Stewart Rhodes, the infamous leader of the anti-government Oath Keeper militia, was standing on a street in Conroe, Texas, a city about 40 miles north of Houston. The sky was clear blue, but remnants of darker days were everywhere. Residents were shoveling up splintered lumber and debris. A boy holding a broom was halfheartedly scooping lawn scraps into a garbage bag a few feet away from where Rhodes was conducting an on-camera interview.
A Category 4 hurricane named Harvey had just dumped feet, not inches, of water on the state, sparking one of the most expensive disasters in United States history. The scale of the damage was so vast that the then-director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency put out a request for volunteers. “We need citizens to be involved,” he said on Aug. 28, 2017, a few days after the storm struck Texas. The Oath Keepers answered the call.
Rhodes was wearing an Oath Keepers cap and T-shirt. He was there with another Oath Keeper, the organization’s southeast regional assistant coordinator, Alex Oakes. The men were interviewing Beau Sullivan, a Conroe local who had been organizing hurricane relief efforts after the storm.
“Thank you gentlemen for coming out here,” Sullivan said, shaking Rhodes’ and Oakes’ hands. “You know, normally y’all gotta be a little more brass tacks, but y’all come out here with a message of love this time, and camaraderie, and I really appreciate that. That’s what’s needed now in this rebuilding effort.”
The exchange, captured on video and disseminated by the Oath Keepers on AltCensored, a right-wing alternative to YouTube, neatly distills why a group mainly preoccupied with uncovering made-up evidence of government tyranny might participate in hurricane relief efforts: It wins people over. |
