Programming Lions

Ep.101 Empowering the Future w/ Chloe Anagnos

• Matt Morstad • Episode 101

Share episode

Welcome to the Programming Lions Podcast. In this episode, we are joined by Chloe Anagnos—a seasoned digital strategist, writer, and the Director of Marketing and Communications at America's Future. Chloe shares insights from her career in digital communications and political fundraising and discusses her current roles and writings on free enterprise policy and culture. The conversation covers America's Future’s initiatives, the challenges new professionals face, key public policy issues, and the evolving landscape of higher education. Tune in for an inspiring discussion on liberty, entrepreneurship, and practical advice for young professionals.


Links:

https://www.instagram.com/chloeanagnos/

https://x.com/ChloeAnagnos

https://americasfuture.org


00:00 Introduction

01:01 America's Future Organization

03:21 Challenges for New Professionals

06:03 Issues for the Youth

09:54 Higher Education

10:55 Balancing Career and Family

13:57 Minimalism

16:29 Decluttering Your Life

16:40 Tips for New Creators

17:46 Avoiding Burnout as a Content Creator

19:05 Staying True to Your Brand

20:21 Family History

23:20 Safety Over Freedom

25:41 Cronyism vs. Capitalism

27:48 Government Bailouts

30:31 Independence Over Victimhood

31:59 Connecting with Chloe 

Welcome to the Programming Lions Podcast. Chloe Anagnos joins us, a second generation American wife, mother, digital strategist and writer. She began her career in digital communications and political fundraising. Chloe worked. With teams to develop marketing and communication strategies for small businesses, public figures, think tanks, and many more. Currently, she serves as the director of marketing and communications at America's Future and is visiting fellow at Independent Women's Forum. She writes extensively about free enterprise policy culture. Bylines include Entrepreneur, epoch Times Foundation for Economic Education, American Institute, and many more. So we got a lot of questions. Let's get into it.

CHLOE ANAGNOS:

Chloe, welcome to the podcast. We're excited to have you on. Are you ready for some hard hitting youth questions? I am ready. Let's bring it. All right, let's go. All right, so let's talk Liberty. So can you tell us more about the American Future Organization and your role in it?

CHLOE_ANAGNOS-Matt-webcam-00h_00m_00s_322ms-StreamYard:

it?

CHLOE ANAGNOS:

