0:04

We don't usually think of the American right wing

0:07

as protesters or activists. Conservatives

0:09

tend to be older, for one thing, and they also tend

0:11

to be on the side of state power, the side

0:13

of law and order. Liberals and leftists

0:15

are more likely to agitate for major changes

0:18

in the status quo. But right wing

0:20

activism isn't unheard of either, and recent

0:22

experience has made it clear that when the right stands

0:24

up, they can make a serious impact. The

0:26

two fourteen Bundy standoff made

0:28

national news. What started as a confrontation

0:31

over Clive and Bundy's refusal to pay grazing

0:33

fees to the Bureau of Land Management turned into

0:35

a minor right wing uprising against state

0:37

control. Hundreds of militiamen from

0:39

all over the country, clad in body armor and

0:42

packing military grade weaponry, stood

0:44

against federal law enforcement agents and made

0:46

them back down. The militiamen

0:49

got their way, more or less, and they

0:51

got their way again two years later, when

0:53

Clive and Bundy's sons led a group that occupied

0:55

the malhur Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. I

0:57

was actually near the Malhir Refuge for a little

0:59

bit of that, not at the refuge itself,

1:01

but in the town of Burns, Oregon, talking

1:04

to locals about what it was like to live through the

1:06

armed insurrection of a far right militia.

1:08

People told me stories and militiamen roaring

1:10

through town and pickup trucks, carrying guns into

1:13

local businesses and terrifying residents.

1:15

The way they described these men reminded me more

1:17

than a little of how citizens of Constantinevka,

1:20

a city in eastern Ukraine, described the Russian

1:22

backed separatists who briefly occupied their

1:25

city. Some of these men were literal

1:27

Russian soldiers, of course, but others were foreigners

1:29

and local partisans, people with no military

1:31

training but a love of guns and feeling powerful.

1:35

Now. In both Bundy occupations, the specific

1:37

justification for what they were doing was not something

1:40

with a lot of broad appeal. Their grievances

1:42

were niche and rural. Most people who

1:44

didn't live near Malhor viewed the entire

1:46

thing as something of a silly farce. The

1:49

occupiers were male, dick shaped candies

1:51

and care packages, and mocked as y'all. kDa.

1:54

It is a great nickname, but I don't think most Americans

1:56

really realize how fucking terrifying

1:59

A true y'all Cada would be a

2:02

few thousands sufficiently motivated, organized,

2:04

and angry rural Americans have

2:06

the power to bring this nation to its needs.

2:10

In the last episode of It Could Happen Here, I

2:12

envisioned the start of a second American Civil

2:14

War, driven by President Trump's refusal

2:16

to leave office and a series of urban left

2:18

wing uprisings. Today, we're going

2:20

to look at another possibility, one that involves

2:23

the other half of the American political equation.

2:25

Today we're talking about the revenge of Rural

2:28

America. Exit polls

2:30

taken in the two thousand sixteen election revealed

2:32

that a whopping three quarters of Americans

2:34

felt the country was growing more divided. Ground

2:37

zero for this divide was the split between

2:39

rural and urban voters. One way

2:41

to look at Donald Trump's upset victory is

2:43

as the revenge of Rural America. Rural

2:46

areas across the country saw an unprecedented

2:48

turnout, and those Americans voted overwhelmingly

2:51

for Donald Trump. Representative Tom

2:53

Cole, Republican from Oklahoma, said

2:55

this, at the time, we've got some big chisms

2:58

out there. Rural America's much more Republican

3:00

than ever before. In the two

3:02

thousand eighteen midterm elections, the urban rural

3:05

divide in America was even more pronounced.

3:07

Only twenty nine percent of Democratic voters

3:09

lived in rural areas, the remainder being

3:11

suburban or urban. For comparison,

3:14

a whopping forty six percent of Republican

3:16

voters live in rural areas, only

3:18

nineteen percent live in cities. Urban

3:21

and rural America see each other as increasingly

3:23

two different nations. The one strong

3:26

commonality between them is that they both

3:28

believe the other chunk of America hates

3:30

them. A two thousand eighteen PU survey

3:32

revealed that majorities of both urban and rural

3:34

America believe the rest of the country quote

3:37

looks down on them. Here's the New York

3:39

Times quote. P has

3:41

never asked this question before in a way that allows

3:43

us to tell if the sentiment is becoming more common,

3:46

but election results show that urban and rural

3:48

Americans are increasingly at odds with each other.

3:50

The new survey confirms both believe the other

3:52

group doesn't understand their problems or share

3:55

their values, and political scientists

3:57

warned that place based resentments no

3:59

one respects rural America or Trump

4:01

is at war with cities can be easily exploited

4:03

by politicians. Kathy Kramer,

4:06

the University of what Wisconsin political

4:08

scientists who helped Pew compile this report,

4:10

believes this divide has gotten worse since the two

4:12

thousand and sixteen election and that it represents

4:15

something new and dangerous in American

4:17

politics. Quote. We're

4:19

at a political moment where cultural divides overlap

4:21

with political divides, which overlap with geography.

4:25

Now. I find that Pew study interesting for a

4:27

lot of reasons, but the most concerning

4:29

thing to me is that it shows this divide

4:31

between rural and urban America has not always

4:34

been as bad as it is today. Here's the

4:36

Times again. Quote. Registered

4:38

voters in urban areas have become more likely

4:40

to identify as Democrats or leaning Democratic.

4:43

The opposite trend has been more pronounced

4:46

among rural residents, with a notable shift

4:48

after two thousand eight. Before then,

4:50

rural voters were relatively evenly

4:53

divided between the two parties. You

4:55

may not find this divide as frightening

4:57

as I do, but I think it presages something

5:00

potentially quite terrible. In addition

5:02

to trending further right every year, the rural

5:04

United States kind this seems

5:06

to be falling the funk apart. Cattle

5:09

rustling is on the rise again across the Southwest

5:11

and states like Oklahoma, Texas, and California.

