker 1: y'all are not.
19:17
Speaker 3: Yes.
19:18
Speaker 1: So I kind of appreciate the honesty on that front.
19:22
Speaker 1: But will it work for any of these new and
19:25
Speaker 1: young voters who are moving away from Democrats? That's the question, right,
19:28
Speaker 1: they have all this ground to make up. They note
19:31
Speaker 1: in this New York Times piece, in twenty eighteen, Democrats
19:34
Speaker 1: accounted for thirty four percent of new voter registrations nationwide,
19:38
Speaker 1: while Republicans were only twenty. Yet by twenty twenty four,
19:41
Speaker 1: Republicans had overtaken Democrats. There's so many great quotes in here. Quote,
19:47
Speaker 1: you can't register a young Latino or young black voter
19:50
Speaker 1: and assume that they're going to know it's Democrats that
19:53
Speaker 1: have the best policies. They go on to bemoane that
19:56
Speaker 1: Democrats have this huge infrastructure of nonprofits that register voters. Now,
20:01
Speaker 1: those are considered left leaning nonprofits because they were in
20:05
Speaker 1: the business of targeting young, first time new voters, minority
20:10
Speaker 1: voters in cities, and it turns out now those aren't Democrats.
20:16
Speaker 1: They're registering too many Republicans when they go to the
20:20
Speaker 1: people that they've been going to for all this time. Oops.
20:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, whoop, see on that one. I think that the idea.
20:27
Speaker 2: That they can't rely on young voters anymore. I mean,
20:30
Speaker 2: obviously that should be the all alarm bell. And I
20:33
Speaker 2: just don't think that Gavin Newsom's imitating Trump is going
20:38
Speaker 2: to move the needle with those young people.
20:41
Speaker 4: They are concerned about things.
20:43
Speaker 2: And they don't see either party kind of speaking of
20:45
Speaker 2: those interests.
20:46
Speaker 3: I think that they're going to.
20:47
Speaker 4: Be malleable in a way that they haven't been in
20:50
Speaker 4: the past.
20:51
Speaker 3: We'll see.
20:52
Speaker 2: I wish Gavin Newsom the best with making people laugh
20:56
Speaker 2: with his tweets.
20:57
Speaker 1: Hey, you know what, we're not mad at entertainment usually,
21:00
Speaker 1: So can I end with one more quote from this piece?
21:03
Speaker 1: This is the last two paragraphs. Any hope that the
21:06
Speaker 1: drift away from the Democratic Party would end organically with
21:09
Speaker 1: mister Trump's election has been dashed by the limited data
21:11
Speaker 1: so far in twenty twenty five, there are now roughly
21:14
Speaker 1: one hundred and sixty thousand fewer registered Democrats than on
21:17
Speaker 1: election day twenty twenty four, and two hundred thousand more Republicans. Quote,
21:22
Speaker 1: it's going back. It's going to get worse before it
21:26
Speaker 1: gets better. Yeah, clock's digging.
21:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's gonna get worse before going better.
21:31
Speaker 1: All this comes from the topics in our first segment. Ye, right,
21:36
Speaker 1: like you are reaping what you sew. That's what's happened.
21:41
Speaker 3: You really are, and enjoy that.
21:43
Speaker 2: We'll be right back on normally to talk booze and
21:46
Speaker 2: why people.
21:47
Speaker 3: Aren't drinking more of it.
21:49
Speaker 2: Be right back, Welcome back to normally where alcohol.
21:56
Speaker 3: Use maybe is down. Maybe, I don't know.
21:59
Speaker 2: We're gonna have to look at this chart and see
22:01
Speaker 2: what it actually says. It's from a Gallup poll that
22:04
Speaker 2: everybody's talking about, and it's called American's Use of Alcoholic
22:08
Speaker 2: Beverages nineteen thirty nine to twenty twenty five.
22:11
Speaker 3: The question is this, and.
22:12
Speaker 2: I kind of dare you to ask this question to
22:16
Speaker 2: the average person on the street and see if they
22:18
Speaker 2: know what the hell you are talking about.
22:21
Speaker 3: Do you have occasion to use.
22:23
Speaker 2: Alcoholic beverages such as liquor, wine or beer or are
22:27
Speaker 2: you a total abstainer, do you have occasion?
22:32
Speaker 3: I don't know.
22:33
Speaker 2: I don't know that I do have occasion, but I
22:35
Speaker 2: do it anyway.
22:36
Speaker 1: That is a strange wording, right, So I don't know.
22:39
Speaker 3: I feel like they should change the wording.
22:41
Speaker 2: But I think they've been asking the same question since
22:43
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty nine.
22:45
Speaker 3: Okay, now they don't want to change it, but I don't.
22:47
Speaker 1: They haven't talk like this. They haven't adjusted for literacy
22:51
Speaker 1: levels of the American public. SERI.
22:54
Speaker 2: But so look, when they first started asking this question
22:56
Speaker 2: in nineteen thirty nine, that number was fifty eight percent,
22:59
Speaker 2: and now it's fifty four So has there been a
23:01
Speaker 2: collapse in drinking? I don't know necessarily that that's true.
