I thought this was one of the worst fathers ever: remember the Canadian farmer who moved his whole family to Russia? Arend and Anneesa Feenstra, who dragged their ten kids to an uncertain future, are being told to leave because who knew, they were expected to learn the Russian language, and Arend didn’t have time. Why he didn’t have time is a mystery, since his wife, by his own admission, was doing all the childcare and housework and editing the YouTube videos that were their sole source of income.
That’s a deeply stupid dad who is letting his ideology destroy his whole family.
But then there’s a dad that’s even worse. Stewart Rhodes founded the Oath Keepers and is now serving an 18-year federal sentence for conspiring to overthrow the government. You might suspect he didn’t have the happiest home life. Now we know how bad it was: his son has come out and told all.
In a recent interview with the Associated Press, Adams revealed his abusive upbringing at the hands of Stewart Rhodes, and the new path that he seeks to chart.
He said living with Rhodes was a constant process of moving around and starting over, as the Yale-educated militant convinced his family the government was spying on them and the end of days was imminent.
“We lived in extreme isolation in one particular cultural bubble in increasingly paranoid and militant right-wing political spheres everywhere we moved in the country, until eventually we ended up in Montana,” Adams said.
When his mother divorced Rhodes in 2018, Adams was able to move out of the shadow he cast on their family. Rhodes severely undercut Adams’ and his seven siblings’ schooling and barred them from publicly talking about their home lives. Adams couldn’t complete a times table until he was 19 and has spent the last several years trying to catch up on his education—recently enrolling in several college courses.
Yikes. Dakota Adams has his revenge, though. He’s running for the Montana state house…as a Democrat!
“It served as a sobering wake-up call in terms of how much danger we are truly in and how the Republican Party enabled a president to become an active danger to this republic,” he said. “I was forced to reevaluate a lot of beliefs and face hard questions about what I really stood for.”
He has plans to sell the body armor and guns he once wore to protest the government alongside his father, and he had some strong thoughts on guns and gun culture.
“American gun culture needs to be rehabilitated from an egotistical and vanity-based, hyper-individualist ego trip culture to civil service and solemn responsibility to the community,” he said. He still opposes total bans on firearms—he believed they could be necessary for the self-defense of vulnerable groups.
Many of his direct policy concerns are about making Montana livable for middle- and lower-income people. Most of the voters in his area are strongly conservative, and Adams tries to avoid sweeping cultural and social issues. He would rather focus on the challenges directly facing Montana residents.
I’d vote for him.
It’s something I’ve always felt, so this is an interesting illustrative example. I’ve thought that the only way to cultivate empathetic, thoughtful, open-minded children is to give them an empathetic, thoughtful, open-minded upbringing. The authoritarian parents, like Rhodes and Feenstra not only make their kids’ lives a living hell, it drives them away from their ideology. I suspect some of the commenters here have similar stories, of being brought up in an oppressive environment and now rebounding towards a more progressive approach to life. That’s one of the strengths of the Left.
Dakota Adams, huge respect and more power to him.
His Oath Keeper father OTOH? Major disrespect and more years in jail for him.
I hope the rest of the family also respects and rallies around the son and not the father here.
This is indeed typical of the far right wing terrorists.
We saw that a lot with the Ammon Bundy group that occupied the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Eastern Oregon.
A lot of them had criminal convictions, mostly for stupid crimes but up to and including murder. They mostly had histories of domestic violence and abuse, and low education levels. They all had employment histories with long periods of unemployment. Who has the time to occupy a wildlife refuge in the middle of nowhere for a month or two? We all have jobs, families, pets, and lives to take care of.
If the Feenstra’s are kicked out of Putin’s Paradise, will Canada let them back in, if they try and return? Given the typical style of the RW ideologues, they probably didn’t have full confidence in their decision to move there and, thus, did not give up their citizenship in Canada. I assume that would grant them entry back into the country that they spurned. Too bad. It is awful that their children have to bear the brunt of their parent’s abject stupidity.
Usually, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, but in this case, it is the opposite. Good to see it. It took all those years before Rhodes was sent to prison. In a round-about way we can thank Trump. He put a bunch of these paranoid and militant right-wing crazies in jail. Way too many left though, some are even serving in government.
It takes some active effort to end up with kids that uneducated.
I think I learned the multiplication tables in the first and second grade.
It would be surprising if he ever learned to do long division without a calculator.
Probably didn’t read very well either.
I’m sure they do.
