Conservatives who seek to debate issues of economics, national policy and political philosophy, have long been perplexed to find closed minds on the left that seem to inhabit an alternate universe, one that overlaps the same time snd space as ours but which follows different laws of mathematics and physics, in which the norms of human behavior seem totally skewed, and logic has no role.

It’s become a cliché to call the left a religious cult but the truth is, we’ve resisted that conclusion for the simple reason that it makes no sense. It’s not, well... logical. But religion never is. In the faith-based world of the true believer, “Don’t confuse me with facts,” is not only S.O.P., it is actually the engine that drives the machine. How else to describe the blind resistance to and hatred of Donald Trump, and all who support him, than to recognize it as a religious crusade? It certainly has nothing to do with logic, or a clear-headed assessments of results in the real world.

Trump’s claim, in the first debate with Joe Biden, that, “I’ve done more for this country in 47 months, than you’ve done in 47 years,” wasn’t just another catchy Trumpism ( although it certainly was that.) it was a conclusion any sober analysis of the facts would find inevitable. His indictment of Old Joe was an indictment of the left’s entire agenda. As Jordan Peterson says, “The data is in. We’ve run that experiment, and it’s failed. Move on.”

But there’s no moving on. Only the relentless crusade. And in the process, they’ve begun to generate an unexpected result. At recent Trump rallies, along with the expected chants of “Four more years,” “USA,” “MAGA , MAGA, MAGA,” and “Lock her/him/them up,” a new chant has been showing up, one I’ve never heard before, not even for Ronald Reagan: “We love you.”

I’m not sure if this is a good thing, ultimately, for the right; at some point Trump will have to exit the stage, and we don’t want the furies his style of disruption has released to exit with him. But it’s not surprising. By focusing all their venom on Trump; by making him the sole embodiment of evil in the Republic; by labeling him a terrorist and a racist, and, by extension, all who support him; it is inevitable that those so attacked would come to see him as the symbol of all they stand for and believe. As he’s said, “They’re not coming for me. They’re coming for you. I’m just in their way.” After four years of the left doing everything possible to prove that statement correct, is it a surprise that people might start taking them seriously?

It hasn’t helped their resistance one bit that despite all their Herculean efforts, Trump is still standing, a lone Goliath amid a gaggle of ineffective Davids who left their slingshots home. We didn’t vote for a champion, we just wanted someone to change the narrative. But that’s what they’ve created for us. And now, given the mania surrounding the COVID-19 panic, helped in no small way by myriad Tweets wishing the worst for him once he became infected, Donald Trump has metaphorically returned from the dead.

This is on the left. They did this by refusing to be confused by reality, by choosing, in Old Joe’s words, “...truth over facts.” They had a president hungry to deal, who half of his party distrusted as not a true conservative. If they’d offered something, anything, by way of compromise, we’d have seen a win-win where everyone came away from the table with something meaningful. Trump would have been compelled by his quest for results to pursue a more moderate path, the loony left would have been confined to the fringes where they’ve been for the last century and Trump would have remained a politician, pleasing some, annoying others.

Instead, it’s Armageddon. We have a champion; they have a corrupt, senile felon who is afraid to come out of hiding. I fear the battle is just starting. Whatever transpires in the next months, this country won’t be the same. Get ready for that.