Roughly 10% of all US presidents have been assassinated: Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and JFK. That’s 4 out of 47. In most other countries it has either happened once or not at all.
All you can really say is that there was a relative lull of political violence between say 2005 and 2015. But, even that period would be seen as massive political violence in most other advanced countries in the world.
And that’s only counting assassinations of presidents, if you count other political figures, other acts of violence politically driven, and assassination attempts it’s even higher.
My favorite had to be Squeaky Fromme’s attempt on Gerald Ford:
“He spoke for 50 minutes before completing his speech and accepting medical attention. His opening comments to the gathered crowd were, “Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot, but it takes more than that to kill a bull moose.””
But if you widen it to other figures, you get local officials like Harvey Milk:
“Now”? Someone hasn’t been paying attention. Violence has been a part of US politics since, well, US politics.
Violence is a defining feature of US politics.
Roughly 10% of all US presidents have been assassinated: Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and JFK. That’s 4 out of 47. In most other countries it has either happened once or not at all.
All you can really say is that there was a relative lull of political violence between say 2005 and 2015. But, even that period would be seen as massive political violence in most other advanced countries in the world.
And that’s only counting assassinations of presidents, if you count other political figures, other acts of violence politically driven, and assassination attempts it’s even higher.
My favorite had to be Squeaky Fromme’s attempt on Gerald Ford:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempted_assassination_of_Gerald_Ford_in_Sacramento
Following that, there was a 2nd attempt on Ford:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempted_assassination_of_Gerald_Ford_in_San_Francisco
Reagan of course:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempted_assassination_of_Ronald_Reagan
Famously there was the attempt on Teddy Roosevelt where he was shot then gave his speech anyway(!):
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempted_assassination_of_Theodore_Roosevelt
“He spoke for 50 minutes before completing his speech and accepting medical attention. His opening comments to the gathered crowd were, “Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot, but it takes more than that to kill a bull moose.””
But if you widen it to other figures, you get local officials like Harvey Milk:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassinations_of_George_Moscone_and_Harvey_Milk
Of course there’s a wiki on this…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assassinated_American_politicians