Tennessee’s policy makers and business leaders need to start grappling with the reality of how our state has changed, and is likely to continue changing. Our recent population growth has made the state significantly more red.

As widely reported, the Californians and New Yorkers flocking to our state come for largely political and cultural reasons, helping to explain how Trump’s electoral margin of victory in Tennessee increased by roughly 4% from 2020 to 2024.

Everyone, it seems, wants a piece of the rural action before it’s too late. A deep yearning for a sense of agency and sovereignty, situated within a natural human way of living, is rising in response to the nagging feeling that such a life may not be attainable for future generations. That’s driving the “farmsteading” trend.

Their vision includes stronger local leadership and a withered national “administrative state,” prompting them to celebrate last week when the Supreme Court effectively ended the “Chevron deference,” which could lead to the weakening of thousands of federal rules on the environment, worker protection and beyond.

For several decades, political and social commentators have noticed a phenomenon, colloquially known as the “Big Sort,” in which individuals and families have reorganized themselves into local communities along political, cultural, and religious lines. This idea first came to prominence with Bill Bishop’s 2008 book, The Big Sort. Since the convulsions of 2020, and especially since the widespread adoption of remote work, this sorting has intensified.