Helping Idaho's Food & Ag Systems with Tammie Halcomb

Here we are. How are you? Good. How are you? Man, I'm good. I'm so happy to see you this morning.

This is great. You and I obviously have a chat back and forth all the time. And recently, you

penned a letter that was kind of representing your former, former organization, Fair Idaho,

that obviously connects local providers, local all these things. And you penned this letter to

the federal government and essentially saying, look, the, the Maha movement, although correct

in direction, will not be successful without localized partnerships. Because we all know,

like you can't execute national level campaigns unless you have very competent, directed,

funded and again, like relevant localized services. Talk to me about this.

Well, I mean, I don't think that's a surprise to the federal government at all. I mean,

they've been talking about for the last year, like decentralization and making sure that these

initiatives are put forward at a local level. Like I think that that I think everyone

realizes that things work better at a local level that we all have our, you know, our connections,

our communities. And we know what we're talking about in our communities. So I mean,

my letter was probably not a surprise to them. They're probably like, yeah, we thank you. We know

perfect. But really, my point was that like, you know, these conversations that are happening

at a federal level are really important for our local levels. And it's not political. People

are going to listen to this. They're going to be like, wow, that was political. But it isn't

about politics. It's about what the national conversation is really does reverberate here

at a local level. So you want to be able to have those conversations and then have them impact

locally. Like if you say, okay, this is this is a conversation that's happening at a very high level.

Why don't we take that messaging? People are already listening to that messaging and then do

something with it. Like what they're saying has value. Let's roll with it. Let's help these

producers get to market. Let's make sure that our food systems are supported. Let's make sure

that our supply chain works. Like we all saw in 2020 when this supply chain fell apart. I don't

like that. Most producers don't like that. Yeah, I don't think anybody likes that. What do you think

about the increased costs of diesel right now? I don't have a diesel car, if I can't fully.

25. No, but when you're talking about this distribution, it's a lot of change. It's huge.

There was a conversation I had last last year with somebody that was hypercritical of the tariffs.

And that's fine for it to be critical that like I don't know anything about international tariffs

or economics. But he was like, why are we trying to grow onions in Idaho? This is the dumbest thing ever.

And I was like, okay, I don't know. Maybe it is the dumbest thing ever. But there are some real

problems when you consider just leaning too heavily on international trade. It's like we could be

getting onions from Mexico. There's no reason for us to be growing them. And one of the concerns I

had was, look, maybe you're right. But in the event that the transportation mechanisms become

more expensive or actually get destroyed completely in the event of like a supply chain breakdown,

we're up a creek if you want to make a balloon and onion. But you said still a thing. I don't know.

I've been into the Althaxes my 20s. That was about minute ago. How about every time you went,

there was always somebody with an Australian accident. It's like, are there really that many Australians

that work in like fast food slash, you know, chain restaurants? Anyway, right there, there is

that problem. Now we're seeing that play out where diesel is super expensive. And that's going to

be if you're getting only stuff internationally and we don't have local supply chains and producers,

then we're all hosed as unless we want to pay like three acts of what the onion cost.

Right. And that doesn't make sense to me. Like if we're talking about supply chains, why

wouldn't you localize it? Like if you are growing onions, like we are like parma grows a ton of

onions, like Kenny County grows a ton of onions, like Idaho grows a ton of produce. Why wouldn't you

first distribute where you grow and then distribute out past that? And I don't pretend to know any of

the answers that because I don't. I'm an idiot. Every time I talk to somebody new, I'm like, I didn't

know that. But like why are these conversations not happening more robustly? Like why aren't we all

just grabbing stakeholders and listening? Because I don't know the answers. I'm sure you don't know

the answers. We none of us know the answer separately. But there's a lot of people in the room that if

we gathered them all together and said, Hey, you know, this is what we perceive to look like the

problem. What do you perceive the problem to look like? And then what do you perceive as the solution?

And is there a solution the same as his solution and their solution and that person's solution?

And will this help your community? Will this help your economy? These are really basic conversations

that I don't believe are happening as well as they were pre-COVID?

