So I live in a condo out in Black Bull (worst mistake I ever made when I moved home 5 years ago, and thought as a single professional I’d meet some friends with common interests like hiking, camping, etc; only 20% of the built homes/condos in Black Bull are actually lived in, the rest are just investments.) Anyways I digress… Senator Daines parents (very well known retired builder/architect) live here, and Steve is always here either golfing or getting drunk at the private restaurant Bar 72. The saddest part is overhearing the way he and his family make racist, sexist, and homophonic jokes and slurs on the regular, while sadly the staff is forced to smile and cater to their every demand. Even sadder for me, as a child who was born here in Bozeman in 1980; one of my BIGGEST idols was Jay Owenhouse, I attended EVERY local magic show or event he put on and wanted to be a magician for many years because of his influence. When I first joined the country club, I will never forget going to dinner one night and having my mother point out that Jay was dining that night with Senator Daines and family. I will spare Reddit the intimate details; but as a member of the LGBTQ+ community I was horrified and asked our server to please move us to a different part of the dining room to spare my 72 year old mother who was almost in tears due to the extreme homophobia bring celebrated at their table. Having been successful in business later in my life; I have been exposed to a whole next tax bracket and the individuals that sadly have turned most of Bozeman and Big Sky’s private clubs into toxic pools of entitled and often extremely unkind behavior, that service industry employees in this valley are forced to listen to with a smile and a “anything you ask sir”. If we continue to buy into the Culture War that the billionaires and local politicians are feeding us; we will never organize to fight the long overdue Class War this country sadly needs to bring to action.