5:13

It's reached levels not seen since literal

5:15

cowboy days. Now modern

5:17

wrestling is usually driven by sky higher rates

5:20

of drug abuse. In other words, people are stealing

5:22

cows to buy pain killers in meth Agricultural

5:25

theft of all kinds is actually on the rise across

5:27

the rural US. Entire semi trucks

5:29

filled with nuts and oranges are regularly hijacked

5:31

via complex schemes that often involve fake

5:34

trucking companies. Rural America

5:36

is also growing more violent. For most of

5:38

American history, living out in the middle of nowhere

5:41

was the safer decision, since cities tended

5:43

to have much higher crime rates. But last

5:45

year, for the first time in a decade, violent

5:47

crime rates and rural areas rose above

5:50

the national average. America's

5:52

suicide rate also increased by more

5:54

than twenty from two thousand one to two

5:56

thousand fifteen. Most of that increase

5:59

happened out in the country. The increases

6:01

in violent crime and suicide are both due

6:03

at least in part to the fact that gun ownership

6:06

is vastly higher out in the country. Scent

6:09

of rural Americans own a firearm

6:12

compared to nineteen percent of city dwellers

6:14

and twenty eight percent of suburban Americans.

6:17

Three quarters of rural Americans own

6:19

more than one firearm, and forty

6:21

eight percent of gun owning rural Americans

6:23

use their firearm to hunt. So these people

6:25

have practical experience using a gun

6:28

out in the world to hit live, moving

6:30

targets. Now stick

6:32

all this together, and what do you have? It

6:35

sure looks like you have all the ingredients

6:37

you'd need if you wanted to cook up one ass

6:39

kicker of an insurgency. And

6:41

if the second American Civil War kicks off

6:43

in the rural areas, I can almost guarantee

6:45

you it will start with a massive new push

6:48

for national gun control. Kamala

6:50

Harris, easily one of the primary

6:53

front running Democratic candidates in the current

6:55

bevy of candidates, is outspoken

6:57

about her desire to ban all semi automatic

7:00

firearms. This would ban the vast

7:02

majority of America's civilian owned guns,

7:04

literally making tens of millions of people into

7:06

criminals overnight. The only weapons

7:09

left legal would be revolvers, shotguns,

7:11

and bolt action hunting rifles, which

7:13

are ironically the very weapons outside

7:15

of bolt action weapons most likely to be used in violent

7:18

crime. In the immediate wake of President

7:20

Trump's decision to declare a state of emergency

7:22

over the border, conservative never trumpers

7:24

like Rick Wilson took to Twitter to warn not

7:27

that Trump might seize power, that setting

7:29

this precedent would inevitably lead to Democrats

7:31

declaring a state of emergency of their own over

7:34

gun violence once they were back in the Oval

7:36

Office. On January eight, during

7:38

a scene and appearance, Parkland shooting survivor

7:41

David Hogg said this quote,

7:43

if we really want to start talking about the national emergency,

7:46

like the President likes to talk about, forty

7:48

Americans dying annually from gun violence, is

7:50

a pretty damn good one to start with. Last

7:53

year, The Atlantic published an article by

7:55

Elizabeth Gaitin evaluating

7:58

the extent of the president's emergency hours.

8:00

In February two thousand, nineteen, Pacific

8:03

Standard Magazine applied that to the possibility

8:05

of a national emergency over guns.

8:08

Quote. The legal infrastructure

8:10

to levy an emergency declaration Goyton

8:13

rights exists thanks to the Presidential Emergency

8:15

Action documents developed by the Eisenhower

8:17

administration designed to address such

8:19

extra legal actions as declarations of martial

8:22

law and the suppression of habeas corpus.

8:24

These documents could potentially extend to encompass

8:27

outright firearms confiscations given

8:29

the scope of a national crisis. Now.

8:32

Back during Hurricane KATRAINA, the New Orleans

8:34

Police Department ordered evacuating

8:36

citizens to hand over their firearms to the

8:38

police Superintendent Edwin P.

8:40

Compass the third later declared

8:42

a blanket confiscation of all firearms in the

8:44

city, saying only law enforcement

8:46

are allowed to have weapons. At

8:48

the time, a federal court issued a restraining order

8:50

to stop the weapons confiscations, so they did

8:53

not go through all the way, but weapons

8:55

were confiscated. And of course that was

8:57

a very different time with a Republican president

8:59

and a few hundred fewer mass shootings in recent

9:02

memory. President Harris's semi automatic

9:04

weapons ban would have to be followed by mass

9:06

confiscation. Tens of millions of gun owners

9:08

will not hand over their weapons willingly.

9:11

There are literally more privately owned

9:13

firearms than people in the United States, and

9:15

half of those guns are owned by just three percent of

9:17

gun owners. I'm going to give you one

9:19

guess as to which part of the country most of

9:21

those gun owners live. Earlier

9:24

this year, Washington State passed a new set of gun

9:26

control regulations. The restrictions

9:28

are fairly mild compared to Kamala Harris's proposition,

9:31

and the new law is popular with the state's liberal

9:33

majority. Fifty nine percent of Washingtonian

9:35

supported it, but most of those people.

9:38

Most of those supporters live in urban

9:40

areas like Seattle. In conservative,

9:42

rural and suburban Washington, people

9:45

are pissed. Sixteen sheriffs

9:47

have so far declared that they will not enforce

9:49

the new law. Here's the Wall Street Journal

9:51

quote. Sheriff Tom Jones of Grant County,

9:54

also in eastern Washington, is one of a number

9:56

of sheriffs who have said that they would wait for the courts to rule

9:58

before telling their deputies to enforce the new law.

10:00

I swore an oath to defend our citizens and their

10:03

constitutionally protected rights, said mister

10:05

Jones, whose county voted against the gun control measure

10:07

by more than two to one. I do not believe

10:09

the popular vote over rules that now

10:12

there are hundreds of thousands of heavily armed

10:14

Americans right now who see armed resistance

10:17

to the state as something aspirational as a

10:19

dream. Most of these guys, and they

10:21

are mostly guys, don't have any real combat

10:23

training. A lot of them are probably just

10:25

LARPing, play acting. But the Bundy

10:28

standoff was proof that even Larper's with a

10:30

shipload of a r fifteens can scare

10:32

the federal government in the face of

10:34

a major gun band. How many rural communities

10:36

and how many states would say fuck you to

10:39

a democratic president. The Yellow

10:41

vest movement kicked off as a suburban and rural

10:43

movement in France, a revolt from the more

10:45

conservative sections of that country society

10:48

against a neoliberal president and his policies.

