Episode 3: No Ordinary Rioters - podcast episode cover

Episode 3: No Ordinary Rioters

Dec 08, 202138 min
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Episode description

There were those at the Capitol insurrection who got carried away in the moment and acted rashly. There were others who planned for violence from the start. Robert Evans looks under the hood of the most extensively prosecuted paramilitary organization from the Capitol insurrection.


The Assault on America is produced by Cool Zone Media, iHeartRadio, and Novel.

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Speaker 1

Before we get into it, be advised that this series contains bad language and references to violence. At two thirty p m. On January six, the crowd at the east side of the US Capital is a mass of heaving bodies. Rioters are surging forward as police in body armor attempt to hold the line. Limbs, flagpoles, batons, railings, and riot shields are tangling in a violent mess. But in the midst of the chaos, a small group stands out from everyone else. They're decked out in full camo with body armor,

helmets and radios. Okay, guys, were on open channel here. Now everybody can hear and talk. What makes them different is the way they're moving. They're walking slowly in single file, each with a hand on the shoulder of the person in front. They're piercing through the crowd, working their way to the front. In the military, this way of moving is known as a ranger file or ranger stack. It's a standard formation for ground troops about to breach a building.

And that's exactly what this group is going to do. This is what we lived up for, everything we fucking trained for. They're communicating via a walkie talkie app called Zello, the name of their channel, stopped the Steel j six. Like tens of thousands of their fellow protesters, these people want to prevent what they see as the theft of a presidential election. They've just thought it out a bit

more than everyone else. We have a good, great We got about thirty of us were sticking together and sticking to the plan. This unit believes that today is their last chance to save American democracy. Today they can become heroes. That's right, mother, This is a can of war bass made in America. Fu. Yeah, in the coming weeks and months, almost every member of this unit will be identified and arrested. Today they're facing some of the most serious criminal charges

to stem from the riot. But that's all for the future. For now, they're having the time of their lives. The squadron that pierced the capital like human bayonets on January six were no ordinary rioters. The men and women who moved in military formation that day were members of a well armed paramilitary force that boasts chapters all over the United States. They were, in short, members of a militia.

In this episode, we're going to look under the hood of one of the biggest militia pops in the United States and figure out how they fit into the picture. On January six, we'll meet the guy who founded the organization and still runs it today. We'll also explore the life of one of his foot soldiers who invaded the capital in the ranger Stack and fought his way into the Great Hall underneath the Capital Dome. So come with

me into the United States Capital. From the teams at Cool Zone Media, I Heart Radio and Novel This is the Assault on America Episode three, no Ordinary Rioters. M America has always had militia's back. In the eighteenth century, they were a way of organizing resistance against the British, and George Washington would never have beat the Red Coats

without them. This is what gives modern militias a patina of credibility, and the way people in the Patriot movement talk today about seventeen seventy six, you'd think they'd personally skewered Redcoats on their bayonets at the Battle of Long Island. Now, the militia heyday in the eighteenth century was well before the United States had a standing army of its own, bigger and better and stronger than ever before. These days, America does have a standing army, a fairly large one.

Nobody's gonna mess where those folks nobody, So you might ask yourself, why, in the year one are there hundreds of unregulated militia groups spread around the country and armed to the teeth. I spoke to someone who might know. I've probably dozens of threats that I've recorded in Zelo,

like specifically against me for writing about groups. Hampton Stall is the editor of Militia Watch, a research platform that covers America's far right militia's He's also the guy who recorded the audio of militia members you heard at the start of the episode. Hampton worked with a w n y C journalist named Michael Loewinger, and together they eaves

dropped on militia groups as the capital was stormed. I mean, it gets your heart racing, like it's It's definitely an adrenaline shot, especially when it's groups that are, like, you know, a twenty minute drive from my front door. Hampton grew up in upstate South Carolina. It is deep red territory, and when the populist right wing Tea Party movement burst onto the national stage in the late two thousand's, they gained a lot of support in Hampton's hometown. It was

around then that Hampton noticed something else happening too. I started seeing people from teep party groups start taking up arms and start saying kind of wild phrases, and so there's sort of a personal interest in like, who the hell were these people that were marching around armed in my hometown. Militia movements have waxed and waned throughout America's history.

