WEBVTT - The Revenge of Rural America 0:00:04.800 --> 0:00:07.120 We don't usually think of the American right wing as 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:10.840 protesters or activists. Conservatives tend to be older, for one thing, 0:00:10.920 --> 0:00:12.720 and they also tend to be on the side of 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:15.360 state power, the side of law and order. Liberals and 0:00:15.440 --> 0:00:18.279 leftists are more likely to agitate for major changes in 0:00:18.320 --> 0:00:21.720 the status quo. But right wing activism isn't unheard of either, 0:00:21.920 --> 0:00:24.079 and recent experience has made it clear that when the 0:00:24.160 --> 0:00:26.759 right stands up, they can make a serious impact. The 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:30.600 two fourteen Bundy standoff made national news. What started as 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:33.519 a confrontation over Clive and Bundy's refusal to pay grazing 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:35.800 fees to the Bureau of Land Management turned into a 0:00:35.880 --> 0:00:39.720 minor right wing uprising against state control. Hundreds of militiamen 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:41.920 from all over the country, clad in body armor and 0:00:42.000 --> 0:00:46.040 packing military grade weaponry, stood against federal law enforcement agents 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:49.600 and made them back down. The militiamen got their way, 0:00:49.800 --> 0:00:52.000 more or less, and they got their way again two 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:54.800 years later, when Clive and Bundy's sons led a group 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:57.840 that occupied the malhur Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. I was 0:00:57.880 --> 0:01:00.320 actually near the Malhir Refuge for a little bit of that, 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:03.600 not at the refuge itself, but in the town of Burns, Oregon, 0:01:03.760 --> 0:01:05.800 talking to locals about what it was like to live 0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:09.119 through the armed insurrection of a far right militia. People 0:01:09.120 --> 0:01:12.080 told me stories and militiamen roaring through town and pickup trucks, 0:01:12.120 --> 0:01:15.880 carrying guns into local businesses and terrifying residents. The way 0:01:15.880 --> 0:01:18.400 they described these men reminded me more than a little 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:22.000 of how citizens of Constantinevka, a city in eastern Ukraine, 0:01:22.040 --> 0:01:25.480 described the Russian backed separatists who briefly occupied their city. 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:28.360 Some of these men were literal Russian soldiers, of course, 0:01:28.400 --> 0:01:31.160 but others were foreigners and local partisans, people with no 0:01:31.319 --> 0:01:35.320 military training but a love of guns and feeling powerful. Now. 0:01:35.360 --> 0:01:38.920 In both Bundy occupations, the specific justification for what they 0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:41.360 were doing was not something with a lot of broad appeal. 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:44.760 Their grievances were niche and rural. Most people who didn't 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:47.800 live near Malhor viewed the entire thing as something of 0:01:47.840 --> 0:01:51.440 a silly farce. The occupiers were male, dick shaped candies 0:01:51.480 --> 0:01:54.600 and care packages, and mocked as y'all. kDa. It is 0:01:54.640 --> 0:01:57.240 a great nickname, but I don't think most Americans really 0:01:57.320 --> 0:02:01.280 realize how fucking terrifying A true y'all Cada would be 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:06.120 a few thousands sufficiently motivated, organized, and angry rural Americans 0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:09.079 have the power to bring this nation to its needs. 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:12.160 In the last episode of It Could Happen Here, I 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:15.080 envisioned the start of a second American Civil War, driven 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:17.880 by President Trump's refusal to leave office and a series 0:02:17.919 --> 0:02:21.040 of urban left wing uprisings. Today, we're going to look 0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:23.720 at another possibility, one that involves the other half of 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:27.399 the American political equation. Today we're talking about the revenge 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:31.239 of Rural America. Exit polls taken in the two thousand 0:02:31.280 --> 0:02:34.600 sixteen election revealed that a whopping three quarters of Americans 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:37.880 felt the country was growing more divided. Ground zero for 0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:40.840 this divide was the split between rural and urban voters. 