‘Architects’ vs. ‘arsonists’? A face-off between newcomers and longtime Idahoans

Republican activist Ryan Spoon says it often: “Make Idaho politically unbearable for liberals.”

On X, Facebook and other platforms, where he posts prolifically, the vice chair of the Ada County Republican Central Committee urges those who identify as Democrats — or otherwise disagree with him — to leave the state.

Spoon moved to Idaho in 2019, he said on a 2022 podcast, seeking a respite in a historically conservative state from liberal policies back home in California, which he sometimes refers to as “Kommiefornia.” He aims to keep Idaho red, he often writes — even if that means encouraging the departure of liberals who were born here.

“I. Couldn’t. Care. Less if you moved here yesterday” or if you’re a fifth-generation Idahoan, he wrote to one poster he deemed a leftist. “I want you to LEAVE Idaho.”

It’s an inflammatory approach to politics that has gotten attention, state Republican Party members and observers say. They see it as emblematic of a divide within the party that has only grown in recent years: between a libertarian, leave-me-alone approach to politics favored by many longstanding conservatives in the state, and a more in-your-face approach among newcomers.

There is little ideological division between these two groups, observers say. Instead, there’s a disagreement about tactics and approach. Thad Butterworth, the chair of the Ada County Republican Central Committee, told the Statesman in 2024 that more traditional Idaho voters’ priority “seems to be stability and civility,” while newcomers to the state “want action.”

For activists like Spoon, that action often translates into personal attacks against those — Republican or Democrat — who disagree with him. Online, he has referred to state Rep. Stephanie Mickelsen, R-Idaho Falls, as a “plantation princess,” and to state Sens. Treg Bernt, R-Meridian, and Jim Guthrie, R-McCammon, as “RINOs,” an acronym used for politicians accused of being “Republican in Name Only.”

Such name-calling defies the typical Idaho Republican approach, observers say. It has caused at least one lawmaker to second-guess what bills she’ll support or oppose, and in some cases has deterred potential candidates from running for office in the first place.

Traditionally, “conservatives are not in-your-face people,” said Michael Tomlin, a former Ada County Republican Party precinct committeeman, district chairman, longtime observer of the party and cofounder of a political action committee that seeks to change the tenor of the state Republican Party.

Traditional Idaho Republicans “didn’t shout people down, and we didn’t trash them on social media, and we didn’t yell ‘RINO’ every time someone voted in a way that displeased us,” Tomlin told the Idaho Statesman in an interview.

A California transplant ‘jolted’ into action in Idaho politics

Spoon, 50, declined to be interviewed for this story. The Statesman pieced together parts of his personal history — and the evolution of his political beliefs — through a review of his social media posts and comments he’s given to conservative media outlets in the state.

A Golden State native with deep Northern California roots, Spoon has moved around a lot. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and lived in Germany for six years in his 20s, working in the military and as a civilian defense contractor. He married his German-born wife, Andrea, in 2006, and the couple has five children.

Online, Spoon attributes his political journey in part to moving away from home, which he said “jolted” him into action. His political “radicalization” peaked in “ultra-blue” Sonoma County, California, between 2012 and 2019, he wrote on X.

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic struck, which Spoon has argued turned Idaho into a truly conservative state. But he still chafed under COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, posting a photo of his kids at a local playground to “defy the stay-at-home order” in April 2020.

“One thing that this situation has exposed to me is how rapidly all of my conservative AND liberal friends have become fans of doing whatever the (government) tells you to do without question,” he wrote in a Facebook comment under the post.

It’s not clear from Spoon’s social media posts whether he was involved in politics in California.

In 2022, he initially challenged then-state Sen. Chuck Winder, R-Meridian, for his seat, though he dropped out of the Senate race in favor of another candidate and did not make it onto the ballot for the primary election. The same year, he ran unsuccessfully for the College of Western Idaho board. In 2024, he served as the chairman of the Idaho Freedom political action committee, which is associated with the Idaho Freedom Foundation think tank.

In 2023, six top officials in the Ada County Republican Central Committee abruptly resigned, citing ideological differences and decisions by the state party that had made it “impossible” for them to effectively lead, the Statesman previously reported. They recited grievances against the state party, including that it does not trust voters to select candidates and has created a “new oligarchy that values control” and “un-Republican” bullying tactics.

Soon after, Spoon was selected to serve as the county party’s first vice president — an “incredibly quick trajectory” into an influential role, Tomlin said.

Mickelsen said Spoon’s was not the typical Idaho path to political influence: of volunteering locally and serving on community boards before seeking higher office or weighing in on state-level issues.

“We serve on boards, we volunteer, we show up for the hard work of community. That has been the Idaho way for generations,” she texted the Statesman. “But we’re seeing a different attitude from a few newcomers who arrive not as architects, but as arsonists. They haven’t invested in Idaho. They haven’t taken the time to understand our history, our water, our agriculture, or the institutions that hold our communities together. Instead, they’re eager to throw bombs, tear things down and pit neighbor against neighbor.”

