A slight turn of the head was the difference between a bloodied ear and his brains being blown out.

Donald Trump literally dodged an assassin’s bullet.

It goes without saying that politics and violence should never mix.

Sadly, a member of the crowd was killed and others critically injured.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the injured and the family of the deceased.

The motivation of the would-be assassin, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, is not yet known.

An eyewitness told Fox News his head was blown off by the return fire of the Secret Service.

But what is known is America and the West is bitterly divided over politics.

And while the right is also guilty of intemperate rhetoric (Trump’s hyperbole doesn’t help), derangement at a whole other level has been the posture of the Left ever since Trump emerged on the political scene.

They’ve thrown everything at him including plenty of violent rhetoric. It’s no wonder there was an assassin on the roof.

But Australia is not immune from politically motivated violence.

Today’s shooting in Butler Pennsylvania sent a shiver up my spine.

In 2016 my office was firebombed at around 9pm at night by a political opponent, Jaden Duong.

My staff and I often worked late but providentially no one was in the building that night a few days before Christmas.

The force of the car bomb blew out the ground floor windows and the window on the first floor of my PA’s office.

The Australian Federal Police said there was no “political, religious or ideological motivation” despite knowing the assailant was a gay same-sex marriage political activist.

I’m not a conspiracy theorist but this has shaken my confidence in an important institution.

The Greens had been calling us a “hate group” in the lead up to the bombing but of course could never provide evidence of anything “hateful” we had said.

Politically motivated violence is not just for the only in America file.

The aftermath of today’s assassination attempt with its already iconic image of Trump defiant - fist in the air, secret service huddling him and the America flag in the blue sky above it all - has changed the world.

Joe Biden’s long cognitive decline, now exposed, and the clear weaponisation of the judiciary against Trump meant he was already on track to win back the White House.

Even if they swap Biden out, Trump remains unbeatable.

I’ve never been a fan of Trump’s personal character but of most of his policies and his courage I am.

(Since when have US President’s been men of impeccable character – Trump is a gentleman compared to Bill Clinton and John F Kennedy).

Trump tried to drain the swamp, but it drained him. He licked his wounds and came back.

Now a much-needed clean-out of the damaging Woke ideology (or mind virus as Elon Musk rightly calls it) is possible over the next four years.
The Leftist progressive (the wrong word for it) project is in trouble and they know it.

Everything from the climate cult that is hurting families’ cost of living to the indoctrination of our children into radical LGBTIQA+ ideology (both are religions) has its days numbered.

Dictators in Moscow and Beijing along with their acolytes in North Korea and Tehran know that today has consequences for them.

Another four years of the free world being led by the radical Leftists of the faceless cabal propping up Joe Biden could tip the West beyond the point of no return.

But the image of a bloodied Trump pumping his fist in defiance is already a symbol of hope.

I hope Butler is the wake-up call that makes further politically motivated violence and intemperate rhetoric unthinkable.

Demonisation of opponents by both sides needs to be dialled down and the quality of the debate needs to be dialled up.

John Anderson, the former deputy prime minister, constantly says you can’t get good policy out of a bad debate.

You certainly can’t get it from the barrel of a gun, or a car bomb.