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Normally Podcast: The Socialists Are Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud · Normally

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey guys, we are back on Normally, the show with
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: normal-ish takes for when the news gets weird.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: I am Mary Catherine Hamm.
• 0:11
  Speaker 3: I am Kara Markowitz. How are you, Mary Catherine? How
• 0:13
  Speaker 3: is your Labor Day going?
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: I'm good.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Football's back, so that's very fun. Watching that, enjoying myself.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Got my Georgia tee on. Got all the children dressed.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Up, you know. Love it. That's what we care about
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: right now.
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: Labor Day is sort of not a thing in Florida,
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: which was a little bit of an adjustment because, you know,
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: life starts after Labor Day in New York. Like everything
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: before Labor Day is very quiet and school starts after
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: Labor Day. But here it's like it's like a little
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: pause from your already life in progress, which.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: You know, like my kids have two birthday parties today.
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: Like, you know, two of my kids have birthday parties
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: to go to today. And that would never happen in
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: New York because no one's there.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's like a it's like a mini vacay after
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: your two weeks of reentry.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: So, yeah. So it's the same by you.
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: And I'm, I'm, I needed it.
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: Yes. It is a very necessary, like, Oh my God,
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: what did I just go through for the last two weeks? Um,
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: but it just isn't the same kind of like it
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: marks the end of summer schools.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: About like none of that is, is happening here.
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: And I don't know, it's, it's a little bit of
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: an adjustment, you know, cause I'm used to like labor
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: day being you're still on vacation.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we did fit in the pool because, you know,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: that's that's coming to a close. And so I we
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: did fit that in and got some swimming done actually
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: at the Trump National out.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: I've never been there before, but some friends are members.
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: Nice. Well, you can come visit anytime. I got a
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: pool ready for you. We got to get to Florida.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: That's right. All right.
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: Okay. That's going to be our first topic for a
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: while now. What are the communists saying? Because they say
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: crazy stuff. And part of me thinks that it is
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: just to move the Overton window, right? Like they throw
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: a lot of insanity at us and some of it
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: will inevitably stick. And That's always concerning, but we'll be
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: pointing out all the crazy things they say here on
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: Normally and mocking them, but also taking down their arguments
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: because that's important.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: We think that's important.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: It is important, especially as it spreads, you know, to
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: more plausible candidates in bigger and bigger states. So I
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: think we have a first clip this week is from
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Abdul El-Sayed, who is always.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: He's going to be the winner for a little bit.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Let's hear what he has to say about, I don't know,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: American culture and work ethic.
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: We've got this culture in our society that we've allowed
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: to fester where we.
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: Think that when people....
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: When people don't have means, it's because they have failed.
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: Poverty is not a failure. That when people live in
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: persistent poverty, it is a failure on our society and
• 3:03
  Speaker 4: not on those people. And that we should be driving
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: that conversation and have the courage to have that conversation
• 3:08
  Speaker 4: against this cult of hard work like everybody's got bootstraps
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: to be pulling up.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Amen, brother.
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: That bootstrap thing really bothers them because AOC also had
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: a bootstrap comment a few years ago where she said that,
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: you know, some people need help to succeed and not
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: everybody can pull themselves up by their bootstraps and all
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: of that. They are just so opposed to the idea
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: that if you work hard, you will succeed. That is like...
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: You're not allowed to say that. Because what about the
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: people who don't succeed? Does that mean that they're not
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: working hard?
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: Like, no.
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: There are obviously... extenuating factors. But what do we tell
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: our own children? For me, I tell my kids, if
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: you work hard, you will do well.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: That's it.
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: Like, it doesn't matter what you're working hard at, as
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: long as you put all your effort into it, as
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: long as you take it seriously, as long as you
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: show up every day, as long as it's like a
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: part of your life that you really dedicate to it,
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: you will do well.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: And that's not acceptable on the left. Yeah, well, and
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: on the left, the desire is to invert the two, right?