Listen, I totally agree with you. And one of the big things is I talked to Matt Fuchsin from Charlie's

produce. And I was like, Dude, why don't we have Idaho potatoes in Albertsons on state street? Like why

don't you? And he's like, Okay, well, like this is a complex because of logistics. There's not

these large chains that we all predominantly shop at like Costco or like Albertsons or whatever

Sam's club wherever you might. I don't know. I don't even have Sam's club. I don't know. I've

never been there. But I know it's a big box store. Yeah. Bottom line is they get their distributions

from localized hubs, not local to Idaho, but like singular hubs where they go out from. And those

hubs say ones in like Nevada or Utah, that hub is grabbing produce from wherever it gets produce

from. So we're we're growing Idaho potatoes, but our stores don't have them because they go

elsewhere to different hubs. And then those get distributed in like Wyoming or the Dakotas

wherever it might be, which is like, Okay, so we're growing things and they go over here. Other

people are growing things and they come up here. And we don't have these localized things. We're

not going to change that unless there's incentive from our larger stores to have like an Idaho

grown label or an Idaho and has to obviously be financial because they're not going to start changing

up their supply chain. Like it's too easy to like we got the machine polished and greased like we're

not changing anything. It has to be like, Okay, it's worth the time to insert this little thing.

Like we have you go to Albertsons, right? And they generally have like a little organic stand where

it's like, Okay, these are things are organic. Fine. We could also have local stands where I was

like Idaho local grown. It wouldn't even take that much space. And I think people would really appreciate

it. I think so. I mean, I don't prefer does that. They set up little local stands. I've seen them

do it at Walmart and other stores and they promote the local food. Like Idaho preferred does a really

good job of promoting our local produce that's being grown here in Idaho. But I think chains.

And again, I'm just an idiot. I don't know. I'm just the one that wants to like listen to people.

But it's my perception that chains cater to what their consumer wants. So if the consumer is not

demanding local food, why would they? It doesn't make any sense to them. Even though the product could

even out like I hear the argument. And I was just talking to a gallup. She's the farm bureau chair

up in Boners County. And shoot boundary county. Boners County.

Oh, these ones. Yeah. Okay. And then really far up north. There it is.

I think it was boundary. Chris is going to kill me. I'm so sorry, Chris.

Do not call her and she is a morning person like we are. She'd probably be like, let's have a

conversation. But I saw in her and I was like, you know, I know that the food costs a lot.

She's like, look, we can't afford like we can't afford local food. Like we can grow the local

food, but we can't afford to buy local food. And I'm like, that's such a short-sighted

concept that we all believe. Like you probably believe it. I do believe it. I know that food is

expensive. Like I'm on a very limited income. You cut costs where you can. But if you look at the

bigger picture when you purchase locally, that money goes back into your local economy.

That money then continues to work for you throughout the entire life cycle of that money.

And then when it comes back down to your municipality in the form of sales tax or whatever,

that then goes into your roads. It goes into your schools. It goes into a lot of different

mechanisms that I don't know I like. I enjoy to have, you know, my kids educated the community

around me, educated roads that I can drive on that I don't end up in a pothole and like,

you know, roads like those are nice. I enjoy those. I enjoy the services that my dollar

contributes to. And it is short-sighted when we say, you know, I'm only going to cut my bill

because then you're you're ultimately cutting yours on the other end. It's just that we don't see

that impact easily because it is broad. Okay. One thing I don't understand, which maybe you can

help me with, it's what is it like six dollars per hundred weight of onions? I have no idea.

Okay. Well, let me tell you, it's like six dollars for a hundred pounds on. That's the

hundred weight, right? 100 pounds. Now that's what the farmer's getting, right? They're like,

all right, I grow all these onions. I get six dollars for every, I got to grow like 40,000

pounds of onions per acre. And then like you start doing math, they're like, okay, at scale,

these are my inputs and blah, blah, blah, blah. Like I could make a buck, right? Because they're not

crushing it. Like a lot of farmers are just getting obliterated right now. And they're getting

obliterated because they can't, they're especially with commodity crops, they're not they're not

price setters, they're price takers, right? So whatever they, they say when they're like we'll buy it

a six dollars a hundred weight, that's what they have to take. But they can make their own prices

locally if they have local outlets and local distribution. And by the way, the price is way better.

