Political opinion usually shifts slowly, but history shows that certain events can force sudden, irreversible change. The killings linked to ICE enforcement may mark such a moment in the United States.

There are moments in history, science, politics and other areas when a tipping point is reached – a critical point is where a situation, process, or system beyond which a significant and often unstoppable effect or change takes place.

The US researcher, G Elliott Morris identifies Minnesota and the ICE atrocities as one of them.

He cites _Rational Public_ (a 1992 book by political scientists Benjamin Page and Robert Shapiro) who suggest collective public opinion is often remarkably stable and US views on most issues shift only a few percentage points a decade.

They argue, Morris says, opinion changes require new information which meet five conditions simultaneously – when it is received by enough people; understood; relevant to the policy question or issue; discrepant with prior beliefs; and, credible.

Obviously media developments since 1922 have accelerated the rate at which........

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