The Patriot movement worldview builds on tactics of county political supremacy forged in a decades-old racist rural insurgency called Posse Comitatus. Patriot movement groups argue that local sheriffs have the power to ignore federal law; they seek to promote the political dominance of county governments; and like Posse Comitatus they set up their own “grand juries,” “judges,” and “marshals” to meet out their idea of justice. Under the banner of “coordination,” they peddle the fiction that county governments can control how federal lands are used. In Oregon, several county commissions, two CSPOA sheriffs, and even a mining district have invoked the movement’s version of “coordination” to challenge federal authority to manage public lands.
Patriot movement activists are part of a larger trend of right-wing populists who feel that, as a group, they are losing power, and offer right-wing solutions to economic problems. Most movement activists embrace a “producerist” worldview that decries political elites while deriding others—such as immigrants and refugees—as lazy or immoral. Their simple solution to the economic problems rural areas face is to transfer federally owned land to states or counties, with the ultimate goal of privatization or deregulation for commercial use by the “producers” they claim to support: ranchers, loggers, and miners.
The movement operates with an “inside/outside” strategy: some parts of the movement work inside of established government structures to change them, while others work outside the system to undermine it. As “outsiders,” these groups are often armed and openly advocate defying those federal laws they deem unconstitutional. As insiders, they are embedded in the political life of rural areas, including the six Oregon counties at the heart of this report—Baker, Grant, Josephine, Harney, Crook, and Deschutes—and find a home within the state Republican Party. Oregon State Representative Dallas Heard made a pilgrimage to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation. Josephine County Oath Keeper Joseph Rice, leader of the April 2015 armed encampment at the Sugar Pine Mine in rural southwestern Oregon, attended the 2016 Republican Convention as an Oregon state party delegate. Former Harney County Republican Party chair Tim Smith was the head of the Ammon Bundy-formed shadow government, the Committee of Safety, during the occupation. Ken Taylor—treasurer of the state-level Republican Party and chair of the Crook County GOP, at least until mid-2016—recorded the founding of this Committee of Safety and promoted the group, even as Ammon Bundy and his colleagues were threatening the Harney County sheriff. You can also find Patriot movement priorities reflected in the national Republican Party—even if the movement’s tactics are still on the fringe. For instance, the 2016 national GOP platform advocates the transfer of federal lands to the states and denounces Agenda 21.