Because like, I don't know how much a pound of onions cost at Albertsons, but I'm sure it's like

three or four dollars or something. So, you know, it's like six dollars per hundred weight or three

or four hundred dollars per hundred weight. And there's enough margin there that it seems like if

you had an organization that was really good at, at, you know, you're competing and could sell

at volume. Because that's the other issue, right? Like anybody can sell 50 pounds of onions and

you sell 50,000 pounds of onions. And that's where you run into problems with like, okay, but they

need to make, they, they have a thousand acres of onions, like they could supply the entire state

of Idaho with onions. And then the question is like, okay, well, how do we get these out the door?

Because again, like the local farm standards, like, yeah, that's all well and fine, but that's

chump change compared to what they're dealing with. They have like a thousand dollars of input per acre.

Right. No, yeah. I mean, it's a complex system. Like I wouldn't pretend to say that it's as simple

as going to your neighbor and saying, have you considered distributing locally? Like they'd

probably be like, that's like when somebody's like, hey, have you considered Patreon to support

your podcast? I'm like, who could you? You know what I say? You know what I say to those people,

now I'm like, oh, I have, well, you can be a hundred bucks. And they're like, no, no, other people.

Like, right, it's always someone else that's like, just got the hundred bucks sitting around.

Right. By the way, this is a great time to plug my Patreon.

Please tell me you have a, I don't know. I don't even put a little like code at the bottom,

be like, hey, yes. Oh my god. You know, I do need to do. I've been kicking around the idea of,

I do have a lot of people, a lot of viewers and fans that want to support, but I don't really make

good mechanisms for support. Like I, and again, I'm a nonprofit. Like I'm not, I'm not doing a very

good job of being a nonprofit, but I was thinking about doing a subscription model where all the

content you're getting right now, you get, it continues to be for free. But with key things,

like, um, town, like, live town halls with Representative Simpson, like Congressman Simpson came in,

but it's like, you can email, you get the live version. So you get to see it as you go and you can

like email in little things, like, little questions or, um, or content comes out like two days early.

For some people, I thought that would kind of be cool. Or we just, like, I have you on every month

and we just talk trash and that episode goes out. They're like, he had me with Congressman.

It's got to get it. It's Tammy again. Tammy's on. I'm like, this is what you get for your

Patreon. Yeah, then they're out there and we like, why do we have to hear her again? She sounds

like Minnie Mouse. We've need to stop listening to her. You know, we'll say that like, when I was

out there, and there's no drama there, like, I feel like I need to address that. There's like,

that was a fully amicable situation. There is no drama there. Like drama, I'm a drama free kind of

gal. Yeah. Um, but yeah, but you're no longer with them anymore. It's totally fine. Everybody's happy.

Yes. I just, I mean, it is what it is. Like, just the way things go. Um, but when I was there,

we had Crapo come on. He did an exclusive roundtable for us, which was really nice because it did

bring our, our members to the table to say, you know, here's the impacts of the one big beautiful

bill, which I'm not smart enough to talk about. But you know, who is Crapo? Like, it was an

architect of that whole thing. Like, let him talk to the members. Like, to me, that's added value

that you could totally bring. Like, there's a lot of people that are looking for information.

Obviously, your, your podcast is doing incredibly well. People are looking for that information.

You're just bringing the information. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not worried about it. But like, the whole

Patreon thing, like, hashtags and the comments. It's the description. We're going to just hold

down. He's like, yeah. So coming back to you, when you wrote this letter, essentially articulating,

like, you need very good, localized partners, which again, is not a surprise. What do you, like,

something happened in that commentary really took off like in the DC area? What? What was it?

