Latest / Normally / Normally Podcast: Graham Platner Scandal Deepens, America 250 Faces Chaos & The Case for a Screen-Free Summer

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Normally Podcast: Graham Platner Scandal Deepens, America 250 Faces Chaos & The Case for a Screen-Free Summer · Normally

0:04
Speaker 1: Hey, guys, we are back on normally the show with
0:06
Speaker 1: normal it takes for when the news gets weird.
0:07
Speaker 2: I am Mary catherin him.
0:09
Speaker 3: I'm Carol Marcowitz. How are you, Mary Catherine?
0:11
Speaker 2: I'm doing all right. I love summer. It's my favorite season.
0:14
Speaker 2: So is it summer?
0:16
Speaker 3: It feels like still kind of spring.
0:18
Speaker 1: Summer for me, summer for me guys, I for you,
0:24
Speaker 1: I do not allow fall to come early, but I
0:26
Speaker 1: do allow summer to come early.
0:28
Speaker 3: Right, you're just like, who cares about?
0:29
Speaker 2: We're done now?
0:30
Speaker 3: Right?
0:31
Speaker 2: We're on summer.
0:32
Speaker 3: Are you a school over for you guys? Yes? Oh wow,
0:35
Speaker 3: that's that's early. Yeah. Our is this still like two
0:38
Speaker 3: more days?
0:38
Speaker 1: So yeah, a lot of a lot of people around
0:40
Speaker 1: here are in for like two more weeks, but we are.
0:42
Speaker 2: We're done, so I love it. We're doing fun things.
0:45
Speaker 2: We're in the pool.
0:46
Speaker 3: Oh it's awesome.
0:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I know I can do that all year,
0:50
Speaker 2: but yeah.
0:50
Speaker 3: I could do that all year, but we don't, so
0:53
Speaker 3: because it's winter in the winter, so how's the weather.
0:58
Speaker 1: It's okay, it's it's actually really really temperate, which is
1:01
Speaker 1: a little too cool for the pool actually, but for summer.
1:05
Speaker 1: If we want to scare quotes for summer for summer
1:08
Speaker 1: in the DC area.
1:10
Speaker 2: Lovely love it.
1:11
Speaker 1: It's like seventies and no humidity right now?
1:14
Speaker 3: Awesome? All right, Well, we have an event in DC tomorrow.
1:17
Speaker 3: We'll tell our audience about it for the Wednesday show,
1:21
Speaker 3: for the Thursday show. Sorry, so we'll see how that goes.
1:25
Speaker 3: I'm not sure what closed a pack because you know, again,
1:28
Speaker 3: summer here, summer different than summer there.
1:31
Speaker 2: Not going to be as warm here.
1:34
Speaker 4: All right, I'll pack some Sweater's fine, you can borrow
1:38
Speaker 4: my park up. All right, Okay, what's going on in
1:42
Speaker 4: the news The Graham Platner Show, really, and I don't
1:47
Speaker 4: think the show is wrapping up anytime soon.
1:51
Speaker 1: Yes, Graham Platner, the insurgent Democrat basically nominee presumptive nominee for.
1:57
Speaker 2: The Senate race Maine.
2:01
Speaker 1: You'll remember that Governor Janet Mills, who was the normy
2:04
Speaker 1: establishment Democrat but older and like definitely establishment, dropped out
2:08
Speaker 1: because he had such a commanding lead in their primary.
2:11
Speaker 2: But Graham Patner is.
2:13
Speaker 1: An untested, unvetted marine oyster man slash rich kid from Maine.
2:20
Speaker 3: Right, because the oyster man story is one of the
2:23
Speaker 3: stories falling apart right now? His only client is his
2:26
Speaker 3: mother's restaurant. Like, that doesn't sound that's like when I'm
2:30
Speaker 3: the only client of my kids, like lemonade. Stand, are
2:35
Speaker 3: you really doing it? Because it doesn't seem.
2:37
Speaker 1: Like it, You're not really doing it in the way
2:40
Speaker 1: that other people do it.
2:42
Speaker 2: I think.
2:43
Speaker 1: So, Yes, a lot is happening there, enough to the
2:47
Speaker 1: point that now I'm like, did anyone vet him before
2:50
Speaker 1: they decided that he should be.
2:51
Speaker 3: You think so?
2:52
Speaker 2: I can't.
2:53
Speaker 3: They liked how he looked, they liked how he sounded.
2:56
Speaker 3: They keep doing this whole thing of like, oh, this
2:58
Speaker 3: is what men are like and then running these ridiculous men. Well.
3:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the pendulum swings wildly from this is what
3:06
Speaker 1: men are like, James Tallerico, this is a this is
3:09
Speaker 1: a normy Christian dude from Texas, right, Nope, And then
3:13
Speaker 1: you've got Graham Patner who is becoming the walking form
3:18
Speaker 1: of toxic masculinity.
3:19
Speaker 2: But they can't, man, they.
3:21
Speaker 1: Can't see it, like, no, this is men, right, this
3:24
Speaker 1: is men meet some normal men.
3:28
Speaker 2: Yeah.