0:02:41.280 --> 0:02:43.720 One way to look at Donald Trump's upset victory is 0:02:43.800 --> 0:02:46.880 as the revenge of Rural America. Rural areas across the 0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:51.280 country saw an unprecedented turnout, and those Americans voted overwhelmingly 0:02:51.320 --> 0:02:55.680 for Donald Trump. Representative Tom Cole, Republican from Oklahoma, said this, 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:58.440 at the time, we've got some big chisms out there. 0:02:58.680 --> 0:03:02.560 Rural America's much more Republican than ever before. In the 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:05.440 two thousand eighteen midterm elections, the urban rural divide in 0:03:05.480 --> 0:03:08.480 America was even more pronounced. Only twenty nine percent of 0:03:08.480 --> 0:03:12.240 Democratic voters lived in rural areas, the remainder being suburban 0:03:12.360 --> 0:03:15.639 or urban. For comparison, a whopping forty six percent of 0:03:15.720 --> 0:03:19.400 Republican voters live in rural areas, only nineteen percent live 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:23.040 in cities. Urban and rural America see each other as 0:03:23.120 --> 0:03:27.440 increasingly two different nations. The one strong commonality between them 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:29.880 is that they both believe the other chunk of America 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:32.960 hates them. A two thousand eighteen PU survey revealed that 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:35.880 majorities of both urban and rural America believe the rest 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:38.840 of the country quote looks down on them. Here's the 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:42.480 New York Times quote. P has never asked this question 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:44.320 before in a way that allows us to tell if 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:47.160 the sentiment is becoming more common, but election results show 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:49.840 that urban and rural Americans are increasingly at odds with 0:03:49.880 --> 0:03:52.800 each other. The new survey confirms both believe the other 0:03:52.840 --> 0:03:56.080 group doesn't understand their problems or share their values, and 0:03:56.120 --> 0:03:59.960 political scientists warned that place based resentments no one respects 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:02.800 rural America or Trump is at war with cities can 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:06.800 be easily exploited by politicians. Kathy Kramer, the University of 0:04:06.800 --> 0:04:10.400 what Wisconsin political scientists who helped Pew compile this report, 0:04:10.680 --> 0:04:12.960 believes this divide has gotten worse since the two thousand 0:04:12.960 --> 0:04:15.720 and sixteen election and that it represents something new and 0:04:15.800 --> 0:04:19.960 dangerous in American politics. Quote. We're at a political moment 0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:25.400 where cultural divides overlap with political divides, which overlap with geography. Now. 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:28.000 I find that Pew study interesting for a lot of reasons, 0:04:28.279 --> 0:04:30.719 but the most concerning thing to me is that it 0:04:30.720 --> 0:04:33.520 shows this divide between rural and urban America has not 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:36.200 always been as bad as it is today. Here's the 0:04:36.240 --> 0:04:40.279 Times again. Quote. Registered voters in urban areas have become 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:43.760 more likely to identify as Democrats or leaning Democratic. The 0:04:43.880 --> 0:04:47.320 opposite trend has been more pronounced among rural residents, with 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:51.200 a notable shift after two thousand eight. Before then, rural 0:04:51.279 --> 0:04:55.520 voters were relatively evenly divided between the two parties. You 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:58.120 may not find this divide as frightening as I do, 0:04:58.320 --> 0:05:01.719 but I think it presages something potentially quite terrible. In 0:05:01.760 --> 0:05:04.960 addition to trending further right every year, the rural United 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:08.000 States kind this seems to be falling the funk apart. 