What happened? What do you think you said or, you know, brought to light? Um, I'm not really sure

exactly what it was. Whether it was, you know, oh, here's somebody that hears the message and is like,

there's value there. Or if it was just people saying, you know, here's a statewide organization

that recognizes this federal initiative and sees that without boots on the ground, federal initiatives

are just words. Like, that's not really helpful. We really need to have the action

local. And I feel that a statewide organization that's actually going to put their ear to the

ground and say, you know, how does this, how does this look for you? What do we do? How do we

ease the restrictions? How do we make sure things look better and more conducive to everyone

within the food system? Not just one person, not just one producer, not just one commodity. Like,

how do we make this work, both locally and for our commodity growers? Because there are people

that grow onions, obviously not for our state. And they're like, wait, that's my biggest margin

is selling to other states and other countries. And that makes sense to me. I would go where my

biggest margin is. If I was a business owner and I've been a business owner before, you hit your

ROI. That's what you want. What's your biggest opportunity for ROI? That's very simple for a business

model. Is it your ROI? But then like, what if there were other opportunities that you could then

feed into the local system? And we just don't have that infrastructure built. It's about to me

infrastructure. And right now, humans are the best access to infrastructure that I think we have.

You you've been and you were formerly with the city legal and then went to fair. You've been now

in this world for several years engaging with local producers, local providers, local consumers

like myself. What do you see as some of the biggest opportunities sitting out there for somebody

that has like you've you've seen behind the curtain? What what is there where you're like, okay,

this is what we could do. Or these like don't give away the secret sauce, obviously.

Is there a secret sauce? I don't think there's like a silver bowl for one business owner over

another. Sure. And how was that Kenny County too? Don't forget. I was at Kenny County and I

started there economic development department too. Yeah. So you're really good at taking markets and

essentially just like we can bring value to these. These are the little nuggets that like we can

squeeze juice out of. I'm I love to connect people with resources. And I think that's where my

value lies. And I think when people meet me and they're like, we have this problem. And then

they touch me. They're like, Oh, well, why don't we just have you, you know, have a conversation.

I'm not a solver. Like I would never pretend that I like know the answers because I'm really

truly an idiot. I mean, I've been on your show a thousand times. You're talking about what

I mean, I am like, I don't know that I don't know because I don't know. I'm not the business owner

of that one like niche thing. Like the business owners know what the problem is and they know

the solution is, but does every business owner have the same feeling? Like that's what I feel is

so important is having those conversations. That's what I mean by like humans are our greatest

infrastructure right now. We're just not deploying them. Like we've lost community. I feel

and I've seen evidence post 2020. We've lost our communities that, you know, used to sustain us.

Like they used to, we had our little villages. We had, I mean, they weren't like 1980s style,

like neighbors watching for neighbors. But I mean, we still bought local because we knew that,

you know, flowed down the street, grew her, you know, tomatoes down there. Listen, whatever her name

is. Channis. Karen. Oh, homegirl down the street grew her tomatoes. And you were like, okay,

little Johnny, go ride your bike down and go grab a couple tomatoes from her because she has an

excess number of tomatoes. No, we're making spaghetti the night. Like these were really simple

systems. And we could, we still have those systems. But I feel like they've been

brought in by a nominee at Blasad. Here's where too much coffee is coming in. But I feel like social

media has made our communities giant. Like your community is now everyone across the globe.

But where's your local community? Where's your, your neighborhood? Where's your, your small little

village? Like, where's flow? Yeah, where's flow? And where's little Johnny on his bike? Like,

have those two been connected? Because really, those with the original infrastructure is like, we've

got a distributor with Johnny. We've got a producer with flow. And we have a mom right there who's the

consumer that needs tomatoes today because she's making spaghetti. Like that was a really basic

system that worked. And then we, we created what was supposed to be more connection through social

media. But we've lost that human connection. Like, we are no longer connected communities.

We're connected globes and globe one singular. We live on one. I, I couldn't agree with you

more. And I think one of the problems is we, the word connection or friends mean something

completely different now than it did in 2004. Like, like, we are more connected, not with humans though.

We're connected with like avatars online. Like, we, you have the mom down the street. Her husband

passes away. Like, social media in across the country is not coming to give her a hug and like,

pick up the dog poo on her lawn because she's a mess and can't do it for herself. Right? Like,

the, the gal, you know, that has an excess of tomatoes that lives in Oklahoma that everybody knows

has an excess of tomato no longer has little Johnny riding up trying to grab him because like no one

cares. So we have, we have these quote connections that aren't actually real in the real sense that we

used to think in like 80s and 90s and 2000. And they, they've tricked us into some, it's kind of like

this is a little dark. But it's, it's, it's like intimacy online. Right? It has tricked us into

thinking we have partners in intimacy. It's like, no, you don't. Like, that's not a person. Like,

get a hug from that person. Like, get an actual hug, not even a crazy hug. Just like, get a pat on

the back, man. Get whatever. Like, these are not actual relationships. But people died down these

rabbit holes into them and get a hook line in synchron. You know what I was thinking about this

morning. I woke up very early. I woke up at like 3 30 and just I was like, it's time to go.

