> My only concern is...how the powers that be tend to react to the existence of such communities
I have thought about this at great length! I have enough bandwidth for one simple example.
Elites, Executive branch, and especially hoighty-toighty law and court nerds: "GAwwwd Congress is so fucking dumb...those idiots (MTG, AOC, pick your favorite pleb) If only Congress would just do their JOB!
Also Elites: "Oh my god, can you imagine not getting into an Ivy and having to relocate to the West Coast and go to Berkeley? My life is over... I'll never be in a position of power and prestige, god I hate the Federalist Society." me: "you could run for congress or senate in your home town." them: "Oh my god eww"
We, as members of the unwashed, impure, messy, underclass, will solemnly swear that we will fix Congress and only Congress... All y'all Catholics and Jews and Mormons can KEEP your Supreme Court (Gorsuch still counts, Episcopalian) and Executive Branch and Administrative bureaucracy. We don't WANT it, just look at our dumb, capped church sizes... hurdeehur...we're so dumb
We do not intend to replace any hierarchies, and we do not signal a posture of anti-Americanism (a little pro-USA wouldn't go amiss). We're just providing an alternate game, one that actually has an egalitarian and credible social contract.
> I would recommend that you first find a community that is already living in the way you describe
Way ahead of you chief. MANY people even in healthy protestant churches are... quite baffled by this idea. They cannot see the forest for the trees, I do not view them as a threat. (trad-Evangelicals will ALWAYS fail to see the value of the addicts, the heretics, the failures, the criminals, in their midst. These are the people who see the structure of society as it is, not as the political and religious elites would have us believe. They are best positioned to be EXCELLENT controllers in a cybernetic sense, as they have the requisite variety.
ALSO... Calvary Chapel, unbeknownst to me, has a similar guiding philosophy while still falling squarely in the main. I am a member of one where I live.
However, to your point, even getting people into the proper frame to see the idea as useful and not heretical/threatening is a tall order, many of my associations are just far too comfortable and well-sorted into suburban middle-class churches to even sense the cancer in their midst.
I have found exactly one so far: a libertarian-minded director of a world missions organization who has since retired. Global perspective, no vested interest in the current models, lover of decentralization and good ole American independence.
Massive, but yes... building a parallel structure might be attractive to downwardly mobile elites... their contributions and expertise can be affirmed and leveraged just as they have been fairly or unfairly shut out of status hierarchies. Where will all the lawyers go? Hmm... Maybe a new laboratory-of-democracy? Where you start with all the best stuff from the founders and then decide what you want to keep/toss? Growing to the point where bipartisan super-majorities, but without party identifiers, could help us untie the Gordian knot? You may begin to see why over the past year I have vacillated with a wild deluded/inspired amplitude.