0:05:08.680 --> 0:05:11.120 Cattle rustling is on the rise again across the Southwest 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:14.640 and states like Oklahoma, Texas, and California. It's reached levels 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:18.520 not seen since literal cowboy days. Now modern wrestling is 0:05:18.560 --> 0:05:21.080 usually driven by sky higher rates of drug abuse. In 0:05:21.080 --> 0:05:23.760 other words, people are stealing cows to buy pain killers 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:26.640 in meth Agricultural theft of all kinds is actually on 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:29.680 the rise across the rural US. Entire semi trucks filled 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:32.960 with nuts and oranges are regularly hijacked via complex schemes 0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:36.920 that often involve fake trucking companies. Rural America is also 0:05:37.000 --> 0:05:40.039 growing more violent. For most of American history, living out 0:05:40.040 --> 0:05:42.320 in the middle of nowhere was the safer decision, since 0:05:42.360 --> 0:05:45.599 cities tended to have much higher crime rates. But last year, 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:48.520 for the first time in a decade, violent crime rates 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:52.919 and rural areas rose above the national average. America's suicide 0:05:53.000 --> 0:05:56.119 rate also increased by more than twenty from two thousand 0:05:56.200 --> 0:05:59.320 one to two thousand fifteen. Most of that increase happened 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:02.200 out in the country. The increases in violent crime and 0:06:02.240 --> 0:06:04.880 suicide are both due at least in part to the 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:07.800 fact that gun ownership is vastly higher out in the country. 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:13.440 Scent of rural Americans own a firearm compared to nineteen 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:16.920 percent of city dwellers and twenty eight percent of suburban Americans. 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:20.720 Three quarters of rural Americans own more than one firearm, 0:06:21.000 --> 0:06:23.760 and forty eight percent of gun owning rural Americans use 0:06:23.800 --> 0:06:27.240 their firearm to hunt. So these people have practical experience 0:06:27.320 --> 0:06:29.919 using a gun out in the world to hit live, 0:06:30.200 --> 0:06:33.960 moving targets. Now stick all this together, and what do 0:06:34.000 --> 0:06:36.640 you have? It sure looks like you have all the 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:38.920 ingredients you'd need if you wanted to cook up one 0:06:39.000 --> 0:06:42.560 ass kicker of an insurgency. And if the second American 0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:45.040 Civil War kicks off in the rural areas, I can 0:06:45.080 --> 0:06:47.880 almost guarantee you it will start with a massive new 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:52.200 push for national gun control. Kamala Harris, easily one of 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:55.480 the primary front running Democratic candidates in the current bevy 0:06:55.480 --> 0:06:59.080 of candidates, is outspoken about her desire to ban all 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:02.760 semi automatic firearms. This would ban the vast majority of 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:06.320 America's civilian owned guns, literally making tens of millions of 0:07:06.320 --> 0:07:09.880 people into criminals overnight. The only weapons left legal would 0:07:09.880 --> 0:07:13.640 be revolvers, shotguns, and bolt action hunting rifles, which are 0:07:13.680 --> 0:07:16.920 ironically the very weapons outside of bolt action weapons most 0:07:16.920 --> 0:07:19.520 likely to be used in violent crime. In the immediate 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:21.920 wake of President Trump's decision to declare a state of 0:07:21.960 --> 0:07:25.640 emergency over the border, conservative never trumpers like Rick Wilson 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:28.360 took to Twitter to warn not that Trump might seize power, 0:07:28.800 --> 0:07:32.200 that setting this precedent would inevitably lead to Democrats declaring 0:07:32.200 --> 0:07:34.880 a state of emergency of their own over gun violence 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:38.200 once they were back in the Oval Office. On January eight, 0:07:38.400 --> 0:07:41.560 during a scene and appearance, Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:45.120 said this quote, if we really want to start talking 0:07:45.120 --> 0:07:47.760 about the national emergency, like the President likes to talk about, 