The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – New Hampshire State Representative Anita Burroughs Talks Politics and Challenges in Office

Episode Date: February 12, 2024

New Hampshire State Representative Anita Burroughs Talks Politics and Challenges in Office Digging-in Podcast on iTunes Digginginnh.com Show Notes About the Guest(s): Anita Burroughs is a third-term state representative from New Hampshire. She entered politics in 2016 with no prior experience and managed to defeat the sitting speaker of the house who had been in office for 37 years. Known for her willingness to challenge the status quo, Anita is a self-proclaimed "good troublemaker." She is passionate about making positive changes in her community and fighting against extremist ideologies. Anita hosts her own podcast called "Digging In" and is dedicated to keeping people informed about what is happening in the state house. Episode Summary: In this episode of The Chris Voss Show, host Chris Vos interviews Anita Burroughs, a third-term state representative from New Hampshire. Anita shares her journey into politics, including her surprising victory over the sitting speaker of the house. She emphasizes the importance of grassroots campaigning and connecting with voters on a personal level. Anita also discusses the challenges she has faced in the state legislature, particularly dealing with extremist ideologies and their impact on education and LGBTQ+ rights. Throughout the conversation, Anita highlights the need for more moderate voices in politics and encourages listeners to get involved at the local level. Key Takeaways: Anita Burroughs entered politics in 2016 with no prior experience and managed to defeat the sitting speaker of the house in New Hampshire. Grassroots campaigning and connecting with voters on a personal level were key factors in Anita's success. Anita emphasizes the importance of bipartisanship and finding common ground to achieve meaningful change. Extremist ideologies, particularly those related to education and LGBTQ+ rights, pose a significant challenge in the state legislature. Anita encourages listeners to get involved in politics at the local level and make a difference in their communities. Notable Quotes: "I think you have to go into a campaign with the attitude that you're going to win, even if it's far-fetched. I was determined to win." - Anita Burroughs "We need moderate people who are not extremists. We're working hard to coax moderates to run for office and take away power from the extremists." - Anita Burroughs "Getting young people out to vote is the biggest challenge. We need them to care about more than just single issues like legalizing weed." - Anita Burroughs

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You name it. We have smart people on the show that bring their ideas forward and share with you their stories of life so that you can learn and educate yourself better, because that's what our audience does. Today, we have Anita Burrows on the show with us today. She's going to be talking to us about her experience, some of the things she's done in life, and how she's trying to change and impact the world. She is what is referred to, or she refers to herself as the good troublemaker. I'm the bad troublemaker, by the way, but she's the good troublemaker.

She's a third-term state representative from New Hampshire who entered politics with no experience in 2016. She beat the sitting Speaker of the House who had been in office for 37 years. That's quite a feat if you understand politics and how people who stay in office tend to stay in office. She's known for her willingness to challenge the status quo and for her dry wit. Welcome to the show, Anita. How are you? Thanks so much for having me. I'm glad to be here. Thanks for coming. It's wonderful to have you as well. Dot coms, where do you want people to find you on the interwebs?

Well, I have my own podcast. It's digginginnh.com. That's probably a good place to start. There you go. So give us a 30,000 overview of yourself and what you're doing there in New Hampshire. Sure. I've been in New Hampshire probably a little over 30 years. My husband dragged me here from the Boston area, kicking and screaming, but I love it here now. And after the 2016 election, I mean, I'll be frank, after Donald Trump won, I was pretty upset. I don't drink. I rarely drink. But the next day I said to my husband, please take me to the nearest bar. And I got the biggest margarita I could possibly find. And after I was hung over the

next day, I said, well, I can either do something constructive or I can drink for four years. So I decided to go the constructive route. And I decided to run for office, which shocked even myself, decided to run for state representative. And this is the great thing about our democracy is that almost anyone can run. I think there's some age limits to certain things, but almost anyone can run. People can be participants. We've talked about this before on the show. The greatest thing about our democracy is that we're all the stewards of its care and we shall think about that and sit down and read the constitution and i always advise people to read the federalist papers as well because you can really see the arc of the shaping of the constitution the thought thinking that went

through behind it tell us how did you how did you you ended up beating the speaker of the house this is quite the journey tell us you know how you went through this process of winning office. It was actually a fairly simple strategy, which the Speaker did not do, which is that I canvassed. I went to house after house after house. I live in a small community, I don't even know the exact number of people, but I canvassed every possible house I could. And when I did that, when I knocked on doors, people said, you're the first person I've ever had knock on my door in the time that I've lived here. And that's how I won. There you go.

