A Guide to Oregon's Patriot Movement

Executive Summary UP IN ARMS: A GUIDE TO OREGON’S PATRIOT MOVEMENT hile the news media focuses on As Spencer Sunshine, PhD and Associate Fel- the prosecution of Patriot movement low at Political Research Associates, documents Wmembers who occupied the Malheur in the guide’s opening study, the Oregon Patriot National Wildlife Refuge outside of Burns, Ore- movement engages in the same political culture gon, in early 2016, Oregonians across the state of violence as the national movement, including continue to deal with the resurgence of armed armed occupations, protests, camps, and march- and aggressive right-wing activists in their es—as well as threats against elected officials, midst. Most of the Malheur occupiers were from community activists, employees of federal agen- out-of-state, but Oregon’s own Patriot movement cies handling public lands, and critics. Press con- laid the groundwork for the occupation, and its ferences, demonstrations, and meetings critical leaders went to Burns to politically profit from of the movement have been disrupted. Those who the confrontation with government authorities speak out against the movement have had their and expand their power at home. home addresses distributed in Patriot movement Up In Arms: A Guide to Oregon’s Patriot Move- circles, were threatened with assault and murder, ment offers a short study of the Patriot movement and have had their vehicles vandalized. and the economic challenges in which it thrives, This political culture of violence creates a chill- along with practical examples of how groups of ing effect on political speech and democratic par- rural Oregonians have successfully challenged it. ticipation, particularly in situations where law The guide was produced by the Rural Organizing enforcement fails to guarantee free expression, Project, Oregon’s statewide network of locally or even aligns itself with the paramilitaries. The based human dignity groups, and the Massachu- Patriot movement further undermines democra- setts-based think tank Political Research Asso- cy by creating its own private policing bodies and ciates, as a resource for organizers, journalists, faux-judicial and executive government branch- public officials, and community members in the es—all of which bypass existing government enti- state and across the country who seek to under- ties and attempt to create antidemocratic struc- stand, expose, and contain the Patriot move- tures controlled by their political movement. In ment’s threat to democracy. this guide, the Rural Organizing Project offers 1 | UP IN ARMS A GUIDE TO OREGON’S PATRIOT MOVEMENT concrete stories of how communities have safely deride federal power and regard any form of gun responded to this threatening atmosphere, and control as a step towards tyranny. They are hos- debunks claims made by the movement in the tile to environmentalism, hold a political world- easily accessible “Taking on the Patriot Move- view rooted in conspiracy theories, have a pen- ment’s Talking Points.” chant for forming paramilitaries, and often set up their own “shadow” governmental structures. LOOKING AT THE PATRIOT MOVEMENT They frequently threaten to wage “civil war” against their governmental enemies. Sunshine’s short study, “Looking at the Patri- The Patriot movement is saturated with rac- ot Movement,” also offers these findings: ism and xenophobia but distances itself from While no comprehensive nationwide study explicit declarations of White supremacy. Some exists, it appears that Oregon has one of the activists are skeptical or dismissive of amend- most developed, active Patriot movements in ments to the U.S. Constitution that followed the the country. The move- Bill of Rights—including ment has won new support- those ending slavery and ers since the 2008 election granting equal protection of the nation’s first Black under the law—but are gen- President and again since erally cautious about pub- the 2014 armed encamp- licly advertising such views. ment by Nevada rancher Islamophobia has largely Cliven Bundy, who refused replaced the coded (and to pay fees to the Bureau of sometimes open) antisem- Land Management for graz- itism that was common in ing on public land. Dozens the 1990s militia move- of Patriot movement groups ment. Jon Ritzheimer, one have thousands of support- of the high-profile Malheur ers in the state. Groups occupiers, is a well-known include local affiliates of Islamophobic organizer. the Oath Keepers and Three Occupier allies in the Har- Percenters, as well as mem- ney Country Committee of bers of the Constitutional Safety released a document Sheriffs and Peace Officers calling Native Americans Association, all formed in Up in Arms: A Guide to Oregon’s Patriot “savages.” 