“Good Militias” for Trump: Race, Religion, and Legitimacy in the Modern Militia Movement

Abstract

Since the mid-1990s, the popular perception of the militia movement in the United States has associated it with racism and far-right expressions of Christianity. There are good reasons for this assessment, though the movement is more complex than such generalizations suggest. In this article, I describe how Oath Keepers mobilized the image of a “good militia” seeking broader legitimacy and how their efforts have often been damaged by troubling and even criminal elements in their organization, which included militant efforts to keep Trump in power by attempting to subvert the 2020 election. I further argue that public revelations of the group’s racialized discourses and activities, allegations of domestic abuse against its founder, and the recent convictions related to 6 January, including seditious conspiracy, further challenge this effort at legitimization and have thrown the organization into disarray. Moreover, I argue though broader legitimacy may be now out of reach for this fragmented and isolated organization, they may yet find legitimacy among Christian nationalists who have come to conclude that political violence is potentially necessary to save America.

1. Introduction

On 23 March 2023, former President Trump held his first official rally as a candidate for the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential election (PBS 2023). The site chosen for this event was Waco, Texas, which is most known as the place where Branch Davidians, led by David Koresh, engaged in a 51-day standoff with federal agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation that concluded tragically with the Branch Davidian communal building bursting into flames on 19 April 1993. On 19 April 1995, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols detonated a bomb concealed inside a moving truck near the entrance of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, that carved out the entire front of the massive building and killed 168 people, including 19 children, and injured over 500 more. McVeigh was a spectator at the siege at Waco and carried out the bombing in part to retaliate against an American government that was now the enemy of the American people. Waco had since become a rallying point for the modern militia movement. As the founder of the Three Percenters militia group, Michael “Mike” Brian Vanderboegh, said, “No more free Wacos”, threatening retaliation against the government for any further perceived transgressions by federal agencies (Dutchman6 2016).

At the rally in Waco, Trump stood before the cheering crowd and placed his hand placed over his heart while a choir of men known as the “J6 Choir”, all detained for their role in the 6 January insurrection at the United States Capitol, sang the national anthem (PBS 2023). Trump’s speech following this solemnity was filled with vitriol for his opponents, especially the Biden administration, and those whom Trump perceived to be persecuting him, thereby presenting himself and, by extension, his supporters as victims of an authoritarian opposed to their effort to make America great again. Reflecting on their mutual victimization, Trump told his supporters, “I am your warrior, I am your justice”, adding, “For those who have been wronged and betrayed… I am your retribution” (Downen and Melhado 2023).

Trump won remarkable support from white evangelical Christians in 2016 and maintained that support in the 2020 election, presenting himself as a hero to white Christian nationalists (Jones 2017; Whitehead and Perry 2020; Gorski and Perry 2021; Nortey 2021). While running in 2020, he reminded this audience of his support for their stated political goals, that he had appointed pro-life justices to the Supreme Court, stood up to Black Lives Matter and other “radical Leftists”, and, though it was not true, claimed to have overturned the Johnson Amendment, which restricts the political activity of religious tax-exempt religious groups (Jenkins 2021). Trump further boasted on a Christian talk show, “Nobody has done more for Christianity or for evangelicals or for religion itself than I have” (Shoaib 2023). After 6 January, support from Trump’s Christian base remained strong, even after several indictments and other legal troubles. Furthermore, as president and founder of the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), Robert P. Jones notes that there seems to be no reason to expect any of Trump’s legal troubles to negatively affect his support from his white evangelical base (Jones 2023).

Since at least the mid-1990s, the popular perception of the modern militia movement in the United States has associated it with racism and far-right expressions of Christianity. There are good reasons for these assumptions, though the movement is more complex than such generalizations suggest. As terrorism expert Steven M. Chermack has argued, after the Oklahoma City bombing, news media coverage of militias helped to shape this public perception, casting militias as a severe threat on a national scale (Chermack 2002, pp. 20, 22). Militia leaders have frequently objected to the characterization that they are racist fanatics bent on destruction. Instead, they describe themselves as American patriots fighting to protect themselves and other Americans from an oppressive, even tyrannical, federal government. Interestingly, however, Rick Joyner, an influential charismatic Christian leader who vocally supported Trump in 2016 and in 2020, prophesied in September 2020 that “good militias”, which he qualified as “not racist”, but militias “supported by God”, staffed by Christians, and led by “veterans”, would engage in a victorious civil war to take back America and preserve Trump’s administration (Lemon 2020).

