“The Revolution was . . . Weird”

In the Bunkerville standoff, Cliven Bundy initially served as a symbol of a conservative American under attack by a runaway government. Two years later, Ammon Bundy and Ryan Bundy joined with a number of militia members in an offensive operation to take back federal land in Oregon, ostensibly for “we the people.” The Malheur National Wildlife Refuge Occupation showed how far the Patriot Movement would go in challenging federal authority, and it showed the insurrectionist tendency in the Patriot Movement’s civil religious constitutionalism. It also showed the limits of conservative support. In this case, the occupiers said that they went to the Malheur refuge to defend the people of Harney County, but most of them were from out of state, and they repeatedly ignored requests to leave from county officials. The occupation ended with one fatality and numerous arrests, but the federal government’s prosecution largely failed in court.