Behind the Scenes at a Bundy Rally
If there was a defining trait among the several dozen people who gathered recently to hear Ammon Bundy speak at the New Code of the West conference in Whitefish, Montana, it was their age—on average, well into eligibility for Social Security benefits. I don’t mention this to promote ageist ideas about who should be involved in political activism—the baby boomers comprise the largest voting bloc in America—but rather to suggest that the “Bundy movement,” such as it exists, appears conspicuously long in the tooth.
If there was a defining trait among the several dozen people who gathered recently to hear Ammon Bundy speak at the New Code of the West conference in Whitefish, Montana, it was their age—on average, well into eligibility for Social Security benefits. I don’t mention this to promote ageist ideas about who should be involved in political activism—the baby boomers comprise the largest voting bloc in America—but rather to suggest that the “Bundy movement,” such as it exists, appears conspicuously long in the tooth.
The event was hosted by a Kalispell-based group called This West Is OUR West. The group’s founder, Lauralee O’Neil, told me they spent $8,000 to rent the facility and provide a catered lunch. Perhaps it was the $150 price tag for the day’s event that kept younger attendees at bay, or perhaps it was a classic Montana scheduling conflict: Saturday, October 13, was the second-to-last day of big-game archery season. Whatever the reason, if the Whitefish event left me convinced of one thing, it’s that the Bundys and the fringe ideology they espouse has little purchase on young people—at least in this corner of the northern Rockies. And that ought to be encouraging to anyone who has worried in the nearly three years since the Bundys staged their takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Burns, Oregon, that a new and vigorous anti–public land rebellion was catching fire. The opposite seems more likely. The Bundys’ antics—along with the efforts of the Trump administration and congressional Republicans to undermine environmental laws and regulations, shrink national monuments, and open millions of acres of public land and water to oil and gas development—have galvanized a movement around environmental and conservation advocacy that is nonpartisan and transgenerational.
A crowd of 300 gathered at Whitefish Depot Park to protest the Bundy event, which was taking place at the Grouse Mountain Lodge, a mile and a half away. The competing rally was organized by the Montana Wilderness Association and Love Lives Here, a group affiliated with the Montana Human Rights Network and formed in response to white supremacist activity in the Flathead Valley. Judging by attendance, there’s no question which movement—Bundyites or public land advocates—has the numbers. Beyond Whitefish, the rapid growth of groups like Missoula-based Backcountry Hunters and Anglers illustrates the rising pro–public land consciousness in the West and across the country. Membership has doubled every year for the past four years, topping 18,000 in 2018. The group now has chapters in 39 states and two Canadian provinces and on dozens of college campuses. One wonders what the Bundys’ on-campus presence looks like.
I didn’t meet any of the protesters who turned out to Depot Park, because I spent the entire day listening to jeremiads about the Bilderberg Group and the United Nations’ machinations to implement one-world government. According to speakers at the Bundy event, shadowy international bureaucrats and billionaires are the font of such devious urban concepts as “sustainable development” and “smart growth.” Alex Newman—a bearded young correspondent for the John Birch Society’s New American magazine, whom the moderator hailed as “our next George Washington”—said these concepts are part of “a global war on farmers and ranchers and loggers.” The audience gasped knowingly. Newman went on to pull the old James Inhofe trick, suggesting that because an icebreaker got stuck in the sea ice off Antarctica one time in 2013, global warming clearly isn’t real. “I’ve interviewed dozens of these UN scientists,” said Newman, without mentioning any of the defectors’ names. “They told me [climate change] was a hoax, and no one would correct it, so they resigned.” Phew, I thought: I guess we don’t have to worry about the UN’s updated projections—which give us a mere 12 years to take drastic action to avoid Biblical climate catastrophes. (Conservative estimates place the scientific consensus at a minimum of 80 percent supporting the idea of human-caused climate change, with some estimates as high as 97 percent.)
https://www.outsideonline.com/2359631/ammon-bundy-rally-whitefish-montana?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Dispatch-11012018&utm_content=Dispatch-11012018+Version+A+CID_e6e11220640890240994253e60f53828&utm_source=campaignmonitor%20outsidemagazine&utm_term=READ%20MORE
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