3:28
Speaker 3: So the latest on mister Plattner is that he was
3:33
Speaker 3: sexting with I love this up to six women up
3:37
Speaker 3: to six women, and Jim Garrity had a great line
3:40
Speaker 3: on this. He said, I love the Platiner campaign's use
3:43
Speaker 3: of use of the phrase up to six. If Platner
3:45
Speaker 3: had been sexting with three women, the campaign would have
3:48
Speaker 3: said it was three, it was it was four, they
3:50
Speaker 3: would have said it was four. If the official campaign
3:52
Speaker 3: statement is up to six, it means six, you know
3:55
Speaker 3: six or more? Frankly, well right, and and hed no
4:00
Speaker 3: married men is going to overestimate the number of women
4:03
Speaker 3: he's sexting. They shouldn't be that hard to count. This
4:06
Speaker 3: isn't the sennial national senses. So yeah, so up to
4:10
Speaker 3: six women.
4:11
Speaker 1: So this story broke in the Wall Street Journal, And
4:14
Speaker 1: like I said, he's untested and unvetted and has been
4:17
Speaker 1: caught lying about many things before. Just last week, he
4:19
Speaker 1: was lying about his own service in the War on
4:23
Speaker 1: Terror and being and his many deployments because he was
4:27
Speaker 1: very clear that he wanted to do that. He enlisted
4:30
Speaker 1: after the war started. He was very specific about wanting
4:33
Speaker 1: to be in battle in writing. And then he turns
4:37
Speaker 1: around and blames Susan Collins for it because she voted
4:40
Speaker 1: for the Iraq war. And now he's decided that that's unpopular.
4:42
Speaker 1: He's not had any like evolution or explained it to us.
4:45
Speaker 1: He just changes the story.
4:47
Speaker 5: Right.
4:47
Speaker 2: So, now we have the sexting.
4:51
Speaker 1: He's been married for three years and I don't know
4:53
Speaker 1: how you felt about this, Carol, but he sent his
4:56
Speaker 1: wife to do.
4:57
Speaker 2: The rapid response so gross.
5:00
Speaker 1: To this story breaking in the Wall Street Journal and
5:02
Speaker 1: then being confirmed in the New York Times. Yeah, and
5:05
Speaker 1: she does a straight to camera selfie video of herself
5:09
Speaker 1: just saying, like, you know, my marriage isn't perfect. This
5:11
Speaker 1: is these things we've gone through. She even referenced to
5:14
Speaker 1: her fertility issues, which she's been on the campaign trail
5:18
Speaker 1: talking about that, and to tie that to his misbehavior
5:23
Speaker 1: as like is that causal? Like what are we saying here?
5:27
Speaker 1: Real red flag? I mean he's been a red flag
5:29
Speaker 1: for me since then tattoo. Right, I feel like that
5:32
Speaker 1: was a tell you know, it's almost as if that's
5:35
Speaker 1: a signal that someone makes bad decisions and has bad
5:39
Speaker 1: impulse control. Right, So she goes out and does a
5:41
Speaker 1: five minute selfie video about which is.
5:43
Speaker 3: Like even worse than what the women used to do
5:46
Speaker 3: in these scandals, which is stand next to the man
5:49
Speaker 3: as he looked you know, sullen and was upset that
5:53
Speaker 3: he got caught, like, I'm just thinking of all the
5:55
Speaker 3: different women who have stood next to the man as
5:58
Speaker 3: he admitted to his affair.
5:59
Speaker 2: But it is this is new.
6:01
Speaker 3: She's like all by herself, straight to video talking about
6:05
Speaker 3: their marriage.
6:06
Speaker 1: Like lad and then by the way, I have said,
6:11
Speaker 1: I would give so much for one political spouse and
6:13
Speaker 1: a cheating scandal to just do that.
6:16
Speaker 2: It's not right, but it's okay, witness.
6:18
Speaker 5: Yeah.
6:19
Speaker 3: The response I would just feel like Ellie Spitzcher's wife
6:23
Speaker 3: was a little bit that she was like, I am
6:24
Speaker 3: not doing any press conferences, like.
6:28
Speaker 2: Just put on a press release. That's only the lyrics too.
6:31
Speaker 2: It's not right, but it's okay. Yep. Yeah, and your
6:33
Speaker 2: boys went out to eat ye. So we haven't gotten
6:37
Speaker 2: that response.
6:38
Speaker 1: But then so in the aftermath of this, first of all,
6:43
Speaker 1: what it reveals is that there's a bunch.
6:44
Speaker 2: Of stuff out there on Platner that is woman related.
6:49
Speaker 1: And as I said, once I saw the Nazi tattoo,
6:51
Speaker 1: I was not particularly surprised by the idea that he
6:54
Speaker 1: might have other issues. It also reveals about the campaign
7:00
Speaker 1: that like he's still got active accounts on like Tinder
7:05
Speaker 1: type you can look them up right now, scandalous websites.
7:09
Speaker 1: They did not remove them, they did not act when
7:11
Speaker 1: they got this information in the first place, and go hmm,
7:15
Speaker 1: should he be a snic candidate? And so all the
7:19
Speaker 1: way through it just seems like both he and the
7:22
Speaker 1: campaign are aggressive and making bad decisions.
7:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, and there's this sense of like, if you think
7:30
Speaker 3: this is weird, maybe you're the weird one. And he's admitted,
7:33
Speaker 3: you know, it's stuff like he's talked about masturbating in
7:36
Speaker 3: portal potties and picking up prostitutes and of course the
7:39
Speaker 3: Nazi tattoo, and it just goes on and on, and
7:42
Speaker 3: it's supposed to be like, oh, this is what a
7:44
Speaker 3: normal man is like, and it's really really not. And
7:47
Speaker 3: there's a Free Press piece today by River Page is
7:51
Speaker 3: getting dragged. I actually often like rivers work, but it
7:54
Speaker 3: was that voters find Platiner quote relatable and all the
7:59
Speaker 3: comments are like, I do not find him relatable for
8:02
Speaker 3: this thing.
8:03
Speaker 1: From relatable, I want to note also in the Free
8:05
Speaker 1: Press today, Leife Babin, who's a friend of mine is
8:08
Speaker 1: a seal, defended Chris Kyle, the American sniper against insults
8:16
Speaker 1: and accusations from Platner, who said that he was he
8:19
Speaker 1: and his team were intentionally killing civilians. Now Leif Babin
8:24
Speaker 1: was there, and Chris Kyle can't speak for himself anymore
8:27
Speaker 1: because he died, he was murdered, and he's speaking up
8:31
Speaker 1: for him. And that's just the idea that that's like
8:34
Speaker 1: not even the main thing, right, It's a problem with him.
8:37
Speaker 1: He also said another veteran deserved to die, basically did
8:42
Speaker 1: not deserve to live. That veteran is still alive, thank goodness,
8:45
Speaker 1: and has spoken out on TV about it.
8:47
Speaker 3: So he had a piece in the Waalshet Journal last
8:49
Speaker 3: week as well.
8:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, both of these things are just insane to me.
8:54
Speaker 2: And of course our Democrat friends who have been loving
8:58
Speaker 2: their moral high ground for years and just lecturing everybody
9:03
Speaker 2: about life about and who have.
9:07
Speaker 1: Seen a Nazi and a white supremacist and a toxic
9:11
Speaker 1: male everywhere they look for the last.
9:13
Speaker 2: Ten years, they can't see one. Now where is he?
9:17
Speaker 1: So we have two clips of Democrats in the Senate
9:21
Speaker 1: being asked about Platner this weekend on Sunday Show.
9:24
Speaker 2: So first up is Andy Kim.
9:26
Speaker 6: I want to ask you about the Senate race in
9:28
Speaker 6: Maine and The Wall Street Journal in New York Times
9:31
Speaker 6: reporting that last August, Democrat Grand Plattner's wife told his
9:36
Speaker 6: campaign about sexual text messages she had found between her
9:40
Speaker 6: husband and other women early in their marriage, and they
9:43
Speaker 6: were married in twenty twenty three. The Time says Platiner
9:46
Speaker 6: exchanged messages with as many as a dozen women, and
9:50
Speaker 6: his campaign said no, it was up to six, and
9:53
Speaker 6: a statement Platner's wife said she feels betrayed by the
9:55
Speaker 6: ex campaign aide who revealed the information, and that the
9:59
Speaker 6: couple went to counseling. Do you have concerns about grand Platner.
10:03
Speaker 7: Well, first I'll say is you know, I've been very
10:06
Speaker 7: much focused on the crisis in my home state, so
10:08
Speaker 7: i haven't been able to focus as much on this.
10:10
Speaker 7: But right now, you know, this information is out there
10:13
Speaker 7: with any campaign in the country, you know, the character
10:17
Speaker 7: and the transparency about the different candidates is going to
10:21
Speaker 7: come out. That's part of a campaign, and the voters
10:23
Speaker 7: will decide what it is that they ultimately think in
10:27
Speaker 7: terms of their ability to trust those candidates.
10:30
Speaker 2: You think, well, look.
10:31
Speaker 7: Right now, for me, like I have not met him,
10:33
Speaker 7: I've never talked to him yet.
10:37
Speaker 3: In his state.
10:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, focusing honest, that's Andy Kim of New Jersey.
10:42
Speaker 1: Then we have Chris Murphy of Kinnecticut.
10:43
Speaker 8: The campaign for grand Platiner confirmed to CBS on Saturday
10:48
Speaker 8: that the main Senate candidate had sent sexually explicit text
10:51
Speaker 8: to women other than his wife. This is in addition
10:55
Speaker 8: to other past controversies. Does he pass the character to
11:00
Speaker 8: I mean.
11:00
Speaker 9: I have not followed this story as closely as others have,
11:04
Speaker 9: but I mean grand Platner is somebody that served our country,
11:08
Speaker 9: he served his community. He's also made mistakes, and he
11:12
Speaker 9: has admitted that character also involves standing up to people
11:19
Speaker 9: who are bankrupting and corrupting this country. And this race
11:23
Speaker 9: is going to be a contrast between somebody that has
11:26
Speaker 9: put his life on the line for this country against
11:30
Speaker 9: somebody that is literally empowering the moral hollowing out of
11:36
Speaker 9: our nation from the White House. So he certainly admitted
11:40
Speaker 9: that he has made mistakes. But I think this is
11:42
Speaker 9: going to be a pretty clear contrast in Maine.
