When Ammon Bundy announced his run for governor of Idaho during a recent barbecue, he cooked up quarter-pound “Bundy burgers” made from a cow that his father unlawfully grazed on federal lands, part of a rebellion that triggered an armed standoff with authorities in 2014.
The sizzling patties conveyed that Bundy, despite pursuing something so mainstream as running for office, remains the defiant anti-government militant who has earned folk-hero status with the far right. He’s still focused on radically reducing federal land ownership in the West, property that belongs to the U.S. public but is coveted by ranchers, farmers, developers and others.