Yeah, absolutely. So America's Future is a networking organization for folks age about 22 to 40 who are interested in the Liberty movement, who are entrepreneurial, and who, really just want to build that community of liberty, uh, wherever they are, whether that's in their city in their office setting. One of the things that we like to say is that we are the kind of talent catalyst for folks that are in. The Liberty movement. We've got different fellowships, different programming that people can take advantage of. We have a writing fellowship, so if you're interested in getting published, getting your ideas out there that's definitely something I tell folks to get involved in, to apply for. We've got a grassroots organizing fellowship, so if you're interested in. Getting a campaign together. If you're looking to start some type of movement in your community, we give you the tools to do that. And then we've got a leadership fellowship. So if you are interested in getting promoted, finding that next level job, maybe making the switch from just an associate member of your organization to taking on more of a management role, that's something that we can train you to do as well. We'll drop a link to America's future in the description so people can check it out. I think we had somebody else from the organization on that was recognized by America's future, uh, Hannah Cox. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Okay. So what's funny, She was on our podcast a few months ago. Okay. We are working with her. She was get this, she was one of my roommates at an AF leadership retreat like 10 years ago. Is that right? And that's how I. got to know her. And she just won our 1995 Society award. It's given to. That, are big in the liberty space that have made a lot of strides in their career. And then she's going to be teaching our create cohort. So we're going to be teaching folks later this fall. We're still working on dates but we're teaching folks how to create content for Liberty and she's teaching that class, so I'm very excited to bring her in. So that's small world. That's awesome. Yeah, we enjoyed our conversation with her and learning more about the liberty movement and libertarian ideals. And she talked a lot about some of the work that she's doing in terms of trying to promote some of those ideas. Very cool. Small world. I'm curious, what do you think are some key challenges that new professionals are facing when they go into the workforce? Ooh. I think one of the biggest ones is not having any prior work experience. I just don't see a lot of young professionals that have any type of job experience whatsoever. And I get it. It's tough, especially when sports are really popular. People are doing, you've got band competitions and you're constantly traveling. But I think any kind of, even if it's just for a few weeks, having some type of experience under your belt and learning how to deal with the public is a really important skill. Because I get so many people that come in and they're like, Hey, I don't understand how to deal with this conflict. And so I have to, I find myself teaching conflict resolution a lot. But working as. A server as a, hostess, a runner in a restaurant, and then eventually as a bartender you learn very quickly how to work with all different kinds of people. And so that's something that I would encourage young people to do is to find that first little bit of experience wherever you can. Yeah, that's good advice. Yeah. You guys have had a couple little jobs, but of course now we have, we kinda have this, yeah, this is more. this Sort of their side hustle or job that, hopefully will continue to other school, continue to sprout and expand. School is a job. School is, yeah, school can be a lot of work and sports. Now you, me, you mentioned, Chloe, you mentioned sports. Back when I was young, you could be a three sport athlete, you could. uh, Be in sports and do a lot of extracurricular stuff, but sports takes up such an incredible amount of time now with club sports and how organized and how competitive they are. It's, uh, that definitely weigh, weighs on us'cause the kids are both in sports and they're both in extracurricular activities and so yeah, it's just hard to find time to do anything. And so I can imagine, yes, to have side jobs, which most of, my friends did growing up is, uh, not as common. It doesn't seem anymore. So. Yeah. it's not as common. And then you made the interesting point about organized sports. And if I can pose this. This question to y'all.'cause I'm a journalist by trade, so I really like asking questions too. Yes. But do the majority of your friends do some type of club or travel sports in addition to school sports? Because it seems like that is the trend everybody does. You have maybe soccer and you do club soccer and then you do school soccer. So I'm curious what your experience is.

CHLOE_ANAGNOS-Matt-webcam-00h_00m_00s_322ms-StreamYard:

Yeah,

CHLOE ANAGNOS:

definitely some all of my friends do things outside of school. Some of them, I think, as you said in the beginning, they also travel for their stuff. Yeah they're in traveling My friends don't really like travel or like if they need to do like a sport, they normally just do it, like in our, city and stuff yeah. What do you think are. Currently the most important public policy issues for younger people today. The debt's a big one. And I know it's not very exciting, but even back in my day we were constantly talking about how much debt the United States is in and How? that is gonna, it's quite a bit. And so I think we're starting to see some of the effects of older generations maybe not being so fiscally conservative and younger generations having to pick up the slack. The other thing that is important. Is that we're getting into a real slippery slope when we're talking about the student loan debt crisis. A lot of people don't want to take responsibility for the debt that they take out. Look at the United States government. They don't wanna do that either, right? But we're starting to see a lot of people my age. Mid thirties who took out a lot of student loans, now they have to start to repay them. And I was just watching some tiktoks the other night of people talking about how I had a$30,000 loan and I've been paying$1,200 a month for the last two years and I looked at my balance and it's still$30,000. Honey, that's the interest. So I think a lot of that fiscal responsibility. And just understanding what economics are is something that we need to continue to teach in the US and I don't really feel like that's being done very well. So if we're not careful, we're going to be paying. Y'all are gonna be paying that when you are my age, so we gotta get that under control. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. In fact, we've covered the debt a few times, right? Yeah. The debt's pretty big. Like I can't believe that. How do we get into the trillions of dollars in debt? Like a lot of it, believe it or not, a lot of it is war. War is a very big business. If you've ever seen, and I maybe ask your dad, but if you can watch this movie, but it's called War Dogs. It's got Jonah Hill in it. Really good movie. But it talks about how in the first five minutes of the opening sequence, they're talking about the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, where, we just pulled out of recently in the last five, six years, and they talk about how. When Americans see soldiers on, the news or they see them in the newspaper, you're seeing a soldier, you're seeing someone that's doing their patriotic duty. But to Jonah Hill's character in the movie, he sees$25,000 in terms of equipment and uniforms that he gets to sell to the United States government. So it goes into that. Okay, who pays for everything? Who pays for a tank? Who pays for weapons, right? It's very educational and entertaining at the same time. Oh, interesting. We'll, uh, we'll have to check that out, yeah, definitely the debt is really problematic. It's something we've covered a lot because we think it, it has such a massive impact on Gen Z and Gen Alpha affordability. We've covered the linkage between debt and inflation, and so the boys are quite familiar with. What that means for them and their, uh, future in terms of paying all this off. I forget the number, but the amount of student loan debt is over a trillion dollars in this country. It's. debt Wild. And then you have both federal and you have private student loans. And we actually work with a an organization that helps consolidate private student loans because some of them are predatory to the point you mentioned where you get, you pay for 10 years and all of a sudden you look at your balance and it's the same. So they help. People consolidate and resolve that and try to get on a payment plan to get out of the debt. But that is, uh, that's also definitely weighing on young people with the increase in cost of college. These are things that we think about all the time. We've got two young boys here, college expense, uh, as we forecast it for them, it's wow. That's Wild. Yes. And at the same time, who, who knows? With my kiddos in about 10 to 15 years, I don't even know if college is going to be a thing. I don't feel like people are going to be wanting those four year degrees. I think you might see people, a lot of high schools now are offering a two year program so you can graduate. High school with an associate's degree and then maybe go find, a two year, bachelor's program just so you can save. But I just don't think it's going to be a thing. Yeah, I