Did you know that Mississippi is now one of the fastest growing states in America? Only two states saw real GDP rise faster than it did here in the third quarter of 2024.
Were you aware that personal income in our state rose more here than almost anywhere in the US this past year?
New data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis shows that Mississippi is on the up.
For as long as anyone can remember, Mississippi has ranked 50th out of 50. Not for much longer, perhaps. According to this new data, ours’s was one of the top performing states in 2024. If we keep growing for the next few years the way we did in 2024, we won’t be bottom of the class for much longer.
Mississippi’s success is not an accident. It’s a consequence of a number of key free market reforms:
- Labor market deregulation, with an Occupational Licensing law in 2021.
- Tax cuts with legislation to cut the state income tax to a flat 4 percent in 2022.
- Further tax reform to make it more tax efficient for businesses in 2023.
- Education funding reform as a step towards school choice in 2024.
These reforms have begun to energize our state. They make it easier for people to get ahead, for businesses to invest, and for families to spend their income on their priorities. They draw in inward investment, which is changing our state for the better.
If Mississippi is not to lose this momentum, we need to go even further. That is why MCPP has just published a Blueprint for Mississippi – a list of the ten key reforms that would lift our state to the top of the economic table.
The number one reform we need to prosper is school choice. Why? School choice is the only way to be certain of raising standards. The better job we do of educating young people, the greater their chances of leading a prosperous, fulfilling life.
Our Blueprint sets out how we can accomplish school choice, giving every family in our state the choices that today only the very rich enjoy.
To prosper, our state needs less regulation and less government. Our Blueprint sets out proposals to cut taxes further and dismantle the costly, leftist bureaucracy that seems to be in control no matter who you vote for.
Decades of crony cartel politics has stifled innovation in our state. Years of lobbyists cutting cozy deals in the Capitol that commercially advantage their clients has held Mississippi back. A lot of the intentionally restrictive laws that limit health care provision simply need to go. Our Blueprint sets out how to make this happen.
MCPP has been a driving force behind many of the key free market reforms that have helped energize our state. But at every opportunity, crony cartel politics has tried to prevent change.
The crony cartel will try again. It’s what self-serving cartels do. Already they are mobilizing half-baked arguments against school choice. They are lobbying to maintain intentionally restrictive laws that hold back the healthcare economy. Brace yourself for politicians explaining why we can’t afford tax cuts despite a healthy surplus.
In politics, nothing moves unless it is pushed. MCPP won’t just publish our Blueprint. We will push and push hard. Mississippi’s future is too important to let bad politics get in the way.
Mississippi could be on the cusp of transformative changes. If we keep going, we will not only no longer be 50th, but we could become – like Tennessee or Alabama – a state that young people want to move to, not leave.
Download a copy of our blueprint here!
Parental choice is the only certain way to raise standards and counter left- wing values in the classroom. MCPP has a plan to make this happen in Mississippi.
Mississippi is already surrounded on three sides by states that have school choice. Arkansas, Alabama and Louisiana have all now passed legislation to give families control over their child’s share of the education budget. However, perennial efforts to achieve something similar in Mississippi through Education Savings Accounts, or ESA's, have failed. Each time a universal ESA proposal has been attempted the legislation dies. We would love to see a universal program of publicly funded ESA's in Mississippi, which families could use to pay for school, but I believe the chances of such legislation passing anytime soon are slim.
That’s why MCPP is pursuing a different three step strategy to achieve universal school choice in our state:
- Step One – An individual budget for every student: During the last legislative session, MCPP spearheaded efforts to secure a school-funding formula in order that every public school student now has a personalized education budget.
We did so knowing that once each student has a personalized budget, it becomes much easier to argue that they should then be allowed to take their budget to a school of their choice. We have achieved this.
- Step Two – Public-to-public school choice: Thanks to a bill (HB 1341) passed in the last legislative session, military families, including those in the National Guard, are able to send their children to a traditional public school of their choice—if it has capacity.
We are openly pushing for legislation in the 2025 session to allow each student to take their personal budget to a public school of their choice, giving every family in Mississippi the right that military families enjoy. Responsible conservative policy means allowing school boards to have the final say over capacity and giving strong safeguards to school so that they do not have to take students with a history of disciplinary problems.
