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Shawn Vestal: Modern communication creates a captivating end to the Malheur standoff

Gavin Seim called it a miracle.

But even if you don’t see the hand of the almighty in it, the livestreamed phone calls that Seim orchestrated from his Ephrata home with the holdouts at the Malheur bird preserve was an improbable, unprecedented and altogether gripping experience.

Surrounded by the FBI, the four remaining occupiers took turns talking to Seim, Nevada lawmaker Michele Fiore and others – expressing their willingness to die, their distrust of the FBI, their demand to be allowed to simply walk away, their end-of-the world desperation – and tens of thousands of us listened in. The stream was live for five hours Wednesday night and again Thursday morning, up until the final holdout surrendered.

We listened as the occupiers, Seim and Fiore debated what the founding fathers would do. As they complained about Hillary Clinton and the federal reserve and abortion and CPS. As they insisted that they had done nothing wrong but peaceably assemble. As they insisted they would not surrender. As they expressed their certainty that federal assassins wanted to kill them. We listened as Fiore offered to bring them food from McDonald’s, as they discussed Franklin Graham, as they sang together, prayed together, disparaged the feds together – and eventually surrendered.

It was utterly captivating, no less so for the fact that much of the time – at least to me – that peaceful solution felt unlikely. The occupiers seemed determined to die.

Whatever else he has done to incite wingnuttery and promote himself, Seim played an important role in drawing the occupiers out of the refuge. And if nothing else, the livestream showed – and perhaps encouraged – a remarkable level of restraint and patience on the part of the FBI.

The four holdouts at Malheur included a couple from Riggins, Idaho, – Sean and Sandy Anderson – along with David Fry and Jeff Banta. They surrendered Thursday morning; Fry was the final to go, emerging at about 11 a.m.

Seim is a self-described “liberty speaker” whose antics in Grant County have included recording his petty confrontations with local cops and officials. A far-right radical who produces online videos of himself talking in stirring tones about the need for freedom-loving people to stand up against their tyrannical, terrorizing government, he’s one of the “patriots” who sustain and incite the fever dream of an armed insurrection and who are using social media to create connections among his fellow travelers.

On Wednesday night, he donned a grander cloak, arranging a communications miracle and stepping into a role that was part journalist, part negotiator, part propagandist and part self-promoter – a hybrid of Walter Cronkite and P.T. Barnum for Bundy World.

The refuge has been occupied since Jan. 2, when two of Cliven Bundy’s sons and others took it over to protest the jailing of local ranchers on arson charges, the federal management of public lands, and a laundry list of other complaints they lump under their peculiar view of constitutional principles. The militia leaders were arrested Jan. 26, and another man, LeVoy Finicum, was shot and killed.

The FBI says he was reaching for his loaded gun when he was shot.

The four holdouts have remained at the refuge since, and – through videos and social media posts – have engaged in a lot of hot talk about dying for the cause. They have been even less cogent and more incendiary than the Bundys. Fry was in phone contact with Seim last week, and on Wednesday night, as the FBI surrounded the occupiers and began demanding their surrender, they got in touch again.

At about 5 p.m., Seim posted a live feed of the call on YouTube. For the next several hours, he and others talked to the occupiers, prayed with them, and encouraged them to stay alive. Though his message is built around encouraging people to confront their government, he steadily urged the occupiers to go to jail rather than getting into a gun battle.

The connections that Seim put together Wednesday night – using cellphones and social media – would have been impossible a few short years ago. Imagine a live feed during Ruby Ridge or Waco, one that bypassed official sources and put the events before the public as they happened. Imagine the impact on the agents involved, knowing that nearly 70,000 people were tuning in at one point. Imagine what it does to listeners to hear the desperation and extremity in the voices of the occupiers, to get a visceral first-hand sense of their mindset and emotions.

For hours Wednesday night, and again Thursday morning, it sounded as if the occupiers were set on dying. Convinced they would be killed. Listening to the feed during those times was powerfully discouraging and sad. A lot of people on Twitter were posting minute-by-minute updates, and it turned into a reflection of the best and worst of social media. Valuable information was shared quickly, and a lot of cheap, glib quippery was thrown around as well, some of it incredibly pitiless.

By the end Wednesday night, as the holdouts resolved to surrender, there was a sense of relief, even exhilaration.

However far-fetched their demands and ridiculous their beliefs, it was impossible – for me, at least – to not wish intensely that they would remain alive.

After they prayed a final time and Fiore said, “Good night, America,” Seim turned the camera back onto himself. Right where he likes it. Talking about the evils of government, praying to his anti-government deity, connecting the “patriots.”

Though he was hundreds of miles away, he had landed in the absolute center of the story.

Shawn Vestal can be reached at (509) 459-5431 or shawnv@spokesman.com. Follow him on Twitter at @vestal13.

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