tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/waco-24612/articlesWaco – The Conversation2023-02-28T13:25:59Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2000712023-02-28T13:25:59Z2023-02-28T13:25:59Z30 years later, Waco siege still resonates – especially among anti-government extremists<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512535/original/file-20230227-28-5rajlm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C8%2C1784%2C1184&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fire engulfs the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, on April 19, 1993.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/TVWaco/995b0b87ac274bc380c3d0f5d998b80e/photo?Query=(renditions.phototype:horizontal)%20AND%20%20(waco%20texas)%20&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=&totalCount=234&currentItemNo=43">AP Photo/Ron Heflin</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It may feel as though the 2024 presidential race has been underway ever since the last election ended, but Donald Trump’s <a href="https://www.star-telegram.com/news/politics-government/article273373090.html">first official rally</a> for his third bid at the White House is scheduled to take place March 25, 2023, in what his campaign describes as “Trump Country”: Texas.</p>
<p>His choice of city, though, has drawn attention from experts on extremism. Trump’s event will be held in Waco, amid the 30-year anniversary of the infamous Waco tragedy, a confrontation between the Branch Davidians and federal law enforcement that led to significant loss of life. <a href="https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/npr/2023/01/25/1151283229/30-years-after-the-siege-waco-examines-what-led-to-the-catastrophe/">Around 80 members of the religious community</a> and <a href="https://www.atf.gov/our-history/remembering-waco">four federal agents</a> lost their lives in the weekslong siege.</p>
<p>Part of the event’s legacy in popular culture is tied to the sensationalist way <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1993/05/04/us/growing-up-under-koresh-cult-children-tell-of-abuses.html">the Branch Davidians</a> were portrayed in the media. But the tragedy is also a powerful moment in political extremist groups’ ideologies and highlights some themes that Trump has emphasized in the past: the idea of <a href="https://theconversation.com/january-6-us-capitol-attack-deep-state-conspiracies-havent-gone-away-194948">a tyrannical “deep state</a>,” fears of government overreach and <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2022/05/27/donald-trump-nra-houston/">opposition to gun control</a>. <a href="https://udayton.edu/directory/artssciences/sociology/jipson_arthur_j.php">As scholars</a> of <a href="https://udayton.edu/directory/artssciences/sociology/becker_paul_j.php">domestic extremism</a>, we have repeatedly seen how what happened at the Mount Carmel Center has been used by anti-government groups from the 1990s to today.</p>
<h2>51 days on edge</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-branch-davidians-of-waco-9780199245741?cc=us&lang=en&">Branch Davidians</a>, who believe that the apocalypse is imminent in their lifetime, <a href="https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/davidians-and-branch-davidians">are a splinter group of the Seventh-day Adventist Church</a>. Davidians believe that <a href="https://www.apologeticsindex.org/pdf/history.pdf">living prophets</a> are given divine gifts of interpretation to lead the members of the church into preparation for the last days. David Koresh, a young man who had taken charge of the small group, claimed to be the final prophet before the end times.</p>
<p>Suspecting that the group was illegally <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/15/us/cult-had-illegal-arms-expert-says.html">stockpiling weapons</a>, agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms – also known as the ATF – attempted to execute a search warrant at the Mount Caramel Center on Feb. 28, 1993. They hoped to arrest Koresh on suspicion of weapons violations and allegations of <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1995-07-20-9507200155-story.html">child abuse</a>.</p>
<p>A gunfight ensued that killed four ATF agents and six Branch Davidians, leading to <a href="https://www.dallasnews.com/news/texas/2018/02/27/51-days-under-siege-a-timeline-of-the-branch-davidian-standoff/">a 51-day siege</a>. Law enforcement isolated the compound from the outside world, and attempts at negotiation failed.</p>
<p>On April 19, in an effort to end the siege, the FBI used tear gas to try to force members out of the compound. A massive fire broke out, and by the end, <a href="https://www.8newsnow.com/news/national-news/28-years-ago-today-76-men-women-and-children-died-in-branch-davidian-compound-fire/">another 76 Branch Davidians had died, including 25 children</a>. Some of the victims had died of gunshots.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512324/original/file-20230227-2816-p21pnm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People search amid the remains of a burned building, with a school bus parked nearby." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512324/original/file-20230227-2816-p21pnm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512324/original/file-20230227-2816-p21pnm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512324/original/file-20230227-2816-p21pnm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512324/original/file-20230227-2816-p21pnm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512324/original/file-20230227-2816-p21pnm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512324/original/file-20230227-2816-p21pnm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512324/original/file-20230227-2816-p21pnm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Texas investigators search the rubble of the burned-out compound and mark body locations with small flags on April 22, 1993.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/texas-department-of-safety-investigators-and-medical-news-photo/176613642?phrase=waco%20davidian&adppopup=true">J. David Ake/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Early questions</h2>
<p>Many Americans had watched news coverage of the siege for weeks and were horrified at the loss of life during a government operation. What had happened that last day of the siege, particularly the origins of the fire, was <a href="https://www.cato.org/commentary/fanning-flames-waco">highly contested</a> from the start.</p>
<p>In response to criticism of the federal government, leaders such as then-President Bill Clinton emphasized Koresh’s responsibility for the siege’s outcome. Attorney General Janet Reno, who had approved the FBI’s assault, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcWOu52rTTk">had no responsibility</a> in the deaths because “some religious fanatics murdered themselves,” Clinton said in a news conference.</p>
<p>In 2000, the Department of Justice released a report headed by former Missouri Sen. John Danforth that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2000/07/22/us/a-special-counsel-finds-government-faultless-at-waco.html?searchResultPosition=7">cleared the government of wrongdoing</a>. Investigators had acknowledged that the FBI used <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/sept99/waco4.htm">incendiary tear gas canisters</a> but concluded that the Branch Davidians themselves started the fire. This argument was tied to the Branch Davidians’ beliefs and the idea that some may have wanted to <a href="https://www.justice.gov/archives/publications/waco/evaluation-handling-branch-davidian-stand-waco-texas-february-28-april-19-1993#A2">fulfill Koresh’s prophecies</a> about the apocalypse.</p>
<h2>Extremist legacy</h2>
<p>However, critics dismissed the report as essentially a cover-up, and some extremists believed that federal law enforcement had <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/170283/right-got-waco-wrong-kevin-cook-book-review">deliberately murdered Branch Davidians</a>.</p>
<p>This fear fed into existing conspiracy theories about a “<a href="https://www.middlebury.edu/institute/academics/centers-initiatives/ctec/ctec-publications/new-world-order-historical-origins-dangerous">New World Order</a>”: an <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/antigovernment">extremist belief</a> that the federal government plans to destroy personal liberty and eventually <a href="https://www.postandcourier.com/opinion/commentary/stevens-gun-control-and-the-new-world-order/article_4294109a-e267-11ec-aced-4b8f396c90e4.html">confiscate firearms</a> before merging the United States with a global government.</p>
<p>In the 1990s, for example, conspiracy theorist, author and short-wave radio host <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/150922/pioneer-paranoia">William Cooper</a> <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-a-crazy-plan-to-rebuild-waco-compound-gave-us-alex-jones">regularly warned</a> his readers and listeners of an eventual “<a href="https://www.azcentral.com/in-depth/news/local/arizona-investigations/2020/10/01/behold-pale-horse-how-william-cooper-planted-seeds-qanon-theory/3488115001/">One-World Government</a>.”</p>
<p>Shortly after the Waco tragedy, attorney and militia member Linda D. Thompson began to widely <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktubTy_6SVU">disseminate a video</a> called “Waco: The Big Lie,” through right-wing talk radio and conspiracy theorists. The video aims to convince viewers that there was a concerted effort to kill residents at the compound, and it became a powerful tool among extremists. Around the same time, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEroyX8jqrI">unorganized militia movements</a> <a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/militia-movement-2020">took off</a>, calling for community defense and strong Second Amendment rights to defend against an encroaching <a href="https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1995-04-27-1995117026-story.html">federal government</a>.</p>
<p>Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols carried out the Oklahoma City Bombing on the second anniversary of the Waco fire and cited the siege as justification for <a href="https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=OK026">their attack</a>, which killed 168 people. <a href="https://thespectator.com/topic/waco-wrought-branch-davidians/">McVeigh had even worn a T-shirt that said “FBI – Federal Bureau of Incineration”</a> before the bombing.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512326/original/file-20230227-2321-xbycv0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The facade of a partially destroyed, multi-story building on a city block." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512326/original/file-20230227-2321-xbycv0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512326/original/file-20230227-2321-xbycv0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512326/original/file-20230227-2321-xbycv0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512326/original/file-20230227-2321-xbycv0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512326/original/file-20230227-2321-xbycv0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512326/original/file-20230227-2321-xbycv0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512326/original/file-20230227-2321-xbycv0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The aftermath of the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/terrorist-bomb-attack-on-oklahoma-building-news-photo/539740470?phrase=oklahoma%20city%20bombing&adppopup=true">Robert Daemmrich Photography Inc/Sygma via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Another conspiracy theorist who fixated on Waco is Alex Jones, the creator and host of the Infowars website. Today, he is most widely known for claiming that the deadly shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 was a <a href="https://edition.pagesuite.com/popovers/dynamic_article_popover.aspx?artguid=fc53c49d-90f4-43bd-a402-c32c0aa996d1&appid=1165&fbclid=IwAR2TehC2sd2pwixKTUrpWPn6vF8SqxY02igN0ESMin4VpLuBVEGgpNpqb04">government hoax</a> performed by actors, part of a conspiracy to confiscate firearms. But he <a href="https://observer.com/2019/04/alex-jones-austin-public-access-tv-origin-story/">launched his programs</a> in the 1990s and has often discussed Waco as an example of the evils of the federal government. In 2000, <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-a-crazy-plan-to-rebuild-waco-compound-gave-us-alex-jones">on the seventh anniversary</a> of what he called “the Waco holocaust,” <a href="https://thespectator.com/topic/waco-wrought-branch-davidians/">Jones welcomed visitors</a> to a brand new Branch Davidian church on the site in Texas and later created a video about the siege.</p>
<h2>Extremists and Waco today</h2>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512325/original/file-20230227-4732-nrgfca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A huge screen shows an image of men in orange hats in front of the U.S. Capitol." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512325/original/file-20230227-4732-nrgfca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512325/original/file-20230227-4732-nrgfca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512325/original/file-20230227-4732-nrgfca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512325/original/file-20230227-4732-nrgfca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512325/original/file-20230227-4732-nrgfca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512325/original/file-20230227-4732-nrgfca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512325/original/file-20230227-4732-nrgfca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A video shown during a House Select Committee hearing to investigate the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/video-showing-proud-boys-members-appear-on-screen-during-a-news-photo/1241209865?phrase=proud%20boys&adppopup=true">Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Waco continues to be a rallying cry for extremism today. To cite one example, <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/the-secret-history-of-gavin-mcinnes">Gavin McInnes</a>, the founder of the Proud Boys, has <a href="https://censored.tv/">discussed government actions like the Waco siege</a> as an example of government corruption and to accuse it of attacking people of faith whose politics it opposes. A former member has testified that the Proud Boys’ participation in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection was driven by <a href="https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/political-news/ap-politics/ap-proud-boys-expecting-civil-war-before-jan-6-witness-says/">belief in a civil war</a> pitting the federal government against citizens, patriots and nationalists.</p>
<p>What <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10511250100086211">unites many of the groups</a> influenced by Waco is a belief that the federal government is tyrannical and willing to attack citizens while depriving them of liberty, freedom and firearms. <a href="https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/post-september-11th-era-interpretations-security-and-civil">The perception</a> of a lack of consequences for the deaths at Waco is perceived, in and of itself, as proof of <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/pushed-extremes-domestic-terrorism-amid-polarization-and-protest">extremist beliefs</a>.</p>
