Political Party Loyalty ~ When the Party Is Over, Why Are You Still Sticking Around?

In the first episode of our four-part series, Counting the Cost of Loyalty, we ask some challenging questions: Is your loyalty to a political party truly an expression of your beliefs, or are you following a tradition that may no longer serve you? How often do we align with party lines instead of our values? As America’s political landscape becomes more crowded, diverse, and polarized, it's time to pause and reflect—are we staying loyal for the right reasons or simply out of habit?

We explore how the lure of personalities and the pull of party doctrines can overshadow our convictions. Are we losing sight of what matters most by aligning too closely with labels that may no longer represent us? And how much influence should a political affiliation have over our personal growth and moral compass?

Throughout this episode, we dive into how political tribalism often fuels division and stifles dialogue. Do politicians benefit from keeping us divided? When words like “woke” become weapons to shut down the conversation, who profits and loses? By sharing stories and insights, we highlight how rigid allegiances can limit our potential and even silence us.

We also look at how our values shape our political loyalties. In a world where election cycles breed division and hyperbole, is it possible to focus on issues that transcend financial self-interest, like justice and healthcare? Can we move beyond labels to find common ground and reclaim the true power of our voice?

As you listen, consider this: When was the last time you questioned the cost of your loyalty? Are you ready to break free from the cycle and redefine what it means to be loyal—not to parties, but to the principles that shape who you are and strive to be? Join us as we ask the hard questions, dig deep into the essence of political loyalty, and encourage a perspective beyond partisanship to pursue what truly matters.

Remember, your Perch isn’t just a place to sit; it’s a place to seek a higher perspective.

Chapters

• 0:07 Political Loyalty and Party Dynamics
• 14:04 Political Ideologies and Party Loyalty
• 26:42 Manipulation Through Fear and Division
• 41:07 Personal Values and Political Loyalty
• 47:14 Perch Peak Closing Statement
• 47:36 Choosing Labels and Loyalties

Transcript

Tree: 0:07

Good day Perch people. Thank you for joining us today. I'm so excited. I think I mentioned. What was that.

Toby: 0:15

That's my show of excitement.

Tree: 0:17

Oh, my God, I think I mentioned it's the last podcast, but if you didn't, this is season two, season two, episode two, perch with its new format. So what I want to do is quickly just remind people, first of all those of you who are new and joining us for the first time, thank you, we truly appreciate it. But Perch is an action statement. It's an acronym. Perch stands for Pause, evaluate, response to Circumvent Harm. So what we're going to do, especially in Season 2, to be very clear, every show you look, you stare at me like what are we doing? I'm waiting to hear this, I'm bated breath. Oh hush. Every show is based around the PER, the P-E-R. So we're going to pause, and we pause when we let you know the topic and ask you to take a moment before you judge, or you assume you think you know what the show is about Evaluate your response. So this is our first ever series and this series is a four-part series and I'm gonna say this today's title for last. But I'll just give, just give you a teaser to know what all the each title of the series is. So the series title is called counting the cost of loyalty. Why stay true to what has failed you, so I'm gonna hop ahead. The next episode is about love, when settling becomes a saddle. The next one is careers and the title is it normal to? Is it normal to commit yourself to something that doesn't have the ability to commit to you? And then religion, when a belief becomes an absolute. But again, don't dismiss it, don't think it's about religion. A lot of it is not what you think it is like.

Tree: 2:23

Today's show, today's topics. Today is Wednesday, will be exactly less than a week from voting, and today's topic is political parties. When the party is over, why are you sticking around? This is not listen, listen, listen. Purge people. This is not Listen, listen, listen, people. This is not about what's going on in our political climate. I know we're all politics out. It's not about no, we're not going there, toby. I know we're all politics out. This is not about Republican Democrat Trump versus Harris. This is about parties. So just to make my point, I wasn't aware of this and maybe some of you weren't aware. Did you know that currently here in America, there are 17 active political parties?

Toby: 3:17

And I never miss a party.

Tree: 3:18

So you don't even go to party.

Tree: 3:20

You don't even go Whatever. There are 17 active political parties. Of course, we only know the major two parties for the majority of us, and then the smaller parties. But let me just tell you, just fyi, in case you didn't know the democratic party is the largest party in america. It has 45.9 million members and found and it's the oldest party in america, founded in 1828. The republican party is the second largest party, is 35.7 members and it was founded in 1854.

Tree: 3:55

Now I'm going to put this information. I'm not going to go down all the details of the 17 parties, but I quickly want to mention them. So you like what? The Libertarian Party, independent party of Oregon, the Socialist Party, party of socialism and liberation, the Alliance Party, the American Solidarity Party, the working-class party, the forward, the Vermont Progressive Party, american Independent Party, green Party, constitutional, no labels, working families, liberal and natural law parties. That's 17. They're all currently active and, honestly, most of them were founded in 2000,. A couple in 1990s. So that and before I hand this over to Toby, what I found fascinating in the two parties that are the most recognizable parties in America each party has seven ideologies attached to them. So what does that mean? So I'm going to tell you. Sobertarian conservatives stress individual freedoms, minimum government and a free market principle. The Christian conservatives prioritize religions, religion, moral values and policies. The fiscally conservative ideologies focus on reducing government spending. Am I boring you To death? Okay, so I'm going to move on, because I don't want Toby to fall asleep. The populace and national.

