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Ep014: The Case against Harvard · 775 Alive

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  Scott: Welcome to 775 Alive, a podcast looking at world, national, state, and local affairs from the perspective of rural Nevada. I'm Scott Gavorsky. Crystal: And I'm Crystal Newton. Scott: It's summer out here in Nevada, getting ready for our first 100 degree day up here in the north.
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  Crystal: It's our first, our first. I have an agricultural business up here and all I've been hearing is complaining for the last month about how hot it is. We all move our schedule to early in the morning and they're sleeping in the afternoon cuz forget it. Yeah, it's just too miserable. Well, for for most of us in sort of governmental circles, this is the busy season because we're doing a lot of uh strategic planning this time of year. So, city of Elko's got a new strategic plan coming out. Spring Creek just recently had a discussion about uh possibly becoming a city. So, Spring Creek and Elko have plans, but they're slightly different from each other. Oh, yeah. So, this is kind of interesting because in the state of Nevada, it's become almost impossible to incorporate it as a city. Oh, yeah. I know Nye County's maybe looking at trying to incorporate a city. And that mean Yeah, it is. And you have all these developmental groups kind of um planning out cities for people these days. They're they're generally from college groups or um other economic development councils is the other term you get floated around over on our side where we have a big lithium mine. We have the I-80 Gold Group. Oh yeah. Yeah. And they're you know representatives from Washington DC and they're telling us how we should build our towns and I know that you have what the University of Reno. Yeah. University of Nevada Reno. Uh their business department has a developmental they came out to Elko. they've been out here meeting with them and of course I've for that team I've worked with a lot of them on other projects. Uh UNLV, University of Nevada, Las Vegas has that Rebel Business Indicators thing that comes out every year. Uh yeah, universities just like here like they are across the country are really playing a key role in sort of helping try to guide uh development on communities across the area. Yeah. And we thought it'd be really important to talk about what's going on in our university systems. is kind of bounded around this whole Trump thing against Harvard. And I know a lot of people hear bits and pieces. I think it's just another thing Trump's trying to snag headlines, but there's a lot more to what's going on with Harvard and in universities in general. And I don't think a lot of people know how cities get built these days. And it is a bunch of of groups primarily from colleges that come out and say hey cowboys let's switch from the horse stalls to the to the car and let's switch from this zoning to this and then before you know it all of America looks the same. Right. Well and it's not just cities. I mean one of the things I think that's really going on in the in the Harvard situation is that Harvard is really bound up in a lot of national and international development as well. They have been for a while. Oh right. Quite a while. And I think that the stream of of salvos that the Trump administration has launched against Harvard since we're in April really this year, right about two months after he gets uh he gets inaugurated into the second term. Yeah. Um you know, a lot of people thought I think it was domestic, but I'm wondering more and more if it's aimed at some of these developmental things. Yeah. Um and the role they're playing. Um so exploring this, how do we want to what do you think is a good way? Do we want to start with the the the itinerary that's been going on the last few months or so? The main contentious issue that everyone is arguing about with this is this is a private institution typically. Well, you have public colleges and private ones. Harvard's a private one, right? And so, you know, you're private institution. Why did what cause does the government have to come in and tell you what you can and can't do, who you can let into your school or not? Well, guess what? Everyone takes federal money. So, if you take federal money, the federal government has a say. And so basically what it comes down to is Harvard wants to screen the applicants in a way that the federal government feels is not correct according to civil rights policy. Yeah. Let's break this down because there's a couple things there. First of all, even though Harvard's a private institution, of course, established 1636, but takes the name Harvard two years later when John Harvard leaves on the aquas. Well, Harvard. Um so it's it's oldest university here uh in what becomes the United States and like a lot of universities at the time it's established as uh for clerical training religious training. Um so it it does it's always had even though it's private it's always had that sort of wise public influence right um and I should point out