And that's the beauty of our democracy. getting out there and the grassroots being the people who want to, who want to, who want to take in, you know, they want to be listened to. They want to be representative or represented if I can learn to speak. And so that's really great. And, and we saw a lot of that activism of, from, from the Donald Trump era. And I imagine throughout our democracy where people get sick of the status quo, they get sick of, you know, some of the blog jamming in Congress and stuff. And so tell us, what you did is kind of tantamount to what we talk about a lot on the show with entrepreneurism. I'm sure there was a lot of people, just like an entrepreneur, who said, oh, you can't do

that. You can't overthrow a speaker who's been writing and come in an office for 37 years. Did you get a lot of naysayers? I did. I did. When I started out, people said, you know, they'd call me into their house and they said, you're not, what, how it makes you think you could possibly win? But you know what? I think I was cocky enough to think I could actually win. So I think you have to go into that, into a campaign with the attitude as I'm going to win, even if it's a far-fetched

thing and and I was determined to win I knew that my opponent again I'm not going to say anything negative about him he's been a public servant for all those years he's still a selectman but he didn't he didn't get out and talk to people so that's that's why I won there you go beauty of getting in and listening and there was a lot of different I think people that were entered congress because they went out and they worked the doors or the phones or all the things of getting out there. Tell us how you grew up. What gave you this moxie, maybe, you know, he had he had gumption, he he started a jewelry manufacturing business when he he went to trade school, and he built a very successful build a business. So I imagine I got some of that from him. But I mean, this was

just completely, completely not in my wheelhouse. I had been a board chair for a number of organizations in my community. So people did know me, but I mean, it was crazy, you know, and I, you know, I went, I went to the, I walked into the state house the first day. And when I walked in, people were there to greet me and they said, Oh, you're the dragon slayer, which is a little nickname that I've had. And I walked in, I thought, what am I getting myself into? But, but I find that I have a passion for it. And I walked in, I thought, what am I getting myself into? But I find that I have a passion for it. And I really, I really enjoy it. I mean, there are days you want to shoot yourself in the head. And there are other days that you feel like you've really accomplished something important.

There you go. And you're, you're in your third term now? I'm in my third term. I will be running again. And I decided I will stay in office until I start falling asleep during sessions because I will because I'm turning 70 this year. Oh, really? Well, there you go. What are some of the things that you find rewarding? Because we want to entice people to do what you're doing. I think everyone, I think we should get more normal people. I'm going to box you in as a normal person, if you don't mind. I hope so. I hope people think of me that way.

We need a few less billionaires and trillion trillionaire multi-million you know we need some normal people and my understanding of reading the federalist papers is it was intentionally supposed to be our smartest and brightest people not our richest people running for office or just anybody going to be off in office that's kind of that's the beauty the beauty of the New Hampshire legislator where we are the largest legislature, state legislature in the country with 400 people. And so it's a great place to, to come to try to,

you know, you have a better shot at getting elected here than in other States. And plus we have a really big salary of a hundred dollars a year, which is taxed and we have to pay for our own badges. Wow. Yeah. You're saying the salary is $100 a year? $100 a year.

So you're doing this kind of funds that you raise for the community to be elected. Maybe we should do that with the federal government. That's a thought. That's a thought. So you have 400 people who are there because they want to be there. And we have increasingly have young people who have other jobs. You know, a guy who sits in back of me, he's now in law school, but he financed, he was able to go because he worked for Olive Garden, you know, as a waiter. So it's become, you know, it's really nice to see more people who don't have gray hair in the legislature and people of all, all walks of life and, and colors of the rainbow. Yeah.

And I, and I think, yeah, we need to see more of that, especially at the, I think it was Warren Buffett who joked, if you were, if you want to see minimum wage or things actually get done in Congress,

maybe you should, you know, put them on minimum wage too. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. They might, they might give a crap a little bit.

They're like, what? But evidently a lot of them are suffering. They're actually having to live in their offices, evidently, but between their trips to the Cayman Islands or something. I don't know. There's a lot of money in politics, which is interesting. Tell us about some of the things you've accomplished,

maybe overcome while you've been in office, and maybe some of the challenges that you've found stepping into this sort of hornet's nest. Yeah, I would say actually the most challenging term was my second term. And it was challenging because we had a number of extremists who were swept into office in 2020. We have a group called the Free Staters who decided to take over our government from, believe it or not, they chose New Hampshire. Between New Hampshire and Alaska, New Hampshire won. And they decided to have, they wanted 20,000 people to move here and take over the state

government. And they've actually done a pretty fine job of doing that. So my second year, my second term rather, was very challenging in my committee. I'm on Commerce Committee because these people basically blocked anything that we tried to do. They blocked bipartisanship. And it was a really miserable two years. In fact, it was so miserable that seven out of the 10 Dems on the committee decided not to run again. I stuck with it. A number of those people who were disruptive got booted out. And we went from being the worst

