On the ground at the Trump assassination attempt

Butler, Pennsylvania

Moments before, the crowd that had waited for hours in the sweltering heat for Trump to show up — and he turned up an hour later than scheduled — was enchanted by him. They cheered when he asked if they minded if he went off the teleprompter. He had just been turning his head to reference a graphic showing how many fewer illegal deportations there were when he was in office.

Then there were some popping sounds that, from where I was (far in the back, close to the exit), sounded like pop rocks or fireworks. A pause followed and Trump disappeared from view. The people around me were confused, then there was screaming up front.

I exited to the road in the back and heard a woman saying, “Is he OK? No! I miss him!” Someone also said, “they don’t let you have alcohol in here but that guy gets away with this?”

People were holding hands and I heard some praying. Shock, disbelief, obviously confusion. But to me they seemed calmer that I would expect. I bee-lined across a field to where my car was parked.

Earlier in the day I heard a woman reassure her friend who had asked if she was worried about snipers at these events: “No, the Democrats aren’t cool enough to have a snipe gun.”

While standing in the long, snaking, sweltering line to get into the rally today, I saw a shirt that said, “Jesus is my savior. Trump is my president.” But judging from the level of devotion Donald Trump’s supporters were showing him — and have shown him since his assassination attempt — it’s clear to me he’s more of a god or prophet to these people than mere politician.

The entrance was déjà vu all over again. It felt like 2016. Trump swag galore. Palpable enthusiasm. This year, though, in addition to the hawking of “Hawk Tuah 2024” shirts (ugh), there seemed to be a more aggressive attitude. “Make America Great Again” is, after all, a non-partisan enough phrase in theory. Yet this time around, iterations of “I’m voting for the convicted felon” and “Never surrender” were everywhere. These people, clearly, were ready for revenge. Or Trump’s Second Coming.

“I can’t wait to hear what he has to say!” a woman behind me in line said breathlessly to her friend on the phone. And speaking of lines — I arrived around 1:30, as I was told the gates closed at 2:30, and for the last two Trump rallies I’d attended, a casual hour (or less) to spare had been plenty to see the president. Not so this time. Perhaps it was because we were in deep Trump country (Butler is farm country and almost feels Midwestern), the proximity of the election, Trump’s conviction or a combination of all three factors, but I was still in line at 3:30, with thousands of people behind me.

“There are people dropping everywhere,” the woman informed her friend. Indeed, there had been at least three calls for “medic!” during our wait in line. The woman herself had sent her boyfriend back to the car so as not to risk a “thyroid storm” from the heat (ninety degrees) and humidity. A gang of biker bandits all wearing bandanas commiserated nearby with a group of fratty bros in patterned buttons-downs and chino shorts about how going to Trump rallies used to be easy, but now it’s “a six-hour ordeal.” People sat down alongside the line, and I saw one mother comfort a daughter, evidently ashamed of her own weakness and susceptibility to heat stroke, who assured her, “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Think about what he went through for us” (meaning Trump, not Jesus).

Trump was an hour late to the rally; the crowd didn’t seem to mind waiting even longer. People around me cheered when murmurings that his motorcade had pulled up made the rounds. They yelled, “Thank you, Trump!” when he listed his accomplishments as president, and as I’ve seen from video footage, many of them stood up, apparently fearlessly, and cheered as the president was ushered off stage, as if more concerned with his wellbeing than their own.

If today’s huge rally, full of people willing to suffer for hours in the heat and humidity and blazing sun and to react with compassion rather than panic when their savior is shot is any indication of this fall’s election, it may very well be, as the signs said, “too big to rig.”