Loss of funding from the federal government as local actors to sabotage the rising left and the same government working round the clock to crush them as mop-up operations. A lot of these militias descended from anti-activist groups harassing anti-war and civil rights protesters.
I agree that this happens a lot, but I don't know if this accurately explains the militia movement's origins. Many of them were middle-aged men from the Plains responding to the violent confrontation at Ruby Ridge, the Waco Siege, and gun control legislation after radicalization during the hardships of the 1980s Farm Crisis (lots of far-right literature circulated through those small towns at that time apparently). That's a different generation than the anti-activists of the 1960s-1970s, part of a culture war that basically forgot to visit the Plains- the rural Midwest slept through the counterculture so soundly that they still had '50s music by the time '50s nostalgia started.
This sounds fascinating. Are there any examples of how 50s music survived in the Plains well into the 80s and 90s?
I think George W Bush's election played a big role. Having a conservative Republican Presidents mollified far right fears outside of the hardcore types who thought Bush was an Israeli puppet or whatever.
