Speaker 1: Good morning, Peeve Send Welcome to WOKAP Daily with me
Speaker 1: your girl Danielle Moody pre recording from the home Bunker. Folks,
Speaker 1: I am super, super excited to bring to you the
Speaker 1: conversation that I have been waiting to bring to you
Speaker 1: all for a couple of weeks. Now you have heard
Speaker 1: me use the term sane washing, right, This idea that
Speaker 1: the media has been interpreting Donald Trump's absolute, incoherent ramblings
Speaker 1: and dissecting them and then presenting the public with what
Speaker 1: they deem to be the kernels of truth and intellect
Speaker 1: that are at the core of his ramblings. And journalist
Speaker 1: Parker malloy coined the term in The New Republic, say
Speaker 1: washing this idea that we're going to take incoherent and
Speaker 1: crazy ramblings and that everyone from the New York Times
Speaker 1: to the Associated Press and others are going to make
Speaker 1: sense out of Donald Trump's nonsense and sell it to
Speaker 1: us as if he's a normal candidate and this election
Speaker 1: is in a normal place, so that they can give
Speaker 1: us the horse race bullshit that they love to do.
Speaker 1: The reality is is that Donald Trump is not sane.
Speaker 1: He is not normal, and the media needs to stop
Speaker 1: fucking treating him that way. And frankly, you know, I
Speaker 1: set this on Monday with regard to Maggie Haberman and
Speaker 1: her recent comments at NPR talking about how the left
Speaker 1: is going after, you know, journalists and undermining people's faith
Speaker 1: in journalism. No, your fucking Saine washing is undermining people's
Speaker 1: faith in journalism. And they are realizing right that you
Speaker 1: have become absolutely unreliable because you need to hear Donald
Speaker 1: Trump for yourself. And then you would wonder how the
Speaker 1: fuck did they get a topic and a headline on
Speaker 1: economic policy when all the man did would spout the
Speaker 1: word tariffs and say the word economy. But if you
Speaker 1: were just reading what these outlets write and not listening
Speaker 1: to what Donald Trump is saying at these rallies, saying
Speaker 1: in these spaces, you would think that he's completely normal,
Speaker 1: when in fact, he fucking is not. And most recently, right,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump was speaking to a Jewish group to where
Speaker 1: he told them that if he loses this election, it
Speaker 1: is going to be Jewish people's fault and things could
Speaker 1: get wild. Wait what, yep, folks, that actually happened. He
Speaker 1: actually said it. And if you have not watched the
Speaker 1: episode of Democracy Ish from Friday, September twentieth. I urge
Speaker 1: you to go ahead and listen or head over to
Speaker 1: my YouTube channel at Danielle Moody Underscore and watch that
Speaker 1: episode so that you can see that video that watch
Speaker 1: and I discuss over there, because folks, let me tell you,
Speaker 1: he is planting the seeds for violence as well as
Speaker 1: all of the election interference that is happening in Georgia,
Speaker 1: in Nebraska and in other places. They are fit to
Speaker 1: take this election regardless of what it is that the
Speaker 1: people vote for. They are no longer going to take
Speaker 1: our votes as our bond. They are going to manipulate,
Speaker 1: they are going to lie, they are going to use
Speaker 1: stochastic terrorism and more because they cannot win without it.
Speaker 1: So coming up next my conversation with journalists Parker Maloy.
