Letter Re: Demographic Shifts in The American Redoubt

Mr. Rawles,
In the aftermath of the apparent hostile takeover of Colorado by immigrants from California, I have been wondering about the status of the States that comprise the American Redoubt. Is there any information available about demographic shifts within the Redoubt as a result of immigration? I’ve heard a little here and there, particularly about some of the resort type areas of Idaho and the coastal regions of Washington and Oregon, but nothing about significant shifts within the states as a whole.

Thanks, – Thetonedeafbard

JWR Replies: The American Redoubt region is conservative, and gradually getting more conservative, year by year. Wyoming’s recent enactment of permitless concealed carry is indicative of this trend. Take a look at the 2008 Presidential election returns versus the 2012 Presidential election returns. There are indeed a few liberals moving in, but they are vastly outnumbered by conservatives who are coming from the same states. With higher taxes and more draconian gun laws, I expect this trend to accelerate in the future. In effect the Red States are getting darker red and the Blue States are getting darker blue. Colorado was an example of a purple state that gradually turned blue, at least in the larger cities. But now that it has enacted sweeping civilian disarmament laws, I expect that Colorado will lose conservatives (through out-migration), and conservative states like Wyoming and Montana will be the beneficiaries of those who have “voted with their feet.”

The key goal of the American Redoubt movement was to simply solidify an existing demographic trend. Back in 2011 I wrote: “I’m inviting people with the same outlook to move to the Redoubt States, to effect a demographic solidification. We’re already a majority here. I’d just like to see an even stronger majority.”

Echoing these trends, the likelihood of partition of Eastern Oregon and Eastern Washington will continue to grow. The residents of the eastern counties have little in common with the folks west of the Cascades, and will have less and less in common with them, as time goes on. I predict that inevitably either taxes or civilian disarmament laws will be the triggers that will force a separation.

Wikipedia sums up this divide between the eastern halves of Oregon and Washington: “East of the Cascades, in eastern Washington, eastern Oregon, and Idaho, the population is much more conservative. The eastern portions of Washington and especially Oregon, due to their low populations, do not generally have enough voting power to be competitive at the state level, and thus the governorships and U.S. Senate seats of both Oregon and Washington are usually held by the Democrats. Idaho, being a separate state located entirely within the conservative interior of the Pacific Northwest, is a Republican stronghold. Conservatism in the US part of the Pacific Northwest tends to be distrustful of federal government interference and strongly protective of gun rights.”

Don’t over-rate the influence of a few liberal enclaves like Sun Valley, Idaho and Missoula, Montana. They are so vastly outnumbered that they are politically irrelevant.