committee in the state house to my opinion, the best committee, because we're very bipartisan committee. We like each other. We disagree on a lot of things. We sit next to each other. We talk. So it's been such a great change. I'm really, really happy to be there now. There you go. When we had, I forget the name of the, they used to anchor on MSNBC for a lot of years, for decades, hardball,

whoever did hardball. It's Chris Matthews. Chris Matthews. We had Chris Matthews on the, on the show. We talked about his time with Tip O'Neill where he worked under Tip O'Neill. And, you know,

they would, you know, they would work together. Tip O'Neill and Reagan, you know, they didn't always seem like they were going to get along, but they worked together and stuff. And it seems like a lot of that got lost after, I can't remember who came after Tip O'Neill, but, you know, we started this, we started this sort of pathway where, you know, we can't meet in the middle. We can't agree, you know, we can't, we can't find a way to, to, to build bridges to each other.

And, and I think that's what dissuades a lot of the American people. You know, we want our legislators to work together and find resources and stuff now, but it just seems to be just complete gridlock. You know, I mean, you, you saw that with, with, with Obama, where I forget the speaker of the house at the time, but he's like, and Mitch McConnell, we're just not going to pass anything he does. And you're just like, seriously? Like, not even for the good of, like, if he said we're going to,

I don't know, we're going to make sure babies survive birth and live longer, you're going to shoot that down? Like, what the fuck? You know? Yeah, yeah. I'm glad that you can use the f word on this show but anyway yeah i mean i my feeling is i will work with any any person on the other side of the aisle if we have an issue that we can work on there right now i'm one of the sponsors of cannabis

bill we've tried to get this passed in new hampshire for god knows how many years and i'm working with a woman who is known pretty far to the right. And it's been great working with her. I mean, we're very committed to that. She's really good at what she does. I'm learning about her, learning a lot from her. So that's what you have to do. You have to latch onto issues that you can find commonality and work together and agree to disagree on the other stuff. But we're very hopeful that we can get this passed. And I think it is because it's a bipartisan effort. There you go.

Do you think that the way to resolve a lot of this deadlocking that we have in Congress is to bring more, I want to use the term again, normal people, average people, people, the common people? Yeah, no, I think it's... I'm probably going to leave this when I say that. I think the average person, that's a good idea. But it's also frankly, I think we need moderate people who are not from either side of the aisle that they're not extremists. And we're working really hard to try to coax moderates

to run in fact, part of a nonpartisan group. And we're looking for candidates from both sides of the aisle to run for some of these offices. And I frankly, I mean, you know, my party might not be happy with me saying that. I am happy for anybody to win some of these seats to take them away from the extremists. I don't care which party they're from, if they can knock them out. You know, I think my audience knows this, but I've gone from being a Republican in the 90s, and 9-11 kind of woke me up to, like, why does everyone in the world hate us? And I wasn't really happy with George Bush, Jr. Or, I'm sorry, the presidency of Dick Cheney.

Joke's there. And then I moved to becoming a Democrat and a liberal, and now I'm a moderate Democrat. And I think I like where I'm at right now because I can see both sides. I can sit down and look at the arguments on both sides and I can say, okay, I see what this person is trying to do. I'm very against the extremists of both parties. I I'm, I'm very hard on, on the extreme left as a Democrat, but I'm also very hard on the extreme right. And I think i'm also very hard on the extreme right and i think like you say the these are the people that are making things awful they're trying to

drive everyone apart they they can't meet in the middle but i i've gotten good at being able to sit down and look at both sides and and and and say okay well i see what they're trying to accomplish and i see what we're trying to accomplish and And I see what we're trying to accomplish. And maybe we're just not going about it the right way. And maybe we can find a way to mix and match. And there has to be compromise. No one can in any community. Let me tell you about a small thing that happened to make the bipartisanship happen.

And it's such a simple thing that the term I told you about that was awful. We were seated on separate sides of the room. It was like the Roman Colosseum, you know, who was going to kill the other person. And in fact, I can say this now, my mother-in-law can rest in peace. But I said to the group, you know, they would roll their eyes at us and, you know, make hand gestures. And I'm not saying that nobody on our side ever did it. And I finally one day I said, you know, if I wanted to be treated this way, I'd go visit my mother-in-law. And they were taken aback that I said it. But I think it kind of brought the point home.

But I guess where I'm getting to is this year the chair decided to intersperse us. And I ended up sitting next to somebody that, frankly, the term before, I couldn't stand. And I love this guy now. I mean, we've talked. we got to know each other. He's got a great sense of humor and we find commonality in that, you know, it's, it's talking to each other and sitting next to each other. That makes a huge difference. And getting probably to know each other.

