American Redoubt
The American Redoubt[1] is a political migration movement first proposed in 2011 by survivalist novelist and blogger James Wesley Rawles[2][3] which designates Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming along with eastern parts of Oregon and Washington, as a safe haven for conservative Christians.
[6] Kim Murphy, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, summed up one motivation for the movement: "For a growing number of people, it's the designated point of retreat when the American economy hits the fan.
[9] According to an article in The Christian Century in 2012, Rawles compares the movement to the Puritan migration, saying that secession would be crushed, but people would “vote with their feet.”[10] In 2011, the American Redoubt concept was endorsed by 2008 Constitution Party presidential candidate Chuck Baldwin, who had relocated his entire extended family to western Montana.
In an interview on the Charles Carroll Society podcast in 2014, James Rawles estimated the number ...well into the thousands, but it is difficult to quantify, because the vast majority of the people who are moving are preppers, who are by their nature very circumspect.
"[20] Carlson also claimed that the political migration to western states like Idaho, Montana and Wyoming has been driven by Redoubters seeking to be free from the federal government and that while they disavow racism, they have chosen a location where there are few racial minorities.
"[22] In a Chicago Tribune article by Kevin Sullivan on August 27, 2016, noted It is impossible to know exactly how many people have come over the past few years, but newcomers, real estate agents, local officials and others said it was in the hundreds, or perhaps even a few thousand, across all five states.
Here, they live in a pristine place of abundant water and fertile soil, far from urban crime, free from most natural disasters and populated predominantly by conservative, mostly Christian people with a live-and-let-live ethos and local governments with a light regulatory touch and friendly gun laws.
In 2016, state senator Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint – an 8-time incumbent and a moderate Republican from one of the most conservative areas of Idaho – faced a hard primary challenge, but went on to win the general election.
