Latest / Normally / Normally Podcast: How Will We Ever Escape the Bathrooms at Yosemite?

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Normally Podcast: How Will We Ever Escape the Bathrooms at Yosemite? · Normally

0:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, welcome to what normally the show with normalish takes
0:07
Speaker 1: for when the news gets weird.
0:08
Speaker 2: I am Mary Catherine Ham and.
0:10
Speaker 3: I'm Carol Marcowitz him. Mary Catherine, how's it going.
0:13
Speaker 1: It's going okay. I'm excited to come see you later
0:15
Speaker 1: this week on a little now to sunny Florida, which
0:19
Speaker 1: means I feel like I should get a tan or
0:21
Speaker 1: something to make yes.
0:24
Speaker 2: Get here there. No, that's not gonna happen.
0:26
Speaker 3: No, No, we're gonna definitely lay out in the sun
0:29
Speaker 3: I mean sunscreened. You know, if anybody listening, we're very safe,
0:32
Speaker 3: but you we're gonna be in the sunshine. It's gonna
0:35
Speaker 3: be great. It's supposed to be a really nice week.
0:36
Speaker 3: I mean there's some chilli morning, so bring a sweatshirt.
0:39
Speaker 3: It's going to be like in the or low sixties.
0:42
Speaker 2: I think they'll be okay with that, but.
0:46
Speaker 3: Yes, it's gonna be great. We also got some good
0:49
Speaker 3: news last week about our podcast numbers, and we had
0:54
Speaker 3: almost one point one million downloads in our very first
0:57
Speaker 3: quarter of existence. So it's been very exciting and we're
1:00
Speaker 3: very happy. You know, we're obviously getting the numbers all along,
1:03
Speaker 3: but to see them all put together because I was
1:05
Speaker 3: told there'd be no math.
1:07
Speaker 4: It was good.
1:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, we don't.
1:09
Speaker 1: We don't do spreadsheets. We just wait for someone to
1:11
Speaker 1: send us an email. But we appreciate all of our listeners.
1:15
Speaker 1: We knew, we know that the normies are legion and
1:18
Speaker 1: that they tune in to hear things that are normal.
1:22
Speaker 2: So we love it.
1:23
Speaker 3: We love you guys, Thank you for listening. Well, what
1:26
Speaker 3: do we have for the normies this week?
1:29
Speaker 1: Well, as you know, the news is weird.
1:33
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:34
Speaker 1: Elon Musk, still running the DOGE operations, showed up at
1:38
Speaker 1: Seapack with his which is the annual gathering of all
1:42
Speaker 1: stripes of conservative groups and activists. He met up with
1:45
Speaker 1: Javier Malay, the famously cutting government head of Argentina, who
1:52
Speaker 1: gifted him a chainsaw to cut through love it literally,
1:57
Speaker 1: not metaphorically, all the things that dog is cutting through.
2:01
Speaker 1: Elon of course very theatrical about this. Meanwhile, the legal
2:04
Speaker 1: fight continues behind the scenes about what Elon Musk or
2:09
Speaker 1: DOGE can and cannot do. As I mentioned, a federal
2:12
Speaker 1: judge said, yeah, they can actually go ahead with having
2:15
Speaker 1: access to things, and another federal judge was like, yeah,
2:18
Speaker 1: I think they can also do personnel decisions, which.
2:23
Speaker 3: But you'd think was the standard until the Republican gets elected.
2:28
Speaker 1: Obviously, Well, yes, there is a part of this where
2:31
Speaker 1: like the executive branch is in charge of the executive branch,
2:34
Speaker 1: the executive is the head of that right.
2:36
Speaker 4: Right, controversial that statement, no, And.
2:40
Speaker 1: I will say a long way as we keep saying,
2:42
Speaker 1: there is a there can be a price to moving
2:44
Speaker 1: fast and breaking stuff or as the tech people often say,
2:47
Speaker 1: fail fast, right, And some of that has happened. There
2:50
Speaker 1: were some people let go at Energy who were important
2:54
Speaker 1: and Chris Wright brought them back immediately. In the National
2:58
Speaker 1: Park Service, there were cuts that would not allow for
3:02
Speaker 1: seasonal workers, which they really need for summer, and so
3:04
Speaker 1: they added back some of those. There have been probationary
3:08
Speaker 1: employees or people marked his probationary who weren't who lost jobs,
3:12
Speaker 1: who were then reinstated. However, a lot of this, like
3:16
Speaker 1: when people say you can't get rid of probationary federal employees,
3:22
Speaker 1: that's the definition of probation why not, right, So a
3:27
Speaker 1: lot of these arguments again sort of run cold for
3:31
Speaker 1: me because regular workers in regular jobs deal with these
3:36
Speaker 1: things frequently.
