Glenn Beck’s Common Sense

2020 ◽  
pp. 135-163
Author(s):  
James R. Skillen
Keyword(s):  
Federal Government ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Tea Party ◽  
Political Protest ◽  
Obama Administration ◽  
Tea Party Movement ◽  
Conservative Politics ◽  
Federal Authority ◽  
Federal Land ◽  
Federal Land Management

The Patriot Rebellion during the Obama administration demonstrated just how well conservative western frustrations with federal land management were woven into a national conservative challenge to federal authority, and it illustrated how well-integrated the militias were in conservative politics. Indeed, the line between mainstream and extreme political protest were blurred considerably compared to the Sagebrush Rebellion. The Patriot Rebellion was led by the largely Christian Tea Party movement, which used the language and symbols of the American Revolution to condemn the Obama administration and the federal government generally as unconstitutional tyrants. And it was carried further by the armed Patriot Movement, in which people claimed they were prepared to kill for the Constitution.

Sagebrush Rebels and the New Face of Conservative Politics

2020 ◽  
pp. 64-82
Author(s):  
James R. Skillen
Keyword(s):  
Federal Government ◽  
Environmental Movement ◽  
New Right ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
The West ◽  
Conservative Politics ◽  
Business Interests ◽  
Federal Authority ◽  
Federal Land ◽  
The 1950S

The broader political story of the Sagebrush Rebellion is less about roads or grazing AUMs; it is about how a regional challenge to federal authority in the West aligned with challenges from both business interests and religious conservatives in the New Right. Like the sagebrush rebels, conservative business and religious leaders were fighting back against the federal government, which had expanded its regulatory footprint dramatically in the rights revolution and environmental movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Together they forged a new coalition aimed at bringing conservatives to office and slashing the federal government’s regulatory power. And together they built a conservative infrastructure that would support future sagebrush rebellions and that eventually made opposition to federal land authority part of the conservative platform.

Equal Footing

2021 ◽  
pp. 201-230
Author(s):  
Gregory Ablavsky
Keyword(s):  
Federal Government ◽  
Land Ownership ◽  
Cherokee Nation ◽  
The Public ◽  
Equal Footing ◽  
Federal Authority ◽  
Indian Country ◽  
Northwest Territory ◽  
Federal Land ◽  
First Time

In 1796, the Southwest Territory became the first U.S. territory to become a state, joining the union as Tennessee. This new state promptly used its newfound status as a sovereign on “equal footing” with existing states to challenge the persistence of federal authority, especially over land and Indian affairs. A series of collisions followed: over ownership of the public domain; over William Blount’s odd scheme to use his supposed influence in Indian country to challenge federal power; and, above all, over the federal government’s attempt to survey the boundary of the Cherokee Nation, which threatened to dispossess white land claimants. Ultimately, the federal government preserved its formal authority even as it gave Tennessee what it wanted—a seemingly Pyrrhic victory that had important precedential consequences. In particular, when part of the Northwest Territory sought to become the new state of Ohio in 1802, the federal government sought to protect its authority. Most importantly, it decided for the first time to attach conditions to the new state’s admission that guaranteed federal land ownership, a practice that quickly became a constitutional norm; the new state also tacitly accepted continued federal authority over the state’s Native peoples. The result was that the federal government’s power to adjudicate property and jurisdictional conflicts survived despite state challenge; in the process, the federal government ironically became the most visible defender of the earlier, multipolar order against these states’ assaults.

Winning by Threat of Force

2020 ◽  
pp. 11-25
Author(s):  
James R. Skillen
Keyword(s):  
Land Management ◽  
Las Vegas ◽  
Civil Religion ◽  
Federal Law ◽  
American Civil Religion ◽  
Federal Authority ◽  
Dominant Ideologies ◽  
Political Challenge ◽  
Federal Land ◽  
Federal Land Management

Cliven Bundy has grazed livestock on federal land through the last three sagebrush rebellions. The story of the Bundy family ranch, northeast of Las Vegas, Nevada, illustrates the frustrations that many ranchers had with evolving federal land management over the last fifty years, as they went from being the dominant users of federal rangeland to one of multiple, competing users. It also illustrates some of the dominant ideologies and arguments that drove the last three conservative rebellions against federal authority, particularly those rooted in American civil religion and popular constitutionalism. And it encapsulates the evolution of western rebellion, from a regional, political challenge to federal authority to one that drew armed support from across the national. Having faced down federal law enforcement with armed militias, the Bundy family continues to graze livestock on federal land without authorization.