<p>On the three-decade anniversary, as Americans reflect on the Waco tragedy, we believe it is important to remember the unfortunate loss of life – and to <a href="https://www.start.umd.edu/pubs/START_PIRUS_UseOfSocialMediaByUSExtremists_ResearchBrief_July2018.pdf">be vigilant</a> against demagoguery. </p>
<p><em>This article was updated March 24, 2023 with information about the Trump rally.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200071/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Art Jipson receives funding from The Department of Homeland Security as part of a research team for the project: "Preventing Radicalization to Extremist Violence through Education, Network-Building and Training in Southwest Ohio (PREVENTS-OH)."</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul J. Becker receives funding from The Department of Homeland Security as part of a research team for the project: "Preventing Radicalization to Extremist Violence through Education, Network-Building and Training in Southwest Ohio (PREVENTS-OH)." </span></em></p>Waco has been used as a rallying cry for decades, two scholars of domestic extremism explain.Art Jipson, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of DaytonPaul J. Becker, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of DaytonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1880552022-08-05T12:12:59Z2022-08-05T12:12:59ZAfter Trump, Christian nationalist ideas are going mainstream – despite a history of violence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477719/original/file-20220804-17-xtxnvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2500%2C1785&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Separation of church and state: no longer so separate?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/the-flag-and-the-cross-royalty-free-image/1058861544?adppopup=true">Amanda Wayne/iStock/Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the run-up to the U.S. midterm elections, some politicians continue to ride the wave of what’s known as “Christian nationalism” in ways that are increasingly vocal and direct.</p>
<p>GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right Donald Trump loyalist from Georgia, told an interviewer on July 23, 2022, that the Republican Party “need[s] to be the party of nationalism. And I’m a Christian, and I say it proudly, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/27/opinions/christian-nationalism-marjorie-taylor-greene-tyler/index.html">we should be Christian nationalists</a>.”</p>
<p>Similarly, Rep. Lauren Boebert, a Republican from Colorado, recently <a href="https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1109141110">said</a>, “The church is supposed to direct the government. The government is not supposed to direct the church.” Boebert called the separation of church and state “junk.”</p>
<p>Many Christian nationalists repeat conservative activist <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2022/07/29/texas-church-state-separation-opposition/">David Barton’s</a> argument that the Founding Fathers did not intend to keep religion out of government.</p>
<p>As a scholar of racism and communication who has written about <a href="http://contemporaryrhetoric.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Perry8_1_2_5.pdf">white nationalism</a> during the Trump presidency, I find the amplification of Christian nationalism <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/944_OPSR_TEVUS_Comparing-Violent-Nonviolent-Far-Right-Hate-Groups_Dec2011-508.pdf">unsurprising</a>. Christian nationalism is prevalent among Trump supporters, as religion scholars <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=I1K3emoAAAAJ&hl=en">Andrew Whitehead</a> and <a href="https://www.ou.edu/cas/soc/people/faculty/samuel-perry">Samuel L. Perry</a> argue in their book “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/taking-america-back-for-god-9780190057886?cc=us&lang=en&">Taking Back America for God</a>.”</p>
<p>Perry and Whitehead <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=BDLNDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA10">describe the Christian nationalist movement</a> as being “as ethnic and political as it is religious,” noting that it relies on the assumption of white supremacy. Christian nationalism combines belief in a particular form of Christianity with nativist and populist political platforms. American Christian nationalism is a worldview based on the belief that America is superior to other countries, and that that superiority is divinely established. In this mindset, only Christians are true Americans.</p>
<p>Parts of the movement fit into a broader right-wing extremist history of violence, which has <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/aps.43">been on the rise</a> <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/escalating-terrorism-problem-united-states">over the past few decades</a> and was particularly on display <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/28/opinion/christian-nationalists-capitol-attack.html">during the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021</a>.</p>
<p>The vast majority of Christian nationalists never engage in violence. Nonetheless, <a href="https://nationalcouncilofchurches.us/common-witness-ncc/the-dangers-of-christian-nationalism-in-the-united-states-a-policy-statement-of-the-national-council-of-churches/">Christian nationalist thinking</a> suggests that unless Christians control the state, the state will suppress Christianity. </p>
<h2>From siege to militia buildup</h2>
<p>Violence perpetrated by Christian nationalists has manifested in two primary ways in recent decades. The first is through their <a href="http://www.religion-online.org/article/militias-christian-identity-and-the-radical-right/">involvement in militia groups</a>; the second is seen in <a href="http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43406-3_3">attacks on abortion providers</a>.</p>
<p>The catalyst for the growth of militia activity among contemporary Christian nationalists stems from <a href="https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510356/no-compromise">two events</a>: the 1992 Ruby Ridge standoff and the 1993 siege at Waco.</p>
<p>At Ruby Ridge, former Army Green Beret Randy Weaver engaged federal law enforcement in an 11-day standoff at his rural Idaho cabin over charges relating to the sale of sawed-off shotguns to an ATF informant investigating <a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/08/18/544523302/how-what-happened-25-years-ago-at-ruby-ridge-still-matters-today">Aryan Nation</a> white supremacist militia meetings. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Randy Weaver supporters at Ruby Ridge in northern Idaho." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378882/original/file-20210114-22-s8w942.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378882/original/file-20210114-22-s8w942.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378882/original/file-20210114-22-s8w942.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378882/original/file-20210114-22-s8w942.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378882/original/file-20210114-22-s8w942.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378882/original/file-20210114-22-s8w942.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378882/original/file-20210114-22-s8w942.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Supporters of Randy Weaver. The Ruby Ridge standoff sparked the expansion of radical right-wing groups.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/RubyRidgeAnniversary/d360905c59104a4a9a2c41c25874643b/photo?Query=ruby%20AND%20ridge&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=75&currentItemNo=1">AP Photo/Jeff T. Green, File</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Weaver ascribed to the <a href="https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/106598/Contribution_514_final.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">Christian Identity movement</a>, which emphasizes adherence to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2645906">Old Testament laws</a> and white supremacy. Christian Identity members believe in the application of the <a href="https://alumni.berkeley.edu/california-magazine/fall-2012-politics-issue/his-truth-marching">death penalty</a> for adultery and LBGTQ relationships in accordance with their reading of some biblical passages. </p>
<p>During the standoff, Weaver’s wife and teenage son were shot and killed before he surrendered to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/26/ruby-ridge-1992-modern-american-militia-charlottesville">federal authorities</a>.</p>
<p>In the Waco siege a year later, cult leader David Koresh and his followers entered a standoff with federal law enforcement at the group’s Texas compound, once again concerning <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/4/19/17246732/waco-tragedy-explained-david-koresh-mount-carmel-branch-davidian-cult-25-year-anniversary">weapons charges</a>. After a 51-day standoff, federal law enforcement laid siege to the compound. A fire took hold at the compound in disputed circumstances, leading to the deaths of 76 people, including Koresh. </p>
<p>The two events spurred a nationwide <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/26/ruby-ridge-1992-modern-american-militia-charlottesville">militia buildup</a>. As sociologist Erin Kania <a href="https://docs.rwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1043&context=rr">argues</a>: “Ruby Ridge and Waco confrontations drove some citizens to strengthen their belief that the government was overstepping the parameters of its authority. … Because this view is one of the founding ideologies of the American Militia Movement, it makes sense that interest and membership in the movement would sharply increase following these standoffs between government and nonconformists.”</p>
<p>Distrust of the government blended with strains of <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1995-04-24-9504240157-story.html">Christian fundamentalism</a> have brought together two groups with formerly disparate goals. </p>
<h2>Christian nationalism and violence</h2>
<p>Christian fundamentalists and white supremacist militia groups both figured themselves as targeted by the government in the aftermath of the standoffs at Ruby Ridge and Waco. As <a href="https://www.hofstra.edu/faculty/fac_profiles.cfm?id=177">scholar of religion Ann Burlein</a> <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/lift-high-the-cross">argues</a>, “Both the Christian right and right-wing white supremacist groups aspire to overcome a culture they perceive as hostile to the white middle class, families, and heterosexuality.”</p>
<p>Significantly, in 1995, Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and accomplice Terry Nichols <a href="http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mcveigh/mcveighaccount.html">cited revenge</a> for the Waco siege as a motive for the bombing of the Alfred Murrah federal building. The terrorist act killed 168 people and injured hundreds more.</p>
<p>Since 1993, at least 11 people have been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/29/us/30abortion-clinic-violence.html">murdered in attacks on abortion clinics</a> in cities across the U.S., and there have been numerous other plots. </p>
<p>They have involved people like <a href="https://womrel.sitehost.iu.edu/REL%20133/Juergensmeyer_Terror/Soldiers%20for%20Christ.pdf">the Rev. Michael Bray</a>, who attacked multiple abortion clinics. Bray was the spokesman for Paul Hill, a Christian Identity adherent who <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/04/us/florida-executes-killer-of-an-abortion-provider.html">murdered</a> physician John Britton and his bodyguard James Barrett in 1994 outside of a Florida abortion clinic. </p>
<p>In yet another case, Eric Rudolph bombed the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. In his confession, he cited his opposition to abortion and anti-LGBTQ views as <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4600480">motivation to bomb</a> Olympic Square. </p>
<p>These men cited their involvement with the <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2018/holy-hate-far-right%E2%80%99s-radicalization-religion">Christian Identity</a> movement in their trials as motivation for engaging in violence.</p>
<h2>Mainstreaming Christian nationalist ideas</h2>
<p>The presence of Christian nationalist ideas in recent political campaigns is concerning, <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11109-021-09758-y">given its ties to violence and white supremacy</a>.</p>
<p>Trump and his advisers helped to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/18/opinion/christian-nationalism-great-replacement.html">mainstream</a> such rhetoric with events like his <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/6/11/22527796/ig-report-trump-bible-lafayette-square-protest">photo op with a Bible</a> in Lafayette Square in Washington following the violent dispersal of protesters, and making a show of pastors <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/09/trump-secretly-mocks-his-christian-supporters/616522/">laying hands on him</a>. But that legacy continues beyond his administration. </p>
<p>Candidates like <a href="https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-pennsylvania-religion-nationalism-8bf7a6115725f508a37ef944333bc145">Doug Mastriano</a>, the Republican gubernatorial candidate in Pennsylvania who attended the Jan. 6 Trump rally, are now using <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/on-religion/a-pennsylvania-lawmaker-and-the-resurgence-of-christian-nationalism">the same messages</a>.</p>
<p>In some states, such as Texas and Montana, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/24/politics/texas-far-right-politics-invs/index.html">hefty funding</a> for <a href="https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/power-issue-tim-dunn-pushing-republican-party-arms-god/">far-right Christian candidates</a> has helped put Christian nationalist ideas in the mainstream. </p>
<p>Blending politics and religion is not necessarily a recipe for Christian nationalism, nor is Christian nationalism a recipe for political violence. At times, however, Christian nationalist ideas can <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11109-021-09758-y">serve as a prelude</a>.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-capitol-siege-recalls-past-acts-of-christian-nationalist-violence-153059">an article originally published on Jan. 15, 2021</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188055/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samuel Perry does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Distrust of government blended with strains of Christian fundamentalism can produce a violent form of Christian nationalism, a scholar explains.Samuel Perry, Associate Professor, Baylor UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1530592021-01-15T13:18:13Z2021-01-15T13:18:13ZThe Capitol siege recalls past acts of Christian nationalist violence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378929/original/file-20210114-21-1y1hqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C54%2C5987%2C3853&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Supporters of President Trump put up a cross outside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6,</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/supporters-of-u-s-president-donald-trump-pray-outside-the-u-news-photo/1294872343?adppopup=true">Win McNamee/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>An updated version of this article was published on Aug. 5, 2022. <a href="https://theconversation.com/after-trump-christian-nationalist-ideas-are-going-mainstream-despite-a-history-of-violence-188055">Read it here</a>.</em></p>
