There's been a storm of left-wing rhetoric and violence ever since President Trump was elected. All those Democrats talking about "resistance." The antifa riots whenever a conservative speaker opened his mouth, and the destruction of property and rights that followed. Celebrities – remember? – they promised to move to Australia, or Canada or the moon.
It got worse recently when Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., reacting to the eviction of Trump spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders from a restaurant, said: "If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them! And you tell them that they are not welcome, anymore, anywhere."
That rhetoric prompted both a complaint by a journalist against Waters and a request for a House Office of Congressional Ethics investigation.
But things are getting worse.
Point One: A man identified only as "Carmona" in court records allegedly was trying to get at the president.
He illegally parked his BMW near the White House, moved a security barrier set up for an anti-administration immigration rally and assaulted Secret Service officers trying to stop him, according to NBC News.
"While being placed under arrest, Carmona asked 'Where is the president?' He also stated to officers 'Just end it, just kill me,'" court records say.
Point Two: A woman confronted Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt while he was eating lunch Monday, telling him to resign, the Hill reported.
Kristin Mink then boasted about her confrontation on Facebook, stating: "EPA head Scott Pruitt was 3 tables away as I ate lunch with my child. I had to say something."
She added, "We deserve to have somebody at the EPA who actually does protect our environment, someone who believes in climate change and takes it seriously for the benefit of all us, including our children."
Also recently, protesters separately confronted senior adviser Stephen Miller and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Neilsen in restaurants.
Point Three: CBS reports protesters in Philadelphia calling for the abolishment of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency turned violent.
Point Four: In Nebraska, the Daily Caller said, vandals threw a brick through the window of the Nebraska Republican Party's headquarters in Lincoln.
A spray-painted message beneath the broken window said "ABOLISH ICE."
The report said, "Prominent Democrats across the country have been whipping up support for abolishing U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE), in an appeal to the party's left-wing base."
Kenny Zoeller, the state GOP's executive director, said: "This destructive criminal activity is disappointing, but unsurprising, given the increasingly radical rhetoric of national Democrat leaders and candidates like Jane Raybould, Kara Eastman, and Jane Kleeb. Violence is the natural result of the left's statements urging Democrats to literally 'push back' on Republicans and 'resist' at any cost. Voters face a stark choice between sanity and the rabid, hateful words that sparked this vandalism."
Documenting that many calls for "resistance" and "confrontation" actually spread violence, the Fort Worth Star Telegram reported a man was arrested after threatening journalists.
The paper reported Jason Eric Bewley, of Bryan, Texas, threatened to burn down the headquarters of a Texas television station, calling the general manager a "dead man walking."
The incident came only a week after a gunman enter the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis, Maryland, with a grudge against the newspaper and killed five staff members.
WND columnist Dennis Prager has warned of the corrosive effect of inflammatory rhetoric.
"Because of the ever-descending moral and intellectual state of the mainstream news media, there has been no outcry against the leftists who call President Donald Trump and all Americans who support him Nazis. Indeed, members of the media now regularly do so.
"Without that outcry, this labeling will only increase; and this steadily increasing drumbeat of hysteria is likely to lead to one result: violence against conservatives," he warned.
"It is not plausible to foresee any other outcome of left-wing normalization of the terms 'Nazi' and 'white supremacist.'"
Prager cited the case of a Senate intern who shouted an obscenity at President Trump. The senator who employed her did not fire her.
"As one liberal writer, Peter Beinart of the Atlantic, asked nearly a year ago, 'If you believe the president of the United States is leading a racist, fascist movement that threatens the rights, if not the lives, of vulnerable minorities, how far are you willing to go to stop it?'"
WND columnist Erik Rush agreed.
"If I were to publicly incite mob violence against someone I disliked in the city in which I live, I am quite certain that I would be swiftly prosecuted. I'm pretty sure that the same would apply to nearly all readers of this column," he wrote.
"Yet this is precisely what California Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters has done in recent days. This past weekend on MSNBC, Waters called for groups to harass and protest members of the administration of President Donald Trump at public venues."
He continued: "This week, the group Judicial Watch delivered a letter to the House Office of Congressional Ethics calling for an investigation into whether Waters violated House ethics rules by encouraging violence against Trump administration Cabinet members. Personally, I don't think this goes nearly far enough. Harassment is a criminal offense, as are stalking and inciting mob violence. As such, Maxine Waters ought to be criminally prosecuted, as you or I would be if we engaged in such behavior."
Also, recently, a New York Democratic congressman was accused of promoting violence against President Trump after suggesting during a town hall that citizens may have to take up arms against the president if he doesn’t follow the law.
"I mean, this is where the Second Amendment comes in quite frankly, because you know, what if the president was to ignore the courts? What would you do? What would we do?" Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., said during a March 12 Q&A session with constituents in Huntington, on Long Island.
The charges against Waters were filed with Capitol police by journalist Laura Loomer, who was questioning the congresswoman about her call for harassment.
"Yesterday when I confronted her on Capitol Hill, she ASSAULTED me. She hit my hand, then she swatted me in the face twice w/her papers. I'm pressing charges," Loomer tweeted.
Veteran political adviser and longtime columnist Pat Buchanan warned inflammatory rhetoric sometimes is followed by very real violence.
"The left, to the point of irrationality, despises a triumphant Trumpian right and believes that to equate it with fascists is not only legitimate, but a sign that the accusers are the real moral, righteous and courageous dissenters in these terrible times," he explained.
It has happened before, he pointed out.
"After Dr. King's assassination, a hundred cities, including the capital, were looted and burned. Scores died. U.S. troops and the National Guard were called out to restore order. Soldiers returning from Vietnam were spat upon. Cops were gunned down by urban terrorists. Bombings and bomb attempts were everyday occurrences. Campuses were closed down. In May 1971, tens of thousands of radicals went on a rampage to shut down D.C.," he said.
And Buchanan cited the left's frequent comparisons of Trump to Nazi Germany, which "are absurd."
"Does anyone truly believe that the centers where the children of illegal migrants are being held, run as they are by liberal bureaucrats from the Department of Health and Human Services, are like Stalin's Gulag or Hitler's camps?" he wrote.