10:50

I'm going to quote from the New York Times here. The

10:53

movement originated in May when a woman named Priscilla

10:55

Ludovski, who has an internet cosmetics business

10:58

and lives in the suburb southeast of Paris, launched

11:00

an internet petition calling for a drop in gas prices.

11:03

She broke down the price into its components, noting

11:05

the taxes made up more than half the cost. In France

11:07

per leader lead free gas was one point four

11:09

one euros on Sunday, or about six dollars

11:11

per gallon. The petition went mostly

11:13

unnoticed until October when Eric drew it.

11:16

A truck driver from the same area as miss Ladowski

11:18

ran across it and circulated it among his

11:20

Facebook friends. Newspapers began writing

11:23

out the petition, and the number of signature skyrocketed

11:25

from an initial seven hundred to two hundred

11:27

thousand. Now, the yellowvest

11:30

movement in France is not a purely conservative

11:32

thing within France itself. It's actually much

11:34

more divided than that. But I think it provides

11:36

a good look at how an activist movement can launch

11:38

amongst older and more conservative segments

11:41

of a modern society. I also think

11:43

rising gas prices could very well be another

11:45

generator of rural rage here in America.

11:48

People who live in the country spend more on gas

11:50

because they have to drive further distances.

11:52

There is a good chance that any Green New

11:55

Deal style plan to slow global warming

11:57

introduced by a democratic administration would

11:59

include to gas tax. Rural

12:01

areas grow our food in a very real

12:04

way that keep the cities alive, and the people

12:06

who live in those places know it. Just to say,

12:08

air traffic controllers and stewardesses had

12:10

the power to ind a government shutdown by threatening

12:13

air travel. Rural Americans have

12:15

something they too can hold captive. In

12:17

their case, it's the food supply. This

12:21

would of course require a great deal of organization,

12:23

lists of demands, and political figureheads

12:25

to speak for the movement, to lend it a shape and a sense

12:27

of purpose, and I can guarantee you that Joey

12:29

Gibson, the founder of Patriot Prayer, would at least

12:32

try to be one of them. Joey is one of the

12:34

leading figures in the right wing activist movement that's arisen

12:36

since the two thousand sixteen election. Along with

12:38

the Proud Boys, Joey and Patriot Prayer have spent

12:40

the last two years brawling against Antifa with

12:42

fists and flagpoles, but they have also

12:45

held numerous armed marches in full

12:47

body armor carrying rifles. Gibson

12:50

lives in Vancouver, Washington. Most

12:52

members of his gang come from either suburban or

12:54

rural areas around Portland, Oregon. If

12:57

you watch hours and hourage of their footage

12:59

marches and ee O rants like I have, you'll

13:01

regularly hear these people describe their constant

13:03

bloody rallies in Portland as something of a crusade.

13:06

Christian Holy warriors descending into a decadent

13:08

left wing city to purchase of sin. In

13:11

the last episode, I played several clips of Alex

13:13

Jones calling for a new civil war against the left.

13:15

Joey Gibson just happens to be a regular

13:18

guest on Info Wars. Last December,

13:20

he joined the show to talk about Washington's

13:22

new gun control laws. It's out of control

13:24

and I've seen the videos on your shite. You should

13:27

plug no place people can find these. We're gonna post some of these

13:29

tempful wars dot com. You're

13:31

getting crowds of hundreds and hundreds of people

13:33

in small towns, counties coming out and they

13:35

are really pitched about this. They're

13:38

really upset. We had almost three people

13:41

in the county with about ten thousand people in it,

13:43

and they were extremely concerned. They're really

13:45

upset. They're sick and tired of Seattle

13:47

telling them what they can or cannot do. These

13:50

people just they just want to be free, They

13:52

want to be left alone. And so I think

13:54

this is the key in states like Washington and

13:56

Oregon, the keys to go around to all

13:58

the counties that believe in the car Institution, which

14:00

is about nine of the counties of Washington

14:02

State, most of our conservative Now

14:05

I've met Joey. He's not a brilliant man or a

14:07

likely pick for a right wing revolutionary war

14:09

lord. He would try, but for my money,

14:11

a likelier pick for rural insurrectionist

14:14

war lord would be someone like Ryan

14:16

Bundy. You've seen Ryan on the news

14:18

a few times, especially if you kept up with the Bundy

14:20

standoff back in two thousand fourteen. He's

14:23

one of the sons of Clive and Bunny, the old

14:25

racist rancher who masterminded that standoff

14:27

with the Bureau of Land Management in Bunkerville,

14:29

Nevada. Ryan is the one with the facial

14:32

deformity. This has led a lot of people online

14:34

to treat him as if he is a big dum dummy

14:36

because bigotry knows no political bounds.

14:39

But Ryan Bundy is not dumb.

14:41

He was probably the driving force behind the

14:43

two thousand sixteen occupation of the Malhir

14:46

Wildlife Refuge. Ryan spent

14:48

months in jail over that, but he defended

14:50

himself against the court and one. Some

14:53

of this was due to the serious mistakes made by

14:55

the prosecution, but a lot of it came

14:57

down to Ryan's personal charisma, his ability

14:59

to sway a jury of his peers to believe

15:01

in the righteousness of his cause. Right

15:04

now, Ryan is running for governor of

15:06

Nevada. He's probably a

15:08

long shot candidate, but it doesn't really matter.

15:11

Dozens upon dozens of heavily

15:13

armed men and women were willing to gather

15:15

and put their lives on the line for his family

15:18

twice. There is a weird

15:20

religious crusade angle to what the Bundees

15:22

have been doing, based on a fringe Mormon

15:24

prophecy. The fantastic podcast

15:27

Bundyville, which I heartily recommend, goes

15:29

into more detail on this, but the short

15:31

of it is they believe that they've been chosen by God

15:33

to defend the Constitution, or at

15:35

least their interpretation of the Constitution.

