Why did the militia movement decline after 1996?

[Agonized-Statism]

From Wikipedia:

"Although the far-right patriot movement had long been a fringe factor in American politics, cultural factors paved the way for the wide-scale growth of the ideological militia movement. The catalysts came with the FBI's 1992 shootout with Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge, and the 1993 Waco siege involving David Koresh and the Branch Davidians at Mt. Carmel in Waco, Texas.

A 1999 US Department of Justice analysis of the potential militia threat at the millennium conceded that the vast majority of militias were reactive (not proactive) and posed no threat. By 2001, the militia movement seemed to be in decline, having peaked in 1996 with 858 groups. With the post-2007 global financial crisis and the election of Barack Obama to the United States presidency in 2008, militia activity experienced a resurgence. Militia groups have recently been involved in several high-profile standoffs, including the Bundy Standoff in 2014 and the Occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in 2016."

Why did the militia movement decline after its 1996 peak?

[PSOL]

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.

Generally if the government wants you gone and crushed, they will have their way unless some important bigwigs decide that it’s beneficial to have allies. Since 2008, the Republicans wholly accepted far right militias and personalities into its ranks to get more connections within the small shopkeepers and mining magnates dominating the rural countryside. That level of entryism led to the tea party, Alt right, Trump, and now a new administration who sees it as a necessity to crush them all over again.

[Agonized-Statism]

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.

[H. Ross Peron]

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.

[Agonized-Statism]

This sounds fascinating. Are there any examples of how 50s music survived in the Plains well into the 80s and 90s?

There's unfortunately not a lot of academic sources that track the development and popularity of music by region, especially not from that time and in that region, but the heartland rock that gave the Midwest its voice from the 1970s onwards (and still does according to my insider source in rural Iowa; poor guy) directly evolved out of '50s rock and roll and the folk music revival that began in the '40s. In fact, lot of future heartland rock acts started out regionally as regular rock n' roll and R&B musicians. Holdouts from the western-influenced third generation of country music, like Willie Nelson and Marty Robbins, remained popular in the Plains. The Plains were in a stasis where the contributions of hippies and non-whites throughout the 1960s mostly passed them by, and I interpret their eventual taking to metal music to be a continuation of the trends that people like Elvis symbolized in the '50s (versus the more cosmopolitan route that created disco, synthpop, hip hop, rap, and so on).

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

This sounds fascinating. Are there any examples of how 50s music survived in the Plains well into the 80s and 90s?

There's unfortunately not a lot of academic sources that track the development and popularity of music by region, especially not from that time and in that region, but the heartland rock that gave the Midwest its voice from the 1970s onwards (and still does according to my insider source in rural Iowa; poor guy) directly evolved out of '50s rock and roll and the folk music revival that began in the '40s. In fact, lot of future heartland rock acts started out regionally as regular rock n' roll and R&B musicians. Holdouts from the western-influenced third generation of country music, like Willie Nelson and Marty Robbins, remained popular in the Plains. The Plains were in a stasis where the contributions of hippies and non-whites throughout the 1960s mostly passed them by, and I interpret their eventual taking to metal music to be a continuation of the trends that people like Elvis symbolized in the '50s (versus the more cosmopolitan route that created disco, synthpop, hip hop, rap, and so on).

I can't remember exactly how the line goes, but there's a moment in Field of Dreams where the main character's wife, who's a coastal transplant to rural Iowa, accuses a right-wing school board member of having skipped straight from the 50s to the 70s.

[darklordoftech]

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.

The militia movement was to Bill Clinton as the Tea Party was to Obama. Both were reactions to a Democratic President and hence faded away as soon as Democrats lost the White House.

[Beet]

The economic bubble that started in 1997 papered over a lot of problems, but the militia movement was just an early precursor to the Trump movement.

[Cassandra]

1996 as the peak year is interesting to me, since that is the same year Clinton was reelected. I'm not old enough to have any special insight, but I wonder whether him reelection took the wind out of the sails of many right wingers? I could be wrong, but I feel like the right-wing backlash was less of a driving force in Obama's second term than it was in his first. Maybe the same dynamic was at play in the 90s?

[PSOL]

1996 as the peak year is interesting to me, since that is the same year Clinton was reelected. I'm not old enough to have any special insight, but I wonder whether him reelection took the wind out of the sails of many right wingers? I could be wrong, but I feel like the right-wing backlash was less of a driving force in Obama's second term than it was in his first. Maybe the same dynamic was at play in the 90s?

While not explicitly directed at him, the Malhuer takeover and Gamergate were major in bringing about the Alt Right and the various militia movements.

[Pres Mike]

The economic bubble that started in 1997 papered over a lot of problems, but the militia movement was just an early precursor to the Trump movement.

This

When people lives are getting better, they are generally happy. When people get bigger paychecks and bigger homes, they are less likely to run around in the mountains playing militra

Also was the fear of a changing world . The US being the sole power and rise of the internet. These people feared a world world government putting chips into people's bodies before these theories even exisited. Atleast a version of them. By 1997, the general public got used to the internet

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

1996 as the peak year is interesting to me, since that is the same year Clinton was reelected. I'm not old enough to have any special insight, but I wonder whether him reelection took the wind out of the sails of many right wingers? I could be wrong, but I feel like the right-wing backlash was less of a driving force in Obama's second term than it was in his first. Maybe the same dynamic was at play in the 90s?

While not explicitly directed at him, the Malhuer takeover and Gamergate were major in bringing about the Alt Right and the various militia movements.

You could argue that second-term opposition to Obama was more similar to the 90s militia activity than first-term opposition to him, since stuff like the Tea Party was heavily astroturfed and openly focused on resolidifying Reaganism as the American status quo, whereas Malheur and Gamergate were, whatever else can be said against them, genuinely grassroots and focused on issues other than the ones that Republican leadership wanted to talk about. You could even, somewhat more edgily, argue that the Trump opposition's adoption of "resistance" terminology was a tone-deaf attempt to brand a Tea Party-style elite-driven opposition as if it were a Malheur/Gamergate-style "netroots" opposition.

[Aurelius]

The OKC bombing was in 1995. I don't think that's a coincidence. Presumably for some that was a "we've gone waaaay too far" moment.