Rep. Brandon Gill of Texas cultivated Republican ideals from an early age while working on the family farm, then married the daughter of a leading pundit.
As he rumbled along on a tractor on his family’s cattle ranch in Texas, it wasn’t country music playing that helped Brandon Gill pass the time.
Instead, even as a child, Gill listened intently to talk radio shows and audiobooks by conservatives. Political chatter was his preference.
So it’s not surprising that his early love led to a desire to serve in Congress. He’s now a freshman lawmaker representing Texas’s 26th congressional district.
But it was love of a different kind that led to holiday meals now punctuated with lively discourse between Gill and one of the most prominent commentators in conservative politics.
That’s because the young Texan married Danielle D’Souza, daughter of political commentator Dinesh D’Souza. Danielle D-Souza has hosted a show on The Epoch Times’ video platform, Epoch TV.
“Dinesh is a sort of political mentor of mine,” Gill told The Epoch Times. “But most importantly, he’s my father-in-law and grandfather to my little daughter.”
They converse about history, economics, and philosophy—not just politics, Gill said.
“So it certainly makes for really interesting Christmas dinner conversations.”
Young Republican
Gill paid attention to the thoughts of conservative pundits even as a young child, he said.
“I grew up listening to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck and Michael Savage and talk radio; grew up listening to audiobooks by conservative authors,” he said. “So that was the sort of environment I was steeped in. I’ve been interested in this for a very long time.”
Economist and philosopher Thomas Sowell also helped shape Gill’s conservative beliefs.
“On a fundamental level, conservatives and liberals have very different views of human nature,” Gill said.
Sowell’s book “A Conflict of Visions” explains how conservative philosophy is that humans ”are made in God’s image,” Gill said. And it outlines, he said, how “conservatism acknowledges the importance of human dignity and freedom and opportunity and the value of life.”
Conservatism, Gill said, recognizes that humans are not infallible, “and that we need institutions to help mediate imperfect human behavior.”
