"To be honest with you, I think part of it comes from the United States getting involved in a lot of conflict overseas," he said. "But it also is in the Koran, anybody that doesn't follow them is supposed to be beheaded or whatever. I've seen their book. Their job is to kill us unless we convert to Islam."
"They're already inside our federal government," Seddon said. "Homeland Security has some people who are deeply entrenched. What's the name of the [Palestinian American] female speaker that [New York City] mayor [Bill] de Blasio loves? [Linda] Sarsour. She's right there next to de Blasio when he makes speeches at events. She's put up on a pedestal. Listen, in this country, Sharia law just ain't happening. It violates our entire Constitution. We're a free country. Anytime you start implementing a law that tells you, 'You have to do this, you have to abide by this,' you're going against the Constitution of the United States."
"Why are there so few African Americans in militias?" I asked.
"Because the left spins us as being racist bigots, when [actually] we allow anybody into the group," Seddon said. "Like I said, we have homosexuals in the group. We have a lot of Mexicans, believe it or not. Veterans. The media spins us as racist KKK members. Listen, we accept almost anybody into AP [American Patrol]. The only people I'd scrutinize a little more, unfortunately, would be the Muslim community. And no felons."
"Do you have any Muslims?" I asked.
"They have no interest in the group," Seddon said.
"Our country is divided completely," Mosher said. "Some people think it's going to lead to a civil war or a revolutionary war. I hope it happens during my time and not my son's."
Mosher said about 85 percent of the militia's members were vets. Mosher and Seddon left the house to join the other militia members standing around the bonfire in the backyard. The light was fading.
Kat, recently divorced, lost her job in February 2017 as the cheer coach at Ithaca College. She had been there only a year. She is the mother of three boys and a girl, ages 22, 21, 14, and 12.
"This [losing her job] was for my views of being a Christian Trump supporter," she said. "That's all it was."
"We went on break right after the election because the school shuts down from December to January after finals," she said. "We came back after inauguration. A couple of my girls [on the cheer team] seemed to be upset all the time. One of them was a Muslim refugee from Afghanistan. The other one was of Asian descent. I'm pretty sure she was a lesbian."
A few of the girls she coached confronted her about the pro-Trump opinions she had posted on Facebook, including a photo she had put up after the Women's March in Washington of a veteran woman captioned, "The real women who marched for us."
"They were fired up, started calling me a racist," she explained. "I said listen, I understand you're upset about the election. I understand these things. But it is what it is. This is how democracy works. This is your president now. You can't keep missing practices and getting up and calling me names.
"They weren't having it," she said. "This went on for over an hour. I was so tired. I couldn't even talk anymore." The verbal altercation ended when two girls stormed out of the cheerleading practice. "'We're not coming back if you're still here,'" she recalled one of the girls saying.
When she was fired the next day she received a terse email saying her contract had been terminated, her world disintegrated. She was still trying to cope from a recently dissolved marriage.
"This was my life," she said. "This was all I ever knew. I cheered for 14 [years] myself. And I've been coaching for six [years]. I was so heartbroken. I guess my life is going to be different now. ... I didn't know what to do. ... I have to figure it out."
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