Wasn't necessarily the fees, but the timing and conditions of grazing that made it unworkable. There were once 52 lessees in the BLM field office jurisdiction in that area. The Bundys were the last, all the others went out of business because it was impossible to turn a penny. The foil was pretty much for protection of desert tortoises, but research as of late shows that cattle grazing and disturbance is both not harmful and/or actually beneficial for the tortoises. Which is why the tortoises were there in the first place.
There's really no similarity between the Bundys and the antifas. Rural, urban Far Left, Far Right.
That said, I think the Bundys really misread their moment of fame. They conflated the egregious punishment of the Hammonds with the overarching concept of "federal management." Management can be good if the president wants it to be, and Congress allows it. Multiple use is a great thing. But the protest should have been limited to freeing the Hammonds from a sentence under TERRORISM guidelines that "shock the conscience." The Bundys really hurt the cause with their overreach AND a whacking dose of naivete about how the media really works..