Speaker 1: I am super excited to welcome I think for the
Speaker 1: first time. I'm not one hundred percent sure, Parker, because
Speaker 1: I talk to you in my head after I read,
Speaker 1: after I read your pieces all the time, I'm just like,
Speaker 1: m hmm, that's right. But to welcome to ok F
Speaker 1: Daily for I think the first time award winning journalist
Speaker 1: who writes at the New Republic who has a newsletter
Speaker 1: called The present Age that you all can subscribe to,
Speaker 1: and as most recently written a piece that allowed for
Speaker 1: us to put a definition, a name, and a definition
Speaker 1: to what the media has been doing around Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: which is sane washing. In Parker Maloy's piece at The
Speaker 1: New Republic, how the media sanitizes Trump's insanity. The political
Speaker 1: press's efforts to rationalize Trump's incoherent statements are eroding our
Speaker 1: shared reality and threatening in form democracy. Parker, I come
Speaker 1: to you today after a weekend where, according to reports,
Speaker 1: there was a second attempt on Donald Trump's life. A
Speaker 1: man was found with a rifle and a scope in
Speaker 1: the bushes at one of his golf horses and has
Speaker 1: been arrested. And Donald Trump found himself on social media
Speaker 1: talking about how the rhetoric on the left is what
Speaker 1: has led to these attempts on his life, with other
Speaker 1: Republicans echoing this same foolishness or what I like to
Speaker 1: call what is that word, oh, a lie about the
Speaker 1: rhetoric on the left. Talk to us about this moment
Speaker 1: in the context of sinewashing and how we find ourselves
Speaker 1: else here.
Speaker 2: Absolutely so, yeah, so basically just for anyone who hasn't
Speaker 2: read the piece, I'll kind of do a quick overview
Speaker 2: of sainwashing. So sain washing is something that I had
Speaker 2: been calling coherence bias, which is this idea that in
Speaker 2: the news, you know, it's natural for journalists to want
Speaker 2: to make things sound normal, grammatically correct, to make sense.
Speaker 2: And in ninety nine percent of cases that's fine. You know,
Speaker 2: if you're talking to someone whose house just got demolished
Speaker 2: by a hurricane, you're not going to quote their rambling
Speaker 2: statement with all the ums and ohs and all that verbatim.
Speaker 2: You're gonna write something like John Smith, whose house was
Speaker 2: just lost in the hurricane, said he was devastated. And
Speaker 2: you know, but when it comes to Donald Trump, doing
Speaker 2: that has a nasty side effect. You're essentially sanitizing what
Speaker 2: he's saying, because in his case, he's never just saying
Speaker 2: that he agrees to a debate. He says he agrees
Speaker 2: to a debate against Comrade Kamala Harris and the radical
Speaker 2: left Democrats, Crooked Joe Biden, and ABC fake news. You know.
Speaker 2: So that's kind of this idea of sainwashing, where you'll
Speaker 2: take this rambling statement and then you'll present it in
Speaker 2: a way that's made for the general public. You know,
Speaker 2: it presents him as is more put together than he
Speaker 2: actually is. And I think that over the weekend this
Speaker 2: past week, basically the town of Springfield, Ohio has been
Speaker 2: terrorized by a lot of this language that Trump in
Speaker 2: vance and a lot of others on the right have
Speaker 2: been pushing, arguing that Haitian immigrants have been stealing people's
Speaker 2: pets and eating them. And there's no factual basis to this.
Speaker 2: It's just a racist lie. And so they've been pushing that.
Speaker 2: And then on Sunday do you have someone show up
Speaker 2: to Trump's goll of course, apparently with the gun, and
Speaker 2: the Secret Service considers an assassination attempt, but they stopped
Speaker 2: the guy before he got there, you know, which is
Speaker 2: great and all. But then Trump takes to truth social
Speaker 2: as he does, and he writes this thing where the
Speaker 2: first half I find fascinating because he says the rhetoric
Speaker 2: lies exemplified by the false statements made by Comrade Kamala
Speaker 2: Harris during the rigged and highly partisan ABC debate and
Speaker 2: all the ridiculous lawsuits specifically designed to inflict damage on
Speaker 2: Joe's then Kamala's political opponent, me has taken politics in
Speaker 2: our country to a whole new level of hatred, abuse,
Speaker 2: and distrust because of this communist left rhetoric. The bullets
Speaker 2: are flying and it will only get worse. And then
Speaker 2: he goes and starts talking about He says, allowing millions
Speaker 2: of people from places unknown to invade and take over
Speaker 2: our country is an unpardonable sin. Our borders must be
Speaker 2: closed and the terrorist, criminals and mentally insane immediately removed
Speaker 2: from American cities towns to ported back to their countries
Speaker 2: of origin. We want people to come and through countries.
