Chino Valley, AZ — Jim Arroyo arrived for our assembly at Lucy’s Bar and Grill—dwelling of the “finest badass burger on the town”—carrying an Oath Keepers hoodie, a baseball hat, and a bracelet. He’s a brief, stocky man with a white beard, who walks with a stick. He had a pistol strapped to his waist and was accompanied by his spouse, Janet.
The 2 run the Yavapai County Preparedness Crew, a company spin-off of the Oath Keepers militia that they shaped within the aftermath of January 6, 2021.
Arroyo tells me he’s been prepping the members of his group for civil conflict following the election. (He claims membership exceeds 1,000; WIRED was unable to independently verify this. The Rumble channel for his group has almost 350 subscribers.)
“The election can actually set off a civil conflict, no totally different than it occurred in any variety of international locations all over the world,” Arroyo says over pastrami on rye, fries, a aspect of horsey sauce, and low. “I am coaching folks to outlive a civil conflict, to get out of the best way, to remain dwelling, keep off the grid, have sufficient provides.”
The couple is satisfied that there’s a grand conspiracy to forestall Trump from changing into president once more. “They wish to take him out in order that he can’t get again within the White Home,” says Jim Arroyo. WIRED spoke to the Arroyos on the eve of the election to get perception into how he views the potential for violence within the days to return, how he’ll react, and who he thinks will hearth the primary pictures.
Paramilitary teams have lengthy leveraged fantasies about impending pure disasters or home conflicts to impress their members. Arroyo and his spouse say they prepare members for all types of occasions, corresponding to financial collapse, assaults on {the electrical} grid, civil unrest and World Conflict 3. However the give attention to civil conflict by paramilitary and anti-government teams has been notably intense this 12 months main as much as the election. A latest intelligence memo reported by WIRED warned that civil conflict rhetoric on-line was radicalizing people towards violence.
Within the aftermath of January 6, for which dozens of Oath Keepers, together with founder Stewart Rhodes, had been arrested, the paramilitary motion scrambled to distance itself from the stigma of the occasion—even the phrase “militia.” The Oath Keepers, as soon as probably the most distinguished militia group within the US, basically collapsed. In line with the Southern Poverty Legislation Heart, the variety of chapters dropped from 70 in 2020 to simply 5 in 2020.
Arroyo, like many others within the paramilitary motion searching for to distance themselves from the stigma of January 6, provided a sanitized view of the Yavapai County Preparedness Crew. “We’re an academic group,” he says.
Arroyo broke ties with the principle Oath Keepers group and shaped “The Oath Keepers of Yavapai County,” an unbiased group beneath the umbrella of the Yavapai County Preparedness Crew, a company nonprofit Arroyo based over a decade in the past. “It’s all the identical fundamental program,” Arroyo mentioned. It additionally contains the Lions of Liberty, the group’s political arm, which deliberate poll drop field stakeouts through the 2022 midterms however agreed to face down their operations earlier than election day following a authorized problem.
