Political violence was certainly very common in the 60s and 70s. Maybe the 80s and 90s were a bit of a lull in that sense but the murder rate was still much higher in 1990 than it’s now.

There's also Bob Lee. When he died hundreds of people on here eulogized him. I myself attended a talk at Google on that Guice injection library he wrote.

People do care about murder for a lot of different reasons.

The only figures of note that were assassinated that i can think of were more lefty -- or at least non right -- jfk, mlk, harvey milk, bobby kennedy, malcolm x -- were there actually any prominent american right wing figures assassinated in this "period of escalated political assassinations ...?"