Koresh

In the Spring of 1993, federal agents raided the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. A 51-day standoff ensued. Known as the Waco Siege, it has become a founding myth of the extreme wing of American conservatism, invoked by militiamen, gun rights advocates, and the alt-right.

The leader of the evangelical sect, an extreme form of Seventh-Day Adventism, was David Koresh. Born Vernon Howell, he w...