In the nineteen eighties and early nineties, militias blossomed tied to the militant white supremacist movement, but they fell into decline after militia member Timothy McVeigh carried out the Oklahoma City bombing. In and later on during the Obama years, Hampton witnessed firsthand the resurgence of American militias. Many of these groups were motivated by conspiracy theories that the new black liberal president was planning to mobilize the National Guard

against gun owners and put them in concentration camps. And it wasn't just ordinary civilians who were falling for this stuff. I've detected multiple times active police officers involved in militia spaces, and they've been in all the way up to chain, from just kind of expressing support to people who are in militia's to joining, you know, militia chats on Facebook, to even being members of militia groups. The whole gamut has kind of been seen more on that later in

the series. After being reignited by the election of Obama, America's militia movement was given a massive boost in two thousand sixteen. Suddenly the government that militia's loved to hate was taken over by someone they straight up loved. That is some group of people thousands so nice, Thank you

very much, that's really nice. Here was a president they could get on board with, someone with obvious disdain for the workings of government, and someone who's far right rhetoric was more of an air rate than a dog whistle. They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, their rapists, and some

I assume are good people. So when Trump lost in twenty twenty, many of America's militias weren't pleased, and in the winter months following the election, lots of them got caught up in Alie Alexander's Stopped the Steel campaign, which we covered in the last episode. Even if they never heard the name Ali Alexander, they heard about January six. I saw it everywhere, maybe just before Christmas. People were

talking about January six pretty aggressively at the time. They were saying things like we're going to go to the tunnels of the Capitol and fight Antifa down there, which is just like way more specific than stuff that had been being said for the last few months. So that's kind of what the big warning sign was for me.

That made me realize, you know, it's probably a good idea when January six came around, to sit down at my computer and be watching the feeds to try and document what sort of armed groups were present, And that's how Hampton came to be recording the Zelo channel called Stop the Steel j six during the Capitol riot. In the roughly two hours of audio, we hear a militia member report back to her friends elsewhere in the country

as she storms the capital. At the start of the recording, there's palpable excitement in her voice as she nears her target. Everybody's marching on the Capitol, all million of us. It's insane. We're about two blocks away from it now. Police are doing nothing. They're not even trying to stop us. At this point. As she reports back, voices from across the country cheer her on joking about draining the swamp. Trump's been trying to drain the swamp with a straw. We

just brought a shop back. We're gonna have to blow the damn to drain this fucking swamp. Be safe down here, That's all I gotta say. Just be safe, be alert, and stay in groups. Like it's Christmas all over again for us patriots. Alas the Christmas vibes are few and far between and the rest of the audio, most of the voices are considerably more disturbing. They've got the gallows that upside the Capitol building. It's trying to start sucking

using them. Patriots need to have the guns nearby. The FBI rats are trapped on the roof and they have nowhere to go. I won't take you through the whole thing. I wouldn't do that to you. But here are some headlines. For one, these guys are obsessed with Antifa. We're not dumbasses like anti Tifa. They hate Mike Pence. We got a report that Pence is a pedophile, unindicted pedophile, and They have fascinating theories about what Joe Biden does with

his downtime. He's hiding an ambrazement balance and little kids off his back and having him play with his blonde leg or looker. My team was unable to fact check this allegation, but you get the point. The voices on this channel are not part of the same reality that I live in and probably that you live in. Two and neither are the militia members and the Rangers stacks. I think the crowd. While the Zelo channel cheers them on with heartwarming messages of encouragement, the unit on the

ground achieves their objective. We are in the main dome right now. We are rocking at their their longer nets. They're perk and shooting people with payballs. But we're in here fucking gets some God blessom God's being, and keep going. Get it, Jess. For the militia members, this is a moment of pure jubilation. But what's extraordinary is the fact that none of them seem bothered or even aware that they're breaking the law. As they speak freely on a

public walkie talkie channel. It's clear that they feel they're on the right side of history and thus untouchable by law enforcement. Patriots are taking self east together with capital police. Inside the capital, they even reassure each other that their actions are legal, using highly dubious jargon the civilian authority

of we the people, constitutional enforcement action, direct action. There seems to be no understanding that those who enter the capital maskless and openly boasting on social media are putting themselves in legal jeopardy. Then again, perhaps it's what we should expect from an outfit whose getaway plan and involves hijacking federal snowplows. Those snowplows are going to be easily hot wired their diesel trucks. That's the way out if need to be. They belong to us, the taxpayers, We

the fucking people. Now, I wouldn't begrudge my tax dollars going towards the world's slowest police chase with a few dozen militia members crammed into snowplows. But the point stands anyone who would even consider that route is not part of a world class conspiracy. And that's because the militias that breached the capital and the voices cheering them from back home, they're just the foot soldiers They're not to