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: You see it everywhere. I actually noted, this is a
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: weird example, but from Seattle. Seattle Blue City Governance, with
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: a socialist mayor, has this area that is, of course...
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: all encampments and homeless areas and drug markets is expanding.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And there are.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Tents everywhere where you're not allowed to have them.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: And they just don't do anything about it.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: And I saw a tweet the other day that was like,
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: now they're clearing trees.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: To add to the encampment.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: And I noted that Seattle has a 10,000 word tree
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: ordinance set up.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: For the city of Seattle.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: And if you want to cut down trees in Seattle,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: you must apply to the city to be an approved
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: vendor for cutting down trees. And the fact is that
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: only the hardworking tax payers have to follow the 10K
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: word tree rules, whereas the criminals and vagrants and homeless
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: folks just don't have rules. And that is an unsustainable
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: inversion of how this is supposed to work.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: And it reminds me of also during the pandemic where
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: Democrats were pushing, you know, the vaccine passport on all
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: of us. But the people that were coming in illegally
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: across the border, they didn't need to show a vaccine
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: passport or prove any vaccinations at all. And it really
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: does send the message that if you are here legally,
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: if you follow the rules, you're a sucker. And that's
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: not the message we want to be sending to the country. Well,
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: and also the idea that if, okay, so it's a
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: cult of hard work. If no one's working hard, how
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: does anything get done? Yeah.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Is my question because I, you know, like I'm not
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: in the salt mines. So I'm very glad to have
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: the job I do, but there is this... lefty fantasy
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: that magically there will just be money in products. This is,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: I think, the problem with the unplugging the economy in 2020.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: I do think a lot of liberals and technocrats on
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: that side just didn't understand that you can't unplug the
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: market and.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: Plug it back in.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: These things have consequences because the products and the magical
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: money are not actually magical.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: They come from somewhere.
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: Man, we just need to be explaining this better because
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: I don't feel like this next generation understands this at all.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: And there was this popular tweet, this is a few years.
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: Ago now, but it was like, you know, this communist
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: online saying like, I don't want to work. I just
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: want to tend to my garden. And all the responses
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: were like, your garden? Like, you don't get to have
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: a garden under communism. It's not your garden, it's our garden. Like,
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: Someone tweeted.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: A thread this week about all the things that the
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: socialists blame capitalism for.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: One of them is like being lonely and not making
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: new friends.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: And it's like, you know, it just takes up so
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: much of our time to work in capitalism that we
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: can't make friends.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, do you imagine that.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Subsistence farming and foraging before it allowed for a lot
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: of friend making time? Like there was a lot of
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: yoga during that. The subsistence farming days. Like, I just,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: they have no idea what they're asking for.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: You know, this isn't randos on the internet either.
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: The New York Times last week or two weeks ago,
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: I was going to bring this up on an episode
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: of Normally, but they basically had this article. You know
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: how there's all these charts showing that college students Graduates
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: have more friends than high school graduates.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: You just you have a bigger pool of people. It's
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: it is a thing.
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: They framed it like if you have money, you have friends.
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: It's like you must have money in order to have friends.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: And it's like.
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: Actually, if you put yourself in a situation where you
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: meet more people that will likely develop more friends for you.
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: But if you don't leave, you know, where you live and,
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: and it could be a city or a town or
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: a village or whatever, and you stay with the same people, yeah,
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: you're not going to grow that, that friendship circle potentially. Um,
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: but they painted it as like the only people making
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: friends now are rich people. It's like, That's not what
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: this is.
• 8:34
  Speaker 5: No.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: It's also worth noting that I think fighting socialism and
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: this extremism is a pretty good message for Republicans to
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: counter Democrats during this immediate midterm, right?
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: And maybe it's not.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: the message for every single person, right? Socialism doesn't always
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: ring the same way as you're noting for different generations
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: and stuff. But AFP has just started, Americans for Prosperity
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: just started a push for this election season called Fight
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: Socialism to make clear that this is what is the
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: other option, right? Because you do end up with Seattle
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: when you allow for a socialist mayor to come and govern,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: quote unquote, your city.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: These are these are the results. So that needs to
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: be made clear to people.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: By the way, did you see the Stu Smith streaming
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: the socialist meeting in their their gathering this weekend?