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:51.040 forty Americans dying annually from gun violence, is a pretty 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:54.840 damn good one to start with. Last year, The Atlantic 0:07:54.880 --> 0:07:58.760 published an article by Elizabeth Gaitin evaluating the extent of 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:03.000 the president's emergency hours. In February two thousand, nineteen, Pacific 0:08:03.040 --> 0:08:06.280 Standard Magazine applied that to the possibility of a national 0:08:06.280 --> 0:08:11.240 emergency over guns. Quote. The legal infrastructure to levy an 0:08:11.240 --> 0:08:15.360 emergency declaration Goyton rights exists thanks to the Presidential Emergency 0:08:15.400 --> 0:08:19.200 Action documents developed by the Eisenhower administration designed to address 0:08:19.360 --> 0:08:22.560 such extra legal actions as declarations of martial law and 0:08:22.600 --> 0:08:26.240 the suppression of habeas corpus. These documents could potentially extend 0:08:26.320 --> 0:08:29.880 to encompass outright firearms confiscations given the scope of a 0:08:30.000 --> 0:08:34.120 national crisis. Now. Back during Hurricane KATRAINA, the New Orleans 0:08:34.160 --> 0:08:38.000 Police Department ordered evacuating citizens to hand over their firearms 0:08:38.000 --> 0:08:42.040 to the police Superintendent Edwin P. Compass the third later 0:08:42.080 --> 0:08:44.800 declared a blanket confiscation of all firearms in the city, 0:08:45.000 --> 0:08:48.600 saying only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons. At 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:50.960 the time, a federal court issued a restraining order to 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:53.720 stop the weapons confiscations, so they did not go through 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:57.120 all the way, but weapons were confiscated. And of course 0:08:57.120 --> 0:08:59.720 that was a very different time with a Republican president 0:08:59.760 --> 0:09:02.320 and a few hundred fewer mass shootings in recent memory. 0:09:02.760 --> 0:09:05.640 President Harris's semi automatic weapons ban would have to be 0:09:05.720 --> 0:09:08.800 followed by mass confiscation. Tens of millions of gun owners 0:09:08.800 --> 0:09:12.560 will not hand over their weapons willingly. There are literally 0:09:12.640 --> 0:09:15.400 more privately owned firearms than people in the United States, 0:09:15.559 --> 0:09:17.320 and half of those guns are owned by just three 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:19.760 percent of gun owners. I'm going to give you one 0:09:19.800 --> 0:09:21.800 guess as to which part of the country most of 0:09:21.800 --> 0:09:25.640 those gun owners live. Earlier this year, Washington State passed 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:28.520 a new set of gun control regulations. The restrictions are 0:09:28.559 --> 0:09:31.520 fairly mild compared to Kamala Harris's proposition, and the new 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:34.480 law is popular with the state's liberal majority. Fifty nine 0:09:34.520 --> 0:09:37.880 percent of Washingtonian supported it, but most of those people. 0:09:38.040 --> 0:09:41.200 Most of those supporters live in urban areas like Seattle. 0:09:41.600 --> 0:09:46.640 In conservative, rural and suburban Washington, people are pissed. Sixteen 0:09:46.679 --> 0:09:49.440 sheriffs have so far declared that they will not enforce 0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:52.840 the new law. Here's the Wall Street Journal quote. Sheriff 0:09:52.920 --> 0:09:55.520 Tom Jones of Grant County, also in eastern Washington, is 0:09:55.520 --> 0:09:57.000 one of a number of sheriffs who have said that 0:09:57.000 --> 0:09:58.880 they would wait for the courts to rule before telling 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:01.440 their deputies to enforce the new law. I swore an 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:04.560 oath to defend our citizens and their constitutionally protected rights, 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:07.120 said mister Jones, whose county voted against the gun control 0:10:07.120 --> 0:10:09.160 measure by more than two to one. I do not 0:10:09.320 --> 0:10:13.040 believe the popular vote over rules that now there are 0:10:13.120 --> 0:10:16.040 hundreds of thousands of heavily armed Americans right now who 0:10:16.120 --> 0:10:19.040 see armed resistance to the state as something aspirational as 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:22.160 a dream. Most of these guys, and they are mostly guys, 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:24.800 don't have any real combat training. A lot of them 0:10:24.800 --> 0:10:28.680 are probably just LARPing, play acting. But the Bundy standoff 0:10:28.760 --> 0:10:30.920 was proof that even Larper's with a shipload of a 0:10:31.040 --> 0:10:34.320 r fifteens can scare the federal government in the face 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:36.880 of a major gun band. How many rural communities and 0:10:36.920 --> 0:10:40.160 how many states would say fuck you to a democratic president. 