John Thompson, retired teacher and historian, reviews a new book by Jeffrey Toobin about the connection between the horrific Oklahoma City bombing of 1993 and the January 6 insurrection.

Thompson writes:

Jeffrey Toobin’s Homegrown: Timothy McVeigh and the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism has been published just in time. Based on the evidence in 635 boxes of case files, and interviews with more than 100 participants, Toobin draws a “direct line” between the Oklahoma City bombing, which killed 168 people, and the January 6 insurrection. Moreover, he shows how digital technology has made right-wing extremism more dangerous.”

Dog whistle heard ’round the world. When Donald J. Trump decided to kick off his latest presidential campaign on March 25 with a rally at Waco, Texas, he was issuing a call to the far-right fringe that was earsplitting, even by his own standards. It wasn’t simply the location but also the timing: a month shy of the 30th anniversary of April 19, 1993 — a date that marked the fiery, deadly end of the 51-day standoff between the F.B.I. and David Koresh at his Branch Davidian compound near Waco.

Toobin provides a balanced analysis of both – why McVeigh was not a “lone wolf,” and how conspiracy theories went overboard. But, he was influenced by multiple propaganda networks and violent insurrectionists who even preceded the Ruby Ridge violence. McVeigh “would talk about his belief that an ‘Army’ of fellow believers was somewhere out there, but he admitted that he never figured out how to reach them.”

Toobin had reported on the McVeigh prosecution for The New Yorker, and now understands that he and other journalists were too focused on “the trail of evidence presented in the courtroom,” instead of stepping back to grasp McVeigh’s “place in the broader slipstream of American history.” Today, he warns of the dangers of not coming to grips with the great threats that have grown worse since then.

Toobin gives credit to President Bill Clinton who quickly understood that, “This was domestic, homegrown, the militias. … I know these people. I’ve been fighting them all my life.” However, Merrick Garland, now the Attorney General, led a prosecution that “actively discouraged the idea that McVeigh and Nichols represented something broader — and more enduring — than just their own malevolent behavior.” Toobin now believes, “This was a dangerously misleading impression.”

After interviewing Garland in 2023, Toobin concluded:

Garland appears to see the courtroom — and the law — as an almost sacred refuge from the tumult of modern life. The law, he believes, must be protected from not just the vulgarities of show business but also the passions of politics. This is why he has proceeded with such caution in the Trump investigation and especially why he has said so little about it in public.

There is much to be commended in this kind of reticence, because it projects fairness and even-handedness. But there is a cost, too, in Mr. Garland’s approach. As attorney general, Mr. Garland is responsible not just for bringing cases but also for warning the public of ongoing threats, including from political actors like Mr. Trump and his allies. The question is whether Mr. Garland’s silence protects the law but also misses the chance to defend democracy.

Today, Toobin says that criticism of Garland for the slow pace of the investigation of Jan. 6 “seems unfair, or at least premature.” But, he concludes, “it is fair to question why Mr. Garland continues to be a quiet, if not silent, public voice about the Trump investigation.”

As the Times’ Szalai notes, when bringing this history together, “It’s almost as if Toobin were addressing his book to Garland, as a cautionary tale.” Homegrown provides reminders of how Rep. Newt Gingrich told Republicans to describe Democrats as “sick, pathetic, traitors, radical and corrupt,” while describing himself as standing “between us and Auschwitz.” Rush Limbaugh, who McVeigh followed, said the “second violent American revolution” was “just about … a quarter of an inch” away. Toobin recalls book titles such as Sean Hannity’s Deliver Us from Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism and Liberalism, and Ann Coulter’s Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism.

Now, when the Department of Homeland Security finds social media being used in 90% of US extremist plots, Toobin writes: “More than any other reason the internet accounts for the difference between McVeigh’s lonely crusade and the thousands who stormed the Capitol on January 6.”

Oklahomans are likely to be especially interested in two other aspects of Homegrown. Toobin takes a deep dive into McVeigh’s lead attorney Stephen Jones, as well as Jones’ conflicts with the rest of his defense team and McVeigh. The $20 million federally funded defense budget paid for Jones’ continuous off-the-record discussions with journalists and his trips around the world, ostensibly to find evidence of conspiracies.

Also, Toobin notes that state trooper Charles J. Hanger arrested McVeigh for carrying a handgun without a permit as he drove away from the bombing. But, “If Hanger had stopped McVeigh under the new law,” Toobin writes, “he could not have arrested him. … All Hanger could have done was give McVeigh a ticket.”

Getting back to the key lesson that Americans should not ignore, right-wing extremists have launched a “widespread wave of violence.” Toobin shows that today’s insurrectionists are McVeigh’s “ideological successors.” These threats to democracy are driven by:

The obsession with gun rights; the perceived approval of the Founding Fathers; and the belief in the value and power of violence. These feelings were replicated, with extraordinary precision, in the rioters on January 6 as well as many of the other right-wing extremists who have flourished in the quarter century since the bombing.

Given the evidence against Trump, we will likely have to deal with extremists’ violence as the prosecution proceeds. I sure hope A.G. Garland will have read Homeland if or when he has to explain the interconnected roots of rightwing violence.