Bethel Park, Butler and Milwaukee, and how MAGA hate persists

I grew up in Peters Township, a suburb of Pittsburgh that buttresses Bethel Park, the community where Donald Trump’s would-be assassin, James Crooks, lived.

Bethel Park was a rival to Peters Township in many ways, especially when our sports teams faced each other. We disliked each other when those games occurred. And though there may have been a township line that divided the two communities, in so many ways, Bethel and Peters just blended together. The phrase “A great place to raise a family” comes to mind.

In my mind, they both hold quaint neighborhoods of contented middle- to upper-middle-class families, good schools, and a shared shopping destination of South Hills Village, located off the main thoroughfare of Route 19.

The same “great place for families” could be said for Butler County, where the Trump rally was held over the weekend, which was not a far drive from Bethel and Peters in the South Hills of Pittsburgh. Butler was considered more “country” and bucolic. One of my lifelong best friends, and the nicest guy there is, grew up in Butler. I introduced Bob to Mary Beth, his wife of over 25 years.

I’ve been to Milwaukee once, for a wedding. It reminded me somewhat of Pittsburgh, and it was clear from the wedding parties and all who attended that Milwaukee was also a great place to raise a family.

To me, and maybe this is fantasy, the western part of Pennsylvania and Milwaukee both seem so idyllic. But, is anything really idyllic anymore?

Bullets ripped through Butler over the weekend, and in a way, Bethel Park too, interrupting the quiet, idealized part of the country where I was born and raised. Where I call home despite not living there for nearly 40 years. In 2018, I felt a similar shock when the Pittsburgh synagogue mass shooting occurred and 11 people were killed. The juxtaposition of Pittsburgh and violence and hate couldn’t be more stark in my remembrance of my hometown.

And this week, the Republican National Convention has invaded Milwaukee. Donald Trump said the city was “horrible.” But I know that wasn’t true until yesterday, and its horribleness will disappear once Trump, JD Vance, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and their ilk skip town.

I haven’t slept much lately, and it’s because I’m still trying to figure out where to land on the attempted assassination of Trump that killed one person and injured two more attendees. Three people who attended a rally for a candidate they support and who never expected to leave it soaked with blood.

While watching all the news over the last 72 hours or so, MAGA attendees at the Trump rally and at the convention are conversing with the “mainstream” media like NBC, ABC, CNN, and MSNBC. For a moment, it felt like a logo on a microphone didn’t matter. Were we all in this together?

But of course, that was all ruined when Donald Trump Jr. spoke to MSNBC’s Jacob Soboroff, who asked him about immigration and separating children from their parents, Trump Jr. went off, “It’s MSDNC. See, so I expect nothing less from you clowns. Even, even today, even 48 hours later. You couldn’t wait. You couldn’t wait with your lies and with your nonsense, so just get out of here.”

But we had a precursor. I'm afraid of the far right’s loathing of “mainstream” media. While watching the constant airing of the loop of Trump being hit by the bullet and exiting the stage with blood on his face, I noticed many in the crowd, who were surrounding the media pen in the middle of the rally, turn toward the media with middle fingers raised, and screams of “F you.” As if the media was to blame for the horror.

Seeing that, watching it over and over and over, made me sick to my stomach.

So did watching Marjorie Taylor Greene, Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, and Michigan Rep. John James, all who tore into our community when they brought their hate speech to Milwaukee for the opening night of the convention. This, coupled with Trump’s choice as a running mate, the rabidly homophobic and hate-mongering Ohio Sen. JD Vance, only proved that Trump’s phony ploy to “unite the country” at the convention was quick to turn into soiling the air in Milwaukee.

By the way, as more news comes out about Vance’s gobsmacking extremism, we should be scared for our lives if he ever becomes vice president. He is above and beyond hateful.

In the nearly six years I’ve been writing about Donald Trump for The Advocate, it’s been no secret that he makes me sick. I’ve written negatively — justifiably so to me— about him more times than I can count. I think he’ll go down in history as the worst person that has ever happened to this country. He’s fired up so much hate, discrimination, violence, and fear, he is an ugly stain on all that is bucolic and idyllic

In my head, I feel a Trump rally in Butler County is as damaging as a tornado would be. And yet we cannot solve the problem — and it is a serious problem — of Donald Trump by shooting him. That is not the way it’s supposed to be. That is not who we are. If we want Trump to go away, then we vote for Joe Biden. Ballots over bullets, plain and simple.

I never believed and never will that Trump, his family, his MAGA base would suddenly become less hateful after the attempted assassination. Donald Trump Jr., immediately after the shooting, blamed the “radical left.” Seriously? Your father was shot, don’t you think you’d have better things to do than hatefully place the blame?

I don’t expect anything to change because hate is rife and woven in bucolic and idyllic. In fact, I think it has the potential to get worse. We’ve been at a boiling point for so long — for the last nine years, if you ask me — and the bullet grazing Trump’s ear only ratcheted up the temperature.

The convention shows no signs of being “peaceful” or less hateful. What’s even more heartbreaking to think about is all the attendees who are coming from bucolic and idyllic places around the country and may take all the hate spewed from the convention stage and floor back home with them after all is said and done. In Milwaukee, the seeds of hate will be planted and taken back to places like Bethel Park and Butler. They’ll carry the hate, the lies, and the vengeance back to the bucolic and idyllic.

We don’t know the motive of the shooter from Bethel Park, but does it really matter? You have to carry an extreme amount of hate in your heart, even if you have mental health issues, to climb on top of a building with an AR-15-style rifle and shoot people. His home where he grew up is not much different from mine when you get right down to it. There is a driveway, trees, and a front yard, and how that picture of tranquility and simplicity was shattered on Saturday. And in Butler too. And now in the heart of Milwaukee.

MAGA without hate is listless. Hate is the fuel that powers MAGA. Without hate, there is no MAGA, no Trump, and now no JD Vance. It seems like the last few days have been a lesson in how prevalent hate is. And it will just keep boiling as long as hate leads the Republican Party.

Suddenly, disliking the Bethel Park football team seems so banal.

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