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: I didn't see that. So Stu Smith is.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: Checked in on the stream for this socialism 2026 gathering
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: um and among the clips there are many clips he
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: really hit the jackpot on uh on viral clips this
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: weekend uh from these folks because here here's just one
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: example this is uh deshaun harrison at socialism 2026 arguing
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: that uh glp ones are fascistic and fixated on genociding
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: fat people here we go glp.
• 10:00
  Speaker 6: Ones is fascistic, not because individuals take them, but because
• 10:04
  Speaker 6: the conditions under which they become necessary are shaped by
• 10:07
  Speaker 6: a world fixated on genociding fat people. This is a
• 10:11
  Speaker 6: structural critique that asks what happens when the conditions produced
• 10:14
  Speaker 6: by capitalism, by public health, by the state apparatus, and
• 10:18
  Speaker 6: by anti-Black desire align around a single bodily ideal that
• 10:23
  Speaker 6: leaves little to no room for divergence and punishes any
• 10:26
  Speaker 6: body that does.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's definitely a genocide of fat people going on.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: That's what's happening with the GLP. It's literally saving people's lives.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: It's saving fat people's lives. It's literally the opposite of genocide.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: We're to make sure that you live longer and more
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: people live.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: But there was just Clip after clip like this, every
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: single person is wearing a mask. They say that being
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: fit is fascistic and oppressive. Just like this type of
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: wildly antisocial insanity on display can do nothing but help
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: those who are making an argument that you probably don't
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: want these people in charge as they wear their masks
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: and talk about how we're genociding fat people.
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: It's scary. It's scary that this is like.
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: what we're up against. And we're not even like winning
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: by that much. It's downright concerning. Another story from the
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: commie left.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: K-File reports at CNN. That's Andrew Kaczynski.
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: He found old tweets from William Lawrence, the Democratic nominee
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: in a competitive House race in Michigan. And the tweets
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: are just batshit. So here's Andrew's tweet about this. In tweets,
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: he repeatedly took aim at the nuclear family home, writing,
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: F-isolation and the nuclear family domicile, calling the nuclear family
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: an isolating, individualistic, violent way of organizing society.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: I don't want to be a part of that, he wrote.
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: Lawrence argued that the heteropatriarchal nuclear family is a material
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: foundation of wealth accumulation because inheritance was concentrated through male
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: family lines, while writing that queer families create material conditions
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: for solidarity and wealth sharing, adding, but y'all ain't ready
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: for that convo, which I feel totally ready for that.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: You should have that convo on the trail over and
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: over again.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: It's also just like the mad libs of just sticking
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: together patriarchy, fascism, oppression, and To whatever you don't like,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: which was the point of the thread about capitalism is like,
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: not everything is caused by the thing you happen to
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: dislike already.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: And it just rings so hollow and lame.
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: And also.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: Evil if you actually act on it.
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: Right, right. I'm pretty pro-family, family unit, very important. And
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: I think it's good. And we should be pointing out
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: all the time how good it is because we have
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: crazy people like this and he may win. It's a
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: competitive district. Another thing Andrew points out that on Indigenous
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: Peoples Day in 2020, Lawrence thanked Indigenous writers and organizers
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: who he said helped him Imagine a world beyond the
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: nation state and capitalism.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: May the 21st century begin an indigenous millennium, he wrote.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, these people want to end America and they're
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: running for office to bring that about. Yeah.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: Like Woke 1.0 never ended and Woke 2.0 is worse.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: And the second they have power, it is on us.
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: It's on right back.
• 13:39
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: Before we close out, can we goof on the pod
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: bros real quick? Let's goof on them.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: Jon Favreau and Jon Lovett were talking about the term
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: blood libel. Which is like, look, if you're a normie,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: you might not necessarily know what it is if you're
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: not steeped in history about anti-Semitism and you might not
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: be familiar with that.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: Particular term, right?