Toby: 5:49

I think I'm just here for eye candy today, so you definitely are not here for eye candy.

Tree: 5:53

Matter of fact, go to sleep until.

Toby: 5:54

I wake you back up when it's your turn.

Tree: 5:56

Perfect and the national conservatives. So the seven. I won't go into them because I don't want to bore. Toby is a progressive, moderate liberal. Social democracy, blue dog Democrats, labor Democrats Now you're barking Jesus Environmentalists and civil rights. I thought it was the time, it was good to say when we hold true to such values, do we recognize that a lot has changed from when we initially enjoyed the party and the reason I'm doing this? In this order, this series. Trust me, if you guys watch the series from beginning to end, every topic is all connected and we're going to bring it home. And at the end of each episode, before we end, now we have Perch Peak, but we'll take a moment to reflect on what we discussed. So please, please, please stay to the end. So that's me Now that you can wake up now.

Toby: 6:57

It's my turn already. Wow, it seems like it's only been okay. Hey, good morning. Good morning, good afternoon, morning good evening we don't know. Members of the perch party power to the people so you woke up just to say that yeah, you lost me when you started talking about dinosaur bones okay, so paleontology isn't that with dinosaur, dinosaur bones, right?

Tree: 7:22

yeah, so I was. Yeah, it'll be on the site. You can Google, you can research, you can do whatever Great.

Toby: 7:28

How are you feeling today? How are you doing I?

Tree: 7:30

am doing. Well, I know you're getting over a bug. I am the bug.

Toby: 7:35

It was miserable Anyway.

Tree: 7:38

I'm going to break out my violence.

Toby: 7:39

Perfect, that's right. Plain hurt today. She figured she could attack me on my political beliefs and political party and all that. But anyway, good morning or good afternoon.

Tree: 7:49

You said that and it could be afternoon. It could be afternoon. Good evening. We're getting ready for the home. Guys, it's time.

Toby: 7:56

What a lovely home.

Tree: 7:57

It's time.

Toby: 7:57

Yeah, well, we're closing on Halloween, so this is my favorite time of the year. Okay, so this is my favorite time of the year. Okay, are we going to talk about Polly? I love Jell-O too, by the way. Oh man, I had to take a little bit. We were getting heavy there. I felt like I was sitting in Polly's side class again. I was like did I take notes on this? But no, I didn't. I didn't, no.

Tree: 8:20

I really do, because when you throw a topic like that out there, I really do, because when you throw a, topic like that out there it's good to give some context. And did you know that there were 17 parties?

Toby: 8:29

Who knew? No, I'm serious. No, I actually didn't. It's funny.

Tree: 8:32

And they're active parties. These aren't Well active.

Toby: 8:35

The left-handed Ukrainian political party of South Oregon.

Tree: 8:38

Well, most of them have thousands or not hundreds of thousands, some a million right and a million members at a million members progressive party of vermont. That's probably like six guys in a vfw hall, but anyway, I guess the greater point, too, toby, is when you say this is if you are a person who subscribe to a party and say and and loyal, yeah, how do you define what you're being loyal?

Toby: 8:59

well, that comes back to what we talked about before is it's it's really hard to be loyal to something that's not loyal back to you, right? I mean, that's the whole premise behind what we're talking about and the fact that so many people look at political parties and they give them this blind loyalty, as if somehow this party is going to love them back. And it's a fascinating study, and I know we're not going to use the T-rump word here during or not during the course of our conversation, but, um, that phenomenon in and of itself is fascinating if you study it and and how it really did create an upheaval in our political structure. And there's a lot of conversation about excuse me, around things like tribalism and about blind loyalty and and the need for people to belong. So, um, there's some interesting stuff.

Tree: 9:47

I've got about 600 pages I'll read to you here today oh, we're not doing that yeah, so um, yeah, but I, but I I do want to say, with that too, it's fascinating to me and I think it is important and I know this may freak some people out to say, I think it is important to question loyalty. That's why I did a whole series on on loyalty, because, um, that's a high value when you, when you're loyal to something, what does that mean and what are you committing to? And, like you said, how do you commit to something that literally, in its existence, has the inability to commit back to you? That's almost kind of insane, I thought. But even within that, I thought it was important to say, um, what we don't know is and I haven't seen it, and maybe it's a work in progress with these seven ideologies I'm wondering, from a, a party lens, how it lays out.