<p>Christian imagery loomed large on Jan. 6 as the “Stop the Steal” rally morphed into a mob siege. A group of Trump supporters <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/01/evangelicals-catholics-jericho-march-capitol/617591/">prayed around a large wooden cross</a>, and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/01/07/954581163/faith-leaders-nearly-unanimous-in-condemning-assault-on-capitol">others</a> carried “Jesus saves” signs and yelled “shout if you love Jesus” as they occupied the Capitol building.</p>
<p>Meanwhile the <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/2008/august/do-you-know-history-of-christian-flag.html">Christian flag</a> – the red, white and blue emblem designed by a New York City Sunday school teacher in 1887 to unite and symbolize Christians worldwide – was <a href="https://religionnews.com/2021/01/07/taking-the-white-christian-nationalist-symbols-at-the-capitol-riot-seriously/">one of the flags carried</a> through the Capitol.</p>
<p>This blending of Christian imagery with Trump flags put <a href="https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/christian-nationalism-patriotism/">Christian nationalism</a>, the often militarized fusing of Christianity and American identity, on display during one of America’s darkest days. </p>
<p>As someone who has written about <a href="http://contemporaryrhetoric.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Perry8_1_2_5.pdf">white nationalism</a> during the Trump presidency, I find this somewhat <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/944_OPSR_TEVUS_Comparing-Violent-Nonviolent-Far-Right-Hate-Groups_Dec2011-508.pdf">unsurprising</a>. </p>
<p>As scholars of religion <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=I1K3emoAAAAJ&hl=en">Andrew Whitehead</a> and <a href="https://www.ou.edu/cas/soc/people/faculty/samuel-perry">Samuel L. Perry</a> argue in their book “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/taking-america-back-for-god-9780190057886?cc=us&lang=en&">Taking Back America for God</a>,” Christian nationalism is predominant in Trump support.</p>
<p>Perry and Whitehead <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=BDLNDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA10">describe the movement</a> as “as ethnic and political as it is religious,” noting that it takes in assumptions of white supremacy.</p>
<p>Christian nationalism is not always violent, but Christian nationalist violence has been a presence during the <a href="https://time.com/5647304/white-nationalist-terrorism-united-states/">Trump administration</a>. More broadly it has been <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/aps.43">on the rise</a> over the past <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/escalating-terrorism-problem-united-states">few decades</a>. </p>
<h2>From siege to militia buildup</h2>
<p>Violence perpetrated by Christian nationalists has manifested in two primary ways in recent decades. The first is through their <a href="http://www.religion-online.org/article/militias-christian-identity-and-the-radical-right/">involvement in militia groups</a>; the second is seen in <a href="http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43406-3_3">attacks on abortion providers</a>.</p>
<p>The catalyst for the growth of militia activity among contemporary Christian nationalists stems from <a href="https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510356/no-compromise">two events</a>: the 1992 Ruby Ridge standoff and the 1993 siege at Waco.</p>
<p>At Ruby Ridge, former U.S. Army Green Beret Randy Weaver engaged federal law enforcement in an 11-day standoff at his rural Idaho cabin over charges relating to the sale of sawed-off shotguns to an ATF informant investigating <a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/08/18/544523302/how-what-happened-25-years-ago-at-ruby-ridge-still-matters-today">Aryan Nation</a> white supremacist militia meetings. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Randy Weaver supporters at Ruby Ridge in northern Idaho." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378882/original/file-20210114-22-s8w942.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378882/original/file-20210114-22-s8w942.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378882/original/file-20210114-22-s8w942.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378882/original/file-20210114-22-s8w942.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378882/original/file-20210114-22-s8w942.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378882/original/file-20210114-22-s8w942.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378882/original/file-20210114-22-s8w942.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Supporters of Randy Weaver. The Ruby Ridge standoff sparked the expansion of radical right-wing groups.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/RubyRidgeAnniversary/d360905c59104a4a9a2c41c25874643b/photo?Query=ruby%20AND%20ridge&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=75&currentItemNo=1">AP Photo/Jeff T. Green, File</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Weaver ascribed to the <a href="https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/106598/Contribution_514_final.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">Christian Identity movement</a>, which emphasizes adherence to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2645906">Old Testament laws</a> and white supremacy. Christian Identity members believe in the application of the <a href="https://alumni.berkeley.edu/california-magazine/fall-2012-politics-issue/his-truth-marching">death penalty</a> for adultery and LBGTQ relationships in accordance with their reading of some biblical passages. </p>
<p>During the standoff, Weaver’s wife and teenage son were shot and killed before he surrendered to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/26/ruby-ridge-1992-modern-american-militia-charlottesville">federal authorities</a>.</p>
<p>In the Waco siege a year later, cult leader David Koresh and his followers entered a standoff with federal law enforcement at the group’s Texas compound, once again concerning <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/4/19/17246732/waco-tragedy-explained-david-koresh-mount-carmel-branch-davidian-cult-25-year-anniversary">weapons charges</a>. After a 51-day standoff, federal law enforcement laid siege to the compound. A fire took hold at the compound in disputed circumstances leading to the deaths of 76 people, including Koresh. </p>
<p>The two events spurred a nationwide <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/26/ruby-ridge-1992-modern-american-militia-charlottesville">militia buildup</a>. As sociologist Erin Kania <a href="https://docs.rwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1043&context=rr">argues</a>, “Ruby Ridge and Waco confrontations drove some citizens to strengthen their belief that the government was overstepping the parameters of its authority. … Because this view is one of the founding ideologies of the American Militia Movement, it makes sense that interest and membership in the movement would sharply increase following these standoffs between government and nonconformists.”</p>
<p>Distrust of the government blended with strains of <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1995-04-24-9504240157-story.html">Christian fundamentalism</a>, bringing together two groups with formerly disparate goals. </p>
<h2>Christian nationalism and violence</h2>
<p>Christian fundamentalists and white supremacist militia groups both figured themselves as targeted by the government in the aftermath of the standoffs at Ruby Ridge and Waco. As <a href="https://www.hofstra.edu/faculty/fac_profiles.cfm?id=177">scholar of religion Ann Burlein</a> <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/lift-high-the-cross">argues</a>, “Both the Christian right and right-wing white supremacist groups aspire to overcome a culture they perceive as hostile to the white middle class, families, and heterosexuality.”</p>
<p>Significantly, in 1995, Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and accomplice Terry Nichols <a href="http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mcveigh/mcveighaccount.html">cited revenge</a> for the Waco siege as a motive for bombing of the Alfred Murrah federal building. The terrorist act killed 168 people and injured hundreds more.</p>
<p>Since 1993, at least 11 people have been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/29/us/30abortion-clinic-violence.html">murdered in attacks on abortion clinics</a> in cities across the U.S., and there have been numerous other plots. </p>
<p>They have involved people like <a href="https://womrel.sitehost.iu.edu/REL%20133/Juergensmeyer_Terror/Soldiers%20for%20Christ.pdf">the Rev. Michael Bray</a>, who attacked multiple abortion clinics. Bray was the spokesman for Paul Hill, a Christian Identity adherent who <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/04/us/florida-executes-killer-of-an-abortion-provider.html">murdered</a> physician John Britton and his bodyguard James Barrett, in 1994 outside of a Florida abortion clinic. </p>
<p>In yet another case, Eric Rudolph bombed the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. In his confession, he cited his opposition to abortion and anti-LGBTQ views as <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4600480">motivation to bomb</a> Olympic Square. </p>
<p>These men cited their involvement with the <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2018/holy-hate-far-right%E2%80%99s-radicalization-religion">Christian Identity</a> movement in their trials as motivation for engaging in violence.</p>
<p>It is important to note that the vast majority of Christian nationalists never engage in violence. Nonetheless, Christian nationalism does supply a vocabulary and narrative suggesting that unless Christians control the state, the state will attack or suppress Christianity. </p>
<h2>Christian nationalism on the airwaves</h2>
<p>This view is commonly expressed in parts of evangelical Christian media. </p>
<p>The growth of Christian radio stations, in particular, has featured cross-platform programming pairing conservative commentary with Christian, mostly white evangelical messaging. One prominent example is <a href="https://salemmedia.com/on-air/">Salem Media</a>, the <a href="http://www.insideradio.com/while-you-weren-t-watching-christian-radio-grew-into-a-goliath/article_4b0feef8-0fc4-11e8-9ac6-cfe74883b60e.html">third-largest</a> radio presence in the top 25 U.S. radio markets. <a href="https://salemmedia.com/">Salem media</a> reports 11 million regular listeners.</p>
<p>The programming for Salem and its print outlets, like <a href="https://www.regnery.com/">Regnery Publishing</a>, feature political and religious commentary that blends Christian and American identities in a way that appeals to nationalism. While they may not dip into the extremism of the militia movements, they often use conflict-driven language.</p>
<p>Personalities like conservative radio host and author Eric Metaxas use Christian bona fides to legitimize the political commentary on their programs. In a <a href="https://religionnews.com/2020/12/03/metaxas-jesus-trump-stolen-election-christian-nationalism-rod-dreher-sidney-powell/">phone call with President Trump</a> broadcast on his radio show, Metaxas told his listeners that claiming there was not enough evidence to prove the 2020 election was stolen was akin to saying there was not enough evidence to believe in Jesus. He explicitly used the language of war when speaking with Trump on the broadcast call, saying “I’d be happy to die in this fight. … This is a fight for everything. God is with us.” Metaxas has done <a href="https://metaxastalk.com/podcasts/">little to modulate</a> this position since Jan. 6.</p>
<p>This sort of media is certainly not new. Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcast Network has operated for decades and similarly blends politics with religion. Its flagship show, the 700 Club, attracts <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/8/5/16091740/christian-broadcasting-network-cbn-pat-robertson-trump">1 million viewers a day</a>. Though Robertson rebuked last week’s attack at the Capitol, he previously claimed that Trump’s <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2020/10/20/televangelist-pat-robertson-predicts-trump-win-end-world/5996435002/">reelection was certain</a> and <a href="https://www.metroweekly.com/2020/12/anti-lgbtq-televangelist-pat-robertson-believes-god-will-steal-election-for-trump/">argued</a>, “It sickens you and we have got to declare it, in the name of the Lord, to say we declare in Jesus’ name, this fraud will not stand and it will be exposed and that the Lord himself will intervene before this country turns into something socialist.” </p>
<h2>Trump’s insurrection</h2>
<p>While blending politics and religion is not necessarily a recipe for Christian nationalism, it does contribute to conflating Christian identity with American identity. </p>
<p>The dangers of blending nationalism and Christianity were on display at the Capitol on Jan. 6. Christian groups intermingled with white supremacists. When the demonstration outside the Capitol escalated into a siege, the violence mixed with Christian symbols in a way that recalled past acts of political violence and terrorism associated with Christian nationalism. </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153059/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samuel Perry does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The fusing of Christian nationalism and violent extremism on display during the attack on the US Capitol can be traced, in part, to two incidents in the early 1990s.Samuel Perry, Associate Professor, Baylor UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/898462018-04-30T10:38:10Z2018-04-30T10:38:10ZI did research at Rajneeshpuram, and here is what I learned<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216701/original/file-20180427-135830-gtnqvo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Followers of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh embrace during a meditation session at Rajneeshpuram.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Bill Miller</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Netflix recently launched a six-part docuseries, <a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/80145240">“Wild Wild Country,”</a> about the controversial Rajneesh Movement that created a spiritual community on 64,000 acres of the former Big Muddy Ranch in Oregon. Back in the 1980s, as now, media focused on the group’s outrageous acts, legal confrontations and alleged crimes. </p>