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: Well, let's just say, first of all, this started with
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: Vance at the Republican Jewish Coalition. He messed up what
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: blood libel means. He made it sound like it meant
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: that you're being held accountable for something that someone in
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: your bloodline did.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: Liable.
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So yeah, the pod pros were like, ha ha,
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: that's very funny that you got that wrong and then
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: proceeded to get it even more wrong.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: Yes, can we play that clip?
• 14:32
  Speaker 7: Oh, that's what he means?
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: It's blood liable?
• 14:34
  Speaker 5: I mean, he was just like, somehow you are responsible
• 14:37
  Speaker 5: for something bad just because of your bloodline.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: And I was like, that's not blood liable at all.
• 14:41
  Speaker 7: No, the blood liable is that we killed Jesus.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: That's it.
• 14:44
  Speaker 5: We killed Jesus.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: No, that's not easy.
• 14:47
  Speaker 5: No, the blood liable is that Jews supposedly put blood on.
• 14:56
  Speaker 5: This is an Old Testament story on a house so
• 14:59
  Speaker 5: that when the angel of death came by, they would
• 15:02
  Speaker 5: skip over the houses with the blood on it, but
• 15:04
  Speaker 5: kill the firstborn.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's Passover.
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 15:06
  Speaker 5: But that's not Jesus.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: That's pre-Jesus.
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I know that.
• 15:09
  Speaker 7: But that's not the blood libel.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: No, we brag about that. We tell that story every Passover.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: That's part of our thing.
• 15:17
  Speaker 7: We put the lamb's blood on our door so that
• 15:21
  Speaker 7: God would pass by our door and kill the firstborn
• 15:24
  Speaker 7: of Jesus.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: The Egyptians.
• 15:25
  Speaker 7: The blood libel to me.
• 15:26
  Speaker 5: Oh, blood libel is a false centuries-old anti-Semitic accusation that
• 15:29
  Speaker 5: Jewish people kidnap and murder non-Jewish children to use their
• 15:32
  Speaker 5: blood for religious rituals.
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: Oh, see, to me, I.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: And the lie of Baal to claim.
• 15:36
  Speaker 5: This is.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: It's the Passover. It is Passover. It's a ball from Passover.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 15:39
  Speaker 7: Oh, see, I always thought it was... I always thought
• 15:41
  Speaker 7: it was about killing Jesus. Well, either way, I don't think... Look,
• 15:44
  Speaker 7: it seems that... It seems like.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: Killing Jesus is just Easter.
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: It's just you can't make fun of other people for
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: it if you yourself don't know.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: And it's like I.
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: get it it's a term that maybe people are not
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: familiar with um but it is it is about kidnapping
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: children and making matzah with it is that about passover
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: i don't think that's specifically about passover i think he
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: can you know conflated two things and then kind of
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: at the end was like see it's about passover like.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: No here's the thing these yes not everyone knows this
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: term that's fine These folks position themselves as our intellectual
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: betters at all times.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: And Favreau was a speechwriter for a whole ass president.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: Of the United States. So I do think he should
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: be familiar with this term. But beyond the term, he
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: should also be familiar with the story of Exodus. Right.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: Which is a foundational Judeo-Christian story that I have to,
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: I'm glad Lovett jumps in to educate him on what
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: Passover is. But like my, my friend, have you not
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: even watched the Prince of Egypt? Like you don't need
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: to read the Bible.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: It's not the husband version of the story. Any one
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: of them you could engage with.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: But the idea that he doesn't know that the blood
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: over the doors is is Passover, is Exodus, I think
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: is even worse than blood libel. The ignorance of basic
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: faith tenets, and not just for faithful people, but for
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: all of Western civilization. Seems like a problem. Can I
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: say to counter this? Meanwhile, the Republicans are having a
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: convention in Dallas this week. Just so you know, it's
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: two days long. Seems like a pretty normie kind of
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: bland lineup of people. just republican office holders uh i
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: don't think the plan was to hold it in dallas
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: because texas might need a little shot in the arm
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: but here we are in dallas doing that and uh
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: the president will speak on the first night and uh
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: vance will close it out on the second night and
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: the idea was you know trump loves the show and
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: the idea was like well why not do a convention
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: for the midterms so they're attempting that this week a
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: bunch of people will be in dallas and i'm not
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: sure how much uh excitement it will generate. But it
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: is happening this week. And it is a contrast to
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: like the commies doing crazy things. It's just like a
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: pretty normal political convention. Right.