11:44
Speaker 3: Because yeah, so they're just you know, they don't know
11:48
Speaker 3: what's going on. They're not all caught up on the news.
11:51
Speaker 3: They don't know what the saga happening in the Democratic
11:54
Speaker 3: Party is they're just real focused, you know, on like
11:57
Speaker 3: what they're doing well.
11:58
Speaker 2: And here's the thing.
11:59
Speaker 1: You can have a really flawed candidate, and as we
12:03
Speaker 1: happened many times, right, you can have a really flawed
12:06
Speaker 1: candidate and you can call people out and say, this
12:09
Speaker 1: guy's really flawed.
12:10
Speaker 2: If there's a lot.
12:11
Speaker 1: To commend the candidate, and if you have a really
12:15
Speaker 1: reprehensible person on the other side of the ticket or
12:17
Speaker 1: a really extreme person on the other side of the ticket,
12:20
Speaker 1: people might make the decision to go for this flawed candidate.
12:23
Speaker 1: From what I can tell, Graham Platner doesn't have a
12:26
Speaker 1: lot to commend him, hasn't built a lot.
12:28
Speaker 2: I will give him that.
12:29
Speaker 1: He's talented on the stump, he has some charm, he's
12:31
Speaker 1: good speaking. And then the monster they claim they must
12:36
Speaker 1: beat with this Grand Platner Susan Collins. Susan Collins the
12:40
Speaker 1: most lowered bipartisan Republican member of the Senate. So I
12:44
Speaker 1: just think like you can you can lecture people about
12:48
Speaker 1: candidate quality, or you can have Grand Platner to beat
12:52
Speaker 1: Susan Collins and just say that's what you must do.
12:54
Speaker 2: But you can't have both.
12:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would just I try to imagine the reverse
13:02
Speaker 3: and just the Nazi tattoo.
13:05
Speaker 10: All by agree with that alone, Yes, would be disqualifying,
13:08
Speaker 10: and he would just never have a situation where we
13:12
Speaker 10: would behave like the podcast brows on the left are behaving,
13:16
Speaker 10: where they're just all defending it, like, what's the big
13:18
Speaker 10: deal he got a Nazi tattoo.
13:20
Speaker 3: He didn't know, he didn't know like he do he knew.
13:23
Speaker 6: Yeah.
13:24
Speaker 1: I mean there's an incident, which was the was it
13:27
Speaker 1: to the twenty seventeen special election for the Alabama Senate seat,
13:32
Speaker 1: where led by Republican dissent, people decided that Roy Moore,
13:37
Speaker 1: the Republican, was a bridge too far because of his yeah,
13:41
Speaker 1: sexual exploitation, shenanigans, bad ethics, and Doug Jones, a Democrat,
13:47
Speaker 1: ended up being the Senate, the Senator from Alabama for
13:50
Speaker 1: a while for that reason, right, and then so, I
13:55
Speaker 1: just like it is amazing to watch the people who
13:58
Speaker 1: tell you that acknowledging anything good that Donald Trump has
14:03
Speaker 1: ever done makes you a Nazi, or like, no, this
14:07
Speaker 1: guy's fine.
14:08
Speaker 3: Right right, It's all dog whistles from them, but they
14:12
Speaker 3: can't hear this one, like the Nazi tattoo is just
14:16
Speaker 3: a dog whistle they cannot hear. Yeah, all right, Well
14:20
Speaker 3: we'll see where this Platner campaign goes. The Democrats, you know,
14:24
Speaker 3: if they ever find out about it, that would be
14:27
Speaker 3: interesting what people have to hear from them.
14:29
Speaker 1: One more thing, can we add Graham Platner talking about
14:32
Speaker 1: this to reporters, because a lot has broken about I
14:35
Speaker 1: think this is indicative of what this campaign is like.
14:38
Speaker 1: So the person who they alleged leaked this information to
14:42
Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal.
14:43
Speaker 3: In their time, she's the bad guy.
14:45
Speaker 2: She's right.
14:45
Speaker 1: They turned it into she's about it, including a lot
14:47
Speaker 1: of media and Democrats in office. We're trying to say, like, oh,
14:51
Speaker 1: she broke her pledge. I'm like, that's not the pledge
14:53
Speaker 1: I'm that interested in. But okay, yeah, So she claims
14:57
Speaker 1: they threatened her, that the campaign threatened her and told
14:59
Speaker 1: her she had to like record a conversation with the
15:02
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal and retract everything. So she goes public
15:04
Speaker 1: with this. He's asked about this, and this is what
15:08
Speaker 1: he has to say.
15:09
Speaker 5: We're gonna come after us in every awful way that
15:11
Speaker 5: they possibly can, and we're just gonna keep talking about
15:13
Speaker 5: the fact that the hospitals are closing, the fact that
15:16
Speaker 5: child care facilities are closing, the fact that teachers and
15:19
Speaker 5: nurses aren't paid enough, and the fact that everybody down
15:22
Speaker 5: here continues to work harder and longer and get less.
