In their incessant, mostly baseless attacks against President Donald Trump, his leftist haters reveal much more about themselves than him — and it’s not an attractive revelation.

In what seemed like a parody of a coastal elitist disparaging inferior flyover Americans, CNN’s Jim Acosta said that too many Americans can’t see through Trump’s act because they “don’t have all their faculties.” This is going pretty far, even for this smug activist masquerading as an objective journalist. But in his defense, who wouldn’t unravel at the realization that one’s diligent yearlong efforts to remove the president have failed so spectacularly?

Have you ever noticed that leftists often characterize conservative views as bigoted, and sometimes dangerous, to discredit and dehumanize them — and suppress their speech? I dare say that as recently as a few decades ago even radical leftists wouldn’t have openly abandoned the universally shared American ideal of free speech. Today, however, finding themselves defeated in the marketplace of ideas, they increasingly support restrictions on speech they don’t like.

They routinely conceal their censorship schemes in handsome packages, such as the Fairness Doctrine, net neutrality, and seemingly innocuous campus speech codes, but their aim is the same — to restrict or obtain a government-leveraged advantage over the speech of their political opponents. A ubiquitous telltale sign of such ploys is the insistence that they are promoting peace and harmony by protecting groups and society from offensive speech, especially that which could lead to violence.

This is grossly cynical sophistry. I could be mistaken, but I am unaware of any examples of conservatives using such specious reasoning to curtail speech they disfavor, and if I do encounter such efforts, I will oppose them, no matter how obnoxious I might find the speech.

Today, many leftists seem to be unashamed to cashier our unifying ideal of free expression — to the point that some are outright admitting they value censorship of certain ideas over the principle of constitutionally protected speech. They are so intoxicated by their self-righteous advocacy of so-called diversity and tolerance that they contend that First Amendment guarantees should not apply to what they consider hateful utterances.

Jim Acosta doesn’t go this far, but he and many of his leftist pseudo-journalistic colleagues, including CNN’s chief White House correspondent April Ryan, have been arguing that by criticizing the mainstream media, Trump could cause anarchy around the globe. Please try not to laugh, because they appear to be serious.

“Fake news, by the president saying this, is not just a simple or cute little statement for some,” said Ryan. “This has tentacles that (are) reaching overseas. … Think about it. When you are in a country and your citizenry thinks that you’re fake, thinks that what the news is saying is fake, there can be anarchy some kind of way. It causes a destabilization of democracies.”

Acosta added that people around the country don’t realize it’s an act. “They don’t have all their faculties in some cases — their elevator might not hit all floors. My concern is that a journalist is going to be hurt one of these days.”

There you have it. Red state Americans are too dim to understand that Trump and his evil mouthpieces like Sarah Huckabee Sanders know the press is truthful and are just maligning it as a cover to continue their nefarious schemes.

News flash: Trump and Sanders actually believe the liberal media are advocacy journalists who habitually slant and distort the news to advance their leftist agenda — the foremost item of which is destroying Donald Trump and his presidency. And, yes, millions of Americans believe this, too — not because they’re being duped, but because it’s true. What’s somewhat unclear to me is which members of the mainstream press are self-deceived and which are knowingly deceiving others about their mission.

But how is accusing CNN and other liberal media of spreading rubbish tantamount to inciting violence or somehow likely to lead to it? I guess these leftists forget President Obama’s ongoing war on Fox News and conservative talk radio. Besides, Americans have been accusing their political opponents of lying since the nation was founded. Since when is that the same as promoting violence? Look around. When calls to violence accompany political speech in this nation they are usually coming from leftists — and so they are projecting again. The abject hatred and intolerance of opposing ideas isn’t emanating from the political right. Just ask Kanye West.

Revealingly, Acosta praises White House press briefings, which he claims expose the administration’s “evasions, their lies, their falsehoods.” What? Did you say lies? Are you inciting violence there, Jimbo? We’re probably all hypocrites to some degree, but Acosta is gifted in the dark art.

The level of contempt these self-styled arbiters of truth have for the rest of us rubes is as astonishing as it is revealing. Are they actually saying that we can’t question their veracity without exposing them to danger?

I’m young enough to remember when journalists, even liberal ones, at least pretended the events they were reporting were bigger than themselves. Now they are not as much about reporting the news as making it — and putting themselves at the center of it. They might as well discontinue the charade — we’re on to them.

David Limbaugh is a writer, author and attorney.

(Creators, copyright 2018)