On this episode of Normally, Karol Markowicz is joined by Gates Garcia, host of We the People, for a wide-ranging discussion on some of the biggest political and cultural stories making headlines.
They break down the controversial Los Angeles mayoral race, where late vote counting pushed Nithya Raman ahead of Spencer Pratt, raising fresh questions about election transparency, voter confidence, and California's election system. Karol and Gates discuss whether the issue is fraud, incompetence, or simply a process that has lost public trust.
The conversation then turns to Democrat Senate candidate Graham Platner, whose campaign continues to face mounting scrutiny over past statements, allegations, personal conduct, and a growing list of controversies. Why are Democrats still standing by him, and what does it say about the direction of the party?
Finally, Karol and Gates discuss the viral story of YouTuber Jesse Ridgway and his wife, who publicly shared their decision to terminate a pregnancy after receiving a possible Down syndrome diagnosis. The discussion explores parenthood, disability, medical uncertainty, and the broader cultural implications of turning deeply personal decisions into online content.
Follow Clay & Buck on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/clayandbuck
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
We are back on normally the show with normalist takes
for when the news gets weird.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I am Carol Markowitz.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Mary Catherine ham is on vacation this week, and I
am joined by my friend Gates Garcia, who has the
amazing podcast We the people that you should check out
subscribe like do the whole thing high Gates.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
So nice to have you on.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
What's up, Carol? You wanted weird news, so I brought
my weird mustache.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
I think your mustache looks cool? Does your wife not
like it?
Speaker 3 (00:35):
I'm calling it a summer stash, and so long as
it's seasonal, I'm allowed to keep it, so check back
in during football season.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Well, I'll tell you that my husband started growing his
beard as a Covid beard.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
And he still has it. So yeah, I quite like it.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
You know's got a very masculine growth on his face.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
That is one way to put it, for sure.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
So we're gonna start out with the LA election story today.
The other big news that we're really not going to
get into today is that Iran is getting hot again.
They launched missiles at Israel yesterday. Israel has apparently retaliated.
There's been a lot of chatter about what Trump wants.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Here.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Again, we're not getting into this because there's just not
that much news yet and we're going to see how
it plays out. But I would tell listeners that, you know,
we've learned this lesson with Donald Trump before. He says
things to get people off kilter, and don't listen to
everything he says.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Watch what he does. What do you think of that? Gates?
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Yeah, I mean, he's a man of results. He said,
promises made, promises kept. He's he's said a lot of things,
but he's done a lot more than he said. And
you know, the temperament and the mood and all that
changes quickly. But one thing stood firm with him. He's
he's going to dictate the terms of the United States
of America, both on our own turf and around the world.
And you know, I continue to judge him by his results,
(02:00):
and I've been pretty happy with him for the last
you know, ten plus years.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Yeah, I have to say I've been, especially on foreign policy,
very happy with Donald Trump. And there's this atmosphere online
that's like, oh, trust Trump at any cost, and people
kind of mock it. But I do trust him, and
we'll see where this goes again. We're gonna not get
into this, but you know, I had to touch on
it a little.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Bit because it's clearly the story of the day.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Our other big story that is going to be our
first topic today. The LA election has really shifted gears. Yesterday,
Nathia Rahman overtook Spencer Pratt for the second place slot
in the LA mayoral election. And this is obviously a
big deal because the LA election is such that the
top two candidates move on to the general. Now there's
(02:47):
a lot of people online saying that this isn't stolen,
this is just how LA election goes, and maybe it is.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Maybe it is. Maybe this is.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
How this election is run, but from the outside, it's
run very, very poorly.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
What do you think?
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Yeah, I mean I kind of like what you said there, Like,
I don't think this is necessarily about fraud. It may
be fraudulen. I think LA and California in general has
proven itself to be one of the homes of fraud
in our country, but you can sort of put that aside.
I mean, the number one issue with Americans and an
election should be trust. And I think that the real
(03:25):
scandal here is that nobody trusts the process anymore. I mean, Carroll,
it's twenty twenty six. We can track Uber drivers to
the foot, you know, we can stream UFC fights around
the world, we can deposit checks on our phones, and
yet we have Los Angeles they still can't even tell
us who finished an election weeks after it took place,
regardless of the party. It's embarrassing. And we continue to
(03:46):
see this in the same places over and over again,
and it's like, until we restore trust, this is the
same party that doesn't want to manage fraud on our
elections or integrity, i should say, in our elections. But
they're the ones that seem to raise the most red
flags when it comes to stuff.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
That's exactly it that we see it over and over
again in the exact same places. And look, it makes
a lot of sense that in blue Los Angeles the
two Democrats would win the top two slots, right, It
makes no sense that an entirely different demographic of people
voted via mail than voted on election day. And it
seems suspect and that's really the problem here, that the
(04:23):
mail in ballots didn't correspond to what was happening before
and on election day, where if Karen Bass had continued
to run away with it in the mail in votes,
that would make sense. But the third place candidate that
was needed to knock out the second place non Democrat candidate,
it just doesn't make sense. And it's a completely different ratio.
(04:45):
And is it a coincidence that the candidate getting the
majority post election day isn't the first place candidate but
the one who gets Spencer Pratt out of the race.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
I don't see how that works.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
I think Romin got forty percent of the count after
after election day, and like you said, proportionally, it just
it doesn't make sense. I mean, there's ways to there's
ways to hide fraud, and there's ways to just completely
expose yourself, and that's what they're doing here. I mean,
even if even if there is an explanation, regular people
look at this and they're like, here we go again.
I mean, fens and elections is a public good. Government
(05:19):
should be designing systems that increase trust, not erode it.
They can play with the numbers anyway they want, but
they don't even try to hide the ball here. I
don't I honestly don't think they care. Carolly. There are
so many reasons. There are so many reasons. I wake
up every day and you share this sentiment happy to
open my eyes in the Great State of Florida, because
we don't deal with this BS. We don't put up
(05:40):
with lesson and like, at some point, I almost want
to just give La and California to the Democrats, like
they can have it. They can all move there and
we'll just watch them from afar. They just continue to
embarrass themselves.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
What do you think about the betting aspect of this?
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Like CALSH and sites like that allow people to bet
on results in an election, and Kel she had an
uptick in people betting that Ramen would come in second
place even though she conceded on election night.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
That's a pretty strong bet.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
When you know, the candidate thinks that she lost, but
you don't think she lost. And then there's the additional
thing of like are people betting on these results and
then going and.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Getting more ballots for Ramen?
Speaker 1 (06:25):
It's like where is the fraud happening and who's doing it?