2008 and after. Movement is a co-published report by The Oregon Patriot Today’s Patriot move- Rural Organizing Project and Political movement includes elected Research Associates. ment is the successor to officials, so-called “Sover- the 1990s militia movement, which also swept eign Citizens,” and fake judges and courts. Mal- the Pacific Northwest. Key activists from the heur occupiers were arrested while en route to 1990s have leadership roles in today’s national a third meeting with Grant County Sheriff Glenn Patriot movement groups. Then as now, they are Palmer, a nationally recognized so-called Consti- united by a common belief that the U.S. federal tutional Sheriff. State representatives and a state government is preparing to seize privately held senator spoke at a May 2015 Patriot movement firearms, impose martial law on the states, and rally against SB 941, a newly passed gun law put Americans in “concentration camps”—before in Oregon. This rally featured national Patriot allowing foreign armies to invade. The groups movement leader Mike Vanderboegh calling for POLITICAL RESEARCH ASSOCIATES & RURAL ORGANIZING PROJECT | 2 the Oregon state government to be overthrown justice. Under the banner of “coordination,” they through a civil war. peddle the fiction that county governments can Of particular concern is the influence of the control how federal lands are used. In Oregon, Oath Keepers and the Constitutional Sheriffs several county commissions, two CSPOA sher- and Peace Officers’ Association (CSPOA) on law iffs, and even a mining district have invoked the enforcement officers, especially county sheriffs. movement’s version of “coordination” to chal- The Oath Keepers and CSPOA encourage sheriffs lenge federal authority to manage public lands. and police to practice a form of “nullification,” Patriot movement activists are part of a larg- refusing to enforce new gun-control laws in the er trend of right-wing populists who feel that, state. Twenty-one of Oregon’s sheriffs appeared as a group, they are losing power, and offer on a CSPOA list of county sheriffs who said they right-wing solutions to economic problems. would follow their oath to “uphold the Consti- Most movement activists embrace a “produce- tution” and “support the constitutional second rist” worldview that decries political elites while amendment rights of citizens.” In Roseburg, deriding others—such as immigrants and refu- Oregon, site of the October 2015 Umpqua Com- gees—as lazy or immoral. Their simple solution munity College mass shooting, Douglas County to the economic problems rural areas face is to Sheriff John Hanlin had signed a CSPOA-inspired transfer federally owned land to states or coun- letter and publicly criticized gun regulation as a ties, with the ultimate goal of privatization or response to mass shootings. He also promoted deregulation for commercial use by the “produc- conspiracy theories on social media, including ers” they claim to support: ranchers, loggers, and that the Sandy Hook elementary school massacre miners. was a hoax perpetrated in order to seize U.S. cit- Some movement members peddle conspira- izens’ guns. torial, apocalyptic tales, preparing for the col- Many Patriot movement activists engage in lapse of governmental and business structures community service work, cultivating a public by learning subsistence farming and surviv- image similar to the Elks Club or a veterans’ alist tactics, and by creating their alternative organization, and less like a semi-underground faux-governmental structures, which they hope paramilitary that makes death threats against will take the place of existing ones after a natural its opponents. In Josephine County, for instance, disaster or economic meltdown. They peddle cli- the Oath Keepers (recently renamed the Citizen mate denial and conspiracy theories, for instance Patriots of Josephine County) participated in that the United Nations’ sustainability program playground and river cleanups while it estab- Agenda 21 (now Agenda 2030) is actually a covert lished disaster response teams, formed and campaign to seize land and facilitate a foreign groomed community watches and militias as invasion. usable alternatives to police, and worked with a The movement operates with an “inside/ variety of other Patriot movement groups. outside” strategy: some parts of the move- The Patriot movement worldview builds on ment work inside of established government tactics of county political supremacy forged structures to change them, while others work in a decades-old racist rural insurgency called outside the system to undermine it. As “out- Posse Comitatus. Patriot movement groups siders,” these groups are often armed and openly argue that local sheriffs have the power to ignore advocate defying those federal laws they deem federal

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