Dudes - not even the local ranchers afaict - over there are really forcing things, poor logistical and rhetorical prep.

Absolutely true that martyring them right now could kick off some painful and open-ended shit. That’s been priced in since the Waco, Ruby Ridge, OKC sequence of the ‘90s.

Why the Montana Freemen got waited out in ‘96.

Bundys - and this is all that crowd’s initiative, they’re outside agitators (/community organizers) latching on to local conflicts for political effect - are the first I can think of to consciously *play against that*, emboldened by their success at the ranch.

An interesting comparison to the threat of black unrest from the left - Ferguson, BLM, getting Zimmerman even arrested in Florida.

The thing isn’t even that it couldn’t be suppressed. It could! But putting down brown-skinned crowds by force completely runs against Democratic-liberal legitimating myths on which too many institutional players depend.

Ferguson and Mizzou were both in Missouri, a border state where the Democratic Party’s continued relevance relies on holding together New Deal whites in statewide contests while servicing the black power structure that’s their only legislative presence. The Democratic governor’s (8 years, the whole college board’s worth of appointments) trying to hand the baton to a strong successor. The favored Republican committed a major gaffe by shooting himself in the head but if the ultimate candidate tries to hitch to the Trump train this could be interesting.

LIKEWISE, it’s not that you couldn’t tamp down a major militia flare-up

such as could plausibly come out of this “take 6 bros and seize the nearest federal property” idiom being current and prominent the same week that OBAMA TO ISSUE EXECUTIVE ORDERS ON GUN CONTROL say

but that you couldn’t have a lot of Republicans sign off on it without burning their legitimacy.

All a little Weimar tbh

If these particular guys make the pivot to gun control and get out front of that maybe there’s potential but as is its a forgettable sequel.