- Step 3 – Parental Choice Tax Credit: Tens of thousands of families in our state choose not to send their children to public school, either because they homeschool or they send their children to private school. We believe they should be able to claim a refundable income tax credit to help them with expenses, like tuition and fees.
We have a carefully costed plan for a Parental Choice Tax Credit that would achieve this, building on the tax credit system we already have. Interestingly, the Republicans in Washington, D.C., have indicated that they might pass a similar tax credit federally. These three steps would ensure universal school choice in our state—and give families in Mississippi the choices that families now have in neighboring states. The good news is that Mississippi is already halfway to making this happen!
Morton Blackwell, the great conservative activist, likes to say that “In politics nothing moves unless it’s pushed”. MCPP is happy to push – and to push hard …. even if it upsets one or two anti-school choice activists. It’s what we exist to do.
We are open about our goal and our strategy for achieving school choice because we know that sunlight is the best disinfectant. There’s no need for mystery and opaque maneuverings. Nor will we shy away from engaging directly those that might like to stop parental choice by stealth. If school choice is opposed by lawmakers that sent their own kids to private school, we won’t hesitate to ensure that Mississippi knows.
Over the course of the coming months as we head into the 2025 legislative session, I will be sure to update you on progress – and I’ll be sure to inform you who supports and who opposes parental choice! This is a fight we can win!
Donald Trump is the most pro-school choice President in history. “As president”, he has said, “I will establish the national goal of providing school choice to every American child”. “If we can put a man on the moon and win two world wars, then I have no doubt that we as a nation can provide school choice to every disadvantaged child in America”.
Unfortunately, Mississippi has made little progress towards school choice due to a tiny handful of anti-school choice Republicans. Even though three of our surrounding states, Alabama, Arkansas and Louisiana, now have school choice, we still don’t. The biggest obstacle to the education reforms we need is the current Senate Leader, Lieutenant Governor Delbert Hosemann. He has taken every opportunity to thwart efforts to achieve more parent power.
Initially, Mr. Hosemann took to claiming that school choice would be unconstitutional. This is an erroneous argument, as a carefully prepared legal briefing note we circulated shows. Having conceded that there is, indeed, no constitutional barrier to school choice, our Lieutenant Governor began to search for alternative excuses. Schools might not have the capacity, seems to be his latest one.
That is why the draft bill we worked on ensures school boards get the final say as to their capacity. No one is forcing them to take more kids. Another excuse crumbles….. One by one the arguments invoked by anti-school choice Republicans to justify their inertia have been dismantled. But it still appears that the will to give Mississippi families the parent power they have in our neighboring states just isn’t there.
Why is a Republican Lieutenant Governor in a conservative state teaming up with progressive activist groups, like the Parents’ Campaign, and briefing leftist media outlets like Mississippi Today to thwart reform? Mr. Hosemann, I gather, has indicated he is flat out opposed to a tax credit. This means Mr. Hosemann is very likely to be on a collision course with the next President, whose team, I understand, is literally finalizing plans for a federal tax credit right now. Will Mr. Hosemann continue to oppose a tax credit?
Mr. Trump has made it clear he will abolish the federal Department of Education. Trump does not intend to dismantle power in DC only to see it handed over to local bureaucrats in Jackson. He would like to see parents have control over their child’s education. If a handful of local Republicans continue to kill off school choice (“It died in committee”, is likely to be their next excuse), I suspect that the conspicuous absence of invitations to Mar-a-Lago may become the least of their worries.
In a fight between anti school choice Republicans and Team Trump, I imagine Trump will win. He’d certainly have support from the local conservative base who have voted conservative for years but not always got a great deal to show for it. Perhaps part of the problem is that one or two of our anti school choice Republicans have an unfortunate habit of never wanting to engage with anyone with different ideas to their own. That can become a problem if you don’t actually have very many ideas of your own. I’m not sure that a policy on four semesters a year, or cell phone usage in schools, quite cuts it ….
Those that get endorsed by Trump to run in 2027 will, I imagine, be Republicans that actually support the new President’s agenda in the coming months, particularly the 2025 session. There’s still time to get on board with school choice in Mississippi.
What a result! Trump has bounced back to win the White House, gaining a majority of the popular vote for the Republicans for the first time in 20 years. The Republicans also won the Senate and held the House, meaning that they have a mandate, and the means to deliver it, in a way they have not had for a generation.
