Montana
‘Yellowstone’ highlights influence behind a changing Montana
The popular “Yellowstone” TV series, set and filmed in Montana, taps into a lesser-known chapter of the state’s history: its settlement by Confederates and ex-Confederates during and after the Civil War.
I come to this story with a unique perspective. I’m a fourth-generation Montanan. I’m also a scholar of U.S. Western literary and cultural studies and left the state in my 20s to pursue a career in academia.
Then, during the pandemic, I returned to Montana for a time to lead a statewide cultural organization that connects Montana’s history and literature to its modern-day residents.
That’s why, for me, the story of the show’s protagonist, John Dutton III, who heads a wealthy-but-embattled Montana ranching family, is not just a cultural phenomenon. Rather, “Yellowstone” offers insights into the dynamics that are currently influencing a changing Montana.
Montana’s little-known legacy
One of the series’ prequels, “1883,” provides the crucial backstory for the Dutton family’s journey to Montana.
James Dutton, portrayed by Tim McGraw, was a former Confederate captain; his wife, Maggie, was a nurse for the Confederate Army. In leaving behind their war-torn lives to seek new opportunities, they mirror the historical trend that saw Confederate settlers moving West during and after the Civil War.
According to Montana historian and scholar Ken Robison, Confederate prisoners of war languishing in Union prisons were paroled to western territories like Montana. By 1864, two such parolees had discovered gold in what is still called Confederate Gulch, at the time one of the largest settlements in Montana Territory. Other settlements, such as Dixie Town and Jeff Davis Gulch, dotted the landscape. Montana’s territorial capital was briefly called Varina, named after the Confederate president’s wife.
Although there is no way to know for certain, it’s possible that during the latter half of the war, half of Montana Territory’s residents — maybe 30,000 — were pro-secession. Some had been in Confederate service; the rest shared their sentiments.
After the war, many of those Confederates stayed. By the late 1800s, Montana was home to 13 United Confederate Veterans organizations totaling 176 members. In 1916, the Montana Chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy erected a Confederate memorial in Helena, the state capital; it stood for a century. The 1920s saw the rise of about 40 Ku Klux Klan chapters across the state to promote xenophobic policies against immigrants and racist policies against nonwhites. Today, Montana remains one of the whitest states in the U.S. — about 85% of Montanans are white; less than 1% are Black.
Recasting the ‘Lost Cause’
Numerous historical echoes surface briefly in “Yellowstone.”
In Season 2, there’s a violent confrontation involving a militia group that displays Confederate and “Don’t Tread on Me” flags. This subplot speaks to Montana’s long history as a hub for populist and anti-government movements. The Southern Poverty Law Center reports that Montana has 17 hate and anti-government groups, which include three defined as white supremacist or neo-Nazi.
This depiction of militia groups in “Yellowstone” represents the broader history of populist resistance in the American West. From the Sagebrush Rebellion of the 1970s to the Montana Freemen’s standoff with federal agents in the 1990s, Westerners have often resisted federal control over land and resources — tensions that perhaps trace back to the Confederacy’s own secession, a resistance rooted in defiance of federal authority, particularly over slavery.
After the Confederacy’s defeat, the “Lost Cause” narrative, in an attempt to preserve Southern pride, recast the South’s secession as a fight for states’ rights, and not a defense of slavery.
Those Lost Cause connections reverberate through John Dutton III’s relentless battle to preserve his family’s ranch. Fighting overwhelming political and economic pressures, Dutton remains steadfast in his determination to hold onto the land, even when it goes against his best interests.
This tenacity reflects the Lost Cause mindset — a clinging to a nostalgia-tinged, yet unattainable, past. Dutton embodies the archetype of the “aggrieved white man,” a figure central to many populist movements, who feels displaced from his former position of power in politics, work and family life.
Populist contradictions
It’s hard to discern to what degree recent changes in Montana can be attributed to “Yellowstone.” What is certain: Today’s longtime Montana residents find themselves exposed to a fresh set of political, economic and cultural forces.