think it's fair to say that the scope of college is changing a lot and perhaps not just the expense and the time that it takes, but also just the access to information. You can go online and get a bunch of like course material. And courses from Harvard for free, for example. And so you can do so much education that doesn't cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. And so I think those dynamics, yeah, they might really change how people see and value higher education because you can just. Get those skills in other ways. It'll be an interesting future to your point to see how this kind of maps out. Is girl boss feminism, is it just socialism? Basically a lipstick. Yes and no. So I think that one of the things that's very interesting about Girl Boss feminism is that when I was in college, so about 2015, about 10 years ago, I'm aging myself here. But the book by Cheryl Sandberg Lean, it came out and she talked all about how women in the workforce really need to lean in and they need to pull up chairs and they need to, be bad feminists big bad feminists who lean in and get things done right. But what that kind of. Kick started, I think in American culture is a culture of burnout. You see a lot of working moms, and I think COVID did this, made people realize this, but you had a lot of people who realized that they could do their jobs remotely, right? Like I'm, I was one of them. I can always do my job remotely for the most part. And they started to realize that, hey, there's more important things in life than just clocking in doing your nine to five and getting a paycheck. Yeah. And so I think, and one of my friends, Karen Lips, she's the president over at Network of Enlightened Women, but she has trademarked this term called Opportunity feminism, where we want women to be empowered to take on the opportunities that make sense for them. I don't want. My daughter or other college women to feel like they have to sacrifice having a family or having, volunteer goals or wanting to make sure that they're, involved in their kids' PTA or soccer or extracurricular activities because of their nine to five job. And so I think that as COVID has showed us how important. Life is outside of work and how important family is. I think it's important that we understand that hey, you can have a little bit of both. You're not always going to have a hundred percent all of the time, whether that's working, whether that's your family life, but you can find a pretty good balance. And that's what I've done in my life and that's what I encourage other folks to do as well. Yeah. You've had any tips, like you've had success handling a career and a young family, so what kind of tips would you have for parents or young women out there that are considering having kids but also want and enjoy their career? Big thing is learning how to delegate and learning how to ask for help, which I am not good at doing. I don't think a lot of people wanna ask for help. A lot of people. Yeah. But a lot, and a lot of people don't. And I. think that's just an American thing, right? Like we're independent. We, our country was founded on independence, right? We can be inde independent. But I've had to, I've had to ask for help. From family and from friends. Whether that be, Hey, I need you to watch the kiddos because I have this really important meeting that I have to go to. We have this going on. I'm really burned out and I'm tired. Can you help, make a meal or help me organize my garage? Like little things like that. You have to be okay with asking for help. The other thing that I do a lot of as well is I don't live with clutter. I have a lot of, my books, these are my books. Kids can bring in a lot of things into your house, but there's a direct correlation to how much clutter you have and how much money you make. There's a lot of really interesting studies about clutter. Interesting guys to listen to are the minimalist. They had this documentary that came out on Netflix maybe about a decade ago that talked about how you can live a you can live a better life if you live more simply. So that's one thing that I've tried to do is to live with less clutter. Always a work in progress, but that's just one thing my family has done. I love that one. Boys. I do, or I know you specifically. Dad hate clutter. Anytime you see anything out, you'll be like, Hey, what is that? I feel like ev like literally every other month you tell us like, okay, clean out your toys, all of your books and stuff. Okay, we'll give it to Goodwill. Yeah, yeah, Like less distractions. Maybe you should tell Chloe about our Christmas.

