A Washington DC event descending into panic and fear after gunshots is, sadly, of a piece with the chaotic tragedy of our timesFor as long as I can remember, the White House correspondents’ dinner was where the Washington press corps and Washington officials basked in each other’s celebrity.Satu rday night’s dinner ended abruptly with gunshots, Secret Service officers screaming at attendees to “get down”, Donald Trump and other officials being rapidly ushered out of the ballroom, plates crashing and chairs falling, and general pandemonium.Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist and his newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com. His new book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, is out now in the US and in the UK Continue reading... ...read more read less