What happens when a political party is hijacked by fanatics, ideologues, and hysterics who don’t care whether they win or lose an election?

They lose elections.

That’s where the Democrats are headed because they’d rather be “right” than clever. And when it comes to the issue of race, Democrats think they have a corner on “right.”

They’ve got a small problem, though. In order to appeal to the fanatics, ideologues, and hysterics to tap them for money and support, they have to at least give lip service to their warped views on race. And that includes calling you and me and about 70 percent of the American voters “racist.”

John Kass points out that at one time Democrats believed they had a “winning issue” by running on the certain indictment of Trump for treason. How’d that work out, guys?

They had invested so much in their fantasy that President Donald Trump was a treasonous agent of Russian boss Vladimir Putin. But when special counsel Robert Mueller’s report came out, and there was no collusion, no crime charged, their fantasy collapsed. With Americans working and with money in their pockets again, with the 2020 election approaching, Democrats are reaching for the race card the way a sick man reaches for the waters of Lourdes. Desperately. Their allies in media followed suit, with Trump called everything from a white supremacist, to a Nazi, and on and on.

Once again, Democrats think they have a winner. Because nobody minds being called a “racist,” do they.

USA Today:

Its current trajectory gives the Democratic Party two problems in 2020. First, the agenda: a spending spree like no country has ever attempted, supposedly financed by a handful of wealthy taxpayers. What could go wrong? Second, the message to voters. For decades progressives have denounced America as hopelessly retrograde and racist. Naturally, they’re talking about everyone except themselves. The insult-them-until-they-join-our-side strategy has gained devotees since the mass shootings. While no fewer than five presidential candidates have called Trump a white supremacist, their fellow progressives are shedding their reluctance to say the same of his supporters.

Beto O’Rourke is one of those Democratic candidates who has shed his reluctance to finger Trump supporters as racists.

Washington Free Beacon:

O’Rourke appeared on CNN’s State of the Union, where he was critical of Trump’s rhetoric and his behavior after the deadly mass shooting in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio last weekend. “You said to me last week that you thought President Trump was a white nationalist. I just wonder, sir, President Trump won your home state of Texas by nine points,” host Jake Tapper said. “Almost 63 million Americans voted for him. Do you think it is racist to vote for President Trump in 2020?” There was a long pause from O’Rourke before he said, “I think it’s really hard.” “I think it’s really hard after everything that we’ve seen from his time as a candidate in 2016 to his repeated warnings of invasions to his repeated calls to send them back,” O’Rourke said. “Sending back people who are U.S. citizens, sending back people who were born in this country.”

This is really, really stupid. Most Americans don’t hate Trump as much as most liberal Democrats do. Most Americans see through the hysterical exaggerations about Trump and many appear bewildered by the vitriol. Even if they don’t like Trump — and there are many reasons not to — the Democrats’ rhetoric offends their sense of fair play. Thus, every time Democrats go off on Trump, accusing him of all sorts of perfidy and hateful things, Trump probably gets another 10,000 votes.

Most voters believe that if a political party is smart enough to win a national election, they should be smart enough to govern. Using a hateful epithet to describe tens of millions of potentially persuadable voters is a losing strategy and spectacularly dumb.

Democrats better get used to having Trump in the White House for another five years.