Shrugging at calamity: America is reacting in strange ways to our chaotic times

‘As a nation we have become so overwhelmed by the rapid succession of brutal and unnecessary deaths that we simply can’t process the horror and the grief.’ Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

In the early hours of Sunday, I awoke to check the time on my phone and learned that there had been a shooting – apparently, an assassination attempt – at this year’s White House correspondents’ dinner, an event held annually to honor the journalists who cover presidential politics.

I stayed awake just long enough to read that the attack had been thwarted and that no one had been killed, and then I went back to sleep.