<p>The revelations that the community’s guru, Rajneesh, made in 1985 were shocking. His personal secretary, Ma Anand Sheela, he said, <a href="http://admin.cambridge.org/academic/subjects/anthropology/social-and-cultural-anthropology/charisma-and-control-rajneeshpuram-community-without-shared-values">had conspired</a> with a small circle of about 24 people to kill state and federal officials, attempted to control a county election by busing in homeless people to vote and poisoning salad bars in the county seat, and deliberately escalated tensions with outsiders. Sheela and some of her cadre were later charged and sentenced for state and federal crimes. But many devotees told me and <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3712176?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">other researchers</a> that they were unaware of the extent of her crimes and misdeeds until she left Rajneeshpuram. Neither was I.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.press.umich.edu/16808/passionate_journeys">scholar of gender and alternative spiritual movements</a>, I visited Rajneeshpuram 10 times before it closed down completely early in 1986 and talked with almost 100 men and women who lived there. Although I was sometimes monitored, no one interfered with my research.</p>
<p>Away from the Netflix series’ dramatic story, what devotees told me and what I observed adds another dimension to popular conceptions of the short-lived communal city. </p>
<h2>Rajneeshpuram, Oregon</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216703/original/file-20180427-135851-343fmv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216703/original/file-20180427-135851-343fmv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=776&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216703/original/file-20180427-135851-343fmv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=776&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216703/original/file-20180427-135851-343fmv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=776&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216703/original/file-20180427-135851-343fmv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=976&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216703/original/file-20180427-135851-343fmv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=976&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216703/original/file-20180427-135851-343fmv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=976&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rajneesh inducts two disciples, an American and a West German woman in Pune, India.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1981, after <a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-8289-0630-2">running into problems</a> with the Indian government, Rajneesh closed his ashram in the city of Pune in central India and invited devotees from all over the world to join him to create an extraordinary community in central Oregon. Some Rajneeshees bought houses in the closest town, Antelope. Most, however, journeyed for another 19 miles on the winding mountain roads that led to the the plateau where Rajneeshpuram rested. At its peak, the communal city <a href="http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/CITIES-ON-A-HILL/Frances-FitzGerald/9780671645618">housed about 2,000 devotees</a>.</p>
<p>Women and men labored together around the clock, constructing a huge meditation hall and an open-air mall with restaurants, clothing boutiques and a shop that sold hundreds of books and videotapes by and about Rajneesh. They also created a private airport, a hotel, living quarters and a sparkling artificial lake.</p>
<p>The devotees belied popular stereotypes of passive, easily manipulated spiritual seekers. Two-thirds of Rajneeshpuram’s residents had four-year <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3711684?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">college degrees</a> and/or had previously pursued lucrative career paths. </p>
<p>These women and men talked with me about their experiences and life histories. Most men, for example, felt that they had personal relationships with their guru, even when they had never met him. They also <a href="https://www.press.umich.edu/16808/passionate_journey">emphasized</a> how Rajneesh helped them access their hidden intellectual and emotional strengths. </p>
<p>This was interesting, but with each visit, my attention increasingly turned to <a href="https://www.press.umich.edu/16808/passionate_journeys">women in their 30’s and 40’s</a> whose incomes and educational attainments far exceeded the national average. </p>
<h2>Accomplished women</h2>
<p>Fifty-four percent of Rajneesh’s <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3711684?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">devotees were women</a>. Many had abandoned relationships, successful careers and occasionally young children in order to create a utopia around their spiritual leader. In our conversations, they disclosed that they followed Rajneesh to Oregon because they felt that he had transformed their lives, and they wanted to continue to experience the love and affirmation that they received from their powerful protector. </p>
<p>Every woman that I interviewed at length had been influenced by the feminist movement of the 1970s and hoped for full economic, sexual and social equality. They wanted to live very differently from their housewife mothers. However, they were deeply disappointed when they <a href="https://www.press.umich.edu/16808/passionate_journey">still felt anxious and lonely</a> despite the money and recognition that they received from their careers. They told me that they had felt forced to choose between successful careers and fulfilling marriages. They lost with either choice.</p>
<p>One devotee, who later made a fortune in currency trading, told me that she had to drop out of the university and her premedical studies when she married. <a href="https://www.press.umich.edu/16808/passionate_journey">She said</a>, “It was sort of a Jewish ethic. Women were wives and mothers, they weren’t doctors.”</p>
<p>But <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057%2F9781137386434_4">Rajneesh asserted</a> that women could succeed in every endeavor as well as or better than men. He applauded high levels of achievement and also emphasized the importance of traditionally feminine traits like intuition and emotional sensitivity for both women and men. He told women that they could and should integrate their personal and professional lives. He said, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“It is for the betterment of both man and woman that the woman should be given every freedom and equal opportunity for her individuality.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>At Rajneeshpuram, accomplished women were almost always assigned to jobs similar to their old ones. For example, psychologists led personal growth groups, attorneys staffed the legal department, city planners and architects designed roads and buildings, and writers and professors worked at the Rajneeshpuram newspaper, “Rajneesh Times.” Devotees described laboring alongside people who shared their ideals and cared about feelings along with productivity. </p>
<p>An attorney with a degree from an elite university discussed the joy of working with supportive friends and playing together at the end of long shifts. <a href="https://www.press.umich.edu/16808/passionate_journeys">She said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“We all say around here that work is our meditation. I feel really good…..We’re sort of in this together.”</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Why women stayed</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216702/original/file-20180427-135825-mgyrum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216702/original/file-20180427-135825-mgyrum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216702/original/file-20180427-135825-mgyrum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216702/original/file-20180427-135825-mgyrum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216702/original/file-20180427-135825-mgyrum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216702/original/file-20180427-135825-mgyrum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216702/original/file-20180427-135825-mgyrum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Rajneesh is greeted by thousands of his followers during his afternoon drive-by as flowers are placed on the hood of his Rolls-Royce.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Bill Miller</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The guru himself may have retreated into private meditation, delegating all organizational decisions to Sheela, but devotees still believed that he watched over them. <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1475-682X.1980.tb00828.x">Every woman and man wore a locket</a> with Rajneesh’s picture and used the new Indian name that he had bestowed on them. They broke into joyful tears when they lined Rajneeshpuram’s main road to bow and place roses on the guru’s Rolls Royce as he drove by each afternoon.</p>
<p>In September of 1985, <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/rajneesh/index.ssf/2011/04/part_one_it_was_worse_than_we.html">according to media reports</a>, the guru privately confronted Sheela about some of her crimes. She decamped to Germany, and Rajneesh once again started his lectures. He informed devotees that his physician had told him about her autocratic leadership and the <a href="http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/CITIES-ON-A-HILL/Frances-FitzGerald/978067164561">movement’s mounting debts</a>. He publicly condemned Sheela for masterminding scores of crimes and cooperated with state and federal authorities who wanted to apprehend Sheela and her cadre. </p>
<p>Devotees seemed to be thrilled to hear him speak once more, although most told me that they wondered about Rajneesh’s claims of total ignorance about Sheela’s activities. I saw people protest against Sheela and cheer when her official robes were tossed into a fire. They celebrated when new movement leaders <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1985/10/01/us/guru-s-book-is-burned-at-oregon-commune.html">burned thousands of copies of “The Book of Rajneeshism”</a> that Sheela designed. However, for months after the stunning disclosures, devotees that I interviewed still believed in their guru.</p>
<p>For a time, almost all of the women who responded to my mailed questionnaires in 1985 and 1997 or whom I kept in touch with informally tried to sustain their faith.</p>
<p>Former fashion model Veena, for example, was victimized by Sheela because of her role as Rajneesh’s personal seamstress and her room in his compound. Nevertheless, Veena <a href="https://oregonhumanities.org/rll/magazine/belong-summer-2011/second-chance-family">continued to trust the guru throughout her ordeals.</a> In 2008, when I talked with her at length in England, she was as enamored with Rajneesh and her old Oregon comrades as she had been in 1981, when <a href="http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/CITIES-ON-A-HILL/Frances-FitzGerald/978067164561">she guided well-known journalist Frances FitzGerald</a> around Rajneeshpuram. </p>
<p>No matter how shocked or damaged they were, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3712176?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">devotees did not quickly abandon</a> the close friends or spiritual practices that had transformed their lives. However, in response to the 1997 follow-up survey, very few said <a href="https://www.press.umich.edu/16808/passionate_journeys">that they still believed in Rajneesh, or Osho,</a> as he later came to be known. Nevertheless, they looked back on their Oregon experience fondly.</p>
<p>One woman left the movement after a year because she grew increasingly disgusted by Rajneesh’s revelations, but in 1997, she still remembered central Oregon fondly. <a href="https://www.press.umich.edu/16808/passionate_journeys">She said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“No regrets. Some understanding of the human condition.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Most of the accomplished women returned to their old professions or transitioned to new ones. Their years at Rajneeshpuram had affirmed the importance of both work and love, and they had learned that it was possible to enjoy both. As their survey responses showed, they were certain that they left the communal city with new abilities to function anywhere in the world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89846/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marion Goldman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A scholar visited Rajneeshpuram and met the many highly accomplished men and women who became devotees of the controversial guru. What brought them to the spiritual community, and what made them stay?Marion Goldman, Professor Emeritus, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/943242018-04-19T07:56:35Z2018-04-19T07:56:35ZWaco: the siege 25 years on<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213127/original/file-20180404-189795-1oj5gyh.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhKmRtBfxjo">Youtube/thehistorychannel</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A 51-day confrontation between the FBI and the Branch Davidians – a small offshoot of the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/subdivisions/seventhdayadventist_1.shtml">Seventh Day Adventists</a> – came to a tragic end outside Waco, Texas on April 19, 1993. The trouble started on February 28, as agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) attempted to storm the Davidians’ “Mount Carmel” compound in a search for illegal weapons. A firefight ensued, in which six ATF agents and five Davidians were shot dead. The raid transformed into a tense standoff, with the FBI taking control. </p>
<p>The authorities’ patience finally ran out in April. After puncturing holes in the walls of the Davidians’ building using tanks, CS gas was fired into the compound, hoping to flush group members out. Instead, smoke began to billow from the building, which was quickly engulfed in flames. At least 76 group members, including 24 children, lost their lives in the conflagration. The heat was so intense that bodies melted together.</p>
<p>Controversy still rages over whether the Davidians started the fire in order to commit mass suicide, or if it was the FBI’s assault which was responsible for the inferno. Conflict researcher Jayne Seminare Docherty has described the siege as a “<a href="http://nr.ucpress.edu/content/5/1/186">critical incident</a>” – an event that highlights and exacerbates existing fault lines in society. “Waco” has therefore become cultural shorthand for expressing tensions within American politics and culture.</p>
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<h2>A complex theology</h2>