‘Scorched-earth’ tactics intimidate some lawmakers, candidates

Just days after President Donald Trump took office in 2025, Spoon and Mickelsen clashed directly over immigration — an issue that, mirroring national divisions, has been a flashpoint in the conflict between old and new wings of the state’s Republican Party.

The two have never met or spoken directly, said Mickelsen, a seventh-generation Idaho resident. But soon after she challenged state Sen. Brian Lenney, a Nampa Republican and relative newcomer from California, over a post on X about illegal immigration, Spoon reported her family farm business to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Spoon cited her debate in 2024 against a bill to increase local law enforcement officials’ ability to enforce federal immigration laws, in which Mickelsen spoke about the agriculture industry’s reliance on undocumented workers. He posted on X that he had reported Mickelsen for “bragging about how many illegals her businesses employ.”

ICE wound up arresting one of Mickelsen’s hundreds of employees — a win that Spoon has touted in the months since.

In a written statement provided to the Statesman, Mickelsen referred to Spoon’s approach as “scorched-earth tactics” seeking to “make noise and create conflict.” In the months following Spoon’s report to ICE, Mickelsen told InvestigateWest that the incident had made her “way more cautious in the bills that I’m standing up against, because I’m afraid of being targeted.”

Knowing that such attacks — or at least online harassment — could be lying in wait has also deterred high-quality candidates from running for office, said Jennifer Ellis, a cattle rancher from eastern Idaho who heads Take Back Idaho, a political action committee focused on getting moderate Republicans into office.

Among those she speaks to who have indicated some interest in running, about 75% wind up deciding politics are too toxic for them to get involved, Ellis told the Statesman by phone.

“Used to be, you’d trade very professionally done, tit-for-tat op-eds a week apart in the Post Register,” Ellis said, referencing the Idaho Falls newspaper. Now, prospective candidates are watching “minute by minute” what happens on social media.

“It goes downhill so fast,” she said.

Brian Almon, a writer and Republican activist, told the Statesman by email that he sees “just as much ‘scorched-earth’ rhetoric coming from those with long Idaho pedigrees as from those who have moved here in the past ten years.”

“Many old-guard Republicans came up in a political environment very different from today’s,” he wrote in a December Substack post. “There are times for confrontational politics — for hammering elected officials, forcing votes for campaign purposes, and using outrage to motivate voters. There are also times for persuasion and cooperation — for bringing as many people on board as possible, even if that means achieving only 80% of the goal.”

Butterworth, the chairman of the Ada County Republican Central Committee, echoed that sentiment.

“I’ve observed that the people complaining about personal attacks are often the most vitriolic themselves,” he told the Statesman. “I prefer policy debates but recognize the reality of today’s politics.”

Spoon’s style has encouraged new people to get involved in politics, Butterworth said in an email. He’s been able to recruit volunteers and precinct committeemen among people “who have not normally been involved in the political process,” he said.

Dorothy Moon, the chairwoman of the state Republican Party, did not respond to requests for comment.

Ron Nate, the president of the Idaho Freedom Foundation and a former state lawmaker, declined to comment on divisions or changes within the Republican Party. His organization is nonpartisan, and “party affiliation and party divides are not our concern,” he told the Statesman by email.

Trump’s ‘brashness,’ D.C. dysfunction contribute to shift, some say

Jaclyn Kettler, a professor of political science at Boise State University, attributed some of the culture shift in Idaho politics to the state’s rapid growth and an influx of new political cultures.

“People bring with them the tendencies, the style or the political orientations that they may have had before,” she told the Statesman by phone. “How things worked where they moved from.”

Spoon has targeted Guthrie, the Republican senator he called a “RINO,” online. But Guthrie said the coarsening of the rhetoric in Idaho’s Republican Party was “collateral damage” from the dysfunction in national politics.

“I think that actually sets a negative tone with people, and it kind of poisons the political well,” he told the Statesman by phone. There’s “guilt by association,” he said: “It’s like, ‘Washington’s so dysfunctional, so I don’t like what’s going on politically in Washington. So, I don’t like Idaho politicians.’ ”

He agrees with most of the policy proposals the state party’s harder-right faction promotes, he said, but has chafed at their “take-no-prisoners attitude” that leads to polarization within the party.

Kettler, too, said there is a national trend among hardline party activists — on both sides of the aisle — toward taking a more aggressive approach to politics.

“They think compromise could be like losing, or at least you’re deviating from that core position,” she said.

Tomlin, the former Ada County precinct committeeman, said he believed Spoon to be a “key driver” of the party’s changing culture — though he also attributed the shift to Trump’s style.

Though Tomlin supports Trump’s policies, the president’s “brashness” has “given cover to every loud-mouth in every state,” he said. Because of the tone Trump has set, “I think it will be stylish to be brash and in-your-face for a few years, and hopefully this nation resets into the kind of people that we actually are.”

For now, it’s not an approach that has led to influence with most lawmakers or leaders in the state, Tomlin said — though he acknowledged that may change as younger lawmakers step into the Legislature.

“Our Legislature is not an overly young group, and they see the brash, smash and disrespect,” said Tomlin, 75. “I believe that can do more damage than good.”