Blood, Delusions, and Corruption in the American West

ON JANUARY 2, 2016, Ammon Bundy and a few dozen armed militiamen seized control of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Harney County, Oregon. Their aim, they said, was to protest the imprisonment of Steven and Dwight Hammond, two ranchers convicted of committing arson on public property. More broadly, they had a host of complaints about the federal government’s ownership and management of Western lands.

But Anthony McCann sees a kaleidoscope of deeper meanings in the 2016 standoff—crises of work, race, manhood, and history swirling together in a “whacked out American story.” McCann, a professional poet, admits that his natural allegiances going in to the story were more with the liberal-progressive side, although he doesn’t seem the type even before diving into the story to get quite as radical as those who crudely mocked the Malheur militants (by, for example, mailing them plastic penises) or wished them grievous harm. In , his nuanced