By Christine Flowers

There are some people who think they have a monopoly on ethnic authenticity.

We all know that type of person, who thinks that individualism is only good if you don't stray too far from the philosophical reservation.

Christine Flowers (PennLive file)

So I wasn't surprised when Don Lemon, Bakari Sellers and Tara Setmayer went all "mean girl" on the CNN set the other night and ridiculed Kanye West for supporting Donald Trump.

Sellers, who tries to pass himself off as a reasonable man with "empathy" for conservatives said that "Kanye West is what happens when negroes don't read."

Setmayer, who talks the big talk about being a conservative who worked on policy issues for two decades, laughed at Sellers quip and added her own twisted twist: "[West] is the token negro of the Trump administration."

AndLemon made some allusions to the fact that Kanye West is mentally ill.

All three of these African=American commentators were annoyed because West supports President Donald Trump and, especially lately, hasn't been shy about vocalizing that support.

A few weeks ago, after Kanye did an impromptu campaign rally of one for Trump on the Saturday Night Live stage, Lemon had the vapors and talked about how he and his friends just "had" to get out of there.

He sounded like a Victorian-era virgin who had been told she would have to share a carriage -- unchaperoned -- with a man.

Sellers has also had a problem with any African-American who dares stray from the ethnic party line. And Setmayer is the worst one of all because she tries to trade on her authenticity as a conservative.

That woman left "conservative" at the Vince Lombardi rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike and is already at the border with Canada.

She and her fellow traveling sisters, Alisyn Camerota, Gretchen Carlson and Jennifer Rubin are sell-outs.

I say this not because they have embraced progressive ideals but because they have done so for a paycheck, or greater relevance and visibility among the cool liberal kids.

But back to racism.

Lemon, Sellers, Setmayer and many other African American notables refuse to accept the fact that a black man or woman might support Trump.

It is completely inconceivable to them. They are like our former ambassador to the United Nations, Madeleine Albright who said that there is a special place in hell for women who don't support women.

What she meant was there is a special place in hell for women who don't support liberal women.

Replace gender with race, and you get the unholy trinity of Lemon-Sellers-Setmayer.

These supposedly educated people think that it's appropriate to mock and otherwise ridicule a high profile member of their community because he holds opinions they consider anathema. And it's okay to disagree with Kanye. But instead of disagreeing on an honest basis, they engage in the politics of personal destruction.

It's actually a common liberal ploy these days, and was well on display during the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings.

Normally, I wouldn't slap a political label on this methodology of marginalize, demonize and neutralize or MDN as I like to call it.

In the past, conservatives have done the same or similar things to people who don't think building a wall is a good idea (remember what was done to John McCain and Marco Rubio, 2.0?) But I have a hard time remembering when conservatives trashed a person for being a certain gender, or color, or religion, and not towing the party line.

This is exactly what the left is doing to Kanye West.

And that campaign is being headed by African Americans who are doing to him what they did to Clarence Thomas, to Condi Rice, to Thomas Sowell, to Bill Cosby, to Omarosa Manigault (before she drank the Kool Aid and saw the light) and anyone else who dared to challenge the conventional wisdom that minorities must pledge fealty to the Democrats. Actually, they haven't done that to everyone. They didn't try it with Jim Brown, another Trump supporter because in some ways, liberals do understand the concept of bodily injury.

The sad thing is, these people will likely get away with their slurs, because it's popular in today's society to believe that minority groups, whether defined by ethnicity, gender, religion or orientation, must embrace the philosophy of victimization and subjugation.

If any member of those groups decides to feel empowered by saying "Hey, I don't owe my vote to any party, especially not one that has taken my voice for granted lo these many decades," he or she is slapped with the Scarlet U, for "uppity."

Kanye doesn't give a damn, and neither did Thomas, Rice, Sowell, Cosby and at some level, Omarosa. And so they only thing their opponents have left is mockery.

But the joke, in the end, will be on them.

Christine Flowers, an attorney, is a columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer. Her work appears frequently on PennLive Opinion.