Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes told a Montana “patriot movement” radio program last week that the government is using the Jade Helm 15 military training exercise — a routine exercise that has become the center of an elaborate far-right conspiracy theory — to test who in the military and elected office will resist a future implementation of martial law.

“I think Jade Helm is in part conditioning and vetting of the military to see who will and will not go along,” Rhodes told the “ Liberty Brothers” radio program, adding that the training exercise would quickly change from preparation for deployment overseas to experimenting in going after right-wing groups.

“I think it’s also conditioning and assessment and vetting of the local politicians,” he added. “Who raises questions? Who has any serious, meaningful questions about what we’re doing with this exercise? They put their name down. I think they’re figuring out who is loyal and who is not loyal and who is likely to go along, with the town councils and county commissioners as well.”

He added that the exercise is also “meant to condition the public” and “intimidate” those who are on to the plot by telling them, “Resistance is futile, if you dare to oppose us this is what will happen, Navy Seals and Delta Force will come get you.”

Rhodes added that when he was in the Army in the 1980s, he “probably wouldn’t have blinked” at such an exercise, but “this is a different world we’re in” because “we have a government that’s made it very clear it considers veterans and gun owners and anybody who’s a constitutionalist to be the future enemy.”