15:39

This is the kind of nutbar stuff that I think a lot

15:41

of liberals are prone to laugh about. I

15:43

don't find anything funny about the Bundees.

15:46

Two people have already been radicalized

15:48

into killing by their rhetoric. In

15:50

June of two thousand fourteen, Jerried and

15:52

Amanda Miller, fresh from taking part

15:54

in the standoff at Bundy Ranch, drove

15:57

into Las Vegas and walked into a Cisi's

15:59

Pizza with a small arsenal. They opened

16:01

fire on two officers sitting and eating

16:03

lunch, killing both. As they

16:05

started shooting, the couple allegedly

16:08

yelled this is the start of a revolution.

16:11

One dead officer was covered in a Gadsden

16:13

flag, another was covered in a

16:15

Nazi flag. Jared and Amanda

16:17

killed one more person, a random bystander,

16:19

before dying in a gunfight with police.

16:22

Now, the Millers had a lot of other radicalizing

16:25

factors behind their rampage than just the Bundy

16:27

standoff, but it was an important step

16:30

in their journey. Lavoy Finnickham

16:32

is probably a better example of a man who died

16:34

explicitly for the Bundy's. He

16:36

was shot reaching for a gun after being

16:38

stopped with Ryan and his brother Amon

16:41

during the Malhir occupation. In

16:43

June of two thousand sixteen, William Keiebler,

16:45

a Utah militia leader and close adherent

16:47

of the Bundies, was arrested and charged

16:50

for trying to detonate homemade bombs at

16:52

a BLM building in Arizona.

16:55

So that's three distinct cases and

16:57

four individual people who have been radicalized

16:59

into violent, deadly action by

17:01

the rhetoric and beliefs of the Bundy

17:04

clan. In a situation where order

17:06

starts to break down even more in rural

17:08

America and extremist groups begin

17:10

to tear at the fabric of our society,

17:12

you can bet the Bundy's will not just sit

17:15

back and watch. So far, the

17:17

Bundy family have mostly agitated around

17:19

land rights and what they depict as the struggle

17:21

of American ranchers against the tyrannical

17:23

government. But they and their supporters

17:26

are also huge backers of the Second Amendment,

17:28

and if they were to organize even violently

17:31

in defense of the right to bear arms,

17:33

I think you would see them receive a lot of support

17:35

from even mainstream conservatives. Tucker

17:38

Carlson is one of the most popular conservatives

17:41

in modern America. Here's a clip from

17:43

a December four, two seventeen episode

17:45

of his show. During an interview with a gun control

17:47

advocate, the fact is, we need to have

17:50

fewer guns, and we need to talk about banning

17:52

entire classes of especially dangerous firearms

17:55

like US all weapons. And I think we have to

17:57

talk about not just banning them, but requiring

17:59

them people allow the government to buy them back. So

18:02

you're universal

18:05

gun confiscations. What you're talking about about universal

18:07

gun confiscations. So you're saying ban a class of

18:09

firearms that would be any rifle

18:12

with you know, a capacity of more than one

18:14

above a certain caliber. I mean, I don't know what the

18:16

criteria are that you're suggesting, but

18:18

basically any gun they would use for deer hunting

18:20

would be banned. No, I would make a distinction

18:22

between long guns that are technically semi

18:25

automatic of the kind like my dad uses the

18:27

taunts, and semi automatic assault

18:29

weapons that have to gon owners

18:31

and hunters like me. These are meaningless distinctions. But let's just go

18:33

right to the meat of it. What do you do to people who won't

18:36

sell them back? Um? I think

18:38

you. I think you had a bare minimum sort of

18:40

find them severely for it, and build an incentive

18:42

for them to selve them ready for the civil war that would ensue

18:44

when you try and take people's guns. And I'm serious. Now,

18:46

I can't think of many Americans I personally despise

18:49

more than Tucker Carlson, but I don't think he's wrong

18:51

about that. And if large chunks of rural

18:53

America declared their resistance to the federal

18:55

government, the state would not have a lot

18:57

of options for stopping them. Both

18:59

rural and urban America have seen declines

19:01

in the number of police officers in recent years,

19:04

but the rural parts of this country are the only

19:06

place where that dropping cops has led to a surge

19:08

in crime. So rural Americans,

19:11

who grow most of our food feel increasingly

19:13

isolated from the majority of the United States.

19:16

They are already dealing with a significant

19:18

breakdown of civil order. And oh yeah,

19:20

they just happen to have most of America's three

19:22

hundred something million privately owned firearms.

19:26

We don't,

19:27

don't, I

19:37

hope. At this point, I've established how very possible

19:39

a rural revolt is. Now

19:41

let's take a look at how it might actually happen.

19:45

Head north from San Francisco on the I five, and

19:47

before long, the verdant green of the Bay will

19:49

give away to rolling yellow hills, creeping higher

19:51

and higher until they become mountains. By the

19:53

time you hit Read in California, about three

19:56

hours north from Silicon Valley, you'll

19:58

be in a place that does not feel like cal Alifornia,

20:00

or at least not the California that most of the

20:02

world knows. Reading is not a

20:04

progressive hippie town like so many small

20:07

cities in northern California. It's filled

20:09

with gun stores, gigantic trucks, Bible

20:11

schools, and churches. As you near

20:13

reading, you start to see strange signs, flags

20:15

that bear a yellow circle with two exes

20:17

inside it on a green background. This

20:20

is the flag of the State of Jefferson. The

20:23

double exes stand for the fact that most rural

20:25

Californians believe they have been double crossed

20:27

by the big cities where most Californians

20:29

reside. The State of Jefferson movement

20:31

wants to secede from California so they can

20:33

pay fewer taxes, particularly on

20:35

gasoline, which California taxes at

20:37

a higher rate than any other state. Jeffersonians

20:41

or wanna be Jeffersonians, however you prefer

20:43

to identify them, also advocate

20:45

for looser gun laws, more in line with so

20:47

called free states like Texas. You

20:50

see a lot of Trump flags in this part of California,

20:52

at least more than you see in other parts of the state.