3:38
Speaker 4: Right.
3:38
Speaker 3: The most I was going to say, what about the
3:42
Speaker 3: guy that has the keys to the bathroom at Yosemite?
3:45
Speaker 4: Mary Catherine tell us about him.
3:47
Speaker 1: So this was the big story last week, and Yosemite
3:50
Speaker 1: workers have since staged a giant protest where they put
3:54
Speaker 1: an upside down American flags signaling their distress at the
3:59
Speaker 1: top of L. Cappy Tan, which is the big sheer
4:02
Speaker 1: face at Yosemite National Park. So one of the stories
4:06
Speaker 1: I believe was Washington Post, who dug this one up,
4:08
Speaker 1: was you know, they fired the only guy at Yosemite
4:12
Speaker 1: who can get people out of the bathrooms there if
4:15
Speaker 1: they're locked in because.
4:17
Speaker 3: They have only one set of keys, Mary Catherine, what
4:19
Speaker 3: are they supposed to do?
4:21
Speaker 1: This is to me like the idea that that's your
4:24
Speaker 1: argument says to me, like out loud, you have been
4:28
Speaker 1: doing things in a very stupid way, and we have
4:31
Speaker 1: now revealed that you're doing things in a very stupid way.
4:34
Speaker 1: How many tourists are getting stuck in bathrooms at Yosemite
4:37
Speaker 1: to begin with, I don't understand. And then they do
4:41
Speaker 1: this elaborate protest because one thousand National Park Service workers
4:46
Speaker 1: were laid off, and some of them came from Yosemite.
4:51
Speaker 1: I did some looking just to see what the National
4:54
Speaker 1: Park Service in Yosemite were like during COVID, during which
4:59
Speaker 1: time no no one put up a fight about anything
5:02
Speaker 1: being important. Reservations were required well, of course, everything was
5:07
Speaker 1: closed for three to four months completely, even though it
5:10
Speaker 1: was outdoors. Reservations were required after that point they were
5:13
Speaker 1: very limited, sometimes putting people in lines for like camping
5:17
Speaker 1: at three am to try and get in. There were
5:20
Speaker 1: no shuttles, there was no public transportation. There was no
5:25
Speaker 1: indoor dining in twenty twenty and sometimes into twenty twenty one.
5:29
Speaker 1: There were no tours anywhere in the park. There were
5:32
Speaker 1: no visitor centers. Everything was masked even in twenty twenty
5:37
Speaker 1: one doors and indoors. There were six hundred and thirteen
5:42
Speaker 1: rooms open in twenty twenty for visitors, one thousand in
5:46
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, with no housekeeping. So when they tell
5:50
Speaker 1: you that they need to keep all the things clean,
5:53
Speaker 1: they didn't in twenty twenty and twenty twenty one. And
5:57
Speaker 1: then there's a bunch of other activity in the parks
6:00
Speaker 1: that were completely shut down twenty twenty one twenty twenty two.
6:05
Speaker 1: So when they tell you we can't possibly do this,
6:09
Speaker 1: you're obstructing all of these important services.
6:13
Speaker 2: No one cared about that right for two years.
6:16
Speaker 1: And you want to take a guess, Carol, whether their
6:18
Speaker 1: budget went up in real and inflation of adjusted dollars
6:21
Speaker 1: or down.
6:23
Speaker 4: I'm going to go with up.
6:24
Speaker 5: It went up.
6:25
Speaker 2: It went up, Carol.
6:27
Speaker 1: So I just again, this is the baseline problem. If
6:31
Speaker 1: people's experience with the National parks, which they genuinely love.
6:34
Speaker 1: I love them, They're my favorite part of the federal government. Yeah,
6:38
Speaker 1: but if your baseline service is that two of thirteen
6:42
Speaker 1: campsites were open for two years and you had to
6:45
Speaker 1: wait in giant lines, then your expectations now when people
6:51
Speaker 1: start cutting are like, I don't know, I didn't feel
6:53
Speaker 1: like I was getting that good service to begin with.
