McVeigh/Constitution/Jan. 6 –– Part 1

Review by Bill Doughty––

“Homegrown: Timothy McVeigh and the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism” by Jeffrey Toobin (Simon & Schuster, 2023) is a relevant and necessary account of the bombing of the Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995 during President Bill Clinton's administration. 

The bombing was sparked by anger and hatred in the wake of “woke,” even before that term became popular. Timothy McVeigh, the Army-veteran-turned-right-wing-extremist was an avid supporter of states’ rights, white separatism, and unobstructed Second Amendment access to military-style assault weapons.

He wanted to spawn a militia army to start a civil war against the federal government. He hoped his bomb –– which killed or maimed hundreds of men, women, and children –– would inspire others.

And McVeigh may have been right about his expectation about gaining support for the causes he espoused.

White supremacist Dylann Roof left a McVeigh-like manifesto trying to justify his murder of nine parishioners in Charleston, South Carolina. Brandon Russell, the leader of a neo-Nazi group was arrested in Tampa, Florida, in possession of explosives; “there was a framed photo of McVeigh on his nightstand.” Richard Tobin, of Brooklawn, New Jersey, wanted to see bombings of synagogues around the country quoting the method used by McVeigh. Timothy Wilson planned to blow up non-Christian worship centers and an elementary school in the Kansas City area; he quoted Timothy McVeigh in a text to an associate.

Toobin presents dozens of other examples of homegrown terrorism by white supremacists, vigilante militia members, Christian nationalists and anti-abortionists. He says the “Unite the Right” rally in Charleston, Virginia, in August 2017 showed that “the ‘army’ that McVeigh told his lawyers he was seeking had finally assembled.” Neo-Nazis, militia members, and other extremists gathered there and violently clashed with left-wing protesters who were demanding the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

Toobin also notes how “terrorism associated with radical Islam and left-wing extremists never disappeared from the United States.” He cites the 2009 shooting of 13 unarmed soldiers by a psychiatrist at Fort Hood, Texas; the 2015 mass shooting by an Islamist couple in San Bernardino, California; the 2017 shooting by a leftist political activist at a congressional baseball game; and the stalking and threatening by a mentally ill protester of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

“Still, the record is clear that there were far fewer of these attacks than those by right-wing extremists,” Toobin writes. Indeed, according to one study, right-wing extremism was responsible for 76 percent of all extremist murders in the United States from 2009 to 2019.”

Toobin shows how white nationalism increased after the election of President Barack Obama. “Days after the 2008 election, a Marine corporal at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina was arrested and charged with planning to kill Obama as a ‘domestic enemy’ in ‘Operation Patriot.’”

The question of patriotism and issues such as the First and Second Amendment were addressed head-on in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing when then-President Bill Clinton gave a memorable commencement address at Michigan State University, May 5, 1995, in East Lansing. (McVeigh’s accomplice, Terry Nichols, was associated with the Michigan Militia.) Toobin excerpts a big chunk of Clinton's speech, and it’s worth reading in its entirety for its thoughtful and nuanced message.

Here is the part of that speech that Toobin included in “Homegrown.” Clinton offers comments not only to the graduates, but also to right-wing militia members:

“I want to say this to the militias … I am well aware that most of you have never violated the law of the land. I welcome the comments that some of you have made recently condemning the bombing in Oklahoma City. I believe you have every right, indeed you have the responsibility, to question our government when you disagree with its policies. And I will do everything in my power to protect your right to do so. But I also know there have been lawbreakers among those who espouse your philosophy. I know from painful personal experience as a governor of a state who lived through the coldblooded killing of a young sheriff and a young African American state trooper who were friends of mine by people who espoused the view that the government was the biggest problem in America and that people had a right to take violence into their own hands.

“So I say this to the militias and all others who believe that the greatest threat to freedom comes from the government instead of from those who would take away our freedom: If you say violence is an acceptable way to make change, you are wrong. If you say that government is in a conspiracy to take your freedom away, you are just plain wrong. If you treat law enforcement officers who put their lives on the line for your safety every day like some kind of enemy army to be suspected, derided, and if they should enforce the law against you, to be shot, you are wrong. If you appropriate our sacred symbols for paranoid purposes and compare yourselves to colonial militias who fought for the democracy you now rail against, you are wrong. How dare you suggest that we in the freest nation on Earth live in tyranny! How dare you call yourselves patriots and heroes! I say to you, all of you, the members of the Class of 1995, there is nothing patriotic about hating your country or pretending that you can love your country but despise your government.”

Victims' families attend a memorial service as President Clinton gives remarks, April 23, 1995. 

Clinton, who also spoke at the memorial service in Oklahoma City in April 1995, took the opportunity in at Michigan State University to condemn violence by both the Left and Right. He noted, “Freedom of political speech will never justify violence--never. Our Founding Fathers created a system of laws in which reason could prevail over fear. Without respect for this law, there is no freedom.”

Prosecutors in the McVeigh trial used the bomber’s own words against him: how he wanted to start a new revolution in order to protect the Second Amendment, states’ rights, and a white male hierarchy. He hoped to provoke another civil war.

“The McVeigh prosecutors put the ‘civil war’ issue in front of the jury to show how extreme and exotic the defendant’s views were," Toobin writes. "But a quarter century later, McVeigh’s view was close to the conservative movement norm. This view –– about the possibility of civil war –– became mainstream as the passions underlying the January 6 insurrection roiled conservatives during the Biden presidency.”

According to Toobin, “The events of January 6, 2021, saw the full flowering of McVeigh’s legacy in contemporary politics. McVeigh was obsessed with gun rights; he saw the bombing as akin to the revolutionary struggle of the Founding Fathers; and he believed that violence was justified to achieve his goals. So did the rioters on January 6.”

(In Part 2, we examine the Oklahoma City bombing and rise of right-wing extremism through the lens of the U.S. military.)