This October 5, candidate Donald Trump will once again visit Butler, the city where he escaped an assassination attempt on July 13. There BBC went there to understand what this place is, “a real pro-Trump bastion”, is special and go to meet its inhabitants.
“The former president got twice as many votes as Joe Biden here in 2020, beating Hillary Clinton in 2016 by a similar margin. In fact, this county has only voted Democratic once in the last 150 years of presidential elections,” underlines the website of the British public broadcaster. Nearly three months later, the participants in the July 13 rally are all still quite traumatized by what they experienced and by the security failures. “Butler began his own healing process,” summarizes the BBC.
“The hand of God”
For the Seattle Times, the October 5 rally, which Elon Musk will also attend, “is a pilgrimage”. Its size will be extraordinary: between 15,000 to 100,000 participants are expected. According to the American daily, Trump is trying to take advantage of religious interpretations of the event. The former president claimed to have been saved by “the hand of God”. Nothing surprising in this, for the Seattle Times : “A faction of Trump supporters, primarily evangelical Christians, see him through a biblical prism, as a ‘King Cyrus’ figure whom God chose to deliver America from its problems.”
Since July 13, “the religious interpretation of Trump’s candidacy has extended well beyond evangelicals, aided by Trump himself, his campaign representatives and other Republican officials,” note it Seattle Times. A sign that it is working, derivative products referring to the assassination attempt are being snapped up. The viral photo of Evan Vucci, photographer for the Associated Press, is everywhere, on t-shirts, caps, flags. And even fridge magnets.
