Today's intersection is the last best continental divide

Self-identifying sovereign citizens are overwhelmingly white christians using a cherry picked, maladapted interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment to rationalize its commitment to a pending race war using links to the federal storming of Ruby Ridge in Idaho and at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas culminating in the Oklahoma City bombing during a Democratic president's term. 

Also during President Bill Clinton's term in 1996 a standoff between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Montana Freemen, a christian "patriot" group with roots in Washington State and accused of billions in fraud, lasted for 81 days near Jordan, Montana. 

During Pres. Barack Obama's tenure a group of armed thugs including a retired Air Force master sergeant from South Dakota allied with mormon Cliven Bundy occupied a national wildlife refuge in none other than Harney County, Oregon.

In 2020 the nearly 50,000 acre Huff Fire burned through Jordan and in 2022 a Republican preacher was tossed from a Sidney congregation after committing multitudinous sins of debauchery, embezzlement and worse during Pres. Joe Biden's term. 

Now, migrating Republicans from California and Washington State are warping elections in Montana where conservatives in the eastern district detest Californians even as real estate values soar putting people in the margins who voted for the Orange Julius farther into the boonies where jobs are scarce. So, contradictory occurrences are making Montana politics very weird and the clash of rich Catholic Californians in the Bitterroot Valley with rural eastern Montana-born Protestants and a record number of Indigenous legislators is already building to the 2025 legislative session destined for explosive results.

Tactical Civics, founded in Texas by retired engineer David Zuniga, seeks to establish so-called citizen grand juries in each county across the United States, telling its followers that they have the power, ordained by God through the U.S. Constitution, to initiate criminal charges against government officials they deem corrupt. In his book, "Grand Jury Awake," Zuniga deems the official story of 9/11 attack as "ludicrous" and past Democratic presidents to be "conductors" for Satan in a spiritual war against Americans. In the sequel title calling for members to form county militias, Zuniga writes that Tactical Civics will develop a training program, to prepare them to act as law enforcement for the county grand jury and, eventually, dispatch them to observe ballot counting. [Rewind: How Tactical Civics ideology traces the Montana Freemen blueprint]

Since this interested party left Montana in 2011 three Earth haters have moved into the state for every two Democrats making it ripe for another Copper King era.

It’s not quite the same as the Copper Kings — who at their peak controlled elected officials from both major parties — but Democrats see parallels. “What do they say — history doesn’t repeat itself but it rhymes,” said Monica Tranel, the defeated Democratic candidate in a western Montana House district. “It is very evocative of what happened in the early 1900s. It’s very much a time of change and turmoil and who has a voice.” Driving the growth are transplants from western states dominated by Democrats, especially California, where more than 85,000 Montana residents originated, or about 7.5% of the population, Census data shows. Almost half of Montana residents were born out of state. [An influx of outsiders and money turns Montana Republican, culminating in a Senate triumph]

Learn more at Montana Free Press.

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