Business Insider quotes one of the developers, Joshua Abbotoy: “The whole point of it is to plant a flag and say this small town is where our people are gathering. And the question is: who is going to grab the land? Is it going to be good, based people who want to build something inspiring that’s culturally authentic to the region’s history? Or is it going to be Bill Gates and BlackRock and hippies from California?”
The promoters have presented the planned development as an “aligned community” for rightwingers who want to “disappear from the cultural insanity of the broader country” and “spearhead the revival of the region”.
The move is the latest effort by the far-right to establish geographical enclaves, following in the footsteps of movements like the so-called “American Redoubt”, which encourages rightwingers to engage in “political migration” to areas in the interior of the Pacific north-west.
The plans align with the American Redoubt movement, a political migration initiative started in 2011 by an American survivalist. Instead of Kentucky, however, the movement encouraged conservative Christians to relocate to Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, and parts of Oregon and Washington.
Per The Guardian, Abbotoy offered few details on how the community would be run beyond saying: “Most of the leadership is going to be led by Protestant christians.”
He appeared to indicate the community would seek local political influence and use that as a blueprint for state-level power. “The aspiration is that long-term down the road, 20 years from today, we continue to do this. We’re regionally focused; we can expand from there to states,” he said.