Oath Keepers chief Stewart Rhodes' son explains why he left 'daddy Trump' -- and the 'far-right' cult
Unfortunately, I am Oath Keeper Stewart Rhodes’ son. And unfortunately for both of us, I may be relevant to you.
It is now undeniable that radicalization and the draw of right-wing extremist thought is a significant problem facing the nation, perhaps a fatal crisis, and in this context, there's a lot of interest in the stories of people who came back from the right-wing fringe. I have only my niche experience to offer from a very odd life. But I've been told that this might be valuable to those interested in how I went from a teenage militiaman who believed in Pizzagate to casting off my birth name of Dakota Stewart Rhodes and joining BLM and pro-choice protests.
If tracing the stumbling, fumbling path to independent thought taken by the son of an insurrectionist militia leader contains a valuable lesson, I have a responsibility to show you all. If there's a chance my story will be of any help to millions of people who have lost family and friends to right-wing cult behavior, then I have an obligation to tell it.
Long Snip to the end
Above all is the will. Believing that daddy Trump will save me, that I was always on the right side and never seriously, badly wrong about the world, and that my deepest held beliefs are infallible, is easy and comforting. Coming to the conclusions that I have, tearing apart every childhood dogma and finding little I want to save, is incredibly hard and has put me at odds with large parts of my family and my community, but I cannot justify doing anything else. I cannot even justify staying quiet and dissenting only in my own mind, even though standing up publicly is a source of horrific anxiety. It would be hypocritical in the extreme to hope for someone else, everyone else, to speak up for sanity and basic human decency when the GOP primaries are running ads that double as vigilante death squad threats. Not unless I spoke up, too.
A VERY GOOD READ
https://www.rawstory.com/dakota-rhodes/
= new reply since forum marked as read
He seems sincere, has made a 180-degree turn from his father and the Oath Keepers.
