The January 2016 armed occupation of Oregon’s Malheur National Wildlife Refuge was, to many who followed it on the news, a certain kind of anarchic spectacle that occurs periodically in the American West and all too often resolves itself in violence. Facing off across boundaries both physical and cultural were two familiar types of adversaries: self-styled patriots or constitutionalists obsessed with property rights, the Second Amendment and various other right-wing causes, and cadres of frustrated law enforcement officers from local, state and federal agencies.
The leader of the occupying force was Ammon Bundy, a Nevada rancher, who was by then a celebrated figure in Western militia circles thanks to what was perceived as his success during another standoff with the government at his family ranch near Las Vegas in 2014. Along with his father, Cliven, and a volunteer force of like-minded supporters, Bundy resisted a federal effort to take possession of his family’s livestock in return for over $1 million in unpaid grazing fees owed to the United States Bureau of Land Management. When the standoff ended — peacefully — the Bundys retained their cattle, the debt remained unpaid and Ammon was a hero to his ilk, as well as a social-media celebrity practiced at producing amateur videos arguing his cause. The Malheur occupation was his next act as a noble son of liberty, and when he put out a call for backup, a ragtag brigade of ticked-off freedom fighters braved the January cold and joined him at his lonely sagebrush outpost.
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