Political violence becomes America's new norm - but is still shocking

The US has for the first time in decades faced political violence with targeted aim at a major party’s presidential candidate twice within two months with former president Donald Trump as the victim. 
 
But in mid-July he only just escaped being shot in the head by an assailant during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Gทะ terse and Devon The 20-year-old attacker was shot dead by a sniper. 
 
Just two months after surviving one attempt on his life, on a Sunday afternoon while playing a round of golf, the FBI says he was the intended target of another assassination attempt this time a suspect has been apprehended. 
 
Police reveal that a man equipped with an AK-47 style rifle was camouflaging in the bushes waiting for Trump while he was taking his time on a golf course in West Palm Beach before the assaulter was noticed by the secret service who responded by firing at him. 
 
Something new and smaller of a change has become a new normal for Americans in politics every few years in the past several years. The national tone has changed, polarisation has increased, and acceptable behaviour of candidates has lowered. 
 
With the ever-rising incidence of mass shooting across the United States, such kind of attacks are perhaps just the new norm. But for now it is quite grim and unexpected, hence shocking. 
 
“There is no room for violence in America,” Vice-President Kamala Harris who is Trump’s competitor in the Democratic party mentioned after the episode in Florida. 
 
The success of attempting to assassinate Obama will only have a strong influence in the American political system if the identity of the assails as well as his/her reasons for firing those bullets at the president is revealed. But for the moment it appears, despite the words of the vice-president to the contrary, that this type of violence is part of the modern America. 
 
Trump forgot that one must remember his words, in his first address to the nation after the alleged assassination attempt, he declared that nothing would deter him or make him quit. 
 
The response comes in a campaign that has frequently claimed the former president has become a victim of hate and persecution because of championing the forgotten people of the country. Words which he uttered following his first attempted eviction in July which were “fight, fight, fight” became his theme. 
 
There Trump has another favourite phrase, “They are not coming for me but for you”. It is interesting to note that, Gus often denies being an obstruction saying, “I’m just standing in the way. ” 
 
Now the former president has another dramatic example, he can use to illustrate his point of view. 
 
However, the latest incident cannot trigger the same intensity of emotions that followed shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania. 
 
That attack occurred during the public campaign, when the former president was on television cameras, beaten, but resisting. One of our supporter was a killed and two were injured. 
 
This time around, the event happened in the golf course which Trump owns and the man himself is not as vulnerable as in the previous events. This raises a question as to how much such things reverberate in the conscience of the public especially if there are no more graphic images that can be replayed for days. 
 
At the very least, however, the apparent assassination attempt will create new headlines that at least, for the moment, diverge from what has been an arduous couple of days for the former president’s campaign. 
 
It’s not just the bad optics of Trump’s defensive, uneven performance against Ms Harris in the debate last week featuring campaigns; criticism about his association with the conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer; or his Sunday morning Twitter tantrum about the singer Taylor Swift. 
 
Sunday’s drama may be explosive but there are still over seven weeks left in this presidential campaign and more drama appears a certainty.