Stephen Colbert, host of CBS' The Late Show, has criticized Donald Trump's response to the Orlando mass-shooting by comparing Trump to Hitler.

Adolf Hitler was one of the worst butchers the world has ever seen. What Colbert has done is both morally disgusting, for the disrespect it shows to Holocaust survivors and the Allied soldiers who won World War II, and dangerous, for implicitly sanctioning violence against both Donald Trump and his supporters.

Yesterday, a young man tried to kill Donald Trump at a Las Vegas rally by reaching for a police officer's gun. Outside of a San Jose Trump rally, a mob chased, beat, and egged Trump supporters who were peacefully trying to leave the venue.

Dilbert creator Scott Adams has endorsed Hillary Clinton over Trump, for fear for his personal safety. LGBT Trump supporters have said it is "dangerous" to voice their political viewpoint.

Stephen Colbert is an entertainer, not a political theorist, as he would readily admit. Yet more people listen to him than listen to the experts. And the experts do not believe that Trump resembles Hitler or other fascist leaders. Speaking on the Slate Trumpcast, history professor Jacob Weisberg stated that Trump is categorically not a fascist, and that if anything faint echoes of the Brownshirts can be seen in the violence against Trump supporters. (The one rising fascist leader in the world today, according to Dr. Weisberg? President Erdoğan of Turkey.)

Whether you support his policies or not, Donald Trump is one of the two major parties' nominees for the U.S. presidency. We have been taught in America that killing the next Hitler is the thing to do. Scott Adams himself acknowledges that he would try to kill the real next Hitler. So would I. So might you. When Colbert irresponsibly ties Trump to the reviled Nazi dictator, he is painting a target on Trump's back.

This has happened before. Pim Fortuyn was an openly gay Dutch politician who was assassinated nine days before the 2002 election, by a misguided young man who believed he was stopping "the next Hitler." As with Donald Trump today, the Dutch media had tarred Fortuyn as a Nazi for his stance on Muslim immigration. It's not too late to stop this madness. Stephen Colbert: You are a decent man. Apologize.