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To clarify, Ted was a Red attack on Blue academia, Waco was Blue oppression of religious conservatives? That's more or less my understanding of the two incidents.
Correct. Judging by his manifesto, Ted was what you get when you have someone with the temperment and general values of a Tolkein or a C.S. Lewis and subtract the Christianity. He did not appear to believe in Progress; his moral worldview was materialistic and pessimistic. He rejected Leftism and leftists outright and quite explicitly, IIRC.
Waco was aimed primarily at gun owners; my assessment of the evidence is that it was an attempt by ATF leadership to prove their indispensability to the incoming Clinton administration, given that the agency had a large number of skeletons in their closet, including a bunch of lawsuits alleging and documenting some fairly shocking racism throughout the organization, that might lead Clinton to attempt significant reform. They found a bunch of gun-owning (first priority) religious weirdoes (second priority), and essentially tried to frame them for federal gun crimes. It's a pattern of behavior the agency has recapitulated quite a few times over the years, unfortunately. If everything had gone according to plan, they'd railroad these weirdoes in a big show trial, get tons of good press, make themselves look good to the boss, and it would be beers all around. Unfortunately, their complete incompetence turned the raid into a total disaster, and then they and the FBI killed everyone to cover it up.
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