I think a deep dive into the betting around the
election would expose a lot here.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
One hundred percent. I think two of the most corrupting
forces in the world are government and money, and when
you take betting markets that are betting on US elections,
you combine the two of those. Vegas sort of reminds
me a lot of the government. You know, the House
always wins, everything else always wins in the House's favor.
That's kind of how government's been operating, especially in blue states.
So I haven't thought much about that, but it's definitely
(06:57):
worth something that we should all look into because I
see too many parallels to how both of those, both
casinos and money and the government and politics work.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Yeah, there's also the additional thing that LA voters had
twelve three hundred and fifty more votes for the LA
mayor race than the California governor's race.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Now, it's usually the opposite. The top of the.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Ticket usually gets the majority of the votes and people
sit out like down ballot races. How does this make sense?
How does it make sense that you had twelve thousand
plus more votes in a down ballot race than they
just decided not to vote for governor. I just I
you know, I have friends in LA who are Republicans.
I mean, I think of Alicia Krause at times like this,
(07:39):
like she was in the early days of the voting,
she was like, not being stolen, just you know, hang
out and wait and see how this goes.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
I haven't.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
I'm curious to hear what she would have to say now.
But I root for these people to turn their state around.
And I understand completely what you're saying that we need
to just cut California loose, like they're a drag on
the rest of us. They're bad ideas filter out to
the rest of us, and it really does have a
harmful effect on the country.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
But I feel so sorry for these Republicans who are working.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
So hard to get their state to a sane place,
to a normal place, and they're constantly being roadblocked by
this leftist insanity.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Yeah, I'll contradict myself a little bit. I have a
good friend in California, Elizabeth Barkohana, who's been on my
show and we talk often, and she's probably fighting as
hard or harder than anyone else in California to make
that state red, make La red, and all these sorts
of things. And I asked her, I said, why don't
you just come to Florida. We would love to have
you here because we need people to stay in these
(08:39):
areas and fight for these places. California has been read before. Yeah,
and I think, look, Chezer Pratt is obviously not going
to win, but I think this was a huge inflection
point and shine a bright light on the state and
LA specifically for homelessness, public safety, affordability, disaster response. I mean,
the campaign he run actually took working class voters, blue
(09:00):
collar Americans, and the issues that they're facing in that
in that city and state more broadly. And you're right,
I mean, it's it's a disservice for the rest of
us just kind of turn our back on California and
say live with this, because it isn't fair to those people.
I mean, there's an app in San Francisco called snapcrap
and it tracks poop, human poop in the streets of
San Francisco. I mean, I was in San Francisco ten
(09:21):
years ago. It was one of the most beautiful places
I've ever been. It's unrecognizable today. So it isn't fair
to people that are born and raised from there, that
have planted roots there, that want to continue to raise
their families. They're like they were raised there. But at
the end of the day, if it's not fraud. I
don't know how people don't People that live in those
areas don't look at what's happening around them and say
is enough enough?
Speaker 2 (09:40):
As in them, I got to get out of here, right.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
I look people, When I lived in New York and
people would say just leave, just leave, just leave, I
would be like, you know, no, I want to see
this place succeed. I want to see this place when
and the fact that New York was amazing just a
few years ago, like what you said about San Francisco,
it wasn't that long ago that these were normal, functional
places and now they're just you know, we don't curse
(10:04):
on this show, but you know holes, they're there are holes,
and I just I feel sorry for all those people.
But you made a very interesting point that we never
thought Pratt was going to win, right, We did not
think that he was going to win the general Benji Starlin,
he's from Box, he says.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
He tweets.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
I don't pretend to have had some prediction on LA results,
but I did notice many of my favorite smart conservatives
outside LA raving over Pratt ai videos that were entirely
political porn for national conservatives. You guys know what it
looks like when Libs do the equivalent. I get it
when we see like Taller Rico, the left online go
crazy for tall Rico, where like, you know, let's see
(10:46):
what textans have to say about that. I completely understand that.
And what I wrote back to Benji is listen, it
was fun. But no one thought Pratt was going to
win the general. It's just a little too ridiculous that
the third place candidate had such a run in post election.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
It smells real bad. We didn't think he was going
to win. Nobody thought he was going to win the general.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
We just thought that there would be a normal race
where he would get to present his issues, and they
really didn't want him to do that.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
No, and I obviously didn't think he was going to
win either, but it would have been nice to have him,
have him go head to head with with Karen Bass
for five months and on a debate stage. And I
think there are some blessings in the skies here, or
some silver linings. I'll say. I think this will motivate
others in cities that look unturnable. I mean, LA is
the biggest, you know, elephant in the room. Their aircraft
(11:35):
carrier to turn around, and it's probably insurmountable as we
sit here today, but I think people in smaller cities
will look around and say, you know, if he can
do that, you know, courage is contagious, right, And if
somebody can do that in La, I'm willing to do
that in the town or the city that I'm in.
And you know, Karen Bass or Ramen is probably gonna
go on to win. But you know, I think there
is some silver linings and these people like them, people
(11:58):
like Mondami and actually getting elected and running these cities
into the ground. And you bring up New York City.
I'm married a Jersey girl. You know her very well.
I'm very sensitive to New York City. We used to
visit four times a year. We now go once every
two or three years. We took our kids there and
they kept asking what the smell was, and it obviously
marijuana in.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
The marijuana and you're in I don't want.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
New York City to go away forever. I love I
love the place. But it's almost like, Okay, if mom
Dommy does the real harm that his policies are actually
going to do in that city, people will finally wake
up and say enough is enough. Let's get back to
something here, you know.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Maybe yeah, and maybe or people will have left already.
And that's the other part of it is that as
people leave, there's fewer normal saying people to vote in
normalcy insanity. So I don't know, I know you and
I root for these places, but we get to root
for them from the free state of Florida, where things
are normal and elections are counted the night of.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
And that's pretty nice. It's nice for our kids, you know. Yep,
We're going to take a short break and.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Be right back with more on Normally with guest co
host Gates Scarcia.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Be right back.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
We are back on Normally, where the latest news on
Graham Platner was a New York Times story last week
about his questionable behavior towards women.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
But the thing is that.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
The Grand platin Or story should have been over with
a Nazi tattoo, or how he loves to masturbate in
Porto potties, or how he's lied about his background, or
how he wanted American military members to die at the
hands of our enemies. Any of those things should be disqualifying,
and they're not.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
And this New York Times.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Story, you know, It featured several women who talked about
his questionable behavior, and as we know from one of
the women featured in the story, Lindsay Fei, filed that
there was some stuff taken out of it.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
She was put in touch with two women who said.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
They were abused by Platins, and those women's stories did
not make it into the article. Will democrats ever turn
on Platner they have about I think the primary is
the day that this airs on Tuesday, and then they
have about three weeks after this to find a different
candidate to replace him if he drops out?