Speaker 2: Blah blah, blah, blah blah. So he has this thing
Speaker 2: where he's complaining about rhetoric as he uses some of
Speaker 2: the most wild rhetoric possible. He's adding insults to people's names.
Speaker 2: He's trying to blame Democrats for what they've been doing.
Speaker 2: But one thing I find really kind of funny about
Speaker 2: this is that it was just, you know, over the weekend, JD.
Speaker 2: Vance was asked about Trump's rhetoric, and he said, to
Speaker 2: try to distance himself from the people making bomb threats
Speaker 2: against places in Springfield. So are we not allowed to
Speaker 2: talk about these problems because some psychopaths are threatening violence,
Speaker 2: and that was his excuse. And so I think that
Speaker 2: right now there's this sense after the assassination attempt where
Speaker 2: someone actually shot at him, the press kind of went
Speaker 2: in to this kind of protective cocoon surrounding him, and
Speaker 2: it was it was very much, you know, they were
Speaker 2: projecting all of these things onto him, saying he had changed,
Speaker 2: he was nicer, he was toning it down, and he
Speaker 2: wanted the whole country to tone it down. And of
Speaker 2: course that didn't last.
Speaker 1: By the time he had gotten pulled off the stage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was already fight fight fight corral. So I mean,
Speaker 2: it's one of those things that I'm curious to see
Speaker 2: how in the next few days, how the press covers
Speaker 2: this sort of attempt to blame the left and blame
Speaker 2: rhetoric on the left, because what they essentially want is
Speaker 2: unilateral rhetorical disarmament. To basically say, people on the left, Democrats,
Speaker 2: you're not allowed to campaign against Trump, but he's allowed
Speaker 2: to call you all sorts of names. He's allowed to
Speaker 2: demonize whatever group he wants, and you're not allowed to
Speaker 2: say that that's bad and it's insulting. It's insulting to voters,
Speaker 2: to readers, to journalists, and I hope that journalists see
Speaker 2: through that and don't parrot that line.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you're seeing it. And I asked
Speaker 1: this because I don't know if it's just a hope
Speaker 1: of mine or it's actually happening, which is even when
Speaker 1: Jade Vance was sitting down with Dana Bash on CNN
Speaker 1: and for the first time that I have ever seen,
Speaker 1: Dana Bash actually pushed back against a Republican and say,
Speaker 1: let me stop you right there when he was repeating
Speaker 1: the lies about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, that's not true.
Speaker 1: So city officials, the sheriff have all come out and said,
Speaker 1: what you're saying is not true. But what is true
Speaker 1: is that, in the course of a week that you all,
Speaker 1: you and Donald Trump have been escalating the rhetoric, there
Speaker 1: have in fact been bomb threats. There have in fact
Speaker 1: been hospitals that have been closed down. His response to
Speaker 1: her rightfully connecting the dots and putting together the timeline
Speaker 1: for the viewers was She's disgusting for even insinuating that
Speaker 1: his rhetoric could lead to any type of violence. So
Speaker 1: I'm like, how, And I honestly I think that what
Speaker 1: I am seeing because frankly, this is not top story today,
Speaker 1: the assassination attempt. There are like eighteen other stories that
Speaker 1: are trending on top of this. So what does that
Speaker 1: say to you, Parker, when you're looking at and we
Speaker 1: follow what is trending, what people are in conversation about.
