ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Radio talk show icon Michael Savage has hit the nail on the head — again — and called out the antifa-type thugs who wield baseball bats in the streets as the “brownshirts” of the Democratic Party.

Hey now, walk like a duck, squawk like a duck, that makes you a duck. In not-so-long-ago Germany times, the brownshirts — the SA, the Sturmabteilung, meaning “assault division” — were the attack dogs of the Nazi Party who would use fear, violence and intimidation to boost Adolf Hitler’s presence and power.

Here’s a little history lesson from Encyclopedia Britannica: “Outfitted in brown uniforms after the fashion of Benito Mussolini’s Fascist Blackshirts in Italy, the SA men protected party meetings, marched in nazi rallies, and physically assaulted political opponents. … [and also] intimidat[ed] voters in national and local elections.”

Hmm.

If those tactics sound familiar, in a modern day and time kind of way — you’re absolutely right. Look no further than the Democratic Party.

Go back in time no further than this week.

Head down the road no farther than Portland, Oregon, or New York.

“Political violence goes coast to coast as Proud Boys and antifa activists clash in New York, Portland,” The Washington Post blared Sunday.

Thuggery in the streets; First Amendment, Democrat style.

“What happened over the weekend in Portland with the antifa violence — a domestic terrorist organization — so exemplifies the mass hysteria of our times, where people think they’re justified in taking over streets and beating people up,” Savage said in an interview with Brietbart News Daily on Sirius XM. “But where is it coming from, this hysteria to think that it’s OK to beat up the opposition? You don’t have to look any further than Hillary Clinton, who says we don’t need a civil society until we have power again [or] the deranged Maxine Waters, who should be impeached for what she’s doing.”

Where’s the law and order?

“Bernie Sanders is the most dangerous man in current American political life,” Savage went on. “He is a classic Marxist. … He is the most evil, because he knows what he’s doing by whipping up the frenzy of the ignoramuses in the streets who put on bandannas and beat people up. Bernie is responsible. … [But] that’s his base. Just as Hitler had his brownshirts, Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton and the whole Democrat Party have their Antifa and Occupy movement. They are the brownshirts of today and everybody knows that.”

Exactly.

And Savage offered a quick-and-easy solution to the situation that went like this: cut the funding and arrest the funders.

“Where are they getting their money from? Who’s funding them? The answer, of course, is to defund the organizations that are putting them in the streets and to arrest the leadership as domestic terrorists,” he said.

George Soros behind bars; could you imagine?

He’s quite right on all counts, of course. The trouble is Americans, by and large, don’t like ugly labels.

Calling brownshirts brownshirts is politically incorrect — political suicide for politicians. And that’s because the progressives in academia have managed to twist historical truths in public schools so that the graduating classes of snowflakes are brainwashed to believe socialism is right and proper and capitalism, an evil that must be eradicated.

Sanders — a guy whose open socialism ought to automatically disqualify him for public office in this country — is selling that line well and, as Savage notes, is wholly responsible for drumming the steady beat of anti-Americanism that’s fueling the street thuggery.

The brownshirt-ed street thuggery.

The same type of brownshirt-ed street thuggery that gave rise to Hitler just a few short decades ago. My, how history does repeat. My, how history is forgotten.

This fight — this battle for the soul of our nation — is not for the weak-kneed, the wishy-washy, the soft and fuzzy, the politically tepid. Let’s not pretend these protesters are something they’re not. Let’s not dress them in anything but the brownshirts they are.

• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley.