Bug-out real estate in the American Redoubt
Tier-one operators need homes, too
You’re reading Read Max, a newsletter about the future. This is a Friday (?) edition that started as some funny links and turned into a slightly longer newsletter, albeit still mostly about funny links. If you enjoy it, please share it with friends and subscribe.
Read Max is a newsletter about the future, but it is also, from time to time, a newsletter about real estate. To wit: As I was reading this Politico magazine article on the factional struggles inside the Idaho Republican party earlier this week, something caught my eye:
A thriving local “preparedness real estate” industry is cashing in on right flight. One broker, Todd Savage of the “PATRIOTS ONLY real estate firm” Black Rifle Real Estate and a self-proclaimed “conservative libertarian” refugee from San Francisco, had to revise a listing that read, “This property is for sale to Liberty / Constitutional Buyers ONLY” because the Multiple Listing Service thought it suggested bias against immigrants. No big deal, Savage told me: “Business is fantastic! This whole pandemic thing has really fueled land ownership in rural areas. A lot of my clients are in police, fire, and medical fields. They are coming here in droves. They don’t care about real estate prices. They have money to burn.”
“Black Rifle Real Estate”? As in … Black Rifle Coffee, the tactical coffee for tier-one operators? Has the world’s most prominent MAGA-tagged business expanded into Donald Trump’s own industry? Sadly, no. According to the Black Rifle Real Estate website, the Black Rifle mark is merely being “used under license” from Black Rifle Coffee. A quick Google suggests that Black Rifle coffee sued Black Rifle Real Estate in 2019; the case was settled, presumably by the real-estate company agreeing to license the name from the coffee company. (I imagine that Black Rifle’s lawyers do a lot of threatening these days; if you’re launching a tier-one operator focused business, the Black Rifle brand has got to be extremely attractive. Plus, why wouldn’t the original Black Rifle want to expand into real estate, pharma, mattresses, etc.?)
Nevertheless, I wanted to know more. Todd Savage, the Black Rifle Real Estate agent quoted by Politico in the piece, is a realtor who owns both Black Rifle and another real-estate company called American Redoubt. You can see some of the properties Savage sells under the American Redoubt name on Zillow. Here’s one:
The truth is, I found this, and most of the other houses offered by American Redoubt, somewhat underwhelming, as secure bug-out locations go, but I’m admittedly not the target market. (In general I am okay with most of the products and services I consume, including coffee, being non-tactically-optimal). Savage seems to deal more often in lots of land: Last summer he sold a parcel to the right-wing comedian/survivalist/Christina Ricci ex Owen Benjamin, a streamer who planned to build a camp or compound to be poulated by members of his fandom, a group of would-be survivalists who call themselves bears. (How is it that once a month I come across some new right-wing comedian/streamer/pundit with a sizable following that I’ve never heard of? How many of these guys are there?) Benjamin’s plot is eight miles away from Ruby Ridge, which has given the local response a tenor that mixes anxiety with exhaustion: “The last thing the Northwest needs is another zealot with a compound,” one columnist wrote.
But this attention is fine with Savage, whose business relies on conservatives from outside Idaho and Montana deciding they need to build rural compounds to survive the coming race war, or whatever, and hearing about Savage’s business through deranged coverage in blogs like The Gateway Pundit (or through less deranged coverage in places like Politico). As a result, he’s extremely media-friendly, and gets quoted a lot in stories about people from California deciding to move to Big Sky country, also known by a particular strain of survivalist bloggers as “The American Redoubt.” This Montana Free Press story is a good introduction to the American Redoubt movement; Savage is extensively quoted:
Savage’s business offers firearms consulting and tactical training, as well as advice on how to prepare a property for hydro and solar electricity and large-scale agriculture production. The company offers to help people buy either a permanent residence in the American Redoubt or a “bug-out” property to escape to at a later date.
While the American Redoubt ostensibly includes a wide swath of the Inland Northwest, Savage is hyperfocused on selling what he calls “Islands of Refuge” in northern Idaho and northwestern Montana. One page of his website provides what he calls a Regional Threat Assessment analyzing which parts of the region are most safe from outside threats, including those he describes as emanating from Spokane, Seattle and Missoula.
The islands described by Savage are split into two areas, one in the Idaho Panhandle north of Sandpoint, and the other in northwestern Montana. Savage’s Idaho map rates regions with a letter grade based on how safe from anti-liberty encroachment Savage believes they are. The area around Priest River, Idaho, gets a B- due to its proximity to Spokane, while the Moyie River Valley just south of the Canadian border gets a AAA rating. The Montana island doesn’t get a letter grade, but Savage notes that its remoteness makes it ideally defensible.
Hmm. Where would you want to live if the world collapsed around you? Are you seeking out “ideally defensible” locations? Personally, during the early months of the pandemic, as bleak as it often felt, I was much happier to be living in an important node on the global supply chain than I would have been out in the middle of nowhere. (But I’m also not very good at canning and pickling things.) Despite my general distrust of “sudden societal-collapse” narratives, I really loved the HBO miniseries of Station Eleven, which presents a small Great Lakes airport as the ideally protected, defensible, and livable location in the event of an absurdly deadly pandemic.
Sadly for those who’d like to think about their bug-out plan, the Regional Threat Assessment maps are no longer available, as the Black Rifle Real Estate website has been taken down. Savage seems to have rolled up Black Rife, American Redoubt, and a third business, Strategic Relocation & Survival Retreat Consulting, into a new company, “Flee the City,” which offers real estate, consulting, and (in partnership with Secure Life Homes) architectural services. Flee the City is also offering lots in a “sustainable community” “designed for both full-time living and for those that seek to acquire a fully integrated ‘bug-out’ location surrounded by world class hunting, fishing and outdoor recreation”:
IDK. One thing that the airport refugees of Station Eleven have going for them is a generally cooperative and socially oriented grouping. The thing about planned communities founded on libertarian fantasies of escape, collapse, distrust, and self-sufficiency (let alone those founded on affection for one right-wing Twitch streamer or another) is that they people who seek them out are … difficult. At best. I mean, read the website set up for Benamin’s project:
As technology companies became underbearing of private agendas and hypocrisy that has become truly unbearable in the pursuit of happiness and the contribution of opinion for others happiness, The Unbearables were born. The Unbearables are a vastly diverse group of people unified by common principals, ethics, tolerance and joy in the exploration of truth. […]
Due to the massive effort to silence Owen and the power moves of mega corporations and political interests to discriminate those that do not comply with oppressive opinions and lifestyles, The Great Bear Trail was made manifest. With support from The Unbearables, a vision was seen, a way out of dependence on those against peace, salvation and equal rights. […]
The attacks on comedy legend Owen Benjamin by paper rectangle motivated shills, power addicted influencers and media corporations will not stop with Owen.
This seems like a fragile foundation for a healthy, working microsociety. It is hard to predict the future: Will there be foreign invasion? Will there be future pandemics? Will there be civil war and anarchy? As we read about the Great Bear Trail and the Flee the City planned community, Read Max feels that one thing is certain: There will be lawsuits.
https://tinyurl.com/59d5k288
Just took my property off the market. so many who were interested did not know what this place offered and do not belong here. While it is off the market, I still will entertain those who have the moxy and right personality to be here...