“Not A Paramilitary.” Inside A Washington Militia’s Efforts To Go Mainstream

On a recent morning, Matt Marshall sat at a back table in Jim Bob’s Chuck Wagon, a café in an old timber town about a half-hour outside of Seattle.

It was the eve of a political rally Marshall had spent months planning. He scribbled last-minute notes in a homemade booklet, a Christmas present from his daughter. On the front, in black marker, she’d drawn the logo of the Washington Three Percent, the name of her dad’s militia. Although that’s not the word he uses.

“We’re absolutely not a paramilitary,” he said. “We’re a nonprofit corporation.”

Image Credit: Jim Urquhart for NPR