6:55
Speaker 4: That's right, Yeah, that's the whole thing. And where was
6:58
Speaker 4: the bathroom guy?
6:59
Speaker 3: Then? Did the guy have to get a lot of
7:02
Speaker 3: people stuck in bathrooms during COVID.
7:05
Speaker 2: Or were they all? Okay?
7:07
Speaker 3: All of this obviously is not playing that great to
7:11
Speaker 3: the American people. They see that it's just basically a boondoggle.
7:16
Speaker 3: So many of our services make no sense and are
7:18
Speaker 3: so expensive, and the crisis keep going up, and what
7:22
Speaker 3: do Americans get for it? One of my favorite X accounts,
7:25
Speaker 3: Jarvis Best hosted. When I first heard about Elon what
7:29
Speaker 3: have you accomplished?
7:30
Speaker 4: Email?
7:31
Speaker 3: I was like, whatever, that's dumb. But the screaming, crying, cursing, shaking,
7:35
Speaker 3: throwing up, leaping from the top story of the federal
7:37
Speaker 3: building onto the pavement reaction to it has totally changed
7:41
Speaker 3: my mind. And we're actually going to get into the
7:44
Speaker 3: the Elon email. Yes, yeah, so Elon has requested that
7:50
Speaker 3: everybody send an email with five things that.
7:54
Speaker 4: They did last week at their jobs.
7:57
Speaker 3: Not crazy, maybe a little bit infantile. I could see
8:01
Speaker 3: where people might not enjoy having to do that, But
8:05
Speaker 3: the reaction to this has been nothing but hysteria. People
8:09
Speaker 3: are losing their minds because they have to say what
8:12
Speaker 3: they did at their job last week.
8:15
Speaker 1: Well, so a couple things. It is a little crazy
8:18
Speaker 1: that went out on a Saturday night. It's like hit
8:21
Speaker 1: me up, like hit me up on Monday morning or whatever.
8:24
Speaker 1: I know that Elon works all the hours, but not
8:27
Speaker 1: necessarily other people do. The ask is fairly simple, right,
8:32
Speaker 1: and there's some question as to whether he's smoking out
8:35
Speaker 1: people who do not check their emails, who are allegedly
8:38
Speaker 1: government employees. On the other hand, can I say about
8:42
Speaker 1: this one? You just confirmed a bunch of agency heads
8:47
Speaker 1: who you trust, right right, Have them talk to their
8:52
Speaker 1: people about this, right?
8:54
Speaker 3: Well, they're already facing this where cash Ptel sent a
8:57
Speaker 3: memo to at the fba I employees saying like, only
9:02
Speaker 3: report to me and I will report to the federal government.
9:05
Speaker 3: So there's already some pushback here, and I don't know.
9:10
Speaker 4: I get it, though. What do you do all day
9:14
Speaker 4: is not a crazy question to ask our federal employees.
9:17
Speaker 3: I think they should have to answer it, whether through
9:19
Speaker 3: their superior or directly.
9:22
Speaker 4: I don't think it's a big deal.
9:24
Speaker 3: I've had to do it at various jobs in my past,
9:27
Speaker 3: where I had to say what I've been working on,
9:30
Speaker 3: and you know, often it's like how could we coordinate better?
9:33
Speaker 4: How could we help each other? How could our work
9:35
Speaker 4: be complementary?
9:37
Speaker 3: All of that is okay, And I think that the
9:39
Speaker 3: reaction is just so hysterical that the American people are
9:45
Speaker 3: going to continue to push for Elon to do the
9:47
Speaker 3: sort of thing in the future. It's going to backfire
9:50
Speaker 3: on the hysterics.
