Columnist draws a direct line from the Waco siege to Donald Trump

During his speech at Mar-a-Lago in the wake of his arraignment on charges brought by Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg, Donald Trump rattled off a list of grievances ranging from the “onslaught of fraudulent investigations” that he says are unfairly targeting him, ranging from “Russia, Russia, Russia,” to the dual impeachment “hoaxes,” to the classified “boxes hoax” to his “persecution.”

Trump also invoked fears of apocalyptic doom, saying, "Our country is going to hell," and that the country is "not too far away from" nuclear war.

According to Salon's Brian Karem the rhetoric Trump chose was no coincidence, since his speech came days after his rally in Waco, Texas, the site of the tragic ATF siege of the Branch Davidians' compound that resulted in a fire that killed 76 members of the cult, including 25 children back in 1993.

As a reporter for America's Most Wanted, Karem was one of the first non-local journalists on the scene during the siege. In his column for Salon, he draws a direct line from the Branch Davidians and their leader, David Koresh, to Trump. "Waco was the tragedy that should have been a national wake-up call. It mostly woke up those who are now hardcore Trump supporters," he writes.

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Karem is apparently referring to various militia movements and gun rights enthusiasts that were radicalized by Waco, mainly due to the fact that the ATF's initial raid on Koresh's compound was over the cult's stockpiling of illegal guns. As Karem points out, two years after Waco on same the date of the siege, "Timothy McVeigh, whom many of us reporters had met when he sold bumper stickers outside Waco, helped kill 168 people when he bombed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City."

"Watching Donald Trump weave his doomsday warnings into his self-centered rant Tuesday night drove home just how much like Koresh he really is — and how blinded those who follow him are," Karem writes. "His followers are worshippers. The men consider themselves messiahs, but are actually con men who exploit women and children, and ultimately pull the strings that led to their own demise."

Read the full article over at Salon.