Tree: 10:48

Because when you say, like, what percentage of democrats you know are blue dog, what percentage of you know? Uh, and that's because this came out, because a lot of them, the, the, the MAGA movement in political parties, there is no MAGA ideology, but if you look at the paleo conservative definition, it's MAGA. So when, when you're loyal to something, is the total party being represented by something that you don't support, value or believe in? So that's why it's important. Even though it seems like a lot of conversation is going on, I don't think people are taking the time to explain loyalty. We're just saying well, you're loyal to a party and I've been a Republican all my life. I've been a Democrat and I'm going to die that I'm like, but never when it, when it is no longer what you knew it to be when you first joined the party.

Toby: 11:46

You know this as well as I do. I always kind of I won't even say criticize, but I always label Tree as an idealist and we have conversations, like everybody does, around politics, especially this time of year, as it relates to things like why does somebody do this? I mean, we watch the primaries and this person just attacks this person and then three months later, they wholeheartedly, full-throatedly endorse them and, without fail, tree comes to me and says how can they do that? How is that possible? And I'm like it's politics Again.

Toby: 12:19

There's no loyalty other than to a brand, to a party, other than to a brand you know, to a party, and these people know that their lifeblood, their future, is driven by the fact that they stay in that party. That's why so few people move parties. That's why when you see a Tulsi Gabbard or you see, you know various folks who actually change parties, it's very rare because that's almost committing political suicide. So there is no loyalty on their level. It's just well, sorry, let me rephrase it there's nothing but loyalty on their part. Blindly speaking, they just follow it and you can look at it all over the place. If you want to talk about the Trump phenomenon for two seconds. He's not a Republican, he's a populist.

Tree: 13:01

We don't.

Toby: 13:02

He's a populist that person whose name shall not be repeated and I'm not talking about Valdemort is a populist. He's not a Republican. The problem is, that person whose name we will not talk about is so popular that the Republican Party has gone. Well, shit, I guess we'll hitch our wagons to this guy for the next four years and then we worry about it after that, and then you'll get on to the people that are truly Republicans. We worry about it after that, and then you'll get on to the people that are truly republicans. Uh, you know whether that's, uh, the desantis, or a rubio, or, or you know some of these other folks, but he's, he is not so to go back to the topic, when it comes down to yes, because?

Tree: 13:38

yes, because we're not talking about individuals.

Toby: 13:41

We're talking about the fact that a populist was put into a Republican mode because that was the most popular choice at this point, and blindly, the Republicans gave up a lot of their values to follow somebody who was a populist. So let's talk about so, but then you.

Tree: 13:56

So I think you are making my point. You're making my point with saying so. So what you're is the. The loyalty is technically not to a party, and let me explain why so because I don't know where you're going. Okay, where am I going?

Toby: 14:14

um, no, please, no, no no, let's do this for the next 45 minutes no, please, no, please, oh, my god.

Tree: 14:20

So all right. So let me tell you go toby.

Toby: 14:26

All I was going to say is there are a few times in the history of our country where a personality has has over uh, has overcome or surpassed the party. Normally, the party drives the, the, the agenda, and they drive the candidates and they drive the whole mission. What happened here was we reached a very interesting critical mass in our country where there was such a high level of dissatisfaction within, notably, the Republican Party, but also within the Democratic Party, where a person came out of nowhere and said I'm for you, I'm for the small people, we're going to make America great again, we're going to do all these things and really tapped into an emotional nationalism that nobody else had done before. Now, all of a sudden, the Republicans are like we don't want this person. And I remember when this particular person first started to show up on the scene and everybody's like this is a punchline, it's not going to happen, it's going to go away. Then, well, we were wrong.

Tree: 15:22

I apologize for a few points. Well, we were wrong. I apologize for a few points.

Toby: 15:25

We weren't talking about individuals. We were talking about a party. We were talking about an ideology, a populist movement.

Tree: 15:30

But my point being which you said you knew what I was going to say, so I let you finish my sentence, and you weren't even in the ballpark Shocking you missed it by that much. My point being I almost think it's lazier of us as society to even mention party loyalty, because your party is now not defined. So what are you loyal to? So it can't be a party. It can't If you have seven ideologies. What is your party?

Toby: 16:04

Do you think most people know those seven ideologies?

Tree: 16:05

that's my whole point right that's what I'm saying. So we just we've been saying party loyalty out of habit, out of history, out of not out of dishonesty, so because there is no party loyalty okay because what? What is your party before you?

Toby: 16:22

did your research. If I had asked you a simple question in terms of what differentiates a Republican from a Democrat, what would you say? One or two punchlines. If I'm a Democrat, what do I stand for? If I'm a Republican, what do I stand for?

Tree: 16:37

You're asking the wrong person. And you know why you're asking the wrong person it's because the lines have been blurred for me on both for a long time Speaker. 1, so I would never consider I wouldn't, I am not ever going to put a label on me. I'm not and I know that, but let me but let me, but let me.