In this article, I describe how Oath Keepers mobilized the image of a “good militia” seeking broader legitimacy and how their efforts have often been damaged by troubling and even criminal elements in their organization, which included militant efforts to keep Trump in power by attempting to subvert the 2020 election. I further argue that public revelations of the group’s racialized discourses and activities, allegations of domestic abuse against its founder, and the recent convictions related to 6 January, including seditious conspiracy, further challenge this effort at legitimization and have thrown the organization into disarray. Moreover, I argue though broader legitimacy may be now out of reach for this fragmented and isolated organization, they may yet find legitimacy among Christian nationalists who have come to conclude that political violence is potentially necessary to save America (PRRI 2023; Gorski and Perry 2021, pp. 95–96).

2. A Brief History of the Modern Militia Movement

Before we go too far in discussing Oath Keepers, we must offer some historical context. The origins of the militia movement are complex and involve a wide range of figures on the political spectrum. However, as Chermack notes, this complexity sometimes includes “overlap” with other “extremist” groups who express and are motivated by violent and racialist ideologies. Yet, it is important to remember that militia groups have no collective central organization that unites them, making the perception that such groups fit under one rubric extremely problematic (Chermack 2002, pp. 24–25). The militia movement’s roots go further back in American history than this article can explore, finding precedents in 19th-century fraternal and vigilante organizations, 20th-century gun clubs, and organizations like the anti-communist Minutemen that originated in the 1960s (Hamilton 1996, p. 13). Nevertheless, three events helped shape public perception of the militia movement and contributed to the messaging of those involved in defining it from the 1990s to the present.

The first of these galvanizing incidents happened at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in August 1992. Randy Weaver, an adherent of an explicitly racist expression of Christian theology called Christian Identity, was wanted on gun charges, and a warrant was issued for his arrest. When agents of the BATF went to his remote home, a shootout ensued, followed by an 11-day standoff that resulted in the deaths of Weaver’s dog, his fifteen-year-old son, and his wife, Vicki. These events inspired like-minded activists to demonstrate support for the Weavers and virulent opposition to government agents whom they saw as nothing more than foot soldiers of a tyrannical government bent on subverting the Second Amendment rights of white Christian patriots (Dobratz et al. 2003, p. 315). As historian Crawford Gribben writes, “The modern militia movement was in some sense born at Ruby Ridge, as gun-rights advocates, skinheads, patriots, and Christian conservatives joined in a well-publicized protest at the hostile action by the government agents that a court later identified as illegal over-reach” (Gribben 2021, p. 21).

The particular theology that Wever held to is significant to how and why the incident at Ruby Ridge unfolded as it did and is equally important to how the movement developed in its wake. The most significant study of Christian Identity is Michael Barkun’s Religion and The Racist Right (Barkun 1997). Here, Barkun traces the origins and development of Christian Identity, a specifically racialized version of Christianity that presents both an identification of the “Aryan race” or, in the broader American context, white people as the direct inheritors of God’s promises to the true children of Israel, rather than those whom their theology regards as the “seed of Satan”, the Jews (Barkun 1997, pp. 149–50). Moreover, Barkun demonstrates that Christian Identity presents a framework for political events, especially perceived persecution, as markers of apocalyptic contests with the demonic forces of non-whites and Jews seeking to subvert the nation and attack white Americans (Barkun 1997, pp. 100–1). A shorthand for this trope within these various communities is “ZOG”, or Zionist Occupation [or Occupied] Government, which signifies the federal government of the United States as controlled by a malicious cabal of Jews bent on the destruction of Christian American patriots (Barkun 1997, p. 111). The aggressive actions of federal agents at Ruby Ridge seemed to vindicate this perspective shared by many in the nascent militia movement who perhaps defined the cabal as elites or globalists rather than Jewish (Hamilton 1996, p. 25).

