Former President Donald Trump’s assassination attempt last Saturday has highlighted, in giant capital letters, how dangerously uncivil modern politics has become, in America, in the UK and in many parts of Europe.

Here in the UK, where I live, we have had two assassinations of members of Parliament in recent times, one a young woman with two young children. With the advent of social media, virtually all politicians live with online death threats on a daily basis. All of them, including MPs, beg for extra security agents.

This is not a partisan problem; if President Trump was targeted, so was Nancy Pelosi, America’s first woman Speaker of the House of Representatives, who has received more threats of violence or death than any other American lawmaker.

The threats culminated in far-right advocate David DePape breaking into her San Francisco home in 2022, demanding to know where Nancy was (he’d planned to kneecap her, so, wheelchair bound, she’d be a constant reminder to her colleagues of the consequences of their voting record).

Instead DePape found her 82-year-old husband Paul in bed, and when he discovered Nancy was not home, he attacked Paul viciously with a hammer, fracturing his skull.

Emergency surgery saved his life but altered it, possibly forever. As of June 2024, Nancy told an American broadcaster, “He's making progress. He's about 80 percent there, physically. Traumatically, it's terrible.”

Although she has now stepped down as House minority leader, she is still a congressperson, and like most American lawmakers, will only travel when accompanied by heavy security detail.

Assassinations have always with us in politics; four American presidents have been assassinated through US history, as have presidential candidates, such as Bobby Kennedy Sr. At least six other presidents, such as Ronald Reagan and George W Bush (twice), have been shot at and survived.

It’s easy to blame assassination attempts on the crazies and conspiracy theorists, but they represent only the extreme end of a spectrum that begins with nasty name-calling on X or Instagram. Before long, this progresses to an egg or a milkshake thrown at a candidate, before quickly descending into wishful thinking about some sort of violent payback for an unwelcome political position. And this, when galvanized by agreement on social media, legitimatizes break-ins or a gunshot at a President.

It starts, in other words, with you and me, and the way that we handle and tolerate political discourse. And it starts with the politicians’ own language about their political opponents (creating a website with opponents’ photos over which are placed rifle cross-hairs (Sarah Palin), or language about bullseyes (President Biden).

It starts with the way that political news gets handled in America and the UK, with news outlets that demonize the political opposition, rather than sticking to the facts about their positions and debating them in a reasonable fashion.

It starts with the very language and discourse we and our politicians use to characterize the other side.

In this fevered climate, particularly in America, but also all throughout Europe, it is vital to maintain civility, something we’ve nearly forgotten in the wake of social media.

Here are my 7 suggestions for ways to re-establish civility when speaking to people whose politics disagree with yours:

1. Tone down all inflammatory language in your characterization of the other side in any written or oral speech. Democracy gives us the right to disagree. Do you want to remove that right?

2. Refuse to name-call or demonize someone else or their position. If you disagree with abortion, refuse to use words like ‘murder.’ If you disagree with the right wing, don’t characterize them as ‘baskets of deplorables,’ ‘lunatics,’ or anything else.

3. Stick to the facts when you discuss your opponents’ positions that are different from yours.

4. Learn about the other side. Watch broadcasts and read papers that support your political opponents, instead of tuning into the echo chamber of your own political views.

5. ‘Speak in love, speak in respect, and speak in peace.’ This was the mantra constantly held by a group of Massachusetts women on both sides of the abortion debate who met together over several years. They allowed different realities simply to coexist—again without being judgmental. Neither side changed their positions, but they all became best and loving friends.

6. Uncover the hidden connections between you, whether in your faith, your locality, your citizenship, your sex, or your local or national interests. Both Republicans and Democrats have many similar values: a love of family, God, children, home, and country. Share deeply and from the heart and encourage them to do the same – without judgment. Sharing deeply loosens entrenched positions.

7. Find a larger goal you can carry out together or as a group. It’s called a superordinate goal – a goal only achieved by large cooperative teamwork of two or more people. Engaging in sharing and teamwork tends to transcend differences, because it emphasizes the very heart of humanity — we are all in this together.

We need to recognize that we’re all in this together more than ever.