CHLOE_ANAGNOS-Matt-webcam-00h_00m_00s_322ms-StreamYard:

Tradition.

CHLOE ANAGNOS:

Oh yeah. Lately now for Christmas, instead of getting presents, we get a trip to wherever. Ooh, I don't know. Yeah. No stuff. No stuff. We did we travel now and before that we had a, another policy that was called Boys Remember, net neutral. I don't forget. So we'd go to Christmas and the kids, everybody in the family's like giving'em toys and toys for Christmas. Oh yeah. So we'd come home and they'd bring all the bags of toys home from grandma and Grandpa's or wherever. And uh, I'd say, okay, empty out those bags, do not work. And then you fill those bags with toys that we're gonna give away to kids that need them. smart. So that way we're net new, we're not accumulating. So I love idea. I love, that. I think, yeah, I do like that. Yeah. Y'all, y'all tell me, but my and my kids aren't quite old enough to articulate this yet, but I feel like kids prefer the experiences over the stuff. How do you, how do y'all feel about that? I agree.

CHLOE_ANAGNOS-Matt-webcam-00h_00m_00s_322ms-StreamYard:

As me

CHLOE ANAGNOS:

like even now still, right? You'd prob if we ever get anything or be like, yay, we got this. And then we would be like, yay, We'd play with it for a month. We probably forget about it and meanwhile a trip. You get to remember that forever. Yeah, I literally got something from my grandma when I was eight and I like played for it for a month and I put it away and I just found it this summer. I was like, oh wait, this is actually pretty cool. There's something about experiences, uh, max watching you jump off cliffs like. Of course, like those are cliff jumping. Yeah, those are cool experiences. That was awesome. We did some cliff jumping. And uh, yeah, those are things that we'll always remember. So anyway, so I, I think your point about decluttering your life is a huge one and it, we try to do that. It's not easy though. You gotta really put in effort to declutter. All right. Boys, let's get into some of Chloe's marketing and social media experience Yeah. Let's get more into some more social media stuff. So what are a few tips you could give to people to help, like basically provide for new people, like new creators, new people that are into the workforce and stuff. So like new creators trying to grow their brand or yeah. Like how can you help them like, yeah. I think one thing, is being consistent time and time again, the more consistent that you are with creating content. Posting content and making sure that it's high quality, the better off you're going to be in the long run. Most social media algorithms reward, consistency and they especially reward creators and people that post. Around the same time when they're following is the most active. So if you can find tools out there that give you some of those insights, it's going to help you in the long run. But I know that it can be really hard, especially when you're trying to do things like a podcast or long form video to dedicate a lot of time, talent, and probably money into setting up a studio. And just making sure that your videos are consistent. The other thing that's really hard too at least that I found, but I think that it's really important for people to remember, is that when you are a content creator, you can get burned out very quickly. That's if you're making videos, if you're doing graphic design or even if you're writing long form content like op-eds or blogs or articles, right? And so one thing that I've started to do is to take kind of a. Like mini retreat, mini vacation, where the goal isn't really to create content. But it's just to get more inspired and to get more excited about what I do. And so I just recently did that. I just got back a couple of weeks ago from New Mexico actually. So you're neck of the woods there. But then the other thing to think about too, for new creators is to just try anything and everything when it comes to content. Not everything is going to be a home run. And so I think that it's important that even if you don't think the video or the post or whatever it is going to perform super well. Just do it. Do it scared, post it, throw spaghetti at the wall see what sticks. And ultimately that's going to give you more data so you can figure out, oh, okay, this video about this, it didn't quite work, but this one was a little bit better. So if I make more content like this, that's going to help me out in the long run. What's the biggest branding mistake people making? Probably not sticking to their brand. Or trying something that's really not them, or that's really not authentic. So for example, I see people all the time, and I use TikTok and Instagram as the best example here because I feel like that's what most Gen z, gen alpha users are on. But I see people who, okay, maybe they only create content about marketing, and then all of a sudden they switch and they start creating content about. Dog breeds or something, right? Like it's just a complete 180 and it's hold up. What are you trying to do here? And so I feel like I have so many interests and so many hobbies and so many things that I'm passionate about, that my content is all over the place, but that's okay because that's my brand. Like you look at any of my things and you're going to see a lot of who I am. But if you look at the nonprofits that I'm involved in, my work at America's Future, everything there is going to always be very consistent. So if You guys started posting about dog food on your Instagram, I would be very concerned. and confused. Yeah. But I think you smell what I'm stepping in to, to use another fun phrase. Praises are weird. Yeah. Anyway, so let's now move on to a little bit more political. So I've heard that your grandparents were like political prisoners or something, right? Great grandparents, yes. Yeah. I'm curious what, did they pass down any information or anything saying about why communism is possibly bad? So I unfortunately did not have the chance to meet them. They passed before I was born. But it's actually an interesting story. So they did not join the Communist Party of Greece during the Greek Civil War. And because they would not join the Communist Party and get in line, they were imprisoned for about four to five years. And so my grandmother, my Yaya, which is what you call a grandma in Greek. She was, I think like between five or six years old at the time when they were in prison. Her and her older sisters were raised by neighbors and an aunt and an uncle that lived in their village. So they went for about four or five years without their parents. The other thing that she told me. And she didn't tell me the story until I was about 20 years old. Because I think for people who go through things like war, famine even things like the Holocaust, it's very tough for them to talk about. But again, being a journalist by trade, I was very curious and wanted to know what was it like growing up during World War ii? What was it like? Why did you leave Greece? Why did you come to Canada and then to the United States? She told me that a lot of times. They, her and her sisters would take food over to the prison'cause they had to feed them every day. The prison would not provide them with anything or any type of humane treatment. And the guards were so nasty. Yeah. it's very different than growing up in the United States. But the guards were so nasty, they would say, why are you bringing them food? We're gonna kill them today anyway. Don't even bother bringing that. They're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna murder them later. And so these are the kinds of things that my grandparents had to grow up with. And so they never really talked about why communism was bad because I think it was just too painful for them. But it was always a, Hey, we don't rely on anybody. We rely on ourselves type of mindset. My late papa grandfather who passed away a few years ago, he always said that I work half days. 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM Get it. Which is pretty funny. But I think that drive and that desire to be an American and to live in what is arguably the greatest country in the entire world is one of the things that fuels me and my passion to promote and to make sure that ideologies like communism and socialism don't end up here. So Right. a little bit. Yeah. That's awful. But it's typical with communism. If you don't get in line, you're out you're dead, or you're jailed, or you're ended, and the Nazis were just as bad right before the communists yeah. Yeah. Crazy. Crazy. So has Gen Z been brainwashed to trade freedom for feeling safe?

