Barack Obama: “Let us remember in our thoughts and prayers those suffering from natural disasters in Haiti, Chile, and elsewhere.”

People need to “rediscover what’s the story we tell about how we’re going to live together, and see each other, and recognise each other, and disagree, and yet, still care for each other”.

It is a basic principle of American democracy that the government can’t selectively target individuals simply because of their political beliefs or what they say.

It is a decision about how do we face and embrace this finite amount of time we have on the planet.

If I had a blame pie for why politics is so polarised and why we're seeing a rise of populism in many places, it's because of that information that is going into our brains every day.