The standoff at Ruby Ridge finally ended through negotiations undertaken by one of the most significant contributors to the militia movement’s ideology and publicity, retired U.S. Special Forces Colonel James Gordon “Bo” Gritz. Gritz shared the conspiratorial and apocalyptic view of the American government’s proclivity for clandestine and unconstitutional activity against its own people. In 1992, Gritz also ran for President of the United States as the candidate for the Populist Party under the slogan “God, Guns and Gritz”. One year prior to these events, he published Called To Serve, which is described on the cover as an exposé of the “patriots for profit who use the CIA as muscle to maintain subjugation over emerging nations”, and that the book is “required reading for all who would understand the New World Order” (Gritz 1991). In the introduction to the book, which was popular in militia circles in the 1990s, he writes that what is ultimately at stake is a cosmic battle between the forces of good and evil wherein each American must choose to follow God and live in liberty or follow Satan and be led “like sheep into the abyss”, adding that for the Devil to achieve these ends, “What better means than through a centrally orchestrated world government?”.

In the aftermath of Ruby Ridge, serious questions and troubling allegations against the government emerged concerning its case against Weaver and agents’ reckless behavior that led to the deaths during the standoff. Weaver and his family were thereafter presented within the movement as victims of an authoritarian and violent government bent on destroying Christian Americans who tried to preserve their rights under the Second Amendment. Nevertheless, the government’s interest in the Weavers as suspected gun traffickers and potentially dangerous extremists resulted from them being “singled out for government scrutiny because of their Christian Identity views and their attendance at the annual Congresses of Aryan Nations” (Dobratz et al. 2003, p. 318). In the martyrology of the movement, though, the overtly racist and anti-Semitic theology that Weaver’s Christianity expressed was frequently omitted.

The Ruby Ridge incident occurred under a year before the 1993 tragedy in Waco, and both incidents were quickly linked in the mythology that the militia movement was constructing for itself in the early and mid-1990s. Once again, agents of the BATF sought to deliver a warrant for David Koresh’s arrest for weapons charges at the Branch Davidian complex. The initial raid resulted in an exchange of gunfire, a lengthy standoff, and an early morning assault that led to a fire that consumed the entire structure on live television. Mike Vanderboegh frequently cited the destruction at Waco as evidence of a tyrannical federal government seeking to murder any opposition to its authority, mainly to seize weapons from American citizens so forces within the government might subdue them under socialist rule. Important to note, too, is that during the failed attempts by the FBI to negotiate a resolution with Koresh, Timothy McVeigh observed the scene and conversed with the press and the growing cadre of onlookers (PBS n.d.). Two years after the devastating conclusion of the siege, McVeigh took revenge upon the government system he blamed for the atrocity and several other crimes. While many surviving Davidians regarded some of the groups that rallied to their defense as frightening, the Davidians nevertheless became martyrs for the anti-government cause, and “Waco” became a rallying point for the militia movement in the protection of the unrestricted right to bear arms to protect oneself from the viciousness of feckless and arrogant federal agencies (Barkun 2007).

The bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City was the most significant terrorist attack on U.S. soil prior to 9/11 and was undertaken, in part, as revenge for the events at Waco and possibly motivated by McVeigh’s anger over the Ruby Ridge incident as well (Michael 2016). Established, too, were McVeigh’s connections with a Christian Identity communal enclave in Adair County, Oklahoma, named Elohim City, among other links McVeigh maintained among the far-right (Wright 2001, pp. 178–80). The dead at Waco and the Weaver family became part of the developing martyrology of the racist right and the motivation for the attack in 1995 that left 168 people, including several children, dead (Barkun 2007). In 1995, the Oklahoma City bombing, merging with the disastrous Ruby Ridge and Waco sieges, drew the public’s attention to the possible threat of militia groups, especially the Michigan Militia and the Militia of Montana—a perception that representatives of these and other militia groups have worked diligently to manage in the Congressional hearings on the matter.

It is essential for us to understand that for modern militia groups, though they do not resemble militias in the colonial period, the mythology about the colonial militia plays an important role in their construction of identity. Historian Darren Mulloy argues that the past is important to militia groups and that they “sought to echo the institutions of its revolutionary forefathers” and consequently see themselves as within the mainstream of American history (Mulloy 2004, pp. 35–36). In their view, to be a true American patriot is to struggle against unjust and oppressive governments in the same tradition as the American Revolution. As the Three Percenter’s guidebook, titled “A Brief Three Percent Catechism—A discipline not for the faint-hearted”, posted by Vanderboegh, states, “We intend to maintain our God-given natural rights to liberty and property, and that means most especially the right to keep and bear arms (Vanderboegh 2014). Thus, we are committed to the restoration of the Founders’ Republic, and are willing to fight, die and, if forced by any would-be oppressor, to kill in the defense of ourselves.”

