How Will I Go On in the American Culture War?
From the Front Lines in Butler County
One of my boots is in rural Butler County, PA and one is in urban Los Angeles, CA where I reside. Yes, that Butler County. My family’s farm is right down the road from the Butler Farm Show where I used to show horses as a youngster. Of course, now I try to visit my childhood home a few times a year to see my family and friends and attend to some farming business. As I said, I have one foot in Butler County, still.
As the shot rang around the world, you probably already know that a local citizen tried to shoot former President Donald Trump in now, famous for the wrong reason, Butler County. Thankfully he was not successful at hitting his target, he instead only shot him in the ear. And tragically, another rally attendee was shot and killed in the process.
I’ve written before about growing up on a farm in Butler County. I find the political and cultural views of most of my friends and family living there intriguing. Likewise, I also find the views of my friends in urban Los Angeles interestingly … different.
How could the beliefs of two groups of people living in the same country differ so greatly? I’m still grappling with that.
I’ll share some of my on-the-ground observations through my journal entries. Because I was there, in Butler County, at the time of the shooting.
7–14–24
Last night we went to the home of my cousin Bridgette and her husband Mark on the Allegheny River. The house is palatial and looks out on the water. Upon arrival, we were served vegan and gluten-free hors d’oeuvres (sorry, Cousins, about my super restrictive diet, as a mostly vegan and gluten free type one diabetic, but hey, I’m alive!).
I tried to have some restraint, but alas, I ate an amount of appetizers that I would normally eat for an entire dinner, maybe a whole day–breakfast, lunch and dinner. I also brought a decent bottle of wine and ended up drinking a good portion of it. I haven’t had much wine at all since arriving at the farm because, well, you can’t buy wine in most grocery stores here. Although that is slowly changing. For now, you mostly have to go to a special state store. It’s so dumb. I think there are more alcoholics in Pennsylvania than anywhere, so if they’re trying to stave off the alcoholics, the philosophy of limiting liquor, wine and beer purchases isn’t working. Anyway, I digress. And I’m not an alcoholic by the way.
We went on to the river in their speed boat and the whole thing felt very bougie, but highly enjoyable nevertheless. Then we went back into the house for more food. I had no idea how much insulin to take with all of that food and my sugar skyrocketed to over 400 at a certain point. But not for long and I was okay the rest of the night.
Then in the middle of our dinner we all received a news break notice that there was an attempt on Trump’s life at his rally — guess where? The Butler Farm Show grounds close to our family farm. In fact, my brother Tom was there. He went with his best buddy, Jake, a cattle farmer and massive Trump/MAGA fanboy. He’s very likeable, though, in a boisterous manner. Tom went along for the experience. They invited Dennis, and he considered it, also for the experience. But he decided to come with me to see his favorite cousins on my side of the family.
Of course, after the news alert we were worried. We all worried.
I texted Tom right away and he did get back to us in short order. He was fine, but two people including the gunman were killed and two people critically injured.
Most of my friends from L.A. texted me because they know I’m from there, and that Dennis and I were visiting the area for a couple weeks. They wanted to make sure we were okay — like I would even go to a Trump rally.
Back and forth it went with everyone.
We leave for L.A. tomorrow and tonight we’re planning a little going away party with all of my family that lives on the farm, our compound. That’s what I call the Wylie Family Farm because there are scores of Wylies that live there. Actually, I originally called it a commune, but they thought that sounded too “communist” and insisted that I call it a compound.
So, we spoke of the present political climate, speculation about the assassin and his motives. All pretty one-sided. To be continued…
