Trump is stoking the fires of Waco
On a sultry Sunday afternoon in August 1980, the Republican nominee for president of the United States chose the Neshoba County Fair outside the little town of Philadelphia, Miss., for his first major campaign speech.
Ronald Reagan — “appearing in an open-necked shirt and red clay-stained shoes,” a local reporter noted — assured a mostly white crowd that day that he was a firm believer in “states’ rights,” an oft-used code in the South in those days for racial segregation and discrimination.
Reagan happened not to mention that 7 miles from where he was speaking, three young civil rights workers had been kidnapped and murdered 16 years earlier by a Ku Klux Klan gang that included the county sheriff. Debated to this day is the question of whether the candidate’s paean to states’ rights, combined with his failure to mention the martyred trio, represents an early example of what has come to be called dog-whistle politics — in other words, conveying a subtle message for those with ears to hear, while maintaining plausible deniability.
Some historians suggest that a campaign scheduler made a mistake by sending the candidate to Philadelphia, and Reagan was reluctant to disappoint his Mississippi audience by backing out. Others maintain that the former two-term governor of California, a first-time presidential nominee but an experienced politician, was pursuing his own “Southern strategy” by showing up in a place associated with allout resistance to civil rights.
When Donald Trump flies into Waco on Saturday evening for the first major campaign event of his 2024 reelection quest, dog ears won’t be the only ones twitching. Trump doesn’t do subtle; dog-whistle messages are not his style. The more apt metaphor is the blaring air horn of a Mack 18-wheeler barreling down I-10.
The former president arrives in Waco during the 30th anniversary of the disastrous Branch Davidian debacle, a two-month-long siege by the ATF, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies culminating in a fire storm that killed 74 people, including 21 children. What happened at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco on April 19, 1993, was the deadliest day in FBI history. (Additionally, four ATF agents and six Branch Davidians lost their lives on the first day of the 51-day siege.)
The GOP-friendly city of Waco — Trump won McLennan County by more than 20 percentage points in 2020 — has every right, of course, to host a former president, the leading contender for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, but “Waco” the symbol, like “Philadelphia, Miss.,” the symbol, means something else entirely. “Waco” has become an Alamo of sorts, a shrine for the Proud Boys, the Three Percenters, the Oath Keepers and other anti-government extremists and conspiracists.
Waco helped spawn what Fort Worth writer Jeff Guinn calls a “legacy of rage” in his new book about the Branch Davidian siege. The Northeast Texas Regional Militia of Texarkana erected a granite headstone at the site that reads as follows: “On February 28, 1993, a church and its members known as Branch Davidians came under attack by A.T.F. and F.B.I. agents. For 51 days the Davidians and their leader, David Koresh, stood proudly.” As Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh put it, “Waco started this war.”
Thirty years later, the anti-government paramilitary groups feeding off lies about the “deep state” and a stolen election periodically visit the modest, little chapel on the site of the sprawling, ramshackle building that burned to the ground. Although the Branch Davidians had nothing to do with anti-government conspiracists, chapel construction was funded by loudmouthed conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
Militia members and conspiracists know exactly what Trump’s Waco visit symbolizes. They have heard him castigate the FBI and the “deep state,” particularly after agents searched for classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. How they’ll respond to his remarks, particularly if he shows up as the first former president in American history to face criminal charges, has law enforcement in Waco and beyond taking every precaution. What he says will likely set the tone for the presidential campaign to come. Every American should be concerned.
The Trump campaign insists that the candidate’s visit during the Branch Davidian anniversary is purely coincidental. A spokesman said the campaign was looking for a site away from the big cities but close enough to Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, Houston and San Antonio to draw a crowd. The Waco Regional Airport and an expected crowd of 10,000 or so fit the bill. Of course, Temple or Belton or Killeen (home to Fort Hood) would have fit the bill, as well — without the weight of symbolism.
Trump alerted his followers that the feds were coming to get him with an all-caps alert last Saturday morning on Truth Social, his social-media site: “THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE & FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK. PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!”
His call to arms echoed his “Be there, will be wild,” exhortation a few weeks before Jan. 6, as well as his “fight like hell” screed on the Ellipse, shortly before several thousand insurrectionists took him at his word, marched up Pennsylvania Avenue and sacked the Capitol.
The Proud Boys and other antigovernment extremists with a propensity for violence took him seriously on that ignominious day. They might do the same in Waco.
Although Trump’s predicted arrest did not take place, he appears to be close to facing criminal charges in Manhattan, where District Attorney Alvin Bragg may bring charges involving an allegation that the former president attempted to hide a hushmoney payment to Stormy Daniels, an adult-film actress with whom he allegedly had a sexual encounter. The $130,000 payment would be in violation of federal election laws. Trump denies the encounter.
Whatever Bragg decides about bringing charges will be controversial. Legal experts and political observers with no ties or allegiance to Trump have questioned whether the Daniels imbroglio, one of multiple investigations involving the former president, is worthy of indictment.
“The problems are manifold,” Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post wrote in a recent column. “New York state law makes it a crime to falsify business records — for example, listing hushmoney payments as a retainer — but that is only a misdemeanor. It could rise to the level of a felony charge if prosecutors could show that Trump ordered falsification of records to conceal another crime. But would ‘another crime’ need to be a federal offense, or would a state offense be sufficient?”
While the merits of the Daniels case are debatable, there should be no controversy about castigating an American presidential candidate encouraging extremists among us. In a deeply divided nation, a nation under stress, incitement should be cause for exile from public life.
Go to Waco, we suggest. Go to Waco to take in Baylor football and basketball, and the Armstrong-Browning Library on the Baylor campus. Marvel at a fossil herd of Ice Age mammoths and enjoy a forested municipal park along the banks of the Brazos and Bosque rivers, sample Chip and Joanna Gaines’s ever-expanding Fixer Upper empire. Don’t bother with a bombastic, bullying candidate inclined to incitement and bent on “retribution.” His appearance is ample reason to stay home.