The historical roots Ammon Bundy's Covid19 militaristic apocalypse

COVID-19 and the White Horse Prophecy: The Theology of Ammon Bundy
by Betsy Gaines Quammen

What makes the US singular in the world are the rebellions springing up to protest stay-at-home orders put into place to protect us from the unspooling spread of disease. Agitators against such orders range from Ammon Bundy and his supporters in Idaho and Utah to various armed militia groups, like the Proud Boys in Michigan. Many protestors believe restrictions are noxious violations of liberty that keep us from barbershops, bars, diners and our jobs. Others believe that the disease is a ploy with an ultimate goal to steal away rights. And then there are some inclined to believe in religious prophecy amidst pestilence; as in God setting the stage for big, transformative action—think the Book of Revelation. Bundy believes all of this.

An urgent source of inspiration in all of Bundy’s rebellion is a murky piece of Mormon apocrypha known as the White Horse Prophecy. This historical hangover helps explain his resistance to social-distancing constraints amid a pandemic: He’s drawn to the image of the White Horse in a final defense of the United States Constitution. His agitation is a religious rite inspired by the first prophet of his religion, Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Bundy has said, regarding his ongoing anti-government rebellion, “that our Constitution was being violated. That it was hanging by a thread”—a clear allusion to the language of the White Horse Prophecy.

The White Horse Prophecy was supposedly uttered by Mormon prophet Joseph Smith in 1843 to two witnesses, Theodore Turley and Edwin Rushton...