In the grand sweep of human events, retrospective reflection enables a clearer evaluation of a moment’s impact on the course of history. Today, exactly one year since the failed assassination of President Donald J. Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, it is clear that events that day forever altered our Nation’s history. In the flash of the eye, we almost lost it all. For those shots were not intended to kill only President Trump, but the movement and spirit he represents. The gunman’s real targets were the hopes and dreams of a Nation, embodied in the person of their President, whom the assassin intended to silence forever.
A reflection on America’s earliest years helps an astute observer appreciate this moment. At Lexington and Concord, 250 years ago, the British sought to arrest the loudest voices for liberty and so quash the fomenting Revolution. Though its significance was not clear at the time, the shot heard ‘round the world catalyzed a chain of events that culminated in the creation of our great Republic, the United States of America. More than a full year would pass, however, before the Colonists declared Independence. Few of them fancied themselves revolutionaries; most, at the time, expected inevitable reconciliation with Great Britain.
Today, a quarter of a millennium later, our Nation again stands at a crossroads. It has become clear that our country can prioritize Americans or it can prioritize the world, but it cannot do both simultaneously. The consequences of mass migration threaten the very fabric of our National Identity; foreign flags fill our streets, foreign issues echo through the halls of Congress, and the America we love appears ever less visibly American. A foreign socialist is on the cusp of Gracie Mansion. The Stars and Stripes are desecrated daily in our cities. Four years of Joe Biden’s autopen amply demonstrated the consequences of modern progressivism. We must choose, now, a better way forward.
The shots fired at President Trump sought to vanquish the movement he embodies. That effort failed. The raised fist of our President, blood streaming across his face, unleashed new forces in the United States and touched the Patriotism in every slumbering heart. Just as the British intended to quell the future Revolution by arresting John Adams, John Hancock, and other Patriot leaders in Concord, the assassin intended to destroy our modern Patriot-in-Chief. And just as the British unleashed the very Revolution they dreaded, so too history will pronounce the shots fired in Butler as the opening salvo of the New Revolution.
This New Revolution is not to be fought with muskets or artillery; it is not violent and will not be settled with arms. It is a war for the “minds and hearts of the people,” and the victor will control America for future generations. For by the Grace of God, President Donald J. Trump lived. With him, the movement to Make America Great Again strove onward. Today, it is fiercer, stronger, and bolder than before. Vengeance is visible in her eagle eye. Her love for America is reforged; the wrath for her foes is rekindled.
Will the American People ever get answers for what, precisely, happened on July 13 in Butler? One year later, questions still outnumber answers. This, however, is known: the events in Butler, Pennsylvania, parallel prior events, at the birth of our Nation, in Lexington, Massachusetts. They signify the beginning of great new happenings in these United States: a new era, a new turning, and the opening gun of the race to keep America free. As the 250th anniversary of American Independence approaches, we must again march forward, together, as a Nation.
For Butler was the portent of great future events and the best of America is before her.