9:52
Speaker 1: Well, there's an American Federation of Government Employees, which is
9:55
Speaker 1: a public employee union which bargains effectively against all of
9:59
Speaker 1: us to use our money for various things. Tweeted it
10:03
Speaker 1: is cruel and disrespectful for federal employees to be forced
10:07
Speaker 1: to justify their job duties to this out of touch, privileged,
10:11
Speaker 1: unelected billionaire who has never performed one single hour of
10:14
Speaker 1: honest public service in his life. Okay, I guess he
10:19
Speaker 1: hasn't worked for the government before, but he does work very,
10:24
Speaker 1: very hard. That's one of the things about Elon Musk
10:26
Speaker 1: you can say, is like, even when his asks are unreasonable,
10:29
Speaker 1: he's actually doing the thing, so it's harder to be
10:33
Speaker 1: mad at him. Because a manager who is sleeping on
10:36
Speaker 1: a cot and doing the work all the time is
10:38
Speaker 1: a kind of person that you kind of have to
10:40
Speaker 1: stay up to meet his expectations. It is worlds different
10:45
Speaker 1: from a federal government expectation. But the idea that just
10:50
Speaker 1: like saying what you do, or being asked questions about
10:54
Speaker 1: what you do, or someone investigating what different departments do
10:59
Speaker 1: or what different grants go to is inherently bad. No,
11:05
Speaker 1: no reject Why.
11:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, I have to admit that I'm surprised at how
11:10
Speaker 3: this is all going.
11:11
Speaker 4: I thought they would.
11:12
Speaker 3: Run into a lot more roadblocks than they have. I
11:15
Speaker 3: thought that the federal government was just impossible to cut.
11:19
Speaker 4: I really did. I thought it was so entrenched that
11:22
Speaker 4: it was just never going to happen.
11:23
Speaker 3: I mean, you hear this all the time from career
11:26
Speaker 3: kind of bureaucrats, where even if they want to change something,
11:30
Speaker 3: it's impossible, not possible, can't do it. A change takes years,
11:35
Speaker 3: and even then then the head person changes and nothing
11:40
Speaker 3: ever gets done. So I thought he was going to
11:42
Speaker 3: hit a wall with this. So I'm pleasantly surprised. And
11:46
Speaker 3: I know there's possibility for good people to get fired,
11:49
Speaker 3: and I really hope that that doesn't happen, and if
11:51
Speaker 3: it does happen, I hope they fix it very quickly.
11:54
Speaker 4: And all of that.
11:55
Speaker 3: But this has been eye opening to me how much
12:00
Speaker 3: there is, how much possibility there is to fix things.
12:05
Speaker 4: I'm impressed.
12:06
Speaker 1: Well, and I think, again, this is the fail fast mantra,
12:10
Speaker 1: which is like, yeah, you do kind of blow through
12:13
Speaker 1: this process and then you learn as you go that
12:18
Speaker 1: is a very different way of doing business and it
12:20
Speaker 1: does have effects on people's lives.
12:22
Speaker 2: But here was the tell, and I hate.
12:24
Speaker 1: To be just always go back to COVID it was
12:27
Speaker 1: such a tell that the government can't do changes.
12:31
Speaker 2: They changed everything.
12:34
Speaker 5: Yep, they changed the way they did everything in a
12:38
Speaker 5: space of two months because someone decided to be just
12:41
Speaker 5: authoritarian enough to be like, y'all can't go to restaurants.
12:46
Speaker 4: But you know what the difference is, federal employees continued.
12:48
Speaker 2: To get paid.
12:49
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's the difference.
12:50
Speaker 3: The difference is it was private enterprise that suffered. It
12:54
Speaker 3: was people who worked outside the federal government that suffered.
12:58
Speaker 3: And who cares about those people? Mary Catherine And well,
13:00
Speaker 3: I know not just.
13:02
Speaker 1: Just as the press doesn't care about regular people's free
13:05
Speaker 1: free speech but deeply cares about their own. It's exactly similar,
13:09
Speaker 1: similar setup.
13:10
Speaker 2: But no, I do think.
13:11
Speaker 1: Look, it's as I said, he's going they're going to
13:14
Speaker 1: test the limits of what they can do with the
13:16
Speaker 1: civil service. But as again, the baseline problem is the
13:19
Speaker 1: idea that the career officials were not political is incorrect.
13:26
Speaker 1: And also the idea that you can't get rid of
13:29
Speaker 1: politicals is just a nonsense story. Right, Political appointees go
13:34
Speaker 1: in and out and should go in and out every
13:36
Speaker 1: single time. By the way, I saw I Washington Post
13:38
Speaker 1: report that seemed I think it was Russian posts seemed
13:41
Speaker 1: very breathless about the fact that Pete Hegseth Over at
13:44
Speaker 1: Secretary of Defense wanted to pick a new assistant, which
13:50
Speaker 1: seems like how Dare's prerogative.
