On Saturday afternoon, Thomas Crooks, 20, climbed onto the roof of a building in Butler, Pa., carrying an AR-style rifle purchased by his father more than a decade ago and loaded with ammunition Crooks bought that morning. People in the audience spotted him and pointed him out to law enforcement, but Crooks managed to open fire at former president Donald Trump before he could be apprehended. He was killed shortly afterward by a Secret Service sniper.

It’s not clear why Crooks did what he did. He was a registered Republican but appears to have made a small donation to an organization ostensibly focused on turning out left-leaning voters. His classmates identified him as politically conservative; neighbors reported seeing Trump signs outside his family’s house.

We can’t draw many conclusions from this collection of facts. Perhaps we will be able to do so once more information comes in. But we can say two things with certainty: There is no evidence that Crooks shot at Trump because he had been influenced by anti-Trump political rhetoric, and there is no evidence that Crooks was literally or figuratively part of a collective effort to sideline or kill the former president.

It’s important to point this out explicitly because, in the days since the attack, allies of Trump have repeatedly suggested both that Democratic rhetoric is to blame or that the shooting was done by some nebulously defined “they” - a group that is generally meant to include Trump’s political opponents.

Speaking to Fox News host Laura Ingraham from the Republican National Convention on Monday night, Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) suggested that the shooting was a continuation of a pattern of hostility to the former president.

“The bottom line is this: First, they tried to censor and silence President Trump. Then they tried to indict and imprison President Trump,” Mills said. “Now they tried to kill President Trump.”

Mills went on to suggest that, from his experience, “this seems intentional” - presumably meaning the security failures that allowed Crooks to open fire. On Tuesday morning, Mills made similar comments to right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk. (Mills also blamed diversity initiatives for unspecified reasons, saying, “D-E-I means D-I-E.”)

The congressman wasn’t Ingraham’s only guest to suggest that “they” tried to take out Trump.

“They have done everything to strip him of his wealth and of his fame. They’ve tried to break up our family and done everything to try to get him and kill him,” Trump’s son Eric Trump said on the same program. “And they literally tried to kill him this week.” He made a similar claim on CNN on Tuesday afternoon.

Earlier on Monday, former congressman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) suggested that calls for “unity” were dubious, given the moment.

“My question, not trying to be cynical, is what is it going to take for that unity to last more than just one news cycle?” he asked.

“They tried to kill the leading candidate for president!”

A moment later, he clarified that “somebody” tried to assassinate Trump - suggesting that perhaps the person had been compelled by an irrationality rooted in anti-Trump rhetoric.

The idea that such rhetoric was at fault has been far more prevalent than the specific “they tried” verbiage. Right-wing commentator Kurt Schlichter fumed at a New York Times reporter on social media, asserting that “[o]ne of your people just tried to murder Donald Trump.” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) lamented the death of an attendee at the rally “at the hands of Democrat political violence.”

Speaking at the convention on Monday, South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem (R) linked the attack to broader criticism of Trump and to his criminal indictments.

“Nobody has endured more than what he has gone through,” she said of Trump. “They’ve attacked his reputation. They impeached him. They tried to bankrupt him, and they unjustly prosecuted him. But even in the most perilous moment this week, his instinct was to stand and to fight.”

That framing is why all of this has emerged. Trump’s campaign has been centered on portraying him as a victim from the outset.

That he was targeted by a shooter folds into that presentation neatly.

There’s just that one nagging little problem: There’s no known connection between the known shooter and the broad, nebulous galaxy of opponents Trump and his allies envision. Crooks wasn’t carrying a left-wing newspaper in his pocket or listening to a liberal podcast. He wasn’t a contract employee of the CIA or a staffer for the Justice Department. He wasn’t even a Democrat.

So Crooks and his actions become abstract. They did it or they facilitated it or they caused it. And, for the purposes of political rhetoric, that will have to suffice.