Tree: 16:59

Can I finish? But what I know is this is what we do, because everyone was like, well, you're a Democrat, because people know my values, because I'm a person who actually lives my values. I don't. I, I'm a person who actually lives my values. I, I care about my neighbor. I try to cheat people fairly.

Tree: 17:21

I care about the greater and we're going to jump to the see. This is exactly what I'm talking about. Why do you? Why do you feel the need to label? Why do you feel the need to label? Because I was highly offended that a party decided to be the party of Christ. That that was offensive to me, because God, if you are a Christian and you believe in God, god is the God of all. He said that he's the God of all, so how did you decide that it's a guard god of your party? So does that mean that a libertarian, a green and all this, we? You have christians in in all parties.

Toby: 18:03

There are four thousand other religions out there for them to choose from.

Tree: 18:06

They could choose 3999 but that belongs to one party. But this is my point on all of it. And and then on the Democratic side it was like well, what do you stand for? And I have an issue with the Democrats having aversion to say the with, you know, in a religious environment. So does that make me conservative?

Toby: 18:40

I don't.

Tree: 18:41

I don't attach that's my point that none of this makes sense to me. I don't attach religion to politics, I don't agree with it.

Tree: 18:51

So I am who I am, I believe what I believe. I call strike strikes, I call balls balls, and I and I will. So when you say values, what do you believe in? When it's the majority of your party, the loudest voices are something you're anti, for the sake of loyalty, you can't say no, you can't say that's not who we are, or you have to stay committed, because all of it is well if you look at other countries.

Toby: 19:22

There are other countries where they have actually fragmented their political parties to be much more ideologically specific, if you will be, if you will, and what that creates is a real challenge to ever reach a majority for the government to rule. So what we've done here is kind of this dummying down. And you're absolutely right, I joke about it and I kid, but the reality is nobody. Very few people are true blue, very few people are true red. We're somewhere in between and what you have to do is you have to kind of make some choices based around that.

Toby: 19:56

But there are some ideological principles that have kind of changed over the years and you named a couple of them that the Democratic Party tends to favor a larger government Good or bad, I'm not putting but a larger government and more services for its people. Government and more services for its people. And the assumption is that a Democratic party would say that the government should take care of more of the needs of its citizenry. There's nothing wrong with that approach whatsoever. And then the Republicans, historically, have said smaller government, leave more in the private sector, allow private citizens to take care of each other, requiring obviously a little bit more stuff to take place outside of the government. But one says, let's do a lot for you, the other one says, do less for you. One tends to be a little bit more financially or fiscally conservative, the other one tends to be a little bit more fiscally aggressive, but after that as you said, even at the surface, that that, that that in itself is a fallacy.

Tree: 20:59

And it's a fallacy because it's it's a system of picks and chooses, meaning one party can say smaller government, but they're OK, we'll have the largest military in the world because that's one of the things the government is responsible to do.

Tree: 21:15

Yeah, no, but you did. I not say picks and chooses and I was like, but because one party, the other party had said at one time, well, the government should be responsible to make sure that we all have health care. And then they say, well, that's not the government's position, right, but then it's still taking care of its people. It's picks and chooses is what I'm saying Right? Because if you are, if a military is set for and everyone agrees that it's the government responsibility to keep people safe.

Toby: 21:49

Country safe.

Tree: 21:49

That's why keeping people safe is keeping a country safe. Correct. The people make up the country.

Toby: 21:55

Well, but I don't want to pick and choose. Okay. Okay, the local government is involved with local it's for local enforcement. The government only has like four responsibilities. Let me finish my point, Okay.

Tree: 22:07

Excuse me, let me just finish my point. You can go to town. So if part of the military is to keep the country safe and keeping a country safe keeps the people safe essentially part, and so that is, just from a military perspective, part of the government, and we saw it. That's why COVID was a mess for everyone, because the world was experiencing something at the same time. Part of safety is health. Health is part of safety and we decided to pick and choose what safety looks like. So you're saying the government can protect us from the enemies outside of how? I forgot the exact way the Constitution lays it out in a detail it's foreign, domestic. Well then, that's the government's responsibility. But you know, some of these epidemics and they're going to keep happening and these viruses, it's things that aren't keeping us safe and aren't keeping us protected. And you see, when there's an epidemic, the government had to step in and try to help.

Tree: 23:15

And we failed. So I'm just saying it's a system.

Toby: 23:19

And we failed. Yes, we failed initially, because that's a church for another day.

Tree: 23:25

No, but I don't even see how it's debatable, because that was the one thing we were kind of agreeing on when I said we failed. We didn't have an active system in place and it took us a while to get it together to get medicine to people. We all had this experience together.

Toby: 23:41

I'm not making up something that didn't happen and I'm not trying to get back on topic, because that's a topic for another day right, I'm not trying to get into.

Tree: 23:50

I'm just saying when these parties say they have values and they say they stand for something, even the values sometimes these parties say they have values and they say they stand for something even the values sometimes these parties say they stand for are reflective. That's my point. So the whole point of this is are you really paying attention to what you are being loyal to and when in your loyalty? When do you recognize it change? That's why I did a series, because I don't want to go into, because that goes into relationships, love and everything else we really need to evaluate. Don't take anything for granted.