13:52
Speaker 3: Yeah right, but it's all like this, right, it's all
13:56
Speaker 3: this insane reaction and overreaction.
14:00
Speaker 4: I just I can't see it working and not this time.
14:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it does feel like a new era.
14:08
Speaker 1: And also like, you know, be a little careful guys
14:11
Speaker 1: with what's especially the important people. Ever, at Energy that
14:15
Speaker 1: seemed like a do was a misfire.
14:17
Speaker 4: For sure, We'll be right back on normally.
14:23
Speaker 3: Cash Battel was confirmed as head of the FBI and
14:27
Speaker 3: over the weekend, and now over the weekend, Dan Bongino
14:32
Speaker 3: is going to be Cash's deputy and that doesn't require
14:34
Speaker 3: a confirmation. The overreaction to Dan Bongino over the last
14:39
Speaker 3: two days has been really something to watch.
14:43
Speaker 4: I know, Dan, he is a fantastic person.
14:46
Speaker 3: He was previously NYPD, he was previously Secret Service. He's
14:51
Speaker 3: been just just a stellar person in these fields. He
14:56
Speaker 3: did really fantastic work. He's been considered for other positions
15:00
Speaker 3: in the past. I get that he doesn't have specifically
15:03
Speaker 3: FBI experience, but he has a lot of other law
15:06
Speaker 3: enforcement experience that I think lends itself.
15:08
Speaker 4: To this role. The overreaction to him has been a
15:12
Speaker 4: bit much.
15:13
Speaker 1: Well yeah, I mean I think it's because the read
15:16
Speaker 1: on him, well on Cash too, But Cash came from
15:20
Speaker 1: excuse me, I should say FBI director Ptel, The Cash
15:24
Speaker 1: Hotel came from within the ranks. He was an investigator.
15:28
Speaker 1: He has a lot of experience doing the thing that
15:30
Speaker 1: these guys do. Bongino is certainly, in his later years,
15:34
Speaker 1: more of a commentator, not a guy who's.
15:37
Speaker 2: Who's doing law enforcement. But he was Secret Service.
15:39
Speaker 1: As you said, NYPD, I'm surprised he didn't end up
15:42
Speaker 1: a Secret Service. But Trump picked his detail guy to
15:47
Speaker 1: go over there, someone who he trusts very deeply. I
15:51
Speaker 1: think for a lot of people, the lineup of well,
15:53
Speaker 1: his personal detail guy going to Secret Service, Cash Betel
15:57
Speaker 1: ending up at FBI with Bengino behind him is more
16:02
Speaker 1: They see it as loyalty over skills. But like you said,
16:05
Speaker 1: Mangino has part of these skills, and I think like
16:08
Speaker 1: part of this is openly the reality TV presidency and
16:13
Speaker 1: commentators are going to end up in these positions. Grants
16:16
Speaker 1: and this is like the deputy, it's not the head
16:18
Speaker 1: of the FBI. So he's definitely someone who has plenty
16:24
Speaker 1: of paper trail about things he's said about the FBI
16:27
Speaker 1: and how he would deal with.
16:29
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, that's it doesn't.
16:31
Speaker 2: Requires affirmation as you note.
16:32
Speaker 4: Right, yeah, you know the other thing.
16:34
Speaker 3: And look, this definitely is part of my immigranty kind
16:39
Speaker 3: of background. But I don't get why people pass on
16:43
Speaker 3: their multi million dollar, amazing careers.
16:47
Speaker 2: To go into public state to the government.
16:48
Speaker 3: It's such a mystery to me. Like Dan Ngino is
16:51
Speaker 3: wildly successful. He does not need this in his life,
16:55
Speaker 3: and yet he's doing it. It's really it's amazing and
16:58
Speaker 3: impressive and kind of surprising to.
17:01
Speaker 2: Me, Like what does that?
17:03
Speaker 1: And I think he they're truly signaling over and over again.
17:06
Speaker 1: By the way, this is another Overton window move where like, oh,
17:09
Speaker 1: you thought you were worried about Cash Ptel, here's Dan Bongino.