If the incoming administration is going to turn America around, they urgently need to get to grips with the three existential challenges the US faces, namely soaring debt, mass immigration and a debilitating lack of & self-belief.
Every hundred days the US national debt is rising by $1,000,000,000,000. US national debt is already relatively higher than it was at the end of the Second World War – and this year, we will pay more on the interest to service the national debt than we do on defense. As Elon Musk, now one of Trump’s inner circle, says, unless this changes, debt will destroy America the way it did other great powers.
Trump needs to take an axe, the way Argentina’s President Milei has, and close many of the 400 federal agencies, starting with the Departments of Education. Certain welfare programs need to go, too.
When Musk bought Twitter / X, he fired 80 percent of the staff, and output rose. Let’s hope he is allowed to do something similar to the federal bureaucracy. Musk, who recently complained that it takes him longer to get permission to launch a rocket than it takes his team to build it, understands how red tape is stifling America. Dramatically removing red tape, and legally sanctioning federal agencies that overreach their actual mandates, would raise economic growth.
Faster growth and reduced federal spending would, in time, close the deficit. Over the past four years, 10 million immigrants have entered America – me being one of them. But the number entering illegally has soared. Set aside the unfairness of allowing in people that don’t abide by the rules the rest of us are required to follow, it is not a good idea for America to accept large numbers of people from culturally incompatible countries. See Europe for details.
As a new arrival, I constantly marvel at how fortunate I am to live in America. But it bothers me that many Americans don’t see how awesome their country is.
Too many Americans – especially young Americans – have been taught to despise their own country by smart-stupid liberals in the education system who think that self-loathing is a mark of sophistication, when in reality it betrays a lack of it. The ‘woke’ insanity in the classroom needs to stop.
Trump has already indicated he will abolish federal Diversity, Equity & Inclusion programs on day one. He will be President as America celebrates her 250th birthday on July 4th, 2026. Trump needs to ensure it becomes a celebration of all that is good and admirable about this country, and not a woke-fest.
The only certain way to take back control of the education system from smart-stupid liberals is through school choice.
In many states like our own Mississippi, a coalition of liberal activists, like the so-called Parents’ Campaign, and anti-school choice Republicans, such as Lieutenant Governor Delbert Hosemann, have come together to block school choice.
Trump has made it clear he intends to address this, and Trump has indicated he will push for a federal law to give families school choice through a tax credit.
Trump is the most pro school choice President in the history of America, and I doubt Team Trump will take kindly to any anti school choice Republicans who carry on opposing public to public school choice and tax credits. State legislation on school choice in the 2025 session is likely to be closely watched by Team Trump.
Any anti school choice Republicans from Mississippi going to Mar-a-Lago to try to solicit Trump endorsements are likely to be disappointed. Their future trips are as likely to be as unsuccessful in that regard as their previous ones. Like last time, I very much doubt President Trump will offer anti school choice wannabes so much as a photo opportunity if they continue to oppose public to public school choice.
If you live in Mississippi, you will shortly have a Republican President in the White House, and a Republican Congress and Supreme Court in Washington DC. You, of course, already live in a state run by a Republican Governor, under a Republican-run legislature. If we can’t deliver conservative policy now, then when?
Now is the time for Mississippi – and America – to use this opportunity and place the country on an authentically conservative path.
Trump or Kamala? We’ll know who’s won in just a few days.
Whoever is elected the next President, we can count on the fact that supporters of the losing candidate won’t take it well. So polarized is our politics, supporters of the defeated candidate may despair. Trump or Kamala, there’s going to be an outbreak of doomerism in the days that follow. Many may wallow in pessimism. Some might even sound like they are willing Bad Things on America merely to vindicate their own political preferences. Don’t.
Whatever happens, Americans should avoid catastrophizing about the outcome. Life in this country has been getting better over the past few decades, despite rather than because of some of the politicians America has had.
Steve Pinker, the cognitive scientist, reminds us of this with a series of graphs he produced, showing how life has improved in America since the early 1970s. Output has shot up 321% since 1970, and the population increased by 63%. America’s industrial output today is approximately twice what it was in 1980. It's nearly three times what it was when Lyndon Johnson was in the White House. So much for the myth of American “de-industrialization”. Life expectancy is also up. Homicide, too, is down.