And so like, you know, when you wake up and you're like, here we go, like off, off to the races.

And I have, I have interviews until five o'clock today. I was like, no, it's okay. Look at me.

I'm not worried about it. I should have a lunch break now, though, because I've been up for like

five hours. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. But I, I was thinking about the problem that people have

with connections online. And that for some reason, we, we tell young men in particular, let's say,

like, hey, don't look at online porn. That's really bad for you. And it's going to scrub your brain.

But we don't extend that warning to any other form of media. We don't say stop reading

international news. That's all doom and gloom. We don't say stop watching, you know, videos on

conspiracy theories. We don't extend the warning of this is bad consumption. And we'll absolutely

damage your brain to anything else. I have this, I was telling you, I have this keynote that's

coming up at ISU that I'm very excited about. And part of part of the, the, the hammer blow of

the conversation is that we have been trained without knowing we were trained. And it's like,

it's so obvious when you think about it, you think about any social media challenge.

Do people really actually want to be walking on melt crates? Like, does anybody want to be dumping

the bucket of ice water on their head? Like, we got trained to do these things. And when we did

them, we, the broader we, when we did them, we got a little, you know, tree, we got a little piece

of bacon. We're like, here you go. Do it again, monkey. And people are like, yeah, let's do it again.

And you see these people like chasing the dragon. They like have this, this is actually what happened

in Mr. Beast. He, he, his first video when he was 12 when viral. And he said he kept chasing that

until he was like 18 19. And then he became famous, like instantaneously. So here you have a 12

year old whose life meaningfully changed at the age of 12 until he hit it rich at 19. But if he

hadn't hit it rich at 19, he was like a month away from getting kicked out of his house. Because

he had lied to his mom and said he was going to like junior college classes. And he was just in his

car editing videos. Whoops. He's until he made like 20 grand that month. And he's like, I'm moving

out mom. Poo. So like we, we have been trained in this very odd way. And people don't recognize

that they're being trained. And it's this really damaging thing. So back to your point about we

don't have community more. It's like, yeah, because we sold out the community because we got trained

to ditch our physical community. Little Johnny flow, the tomatoes, the whole thing. We ditched that

for this online community where it's like, we get these pieces of bacon. Right. We have a Pavlov.

Dude, we told you they have logged us. We told they totally did man. And it's I think it's a real

concert. So considering that, like, do you think you're going to stay in produce? Do you think

you're going to stay in the providers and purveyor space? I don't know. I mean, I was an

economic development before this. Like you and I just talked about like, I've been supporting

local businesses for like two decades. I love supporting small businesses. I love hearing

their stories. Like, I feel like probably why you and I get along because like, you could,

I think a smaller business, like, you pat me on the head. You're like, good job, man.

I'm doing a great job. And you know it. And I talked about this small as I could be.

That's not true. It's you which I year ago. Now you're not.

I'm still only a party of one. That's what I say. Yeah, but when I say small businesses,

I mean, like, you could, the only other alternative is like, to turn me into AI and just let me

loose. And then it would require zero humans. That's what may happen. Like our problems just keep

they're like circular. Like, it's so long. No community AI to make community. Like,

we're making it worse. I know. And with the kids that now like go home and report that they

like go right to AI to like talk about their day, it's very dark stuff. Anyway, I'm sorry,

economic development this year. I mean, ultimately, that's about connecting people. That's

economic development. Everybody, first of all, like can I just say that the people that are working

in economic development municipalities, man, they're doing such a good job. Like a lot of them

are taking political hits because development in our community and probably in a lot of other

communities is, you know, a difficult space to be working in because there's, you know, people

that don't want to have more coming here and then don't know, like the economic impact of

having large businesses come and what that looks like for the workforce and what that looks like

for our sales tax and for our local dollar. But those people are doing such a good job. Like,

if you own a business and you don't know your local cities, economic developer, call your city.