though those religious figures back in the day those were the cultural and community leaders of their day. Well here at least right? Yeah. No, no, you're very you're very much right. So, but I think the point for our discussion is I'm not Harvard's not really an institution that's always just been public, right? has always had from the beginning 380 some years now this um um you know this quasi public uh sort of relationship uh and that's actually grown I think in many ways right so uh Kennedy School of Government that gets established the school of government existed before it takes the name Kennedy of course after JFK is assassinated uh it's becoming a bigger and bigger uh sort of conduit for people to enter into public service particularly the higher levels of public services we've got what four Harvard graduates on the Supreme Court now. I think it's four for Harvard four for Yale and then yeah I think Amy Coney Barrett is the only one that's not and she's Notre Dame. That's right. So uh yeah so we're seeing a big influence from their graduates. Well I I I think it I think it goes to state again what you just said I just to make sure people understand. So the Supreme Court's making a ruling on Harvard of which the Supreme Court's comprised of Ivy League students. Mhm. What is your take on if there is a bias there? Are they do you think that body can deliberate on this on these issues with unbiased? Oh, I think they can. I think they can. Yeah. And I think so. The big case we're talking about is defer emissions case back in 2023 about the race-based emissions. Y and it was Harvard and was it UNC Chapel Hill was the other one I believe. Um both of them sort of got grouped together by the Supreme Court. And if I remember right, the the three members who voted in the majority were conservative. They're all from Harvard. So, you know, that that doesn't it didn't fall around Harvard lines, right? Um is that a guarantee in the future? Who knows? Of course, uh anybody that's gone through this stuff and anybody that has these um uh ties, right? uh always used to remember our our undergraduate alma maters because we all watched the Paper Lion and Alan Alda had to sing Harvard's uh alma mater and his audition for the Detroit Lions right standing on the chair um but no I mean that branding is important um but I think there's some other stuff that's going on that's unique um to Harvard right now not only just the name recognition uh and the branding but but Harvard has really expanded drastically here um to talk about a lot more issues than just education. Yes. Right. And I think it's that say or say that's swaying a lot of these opinions. Well, I I think it's relevant to talk about this especially, you know, in rural Nevada. Um you know, we have good families and their idea of the best thing for their child is to send them off to college. And so I do think it's important to talk about what is going on in colleges and what's being turned out. Um, in the case of Harvard, I I got a little worried about Harvard when I started to date. Like they have their tentacles in everything. They they get involved in other countries. Ukraine's one that I specifically know about after the USSR collapsed. Harvard had a very heavy influence on kind of helping the country reorganize, which essentially means reassign assets to the people of their choosing. And since that happened, their endowments over $50 billion, right? Don't mean to make a connection there. just making those statements side by side. Um, but incredibly influential. I was shocked to find out just how much they've dug into the social policy thing. And it worries me to think that they're putting out 10, 20, 30,000 people every year graduate that go out into the world feeling completely in alignment with their stances socially and just putting it out into the world. And it's really starting to come to this point where we're all looking around going, "What happened? Why is there the gender thing and why why are all these weird social issues popping up? Well, revealed like this is why Trump is really hitting at Harvard because this kind of the head of the snake and I I hate to use that because it's a detrimental term, but the cover's kind of where it starts, right? And and once again, you've hit about three issues. We probably need we probably need to break down. I just think I I hear like our audience going, "Why are we talking about Harvard? That's so far removed from our lifestyle." I'm like, "Hold on." No, hold on. Well, and that so so let's take a basic example. one of the things you said because because one of the things is that other countries do have schools that are specially devoted towards government service. Yeah. Right. So, so you know in in Great Britain you have the Oxbridge as they call it Cambridge and Oxford which is where all the senior people come from. Harvard's got one like a government of international policy and like they have those centers. Now, and France has um the École Normale d'Administration, right? Enarch. They they have a national school of bureaucracy and almost everybody who staffs high positions of government is