Eliyahu Gasson & Megan Trotter | opinions editor & news editor |

As a show of strength following his assassination attempt on July 13, the former president Donald Trump was back in Butler, Pennsylvania to hold a rally in the same place he nearly lost his life.

Much of the rally served as a tribute to Corey Comperatore, a local firefighter who was shot and killed at Trump’s last Butler rally. Organizers set up his fire jacket and helmet in the seat he occupied.

“Exactly 12 weeks ago this evening on this very ground, a cold-blooded assassin aimed to silence me and silence the greatest movement, MAGA, in the history of our country,” Trump said during his speech. “That villain did not succeed in his role. He did not stop our movement, he did not break our spirit. He did not shake our unyielding resolve to save America from evils of poverty, hatred and destruction.”

Leading up to Saturday some of Trump’s supporters had been camped outside of the farm’s grounds for more than a day.

At 6:11 p.m., the exact time shots were fired at the last rally, Trump called for a moment of silence, during which opera singer Christopher Macchio sang “Ave Maria.”

Multiple chants rang through the grounds during the rally.

In remembrance of Comperatore’s death, people shouted, “Corey. Corey. Corey.”

The words, “fight, fight, fight,” could also be heard coming from the special invitation bleacher section of the rally all the way to the far end of the perimeter, in reference to Trump’s reaction when he got up following the shots that killed Comperatore and wounded himself and two other attendees, David Dutch and Christopher Copenhaver.

Rhetoric of Resilience

Resilience was a major theme at Trump’s rally on Saturday, where roughly 20,000 people, Secret Service agents said to The Duke, were expected to come to support the Republican candidate’s presidential campaign.

Trump’s son, Eric Trump, reiterated the message of resilience in his address to the audience

“They’ve tried to get my father every single second since he went down that golden escalator,” Eric Trump said. “They tried to smear us. They tried to bankrupt us. They came after us. They impeached him twice. They went after his Supreme Court justices. They weaponized the entire legal system.”
Attacks on the Opposition

As well as remembering Comperatore, Trump and the other speakers went after the records of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’s and President Joe Biden.

“… the Democratic Party, they can’t do anything right,” Eric Trump said.

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dave McCormick took the opportunity to attack Harris’s campaign and to make the case for a second Trump term.

“It’s a choice between strength of president Trump, the guy you saw on this stage saying ‘fight, fight, fight,’ and weakness — weakness we’ve seen under President Biden and Vice President Harris,” McCormick said.

McCormick also attacked his opponent, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., who has held his seat since 2007.

“It’s a choice between … someone who’s an outsider. Someone who’s a businessman. Someone who went to West Point. Someone who served in the 82nd Airborne Division in Iraq,” McCormick said. “And someone who’s a career politician, 30 years in elected office,” referring to Casey.
Getting out to Vote

Another major theme of the rally was getting Trump supporters out to the polls in November.

Posted around the rally were calls to “swamp the vote,” in order to “guarantee we win by more than the Margin of Fraud,” according to Trump’s campaign website.

Trump called on Elon Musk, owner of the social media platform X, totake the mic and speak about voting in the Nov. 5, election.

“Register to vote,” Musk said. “And get everyone you know and everyone you don’t know … If they don’t, this will be the last election. That’s my prediction.”

Lara Trump, co-chair of the Republican National Committee, spoke about measures her party is taking in order to ensure the election is secure. According to her, the RNC has recruited 200,000 people to work as volunteer poll watchers, workers and legal experts.

“So our message is very clear. If you are a person who is considering cheating in our elections, we will find you, we will track you down and we will prosecute you to the full extent,” Lara Trump said. “And if you’re an illegal citizen voting in our election, we’ll track you down and prosecute you to the full extent of the law, and you’re leaving this country.”

What Trump supporters think

This will be the first election in which Franciscan University student Anthony Fontecchio will be able to vote. He said that immigration is one of the issues he is most concerned about.

“I truly believe that we need to get the border secure,” Fontecchio said. “I believe that we need to make sure that illegal immigrants are not able to vote in American elections. I also believe that … they need to work toward getting citizenship, and if they are not, they should not be here.”

Another student from Franciscan University, Anna Myron, 20, had a similar reason for supporting Trump’s campaign.

“He also wants to secure the border, which is probably my second biggest issue. There’s too many criminals coming into this country who are kind of looking to destroy our country, and so we have to shut down the border and start putting this country first,” Myron said.

Abel Jones, a student at Grove City College and another first-time voter said he was mostly looking forward to hearing what Vance had to say.

“I like a lot of what Vance says, especially about the nuclear family,” he said.

Dan Lloyd, a Duquesne alumnus from the class of 1980, said this rally was significantly larger than the last one held on the Butler Farm Show grounds.

Despite having been standing near where shots were fired into the crowd at Butler’s last rally, Lloyd said that with the increased security he felt comfortable to be attending again.

“This is a movement,” Lloyd said about Trump’s decision to return.

While Lloyd does plan on voting for Trump in November, he said that he feels like Trump often “shoots himself in the foot,” by going off on long tangents.

Margaret Ellis, a student at Franciscan University from Lancaster, Pa, said she came to the rally to show her support for Trump.

The 18-year-old said she aligns with the former president’s pro-life values.

“I’m very firm on that, and so the fact that he stands up for that is really important,” Ellis said.

She said that a lot of younger voters don’t share her political beliefs.

“I grew up in a more conservative area,” Ellis said. “But compared to big cities and people my age, I think they would … lean more liberal.”

Myron said that she believes Generation Z is more conservative than people realize.

“We’re kind of the first generation that has had the liberal agenda completely pushed on us, and I think a lot of people are rebelling against that in our generation and saying ‘no, we believe in conservatism, we believe in traditional values,’” Myron said.