Like everyone's got a family. Everyone's, you know, got a husband or wife or kids. They care about the future of their children. They're probably usually a lot of their motivational interest is creating a better future for where we're going and yeah i think you're right we need to bring more moderate people what would you say or encourage people that you know are like you know i hear a lot of people say that they're like oh i never want to go do that it's just so toxic and and what would you what would you say to encourage people to to get more involved in care one thing i i like to invite people to come down to concord where our legislature is sit in on a

committee and see what it's like and see some of the some of the bills that we pass that make a difference in people's lives and i think you know the rule of thumb never ask somebody to run for office first meeting ask them on the fifth time that you talk to them. So you just kind of bring them in unsuspectingly, then you ask them. But I think coming down to Concord, people say, I mean, I remember I was brought down from somebody who was a mentor to me. And I had this idea in my head that the people in Concord were just not very bright. And I was stunned. I went to a couple of hearings. I was like, these people are really smart,

and they know what they're doing, and they're really dedicated. So that really encouraged me to follow this path. Yeah. Everybody has to make compromises and settle. I mean, it's any community in a relationship. You have to make, you can't just go, it's my way or the highway, whether it's a personal relationship. If you try and do that in your marriage, have fun with that.

I did. It didn't work, but we're doing well now. It's been 30 years. There you go. Somebody figured out a compromise. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, we have to do those human beings in our society, our communities, and work together. And sometimes things work out really great and even though maybe one side opposes

it you know one of the things that's really helped me in a lot of conversations that i have with people now if they want to have politic discussions with me is i say okay we'll have a discussion about topics and ideas but we're going to lay a foundation here you and i aren't republicans and democrats we're americans okay the constitution is the foundation what we are we are both americans fuck the democrats fuck the republicans and they're in a little argument we're going to have this isn't about teams we are on team america and laying that foundation seems to make a difference in the conversations i have because i can always bring it back to wait a second we're both americans We're here to do what's good for each other.

And it seems like when we set that foundation on, that's really what we're about. And we used to kind of have that, you know, it used to be us against the Russians. It used to be us against the Chinese, you know, now we've got Tucker Carlson over there interviewing him and playing footsies with him. Same thing with victor arbonne and and if you understand what the what the arc of the intent is there you understand the evil intent of it is is disruptive to the american ideal and that's what we need to remember we're you know we're not in these opposing teams what are some other things you're you're proud of accomplishing in in congress

or not in congress but but your local place there? I think one of the things that I feel good about my work is, again, through my podcast and I have a blog, I'm trying to let people know what's really going on in the statehouse, which is that we do have these extremists, the free staters slash libertarians who are trying to undermine, they're trying to minimize government. And one of the key ways that they're trying to do that in New Hampshire is through education. And we have these things called the freedom account vouchers. And what these are is that if your kid goes to private school, whether it's a religious school, or if you're homeschools,

you can get up to 5,500 per kid. And that's draining money out of our public school system. And for some of the parents who are homeschooling, there's no accountability. And other states that have that, there have been people who have taken their kids to Disney with the money. Wow. There was an article about some state where they bought jet skis. So they are draining our public school system

and it's really frightening. Meanwhile, you know, public school systems are, you know, like have different testing. I don't know if the George Bush thing is still in play, which I think was a failure. No child left behind policy.

It wasn't a complete failure. I think if I recall rightly, it just overly tested, I think. But, you know, I mean, they're required to some sort of testing requirements. Most schools are, but somehow these voucher systems get around them. Yeah. I mean, again, with, you know, and some of the money, some of the people who are getting them are already in private school. So why are we giving them assistance for something they were

already able to do? I mean, and I'll just tell you a quick story in my county. Some of these folks who were in county government were able to sell a historic courthouse that was probably worth about $250,000. They sold it to $1 to a charter school with religious ties. Wow. $1. So they're really good at what they do,

and we're really doing our best to let people know in the state what's going on. There you go. And you have to understand, or people need to understand, the darkness that goes behind this, because it's extremist, right-wing, religious-based and what it's up to. Betsy DeVos' Center for National Policy is one of the evil hands behind this. And, of course, she's made her billions off of private schooling. But it's even darker in the intent of what they want. They want a Calvinistic sort of religious, they want Bibles on every corner and they want the Constitution thrown out for replacement of the Bible.