an Enarch, right? They cut they come out of that school. I hate it when you pull out the French on me. Oh, well, but but it's final. In the US, we didn't used to have that. In fact, where we had it in the US was much more uh a lot of emphasis on the state universities and you see that here. Part of the argument that's been going on for years, ever since I I taught for a number of years at Great Basin College here in Elko. Um, one of the things that's been going on is this ongoing rift between the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and University of Nevada Reno. And of course, University of Nevada Reno is a senior institution in the state. Um, but part of that argument came from years that almost the entire Nevada state legislature um, staffing had been trained at UNR and UNLV and people in Vegas have complained over the years that gives them an unfair advantage uh, in getting stuff done because they know everybody up there. So, you know, that's why we're seeing stuff like, well, if UNR has a law school, UNLV needs to have a law school so we can compete on that government staffing. I had no idea that was kind of the pipeline of leadership in Nevada for a while. Well, well, there's two I said staffing and I think that's more important because that's that's what that's where stuff gets done. But on leadership, you're also right. Uh something I used to talk about this heavily when I talked about um you know, American politics when when I'm over in Europe visiting friends is that there still is a bit of a cache I think for American politicians have come out of their state uh school system. Yep. Right. There there's there certainly in Georgia where I lived, you know, it was it was a big deal to be a UGA graduate or a Georgia Tech graduate, right? I probably have that at Washington as well. Well, I noticed that more on the east coast than on the west coast. Like the rivalries on the east coast, like if you're from one one university as rival the other, they complete strangers will hate each other. It's Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's kind of fun to watch, especially with Red Sox and what is it? White Sox. Oh, yeah. That that's that's professional sports. Oh my gosh. They will Yeah. fight. Um but but even more even more uh uh even more dynamic when we're talking about running for an office. It used to be it was very hard for a politician that had a college degree if he had gotten his college degree, particular if he's coming from across the country somewhere to to get elected, right? That that that being a graduate of the local state university gave you the advantage. I'm not sure that's the case anymore. It isn't. I was shocked to find out Jackie Rosen went to school in Chicago, which is kind of a that that's definitely a liberal policy state that that believes in it wholeheartedly. Mhm. And I'm surprised Nevada elected her. Although, you know, the University of Chicago itself is fascinating because it's one of the few schools that maintains a classical great books program curriculum. Um, surprising for Neadans to hire someone that graduated out of Chicago. That did surprise me. Right. So, to your point, Yeah. And I think particularly that IV league um connection I think is very very strong. Yeah. Um, so I think that's one of the problems is we're seeing a gradual shift away from just like we're seeing a shift away from state government control in a lot of places. We're starting to see a shift away from from state trained leaders and leaders that are trained in the Ivy League, particularly places like Harvard and Yale and whatnot. Um, and what that might mean uh for the ability of these policies to get out. Yeah. And I was actually talking to one of my customers today about what his biggest concerns are with the state of Nevada and upcoming policies. And of course, we've got the farm bill coming up at the end of the year. And he actually suggested um something very interesting that the federal government should actually invest in putting tons of grants out to colleges that um go towards more of the bluecollar programs, right? that would really disincentivize more of the DEI and cultural side because to an extent the federal government grants really dictate what gets built and what gets focused on. Right. And and that's that's the second thing you brought up is that at the center of all this Harvard thing is the fact that Harvard depends heavily. You brought up that endowment what 53 billion now. Yeah. Most of it's growing since the early 90s when Harvard got involved on the international level advising a post Soviet Union Russia how to rebuild. In some ways, one can argue that the uh that the um oligarchs now dominating Russia were products of Harvard's intervention and the transference of as you said these assets. Um but the interesting thing is Harvard's with that endowment which a lot of people think why is why is an institution with $53 billion in endowment getting all these in federal grants a nonprofit institution a nonprofit institution and the irony is Harvard actually can't pay for its operating budget out of its endowment right now. So the