“Most of my readers live in what we call The Inland Northwest, an area of somewhat fuzzy boundaries generally consisting of eastern Washington, eastern Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. Many of you may not know that same area is also the American Redoubt, a chilling concept that contains an active invitation to certain people to congregate here. If you consider the American Redoubt as just one more fringe movement, you need to pay closer attention. In the decade since the early Obama administration and the rise of the Tea Party, the American Redoubt has grown from an idea to an insular media system that has allied elected Representatives in at least two state capitols.
The American Redoubt was first proposed in 2011 by survivalist author and sovereign citizen James Wesley, Rawles (the comma is part of his legal name) who self describes as a Constitutionalist Christian libertarian. For a primer on the background of the movement I recommend A Gathering of Eagles: Extremists Look to Montana.
The word redoubt refers to “a place of refuge or retreat,” a refuge with military, defensive quality. The American Redoubt invokes the (paranoid? fearful?) concept of a “National Redoubt” defined in wikipedia as “an area to which the (remnant) forces of a nation can be withdrawn if the main battle has been lost or even earlier if defeat is considered inevitable.”
As such, the American Redoubt speaks of withdrawal of “us”, the like-minded, upright, God-fearing Christians (and some Jews) into the defensive redoubt of the Inland Northwest. In Rawles own words: “People who recognize that they are of the [Christian] remnant, that they are God’s elect, will in increasing numbers choose to vote with their feet.”
Keep to the high ground,
Jerry
P.S. I am chillingly reminded of this quote from Margaret Meade, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Clearly, Ms. Meade had a different sort to group in mind, not Christian Separatists, White Supremacists, or Nazis but her quote applies just as well.