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Will they get him to drop out?
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Carol, just like rewind the tape sixty seconds and go
through all the things you just said. I mean it
almost sounds like a Babylon beskit. I mean things that
this man's look. It's one thing to be accused of
one thing. It's one thing to maybe be accused of
two things. This man has a life story of just
things that make me want to vomit personally. For ten years, well,
(14:43):
well for going for ten years. We've been told that
character matters from the left, But I want to go
back two hundred and fifty years. I'm reading a book
on the Founding, and there's a section in the book
about you know, all all men and women are created equal,
and John Adams speaks up and he says they are.
But there's an aristocra and it's in virtue and character,
and we should be electing people of the highest virtue
(15:05):
and the highest character to carry out the missions of
the country. Two hundred and fifty years we focused on character.
We've been told that, and now we're being told that
allegations matter. We're being told that offensive statements matter. We're
being told that associations matter. Yet the second the Democrats
think a Senate seat is on the line, suddenly every
person becomes every principle becomes negotiable. And what's so funny is,
(15:26):
you know, when this was Brett Kavanaugh, it was like
throw the book at the guy, and those allegations were
so were not credible in the least. And we now
have a paper trail, I mean, we have a digital footprint,
we have tattoos stamped on the man's skin. I mean,
these are the most credible allegations. They're not allegations, credible
offenses that somebody could commit. But all the Democrats that
(15:49):
wanted to hashtag me too. On their social media are
all in on this guy. It's comical.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
They really they can't find a line that they won't
cross for him. And I think that is because because
the far left has captured the Democratic Party, it's no
longer like they're the fringe.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
They're the base. They're the party. Now Chuck Schumer answers
to them.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
It's no longer like Dave Marcus made this point, Chuck
Schumer a couple of years ago could have picked up
a phone and made the call and been like grand
Platner's out.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
And now he can't do that.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
You know, I would say, for better or for worse, right,
we want the open elections where people get to vote
and all that. But a party that can't police itself,
that can't say these candidates are beyond the pale and
we won't stand for it. I don't know how that
party survives. And the truth is that the Platner checks
these far left boxes. I mean, more than anything else,
(16:42):
he's anti Israel and that's why they're willing to forgive
so much. They're willing to say, we don't care about
the Nazi tattoo, and we don't care about his abuses
of women, And we don't care about the lies of
his past, and we don't care about the offensive things
that he said because he aligns with us on the
main issue of the day, which is opposing Israel. For
all the attention that people on the right get for
(17:03):
being into Israel, we're not nearly as obsessed with Israel
as the left is right now.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
And that's what the big tell is here.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
For me, Nine times out of ten, when I'm talking
about Israel, it's me talking about somebody else talking about.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Israel, right right.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
We have all these people that say everyone's obsessed with Israel.
It's those people that work Israel into every episode of
the podcast, every tweet that they send, every segment of
their TV shows. Here here's the other thing I want
to say about this. Look, it would be one thing
if Platner was going up against like some massive Maga
Trump type of candidate. He's running against Susan Collins. She's
(17:42):
like vanilla ice cream when it comes to the Republican Party.
She's the farthest thing from Maga there is, and this
is the person they chose to oppose her with. It's like,
that's these are the chips you're gonna put on the
table for Susan Collins. Imagine what they'll do when it's
somebody like Trump on the ticket. It's it's crazy.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
That's absolutely true.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
That that is such a great point, because Susan Collins
is who they say they want. They say, we want
the moderate Republican. We just don't want this megabase. We
want you know, what we used to have. She is
what you used to have. She's that person, She's that
moderate who opposes things that Trump does and you know,
really goes down the middle. If you don't want her,
(18:23):
and if you're willing to accept somebody with a Nazi
tattoo to oppose her, won't won't you accept? And look,
you know I've said this, but for them, it's it's
become the Democratic Party has become really so questionable on
Jews that you have to think that they either like
the Nazi tattoo or they're willing to ignore.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
It for the sake of power, and either either.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
One of those things things should be a deal breaker
for most Democrats.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
That it's not is really scary.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
Actually, yeah, and let me add one more thing. So,
and I agree with all of that. They're they're both
of those things are even and wrong. It doesn't matter
which whether it's the former, they're like, he keeps attributing
the nonsense of his past to things like PTSD and
the trauma he experienced in the military. I want to
be very clear about something in that. In that vein,
(19:13):
I have a lot of friends that are veterans, and
many of them suffer from PTSD. One, it's offensive what
he's doing to crediting PTSD with that because the people
with PTSD that I know, they suffer from things like depression,
they suffer from things like substance abuse. PTSD does not
alter your character, okay exactly. It alters your sort of
(19:35):
disposition on your outlook and life and the trauma that
you've experienced. But it doesn't put Nazi tattoos on your
test on your chest. It doesn't send you into a
porta potty to masturbate. It doesn't send you on these
reddits and four chance saying apparently he's texting you know,
underage women. And also nobody with PTSD that I know
has done any of that. So it's highly offensive to
(19:55):
the veterans in our community that do suffer from real
PTSD to say that all that is a pociated with it.
It's ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Yeah, and it's offensive to other military members, this whole like, oh,
you must not know military members if you don't understand
Grand Platner. Like I know plenty of military members X
and current, and this idea that they're all like, you know,
doing these terrible things that he's doing or wanting death.
He said that Chris Kyle, you know, famously the American sniper,
(20:23):
that he wanted that he juiced his numbers by killing
civilians and he didn't care.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
And these are really sick things to say.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
And I always say this, but hatred of Israel and
hatred of America are they go hand in hand? And
nowhere is that more obvious than grand Platner. I want
to just add one more thing about him. I think
that it's not that big a story because so many
other stories around him are so big. His parents bought
his house. His mom is the only client of his
(20:50):
oyster farm. This guy is a complete fraud. He's not
some working class hero. He's not some oyster man from
Maine who just is a regular guy. And he wants
to bring down all lug arcs. You know, Bernie Sanders
talks about it. This guy is a rich boy who
got whatever he wanted, and he isn't this pretense that
he is showing all of us.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
No, I mean, I can't add much more than you
did there. It's it's populism, one on one. It's play
the part. It's play the character on TV. Pick the
guy from the movie and dress it up and go
give speeches. I mean, he's a fraud. What else can
we say, Carol? The fact, the fact that his family
gave him money and he has one client as an
oyster farmer is the.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Least it is.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
But it just shows what a fake he is, and
that Democrats don't care. They just don't care that he
that his whole persona is fake. They're just you know,
sticking by him.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Yep, we have we have a huge opportunity here, by
the way. Uh did you see the bet Fetterman's willing
to make with him?
