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Normally Podcast: SCOTUS Redistricting Bombshell, James Comey Indicted Again & Why Millennials Aren’t Having Kids · Normally

0:06
Speaker 1: Hey, Yeah, normally the show was normal tawing the news.
0:10
Speaker 2: Dude, I'm Mary Cavin Dom, I'm Carol Marka. How are you,
0:13
Speaker 2: Mary Catherine. I'm doing all right.
0:15
Speaker 1: I've been running around all day, uh, not reading the news,
0:19
Speaker 1: so I'm catch I was catching up before our show
0:21
Speaker 1: because you know, I took some time off the line,
0:24
Speaker 1: off the line for.
0:25
Speaker 2: A while, touching all the grass. Huh.
0:28
Speaker 1: It's nice And in the wake of political violence, I
0:30
Speaker 1: tend to not want to spend a lot of time
0:33
Speaker 1: in the uh, in the the X fields.
0:36
Speaker 2: So what's interesting is that that happened just like four
0:41
Speaker 2: days ago and it's already completely out of the news,
0:44
Speaker 2: and I don't know that really bugs me.
0:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, I knew we couldn't make.
0:48
Speaker 2: It a topic today, even though I think that there's
0:50
Speaker 2: a lot being said about what happened with Secret Service
0:54
Speaker 2: and was a security good or bad. We sort of
0:56
Speaker 2: touched on that in the previous two episodes, but I
0:59
Speaker 2: don't know, I kind of think the president's third or
1:02
Speaker 2: fifth assassination to attempt despite you know, whichever way you're
1:06
Speaker 2: looking at it, is kind of a big deal.
1:08
Speaker 1: It's a very big deal. And yes, as we discussed.
1:10
Speaker 1: People want to move on from the story, and not
1:13
Speaker 1: just because it's ichy. It's because they don't want to
1:15
Speaker 1: contemplate that this uptick in yes, left inspired ideological assassination
1:20
Speaker 1: attempts is real and a huge deal and could change
1:24
Speaker 1: the course of history in ways that we do not
1:26
Speaker 1: want to do. We've gotten incredibly lucky so far. I
1:28
Speaker 1: would add. One way we could talk about it today
1:29
Speaker 1: is to say that our friend Noah Rothman has a
1:31
Speaker 1: book coming out called Blood and Progress, which is about
1:36
Speaker 1: ideologically left political violence and the cycle that we are
1:40
Speaker 1: in and sort of building the case for like we
1:43
Speaker 1: can see this pattern over and over again. And I
1:46
Speaker 1: appreciate Noah's work. He's very thorough, he's very academic in
1:50
Speaker 1: his style of erecenting, and he will get a hearing
1:53
Speaker 1: no hysteric exactly, and so that will be an enjoyable
1:57
Speaker 1: and enjoyable is not the word, but that will be
1:59
Speaker 1: an interesting read and I look forward to it coming
2:02
Speaker 1: out in a couple weeks, and unfortunately, the news cycle
2:04
Speaker 1: will likely be friendly to his premise.
2:07
Speaker 2: Yep, yeah, I'll buy that book right after the show.
2:09
Speaker 1: Yep.
2:10
Speaker 2: All right, let's get into it. The big story today
2:14
Speaker 2: is that Scotus has ruled in Louisiana versus Cala that
2:19
Speaker 2: it's unconstitutional to draw majority black congressional districts that are
2:24
Speaker 2: completely gerrymandered on the sole basis of race. It's an
2:30
Speaker 2: interesting time for this decision because of all the redistricting
2:34
Speaker 2: stuff that's going on across the country. Obviously, we've talked
2:37
Speaker 2: a lot here about what's happening in your home state
2:40
Speaker 2: of Virginia. This week, Governor DeSantis put out his new
2:45
Speaker 2: map that redistricts Florida, and this case is kind of
2:52
Speaker 2: an interesting time for it because of these new redistricting maps.
2:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a bit of a rebuke. It's not
2:59
Speaker 1: a strike looking down of part of the Voting Rights Act,
3:02
Speaker 1: but it does as Elena Kagan, who dissented, said that
3:09
Speaker 1: the provision would be all but a dead letter. And
3:13
Speaker 1: the Voting Rights Act is obviously very important. And the
3:16
Speaker 1: question is, as we move away from times when we
3:19
Speaker 1: were actively much more discriminatory as a society, do you
3:24
Speaker 1: need to change the way you evaluate how these districts
3:28
Speaker 1: are drawn now. This ruling one of the reasons a
3:31
Speaker 1: lot of redistricting from the left is very enthusiastic is
3:35
Speaker 1: because they were anticipating that this might happen. It was
3:38
Speaker 1: a six to three decision cut in the conservative liberal
3:42
Speaker 1: way this time around. They were anticipating this and they
3:45
Speaker 1: were thinking, oh my gosh, some of these Southern states
3:47
Speaker 1: could really redistrict in ways that would be problematic for us.
