Ammon Bundy: Rebel In Search of a Cause
October 3, 2020
Rebel In Search of a Cause
When I heard that the Caldwell School District had to stop a high school football game on Friday night because someone refused to wear a mask, I assumed that Ammon Bundy was involved. For the last six years, he has been what Garry Wills once called a “constitutional anti-governmentalist” in search of a worthy cause. He shouts about God-given rights and constitutionally protected freedoms, but his causes have grown ever smaller and pettier. Friday night was a new low for Ammon Bundy, making a religious and constitutional argument against a high school’s mask requirement for spectators.
So what is it with Ammon Bundy? To understand this, a little history is required. Bundy first gained national attention in an armed standoff with federal agents at his father’s ranch in Bunkerville, NV in 2014. He and hundreds of armed supporters stopped the federal government from removing the Bundy’s cattle from federal lands, where they had been grazing illegally for 20 years. Overnight, he became a sagebrush hero, and conservative commentators like Sean Hannity held him up as an icon of every conservative American under attack by the government. While Ammon Bundy was clearly on the wrong side of the law, at least he was fighting for something important.
Bundy had found a new calling as a general leading the troops against tyranny, so he scoured the West for his next battle. This is what occasioned an armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in January 2016. Bundy and his armed followers were not only on the wrong side of the law, they were now engaged in armed resistance to the idea of federal land ownership itself. It didn’t bother them that the overwhelming majority of Americans support federal land ownership, at least of national parks, forests, and wildlife refuges.
The Malheur occupation ended in Bundy’s arrest and more than a year in prison while he waited for two different federal trials. Bundy walked free without a single conviction, but he stepped out onto a different political landscape. The constitutional anti-governmentalists had elected President Trump, who was now fighting parts of Bundy’s battle against the federal government’s expansive powers. With the president slashing regulation, hamstringing federal land agencies, and celebrating Bundy’s fellow rebels, the country did not need Bundy’s leadership.
The coronavirus changed everything. By its very nature, the pandemic requires coordinated government response, including both spending and regulation. President Trump resisted calls for federal restrictions, but many state governments took reasonable steps to protect their citizens. Suddenly, militias were back in the streets protesting government tyranny, and Bundy had a new cause. But mask wearing? Really? Is this the kind of tyranny that requires civil disobedience?
On August 25, Bundy forced his way into the Idaho legislative chambers to protest any and all COVID-19 restrictions. Idaho State Police arrested him and wheeled him out of the building in a comfortable office chair. Bundy posted bond and returned to get arrested again the next day.
And Bundy turned to fight a host of other perceived injustices so that his children could start school in person and, above all, play football. (Note to the reader: Football is not constitutionally protected.) So Ammon Bundy has gone from protecting his father’s livelihood in Nevada to civil disobedience over facemasks. What’s next?
Image: Rob Kerr/Getty Images