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Yeah, we have a chance to see John Fetterman wear
a suit every day to work.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
So Sarah Barman asked him to prove.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
Yeah, garm Pleatner, please show us the text of you
texting underage girls. I want to see John Fetterman in
a suit.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Fetterman asked him, to prove that none of the girls
he was texting the app kick, which is known for
underage texting.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
It's universe or something, yeap that none of the girls
were underage.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
And if he could prove that that Fetterman will wear
a suit all the time, I think Fetterman is going
to stay in his sweatpan.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
We're going to take a short break and be right
back with one more segment of Normally.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
We are back on Normally where I'm here with.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Guest co host Gates Garcia of the podcast We the
people subscribe like follow Gates. He's so wonderful, really just
doing such a great job. And this is a story
that you highlighted for me, Gates. I saw it in passing,
but it was your video that really made me pay attention.
There's a YouTuber named Jesse Ridgway and he and his
(22:48):
wife were expecting a baby and then he posted a
whole thing about how the baby had a potential down
syndrome diagnosis and they aborted that baby. And I thought
that a lot of people commented and they said, you know,
terrible things to him and his wife, And I thought
that the way you handled it was compassionate, but serious.
(23:10):
They killed a baby in utero that you know, could
have been a lot. It could have been a real human, obviously,
it could have been a blessing in their world, and
it could have been a lot for all of us,
for all of our society. I want to roll the
clip of you talking about it, and then I want
to ask you about it.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
Y'all know I usually wait to pop into the studio
to share my thoughts with you, but some things can't wait.
Because currently the most virable tweet on X is of
Jesse Ridgeway, a popular YouTuber who announced that he and
his wife have terminated their pregnancy after learning that their
baby had Down syndrome. And before I say anything else,
let me acknowledge something. I don't doubt that they were scared.
I don't doubt that they cried. I don't doubt that
(23:53):
they wrestled with what to do. And as a Christian,
I'll lead the judging to God and will hate the
sin without hating the sinner. But what struck me wasn't
just the decision. It was how the child was discussed.
The baby was reduced to a diagnosis, a prognosis, a
probability essentially a collection of risks and future challenges. The
conversation became entirely about suffering quality of life, medical complications,
(24:16):
financial burdens, and what the parents might endure. The one
thing missing from the discussion was the person, the child,
the human being at the center of it all. And
I couldn't stop thinking about something. What would a person
would Down syndrome think after reading that tweet? Imagine being
a teenager with Down syndrome. Imagine being an adult with
Down syndrome. Imagine reading millions of people debate whether someone
(24:39):
like you should have been born. Imagine discovering that your
extra chromoson is viewed not as a characteristic but as
a disqualifier. What message does that send? That your life
is worthless, that your existence requires justification, that your value
depends on whether other people think you're convenient enough. I
volunteer at a special needs ministry, and I can tell
you something from personal experience. Some of the happiest people
(25:02):
I know have Down syndrome, not because their lives are easy,
not because they don't face challenges, but because they possess
a capacity for joy that many of us have forgotten.
Every time I spend time with them, I walk away
feeling better than when I arrived. They reflect joy back
on to other people. They remind us what gratitude looks like.
They remind us what genuine affection looks like. They remind
(25:24):
us that human dignity isn't measured by IQ productivity, income,
athletic ability, or independence. And frankly, some of the people
I know with Down syndrome seem to understand love better
than the rest of us, which raises an uncomfortable question
who is really helping whom? Because every time I spend
time with that community, I leave enriched, not the other
way around.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
I love that last part. I mean, that's only a
clip of your full video.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
I implore everybody to go watch Gates his entire video
on this. I just I thought it was so beautifully said.
And that's what I meant in my opening of this,
is that this could have been somebody who enriched us
all and tell us more about your thoughts on that.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
Yeah, I mean, you don't meet a lot of people
with Down syndrome that are having a bad day. They all,
most for the most part, walk around with a smile
on their face, and they're facing life challenges far greater
than any of us without Down syndrome are facing. And
every time I'm around them, they just warm my heart
and make me a better person. I just I can't
imagine what this family is gonna think for the rest
(26:22):
of their lives when they go out to dinner and
happen to see a couple with a child with Down
syndrome enjoying themselves as a family. The other thing I
thought about I talk a little bit about it in there,
but I think I'm gonna write a piece on this
is parenthood is essentially accepting the uncertain You don't have
a child. I guarantee you No one has a child
for their own convenience. I mean, children are inconvenient, even
(26:44):
the healthiest children are inconvenient. But you willfully accept uncertainty.
What would happen if they had a healthy baby but
at two years old developed a brain defect, or at
five years old had a severe learning disability or a
speech impediment. The other thing I want to say is that,
on a personal level, my wife and I we have
(27:04):
four children, and two of them had significant scares during
two of the pregnancies, and on one of them we
decided to forego forego any further testing and just say
if that's what it ends up being, that's what it'll be,
and we'll be prepared for that. And on the other one,
the doctors were totally wrong. The baby came out and
(27:25):
was one hundred percent healthy, and not enough people are
focusing on their announcement. They say that the baby might
have Down syndrome. There's a there's a chance that it
has Down. For what do we what do we do?
In Carol, that's that's a human life. I mean, we
talk about protecting the vulnerable in society. Well, the unborn
(27:46):
are the most vulnerable, and if we aren't protecting them,
we're not protecting anybody.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
My third child, I was told that if there was
a high risk that he would be blind.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
He's not, And even if he was, we would have loved.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Him and accepted him and raised him and loved him and.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Done all the rest. But they do make mistakes.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
And that's such a big part of this is that
you get told that there's a chance or that there's
a marker for something, and you make a decision based
on that, and that's a decision you know, you really
can't undo. You never find out how it would have
went and you lose out on a lot.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
Yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
I also I think the way that they shared it,
they made it public, they sort of invited the criticism
and the.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Don't I don't want people to spew hated them. I
like you said, it was probably a very difficult decision,
but they kind of just did it for the clicks.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
And he's got four million followers on the They documented
their entire pregnancy, so much so that at one point
they showed live videos of the baby moving on the sonogram.
They were referring to it as little nugget throughout the
whole process. So while I tried to be certainly more
empathetic than most, it's still disgusts me that they turned
(29:16):
this whole announcement into content for clicks. The last I checked,
his announcement had twenty two million views on x I'm
sure it's way above that now, and it's very clear
that this whole thing was for a lot of that.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Yeah, very sad, very very sad. Gates, And thank you
again for giving us your perspective. I think it's a
really really good one.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
Thanks.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Thank you for joining us on normally normally airs Tuesdays
and Thursdays, and you could subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts.
