I confess: I’m kind of surprised. This situation in Oregon with these militia goofs occupying a federal building and threatening violence against federal law enforcement is usually the kind of story that we have mainly to ourselves here at TPM – maybe a bit of national coverage, a lot of local coverage and us. And we definitely do plan on being all over it. It’s exactly the kind of white privilege performance art we love as a news story, right in our bailiwick of the bleed-over between domestic extremism and conventional politics.
So I’m kind of curious: what’s changed? I’m not sure you can say it’s just a slow news day or period, though we are in a literal and figurative first of the year cold start. I do wonder whether the increased focus on law enforcement over the last two years is part of the story and perhaps the climate created by the GOP presidential nomination.
Whatever it is, this is way, way more coverage of this kind of story than we usually see.