Speaker 1: You know, I see more people saying something to the
Speaker 1: effect of it seems that every time that's Donald Trump
Speaker 1: is down in the polls, something you know, outlandish happens
Speaker 1: right to keep his name in the press. And so
Speaker 1: are you sensing a bit of exhaustion, a bit of
Speaker 1: like hole humness with regard to something that, let's just
Speaker 1: be honest, ninety year years ago happening would have literally
Speaker 1: stopped the presses.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think people are tired of Donald
Speaker 2: Trump just consuming their lives. You know. There's an Onion
Speaker 2: article written from Trump's perspective that came out and I
Speaker 2: think twenty eighteen or twenty nineteen, and it's headlined with
Speaker 2: something like happy Monday, everyone, I'm here to infect every
Speaker 2: moment of your daily life by Donald Trump, you know,
Speaker 2: and it was about how everything everything from sports to
Speaker 2: culture to just everything he had put himself into it,
Speaker 2: and I think people are kind of just tired of it.
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously, it's horrible that a guy showed up
Speaker 2: to his club with a gun, and I think that
Speaker 2: obviously it has to be covered. But I think a
Speaker 2: lot of people are just like, I'm exhausted, get this
Speaker 2: guy out of my news. They want to they want
Speaker 2: to hit mute on Donald Trump. Yeah, they just want
Speaker 2: to move on. And I think that that's really what
Speaker 2: the Harris campaign has going for it in a big way,
Speaker 2: is that a lot of people are just tired of
Speaker 2: Donald Trump being everywhere all of the time. And it
Speaker 2: seemed for a brief moment at the beginning of the
Speaker 2: Biden administration that there was maybe hope that Trump would
Speaker 2: would kind of fade away, and that was you know,
Speaker 2: I'm sure that there were a fair number of Republicans
Speaker 2: who hoped that that would happen too, because they don't
Speaker 2: have to then push back against him, they don't have
Speaker 2: to make excuses for him. It was a chance to
Speaker 2: move on, but they didn't take it. And Trump came
Speaker 2: back and they embraced him and they had him speaking
Speaker 2: at events, and you know, I think it worked to
Speaker 2: his advantage. Honestly that he was suspended from Facebook and
Speaker 2: Twitter for as long as he was because it helped
Speaker 2: people kind of forget forget Trump, forget his how outlandish
Speaker 2: he was, which allowed him to kind of creep back
Speaker 2: in and it's like, oh, Okay, maybe it wasn't that bad.
Speaker 2: Maybe he wasn't everywhere, maybe he didn't infect our lives
Speaker 2: that way. And then he starts running for president again
Speaker 2: and everything is just Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump constantly,
Speaker 2: and so yeah, I mean after that, after even after
Speaker 2: the first assassination attempt where someone shot at him and
Speaker 2: killed another person, after that, it's kind of amazing how
Speaker 2: that just sort of faded in right away. Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: there was just so little curiosity about it. It's just like, well,
Speaker 2: that happened.
Speaker 1: It was a Monday, like you know exactly. I think
Speaker 1: too to all of the points you're making, And actually
Speaker 1: I believe that the Harris Walls campaign pushed out it
Speaker 1: was a picture of a flag in front of it
Speaker 1: was typed out, exhausted period, Harris Walls, that was their ad.
Speaker 1: And I think that to mark that point about why
Speaker 1: these stories are not sticking in the way that they
Speaker 1: would have, is that people are over it. They are like,
Speaker 1: it's like the circus is only entertaining for so long
Speaker 1: you buy a ticket once you're amazed, ooh ah. But
Speaker 1: if I'm going to the circus every single week and
Speaker 1: there is no change in the performer or the performances,
Speaker 1: then at some point in the time, I'm going to
Speaker 1: be like, I actually hate this and not even I
Speaker 1: don't like the circus and I don't want to go.
Speaker 1: I actually hate it now. Yeah, And I think that
Speaker 1: that is where we are with Donald Trump absolutely.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you think about it, it's just like
Speaker 2: like I don't think about Joe Biden every day. No,
Speaker 2: he does not pop into my head. I just assume
Speaker 2: that he's doing president things and you know, if I want,
Speaker 2: I can look it up and find out exactly what
Speaker 2: those things are. It's not blasted to me constantly. And
Speaker 2: I hope that if Kamala Harris gets elected, I hope
Speaker 2: the same thing happened, yes, where she's just doing her thing.
