The Trump assassination attempt has upended the US election race. So, what happens next?

Erin Schaff, Gene J. Puskar/AP by Lester Munson, University of Sydney It is tempting to draw grand conclusions from the assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump this weekend. The coarse rhetoric currently in vogue in American politics, not to mention the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, provide plenty of fodder for this kind of speculation. In reality, the shooting, while horrible, does not come as a total surprise in the context of American history or even in the current presidential campaign. Divisive and extreme political campaigns from both parties are now the norm. Criminal prosecutions of Trump and President Joe Biden’s son Hunter have become politicised. And American voters are more often driven to vote against the other party’s candidate than to vote for their own. Yes, activists and officials in both parties will try to use the shooting for campaign advantage by tapping into voters’ emotions. Politicians will accentuate the horror of the attempted assassination and declare various phenomena as “existential threats” or use similar apocalyptic language. But the overall political environment, while uncomfortable, embarrassing and occasionally deeply concerning, is not entirely unprecedented or even an extreme example of American political life. To put it plainly: American...