Violence against Republicans and conservatives is on the rise. And Democrats and their mainstream media allies are encouraging it.

The toxic rhetoric isn’t limited to crazed tweets and rambling columns. It’s resulting in real-world confrontations. A recent string of incidents should make every American pause and reflect on the direction that the Democratic Party is pushing this country.

Last week, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was chased out of a restaurant by an angry activist mob.

This weekend, Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked to leave the Red Hen restaurant by its owner — who then allegedly proceeded to stalk her dinner party as they went to another restaurant.

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi was accosted outside of a movie theater where she was harassed and spat on.

In still another incident, another senior DHS official found a burnt, decapitated animal carcass on his home porch in Washington. DHS later stated that there is now a “heightened threat against DHS employees.”

This week, a mob swarmed senior White House policy advisor Stephen Miller’s home, carrying “wanted” posters with Miller’s name and face on them.

In a broader threat, Wikileaks released, and Antifa promoted the names and contact information of at least 9,000 ICE agents over the weekend, putting those public servants and their families at risk.

And we can’t forget when Republican congressmen were shot by a left-wing activist as they played baseball last year, with House Majority Whip Steve Scalise nearly dying from his gunshot wounds.

If these threats and confrontations were coming from the grassroots of leftist activists alone, that would be bad enough. But, they are now getting marching orders from some of the highest-ranking Democratic officials in the land.

Democrats such as Congresswoman Maxine Waters have been encouraging this climate of intimidation and violence. Waters told supporters this weekend that if they “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.”

Liberal celebrities are also doing their part to inflame this violent reality. Last week, Peter Fonda tweeted, “We should rip Barron Trump from his mother’s arms and put him in a cage with pedophiles and see if mother will will stand up against the giant a–hole she is married to.”

Democratic leaders are trying to distance themselves from the likes of Waters and Fonda, but this poisonous left-wing rhetoric is nothing new.

Since day one, President Trump, his administration and supporters have been compared to Nazis. In January, Democratic Rep. Yvette Clarke stood outside New York’s ICE headquarters and called it the “Gestapo of the United States of America.”

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough said Monday that a tweet Mike Huckabee sent — which merely called out Nancy Pelosi for being soft on MS-13 — “parallels to the 1930s in Germany” or “let’s say David Duke, if that makes you feel more comfortable.”

The same day, popular Hollywood director Judd Apatow tweeted that President Trump is a Nazi.

This irresponsible hyperbole is putting people’s lives in danger. Democrats and their media allies have convinced many liberal activists that they live in a fascist dystopia. Their campaign of misinformation and violent rhetoric is creating this toxic environment.

The Democratic Party paints itself as the party of tolerance, but in its desperation to resist President Trump, it has become the party of violence.

It is clear that the left will accept no dissent and tolerate no conservative heresy. Yet, the only way the confrontations and the threat of violence will subside is the same way we got here — for Democratic leaders to issue marching orders to disarm and engage in peaceful discourse only. If they don’t, Republican lives are surely at stake.

Anthony Scaramucci is an investor, businessman and political consultant.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of The Daily Caller.