A friend was watching CNN and saw the whole thing unfold in real time. He texted me immediately. But the news didn't shock me as much as my reaction to it - a shrug before I continued on my beach walk, determined not to let America intrude upon my peaceful Sunday morning.

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Somehow, even if inexcusable, the third attempt on Donald Trump's life seemed entirely predictable. There's an inevitability about such a polarising president ending up in the sights of would-be assassins in a country with such a long history of political violence.

Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and JFK all died at the hands of assassins. Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump survived attempts on their lives, the latter chalking up three. Predecessors including Richard Nixon, the two Bushes, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were the targets of numerous assassination plots.

Not all were homegrown but enough were to assume that the gun is too readily reached for as a tool of political expression in the US.

The difference with this latest attempt was that it almost penetrated the security screen that surrounds Donald Trump. In fact, in his manifesto email sent just before he charged a checkpoint at the Washington Hilton accused gunman Cole Allen wrote "... what the hell is the Secret Service doing? ... No damn security. Not in transport. Not in the hotel. Not in the event."

Cole travelled from California to Washington by train, a trip that did not involve security checks, enabling him to carry a shotgun, handgun and multiple knives undetected and check in to the hotel days ahead of Trump's scheduled and well-publicised appearance.

It took no time for the blame game to begin, with White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt accusing the Democrats of legitimising violence by demonising Trump with hateful rhetoric. And the Democrats accused Leavitt of stone cold lying with not a word about the extremist rhetoric from the MAGA movement.

Again, entirely predictable in a country so riven by division.

It's that predictability that's made me, and I'm sure many others, grow tired with America and its president.

Trump's late night rage posts are no longer novel, his ramblings aboard Air Force One instantly forgettable, his bluster, braggadocio, insults........

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