<p>Much of the scholarship on the siege has focused on <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/How_the_Millennium_Comes_Violently.html?id=Wr8oAAAAYAAJ&redir_esc=y">the failure of the FBI</a> to take the Davidians’ religious positions seriously. The group held to a complex theology, in which the prophecies of Revelation played a key role. Their leader, David Koresh, viewed himself as the Lamb of God, predicted to open the seven seals that would lead to God’s judgement. The group believed they were fated to be involved in an apocalyptic confrontation with “Babylon” – a term Koresh applied to the US authorities.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213124/original/file-20180404-189804-1b56dqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213124/original/file-20180404-189804-1b56dqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=693&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213124/original/file-20180404-189804-1b56dqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=693&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213124/original/file-20180404-189804-1b56dqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=693&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213124/original/file-20180404-189804-1b56dqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=871&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213124/original/file-20180404-189804-1b56dqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=871&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213124/original/file-20180404-189804-1b56dqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=871&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">David Koresh, leader of the Branch Davidians.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/David_koresh.jpg">Wikipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As the political scientist Michael Barkun and others <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Millennialism_and_Violence.html?id=klAzvzR6BcwC&redir_esc=y">have noted</a>, by assaulting the group directly, the government confirmed their prophecies and reinforced their beliefs.</p>
<p>Government narrative in the aftermath of the siege placed the blame squarely at Koresh’s feet. Authorities portrayed him as a dangerous, and probably insane, individual who had perpetrated an act of mass suicide. </p>
<p>President Bill Clinton reacted to criticism of the government’s handling of the siege by <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?39845-1/texas-cult-standoff">expressing incredulity</a> that “anyone … would suggest that the Attorney General should resign because some religious fanatics murdered themselves”. </p>
<p>The official enquires that followed <a href="https://www.justice.gov/archives/publications/waco/evaluation-handling-branch-davidian-stand-waco-texas-february-28-april-19-1993">supported this view</a>. In 2000, the official report prepared by former senator John Danforth vindicated government agencies, concluding that Koresh and “certain Branch Davidians” <a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Final_report_to_the_Deputy_Attorney_General_concerning_the_1993_confrontation_at_the_Mt._Carmel_Complex,_Waco_Texas">set fire to their own compound</a>.</p>
<p>These findings were supported by Kenneth Newport’s work on Branch Davidian theology and its potential to <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-branch-davidians-of-waco-9780199245741?q=ashes%20of%20waco&lang=en&cc=gb">justify martyrdom in fire</a>. Recordings from the compound, featuring discussion of spreading fuel, appear to back this up.</p>
<p>But other research has questioned these claims. The recordings are open to debate, and <a href="https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/923715/waco-siege-inferno-david-koresh-cult-leader-followers-branch-davidians-anniversary">Davidian survivors have often stated</a> that Koresh preached against suicide. Sociologist Stuart A. Wright suggested the FBI’s assault <a href="http://nr.ucpress.edu/content/13/2/4">accidentally started the blaze</a>. </p>
<p>Given the possibility that CS gas is flammable in confined spaces, and that some in the FBI seemed determined to provoke the group, <a href="http://nr.ucpress.edu/content/13/2/25">several scholars have argued</a> that the government should be held responsible for the Davidians’ deaths. Scepticism over the government narrative was shared by the public, with a 1999 CBS poll <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/poll-govt-covered-up-waco/">suggesting that 62% believed</a> that the government had covered up its failings at Waco.</p>
<h2>View of the right</h2>
<p>For many on the right, the siege became a symbol of government attacks on religious and civil liberties. On the second anniversary of the fire, Timothy McVeigh planted a bomb at the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1997-06-11/news/mn-2317_1_waco-incident">killing 168 people in revenge</a> for the government’s actions. Today Waco remains a potent symbol that <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/yv5yz7/remnants-of-the-waco-siege">continues to motivate many</a> within the survivalist and militia movements in the US.</p>
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<p>The events were quickly politicised in popular media. Within months of the siege, NBC’s In The Line of Duty: Ambush At Waco portrayed heroic ATF agents and a diabolic, controlling Koresh. Images of “brainwashed” cultists at Waco, merging with cultural memories of the <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/jonestown-massacre-documentary-40-years-drink-kool-aid-jim-jones-what-happened-mass-suicide-cult-a8232856.html">Jonestown massacre</a>, and later, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-heavens-gate-suicides-say-about-american-culture-74343">1997 Heaven’s Gate suicides</a>, permeated popular dramas’ presentation of fictionalised new religious movements.</p>
<p>However, as religion scholar <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jaar/article-abstract/81/1/80/693847?redirectedFrom=fulltext">Joseph Laycock notes</a>, a more nuanced narrative developed in line with public scepticism surrounding Waco. For example, shows such as South Park <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t3tB9o5TqY">satirised disproportionate ATF militarism</a>, while HBO’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ihSWEkoN5M">The Leftovers</a> featured both a controlling cult and militaristic and an abusive “Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, Explosives and Cults”. Michael McNulty’s documentaries, including the Oscar nominated <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCX9rUAqpyo">Waco: Rules of Engagement</a>, have also done much to question the government narrative.</p>
<p>Most recently, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VXWgIOPgmw">Paramount’s Waco</a> offered a direct dramatisation of events. Based on books by FBI negotiator <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/122380/stalling-for-time-by-gary-noesner/9780525511281/">Gary Noesner</a> and former-Davidian siege survivor <a href="https://www.hachette.co.uk/books/detail.page?isbn=9781602865730">David Thibodeau</a>, the series was criticised in some quarters for an overly <a href="http://www.denofgeek.com/us/tv/waco/271336/waco-episode-6-season-finale-review-day-51">sympathetic portrayal of Koresh</a>, including <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2588106/We-werent-brainwashed-Waco-cult-survivor-claims-new-memoir-Branch-Davidian-leader-David-Koresh-19-wives-slept-girls-young-12.html">papering over accusations</a> of child abuse. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHmWLmac0a4">Noesner concluded</a>, the siege was “a very complex situation where both good and bad decisions were made on both sides that led to a very tragic conclusion”. </p>
<p>Some positive outcomes did follow. In the aftermath of the siege, the FBI’s Critical Incident Response Group worked with the American Academy of Religions to modify its approach to religious groups. This helped them reach a <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/twenty-years-ago-today-the-montana-freeman-started-its-81-day-standoff-180958568/">peaceful solution to the standoff</a> with the Montana Freemen in 1996. </p>
<p>The Davidians also survived and developed. Today, a new Branch Davidian church sits on the site of Mount Carmel. It serves as both a memorial to the events of 1993 and as a testimony to the resilience of their religious belief.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94324/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Crome does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>25 years ago, the Waco siege became a symbol of government attacks on religious and civil liberties.Andrew Crome, Lecturer in History, Manchester Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/908162018-04-13T10:40:21Z2018-04-13T10:40:21ZThe deaths of 76 Branch Davidians in April 1993 could have been avoided – so why didn’t anyone care?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209197/original/file-20180306-146671-ynadn0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fire engulfs the Branch Davidian residence near Waco, Texas on April 19, 1993</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-A-TX-USA-APHS410170-Waco-Branch-Davidians/486b5e4fbf044fe89f3ccdf966345446/131/0">Ron Heflin/AP Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Twenty-five years ago, on February 28, 1993, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents attempted to execute a “dynamic entry” into the home of a religious community at Mount Carmel, a property 10 miles east of Waco, Texas. </p>
<p>David Koresh and his Bible students – who became known as the Branch Davidians – were living at Mount Carmel. The ATF had obtained a search warrant and an arrest warrant for Koresh, whom they suspected was in possession of illegal weapons. The raid prompted a shootout that resulted in the deaths of four ATF agents and six Branch Davidians. </p>
<p>On March 1, 1993, FBI agents took control of the property, and ended up presiding over what became a 51-day siege. On April 19, the siege ended in a second tragedy when FBI agents carried out a tank and tear gas assault, which culminated in a massive fire. Seventy-six Branch Davidians, including 20 children and two miscarried babies, died. Nine Branch Davidians escaped the fire.</p>
<p>Throughout the ordeal, media coverage of the ATF raid and FBI siege depicted the Branch Davidians as a cult with David Koresh exercising total control over mesmerized followers. It was a narrative that federal law enforcement agencies were happy to encourage, and it resonated with the public’s understanding of so-called “cults.”</p>
<p>Immediately after the fire, most Americans took the side of the FBI. A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll found that <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1993-04-25/news/9304250016_1_branch-davidians-fbi-agents-federal-agents">73 percent</a> of Americans thought that the FBI’s use of tear gas was “responsible.” Only 13 percent thought the FBI had acted too soon, while 57 percent believed it was “not soon enough.” </p>
<p>But in the years since these events, I’ve interviewed surviving Branch Davidians and studied scores of <a href="http://www.thewittliffcollections.txstate.edu/research/a-z/hancock.html">internal FBI documents</a>, government reports, testimonies, news reports, and FBI negotiation tapes and surveillance device tapes. </p>
<p>The story that emerges is much more complex – and makes one wonder if the tragedy could have been avoided altogether. </p>
<h2>Setting the tone</h2>
<p>In 1992, Waco media outlets and ATF agents started investigating the Branch Davidians. Editors at the Waco Tribune-Herald <a href="http://www.wacotrib.com/news/branch_davidians/branch-davidian-tragedy-at-how-the-story-overtook-the-storytellers/article_1c3b98b0-b32d-518f-91f1-ca68ba5fbc4a.html">were primarily concerned</a> about the welfare of the children. (In 1992, a social worker with Child Protective Services had looked into the Branch Davidians for child abuse; finding none, the case was closed.)</p>
<p>ATF agents, meanwhile, were focused on the number of weapons being purchased – especially whether Branch Davidians were making grenades and converting semi-automatic weapons into automatic weapons without obtaining permits.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/210684/original/file-20180315-104673-iq7lek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/210684/original/file-20180315-104673-iq7lek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/210684/original/file-20180315-104673-iq7lek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=716&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210684/original/file-20180315-104673-iq7lek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=716&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210684/original/file-20180315-104673-iq7lek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=716&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210684/original/file-20180315-104673-iq7lek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210684/original/file-20180315-104673-iq7lek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210684/original/file-20180315-104673-iq7lek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In media coverage of the Branch Davidians, a view of David Koresh quickly crystallized.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-Domestic-News-Texas-United-Sta-/f22e86523ae5da11af9f0014c2589dfb/1/0">AP Photo</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>The day before the ATF raid, the first installment of “<a href="http://www.wacotrib.com/news/branch_davidians/sinful-messiah---part-feb---page-a/image_3ed4d566-a90a-11e2-b3ed-0019bb2963f4.html">The Sinful Messiah</a>” series about David Koresh appeared in the Waco Tribune-Herald. </p>
<p>Drawing on reports of former members and anti-cultists, the series described Koresh as a cult leader who had sex with underage girls, severely spanked children, accumulated weapons and exercised mind control over followers. </p>
<p>When researching Koresh, I found that while people were certainly drawn to him, it had nothing to do with alleged mind control. Koresh’s group <a href="https://wrldrels.org/2016/10/08/davidians-and-branch-davidians/">had evolved</a> out of Davidian and Branch Davidian Seventh-day Adventist communities that had been in the Waco area since 1935. People were attracted to Koresh’s teachings because they judged that he had convincingly interpreted biblical prophecies about the Last Days. Those who lost faith in Koresh left the group on their own accord. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, during and after the Mount Carmel siege, news reporters embraced the cult stereotype of the Branch Davidians. For instance, Newsweek titled a March 1993 <a href="http://murderpedia.org/male.K/images/koresh/press/04.jpg">cover story</a> “Secrets of the Cult.” After the fire, a Time <a href="http://img.timeinc.net/time/magazine/archive/covers/1993/1101930503_400.jpg">cover photo</a> featured the head of a maniacal-looking Koresh enveloped in flames. In press briefings, FBI officials promoted that view, disparaging Koresh as a manipulative liar who couldn’t be reasoned with.</p>
<h2>Problems with the ‘cult’ label</h2>
<p>The main issue with the word “cult” is that it has become pejorative in popular culture. For this reason, it has the potential to be misused as a way to stigmatize members of <em>any</em> minority religion. </p>
<p>Many groups that are labeled cults are simply small religious groups outside of the mainstream. (The Branch Davidians fall into this camp.) In addition, many characteristics that people say cults possess <a href="https://aeon.co/essays/theres-no-sharp-distinction-between-cult-and-regular-religion">can actually be found in mainstream religions</a>. </p>
<p>This isn’t to say that people in small religious groups don’t sometimes take harmful actions. But people in large religious groups (as well as secular organizations) also engage in bad behavior.</p>
