Cliven Bundy and His Cows Continue to Flout the Law

Nine years ago, a 68-year-old rancher named Cliven Bundy issued a call to arms from his spread in southwest Nevada near the small desert town of Bunkerville. Mr. Bundy rallied supporters to join him in defending his cattle from the “overreach” of federal officials.

He had been grazing his cows illegally on federal property since 1993, in an area called Gold Butte, now a national monument. Amazingly, he still is.

What unfolded nine years ago was an early rehearsal in right-wing insurrection that arguably culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol. 

Hundreds of supporters, many of them heavily armed, gathered in Mr. Bundy’s defense in early April 2014 and turned their pistols and rifles on agents from the federal Bureau of Land Management, which had attempted to round up the hundreds of trespassing cows. Mr. Bundy’s rationale was simple: He did not recognize the federal government’s claim to the land. In an embarrassment that was nationally televised and widely celebrated in the circles of right-wing extremists, the B.L.M. officers found themselves outnumbered...more