THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE OATH KEEPERS

How Stewart Rhodes went from denouncing authoritarianism to urging an authoritarian crackdown

- JESSE WALKER

ON JANUARY 13, 2022, the FBI arrested Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes for his alleged role in last year’s riot at the U.S. Capitol. According to the charging documents, Rhodes and other Oath Keepers formed a “quick reaction force” ready 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.” He and 10 other defendants have been charged with seditious conspiracy and several other offenses, ranging from assault to evidence tampering.

Their plotting was inept, and the plan went nowhere. While several Oath Keepers did storm the Capitol on January 6, 2021, they left their guns behind; the so-called quick reaction force appears to have stayed at the hotel. The whole operation, in the words of Reason’s Jacob Sullum, amounted to “a sideshow in a much broader spasm of vandalism and violence that was itself utterly futile.”

But even as an unrealized fantasy, those hotheaded plans contrast sharply with Rhodes’ original pitch for his organization.