Mark Salvas, the executive director of the county Democratic Party in Pittsburgh, Pa., lost his job last week. The reason? Long before he was hired, the Gulf War veteran and loyal Democrat had posted a picture of himself and his wife on Facebook, with two phrases superimposed: “ I stand for the Flag,” and “I kneel at the cross .”

Democrats came across this old post and decided it was “insensitive.” Even though Salvas believes that NFL players should be allowed to kneel in protest if they like, his expression of what he does is offensive.

And his wife had done something even worse. One of her Facebook posts asked for help for family friends – the family of a police officer accused of shooting a 17-year-old who fled a traffic stop after participating in a drive-by shooting minutes earlier.

Salvas’ firing sums up the state of today’s Democratic Party better than any polling analysis could. And it should serve as a warning to anyone who is thinking of voting Democratic as a protest against President Trump.

Salvas rightly refuses to apologize for the flag and cross meme, and expresses no regrets. And it isn’t his fault that respect for national symbols and faith in God are not only viewed as backward in today’s Democratic Party, but “insensitive” and even offensive.

The party that so many patriotic middle-class ethnic Americans fled in the 1970s is finally backing up the truck over patriotism and Christianity. If love of God and country aren’t completely incompatible with being a Democrat, they are at least “problematic.”

People like Salvas, who revere the country they served honorably, are being purged, to make room for the sensitivities of young activists bred in the intellectually toxic environs of college campuses.

This is why elected Democrats openly sneer at the concept of religious freedom. Not long ago, they just disparaged faithful Christians behind closed doors as “bitter clingers.” Today, they publicly decry the moral tenets of their faith as a mere excuse for bigotry.

Democrats are in the midst of asking to the electorate to give them power in the election three weeks from today. They fancy themselves an antidote to the Trump presidency. But instead of appealing to voters, they are going out of their way to alienate them.

In 2006, Democrats won majorities in Congress by winning the center of the electorate. This year, they are doing the opposite. With just a few days left to make their case, they are baring the fangs of their extremism. Their leaders, not just crazy protesters, are promising that there will be no civility unless they win. The protesters, meanwhile, are truly behaving like angry mobs.

Democrats are nominating extremists who loudly and proudly embrace the failed ideology of socialism. They are calling for abolition of the immigration enforcement agency ICE. They denounce anyone who believes in an orderly immigration system, or in the common-sense deportation of convicted criminals, as a racist.

And it gets worse. For even as leftists accuse Trump of tearing down institutions, they openly try to do just that. As it becomes clearer that Democrats will not win Senate control, they begin to talk about abolishing the Senate . When they perceive the Supreme Court wriggling free of left-wing control, they start discussing abolishing the Supreme Court .

Speaking of which, Democrats’ treatment of Justice Brett Kavanaugh last month set a new modern low for the judicial confirmation process. So atrocious was their behavior in this affair that Republicans who had refused to vote for Trump in 2016 are now wondering whether they can even afford to vote against him in 2020, and risk giving power to these unhinged Bolsheviks.

It is far less distressing, but equally telling, that Democrats are advocating extremist policies like “Medicare for all.” That scheme is estimated, in an unrealistically optimistic best-case scenario, to cost an absurd $32 trillion over ten years.

Back when Democrats still had some common sense – just a couple of years ago – they rightly pointed out the impracticality of such schemes. But common sense is not so common anymore. Or at least, those possessing it are being purged from a party that should not be allowed anywhere near the levers of power, at least not until it’s spent a few years sobering up.

[Related: Trump: 'The centrist Democratic Party is dead']