Oath Keepers

Some years ago, I read an article in Reason saying that the Oath Keepers were maligned; they weren’t racists or fascists, but policemen and others who took their oaths seriously, and were trying to educate other law enforcement personnel about their duties under the Constitution: for example, not to shoot blacks who were traveling lawfully in an attempt to escape New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. This may have been true, or at least a reasonable tack to take, a decade ago, and made me skeptical of criticisms of Oath Keepers for some time afterward.

Times change. There were reports of Oath Keepers not behaving so well in other incidents, and then came the January 6th attack on the Capitol, with Oath Keepers being involved, including the founder, Elmer Stewart Rhodes. It seems that he and other Oath Keepers became Trump cultists around 2016, and are now worthy of opprobrium. Things like this can happen: an organization or movement may change its views, or be taken over by new people, and pursue an agenda very different from what it formerly had. Some members may jump ship, while others remain blindly loyal, despite radical changes in what they are called upon to thinks and do.