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: It is unusual to do a midterm convention. But like
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: you said, Trump loves a show. And if it gets
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: any readings at all, that's good for Republicans. I kind
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: of think it won't just because people aren't used to
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: expecting it. Like they know to expect the RNC and
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: the DNC every four years. But this is sort of
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: out of nowhere. But we'll see. We'll see if people
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: tune in. We're going to take a short break and
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: be right back with.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: More on Normally. We are back on Normally.
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: Where we're not big on pro tech bros here.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: I mean, we like them. They're fine.
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: They do good work sometimes and other times not. But
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: they do get sort of wrong criticism that we want
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: to clear up and one of the things that came
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: up in the last week is somebody accused tech bros
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: and these tech companies of not kind of doing their
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: part to donate enough to the society around them this
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: one guy said LA Fresh. The more I think about it,
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: the more it's really crazy that people want OpenAI and
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: Anthropic to directly spend on goodies and gifts to the
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: locals in San Francisco. We already have a beautiful democratic system.
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: The core and their employees pay hella taxes and we
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: decide what to do with it. But people will tell
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: you with a straight face that it's bootlicking the tech
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: oligarchs to accept this and instead want a system where
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: those oligarchs unilaterally and unaccountably decide to dole out cash,
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: wokely somehow. It's totally incoherent. The only end not holding
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: up their end of the bargain here is a city.
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: What the hell are they doing with all this tech
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: tax revenue? And why aren't normal non-tech people seeing any benefit?
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: Turns out that a lot of the tech wealth doesn't
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: go towards things like libraries, universities. This guy, Theo Jaffe,
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: cleared it up because they're not allowed to. Do you
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: want to?
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because here's the thing, is that the lefty activists
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: in these places where the tech pros exist don't want
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: to let them build new things. So it ends up
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: that all this tax money just goes to the city,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: which is quite inefficient in using it, whereas philanthropy done
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: privately would be much more efficient and beneficial. A great example,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: he's not a tech guy, but George Lucas had proposed
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: this bill billion dollar museum of narrative storytelling and he
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: wanted to put it in chicago and chicago was like
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: yeah sure we got all this space that's the soldier
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: uh parking lot and um we have like you know
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: diminishing returns on being a blue governed city but you
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: know what we're gonna say Absolutely not. You can't put
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: your billion dollar Star Wars museum in our city. He,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: I believe, was also turned down by San Francisco. He
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: took it to L.A., which credit to L.A. They were like, oh,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: a filmmaker who wants to do a billion dollar museum build.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: I think we'll take it.
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: If you say no to all these projects, yeah, you
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: will not get the benefits of the philanthropy. And this
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: is what lefties always want. They just want, like, no,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: you just give us the money. We're the crappy NGOs
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: that don't produce anything. Give us the money. We'll increase homelessness.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: And then end of story.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: Right. And it's like.
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: The fact that they are rejecting any money for anything
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: is wild. It really is. And maybe you're like, oh,
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: I don't want the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. But
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: that's crazy. Like, why wouldn't you want another museum? He's
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: going to be using, you know, a space that is
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: not used and filling up your city.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: There's so many.
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: We talk a lot about how a lot of retail
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: is closing and, you know, in real life stores and
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: all that kind of stuff doesn't exist as much as
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: people are living their lives more and more online. And
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: here is like a real brick and mortar donation to
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: your city, you know, for like almost a billion dollars
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: means like 700 million and you don't want it.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: Like, how does that make sense? No, it doesn't make sense.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: And in these large cities where you're taking down systematically
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: the quality of life, if you're not, if it's expensive
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: to live in your city. and you don't offer people
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: very cool things for living there, example, New York City,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: as Carol experienced, then people will go elsewhere and they
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: will spend their money elsewhere.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: There is some good news on this front this week,
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: which is the.
