Sure, but they would have done it 8 months ago if they had an excuse. We didn’t give them one, and we made it 8 months more without an escalation to overt declaration of martial law.

I can't agree, you're saying that they would have done it right after inauguration if U.S. citizens had given them an excuse, and that you've all made it that long without an escalation or martial law. The only part that I'll grant is the absence of marital law, there sure as shit has been an escalation, you have massive retaliatory deployments of taskforces and ICE across the nation in Democrat-leaning states/cities. They're conducting what would normally be considered legally questionable if not outright illegal surveillance, assaults, arrests/detentions/ deportations and killings of civilians. How you don't consider this a significant escalation escapes me.

On the other hand, if fed up citizens react with violence, that permanently will normalize what’s happening right now.

Speculation, pure and simple. It's your opinion and I'll grant you it, but I don't agree that it would have already happened day-one if it were going to happen at all, let alone that the current state of affairs would be permanently normalized simply because of the current POTUS and his lackeys. The lot of it is illegal, and clear abuses of constitutional/civil rights. Staying hands-off while the situation slowly worsens isn't a safe bet considering the guaranteed eventual loss of rights should that assumption prove correct - if you're going to lose them anyway, why wait?