Over the past five decades, poverty in America has plummeted. Among those officially classified as “poor”, 99 percent live now in homes that have electricity, water and a fridge. 95 percent have a television. 88 percent have a phone. 71 percent own a car. And 70 percent have air conditioning.
In the early 1970s, many Americans simply didn’t have many of these things. In the late 1970s, to buy a 14-inch television, the average American earning the average wage would have needed to work 70 hours to earn enough. Today, a vastly better TV can be purchased for the equivalent of 4 hours of work.
The first cell phones in the early 1980s retailed for almost $4,000 - or over $10,000 in today’s prices. They needed re-charging after 30 minutes. Today, almost every American can afford a far better cell phone for a fraction of the cost.
America has 50 states, and thanks to Article 10 of the Constitution, those powers not “specifically given to the federal government, nor withheld from the states, are reserved to those respective states, or to the people at large”. Perhaps it is time to abide by that Amendment?
Stay true to America’s Founding Principles, and America will, I hope, continue to prosper whoever lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. If the question of who lives in the White House for the next four years is overshadowing everything across the country, maybe it’s time to listen to the former Texas Governor, Rick Perry, who once suggested that we ought to make Washington as inconsequential as possible.
“All political lives end in failure” observed the British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan. His did. So, too, will Joe Biden’s.
Forced out after four years, it is difficult to think of a single significant achievement by the Biden administration. Biden’s legacy will be higher national debt and a more divided America. But is it really the case that political lives always end in failure?
Watching the recent movie about Ronald Reagan, it was obvious that after two terms in office, the Gipper’s accomplishments clearly outweighed any defeats. Reagan’s legacy was a buoyant economy, stronger America and the defeat of Soviet communism.
If Biden’s legacy is of extreme failure, and Reagan’s of remarkable success, many politicians don’t seem to leave much of a legacy at all, good or bad. Like footprints on a beach at low tide, tomorrow it will be as though they were never there at all.
Many politicians fail to leave much of a legacy for the simple reason that they hold office but have little idea what to do with it. That’s not, of course, what they tell themselves in the early days. In the afterglow of their election victory, surrounded by staffers, and praised by smooth-tongued lobbyists, political leaders busy themselves with the business of government.
Yet often the urgent squeezes out the important. Once in office, they end up playing the role of Senator, Congressman, or state Governor, like an actor in a movie handed their lines by someone else.
Rather than implementing a blueprint that matters, they are distracted by the trivial. Instead of delivering difficult messages, they delude themselves that another press conference about blah blah is vital.
Rare is the type of politician who can make the political weather, rather than respond to it. Many politicians fail to leave a legacy because they fool themselves that they are responsible for things that would have happened anyhow. Or they imagine that they will be fondly remembered for things that happened on their watch.
How many Mississippians remember who was governor when the Nissan factory came to Mississippi? How many credit whoever happened to be in office? Any politician in our state wanting to leave a real legacy needs to address those things that have kept our state 50th out of 50 for too long.
First is education. Mississippi needs a wholesale reform of education, with school choice and parent power. With so many surrounding states implementing universal school choice, change is possible. The first wave of Mississippi leaders to actually come out and lead on this will be seen to deliver historic changes for the better.
Second is the state economy. Mississippi’s economy continues to be weighed down by a relatively high tax burden and red tape. Despite cutting the state income tax, Mississippi families and businesses still pay more than in surrounding states. Certificate of Need laws hold back the healthcare economy in our state. State leaders that lead on lower taxes and deregulation would stand out nationally and historically.
These are the issues that will define the future of our state. Our state leaders will be defined by if and how they address them. State leaders that address these issues will leave a giant legacy. Those that don’t, won't be a household name in their own home.
Local mom, Amanda Kibble, is celebrating an important win for her family, and for school choice.
Earlier this year, Governor Tate Reeves signed HB 1341 into law. This new law gives military families in Mississippi the right to transfer their children to any traditional public school around the state, assuming that the receiving school has capacity. Early indications suggest this is extremely popular, with lots of military families using school choice to switch schools.
Amanda, and her family, found out the hard way that the law might not apply to those who serve their country in the National Guard. There was a real risk that Amanda’s son might lose his place at his preferred school.
That’s when Amanda approached MCPP, and we took up her case. MCPP has a long history of fighting for school choice, and our legal arm, the Mississippi Justice Institute has successfully litigated in defense of school choice.
