Eisenberg on the rural-urban divide in the today's Los Angeles Times

Ann Eisenberg of the University of South Carolina School of Law published an op-ed today in the LA Times, "The Bundys are Poster Boys for America's Rural/Urban Divide."  The first two paragraphs follow:

Cliven, Ammon and Ryan Bundy went on trial in Las Vegas last week over their violent standoff with Bureau of Land Management officials in Nevada in 2014. Cliven had refused to stop grazing cattle on federal land, or to pay grazing fees. BLM agents trying to collect the cattle abandoned the effort when they were met by several hundred militant Bundy supporters. You may also remember Ammon and Ryan, Cliven’s sons, from another “rancher protest,” the occupation of the federal Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Oregon in early 2016. 

These armed standoffs are indefensible. But they are also symptomatic of bigger problems that weigh on our society. Longstanding tensions over Western federal land and deep conflicts between city “elites” and country “non-elites” help explain why some view Cliven Bundy as a folk hero and others see him as a domestic terrorist. These divisions could also account for a slew of not-guilty verdicts in four earlier trials related to the standoffs.

Don't miss this important and thoughtful contribution in its entirety.  Also be sure to have a look at the comments section, which feature plenty of rural bashing, as well as some rural folks dissociating themselves from Bundy et al.