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: To add to that story, I just want to say
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: that Theo Jaffe, who wrote up some of this, said
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: San Francisco has built no major museum projects since the
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: 2016 expansion of San Francisco MoMA and no new libraries
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: since the North Beach branch in 2014. He says public works,
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: like so many other things, are bottlenecked not by donor
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: will or available funding, but by veto-ocracy.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: This is what your entire citizenry is involved in, at
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: least the ones who are loud and obnoxious.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: So you're going to shut down a bunch of things.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: By the way, I would just note that somebody, you
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: and I, was right in 2020 when we said, hey,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: maybe like shutting down museums and things that don't have
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: a giant profit margin for years at a time is
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: a bad idea and we won't get back to building
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: museums and libraries.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Here we are.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: On the other side of the coin, though, almost literally,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: is the Dell family, whose donations to American children inside
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: Trump accounts started hitting those accounts this week. $ 250 to
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: qualifying young people who have a Trump account. They relegated
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: this to specific zip codes. So if your kid is
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: in that zip code, start a Trump account. Yeah. I
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: think this bit of philanthropy, which is huge, the numbers
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: are huge, getting not enough credit or storytelling because it
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: could be truly transformative what the Dell family is doing here.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: Is it because it's called the Trump account? Yeah. Could
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: that be it?
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: And I wonder, you know, because I think a future
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: Democrat is going to undo, you know, the Lake of America,
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: maybe the Gulf of America, whatever. I wonder, I don't know,
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: DJT Airport, probably they're going to let him keep. But
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: the rest, you know, are they going to get rid
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: of Trump accounts, even though it helps so many kids?
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: We'll have to see what happens with that.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: But I hope not.
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: I think this could be really transformative. Imagine these kids
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: graduating from high school and having a base, some number
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: of dollars in their account that they wouldn't have had otherwise.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: This is great. Why aren't we celebrating it? Why isn't
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: it a bigger story? $ 6.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: 25 billion that will compound. If you just sit it
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: in that account, it's going to compound. It's going to grow.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: It's going to grow for these kids as they grow.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: And I think the financial literacy part of it is important, too.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: I do want to shout out, and I don't do
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: this for the government often, the Trump account website is beautiful.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: It's simple.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: It allows children and parents to sit and engage with
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: what investing looks like and what saving looks like. And
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: I just feel like it's like the Dave Ramsey, Caleb
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: Hammer solution that we need.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah. For all of these generations to understand what that
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: looks like. I'm a scooper into Caleb Hammer. I think
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: you're a fan also, right?
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: He's a little mean, but it's effective, I think. And
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: he's getting so much hate. It's crazy.
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: Like, He says such basic things like don't order food
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: every day.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: And people are like, you should die.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: I also enjoyed he got some hate the other day
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: because he had ordered like steamed or something to his house.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: And he's like, he didn't say it this meanly, but
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: he should have. Do you not understand that I am rich?
• 26:15
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: I can put that in my budget. You can't put
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: DoorDash steamed milk in your budget.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: That's the difference. That is the difference.
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: He had also one where he was having guests on
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: his show who like were having trouble budgeting and, you know,
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: were really struggling. And they had ordered DoorDash to the
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: parking lot where they were, you know, in his studio.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: It just... It's wild and crazy. He's a good follow,
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: Caleb Hammer.
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: He's just, I think, telling young people what they need
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: to hear about spending money.
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: He is our generation's Dave Ramsey. He is meaner. A
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: little meaner, yeah.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: But they really need to hear it because the stuff
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: you see people saying they're doing with their money will
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: blow your mind.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: And you can see his mind blow in real time.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: You'll enjoy it.
