Hunter D'Antuono/AP Photo
- Dakota Adams, son of Oath Keepers militia founder Stewart Rhodes, is running as a Democrat.
- Rhodes is serving an 18-year sentence linked to his involvement in the Capitol riot.
- Adams described growing up in a "toxic" household and living in "extreme isolation."
Dakota Adams, the son of a right-wing Oath Keepers militia leader, is running as a Democratic candidate in a local election.
His father is Stewart Rhodes, who is currently serving an 18-year prison sentence for seditious conspiracy for his role in the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
"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," Adams told the Associated Press about his father's involvement in the riot.
"I was forced to reevaluate a lot of beliefs and face hard questions about what I really stood for."
Adams, 27, has launched a long shot bid for Montana's House in a Republican stronghold district.
He uses his mother's maiden name and told the AP that he was still "figuring myself out" and has gone to therapy to work through the "long-term effects of living in a toxic or dysfunctional household."
He said that he plans to sell the rifles, body armor, and tactical gear he used to wear to anti-government protests with his father.
A difficult childhood with his conspiracy theorist father
Susan Walsh/AP Photo
Adams described having a difficult childhood with his conspiracy theorist father, who kept the family living in constant fear that the government was spying on them and believing that an apocalypse was always imminent.
"Basically, until I'm an adult, it's all one continuous gray time of survival and moving boxes," Adams said.
"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 they got away from Rhodes in 2018 when Tasha Adams filed for divorce.
His estranged wife and two of his children, including Dakota Adams, previously told Business Insider that the family lived with Rhodes' "violent outbursts" and alleged that he was abusive toward them.
They described an incident in which he pulled out a gun on their dog and another in which he choked his daughter Sequoia.
Rhodes graduated from Yale with a law degree before going starting the Oath Keepers in 2009 after Barack Obama was elected president.
The long-haired Adams describes himself as an "honest weirdo" and campaigns wearing band t-shirts and wearing black nail polish.
"I have refused to tone any of this down since deciding to run for office," Adams told the AP about his appearance, "because I spent so long as a child conforming to a little character to enhance my father's political ambitions and image that I refused to do it ever again for any reason."
Democrats are supporting Adams' bid, and he has appeared at events with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ryan Busse, per the AP.
Scott Rodich, the vice chair of the county Democratic Central Committee, said that party leaders are happy to have Adams on the ballot as Democrats have been hesitant to run in the deeply red district, the outlet reported.