endowment is actually a separate institution. It's actually the Harvard company. They are the ones that actually engage in those international adventures which has earned them $53 billion. Again, I don't want to say anything that's controversial, but at $53 billion, you have to do a lot to get that much money. So, but effectively, the Harvard University is a nonprofit. It's separate. It can benefit only so much from that endowment every year, which is about $2 billion. And I think their budget's like six billion. No, no. I thought it was six billion, but their budget's nine. Okay. Right. But whatever it is, but cutting that money off, I mean, that endowment can't service them more. If Trump cuts off their funding, that endowment can't send more money to them. It's limited every year. So, it kind of it was a hobbling move that Trump pulled, right? And that's and and so when he went after them initially against the belief that they're still doing race-based admissions, right? And that's they're not the only ones. We we're seeing UCLA's medical school has a big fight going on right now about the about the racebased emissions. Uh Colombia has been targeted for this. Um but then the question came out about their support um for a lot of these protests, anti-Israeli protests. Yes. That that's where they stepped in it, right? And where this bleeds over into anti-Semitic protest. Yeah. And you know, one one can have the argument being against Israeli actions is an illegal. It's a first amendment issue. But if you're doing stuff like blocking Jewish students, whether they're members of Israel or not, from attending classes, now you're you're crossing into that action line. Yeah. And very surprising to me to think that that board at Harvard, I mean, you can argue with me, but most people would agree they're very accomplished, very high level people, and if you're going to pull off some insidious cultural overflow or overthrow, you wouldn't be so transparent as to promote anti-semitic behavior. So that really it gave me a lot of pause that they got so brazen and sloppy that even a normal person out here in Nevada is like they're engaging in anti-semitic behavior. That's wild that they aren't trying to hide that. Well, all those Ivy League schools have a very very old history of anti-semitic behavior. I mean there's uh the gentleman's agreement not to allow people of Jewish descent to attend the university that that held sway in the 40s50s and60s. Okay, this is news to me, right? No, no, this is this is a very old dynamic. Um, but that being said, I think what we're seeing now is um at these protests that we've seen since the October 7th massacres, yeah, have been fundamentally different. And they seem not only I think part of the argument is not only is it a student body that's inflamed, but it seems to be a student body that is somehow being pushed by the faculty to participate in this. Yeah. And this isn't just how they're being educated. They're actually being supported. and the university is refusing to take action. Uh and Colombia of course is the other big one where this has been going on. They folded real quick though. Colombia folded real quick. Harvard Harvard's going to try to fight this out. Um but you know some of the things that Harvard's doing which brings some interesting stuff to fight this. U so for instance since you can't really control this through race-based emissions, right? Um, one of the things that the Trump administration did was not only threaten to cut off a bunch of federal grant funding. Yeah. For for failure to observe civil rights stuff, uh, but also back in May, um, decided to not allow them to take in sort of foreign students at the same level they have been in the past. And I I should point out um, on top of that endowment income that Harvard gets to support itself and the next biggest chunk of income is from foreign students because they pay the majority of the the tuition, right? So that was the second way that Trump hit them where it hurt. Right. Yeah. And um I did want to go back to that comment I made closer to the beginning where I was like they're turning out these ideologically minded people 10 20 30,000 a year into our population. But not only that, these are people that are getting trained that it's it's okay and it's encouraged to go to violence when your idea is not getting where it wants to go. So, not only is the ideology problematic, but the idea that violence is excusable if if you encounter someone who doesn't agree with you, right? They're training these minds and they go out with that strong Harvard brand, that strong Colombia brand. It opens doors for them everywhere. They get in the room and they start saying these things, right? This is really problematic for our society. So, I I don't like violence and I don't like people getting hit this hard, but I do agree with how hard Trump is hitting. Well, I I think it's a little bit more subtle than that. So, so first of all, I don't think Harvard's ideological um proclivities are something that's only started within the last 20 or 30 years. You're correctly the traction. Well, no, this particular