The Democrats have taken a lot of heat from their voters lately, and rightly so. The party was miserably unprepared for the authoritarian abuses and destruction of Donald Trump’s second administration, even though he was crystal clear on the campaign trail about what he would do with another term in the White House. With few exceptions, Democratic leaders have responded to Trump’s existential threats to American democracy exactly how you would expect from a party of cautious institutionalists: writing stern letters. Giving long speeches. Holding large press conferences. And so on.

So it was a breath of fresh air, even a revelation, to see California Senator Alex Padilla on Thursday confront one of Trump’s worst apparatchiks to the point that law enforcement threw him to the floor and handcuffed him. Now Democratic senators and representatives need to follow his lead. Get angry. Take the fight to the administration. Go after Trump’s minions while they’re spouting vicious lies on live TV. And yes, even get arrested.

It’s important to understand what set Padilla off, especially since the media coverage has almost exclusively focused on what happened after he interrupted Kristi Noem. The homeland security secretary was giving a press conference in Los Angeles about the government’s efforts to snatch as many law-abiding undocumented immigrants off the street as possible, while also violently suppressing anyone who takes to the streets in protest. Of course, that’s not how she characterized it. She painted a picture of a united, government-wide collaboration to bring peace to a supposedly terrorized city, protecting citizens and small businesses from violent leftists.

This operation was “setting an example,” she said, “putting together a model and a blueprint for how we can continue to work to make every other community great again and safe again for our kids and our grandkids far into the future.” She even noted that the IRS was involved, “helping us track how these violent protesters are funded—what NGOs out there, what unions, what other individuals may be funding these violent perpetuators that are in these protests.”

Up to this point, Padilla had been calmly listening (though likely inwardly fuming). But then Noem stated that the government “will continue to sustain and increase our........

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