Waco, Texas. Specifically and programmatically, self-styled messiah David Koresh insulated himself from the community and much of society in a low-rent but well-armed bunker/fortress that would protect him and his followers from the institutions of the U.S. government--thus conferring status on himself and his followers (Braun, 1993). The right wing seized upon Waco as a powerful symbol of government run amuk: "Although he had nothing to do with right-wing extremists per se, he had the right formula: guns, a survivalist compound, and a belief in a Warrior God" (White, 1999, p. 225).
Christianity shoved through the template of right-wing ideology became a hate religion--fundamentalist, racist, socially envious, economically and educationally disadvantaged, anti-Semitic, and chiefly confined to a rural white male demographic enamored of paramilitary rhetoric, quasi-religious ritual, and war games. The lean toward violence may be inferred. The enabling rhetorical flourish appears to have been supplied by white supremacist William Pierce, whose novels The Tu
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