Two weeks ago, Clarence Thomas celebrated his 74th birthday. That’s two years beyond the life expectancy for a black male in this country. We have no idea whether the Supreme Court’s elder statesman reflected on this fact, nor do we mention this to jinx the man — only that we should appreciate him while he’s here.

Many of us have come to take Justice Thomas for granted. After all, he’s been serving on the nation’s High Court for more than 30 years. Others, though, seem to curse his very existence. Take Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, for example. At a June 25 pro-abortion rally at Chicago’s Grant Park, Lightfoot was criticizing Thomas for his role in the 6-3 decision overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade case when she was interrupted by someone in the crowd.

She responded as most any responsible civic leader would: She yelled, “F*** Clarence Thomas!”

Later on, just in case anyone wondered whether she regretted that choice of words, she doubled down while pointing to a picture of a rally attendee wearing a shirt with the same vile sentiment: “I said what I said,” she said.

But there was Lightfoot just yesterday, decrying precisely that which she herself was guilty of: “The toxicity in our public discourse is a thing that I think we should all be concerned about. We have got to focus on what brings us together and not what tears us apart, and we’ve got to get back to respect for each other and respect for community. That’s the thing that concerns me the most over the arc of the last two years.”

Then there was CNN’s Rex Chapman, the former drug addict, shoplifter, and podcasting mediocrity who’s still trying to cash in on his NBA days. Chapman, who’s white, tweeted multiple attacks toward Thomas: One was a bizarre complaint that Thomas attended a graduation ceremony that wasn’t sufficiently diverse; another was an image of two interracial couples: Thomas and his wife, Ginni; and Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron and his wife, Mackenze Evans. The point Chapman was trying to make couldn’t have been more clear: These two conservative black men are traitors to their race for having married white women. In another tweet, the petulant and racially obsessed Chapman complained — we kid you not — that Justice Thomas never came to any of his basketball games when he played locally for the NBA’s Washington Bullets. “Bill Clinton used to come to our games in Landover with the Bullets. Clarence Thomas — never.” The message, of course, is that Thomas isn’t authentically black, while “America’s First Black President” is black.

Glenn Greenwald let Chapman have it, calling it “a repulsive outburst of overt racism.”

Finally, let’s consider Hillary Clinton, who in her unending quest to remain relevant went after Justice Thomas, her former law school classmate, with the old “angry black man” trope. “He’s been a person of grievance for as long as I’ve known him,” she told host Gayle King on CBS Mornings. “Resentment, grievance, anger.”

Why all these attacks? We know why. And so do those on the Left, who realize the existential threat that free-thinking blacks pose to the Democrats’ 90% monopoly on their vote.

South Carolina Republican Senator Tim Scott gets it, and he came to Thomas’s defense: “I certainly think that the greatest threat to the liberal coalition are Black conservatives who stand up and think for ourselves,” Scott said on Fox News. “We represent the fact that the African-American community is not a monolithic community. If you can ever break the stronghold that the Democrats have on the African-American community, the entire coalition falls apart.”

Next time a Democrat attacks a conservative black man or woman, we should remember why. And we should call it out.