Mississippi

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David K. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Federal Government ◽  
State Level ◽  
Think Tanks ◽  
Tea Party ◽  
Obama Administration

Mississippi is the only state in the country to have a proposal for an exchange rejected by the federal government. This was a fascinating outcome considering how badly the Obama administration wanted Republican-led states to run their own exchanges. The debate in Mississippi was unique because an independently elected Republican insurance commissioner believed he could establish an exchange without his governor’s support. It seemed he would be able to—until the Tea Party joined the fight, with the support of national and state-level conservative think tanks. They made their presence felt at obscure meetings in highly technical parts of the process. Fellow-Republican Governor Phil Bryant then put his foot down and said no exchange would be created in Mississippi without his support. The Obama administration may have been tempted to approve the exchange anyway, but decided to stay out of the intrastate fight.

scholarly journals Standing Athwart History, Yelling Stop: The Emergence of American Movement Conservatism, 1945-1965

2013 ◽  
Vol 45 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 15-33
Author(s):  
Niels Bjerre-Poulsen
Keyword(s):  
Federal Government ◽  
New Deal ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Tea Party ◽  
Conservative Movement ◽  
Tea Party Movement ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The New Deal

The article analyzes the emergence of the American conservative movement as a postwar reaction to the New Deal order and the new role of the federal government. It discusses the different concepts, and the sometimes conflicting aims of the various strains of the conservative movement, as well as the inherent tension between political populism and the quest for intellectual respectability. It also takes a comparative view of the “Radical Right” of the 1960s and the current “Tea Party movement,” and discusses how the conditions for “ideological gatekeeping” have changed.

“Weirdness in the West”

2020 ◽  
pp. 111-132
Author(s):  
James R. Skillen
Keyword(s):  
Federal Government ◽  
Land Management ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Law Firms ◽  
National Politics ◽  
The West ◽  
Public Interest Law ◽  
Federal Land ◽  
Militia Movement ◽  
Federal Land Management

Unlike the Sagebrush Rebellion, which remained largely regional, the War for the West enjoyed national support through a conservative infrastructure of media, think tanks, public interest law firms, foundations, advocacy organizations, and militias. Frustrations over federal land management were knit into a broader, civil religious story of the American paradise lost, in which the federal government was portrayed as a tyrant bent on trampling the US Constitution, particularly Bill of Rights. The War for the West was led by the mainstream Wise Use Movement, which linked property rights to gun rights and religious freedom, and by the more extreme militia movement, driven by dark conspiracy theories and a profound antagonism toward the federal government. In the Republican Revolution, led by Newt Gingrich, the Republican Party struggled to hold together these mainstream and extreme factions to gain and retain power. This further integrated conservative, Western anger with federal land management into national politics.

scholarly journals The Use of Citizen Science to Achieve Multivariate Management Goals on Public Lands

Diversity ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 293
Author(s):  
Sara Souther ◽  
Vincent Randall ◽  
Nanebah Lyndon
Keyword(s):  
Citizen Science ◽  
Land Management ◽  
Ecological Integrity ◽  
Public Land ◽  
Suitable Habitat ◽  
Science Data ◽  
Public Land Management ◽  
Federal Land ◽  
Botanical Research ◽  
Federal Land Management

Federal land management agencies in the US are tasked with maintaining the ecological integrity of over 2 million km2 of land for myriad public uses. Citizen science, operating at the nexus of science, education, and outreach, offers unique benefits to address socio-ecological questions and problems, and thus may offer novel opportunities to support the complex mission of public land managers. Here, we use a case study of an iNaturalist program, the Tribal Nations Botanical Research Collaborative (TNBRC), to examine the use of citizen science programs in public land management. The TNBRC collected 2030 observations of 34 plant species across the project area, while offering learning opportunities for participants. Using occurrence data, we examined observational trends through time and identified five species with 50 or fewer digital observations to investigate as species of possible conservation concern. We compared predictive outcomes of habitat suitability models built using citizen science data and Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) data. Models exhibited high agreement, identifying the same underlying predictors of species occurrence and, 95% of the time, identifying the same pixels as suitable habitat. Actions such as staff training on data use and interpretation could enhance integration of citizen science in Federal land management.

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