Like, that is your first line. Honestly, those people are working so hard to know everyone and

to connect everyone. They're doing such a good job. But like, I mean, my love for connecting people

is long before when I was in economic development. I've always known I was an idiot. Like,

that was never, I was never like, you know, maybe I'm the smartest person in the world. No.

But I knew, but I knew that like, you know, I didn't know these things, but there's people out there

that know these things. I just need to know what these people know. Like, I think it's so fascinating,

fascinating to have conversations, you know, at your chamber meeting or at your local connections.

There's that like talking talk goes. Have you heard about that? No. We'll get to that. So like,

you know, you go to these like networking things and, you know, you just listen to people. And then

you're like, I didn't, I've never heard that, but this person knows that. And to me, that's where

you're like, you're knitting this like tapestry of connections for everyone across your entire

community. And really, that is what community used to be. It used to be this like tapestry of

human beings that created this like microcosm that they're a little like,

local level of these are the businesses. This is the network that we work within. Like,

these are all these things. That's what I've loved always. I mean, I got off of social media way

back like in 2020. Like, I just couldn't do it anymore. I was like, I can't do it anymore.

Right. Which pisses me off because every time I send you a link, you're like, I can't open it.

You need a screen record it and send it to you. I'm like, wasting two minutes. Like, I've heard

this. That's why I was going to send it to her. I just want to hear it. But you do it for me.

And I appreciate it. I do. There it is. Yeah. That one I sent you the other day was fire too.

I like it. I played that for my kids. I like it. Yeah. Yeah. There's another one with

Jimmy Carr, I think is the British comedian. It's great. I'll show it to you later. Anyway,

but the morning's out. So you get off social media. Yeah. But then you lose what semblance of

community we have today in 2026. Like for us, the reality is in 2026 community is online.

But it doesn't have to be like, I think that we can go back to, and I think, and again,

this is like minimizing it. Like makes it sound like there's no one doing this or like,

there's no community elsewhere. There's community. Like, and really, man, I'm just going to light

myself on fire right now. But local politicians are doing a really great job of convening.

They have their local constituents telling them their concerns and saying, you're the person I'm

trusting to fix this problem. Like, that's great. That's what we need. Communities to come together

and say, this is the problem. Help it. Like, fix it. But elected can't be everything. They can't be

everywhere. They're not all knowing. Just like none of us are like, they don't have all the answers,

but they're convenors, they're connectors. Last night I was on here on your show. You said

something gather, no, collect people. Collect the people. I have thought about it ever since.

Like, collect the people is the way. It really is. Like, not if you build it. They will come sort of

like, woo, woo, but like, connect the people. Like, grab everyone together and say,

okay, we've called you here together. Talk about your problem. I want to hear your problem.

And I want to hear what you say as a solution. You, same, same, same. And then maybe there's

like this thing that aggregates to the top. And it's like, huh, everyone's saying the same thing.

This is the solution. Who knew would be that easy? We just needed to get everyone in the community

together. Yeah. Like, there are these things happening for sure. Non-profits are working in that

space. Elected are working in that space. Economic developers are working in that space. But

are we working together to solve a problem that we're perceiving to be a problem? Are we working

together to work on a problem that the community sees as a problem? Do we know the problems?

Right. Right. And are we listening enough to understand the problem? Right? Because there are a lot

of people solving problems. It's like, okay, you're solving something. But are you solving for

the right thing? And is the nature, are the, are the solutions that are already being engaged

way more sophisticated than you could even understand? Right. Which means that your solution

may actually knock down the other bowling pens that people are setting up. It's like, we're

working on this. Like, you got just give me a second. Like, hear what we're doing over here first.

And again, like, this is, this is fundamentally what I do every day. I collect the people,

the people come in, they have all kinds of different problems or concerns or considerations.

Right. And I listen to those people and like try to ask the best questions I can not

written out or anything. But it's like, okay, what about an overwhelmingly, you realize there are

so many people working so damn hard to solve these problems. And they're so complex and these

people are so that you want to know one problem that I think. And it's to your point about

community. And it's something that I've thought about a lot as of late. I was a Tim of the other

night and I went to use the restroom. And so I had to walk past this bar that was like really packed.