We've had several authors that have documented the Center for National Policy and the 250 little evil underlings of that organization that it umbrellas and what their intent is to do. And their intent is to overthrow the U.S. government and turn it into a theocracy and not a democracy. And with these people, they call them government schools. They're trying to, in some way, put them out of business. And the charter school I just told you about is affiliated with Betsy DeVos and Hillsdale College, which is a right-wing, I guess you're familiar with it, you're laughing, is a right-wing

Christian school. And those are the ones who are moving into this charter school. And what a lot of people don't realize is their intent is an American ISIS. They want a religious theocracy democracy will be thrown out everyone will be forced to read the bible just like isis forced everyone to read the quran or the is the quran yeah it's friday and for some reason my brain stopped working and there's lots of books you can read to validate this if you think i'm full of shit there's lots of documentation if you understand they DeVos thing, and part of it is money and power, but part of it is the intent of their religious beliefs,

which they're entitled to. That's what our constitution does, but there is a distinct separation of the church and the state. Well, not so much in New Hampshire. The other thing that they're doing is really scary is that they're doing their best to undermine the LGBTQ plus community. We've had a lot of anti-trans legislation, and we're really fighting hard against that because it's just horrible. It's just horrible. And plus they use it as a cudgel to get out the vote on stuff.

What a lot of people don't realize, and you can go back through this through numerous authors we have on the show, with the Betsy DeVos organization or father, where this all started with Nixon, and the Great Southern, what was it called? The Great Southern Strategy. And they tested everything they could to get out the vote, to get people to come out and vote for Republicans. They tested everything. The only thing that worked was abortion. And so they have been pounding abortion up until the time they overturned Roe versus Wade recently.

And part of the strategy has been stacking the court so they can get what they want with either religious principles or the abortion issue. Well, the reason that no legislator has ever presented legislation to curtail abortion is because they knew it was the only way to get out the vote. And so now they're kind of stuck because the dog caught the car. And now the dog doesn't know what to do with the car once it caught it, and they're stuck. So the only way they can really get out the vote now is to pull the LGBTQ stuff, and your kids are being taught to be gay in schools,

when really they want American ISIS of theology, theocracy, and the Constitution thrown out, and the rules of the land will be the Bible. So if you think ISISis was not really cool and all those other folks over there it's just american isis when you really understand the the evil intent behind it and the agenda no absolutely you know we're we're living living the dream here in new hampshire and we actually just in the house anyway we we got a bill to fail that even texas said was too was too extreme if you can imagine that got a bill to fail that even Texas said was too extreme, if you can

imagine that they were trying to get that passed. Yeah. And they're the ones who are always trying to leave. Yeah. Yeah. So that was a good win. But because we're so close in numbers, 400 people, our majority is decided every day, depending on who comes in. And they'll even call people up and say, we're going to send a cab for you. You know, get your butt in here. I mean, both sides are doing it and just, you know, we need your vote. So we're all, you know, really, most of us are very careful about getting, making sure we're there to vote. What a lot of people need to realize is when you hear this thing where we need to minimize state and federal government, this is the liberalism that comes, that was largely espoused under the Reagan administration and what Reagan wanted to do. Destroy the U.S. government, make it so that, you know, basically we'd be at the whim of capitalism and whatever Elon Musk wants to do this week.

And screw unions and all the stuff that they did that was very illiberal that took away rights of people. In fact, encouraging jobs to ship to china and to destroy the unions and if people will go read books and understand what illiberalism is this is the same sort of thing and the reason that billionaires and multi-millionaires are funding this sort of movement to minimize state and federal government because they don't want regulations you can see it when el Elon Musk talks about, you know, these people want to be able to pollute like it's 1970. They want to be able to not have any worker restrictions. They don't want to have federal oversight of any kind whatsoever.

And what you have to understand is most of them are globalists like Elon Musk, most of the billionaires and multimillionaires that back the federal society and all these different things. They want to be able to do what they want, regulation free. And so their move to minimize state and federal government and the nuances that they make and the talking points, there really is an evil intent behind it because they don't want you to have rights. They want a docile environment like they get in Vietnam or like they get in China or like they get in Philippines or any other get in China or like they get in

Philippines or any other country around the world where they can have a wink and nod, shake your hand, pay you in the back pocket sort of experience. They want America to be as pliable as they can do in their globalist society and in their countries. You have to realize that they really don't have your best interests at heart as normal Americans. You know, it's interesting, Chris. Right now, I mean, I told you about the cannabis issue and learning through the process how much big business and big bucks is involved in trying to shape the cannabis

and just what it's going to be in New Hampshire so that they can get a hold of it. And the big fish want to keep the little fish out and they want to create a monopoly. So it's been really interesting to follow that and doing what we can to prevent that from happening. But it's hard when you're dealing with people with that kind of power. And I don't know if you're having the same thing like San Francisco and other states had, California had, where it was actually the prison and police unions that keep jobs from putting people in jail for cannabis,

fought the hardest and spent the most money to fight legalizing cannabis. Wow. You guys have that there? No, haven't seen that. It really confused us to why our governor has been so reluctant to sign Governor Sununu into law. But we're really trying to pass it now because if he's willing to sign something, it's a crapshoot. We can either wait till we get a perfect system without these big business people, or we can try to pass something now and we feel this is the window, let's go for

it because who knows who's going to come into office after he leaves. Yeah. And it's always about big money and big money influence you know the prescription drug makers don't want it i remember when vegas or it was nevada actually legalized cannabis i i drink in vodka pretty heavily for about 20 years and i can tell you that the things you will do on vodka or alcohol are far worse than you could ever do on cannabis and i i never really got into pot until it was legalized. And wow, what a difference it made. And I went from someone who was consuming bottles of Tylenol for pain in my old age and probably for a few hangovers, but consuming lots of Tylenol, which isn't good for you, by the way, folks, I'll get sued, but what the hell. But it's documented for a while.

