Observations from a Crime Scene

“They don't understand how a doctor, a rural farmer, a Hispanic small business owner, and a steel worker from Butler could all be voting the same. And they are bewildered by how a working-class person of any race – despite being the men and women who build the roads, make the transformers that light your streets, construct your houses, and weld your bridges so you are safe - could possibly be a conservative populist. And they look down on them for their lack of sheepskins on the wall despite how much better these people make their own lives”. – Butler

On July 13, 2024, an assassin’s bullet ripped through the ear of Presidential Candidate Donald Trump, nearly ending his life.  Early reports suggested that Thomas Crooks acted alone and had no online presence.  Yet, in a November 2025 documentary titled “Who is Thomas Crooks”, Tucker Carlson reveals that Crooks' digital presence included nearly a dozen different platforms, from Snapchat to Discord, to YouTube, along with hundreds of digital comments from 2019 to 2020, many of which included violent threats against many public officials.  An online video also showed Crooks dry-firing a handgun in his bedroom in the days before the assassination attempt. 

His online searches included not only Trump, but also Jack Ruby and several mass shooting events.  Further evidence reveals potential ties to foreign email accounts and encrypted text messages.  After observing links with a Nordic antifa terror group online, Crook's online presence came to an end in 2020, fueling suspicions that he may have been susceptible to radicalization. 

Crooks was known to have used a burner phone and trained at a gun range alongside federal agents. On the day of the failed attack, Crooks surveilled the Butler rally with a drone and had in his possession a range finder.

Not only did the FBI refuse to issue surveillance footage from that day, but they hosed the rooftop where Crooks took his shots the very next day and then released Crook's body for cremation 10 days following the assassination attempt.   And, despite a thousand interviews, fewer than 100 were provided to the House investigation. 

Federal officials also questioned whether Trump was hit with a bullet or by shrapnel from the teleprompter and even dropped the idea that the Iranian government may be involved.  But obstruction by the FBI did not come only from Biden’s FBI; it also came from Trump’s.   Whether the Secret Service was incompetent or deliberately allowed breaches of security is yet to be determined.  Or perhaps, Crooks was indeed a lone wolf who just got lucky.     

In Salena Zito’s 2025 book, “Butler”, Zito tells the story of the 2024 Trump campaign, focused primarily on the people of Butler and the battleground state of Pennsylvania, where on July 13, 2024, in front of a crowd of 50,000, a 20-year-old Thomas Crooks tried to end Trump's life.  While the investigation into the man stalled and then disappeared, author Zito, a Pennsylvania native, focuses on the people of her state and how the assassination attempt tilted in Trump’s favor. 

Pennsylvania, the fifth most populous state in America and one of the most important swing states, is part of the Rust Belt, a region that has been affected by globalization and the loss of industries to other countries.  In 2016, Trump narrowly won PA by 44,000 votes; in 2020, Biden won by 80,000; and in 2024, Trump prevailed again, with a margin of 121,000. 

In places like Butler, PA, six out of ten people live within 10 miles of where they grew up, eight in ten within 100 miles, creating a new class distinction of those who are rooted near their places of birth, as opposed to those who aren't.  People anchored to their places of origin choose to stay close to their hometowns due to their proximity to family, traditions, and community support.  These individuals tend to vote based on how policies will affect them, their families, and their way of life.  Following a Trump speech about the dignity of honest work, the rooted coalesced into a coalition that was racially diverse and generational. 

Those who are unrooted, on the other hand, tend to be mobile and have little affinity for any location or custom.  Usually found in big cities, these nomads tend to include coastal elites, academics, media personalities, corporate leaders, tech and social media gurus, and entertainers.  Their politics, unlike those in tight-knit communities, are abstract and ideological, supporting policies like climate change, DEI, structural racism, and every version of social justice.  Due to their ties to power, these placeless people overwhelmingly create the policies that are enacted in Washington.  Since there is little diversity of thought or experience in elite circles, the culture clash that ensued highlighted their complete lack of understanding of those who live in flyover country.  Worse, elites believe that a college degree makes one an expert and look down on those who don’t, the forgotten men and women who are largely employed as skilled labor, artisans, and blue-collar workers.

America is a center-right country, mostly due to its middle-class values, faith, and family.  On election day 2024, places like Butler, PA, made the difference for Trump.  Despite their lack of proximity to power, the people of the heartland stood up against the elite coalition, who smugly dismissed them as naïve and unimportant.  When the cornerstone of the republic comes out to vote, they're impossible to defeat.