President Trump managed this week to get top-tier 2020 Democratic candidates to pledge their allegiance to sleazebag and anti-Semite Al Sharpton.

For the same political party that is still hurting from declining to censure one of its own members after she accused American Jews of having dual loyalties and claimed wealthy Jews control members of Congress, applauding Sharpton as a so-called hero is definitely the smart play.

“I have known Al for 25 years,” Trump tweeted Monday. “Went to fights with him & Don King, always got along well. He 'loved Trump!' He would ask me for favors often. Al is a con man, a troublemaker, always looking for a score. Just doing his thing. Must have intimidated Comcast/NBC. Hates Whites & Cops!”

I have known Al for 25 years. Went to fights with him & Don King, always got along well. He “loved Trump!” He would ask me for favors often. Al is a con man, a troublemaker, always looking for a score. Just doing his thing. Must have intimidated Comcast/NBC. Hates Whites & Cops! https://t.co/ZwPZa0FWfN — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29,2019

Show me the lie.

Sharpton, who hosts a show on MSNBC, is all that and worse. He is a conman, a scummy race-baiter, and an unapologetic anti-Semite, whose incitement against Jews has cost lives. Astonishingly, these facts do not seem to matter to certain 2020 Democratic primary candidates. For them, what matters is that Trump said a thing, so they need to say whatever is the opposite. Namely, they need to say that Al Sharpton is stunning and brave.

Sharpton “has dedicated his life to the fight for justice for all. No amount of racist tweets from the man in the White House will erase that—and we must not let them divide us. I stand with my friend Al Sharpton in calling out these ongoing attacks on people of color,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

Watching serious Democratic candidates practically trip over themselves to defend the cable news host’s honor is a hell of a thing to witness, considering he has none.

Sen. Kamala Harris also sought to cash in on some of that sweet knee-jerk anti-Trumpism, saying of Sharpton that he, “has spent his life fighting for what's right and working to improve our nation, even in the face of hate. It's shameful, yet unsurprising that Trump would continue to attack those who have done so much for our country.”

Are we talking about the same person?

Sharpton went to Baltimore on Monday partly in response to the president tweeting brutal criticisms this weekend of Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, including that Baltimore, which falls into the congressman’s district, is a "disgusting, rat and rodent-infested mess.” But Sharpton went mostly because he knew there would be cameras and yet another opportunity for him to promote himself as a self-styled power broker of racial politics.

Sharpton, the MSNBC carnival barker, responded Monday to Trump’s attacks with a none-too-solid reply, writing, “Now I’m a con man and troublemaker, that’s why he came to my events? You are right Mr. President, I’m going to keep making good trouble against racism and people like you that normalize it.”

Trump’s fiercest critics have become so deranged with rage, they will defend basically anything so long as the president opposes it. He must know this. Part of me wonders if he acts on this knowledge, looking for the most indefensible topics to troll his critics into defending. This is one working theory to explain how he got serious candidates like Warren and Harris to stand with Al "Crown Heights Riot" Sharpton.

The senators did not need to do this. They did not need to align themselves with a corrupt and seedy demagogue. But they did. Because Trump said a thing.

The president is going to win re-election in 2020 for the same reason he won the White House in 2016: Because his opponents are that comically incompetent.