It's ironic that the loudest of Trump haters routinely breach the very civil standards of decency they claim justify their antipathy. Others are just creepily obsessed.
I'm not exaggerating. Trump haters from both sides of the political aisle have fretted themselves into a consuming frenzy against the president.
Whatever worldview they had, it is now overlaid with a Trump-animus fixation that obscures rational thought. It has slain their civility and subordinated their passion for certain policies.
For them, everything in the Trump era is personal. Convinced of Trump's pure evil, they remorselessly suspend rules they previously observed. Defiant professions of their spitting contempt for Trump are a defense to any charge of misconduct or verbal abuse.
They shame Trump supporters for their tribalism, but we've not witnessed anything like the cohesiveness and ferocity of their Trump-hating tribalism in my adult lifetime. Their intense revulsion has fueled extremely unlikely political alliances, between some formerly staunch conservatives and outright left-wing liberals.
Many of the most virulent Trump loathers on the right jump at any opportunity to appear on liberal TV and radio shows to exchange fond glances of admiration with liberals who stand for myriad things they have always professed to be against -- a stunning irony, considering that one of their main complaints against Trump supporters is their alleged abandonment of conservative ideals in exchange for membership in a cult. Sadly, their Trump derangement syndrome induces them to believe these myths in good faith.
We see them approvingly retweeting vitriolic anti-Trump tweets from leftist Twitter trolls and Trump's mainstream liberal media critics. They glom onto ludicrous anti-Trump conspiracy theories -- ones that are similar to those they smugly ridicule Trump supporters for allegedly embracing.
While such statements from longtime political allies and friends is disillusioning, Trump hating from the left has reached stratospheric proportions.
Just surf the web on any given week and see whether you don't find a dozen stories documenting liberals' insane, despicable or disturbingly bizarre behavior. The offenders, even when exposed outright, rarely apologize, because they are defiantly proud of their intentionally obnoxious infractions in the name of advancing the cause of Trump hatred. Can none of them see the paradox in becoming what they profess to hate? Of course not, because there are no rules in this game, as long as you are serving the tribe-hating super-tribe. This phenomenon is so far-reaching that it can even justify a patently indefensible position such as praising the notorious MS-13 gang -- because Trump is tough on immigration, one supposes.
Some don't think twice about spitting on Trump-supporting women whose crime is showing up at a restaurant for dinner without having recanted their allegiance to Trump. Hotshot actors such as Robert De Niro earn a standing ovation for yelling expletives at Trump on national TV -- because Trump is vile.
Consider other recent examples.
"Jeopardy!" champion Ken Jennings brutally mocked on Twitter a mother who lost her son, because she is an "awful MAGA grandma." Soon after Trump was elected, Jennings tweeted, "When Trump starts a war, I'm just hoping the other side understands the deal and only bombs, like, the Midwest and the South" -- presumably where Trump's main supporters reside.
A philosophy professor struck a Trump supporter in the head with a bike lock at a rally promoting free speech in Berkeley, California, last year.
USA Today inadvertently exposed the monolithic anti-Trump bias of late-night talk shows in its "Best of Late Night" highlight reel, featuring Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, James Corden and Trevor Noah.
Several instances of violence have occurred on or around Donald Trump's Hollywood Walk of Fame star. Trump haters assaulted his supporters in the vicinity, and one hater attacked the star with a pickax. Not to be confused with decent people who might have contrition for this abominable behavior, the West Hollywood City Council passed a resolution requesting that Trump's Hollywood star be removed.
Though the liberal media and their enablers lament Trump's demonization of the "fake news," they more than validate his claims almost every broadcast with their compulsive defamation of Trump to the exclusion of reporting the news. CNN's Don Lemon recently ranted against Trump for 10 minutes, culminating in his outright calling Trump a racist.
Trumply deranged Rosie O'Donnell proudly led a controlled mob of Broadway performers in a singalong against "Lyin' King" President Trump. Even more unhinged was Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney's scapegoating of Trump's "hateful rhetoric" for a black doll hung at a city playground.
The Washington Post's deceitfully labeled "conservative" Jennifer Rubin took a moment from her Trump-bashing to call for the permanent shunning of Trump's press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Rubin believes that Sanders should never be hired by anyone again. Just a lovely sentiment, Jen.
Apparently because too many days had passed since Trump haters launched a restaurant assault against prominent Trump supporters, a mini-mob of haters harassed Turning Point USA's Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens inside and outside a Philadelphia restaurant.
Please don't make the mistake of assuming these examples are merely anecdotal. Honesty demands that we recognize there is an unhealthy stench in the air -- and there's way more of it aimed at Trump than coming from him.