17:15
Speaker 1: Now I do think again. I want Elon and Trump
17:22
Speaker 1: to trust the people they've put in charge and to
17:25
Speaker 1: not undercut them and like let cash Betel go and
17:28
Speaker 1: do his job, right. I think that's probably the best
17:31
Speaker 1: way to do things. And Patel got right to work,
17:35
Speaker 1: telling headquarters that they were moving like a thousand jobs,
17:40
Speaker 1: maybe five hundred jobs to Alabama because there's another FBI
17:43
Speaker 1: facility in Alabama, eliminating a lot of those headquarters jobs. Headquarters,
17:49
Speaker 1: by the way, as opposed to field agents, is where
17:52
Speaker 1: a lot of the politicization comes from, right, And a
17:56
Speaker 1: lot of the headquarters folks are in town temporarily, their
18:00
Speaker 1: lodging is paid for, their per dems are paid for.
18:04
Speaker 1: We are spending a lot of money on having people
18:07
Speaker 1: work at headquarters. So they were just like, now we're
18:09
Speaker 1: going to lop some of that off, and I think
18:11
Speaker 1: a lot of that was probably the right move. Yeah,
18:15
Speaker 1: they are signaling very hard. It's going to be a
18:17
Speaker 1: very different FBI.
18:18
Speaker 4: It is going to be a very different FBI, which
18:20
Speaker 4: is not a bad thing.
18:21
Speaker 1: Oh and by the way, so many the people those
18:23
Speaker 1: moved from headquarters moved to places that like have high
18:26
Speaker 1: crime right like parts of the country and offices where
18:31
Speaker 1: they need to be solving crimes as opposed to doing.
18:35
Speaker 2: Whatever it was. Peter Struck and Lisa Page were.
18:37
Speaker 4: Doing a nice callback.
18:38
Speaker 1: Yes. Yeah, by the way, just like something that sticks
18:42
Speaker 1: in micra, those two got to payout, yeah, for their
18:47
Speaker 1: texts being revealed for violating their privacy on their work
18:52
Speaker 1: phones that we pay for.
18:53
Speaker 4: Oh god, yeah, I mean, this is it.
18:55
Speaker 3: This is the federal government lifelong job, you know at
19:00
Speaker 3: and this is what I think Americans see and say,
19:03
Speaker 3: I don't understand why this exists, and I don't.
19:05
Speaker 4: Feel sorry for you when you lose your job in
19:07
Speaker 4: this manner.
19:08
Speaker 2: Well, and again, the juxtaposition of.
19:12
Speaker 1: Victims, particularly in western North Carolina, but other places as well,
19:17
Speaker 1: not getting coverage. Yeah, and then every journalist being on
19:21
Speaker 1: top of every single lost job in the federal government,
19:26
Speaker 1: I think it's just a very bad look and not
19:28
Speaker 1: a good argument for people who have gone through a
19:30
Speaker 1: lot over the past five years.
19:32
Speaker 4: That's right, it's galling.
19:34
Speaker 3: Actually, Yeah, the journalists being all over this and not
19:38
Speaker 3: on any other story that affects everyday Americans is really inappropriate.
19:43
Speaker 3: We're going to take a short break and come right
19:45
Speaker 3: back with normally.
19:50
Speaker 1: All right. On the pop culture front, we have a
19:52
Speaker 1: little bit of a controverts situation. The Bachelor and Bachelorette franchise,
19:57
Speaker 1: which is twenty plus years old and has been a
19:59
Speaker 1: mainstay of reality television and American pop culture for years,
20:04
Speaker 1: has hit a bump in the road. Yeah, it is
20:06
Speaker 1: on hiatus now. The Bachelor just like turns out several
20:10
Speaker 1: seasons per year of The Bachelor and the Bachelorette, and
20:12
Speaker 1: they all like, they're all Instagram influencers at this point,
20:15
Speaker 1: and they have their own little family and they get
20:17
Speaker 1: together and have parties, perhaps no more at least.
20:20
Speaker 2: In the interim, and there's a bunch of.