But I went from that to cannabis and I, I had for year decades had all my friends go, you should try it. It's really great for pain. And you know, people with PTSD and other health related issues, cancer and stuff, they'd started giving them cannabis and like, it really helps. And I'm like, no, you're just really high because I can tell you a vodka helps, but I'm just really drunk. And I'm like, sure, okay, whatever. Whatever you tell yourself for that little drug there. But no, man, that stuff is, I remember going into my medicine cabinet one time in the bathroom

and I'm like, holy crap, there's this Tylenol that I've been sitting here for like six months now and I haven't had to take it because the pot is so relaxing. Yeah. And so I can see why you know maybe some of the lobbyists from tylenol and big drug are like yeah we can't have that cut an interaction you know i tried you know my husband is always a as long as you're a legislator later a legislator do not buy cannabis while you're while you're there because everybody in new hampshire is going over to massachusetts or ma to buy it. But so when we were in California, I said, can I please buy some here? It's legal. So he's like, yeah, go for it. I had a gummy and same thing. I mean, I used to get up seven times

a night. It was the first time in 20 years I slept through the night. I mean, it was incredible. And as a substitute, I'm using hemp right now, which works pretty well for me. It's legal. And I mean, it helps a lot of people with so many medical problems. It really does. It really does. Even my mom's tried it and she sleeps so much better. It makes such a difference.

But you can see how it's natural. And while there's a lot of small entrepreneurs that got in on it in places like Vegas and California, they opened up. But there's always the people who are, like you said, big money, trying to control it, manipulate it. And we live in this interesting dichotomy of America where we have this fascination where we love rich people and we worship them and we worship the almighty dollar. Maybe this is a side benefit, unbridled capitalism. fascination where we love rich people we worship them and we worship the almighty dollar maybe this is a side benefit unbridled capitalism but it's it's i've heard that there's been research that

said that one of the reasons that we really don't want to legislate so much millionaires and billionaires is because we all think we're going to be a millionaire billionaire someday and we're like well maybe we shouldn't have regulations because i'll get there someday and yeah you know i'll tell you something though in commerce you know, I'll tell you something, though, in commerce, you know, I came in, I think, as a Democrat being more interested in regulation than the Republicans, I've come over to realize, at least in terms of small businesses, we do a lot to get in their way. I increasingly feel the way the Republicans do in that sense. Let's get out of their way. You know, let's, you know, we have all these rules and regulations for liquor licenses. Let's get out of their way. We have all these rules and regulations for liquor

licenses. Let's get out of their way. Let's let this little restaurant get a liquor license so that they can thrive and hire people and do well. I do believe that less regulation is sometimes a good thing, again, particularly for small businesses. Particularly for small businesses. We need to get back to being Main Street have power. You know, I've watched Main Street be diluted since the 80s. And, you know, you can see the detriment in the middle class that has faded away since Ronald Reagan era. You know, that trickle down economics check I'm still waiting for. And, you know, it's just made more people desperate, more people broke. I think you can look at society and say one of the reasons we're off the rails and flirting with fascism and authoritarianism is because people are so damn desperate and pushed to the wall financially. And that's usually how authoritarianism and

fascism happens. That's how democracy dies, is people get so broke and rode down that they're willing to take anything as long as the trains don't run on until they don't no absolutely absolutely agree with you on that so we're at a dangerous point i i like what's going on in the state legislature state legislatures seem to be at least more grounded what's going on in our federal level i think to correct me if i'm wrong but at the federal level we have these performative sort of people that they're not really interested in legislating if you look at what they actually put forward for bills and legislation, they don't do anything. They just,

there seems to be these people that do performative stunts on social media. And, you know, when the cameras are rolling, they're acting up and, and, and they do it to bring in donor money. They,

they, especially with these small funders, I didn't realize until recently, I heard someone say it, I think it was Bill Marshall. They said the reason they act that way is because of the new advent of, of small donor money. And so they're literally getting, by doing these performance stunts, they can get all the crazy people that are small donors that are kind of on the extremes will flood them with money. And they've learned that they can just keep hammering away at that, you and i didn't it didn't really ever occur to me and i'm like

