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Glenn Harlan Reynolds, Opinion columnist Published 5:00 a.m. ET Nov. 27, 2019

All Democrats have to do is be marginally reasonable, and they can't even do that. They shouldn't be surprised when another election passes them by.

If President Donald Trump is re-elected next November, hell owe a lot of his victory to the army of activists working tirelessly to put him over the top. No, Im not talking about the red-hatted MAGA crowd, tireless as they are. Im talking about the army of leftist activists whose nonstop craziness is moving moderates into the Trump column day by day.

Anti-Trump conservative Rod Dreher sharesa letter from a reader who notes the unpersoning of feminist Posie Parker (her crime: not believing that transwomen are women)and the recent attacks on the Salvation Army and writes: I have never voted for a Republican for president, and I cant stand Trump. But the 'Tolerant Left'is making me so angry with them that I am thinking of voting for him. Since I live in Massachusetts the Electoral College makes it irrelevant, but it would be a protest vote.

Likewise, since the Democrats the-mountain-labored-and-brought-forth-a-mouse impeachment circus began, Trump has moved to a net-positivein one poll, picked up a lot of moderate votersand moved into the lead in swing states like Wisconsin.The assault on Trump brings to mind the old saying about wrestling with a pig you get dirty, and the pig likes it.

All the Democrats had to do was not be crazy, and they couldnt even do that. They started out after the last election demanding that Donald Trump not be normalizedas president and then proceeded to act as abnormally as possible. Weirdly,this strategy seems to be backfiring.

The conventional wisdom has always been that when you lose an election you accept it thereby showing your loyalty to the American system and endeavor to show the voters that youre worthy of being elected next time. That involves working with the other party where you can, to show that you put the good of the country first, and acting sensible and responsible the rest of the time.That, to put it mildly, is not the approach the Democrats have chosen.

Mission High School students Hope Robertson, left, and Cat Larson yell as they protest with other high school students in opposition of Donald Trump's presidential election victory in front of City Hall in San Francisco, Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu) ORG XMIT: CAJC116Protestors in San Francisco on Nov. 10, 2016.(Photo: Jeff Chiu/AP)

The current impeachment clown show was not made more credible by the fact that his opponentsbegantalking impeachment even before President Trump was sworn into office.

Nor has the endless talk of Trumps opposition as the Resistance,as if 2019 America were equivalent to France in 1940, done a lot for credibility. When much of the opposition to Trump comes across as fantasy role-play by people who didnt get enough validation in high school, it robs the entire enterprise of its seriousness.

Get real: If 2020 Democrats want to beat Trump, they shouldn't ignore moderates and indulge the left

Weve been told repeatedly that Trump is Hitler, even as he backed Israel in the UN and moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.Weve been told that Trump is a Putin puppet even as he soldanti-tank missiles to Ukraine(something Obama never did)and championed frackingin the United States, the success of which has done more to weaken Putin than anything the Obama/Hillary reset ever managed. (You could make a better case that the current Democratic candidates who vow to ban fracking are Putin puppets than you could for Trump.)

And even beyond the resistance, the left in general seems determined to move as many moderates into the Trump camp as possible. In left-leaningHoward County, Maryland, the school board adopted a 1970s style busing programover the objections of constituents.This despite the fact thatcomments on the bill were overwhelminglynegative. The board then scolded the community for its opposition.

All over the country, universities are going crazy over anonymous fliers that read, simply, Its okayto be white.This, were told, is a hate crime, and theFBI is investigatingto find the perpetrators.

At this years Harvard/Yale gameclimate protesters took over the field and delayed play.As double Ivy League alumnus (Dartmouth and Yale) Roger L.Simonwrites, the level of idiocy there is making him think we should abolish the Ivy Leagueas unserious.In the middle of this year's Harvard-Yale game, the greatactivistesspewed out onto the field to demand, what else, action on climate change delaying the game for over an hour. But all these Ivy League smarty-pants couldn't come up with a slogan more original than 'Hey hey, ho ho, fossil fuels have got to go.' Who'd they learn that from, their grandparents? Decades ago, during Vietnam, it was 'Hey hey, ho ho, LBJ has got to go.'"

They want to take the party too far left: Progressive Democrats let their 'policy freak flags' fly

Like I said, its fantasy role-play, in this case by people sad that they were born too late for the 1960s. Anyway, if you care about climate, you should be protesting outside the Chinese embassy China is addingvast numbers of new coal-fired power plantsunlike the United States, which has actually seen carbon emissions dropthanks to fracking.

I could go on and on, but pretty much any random days survey of the news makes my point. The conventional, sensible way to beat Trump would have been to demonstrate the sort of sensible, competent, non-threatening approach that would win over moderate voters. The Democrats and the left have chosen a different approach. Lets see how it works out for them, but if they lose, itll be because their activists were actually working on behalf of the very man they purport to hate.

Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor and the author of "The New School: How the Information Age Will Save American Education from Itself," is a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.

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Democrats just might reelect Trump, and they'll have no one to blame but themselves. - USA TODAY