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:43.200 The Yellow vest movement kicked off as a suburban and 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:46.480 rural movement in France, a revolt from the more conservative 0:10:46.480 --> 0:10:49.880 sections of that country society against a neoliberal president and 0:10:49.960 --> 0:10:52.240 his policies. I'm going to quote from the New York 0:10:52.240 --> 0:10:55.280 Times here. The movement originated in May when a woman 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:58.160 named Priscilla Ludovski, who has an internet cosmetics business and 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:00.800 lives in the suburb southeast of Paris, launched an internet 0:11:00.840 --> 0:11:03.480 petition calling for a drop in gas prices. She broke 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:05.959 down the price into its components, noting the taxes made 0:11:06.000 --> 0:11:08.160 up more than half the cost. In France per leader 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:10.760 lead free gas was one point four one euros on Sunday, 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:13.839 or about six dollars per gallon. The petition went mostly 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:16.760 unnoticed until October when Eric drew it. A truck driver 0:11:16.840 --> 0:11:19.480 from the same area as miss Ladowski ran across it 0:11:19.559 --> 0:11:23.000 and circulated it among his Facebook friends. Newspapers began writing 0:11:23.000 --> 0:11:25.720 out the petition, and the number of signature skyrocketed from 0:11:25.720 --> 0:11:29.560 an initial seven hundred to two hundred thousand. Now, the 0:11:29.640 --> 0:11:32.560 yellowvest movement in France is not a purely conservative thing 0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:35.439 within France itself. It's actually much more divided than that. 0:11:35.679 --> 0:11:37.439 But I think it provides a good look at how 0:11:37.440 --> 0:11:40.840 an activist movement can launch amongst older and more conservative 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:44.079 segments of a modern society. I also think rising gas 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:46.920 prices could very well be another generator of rural rage 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:49.839 here in America. People who live in the country spend 0:11:49.840 --> 0:11:52.520 more on gas because they have to drive further distances. 0:11:52.880 --> 0:11:55.319 There is a good chance that any Green New Deal 0:11:55.400 --> 0:11:58.480 style plan to slow global warming introduced by a democratic 0:11:58.480 --> 0:12:02.679 administration would include to gas tax. Rural areas grow our 0:12:02.720 --> 0:12:05.600 food in a very real way that keep the cities alive, 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:07.600 and the people who live in those places know it. 0:12:07.920 --> 0:12:10.840 Just to say, air traffic controllers and stewardesses had the 0:12:10.840 --> 0:12:13.720 power to ind a government shutdown by threatening air travel. 0:12:14.160 --> 0:12:17.520 Rural Americans have something they too can hold captive. In 0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:21.800 their case, it's the food supply. This would of course 0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:24.560 require a great deal of organization, lists of demands, and 0:12:24.600 --> 0:12:26.839 political figureheads to speak for the movement, to lend it 0:12:26.880 --> 0:12:28.760 a shape and a sense of purpose, and I can 0:12:28.800 --> 0:12:31.480 guarantee you that Joey Gibson, the founder of Patriot Prayer, 0:12:31.520 --> 0:12:33.760 would at least try to be one of them. Joey 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:35.319 is one of the leading figures in the right wing 0:12:35.360 --> 0:12:38.120 activist movement that's arisen since the two thousand sixteen election. 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:40.640 Along with the Proud Boys, Joey and Patriot Prayer have 0:12:40.679 --> 0:12:43.280 spent the last two years brawling against Antifa with fists 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:46.720 and flagpoles, but they have also held numerous armed marches 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:51.680 in full body armor carrying rifles. Gibson lives in Vancouver, Washington. 