The biggest shock about the murder of Jo Cox, the young British Labour Party MP, may be that something similar hasn't already happened in the United States. The Trump campaign has been notable for reacting with violence against anyone who has dared to express dissent during one of The Donald's Nuremberg-style rallies. Trump at one point threatened violent revenge against the Bernie Sanders campaign, which he appeared to see as the source of the most vocal opposition to him. He has even mused knowingly about the possibility of his own supporters rioting at the Republican Convention in Cleveland next month if things don't seem to be going their way.
The tone of the Brexit debate in the UK has been less openly incendiary, but the ad hominem rhetoric has heated up as the campaign has moved along, and the openly anti-immigrant stance of the pro-Brexit side has awakened uncomfortable memories of the late Enoch Powell's prediction of "rivers of blood" in the event that immigration levels remained high. The referendum campaign has put on hold out of respect for Ms Cox; while the accused murderer seems to be more than slightly unhinged, you'd hope that all sides in the debate are using the lull to ask themselves whether he would have been inspired to do what he did if they had maintained a more civilized tone.
We have moved into an era of particularly strident and uncompromising political rhetoric in recent years, much of it emanating from the right side of the spectrum. Think of the obstructionism of the Republican Party throughout the Obama Presidency; the rise of UKIP in Britain; the success of the Front National in France; the resurgence of ultra-right political parties in Austria, Hungary and elsewhere in eastern Europe. The lesson that politicians should (but probably won't) take from Jo Cox's death is this: when you abandon rational debate and start stirring up people's baser instincts, you can't control what may happen next.
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