Tomorrow, on Saturday, Trump is returning to Butler, PA. Trump and Butler seem connected in ways that make for one of the greatest stories in American history. It wasn’t just the assassination attempt. Butler had come to stand for the quintessential town of the forgotten working class who turned to Trump as their last best hope.
Just before the 2020 election, Tucker Carlson gave the most insightful, eloquent monologue about Trump and his supporters I’d ever heard. It went viral because no one has said it better before or since. And a myth was born. Butler, PA, was the forgotten town that came alive when Trump decided to shine a light on it.
So it was already MAGA lore by the time Trump returned to Butler to campaign for his 2024 run and was very nearly assassinated. What could represent the time we’re living in better than that? The Democrats will tell themselves it’s “just the guns,” and that their gun control would have stopped this shooter from attempting to take Trump’s life.
Yet we know that is not the truth. It wasn’t random gun violence this shooter sought, but fame. We don’t know everything there is to know about that day. The press has not exactly been drawn to this story, probably because they fear it will help Trump. So, we don’t know much about the shooter. As of right now, he remains a mystery, as does the strange coincidence of Trump being nearly killed in Butler, of all places.
In yet another strange twist of fate, Tucker Carlson and his producer, Justin Wells, happened to be filming a documentary following Trump on the campaign trail. That meant a full camera crew was ready to capture every second as it unfolded. Most of the footage shown in this documentary has never been seen before, and it is extraordinary.
Episodes 1 and 2 of The Art of the Surge are now playing on Tuckercarlson.com. Here is a clip of the assassination attempt combined with various videos from rallygoers:
The documentary shows us how the order of events seems anything but random. Right before Trump went to Butler, he debated Joe Biden. For the first time, the country saw how incapacitated the president was. Trump’s assassination would seem an easy way to solve a complicated problem to any casual viewer. But since Trump survived, desperate times called for desperate measures. Joe Biden was pushed out, and Kamala Harris was installed.
I’m not saying CIA operatives knew in advance that Crooks was planning on shooting Trump or that he was groomed into doing so. I mean, the CIA never does anything like that, right? But still, the timing seems a little too convenient. And to end it in Butler might end the entire Trump movement if that was the intention.
And now, as Trump continues to make the Democrats sweat in the polls, as Kamala Harris attempts to cling to her slim lead, Trump is heading back to Butler, to the scene of both the birth of a grassroots movement that only gets bigger by the day and the scene of the crime where a lesser man tried to end Trump’s life.
Elon Musk will appear with Trump at his rally in Butler. Trump’s courageous act of standing up and raising his fist for the iconic photo motivated him to endorse Trump, which, among other things, has put him in the crosshairs of the authoritarian Left.
Trump’s courage the day he was shot was matched only by his appearance at the RNC just days later. So many people made fun of him for going on too long without realizing he’d just been shot in the head, almost killed, just days earlier. There is no person alive, let alone any politician, who could have or would have done what he did. Let him talk as long as he wants.
As we watch Kamala Harris snuggle up to Liz and Dick Cheney, do the bare minimum to help the victims of Hurricane Helene, and spend her time running what looks like an Oscar campaign more than a campaign to lead the people in this most desperate hour, Trump’s courage to stand up to everything that’s been thrown at him has not gone unnoticed. This remarkable tweet by a former Democrat was posted today.
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
One of the things Trump said during his speech was how moved he was by his supporters' decision not to run when they heard gunfire. He told them how much that meant to him when he spoke at the RNC.
And that right there is the story of the unstoppable force that is MAGA. It was never rooted in hate. It was always rooted in love. They had Trump’s back because he always had theirs. No politician in my lifetime has ever been so effective at reaching the unreachable, the forgotten, the invisible Americans as Trump has.
He also said that the brush with death had brought him closer to God. When I think about all of the people at that rally, and I think about Tucker Carlson and Trump, it’s impossible not to see how faith ties them together, even if it’s been demonized as “Christian Nationalism” by the Left.
It reminded me of the poet Joseph Massey, who writes over at Dispatches From the Basement.
His poems offer a moment to pause from the daily churn, from the stress and anxiety in our uncertain country and world. Massey writes as a man of faith, along with the fundamentals of human existence.
I don’t write this as a person of faith myself. Maybe I’ll get there someday. But I do notice that when I stop to read Massey’s poetry, I feel a sense of calm, a way to quiet the world and sit with a thought. This poem reminded me of Trump’s return to Butler and what it will mean to the people there.
The Refrain
Beneath morning’s gray, lopsided
ceiling, I grip the air for balance.
Air like glass in fragments—
the frigid drizzle. Walking,
I hold a prayer in mind, not
repeating, but breathing
each word anew.
I pass the lawn
with the dead sunflowers
(their black, caved-in faces)
and tomatoes heavy with rot—
vines sagging toward the sidewalk.
Chalk drawings faded by rain:
mangled stick men
and slogans smeared illegible.
Like the mind without prayer.
Like the mind without prayer
to resolve the shattered sound
of the animal I am.
Trump’s rally will be aired live on Right Side Broadcasting on YouTube tomorrow:
Meanwhile, someone has put the first two episodes of The Art of the Surge on YouTube, but I imagine they’ll be taken down soon due to copyright protections, so watch them while you can. They’re remarkable or head to TuckerCarlson.com and become a member.
Every day I wake up and I think, what won’t they do to stop Trump heading into November? Nothing would surprise me by now. All I can do is hope the Secret Service is doing its job and that Trump’s good luck streak carries him all the way across the finish line. Godspeed.
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Trump's Triumphant Return to Butler, PA