And there was a guy there and his thing looking good. I'm not looking good. And he's just like,

walk past the dude and his like lady with a leopard print thing and whatever. Yeah, whoa. And he's

like, yeah, we're just letting new some do whatever. And blah, blah. I'm like, Oh, God, he's

nice. Come on. It's like you're you're divorced. You're divorced. And you're still talking about

your acts like let it go. And the thing that I this highlights is, look, one of the reasons we are

having such a hard time collecting people for community is this. When somebody moves here,

like I did, there are a lot of people are moving there. A lot of those people are moving here.

And they call them so political refugees. Okay, now again, think about this. They are here because

they're escaping bad politics, which means the politics was the things that was driving them

the fastest to make this gigantic change in their entire life. That is it. That was their number

one priority, right? Okay, great. And again, those politics may blood into things like school or

medical freedoms, whatever it is. But fine, this is the thing that moves them here. When they get

here, they didn't move here because they're like, I really love the outdoors. And I just always

wanted to be around the moose. Moose, like it's not like that, right? There's this book by the way

that we used to read to our kids. Oh, I was going to say that. It was belongs to me. I used to say

me so that my kids would be like, that's it's moose. You can't like. Heal moose. Oh, it's great. Yeah.

What does the moose bring the guy in the end? He's like, you rob me an apple.

It's been like 20 years. It's fine. They're old. Yeah. So we used to read that book. But the point is

that you don't have that. So people's primary focus and interest and concern is around politics.

When they get here, they don't join the quilting clubs. They don't join. And by the way,

they're hyper socially receptive because they left everything like if you move around your

neighborhood, you're not going to be hyper socially receptive because you still have your friends.

You might move a mile away, but you still have your job, your friends, your interests, your whatever

it is. Here, when you move here, you have none of that. So you're, you have these like open

nerve endings that are like out there feeling for things like the relationships, connections,

common interests, things of this. And people move here and the one biggest thing that they have

in common with other people's politics. So now they make this community around politics. They join

communities that are already centered on public be it central committees or, you know, a conservative

of or whatever it is, they double down on this political interest. And all of a sudden it's the

only reason they moved here. It's the only thing I can talk about. Their only friends are around

this. And by the way, if they leave those friends a year or two in, they have nothing because

these are the people that they've come to. We need collectively. And again, if you're politically

oriented, that's not a problem. The problem is we need things outside of politics that people

can bond over because the political only orientation is is further exacerbating the polarization

within our country. But if we had a bunch of people that just enjoyed quilting or gardening,

and it's like, we can all be here as a variety of people. Yeah. And just focus on like,

under the Mary Golds, I don't know, like you focus on whatever you want. You know, but we could have

these interesting communities that then bring us back to supporting each other that aren't

nationally oriented. They're locally oriented because we're all with our hands in the dirt. Exactly.

I mean, to me, that goes back to like the missing third space that we, the third places that we

lost, like post COVID, like we have work, one place, home, second place, maybe that's flipped.

I don't even remember at this point, but like, like those are the two places we go. We don't even

really grow the group. I don't go the grocery store. I order my food. Like I have convenience wins.

Like making sure that I go as little places as possible is my like life school today.

And by the way, the people that live here and sell their house for like millions of dollars,

they don't go to local work either. They don't even have work bodies. They don't go. So it's one

place. They can't just simply, they can't just simply because they have no connections to the area

they've moved to. They're like, I'm going to take a couple years. I'm going to like retool. They're

not going anywhere. Right. I know because we lost community. Right. Like going right back to that,

we lost community. We lost our third space places. We lost community. Like we lost

diversity of ideas being able to say, Oh, you know, I hear you. And I listen to you and I respect

what you're saying. And I'm not judging what you have to say. Why would I? Because your beliefs

don't impact me. But like, that's not what I believe. And we can still keep planting our marigolds.