I am delighted that Attorney General, Lynn Fitch, has now issued an opinion that the new school choice law for military families also applies, at least in part, to those in the National Guard. Three cheers for the AG!
If military families now have public-to-public school choice, why shouldn’t everybody? That is exactly what our “Move Up, Mississippi!” campaign aims to achieve.
This week’s win for school choice makes it all the more disappointing that the new State Superintendent for Education, Lance Evans, took a sideswipe at school choice recently.
Speaking at a lunch in Jackson, Evans criticized school choice, suggesting that if a single dollar of public money went into private schools, those private schools should be subjected to the regulatory oversight that public schools are subject to.
Those that oppose school choice, and indeed I suspect Mr. Evans, know full well that extending state oversight across the private school sector would be untenable – which is why they suggest it. But it is not the clever argument against school choice that they might imagine.
Giving every family in our state the right to choose a public school, as military families are now able to do, would not transfer public dollars into private schools.
Amanda Kibble and those military families that now have school choice are not taking money out of public schools. Does Lance Evans oppose their right to choose a school for their child?
MCPP proposes that under a separate program, families that attend private schools, or who home school, could get a tax credit reflecting the fact that they are already paying for a place at a public school that they are not taking.
Evans attack on parent power was not the worst of it. More disappointing was the plodding presentation that preceded it about how amazing education is in our state.
Evans trumpeted the fact that about a third of districts were rated D or F in 2016. Now only a handful are rated D or F. This, he implied, was evidence of progress, rather than a reflection of a broken accountability system.
When officials invoke the broken grading system as evidence of improvement, it is not just the credibility to the grading we should question.
How bizarre, that in a solidly Republican-run state, we have somehow ended up with an anti-school choice official in charge? Are the nine-member State Board of Education aware of Evans’ anti-school choice position? Are the various state leaders that appointed those members of the Board?
Since 2000, the number of students in America has increased by 5 percent. The number of teachers by around 10 percent. The number of education administrators, however, has shot up by 95 percent.
No wonder the education bureaucrats don’t want mom and dad to have control over where their child’s share of the education budget goes. They might start to demand that it goes into the classroom.
Lance Evans talked about making private schools accountable. Private schools already are accountable to every fee-paying parent. The issue is how to ensure that public schools are made similarly accountable, too.
We need to give every family in our state the public-to-public school choice that military families now have.
Waiting for my suitcase in the arrivals hall at Jackson airport the other evening, it occurred to me that the luggage carrousel was a pretty good metaphor for Mississippi politics. Like suitcases on a carrousel, many leaders simply sit on the conveyor belt of state politics, waiting their turn to get moved along to the next role.
Too often leaders are carried along by time and process, rarely offering any vision as to what our state should do differently.
This explains why Mississippi conservatives have achieved less in 12 years than Arkansas, Louisiana and Alabama have accomplished in the past 12 months. Louisiana did not even have a Republican governor this time last year, yet they’ve already passed universal school choice.
Things could be about to change if House Speaker, Jason White, has his way.
This week, White announced that he will be hosting a Tax Policy Summit on September 24th to take a deep dive into the prospects for Tax Reform.
My friend, Grover Norquist, will be speaking, as will Gov Reeves, as well leading conservative figures from the state legislature.
Having a conversation in public matters because in the past the leadership in our state Senate has done what it can to head off tax cuts. Bringing the facts of what can and cannot be done into the open makes it far harder for anyone to keep finding new excuses to oppose actual conservative policy.
Sunshine is the best disinfectant against the putrid politics of backroom deals. We have seen far too many backroom maneuvers used to kill off good conservative policy in this state.
Back in 2022, Mississippi passed a law to cut the state income tax to a flat 4 percent. This $525 million tax cut, driven forward by Speaker Philip Gunn and Gov Reeves, benefited 1.2 million taxpayers and their families. But we must not forget how some in the Senate fought against it – not in the open, of course.
Weak Senate leadership has a history of opposing conservative proposals in our state. Seldom do they have the courage to come out and explicitly kill off conservative measures. Instead, they do it on the sly.
The Senate leadership maneuvered to stop anti-DEI legislation in 2024. I don’t recall anyone coming out and explaining why they opposed anti-DEI law. They just killed it in committee with a nudge and wink.
For three years in a row, the Senate leadership has killed off attempts to restore the ballot initiative. Again, those against resorting the ballot lack the courage to say they are against it. They killed that, too, on the sly.
