If progressives hate Donald Trump so much, why are they trying so hard to get him re-elected?

They may believe, with justification, that Donald Trump is vulgar and mean-spirited.  They may think he acts more like a bully in middle school than a president.  They may be convinced, based on the evidence before them, that he’s impulsive and dishonest.

But he’s not a Nazi, no matter how many times they say he is.  And he’s not Adolf Hitler, despite what their fevered imagination keeps telling them.

That something so obvious even needs to be said is beyond troubling.  When the angry left took to the streets with their signs that said Trump is Hitler, decent  people, regardless of their politics, didn’t do enough.  They pretty much just rolled their eyes.

We let them off too easy.  We don’t simply roll our eyes when a bigot drops the N word on black people.  We shun people like that.  We should have done that with the Trump-is-a-Nazi crowd.  Instead, reputable newspapers published their “scholarly” op-eds, comparing Donald Trump to Hitler.

Now we have not some anonymous leftist at a street rally but a former head of the CIA taking to Twitter to tell us that, “Other governments have separated mothers and children,” referring to the president’s border policy (at the time).  And just in case you didn’t get the connection to the Nazis, Michael Hayden – who led the CIA under the presidency of George W. Bush – attached a picture of railroad tracks leading into the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.

Then, when he got hammered for his shameful comparison, he issued the standard non-apology apology: “If I [went too far] by comparing it to Birkenau, I apologize to anyone who may have felt offended.”

And if we needed any proof that there is such a thing as Trump Derangement Syndrome just tune in to “Morning Joe” on MSNBC any day of the week.  Here’s what Joe Scarborough had to say about the separation of children from their parents on the border:  “Children are being marched away to showers just like the Nazis said that they were taking people to the showers and then they never came back.”

I’ve often wondered if when Joe says crazy things like that he’s simply pandering to his progressive audience for ratings and a big paycheck – or if he’s lost his mind.

The hard left apparently learned nothing from Hillary’s Clinton’s defeat.  She lost for many reasons but one of them was her description of Trump supporters as “deplorables.”  Voters don’t like it when elitists call them names.

Yet, we have “Morning Joe” regular Donny Deutsch, an ad executive and Scarborough sycophant, saying it’s not only Donald Trump who progressives should hold accountable, it’s everybody who supports him.

“This can no longer be about who Trump is, it has to be about who we are,” Deutsch said about the next elections. “We can no longer say Trump’s the bad guy. If you vote for Trump, you’re the bad guy.”

“If you vote for Trump, you’re the bad guy,” he repeated. “If you vote for Trump, you are ripping children from parents’ arms.”

Then, the inevitable comparison to Hitler and the Nazis.

“If you vote for Trump, then you, the voter, you, not Donald Trump, are standing at the border, like Nazis,” Deutsch said. “If you vote, you can no longer separate yourself” from the “evilness of Donald Trump.”

A mind is terrible think to waste, but that’s what’s happening to those suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome.  They have lost touch with reality.

So let’s take a trip to the past, to get re-acquainted with historical reality.  Our guide is Jay Winik, an historian and author who penned an op-ed  in the Wall Street Journal under the headline, “Trump’s Critics Desecrate the Holocaust.”

“Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe were rounded up and packed into cattle cars, with little air or light, no food and virtually no water, for a harrowing two-to three-day trip to Auschwitz.  They rode in terror and anticipation, having no idea what was in store for them at the destination.  Exhausted and scared they frequently had to stand for the entire trip. Mothers clutched sons; daughters held on to fathers; children gripped both parents’ hands; grandparents and the infirm struggled to stay alive.  Many didn’t survive the journey.”

I wonder if Michael Hayden, Joe Scarborough or Donny Deutsch thought about any of that when they made their Nazi comparisons. I wonder if they considered any of what else Mr. Vinick wrote.

“When the trains arrived at Auschwitz, it was a scene of chaos, confusion and horror.  After days trapped in darkened cattle cars, squinting into bright floodlights lining the tracks was almost unbearable.  So was the stench, like nothing the captives had ever smelled before. They didn’t know it at the time, but it was the odor of burning human flesh and hair.”

Question for Joe Scarborough:  Does that sound like what’s happening on the border between the U.S. and Mexico?

Does this?

“Outside they heard all kinds of noises: German shepherds and Doberman pinschers barking loudly, and commands in German most of them couldn’t understand.  When they stumbled out of the cattle cars, disoriented and anxious timidly asking questions, the Germans shouted back, ‘Raus, raus raus!’ (‘Out, out, out!’) In the distance, the prisoners saw a skyline of chimneys, with bright orange plumes of flame shooting into the clouds.  They didn’t know that most of them would be ash within hours.”

I found it painful to read those words.  I wonder if Joe Scarborough and the others would find it painful too, or if their hatred of this president is so intense that it allows them to make Nazi comparisons with no sense of shame.

Contempt for Donald Trump may make the unhinged left feel good, but it might wind up helping him in 2020 — and his fellow Republicans in November.

The president’s press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, was recently asked to leave a restaurant in Virginia because, the owner said, her restaurant “has certain standards that I feel it has to uphold, such as honesty and compassion, and cooperation.”

People who work for Donald Trump, apparently, don’t meet those high standards.

Trump supporters won’t forget what happened at that restaurant.  Neither, I suspect, will independents, even if they’re not big fans of the president.

And they won’t forget what Congresswoman Maxine Waters, the progressive Democrat from California, said about that incident at the restaurant.

At a rally in Los Angeles she said that, “If you see anybody from that cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you cause a crowd, and you push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome – anymore, anywhere.”

Trump supporters know when they’re being called deplorable, even if the crazy wing of the Democratic Party doesn’t use that word anymore.

You don’t have to like Donald Trump to be disgusted with his most hateful, condescending critics. Maxine Waters, Joe Scarborough and the others suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome are so far gone they can’t see what’s happening:  They’re not hurting the president they hate — but they just might be paving the way for his re-election.