Speaker 2: And obviously, like we follow politics closely, so it's like
Speaker 2: we'll be aware of all of this, but it won't
Speaker 2: just be everywhere all of the time, And that I
Speaker 2: think is really where the public is.
Speaker 1: You use the right word, which is infected. It's like,
Speaker 1: what does the cure look like? Because the infection has
Speaker 1: spread over the last close to a decade now. And
Speaker 1: I think that what makes me worried, and this is
Speaker 1: a question for you, what makes me worried though about
Speaker 1: how these stories around these attempts on Trump, attempts on
Speaker 1: his life is how quickly they fade. Is that also
Speaker 1: not just a testament to our level of exhaustion, but
Speaker 1: also going back to your piece sanitizing the amount of
Speaker 1: violence that we've been willing to ingest and just considered
Speaker 1: normal in our everyday politics. Yeah, And I think that
Speaker 1: that's it speaks to how we're kind of desensitized to
Speaker 1: everything that's happening around us, and that's not necessarily.
Speaker 2: A good thing. When you think about school shooting used
Speaker 2: to be a huge deal. Columbine happens and the whole
Speaker 2: country comes to a halt. Now school shooting happens and
Speaker 2: we go, Okay, that was Thursday, you know, like it's
Speaker 2: just a day. It's just something that we expect to happen. Now.
Speaker 2: The only time it becomes news is if it's an
Speaker 2: especially large school shooting, right, And I think that with Trump,
Speaker 2: it's the same way if every day. You know, Hillary
Speaker 2: Clinton one time said that half of Trump's supporters were
Speaker 2: deplorable while the other half were you know, everyone always
Speaker 2: leaves that that second half of her quote, where she's like,
Speaker 2: the other half you can't write off. So she said
Speaker 2: that once and it was news for weeks. You know,
Speaker 2: Trump says something completely bonkers and it's in the news
Speaker 2: for a couple hours because he's going to say something else,
Speaker 2: because he's gonna he's going to bury it. And everything
Speaker 2: that he does, it's just one thing on top of another,
Speaker 2: on top of another, and we eventually, you know, you
Speaker 2: start to tune it out, and even the big things,
Speaker 2: even even someone showing up at his club with a gun,
Speaker 2: ends up being something that the public is just tuned
Speaker 2: out of. And you know, I don't blame the public
Speaker 2: for wanting to tune out of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you know, I think that it's the
Speaker 1: reason why your piece stood out to me so much
Speaker 1: is because I have been tuning out so much because
Speaker 1: none of it has made sense, and I have felt
Speaker 1: crazy most of the time reading the news and trying
Speaker 1: to keep track of the insanity. And when you gave
Speaker 1: it a name, and I said, oh got it. I'm
Speaker 1: not crazy because here is somebody else that thinks that way.
Speaker 1: I want us to tune back in, but I want
Speaker 1: us to tune into truth and I I think that
Speaker 1: that's where journalists like yourself come into play. So Parker,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for your work, for making the
Speaker 1: time to join me here on WOKF. Please tell folks
Speaker 1: how they can follow you and just stay up to
Speaker 1: date with all of your amazing content.
Speaker 2: Absolutely thanks for having me. People can follow me on
Speaker 2: social media. My handle is just Parker Moloy pretty much everywhere.
Speaker 2: You could subscribe to the present age at read tpa
Speaker 2: dot com.
Speaker 1: Amazing Parker, Thank you so much and I hope to
Speaker 1: talk to you again soon. That is it for me today,
Speaker 1: dear friends on wok F. As always, power to the
Speaker 1: people and to all the people. Power, get woke and
Speaker 1: stay woke as fuck.