Today, in the wake of Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rose being sentenced to 18 years in prison for conspiracy to incite the January 6 attacks, I took a look through the TPM archives. We’ve been covering Rhodes and oath keepers for a long time. But I couldn’t remember exactly how long it was. Upon closer inspection, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it was when he was just beginning to appear on the national stage. But rereading our past coverage also helped us re-understand the background to Rose’s founding of Oath Keepers.
Rose incorporated the Oathkeepers in 2009 (hey, who became president that year?). Its founding is inseparable from the burgeoning Tea Party movement.
Today, in the wake of Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rose being sentenced to 18 years in prison for conspiracy to incite the January 6 attacks, I took a look through the TPM archives. We’ve been covering Rhodes and oath keepers for a long time. But I couldn’t remember exactly how long it was. Upon closer inspection, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it was when he was just beginning to appear on the national stage. But rereading our past coverage also helped us re-understand the background to Rose’s founding of Oath Keepers.
Rose incorporated the Oathkeepers in 2009 (hey, who became president that year?). Its founding is inseparable from the burgeoning Tea Party movement.
The first mention of TPM’s Oath Keepers was in a January 2010 article by Zachary Ross headlined “Ex-Marine with Right-Wing Movement Charged with Child Rape Charged With Grenade Launcher”. There’s a lot going on there, right? Below is an excerpt.
It’s unclear what Mr. Dyer wants with the grenade launcher. However, he has proclaimed himself a proud member of the Oath Keepers, an organization whose purpose is to recruit former military and law enforcement personnel, and to prevent the federal government from seizing Americans’ guns and It fuels fears that it will try to rally people to concentration camps.
of this videoDyer appeared at a Tea Party event to promote the Oath Keepers, denouncing the group’s (possibly unique) criticism of the federal government’s views. overly enthusiastic Response to Hurricane Katrina.
A month later, in February 2010, Stewart Rose spoke to Eric Kleefeld about the Texas Gubernatorial Tea Party candidate in the Republican primary against incumbent Governor Rick Perry and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. First appeared in TPM in his article.
Tea Party activist and Texas Republican gubernatorial primary candidate Debra Medina has made headlines for her favorable comments about the 9/11 Truth Tellers and Berthers, but at the other extreme. He is also involved in the ideological movement Oath Keepers.
Will Bunch at Philadelphia Daily News It points out that Medina will be performing at an event called “Take Back Texas” in San Antonio this Sunday. Her two other speakers are Stewart Rose, founder of the Oath Keepers movement, and Richard Mack, former sheriff and Oath activist of Graham County, Arizona.
Each of these first stories sees the Oath Keepers and Tea Party adjacencies, charitably speaking, and incorporates a touch of natalism and 9/11 truthism in moderation. I wouldn’t say that the TPM was alone reporting on the rise of right-wing extremism at the time, but to this day there has been a cauldron of racial grievances, white resentment, and transgressions that should be. I don’t think it’s as widely understood. -Constitutionalism and the 2009-2010 conspiracy theories ushered in Trump’s inauguration and, ultimately, January 6th.
We first delved into Rose herself a few days later in an article by Jillian Layfield, Too Extreme for O’Reilly? The man behind the right-wing group ‘Oath Keepers’ – This is based on Mr. Rose’s appearance on FOX News’ O’Reilly Factor. *Here, less than a year after the founding of Oath Keepers, Mr. Rose was elevated to prime-time performer on Fox News’ most popular show.
The Oath Keepers have some connection to the Tea Party movement, which itself has received considerable attention within the conservative movement. For example: Oath Keepers also participate Member of the Friends for Liberty Coalition, the umbrella organization for Tea Party-friendly movements such as Glenn Beck’s 9/12 Project and the John Birch Society. Rose is also a member of the planning committee for her 9/12 project in 2010. …
Also of note is the Oath Keepers there is a booth At the CPAC conference in Washington, D.C., a DVD titled “For Liberty: How the Ron Paul Revolution Watered the Withered Liberty Tree” is being distributed (the group’s bond with Ron Paul doesn’t stop there). – Rose) He himself is a former member of Paul’s DC staff, according to his vow keeper. Self introduction page).
CPAC. Glenn Beck. John Birch Society. Ron Paul. The point is not that all the ingredients for what became an incendiary conspiracy were there. It’s not as simple as a pinch of Ron Paul, a pinch of Vircher, a cup of Tea Party and an instant coup. Rather, the point is that American conservatism, or what has been accepted as conservatism in its various manifestations, went off track more than a decade before the events of January 6th. Barack Obama’s election was, as we all know, a catalytic event. But it didn’t start there, nor did it start with the election of President Donald Trump in 2016.
There is another small echo of that time in the archives. Can you see the partial Chiron in the screenshot above from the O’Reilly-Rhodes interview? It’s a reference to “A small plane crashed into an office building in Texas.” suicide attack 53-year-old Andrew Joseph Stack III, who flew a plane to an IRS office in Austin, killing one IRS employee and injuring several others. Less than a decade after 9/11, the attacks sparked a more national response than is now expected.
An angry, middle-aged white man who resents the federal government for turning violent and expressing its discontent. The now-famous picture shows a certain naivety about right-wing extremism in the world. new york times report About this incident, which continues to this day:
But instead of being the stereotype of an ideologically driven terrorist, Mr. Stack was portrayed as a generally carefree, talented amateur musician with marital problems and a bitter grudge against the tax authorities. …
Within hours of the crash, before the pilot was dead or identified, authorities denied any link to a terrorist organization or acts of terrorism.
“My main message is that this is an isolated incident here. When asked how he could be so sure, Acevedo replied: “You have to take my word for it, don’t you?”
It should be noted here that during the Obama era there was a vigorous effort to downplay, minimize, and recertify attacks like this one as not terrorism, but this It was a joint effort of law enforcement and politicians to avoid any repercussions in the years after /11. what is happening under their watch. But frankly, we still don’t think this kind of attack is ‘ideologically driven’. What exactly is the “furious resentment” the New York Times calls it? If the attacker is not a dark-skinned religious fundamentalist, put it in a separate bucket. In the words of his wife’s stepfather, Stack was simply a man betrayed by his IRS.
“I knew Joe had a falling out with the IRS and had his savings taken away,” Jack Cook, the stepfather of Mr. Stack’s wife, said in a telephone interview from his home in Oklahoma. “And that’s definitely why he flew the plane into that building. Not to kill people, just to damage the IRS.”
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta sentenced Rose today in a federal courthouse in Washington, DC, across the street from the U.S. Capitol. condemned Mr. Rose’s words, seldom heard here in America: “I dare say, Mr. Rose, and I have never said this to anyone whom I have sentenced. Your Excellency, you are a nation, a republic, And it poses a continuing threat and danger to the nation.” The very structure of democracy. ”
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*For those interested, here’s a clip of Bill O’Reilly’s interview with Mr. Rose from the time.
