William Cooper, another frequent right-wing radio speaker or host,  later that year after the bombing in Oklahoma  said Timothy McVey had attended his offices seeking help, which he said he would not give. He did not care what they did, but he would not support them. He talked about how two people who looked like McVey and his partner Terry Nichols had vaguely tipped him off and gave his people a copy of The Turner Diaries which, among other things, talked about committing acts of violence to start a race war! This became a familiar trope among the far-right.

The FBI found a copy of that book inside McVey’s Ryder van. Added to that, as Justin Ling said on his CBC podcast about right-wing radio,

It is clear that Cooper did influence McVey and despite his insistence that he does not support violence and terrorism, he literally spent years calling his listeners cowards for not doing anything about Waco. And then one of his listeners did exactly what he was telling them to do!

One thing is clear from all of this: words matter. Particularly, hateful words have consequences, especially when they are frequently repeated to resentful people with grievances.

Many years later, Donald Trump learned valuable lessons from such right-wing commentators. He too was able to fire up his supporters. Bigly!