Toby: 24:28

Don't have blind loyalty and be honest when this no longer represents me well and what you're seeing, and I mean there's a lot of similarities between the topics you've chosen here. But the reason that that the republican party specifically is in such turmoil right now is they. Many people believe the republican party has left them. You know, then, that's why you've got these, these spinoffs, like the constitutionalists who turn around and say whoa, whoa, whoa the republican, whoa, whoa. The Republican Party stood for four basic values. You mentioned them. The government should print money, the government should make sure that the marketplace is equitable and fair you know, fair labor and employment practices and work environment, and then protect the country. And if I'd studied my civics, I could probably tell you the fourth one too. But, by the way, I took the test to become a citizen and I almost kind of sort of passed.

Tree: 25:22

He is a citizen, please be clear you can't just say I took the test.

Toby: 25:25

I took the test. Yeah, she gave it to me yesterday and some of their questions were wrong, but I got them right.

Tree: 25:32

So Toby is a citizen. I just brought up a point.

Toby: 25:35

If you took the test, would the average American be able to pass? It's not easy. You ought to try, go online and take a look. But anyway, all I'm getting at is there's a large portion of the Republican Party dare say you know citizenry who says wait a minute, the Republican Party has gotten hijacked and this isn't what we stand for. But it doesn't really matter, because the Republican Party just wants to rule, just like the Democratic Party just wants to rule.

Tree: 26:00

So what does that say about us?

Toby: 26:02

Well, it says a lot.

Tree: 26:03

But why be loyal to something that you are making my point?

Toby: 26:08

No, that's what I'm trying to do.

Tree: 26:11

Unloyal to a party who, at its core, focuses on ruling and leading, opposed to being what they.

Toby: 26:22

I'd love to read something to you if I could. So I'm going to put my glasses on so I can look really smart. No, really, so I can see A professor of psychiatry at Wayne State University and I would love to pronounce his name, but it's really difficult, so I'm just going to say this particular professor assistant professor wrote this piece and he attributes it to tribalism, and it's a very interesting argument. He says tribalism is the biological loophole that many politicians have banked on for a long time, tapping into our fears and tribal instincts. Some examples are Nazism, the Ku Klux Klan, religious wars and the Dark Ages.

Toby: 26:57

The typical pattern is to give the other humans a label different than us and say they are going to harm us or our resources, and to turn the other group into a concept. It does not necessarily have to be race or nationality, which are used very often. It can be real or imaginary differences Liberals, conservatives, middle Easterners, white men, the right, the left, muslim, jews, christians, sikhs the list goes on and on. When building tribal boundaries between us and them, some politicians have managed very well to create virtual groups of people that do not communicate and hate each other without even knowing each other. Oh, glass is stuck. So I I think that's a really interesting statement that says that they have done a masterful job of creating us into these tribes, as this particular professor indicated, and creating fear and diversity among us, and and pointing out where we're different rather than where we're the same, so that they can create anger.

Tree: 28:01

Anger creates action and then action creates well and and it's and I there's nothing that the articles say stated that I didn't believe in. But I would add one more um nuance to that that they've so even weaponizing woke, so literally to other eyes, to another category. Now there's the woke people, and so here's another label, and so let's put these people over here. Essentially, woke came from a term in the African-American community we've been using forever and ever for decades, and woke meant to to what you should do, pay attention, be aware, be informed. So now they start banning books and said well, these are woke books. They trying to tell you about a history you don't know anything about. These are.

Tree: 28:56

So the labels continue, the division continues, and part of that is the, the miseducation, and the information is rampant. Because now if you take a snippet of something that's shown on a commercial which sounds like, oh my God, that's what this person believes, god, that's what this person believes, and that's what that person believes, they take a snippet, take it out of context and then they tell you don't read about it, just trust what I say. Don't you know? This is something that they're creating, this is the, the woke people, and don't look into it for yourself. And all of this from party loyalty, all of it. We need to be students. If you are loyal to something, I would advise strongly. You damn sure know what you're being loyal to and what you're representing.

Toby: 29:46

The other thing, though and I'm not saying it happened in this particular case, although I would contend it did, and maybe we'll have a podcast on the woke movement, but what?

Tree: 29:56

tends to happen, I don't know. Every time I hear that I just get frustrated.

Toby: 29:59

I know, I know but it's not what it started out being, and one of the examples I'm going to give is when I was in college, I considered myself a libertarian, and the main reason being is anybody who watches these podcasts. I believe very much in self-regulation. Whatever I do with my life, as long as it doesn't impact your, I should be able to do. As long as it doesn't break a law, I should be able to do whatever I want to do, as long as it doesn't impact on your ability to do whatever you want to do within the constraints of the law. So I always felt like well, that's exactly what the Libertarian Party says.

