SALEM — From county commissioners and state lawmakers to a member of the U.S. Congress, some Oregonians in power have enabled the extreme beliefs and conspiracy theories fueling political violence
The Capitol rioters assault on democracy has its roots in the states
To paraphrase Justice Brandeis, the states have been laboratories for anti-democratic experiments that put the rest of the country at risk.
Anti-democratic plotting often starts in the states.Anjali Nair / MSNBC; Getty Images
Jan. 13, 2021, 10:34 AM UTC
It s been one week since President Donald Trump incited crowds of his supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol. Trump s role in their violence is clear, as is that of the national Republicans who boosted and spread his lies before and after Election Day. But there has to be just as thorough a look at what these thousands of believers heard that primed them for the horror show in Washington in the months and years before the president set foot in the White House.
Listen • 4:57
In January 2016, armed militants led by Ammon Bundy, seized the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon in an attempt to control US public lands.
As the violent mob broke into the U.S. Capitol last Wednesday, and livestreams showed pro-Trump insurrectionists defacing property and posing in the House Speaker s chair, here in the West, feelings of shock quickly faded to familiarity. There are years of warning signs, said Eric Ward of the Western States Center, which tracks extremism in Oregon and the West.
It was five years ago this month when anti-government militants led an armed siege of a federal wildlife refuge in rural eastern Oregon. Far-right extremists led by Ammon Bundy occupied government buildings, vandalized and defaced property and at one point bulldozed a road across land considered sacred to local Native Americans.
collaboration.
Five years and four days after armed militiamen took over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, a remote federal wildlife preserve in eastern Oregon, for 41 days, supporters of President Donald Trump stormed and briefly occupied the United States Capitol in D.C.
It’s not hard to trace the links between Malheur and Washington: Familiar insignia, instigators, and ideologies fueled both anti-government actions. Extremist leaders and movement regulars from the Western U.S., including former Washington state Rep. Matt Shea, who supported the efforts from afar in Spokane, and recent Republican U.S. Senate candidate Jo Rae Perkins, who joined the crowd that laid siege to the Capitol, helped fuel the melee. Backing their message, if not their tactics, was a bevy of Western legislators, who lent the movement legitimacy by supporting Trump’s baseless election fraud claims.
In fact, the mob did attack the police. A Capitol Police officer died due to injuries from physically grappling with protesters, a federal homicide investigation into his death will soon be opened, and newly unearthed video footage shows the mob violently beating a police officer. Finchem may have a personal reason for not condemning the rioters conduct: He was there. Finchem was in Washington D.C. during the rally and subsequent breach of the Capitol though he says that while he planned to speak at the rally, he did not end up speaking, nor did he participate in the violence afterward.