The most significant constitutional reference for those involved in militias is the text of the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Indeed, protection for the individual right to bear arms has been the most frequently stated reason for mobilizing independent militia groups since the 1990s. We can see this with the statement from the Three Percenters manual above or even in the “Ten Orders” that the Oath Keepers listed on their website that they say no member would obey; namely, “Orders to disarm the American people”, which they claim, “would be a violation of the Second Amendment” (Oath Keepers USA n.d.). Oath Keepers further argues on their website that “Private ownership of firearms is the greatest deterrent to tyranny ever devised”, continuing, “Only criminals, tyrants, and those willing to trade liberty for ‘security’ wish for a disarmed populace”. Yet, their reasoning concerning this amendment is bound up with a more complicated and racialized history than they are usually prepared to acknowledge.

In her history of the Second Amendment, Carol Anderson remarks, “The role of the militia and who controlled it—either the federal government or the slaveholding states—became a sticking point in the ratification of the U.S. Constitution” (Anderson 2021, p. 5). The Constitutional Convention and the ratification of the resulting document were necessarily imbued with the controversies and eventual compromises that kept slavery alive in the United States. She further notes that militias were often ineffective in suppressing threats to the Republic but were used to great effect in putting down slave revolts, which, she contends, was a major driving force for including the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights when it was drafted (Anderson 2021, p. 164). Moreover, the right to “self-defense” that has been heralded as secured by the Second Amendment, in Anderson’s words, “has been quicksand for African Americans” (Anderson 2021, p. 7). African Americans have historically not enjoyed the right to carry arms for self-defense individually or in organized groups like white Americans have. Moreover, the broader context of the Constitution itself is one in which slave-owning interests were granted concessions to secure the future of the nation, including the ability to muster militias to put down slave revolts (Charles 2019, p. 113; Anderson 2021, p. 29).

Colorblind appeals to the Constitution and the founders’ supposed “original intent” often ignore these realities and further add to the romanticized mythology that allows for the militia movement to appeal to particular sanctification of the Second Amendment to justify their activities. Leaders of various modern militias that frequently romanticize this history refer to the Second Amendment to frame their militant activism as a righteous rebellion against a tyrannical government. Such rhetoric is necessary, even if it was at times sincere. By the time of the rise of the modern militia movement in the 1990s into public view, the appearance of being racist or motivated by ‘extremist’ ideology was a losing strategy for recruiting among the larger American population or winning support from the American public. The modern militia movement had to sanitize early American history and its own image to present itself as a righteous force opposing unconstitutional tyranny.

An example of this strategy of self-presentation can be seen at the 1995 U.S. Senate hearings on the militia movement, held in the wake of the Oklahoma City Bombing, where representatives of militia groups frequently and loudly protested accusations of racism (Militia Hearings 1995). One of the most significant figures among those present who vociferously denied any connection to racist ideology was John Trochmann, leader of the Militia of Montana. Sitting next to the lone African American militia representative, James “J.J.” Johnson of Ohio, Trochmann denounced the bombing and described the militia movement itself as a “giant neighborhood watch”, made up of a “cross-section of Americans from all walks of life” with a common “mandate” to implore representatives to “return to the Constitution of The United States and to your oath” (C-SPAN.Org 1995). He went on to explain that members of the movement have been motivated by the alleged abuses of federal agencies, burdensome taxes, and an increasingly dictatorial presidency, and specifically referenced the events at Waco and Ruby Ridge as evidence of governmental abuses that require a citizen-militia to prevent in the future. However, Trochmann avoided addressing his own adherence to Christian Identity theology, and in 1990 he spoke at Aryan Nations leader Richard Butler’s Aryan Nations Congress (Hamilton 1996, p. 30; Abanes 1996, p. 178).