15:26
Speaker 5: But of course the powers that be do not want
15:28
Speaker 5: us to talk about that, and so they're going to
15:30
Speaker 5: just do gossip instead. That started true, right, No, No,
15:35
Speaker 5: this is this is the amazing part. The Wall Street
15:38
Speaker 5: Journal of New York Times ran stories without any evidence
15:42
Speaker 5: besides the gossip from a former staffer. I'm sorry. That's
15:47
Speaker 5: that's frankly journalistic amount practice. We pushed back on it.
15:51
Speaker 5: They wanted, they did it anyways, So I'm sorry.
15:55
Speaker 1: Concerning that the messages did not exist with that did
15:59
Speaker 1: the message They did not.
16:01
Speaker 5: I'm confided of what Jennvieve MacDonald said in the New
16:03
Speaker 5: York Times is not true.
16:06
Speaker 3: So you never met with her about uncomfortable, to lack
16:09
Speaker 3: of a better word, sexting messages.
16:11
Speaker 5: As the campaign was doing, we talked about things and
16:14
Speaker 5: amianized marriage that we've gone through over the years.
16:17
Speaker 3: Because the thing is that they released this thing saying
16:21
Speaker 3: that she had violated their trust and had also shared
16:25
Speaker 3: explicit falsehoods. How could it be both? How could it
16:28
Speaker 3: be both? If she violated personal trust? It's because she's
16:32
Speaker 3: shared something that you didn't want shared. She couldn't have
16:36
Speaker 3: shared explicit falsehoods and also violated that personal trust.
16:41
Speaker 1: They've since had to retract that denial because everyone acknowledges
16:45
Speaker 1: that the texts are real. That wasn't an issue, right.
16:50
Speaker 1: He also says that like everyone will do everything they
16:53
Speaker 1: can to tear him and his wife apart, and I'm like,
16:56
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that I'm the one with the most responsibility, right.
17:00
Speaker 3: I think it was Christian.
17:01
Speaker 2: I think that was on you.
17:03
Speaker 1: And again, like people will point to Paxton and say, look,
17:07
Speaker 1: this is a person who is flawed.
17:09
Speaker 2: Look, yeah, I.
17:11
Speaker 1: Think the infidelity issue kind of went out the window
17:15
Speaker 1: in my coming of age around nineteen ninety eight.
17:18
Speaker 3: I remember something happened there. Yeah.
17:20
Speaker 2: Also, like JFK, like, I don't like it.
17:25
Speaker 1: I won Cornyn over Paxton, Right, But then you have
17:29
Speaker 1: the matchup which is a far left tall Ico versus
17:33
Speaker 1: this guy you don't like that much but agrees with
17:37
Speaker 1: you on things.
17:38
Speaker 2: Right, So tell Rico, ain't no.
17:41
Speaker 1: Senator Collins, right, exact difference Kamala Harris was no Senator Collins.
17:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it is actually amazing. You know, we've touched
17:49
Speaker 3: on this, but to watch the Democrats just rally around him,
17:54
Speaker 3: and I you know, there's a lot of rumors out
17:57
Speaker 3: there that there's more coming. A lot of people expect more.
17:59
Speaker 3: I mean I expect more just because it was May.
18:01
Speaker 3: It's now, you know, we're recording this June first. But
18:06
Speaker 3: looking back on the last presidential campaign, the fact that
18:10
Speaker 3: Joe Biden went up on a debate stage and completely bombed.
18:14
Speaker 3: There's news stories now that Joe Biden thought that Joe
18:18
Speaker 3: Biden was having a stroke on the stage. I mean,
18:21
Speaker 3: she didn't do anything about it, shouldn't rush to his
18:23
Speaker 3: aid or anything. She you know, rallied with him afterwards,
18:27
Speaker 3: but a number of New York Times columnists said that
18:31
Speaker 3: he tied with President Trump. So that's where Democrats are.
18:37
Speaker 3: There's no filter where they're being told this is crazy,
18:41
Speaker 3: this is bad. You know, don't do this, don't don't
18:44
Speaker 3: believe this guy. There must be more to this. They're
18:48
Speaker 3: just like, we're going to support our people to the end.
18:51
Speaker 3: And there's on the Republican side. A lot of times
18:54
Speaker 3: we look over there like kind of wish that was
18:57
Speaker 3: us sometimes. But on the other hand, I like the
19:00
Speaker 3: honesty and I like that we aren't just randomly supporting whoever.
19:05
Speaker 2: Just because Also like the Biden's and the gas lighting.
19:09
Speaker 1: I mean, you watch Platner gaslight about the texts and
19:12
Speaker 1: then you see Jill Biden just be like, yeah, no, no,
19:16
Speaker 1: I definitely thought he was having a stroke, which is
19:18
Speaker 1: then went to a rally and also to lawful house
19:21
Speaker 1: like what are you talking about, ma'am.
19:23
Speaker 2: We all knew what was going on with him, and
19:26
Speaker 2: like even.
19:27
Speaker 1: A majority of Democrats thought he was too old in
19:30
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four.
19:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you're like, I never saw this until that night. Well,
19:35
Speaker 2: I mean you might have been having a stroke for
19:37
Speaker 2: like probably four to six years.
19:39
Speaker 3: What is she doing back out there?
19:41
Speaker 2: She's trying to make money, That's what this is all
19:42
Speaker 2: they're doing.
