Many urban critiques of the Patriot Movement have focused on these facts to construct “outsider” narratives of the Patriots, in which these militias enter local “communities” from elsewhere in order to sow disorder, against the wishes of the local population. Organizing against the militias is then portrayed as simply the upholding of the status quo via the silent majority, afraid to speak up when faced with the influx of heavily armed men. But these narratives tend to obscure or at least ignore in practice the actual conditions of economic collapse in the countryside, and simply reinforce the state’s own position relative to rural areas in the far West, which is one of continued, contingent dependence and fierce competition for a shrinking pool of government jobs. The work of groups like the Portland-based Rural Organizing Project is a case in point. Urban liberals are paired with locals within the progressive establishment to build grassroots opposition to the militias, but when it actually comes to offering some sort of solution for the widespread economic problems of these areas, the focus is not on building local regimes of dual power to oppose the current economic system but instead to push for increased taxes and petition higher levels of government for more extensive payouts. The experience in Burns also hints at the fact that many of those who are most adversely affected by government rents are not necessarily the poorest rural residents, or even average ruralites. Such fees, combined with property taxes, disproportionately affect landowners and the proprietors of local extractive industries, as well as a wide variety of small businesses struggling to survive amid conditions of widespread economic collapse. The Bundys themselves are a striking image of the class landholder that forms the figurative and financial backbone of the Patriot Movement: their land value, combined with their yearly income, actually puts them in the upper income brackets of such counties. Similarly, mine owners in southern Oregon or mill proprietors in Idaho are the literal holders of capital in their respective areas. They are a petty capitalist class that appears “working class” only through constant, active contrast with well-heeled coastal elites. An important part of this contrast is the fact that they do regularly work their holdings themselves (even while they oversee far less well-off, largely seasonal employees), and are substantially poorer than plenty of urban professionals, not to mention financial elites. Equally important is their constantly maintained, self-aware aesthetic, an amalgamation of traditionally middle-American cliches cultivated by large patriarchal families like the Bundys, variants of which are easily identifiable in most rural areas- the many local dynasties signified by their big trucks, camo hats, and Carhartt jackets, all often just a bit too clean and new. It is this class fraction that is the real heart and focus of the Patriot movement. It is their property that is defend, and they are portrayed as the only forces capable of reviving the economy.
Phil A. Neel, Hinterlands