When Trochmann defended militias at the hearings as a diverse group of individuals from “all walks of life”, there was a measure of truth to that claim. Militias are diverse, and there are significant disagreements among their members on many issues, including race and religion. Nevertheless, it is telling that he neglected to explain his religious commitments to Christian Identity theology and how that perhaps informed his notion of patriotic nationalism. In choosing to ignore his racialist ideology, Trochmann deployed the rhetoric of colorblind patriotic unity to publicly signal that the militia movement in its entirety was altruistic in its motives and benign in its objectives. Senator Max Baucus noted this for the record, citing the overtly racist and anti-Semitic statements of the Christian identity theology itself, tying the movement to its teachings (US Militia Movement 1995). This method of all-inclusive self-presentation continued to be a powerful tool as leaders of militia groups sought to deflect accusations of racism and religious bigotry and appeal to the patriotic sympathies of the general American public, thereby attempting to open themselves for greater recruitment possibilities while concealing the ideological elements associated with some in the movement that many Americans would find troubling if not repugnant.

3. Oath Keepers: A Troubled Legacy

In November of 2022, Elmer Stewart Rhodes, the founder of Oath Keepers, was found guilty of seditious conspiracy and other offenses in connection with the 6 January attack. Florida Oath Keepers leader Kelly Meggs was also found guilty on that charge. Three other Oath Keepers were acquitted of seditious conspiracy, but all were found guilty of obstructing an official proceeding and other charges related to the attack (Lucas and Johnson 2022). The Oath Keepers, however, were not alone. Four members of The Proud Boys, including Enrique Tarrio, the group’s leader and friend of Trump ally Roger Stone, Joseph Biggs, Ethan Nordean, and Zachary Rehl, were similarly convicted in May of 2023 (Reilly 2023). These defendants joined several hundred others in facing a range of charges related to the violence that day, amounting to the most extensive criminal investigation in U.S. history (NPR Staff 2023).

According to the public announcement by the Department of Justice, “Rhodes conspired with his co-defendants and others to oppose by force the execution of the laws governing the transfer of presidential power by 20 January 2021”. The DOJ further states that as of December 2020, Rhodes and the other Oath Keepers had “conspired through a variety of manners and means, including: organizing into teams that were prepared and willing to use force and to transport firearms and ammunition into Washington, D.C.; recruiting members and affiliates to participate in the conspiracy; organizing trainings to teach and learn paramilitary combat tactics; bringing and contributing paramilitary gear, weapons and supplies… to the Capitol grounds; breaching and attempting to take control of the Capitol grounds and building… in an effort to prevent, hinder and delay the certification of the electoral college vote”. The DOJ further states that “certain Oath Keepers members and affiliates breached the Capitol grounds and building, [while] others remained stationed just outside of the city in quick reaction force (QRF) teams”. These teams “were prepared to rapidly transport firearms and other weapons into Washington, D.C., in support of operations aimed at using force to stop the lawful transfer of presidential power” (Office of Public Affairs 2022).

The broadly reported convictions related to these events have significantly tarnished the broader public image of the organization that had presented itself as an organization dedicated to law and order and prided itself on recruiting former military, police, and even political figures. What started as an organization by and for strict constitutionalists dedicated to defending the rights of American citizens is now ignominiously marked by countless news stories about their criminality, accusations of racism, and, of course, that their leadership is currently imprisoned for their role in an insurrection.

Elmer Stuart Rhodes founded Oath Keepers founded in March of 2009. He is a former Army soldier and Yale-educated lawyer, though he was disbarred in 2015 for practicing law in Arizona without a state license and failing to attend hearings in Montana to address ethics complaints (Jackson 2020, pp. 29–30; Fawcett 2022). From its initial formation, Oath Keepers presented itself as a pro-law enforcement, pro-military organization, frequently targeting current and former military law enforcement for recruitment. According to one profile of the organization, “Members of the group draw heavily on the historical memory of the American Revolution” and often presented themselves “as the heirs of the Founding Fathers and the federal government as a modern-day colonial Great Britain”. The profile’s authors argue further that the main message in Oath Keepers’ recruitment emphasizes the protection of citizens from perceived “violations of U.S. citizens’ natural rights by the federal government” (Lokay et al. 2021, p. 160).

Oath Keepers has always refuted any accusation of racism or ties to white supremacy or other forms of bigotry. In fact, their bylaws forbid anyone connected to racist organizations to affiliate with them or bias against anyone based on their color or creed, which is punishable by removal from the organization. And, as is noted by extremism researcher Sam Jackson, they present on their website rather prominently a former Navy serviceman named David Berry, an African American veteran who is recorded on the website explaining how the organization was not racist at all and welcomes all comers (Jackson 2020, p. 33). However, this benign view of the organization is troubled by a closer look at its activities since its founding through the recent convictions.

