Watching excerpts from various anti-Trump demonstrations, I saw this sign: “Your vote was a hate crime.”

“Hate crime” is not a figure of speech. The concept has made it into the criminal law, and would be more prevalent there if the left had its way.

Thus, those who view a vote for Trump as a hate crime must want to criminalize voting for a candidate whose views offend them greatly. The authoritarian implications could hardly be more clear.

But does this slogan typify the thinking of those freaking out over Trump’s election? I don’t know.

I do know that the CEO of Grubhub seemed to make rejection of Trump’s “nationalism” a condition of working for his company. He told employees who agree with Trump to submit their resignation because they have “no place here.”

The bright side is that if you’re in prison for a “hate crime,” you don’t need a job.

What about those emails from college presidents, deans, and diversity counselors expressing dismay over Trump’s election and inviting students to “self care” sessions, hang out together in safe spaces, and offering them blankets, hot chocolate and tissues?

On the surface, these attempts at comforting students seem very different from calling a Trump vote a hate crime. But consider the premise of the emails: Trump’s election is beyond the pale and poses a threat to the well-being of students (and others).

It’s not a large leap from that premise to the view that Trump’s election was a mass hate crime and that, in the name of protecting the vulnerable, anti-democratic measures can legitimately be employed to prevent its recurrence.

Nor does it require inference to perceive authoritarian tendencies in the breed of college administrators sending out these emails. This is the crew that, on campuses throughout America, marginalizes conservatives and shows very little tolerance for the expression of politically incorrect views.

Some of the concern about Trump’s election is fear of authoritarian tendencies on the tycoon’s part. The fear is speculative, but not baseless in my view.

Concern about left-wing authoritarian tendencies is not speculative. We have seen these tendencies in action. Ironically, we now see them manifested in the left’s response to Trump’s electoral victory.