Assassination, terrifying and unthinkable, is in the air again in the Great Republic. In this campaign, there have been two attempted shootings, and numerous death threats.

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Like the gruesome cranial mist captured fleetingly in the Zapruder film on November 22, 1963, the risk of history-turning violence hangs over the world's most consequential electoral contest.

Had America not done what America too often does, then 60 years ago this day, the charismatic US President John Fitzgerald Kennedy would have been campaigning for a second term in 1964.

But events took their bloody turn and would do so again. And again.

The deadly violence of January 6, 2021, headlined the current electoral cycle just as its blithe acceptance by spineless Republicans has licensed Donald Trump's unlikely return.

Not even a vile defecating mob chanting "hang Mike Pence" and "where's Nancy?" disgusted them enough to render this toxic narcissist, persona non grata. Nor his criminal conviction and quotidian conceits.

Trump narrowly dodged an assassin's bullet just over two months ago, and last week, there was a second shooter lying in wait at a Florida golf course, armed with yet another high- powered assault rifle.

An atmosphere of intense fear and racial intolerance is common to these two periods.

The vulgar tycoon feeds this fear. Amid (unconfirmed) reports that Taylor Swift had received death threats for endorsing Harris, his instinct was not to urge restraint and civility, it was to use ex-Twitter to write simply, "I hate Taylor Swift". Message received.

The internet and social media may act as accelerants, force multipliers for conspiracy theorists and anger merchants, but America was as polarised in the 1960s as it is now.

Racial hatred sat at its heart and violence, as always, became its........

© Canberra Times