Oath Keepers made a reputation for themselves as one of the most significant militia groups in the United States, primarily with efforts to recruit among law enforcement and the military and their alliance with other groups in defense of a Mormon rancher named Cliven Bundy. Bundy was engaged in a standoff with federal agents from the Bureau of Land Management in 2014 over charges of trespassing his cattle onto federal land and illegal grazing activities. Oath Keepers presented videos of their support for Bundy. They depicted him as attempting to stand against a tyrannical government deploying its agents to intimidate and possibly attack the rancher and his supporters. When the standoff ended with the withdrawal of BLM agents, Oath Keepers declared victory, adding to their public image as an effective militia defending Americans from an oppressive federal government (Jackson 2020, pp. 46–47).

The Bundy standoff, however, was more complicated than Oath Keepers presented it. This is no more evident than when Cliven Bundy spoke in front of reporters, revealing his true thoughts on African Americans. To the embarrassment of many, even those of his own family, he said, “They [African Americans] abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton”. He continued, “And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom” (Fields 2023). This embarrassing event was not enough to send Oath Keepers fleeing from Bundy and his cause. Still, it proved embarrassing for those supporting Bundy and intensified critics’ perception that the militia groups that had come to Bundy’s defense were racist as well.

Despite the public efforts by Rhodes and Oath Keepers to present themselves as constitutionally sound and law-abiding American patriots, there was no hiding the problems with the organization’s image. One report from The Middlebury Institute of International Studies Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism described the group as “akin to extreme sovereign citizen and other far-right movements, with a penchant for associating from the highest levels with racist and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories”. The report goes on, “Oath Keepers have taken high-profile action by deploying as a (mostly) anti-Black Lives Matter vigilante enforcement group during the protests in Ferguson, MO.” (Newhouse and Kitsona 2020, p. 1). The last detail is significant, as the Oath Keepers presents itself as an organization that stands against tyrannical government overreach and government-sanctioned violence against the American people, yet in Missouri, where there were protests against police violence against Black citizens and significant police violence targeting demonstrators, Oath Keepers proved that they had no intention of protecting Black residents, opting instead to support the police in defending businesses against suspected looters.

In Fergeson, Missouri, the Oath Keepers went out of their way to present themselves as not racist. They reported to news media that they were there to protect all businesses, Black and white-owned, and that they had African American members. Nevertheless, quite differently from when they deployed to assist the Bundy family and their allies, Oath Keepers here “aligned itself with the military and law enforcement… without acknowledging the apparent contradictions or inconsistencies in its actions” (Jackson 2020, pp. 48, 51). On its website, oath Keepers posted an image from Fergeson, Missouri, of an African American storeowner standing next to an unidentified individual in tactical gear, thanking “the wonderful guys and gals” for protecting her bakery. Yet, it is clear that the organization’s priorities were not Black citizens’ safety in the face of police violence. Moreover, as Oath Keepers asserts on its website, it mobilizes against “communist terrorists” and “Antifa street thug terrorists”, and further boasts of offering protection for Trump rallies and even Roger Stone, a staunch ally of President Trump—all in a bulletin posted to their website on 4 January 2021, titled, “Oath Keepers Deploying to D.C. to Protect Events, Speakers, & Attendees on Jan 5–6: Time to Stand” (Oath Keepers Deploying 2021).

Much like the image of a Black recruit on their website, Oath Keepers attempts in this post to present themselves as an inclusive organization that defends the freedoms of all Americans. However, as scholars of the movement and reporters alike have noted, this depiction does not reflect Oath Keepers’ actual record and obscures the larger picture when we contrast their overwhelming support for Bundy and his allies with their lack of support for Black Americans in Missouri protesting government-sanctioned violence.