Get in touch with us at normallythepod at gmail dot com.
Thanks for listening, and when things get weird, you act normally.
We are back on normally the show with normalist takes
for when the news gets weird.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I am Carol Markowitz.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Mary Catherine ham is on vacation this week, and I
am joined by my friend Gates Garcia, who has the
amazing podcast We the people that you should check out
subscribe like do the whole thing high Gates.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
So nice to have you on.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
What's up, Carol? You wanted weird news, so I brought
my weird mustache.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
I think your mustache looks cool? Does your wife not
like it?
Speaker 3 (00:35):
I'm calling it a summer stash, and so long as
it's seasonal, I'm allowed to keep it, so check back
in during football season.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Well, I'll tell you that my husband started growing his
beard as a Covid beard.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
And he still has it. So yeah, I quite like it.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
You know's got a very masculine growth on his face.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
That is one way to put it, for sure.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
So we're gonna start out with the LA election story today.
The other big news that we're really not going to
get into today is that Iran is getting hot again.
They launched missiles at Israel yesterday. Israel has apparently retaliated.
There's been a lot of chatter about what Trump wants.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Here.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Again, we're not getting into this because there's just not
that much news yet and we're going to see how
it plays out. But I would tell listeners that, you know,
we've learned this lesson with Donald Trump before. He says
things to get people off kilter, and don't listen to
everything he says.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Watch what he does. What do you think of that? Gates?
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Yeah, I mean, he's a man of results. He said,
promises made, promises kept. He's he's said a lot of things,
but he's done a lot more than he said. And
you know, the temperament and the mood and all that
changes quickly. But one thing stood firm with him. He's
he's going to dictate the terms of the United States
of America, both on our own turf and around the world.
And you know, I continue to judge him by his results,
(02:00):
and I've been pretty happy with him for the last
you know, ten plus years.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Yeah, I have to say I've been, especially on foreign policy,
very happy with Donald Trump. And there's this atmosphere online
that's like, oh, trust Trump at any cost, and people
kind of mock it. But I do trust him, and
we'll see where this goes again. We're gonna not get
into this, but you know, I had to touch on
it a little.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Bit because it's clearly the story of the day.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Our other big story that is going to be our
first topic today. The LA election has really shifted gears. Yesterday,
Nathia Rahman overtook Spencer Pratt for the second place slot
in the LA mayoral election. And this is obviously a
big deal because the LA election is such that the
top two candidates move on to the general. Now there's
(02:47):
a lot of people online saying that this isn't stolen,
this is just how LA election goes, and maybe it is.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Maybe it is. Maybe this is.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
How this election is run, but from the outside, it's
run very, very poorly.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
What do you think?
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Yeah, I mean I kind of like what you said there, Like,
I don't think this is necessarily about fraud. It may
be fraudulen. I think LA and California in general has
proven itself to be one of the homes of fraud
in our country, but you can sort of put that aside.
I mean, the number one issue with Americans and an
election should be trust. And I think that the real
(03:25):
scandal here is that nobody trusts the process anymore. I mean, Carroll,
it's twenty twenty six. We can track Uber drivers to
the foot, you know, we can stream UFC fights around
the world, we can deposit checks on our phones, and
yet we have Los Angeles they still can't even tell
us who finished an election weeks after it took place,
regardless of the party. It's embarrassing. And we continue to
(03:46):
see this in the same places over and over again,
and it's like, until we restore trust, this is the
same party that doesn't want to manage fraud on our
elections or integrity, i should say, in our elections. But
they're the ones that seem to raise the most red
flags when it comes to stuff.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
That's exactly it that we see it over and over
again in the exact same places. And look, it makes
a lot of sense that in blue Los Angeles the
two Democrats would win the top two slots, right, It
makes no sense that an entirely different demographic of people
voted via mail than voted on election day. And it
seems suspect and that's really the problem here, that the
(04:23):
mail in ballots didn't correspond to what was happening before
and on election day, where if Karen Bass had continued
to run away with it in the mail in votes,
that would make sense. But the third place candidate that
was needed to knock out the second place non Democrat candidate,
it just doesn't make sense. And it's a completely different ratio.
(04:45):
And is it a coincidence that the candidate getting the
majority post election day isn't the first place candidate but
the one who gets Spencer Pratt out of the race.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
I don't see how that works.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
I think Romin got forty percent of the count after
after election day, and like you said, proportionally, it just
it doesn't make sense. I mean, there's ways to there's
ways to hide fraud, and there's ways to just completely
expose yourself, and that's what they're doing here. I mean,
even if even if there is an explanation, regular people
look at this and they're like, here we go again.
I mean, fens and elections is a public good. Government
(05:19):
should be designing systems that increase trust, not erode it.
They can play with the numbers anyway they want, but
they don't even try to hide the ball here. I
don't I honestly don't think they care. Carolly. There are
so many reasons. There are so many reasons. I wake
up every day and you share this sentiment happy to
open my eyes in the Great State of Florida, because
we don't deal with this BS. We don't put up
(05:40):
with lesson and like, at some point, I almost want
to just give La and California to the Democrats, like
they can have it. They can all move there and
we'll just watch them from afar. They just continue to
embarrass themselves.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
What do you think about the betting aspect of this?
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Like CALSH and sites like that allow people to bet
on results in an election, and Kel she had an
uptick in people betting that Ramen would come in second
place even though she conceded on election night.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
That's a pretty strong bet.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
When you know, the candidate thinks that she lost, but
you don't think she lost. And then there's the additional
thing of like are people betting on these results and
then going and.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Getting more ballots for Ramen?
Speaker 1 (06:25):
It's like where is the fraud happening and who's doing it?
I think a deep dive into the betting around the
election would expose a lot here.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
One hundred percent. I think two of the most corrupting
forces in the world are government and money, and when
you take betting markets that are betting on US elections,
you combine the two of those. Vegas sort of reminds
me a lot of the government. You know, the House
always wins, everything else always wins in the House's favor.
That's kind of how government's been operating, especially in blue states.
So I haven't thought much about that, but it's definitely
(06:57):
worth something that we should all look into because I
see too many parallels to how both of those, both
casinos and money and the government and politics work.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Yeah, there's also the additional thing that LA voters had
twelve three hundred and fifty more votes for the LA
mayor race than the California governor's race.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Now, it's usually the opposite. The top of the.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Ticket usually gets the majority of the votes and people
sit out like down ballot races. How does this make sense?
