Written by Nicholas Cragoe (Sociology)
It’s been a few months since we heard anything much about Cliven Bundy. He’s fading farther and farther from the front page, being quickly forgotten by the media and the public. But for a few weeks in the Spring of 2014, he held court on the dry plains of Nevada grazing country. All the same, a quick refresher: Bundy was and is a cattle rancher near Bunkerville, NV, who decided one day that he’d had enough of being pushed around by federal legislation he had little say in. The straw that broke the rancher’s back seems to have been an attempt by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to curtail ranching ranges in Nevada in order to protect the endangered desert tortoise.
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| Cliven Bundy |
Bundy decided to protest what he saw as federal overreaching by grazing his cattle on federally owned land without providing the necessary paperwork and fees. This was an illegal action under federal law, but through every microphone that would come near him, Bundy proclaimed his refusal to recognize the authority of the US federal government, believing Nevada to be a “sovereign” state and the highest authority to which Bundy would pay allegiance (or anything else). Bundy quickly became a cause-celebre and the mouthpiece for disgruntled anti-government types across the nation, making headlines and giving interviews, receiving support from conservative politicians and media outlets, and whipping the far right into a frenzy. When the government wrangled Bundy’s cattle and tried to make some arrests, an armed standoff ensued near Bundy’s home involving the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), law enforcement officers, and a small militia of Bundy’s family and supporters. Ultimately the government opted to return the cattle and retreated from the scene. Bundy became the darling of the anti-political right, at least until he made some ill-advised and, frankly, surreal comments about the history of race and slavery, at which point Fox News was seen sprinting in the other direction as fast as possible, along with most of Bundy’s more mainstream supporters. In the months since, Bundy’s fame has faded, but the political and cultural conflict surrounding the Bundy family ranch remains genuinely bizarre and unsettled.
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