form gained traction. I mean, if you go back and look at a lot of debates in the 1960s, for instance. Okay. Um, you know, there were people on both sides of debate. You know, Harvard's heavily involved with the Rand Corporation. And Harvard's doing stuff like, you know, helping engineer these coups in foreign countries as part of these cold war proxy wars. They get a big chunk of money from the NIH. Oh, yeah. Well, so they're heavy into medical research, right? And part of it probably is undoubtedly related to to some of the the provisions of COVID. Um, and that's going to be something that's going on. Terrifying just how how many tent I mean, the more I dug into this, folks, like the tentacles are just they're everywhere. Harvard's in medical and they're in policy creation and they're in city forming like it it's h it's gone too far in my opinion. Well, and and this is and you know, this is one of the tensions we have is that universities and American higher education really is the best in the world still for all the complaints. It still is a a unique and very very cherished resource, which is where you're seeing some debates. Well, if we keep people from foreign countries out, we're not going to be able to share American culture, so on and so forth. uh but there is a question where these institutions become so involved in setting policy and become so unquestioned that in itself is detrimental in some ways I think this is almost an extension of the the so-called deep state bureaucracy well it's tyrannical in nature right well that gets to the question at what point do you turn so much decision-m over to non-elected institutions whether it be a federal bureaucracy whether it be Ivy League schools where where you no longer have that democracy where people aren't making choices Um, and I think that's part of what's playing out here. But I think there's also I don't think that in itself is new. I think part of it has been the argument that's come up is not only is the Trump administration being more and more aggressive um including the most recent Salvo was writing a letter to that New England Commission of Higher Education um stating that it was the view of of the Department of Education uh that Harvard should be denied accreditation because they're not meeting civil rights standards. Yeah. which is the same thing that's been pulled against a lot of universities over the years uh for various other reasons. Um and I think that's probably the most interesting thing that's seeing this is I think a lot of the techniques that the Trump team is using are exactly the techniques that Harvard has been promoting as a way to deal with people they seen that need to be cut off. Yeah. Right. Um, good example of this, Harvard's been or at least the Harvard student body and a good bit of the faculty have been one of the leaders of the diversified movement, diversifying sanctions movement against Israel, right? Forcing companies, getting companies to continue to do business with with Israel, kicking them out of that fund, right? Oh, and now you have that same because isn't Trump's policy basically divesting from Harvard? Yeah. Right. It's it's just divesting in sanctions. is the same sort of policy that Harvard has advocated for years to be applied against Israel and other institutions uh it disagreed with. That's going to be interesting. Um when are we going to see any kind of ruling from the Supreme Court on Harvard? I don't think there's any cases wrapped up for the season, right? Well, no, they'll they'll have a they'll have another docket here and I mean they we just had a ruling this week on on the firing federal employees. Uh but their their next big, for lack of better term, slug of cases coming through will be in October. Um I'm sure Harvard has some cases coming up against cutting off the federal funds. Um whether it remains to be seen whether the Supreme Court is at the stage of hearing it yet. Um this gets in I I think part of what's going on is we have some big cases about the Trump administration's ability to impound funds that have to be dealt with first. Yeah. Um I think that's going to be an issue. Uh, of course there's in the in the big beautiful bill that just passed, there's some interesting uh items concerning uh student loans, limiting student loans and capping them, which is aimed clearly at this sort of situation where you have higher education seem to have runaway prices because the government's always providing loans. Well, that that that is another way to tackle it is you I think I I can't remember right. Was it that they are they removing the PEL grant to for tuitions that are above a certain amount? There's a couple different ways to ping it. I have to look at the PEL. I didn't look at the PEL, but one of the things they're doing is they're capping the loan amount to 100,000 for undergraduate and 200,000 for graduate degrees. So, with that cap, and again, you want to talk about techniques. This is exactly the same technique the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare used with doctors that by capping prices, they can drive prices down. Now you have the