WI: The domino effect of the 1990s militia movement continues

The 1992 Ruby Ridge standoff inspired the 1993 Waco siege which, in turn, inspired the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, after which the militia movement was widely discredited.

What if the Oklahoma bombing simply served as an example to the militia types that federal buildings were vulnerable and truck bombs were easy to create? How much further could things have escalated?
 
My gut feeling that it's destroyed once the US government get serious but hey what does a Canuck know about American militia
 
The 1992 Ruby Ridge standoff inspired the 1993 Waco siege which, in turn, inspired the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, after which the militia movement was widely discredited.

What if the Oklahoma bombing simply served as an example to the militia types that federal buildings were vulnerable and truck bombs were easy to create? How much further could things have escalated?
What fed the Militia movement was Federal Overreaction/civilian casualties from the Feds creating martyrs. Oklahoma City was the opposite, militia type causing massive civilian casualties, and Feds reacting reasonably in the aftermath. To really get inspiration, you need the bombing to result in a massive overreaction that angers people more than the dead kids, or the bombing needs to kill fewer people, like doing it at night, or a phoned in warning first
 
I hate to be the historical-determinist killjoy here, but the mere fact that the militia's "moment" petered out as quickly as it did probably indicates that it was never destined to last anyway.

Ramscoop wrote:

Oklahoma City was the opposite, militia type causing massive civilian casualties, and Feds reacting reasonably in the aftermath. To really get inspiration, you need the bombing to result in a massive overreaction that angers people more than the dead kids, or the bombing needs to kill fewer people, like doing it at night, or a phoned in warning first

Yes. I am not usually a believer in false-flags, but OKC was the sort of thing that a liberal Democrat WOULD come up with if he were totally evil and trying to make the militias look like psychopaths. As a left-wing friend of mine, a veteran of numerous protest movements, once observed, if your strategy is the sort of thing that a provocateur would come up with to discredit you, it's probably not something you should be doing.

you need the bombing to result in a massive overreaction that angers people more than the dead kids, or the bombing needs to kill fewer people, like doing it at night, or a phoned in warning first

I think it would also help if they had attacked a specific government department that Middle America really does hate, rather than a whole government building. Say, something with the same initials as Irradiated Rhubarb Soup. So, as in your scenario, it's bombed at night, a warning is called in first, so all the janitors get out etc. And all the public sees is the Rhubarb Soup building going up in brilliant flames against the night sky. You'd probably get at least a section of Joe Public on your side, and butter them up for more destructive acts, maybe to the point where they'd tolerate the collateral deaths of a few late-working accountants as long as they got to see the hated agency's buildings burned to the ground.

And yeah, bonus points if the government goes totally overboard in their reaction. Granted, I don't think this would lead to any significant increase in militia membership, just greater public tolerance for their more militant actions.
 
Even if no kids die, and barely anyone in general dies, OKC won't be repeated much. If it happens again, then the response will be even more thorough than OTL. Very soon, it will be nearly impossible to get the materials to build a fertiliser bomb. And government infilitration into militia groups will continue and accelerate. Expect many plots against government buildings to be stopped with the plotters arrested and given lengthy prison sentences.

One possibility might be that someone like Joe Stack (not Stack himself) would fly a plane into an IRS building before 9/11. If it's a decent sized plane and kills a lot of people, it might end up in the actual 9/11 (conceived by the mid-90s) getting butterflied.
 
It would be interesting to see what would happen if the militia movement does enjoy some sort of upward trajectory in popularity continuing into the 2000s, but then 9/11 as we know it(ie. Muslim terrorists crash planes into iconic buildings killing thousands, during a Republican administration) still happens. I wonder if the militias' brand of anti-federal government vitriol would still have a following, or if the attitude would be more like "Hey, this is a time to rally around our leadership, not attack American institutions, and that includes YOU, green-fatigues boy."

Or, given their patriotic trappings and rhetoric, would they still be able to sell themselves as good, loyal Americans, even as they were lambasting and assaulting the same government people were looking to for leadership after the attacks?
 
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