3:53
Speaker 1: In this case, the Louisiana had drawn two majority minority
3:57
Speaker 1: districts and a group of non Africa Americans as they're
4:02
Speaker 1: named in the in the suit says you can't do that.
4:05
Speaker 1: You can't discriminate on the basis of race, particularly for
4:10
Speaker 1: two separate districts, right which you were not required to build.
4:14
Speaker 1: So that's that was what was before the court.
4:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, So in Florida, which I think you guys had
4:22
Speaker 2: a similar situation, but Florida's constitution prohibits jerry mandering. So
4:28
Speaker 2: the new Florida map is actually un jerrymandering. It's very
4:33
Speaker 2: square and rectangle, with a little bit of a long
4:37
Speaker 2: rectangle for District twenty five, which is along the coast,
4:42
Speaker 2: But other than that, it's a very fair looking map.
4:46
Speaker 2: Nobody would look at this map of Florida that was
4:48
Speaker 2: released this week and say, oh, this is a gerrymandered map.
4:51
Speaker 2: This is exactly the opposite of that. We don't have
4:54
Speaker 2: a lobster like you guys are getting potentially in Virginia.
5:00
Speaker 2: So it's all very interesting. It's all happening in the
5:03
Speaker 2: middle of the decade because these registrictings generally happen around
5:09
Speaker 2: the Census, and twenty twenty was pandemic and that caused
5:15
Speaker 2: a lot of problems with the Census. So Florida and
5:17
Speaker 2: Texas felt like they weren't getting the right representation.
5:21
Speaker 1: Has admitted the Census has admitted that Blue states benefited
5:25
Speaker 1: from their mistakes and red states were punished by their mistake.
5:28
Speaker 1: And I do have a bone to pick with like
5:31
Speaker 1: the whole idea that when something major like that malfunctions
5:36
Speaker 1: that has this huge impact, that you're just supposed to
5:39
Speaker 1: sit on your hands and not correct that problem at all.
5:42
Speaker 1: Like the Census isn't doing anything about it. They're just like,
5:44
Speaker 1: I guess wait till twenty thirty. I don't accept that
5:49
Speaker 1: because mistakes are made, you should be held accountable for
5:51
Speaker 1: them and some there should be some corrective and there
5:54
Speaker 1: has been none. By the way NPR has reported on
5:57
Speaker 1: this Census thing. It's not some conspiracy. This is an
6:01
Speaker 1: acknowledged fact, and it was the basis of the Texas redraw.
6:06
Speaker 1: By the way, the twenty twenty attempts at redrawing were
6:10
Speaker 1: the basis of this Louisiana lawsuit, which has been ongoing
6:13
Speaker 1: since their post twenty twenty redraw. I'll read you a
6:18
Speaker 1: couple quotes from this. In a thirty six page opinion,
6:20
Speaker 1: this is a Scotis bog Alito explained that quote, the
6:23
Speaker 1: Constitution almost never permits the federal government or a state
6:26
Speaker 1: to discriminate on the basis of race. The question before
6:29
Speaker 1: the court, he said, is quote whether compliance with the
6:31
Speaker 1: Voting Rights Act should be added to our very short
6:34
Speaker 1: list of compelling interests that can justify racial discrimination. Now
6:38
Speaker 1: we would say those should be so few as to
6:40
Speaker 1: almost be non existent. Right, many on the left you're like, no, no, no,
6:44
Speaker 1: we need so many, so many opportunities to do that.
6:48
Speaker 1: Notably Kagan, who wrote the Descent left respective respectfully out
6:54
Speaker 1: of her descent, which is the common way that they
6:58
Speaker 1: do that. Apparently she's a big deal, she's upset about it.
7:02
Speaker 1: That's shade in the right.
7:06
Speaker 2: That's some shade, Kotas shade. Yeah, an account that I
7:11
Speaker 2: follow on x E. Wes ninety two. He writes, might
7:15
Speaker 2: Chief Justice Roberts Court be the most anti racist of
7:19
Speaker 2: all time? Almost? Definitely? Yes, right, so, because what's interesting
7:23
Speaker 2: about that is that it's racist to draw Jerrymander districts
7:27
Speaker 2: of just black people or and it would be the
7:30
Speaker 2: same thing if you were trying to have just white
7:33
Speaker 2: people in your district.
7:34
Speaker 1: It's racist to keep Asians out of Harvard because they
7:37
Speaker 1: do really well, and you want to set racial up
7:40
Speaker 1: racial quotas in different ways exactly.
7:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it's interesting that the Supreme Court is undoing
7:46
Speaker 2: racism with these decisions. Of course that's not how left
7:50
Speaker 2: is going to see it, but that is what it is.