<p>So when journalists and law enforcement agents use the term “cult” to describe a religious group, it’s problematic. In fact, studies have shown that once the “cult” label <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277430853_Definitions_of_Cult_From_Sociological-Technical_to_Popular-Negative">is applied</a>, the group is more likely to be deemed illegitimate and dangerous. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209199/original/file-20180306-146700-kbh1o8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209199/original/file-20180306-146700-kbh1o8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209199/original/file-20180306-146700-kbh1o8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209199/original/file-20180306-146700-kbh1o8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209199/original/file-20180306-146700-kbh1o8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209199/original/file-20180306-146700-kbh1o8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209199/original/file-20180306-146700-kbh1o8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Two entrepreneurs set up shop near the Branch Davidians’ Mount Carmel home in March 1993 to hawk ‘cult T-shirts.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-A-TX-USA-APHS411070-Waco-Branch-Davidians/3ccb643560e64b78a33bbcbecfaa7dcd/17/0">Rick Bowmer/AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s then easier for law enforcement agents to target the group with <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/storming-zion-9780195398908?lang=en&cc=us">excessive, militarized actions</a>, and it’s easier for the public to place all blame on the supposed cult leader for any deaths.</p>
<p>In his essay “<a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/A/bo3683688.html">Manufacturing Consent about Koresh</a>,” sociologist James T. Richardson draws on <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/78912/manufacturing-consent-by-edward-s-herman/9780375714498/">the work</a> of Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky to point out that the media have the power to depict those who die violently as either “worthy victims” or “unworthy victims.” </p>
<p>Those deemed “worthy victims” will be humanized in news stories; their lives and the grief of their loved ones will be plumbed. However, those deemed “unworthy victims” will receive the opposite treatment: Little effort is made to humanize them, and the circumstances of their deaths tend to fully define them.</p>
<p>Richardson argues that the news media’s focus on Koresh as a purported all-powerful cult leader had the effect of dehumanizing the Branch Davidians. Little effort was made in national media to depict the rest of the Branch Davidians and their children as individuals. </p>
<p>During the siege, the general public had no way of learning about the Branch Davidians as people, because FBI officials decided to withhold <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7XwRW2VTsU">footage filmed inside the residence</a>. These videotapes, subsequently named “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2tRpu-_4Po">Inside Mount Carmel</a>,” depict young children, teenagers and thoughtful adults who were committed to their faith.</p>
<h2>The FBI ignores Koresh’s surrender plan</h2>
<p>All of this matters because in the wake of the ATF raid, the vast majority of Americans didn’t question the actions of the FBI that put intense pressure on the Branch Davidians.</p>
<p>Separate studies conducted by sociologist <a href="http://hirr.hartsem.edu/bookshelf/ammerman_article1.html">Nancy T. Ammerman</a> and myself reveal that during the siege FBI officials ignored advice from their own profilers, negotiators and psychiatrist consultants to de-escalate the situation. </p>
<p>This proved to be crucial in the days leading to the FBI’s assault against the Branch Davidians on April 19, 1993.</p>
<p>Internal FBI documents <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520287280">reveal</a> that the bureau’s behavioral scientists knew the Branch Davidians were waiting to see if a biblical prophecy, as interpreted by Koresh, would be fulfilled. </p>
<p>Koresh had predicted that the group would be assaulted and killed during Passover week, which, in 1993, took place between April 6 and April 13. His disciples would be <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780810895287/A-Journey-to-Waco-Autobiography-of-a-Branch-Davidian">resurrected with Koresh</a>, and together they would carry out the Lord’s judgment and set up God’s Kingdom on Earth. </p>
<p>After Passover came and went, Koresh sent out <a href="http://www.lettersofnote.com/2011/04/we-are-standing-on-threshold-of-great.html">a letter</a> on April 14 outlining his plan to come out after he wrote a short commentary on the Seven Seals of the book of Revelation. Significantly, the FBI log also reveals that on April 14, Koresh sent out a signed contract to retain his defense attorney.</p>
<p>But according to a Justice Department <a href="https://www.justice.gov/archives/publications/waco/report-deputy-attorney-general-events-waco-texas-planning-and-decision-making-between-march-23-and">report</a>, on April 15 FBI negotiator Byron Sage told Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell that negotiations were at a “total impasse.” Hubbell conveyed this assessment to Attorney General Janet Reno, whom FBI officials were pressuring to approve the assault. </p>
<p>On April 16 Koresh reported to a negotiator that he had finished composing his commentary on the First Seal, and Branch Davidians started asking for supplies to type Koresh’s manuscript on the Seven Seals. In his letter, he had promised to come out after the the manuscript was in the safekeeping of two Bible scholars, J. Phillip Arnold and James D. Tabor, who had <a href="https://digital.library.txstate.edu/handle/10877/1704?show=full">communicated</a> with him via radio. </p>
<p>Reno approved the plan for the assault on April 17. Branch Davidians continued asking for word-processing supplies, which were delivered on the evening of April 18.</p>
<p>A surveillance device audiotape reveals that, after the assault started at 6 a.m. on April 19, Branch Davidians attempted to get FBI agents <a href="http://nr.ucpress.edu/content/13/2/25">to repair the telephone line</a> to negotiators, which had been severed as soon as the assault began. They wanted to tell the agents about the progress they’d made typing up Koresh’s <a href="https://digital.library.txstate.edu/handle/10877/1839">commentary on the First Seal</a>. But the telephone line to negotiators remained broken, and the assault proceeded. </p>
<p>Combat Engineering Vehicles (CEVs) plowed into the building to spray <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/biochemistry-genetics-and-molecular-biology/cs-gas">CS powder</a> dissolved in <a href="https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/dichloromethane#section=Top">methylene chloride</a> liquid. Members of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team fired in ferret rounds that released gas upon impact. </p>
<p><a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/This_Is_Not_An_Assault.html?id=kznx77jhuxkC">At 11:31 a.m.</a>, a CEV drove through the building and sprayed CS gas for 24 minutes toward children, their mothers and two pregnant women who were sheltering in a former vault – a concrete, doorless room. </p>
<p>After the CEV moved to spray gas into the second floor, the deadly fire erupted.</p>
<h2>It didn’t have to end this way</h2>
<p>A close study of the Branch Davidian case shows how all parties ended up playing roles in the tragic outcome. </p>
<p>Retired FBI agent <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/122380/stalling-for-time-by-gary-noesner/9780525511281/">Gary Noesner</a> was the negotiation coordinator at Waco from March 1 to March 24. From Feb. 28 to March 23, a total of 21 children and 14 adults came out as a result of negotiations.</p>
<p>Yet whenever adults cooperated and came out, the remaining Branch Davidians were punished: FBI agents cut off their electricity, ran over their parked vehicles with CEVs, and during the night shined bright spotlights and blasted high-decibel sounds to cause sleep deprivation. </p>
<p>When Noesner protested these tactics, he was removed from the case.</p>
<p>In the Paramount Network’s “<a href="http://www.paramountnetwork.com/shows/waco">Waco</a>” mini-series, which ran between Jan. 24 and Feb. 28, Noesner’s character, played by Michael Shannon, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/01/24/580179607/tv-review-waco">describes</a> the “paradox of power” – “The more force you bring to a situation, the more likely you are to meet resistance.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209196/original/file-20180306-146650-1evmf0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209196/original/file-20180306-146650-1evmf0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209196/original/file-20180306-146650-1evmf0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209196/original/file-20180306-146650-1evmf0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209196/original/file-20180306-146650-1evmf0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209196/original/file-20180306-146650-1evmf0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209196/original/file-20180306-146650-1evmf0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Spotlights directed at the Branch Davidian residence slice through the night sky on April 15, 1993.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-Domestic-News-Texas-United-Sta-/4510cbbf88e6da11af9f0014c2589dfb/113/0">AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://www.paramountnetwork.com/video-clips/72biiy/waco-revelations-of-waco-the-legacy-of-waco">In a recent interview</a>, Noesner articulated the true complexity of the conflict, saying that “both good and bad decisions were made on both sides that led to a very tragic conclusion.”</p>
<p>Of course, suspected illegal activities by members of a religious group must be investigated, and normal (not excessive) policing procedures implemented to make arrests. But starting off an investigation by labeling a group a “cult” makes it almost impossible for an unbiased approach to be taken.</p>
<p>News reporters are players in these situations, too. By disseminating the easily digestible cult narrative, they immediately dehumanize members of religious groups. (Of course, this narrative also attracts readers, viewers, clicks – and, therefore, revenue.)</p>
<p>As I recount in <a href="http://www.baylorpress.com/Book/48/22/Expecting_the_End.html">a chapter</a> on the Branch Davidians and religion reporting, after the conclusion of the Mount Carmel Siege, a number of reporters in the print media reevaluated their depiction of the Branch Davidians as cultists. When reporting on stories about marginal religious groups, they refrained from using the label “cult.” Professional associations reached out to <a href="https://www.aarweb.org/about/resources-for-journalists">promote stronger relations</a> between reporters and religion scholars. </p>
<p>However, lately the word “cult” is making a return in the media. I’ve noticed that the CBS series “48 Hours” likes to <a href="https://www.cbs.com/shows/48_hours/video/Xi6_vc51XokXiSlGPIFPHKcGcXrpvUk5/the-family-a-cult-revealed/">feature stories</a> about “cults.” Unfortunately, National Public Radio <a href="https://www.npr.org/2016/05/26/479635824/cult-survivor-documents-2-decades-inside-holy-hell">hosts</a> have recently started using the word “cult” to label groups like <a href="https://www.npr.org/2016/05/26/479635824/cult-survivor-documents-2-decades-inside-holy-hell">the Buddhafield</a> and have reverted to using the word when describing the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/01/24/580179607/tv-review-waco">Branch Davidians</a>. </p>
<p>The Branch Davidian case illustrates how stigmatizing a religious group with that four-letter word can abet a tragic outcome. It’s on journalists as much as it’s on law enforcement to make sure a tragedy like what happened at Mount Carmel never happens again.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90816/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catherine Wessinger does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The story of the Waco siege is a story of how the media and the government can work in concert to shape a narrative and dehumanize victims.Catherine Wessinger, Rev. H. James Yamauchi, S.J. Professor of the History of Religions, Loyola University New OrleansLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/943862018-04-10T10:38:01Z2018-04-10T10:38:01ZWhy the label ‘cult’ gets in the way of understanding new religions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213939/original/file-20180409-114098-ep4agc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A 1979 image that shows disciples of Rajneesh lying on the ground, in meditation at the mystic's headquarters in Poona, India.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Eddie Adams</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Cults” are back in the news. </p>
<p>The Netflix documentary <a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/80145240">“Wild Wild Country”</a> has revived interest in the “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/apr/07/cult-oregon-1980s-terror-netflix-documentary-wild-country">free-love</a> <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/wild-wild-country-the-most-shocking-reveals-from-the-sex-cults-fbi-informant">cult</a>” founded by Indian guru Rajneesh, or “<a href="http://www.osho.com/osho-search">Osho</a>,” that in 1984 launched a “<a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_obscura/2014/01/09/the_largest_bioterror_attack_in_us_history_began_at_taco_time_in_the_dalles.html">bioterror attack</a>,” spreading <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/salmonella/index.html">salmonella</a> in restaurants near the group’s Oregon headquarters.</p>
<p>Then there’s NXIVM, a “<a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-hollywood-followers-of-nxivm-a-women-branding-sex-cult">sex cult</a>” based in Albany, New York. Media reports state that NXIVM’s female members recruited “slaves,” who were <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/17/nyregion/nxivm-women-branded-albany.html">branded</a> with the initials of the group’s leader, <a href="http://www.news.com.au/world/north-america/the-dark-cult-with-billionaires-stars-and-sex-slavery-allegations/news-story/0c72130a835a6d708b7f0b98cf1f310e">Keith Raniere</a>. Raniere, also called the “Vanguard,” has been arrested for sex trafficking. </p>
<p><a href="https://academic.oup.com/socrel/article-abstract/39/3/228/1618594?redirectedFrom=fulltext">Scholars</a> sometimes use the term “cult” to describe groups that have distinctive beliefs and strong levels of commitment. The problem comes with the popular use of the word “cult,” often used to describe authoritarian groups that induce beliefs or actions through “mind control” or “brainwashing.” </p>
<p><a href="https://www.holycross.edu/academics/programs/religious-studies/faculty/mathew-schmalz">As an academic</a>, who teaches and writes about religion, I believe that the label “cult” gets in the way of understanding new or alternative religions.</p>
<h2>Here’s why</h2>
<p>First, “cult” is a vague category. </p>
<p>Authoritarian leaders and structures can easily be found in groups that have clear missions. From the Catholic Church to the U.S. Marine Corps, many organizations rely on strict discipline and obedience. Using the word “cult” is an easy way to criticize a group, but a poor way to describe one.</p>
<p>Second, “mind control” or “brainwashing” theories have problems. </p>
