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As Donald Trump awaits whether a Manhattan grand jury will choose to indict him this week, a prospect he is encouraging his supporters to protest, he is also preparing to hold the first major rally of his presidential campaign in a city famous for . the site of a deadly standoff between an anti-government cult and federal law enforcement.
Thirty years ago next month, 86 people died amid a disastrous siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. Trump announced last week that he would hold his first major campaign rally this Saturday in Waco, highlighting a city steeped in anti-government history at a time when the former President faces multiple criminal investigations and continues to be a part of of his 2024 the anti-government signal campaign.
If elected President, Trump pledged in a video released Tuesday that he would create a “truth and reconciliation commission” to “expose fraud,” and move up to 100,000 government workers out of Washington, DC to ” places full of patriots who love America.”
Trump continues to center his campaign around the 2020 election, which he lost but still refuses to concede. At a conservative conference this month, he told his supporters that if he were re-elected, he would be their “revenge” and praised politicians like GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia in support of those accused of involvement in the deadly riot at the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Recently, Trump posted a song called “Trump Won” on his Truth Social networking site with a link to donate to his campaign. Earlier this month, he added his voice to a song called “Justice for All” sung by people convicted of participating in the January 6 riots.
Trump’s rail against the forces that helped remove him from power comes at a time of great legal risk for him. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg testified at a grand jury hearing about Trump’s alleged hush payments to adult film actor Stormy Daniels. Over the weekend, Trump said Bragg should be investigated. Trump also faces Justice Department investigations into his role in trying to stop the counting of electoral votes at the Capitol Building on January 6 and his handling of classified documents, and in Georgia’s Fulton County over his efforts to overturn the election results there. state.
“As Donald Trump’s legal problems have increased, his rhetoric has increased, and his vituperation against all those actors has increased, and his supporters—who no longer want Joe Biden—have grown increasingly anti-government ,” said Mark Pitcavage , senior research fellow at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism.
When Trump travels to Waco on Saturday, he will visit a Texas county that he won over Biden by more than 20 percentage points. It was also the site of a notorious 51-day standoff between apocalyptic, anti-government Branch Davidians and the FBI and ATF that began in a deadly shootout with the deaths of 4 ATF agents and 6 people in compounds. After almost two months, the standoff ended in disaster, as a fire set by the Branch Davidians killed 76 people living in the compound including children. The deadly episode became a rallying cry for anti-government and militia movements in the US
Asked if Trump’s decision to hold a rally in Waco was in any way related to the anniversary of the siege, the Trump campaign said Waco’s location and Texas’ role in next year’s primary schedule were behind the choice. of the city for the first rally of the campaign.
“President Trump is holding his first campaign rally in Waco on Super Tuesday state of Texas because it is centrally located and close to all four of Texas’ largest metropolitan areas—Dallas/Ft. Worth, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio—while providing the necessary infrastructure to hold a rally of this magnitude,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung told TIME in a statement. “This is the perfect location to attend this historic this rally has as many supporters from across the state and neighboring states.”
But scheduling a high-profile rally in Waco while Trump faces serious legal risk and continues to suggest that the current heads of the US government are illegitimate sends a signal to anti-government movements that “they are welcome in his movement,” said Rachel Carroll Rivas, deputy director of research, analysis and reporting for the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, which tracks militia movements and hate groups.
“Certainly there are young people who may not remember Waco, but for people who believe deeply in this movement and who are deeply activists, it’s still very clear and current,” said Carroll Rivas.
For some of Trump’s diehard supporters, it’s impossible to miss the significance of him scheduling a rally at this moment in Waco. In a posting on messaging app Telegram, far-right activist and conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer called the Waco rally “very symbolic!” Several MAGA influencers on social media noted the choice of location, with one calling it “a significant shot at the edge of the Deep State”
In the pro-Trump forums that served as the staging ground for the Jan. 6, discussions of the Waco rally largely centered around discussing the merits of nearby Baylor University (“great school”), recommendations for burger and BBQ joints for those considering attending. , and wondering about whether HGTV “Fixer Upper” stars Chip and Joanna Gaines, whose home decorating business is headquartered in the city, will endorse Trump. Some commenters mentioned the 1993 Waco siege. “Yeah, that’s a town with some history there. Wonder if he’ll say it,” one person wrote. “Oh he is,” answered one.
One user wondered if Trump was “trolling [or] foreshadowing a little” by choosing Waco. “Interesting place to start,” added the user. “The site of the most notorious example of government killing of people.”
The Waco siege has been the subject of elaborate, unfounded conspiracy theories, including that federal agents started the fire that killed more than 70 people, including children, who lived with the group’s leader, David Koresh.
Subsequently, John Danforth, a former Senator from Missouri and former US Ambassador to the United Nations, led an extensive special counsel investigation into the Waco siege which concluded that the deadly compound fire was started by people in Branch Davidian movement. themselves and not federal agents outside the compound. Danforth, in an interview with TIME this week, said the conspiracy theories surrounding Waco show “an appetite for the worst possible interpretation of what people are doing and what people are doing in government.”
Those bad accounts, Danforth added, continue to erode public trust in the federal government. “When the public is led to believe that the government is an evil force, that it is always politically manipulated and can kill people, then the consent of the governed will be destroyed,” he said.
–With reporting by Vera Bergengruen
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