7:52
Speaker 1: Justice Clarence Thomas joined Alito's opinion. He also wrote a
7:56
Speaker 1: brief and he said the Supreme Court quote should never
8:01
Speaker 1: have interpreted Section two of the Voting Rights Actors in
8:03
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty five to effectively give racial groups and entitlement
8:06
Speaker 1: to roughly proportional representation. Wednesday's decision, Thomas wrote, quote should
8:10
Speaker 1: largely put an end to this disastrous misadventure and voting
8:12
Speaker 1: rights jurisprudence Thomas would have held. He added that Section
8:16
Speaker 1: two does not redistricting at all or regularly district at all,
8:20
Speaker 1: as always Thomas coming in based he's the best.
8:24
Speaker 2: You know, when they talk about oh he should, you know, retire,
8:28
Speaker 2: I don't know somebody else retire.
8:30
Speaker 1: I think, I mean, I think it's a moot point
8:32
Speaker 1: because pretty much everyone I've ever heard has any familiarity
8:35
Speaker 1: with him is like, oh, he's not leaving.
8:37
Speaker 2: No, he's not right, He's not leaving. Yeah. So these
8:42
Speaker 2: maps are you know, going to be a slap fight
8:45
Speaker 2: for a while. And it's interesting because I think that
8:50
Speaker 2: going forward, I you know, the Democrats are saying things like, oh,
8:53
Speaker 2: we're gonna you know, jerrymander everything too, when they already
8:56
Speaker 2: mostly have. People keep posting maps of like New England,
9:01
Speaker 2: where there are no Republican seats at all despite forty
9:04
Speaker 2: plus percent Republican votes. Then Guy Benson posted a map
9:10
Speaker 2: of Illinois and he said, incredible that a map that
9:12
Speaker 2: looks like that would only potentially net DEM's three seats
9:16
Speaker 2: because Illinois is already insanely jerry mandared for and by them,
9:20
Speaker 2: So you know, maybe Republicans lose three seats in Illinois.
9:25
Speaker 2: I don't know a lot of this. I think people
9:27
Speaker 2: are not going to like it. They're going to say,
9:31
Speaker 2: I don't think they're going to know that this all
9:33
Speaker 2: this background. I think the average odor is going to
9:36
Speaker 2: just not like being redistricted out of wherever they were.
9:40
Speaker 1: Well, and what's going to happen is that the left
9:42
Speaker 1: as usual is going to say anything they redistrict is
9:45
Speaker 1: bad and now also racist, and everything we do is good.
9:49
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's the whole Yeah, which is, by
9:52
Speaker 1: the way, the argument they were making in Virginia Supreme
9:54
Speaker 1: Court from the left about the redistricting here. Now, they
9:57
Speaker 1: cut a bunch of corners, as I've briefly explained to
9:59
Speaker 1: you guys in the past, to get that on the ballot,
10:01
Speaker 1: because it's very hard to change the constitution. And so
10:04
Speaker 1: they cut a bunch of corners. They did it legislatively
10:07
Speaker 1: with their own rules. They did it. They violated statutes,
10:10
Speaker 1: they violated the Constitution, and all these waiting limits and
10:13
Speaker 1: stuff were not observed that would allow the public to
10:16
Speaker 1: understand what was being done in the constitutional amendment. And
10:20
Speaker 1: so this is now in the Supreme Court. It was
10:21
Speaker 1: interesting to me in oral arguments, the Justice is made
10:24
Speaker 1: clear that the result of the referendum in which yes, one,
10:28
Speaker 1: the left one that was immaterial to this case. They
10:32
Speaker 1: are discussing the facts of how this got on the
10:35
Speaker 1: ballot and that that is important and it's not relevant.
10:38
Speaker 1: As the lefty lawyer kept bringing up that they had won,
10:43
Speaker 1: He's like, well, that doesn't really matter here. They had
10:45
Speaker 1: a lot of critical questions for the Democratic lawyers, one
10:49
Speaker 1: or two for Republicans, but far more for Democrats, and
10:53
Speaker 1: they were sort of questioning the premise that Okay, so
10:55
Speaker 1: you're telling me that people vote for a month, but
10:57
Speaker 1: you're not counting that as the election only election day counts.
11:02
Speaker 1: They sort of won it both ways, and it wasn't
11:05
Speaker 1: landing well for the justices. So that Supreme Court also
11:08
Speaker 1: denied j Jones, Remember Murdery J Jones our new age.
11:13
Speaker 1: He requested an emergency stay of a lower court that
11:16
Speaker 1: had said, hey, stop voting, do not or stop counting votes,
11:19
Speaker 1: do not certify this election. He wanted an emergency stay
11:22
Speaker 1: of that and to go ahead and certify. The Supreme
11:24
Speaker 1: Court did not give him that. So we'll give you posted.
11:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll stay on top of it. I mean, the
11:30
Speaker 2: redistricting stuff is kind of dry, but we think it's important.
11:35
Speaker 2: We need to understand what's going on. It's happening in
11:37
Speaker 2: the two states that you and I live in. We
11:39
Speaker 2: you know, have to kind of stay with it.