be written off. They are dangerous people breaking the hell out of some laws, but they're not the brains of the operation. That distinction belongs to someone else entirely. While the militia member in the ranger stack is broadcasting her movements on zello, there's a man standing nearby, a safe distance back from the violence. His name is Omer Stewart Rhodes, and he's the leader of the largest militia group in America, which just so happens to be the most extensively prosecuted

paramilitary organization related to the January six riots. To understand his organization and what it's capable of, we need to understand the man. It's time to meet Stupard Rhodes. His involvement is exactly what I thought it would be. I knew he would never go inside the capitol. He's sort of the the leader that stands him back and ends he's gonna lead, and then hangs back. This is Tasha Adams,

the estranged wife of Stewart Rhodes. I'm stating the obvious here, but Tasha is not an impartial source when it comes to Rhodes. As I record this, she's running a go fund make campaign to get money to pay for her divorce. She lives in rural Montana with her six children and a lot of animals. I think some of the noise interruption might be my chickens. Tasha met Stewart in Las Vegas in nineteen She was an eighteen year old dance instructor and one day a twenty five year old Stewart

Rhodes came in for a barn dancing lesson. He's all stiff. At this point, Rhodes had already served in the U. S. Army and was now a commercial artist making sculptures for local casinos. He was really assertive, almost kind of aggressive, and personality me being to innately shy and quiet person that was always something that I liked in, you know, someone to date because it's sort of opened doors for me.

Stewart and Tasha lived in a tenerant life, starting a big family, but always moving from town to town, job to job. In two thousand eight, Rhodes took a job working for the libertarian Ron Paul's short lived presidential campaign. If we do the right things, we can restore the greatness of this country. Thank you very much. He must have liked something about it, because soon after the campaign flatlined, Rhodes told Tasha that he wanted to form his own organization.

I thought, wow, this is something he can do for a living where all he has to do is talk. You know, this is something he can do. As Tasha describes it, his way with words and his Yale degree won him work easily enough. He just never saw it through. Tasha figured that any job that just let him speak would be a good thing for him. You know, he grew up in a family of motivational speakers and ministers.

This is what they do in that family as they give speeches and they they sell multi level marketing products and they their reference and they love this stuff. This is great, you know, something you won't get fired at. Rhodes was indeed brilliant and evangelizing for his new organization, and soon created a membership structure with annual fees, and

traveled the country and recruiting members. Our mission is simply to reach out and remind all active duty military, police, and firefighters of their civic obligation of their legal duty and responsibilities under Article six of the U S Constitution. It was amazingly immediate, he launched a free blog. He wrote up a bit and it was almost instant, and so in March of two thousand nine, the oath Keepers

were born. It was a pressure group campaigning for police and military to keep the oaths that they'd sworn to uphold the Constitution. He created a list called the Declaration of Orders We will not bay Buist reads like a big dog whistle to the conspiracy theory that Democrats were

planning to impose martial law and take everyone's guns. But at the turn of the two thousand tens, Republicans were catastrophizing that the newly elected President Obama was about to send gun owners to the gulag, and Rhodes's message found a willing audience. As the Oathkeepers grew and grew, Rhodes masterminded their transition from being an advocacy group to a

straight up militia. If the people in this country were to recognize the necessity of getting back to the Founder's plan, the necessity of the well regulated militia being necessary for security or free state, if they were to do that, that were through a massive monkey wrench and the plans of the globalist oligarchy. Because they want to sarm populations that are easy to control. Under rhodes Is charismatic leadership, the Oathkeepers grew to become one of the largest militias

in the country. They claimed to have over forty fee paying members. But in two thousand fourteen, something seems to have changed for Roads. His ex wife, Tasha links this change to a meeting he allegedly had with the FBI. His mental state spiraled fast after that, and that was when we realized I had to get out of this.