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:54.559 Most members of his gang come from either suburban or 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:58.040 rural areas around Portland, Oregon. If you watch hours and 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:00.679 hourage of their footage marches and ee O rants like 0:13:00.720 --> 0:13:03.720 I have, you'll regularly hear these people describe their constant 0:13:03.760 --> 0:13:06.720 bloody rallies in Portland as something of a crusade. Christian 0:13:06.760 --> 0:13:09.640 Holy warriors descending into a decadent left wing city to 0:13:09.760 --> 0:13:12.840 purchase of sin. In the last episode, I played several 0:13:12.840 --> 0:13:15.079 clips of Alex Jones calling for a new civil war 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:17.520 against the left. Joey Gibson just happens to be a 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:20.679 regular guest on Info Wars. Last December, he joined the 0:13:20.720 --> 0:13:24.160 show to talk about Washington's new gun control laws. It's 0:13:24.160 --> 0:13:26.560 out of control and I've seen the videos on your shite. 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:28.520 You should plug no place people can find these. We're 0:13:28.520 --> 0:13:31.440 gonna post some of these tempful wars dot com. You're 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:34.319 getting crowds of hundreds and hundreds of people in small towns, 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:36.760 counties coming out and they are really pitched about this. 0:13:38.200 --> 0:13:41.599 They're really upset. We had almost three people in the 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:44.040 county with about ten thousand people in it, and they 0:13:44.040 --> 0:13:47.160 were extremely concerned. They're really upset. They're sick and tired 0:13:47.160 --> 0:13:49.640 of Seattle telling them what they can or cannot do. 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:52.360 These people just they just want to be free, They 0:13:52.360 --> 0:13:54.600 want to be left alone. And so I think this 0:13:54.679 --> 0:13:57.280 is the key in states like Washington and Oregon, the 0:13:57.440 --> 0:13:59.640 keys to go around to all the counties that believe 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:01.880 in the car Institution, which is about nine of the 0:14:01.880 --> 0:14:05.200 counties of Washington State, most of our conservative Now I've 0:14:05.200 --> 0:14:07.319 met Joey. He's not a brilliant man or a likely 0:14:07.360 --> 0:14:10.280 pick for a right wing revolutionary war lord. He would try, 0:14:10.440 --> 0:14:14.040 but for my money, a likelier pick for rural insurrectionist 0:14:14.040 --> 0:14:17.520 war lord would be someone like Ryan Bundy. You've seen 0:14:17.640 --> 0:14:19.600 Ryan on the news a few times, especially if you 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:22.440 kept up with the Bundy standoff back in two thousand fourteen. 0:14:22.880 --> 0:14:24.920 He's one of the sons of Clive and Bunny, the 0:14:25.000 --> 0:14:28.240 old racist rancher who masterminded that standoff with the Bureau 0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:31.560 of Land Management in Bunkerville, Nevada. Ryan is the one 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:33.720 with the facial deformity. This has led a lot of 0:14:33.720 --> 0:14:35.520 people online to treat him as if he is a 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:39.280 big dum dummy because bigotry knows no political bounds. But 0:14:39.440 --> 0:14:43.120 Ryan Bundy is not dumb. He was probably the driving 0:14:43.160 --> 0:14:46.160 force behind the two thousand sixteen occupation of the Malhir 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:49.840 Wildlife Refuge. Ryan spent months in jail over that, but 0:14:49.880 --> 0:14:53.080 he defended himself against the court and one. Some of 0:14:53.080 --> 0:14:55.880 this was due to the serious mistakes made by the prosecution, 0:14:56.160 --> 0:14:58.880 but a lot of it came down to Ryan's personal charisma, 0:14:59.000 --> 0:15:01.360 his ability to sway a jury of his peers to 0:15:01.400 --> 0:15:05.320 believe in the righteousness of his cause. Right now, Ryan 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:08.760 is running for governor of Nevada. He's probably a long 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:12.800 shot candidate, but it doesn't really matter. Dozens upon dozens 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:15.600 of heavily armed men and women were willing to gather 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:19.040 and put their lives on the line for his family twice. 0:15:19.760 --> 0:15:22.280 There is a weird religious crusade angle to what the 0:15:22.320 --> 0:15:25.359 Bundees have been doing, based on a fringe Mormon prophecy. 