How does it make sense that you had twelve thousand
plus more votes in a down ballot race than they
just decided not to vote for governor. I just I
you know, I have friends in LA who are Republicans.
I mean, I think of Alicia Krause at times like this,
(07:39):
like she was in the early days of the voting,
she was like, not being stolen, just you know, hang
out and wait and see how this goes.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
I haven't.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
I'm curious to hear what she would have to say now.
But I root for these people to turn their state around.
And I understand completely what you're saying that we need
to just cut California loose, like they're a drag on
the rest of us. They're bad ideas filter out to
the rest of us, and it really does have a
harmful effect on the country.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
But I feel so sorry for these Republicans who are working.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
So hard to get their state to a sane place,
to a normal place, and they're constantly being roadblocked by
this leftist insanity.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Yeah, I'll contradict myself a little bit. I have a
good friend in California, Elizabeth Barkohana, who's been on my
show and we talk often, and she's probably fighting as
hard or harder than anyone else in California to make
that state red, make La red, and all these sorts
of things. And I asked her, I said, why don't
you just come to Florida. We would love to have
you here because we need people to stay in these
(08:39):
areas and fight for these places. California has been read before. Yeah,
and I think, look, Chezer Pratt is obviously not going
to win, but I think this was a huge inflection
point and shine a bright light on the state and
LA specifically for homelessness, public safety, affordability, disaster response. I mean,
the campaign he run actually took working class voters, blue
(09:00):
collar Americans, and the issues that they're facing in that
in that city and state more broadly. And you're right,
I mean, it's it's a disservice for the rest of
us just kind of turn our back on California and
say live with this, because it isn't fair to those people.
I mean, there's an app in San Francisco called snapcrap
and it tracks poop, human poop in the streets of
San Francisco. I mean, I was in San Francisco ten
(09:21):
years ago. It was one of the most beautiful places
I've ever been. It's unrecognizable today. So it isn't fair
to people that are born and raised from there, that
have planted roots there, that want to continue to raise
their families. They're like they were raised there. But at
the end of the day, if it's not fraud. I
don't know how people don't People that live in those
areas don't look at what's happening around them and say
is enough enough?
Speaker 2 (09:40):
As in them, I got to get out of here, right.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
I look people, When I lived in New York and
people would say just leave, just leave, just leave, I
would be like, you know, no, I want to see
this place succeed. I want to see this place when
and the fact that New York was amazing just a
few years ago, like what you said about San Francisco,
it wasn't that long ago that these were normal, functional
places and now they're just you know, we don't curse
(10:04):
on this show, but you know holes, they're there are holes,
and I just I feel sorry for all those people.
But you made a very interesting point that we never
thought Pratt was going to win, right, We did not
think that he was going to win the general Benji Starlin,
he's from Box, he says.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
He tweets.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
I don't pretend to have had some prediction on LA results,
but I did notice many of my favorite smart conservatives
outside LA raving over Pratt ai videos that were entirely
political porn for national conservatives. You guys know what it
looks like when Libs do the equivalent. I get it
when we see like Taller Rico, the left online go
crazy for tall Rico, where like, you know, let's see
(10:46):
what textans have to say about that. I completely understand that.
And what I wrote back to Benji is listen, it
was fun. But no one thought Pratt was going to
win the general. It's just a little too ridiculous that
the third place candidate had such a run in post election.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
It smells real bad. We didn't think he was going
to win. Nobody thought he was going to win the general.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
We just thought that there would be a normal race
where he would get to present his issues, and they
really didn't want him to do that.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
No, and I obviously didn't think he was going to
win either, but it would have been nice to have him,
have him go head to head with with Karen Bass
for five months and on a debate stage. And I
think there are some blessings in the skies here, or
some silver linings. I'll say. I think this will motivate
others in cities that look unturnable. I mean, LA is
the biggest, you know, elephant in the room. Their aircraft
(11:35):
carrier to turn around, and it's probably insurmountable as we
sit here today, but I think people in smaller cities
will look around and say, you know, if he can
do that, you know, courage is contagious, right, And if
somebody can do that in La, I'm willing to do
that in the town or the city that I'm in.
And you know, Karen Bass or Ramen is probably gonna
go on to win. But you know, I think there
is some silver linings and these people like them, people
(11:58):
like Mondami and actually getting elected and running these cities
into the ground. And you bring up New York City.
I'm married a Jersey girl. You know her very well.
I'm very sensitive to New York City. We used to
visit four times a year. We now go once every
two or three years. We took our kids there and
they kept asking what the smell was, and it obviously
marijuana in.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
The marijuana and you're in I don't want.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
New York City to go away forever. I love I
love the place. But it's almost like, Okay, if mom
Dommy does the real harm that his policies are actually
going to do in that city, people will finally wake
up and say enough is enough. Let's get back to
something here, you know.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Maybe yeah, and maybe or people will have left already.
And that's the other part of it is that as
people leave, there's fewer normal saying people to vote in
normalcy insanity. So I don't know, I know you and
I root for these places, but we get to root
for them from the free state of Florida, where things
are normal and elections are counted the night of.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
And that's pretty nice. It's nice for our kids, you know. Yep,
We're going to take a short break and.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Be right back with more on Normally with guest co
host Gates Scarcia.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Be right back.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
We are back on Normally, where the latest news on
Graham Platner was a New York Times story last week
about his questionable behavior towards women.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
But the thing is that.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
The Grand platin Or story should have been over with
a Nazi tattoo, or how he loves to masturbate in
Porto potties, or how he's lied about his background, or
how he wanted American military members to die at the
hands of our enemies. Any of those things should be disqualifying,
and they're not.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
And this New York Times.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Story, you know, It featured several women who talked about
his questionable behavior, and as we know from one of
the women featured in the story, Lindsay Fei, filed that
there was some stuff taken out of it.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
She was put in touch with two women who said.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
They were abused by Platins, and those women's stories did
not make it into the article. Will democrats ever turn
on Platner they have about I think the primary is
the day that this airs on Tuesday, and then they
have about three weeks after this to find a different
candidate to replace him if he drops out?
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Will they get him to drop out?
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Carol, just like rewind the tape sixty seconds and go
through all the things you just said. I mean it
almost sounds like a Babylon beskit. I mean things that
this man's look. It's one thing to be accused of
one thing. It's one thing to maybe be accused of
two things. This man has a life story of just
things that make me want to vomit personally. For ten years, well,
(14:43):
well for going for ten years. We've been told that
character matters from the left, But I want to go
back two hundred and fifty years. I'm reading a book
on the Founding, and there's a section in the book
about you know, all all men and women are created equal,
and John Adams speaks up and he says they are.
