We’re barely a week and a half into President Trump’s administration, and the left is in sheer panic mode. We’ve seen headlines blaring that Trump instituted a Muslim ban (he didn’t). We’ve seen speculation that the Trump White House’s failure to clearly inform the Department of Homeland Security how to implement his immigration executive order amounts to an attempted coup (nope). We’ve seen accusations that Trump will overthrow the judiciary, run roughshod over Congress and generally make a fascist nuisance of himself.

This isn’t good for the country.

That’s because if you think Trump is Literally Hitler, you’re more likely to endorse violence against him and his allies, which is precisely what leftists have begun doing. At the Screen Actors Guild Awards, “Stranger Things” star David Harbour threatened Trump supporters over his immigration/refugee executive order, saying, “And when we are lost amidst the hypocrisy and the casual violence of certain individuals and institutions, we will, as per Chief Jim Hopper, punch some people in the face when they seek to destroy the meek and the disenfranchised and the marginalized.” Madonna spoke at the Women’s March on Washington, saying that she has “thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House.” Robert De Niro said back in October that he’d like to “punch (Trump) in the face.” Actress Lea DeLaria of “Orange Is the New Black” said that she wanted to “pick up a baseball bat and take out every f–king republican and independent I see.”

Violence only becomes acceptable in the minds of most people if they are the victims. And not just victims — ultimate victims. They must have no other option. That means that playing up the threat of a Trumpocalypse means heightening the likelihood of violence. And we have indeed seen isolated incidents of anti-Trump violence around the country, dating all the way back to the campaign, when the media simply ignored Black Lives Matter movement attempts to shut down Trump campaign events.

Once we have reached the point where overt tearing of the social fabric is seen by half the country as morally decent, there is no more social fabric to tear. Civilization is actually on the ropes.

Which means that everybody has an obligation to calm the hell down.

Civilization isn’t going to end because many Americans don’t like Trump’s policies. And Americans still have the ability to resist politically without engaging in violence. The left believes that it has a monopoly on nonofficial violence, which is why former President Barack Obama shied away from the harsh condemnation of riots in major American cities. But all that did was fray the social fabric to the point where tribalism has become mainstream political discourse.

Now we’re even a step beyond that. No longer does the left restrict its vision of political violence to the already-immoral claim that downtrodden black folks in failing cities should be given “space to destroy.” Upper-class elites at the SAG Awards have permission to engage in violent rhetoric. Everybody is capable of getting violent now that Trump is here.

Which means that political violence will likely increase. Which, counterproductively for the left, means that Trump will use the power at his disposal to restore law and order. And so the cycle will continue.