It is almost an axiom of politics and life that the things we do not name grow in power. Death, the shadow, the awkward and uncomfortable truth—suppressed, these things emerge stronger. Call it the Voldemort principle: that which is unspeakable—or goes unspoken—only expands in energy and potential power. These days, among the unspeakable and unspoken, is the spread of a dangerous movement and ideology in politics, one we dare not name.
Last month, a man named Stewart Rhodes, leader of the far-right extremists called the Oath Keepers, was found guilty of the crime of seditious conspiracy for his role in the January 6 insurrection. The federal court verdict, delivered by a jury of his peers, found that Rhodes and his militia plotted to disrupt the peaceful transition of power, overthrow the government by force, and keep Donald Trump in office. In total, five people—three men and two women—were found guilty of felonies related to the assault on the U.S Capitol. The conspirators were convicted of other crimes as well, but it is the guilty verdict of sedition that is the most significant. It confirms that the violent events of January 6, 2021, were the result of an organized plot to attack the nerve-center of American democracy.
The word sedition is not commonly used in everyday speech. Simply put, sedition is the act of revolting or using violence against a legitimate government to control or destroy it. While the notions of sedition and conspiracy within Anglo-American law have historically been used to suppress dissent, the modern crime comes from the Civil War period. The law of Seditious Conspiracy, officially 18 U.S. Code § 2384, dates back to 1861, when Confederate states began seceding from the Union and launched a military assault upon the federal government. The Oath Keepers and their fanatical right-wing allies are not the Confederates, but they managed to do what not even the Confederates could: parade the flag of sedition and slavery through the United States Congress.
They were also incredibly well-organized. According to the Department of Justice, the Oath Keepers split into teams and planned to transport firearms and ammunition to Washington, DC; planned and organized trainings to teach and learn paramilitary tactics; brought “knives, batons, camouflaged combat uniforms, tactical vests with plates, helmets, eye protection, and radio equipment” to the Capitol. They breached the actual building on January 6, 2021, to “prevent, hinder, and delay the certification of the electoral college vote.” Some of the militants broke into the Capitol building itself, while others waited outside Washington in rapid response teams that were ready to transport guns and ammunition into the city to “stop the lawful transfer of power.” And of course, when inside the Capitol, they attacked law enforcement.
In other words, what the government proved beyond a reasonable doubt was that the events of January 6, 2021, were not the work of a ragtag group of disgruntled rioters, but an organized and armed conspiracy that sought to overthrow the federal government by force, end the peaceful transition of power, and use violence to reinstate Donald J. Trump as president. It was nothing less than an attempted coup, carried out at the same time as the former president was goading on the mob to storm the Capitol.
We live in a time of double-talk and duplicity, a time where words are shorn of meaning, a time of trivializing the significant and catastrophizing the trivial, where the real threats of violence are cynically conflated with impolite gestures of disapproval, where truth is itself assailed. The legal system is still a bulwark against the threats of lawlessness and will-to-power authoritarianism that the far-right militias fantasize about. But there are more guns than people in America, and more extremists with guns than anywhere else in the world. That the Oath Keepers had insufficient ammunition and manpower this time around does not change the prospect that next time they might have more guns, and more friends.
Stewart Rhodes and I share one thing: we both went to Yale Law School. As the New York Times reported, Rhodes morphed from conservative law student at the nation’s premier law school to a far-right extremist wearing an eye-patch and on trial for sedition. At Yale Law School, Rhodes “was clean-shaven, with a prosthetic eye, the result of a self-inflicted gun accident.” He was focused on gun rights and did not strike anyone as outside of the ordinary.
But over the years, Rhodes drifted to the right, then the far-right, then acted on his ideas by leading armed insurrectionists to storm the Capitol. Sometimes, all it takes is the right dose of ideology, irrational fear, and a cult leader’s encouragement for a man, even a Yale-trained lawyer, to become radicalized and resort to violence.
Rhodes composed a message for the former president, to be delivered to Donald Trump after the insurrection. “This is Stewart Rhodes,” he wrote. “Army airborne veteran and Yale Law graduate.” He wished to tell Trump: “You must use the insurrection act and use the power of the Presidency to stop” Joe Biden from becoming president. “I am here for you and so are all my men. We will come help you if you need us,” Rhodes wrote. “Military and police. And so will your millions of supporters.”
There has been a strange tendency among educated people to dismiss the far-right threat that presents itself to America—the same far-right ideology that rears its head in Europe, in Italy, in France, in India. Indeed, just today, German authorities disrupted a far-right plot to overthrow the government. Mutations of this worldview consumed some of the most civilized and developed states in Europe less than a century ago. Denialism is a comforting analgesic, the refusal to acknowledge the parasitic ideology feeding off and growing within our democracies. Concluding what is obvious, and going where the facts lead, may disturb the certainties one has about America and liberal democracy. It cannot be what we think it is because that can’t happen here.
At a time when leading Republicans minimize the insurrection, when the Republican Senator from Missouri says he “regrets nothing” about January 6 and raising his fist in support of seditionists, when hundreds of Republicans claim the 2020 election was stolen, what shall we call this ideology? When the Proud Boys, neo-Nazis, the Oath Keepers, and other criminals seek to end the democratic experiment, what shall we say? When the forty-fifth president openly brags, “I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump—I have the tough people,” how will we organize? When the former president, and the current frontrunner for the Republican nomination of 2024, demands that the Constitution of the United States be “terminated,” how shall we respond? The far-right, if nothing else, will show us everyone’s true colors.
This is only the beginning of the fight against the far-right ideology that dare not speak its name. The ideology is called fascism, and it is already here, worming its way through the minds of too many people. It is a violent, sadistic, reactionary, anti-democratic ideology that is also incredibly patient. The Oath Keepers are only the start. There will be others, for the militias have been gathering arms for some time, waiting.
As our moment unfolds, all the worst variants of this dangerous ideology re-emerge, from hatred of Jews to subversion of democracy, poisoning more minds, even ones privileged enough to receive the best education in the land. The ideology spreads across the country, consuming more young men, driving them to their guns, sending tornados of violence through America’s halls of power, and its schools. Naming this clear and present danger is the first step; the hard part is what comes next.