0:15:25.680 --> 0:15:29.640 The fantastic podcast Bundyville, which I heartily recommend, goes into 0:15:29.640 --> 0:15:31.800 more detail on this, but the short of it is 0:15:31.840 --> 0:15:34.120 they believe that they've been chosen by God to defend 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:38.520 the Constitution, or at least their interpretation of the Constitution. 0:15:39.400 --> 0:15:41.240 This is the kind of nutbar stuff that I think 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:43.920 a lot of liberals are prone to laugh about. I 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:47.320 don't find anything funny about the Bundees. Two people have 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:51.080 already been radicalized into killing by their rhetoric. In June 0:15:51.080 --> 0:15:54.280 of two thousand fourteen, Jerried and Amanda Miller, fresh from 0:15:54.320 --> 0:15:57.240 taking part in the standoff at Bundy Ranch, drove into 0:15:57.320 --> 0:15:59.840 Las Vegas and walked into a Cisi's Pizza with a 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:03.400 small arsenal. They opened fire on two officers sitting and 0:16:03.480 --> 0:16:07.400 eating lunch, killing both. As they started shooting, the couple 0:16:07.440 --> 0:16:11.320 allegedly yelled this is the start of a revolution. One 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:14.880 dead officer was covered in a Gadsden flag, another was 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:18.080 covered in a Nazi flag. Jared and Amanda killed one 0:16:18.080 --> 0:16:21.360 more person, a random bystander, before dying in a gunfight 0:16:21.400 --> 0:16:24.720 with police. Now, the Millers had a lot of other 0:16:24.800 --> 0:16:28.360 radicalizing factors behind their rampage than just the Bundy standoff, 0:16:28.600 --> 0:16:31.640 but it was an important step in their journey. Lavoy 0:16:31.720 --> 0:16:34.280 Finnickham is probably a better example of a man who 0:16:34.320 --> 0:16:37.760 died explicitly for the Bundy's. He was shot reaching for 0:16:37.880 --> 0:16:40.520 a gun after being stopped with Ryan and his brother 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:44.720 Amon during the Malhir occupation. In June of two thousand sixteen, 0:16:44.880 --> 0:16:47.960 William Keiebler, a Utah militia leader and close adherent of 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:51.080 the Bundies, was arrested and charged for trying to detonate 0:16:51.120 --> 0:16:55.480 homemade bombs at a BLM building in Arizona. So that's 0:16:55.560 --> 0:16:59.000 three distinct cases and four individual people who have been 0:16:59.080 --> 0:17:03.280 radicalized into violent, deadly action by the rhetoric and beliefs 0:17:03.480 --> 0:17:06.720 of the Bundy clan. In a situation where order starts 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:10.000 to break down even more in rural America and extremist 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:12.760 groups begin to tear at the fabric of our society, 0:17:12.960 --> 0:17:15.320 you can bet the Bundy's will not just sit back 0:17:15.359 --> 0:17:19.200 and watch. So far, the Bundy family have mostly agitated 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:21.880 around land rights and what they depict as the struggle 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:25.399 of American ranchers against the tyrannical government. But they and 0:17:25.400 --> 0:17:28.560 their supporters are also huge backers of the Second Amendment, 0:17:28.800 --> 0:17:32.000 and if they were to organize even violently in defense 0:17:32.080 --> 0:17:34.200 of the right to bear arms, I think you would 0:17:34.200 --> 0:17:37.640 see them receive a lot of support from even mainstream conservatives. 0:17:38.480 --> 0:17:41.399 Tucker Carlson is one of the most popular conservatives in 0:17:41.440 --> 0:17:44.359 modern America. Here's a clip from a December four, two 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:47.159 seventeen episode of his show. During an interview with a 0:17:47.160 --> 0:17:50.000 gun control advocate, the fact is, we need to have 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:53.000 fewer guns, and we need to talk about banning entire 0:17:53.080 --> 0:17:56.479 classes of especially dangerous firearms like US all weapons. And 0:17:56.520 --> 0:17:59.040 I think we have to talk about not just banning them, 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:01.640 but requiring them people allow the government to buy them back. 0:18:01.960 --> 0:18:07.080 So you're universal gun confiscations. What you're talking about about 0:18:07.160 --> 0:18:09.639 universal gun confiscations. So you're saying ban a class of 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:12.919 firearms that would be any rifle with you know, a 0:18:12.960 --> 0:18:15.919 capacity of more than one above a certain caliber. I mean, 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:18.119 I don't know