Regarding religion, too, although the bylaws of The Oath Keepers specifically state that there would be no consideration of “creed”, they have allied themselves with causes and organizations that have been popularly described as Islamophobic, like ACT for America, which has been prominent in purveying the conspiratorial narrative about Muslims trying to establish Shariah law in the United States. In the summer of 2017, Oath Keepers provided security for ACT at protests, and found company alongside Proud Boys, the Texas State Militia, and the white nationalist organization Identity Europa (Kamali 2021, p. 127). Rhodes himself also seemed sympathetic to the idea that Islam was a foreign and dangerous ideology when he directed his website’s readers to a website called The Gates of Vienna, which purported to describe “Islam’s 2016 European Offensive”, where the author describes Islam as “a self-replicating supercomputer virus”, and “a hydra-headed monster, designed by its creators to be an unstoppable formula for global conquest” (Tet Take Two 2016; Jackson 2020, pp. 34–35).

Oath Keepers also traded in conspiratorial narratives that purvey the American far-right and white nationalist scenes. As Jackson notes, the “incomplete rejection of bigotry is further complicated by [Oath Keepers] frequent engagement with conspiracism” that carries “themes” of the anti-Semitic trope of Jewish domination, identifying at times the Rothschilds and Bilderbergers as responsible parties. Jackson further notes the references to a “One World Government” may be taken as more of a marker of the “elite” status of those involved than their religious affiliation or racial identity; nevertheless, Jackson also notes that the organization’s discourse here comes perilously close to the anti-Semitic tropes in conspiracy theories propagated by “earlier patriot/militia movement groups” (Jackson 2020, p. 35). While Jackson identifies this behavior as more akin to “nativism” than outright racism, which might be a distinction without a clear difference, we can identify a troubling conspiratorial discourse that further challenges the all-welcoming public-facing image of Oath Keepers.

Their presence at the now infamous “Unite The Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 also shaped the troubled public image of Oath Keepers. They were there, ostensibly, to provide security for all participants alongside members of the Three Percenters; however, once again, the public perception of their participation in the tragic events the day of the protest was that Oath Keepers and other militia groups were affiliated with the various representatives of what had come be called the “alt-right”. Later testimony before the 6 January committee seemed to substantiate the connection between Oath Keepers and alt-right white nationalists.

Further difficulty for the public perception of The Oath Keepers emerged in allegations of criminal and violent behavior of its founder and other members. In 2018, Rhodes personally faced charges of domestic abuse against his wife and children, which he denied. However, as has been detailed in an affidavit by Rhodes’ former spouse and in a report by BBC News featuring his son, who called Rhodes “an emotional terrorist”, the abuse in the home and the level of threat he presented to his family was significant enough for them to flee Rhodes and go into hiding (Affidavit of Tasha Rhodes 2018; Lokay et al. 2021, p. 164; Oath Keepers 2022). Jackson also remarks on the criminal actions of some Oath Keepers, including a member convicted on weapons charges, another indicted on serval charges including possession of explosives, and another convicted on firearms charges, this time for traveling to Tennessee to “arrest” government officials. Still, for a more prominent member, the crimes were particularly gruesome. Charles Dyer, a once-promising future leader in the organization and former Marine, was charged in 2010 with offenses related to firearms, possession of child pornography, and sexual assault of a child (Jackson 2020, p. 41). The situation intensified when Dyer failed to appear for child rape charges in court. Dyer’s evasion led to an extensive manhunt and law enforcement authorities labeling him armed and dangerous, comparing him with Timothy McVeigh (Curry et al. 2011; FBI 2011).

Adding to this picture of criminality and extremism in Oath Keepers, Rhodes’ one-time associate and spokesperson for the organization, Jason Van Tatenhove, testified before the 6 January committee that Rhodes was driven by motives other than altruistic protection of Americans’ freedoms but was driven in part by hubris. He states in his book that he never regarded Rhodes as a racist but described him instead as an opportunist who allied himself with white nationalists and figures among the “alt-right” to enhance his influence and grow his ranks (Van Tatenhove 2023, pp. 159–61). Among these “alt-right” figures, he claims, were Patriot Prayer, Proud Boys, and Holocaust deniers, whom Van Tatenhove found particularly odious. These affiliations, Van Tatenhove claims, drove him to resign from the organization, and in his prepared testimony before the 6 January committee, he said, “I am not a racist, I am not an anti-Semite, I am not a white supremacist, I am not violent, and I could no longer be associated with the Oath Keepers, whatever the consequences might have been” (Van Tatenhove 2023, p. 189). He further testified that “the Insurrection Act would have given [Rhodes] a path forward” with his vision of leading a paramilitary organization, connecting Oath Keepers to a broader plan to subvert the peaceful transfer of power and to use force to keep Trump in office. “The fact the president was communicating, whether directly or indirectly messaging, that gave [Rhodes] the nod”, Van Tatenhove stated. He continued, “All I can do is thank the gods that things did not go any worse that day” (PBS 2022). Under oath before the congressional committee investigating 6 January, Van Tatenhove described Oath Keepers as “a violent militia” that had radicalized “as the member base” and those whom Stewart Rhodes “was courting drifted further and further right into the alt-right world into white nationalists and even straight up racists” (Transcript 2022).