Rep Rob Roberson’s excellent school funding reform bill, perhaps the only big strategic achievement of this year’s session, passed despite attempts to scupper it by some in the Senate. (Part of the backroom deal to get the bill passed was to change its name. It really was that petty.)
When the Senate leadership wants to oppose an authentically conservative policy, they follow a now familiar pattern.
A reason is cited as to why what is being proposed can’t be done. School choice, we were once told, would be unconstitutional. An anti-DEI law, it was implied, was unnecessary because there was no DEI on campus.
Once that excuse is shown to be nonsense (there is no constitutional bar to school choice, DEI is rampant on campus), another excuse is promptly conjured up. And on it goes.
Each time the Senate leadership opposes conservative policy this way, I wonder what their alternatives are. The answer is that most of the time there are none. It is pretty low grade to oppose ideas simply because they are not your own.
Eventually, of course, a suitcase that sits on the carousel for too long ends up in lost luggage.
As a direct consequence of the 2022 Reeves-Gunn tax cuts, Mississippi is now starting to see a flood of inward investment into the state.
Every time you hear about a new factory opening up in our state, remember who and what helped make it happen. I am very optimistic that this Tax Summit could see further progress to make our state more competitive.
You can tell a lot about someone’s politics given what they might have to say about the conviction of Donald Trump.
Anyone telling you that Trump’s conviction is comeuppance for a sordid hush-money scandal, in which he broke the law, probably leans left.
Someone explaining that it was all a disgraceful attempt by Joe Biden’s Democrats to stop the 45th President from being re-elected, is likely to be a conservative.
In an increasingly post-religious society, politics has become a substitute belief system for many. The danger is that we view everything through the prism of politics.
Rather than ask what Trump’s conviction means for your side in the Reds versus Blues battle, perhaps what we ought to reflect on what this might all mean for America.
For most of human history, the law meant whatever the powerful said it meant. Anyone who has ever tried to do business in Russia or China knows that’s still the way things are in much of the non-Western world.
A system in which the law is elevated above the executive – in which the rule of law has supremacy – is historically unusual. Indeed, it is largely the creation of people who spoke and wrote in the language in which you are reading this.
It was English-speaking civilization that invented the notion that the powerful are constrained by rules, and that the rules should apply to everyone equally. A straight line runs from Magna Carta at Runnymede to the Founders at Philadelphia. The US Bill of
Rights of 1789 was preceded by an English Bill of Rights of 1689.
America has become the most successful society on earth precisely because in this Republic, government doesn’t get to change the rules as it likes.
“Exactly!” the anti-Trumpers will say. “Trump’s conviction is true to that tradition! Even former Presidents are subject to the same rules as everyone else”.
But is that really so? In what way has Trump been subjected to the same set of rules? Surely, those on the right will say, he has been singled out, prosecuted over something essentially trivial?
Those that brought the charges, it seems to me, were motivated by politics, rather than justice.
Prosecuting political rivals is what they do in Russia, Brazil or Malaysia. It is awful to see political prosecutions in the United States – and it bodes ill for the future of freedom in this country and around the world.
Twenty years ago, George Bush’s electoral strategist, Karl Rove, hit upon the idea of using ‘wedge-issues’ to galvanize the conservative base. At the time, Rove seemed to be remarkably successful. Republicans won.
Two decades on, I wonder if it was partly Rove’s ‘wedge-issue’ approach that provoked the left into doing something similar. Under Obama, the left became increasingly inflammatory. Perhaps there is a straight line that runs from the politics of ‘wedge-issues’ in the noughties to the culture wars we see today?
Some on the left might be tempted to celebrate the use of lawfare to try to take down a political opponent. They might want to stop and think first. It is, I worry, only a question of time before we start to see something similar from the right.
If lawfare becomes part of American politics, what chance is there that the United States remains exceptional compare with all those other less happy republics?
It is not just the legal process that America needs to de-politicize. We need to stop making everything a question of where you stand in the culture war. Your views on Disney or money management, Taylor Swift or Chick-Fil-A should not automatically correlate with the way you vote.
If it is politics alone that gives you a belief system in life, you are going to end up desperately disappointed with both politics and life.
The United States was founded by people that believed that to survive, a Republic needs a moral citizenry. America needs to believe in something above politics and beyond the next election cycle.