Ohio – a state that voted twice for Obama – and then twice for Trump – appears to have been fertile recruiting ground for the January 6 insurgents. An NPR database shows at least 48 people in the state were arrested in connection with the U.S Capitol attack. That’s the 6th most in the country. Ohio also has the second most antigovernment groups, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The January 6 committee holds another hearing today. And WYSO’s Leila Goldstein examines why so many people from Ohio believed they needed to, in their view, stop the steal.
The village of Woodstock is in northern Champaign County. Homes are over a hundred years old and a faded for-sale sign is posted in the window of one of the few markets. Neighbors chat on the street. Kids hang out in backyard pools. American flags and a pride flag hang from front porches.
At the center of town is the only bar. The neon Budweiser sign is turned off. It's now closed. 18 months ago it was a very different scene. The FBI raided that bar, looking for people they say plotted the Jan. 6 attack.
Here’s two of those suspects as they stormed the Capitol. This is from a video posted on social media and obtained by ProPublica.
Crowl: Took over the Capitol, overran the Capitol.
Watson: We’re in the [...] Capitol bro.
Donovan Crowl is charged with Conspiracy and Obstructing an Official Proceeding. And prosecutors say Jessica Watkins, who owned the bar, was one of the “most extreme insurgents.” Both are affiliated with the anti-government extremist group the Oath Keepers.
When the FBI raided the bar, resident Edward Minor saw cars and agents swarm the building. Woodstock is usually such a safe, quiet town, he says.
Minor: So to find out that we had a group from here at the Capitol was totally shocking to me, totally shocked about a lot of people in this town.
He’s a Trump supporter, but doesn’t support the vandalism and security breaches on January 6.
Minor: No, that's wrong, you know what I’m saying, and they should be held accountable for that.
Karl Pullins lives a street over. He had an anti-Biden flag hanging in his yard up until the wind blew it down. But he’s ordered a new one. And he says everybody has a right to protest, including at the Capitol.
Pullins: Well they got a right to do that, you know, that’s the people buildings down there, you know, they paid for them damn buildings.
Charles Crusie from down the block, who’s not a fan of Trump, feels differently.
Crusie: I think they all should have been arrested, every one of them, as a terrorist. If we'd had foreign people come over here and do that, what would we do to them?
As for why people from here might have joined, Edward Minor has a theory.
Minor: People from this area, some of them were very gullible. Anything new or any type of organization? Well, hey, I want to be a part of that. But they really don't know what they're getting into.
According to Sam Jackson of the University at Albany in New York, Minor isn’t too far off. Jackson wrote a book about the Oath Keepers, and he says someone might join because a friend at a bar tells them it’s a patriotic social group.
Jackson: And only once you spend more and more time with that organization, do you realize that there's a lot more extremism there, a lot more playing footsie with violence.
Recruitment also happens online. And the Oath Keepers targets people with law enforcement or military backgrounds, like Army vet Jessica Watkins. Plus, they engage in what he calls strategic ambiguity, with broad and malleable messaging.
Jackson: So, even if Oath Keepers doesn't specifically call for violence or criminality, which they do relatively rarely, they can still set the stage for others to decide for themselves that violence or criminality is necessary based on how they depict the world, based on the sort of even breathless panic about what might happen if so-called good patriots don't stand up and take action.
Divisive rhetoric about race and immigration can fuel that panic. And Holley Hansen of Oklahoma State University says that’s key to right wing extremism.
Hansen: In fact, the fact that it is the places where they have the least amount of diversity that tend to see more violence does suggest that this is really more about the perceptions and the fears, people's personal fears, than it is about the reality of what's going on.
Her research revealed that right wing terrorism is more often carried out in counties that are overwhelmingly white, and that have political competition… where that divisive rhetoric can stoke personal grievances and frustrations into violence.
The Southern Poverty Law Center reports that the number of hard-right antigovernment groups has more than tripled since 2008. But Hansen notes that this movement doesn’t reflect mainstream conservatism or the entire Republican Party.
And back in Woodstock, Edward Minor says people can come together by talking to their neighbors – and their elected officials.
Minor: We don't need to pick up a sword when we can pick up a pen. Pick up a pen and write our congressmen. We could write our mayors. We could write our senators.
And by voting.
Minor: That's where we're going to be loudest heard.