what the criteria are that you're suggesting, 0:18:18.480 --> 0:18:20.800 but basically any gun they would use for deer hunting 0:18:20.800 --> 0:18:23.320 would be banned. No, I would make a distinction between 0:18:23.440 --> 0:18:26.160 long guns that are technically semi automatic of the kind 0:18:26.240 --> 0:18:29.280 like my dad uses the taunts, and semi automatic assault 0:18:29.359 --> 0:18:32.040 weapons that have to gon owners and hunters like me. 0:18:32.119 --> 0:18:33.840 These are meaningless distinctions. But let's just go right to 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:35.400 the meat of it. What do you do to people 0:18:35.400 --> 0:18:38.399 who won't sell them back? Um? I think you. I 0:18:38.440 --> 0:18:40.560 think you had a bare minimum sort of find them 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:42.680 severely for it, and build an incentive for them to 0:18:42.720 --> 0:18:44.480 selve them ready for the civil war that would ensue 0:18:44.480 --> 0:18:46.720 when you try and take people's guns. And I'm serious. Now, 0:18:46.840 --> 0:18:49.239 I can't think of many Americans I personally despise more 0:18:49.240 --> 0:18:51.720 than Tucker Carlson, but I don't think he's wrong about that. 0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:54.800 And if large chunks of rural America declared their resistance 0:18:54.840 --> 0:18:57.280 to the federal government, the state would not have a 0:18:57.280 --> 0:19:00.480 lot of options for stopping them. Both rural and urban 0:19:00.480 --> 0:19:03.360 America have seen declines in the number of police officers 0:19:03.359 --> 0:19:05.880 in recent years, but the rural parts of this country 0:19:05.920 --> 0:19:08.080 are the only place where that dropping cops has led 0:19:08.119 --> 0:19:11.680 to a surge in crime. So rural Americans, who grow 0:19:11.720 --> 0:19:14.760 most of our food feel increasingly isolated from the majority 0:19:14.800 --> 0:19:17.639 of the United States. They are already dealing with a 0:19:17.680 --> 0:19:20.840 significant breakdown of civil order. And oh yeah, they just 0:19:20.920 --> 0:19:23.639 happen to have most of America's three hundred something million 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:37.720 privately owned firearms. We don't, don't, I hope. At this point, 0:19:37.800 --> 0:19:41.600 I've established how very possible a rural revolt is. Now 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:44.240 let's take a look at how it might actually happen. 0:19:45.320 --> 0:19:47.520 Head north from San Francisco on the I five, and 0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:49.720 before long, the verdant green of the Bay will give 0:19:49.720 --> 0:19:52.560 away to rolling yellow hills, creeping higher and higher until 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:55.360 they become mountains. By the time you hit Read in California, 0:19:55.480 --> 0:19:58.399 about three hours north from Silicon Valley, you'll be in 0:19:58.400 --> 0:20:00.720 a place that does not feel like cal Alifornia, or 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:03.440 at least not the California that most of the world knows. 0:20:04.080 --> 0:20:06.760 Reading is not a progressive hippie town like so many 0:20:06.760 --> 0:20:09.919 small cities in northern California. It's filled with gun stores, 0:20:09.960 --> 0:20:13.760 gigantic trucks, Bible schools, and churches. As you near reading, 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:16.280 you start to see strange signs, flags that bear a 0:20:16.359 --> 0:20:19.760 yellow circle with two exes inside it on a green background. 0:20:20.080 --> 0:20:22.960 This is the flag of the State of Jefferson. The 0:20:23.000 --> 0:20:25.920 double exes stand for the fact that most rural Californians 0:20:25.960 --> 0:20:28.280 believe they have been double crossed by the big cities 0:20:28.320 --> 0:20:31.960 where most Californians reside. The State of Jefferson movement wants 0:20:32.000 --> 0:20:34.840 to secede from California so they can pay fewer taxes, 0:20:35.000 --> 0:20:38.479 particularly on gasoline, which California taxes at a higher rate 0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:43.359 than any other state. Jeffersonians or wanna be Jeffersonians, however 0:20:43.359 --> 0:20:46.879 you prefer to identify them, also advocate for looser gun laws, 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:49.640 more in line with so called free states like Texas. 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:51.880 You see a lot of Trump flags in this part 0:20:51.880 --> 0:20:54.200 of California, at least more than you see in other 0:20:54.240 --> 0:20:57.440 parts of the state. Most Californians, if they've even heard 0:20:57.440 --> 0:20:59.600 of the state of Jefferson, view it is a big joke. 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:02.920