19:43
Speaker 3: Bizarre.
19:44
Speaker 2: I mean, they have to go out.
19:45
Speaker 1: And humiliate him and themselves several times over because they
19:50
Speaker 1: have to keep some sort of dribble coming in because
19:54
Speaker 1: that's how they made their money, was.
19:56
Speaker 2: Being the Bidens. Yep, And now nobody wants to hear it.
20:00
Speaker 3: Man tough, really tough. I saw news that his presidential
20:04
Speaker 3: library is like not raising anywhere near the amount of
20:07
Speaker 3: money that they need. So for all the rallying around,
20:11
Speaker 3: Democrats are also very quick to throw the people they
20:14
Speaker 3: don't need right onto that bus.
20:16
Speaker 1: Well, and Platner has about until mid July where they
20:20
Speaker 1: hit a deadline where they can't replace him.
20:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we'll see what happens between now and then.
20:27
Speaker 1: As long as they can replace him, they're happy to
20:30
Speaker 1: break any rule necessary to do so, and even after that,
20:35
Speaker 1: I suppose, as they did with with with other situations.
20:39
Speaker 2: But we'll see what happens.
20:41
Speaker 3: We will see what happens. We're gonna take a short
20:44
Speaker 3: break and be right back with more on Normally. We
20:50
Speaker 3: are back on Normally, where the country is turning two
20:54
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty years old and there's a lack of
21:00
Speaker 3: I don't know, community patriotism, just cohesiveness really. And the
21:07
Speaker 3: latest on this is that the two fifty concert is
21:12
Speaker 3: really in shambles. I saw that lineup and it was
21:16
Speaker 3: like Millie Vanilli, I was like, are they still touring?
21:19
Speaker 3: I don't even know what's going on. One of them
21:22
Speaker 3: is dead. But also their whole claim to fame is
21:26
Speaker 3: that they were lip syncing the whole time and somebody
21:29
Speaker 3: else was singing, So what are they touring? I don't
21:32
Speaker 3: know Brett Michaels, who I know loved back in the nineties,
21:38
Speaker 3: some other names that just you haven't heard of in
21:40
Speaker 3: a very very long time. And I was like, Wow,
21:44
Speaker 3: this cannot get any worse. And then it got worse.
21:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, Look, fifth grade.
21:50
Speaker 1: Mary Catherine was very excited about Music Factory in.
21:52
Speaker 2: Young MC and all of these folks. But look, I
21:56
Speaker 2: think part of what happened here.
21:58
Speaker 1: There are two organizations that are tasked with planning America
22:02
Speaker 1: two fifty stuff. There is a two fifty or America
22:07
Speaker 1: two fifty dot org, and then there's Freedom two fifty,
22:10
Speaker 1: which is the the Trump Administration's non partisan, but it
22:15
Speaker 1: comes from the Trump administration. The other one is bipartisan. Now,
22:19
Speaker 1: Trump created Freedom two fifty via executive order because he
22:23
Speaker 1: didn't like what America two fifty was doing now with
22:28
Speaker 1: some good reason, because it was pretty lackluster in some ways.
22:33
Speaker 1: And one of the reasons it was lacklusters because there
22:35
Speaker 1: are a lot of people on a bipartisan commission who like,
22:39
Speaker 1: aren't that excited yet the rating America problem, Like that's
22:44
Speaker 1: that's the problem is when you have a lot of people.
22:46
Speaker 1: I mean, there's several problems, Like I understand that Trump
22:49
Speaker 1: is polarizing, and so anybody who's brought in to do that,
22:51
Speaker 1: they don't think of it as an America two fifty concert,
22:54
Speaker 1: even though they should, like it's the Great State Fair.
22:57
Speaker 1: Just come and do your act and everybody's eccess. I
23:00
Speaker 1: think a lot of people would be willing to do that. However,
23:03
Speaker 1: the people who would get you the top act buy in,
23:06
Speaker 1: who are on the left, are not that excited about
23:09
Speaker 1: having a party for America two fifty because they got
23:12
Speaker 1: to do a lot of reckoning with our dark, dark.
23:15
Speaker 3: Past, right, our dark dark past that almost every single
23:18
Speaker 3: country on Earth has also gone through. I don't understand
23:24
Speaker 3: why they went to see and dealist artists when it
23:30
Speaker 3: would have been so much better at this point to
23:33
Speaker 3: choose people who maybe aren't as famous, but actually want
23:38
Speaker 3: to be there and won't be bullied out of it
23:40
Speaker 3: by a little bit of online, you know, pushback. I
23:44
Speaker 3: think what they have, what they've done, is it's just
23:47
Speaker 3: sort of a disaster in that nobody would would have
23:50
Speaker 3: wanted to see these people in the first place, and
23:52
Speaker 3: now those people that very far down the list dalist
23:57
Speaker 3: type celebrities. They're canceling and it's just a disaster.
24:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's sad.
24:02
Speaker 1: I mean, the Memorial Day and the July fourth concert
24:05
Speaker 1: on the Mall are huge with stars like it's it's
24:10
Speaker 1: not weird to have stars come out for these things,
24:13
Speaker 1: genuine stars. It seems like this one got botched and
24:17
Speaker 1: like you've you've said, and I think many people have
24:20
Speaker 1: have noted even those nineteen seventy six like things weren't
24:24
Speaker 1: going great in the country in seventy six, but everybody
24:28
Speaker 1: was pretty much on the same page that two hundred
24:32
Speaker 1: years was two hunred years of America was good, right.