Tourism and the local economy are up, due in part to the “Yellowstone” effect. But so are concerns about the rising costs of most everything, particularly houses.
These trends have been spurred, in part, by outsiders moving to Montana — newcomers who romanticize the state’s hardscrabble past and what they perceive as its current rough-hewn lifestyle.
What’s more, Montana has morphed from a purple state known for its political independence into a reliably conservative stronghold.
The drastic shift from purple to red solidified in 2020 with the election of a Republican governor after 16 years of Democratic leadership. It was further underscored by the defeat of Democratic Sen. Jon Tester by Republican Tim Sheehy in the 2024 election.
In “Yellowstone,” as Dutton is sworn in as Montana’s new Republican governor, he tells his constituents that he is “the opposite of progress” in response to changes that outside influences are bringing to the state.
Yet the politics of “Yellowstone” are “hard to pin down,” and the Duttons themselves espouse various versions of left- and right-wing populism as they simultaneously battle and embody the political and economic elite.
By the same token, Montanans resent wealthy outsiders but have given them political power by voting them into office.
Montana’s current governor, Greg Gianforte, is a tech millionaire, originally from Pennsylvania; Sheehy, similarly, is a wealthy out-of-stater.
Neither one might approve of the fictional Gov. Dutton’s proposed policy of doubling property and sales taxes for out-of-state “transplants” — though many Montanans probably would. For some, the rapid changes of the past few years have been, like life for the Dutton family, a challenge.
Randi Lynn Tanglen served as professor of English at Austin College in Texas (2008-2020), executive director of Humanities Montana (2020-2022), and is currently vice provost for faculty affairs at the University of North Dakota (2023-present). She holds degrees from Rocky Mountain College, the University of Montana and the University of Arizona.
WASHINGTON ― Montana Republican Senate nominee Kurt Alme, who previously served as his state’s U.S. attorney, cut a plea deal in 2020 that allowed a tribal police officer who sexually abused a 6-year-old girl to serve less than a year in prison and avoid being registered as a sex offender.
Alme, who has President Donald Trump’s backing in his bid for Senate, served as Montana’s U.S. attorney in two stints. Trump appointed him both times; Alme served in the role from September 2017 through December 2020, and then again from March 2025 through March 2026.
Alme oversaw the case of Mychal Thomas Damon, who was indicted in June 2019 by a grand jury on one count of abusive sexual contact with an individual under 12, which carries a maximum punishment of a lifetime in prison, a $250,000 fine and no less than five years to a lifetime of supervised release. The average sentence for this crime is less severe, but still significant: 62 months in prison, no fine and 143 months of supervised release, based on an analysis of 2025 data provided by the U.S. Sentencing Commission.
Damon, 28, had admitted he touched the 6-year-old’s genitals. But in February 2020, Alme’s office filed a plea deal in his case that reduced his charge to felony child abuse.
The changes in the plea deal raised the alleged age of the victim from below 12 to below 14, stripped out the language of sexual intent and moved the offense out of the federal sex crime framework, meaning Damon would no longer be required to register as a sex offender. It jointly recommended Damon be sentenced to the time he’d already served of 324 days, and required only a sex offender evaluation. Alme’s name appears on the bottom of the document, along with a signature by his assistant U.S. attorney, Cassady Adams.
In June, Alme filed a sentencing memorandum that described Damon’s conduct, which included details of him touching the child’s vagina with skin-to-skin contact, and the adverse effect it had on her mental health. Local reporting at the time said the victim had told a therapist “Mychal touched me” and hurt her by putting his fingers in her “hoo hoo.”
Ten days later, Alme announced Damon was being sentenced to time served of 324 days and two years of supervised release. As of June 2026, Damon is not listed in the national sex offender registry or in Montana’s Sexual or Violent Offender Registry.