<p>In popular understanding, the leaders of cults use mind control or brainwashing to permanently remake the personalities of recruits by forcing them to do and believe things that they normally wouldn’t accept. If that’s true, as some scholars have pointed out, there would be measurable impacts at “<a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/10.1525/nr.1998.1.2.216.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A3a430daf80f56b10ac3136a57e6b32e9">the biochemical level of the brain</a>.” For now, there’s no <a href="http://nr.ucpress.edu/content/3/2/241">proof</a> that brain cells can be automatically changed by religious means.</p>
<p>“Brainwashing” was associated with the <a href="https://familyfed.org/">Unification Church,</a> or “<a href="http://www.signaturebooks.com/product/unification-church/">The Moonies</a>,” founded by South Korean <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/03/world/asia/rev-sun-myung-moon-founder-of-unification-church-dies-at-92.html">Rev. Sun Myung Moon</a>. The Moonies would isolate new recruits and shower them with attention, a process called “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1978/02/20/moon-church-love-bomb-fall-out/7c3b0eba-5e59-45e6-a5f8-812a2a5d1894/?utm_term=.850248272e01">love bombing</a>.” </p>
<p>But, as sociologist <a href="http://www.lse.ac.uk/sociology/people/eileen-barker">Eileen Barker</a> showed in <a href="http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/50886/">her research</a> on <a href="https://familyfed.org/">the Unification Church</a>, recruitment rates were still very low. Whether it’s “love bombing,” “mind control” or “brainwashing,” the results aren’t very impressive.</p>
<p>Third, the label “cult” is negative. </p>
<p>As British sociologist <a href="https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/ces/research/wreru/aboutus/staff/jb/">James Beckford</a> has observed, “cults” are usually associated with <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jcs/article-abstract/29/3/576/884746?redirectedFrom=PDF">beliefs and practices considered to be “unhealthy.”</a> But what is seen as healthy in one culture may be seen as unhealthy in another. </p>
<p>In fact, early Christianity could be called a “cult” because Christian beliefs and practices – such as not publicly worshipping the emperor – were considered strange and dangerous in ancient Rome.</p>
<p>Fourth, the term “cult” does not engage with key parts of a group’s belief system. </p>
<p>For example, religion scholars <a href="https://jamestabor.com/">James Tabor</a> and <a href="https://www.conncoll.edu/directories/emeritus-faculty/eugene-gallagher/">Eugene Gallagher</a> <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520208995">argue</a> that the 1993 “<a href="https://www.history.com/topics/waco-siege">Waco siege</a>” ended in tragedy, in part, because the FBI ignored the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2013/04/20/178063471/two-decades-later-some-branch-davidians-still-believe">Bible-based beliefs of the Branch Davidians</a>, a <a href="http://www.sociologyguide.com/anthropology/millenarian-movements.php">millenarian</a> Christian sect. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.atf.gov/our-history/fallen-agents">Four agents</a> of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms were killed trying to arrest “cult leader” <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/david-koresh-followers-describe-life-inside-apocalyptic-religious/story?id=52033937">David Koresh</a>. After a 51-day standoff, the FBI injected tear gas into the group’s compound. Seventy-five people, including children, lost their lives when the compound burned to the ground. If the FBI had dialogued with Branch Davidians by taking their beliefs seriously – instead of seeing members as brainwashed followers of a mad cult leader – deaths could perhaps have been avoided.</p>
<p>Freedom of religion is guaranteed by the <a href="https://www.senate.gov/civics/constitution_item/constitution.htm#amdt_1_(1791)">First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States</a>. It takes careful study to understand whether a religious group is simply “strange” or dangerous. </p>
<p>But the term “cult” lumps together all new or alternative religions. And when people hear the word “cult,” discussions end before any study has even begun.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94386/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mathew Schmalz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A scholar explains the popular use of the label ‘cult,’ and what makes it problematic.Mathew Schmalz, Associate Professor of Religion, College of the Holy CrossLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/828632017-08-25T07:39:29Z2017-08-25T07:39:29ZRuby Ridge: 25 years since the siege that fired up the US’s radical right<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183173/original/file-20170823-4869-1dhpuv8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C140%2C1200%2C752&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A surveillance photograph of Vicki Weaver at Ruby Ridge, 1992.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ASurveillance_photograph_of_Vicki_Weaver_21_Aug_1992.jpg">U.S. Marshal Service/Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>History matters a great deal on the American right – and a highly significant anniversary is just around the corner.</p>
<p>On August 30 1992, negotiators brought an end to the violent siege of an isolated homestead in mountainous northern Idaho. The standoff at Ruby Ridge claimed the lives of a federal agent, a 14-year-old boy, and a mother with a baby in her arms, though the man at the centre of the siege, Randy Weaver, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1995/09/03/standoff-at-ruby-ridge/3704b446-abed-4cf9-9a89-7b19208079b9/?utm_term=.4dbac158c925">never fired a shot</a> in retaliation.</p>
<p>Weaver had taken his family into seclusion near the Canadian border as part of his <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/ruby-ridge-part-one-suspicion/">ideological transition</a> from fundamentalist Protestantism to an idiosyncratic blend of visionary religion, conspiracy theory and racial separatism. Before the siege began, an undercover informant had tried and failed to coerce Weaver into spying on a community of neo-Nazis in nearby <a href="https://timeline.com/white-supremacist-rural-paradise-fb62b74b29e0">Hayden Lake</a>, but succeeded in setting him up for a firearms offence. Weaver did not appear for his court hearing – it later transpired that a letter requiring this appearance had <a href="https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opr/legacy/2006/11/09/rubyreportcover_39.pdf">given the wrong date</a> – and became the subject of year-long surveillance by US Marshals. </p>
<p>Believing himself to be the victim of entrapment, Weaver’s anti-government paranoia was confirmed by his discovery of listening devices that had been planted around his cabin. On August 21, marshals disturbed the family dogs, triggering a short firefight that killed both Deputy US Marshal Bill Degan and Sammy Weaver, who had been shot in the back. The next day, Vicki Weaver was killed by a sniper while standing in the doorway of her cabin home. </p>
<p>The siege of the Weaver cabin grew to involve hundreds of federal agents, and lasted 12 days, until civilian negotiators were able to strike a deal. The court case that followed cleared Randy Weaver of all charges other than missing his court date and violating bail, for which he was fined US$10,000 and given a short custodial sentence. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1995/09/03/standoff-at-ruby-ridge/3704b446-abed-4cf9-9a89-7b19208079b9/?utm_term=.4dbac158c925">investigation</a> that followed the court case determined that the situation at Ruby Ridge had escalated thanks to the carelessness and overreach of federal agencies, <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1995-08-16/news/mn-35756_1_ruby-ridge">awarded the family</a> a US$3.1m settlement, and confirmed that Weaver’s paranoia had not been misplaced. But the lessons were not quickly learned. </p>
<h2>Up in flames</h2>
<p>In March and April 1993, the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Ruby-Ridge-incident#ref1197110">same sniper</a> who shot Vicki Weaver in the Ruby Ridge incident was sent to Waco, Texas, to take part in another siege. This time, the government confronted a large and well-established religious community known as the Branch Davidians, an offshoot of the Seventh-day Adventists, who were suspected of hoarding <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2000/jul/07/news/mn-49078">illegal firearms</a> in their compound. After a <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-waco/">protracted standoff</a>, federal forces attempted to flush out the community’s members with tear gas, but the complex was engulfed by a fire that killed 76 people.</p>
<p>Apart from their hostility to the federal government and its agencies, the Weaver family and the Waco community had little in common. Randy Weaver was a racial separatist who had some informal association with the Aryan Nations movement; the Branch Davidians were a mixed-race religious community whose only association with extreme politics was an intense suspicion of government power and faith in guns.</p>
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<p>Nevertheless, the deaths at Ruby Ridge and Waco provided the emerging radical right with a <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=PTR7AAAAQBAJ&pg=PA8&lpg=PA8&dq=ruby+ridge+formation+militia+culture&source=bl&ots=4Cb-XaxTC9&sig=eSzca3uRWGXTe9XE7ij4t0YDd0I&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiiyJT2oOnVAhXpDcAKHVfNDUoQ6AEIQzAH#v=onepage&q=ruby%20ridge%20fo">pantheon of martyrs</a> that a then-nascent modern militia movement could claim as its own. </p>
<p>The seemingly out-of-control actions of government agencies at Ruby Ridge and Waco pulled competing elements of the radical, conservative and libertarian right into an informal coalition, one that contributed to the conspiratorial popular cultures of the mid- and late-1990s. </p>
<p>This tendency’s most extreme and lethal expression came on April 13 1995, the second anniversary of the Waco fire, when <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2001/09/mcveigh200109">Timothy McVeigh</a> planted a bomb next to a federal building in Oklahoma City. The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZ9Li_sxljk">ensuing explosion</a> killed 168 individuals, making it the worst incident of domestic terrorism in American history.</p>
<h2>On the march again</h2>
<p>As a <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/oklahoma-city/">recent PBS documentary</a> suggests, the events of Ruby Ridge, Waco and Oklahoma City are as politically potent as ever, and not just as turning points in the rise of the radical right of the 1990s.</p>
<p>Despite the events in <a href="https://theconversation.com/confederate-and-black-america-why-clashes-at-charlottesville-show-civil-war-alt-histories-are-more-than-just-fantasy-82348">Charlottesville</a>, when it comes to the fight over whose politics can be acceptably commemorated in public, the left is winning. In the name of eradicating slaveholders and Confederate leaders from commemorative public life, universities have changed the lyrics of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39559232">university hymns</a> and the <a href="http://college.usatoday.com/2017/02/14/renaming-university-buildings-with-racist-namesakes-is-an-uphill-battle/">names of prominent campus buildings</a>. Confederate battle flags have been removed from public display across the South, including by <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2015/07/10/politics/nikki-haley-confederate-flag-removal/index.html">state governments</a>. Campaigners are now turning their attention to other examples of the exhibition of Confederate iconography, including the Charlottesville statues whose fate sparked the recent fracas.</p>
<p>This campaign is gathering pace. After Charlottesville, anti-racist protesters gathered in Durham, North Carolina, to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-uAZa4H1vk">topple a statue of General Robert E. Lee</a>; city authorities in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/16/baltimore-takes-down-confederate-statues-in-middle-of-night">Baltimore</a> and <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/politics/bs-md-taney-statue-removed-20170818-story.html">Annapolis</a> removed Confederate memorials by night in a bid to forestall further public action, and authorities <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/15/us/confederate-memorial-removal-us-trnd/index.html">elsewhere</a> are reportedly planning to follow suit.</p>
<p>But insofar as these efforts are meant to erase the memory of the Confederate past, they are almost certainly futile. It is almost impossible to police cultures of commemoration: the American right, newly reconfigured, radicalised and increasingly agitated, is searching for historical roots and historical identity, and it will find them somewhere. After all, history will always offer some sort of <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/ruby-ridge-siege-25-years-called-rallying-cry/story?id=49296439">vindication</a> for anyone who seeks it out.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82863/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Crawford Gribben has received funding for his work on radical religion from the Irish Research Council and the Ministerial Advisory Group on Ulster Scots (DCAL, Northern Ireland). He is writing about cultures of survivalism in north Idaho in a current book project.</span></em></p>The radical right has a keen sense of its own history, and the violence of the 1990s is still fresh in its memory.Crawford Gribben, Professor of history, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/684652016-11-11T02:45:45Z2016-11-11T02:45:45ZJanet Reno: Reflecting on America’s first female attorney general and her example of public service<p>Some of today’s politicians seem to equate leadership with shouting, arrogance, cruelty and deception. Janet Reno, the first female U.S. attorney general and the second longest serving attorney general in history, was so honest she scared some politicians.</p>
<p>They called her blunt. They said sometimes she was not a team player. But she was playing the game by the rules her family gave her: “Tell the truth and don’t cheat.” </p>
<p>That’s the credo Janet Reno grew up with in her home on the edge of Florida’s Everglades. And that’s probably why <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/11/07/statement-passing-janet-reno">President Obama said</a> that Washington had never seen anyone like her. </p>
<p>I want my daughters, and every aspiring political leader, to know her story. Janet Reno was a different kind of public servant. She was tough, smart and humble.</p>
<h2>Sturdy foundation</h2>
<p>Reno and I were in public service at overlapping times, and I got to know her over the course of more than 30 years. She was in the state attorney’s office; I was in the legislature. When I was writing <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/privacy-9780195367355?cc=us&lang=en&">a book about privacy</a> a few years, ago she reviewed it and wrote a helpful blurb for the book.</p>
<p>At Coral Gables High she was voted the smartest kid in her class. She was a tall young woman with a brilliant mind and an independent spirit. That independent spirit was learned from her parents, who were reporters for two different newspapers. </p>