20:55

Most Californians, if they've even heard of the state

20:57

of Jefferson, view it is a big joke. The

21:00

movement has existed for decades now without

21:02

ever managing to move forward on their dreams

21:04

of secession. But I can say with confidence

21:06

that for many people in rural nor Caw,

21:09

the state of Jefferson is anything but a

21:11

joke. From two thousand thirteen

21:13

to two thousand sixteen, I spent increasing chunks

21:15

of time in rural inland California,

21:18

mostly in the tiny mountain communities in and around

21:20

Reading. You probably haven't heard of

21:22

any of the towns I lived in. They are not tourist

21:24

destinations. They have names like red Bluff,

21:27

Weaverville, Dunsmere, and Shingletown.

21:29

The place I spent most of my time was

21:32

Manton, a small community tucked deep

21:34

in the middle of nowhere. Most residents

21:36

in Manton either grew weed or cooked meth.

21:38

Some did both. There are two roads

21:41

into Manton, one long and lonesome road

21:43

from red Bluff and a harrepin mountain road

21:45

in from Shingletown, and all the months I

21:47

spent there over three years, I did not

21:49

see a single police car. Manton

21:52

is not entirely free from the long arm of the

21:54

law, but most of what transpires there is

21:56

well outside of its grasp. That fact

21:59

does not make Manton an oddity in rural

22:01

California. In two thousand eighteen,

22:03

McClatchy, a media company based in Sacramento,

22:06

investigated the number of law enforcement

22:08

officers in rural California. Here's

22:10

how the Sacramento Be summarized things

22:13

quote. Departments in multiple jurisdictions

22:15

are operating with skeleton stabs, McClatchy

22:18

found, pushing response times into hours, or sometimes

22:20

leaving residents without a response at all. In Trinity

22:22

County, deputies regularly cover hundreds

22:24

of miles of territory alone. When law enforcement

22:27

does arrive in many outlying places, it's often

22:29

a single officer, cut off from back up and

22:31

in some cases communication with his or her

22:33

department. We have no money, we

22:36

have no people, said Modoc County Sheriff

22:38

Mike Pointdexter, echoing more than a dozen rural

22:40

California sheriffs. We don't have near

22:42

enough people. We just don't now.

22:45

McClatchy interviewed officers and citizens

22:48

and reviewed crime statistics for twenty five

22:50

rural Californian counties. These places

22:52

accounted for forty one percent of the state's

22:54

land mass but just four percent of its population.

22:57

McClatchy found that from two thousand eight to

22:59

two thousands. Seventeen, the number of rural

23:01

deputies in these areas dropped from seventeen

23:03

hundred and fifty eight to sixteen hundred and ten.

23:06

This means roughly sixteen hundred men and

23:08

women are responsible for maintaining order in

23:10

nearly half of America's third largest

23:12

state. Right now, the state

23:14

of Jefferson is only in favor of seceding

23:17

from California. They want to be the United

23:19

States is fifty first state. But

23:21

if you listen to how these people talk, the amount

23:23

of anger they have for urban Californians,

23:26

you might conclude that they could be convinced to

23:28

take more extreme action. I

23:30

found an l A Times article about the state of Jefferson.

23:32

The journalist who wrote it went to a meeting some of

23:34

these people held, and he quoted the speech of a prominent

23:37

State of Jefferson advocate, Mark Baird,

23:39

a rancher in Siskiyou County. Mark

23:41

told his fellow rural Californians,

23:43

you're the ones being exterminated by a

23:46

lack of liberty. Now that

23:48

language, the word exterminated. That's

23:50

how you prime people for violence. And

23:52

there is enough truth behind his words to make

23:54

them stick. Rural Californians are

23:57

just as poor as rural Texans, but

23:59

they're also burden by California's much higher

24:01

taxes. A gas tax makes sense

24:03

in l a in fact, it's necessary to keep the

24:05

air breathable. But if you live in Shasta

24:07

County and you need a big truck to do the kind

24:10

of work people do out in the sticks, and you've got to drive

24:12

eighty miles a day paying California gas

24:14

prices well twelve

24:16

extra since per gallon, is a real hardship. And

24:19

by the way, these people love Donald Trump.

24:21

The president currently enjoys a s approval

24:24

rating in rural America. If Trump is

24:26

voted out or impeached, it would not take

24:28

much to get millions of people to believe this was

24:31

part of some deep state conspiracy to steal

24:33

liberty and also guns. That

24:35

exact fear is literally what caused

24:37

the birth of the American militia movement back in

24:39

the late nineteen eighties. Now at the

24:41

time they called it the New World Order, but the basic

24:43

idea is that a socialist government was coming

24:46

to take their guns. That's why all these

24:48

militias started. People like Timothy

24:50

McVeigh have killed over this stuff before

24:52

So if rural America decides to revolt,

24:55

what would that look like. How could four

24:57

percent of a state effectively fight back against

24:59

the night the six percent who live in cities.

25:02

It is impossible to overstate the importance

25:04

of the Golden State to the rest of America, not

25:07

because of Silicon Valley or Hollywood,

25:09

but because California feeds this country.

25:12

It leads the state in cash receipts for crops

25:14

forty seven billion dollars a year and much

25:17

more. At this point. The nearest state

25:19

behind it, Iowa, is only twenty seven

25:21

billion in receipts. Texas only generates

25:23

twenty three and a half billion. California's

25:26

cash receipts for agriculture were more

25:28

than Washington, Oregon, Idaho,

25:30

Montana, Wyoming, Nevada,

25:33

Utah, Colorado, Arizona,

25:35

and New Mexico combined. The

25:38

state leads the nation in sixty six crucial

25:40

crops and grows more than nine of

25:43

the nation's almonds, artichokes, dates,

25:46

figs, raisins, kiwi's

25:48

olives, peaches, pistachios,

25:50

prunes, pomegranates, sweet rice,

25:52

and walnuts. The bulk of California's

25:55

food, including nearly all its beef, comes

25:57

from the densely farmed Central Valley, but

25:59

seven many five percent of California's water comes

26:02

from the watersheds north of Sacramento,

26:04

which means the so called state of Jefferson,

26:06

were it to organize itself and revolt,

26:08

could cut off access to the water that

26:10

makes California's agriculture possible.