But there's an aristocra and it's in virtue and character,
and we should be electing people of the highest virtue
(15:05):
and the highest character to carry out the missions of
the country. Two hundred and fifty years we focused on character.
We've been told that, and now we're being told that
allegations matter. We're being told that offensive statements matter. We're
being told that associations matter. Yet the second the Democrats
think a Senate seat is on the line, suddenly every
person becomes every principle becomes negotiable. And what's so funny is,
(15:26):
you know, when this was Brett Kavanaugh, it was like
throw the book at the guy, and those allegations were
so were not credible in the least. And we now
have a paper trail, I mean, we have a digital footprint,
we have tattoos stamped on the man's skin. I mean,
these are the most credible allegations. They're not allegations, credible
offenses that somebody could commit. But all the Democrats that
(15:49):
wanted to hashtag me too. On their social media are
all in on this guy. It's comical.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
They really they can't find a line that they won't
cross for him. And I think that is because because
the far left has captured the Democratic Party, it's no
longer like they're the fringe.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
They're the base. They're the party. Now Chuck Schumer answers
to them.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
It's no longer like Dave Marcus made this point, Chuck
Schumer a couple of years ago could have picked up
a phone and made the call and been like grand
Platner's out.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
And now he can't do that.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
You know, I would say, for better or for worse, right,
we want the open elections where people get to vote
and all that. But a party that can't police itself,
that can't say these candidates are beyond the pale and
we won't stand for it. I don't know how that
party survives. And the truth is that the Platner checks
these far left boxes. I mean, more than anything else,
(16:42):
he's anti Israel and that's why they're willing to forgive
so much. They're willing to say, we don't care about
the Nazi tattoo, and we don't care about his abuses
of women, And we don't care about the lies of
his past, and we don't care about the offensive things
that he said because he aligns with us on the
main issue of the day, which is opposing Israel. For
all the attention that people on the right get for
(17:03):
being into Israel, we're not nearly as obsessed with Israel
as the left is right now.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
And that's what the big tell is here.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
For me, Nine times out of ten, when I'm talking
about Israel, it's me talking about somebody else talking about.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Israel, right right.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
We have all these people that say everyone's obsessed with Israel.
It's those people that work Israel into every episode of
the podcast, every tweet that they send, every segment of
their TV shows. Here here's the other thing I want
to say about this. Look, it would be one thing
if Platner was going up against like some massive Maga
Trump type of candidate. He's running against Susan Collins. She's
(17:42):
like vanilla ice cream when it comes to the Republican Party.
She's the farthest thing from Maga there is, and this
is the person they chose to oppose her with. It's like,
that's these are the chips you're gonna put on the
table for Susan Collins. Imagine what they'll do when it's
somebody like Trump on the ticket. It's it's crazy.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
That's absolutely true.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
That that is such a great point, because Susan Collins
is who they say they want. They say, we want
the moderate Republican. We just don't want this megabase. We
want you know, what we used to have. She is
what you used to have. She's that person, She's that
moderate who opposes things that Trump does and you know,
really goes down the middle. If you don't want her,
(18:23):
and if you're willing to accept somebody with a Nazi
tattoo to oppose her, won't won't you accept? And look,
you know I've said this, but for them, it's it's
become the Democratic Party has become really so questionable on
Jews that you have to think that they either like
the Nazi tattoo or they're willing to ignore.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
It for the sake of power, and either either.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
One of those things things should be a deal breaker
for most Democrats.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
That it's not is really scary.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
Actually, yeah, and let me add one more thing. So,
and I agree with all of that. They're they're both
of those things are even and wrong. It doesn't matter
which whether it's the former, they're like, he keeps attributing
the nonsense of his past to things like PTSD and
the trauma he experienced in the military. I want to
be very clear about something in that. In that vein,
(19:13):
I have a lot of friends that are veterans, and
many of them suffer from PTSD. One, it's offensive what
he's doing to crediting PTSD with that because the people
with PTSD that I know, they suffer from things like depression,
they suffer from things like substance abuse. PTSD does not
alter your character, okay exactly. It alters your sort of
(19:35):
disposition on your outlook and life and the trauma that
you've experienced. But it doesn't put Nazi tattoos on your
test on your chest. It doesn't send you into a
porta potty to masturbate. It doesn't send you on these
reddits and four chance saying apparently he's texting you know,
underage women. And also nobody with PTSD that I know
has done any of that. So it's highly offensive to
(19:55):
the veterans in our community that do suffer from real
PTSD to say that all that is a pociated with it.
It's ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Yeah, and it's offensive to other military members, this whole like, oh,
you must not know military members if you don't understand
Grand Platner. Like I know plenty of military members X
and current, and this idea that they're all like, you know,
doing these terrible things that he's doing or wanting death.
He said that Chris Kyle, you know, famously the American sniper,
(20:23):
that he wanted that he juiced his numbers by killing
civilians and he didn't care.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
And these are really sick things to say.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
And I always say this, but hatred of Israel and
hatred of America are they go hand in hand? And
nowhere is that more obvious than grand Platner. I want
to just add one more thing about him. I think
that it's not that big a story because so many
other stories around him are so big. His parents bought
his house. His mom is the only client of his
(20:50):
oyster farm. This guy is a complete fraud. He's not
some working class hero. He's not some oyster man from
Maine who just is a regular guy. And he wants
to bring down all lug arcs. You know, Bernie Sanders
talks about it. This guy is a rich boy who
got whatever he wanted, and he isn't this pretense that
he is showing all of us.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
No, I mean, I can't add much more than you
did there. It's it's populism, one on one. It's play
the part. It's play the character on TV. Pick the
guy from the movie and dress it up and go
give speeches. I mean, he's a fraud. What else can
we say, Carol? The fact, the fact that his family
gave him money and he has one client as an
oyster farmer is the.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Least it is.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
But it just shows what a fake he is, and
that Democrats don't care. They just don't care that he
that his whole persona is fake. They're just you know,
sticking by him.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Yep, we have we have a huge opportunity here, by
the way. Uh did you see the bet Fetterman's willing
to make with him?
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Yeah, we have a chance to see John Fetterman wear
a suit every day to work.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
So Sarah Barman asked him to prove.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
Yeah, garm Pleatner, please show us the text of you
texting underage girls. I want to see John Fetterman in
a suit.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Fetterman asked him, to prove that none of the girls
he was texting the app kick, which is known for
underage texting.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
It's universe or something, yeap that none of the girls
were underage.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
And if he could prove that that Fetterman will wear
a suit all the time, I think Fetterman is going
to stay in his sweatpan.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
We're going to take a short break and be right
back with one more segment of Normally.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
We are back on Normally where I'm here with.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Guest co host Gates Garcia of the podcast We the
people subscribe like follow Gates. He's so wonderful, really just
doing such a great job. And this is a story
that you highlighted for me, Gates. I saw it in passing,
but it was your video that really made me pay attention.
