Model Oath Keepers

They did:

The Oath Keepers’ national organization is unusual among groups conducting political violence in that they seem to behave as a business. Using leaked membership data, internal chat forums and publicly available articles posted to their website, I show that, unlike other far-right organizations, such as the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers do not organize as a club. Rather, its behavior is better explained as a firm that adjusts the price of membership over time to maximize profit. I then estimate the Oath Keepers’ price elasticity of demand for new membership using five membership sales between 2014 and 2018. I find the organization’s demand is highly sensitive to changes in price. These results imply that political violence can be motivated by nonideological entrepreneurs maximizing profits under current legal institutions — a chilling conclusion.

That is from a new paper by Danny Klinenberg, from a loyal MR reader.

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