24:36
Speaker 1: I do think we have a cultural issue where two
24:39
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty years of America to many people is
24:43
Speaker 1: not good anymore. And a lot of those people are
24:46
Speaker 1: in places of influence. So it's just the cultural vibe, well,
24:52
Speaker 1: certainly better than it would have been under a Kamala
24:55
Speaker 1: Harris administration, which would have been heavy on the land acknowledgments,
25:01
Speaker 1: is not coming together in the way that many of
25:03
Speaker 1: us would want.
25:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, the idea that the youth don't know how good
25:09
Speaker 3: they have it is one of my peak problems with
25:13
Speaker 3: just the lack of education in schools and the lack
25:16
Speaker 3: of perspective, like not giving them kind of you know,
25:20
Speaker 3: libs love to talk about context, like let's have some
25:23
Speaker 3: context for how amazing America is and why we should
25:26
Speaker 3: celebrate it. I don't know, I always say it stuff
25:29
Speaker 3: like this, but like, if I raise kids who don't
25:32
Speaker 3: appreciate what they have, especially the country that they got
25:35
Speaker 3: to grow up in and be a part of, that'll
25:38
Speaker 3: be my biggest failure.
25:40
Speaker 2: Yeah.
25:41
Speaker 1: There was a New York magazine piece entitled how problematic
25:45
Speaker 1: is Patriotism?
25:47
Speaker 3: How problematic is because?
25:49
Speaker 1: Well, I mean there were like four thousand words in
25:51
Speaker 1: it to discover that, you know, sometimes it's okay to
25:56
Speaker 1: wave the flag, but it shouldn't be What was the
25:58
Speaker 1: what was the note? Less noisy and less militarized forms
26:04
Speaker 1: of allegiance is what this writer would prefer. But one
26:07
Speaker 1: of the things that the piece pointed out is this,
26:11
Speaker 1: you know, patriotism in polling is down quite a bit.
26:15
Speaker 1: A Gallup poll found that in the past dozen years,
26:18
Speaker 1: this is the writer writing, the percentage of people in
26:20
Speaker 1: the US who say that they're extremely proud to be
26:21
Speaker 1: an American has plunged by sixteen points. A recent Harris
26:24
Speaker 1: Pole noted that roughly four in ten Americans have considered
26:27
Speaker 1: relocating outside the country, with younger Americans even more inclined. However,
26:31
Speaker 1: if you look at the cross tabs, you will find
26:34
Speaker 1: in those Gallop poles that the number of people very
26:37
Speaker 1: proud to be Americans and very patriotic who are Republicans
26:40
Speaker 1: stays at about ninety two to ninety six and dips
26:43
Speaker 1: a couple of times, but only dips to like above
26:46
Speaker 1: eighty still, while the Democrats go off a cliff in
26:50
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, like yeah, And I think that is a
26:56
Speaker 1: thing that for Republicans, we are proud to be Americans,
27:02
Speaker 1: and we are ticked off when the President or whoever
27:04
Speaker 1: is doing something we don't like. Their patriotism many times
27:09
Speaker 1: is contingent on who is.
27:10
Speaker 2: In the White House.
27:11
Speaker 3: Totally.
27:12
Speaker 2: Yep, It's not just a matter of ticked off at
27:14
Speaker 2: the policies, right.
27:16
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
27:18
Speaker 2: Yeah.
27:18
Speaker 3: Look, when I thought we were on the wrong track
27:21
Speaker 3: during the Biden years, and I definitely was feeling pessimistic
27:25
Speaker 3: for maybe the first time in my life on the
27:27
Speaker 3: way that America was going. I still loved America. I
27:31
Speaker 3: still felt super patriotic and grateful and just you know,
27:36
Speaker 3: a fan of this country, a fan of everything that
27:38
Speaker 3: we do here.
27:40
Speaker 1: Yeap, patriotism is very complicated for some people.
27:44
Speaker 2: It's funny.
27:45
Speaker 1: I went to see seventeen seventy six. I think I
27:47
Speaker 1: mentioned as some musical that was created in the sixties
27:52
Speaker 1: about the founding, and it's very good. It's a lot
27:54
Speaker 1: of fun. It was like Hamilton before there was Hamilton.
27:57
Speaker 1: And there's a whole song that reckons with slavery. It
28:03
Speaker 1: is very dark with the economics that animated it, with
28:06
Speaker 1: all of the disappointments of our value that came from that,
28:10
Speaker 1: from the compromises that had to be made.
28:12
Speaker 2: It's super dark song. It's a very scary moment in
28:15
Speaker 2: the musical.
28:16
Speaker 1: And I thought, oh, man, the problem with America is
28:18
Speaker 1: that we just really don't reckon right with our past.
28:22
Speaker 3: And we do all the time.
28:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, while we're reckoning with it, we reckon that this
28:27
Speaker 1: country is the greatest miracle in humankind and in human
28:31
Speaker 1: freedom ever because it.
