‘Its Own Domestic Army’: How the G.O.P. Allied Itself With Militants Actions taken by paramilitary groups in Michigan last year, emboldened by President Donald J. Trump, signaled a profound shift in Republican politics and a national crisis in the making. An intrusion by militia groups into the Michigan Statehouse last April now seems a harbinger of the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol.Credit...Matthew Hatcher/Bloomberg Feb. 8, 2021 LANSING, Mich. — Dozens of heavily armed militiamen crowded into the Michigan Statehouse last April to protest a stay-at-home order by the Democratic governor to slow the pandemic. Chanting and stomping their feet, they halted legislative business, tried to force their way onto the floor and brandished rifles from the gallery over lawmakers below.