Waco/Texas.
Former President Trump speaks in Waco, Texas. The problem: 30 years ago, many people from an apocalyptic sect died there.
It’s not just any place where Donald Trump on Saturday, after months of abstinence, is again looking for a bath in the crowd. For his first major open-air rally of the year, the currently favored Republican presidential candidate for 2024 – despite legal skirmishes in New York – has chosen the scene of one of the greatest tragedies in recent American history: Waco. State of Texas.
Waco/Texas: Scene of a deadly cult inferno
On April 19, 1993, after a 51-day siege by the police and the FBI, the drama about the pseudo-religious fanatic took place near the unspectacular place David Koresh and its apocalyptic Davidian sect his traumatic end.
Under still controversial circumstances (was it staged mass suicide or did blind grenades of the FBI started the fatal fire?) Mount Carmel, home of the occult movement that practiced pedophilia and polygamy, went up in flames. 86 people, including 21 children, died. Few survived. The terrifying images of the burning white fortress, blurred with strong telephoto lenses, went around the world on television.
Courts and political committees have been busy for years in Washington with the catastrophe that was never fully explained. To this day, right-wing conspiracy circles maintain the assertion that state failure has favored mass death.
Davidian sect: Netflik documentary shows unreleased footage
Koresh believed he and his followers were from Good chosen to rule the world on Judgment Day. The man with the dark curls captivated his followers with a combination of bizarre interpretations of the Bible and a charismatic personality.
The FBI siege began on February 28, 1993 because “Davidians” shot dead four police officers while cult leader Koresh was about to be arrested. Waco had fatal consequences. Two years after the Davidians died in a fire, a federal building exploded 280 miles north in Oklahoma City. 168 people lost their lives. The later executed bomber and right-wing extremist Timothy McVeigh wanted to avenge the dead of Waco with the assassination.
30 years later, a three-part documentary worth seeing deals with Netflix with the Century event. Director Tiller Russell lets in “Waco: American Apocalypse” participating snipers, politicians, survivors and cult followers have their say. Previously unreleased film material will be shown. At the end of the day, it’s not really clear who is responsible.
Trump: local choice raises concern among observers
That Donald Trump Waco of all things around the 30th anniversary of the inferno as his stage, triggers irritation and growing uneasiness. “A cult leader is holding a rally where another cult leader refused to surrender to state power 30 years ago,” writes former FBI Deputy Director Frank Figliuzzi.
The journalist Marcy Wheeler, renowned for questions of internal security, fears that the 76-year-old, who is currently being subjected to massive persecution by the judiciary and is portraying himself as the victim of a politically motivated witch hunt, will turn his supporters in Waco to Violence could incite against state organs.
Experts refer to Trump’s recent statements about the dozens of Trump supporters who have been arrested because of their involvement in the bloody Storming the Capitol in Washington in January 2021, some of whom were sentenced to long prison terms.
Trump, the the attempted uprising with a diatribe speech, she considers “American patriots” who are “held in captivity like animals” while “criminals and left-wing crooks are allowed to roam the streets murdering and pillaging without retaliation.”
Trump offers himself as a “warrior” to supporters who have been “wronged and betrayed,” in his own words. “At the meeting of the arch-conservative CPAC movement a few days ago, the ex-president literally said: “I am your revenge.”
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