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Tammie Halcomb is an Idaho champion for local food production and distribution and came on to talk about a letter that she penned to the administration about the inability for the MAHA movement to move forward in Idaho without local partners to execute on the ground. The letter was leaked to the media and gained national attention. Tammie is a huge asset to our local food systems. Enjoy!
The Ranch Podcast is supported by Truth In Media Foundation, a non-profit media organization committed to unbiased, Idaho focused media.
The Ranch Podcast is the premier source for long format interviews and information in the Treasure Valley and great state of Idaho. The Boise area is home to many counties and ways of life. It’s also home to many law enforcement agencies, like Ada County and Canyon county Sheriff offices, Idaho State Police, Eagle Police Department, Meridian Police Department, and many more. The school systems in the area are also quite diverse. Boise school district and West Ada School District, though right next to each other, are quite different. Ada County is also home to our state capital and many of our elected officials.
The Ranch Podcast is shot just north of Eagle, Idaho.
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.



