Lawsuit shows oath keepers never wanted Jan. 6 to end, and GOP candidates plan to grant their wish

For most Americans, January 6, 2021 was a trying day, as mobs ransacked the Capitol, looking for politicians to terrorize or even kill in revenge for their refusal to steal the presidency from Donald Trump. For the Oath Keepers, however, the saddest part of the day is how quickly it ended. The right-wing militia had been planning the insurgency for months, but when the day came, their hopes for political assassinations and the overthrow of democracy were largely dashed. Trump never showed up, as promised, to lead the crowd to victory. The targeted politicians managed to escape. Eventually, it became clear that the insurgency had failed, and Trump finally, very reluctantly, told the crowd to go home.

But, as revealed in the seditious conspiracy trial of five oath keepers on Monday, they weren’t quite ready to throw in the towel. “You ain’t seen nothing yet”, Stewart Rhodes, the militia founder, texted in group chat.

“We’re not giving up!!” member Kelly Meggs texted the team. “We’re Reloading!!” He promised the oath keepers would return to the Capitol to finish the job and grumbled that they had been unable to find House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after another oath keeper expressed disappointment at not to see her “head rolling on the front steps”.


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The Oathkeepers did not return to the Capitol but instead summoned to a nearby olive garden to map out the next steps in their as-yet-unabandoned plan to end the insurgency. Joshua James, an oath keeper who turned state’s witness, said that during the dinner, the group began spitting out plans to disrupt President Joe Biden’s inauguration. “The declaration of illegitimacy is the first step,” Rhodes wrote in the middle of a dinner of average Italian-American cuisine. But planning was cut short when members began to fear police would find them eating endless baskets of breadsticks. They decided to flee after dividing the huge weapons cache between three cars.

The group never came together to make a last big push to keep Biden from taking office. Now, unlike Trump, they face legal consequences for their role in the violence. With all the evidence against them, these five oath keepers face serious prison sentences. But even with Biden in power, the sad reality is that their goal on Jan. 6 — to install Trump in power against the will of the people — is now far more likely to happen than the day they stormed the Capitol.

Indeed, insurgents are poised to take power across the country in an election that appears to be determined primarily by uninformed voters who know little about the threats to democracy and are instead focused on laying blame. fault Biden for inflation. In the purple states that determined the 2020 election, most Republican candidates for top office have spent months hissing to the GOP base their intentions to steal the 2024 election for Trump, even as they play dumb at this topic to the media that could attract swing vote audiences.

The insurgents are poised to take power across the country in an election that appears to be determined mostly by uninformed voters who know little about the threats to democracy.

“In a typical year, we are not often faced with the question of whether the vote we cast will preserve democracy or endanger it,” Biden said in a speech from Capitol Hill Wednesday night. “But we are this year.”

Sometimes Republicans say the quiet parts out loud. On Monday, the far-right candidate refusing the election as GOP governor candidate in Wisconsin, Tim Michels, flatly stated, “Republicans will never lose another election in Wisconsin after I am elected governor.” His campaign office followed with a cleanup attempt, telling the Washington Post he only meant “voters will reward Republicans at the polls” after the great job he intends to do. This is a transparent cover — Michels supported Trump’s Big Lie and repeatedly refused to answer reporters’ questions about whether he would certify a Democratic victory in 2024.


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Many Republicans are playing the game of “will they or won’t they” this cycle, though anyone paying attention knows they don’t want to accept, let alone certify, a statewide election where the Democrat wins. Republican Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake only agreed to accept the election results if they win. In Pennsylvania, GOP gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano was part of the “fake voter” scheme to nullify the results of the 2020 election and participated in the January 6 events. GOP candidate for Michigan governor Tudor Dixon also declared the 2020 election fraudulentwhich makes it likely, if not certain, that if elected, she would find a way to refuse to certify a victory for Biden in his swing state in 2024.

As reported by Mother Jones, insurgents touting the Big Lie gathered for a conference this weekend. In attendance were “Republican candidates running for Secretary of State – the guardians of electoral integrity – in the crucial swing states of Arizona, Nevada and Michigan, respectively, Mark Finchem, Jim Marchant and Kristina Karamo”. The GOP’s targeting of election deniers for roles as secretaries of state is no coincidence. The positions would give them control over the conduct of elections in the state, making it all the easier for the party to pull off some of the illegal stunts demanded by Trump in 2020. Finhem, like Mastriano, was rioting in the January 6. Finchem’s lawyer was at the heart of the conspiracy to prevent real voters from registering Arizona’s 2020 vote in favor of a list of illegal voters sent to vote for Trump instead.

Unfortunately, there are few safeguards in place to prevent this ragtag team from enacting the “fake voters” plan in 2024 if they are in power. They are not only running with the “2024 coup” as their priority objective. They’ve also been able to spend the last two years strategizing how to get away with it, time that wasn’t available in the failed race to throw out the 2020 election results. Oathkeepers can go to jail, but alas, those who were organizing the administrative aspects of the coup were mostly untouched and so are free to try again in 2024, but this time with more power and know-how. If they win the election in this election cycle, it is unclear if much can be done to stop them.

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