Member-only story
Trump Narrows List of Running Mates to David Koresh, Timothy McVeigh, and Stewart Rhodes*
Trump chose to hold his first campaign rally in Waco, Texas, during the 30-year anniversary of the federal raid of the nearby Branch Davidian Compound. At the end of the 51-day siege, the compound exploded and burned to the ground, killing more than 70 Branch Davidians. See The Waco tragedy, explained in Vox.
“Waco fueled the rise of the militia movement in the 1990s and inspired the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995; it continues to influence contemporary militant thinking. All of this should be borne in mind when Donald Trump holds the first official rally of his 2024 presidential campaign in Waco . . . .” See Mike Giglio’s outstanding What it Means for Trump’s Campaign to Start in Waco, in The Intercept.
Trump’s speech at the Waco Rally “was a familiar festival of grievances and focused heavily on his legal jeopardy, portraying his expected indictment by a New York grand jury as a result of what he claimed was a Democratic conspiracy to persecute him.”
As he had earlier this month at CPAC, Trump ominously declared, “2024 is the final battle. It’s going to be the big one.” (Emphasis added.) The apocalyptic symbolism from Book of Revelations 19:11–21 isn’t subtle (although I’d wager he didn’t come up with that on his own). Trump also vowed to…