The racist declarations of a Nevada rancher who engaged in a tense stand-off with US federal authorities have led to rapid and awkward about-turns by prominent Republicans who had previously lauded his anti-government stance.

Politicians such as US senators Rand Paul of Kentucky and Dean Heller of Nevada were scrambling overnight to disassociate themselves from Cliven Bundy’s comments in the New York Times that black people might be “better off as slaves, picking cotton”. Their awkward backsteps have led to questions about why so many conservative leaders and rightwing media pundits backed a radical libertarian with extremist views and about 1,000 heavily-armed militia-style followers in the first place.

Bundy, who stared down attempts by federal officials to remove 500 of his cattle that he has grazed illegally on public land for the past 20 years, repeated his contentious views on race to CNN on Friday. He had simply been “wondering whether [black people] are that much better off in the situation we’re in now”, he said.

Then he appeared to shift the blame for the furor caused by his remarks onto African Americans themselves: “If I say Negro or black boy or slave, if those people cannot take those kind of words and not be offended, then Martin Luther King hasn’t got his job done yet. We need to get over this prejudice stuff.”

The air on Friday was laden with the pungent smell of burnt tyres as conservative thought-leaders screeched into a U-turn over Bundy. The Wire recorded the long list of figures who initially sided with the rancher, only to disown him.

They included Paul, a possible 2016 Republican presidential candidate, who initially said that Bundy had highlighted a “legitimate constitutional question” but is now saying that “his remarks on race are offensive and I wholeheartedly disagree with him”. Heller called Bundy’s militia supporters, many of whom had trained semi-automatic rifles on government rangers during the stand-off, “patriots”; now his spokesman is saying that the senator “completely disagrees with Mr Bundy’s appalling and racist statements”.

A similar volte face was made by leading Republicans in Texas including US senator Ted Cruz and attorney general Greg Abbott.

Though the individuals concerned might argue they were only responding to changing circumstances, the fact remains that Bundy, 67, has been open about his extreme anti-government views since the outset.

Last September, when the conflict with the federal agencies was looming, Bundy told the Los Angeles Times: “I abide by almost zero federal laws.” He added: “I’ve got to protect my property. If people come to monkey with what’s mine, I’ll call the county sheriff. If that don’t work, I’ll gather my friends and kids and we’ll try to stop it.”

His wife Carol went further.

“I’ve got a shotgun. It’s loaded and I know how to use it. We’re ready to do what we have to do.”

Apart from the track record of the Bundy family, conservative leaders are entering dangerous territory when they forge connections with the more extreme fringes of the right. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors extremist groups, found that radical anti-government outfits, who often call themselves “patriot” groups, and militias had reached peak numbers in 2012, with as many as 1,360 operating across the country.

The SPLC put the eight-fold increase over 2008 down to economic hardship in the US and to the backlash to the election of a black president, Barack Obama.

The tendency of some Republicans to latch on to the “common man” for potential political gain has caught the party out in the past. Samuel Wurzelbacher, who became famous during the 2008 election as “Joe the Plumber” after he had a heated discussion with Obama on the campaign trail, was championed by presidential nominee John McCain but later made contentious remarks such as a call to “put a damn fence on the border going to Mexico and start shooting”.

Conservative leaders are also playing with fire in a more general sense, in whipping up anti-government sentiments that might then go further than they had intended. A survey by the Pew Research Center in October found that Americans are increasingly polarized in their views of the federal government.

In 1997, 61% of Republicans had an unfavourable opinion of the tax-collecting Internal Revenue Service, a proportion that had risen to 74% last year.