11:41
Speaker 1: And you're going to redistricting and Supreme Court cases in
11:45
Speaker 1: the same So a lot of court cases and a
11:48
Speaker 1: lot of redistricting talk is yes, that's something that's a
11:51
Speaker 1: process that a lot of voters are like, whoo, that
11:54
Speaker 1: sounds like a lot, but it is really important for
11:56
Speaker 1: the reasons that we've discussed, and it sets the stage
11:59
Speaker 1: for what twenty twenty sais twenty twenty eight up until
12:01
Speaker 1: twenty thirty. Look like we're going to take a sharp
12:03
Speaker 1: break and be right back with more on normally. Okay,
12:10
Speaker 1: we are back on normally where James Comy is in
12:13
Speaker 1: the news again because he has been indicted by the
12:17
Speaker 1: Trump DJ again this time. Let me pull it up.
12:22
Speaker 1: Former FBI Director James Comy's first court appearance for his
12:25
Speaker 1: latest federal indictment ended on Wednesday without him making a plea.
12:29
Speaker 1: The first count that he's indicted on is making a
12:31
Speaker 1: threat against the President of the United States. The second
12:34
Speaker 1: is interstate transmission of a threat against the President of
12:36
Speaker 1: the United States. This was based on his sea Art,
12:39
Speaker 1: his beach art in which he allegedly found shell art
12:45
Speaker 1: that said eighty six forty seven like that. That is
12:48
Speaker 1: clearly uh sphy. That implies It's clearly speech that implies something.
12:53
Speaker 1: And it's a lie that he just found it there. Yeah,
12:55
Speaker 1: he took a picture. He put it on his Instagram.
12:58
Speaker 1: I do not think it is wise to indict him
13:00
Speaker 1: for this. I think that it's unlikely to succeed in
13:03
Speaker 1: the way that the last indictment of James Comy did
13:06
Speaker 1: not succeed. I don't like James Commy. I haven't liked
13:09
Speaker 1: James Comy since I learned he was the one that
13:10
Speaker 1: took Martha Stewart down back in the day. Yeah, and
13:13
Speaker 1: that was a reach as.
13:14
Speaker 2: Well, Martha.
13:15
Speaker 1: That's right, He's not good. But if you're gonna go
13:19
Speaker 1: for him, have the goods, have the goods. And so
13:23
Speaker 1: far that has not happened.
13:25
Speaker 2: Right, So it's interesting because you know, why would they
13:30
Speaker 2: do it for a second time unless they had the goods?
13:33
Speaker 2: Could it be that they have something that we don't
13:35
Speaker 2: know about yet? No, pretty no faith in that.
13:41
Speaker 1: I don't have a ton but but I will say, okay,
13:44
Speaker 1: so let me list the the in the incompetent ones
13:47
Speaker 1: first okay, the attempted indictment of literature James, the first
13:51
Speaker 1: one of Komy, the Jerome Powell investigation. All of those
13:56
Speaker 1: have been pushed aside, like, yeah, look, I was open
14:00
Speaker 1: to the idea that these people had done something wrong.
14:03
Speaker 1: I think all of them are like kind of skill
14:05
Speaker 1: flaws in various ways. But again, you have to do
14:09
Speaker 1: this correctly and well do in illegal system. All of
14:12
Speaker 1: those did not pan out. The one that did is
14:16
Speaker 1: the John Bolton indictment, which did seem to have some
14:19
Speaker 1: real stuff behind it.
14:21
Speaker 2: Well, when that hit you and I were talking about
14:23
Speaker 2: it that look, he doesn't like Bolton, but he doesn't
14:26
Speaker 2: like a lot of people. He's not indicting them, and
14:28
Speaker 2: we kind of thought that the Bolton one represented something more,
14:33
Speaker 2: that they actually had the goods on him. Look, if
14:36
Speaker 2: this was DeSantis putting up this indictment, I would feel
14:42
Speaker 2: like he definitely has them. I mean I try. I
14:45
Speaker 2: remember the Disney lawsuits and people being like, he's gonna lose.
14:48
Speaker 2: Disney has all the money in the world they could, Like,
14:51
Speaker 2: you knew he wasn't going to lose. You knew he
14:53
Speaker 2: wasn't taking up that fight unless you could win it.
14:56
Speaker 2: The fact that it's a second time, they're taking another
14:59
Speaker 2: crack get this or not just letting it go. I
15:01
Speaker 2: don't know. Maybe there's more to this.
15:03
Speaker 1: He also really hates James coming.
15:06
Speaker 2: I get it, but I feel like Donald Trump pats
15:08
Speaker 2: a lot of people.
15:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, like, look, maybe on the edges you
15:12
Speaker 1: could say that that picture of eighty six forty seven
15:16
Speaker 1: is a threat. I think it's pretty silly. And I
15:20
Speaker 1: think I would let his emo ask fall of his
15:22
Speaker 1: own weight because he is so lame. He's so lame,
15:27
Speaker 1: and it's so obvious all the time, including with that
15:31
Speaker 1: Instagram plows, which I do think is classless and stupid and.