CHLOE_ANAGNOS-Matt-webcam-00h_00m_00s_322ms-StreamYard:

safe?

CHLOE ANAGNOS:

Oh, absolutely. And I. think that my generation too, even millennials I think have been brainwashed to feel safe and probably even Gen XI mean, we saw that right after nine 11. And your dad probably has a lot of examples. Of this or just Patriot Act. Yeah. Yeah. The Patriot Act. That's one thing. And then even forming the TSA, the Transportation Security Agency. I've done a lot of studies and written a lot of articles about the tsa and how they don't really work that well. I think in their field tests when they were first started, about 90% of weapons that were put through. Security ended up getting through security, which is wild. So American taxpayers are basically paying for a very wasteful security agency. On kind of the flip side of that, we are living in maybe a little bit more of a dangerous time. We have. Obviously nine 11 we had terrorist attacks that happened here. We have, mass shootings and mass casualties, but at the same time, I can't remember which founding father said this, but when you give up freedom for a little bit of security, you end up having none in the long run. I'm probably butchering that quote. It does make sense. But I can see why people are allured by the trade off of safety for freedom. But ultimately, as you said, that goes on a slippery slope towards loss of all freedoms. And we're, I don't know, you could say that we're heading towards that in some ways. Our. Data is everywhere now. They wanna start having digital money. They know what we spend, uh, every cent on where we go, what we do, facial recognition. And yeah, we don't have a whole lot of freedom, but we're free as long as we tow the line and stay in line and do everything that we're supposed to do, then who decides what we're supposed to do? That's the, that's tricky. So speaking of that, actually. A lot of people nowadays, like we even talk to some people that are like full on communist or socialists or whatever, right? A lot of people do not actually want capitalism as much, right? They're like boo capitalism, which doesn't really make sense considering that they probably still buy from like Amazon or go on TikTok or whatever. Can you explain that? Why do you think that is? Like it makes no sense to me. I think what a lot of people, when they say they don't like capitalism, what they don't like is cronyism or crony capitalism. So for example, they don't like the monopolies of big tech. They don't like how basically, meta, Facebook, Instagram X and then all of these other tech. Companies have a monopoly on everybody else. They don't like that specific companies get tax incentives to move to bigger cities or to more rural areas. When you have some type of control in the market, that's not really free market capitalism, that's cronyism. So when I hear people say that I don't like capitalism. I say no, you don't like cronyism and you don't like. Capitalism that's parading as something else, right? Yeah. And so when you ultimately define what free market capitalism is, people say. Oh, okay. Actually I do like that. I don't want the government involved in anything that I'm doing when it comes to commerce. And so that's where it's tough because you have to educate people, but you have to do it in a nice way. And a lot of times I found that people who are just super set in their ways, they don't, they're not interested in your message whatsoever. It's unfortunate, but I think that's where people who are interested in promoting freedom like us, we have to make sure that we do everything that we can to promote free market capitalism and not cronyism. And that can be hard.

CHLOE_ANAGNOS-Matt-webcam-00h_00m_00s_322ms-StreamYard:

Yeah.

CHLOE ANAGNOS:

What are some maybe policies or activities that are in plain sight in terms of cronyism that we could see and maybe even speak out more against for example I.