28:33
Speaker 3: Is yeap, best country in the history of the world.
28:36
Speaker 3: And it's not particularly close. So you could reckon all
28:39
Speaker 3: you want. That's the reality.
28:42
Speaker 1: So and the reckoning doesn't make a great party. Actually, yes,
28:46
Speaker 1: we're going.
28:46
Speaker 3: To take a short break and come right back with
28:48
Speaker 3: one more segment of normally.
28:54
Speaker 1: All right, we are back on normally, And as I said,
28:56
Speaker 1: it is the beginning of summer.
28:58
Speaker 2: It's the kickoff for me. I'm here already, you're there
29:01
Speaker 2: almost there.
29:02
Speaker 3: Yeah.
29:03
Speaker 1: But one of the things we go back to again
29:05
Speaker 1: and again is that, you know, for your kids to
29:07
Speaker 1: have rewarding lives, they have to sometimes be not on
29:11
Speaker 1: a screen. And The Free Press ran a piece by
29:15
Speaker 1: an author called I gave my kid a screen free
29:17
Speaker 1: Summer and you can too. And I just enjoy the
29:22
Speaker 1: idea of encouraging people to do this, and the tone
29:26
Speaker 1: of the piece very much says, you really can do this.
29:30
Speaker 1: It's not impossible to get your kids off of screens.
29:33
Speaker 1: And I just liked that she's that we're kicking off
29:35
Speaker 1: summer that way.
29:36
Speaker 3: One of the more impressive things about that piece was
29:39
Speaker 3: not the getting the kids off the screens, but getting
29:42
Speaker 3: the grownups off the streets. That's really hard. I look,
29:46
Speaker 3: you know, we work online, we are in front of laptops,
29:50
Speaker 3: all of that. But also I know that I go
29:54
Speaker 3: through periods where I get worse, like my swiping my
29:59
Speaker 3: scroll whatever it's called. I think I feel like swiping's
30:02
Speaker 3: dating websites module. I'm you know, I'm on the Instagram reels,
30:08
Speaker 3: the gram. Yeah, no, not that gram. And I feel
30:13
Speaker 3: like I get I get too into it. And I
30:15
Speaker 3: like the idea of cutting off screens for everybody at
30:20
Speaker 3: certain times, and I'm going to definitely try to limit
30:23
Speaker 3: my screen news this summer. It's easier. It's actually easier
30:26
Speaker 3: for the kids because they are active outside and they're
30:30
Speaker 3: doing things like my youngest is sleep boy camp, my
30:32
Speaker 3: middle one is going to be on a teen tour.
30:35
Speaker 3: My oldest signed up to take pre calc for reasons
30:38
Speaker 3: unclear to any of us. So you know, they have
30:42
Speaker 3: activities that are going to keep them off the screens.
30:45
Speaker 3: But the grown ups, you're just I've gotten it's gotten
30:48
Speaker 3: to where like I'm at a car wash and I've
30:50
Speaker 3: suddenly watched like, you know, fifteen reels or something. It's
30:54
Speaker 3: it's not good. We have to all kind of cut
30:57
Speaker 3: down our usage.
30:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm with you, And I have a couple of
31:00
Speaker 1: tools that I've built into my technology to keep me
31:04
Speaker 1: from being on all the time. One of the things
31:06
Speaker 1: I'm doing in the summer is I do a morning
31:08
Speaker 1: routine with all the kids.
31:10
Speaker 2: When all of them are home.
31:12
Speaker 1: It does not include screens and is active. We're trying
31:16
Speaker 1: to dedicate myself to taking them to the pool at
31:18
Speaker 1: least like pretty much every day during Yeah, we're just
31:21
Speaker 1: out away from those things. I love This quote says
31:26
Speaker 1: the idea of taking a more modern approach to screens
31:29
Speaker 1: instead of just like asking yourself to have willpower. Yeah,
31:34
Speaker 1: you build your home and routine so that you are
31:37
Speaker 1: encountering the opportunity to voluntarily choose offline activity. And even
31:43
Speaker 1: then what happens you like the offline actio?
31:46
Speaker 6: Right?
31:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, so all my kids and I, you know, there's
31:49
Speaker 1: like a little bit of groaning to start these like
31:51
Speaker 1: family activits from me. Once everybody gets into it, it's like, okay,
31:57
Speaker 1: we're enjoying ourselves here. So I like the idea that
32:00
Speaker 1: you can build this into your day where you're creating
32:04
Speaker 1: even a list of analog activities and the supplies for
32:07
Speaker 1: them that your kids can go find. This piece notes
32:11
Speaker 1: that like leaving your kids board can foster like I've
32:15
Speaker 1: seen it foster creativity in my kids if you set
32:18
Speaker 1: the table for them so that there's some for them
32:20
Speaker 1: to choose. If they're not automatic readers, give them a
32:23
Speaker 1: craft area then they are more likely to do that.
32:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, Analog Summer, let's do it. We can do it well.
32:33
Speaker 3: Thanks for joining us on Normally Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays,
32:37
Speaker 3: and you could subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts. Get
32:40
Speaker 3: in touch with us at Normallythepod at gmail dot com.
32:43
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening, and when things get weird, act normally