26:13

Eight percent of California's water demand

26:15

is in the southern two thirds of the state. Right

26:19

now, it still seems like a long shot. But in the

26:21

wake of a massive, sweeping gun band and

26:23

remember most economists say we're right around the corner

26:25

from another massive economic crash. I brought

26:27

up the Occupy movement last episode two and

26:29

how a similar movement might cause a right wing crackdown

26:32

that sparks the Civil War. I can see

26:34

that same sort of activist movement providing an opportunity

26:36

for a far right rural insurgent movement.

26:39

After all, Occupy rose up itself after

26:41

the election of a Democratic president in an

26:43

economic collapse. Kamala Harris,

26:45

Joe Biden, and Beto O'Rourke, three of the most

26:47

prominent potential Democratic candidates, are

26:50

all very unpopular among the far left. So

26:53

imagine this assault weapons band is enacted while

26:55

the economy is in the shitter, and cities across

26:57

the US are convulsed with protests and of

27:00

patients. Even if these occupations

27:02

and protests avoid the rioting I theorized

27:04

about last episode, it would still take

27:06

a massive toll on law enforcement, and

27:08

that would look a lot like opportunity to rural

27:10

separatists who are sick and tired of city

27:13

folk telling them what to do. All

27:15

the water that grows California's crops is

27:17

pumped south. It doesn't just slide down there naturally.

27:20

Pumps can be blown up. The crops

27:22

grown in the Central Valley are all transported

27:24

by trucks traveling on highways. Few

27:26

I e d s could cripple transit for days,

27:29

and it just so happens that rural America

27:31

is a wash in and ingredient you would need to

27:33

make a really great I E D. Tanna

27:36

write is a bipartite explosive compound.

27:39

It is safe to handle, not explosive until

27:41

mixed, and even then only explosive when

27:43

used with a detonator or shot with a rifle.

27:45

But tanna wite can be converted into something much

27:47

more dangerous with ease David Cocolin,

27:50

the counterinsurgency expert in former State Department

27:52

strategists, told me this. I

27:54

am astounded. You can buy Tanna Write online.

27:56

Tanna Write is basically amin. All World War

27:58

two bombs were filled with this stuff that is essentially

28:00

the same thing set up by impact or a small

28:03

T and T charge. I see no legitimate

28:05

purpose to tanner wite. If you took the ammonium nitrate

28:07

compound, you would then have a substance

28:10

called ANFO, the classic ira a explosive.

28:14

Now, Kilcolan told me that anyone in

28:16

a farming community has access to the chemicals you

28:18

would need to turn tanner wite into anto and

28:20

that quote it's very safe to use and transport

28:23

as an insurgent. So for full

28:25

disclosure, I myself have used Tanna Write dozens

28:27

of times over the years and I love it. Normally,

28:29

you only set up like a half pound charge and you shoot

28:31

it with a rifle from a distance and it blows up and it's

28:33

fun. I can remember one time my friends

28:35

and I set a four pound charge one time,

28:37

and only one time, because it left a fucking crater

28:40

and rained dirt down on our heads from two hundred feet

28:42

away. A lot of Americans owned

28:44

tanner Write, not just in California. When

28:46

I lived in Texas, I had twenty pounds at a

28:48

time delivered to my door. Tanna

28:51

Wite gets its name from its inventor, a guy named

28:53

David Tanner. Mr. Tanner lives in Oregon,

28:56

and that's where most tanner Wite is made. Residents

28:58

of the so called state of Jefferson would only have to

29:00

drive a couple hours to buy it straight from the source.

29:03

So say a rural insurgency starts, and say

29:05

this insurgency strikes at southern California's

29:08

water supply, maybe going after the pumps and the

29:10

Taha Choppi mountains that carry it south. Or

29:12

maybe they focus on bombing highways, shutting

29:14

down transit on the roads of America's most populous

29:17

state. A few hundred committed insurgents

29:19

with a good plan and decent organization could

29:21

do a tremendous amount of damage this

29:24

way. Law enforcement, already wildly

29:26

undermanned in rural California, would need

29:28

to bring in help from the cities, and if those cities

29:30

are convulsed with big gas occupy style

29:32

protests, well, at some

29:35

point the government would have to deploy troops to

29:37

secure the nation's food supply. This

29:39

would be a terrifying precedent for a number of reasons.

29:41

For one thing, most U S soldiers come from

29:43

rural areas, and California is one of the

29:45

major recruiting grounds for the United States military.

29:49

The d o D would have to take great care

29:51

to ensure soldiers weren't being sent to pacify

29:53

unrest being generated by their own friends

29:55

and family members. That might lead to the

29:57

same sort of situation we see in Afghanistan,

30:00

constant insider attacks and desertions, where

30:02

soldiers take their experience and their weapons

30:04

and melt into the deep woods with their comrades.

30:07

Their new comrades, this rural

30:09

insurgency would not stay confined to California

30:11

very long. Terrorist tactics have a nasty

30:14

tendency to spread virally. A series

30:16

of truck bombings and rural northern California

30:18

could lead rather quickly to similar attacks all

30:20

around the nation, not just bombings, but

30:22

hijackings. In many cases, these thefts

30:25

might rely on truck drivers themselves, allowing

30:27

loads to be hoisted in exchange for a cut of the money.