Tasha doesn't know what the FEDS said to Stewart or if the meeting was even related to his decline in mental health, but after twenty five turbulent years of marriage, having met Rhoads when she was just eighteen, she finally woke up to the kind of man that he really was. It was actually some of the books he had laying around. He had a book in particular called The Sociopath next Door, and I just sat down and read it, and it felt like I just was drained of all life for

a minute, you know. Really, after I read that, it just hit me and there was no way around it. He's a sociopath. Tasha describes years, decades of feeling that Stewart's abusive behavior was her fault. She would think that maybe she just wasn't lovable, maybe she'd done something wrong long and whatever issues he had could surely be loved away. At long last, she decided the problem was not with her, it was with her husband. Much of the abuse, Tasha

alleges was financial. Rhodes was paying himself a salary of eighty thousand dollars a year to run the Oathkeepers, but Tasha says that almost none of that money trickled back to the family. We were really in a difficult place. The disparity of how money was spent was just so odd. We were just so used to it, you know, just even little things like the kids and I only ever shopped and thrift stores, but all his clothes were top

of the line expensive clothes. The kids would have holes in their shoes, and you know, I think he had fifty pairs of shoes, and all of them over a hundred dollars each. I mean, just things like that. There was physical abuse to Tasha says that Rhodes would sometimes hurt her or even the kids, and then come up with ludicrous excuses. I was just practicing my martial arts. As far as we can tell, Rhodes has ever commented publicly on Tasha's allegations, and they have not been proved

in a court of law. But as a relationship with Rhodes deteriorated, Rhodes's public rhetoric became increasingly extreme. He developed a working relationship with America's pre eminent conspiracy theorist, the Info Wars host Alex Jones, and would often appear on Jones's show to promote the Oath Keepers. Here he is in calling for Donald Trump to deploy the military against leftists. In the past have been opposed using the military domestically for for this purpose, he needs to use the military.

We were worried about globalist using the military against us, which is gonna happen. This is globalist overthrowing our government. We better have the military stop the globalist. I mean, you have to love it. Rhodes founded his organization out of a fear that Democrats were going to use the military to crush American freedoms. And now here he is agitating for the U. S military to murder his political enemies.

And he wasn't just relying on Trump in the run up to January six, Rhodes appears to have made plans of his own. We have been already stationed outside d C as a nuclear option, So I've got good men on the ground already. We've been in a leadcon there last week, and we're sorting out. We're gonna be staging and we'll be there, will be inside d C. Will also be on the outside of DC, armed, prepared to

go in. Rhodes is describing an armed paramilitary force lurking outside of DC, ready to enter the city at his word. This is a so called q r F, or quick reaction force. The idea is that if Rhodes gets the signal, a small group can bring weapons into d C and distribute them to the unarmed oath keepers already present at the capitol. You can only guess at the carnage that might have ensued if dozens of oath Keepers had gotten

their hands on guns during the riot. On the day of the insurrection, Info Wars host Alex Jones can barely contain his excitement. Can you not feel history happening right now? I mean, it's happening right now. It is, and we're all we'll all need to realize that we're Americans, were born in this country at the time. For this purpose, we need to Stewart Rhodes clearly did not let go of his fear on January six He never called in the q r F. He never went into the Capitol

building either. At least twenty of his oath keepers have since been arrested, some of them are looking at decades in prison. In each of their indictments, someone called Person one features prominently communicating with them all day on an encrypted signal channel called d c op jan six one. And you guessed it. Person one is believed to be Stewart Rhodes. So will Rhodes eventually get picked up for conspiracy to obstruct Congress or for the small matter of

plotting an armed coup? Time will tell Meanwhile, there's no such ambiguity for his foot soldiers who entered the Capitol on jan sixth, blissfully unaware of the trouble they were storing up for themselves. Hey brother, we're boots on the ground here. We're moving on to capital now. I'll give you a booth on the ground update here. And I wanted to know more about Rhodes as foot soldiers There's been a lot written about them online, both vilifying and glorifying,

depending on where Google leads you. But I figured that to get a read on them, i'd need to get closer. My name is Danisa and I am the sister of one of the domestic terrorists that tried to overtake the capital, Donovan Kraw. Dennis's brother, Donovan Kraw, is a former marine and a current oathkeeper. We heard his voice briefly in the Zello recordings. Donovan comes first in the aftermath of the riot. Donovan's picture went viral because he looked, you know,

like a scary guy. He was wearing a combat helmet, ballistic goggles, and a tactical best and he was carrying a handheld radio. What I wanted to know was how does American citizen and a veteran reached this point? Where does he come from? My parents were very young parents. They were too young to be having children and be My father was a raging alcoholic and very abusive. But Donovan was kind of the protector, you know, he was

my older brother. Of course I idolized him. This makes a change from Stuart Rhodes practicing karate on his own kids. Donovan and Denisa grew up in Bushnell, Illinois, and Donovan had a normal, fulfilling life, building a family, working in a factory, coaching baseball, and he and Denissa stayed close. I was a single parent and he was helping me. He worked nights at a factory, and I, of course worked days as a nurse, so he would watch my daughter while I was at work, and I would keep