4. Conclusions: Insurrection and the Future of Militias

At present, documentation of the levels of conspiracy involved in the insurrection on 6 January and the lengths to which organizations like Oath Keepers went to develop elaborate plans to keep Trump in power is readily available and has been in the American news cycles with great frequency. We also have the testimony of several witnesses in the live broadcast hearings and the report from The Select Committee that investigated the events of that day substantiating the same. We further have the indictment of former president Trump that details several allegations that include tactics to delay the certification of the election, various “fake electors”, and several other elements that led to the federal and state charges (Olson 2023; Pereira 2023). In the federal indictment against Donald Trump regarding activities related to 6 January, we learn that Co-Conspirator 4 advised Deputy White House Counsel that should voters protest the Trump team successfully overturning the election in favor of the president, there would be riots in the streets over such action. “Well”, counsel said, “that’s why there’s an Insurrection Act”, suggesting that federal troops would be used to quell protests that might erupt if the president’s plans to stay in power were effective (United States v. Donald J. Trump 2023). With this context, it is no small matter that it is public knowledge that Rhodes called upon Trump in a December 2020 open letter to invoke the Insurrection Act to stay in office and rally militias to help him suppress any dissent (Feuer 2022).1

Of course, it is too simplistic to call Oath Keepers a racist or Islamophobic organization, as if their motives were to preserve the superiority of the white race or shaped by Christian Identity theology. However, it is true that Oath Keepers had to address the perception that they were racially and religiously biased and motivated by extremist expressions of racism and xenophobia. Now, after the legal fallout from the 6 January insurrection and related convictions, their chances at broader legitimization by denying these public allegations seem slim indeed. The resulting damage to Oath Keepers’ public image brings up another concern. While it is true Oath Keepers and other groups that supported Trump have alienated themselves from many aspects of the political mainstream, they do retain avenues for legitimacy among the white Christian nationalist base of the Republican Party that is still overwhelmingly supportive of Trump and who are more inclined than other demographics to approve of political violence.

Political scientists Miles T. Armaly, David T. Buckley, and Adam M. Enders write, “There is ample evidence in reportage from before, during, and after the Capitol riots to motivate an expectation that Christian nationalism played a part in this novel form of American political violence”. They further state, “we expect the relationship between Christian nationalism and support for political violence to be conditioned by individual characteristics that extant research shows can be manipulated by elite cues”, for example, a perceived sense of “victimhood, reinforcing racial and religious identity, and immersion in conspiratorial information sources should all strengthen the link between the beliefs associated with Christian nationalism and support for political violence like that seen in January 2021 at the U.S. Capitol”.

The conclusion regarding Christian nationalist violence by Armaly et al. further tracks with analysis concerning the future of The Oath Keepers (Armaly et al. 2022). While they are in disarray now, and revelations of criminality and accusations of racism have hindered their attempts at broader legitimacy, the question remains if the current fragmentation of Oath Keepers will “result in the formation of a smaller underground organization of zealots dedicated to anti-government violence” (Lokay et al. 2021, p. 170). The future of Oath Keepers and Christian nationalism intersects with troubling findings from the PRRI released in February 2023 that found “Christian nationalism adherents”, who are predominantly white evangelical Protestants, “are seven times more likely as Christian nationalism rejecters to support political violence”, while forty percent of these adherents agree that “American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country”. If former affiliates and sympathizers of Oath Keepers do radicalize along these lines, they will likely become more deeply entrenchment in religious nationalist and racialized rhetoric to legitimate acts of political violence. Furthermore, regardless of the level of impact of future attacks on the political systems of the United States, the point remains that the legitimacy Oath Keepers seeks may finally be found among white Christian Nationalists who have similar ideas about the utility of violence to save their version of what America is supposed to be.