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The ambush on police officers in Dallas, Texas combined with the fatal shootings of two black men earlier this week brought the nation to a screeching halt.

A political response was inevitable.

Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump canceled scheduled events Friday out of respect for what Trump called “horrific events.”

Due to the horrific events taking place in our country, I have decided to postpone my speech on economic opportunity- today in Miami.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)

I mourn for the officers shot while doing their sacred duty to protect peaceful protesters, for their families & all who serve with them. -H

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton)

While the presidential candidates will no doubt respond to the events this week, ³ÉÈËXÕ¾ Radio’s Dave Ross wonders if politics can do anything.

Related: Seattle police taking no risks after Dallas shootings

“Before Dallas … we were in a situation where the police shootings felt like another one of the big intractable problems that don’t have an easy solution,” CBS’ John Dickerson told Dave. “Even fumbling our way toward a set of solutions and having a conversation in which solutions are groped toward; even that seems impossible.”

The problem, according to Dickerson, is that the debate is split. Many people seem to either support “police lives matter,” while other support “black lives matter”; but not both.

“If those are your stating points, both sides think the other is not only wrong, but has bad motives,” Dickerson said.

There seems to be an inability in this presidential campaign to have conversations about complicated, protracted issues, he added. We’re also seeing “outbursts” from people who have felt long ignored by politicians, the same politicians who ask for their vote.

“It’s a real test,” Dickerson said. “There’s a larger philosophical question: Should [politicians] weigh in at all?”

In a way, presidents and leading politicians have long been looked to in order to find some sense of control, he added.

“Some kind of grounding in moments of uncertainty,” he explained. “Though it isn’t in our Constitution, it is a bit of a test for these presidential candidates.”

It’s not just nationally-recognized politicians that are going to, or already have weighed in on the attacks on police and fatal shootings this week. Seattle Mayor Ed Murray responded to the attack on Dallas police that left five officers dead Thursday night, saying, “if we are to engage in a serious discussion about racism, we must recognize that the police are on the receiving end of the failure of so many systems…”

Murray also responded to the fatal shootings of two black men in separate incidents earlier in the week.

“White Americans have work to do,” Murray wrote on Facebook. “We, the beneficiaries of hundreds of years of structural inequality, must use our privilege to construct a more just society. My commitment is to do that every day.”