his daughter on the weekends. But in the two thousand tens, Donovan went through a difficult worse. He lost his job and he got addicted to alcohol and other substances, and that wasn't the only major change in his life. One day, Donovan had called me and we were just talking, and just out of the blue, he says, I want you to start saving gas and gas cans. I want you to keep cash on hand at all times, and I want you to get a map and draw a back route to my house in case you have to leave

real quick and get to me. And I'm like, what in the hell are you talking about, Donovan? Why would I even need to do that. Donovan became a prepper, someone who prepares for societal breakdown. His sister, Deniso wrote it off as a drink fueled eccentricity, but it became harder to ignore. We were having a family reunion and we had it out at the property that Donovan lived on because they could do target practice and whatever Neanderthal's do.

And I had walked up to the house to go to the bathroom, and when I went into the bathroom, I saw this magazine. It was a prepper magazine, something like you put your food in thirty three gallon drums, and very right wing magazine. So I made fun of him. I took it out and I said, what is this bullshit? I was concerned about the people he was hanging out with. I had never heard of the oath Keepers. In case you're not a regular listener, Dnisa is talking about the

sort of stuff you hear on Info Wars. It goes like this. It's either President Trump is concouraged and bolstered strengthened to do what he must do, or we wind up in a holoody fight. We all know that the fight's coming. I don't know what Donovan was watching or what his online habits were, but it's clear that the kind of far right message pushed by Stewart Rhodes and others on Info Wars hit home at a hard period in Krawell's life. He felt that Obama was a Muslim.

I think there were racists under tones that I had never heard from him before. I mean, he fought in the Gulf War next to all ethnicities, so this was kind of something new to me, and I think that is kind of an undercurrent of right wing media. You might have guessed that Denis's politics aren't the same as her brothers. The two drifted apart as Donovan latched onto Donald Trump in and became increasingly immersed in a paranoid

world of conspiracy theories. I didn't put up with it, where everybody else would just be like, yeah, yeah, just to get him to shut up, I would tell him, you're a moron. Think about what you're saying. I mean, the mental gymnastics that he would have to do to justify FEMA camps and Hillary eating babies and just all of this stuff. It's just absolutely ridiculous. It was around this time that Denis's relationship with her brother fell apart.

In two thousand and sixteen, Denisa went to a family gathering. On first day she wore an I'm with her T shirt, meaning she was going to vote for Hillary, and then the second day, I wore a nasty woman T shirt that went over not well at all. Sure enough, it's set Donovan off, and the ensuing argument would be the

last time they'd speak for quite a while. In fact, Denissa wouldn't hear Donovan's voice until January, when she heard a now familiar clip on the news The Capol Donovan Krowll is looking it up to twenty years in prison for his part in the Rangers stack that preached the capital. Meanwhile, Stewart Rhodes, Crowl's commander is a freeman. This could simply be because Rhodes is so careful. Tasha describes a level of paranoia that has no doubt served him well since

the insurrection. He's very, very aware of being recorded and monitored at all times. He won't even talk in a house. If he wants to have private conversation with someone, they'll take off their smart watches, they'll take off their phones, and they'll stand in the woods somewhere and talk under the covers of trees so satellites can't read their lips. Maybe that's why Stewart wasn't eager to do an interview with me. But what if there's another explanation for his paranoia.

It was in two thousand and fourteen Natasha decided she had to escape her marriage, and at around this point Rhodes seemed to unravel following a secret meeting with the FBI. Is it possible this meeting is the reason that he hasn't gone to prison. I'm not sure what happened, but he seemed to really melt down after that. And I don't know if they threatened him with, you know, with possible arrest, or if he made a deal with them

and possibly worked as an informant after that. I don't know what happened, but he really melted it down after that, and that became dangerous. Is Stewart Rhodes a federal informant? It might explain why so many members of his organization are in prison on conspiracy charges while the alleged chief

conspirator remains free. But people are starting to talk. When Rhodes attended Sea Pack, one of the biggest conservative gatherings of the year, in July, he was accosted by an Alright media influencer, both keeper Guy right Hey fake for your service. We'll love our federal informants. Oh, the macho militia man is being mocked on a live stream, taunted about being a federal informant. Explain why you haven't been yet? There's no and you've avoid at all conspiracy charges so far.

