Butler by Salena Zito review – how Trump won America's heartland

The Guardian

07-07-2025

The Democrats' famed blue wall is more the stuff of nostalgia than reality. On election day 2024, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin voted for Donald Trump for the second time in three elections. Barack Obama's upstairs-downstairs coalition lies in ruins, as Democrats struggle to connect with working-class voters across racial and ethnic lines.
Last November, Trump came within just three points of winning a majority of Latino voters. Such Americans walked away from their presumed political home – in droves. A Trump endorsement by Roberto Clemente Jr, son of the late Pittsburgh Pirates baseball star, was a harbinger. Likewise, Trump posted double-digit gains among Catholics and Jews, once core constituencies in the Democratic party of FDR.
To quote Bob Dylan, 'The times, they are a changin'.' Into the fray jumps Salena Zito with her latest book, Butler, and its dramatic subtitle, The Untold Story of the Near Assassination of Donald Trump and the Fight for America's Heartland.
Zito is definitely a Trump fan, living in western Pennsylvania, a place that's become part of Trumplandia. No wonder: her analysis is sharp-eyed and her anecdotes revealing – she walks among Them. Beyond that, she possesses roots and an affinity for her 'Yinzers'.
These days, she writes for the Washington Examiner and is a contributor to the Washington Post. Last time out, with The Great Revolt, co-authored with Brad Todd in 2018, she painted a portrait of Trump's base that was not standard GOP-issue and a Democratic party overly reliant on coastal elites. That take remains valid. Other than in faculty meetings, you can't win elections solely with the votes of JDs, MDs and PhDs. More voters lack four year-degrees than those who have them.
Butler, turns to Butler, Pennsylvania, the site of the failed July 2024 assassination attempt on Trump, as a serendipitously fitting backdrop and fulcrum of the events that preceded and followed. She had access to the Trump, JD Vance and the senior staff of the campaign.
Trump delivers bouquets of compliments. Zito is flattered, even enthusiastic. She enjoys the rapport, admires her subject. Trump is not a lab specimen or patient. She is not his psychologist. Rather, he talks to her, expresses concern about her grandchildren, and offers a lesson in politics 101: empathy goes far.
On the page, Trump takes Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to task for waiting a year before appearing at the village of East Palestine, Ohio, the site of a major railcar disaster, 42 miles from Butler.
'They never showed up to see them,' Trump tells Zito. 'Never. It's a shame. I did, I came, I told them I would not forget them and I won't.'
Ohio, Vance's state, went Republican by better than 10 points. All of Ohio's top elected officials are now Republicans. In polarized times, ticket-splitting grows rare.
Elon Musk talked to Zito too. There's nothing like the zeal of a 12-figure convert, the world's richest person. Given the current fallout between Musk and Trump, it is memorable stuff, a bromance before it went off the rails.
Butler unintentionally delivers a packet of receipts.
'I asked Musk if I could interview him, and he said: sure,' Zito recalls.
''Who are the ones that are trying to silence free speech? That's the Democrats,'' Musk advises.
'They're the ones trying to silence free speech,' he continues. 'You know who the bad guys are – the ones who want to stop you from speaking. Those are the bad guys. It's a no-brainer.'
To put it mildly, irony abounds. Never mind what Musk did to X, formerly Twitter, in terms of promoting one sort of view and quashing another. Since their relationship turned to dust, Trump has threatened to deport Musk and cancel his government contracts.
In hindsight, that the Trump-Musk relationship would last long would have been a bad bet.
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Musk vows to support primary challenges against Republicans who stuck with the president on his sweeping bill of cuts to taxes and spending. But whatever you think of the legislation or Musk, Trump holds a decisive advantage.
Beyond the obvious, regarding simple power, Trump is a far better showman. Startling to say it, he is way less weird. Musk is the nerd who always wanted to hang with the cool kids.
Zito devotes attention to the dichotomy between the 'placed' and the 'placeless' – 'people who are rooted in their places versus people who are essentially nomads' – and its relationship to politics and Trump. The placed are with him; the placeless, not so much.
Such demographic faultlines are global. They played an outsized role in the fight over Brexit. Populism is not restricted to the US.
In 2017, David Goodhart wrote Road to Somewhere, which examined the forces that drove Brexit. He placed a premium on describing how a sense of belonging has come to shape politics, in an uncertain world.
His typology divided society between 'anywheres' and 'somewheres', with the archetypal anywhere possessing a degree or two from Oxbridge or the Ivy League, a portable skill set, and a spouse who shares similar credentials. By contrast, somewheres lack those markers, and find the world a less welcoming place.
GDP figures and personal income statistics alone do not convey the entire story. In 2016, 'fuck your feelings' was a Trumpian battle cry – though those shouting it did not take kindly to being called deplorable by Hillary Clinton or, eight years later, being called 'garbage' by Biden.
As expected, Zito calls out Clinton and Biden for their missteps. Trump or his base, not so much. Yeah, there's asymmetry. But if you're a Democrat, punching down is seldom a winning strategy.
Butler is published in the US by Hachette