Journalist Dylan Byers wrote one of the most disturbing things I have read about the third known attempt to assassinate president Donald Trump. In the aftermath of the attempted shooting at a gala dinner, Byers and some colleagues adjourned to a local bar to regroup and watch the news coverage.

No one in the bar seemed to be aware anything had happened. When the journalists requested that CNN be switched on, after a short while, the bartender said it was against the bar’s policy to show political content so the channel was switched back to sports.

Byars contrasted this indifference with what things would have been like on March 30th, 1981 an hour or so after John Hinckley Jr shot and wounded president Ronald Reagan at the very same hotel. The bar would have been packed with people hanging on every word of the coverage. Now, people did not even bother to check their mobile phones for news.

Something is seriously awry in US culture that an attempted assassination of a president is just another day in Washington.

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