8
In Other Words
January 21
2021
The Washington, D.C. Seige
Has Western Roots and Consequences continued from front page
the federal government.
THE
WESTERN
U.S. isn’t the only place where
anti-government sentiment festers,
but here the wounds are open, fre-
quently endured and historically
recent. Violence and the threat of
violence in the region occur within
the context of a nation founded on
the genocide of Indigenous people.
Leaders of anti-federal movements
lean into this violent history and in-
clude factions that are specifically
anti-Indigenous. In defending his
right to graze cattle on federal land
in Nevada — a claim he successful-
ly defended at Bunkerville in 2014,
when federal authorities withdrew
after being outgunned by militia-
men — Bundy argued that his claim
to the land was more legitimate than
the Southern Paiutes’ because “they
lost the war.”
This
white-plus-might-
makes-right sentiment is a pervasive
feature of Western mythology and cow-
boy culture. Over the last half-century,
anti-government leaders have rallied
to that image as the West’s popula-
tion swelled and control over its natu-
ral resources became more contested
and regulated. The original Sagebrush
Rebellion of the mid-to-late-1970s —
which inspired the modern Bundy-led
standoffs but were not nearly as para-
military — came in response to federal
public-land laws like the Federal Land
Policy and Management Act, Wilder-
ness Act and Endangered Species Act,
which increasingly restricted how natu-
ral resources could be used.
Those restrictions were seen
as unconscionable overreach by ru-
ral Westerners who were accustomed
to using public-land resources as they
wished. “The hardest thing to do in
American politics is to withdraw a
right,” said Daniel McCool, a politi-
cal science professor at the University
of Utah. Even though those rights were
privileges in the legal sense, the percep-
tion that they were rights, and that they
were being taken away, fueled the origi-
nal Sagebrush Rebels, McCool said.
“The roots of the Sagebrush Rebellion
were when they no longer got what they
wanted,” he said. “There’s a direct line
from there to the Bundy groups active
Pro-Trump protesters gather in front of the U.S. Capitol building on January 6, 2021
in Washington, D.C. A pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol, breaking windows and
clashing with police officers. Image credit: Jon Cherry/Getty Images
today.”
Entitlement isn’t the only fea-
ture today’s anti-government protest-
ers — who snapped selfies and strolled
casually through the Capitol after over-
coming police barricades, sauntering
off with trophies taken from the of-
fice of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi,
D-Calif. — have in common with the
original Sagebrush Rebels. They also
share an alliance with the Republican
Party and a lack of accountability for
breaking the law. None of the original
rebels were prosecuted, and their move-
ment faded with the election of Ronald
Reagan, who publicly backed their anti-
regulatory ideology. Reagan showed his
support by installing Interior Secretary
James Watt, who weakened many of the
federal regulations they chafed against.
FAR-RIGHT TERRORISM is
the most prevalent form of terrorism in
the U.S., according to the FBI. Report-
ing by Reveal News and Type Investiga-
tions found that right-wing extremism
during the Trump administration has
become more common and far more
deadly. But that uptick comes with a ca-
veat when it comes to Western extrem-
ism. During the Trump era, right-wing
extremism and the militia movement
shifted its focus from the federal gov-
ernment to other targets, like anti-fascist
activists and state and local govern-
ments, according to the Anti-Defama-
tion League.
The explanation for this shift
in target is simple: Anti-federal extrem-
ists found common cause with Trump’s
presidency as he promised to “drain
the swamp,” catered to racist ideolo-
gies and flirted with QAnon conspiracy
theorists. He and his administration
acted directly in the interest of Western
factions within the right-wing extrem-
ist movement, including the Bundys.
In 2018, Trump pardoned Dwight and
Steven Hammond, whose imprisonment
for felony arson on public lands helped
spark the Oregon standoff in 2016. No
attempts were made during his adminis-
tration to enforce federal law by round-
ing up Cliven Bundy’s cattle, which
continue to illegally graze on federal
public lands in Nevada. Just a week be-
fore the siege of the Capitol in Washing-
ton, D.C., the Bureau of Land Manage-
ment (BLM) restored the Hammonds’
public-land grazing rights in Oregon,
despite their record of endangering fed-
eral employees and committing arson.
Those actions — and the in-
ability of federal prosecutors to secure
convictions for leaders of the Bunker-
ville and Malheur occupations, who
clearly threatened federal agents and
held federal land at gunpoint — em-
boldened anti-government extremists.
After the acquittals, the movement felt
vindicated and victorious. “It’s a very
heady thing to be involved in,”
said Betsy Gaines Quammen, the
author of American Zion: Cliven
Bundy, God and Public Lands in the
West. “It was pivotal in empowering
this movement and laid the ground-
work for what we saw (on January 6
in the Capitol),” she said.
A former BLM staffer from
Southern Utah echoed that conclu-
sion. “There is a clear link with the
Bunkerville showdown and Mal-
heur Refuge occupation and what
happened yesterday at our nation’s
Capitol,” Richard Spotts wrote
to High Country News. In dodging
accountability for their actions the
Bundys “have been aided by weak
and incompetent federal law en-
forcement officials,” wrote the for-
mer BLM employee who was based
in St. George, Utah from 2002-2017.
“I hope that the incoming Biden ad-
ministration won’t make Obama’s
mistakes nor allow meek federal land
managers and law enforcement officials
to continue hiding under their desks,”
Spotts wrote.
While the Trump era has em-
powered anti-government extremists in
new and dangerous ways, it has offered
some relief to the public-land employ-
ees in the West who often bear the brunt
of extremist ideologies. Data collected
by Public Employees for Environmen-
tal Responsibility (PEER), a group that
supports public-land reforms and agen-
cy employees, found that threats against
federal employees and facilities dropped
precipitously following Trump’s elec-
tion. In 2017, the BLM recorded a 25%
reduction in such incidents, the lowest
number since 1995. The Bundys didn’t
see the federal government under the
Trump administration as the enemy, said
Jeff Ruch, the former executive director
and current Pacific director of PEER.
“The administration acted in concert
with the violent movement’s demands,”
he said.
WITH THE TARGET no lon-
ger on the federal government’s back,
anti-government extremists in the West
have aimed their tactics at left-wing
protesters and at state and local govern-
ments. Throughout the Trump adminis-
tration, the president’s supporters went
continued on page 9
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