15:35
Speaker 2: You know what it meant, and he did it himself
15:37
Speaker 2: and all of that. But yes, and by.
15:40
Speaker 1: The way, all these people are held up as our
15:42
Speaker 1: moral betters while Leticia James is cheating on her mortgage
15:46
Speaker 1: and this guy is taking pictures of eighty six forty seven.
15:50
Speaker 1: But we're the ones who need to listen to James
15:52
Speaker 1: about what where's the problem? I know, all right?
15:56
Speaker 2: What else we got on a second topic today?
16:00
Speaker 1: I have a little victory lap for us, which is
16:02
Speaker 1: nonetheless like a bummer story because like, I don't want
16:06
Speaker 1: people to flame out in this way. But remember we
16:08
Speaker 1: objected to Labor Secretary Laurie Chaves de Rimier because she
16:13
Speaker 1: was to lib for us and to pro labor. This
16:16
Speaker 1: is the AP reporting. She is out a President Donald
16:20
Speaker 1: Trump's cabinet, the White House said Monday, after multiple allegations
16:22
Speaker 1: of abusing her position's power, including having an affair with
16:26
Speaker 1: a subordinate and drinking alcohol on the job. She's the
16:30
Speaker 1: third cabinet member to leave her post, after Trump fired
16:32
Speaker 1: Christy Nome and then Pam Bondy was gone as well.
16:35
Speaker 1: In a statement, she said, I'm proud that we made
16:37
Speaker 1: significant progress in advancing President Trump's mission to bridge the
16:40
Speaker 1: gap between business and labor and always put the American
16:43
Speaker 1: worker first. I would love to have somebody who's not
16:47
Speaker 1: cozy with unions in there next.
16:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do that instead. We called it, and I
16:53
Speaker 2: you know, I think that we knew that she wasn't
16:56
Speaker 2: going to be a fit for the administration. Can't say
16:58
Speaker 2: we predicted all of that, but yeah, she was just
17:04
Speaker 2: left of where we would hope the Labor secretary would be.
17:08
Speaker 2: And the fact that she is out because of these
17:10
Speaker 2: scandals is you know, no one, no one hears crying
17:13
Speaker 2: over it.
17:14
Speaker 1: Nope. But that's the Uh, that's the sort of the
17:18
Speaker 1: gossip roundup.
17:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, I think I think that's what we got.
17:23
Speaker 2: I also, have you heard this whole thing like Trump
17:25
Speaker 2: is only firing women, Like I think it's so sexist
17:28
Speaker 2: to be like these women are either incompetent, or have
17:33
Speaker 2: scandals or don't fit. I don't think there's anything particular here,
17:39
Speaker 2: like also the idea that the idea that he fired
17:43
Speaker 2: Christynome because she's a woman, Like, no, he did not.
17:46
Speaker 1: Well, it's also the press is always trying to have
17:48
Speaker 1: it both ways, and the critics of the president are
17:50
Speaker 1: always trying to have both ways. It matters not at
17:52
Speaker 1: all that he populated his cabinet, right, but it does
17:56
Speaker 1: matter when he fires a percentage of the women which
17:59
Speaker 1: is quite large that fills his cabinet, Like that's it.
18:02
Speaker 1: Can you have both by the way, they're also trying
18:04
Speaker 1: to have it both ways in this way that I
18:06
Speaker 1: just want to I'm annoyed by from this week's news cycle,
18:10
Speaker 1: which is that the assassination attempt at the White House
18:13
Speaker 1: Correspondent Center was simultaneously extremely traumatic to them, so a
18:17
Speaker 1: big enough deal to be trying to fell to them.
18:20
Speaker 1: But also the president should stop talking about it and
18:23
Speaker 1: complaining about it and like buck up a little bit
18:24
Speaker 1: because it's MVD for him, the actual target.
18:29
Speaker 2: It's amazing, it's actually actually amazing. It is all right,
18:32
Speaker 2: We're going to take a short break and come right
18:34
Speaker 2: back with a culture segment on Normally. We are back
18:42
Speaker 2: on Normally, where a New York Times story this week
18:45
Speaker 2: was extremely confusing. Its headline was rising costs or causing
18:50
Speaker 2: couples to delay or forego having children. And obviously this
18:54
Speaker 2: is a topic that we're both very interested in, so
18:57
Speaker 2: when we read this part, I I personally felt like
19:01
Speaker 2: I did not understand something. Riley Stewart and Brock Goodwin
19:05
Speaker 2: always imagined having several children, but that vision shifted once
19:08
Speaker 2: they settled into their two thousand square foot house with
19:11
Speaker 2: a thirty two hundred dollars mortgage. They realized that even
19:15
Speaker 2: with one child, they would most likely need more space.