It’s not clear why Alme reduced the charges against Damon as significantly as he did. During part of his tenure as U.S. attorney, his office declined 64% of sexual assault cases. He conceded in a 2019 interview that this “is something that has to be worked on,” and noted that a lot of these cases are declined due to “weak or insufficient evidence.”
Asked what happened in Damon’s case, an Alme campaign spokesman on Thursday lashed out at unnamed Democrats for trying to make him look bad.
“Kurt’s liberal opponents are twisting the facts to manufacture a fake narrative that exploits crimes against women and children,” said Alme’s spokesperson. “Department of Justice policy required defendants to plead to the most serious charge readily provable from the evidence. Kurt strongly supported the Multi-Disciplinary Teams on our Native American reservations, led by his office, to support investigations of crimes against children and to support victims.”
His spokesperson also pushed back on the idea that Alme unreasonably declined a large number of sexual assault cases during his tenure as U.S. attorney.
“Kurt’s office prosecuted every viable sexual abuse felony referred to it and pursued the most serious charge readily provable from the evidence,” the spokesperson said. “Many ‘declined’ cases were to allow more appropriate tribal prosecutions ― they were not dropped. Kurt will bring his years of experience prosecuting criminals and working with the Sexual Assault Response Teams on our Native American reservations to the U.S. Senate to strengthen investigations, support victims, and better protect women and children.”
The campaign pointed HuffPost to a 2010 report by the Government Accountability Office that found the most common reason for U.S. attorney’s offices to decline sexual abuse cases referred in from Indian country was “weak or insufficient admissible evidence.” It also highlighted statements of support for Alme in an October 2025 press release by Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), when he celebrated Alme being confirmed as U.S. attorney.
Alme is currently running for Daines’ Senate seat, and Daines went out of his way to clear the path for him. In a stunning and orchestrated maneuver, the two-term senator in March abruptly withdrew from reelection as Alme filed to run for his seat, minutes before the state’s filing period closed. Daines’ last-minute change-up was an effort to block potential Democrats or any major Republican challenger from jumping into an open Senate race.
Alme is taking on Democrat Alani Bankhead and independent candidate Seth Bodnar in the November election. Bankhead and Bodner have been duking it out for weeks, with each appealing to different factions of the Democratic party and calling on the other to drop out.
Bankhead, a retired Air Force officer, unexpectedly won the Democratic primary earlier this month, boosted by grassroots supporters and more than $2.5 million in outside money from a progressive veterans’ PAC. But Bodnar, a former University of Montana president who did not appear on the primary ballot, has bipartisan endorsements from prominent establishment figures, including former Democratic Sen. Jon Tester and former Republican Gov. Marc Racicot. He’s also significantly outraised Bankhead and Alme.
This Senate seat is rated “solid Republican” by the nonpartisan Cook’s Political Report, meaning Alme is well-positioned to win the general election. But this race would be more competitive if Bodner and Alme were going head to head, without Bankhead in the running.
Where Khloe Kardashian Stands With Ex French Montana More Than 10 Years After Breakup
French Montana is done keeping up with reality TV.
In fact, he only agreed to appear on Keeping Up With The Kardashians and Kourtney & Khloé Take the Hamptons over a decade ago as a favor to then-girlfriend Khloe Kardashian.
“She said to get on the show,” he exclusively told E! News at the BET Awards on June 28. “And I got on the show. Shout out to Khloe.”
The “Ever Since U Left Me” rapper, who split with Kardashian in December 2014 after eight months of dating, said the experience was “fun” because her family kept it real.
“They filmed their real life,” he continued. “And we were part of something together that one time. So it felt great. It didn’t feel like work because they film what they do everyday.”
As for his future in reality TV, the 41-year-old said those days are over, shutting down any prospective offers with a simple, “Negative.”
Although the “Unforgettable” artist—whose real name is Karim Kharbouch—may not be returning to television anytime soon, he has no problem hanging out with his ex-girlfriend these days.
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