The react of my ass right now, I want to go outside and fight the fucking go fight. While Stewart Rhodes defends his honor at Sea Pack, Donovan Crowell waits for the justice system to decide his fate. His sister, Danissa feels like her brother has been used and discarded. I don't know where he goes from here. I just I don't know. I missed my brother. Denisa has spoken to don open once or twice since his arrest by

the FBI in January. To me, at least the way she describes it, their interactions leave open a possibility of the kind of redemption simply not possible for a man like Stuart Rhodes. I said, Donovan, I love you. What are you doing here? He said? We used to have each other's back, and I don't understand how you know what happened, But I love you too, and you know I saw a little bit of the old Donovan, but the old Donovan never lasts long. Donovan and Denis's mother

died of cancer in August. When she was on her deathbed, she would have occasional phone calls with her eldest son. When Donovan would call her when she was in the hospital, all he would do was rail against the medical establishment and saying all she needed was hydrogen peroxide. My mom would just essentially set the phone down or say she had to go because he would get fired up talking about how not to take the vaccine and that the

hospital was trying to kill her. The oath Keepers have gotten a lot of attention in the months since the Capital riot, but when it comes to militia's in the United States, Stuart Rhodes and his oath Keepers are just the start of the story. The malicious scene is highly fragmented, with hundreds of groups constantly forming and splintering, some with three or four members and many with dozens of people involved. This depressing prospect makes me think back to the Zelo

audio that Hampton Stall recorded on J six. For all the funny stuff about hot wiring, snowplows and playing with Biden's leg hair, there were a few voices in the chat that sounded like they meant business. At some point during the riot, a mysterious General E drops by his moniker and obvious play on the Confederate General Robert E. Lee General stop the still j six. General E proceeds to sketch out a plan for continuing the campaign on January seven. The premise is far fetched, but it does

sound like he has equipment and manpower. First thing in the morning, we are heading out in a convoy. We have armored vehicles coming from Texas, North Texas, South Texas. We will be moving in a convoy up to d C the next two and a half days. We're going to meet in a sibyl at the Virginia river line. All Detrious and Melissa man need to report to the river on the Virginia side. We will be assembling there

and we'll be taking our capital back. The good General's plan, of course, is utter madness, but so is the Capital riot. And there are voices in the group who sound like they want to sign up. Generally, this is uh Gator, even if it is someone called ead. Our group wants to link up with you and move in. If you could please contact me. You have my number and Gator isn't the only voice Jones in for treason. General E uh, this is bad Land's actual I just sent a request

on Zello. Can you side Porch please? Now? This second attempt at a coup never materialized. Within twenty four hours of the Capitol Riot, d C was flooded with National Guard troops who embedded there for weeks. So we'll never know whether our General E and company would have gone through with their tough talk. But when it comes to domestic terrorism, I'm usually inclined to take people at their word. So the million dollar question remains, what can we do

about these guys? Here's Hampton Stall. I don't think that the FBI or DHS or whom have or else is going to be able to like shoot their way out of this problem. I don't think they're going to be able to jail their way out of this problem. I don't think they're gonna be able to like no knockerate

their way out of this problem. Of like militia involvement in the United States, it could be termed as a hyper low level insurgency at this point, and I think a security approach will only serve to escalate that insurgency into like, very real like violence. So I'm not sure it's going to be as effective as everybody's hoping. The idea that a bunch of disparate militias armed with a motley assortment of rivals could present a threat to the U.

S Military is often mocked by liberals. It shouldn't be. On January six, some of these people were seconds away from potentially capturing elected leaders, and god knows what might have happened. Then, when we write these groups off as y'all Kaida country bumpkins doomed to lose any fight they start, we're allowing our own biases to blind us to a

very real threat. World history is filled with small groups of armed and motivated people who, through a mix of daring and blind bravado, changed the world, often for the worse. Perhaps the most frightening thing about people like Rhads isn't that they might overthrow the government or even start the civil war that many of them fantasize about. It's the fact that they have increasingly deep ties two elected leaders

on the right. Imagine what might happen if these people find themselves supported and empowered by an administration all too happy to cut them loose against the enemies of the people. It's happened before in Germany, Rwanda, Bosnia, and a thousand bloody little conflicts all over the globe. There's nothing written in the stars that says it can't happen here. Next time, we're going to look at a very different activists from Stewart Rhodes, a militant whose weapon of choice is memes.

An l a rapper addicted to online engagement who served the social media algorithms, cruising through music and politics before finally reaching the capital with an outrageous plan in mind. Hey let's call Trump. Let's call Trump yet, so join me in episode four as we meet the guy that everyone overlooked, including myself, with dire consequences,

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