30:29

Black market sales of food would provide more funding

30:31

for the insurgency, even as food prices started

30:34

to rise in the cities. Perhaps

30:36

the state and the federal government could get its shipped together

30:38

quickly enough to restore the flow of water to southern

30:40

California in a timely manner. Even so,

30:42

a month or two, even a few weeks without sufficient

30:45

water would be crippling to those farmers in their

30:47

crops. Even a short lived and very

30:49

localized insurgency would cause a massive

30:51

spike in food prices. Now,

30:53

food prices are traditionally the single

30:55

biggest predictor of civil conflict. Twitter

30:58

and Facebook get a lot of credit for the Arabs bring

31:00

of two thousand eleven, but that series of revolutions,

31:02

uprisings, and civil wars was sparked in large

31:04

part by the price of grain. I'd

31:06

like to read a couple of quotes from a wonderful Guardian

31:09

article titled use your loaf. While food

31:11

prices were crucial to the Arab spring, when

31:13

grain prices spiked in two thousand seven to two thousand

31:15

and eight, Egypt's bread prices rose thirty seven percent,

31:17

with unemployment rising as well. More people depended

31:20

on subsidized bread, but the government did not make any

31:22

more available. Egypt's annual food price

31:24

inflation continued and had had eighteen

31:26

point nine percent before the fall of President Mubarak.

31:28

The first protests of the Arab Spring in Tunisia

31:30

in December two thousand and ten were quickly dismissed

31:33

as another bout of bread riots, but

31:35

of course those protests led to the overthrow

31:38

of the Tunisian dictator. This is not

31:40

just a Middle Eastern thing. Food prices are the number

31:42

one predictor of unrest worldwide. If

31:44

rural America decided to go to war, they

31:47

have a number of very convenient choke points

31:49

they could use to attack their urban enemies.

31:51

Many of these insurgents would consider it revenge

31:53

for decades of mockery, neglect, and environmental

31:56

policies that burdened them far more than

31:58

is fair. These resentments exist right

32:00

now. All it would take is a few hundred people in

32:02

a geographically discrete part of the country

32:04

like northern California to turn this anger

32:06

into action. So it should at

32:08

this point be easy to imagine rising food prices

32:11

in the midst of a recession escalating the number

32:13

and violence of these protests that we were already

32:15

seeing in cities across the nation. Desperation

32:18

causes the government to approve more and more violent

32:20

tactics to deal with the insurgents, which inspires

32:22

more rural anger and probably causes more

32:24

attacks. We've watched this happen before

32:27

in numerous countries. The bombing

32:29

of trucks and highways to cut off food is

32:31

a tactic that could work in almost every part of the United

32:33

States. Only four percent of the food consumed

32:35

by Americans is locally produced. More

32:38

than seventy percent of the food that gets to our cities

32:40

does so via trucks. We are incredibly

32:42

vulnerable to attacks on our highways, and

32:44

this country is filled with people who have the means

32:46

and motivation to apply this sort of violence.

32:49

In November eighteen, over the space

32:51

of about a week, two major busts by

32:54

US law enforcement officers led to the arrests

32:56

of more than eighty Neo Nazis and white supremacists.

32:59

They are members of gangs with names like the Unforgiven

33:02

and the Aryan Brotherhood. Thirty

33:04

nine of the arrested were members of a Neo Nazi

33:07

gang from rural Florida. These Nazis

33:09

were found with meth fentanyl more

33:11

than a hundred firearms, several pipe bombs,

33:13

and one rocket launcher. In a more

33:15

violent and less settled America, those men and women

33:18

could have formed the nexus of a deadly regional

33:20

insurgency. And trust me, there

33:22

are thousands of people like them all around the

33:24

country who have not yet been busted hell.

33:26

That same week, police in Green Bay, Wisconsin,

33:29

responding to a domestic disturbance call, found

33:31

a man with swastika tattoos and an underground

33:34

bomb laboratory. When I start

33:36

talking about the state of Jefferson turning into a violent

33:38

insurgency, when I talk about rednecks

33:40

bombing water pump stations and hijacking trucks,

33:43

it probably sounds far fetched. But the

33:45

kind of people who want that future, who are just

33:47

itching for the chance to go Taliban on all of our

33:50

asses, those people exist right now.

33:52

They aren't the majority of rural America or

33:54

of conservatives, but they don't need to be. A

33:56

few thousand of violent extremists spread

33:59

out across a few dozen states could do damage

34:01

wildly out of proportion to their numbers. We

34:05

don't. We don't.

34:06

Right I

34:15

find myself drawn back regularly to the notes

34:17

I took in my interview with David Kilcullen,

34:19

one of the world's great counterinsurgency experts.

34:22

We were talking about the best way to cripple this

34:24

country and he said this quote.

34:27

You don't try to generate a mass movement, You don't try to

34:29

get the state to crack down on you. Instead, you try

34:31

to generate a sectarian civil war so intense

34:33

that it makes the society ungovernable.

34:37

And that's the goal for any true revolutionary

34:39

movement, right or left, make America

34:41

ungovernable. If you've been paying

34:43

attention to your a Nazi news,

34:46

you may have heard about the terrorist group Adam Woffen.

34:48

With five deaths and counting to their name, they

34:50

have the highest body count of any neo Nazi

34:53

organization of the post two thousand sixteen era.

34:55

While the group has been hobbled recently by some

34:57

inside drama over Satan

35:00

Them, they have active members in several US

35:02

states as well as Germany. These cells

35:04

are usually three to four members, with no communication

35:06

between individual groups here, said the German

35:09

magazine Der Spiegel described them.

35:11

Members are heavily armed and prepared to make use of their

35:13

weapons. Indeed, they are getting ready for what they

35:15

see as the coming race war and so called

35:17

hate camps. Weapons training is conducted

35:20

by members of the U. S Military, who are also among

35:22

the group's members. According to one former

35:24

member of the Adam Waffen Division, newcomers

35:26

must submit to water boarding in addition to other

35:29

such trials. Now pro Publica,

35:31

working with the Fantastic Conflict, journalist Jake

35:33

Hanrahan interviewed a former member of Adam

35:35

Waffen. I'm going to play a clip from that here.