23:06
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty two, once again going back to the
23:08
Speaker 2: COVID years and maybe some bad things that happened during
23:11
Speaker 2: that time, that number was sixty seven percent. I think
23:15
Speaker 2: I've mentioned the story on the show before. But I
23:17
Speaker 2: remember my currently she's fifteen year old daughter, and then
23:20
Speaker 2: she was ten and twenty twenty walking into my husband
23:23
Speaker 2: and I having online drinks FaceTime drinks with our friends
23:26
Speaker 2: and being like, hmm, is alcohol use up around really?
23:31
Speaker 1: Our girl?
23:32
Speaker 2: Why do you ask so yes, it was up and
23:35
Speaker 2: now it's back down. Really don't see a dramatic change.
23:38
Speaker 2: I don't know why all the headlines are like gen
23:40
Speaker 2: Z doesn't drink.
23:41
Speaker 3: Maybe not yet.
23:42
Speaker 4: Maybe let them have a couple of kids and see
23:44
Speaker 4: what they do after that.
23:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like my drinking bell curve is on
23:48
Speaker 1: its downslope, you know, or like the amount that I
23:51
Speaker 1: pay for each drink is so much higher at this point,
23:55
Speaker 1: so I'm certainly down on the curve from twenty twenty.
23:59
Speaker 3: Yeah.
24:00
Speaker 1: I think one of the things that's part of this
24:01
Speaker 1: discussion is a lot of people saying arguing, well, moderate
24:05
Speaker 1: drinking is in fact good for you, right, it has
24:08
Speaker 1: many social benefits it has even if you're talking about
24:12
Speaker 1: heart health, I think with wine and like, I'm not
24:14
Speaker 1: going to get into the statistics on this, but like,
24:16
Speaker 1: you know, this can sha an non evil thing, right,
24:19
Speaker 1: And then there are other people who are like contrare,
24:23
Speaker 1: even moderate drinking is terrible for you. And I think
24:27
Speaker 1: one of the things that during COVID we lost is
24:32
Speaker 1: that we ended up having to do drinks on zoom
24:36
Speaker 1: instead of drinks in person, and drinks in person is
24:40
Speaker 1: very important to society.
24:42
Speaker 2: Right, right, exactly. Face to face interactions are important. Friendships
24:47
Speaker 2: are important. Sometimes alcohol is the lubrican for that. I
24:51
Speaker 2: don't drink nearly as much as i'd like to, is
24:53
Speaker 2: what I always say about it.
24:54
Speaker 3: But in my old age.
24:56
Speaker 2: I can really only have a maximum to drinks when
24:59
Speaker 2: I go out, and two drinks is like really on
25:02
Speaker 2: the border, like one.
25:03
Speaker 3: And a half.
25:03
Speaker 2: I like to say, like my second drink with my husband,
25:05
Speaker 2: I'll be like we split it.
25:07
Speaker 4: Yes, old age, and it's tough.
25:09
Speaker 1: It's tough.
25:10
Speaker 2: Funny you youngsters listening out there. You don't know you
25:12
Speaker 2: don't sleep after two drinks.
25:14
Speaker 1: No. I want to shout out a piece from twenty
25:16
Speaker 1: twenty two that I just loved. It was one of
25:18
Speaker 1: my favorite pieces reckoning with pandemic era policies. It was
25:22
Speaker 1: by Peter Suderman in Reason magazine, and it's called what
25:24
Speaker 1: Old Time Saloons tell Us about the Pandemics Damage, And
25:28
Speaker 1: he basically said, look like saloons are where the ideas
25:31
Speaker 1: that would define America were first hashed out. There's this
25:34
Speaker 1: you know, back and forth, there's this freewheeling debate that
25:37
Speaker 1: you can have in these kinds of places. And when
25:39
Speaker 1: you take that away you lose something. And he actually
25:42
Speaker 1: if you found research from an economist at the University
25:44
Speaker 1: of Maryland that showed that in places where that where
25:49
Speaker 1: prohibition had been very harshly enforced versus those that had
25:54
Speaker 1: remained a little bit wet, Yeah, patents went down increasingly
25:59
Speaker 1: in places that were dry versus those that it was
26:03
Speaker 1: not as impactful, right, not as impacted. Basically the idea
26:06
Speaker 1: that these loose social connections that you get in a bar,
26:10
Speaker 1: that you get over drinks lead to innovation, to ideas
26:14
Speaker 1: to hashing things out. And I just love the idea
26:17
Speaker 1: that somebody actually tried to reckon with what you lose
26:20
Speaker 1: when we do that.
26:21
Speaker 4: So I'm just cautionedly he's a great writer if.
26:23
Speaker 1: You're sticking to two drinks, like the society doesn't have
26:27
Speaker 1: to lose it all together, right, Like there's real good there.
26:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, try to have them out with your friends and
26:33
Speaker 2: talking to people instead of like talking to your AI
26:36
Speaker 2: at home.
26:37
Speaker 3: Best kids.
26:37
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us on Normally Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays,
26:41
Speaker 2: and you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts.
26:44
Speaker 3: Get in touch with us at.
26:45
Speaker 2: Normallythepod at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening and when
26:49
Speaker 2: things get weird at normally