Tenacious D and the Dixie Chicks know the cost of speaking up – but there’s nothing funny about political violence | Karen Middleton

A bad-taste joke about the Trump shooting shows the old lines of democratic civility are beginning to blur

It shouldn't be a surprise that Tenacious D has cancelled the rest of their Australian tour after one half of the American comedy rock duo made a bad-taste onstage joke lamenting that the man who tried to kill Donald Trump missed.

Anyone old enough to remember the political controversy two decades ago involving the country trio the Dixie Chicks - since renamed the Chicks - knows what can happen when musicians manage to offend those engaged in nationalist, populist or identity politics.