Unedited Version

The Nevada rancher who took on the BLM now posits that ‘the Negro’ may be better off as slaves. The link between racially offensive views and a certain strain of far-right politics seen at the Cliven Bundy ranch is well established, analysts say.

The “Battle of Bunkerville” – the ongoing grazing standoff between old-school Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and the federal Bureau of Land Management – was, of course, never just about cattle grazing. But it has now taken a turn that, at first glance, seems bizarrely unrelated: “the Negro.”

“I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro,” Mr. Bundy, who with help from armed supporters won a standoff with the BLM last week over cattle grazing rights, told admirers and a New York Times reporter at a press conference Wednesday. “They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.”

Conservatives who had framed Bundy’s fight with the BLM as an act of patriotism are now backing off their support in light of his comments, which Sen. Dean Heller (R) of Nevada, who had previously lauded Bundy, called “appalling and racist.”

Yet the connection between racially offensive views and a certain strain of tea party politics at the Bundy ranch is not all that surprising, some political analysts argue. Race and segregation have, after all, long been defended in the context of the 10th Amendment’s state sovereignty guarantees.

Read more at Christian Science Monitor