19:18
Speaker 2: I does not compute. We had our first two kids
19:22
Speaker 2: and a nine hundred square foot Manhattan apartment that I
19:26
Speaker 2: think lots of people would have just stayed in and
19:29
Speaker 2: raised the kids there. People who have responded to this,
19:33
Speaker 2: like Ryan Gardusky's like, I've never lived in a house
19:36
Speaker 2: that bag.
19:37
Speaker 1: Well, I'm trying to think the square footage of my
19:40
Speaker 1: two places for my first two kids. It was a
19:44
Speaker 1: condo that was about probably eight to nine hundred square
19:46
Speaker 1: feet and then a house that was thirteen hundred and
19:53
Speaker 1: had one bathroom, which is insane, but it was a
19:56
Speaker 1: one hundred year old farmhouse had one bathroom upstairs. And
19:58
Speaker 1: when I listed it to sell, people were like, it's
20:00
Speaker 1: seriously only as one bathroom. I'm like, no, it's not
20:03
Speaker 1: one and a half, it's.
20:04
Speaker 2: One, right, right, yeah.
20:07
Speaker 1: But like the idea that you can't squeeze an infant
20:11
Speaker 1: into this space and this life style seems wild to me, right.
20:17
Speaker 2: It's like, that is a big house. I don't know
20:20
Speaker 2: I live in a bigger house now, but you know,
20:21
Speaker 2: I live in Florida. Our last house in Brooklyn was
20:27
Speaker 2: twenty five hundred square feet and it was for we
20:30
Speaker 2: thought it was human, like what are we gonna do
20:34
Speaker 2: with all the space? And we had three kids in
20:37
Speaker 2: there and they had each had their own room, which was,
20:39
Speaker 2: you know, largely unheard of from my whole childhood, and
20:43
Speaker 2: for a lot of people. You share rooms, and that's
20:45
Speaker 2: just how it goes. I think that these ideas are
20:50
Speaker 2: really toxic. That you can't have a child in a
20:53
Speaker 2: two thousand square foot house. It just it's weird. It's weird.
20:58
Speaker 2: Something weird has happened here where these people believe that
21:02
Speaker 2: they don't have enough.
21:03
Speaker 1: Well, they also are both twenty five, both employed.
21:08
Speaker 2: And both decided no market, no kids.
21:10
Speaker 1: Well and decided no kids ever, Yeah, not no kids now.
21:15
Speaker 1: They just were like, if we were rich, I definitely
21:18
Speaker 1: have kids. But they've decided not to have children at all.
21:22
Speaker 1: And I don't think that being rich is a prerequisite
21:25
Speaker 1: to having kids. It's not like it doesn't need to
21:29
Speaker 1: be you. You can just be responsible and have a
21:33
Speaker 1: job and perfectly capably raised children in even one thousand
21:37
Speaker 1: square feet.
21:39
Speaker 2: I just yeah, we've done it. I mean it also,
21:43
Speaker 2: we've lived with all three kids in one room. We've
21:46
Speaker 2: done it multiple times. Actually we did it, like on
21:49
Speaker 2: our first test rund of Florida for six months they
21:51
Speaker 2: all shared one room. We did it while we were
21:54
Speaker 2: renovating that you know palace of a twenty five hundred
21:57
Speaker 2: square foot house in Brooklyn. We lived in a seven
21:59
Speaker 2: hundred square foot apartment where they were all in one room.
22:02
Speaker 2: It's doable, and it really wasn't that bad. It was
22:06
Speaker 2: extremely functional. I just it's bananas.
22:10
Speaker 1: Interviews that this new story talks about, says. In interviews
22:12
Speaker 1: with couples in their twenties and thirties, many said they
22:14
Speaker 1: wanted to reach key milestones before having children, such as
22:17
Speaker 1: buying a house, paying off student debt, and making enough
22:20
Speaker 1: money to afford childcare. Others prioritize travel or financial stability.
22:24
Speaker 1: All said they were willing, unwilling to compromise on those goals,
22:28
Speaker 1: even if it meant delaying parenthood and definitely or not
22:30
Speaker 1: having children at all. The man in the introductory couple
22:33
Speaker 1: says he'd have to give up hobbies like golfing.
22:36
Speaker 2: Golf right, And look, yeah, I'm.
22:39
Speaker 1: All for a hobby, but I do feel like there's
22:42
Speaker 1: something serious being lost when at twenty five you have
22:46
Speaker 1: all of these goals that are non negotiable, and kids
22:50
Speaker 1: are the negotiation. Kids are the like, oh yeah, to
22:53
Speaker 1: toss that one out. Yeah, I think it's very sad
22:57
Speaker 1: for them because I think there are real affordable the issues,
23:00
Speaker 1: the part with the childcare and healthcare, like those are
23:02
Speaker 1: two things that you can really wrestle with and say like, well,
23:06
Speaker 1: how are we going to manage this?
23:08
Speaker 3: Right?
23:08
Speaker 1: Yea, if we have our two incomes, I get that.
23:11
Speaker 1: But the thing where you can never imagine this happening.
