by Kent Worcester

About the author: Kent Worcester is a member of the editorial board of New Politics, a socialist journal, and author of C.L.R. James: A Political Biography and Trade Union Politics: American Unions and Economic Change, 1960s-1990s.

The carnage of the April 1995 Oklahoma bombing puts a new spin on what has been called the politics of rage. Before Oklahoma, the most visible expression of the country’s march to the right was the construction of a hard Republican majority in Congress in the November 1994 elections. In the wake of Oklahoma, the putschist fantasies of a radical, sometimes “revolutionary” right have come into sharper focus. The bombing not only highlights the dangers posed by domestic neo-fascists, but raises questions about the porous borders dividing mainstream conservatives from the radical...