35:38

A lot of things that they talk about other

35:40

members don't know about, of

35:43

course, to keep us, keep

35:45

everyone from falling down, as

35:48

it's talked about in Siege, hit and runs. I

35:51

got here and there, stop

35:56

let everyone panic. There's

35:59

been no point to march around the streets

36:02

like a weak fucking pussy

36:05

with white polos and khakis and tiki

36:07

torches streaming

36:09

White Lives Matter. I

36:12

don't care about politicians, don't care about

36:14

politics, just

36:17

wanting everyone

36:19

just stopped being slaves

36:21

for the system that we're

36:23

living in, living under. Her When

36:26

he mentioned siege, that's a reference to

36:28

a white supremacist newsletter and book authored

36:30

by a guy named James Mason. Mr Mason

36:32

is a founding father of American Nazism

36:34

and the guy who coined the term leaderless

36:36

resistance. He and his comrades have been urging

36:39

exactly the kind of war I've outlined here

36:41

for more than forty years. I

36:43

write this a few months after the birth of yet another

36:45

new white supremacist terror group in the United

36:48

States. These people called themselves the

36:50

Base. Their name is literally the English translation

36:52

of Al Qaeda, who they considered to be an inspiration.

36:55

They are mostly based in the Pacific Northwest.

36:57

They too, focus on weapons training and small

36:59

group preparation in order to carry out insurgeant

37:02

attacks against the U. S government. That

37:04

former Adam Woffin Gay interviewed by ProPublica,

37:06

mentioned wanting to destroy the system.

37:09

He was expressing a desire to do exactly what David

37:11

Cocolin was talking about, render the country

37:13

ungovernable. These people, the

37:15

neo Nazis and militiamen and white supremacists,

37:18

they all know exactly what they plan to

37:20

do if civil conflict erupts across

37:22

the country. What will

37:24

you do? Statistically, You'll

37:26

probably be in a city watching food

37:28

prices rise and seeing protest after protest

37:30

convulse your downtown. There will be

37:32

runs on grocery stores, maybe even mass

37:34

looting a food If things get bad enough outside

37:37

of the city, roads will be closed, checkpoints

37:39

with soldiers and heavily armed cops will start to appear

37:41

on the interstate. The Great American Highway

37:44

System will become militarized as the state scrambles

37:46

to pin down the insurgency. If

37:48

you do live out in the country or in a particularly

37:51

conservative suburb, you will have the additional

37:53

complexity of needing to live with insurgents.

37:56

The first few months of this will be particularly

37:58

difficult. It takes time to deploy the National

38:00

Guard of the Army. Millions of rural Americans

38:02

might spend weeks or months without any realistic

38:05

access to law enforcement or emergency services.

38:08

Imagine a knock at the door one night, an

38:10

armed insurgent asking for food or shelter.

38:12

What do you do? It might be weeks before

38:15

the police come back or the army arrives,

38:17

and even when they do, they won't be at every

38:19

house every day. They may not even

38:21

be able to hold onto the area. So maybe

38:23

you find yourself aiding and abetting these revolutionaries,

38:26

even if you consider them terrorists. For

38:28

a lot of people, that will feel like the safest

38:30

decision. So far on this

38:32

podcast, I focused on just how the civil

38:34

war might break out, and past a certain point,

38:37

it doesn't really matter whether the fighting starts

38:39

from a left wing or a right wing movement. Just

38:41

as a rural secessionist movement would take unrest

38:44

in the cities as an opportunity, radical

38:46

leftists would find an ungovernable America

38:48

to have just as much potential for their ideals.

38:51

Most of you listening probably wouldn't pick a side

38:53

right away. It wouldn't even look like there

38:55

were sides for a while. There'd be Protestant

38:58

cities, of course, activists with lists of the hands,

39:00

maybe demands you agree with, maybe not. And

39:02

there'd be insurgents terrorists out in the country

39:04

with their own demands, strangling your city

39:06

and the rest of urban America. As

39:08

the government failed to restore order and normalcy,

39:11

a lot of people would find themselves seriously

39:13

questioning the government's legitimacy, probably

39:16

for the first time. We've never really had

39:18

cause to do that on a mass level in modern

39:20

America. Whatever else has happened, the state

39:22

has always managed to keep the highways open the

39:24

food flowing. When that's no longer the

39:26

case. A lot more people will find themselves

39:29

picking sides. For some of us

39:31

that will mean backing a protest movement demanding

39:34

radical change. For others, it will

39:36

mean supporting the government, maybe because we

39:38

just want the unrest to be over. And for a

39:40

growing number of Americans, it will mean deciding

39:42

they don't want to be Americans anymore. The

39:45

government would not call it a civil war, not

39:47

right away, but we'd know now.

39:51

So far, we've just talked about how the fighting

39:53

would start, and for my money, I think

39:55

the most likely beginning would involve a mix

39:58

of the things we've talked about in both of these first two

40:00

episodes. City centers occupied

40:02

by activists with demands fighting the police in National

40:04

Guard, while rural insurgents carry

40:06

out their own attacks and make their own demands.

40:08

Every attack from every side accelerates

40:10

the whole process and pushes the whole country closer

40:13

to chaos. Now, the state

40:15

would not take all of this sitting down,

40:17

of course. There would be increasingly

40:19

vigorous attempts to right the ship and to

40:21

stop the cycle of violence. Federal

40:23

and state governments would throw absolutely

40:26

everything they had at curbing the unrest

40:28

and restoring order. On the next

40:30

episode, if it could Happen Here. I'll

40:32

walk you through just what that would look like and

40:34

why the system's efforts would be almost certainly

40:37

doomed to fail. Genia.

40:42

We watched it from our phones, change

40:45

our Facebook pictures, congratulating

40:48

ourselves, made nervous

40:50

jokes and whispers. But the sexts

40:53

was sinning now and essays

40:55

always listening. Wonder

40:57

of this ostrum

41:00

has been dead to them low now

41:04

we're all it's just none. The one they've

41:07

done. You

41:09

can give an inch and they'll just take

41:11

your own. But

41:14

we don't find. We don't, right, even

41:17

with Rosa Sada door.

41:23

No, we don't find. We don't right

41:26

even I'm

41:30

Robert Evans and I'm just exhausted from reading

41:32

all of that. You can find me on Twitter at

41:34

I right, okay. You can find this show on

41:36

Twitter at happen Here pod,

41:39

and you can find this show online at it could

41:41

Happen here pod dot com. Our

41:43

music, as always, is from four

41:45

Fists