holy crap that makes sense because yeah i i hadn't thought i hadn't thought about that at all but i think that doesn't make sense we have that to a lesser extreme because national media doesn't often come into our legislature unless something big is going on and the other thing is you know we can actually any person legislature legislator can put forth a bill that could get passed that can get passed and it's it's it's a pretty cool thing yeah and so i i guess what i was setting up was i think you'd agree with me that this is the sanity seems to be a little bit more at the state level and people shouldn't be dissuaded from getting involved in government based upon some of the craziness at the federal level don't assume it's it's all sane because we had two bills on kangaroos one to allow

them as pet kangaroos and the other to allow us to serve them as meat and we also we had a 15 somebody put forth a 15-day abortion ban you don't even know if you're pregnant at 15 weeks it's 15 days so it basically is banning sex you know we get a lot of crazy stuff i mean there are some people probably that support that that should be banned for sex so they don't breed but that's a joke i always use i think that's true that's a good idea i've been known to tell people directly in their face you really shouldn't breed but i think you're going to take care of that on your own, the way you behave. You should be in the legislature. You're perfect for it.

Yeah, I don't know. I'd probably resolve to violence and get arrested. I would probably break down eventually. So I'll leave it to people like you with better moxie and better backbone because I don't know. I love people that do things

for the public good, like police officers and firemen and educators and stuff. My mom and sister were teachers, but I'd have trouble with it. I'm one of those people, I'd end up being a bad cop because it would just taint me eventually and I'd just go rogue. And then, you know, the officer, my sergeant would call me and it'd be like, you know, this is the third pedophile who hasn't made it back to the, somehow ended up in the drink with a bullet in his head. And I just misfired.

He's like, it's the third one this week, Chris. And I'm like, well, I did catch him. I think it's good that you're not in law enforcement. I agree with you. I know, Laura. I know I'm not. I'll stick to podcasting. I can't get into much trouble. You're good at that. You're good at that. So I leave it to people like you, and I think your story encourages or hopefully encourages other people to get involved.

And we need more people to evolve. I think, correct me if I'm wrong or feel free to give your spiel on this. But I think one of the reasons that there's so much toxicity thrown up in the performative crap is to dissuade normal sane people from getting involved in politics and tuning out and that way a very small electric electorate a very small group of special interests can control elections and we see that now i mean i really would love to for us to have a law like i think iceland or greenland and other countries where you have to show up and vote it's a law they'll throw you in jail if you don't vote and i think everyone should be forced to be involved and vote especially as lazy as americans are me being one of them so i mean don't get

dissuaded from the ugliness of politics get involved because the reason it's probably ugly is because not enough people are caring i guess yeah and as. And as I said, a state like New Hampshire, you can really make positive changes if you're willing to do the work. Yeah. And that's the beauty of our democracy, you know, the power of the states versus the power of the federal government and the balance that it gives to each other. You know, a lot of people don't understand, you know, one of the things that saved our most recent election was the fact that the Madison and a lot of the other people who designed this realized that there could be a chance to seize power if voting was controlled by the federal government. And so they gave the power to the states. So the states had the ability to control it. And a lot of people don't realize that made a difference in 2020 in trying to seize an election.

So the importance of the states being there are, I don't know, you could probably say almost more important than the federal government. There's a balance there, which is kind of interesting. Well, we can mitigate some of the damage that's being done in Washington. That's how I look at it. There you go. And states tend to be the leaders on things with, you know, and a lot of things. They tend to be the ones that seem to be more of a reflection of what the populace is thinking. And then once they move in enough mass, it seems like SCOTUS decides to agree when it's not stacked.

Well, I think the biggest challenge for us right now, I'm sure across the country, is getting young people out to vote. Because a lot of, I remember, I forget what year it is, people said, I'm only coming out to vote to legalize weed. And it was like, really? That's all you care about? I mean, yeah, it's nice to have, but there's a lot more going on. Oh, yeah. And I think people need to realize the intent is there are a lot of people that don't want you involved, that don't want you knowing what's going on, that don't want you to care. They want you to give up and go home so that they can run your democracy. And it's very dangerous when a very small group of people that aren't the most popular, you know, we've seen this in

the recent years, going back to Al Gore, where the will of certain voters that can stack the specialists of the electoral college can game it and override the popular vote of the will of certain voters that can stack the specialists of of of the electoral college can game it and override the popular vote of the will of the people you know here in here in utah where i'm visiting right now i think about five years ago they legalized marijuana by popular vote of the people and the legislation republican legislation is no screw that we're going to override the will of the people and do what we want to do. And there's still, I think there's barely a medical marijuana thing that's been available. It never was intended like it, you know, it was in like Las Vegas where I don't think it was fully recreational.

