Jeffrey Toobin Releases The Book Homegrown Timothy McVeigh

Published: May 4, 2023, 2 p.m.

Violent right-wing extremism wasn't born at the Capital on January 6th, 2021. In HOMEGROWN: Timothy McVeigh and the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism (May 2nd, 2023/$29.99 hardcover), legal scholar and bestselling author Jeffrey Toobin traces a direct line from the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing carried out by McVeigh to the January 6 insurrection, providing not only a powerful retelling of one of the great outrages of our time but also a warning for our future. Timothy McVeigh wanted to start a movement. Speaking to his lawyers days after the Oklahoma City bombing, the Gulf War veteran expressed no regrets: killing 168 people was his patriotic duty. He cited the Declaration of Independence from memory: "Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it." He had obsessively followed the siege of Waco, seethed at President Bill Clinton's assault weapons ban, and drawn inspiration from Rush Limbaugh. He conducted target practice by shooting at pictures of Hillary Clinton. A self-proclaimed white separatist, he abhorred immigration and wanted women to return to traditional roles. As he watched the industrial decline of his native Buffalo, McVeigh longed for a time when America was great. McVeigh once declared, "I believe there is an army out there, ready to rise up, even though I never found it." But that doesn't mean his army wasn't there. As Toobin makes clear, McVeigh was not an ideological loner, as he is often portrayed, but rather a participant in the conservative counter-revolution of the 1990s. Toobin details how McVeigh's principles and tactics have flourished in the decades since his death in 2001, reaching a culmination on January 6 when hundreds of rioters stormed the Capitol.