Trump administration applying this to higher education, which is fascinating. Well, and it's interesting just how detrimental that is to Harvard because it does sound like it's like, oh, you know, a bunch of really privileged kids are going to have to shell out more money every year. Boohoo. That's actually it's a little bit more intense than that because like I said earlier, Harvard, most of their tuition paying students are foreign. So when we're talking about domestic applications, these are full ride students that really can't afford that that kick. Well, and the idea is you're you're you're gonna by capping those prices, you're going to force Harvard and these other schools to become cheaper. Yeah. To be able to attract those students. Um, the international students are interesting because one thing that a lot of people like to point out is that a lot of these students who are coming here and protesting against government American government policies and so on so forth aren't actually able to do that in the countries they're coming from. I know, right? And and that that's another interesting sort of aspect uh of all this. is probably a little bigger than we want to get into now, but it's it's a fascinating aspect. No, I don't think anyone in Nevada would have the gumption to go to another country and start protesting it. One, it doesn't make any common sense, and two, it's just rude. It's just bad behavior as a guest in another country. I can't imagine any one of us doing that. And I can't imagine the mindset that somebody would come in from overseas and just start trashing a country. Well, it's absolutely absurd to me. Although I do recognize it happens, it just I don't understand. You know that maybe not protesting, but there's a lot of grumbling. It's the ugly American syndrome. Oh my god. Well, and like you said, I couldn't go to it in another country. Like if I start smashing bottles in Cuba, I'm going to go to a dark place and never come back. Right. And and that's and that's that's another interesting dimension. But back here in this higher education, I think one of the things that we're seeing is that as these institutions have come to play a bigger bigger and bigger role in formulating policy, we're seeing the inevitable push back, right? Because it it is a question on whether these policies um a can the policies be devised against higher or not against but without the input of higher education. Yeah. Right. Go back here. Can Elko devise a strategic plan without hiring the University of Nevada Reno to come in and do this type of stuff? And I really think this last election with Trump really marked a turning point in people's attitude. Um, if you haven't noticed, Congress is filled with Ivy League people. Mhm. Okay. So, we're seeing more and more soldiers and military people and business people jumping into the political game and being elected. Mhm. So to me that signals that the people are done with people with Ivy League education and they're like that doesn't hold credibility. If anything that's um that's a mark not in your favor. Well, nobody's holding it against fans. Well, I'm just saying we're seeing these people elected for the first time more and more. I really think that's a symptom of the people figuring out like I don't like these elite ideas. They're not really working in my favor. Yeah. I'm not I'm not sure about that. We we'll have to do some analysis. I mean on veterans, one of the things you got to remember is who came out of a 20-year war. Yeah. So, anybody that's coming out of politics, I mean, this is this is similar to saying so many so many members of Congress in the 50s and 60s were World War II veterans. It's just, you know, um but I think, you know, did Vance go to Harvard or Yale? I can't remember, but Trump himself went to Wharton Business School, which is, you know, that's Ivy League. Um uh um AOC comes out of that sort of dynamic. Well, I mean, they're essentially pipelines because that, like I said, that brand really carried you really far. Um, but I do think we've seen a turn in the consumer show. They're not quite on board with the Ivy League brand anymore. Yeah, we'll we'll see. I mean, that could be true. I'm not sure if it's if it's 100% yet. Well, it's hard not to because you look around and you see this digital world and AI coming on board and you're just, you know, the culture is not the same. Like, every two minutes there's a new word you got to use for something else. It's hard not to look around and go something's not right. Well, and that's and that might be a good way to sort of wrap this up because what the fundamental problem is of course the concept of the ivory tower of the academic being isolated has been um has been a trope particularly in American American culture for years. I mean there's nothing new and surprising about this. It's really the basis of all of Monty Python's humor. Well, I think yeah I there's a good argument all Monty Python comes out of Oxford and Cambridge. life of Brian, I'm telling you. Um, but there is, um, I I think one of the things we're starting to see is a lot of people are getting uncomfortable