Calling Trump a Nazi isn’t working, so why do the Democrats keep doing it?

It’s a sign of desperation from Democrats who believe their side is more moral, more intelligent, and generally superior to what they see as politically degenerate Trump supporters.

Honestly, you see the strangest things at a Nazi rally.

At Donald Trump’s recent Madison Square Garden MAGA-thon, which news outlets from the New York Times to MSNBC claimed was straight out of the Hitler playbook, orthodox Jews could be seen “wrapping tefillin” – that is, ceremonially strapping small boxes containing Torah verses to their arms for ritual prayers.

Israeli flags were in abundance, Holocaust survivor Jerry Wartski showed up, and to underline the truly multi-faith nature of the gathering, astute observers also noticed a woman in full burqa in the stands.

To call this an event based around Naziism or white supremacy is to remove all meaning from the terms.

Outside the venue, rapper and influencer Topher interviewed a rainbow coalition of rally attendees who laughed off the slurs.

People demonstrate during a "Resist Facism" protest as former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump holds a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden Picture: AFP

“Yeah, I’m a Latina Nazi!”, a Hispanic woman decked out in American and Israeli flags told the camera.

Another attendee said that if this was a Nazi rally, he must be “the Jewish Nazi”, while a black guy in full MAGA regalia laughed that he was “the blackest Nazi you’ve ever seen in your life!”

Orthodox Jews attending Donald Trump's Madison Square Garden rally in New York.

But not only has the left’s Nazi slur turned the progressive media into an object of ridicule among Trump supporters, it is also not clear that it is working.

In a leaked memo from Future Forward, the leading pro-Harris political action committee, said that the slur wasn’t landing with voters more broadly.

“Attacking Trump’s fascism is not that persuasive,” the memo warned.

All of which raises the question, why are Harris and her media surrogates so keen to label half the country with the most toxic of smears?

On one level, it’s a sign of desperation from Democrats who believe in their hearts that their side is more moral, more intelligent, and generally superior to what they see as politically degenerate Trump supporters.

Quite simply, they cannot for the life of them, figure out why they’re not up 20 points in the polls.

There is also a more sinister read on this.

With the polls as they are, and an army of Democrat lawyers standing ready to challenge close results, the Nazi slur may not be as much about influencing voters now as creating a favourable environment after the election.

Last week the New York Times published an article by two Harvard government professors who suggested that if Trump wins there should be massive street demonstrations to, in essence, “repudiate” the result.

But perhaps the simplest explanation is that for all their talk of unity and diversity, the Democrats – the Harris-Walz camp – are actually the party of conformity and division.

Former US President Barack Obama speaks during a campaign event in support of US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, in Philadelphia on Monday. Picture: AFP

Nowhere can this be seen more clearly than in their lamentations about the fact that in poll after poll men, and particularly younger men, are turning away from the Democrats in droves.

Rather than ask whether there is something about the progressive program, with its focus on women’s issues, “toxic masculinity”, and professional class jobs that leave men feeling like they’re not wanted, they’ve decided that no, it’s the men who are wrong.

This was seen in abundance when video emerged of Barack Obama appearing to scold a bunch of black men earlier this month.

For all their talk of unity and diversity, the Democrats – the Harris-Walz camp – are actually the party of conformity and division, writes James Morrow. Picture: AFP

“Part of it makes me think — and I’m speaking to men directly — part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that,” he said.

A few days ago his wife Michelle slammed men who were thinking of voting Trump: “To think that the men that we love (are) either unaware or indifferent to our plight is simply heartbreaking.

“It is a sad statement about our value as women in this world.”

And again at the New York Times, Kamala booster Maureen Dowd fretted about “the men, including many young men, union men, Latino and Black men, who are drawn to Trump’s swaggering, bullying and insulting, seeing him as the reeling-backward antidote to shrinking male primacy.”

As a summary of the identity politics that drive the Democrat party, it would be hard to find a purer distillation.

Gender equity, they say, is a zero sum game, and members of minority groups will be scolded if they leave the reservation of the Democrats.

It makes you wonder who the ones preaching intolerance really are.

Originally published as Calling Trump a Nazi isn’t working, so why do the Democrats keep doing it?