The Irish Examiner view: Both sides must stop the spiral

The biggest worry now, in an already divided nation, is that the ongoing polarised political stasis will only lead to greater radicalisation of the candidates

Former US president Donald Trump at the campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania where a gunman attempted to assassinate him. Picture: Gene J Puskar/AP.

Grievance-fuelled politics have gotten us to the point where negativity on both sides of the political spectrum has seen the barbarians at the gates of democracy, fuelling an unrestrained level of violence threatening democratic norms across the globe. It has to stop.

Quite how the world will manage a return to civility and the simple ability to accept the points of view of others, is very open to question, but it is something we have to strive for if we are to properly govern a world endangered by violence and mankind’s inability to accept its own fragility.