You would still have to go through a doctor like California used to be for a long time. But, you know, it's really important that people get involved because if you don't care um you know evil people can win and the the intent of the electrical college and the gaming of it is also what we talked about earlier with the betsy devos and the center center for national policy that was their ideal they they realized a long time ago in the 70s with nixon that why bother winning all the states? You just have to game the electoral college. Why bother trying to win popular ideas when you can have the Federalist Society stack and pick judges that will hopefully, if you can game enough electoral college wins and override the popular vote, that you can eventually get a stack of

religious right-wing scotus things and then you can buy them with rvs and whatever you want through citizens united rulings and you can you can do whatever you want people don't realize the billionaire intent of that is just to make a government with the docile people that the community manipulated and run any way they can and basically enslaved really when it comes down to it so that's the evil intent of it is to make rich people rich per and poor people poor and if you haven't been paying attention to you to what's going on you can call me a liar all you want but the stats are there absolutely absolutely there you go any final thoughts as we go out you said you have a blog too

i know we gave a plug to the podcast yeah if you if you go on you can subscribe on on my on my website digging in nh.com you should be able to get on and i occasionally put my blog on substack i'm gonna do it more regularly there you go yeah one of the things i've really enjoyed i don't know if you've thought about this or tried this yet but there's one guy who's really sane in the in Congress, and he's on TikTok. And I think a couple other social media. And I think he might be Republican or maybe he's Democrat. I don't know. That's kind of the interesting way he delivers it.

But he delivers a straight talk, very calm, very factual. You know, he's not ranting and trying to raise up the thing. And he does it on TikTok, and he does a really good job of it. That's awesome. Yeah, I'd love to see that. On my podcast, I tend to be pretty level-headed when I'm interviewing something, but I also have a segment called

the New Hampshire Puts of the Week, Political Puts of the Week, and that's when I rant. There you go. That's where I rant. I think it's representative jeff jackson i think i've heard that name i i think that's i have heard that name yeah it is yeah it's representative jeff jackson and he he gets on there and he talks to you in a way that you want your congress people to talk yeah and then he talks very calm and he goes let me explain to you and he tries to cut everything down to the simplest of terms of what's going on and he tries

to be as honest i think is he comes across as honest and it's just so refreshing to watch his stuff i mean i think there's some other people that are starting to do that in in the federal congress and and and tiktok is such a great place to reach out to those young voters like you talked about but just having a seeing someone have that same conversation i actually i actually even saw senator markey on tiktok who's from massachusetts you know who's he's even older than me which is old and he did a great job on that you know know, it's a great venue. In fact, we had the governor of Massachusetts on who's one of the most, I'm not sure if he's still in office, one of the most popular governors in the nation, Republican Governor

Charlie Baker. No, he's not in office anymore. He's a woman who's governor now. Yeah. But one of his things was being, trying to be bipartisan, trying to get along. And I think he was he was voted one of the most popular governors at the time yeah and and you know just we need more people that are saying the in the thing we need more people that care because they want you

to give up folks they want you to turn a blind eye so that people can just control and do what they want and we're all stewards of this democracy. You guys have heard me say this before. We are all stewards. It's each of our responsibility. You're given the power to vote for a reason because it's your democracy too. And once people convince you that it's not your democracy,

you're not going to like how it turns out. It never ends well. You know, Chris, a really good way for people to start out if they think they want to get involved is run for local office, run for selectmen, get on your library board where they're doing crazy things, trying to ban books, you know, selectmen, planning board, go do that. It's a great way to start out and then you can move on if you're enjoying it. Read the Constitution too, I would say. Read the Federalist Papers.

The Federalist Papers are extraordinary to read because you see the real intent. I mean, you can read the Constitution, and it's a great document when you realize the simplicity of it and stuff. But when you go through the Federalist Papers, you really see the intent of all the designers. And, you know, like you'll hear all sorts of idiot arguments. Like somebody was arguing i think with me on social media the other day and they're like we need to get rid of the federal government just for the state everything like you ever read the federalist papers and the explanation as to why they they designed it that way why they you know because they consider both

arguments at the time so there you go the more you know people the more you read the more you educate yourself that's important so that's why we have guests like you on the show, Anita, and everyone else so we can try and get everybody up to level and caring. I really appreciate the opportunity to be on, Chris. I really do. There you go. Thank you very much, Anita, for coming on. Give us your.com some more time so we can get those plugs in. Digging in, nh.com is where my podcast podcast is and you'll be able to get it most of

the places you get your podcasts there you go and try to move to the middle everyone try and figure out we can all get along as if we can quote the the famous guy says why can't we all get along there you go thanks for tuning in go to goodreads.com fortresschristophus linkedin.com fortresschristophus christophus one of the tiktokity and all those great places on the internet thanks for tuning in be good to each other stay safe we'll see you next time