Toby: 30:34

And you start to listen to the platform and they say things like that Should I have to wear a seatbelt? Only if I want to? Now there's a whole argument about if I get in an accident, who's going to pay for it. But you know, if I ride a motorcycle, should I have to wear a helmet? That should be a personal decision. Now you can argue that as much as you like, and I'm good with that. I'm going along with this and I'm buying it. The candidate for the Libertarian Party and he's going down this road and he's going, and you should have the right to choose this and you should have the right to choose this. And then he gets to the point where he says and if you want to buy an Abrams tank, you should be able to go do that. And I was like whoa, we just went a long way, from my wearing a bicycle helmet to going to buy a military grade assault weapon, you know, and all of a sudden we jumped to that level but can we pause right there?

Tree: 31:13

yeah, this is why perch that is literally the antithesis of perch. I don't understand. Perch is gray. The, the whole ideology of perch is great meaning. There's always nuance. Nothing is ever black and white.

Toby: 31:31

There's always a shade of gray.

Tree: 31:33

This is why I don't get party loyalty, Because when you decide well, I once was this, but now I'm this. And I once was a liberal and now I'm a Democrat. And I once was a Democrat, now I'm a liberal Republican, now I'm this. Why, why pick a label? And Toby, you call me an idealist. I am one to my core and that's one label now, I guess.

Toby: 31:57

And it's not a bad thing. Let me just finish my point, okay.

Tree: 32:00

Because I like a good idea. I think we, in order for us to be a society that's ever evolving, we have to be eternal students and always looking for a better way, a better way. But if you stay loyal to a party, the party is trying to define a way. The party is trying to define a path and say this is who we are and that's why people have problem with religion and everything else.

Tree: 32:33

I don't want to get into the other topics because it says, in order for you to be like me, a part of this group, a part of this party, this that these are core principles, this is what we represent and if you can follow this, I'm like, but I am the type of person I don't like buffets for real, like, for real. I know there's choices, but you know I don't like things as being picked over. That's just me. And and how this tie into a party is saying I like to pick and choose, I like choice, I like to say this works for me, this doesn't, this work, and I I cannot subscribe to a party because I am never going to agree with anybody on this planet. Even that's why I struggle.

Toby: 33:18

And the only reason I call you an idealist. Well, first of all you are, and I think it's a wonderful thing. The challenge is when it comes to governing people. You know this. We're members of a homeowners association. We get 10 people in the room. We have 11 different ideas. It's really hard to bring people together to agree on almost anything. The color of cocktail napkins.

Toby: 33:38

I can't agree on. So now we're trying to run a country and the complexity inherently involved with that, and so we dummy down things to such a great extent. I don't have a problem with that as much as I do. How government has chosen chosen is probably the wrong word but how government dictates their control over people, Because happy people are questioning people. If we're happy, we ask a lot of questions. Why are there no term limits? Why is it that we allow this to happen? Why do we let this occur? So what? The government-.

Tree: 34:10

And it's not unpatriotic, it is not.

Toby: 34:14

It is not In fact. We should all question a lot of this, absolutely. But what the governments will do and it's very clear, interesting articles, you'll read it everywhere. Governments manage by fear. They have to manage by fear because fear is such a strong emotion. If you're scared of something, you'll toe the line.

Toby: 34:31

If you're not scared of something, you ask a lot of questions and Tree and I will have long conversations on our drives and we'll say we have more in common, politically speaking, than we do apart. But you'd never know it by listening to the press, by reading social media. We are so far apart, we are so different and that's complete hogwash, it's absolute garbage. But what happens is the political parties drive that stake between us because they want to create division, they want to create anger. They want me to be mad at Tree because she's liberal and they want Tree to be mad at me because I don't care about the poor. And that's a bunch of horseshit and that is a technical term. You can quote me. But the idea is that that's what happens and there's all kinds of interesting articles. I'm not going to get into great detail, but there's one here about how political leaders strategically manipulate us and they do it through fear, they do it through divisiveness, they do it through language, they do it through emotion, and the most strong emotion is fear, fear.

Tree: 35:31

And I'm always, always going to vote. My people fought for this right. It was not freely given to us and I would not allow anyone to disclose my vote. So, with me being an idealist, I really have to take time and one thing I'm grateful for shout out to my daughters. They do the same thing. They take their vote serious. So when it comes time to vote, we, in advance, go through, try to say you know, know what's going on locally. Kind of fell short that we moved here, but try to say what's going on locally.

Tree: 36:08

Before I vote for a judge, I look at some of the cases they've tried before I vote for anything, because it has to line up with what I believe and that's it. I need to see your work. So your your lip service. It goes in one ear and comes out the other when it comes time to what have you stood for, what laws have you put for, what have you supported? Now I know I agree with you, so I, I more so, agree with you on that side and that's how I vote and let it go.

