‘Our Nation Is Not Well’: Voters Fear What Could Happen Next

Before Saturday, when Butler, Pa., became the latest stunned backdrop for the nation’spolitical fury, Mayor Bob Dandoy thought of his town as a place that had learned to work around party lines. A Democrat in a Republican stronghold, he had campaigned on consensus.

“I’ve never seen a Republican or Democratic pothole,” Mr. Dandoy, 71, a retired high school English teacher, would tell voters. “Or a Republican or Democratic playground. Or a Republican or Democratic fire that the fire department needs to put out.”

He was at dinner with his family on Saturday when a city councilman texted. One spectator was dead at Donald J. Trump’s campaign rally on the farm show grounds, two more were critically injured. The former president’s right ear had been grazed by a bullet. The gunman, an isolated 20-year-old with an AR-15-style rifle, was fatally shot by the Secret Service. All this, in the town of about 13,000 where Mr. Dandoy has lived “all my life.”

Since then, national discord has descended on Butler with such force that this week it crashed the town’s website. E-mailers charged that the city failed to protect Mr. Trump, maybe even wanted him to be a target. Callers demanded that the city admit that Mr. Trump’s supporters staged the shooting. The mayor has tried to remind everyone that Butler is a community that accomplishes good things, that has worked through disagreements together. And yet, he said, the trauma has been overwhelming.

“People are in a state of shock,” he said. “And I can’t lob a platitude or give a speech and say everything is fine.”

As the 2024 presidential election approaches, that unease is not limited to Butler. In interviews from the West Coast to the Deep South, Americans across party lines say they are deeply apprehensive, and not just because of last weekend’s attempt on a presidential candidate’s life.