In a return to Butler, Trump attempts to make the election great again

BUTLER, Pennsylvania — Minutes into his planned remarks, Donald Trump paused. “It is 6:11 (p.m.),” the former president declared. “Twelve weeks, to the minute, since the shooting began.”
Trump called for a moment of silence to remember Corey Comperatore, the attendee killed at the Butler rally on July 13. The silence broke with the sound of a bell, and soon after, with music: an opera singer took the stage to perform “Ave Maria.” Trump stood and watched, in silence.
“We’re here for a reason, and that’s to win, and to honor Corey,” Trump said. “But Corey wants us to win, too.”
Trump returned Saturday, for the first time, to the same place where a would-be assassin tried to take his life on July 13. There was again a significant crowd, this time with added security measures — rooftop snipers, drones overhead, a bulletproof-glass barrier encasing the lectern. He dedicated the first portion of his speech to honoring Comperatore and the others injured in July, and he spoke in a subdued, hushed fashion.
It was a moment quite unlike any other at a Trump rally, yet somehow wholly familiar: a recalling of that time in late July when Trump, having just survived an assassination attempt, seemed to be marching toward certain victory in the presidential election.
In the days after the last Butler rally, Trump reached his electoral high-water mark. Democrats were engulfed in an internal battle over President Joe Biden’s candidacy. Trump bolted up in the polls. At the Republican National Convention, he received a hero’s welcome, appearing both physically and electorally invincible.
In Butler on Saturday, it was as if the election were frozen in that moment. Trump, just like he did at the RNC, spoke of unity and of goodwill: “To all Americans, whether you are a Republican, Democrat, independent, conservative or liberal, or you have no label at all, it makes no difference,” he said. “It belongs to you.”
When he invited Elon Musk, the SpaceX CEO, onstage, Musk took a veiled shot at Biden, but made no reference to Kamala Harris. Trump all but declared victory, saying he already had “plenty of votes.” He was saved, he said, “by the hand of Providence and the grace of God” — just as speaker after speaker declared at the RNC. And he invited the opera singer back onstage to belt “Nessun Dorma” as the crowed dispersed, just as he did at the close of the convention.
But the pitch to make the election great again — a callback to that July time when things seemed, at least electorally, better — could not last. After a 20-minute tribute to Comperatore and the other victims of the July 13 shooting, Trump delved into his usual rally speech, blasting immigrants, slamming the Biden administration’s emergency response, calling Harris the “most incompetent and far-left candidate” ever to run.
The election, though, isn’t about Trump versus Harris, according to Lara Trump, the RNC’s co-chair and Trump’s daughter-in-law. “This is no longer a fight between Republican versus Democrat, left versus right,” she said, shortly before Trump took the stage. “It is good versus evil. And good is going to win this battle.” Lest any question remain as to who is good and who evil, she clarified: “We got our answer here on July 13, right here in Butler, Pennsylvania.” She paraphrased the Old Testament: “Donald Trump was made for a time such as this.”
Lara Trump was hardly the only one to suggest Trump was saved by God, or that God intends Trump to win the election. Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, called Trump’s survival a “miracle” and quoted the Bible: “America learned the truth of the verse that day — ‘though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You art with me’ — I truly believe God saved President Trump’s life that day.”
But if God saved Trump, and God intends him to win, what happens if he loses? Trump has yet to say if he’ll accept the results of the election, and when Vance was given the same opportunity during the debate this week, he dodged the question. On Saturday, Trump suggested his victory was already a done deal, and implied fraud would be to blame for a loss: “Stop the steal,” he said. “Because we have a lot of votes. We have plenty of votes.”
Trump’s followers seem to believe him. “God wants Trump to win,” Tim Weckerly, from Parker Pennsylvania, said as he left the rally. If Trump loses, he added, “I think this country will be done.”