<p>She grew up in the house her mother built. It was close enough to the Everglades that she and her three siblings learned how to coax alligators to sleep by rubbing their bellies – but only the small ones. Save for a single windswept shingle, the Reno home was strong enough to withstand Hurricane Andrew. Likewise, Janet’s moral foundation was strong enough to withstand the winds of controversy and competition in Washington D.C.</p>
<p>When she first came to Washington in 1992, Bill Clinton’s two previous picks for attorney general had withdrawn their nominations over controversies with their nannies and housekeepers. That was no problem for Janet – the humble Reno home had never had a maid or nanny.</p>
<p>Over her eight years as attorney general there were great victories for law enforcement, such as the arrest and conviction of the <a href="https://oklahomacitynationalmemorial.org/janet-reno/">Oklahoma City bomber</a> in 1995 and <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1996-06-19/news/mn-16496_1_kaczynski-indicted/2">the Unabomber</a> in 1996. There was also the <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/waco/timeline.html">Waco standoff</a> – the federal government’s encounter with the Branch Davidians that resulted in close to 80 deaths after a 51-day stalemate. Some called it a <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/sept99/waco09.htm">disaster</a>. Janet took responsibility for her controversial judgment call. The buck stopped with her.</p>
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<p>Reno then faced the dilemma of <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2000/apr/08/news/mn-17351">the young boy</a> who had been ordered returned to his father in Cuba. After difficult negotiations, she authorized federal agents to seize young Elian Gonzalez so he could be returned to his father. The picture of an armed federal agent and the boy was front page news. She never wavered that the right thing was to return the child to his parent.</p>
<p>She embraced public service throughout her career, but in my opinion she was an entirely different kind of public person than the image of a politician today. Political consultants never persuaded her to give long, misleading answers to hard questions. She left Washington in 2002 with her integrity intact and a reputation as a uniquely honest and candid individual.</p>
<p>Upon her return to Florida, she was persuaded to run for governor. She set off in her Ford pickup truck to persuade Florida to elect the first female governor. In 2002 she pulled that truck into my driveway for a campaign event my wife and I hosted in her honor at our home. I have held and been to many political events, but this one was different. She was genuine and kind to everyone. </p>
<p>There was no shading of answers to meet the expectation of pollsters or financial supporters. There were no spin doctors. She did not have droves of aides and advance people. She had an honest and well-fought campaign, but ultimately lost that Democratic primary election,and Jeb Bush was reelected.</p>
<p>After the election, Janet moved back to the same home where she grew up. She was back with her family kayaking with her sister Maggie. But she never lost her commitment to public service and justice. She <a href="http://www.innocenceproject.org/memoriam-honorable-janet-reno/">became active</a> with the Innocence Project, using her perspective as a prosecutor to search for the truth about wrongful convictions.</p>
<h2>A model public servant</h2>
<p>In 2003 and 2005 she came to the University of Florida to speak with our students. On one of those trips she sat around a table with a group young law students to lead an honest discussion about integrity in the legal profession. She talked about the importance of knowing the facts and the truth as a lawyer seeking justice. In public service she could be no different than who she always was.</p>
<p>Honesty was not a challenge, it was part of her DNA. </p>
<p>The 2016 election has been traumatic and disturbing. At this moment, it is important to remember public servants include people like Janet Reno.</p>
<p>She was a humble and determined pioneer who never stopped honoring the truth. She lived the same values her entire life. At this time in America, we need to demand those high standards from our leaders and pass them on to our children. “Tell the truth and don’t cheat.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68465/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jon L. Mills does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>At a time when politicians are struggling to gain the public’s trust, Janet Reno’s legacy as an honest, humble public servant may serve as an example moving forward from the election.Jon L. Mills, Professor of Law, University of FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/542222016-02-08T19:21:17Z2016-02-08T19:21:17ZThe Federal response in Malheur and far right extremism<p>After a weeks-long standoff with federal and Oregon state police, 16 members of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation have been arrested, one wounded and another <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/26/us/oregon-wildlife-refuge-siege-arrests/">killed</a>. The occupation’s leaders, Ammon and Ryan Bundy, are among those in custody.</p>
<p>Although some of the foot soldiers remain on federal land, the occupation’s end is inevitable. But the end of the siege will do nothing to reduce the increasing threat from America’s radical right wing.</p>
<p>The official response to both this current takeover and last summer’s standoff at the <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/01/05/462022130/as-oregon-situation-unfolds-heres-a-quick-update-on-cliven-bundy">Bundy ranch in Nevada</a> has been subdued. Given that in both cases the radicals were heavily armed and threatening to kill anyone who tried to arrest them, the fact that only one militant has lost his life is startling. </p>
<p>I have spent 14 years studying <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/03/18/awakening-the-demons/">terrorism and extremism in conflict</a>. The militants in Malheur aren’t, in my view, currently terrorists, but groups like theirs have performed acts of domestic terrorism in the past. I believe the country’s leadership needs to work quickly to stop that from happening again. </p>
<h2>‘Act or do nothing’ is a false choice</h2>
<p>Restraint is certainly preferable to the violence of the federal actions at <a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/incident-at-ruby-ridge">the compound of Randy Weaver in Ruby Ridge, Idaho</a> and <a href="http://www.npr.org/2013/04/20/178063471/two-decades-later-some-branch-davidians-still-believe">the Branch Davidian cult’s compound in Waco, Texas</a> in 1992 and 1993, respectively. Each of those cases began as investigations into the sale or possession of illegal firearms and escalated into sieges involving multiple agencies. </p>
<p>In Waco, the siege ended with a full-scale assault on the compound, four federal agents killed and 16 wounded. Eighty-two members of the Branch Davidians were killed, <a href="http://www.texasobserver.org/the-standoff-in-waco/">including 17 children</a>. </p>
<p>Ruby Ridge ended with a U.S. marshall killed along with two members of the Weaver household, and two more wounded. One of the dead was Weaver’s 14-year-old son, and one of the wounded was his pregnant wife. </p>
<p>Two years later, Timothy McVeigh bombed the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/history/famous-cases/oklahoma-city-bombing">killling 168 and injuring more than 600 others</a>, in retaliation for Waco and Ruby Ridge. </p>
<p>The comparative restraint demonstrated recently at the Bundy ranch and Malheur suggests the government has taken a clear lesson to heart: there are more militants out there, and they are watching. </p>
<h2>Double standard</h2>
<p>Unfortunately there is also legitimate protest that had these armed occupiers been anything but white, we’d <a href="http://www.salon.com/2016/01/04/theyd_be_killed_if_they_were_black_the_racial_double_standard_at_the_heart_of_the_new_bundy_family_standoff/">likely have seen far less restraint</a>. </p>
<p>In 1985, Philadelphia police responded to the occupation of a house by the black power group MOVE by <a href="http://www.npr.org/2015/05/13/406505210/philadelphia-marks-30th-anniversary-of-move-bombing">dropping a firebomb</a> that ultimately killed 11 people and left another 250 homeless. In 1973, the occupation of Wounded Knee by the American Indian Movement resulted in <a href="http://jurist.org/forum/2013/05/kevin-govern-posse-comitatus.php">federal troops called up on American soil</a> and ended with <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/10/occupy-wounded-knee-a-71-day-siege-and-a-forgotten-civil-rights-movement/263998/">two dead and 15 wounded</a>. More recently, we saw a <a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/08/14/ferguson-and-the-shocking-nature-of-us-police-militarization">militarized police reaction</a> to a series of racial protests following the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. </p>
<p>Even noting the double standard, the degree of restraint shown in Malheur is still admirable. The current U.S. <a href="http://www.dhs.gov/topic/countering-violent-extremism">domestic strategy for countering violent extremism</a> correctly recognizes that while violent or armed responses are occasionally needed, they are usually more effective at driving further violence than at ending it. Threat reduction should focus on preventing the cause of radicalization rather than attempting to crush the symptom. That means focusing on inclusive governance, ending social marginalization and focusing on community policing instead of violent reaction.</p>
<p>In the current political climate, however, restraint also has a dangerous edge. It gives the impression of leaving the field to emboldened extremists, who are now <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-ranchers-nevada-idUSBREA3B03Q20140413">claiming victory</a>. That’s a dangerous precedent, especially as such groups are showing a shift toward direct action that the U.S. hasn’t seen for a long time. </p>
<p>Right-wing extremists are on the rise domestically, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/01/07/not-punishing-the-bundys-for-the-nevada-standoff-led-to-the-occupation-in-oregon/">becoming more active and far bolder</a> than they used to be. </p>
<h2>The diversity effect</h2>
<p>Between President Obama’s election in 2008 and 2012, the Southern Poverty Law Center reports that the number of right-wing extremist groups operating in the U.S. increased by over <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2013/year-hate-and-extremism">800</a> percent. While we’ve seen a slight decrease over the past year, the U.S. now faces a perfect storm of conditions for resurgent growth. </p>
<p>As the tone of the presidential election has proven, the prevailing American emotion is <a href="http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a40693/american-rage-nbc-survey/">anger</a>. Mistrust of government is at <a href="http://www.people-press.org/2015/11/23/beyond-distrust-how-americans-view-their-government/">record high levels</a>, along with several beliefs that make the problem worse. </p>
<p>First is the belief among extremists that the government is not simply untrustworthy but <a href="http://washington.cbslocal.com/2015/11/23/report-more-than-1-in-4-americans-believe-government-is-the-enemy/">actually an enemy</a>. </p>
<p>Second is the belief that anyone who <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2014/01/30/why-dont-americans-trust-the-government-because-the-other-party-is-in-power/">supports the other side</a> is the enemy as well. </p>
<p>In addition, the perception by the Christian right wing is that they are fundamentally <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=war+on+christianity&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8">threatened with extinction</a> by changing American demographics. </p>
<p>And the double standard in federal response to extremism on the left and right is driving an increase in tension on the nonwhite side as well. </p>
<h2>It could get worse</h2>
<p>All of this amounts to fertile ground for growing extremists. The presidential election is only adding fuel to the fire. </p>
<p>A Hillary Clinton victory would be seen by right-wing radicals as entrenching the same <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/09/politics/ted-cruz-hillary-clinton-spanking/">liberal sentiments</a> that extremist organizations like the Oath Keepers – involved at both the Bundy ranch and Malheur – <a href="https://www.oathkeepers.org/about/">already hold up as the enemy</a>. Bernie Sanders calling himself a socialist makes him seem even more alien. </p>
<p>On the Republican side, GOP candidates and officeholders alike have <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/andy-holt-oregon-bundy-support">failed to condemn</a> the occupiers. At least one – Representative Andy Holt of Tennessee – has made explicit <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/andy-holt-oregon-bundy-support">statements of support</a>. Not only does this legitimize the right wing, but it also sends an ominous message to non-Christian and nonwhite America.</p>
<p>The GOP as a whole has become more radical from top to bottom – to the point where an article written in bipartisan collaboration between Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein (the former with the liberal Brookings Institution, the latter with the conservative American Enterprise Institute) labeled the entire party an “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/lets-just-say-it-the-republicans-are-the-problem/2012/04/27/gIQAxCVUlT_story.html">insurgent outlier</a>” in American politics. </p>
<p>The party faces a growing divide between its white, Christian base and a population that bears it less resemblance by the year. They have sought to bridge that divide by inviting more and more of their own fringe to the table, to the point where extremist “sovereign citizens” and “patriot militias” now find themselves close to the party’s mainstream. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/feb/12/usimmigration-republicans">Nativist xenophobia</a> coming from the GOP presidential candidates lends an air of legitimacy to language that should have been universally denounced as political extremism long ago. </p>
<p>All of this means that the U.S. government finds itself in a catch-22: becoming more assertive, having previously backed down, is likely to fuel aggression from right-wing radicals. On the other hand, if the government doesn’t become more aggressive, the trend toward direct action will continue. </p>
<p>Victory means navigating the narrow ground between violence and capitulation. It means avoiding the double standard and applying consistent restraint to everyone, regardless of color or religion. The perfect storm can still be averted, but course corrections need to be set in motion as soon as possible. </p>
<p>There is little more dangerous than an extremist who feels betrayed, as Timothy McVeigh taught us.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54222/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Alpher does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Race may have played a role in the muted federal response to the standoff at Malheur Wildlife Refuge, but it goes deeper than that.David Alpher, Adjunct Professor at the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.