from a group that they see utterly disconnected from their everyday life now telling them how they need to live. I think that I think that's where the push back is ultimately coming. We've had a lot of this Charles Murray's books, controversial figure, but Riverside versus Fishtown and that book he did about, you know, what you would call blue-collar verse college-educated types of towns and how they're how they're diverging. Um um and we're seeing that somewhat in um you know even race relations that that a lot of the people uh the minorities who occupy positions at Harvard and whatnot, if you look at their backgrounds, they're much closer to the other people they are at Harvard than other members and the statistical average for their ethnic communities here in the US. Yeah. Right. Um one of the great examples of that is the use of the term Latinx. Yeah. which which is which is solely academic but even more bizarre is not pronouncable in Spanish right so you know it's hard to see somebody selfidentifying themselves as a word they can't pronounce I mean it's just weird right um but I think that's where we're seeing a lot of this tension now and you know in some ways it's going to be interesting to see can we devise so you can either control the policies they're putting out right is I think part of what the Trump administration is doing or you have to create alternatives that push back against their monopoly. Yeah. Of that. And it's going to be interesting to see if that happens. Yeah. Um, one thing I'm this weekend I'm going to the Turning Point USA down in Tampa. And that's Charlie Kirk's organization and he started it just based on this entire conversation we've been having. He saw this university has figured out how to put a bunch of influential people out there and figure out how to shape and build society how they want it. And really the only way, and I like that you gave two options, but really you need to seed your own people and have your own universities to put out people to counter those people because they're all ultimately going to be part of the the whole voter class when they all get out there. And so he started this organization because he recognized that in colleges there really isn't a space for a conservative student. They're typically less than 30% of the population and of the college population. So it's it's hard for conservative students to feel welcome and held up and like they can't they don't feel like they can speak their mind as much. So he he created this conference for students to come together as conservative college students and have each other say how can we push back? How can we push our view out to match this other one that's gotten so dominant, right? So I'm actually super excited to go talk to college students, conservative college students say, hey, what do you see in your future? Do you see farming in your future? Do you see um conservative values enduring? Um how do you feel about these liberal policies being pushed in? Like what do you plan to do about it with your life? I cannot wait to hear their answers. But that has seated too that that counter movement started, right? And I will bring back footage. Yeah. Yeah. So we're hoping and but I do want to point out one thing that's interesting. So you're going down to Tampa to this. The reason I'm not going with you is I've got to be at a state meeting. Yes. And this is part of the dynamic I'm talking about. you're participating. This is how we divide things. You do the hard stuff and I do the fun stuff. That Tampa, right? I get Winunka, right? Um I'm so sorry to be missing the state meeting. But but here you are approaching or you're going to a set of institutions that's trying to approach this through a national movement. I'm looking at similar issues from a state perspective. And I think that's one of the divides we're having now, right? Uh going back to what has emerged as a theme I think we can say here in this podcast this idea of the states as as laboratories of democracy. Are they being superseded by national movements or is there still a role for state ones? I think it's still up in the air. Definitely being smothered. Yeah. Yeah. That might be a good way of putting it. So and it could be a cyclical thing where we as a people kind of oscillate between complete individualism and complete socialism and we kind of go back and forth because we remember why we don't like each one at the extreme end. you know, we kind of go back and forth. We're like, we're trending towards nationalism because it's orderly and it's neat and we can control it, but the actual experience of it not great for a human being. So, we start to pull back, right? Yeah. Well, this is this gets into a much a much deeper discussion that we probably want to pick up, but yeah, it's going to be interesting sort of looking uh what comes out of that Turning Point conference. I'd be interested in hearing what you're seeing. Uh in the meantime, if you have any questions or comments on this, go ahead and reach out to us at info@775alive.com. Until then, I'm Scott Gavorsky and I'm Crystal Newton and we'll see you around the 775.