With the presidential race tighter than ever as it heads into its final stretch, panicked Hillary Clinton supporters are desperate to find a way to discredit, not just Donald Trump, but anyone who would dare support him. Last Sunday, a Clinton surrogate from Virginia added to the candidate’s own list of names for Trump voters (which most recently included “deplorable” and “irredeemable”) by describing them as “mentally deficient.”



Northern Virginia Delegate Mark Levine (D-45) issued the characterization during a Fox News segment that discussed comments Donald Trump made during a campaign rally in Miami on September 16.



During his speech, Trump made a pointed argument about the hypocrisy of Hillary Clinton calling for gun control, even as she is constantly surrounded by bodyguards armed with firearms.



“I think her bodyguards should drop all weapons,” Trump said. “They should disarm. I think they should disarm immediately … Take their guns away. She doesn’t want guns.”



Trump then went on to provide further examples of Clinton’s “sense of arrogance and entitlement.”



The Miami audience laughed, understanding Trump’s point. It’s fine for elites to dictate how the rest of America should live, as long as the same rules don’t apply to them.



Clinton’s supporters and operatives, however, ludicrously tried to portray the comment as a call to assassinate the Democratic candidate. "Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for President, has a pattern of inciting people to violence,” Clinton’s campaign manager told the media.



By that same reasoning, of course, Clinton herself would be calling for violence against ordinary Americans by suggesting they, too, should forfeit keeping guns at hand for self-defense.



While the media’s latest spin on Trump’s comments is new, his use of the bodyguard example is not. Trump made the same point when speaking at the NRA’s Annual Meeting in May.



“[L]et their bodyguard immediately disarm,” he said, speaking of the Clintons. “No, they should immediately disarm. And let’s see how good they do. Let’s see how they feel walking around without their guns or their bodyguards.”



Trump got the same reaction from the crowd in Louisville that he got in Miami, laughter and applause.



The remark is amusing, for the very reason that it’s preposterous to think Clinton or any presidential candidate would forgo traveling with armed security. But it’s equally preposterous that Clinton thinks her own safety deserves such protection, while insisting that other Americans shouldn’t have the means to protect themselves.



But it clearly irritates Hillary Clinton’s supporters when her hypocrisy is exposed. After the Fox anchor mentioned Clinton’s earlier “basket of deplorables” statements, Levine doubled down on slandering Trump’s supporters.



“I think Donald Trump is appealing to people who are mentally deficient. I really do,” the Northern Virginia Democrat said.



Ironically, Levine had just finished saying Trump’s own remarks were “out of bounds.” But clearly, Levine thinks demeaning Trump’s supporters is not.



That makes Mark Levine a perfect apologist for his party’s presidential contender: hypocritical, mean-spirited, and contemptuous of anybody who disagree with him. For Hillary Clinton and her supporters, it was just politics as usual.