From New York to California, to a Screen Actors Guild ceremony, Democrats are stepping up their calls to defy President Trump’s executive actions to close the nation’s porous borders and make America safer from terrorists. Making America safer is exactly what they’re opposing, blubbery words about compassion and inclusion aside. Actor David Harbour has even called for assault. Will a call to arms be next? For Democrats and the left (one in the same), peace and love have gone the way of tie-dyed shirts and bellbottoms.

In the immediate wake of Trump’s inauguration, violence erupted. Leftists angered that Trump was president took to the streets, hurling rocks and employing David Harbour’s method of catharsis.

On the heels of the protest violence, came the Million Gals March. Intimations of violence were elevated as celebs -- Madonna and Ashley Judd, notably -- spewed vitriol to a national audience. Madonna’s dream about blowing up the White House (with the president in it, doubtless) was swept away by the MSM as hyperbole. Yet a worldly 58-year-old diva shouldn’t be lightly dismissed as a complete idiot. Madonna knows plenty about audiences and followings. Her words act as cues.

Then Ashley Judd, in a lewd and hate-filled rant that, one imagines, was supposed to be some sort of ode for the ages, proclaimed her “nastiness.” In sum, her vehemence and language are easily construed as incitements to violence.

Understand the escalation. It should trouble civilized Americans. Harbour, Madonna, and Judd aren’t anonymous lefty shlubs looking for a little street action to brighten their otherwise gray existences. They’re known widely, and however much Madonna’s and Judd’s stars have faded, they’re listened to seriously by impressionable and likewise hate-filled minds. Cold-cocking “Nazis” or blowing up something even marginally related to President Trump, might just scratch some lefties’ itches.

Calls or suggestions of violence haven’t bubbled up among Democratic leaders. Let’s hope they never do. All Chuck Schumer could muster the other day at a presser about Trump’s executive order was to sob. (Perhaps Chuck needs his estrogen level checked?) But defiance among Democrats is on the rise. It’s becoming strident. California Democrats are mulling withholding taxes from Uncle Sam in retaliation for the president’s intention to stop federal funds going to sanctuary cities, San Francisco for one.

While the president is doing his constitutional duty to enforce immigration laws, California Democrats are weighing whether or not to continue breaking those laws.

Grant Stern at the leftist “Occupy Democrats” (aren’t they already?) seems to think that California has the upper hand in a showdown with Washington. Stern wrote:

California’s government has plenty of avenues to explore cutting funds to federal programs which get state funding because a non-partisan ranking says that the state is 46th most dependent on the federal government already. In fact, a 2014 study by The Atlantic found that California is one of the few states to get a negative return on investment by actually paying more federal taxes than receiving benefits in return.

The naïvely cheerful Stern continues:

If California succeeds in legislating a reversal of Trump’s federal funding mandates, it will mirror Mexico’s legislative efforts to fight Washington, DC’s Trump driven, suddenly bottomless desire to enact harmful policies. The difference is that taking money away from Washington will further limit the Trump regime’s capacity to spend money in order to harm America as federal coffers suffer, and the red states who depend on help from blue states will see funds dry up.

If California chose to rebel, why wouldn’t the president act to impose a range of sanctions on the state? They could be more than financial. Uncle Sam’s tentacles reach deeply into the once Golden State. Also, California is running a $450 billion dollar debt. Thanks to erstwhile Democratic governor Gray Davis, California’s state pension obligations have exploded.

This from a September 2016 Los Angeles Times analysis:

This year, state employee pensions will cost taxpayers $5.4 billion, according to the Department of Finance. That’s more than the state will spend on environmental protection, fighting wildfires and the emergency response to the drought combined.

California can’t print money -- yet -- to inflate away its obligations. Some Democrats there have talked about secession. Otherwise, the financial leverage that Stern believes California enjoys in a confrontation with DC might be fantasy.

Across the continent, Andrew Cuomo, governor of the once Empire State, had this to say about Trump’s executive order:

"I never thought I'd see the day when refugees, who have fled war-torn countries in search of a better life, would be turned away at our doorstep," Cuomo said. "We are a nation of bridges, not walls, and a great many of us still believe in the words 'give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses...'

Yet in early 2014, Cuomo sought to exclude conservatives from his state, branding them “extreme” because they “are right-to-life, pro-assault-weapon, anti-gay.” Translated: they’re for the unborn, believe in the 2nd Amendment, and advocate for traditional marriage. All beyond the pale for a smug progressive who wants a “nation of bridges, not walls.” Just make sure you vote the right way. Wearing a hijab gets bonus points. If among the “huddled masses” from Somalia, for instance, are some Jew-hating, gay-killing jihadists -- well, small sacrifices need to be paid for broadmindedness.

When Texas governor Greg Abbott sent National Guard troops to the Mexican border to better secure it in 2015, he was roundly criticized by Democrats. Then President Barack Obama wasn’t -- shall we say -- very vigorously enforcing border security. It’s not a globalist box to be checked. All those illegal Mexican kids flooding across the Texas border were future Democrat voters, need we remind? And mucho cheap labor someday. And welfare state justifications now.

Yet Abbott’s actions were right. A governor’s top duty, like a president’s, is to safeguard citizens. Add tending to the general welfare, in that millions of illegals are drains on taxpayers, police, and social services. Abbott didn’t defy President Obama; he upheld his constitutional obligation to Texans -- and not incidentally, his actions protected his fellow Americans.

For Democrats like Jerry Brown and Andrew Cuomo -- throw in Rahm Emanuel, who rules Chicago’s sanctuary -- safeguarding citizens mustn’t stand in the way of opening their states to illegals. Defying the president in his constitutional obligation to protect and defend the country from all threats, foreign and domestic, appears to be their duty.

The prime objective of the president’s executive orders is to make the nation safer. But if Trump can successfully secure U.S. borders, oust truckloads of illegals, and keep terrorists at bay, it’s a big political setback for Democrats. Americans feeling safer because they are safer doesn’t translate into votes for the Party of Barack. On these results alone, Trump could feasibly change the nation’s political trajectory for years to come.

Democrats are alarmed, therefore. Their leftist minions are reacting violently. Their fellow-traveling celebs seek to instigate violence. Democrat pols are increasingly defiant, seemingly ready to break more laws to preserve policies that are politically self-serving.

Will Democrats’ actions lead to widening civil unrest? Will they do damage to the compact among our states that make our nation a nation? Only time will tell.