23:15
Speaker 1: And also, by the way, a lot of the coverage
23:18
Speaker 1: in media of how much quote costs do you have
23:20
Speaker 1: a child is not true. It's yeah, you don't have
23:25
Speaker 1: to live the way that they are pricing this stuff right.
23:29
Speaker 2: Right absolutely, and every kid gets, you know, less expensive.
23:35
Speaker 2: It's like the first kid with all the stuff that's
23:37
Speaker 2: the most expensive kid, and then each one gets less expensive.
23:41
Speaker 2: Jilli Philipovic posted this story and said, I think an
23:45
Speaker 2: underappreciated part of the birth rate discourse is that many
23:47
Speaker 2: more young people simply have richer and more textured lives
23:51
Speaker 2: than young people in previous generations. Hobbies, travel, meaningful jobs,
23:55
Speaker 2: deep friendships. Children present more possible disruption than they did
23:58
Speaker 2: a generation or two ago. No, no, they know these people.
24:03
Speaker 2: All of the comments are like, I have not met
24:05
Speaker 2: any young people with richard more textured lives than people
24:09
Speaker 2: had a generation ago. We're all staring at our phones.
24:14
Speaker 2: It's crazy to even imagine that we have that. The
24:18
Speaker 2: young people today have richer lives than a generation ago.
24:21
Speaker 2: It just doesn't make any sense.
24:23
Speaker 1: Ben Sas, who gave a great interview you should watch
24:26
Speaker 1: the whole thing to sixty minutes, was asked about this,
24:30
Speaker 1: and he mentioned the phone thing as well. But here's
24:32
Speaker 1: what he had to say about the birth rate issue.
24:34
Speaker 3: All across the industrialized rich world, people have just stopped
24:39
Speaker 3: having babies in the last couple of decades. We're at
24:42
Speaker 3: replacement rate birth rates nowhere in the industrialized world except
24:47
Speaker 3: Mormons and Jewish populations in Israel and in some parts
24:51
Speaker 3: of the US. Except for those two categories, every other
24:55
Speaker 3: industrialized nation has stopped having babies. That is super weird.
25:00
Speaker 3: Stopped having sex, sex has collapsed demographically, premarital, extramarital, marital.
25:07
Speaker 3: It is very weird. I don't have a phone on me,
25:10
Speaker 3: but that we carry around these super devices in our
25:12
Speaker 3: pockets that have distracted us from some of the most
25:15
Speaker 3: fundamental human activities and aspirations. Having a baby is a
25:20
Speaker 3: bet on the future and almost everywhere in the world,
25:24
Speaker 3: and the world is richer and richer and richer statistically
25:26
Speaker 3: than it's ever been. People have decided, Eh, actually babies
25:29
Speaker 3: are kind of an inconvenience. Babies have always been an
25:32
Speaker 3: inconvenience and the most glorious thing you can do to
25:35
Speaker 3: enrich your family, and to make a bet on the future.
25:38
Speaker 3: How weird that we've stopped having sex, we've stopped making babies.
25:41
Speaker 3: We've decided that being distracted by a dopamine hit around
25:46
Speaker 3: candy crush might be a good way to spend your time,
25:49
Speaker 3: not if you're a full human.
25:52
Speaker 2: He's absolutely right. And a guy on X who works
25:56
Speaker 2: at the American Humanist Association it's a voice for the nonos,
26:00
Speaker 2: said all right, Ben Sas, let's make a bet. Let's
26:03
Speaker 2: divide the US and half. I'll let you pick which half.
26:05
Speaker 2: In your half you ban candy Crush. In my half,
26:08
Speaker 2: we institute sixteen weeks of paid parental leave, universal childcare,
26:12
Speaker 2: and restore child tax credit. Let's see who has more babies.
26:16
Speaker 2: But we have this already in Europe and they're not
26:20
Speaker 2: having more babies.
26:21
Speaker 1: That is a really important point. If you are a
26:23
Speaker 1: champion of these policies, you should check whether they have
26:26
Speaker 1: worked in the other countries. And unfortunately they look I
26:30
Speaker 1: say unfortunately, because I want more babies, like we do
26:32
Speaker 1: have a birthry problems or babies. I would be listening
26:34
Speaker 1: even if I don't ideologically love the ideas. I would
26:37
Speaker 1: be listening for ones that work. These do not work,
26:41
Speaker 1: and even lefty proponents of them have had to admit
26:44
Speaker 1: that I would wager that maybe the candy crush thing
26:46
Speaker 1: would work better, and he would lose that bet. But
26:50
Speaker 1: one of the things is I think a lot of
26:52
Speaker 1: the discussion here is just and put Philip Poage's tweet
26:56
Speaker 1: points at it is just like I have a lot
26:57
Speaker 1: more fun things to do than raising kids, and I
27:01
Speaker 1: it is my mission every day to communicate to people
27:04
Speaker 1: that it is so fun you can.