Tree: 36:37

Because I can listen to and Toby knows this, I listen to a lot of podcasts, a lot of information all day long and I will agree with people like Jordan Peterson. Toby cares for him more than I do, but I listen to him on a lot of things and I like the way that he articulated religion. A lot of religious people may not, but I'm like, I listen and I listen for you. Not soundbites, not. Does it make sense to me, does it live up to the values in my belief system and how I see things, and that's it. I don't have to. I don't know who told us that we have to agree. Yeah, we do not have to agree. You have every right to feel your feels, believe what you believe and eat, and especially in things like politics and religion I'm amazed that people are told let's talk about medicine for a second.

Toby: 37:32

You're told you have to self-advocate. Nobody's going to worry about your health more than you should, and I know a number of people who have had tragedies in their lives and all kinds of issues and all of a sudden they become advocates of their own health. What does my EKG look like? What is my blood pressure? Is that good or bad? And they advocate and then they go blindly follow a party and you're like wait a minute, you advocated for your health. Why don't you advocate for your own intelligence?

Tree: 37:57

that is a great but that's a great analogy. But think about what you just said and that's why we're having a show that actually lovely ties. Thank you it in. I know you had no clue, you did that came from nowhere, pulled it out absolutely the far crack anyway.

Tree: 38:13

Um, sorry, the far crack, anyway, sorry. What that says is you hit the needle on the head Like we go to the doctor trusting the doctor has our best interest at heart. You do what the doctor says until you realize now my health is failing and I am literally saying that I know something is wrong because I know my body so and I am not taking serious. Now that I'm not taking serious, serious, I have to be my own advocate because my health is failing and they don't seem to care. Oh, that's so good, that is politics, that is what I'm saying. So what I'm saying to you is we are seeing this system is broken and our parties that we subscribe to believe in are failing us. But until it, personally and I I kind of have to I'm not gonna say you, you've kind of applied this to you know, when it comes down to parties like yeah, they say that, are they really going to do?

Tree: 39:12

it they say that, but are they really going to do it? But my thing is why are you waiting for that person to fail you in a certain manner when their actions and their words are already failing? That's good. We can end a podcast, right now.

Toby: 39:27

Look at so many, so many companies right now where, all of a sudden, the shareholders are starting to take over. Why is the ceo making millions of dollars and the company's losing money? You're starting to see a lot of activism. Well that's getting into the careers All.

Toby: 39:40

I'm getting at is activism is occurring in the private sector, why isn't activism occurring in the public sector? Why aren't we looking and saying why have these fat cat politicians made so much money and millions of dollars? There's no way that they should have made that kind of money, and yet we elect them over and over again. So we're the jackasses here. We are the ones who are being made to look the fool, because we continue to reelect these people who don't represent our interests, who aren't listening to us, who don't recognize that we have more things in common than we have apart, and we're not looking to harmonize, we're looking to polarize and we're separating ourselves and, as a result of that, everything you read, you go on social media, you go on the press. You've got CNBC, who's liberal, and you've got Fox, who's conservative, and we've lost our control of news.

Tree: 40:28

We now have nothing but opinion, and so until we self-advocate, we're going to continue to get this slop but, but, but, and I just want to in in that regard, we, we are self-advocating from a media perspective because those big media, we have now more podcasts, more information than we've ever had before. I understand what you're saying, but I'm just saying from a meter perspective, but so many of them.

Toby: 40:58

You and I have talked about this Tree and I have talked about where Perch should go, and we don't want to just recycle the slop that's out there. And I'm going to criticize a lot of podcasts right now. They take a clip from the current presidential debates or from a current presidential candidate and then they just pile on it. That's not podcasting. If all you're doing is parroting a statement that you've heard some other talking ad put together, that's not thought leadership, that's not intelligence, that's just fanning a flame. So all of you who do that and you get thousands and millions of likes you're just an empty vessel. I don't care what you guys think about it, you're worthless, you're worthless Dead to not see us taking that turn today.

Toby: 41:46

Turned a little ugly there for say come back, good, now.

Tree: 41:49

Did you get it out though, cuz I don't know come back.

Toby: 41:51

I hope that's fast Wake up, mummy, you got it Okay, though, because I don't ever know how to come back. I hope that's right.

Tree: 41:55

wake up, mummy, you got it okay we're good, I'm gonna blame it on a cold man's people. They're kicking it that that's exactly what I'm gonna say and I honestly had a point. And then, when you start slamming other podcasters, create.

Toby: 42:09

Create good content. Please Back to you, jim.

Tree: 42:19

Toby, I really had a thought, that one, and you really shocked me, and you really, you know I normally still my toes with you.

Toby: 42:28

I don't know.

Tree: 42:29

But that one just took me.

Toby: 42:30

I forgive. I'll be over here drinking water if you need anything.

Tree: 42:35

Okay, and I was Pause.

Toby: 42:38

Evaluate.

