Andrew Dickens: Can we ever return to civil public discourse?

Andrew Dickens Afternoons

There is only one story in town.
I realised this when I entered the newsroom and everyone was still itching to talk about it.
Firstly, I am so glad the assassin was unsuccessful.
The repercussions from this attempt are already dramatic enough. If Trump had been slaughtered, then the reaction could have been disastrous for the United States.
Imagine January 6 and the insurrection and then multiply that horror by a thousand. Every Trumpist and their dog would be reaching for their guns right now and the chances of an uprising or a civil war would have increased dramatically.
Obviously, there was a failure in the security detail, the assassination was only averted by a chance movement of the president's head, even though he was already in the sights of a Secret Service sniper.
This is disturbing - but also unfortunate in that the rumour mill online now suggests that the Biden camp had deliberately scaled down security for Trump despite obvious signs the whole election race was getting tetchy.
I don't believe this because the sniper had the shooter in his sights. The attempt was preventable, but the Secret Service has lost its edge. This is also understandable, considering this was the first attempt on a President in 40 years.
Meanwhile, the escalating tension has been covered by the MSM for some time now, complete with warnings that it could all get too real. This means that many supporters at the rally believed it was the media's fault. "You wanted political violence well you got it". Or- "the liberal media is responsible", one person said. Warning it's rising is not wishing it would happen.
This shows that many have fallen for the 'look over there' trick played by many politicians and media commentators. Shooting the messenger and not listening to the message is a weakness. When a truth is not liked by a politician they attack the media. They've been doing this for decades.
And then tension in the States is spreading. In my whole life, I have never heard more commentary on the left and the right. There is no left and right in America. Their left is right of our National Party.
But there is a real battle between liberals and conservatives. And it centres on touch paper issues like immigration and abortion and governmental overreach in civic life. And the language used is extreme and exaggerated to drive home the points, and that creates anger and dispute. And we end up with the disunited states of America.
And the real question is whether there can be a return to civil public discourse.
Biden has already expressed this and a desire to bring unity back to the United States in an address from the Oval Office.
And I will ask the question - can the US discover unity, or have we gone too far down a track of division?

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