The last time a US president was almost assassinated, most of the rich world, while reviling the act, could hope it was peculiarly American. And so it is worth listing a few of the safety measures employed by British MPs in recent years. Mobile panic alarms. Stab-proof vests. Personal guards. An avoidance of planned events and inessential outings. A national police effort called Operation Bridger, now widened to protect elected representatives beyond parliament.
A country where political violence was rare, at least outside the war-like context of the Troubles, has lost two MPs to murderers since 2016. Candidates in the recent French elections came under assault, too. The German interior minister cites an “escalation of anti-democratic violence”.
Almost everyone deplores such attacks. The problem is, after that, the consensus flakes. The spectrum of behaviour that goes up to, but not over, the line of violence inspires less concern or even interest than it should. The harassment of candidates in Britain’s election has been met with a sinister breeziness. To be clear, then: the anti-politician culture is wrong in and of itself. But more than that, it is self-reinforcing.