• 27:05
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: I also I think that like the younger set likes
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: to be yelled at a little bit.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: And I understand there's another Christian Walker.
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: He used to be sort of a conservative activist, but
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: now he's he does these relationship videos on Instagram where
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: he literally yells at women to dump their loser boyfriends
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: because like they're not living up to the standard that
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: these women should have.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: I love the whole the whole genre of like yell
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: at me to get my stuff done.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: I mean, some of these people have not been parented clearly.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: So he's taking it.
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: All right, we're going to take a short break and
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: be right back with one more segment of Normally.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: We are back on normally.
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: Where the brand Nike has fallen to a 12 year
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: low of stock price and they are set to leave
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: the S & P.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: 100 in a few months because of that.
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: It's a 78% drop actually since their 2021 peak and
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: sliding sales, failed direct to consumer strategy and just a
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: lot of other brands, right?
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: But a lot of people are also pointing out that
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: Nike lost some segment of the buying population because of Wokeness.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: And I am here to tell you, I am part
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: of that population.
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: I have not bought Nike in years and years, I
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: think even before Kaepernick. But for sure, Kaepernick was like,
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: that's it, never again. And if you don't know what
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: I'm talking about, it was during the 2020 insanity where
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: Nike Kaepernick was kneeling for the national anthem and Nike
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: made him the face of Nike. And that sent a
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: message to me that I did not want to participate
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: in their brand.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: And it's been hard.
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: It wasn't easy to cut off Nike there. I thought
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: they were a decent brand. I mean, all the kids
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: still kind of love their sneakers. My youngest, our athlete,
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: does not own any Nike sneakers and this really bothers him.
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: His best friend will occasionally buy him or hand him
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: down Nike clothing because he just feels bad for him.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: But we just don't buy Nike in our house. And
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: I don't think you could discount stuff like that.
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: I don't think that's what led to a 78% drop
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: in the last five years, but it certainly didn't help.
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: And the fact is that you can't be losing customers
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: because of your terrible political opinions and having sort of
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: bad strategies on how to sell your stock.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm the same story.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: I think my breaking point was probably Kaepernick vetoing the
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: Betsy Ross shoe.
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: When Kaepernick had the power, cause like I'm used to
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: brands employing people and making them face that I do
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: not appreciate. Right. And I did look, I like my
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: Nike pro shorts. I bought them for years for working out. Um,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: not huge on the shoes other than Jordan's, but, uh,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: I was I was a customer. I was a loyal customer.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: And I was like, are you kidding me? This guy's
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: running your product choices. He is not someone you should
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: have doing that. And then I went over the edge
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: when they pulled the Dylan Mulvaney thing.
• 30:18
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: Where Dylan Mulvaney, who's trans, was like now a spokesperson
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: in some way for Nike women's athletic wear.
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: Dylan Mulvaney, if anybody doesn't know, male to female, trans,
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: and was advertising sports bras.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: Yes. And I was just like, if you're making clothes
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: for Dylan Mulvaney, they're not for me. They're not for
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: my body.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: They're not for ladies. And it's just a middle finger
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: to me on so many levels. And I'm not a
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: big boycotting person. So I imagine that there are many
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: more like me who just were like, gosh, like, why
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: do I have to? And I don't have to give
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: you money.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: Express disdain for me a thousand times over. And I
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: do think it's it's. a warning sign to some degree.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: Like you said, it's more complex than just the woke. Right.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: But it is a warning sign that like, if you
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: think something, the zeitgeist is going to suit you, um,
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: be careful because the, uh, the phrasing for the making
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: him making Kaepernick, the, the face of the product was, uh,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything. And boy,
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: y'all have sacrificed a bunch. Uh, it's not the right
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: answer and by the way you know who had the
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: right answer michael jordan he said republicans buy sneakers too.
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: Absolutely and on that note thank you for joining us
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: on normally normally airs tuesdays and thursdays and you can
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: subscribe anywhere you.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: Get your podcasts get in touch with us
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: At normally the pod at gmail.com thanks for listening and
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: when things get weird act normally