20:24
Speaker 1: Rumors flying about why this is the case. The Bachelorette
20:27
Speaker 1: and the Bachelor universe accounts for seven hundred episodes of
20:30
Speaker 1: TV since two thousand and two. In this latest excuse me,
20:35
Speaker 1: latest season, ratings were way down. But they've been going
20:41
Speaker 1: way down for quite some time, right, and I want
20:44
Speaker 1: to revisit when they started going down. Okay, let's do it,
20:50
Speaker 1: Chris Harrison, because my theory is there's another reason why
20:53
Speaker 1: the Bachelor and Bachelorette are failing. Yeah, Chris Harrison was
20:56
Speaker 1: the host of the Bachelor and Bachelorette franchise for you years.
21:01
Speaker 1: And in June twenty twenty one, when we were all crazy,
21:05
Speaker 1: everybody was crazy, when.
21:06
Speaker 2: Everyone was crazy time twenty and twenty twenty one.
21:10
Speaker 1: They had a season that had an African American bachelor
21:13
Speaker 1: on and then he had his bevy of ladies from
21:17
Speaker 1: which he could choose one of the ladies. Rachel Kirconnell
21:22
Speaker 1: had been pictured in a hoopskirt at in like a
21:27
Speaker 1: sorority event when she was seventeen or eighteen years old.
21:30
Speaker 1: I think she was eighteen years old at her freshman
21:33
Speaker 1: year of college at a southern college where they had
21:35
Speaker 1: done some themed barbecue and when everyone got as mad
21:41
Speaker 1: as possible?
21:42
Speaker 4: Is that the whole scandal?
21:43
Speaker 2: That that's the scandal.
21:44
Speaker 3: Wait, I thought it was gonna be like on a
21:46
Speaker 3: plantation as she re enacted now like slry.
21:50
Speaker 2: I mean, no, she wore a hoopskirt.
21:54
Speaker 4: That's the scandal.
21:55
Speaker 2: That was the scandal.
21:57
Speaker 1: I am confirming. Yes, adult she was in an antebellum
22:02
Speaker 1: outfit at some at some fraternity's event, Kappa Alpha event
22:09
Speaker 1: that was criticized as racist because of these costumes. And
22:14
Speaker 1: it was in Georgia, right, This is clearly a throwback
22:16
Speaker 1: to an antebellum time. Like, Okay, there's baggage here, but
22:22
Speaker 1: that was the extent of it. She wasn't like holding
22:25
Speaker 1: a racist sign. She wasn't on video saying racist things.
22:29
Speaker 1: She wasn't wearing black face there was any rate. It
22:32
Speaker 1: became a very huge deal. And then Chris Harrison had
22:36
Speaker 1: an interview with a former bachelorette, also African American woman,
22:43
Speaker 1: and in that interview he said, maybe we shouldn't cancel
22:47
Speaker 1: Rachel So so hard for this thing that happened when
22:51
Speaker 1: she was eighteen and she's in the picture.
22:54
Speaker 2: Chris Harrison was let go.
22:56
Speaker 1: From The Bachelor, Yes, for suggesting that you should not
23:01
Speaker 1: cancel Rachel So so hard for this thing that she
23:04
Speaker 1: did when she was eighteen, right, and that like Rachel's one.
23:09
Speaker 2: Thing, right.
23:10
Speaker 3: That's the thing about that whole crazy time period. It
23:13
Speaker 3: was bad enough that people were being canceled for dumb shit.
23:16
Speaker 3: It was like people who defended them would also get canceled. Ye,
23:20
Speaker 3: this was a secondary association.
23:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a secondary cancelation of Chris Harrison because
23:26
Speaker 1: he refused to say that she should burn in hell
23:29
Speaker 1: for having done this, Like he just it was like,
23:32
Speaker 1: maybe we should just like not and so he got
23:36
Speaker 1: let go from this show. He's like living in a
23:40
Speaker 1: mansion with a swimming pool full of cash, Like it's
23:43
Speaker 1: not a problem for Chris Harrison. I think it was
23:46
Speaker 1: a problem for the Bachelor. Yeah, they've tried several times
23:50
Speaker 1: to replace him as host as much as like we
23:53
Speaker 1: want to be like The Bachelor's dumb, and how hard
23:55
Speaker 1: is this job? The job is actually hard to do
23:58
Speaker 1: TV in this weird a motive way and connect with
24:01
Speaker 1: all these people and be someone people want to watch.
