- Oct 17, 2011
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'Christian Patriots' are flocking from blue states to Idaho
North Idaho offers a window into what a right-wing vision for a Christian America can look like — and the power it can wield in state politics
Earlier this month, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican, addressed the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee, whose purview runs from this small resort city up along the Washington state border.Greene’s remarks ran nearly an hour and touched on topics dear to her far-right fans: claims about the 2020 election being “stolen,” sympathy for those arrested in the attack on the U.S. Capitol, and her opposition to vaccine mandates.
She then insisted that Democrats in Washington have abandoned God and truth — specifically, the “sword” of biblical truth, which she said “will hurt you.”
The event may be the closest thing yet to Greene’s vision for the GOP, which she has urged to become the “party of Christian nationalism.” The Idaho Panhandle’s especially fervent embrace of the ideology may explain why Greene, who has sold T-shirts reading “Proud Christian Nationalist,” traveled more than 2,300 miles to a county with fewer than 67,000 Republican voters to talk about biblical truth: Amid ongoing national debate over Christian nationalism, North Idaho offers a window at what actually trying to manifest a right-wing vision for a Christian America can look like — and the power it can wield in state politics.
The origin of North Idaho’s relationship with contemporary Christian nationalism can be traced to a 2011 blog post published by survivalist author James Wesley, Rawles (the comma is his addition). Titled “The American Redoubt — Move to the Mountain States,” Rawles’s 4,000-word treatise called on conservative followers to pursue “exit strategies” from liberal states and move to “safe havens” in the American Northwest — specifically Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and eastern sections of Oregon and Washington. He dubbed the imagined region the “American Redoubt” and listed Christianity as a pillar of his society-to-be.
[Idaho and the Northwest generally are seeing an influx of new residents, not all to be sure because of Christian Nationalism.]
The influx has given birth to a phalanx of “Redoubt Realtors” who specialize in resettling transplants. Chris Walsh works for Revolutionary Realty, whose webpage features images of bald eagles, American flags and a banner that welcomes visitors to the “heart of the Great American Redoubt, North Idaho!”
Walsh, munching on a sandwich at a diner in Coeur d’Alene, explained that clients seek him out to locate property that is “defensible,” with clear “firing lanes” in the event of invasion. His customers, overwhelmingly preppers, also typically claim the Christian faith. “I don’t remember the last time that I met somebody that wasn’t a Christian,” he said.
[COVID-19 also energized the general movement. Reformed pastor Douglas Wilson led a protest in Moscow Idaho at which 3 people were arrested.]
Wilson, a controversial figure long popular among a subgroup of Reformed conservatives, has recently emerged as something of a Christian nationalist influencer. He blurbed a 2022 book co-written by Andrew Torba, the founder of the right-wing alternative social media website Gab ... Wilson’s publishing house, Canon Press, recently released “The Case for Christian Nationalism” by self-described “country scholar” Stephen Wolfe...
Wilson doesn’t hesitate to describe his vision of a Christian America. Laws would ban abortion, he said, and while leaders would strive to “maximize religious liberty for everyone,” Catholics are unlikely to feel welcome — “I think it has to be a pan-Protestant project,” he said — nor would Christians who disagree with his stridently patriarchal social norms.
Asked to explain where liberal Christians fit into his theoretical Christian society, Wilson said they would be excluded from holding office, later noting similar prohibitions in early American Colonial settlements such as the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Greene isn’t the only one to capitalize on the region’s embrace of Christian nationalism. A Spokane, Wash.-based pastor long associated with the Redoubt is Matt Shea, a former Washington state legislator who has advocated for a “Holy Army.” Shea was expelled from his state’s GOP caucus in 2019 after an investigation concluded he had engaged in domestic terrorism in connection with the 2016 armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon.
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