The Road to Splitsville

The Newsletter for Subscribers to THE SPLIT

My New Kentucky Home

As readers of The Split will soon discover, the breakaway republic known as the Confederation of Conservative States of America (CCSA) is not only home to a splendid variety of conservative hellholes states, but also of what we’re calling “enclaves”—independent, self-governing municipalities dedicated to one or another mode of worship, political economy, or nutbar obsession. We created these things through the WONDER of our IMAGINATION.

But, as usual, the wonder of our imagination has been usurped and topped and upstaged by reality itself. Imagine our surprise (or utter lack of it) when we learned, about a month ago, that some real estate developers in Kentucky are offering, for sale and development, some land parcels in the southern part of the state, as part of a planned “enclave” (!!) dedicated to far-right conservatives.

The Guardian has the details, or at least as many as the participants in the venture will divulge.  It’s called the Highland Rim Project, about which the Guardian explains:

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”.

We can sympathize. Who doesn’t want to disappear from the cultural insanity of the broader country? The lots are distributed in two large parcels, and range in size from a half-acre, to 3-5 acres, to a few “premium” lots of 93 and 126 acres. And if the promoters are offering just the raw land—no infrastructure, water, electricity, roads, sewage, etc.—and stand to make, in one parcel, 14 times what they paid for it, and in another, around 7 times the original price, is that so very wrong?

The principal developer is a venture fund called New Founding, the managing director of which is a man named Joshua Abbotoy. And guess what:

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.”

Aside from the redundancy of having the leadership be led, this may not be as weird as it sounds. Such, um, enclaves go way back in the U.S. (Brook Farm, New Harmony, the Mormons, the Shakers) and even way, way back (the Puritans). So is that all this is about? Well…

“Utopian communities have long been a feature of the American landscape, but this may be more of a money-driven land speculation project with a culture war angle than an effort to create a utopian project in the classic sense,” said Katherine Stewart, author of The Power Worshippers, a key book on Christian nationalism.

So, fine. Some conservative venture capitalists want to take a flyer on a bunch of undeveloped land that’s just sitting there, and hope to turn a tasty profit selling it to Protestant Christians who prefer to be surrounded by people just like themselves, or by nobody at all. It’s not personal, or religious, or political. It’s business.

Still, it raises several questions:

1.      Is this legal? Can the Highland Rim Project limit its sales strictly to buyers of whose religion and politics it approves? We don’t know, and we’re sure Joshua Abbotoy will thank us not to ask.

2.      Is this legit? Is the land as advertised? Or it one of those deals like in Florida a hundred years ago, when “Enjoy waterfront acreage” meant “You will literally be living in a swamp”?

3.      Why? We know how clannish those Protestants are, but still--why go to all that trouble and expense? You have to buy the land, and at a minimum drag a mobile home onto it (over unpaved, “rolling” farmland), or, if you want to build, survey the land, clear it, and build a house from scratch, remembering to install a septic tank and a generator. And, oh yeah, figure out where you’ll get water. And to what end? So you won’t have to risk passing a liberal or a Jew in the pasta aisle at Piggly Wiggly? Or see a person with the impertinence to be black at Target?

These, and so many more questions, will presumably be answered in time. Meanwhile, even though we may not find these offers tempting, it would be wrong to assume no one else will. After all, many people live in rural areas because they want to. To them, even the suburbs are too crowded. And forget the density, noise, and cultural variety of the city. The Highland Rim Project offers an added layer (political, religious) of protection against the teeming hordes of People Who Are Different.

Or put it this way:

“It’s not just that some members of this extremist cohort disagree with liberals, feminists, or any number of people who don’t share their views; it’s that they really can’t stand having those people anywhere nearby,” Stewart added.

“The mere existence of people not like them counts as an insult.”

So don’t say we didn’t warn you.