Far-right extremists like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys would have remained fringe domestic terrorists had it not been for Donald Trump, who still has much of the country in the grip of his nightmarish vision

 

Today The Seattle Times on its front page used the usual dog whistle words in a headline to inspire hate and paranoia to dehumanize migrants, the kind of terms usually passed on to the media by officials who don’t want to deal with a “problem” or want to deflect questions such as why people from Latin America have their asylum requests approved at one-third the rate of those from the rest of the world.

Of course this kind of thing attracts the attention of far-right groups like the “Oath Keepers,” who we are learning attract to its ranks former military, law enforcement and Department of Homeland Security personnel. The latter shouldn’t be at all surprising, since the DHS hired someone like Mike Hetle, the former Bellevue, Washington police officer who was “persuaded” to resign from the force to avoid being fired or prosecuted for the murder of an unarmed Hispanic man; the city eventually settled a wrongful death lawsuit with his mother.

Hetle—who despite his past (which included other incidents that questioned his "ethics") was then hired for an “executive” position in security by NASA—was earlier this year convicted of the murder of a black neighbor in Fairfax, Virginia and sentenced to life imprisonment.

So we know that there is a certain kind of “personality” that is attracted to a job that allows someone to act out on their aggression, and who would be a "perfect" fit in the Oath Keepers. This group was “founded” the day that Barack Obama was elected in 2008; so was the “Tea Party” movement, the members of which the mainstream media did somersaults of illogic in insisting their motivations were not at least in part about racism.

But with the Oath Keepers, its white nationalist underpinnings cannot be dismissed that easily. They openly defy any form government that does not "fit in" its extremist agenda. Its founder and leader, Elmer Stewart Rhodes III, told Alex Jones two days before January 6 that

Well, I think what we have to realize is that, you know, Trump actually failed. … He had a duty and responsibility to step up. But he failed to do that and he allowed a ChiCom puppet into the White House and I think we now need to just declare that to be illegitimate and refuse to comply with anything that comes out of his mouth, anything he signs, anything passed as so-called legislation. Label it ‘pretend legislation’ like the Founding Fathers did.

But federal prosecutors believed Rhodes had other plans, with the stocking of arms in a motel room for use by a “quick reaction force,” and the exchange of messages that discussed conducting violent action. On the same day of the Jones interview, Rhodes wrote on the Oath Keeper website that “patriots” like himself were “honor-bound” to do what they could to “defeat the enemy” with their “attempted coup.” 

Only a few weeks prior, he insinuated that if Trump acted as a “wartime president,” the Oath Keepers were “ready” to fight. In the opinion of many, Trump did just that in his January 6 speech in calling for his supporters to march on the Capitol Building and "stop the steal." And how exactly were they supposed to do that? Some of those people had a "plan."

Two weeks ago Rhodes and (perhaps not surprisingly) the leader of the Florida branch,  Kelly Meggs were convicted of seditious conspiracy, and three others (Jessica Watkins is a "trans") on “lesser” charges in attempting to prevent Congress from  approving the Electoral College count that confirmed Joe Biden’s election:

 

Seditious conspiracy is defined in the U.S. code as

If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.

This law hasn’t always been applied in cases where it should have been, like the armed Bundy Standoff in 2014; charges against the Bundys were dismissed by a federal judge for alleged prosecutorial “misconduct,” despite the fact of what they did was clearly dangerous to the lawful maintenance of civil society and government authority, and certainly gave people like the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys and other far-right extremists the sense that they were also free to act against the law and commit sedition.

But there is another issue that we must face that many people are reluctant to do, outside the January 6 committee—and that is to remember who is the real figurehead leader in all of this. People like Rhodes and other far-right extremists would remain fringe characters more about bluster than acting in the way they did on January 6 unless they felt they were being supported in these actions and protected by a higher power—and that of course was Donald Trump, who it was reported sat for hours watching with fascination the insurrection as it took place, refusing all pleas to make a statement calling the insurrectionists to back down, before issuing a tepid missive that essentially expressed his sympathy with their actions.

I don’t think that there is any doubt that the person most guilty in the January 6 insurrection were not the insurrectionists themselves, but Trump, who was impeached and a few Republicans did join the Democrats in the U.S. Senate to find him guilty of such. But here we are, still under the threat that Trump may be re-elected, or inspire more violence if not. 

Is this country becoming like Russia, where people just sit and watch while democracy is slowly dissipated from the slow but insidious effect of election deniers and the passage of voter suppression laws designed to keep one party in power? We will discover soon enough how much power the U.S. Supreme Court will give to conspiracy-minded Republican state legislators to overturn election results they don't like.

Maybe it’s a “reach” to believe the worst will happen. But we’ve never elected someone like Trump before with the kind of “cult” following he has, and he certainly has been a horrifying influence on people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who recently proclaimed that if she was "in charge" of January 6, the insurrectionists would have been armed and would have "won." Yet her district still overwhelming re-elected this psychopath; the people who voted for her clearly are not considering the consequences of their own actions.

Perhaps for him personally the future is dissipating, but there are others like Ron DeSantis who are following his path. Perhaps seemingly just a few, but we must ask ourselves what would have happened on January 6 if the insurrection had succeeded in their aim to stop the proceedings, and convinced enough Republicans out of fear for their lives to “postpone” the vote or even feel the need to “do the right thing” by assuming that the insurrectionists represented the “will of the people”?

Perhaps this is all just “speculation.” But who is responsible for causing this? Trump and his bigoted, authoritarian impulses. Voters have to say “no” to him and all those who still claim that the Republican Party is “his” party, or at least believe his is the "right" way. Must we wait until the outcome of the 2024 election to find out if all of this was just a national nightmare, or our nightmarish reality?