It’s going to be a long, hot summer in the United States. Heated rhetoric from the two major presidential candidates, their surrogates and partisans make this among the most fervent campaigns in American history. The back-burner simmering since the last presidential election in 2020 is becoming a front-burner boil as the respective major parties distil their positions and turn up the heat on their opponents. This is not to imply that past elections have not been similarly overwrought, or that public rancour between American partisans is something new. Indeed, some 19th-century presidential races, especially those prior to and immediately following the Civil War, set a very low precedent for the dignity of national elections in the US. Personal attacks and partisan vitriol are part and parcel of American presidential campaigns.