27:06
Speaker 2: Also do fun things with kids. I also just don't
27:10
Speaker 2: believe these people are doing fun things. I don't even
27:12
Speaker 2: are mostly sitting at home on their phones. I actually
27:15
Speaker 2: don't believe they're living richer lives or they travel all
27:19
Speaker 2: the time, and like, yeah, some people on like Instagram do,
27:22
Speaker 2: but the great majority are not.
27:24
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that there is always a uh
27:28
Speaker 1: an impediment when you know something's going to be a
27:31
Speaker 1: lot of work and you don't understand the reward. And
27:34
Speaker 1: I think people used to understand the reward without without
27:38
Speaker 1: really needing to be told, and now we have sort
27:41
Speaker 1: of disrupted that evolutionary important message, which is that this
27:46
Speaker 1: is incredibly rewarding, like the most magical thing I've ever
27:49
Speaker 1: done in my life. And people don't understand that they
27:54
Speaker 1: and they can't understand it in some cases until they
27:56
Speaker 1: have kids, and so they're like, ah, but that seems
27:58
Speaker 1: like a lot of work, but things are really good.
28:01
Speaker 1: That's a such a huge part of life. Is that
28:05
Speaker 1: going through hard stuff and working hard for things you
28:08
Speaker 1: believe in, and you'll never believe anything any more than
28:10
Speaker 1: your children. It's really rewarding and feels great.
28:14
Speaker 2: Yeah. Another couple in that same story, this is just
28:18
Speaker 2: and at home. Their expenses are already significant. The couple
28:22
Speaker 2: share a one bedroom apartment in Manhattan that costs around
28:25
Speaker 2: five thousand dollars a month one bedroom, and rent in
28:28
Speaker 2: their building has only increased. They also care for a
28:31
Speaker 2: poodle they adopted last year, paying up to six hundred
28:34
Speaker 2: dollars each month for doggy daycare while they are at work.
28:39
Speaker 2: What Jordan Chamberlain at the Manhattan Institute tweets about this
28:43
Speaker 2: expenses five thousand a month luxury apartment in Manhattan, six
28:46
Speaker 2: hundred dollars a month doggy daycare for my poodle. Please
28:49
Speaker 2: help me budget this. My family is dying. What are
28:54
Speaker 2: you spending your money on?
28:55
Speaker 1: I mean this is like the door dash stuff.
28:57
Speaker 3: Right.
28:57
Speaker 1: You find out somebody's spending ten thousand dollars a year
29:00
Speaker 1: on door dash and she makes fifty K. It's a.
29:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can't afford this.
29:05
Speaker 1: Some serious information has has not been transmitted to you
29:10
Speaker 1: about how to do business. And yeah, it's like I
29:13
Speaker 1: just want to do what I want to do and
29:15
Speaker 1: there won't be any cost to structuring it this way,
29:18
Speaker 1: And in fact, you're losing out on the big stuff.
29:21
Speaker 2: I mean, five hundred dollars five thousand dollars a month
29:24
Speaker 2: for a one bedroom apartment, even in Manhattan is excessive. Like,
29:29
Speaker 2: you can get a much cheaper one bedroom apartment, You
29:32
Speaker 2: can get a two bedroom apartment. You can have a child.
29:35
Speaker 1: I'm quite certain you could get a cheaper doggy daycare too,
29:39
Speaker 1: or maybe.
29:39
Speaker 2: Leave the dog at home.
29:42
Speaker 1: Am I crazy?
29:43
Speaker 2: Or do dogs not go to daycare? I've never had
29:45
Speaker 2: a pet.
29:47
Speaker 1: Some of them do, but like I think I think
29:50
Speaker 1: we we did for a while. We would take Scout
29:53
Speaker 1: every now and then to, like you know, play with friends,
29:56
Speaker 1: and especially during Covid. They had a nice discount and
30:01
Speaker 1: and like it's like thirty bucks a day.
30:03
Speaker 2: It was like not, it wasn't for a month maybe
30:06
Speaker 2: not even that.
30:07
Speaker 1: And we didn't do it all the time. So it's
30:08
Speaker 1: like it can be a reasonable expense or it can
30:12
Speaker 1: be an unreasonable expense.
30:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems sort of unreasonable.
30:17
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, Yeah, I worry that then that
30:21
Speaker 1: Ben Sas is correct. Ben SaaS, of course, with a
30:24
Speaker 1: terminal cancer diagnosis, who has a lot of time to
30:27
Speaker 1: think about what really matters in life, and he's doing
30:29
Speaker 1: a great job of communicating that to everyone, and I
30:31
Speaker 1: hope people are listening.
30:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, thanks for joining us on normally normally eers
30:36
Speaker 2: Tuesdays and Thursdays, and you can subscribe anywhere you get
30:38
Speaker 2: your podcasts. Get in touch with us at normallythepod at
30:42
Speaker 2: gmail dot com. Thanks for listening, and when things get weird,
30:45
Speaker 2: act normally