Australia is reckoning with a rise in political violence in the wake of the distressing attack on Helen Haines in her electorate. But I want to talk about something else that was unfolding in politics this week - the role of decency and empathy, and why tolerating the lack of it in politics harms democracy.
Around the world, we are seeing that people are increasingly losing trust that governments are working in their interests. Disagreement and dissent are a critical part of any democracy - it's how change happens, and when it no longer feels like it's working in your interests, it is tempting to write politics off altogether.
"They're all as bad as one another" is a common refrain to hear about members of parliament, but it's not an accurate one.
Take senators Jacqui Lambie and Pauline Hanson. On the face of it, they have a lot of similarities: both women, both senators, both seen as representing regional Australia, each with an unmistakable Aussie accent, but the past few weeks have exposed just how differently they operate in politics.
While Jacqui Lambie was forced to take five months' leave to deal with health issues, Channel Seven revealed Pauline Hanson missed more than two sitting weeks of Parliament, without leave, to travel with Gina Rinehart on her private plane to attend an event at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago.
When Jacqui Lambie returned to Parliament, she bravely told the Senate about her experience with vaginal prolapse - a condition that affects as many as half of all women who have been pregnant - stemming from a back injury sustained during her service in the military. Lambie asked the government to drop a proposed $5000 cap on accessing allied health services for veterans.
"I'm begging you, prime minister," Lambie told the Senate. "We are already suffering enough. Drop the bloody cap. Drop it, mate ... It is so unfair. It is what we do not need. It is enough. Veterans have had enough. Leave us alone."
The government listened, and the cap was scrapped. That's how democracy is supposed to work.
Around the same time, One Nation released a satirical cartoon about the government's Digital Duty of Care legislation. Disagreement on legislation is a normal part of politics, but the cartoon blatantly mocked Lambie's vaginal prolapse. It was degrading and dehumanising. If it was supposed to be a joke, it wasn't funny, it was just mean old-fashioned bullying. It was widely condemned by the RSL and other politicians including Liberal MP Andrew Hastie, who has also been personally targeted as a "traitor" in One Nation's cartoons.
It was reminiscent of when Donald Trump mocked a New York Times reporter by imitating his physical disability. And where has this culture of indecency led American politics? Straight into the sewer. Just when you think American politics can't sink any lower, Trump and his admirers find new depths of depravity and cruelty.
This week Vivek Ramaswamy, a Republican running for governor in Ohio, ran an attack ad against his Democratic opponent Amy Acton, featuring her estranged mother labelling her a liar. The depravity lies in the fact Amy Acton and her brother were removed from her mother's care when Acton was 12 due to severe neglect and sexual abuse. Acton's stepfather was charged with raping her from age 9 to 12, and he fled the state. Acton's mother stayed with the rapist, not her children. Vivek Ramaswamy is pouring $4 million into running the heinous ad, and in response to the backlash, Vice President JD Vance said he was "disgusted" by some Republicans "whining" about the ad.
Pauline Hanson initially took a similar approach to JD Vance to managing the backlash to One Nation's cartoon, telling Jacqui Lambie to "get over it".
"Have a bit of a laugh, Jacqui, and lighten up," Hanson told reporters. Small wonder people are fed up with politics.
In Trump's America, empathy is now considered toxic, with Elon Musk once describing it as "the fundamental weakness of Western civilisation". Trump's dehumanising rhetoric has been accompanied by institutional cruelty.
"Arguments about the harms of empathy help justify personal and political behavior that might otherwise seem wrong or feel bad, such as cutting food-stamp benefits for poor people or tearing immigrant mothers away from their children," said Elizabeth Breunig, in The Atlantic.
It is clear some Trump voters revel in his cruelty. Trump has made a virtue of operating with utter contempt for his opponents, frequently mocking people for their disabilities, their looks, gender, or ethnicity, all cheered on by Republicans either too scared to speak up in case they become his next target, or gleefully joining in.
In the past, Trump's approach of doubling down in face of outrage has worked for Pauline Hanson. This time, the backlash was unfolding on the same day that Helen Haines was attacked in her electorate. The cruelty of the cartoon was now seen in a radically different context, one where politicians are experiencing abuse on an "industrial" scale, including sexualised abuse targeted at women MPs. There was an overwhelming outpouring of empathy from the community for both Helen Haines, as well as Jacqui Lambie. Hanson apologised.
It puts the Digital Duty of Care legislation into a new context too. There's no doubt dehumanising language and the carriage and amplification of misogynist and racist online abuse has real-world consequences that make people unsafe, especially women and other marginalised communities.
The Prime Minister's call to lower the temperature in politics and to be more civil are all well and good, but that message needs to be targeted at those who are being uncivil. Because it's not everyone in the community raising the temperature of politics, just as politicians aren't all the same.
The overwhelming community support for Helen Haines has shown us that empathy and decency still matter in politics and the US shows us what the future could look like if we allow it to be lost.