Politics ain’t beanbag, the saying goes.

But I’m beginning to wonder if most Democrats these days even know what game they’re supposed to be playing.

When their vocal critics aren’t comparing Donald Trump to Hitler, labeling Elon Musk as a Nazi, and drawing swastikas on Teslas, it seems they prefer playing a risky game of Russian roulette.

Take for instance the tsunami of hate the party is directing at Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

He’s their top guy, but he committed a grave sin by voting to keep the government open instead of using the filibuster to close it.

It appears that closing down the government during a funding disagreement is not only seen as an appropriate way to voice dissent, but also as a strategy to increase the Democrats’ historically low popularity.

At least that’s the conclusion of the hard left, which is making all the rules.

And because Schumer didn’t obey, his new bosses want him to give the leader job to somebody more radical.

Just oppose Trump

“He led the charge to wave the white flag of surrender,” declared Ezra Levin, a leader of a group called Indivisible.

But, he added, the group “has no intention of surrendering to Trump, Musk and congressional Republicans.”

Then there’s a memo from Move On, the George Soros-funded far-left group.

Surveys indicate that 90% of its members think Democrats “ought to abandon the conventional strategies and pursue bold measures to oppose the Trump administration.”

Almost as many are said to “believe that lawmakers’ willingness to push back against the Trump administration is more important than their policy positions.”

In other words, it doesn’t matter what you stand for as long as you stand against Trump!

This is madness, and it’s why Dems deserve the 29% favorability rating they have among the public.

They’re out of sync with voters and the culture but are determined to sink even lower.

Schumer is also getting the left’s version of a wedgie — noisy demonstrations outside his home, a tactic designed to remind him and his family they can’t hide.

That punishment is usually reserved for Republicans, so the noisemakers are sending a message to Schumer that he’s in serious trouble.

Nice people.

The odd thing is that no sane person inside or outside of Washington would call Schumer a Trump patsy.

He was fully behind every cockamamie idea Joe Biden’s White House came up with, and Schumer shepherded through the Green New Scams that sparked the highest inflation in 40 years and drove up the federal debt.

Schumer under fire

He supported the open-border policy that brought in as many as 15 million illegal crossers, many of them hardened criminals.

And he insisted that Biden was of sound mind and fit to be commander in chief right up until the moment when the whole world could see Biden couldn’t string two sentences together.

Schumer even used the fact that he’s the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in American history to further a boneheaded idea.

In addition to echoing Biden’s scathing criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Schumer took the extraordinary step of calling for regime change in Israel — during the war with Hamas, no less.

Never mind that Israel is the only democracy in the region.

Dems wanted somebody who would do their bidding in Gaza, and Schumer did his part.

He also has repeatedly made it clear he views Donald Trump as an existential threat to American democracy.

All this is by way of saying he has been a totally loyal Dem, but it’s not enough.

They’re now coming for him.

He gave his soul to the party, but he better fall in line with his new masters or he too will be called a Nazi sympathizer.

That’s the left’s favorite insult these days.

Follow the news or visit social media, and you are almost certain to hear or read that word being used to insult Trump, Musk and their millions of supporters.

Here a Nazi, there a Nazi, everywhere a Nazi.

Eighty years after the fall of Hitler, his National Socialist Party lives on in the limited minds and stunted vocabulary of American leftists.

Count this as another indictment against elite colleges.

The new life for the awful word ends a common understanding that Hitler and Nazism had a unique meaning that shouldn’t be cheapened by flippant use.

This unspoken compact wisely realized that calling someone a Nazi for almost any reason, including being a political opponent, was a reflection of your ignorance and stunted vocabulary.

And that cheapening the word would dull the meaning of the real thing.

Weaken the word

If you seriously thought anyone and everyone was a Nazi, you certainly didn’t understand the monstrous events Hitler set in motion.

His Final Solution led to the murder of 6 millions Jews.

And his belief in German racial superiority and a desire for conquest launched a world war that led to 50 million deaths.

Compared to that, almost nothing else qualifies.

The consensus mostly held until Trump won his second election and decided to do the rarest thing in Washington: keep his campaign promises.

Among them was letting Musk lead the charge to cut the bloated budget and closing the border and deporting many of the illegal millions Biden let in, starting with hardened criminals.

Now we learn from the left that deporting those criminals makes Trump a fascist, which is not quite as bad as being a Nazi, but it’s close.

So close that even a federal judge handling a case on the deportation of violent Venezuelan gang members stooped to a reference.

“There were planeloads of people. There were no procedures in place to notify people,” Judge Patricia Millett complained.

“Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act.”

Whoa!

Millet sits on the court of appeals in Washington, DC, suggesting she’s been marinated in Dems’ vile attacks on Trump so much that she’s adopted the rancid language.

Shame on her.

It’s projection

Given the roster of Dem activists in robes — most of them guided through the confirmation process by Schumer — she won’t be alone.

I fully expect some Trump-hating judge will make a stupid Nazi reference in a case where Trump is punishing elite universities for failing to protect the civil rights and safety of Jewish students.

That will be strange, but par for politics these days.

Indeed, the oddest aspect of the far left’s infatuation with Hitler and Nazism is the way activists are painting swastikas on Teslas, statues, streets and buildings all over America.

I see this despicable graffiti as projection, a conclusion I reach for two reasons.

First, there is not a smidgen of evidence Trump, Musk or anyone else in the administration is or ever was anything close to a Nazi sympathizer.

So the charge is a complete fabrication.

On the other hand, the radical left’s shock troops have shown a real fondness for and skill at drawing swastikas on various surfaces, suggesting they’ve been practicing somewhere.

That makes them the real Hitler wannabes.