24:05
Speaker 1: And I think there was some pent up annoyance, right
24:08
Speaker 1: that he was let go. Now nobody wanted to be
24:10
Speaker 1: canceled by defending him.
24:12
Speaker 2: Of course you can have.
24:13
Speaker 3: You can't defend the guy who got canceled for defending
24:16
Speaker 3: the first person just.
24:18
Speaker 4: To be it would do that.
24:19
Speaker 1: It's a domino theory, right, you don't want to be
24:21
Speaker 1: part of that.
24:22
Speaker 2: But I think there's annoyance.
24:24
Speaker 1: I think that they took away part of the brand
24:26
Speaker 1: that was very important and essentially went woke and broke,
24:30
Speaker 1: because I know in my friend circles, I had at
24:34
Speaker 1: least two or three girl groups who would get together
24:37
Speaker 1: regularly and watch The Bachelor or a bachelorette, text about
24:40
Speaker 1: the Bachelorette, have little themed parties. None of that happens anymore, right,
24:46
Speaker 1: I didn't even know there was a season like two
24:48
Speaker 1: weeks ago sometime recently.
24:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I just think this has to be it.
24:53
Speaker 4: Yeah, that really has to be it.
24:55
Speaker 3: It has to be that people are not connecting with
24:57
Speaker 3: the host since then. And and it's interesting because so
25:01
Speaker 3: like another show that has been popular for a long time,
25:03
Speaker 3: Survivor I, we stopped our family stopped watching it because
25:06
Speaker 3: it did get very woke. One season, the host polled people.
25:10
Speaker 3: His key line was come on in Guys, and he
25:13
Speaker 3: said was like, is Guys making anybody uncomfortable? And a
25:17
Speaker 3: trans person in the cast was like, uh no, I'm
25:19
Speaker 3: totally fine with that, and then somebody else two days
25:22
Speaker 3: later said no, no.
25:23
Speaker 4: I can't.
25:23
Speaker 3: I don't like I don't like guys. And so they
25:26
Speaker 3: stopped using Guys, but the whole stayed the same. The
25:29
Speaker 3: ratings kind of stayed high despite the wokeness because people
25:33
Speaker 3: still connected to the show.
25:35
Speaker 4: Nothing had changed. But make a change in host.
25:37
Speaker 3: That kind of thing could really affect a show because
25:40
Speaker 3: people do watch it for the connection.
25:42
Speaker 1: And the familiarity, and the whole cast revolves. Right. So
25:47
Speaker 1: the guy you knew was Chris Harrison and now he's gone,
25:51
Speaker 1: And the interim hosts have not been terrible. Just I
25:55
Speaker 1: believe Jesse Palmer is the most recent one.
25:58
Speaker 2: They're fine, but.
25:59
Speaker 1: I think some of the magic was lost, and it
26:01
Speaker 1: was lost because he declined to cancel Rachel right hard enough.
26:07
Speaker 1: By the way, Rachel and the Bachelor ended up dating
26:12
Speaker 1: for a long period of time, so I don't know
26:14
Speaker 1: how problematic it was.
26:15
Speaker 4: He was fine with the racist I see.
26:18
Speaker 1: Well like And also just one little annoying part about this,
26:21
Speaker 1: he sold her out on live TV at the after
26:23
Speaker 1: the Rose ceremony that season and was like, well, you know,
26:26
Speaker 1: because he couldn't get canceled by not canceling her, of course.
26:29
Speaker 2: But it turns out he liked her, right.
26:32
Speaker 1: I think she might have gotten canceled and found out
26:35
Speaker 1: after she was pretty far into the process.
26:38
Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, Well, I hope that they pick up
26:42
Speaker 3: that it's a new era. Maybe they bring back Chris Harrison, and.
26:46
Speaker 2: I mean Chris Harrison will probably be like, no, I'm
26:48
Speaker 2: good man.
26:49
Speaker 3: Right, Maybe pay him a lot now you want me
26:51
Speaker 3: to save you money?
26:53
Speaker 1: Yeah?
26:55
Speaker 3: Well, thank you for joining us on Normally Normally airs
26:58
Speaker 3: Tuesdays and Thursdays, and you can dribe anywhere.
27:00
Speaker 4: You get your podcasts.
27:01
Speaker 3: Get in touch with us at Normallythepod at gmail dot com.
27:05
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening and when things get weird, act normally