The thwarting of a second assassination attempt on Donald Trump is a reminder of just how close civil order in the US is to breaking down and inevitably raises concern about the country’s long-term stability.

A 58-year-old man is in custody after shots were fired in what the FBI is calling an apparent second “attempted assassination” of the former president at his golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida, and now there are fears other attempts could be made before the November election.

Admiration of using guns to achieve ends has been part of America since frontier times. Newspapers, books and films made heroes of men with guns and yesterday’s John Wayne is today’s Kevin Costner. Teenagers with semi-automatics regularly attack high schools and political violence is neither new nor aberrant, with presidents and presidential candidates killed or injured over the years. While many countries are seeing a growth in political violence and tolerance of such acts, surging gun sales, disinformation and the internet have polarised US society. There are fears of civil war regardless of November’s election outcome.

On the third anniversary of the Washington riot, research by the Chicago Project on Security and Threats last January found there were millions of Americans on both the right and left of politics supportive of violence to achieve political goals if they could not achieve them by the ballot box. Robert Pape, a political science professor at the University of Chicago, said the US was “now a tinderbox”. “I’ve studied political violence for 30 years around the world. What’s striking is the mainstream nature of support for political violence.”

Not to blame the intended victim of the latest assassination attempt, but Trump’s black hole ability to suck in all attention has turned the presidential election campaign into a tragicomedy pushing the nation towards implosion: one day he’s stalked by a gunman shortly after declaring his hate for Taylor Swift over endorsing his Democratic opponent Kamala Harris; the day before he is supposedly having an affair with an ardent supporter; he terrified American pet owners during last week’s candidates debate; in July he was shot in the ear – the horror, madness and mayhem just clickbaits on.

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Trump incites rather than condemns violence and stands back and lets chaos reign. He joked about the brutal home invasion attack on former speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, urged rioters to come to Washington and said it was “common sense” – when they stormed the Capitol calling for the hanging of his vice president, Mike Pence – that they were angry. After being shot in July, Trump called for calm, saying “stand united, and show our true character as Americans … not allowing evil to win” but a week later he was boasting, “I took a bullet for democracy”.

Many believe Trump is a threat to American democracy. But extreme acts of political violence by madmen are antithetical to democracy. Americans surely must know that in the end ballots always beat bullets.

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