There's a YouTuber named Jesse Ridgway and he and his
(22:48):
wife were expecting a baby and then he posted a
whole thing about how the baby had a potential down
syndrome diagnosis and they aborted that baby. And I thought
that a lot of people commented and they said, you know,
terrible things to him and his wife, And I thought
that the way you handled it was compassionate, but serious.
(23:10):
They killed a baby in utero that you know, could
have been a lot. It could have been a real human, obviously,
it could have been a blessing in their world, and
it could have been a lot for all of us,
for all of our society. I want to roll the
clip of you talking about it, and then I want
to ask you about it.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
Y'all know I usually wait to pop into the studio
to share my thoughts with you, but some things can't wait.
Because currently the most virable tweet on X is of
Jesse Ridgeway, a popular YouTuber who announced that he and
his wife have terminated their pregnancy after learning that their
baby had Down syndrome. And before I say anything else,
let me acknowledge something. I don't doubt that they were scared.
I don't doubt that they cried. I don't doubt that
(23:53):
they wrestled with what to do. And as a Christian,
I'll lead the judging to God and will hate the
sin without hating the sinner. But what struck me wasn't
just the decision. It was how the child was discussed.
The baby was reduced to a diagnosis, a prognosis, a
probability essentially a collection of risks and future challenges. The
conversation became entirely about suffering quality of life, medical complications,
(24:16):
financial burdens, and what the parents might endure. The one
thing missing from the discussion was the person, the child,
the human being at the center of it all. And
I couldn't stop thinking about something. What would a person
would Down syndrome think after reading that tweet? Imagine being
a teenager with Down syndrome. Imagine being an adult with
Down syndrome. Imagine reading millions of people debate whether someone
(24:39):
like you should have been born. Imagine discovering that your
extra chromoson is viewed not as a characteristic but as
a disqualifier. What message does that send? That your life
is worthless, that your existence requires justification, that your value
depends on whether other people think you're convenient enough. I
volunteer at a special needs ministry, and I can tell
you something from personal experience. Some of the happiest people
(25:02):
I know have Down syndrome, not because their lives are easy,
not because they don't face challenges, but because they possess
a capacity for joy that many of us have forgotten.
Every time I spend time with them, I walk away
feeling better than when I arrived. They reflect joy back
on to other people. They remind us what gratitude looks like.
They remind us what genuine affection looks like. They remind
(25:24):
us that human dignity isn't measured by IQ productivity, income,
athletic ability, or independence. And frankly, some of the people
I know with Down syndrome seem to understand love better
than the rest of us, which raises an uncomfortable question
who is really helping whom? Because every time I spend
time with that community, I leave enriched, not the other
way around.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
I love that last part. I mean, that's only a
clip of your full video.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
I implore everybody to go watch Gates his entire video
on this. I just I thought it was so beautifully said.
And that's what I meant in my opening of this,
is that this could have been somebody who enriched us
all and tell us more about your thoughts on that.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
Yeah, I mean, you don't meet a lot of people
with Down syndrome that are having a bad day. They all,
most for the most part, walk around with a smile
on their face, and they're facing life challenges far greater
than any of us without Down syndrome are facing. And
every time I'm around them, they just warm my heart
and make me a better person. I just I can't
imagine what this family is gonna think for the rest
(26:22):
of their lives when they go out to dinner and
happen to see a couple with a child with Down
syndrome enjoying themselves as a family. The other thing I
thought about I talk a little bit about it in there,
but I think I'm gonna write a piece on this
is parenthood is essentially accepting the uncertain You don't have
a child. I guarantee you No one has a child
for their own convenience. I mean, children are inconvenient, even
(26:44):
the healthiest children are inconvenient. But you willfully accept uncertainty.
What would happen if they had a healthy baby but
at two years old developed a brain defect, or at
five years old had a severe learning disability or a
speech impediment. The other thing I want to say is that,
on a personal level, my wife and I we have
(27:04):
four children, and two of them had significant scares during
two of the pregnancies, and on one of them we
decided to forego forego any further testing and just say
if that's what it ends up being, that's what it'll be,
and we'll be prepared for that. And on the other one,
the doctors were totally wrong. The baby came out and
(27:25):
was one hundred percent healthy, and not enough people are
focusing on their announcement. They say that the baby might
have Down syndrome. There's a there's a chance that it
has Down. For what do we what do we do?
In Carol, that's that's a human life. I mean, we
talk about protecting the vulnerable in society. Well, the unborn
(27:46):
are the most vulnerable, and if we aren't protecting them,
we're not protecting anybody.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
My third child, I was told that if there was
a high risk that he would be blind.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
He's not, And even if he was, we would have loved.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Him and accepted him and raised him and loved him and.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Done all the rest. But they do make mistakes.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
And that's such a big part of this is that
you get told that there's a chance or that there's
a marker for something, and you make a decision based
on that, and that's a decision you know, you really
can't undo. You never find out how it would have
went and you lose out on a lot.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
Yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
I also I think the way that they shared it,
they made it public, they sort of invited the criticism
and the.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Don't I don't want people to spew hated them. I
like you said, it was probably a very difficult decision,
but they kind of just did it for the clicks.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
And he's got four million followers on the They documented
their entire pregnancy, so much so that at one point
they showed live videos of the baby moving on the sonogram.
They were referring to it as little nugget throughout the
whole process. So while I tried to be certainly more
empathetic than most, it's still disgusts me that they turned
(29:16):
this whole announcement into content for clicks. The last I checked,
his announcement had twenty two million views on x I'm
sure it's way above that now, and it's very clear
that this whole thing was for a lot of that.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Yeah, very sad, very very sad. Gates, And thank you
again for giving us your perspective. I think it's a
really really good one.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
Thanks.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Thank you for joining us on normally normally airs Tuesdays
and Thursdays, and you could subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts.
Get in touch with us at normallythepod at gmail dot com.
Thanks for listening, and when things get weird, you act normally.
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show News
Hosts And Creators
Clay Travis
Buck Sexton
Show Links
WebsiteNewsletterPopular Podcasts
Hey Jonas!
Hey Jonas! The official Jonas Brothers podcast. Hosted by Kevin, Joe, and Nick Jonas. It’s the Jonas Brothers you know... musicians, actors, and well, yes, brothers. Now, they’re sharing another side of themselves in the playful, intimate, and irreverent way only they can. Spend time with the Jonas Brothers here and stay a little bit longer for deep conversations like never before.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com