Tree: 42:40

To circumvent harm. So one thing before we wrap and get towards the end. Another thing I want to topic is voting in your own interests. That's a term that's always drove me crazy as well, because what I know what the implication is that that that typically implies when they say you're voting against your interests connotation it's like you know. So if you make X amount of money and one party is known to be more partial to someone who makes less than you, that's how your interest is. It's asinine Cause. First of all, who are you to tell me what my interest is? Number one you have no idea what I'm interested in. Number one. Number two it's my values, values. So you're voting your values, and what that tells me is whoever coined this term and the people that use it because I've heard it used to towards me several times their value is their, their, their pocketbook. You know their wallet, their finances, and that's it I. And it's so hard for people to fathom that not everyone values money but it is a personal decision.

Toby: 44:00

We talked about this a little bit yesterday and and I believe um and this is going to shock you as a republican, I believe in universal health care. I think everybody should have health care. I also believe we should take care of literally all american citizens and provide them basic human rights, and human rights today are different than they were in the 1700s, and I think we need to evolve toward that. That being said, if the government came and said we are going to create universal health care in this country and the good news, popular citizens, is it's only going to cost you all $20,000 a year more, now we're all going to take a deep breath and some of us, to Tree's point, will say $20,000, that's a small price to pay to make sure our country's healthier. And then other people might look at that and go $20,000? Are you out of your mind? Why is it going to cost $20,000? That's absurd.

Toby: 44:50

And now, what's my magic number versus Tree's magic number? Probably very different. Would I pay an extra $1,000 a year to make sure everybody was insured? I think I would. Would I pay $10,000? I probably wouldn't. Now, does that make me a cold, callous person? It might, but to say that everybody has the same values or is driven by the same, as you said, is absolutely wrong.

Tree: 45:13

Agreed. So I'm cheap before I'm silly, before I bring this in any end. Do you have I? Have about 63 pages and we're not doing that, so wrap it up, put a bowl all right, you want me to?

Toby: 45:32

well, the only thing that I would say is that obviously we're we everybody every every four years, we talk about this being the election of all elections and this will change the world, and the rhetoric and the vitriol and all that, sorry guys, I mean for what it's worth. It's just another election. It's. The sun is going to come up on that Wednesday morning and the world will go back to normal and you may have a crazy person in place, you may not have a crazy person in place, you may have somebody who's worthless in place. It's, it doesn't matter because, at the end of the day, good people will, will make sure will prevail.

Toby: 46:09

Craziness has happened in this world forever and I don't care what anybody says when they say this is the first time that we've ever bullshit. It's never the first time we've done anything in this in this world before you know, we can overcome any of this stuff. So these people who want to run off to canada and never do you know, please, you know, let's just, let's just be realistic about this. It's a single election, it's a single person. It doesn't, at the end of the day, really matter all righty.

Tree: 46:38

And those are the words of toby and his opinion. Good toby, all right.

Tree: 46:43

So before we close, I really want to get to um today's perch peak, and it's just a statement of what this particular episode has meant for me as I reflect on it. So, as we reach today's Perch Peak, let us pause to consider what it means to stay loyal to something that may no longer align with who we are, that may no longer align with who we are. Political parties Democrat, republican, libertarian and beyond each carry decades, even centuries, of history. They represent ideologies, identities and traditions, but at the heart of all of it, they don't fully know us. They don't know the intricacies of our lives or our values that shape our decision. This reminds me of something from my own life, a moment that shaped my views on labels and loyalty. When I was a kid, someone I truly loved was labeled by a teacher in tarot out of the blue that they were slow. That broke my heart and just like that, they accepted the label and began to embody it. They start failing, class after class, even though they have never struggled before. It broke my heart to see this happen. So the one day, as we were walking home from school, I told them you know the good thing about labels you can always take them. You can take them off anytime you get to define yourself. The only label you should ever wear is the one that you choose. That moment stayed with me because it reminds me of how powerful labels can be and how liberating it is to realize you have a choice to remove them.

Tree: 48:40

There's a phrase we often hear voting against our own interests. But who defines those interests? For some, the truest interest isn't financial or material. It's a matter of principle, of a vision for a better world, even if it means sacrificing something personal. It's about standing for something greater than ourselves, even if it doesn't align with what society deems is logical or even practical.

Tree: 49:14

But what if we could take a step back from part of party loyalty and ask ourselves why are we still here? Are we sticking around for habit, tradition, or because we believe we have no other options I gave you 1717 options or we truly align with what chosen party represents today? Maybe, instead of letting the political label define us, we can redefine our loyalties to reflect our truest value. So, as we close the perch Pete, let's make room for new perspectives. So, as we close the perch Pete, let's make room for new perspectives, one that allow us to look beyond party lines and see ourselves clearly. Let us consider that our highest loyalty might not be to a party at all, but to the truth we discover within ourselves, because from the highest perspective we can truly find clarity to make choices that resonate with who we are and who we aspire to be. Remember, your perch isn't just a place to sit, it's a place to seek higher perspective. Until we meet again, take care Bye.