My parents weren’t abusive and literate and pro education. The house was always filled with books, magazines, and newspapers.
The northern Pacific coast hinterland we grew up in was Nowheresville though. The culture involved guns, big pickups, and heavy drinking of alcohol was ubiquitous. In the 1950s, we didn’t have a future, especially for girls and women. It was grow up, get an OK paying blue collar job, get married and pregnant (often in the reverse order),
Then the 1960s happened. The Counterculture.
(Also the Vietnam war. That opened a lot of people’s eyes to what we were living through.
All of the sudden, the future was filled with possibilities.
Most of us got out of there and never looked back.
I think all articles that mention Stewart Rhodes need to also mention that he wears an eye patch because he accidentally shot out his own eye. He then went on to found the Oath Keepers.
Similarly all articles about Trump should refer to him as a rapist.
raven @2: Most of the people occupying the wildlife refuge were fairly wealthy ranch owners. That was how they were able to handle the long period of occupying the refuge: they didn’t work in the first place, they had ranches that other people worked for them while they tooled around in their oversized pickups or, in at least one case, private jet.
“he wears an eye patch because he accidentally shot out his own eye.”
Oh man, Ralphie clearly entered a downward spiral after the Red Ryder incident.
Maybe Rhodes should volunteer to fight for Russia in Ukraine?
Authoritarianism is an attractive political philosophy because it’s easy; you don’t need to think much or justify your actions. Consequently authoritarians don’t share decisions and eventually screw up. Since it’s easy to understand authoritarianism, observant young people see its built in flaws and contradictions and search for something else.
I raised two toddlers on my own when my wife died. And they are amazing, positive people. See? It can be done if you aren’t an asshat.
Maybe Rhodes should volunteer to fight for Russia in Ukraine?
First, you can’t follow orders if you don’t know the language.
And second, this guy moved to Russia because he was scared of UNARMED gay people. I really don’t think he’d have the stomach for armed Ukrainians — even the straight cis ones.
the only way to cultivate empathetic, thoughtful, open-minded children is to give them an empathetic, thoughtful, open-minded upbringing.
Or as Republicans call it, THE WOKE MIND VIRUS!!!
I know a young woman brought up in a conservative Christian household. She was home schooled. She is now a gay, left wing feminist. Changed her first name from the Biblical one she had.
Raging Bee; teach an NCO to shout “FIGHT” in English and with one of those special battalions used to prevent retreat behind him he’ll get the idea! You knew I was being humorous of course.
That’s almost never how it works, though. Guns are used most by those most willing to use them, and that’s almost always going to be the aggressors.
On the other hand, fewer guns, and tough effective gun control laws have proven time and again to be the best way to improve the safety of everyone.
But otherwise, he’s learned the right lessons from his unfortunate upbringing, so good on him.
tacitus:
Citing the right of the vulnerable to armed self-defense is a good argument. But so is citing the the armed aggression of the lawless. Clearly there needs to be a compromise between self defense and rule of law.
Fortunately there is already codified policy along those lines: namely, the Second Amendment, when you give the ‘well-regulated militia’ clause equal weight with the ‘right to bear arms’ clause. Unfortunately, the amendment is written broken into four clauses, which allows selective reading by idiots and ideologues. (But I repeat myself.)
Scalia’s judicial activism in “DC vs Heller” cancelled the well-regulated-militia clause, and we have been living with a half-repealed Second Amendment ever since, with ill effects self-evident to all but idiots, lunatics, criminals, insurrectionists, and foreign agents.
I propose that we re-write the Second Amendment as a single clause explicitly balancing gun rights with gun control, thus:
“The right of the people to bear arms in a well-regulated state militia shall not be infringed.”
To this clause I would add these two:
“2. Well-regulated militias shall not arm those under adult age, nor arm those found guilty of treason as defined by the Constitution.”
“3. States have the right to enforce additional regulation of their militias.”
“American gun culture needs to be rehabilitated…”
NO. It needs to be put out of our misery, period. American gun culture is a cancer, you don’t “rehabilitate” a cancer, you ERADICATE it.
If you spend your life believing that powerful (but completey secret) cabals exist and are out to get you, that is bound to make you depressed.
I’m not sure what he’s saying here? Either it is a haven for right-wing nutjobs, or even for said nutjobs moving to Montana is kind of a last resort.
Maybe it’s just me, but that doesn’t exactly sound like a ringing endorsement of Montana?
I don’t think gun culture can be rehabilitated, but I appreciate that he’s addressing that particular elephant in the room.