Like it's totally fine. It should be. It should be. But that's what I mean about like when you collect

these people, you're just a listener. Like when you sit in a room and they're expecting you to tell

them what you believe, you I in my opinion, my perception of that is you've now shut down the

dialogue because these people are waiting for you to tell them what you believe. But if we flip it

and we say, I've got nothing. Well, I don't know what I'm talking about. You do. Tell me what you

need to say. And all I'm going to do is reiterate it back to you because I'm not it doesn't impact me.

I'm not judging it. But I'm going to say, Okay, I heard Sally over here says she doesn't have

Johnny coming down to get tomatoes. And she has 100 tomatoes. And then it flows over here like,

you guys are robbing me blind of tomatoes. I don't have enough tomatoes. And Johnny's like working

his little legs off. And he's like, I can't go to everybody's house. How do I do this? But like

gauge down the street is like, Hey, I have my bike. Nobody calls me. Like those little sister, I mean,

I've made it so small and like, but I mean, those are the problems that are like solved just through

local community, through having your connections with your neighbors, through having connections,

through local groups, like if our local groups are only politicized, then of course politics are

going to become outsized conversations in everybody's life. If that's all we have. Yeah, man. And

the people moving here will never actually experience I don't know, right? You know, like, and again,

I'm always locally focused. It's. And the question of how do we help people assimilate? How do

we offer opportunities? This question is so difficult because for the people that don't leave their

house for employment, they don't leave their house for the quilting club. They don't leave their

house for the hunters club. They don't leave their house for anything. They stay in their house

or their tiny little community. How do you reach those people? And ultimately, I think the actual

answer is you reach them the same way they found Idaho, which is on their phones. That's fair.

Because if they're like the majority of them don't have family, they're like, oh, yeah,

I've been going up to Idaho since I was like a kid and my uncle still lives there. It's awesome.

And like we go for pre-slag is great. Yeah, so like I'm we're just going to give a shot. No

problem. Just move there full time. That's not the story of everybody from Newport Beach. Right.

My Newport Beach is like I saw freedom. I'm going. Totally. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. And that's fair. I just

think that like when you shape conversations only around politics, you fully flatten the human

experience to just like this one little thing. Like we're not that distilled. I don't think my life

isn't that distilled to where everything like comes down to politics. That just isn't my life. I

don't know if that's your life. But like I think that when we distill all of our conversations down

to just this one little thing and flatten our lives and like compress the human experience down

to just its politics, then we're looking to politicians who are just humans, just people like you

and I to solve all of the world's problems. That's bonkers. That's not the Idaho way. Not only is

that not the Idaho way and we shouldn't have it be the Idaho way because the community knows how

to help itself. Like why would we be turning to people that are just selected? Like I don't mean to

like disparage the elected. I think that what they're doing is incredibly hard and I couldn't

I would never want to do it. But ever, ever, ever, ever. But I mean you're looking to this is

also just your neighbor. Like remember these people live in your communities and these people

are just people. Like you're looking at your neighbor and you're saying solve all of my problems.

But your problem is lying in the community. Have a conversation with the community.

Right. Like we just need the community conveners again. We need the collectors of the people

I think. God bless them. We'll see. Tammy, welcome you the best. Anything anything you want to

hit here. You've you've had a lot a lot of wise little words in this conversation. I've got

nothing else so much caffeine but no so much caffeine. You got a big day ahead of you. It's going

to be great. Listen, I always appreciate the time we get to spend together and chat about these

things. I'm excited to do it after the legislative session because during the legislative session

my god, they are like the fastest. I have conversations, but it's literally like diet coke when

I'm like starving. Like I'm not suffering right now. It's just, you know, you not usually end up

going on for like an hour or a couple of hours, just nonsensical. I'm just like black out after 45 minutes.

But so that's how we don't air those. I know that's true to show going our step. So look,

let's do this. Let's connect again in May. I'd love to hear what you what your new adventures is

because again, you're your free agent now and going out to find economic development opportunities

which is going to be great. And yeah, man, I'm excited to have you on again. Thanks.

I appreciate it. I always enjoy your conversations and I think that you are an incredible collector of

people. God bless you. The collector of people. I love it. I love it. Yeah. Like in your little

like matchbox like plastic. Yeah. Back you've formed. It's like Matt collector.

Come on. People. God bless it. Thank you for coming on. We'll do it again.