CHLOE_ANAGNOS-Matt-webcam-00h_00m_00s_322ms-StreamYard:

Free

CHLOE ANAGNOS:

markets, right? The government often will bail out companies that they deem willing to bail out. Banks automakers whatever. And at the time it's oh, it's so gracious and of them to do this. But in hindsight, that's actual cronyism, right? And then it actually kills the free markets because now you could say. I won't go on too much, but like banks don't really, they can take on as much risk as they want.'cause they know they'll be bailed out. But but back to the question like, what are some signs of cronyism that we could Yeah. Identify and speak out and maybe advocate against. I go back and forth and I really struggle with, okay, should the government have bailed out the big banks? Should they have bailed out the automakers in Detroit? Should this have happened? Because I'm from an area that in theory. Would've benefited from Benefited. Some of those fails. And so I, I struggle with that. I have a series of essays where I go back and forth. I contradict myself. At some point, I'll probably write a book in my abundance of free time. But I think a really good example is government incentives for sports stadiums. I love, I It's a silly example. I know. Yeah, Football. I love basketball, but I don't, yeah, we do too. Love it. But I don't love how the city of Indianapolis, the taxpayers, are still paying for the Conseco field house, which was recent, was torn down. I wanna say like between. 15 and 20 years ago, and yet we're still paying for Cambridge Fieldhouse. That's ridiculous. Yeah. Mean, meanwhile the owners, the endorsements, the players, they're all making insane amounts of money. They're making insane amounts of money, insane amounts of money. but yet the taxpayers are on the hook for that. That's a great example. That is actually kinda smart. Yeah. Yeah. I've never actually really thought of that before. I always knew that like the American taxpayers paid for some things like around like I'm pretty sure don't they sometimes pay for like football stadiums and stuff, yeah. There's a lot of examples of that doesn't really make sense to me.'cause I feel like the person. Or the people that own that the NFL or whatever they should be the ones paying for new stadiums. Yeah, there's arguments that it'll create economic benefit for the city, and so then the taxpayers like invest a bit to bring this thing into the city It'll bring more money into the city, but. Yeah, you'd think that it would be more of, uh, an investment by the owners, the business owners and then if there is an investment from the city, like, or the taxpayers, then you'd think we'd get like some kind of a royalty or profit share off of what they make then. But that's not the case, boys. No. I guess we get property taxes, but yeah, that's a big thing. And Indianapolis is a really good example because we have what has been called the Kaitlyn Clark Effect, right? Everybody wants to come into town to see Kaitlyn Clark play. She's fantastic. The fever on are on fire. They're amazing. But at the same time, I'm more than happy to pay for tickets and for parking and whatnot. I'm not interested in paying for any of those, benefits that don't directly benefit myself as, someone that's coming in and watching. So it's tough when you live in a city that benefits from it. So how do we convince individuals, that independence is way better than victimhood. Ooh. Ooh. That's a good question. And I think a lot of it comes down to asking people and maybe responding to their question with a question in saying, who is best to make decisions for you and your family? Is it you or is it a bureaucrat out in Washington DC or is it a bureaucrat in the, your state capital? The only person that knows what's best for you is going to be yourself. And then because y'all are still young, your parents who can help guide you and make some of those, big life decisions with you, right? Should I go to, should I go to college? Should I go to trade school? Should I do this for, should I, right? Those are some of the decisions that ultimately you make together as a family. Where do we go on vacation? How do we spend our money, right? I think some of the most important elections that happen in the United States are not at the national level. The most important elections are always going to be at the local level, right? Because those are the people ultimately that control your day to day. More than anything else. So that's gonna be your county council, your city council, your town council. They're the ones who are deciding things like, okay, who's picking up the trash on what day? What, utilities provider do we use for heat, electricity, gas, that kind of stuff. It's not necessarily the people that are in Washington DC that are always going to make the best decisions for you or your family. Last question, Chloe, what's the best way to see some of your work or get in touch with your organization? Yeah, absolutely. So you can find me all over the internet. I'm the only Chloe and Agnos in the world, chloe agnos.com. You can follow me at Chloe and Agnos on x Twitter, whatever you wanna call it. The same on Instagram and TikTok. If you're interested in some of the opportunities that we have coming up with America's Future, you can find us at america's future.org. And then we are af empowers f empowers everywhere on social media. So thank you guys so much for having me. Thanks again for joining the show. We learned a lot today and we wish you the best of luck and we'll definitely stay in touch yep. Thank you very much.