Before he landed in a North Texas jail last month on seditious conspiracy charges for allegedly trying to overthrow the U.S. government, then Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes pushed a dark and apocalyptic vision of what lay in store for the U.S. According to Rhodes, it’s only a matter of...
His ideas and tactics are eyebrow-raisers. But that didn't stop Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes from making deep political inroads and embedding himself and his group in law enforcement agencies.Before he landed in a North Texas jail last month on seditious conspiracy charges for allegedly trying to overthrow the U.S. government, then Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes pushed a dark and apocalyptic vision of what lay in store for the U.S.
These groups are united by their opposition to the unfounded notion of an impending"New World Order" controlled by transnational global elites. "Part of the way the far-right militant community works is that when an organization or framework gets a negative connotation, they just rebrand to avoid any liability for what their predecessors have done," said Michael German, a former FBI special agent and a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice.
Their foothold in Hood County remained strong. Current Hood County Constable John Shirley attracted a flurry of media attention last year when emails revealed that he’s a longtime Oath Keepers member. By 2019, Rhodes had even found his way into the VIP section at then President Trump’s reelection rallies.
For an anti-government group, Rhodes and his crew grew uncomfortably cozy with some elements of the federal government: They eventually found their way into the very highest echelons of Trump’s inner circle, too. In the runup to the 2020 election, the phrase caught on. But after Trump lost, it caught fire. Stone started a “Stop The Steal” Facebook group the day after the election. It amassed 300,000 followers within 24 hours. #StopTheSteal went viral on Twitter on election day itself, after prominent conservative figures from Anne Coulter and Donald Trump Jr. to Rudy Giuliani and Dinesh D’Souza fired off tweets using the hashtag and discrediting the results before they were even finished coming in.
Stone has denied any knowledge of a plan to attack the Capitol and obstruct certification of election results.