President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka, at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, said she wanted to require companies to provide paid maternity leave. The President later reaffirmed that pledge, promising six weeks of paid leave for new mothers. His “fair trade” position is practically indistinguishable from that of Bernie Sanders. He wants taxpayers to “invest” in a trillion-dollar infrastructure program, something that even the Democratic leader of the Senate, Chuck Schumer, said he could get behind.

Trump wants to preserve the “good parts” of Obamacare, including preventing insurance companies from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions. He said that government could use its eminent-domain power to seize private property for private development projects. On many occasions, Trump said he wants to “save” Medicare and Social Security. When asked to name the “top three functions” of the federal government, then-candidate Trump said “security for our nation,” “health care” and “education.” At the federal level? Not exactly Reaganesque, is it?

The man, on many issues, is a populist.

Yet the Left’s contempt for Trump was on full display in a recent speech by newly elected Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez. Praising protestors who marched on the day after Trump’s inauguration — calling it the day “the resistance took over” — Perez said: “They marched all over the world and said, ‘Donald Trump, you don’t stand for our values! … Donald Trump, you didn’t win this election!’” He called Trump a “bully,” and belittled the President for “wanting his name on everything.” Perez thundered: “(Republicans) don’t give a s—t about people!”

Rep. Maxine Waters, the longtime California lefty, has all but impeached Trump. About Trump’s friends, advisers and members of his administration: “I just think the American people had better understand what’s going on. This is a bunch of scumbags — that’s what they are — who are all organized around making money.”

On the House floor, Waters slammed Trump supporters as less patriotic than blacks: “African-Americans have struggled and fought historically. Many African-Americans have paid a huge price fighting for justice and equality in this country, have died for it. … When we fight against this President, and we point out how dangerous he is for this society and for this country, we’re fighting for the democracy. We’re fighting for America. We’re saying to those who say they’re patriotic, but they’ve turned a blind eye to the destruction that he’s about to cause this country, ‘You’re not nearly as patriotic as we are.’”

When a former British spy wrote a dossier on Donald Trump — later published on Buzzfeed — that included some unproven accusations about Trump and a group of hookers, the hysterical Waters said: “We already know that the part about the coverage that they have on him, with sex actions, is supposed to be true. They have said that that’s absolutely true. … I think they should go into that dossier and see what’s there.” Waters never clarified who “they” are, or explained how she knew it to be true when mainstream media never touched the dossier story, Buzzfeed said it was “unverified” and even NBC’s Chuck Todd accused Buzzfeed of publishing a “fake news” story.

Then there is comedian Chelsea Handler, who said: “I think the way we have come together is so inspiring. I would have hoped that would have happened before the election, but I’ll f—ing take it because it’s so much better to be friends with people you would never talk to before just because we all know that Donald Trump is a f—ing loser.”

Comedian Tina Fey took the tactic of shaming white women who voted for Trump: “The thing that I keep focusing on is the idea that we sort of need to hold the edges, that it’s sort of like a lot of this election was turned by … white college-educated women who would now maybe like to forget about this election and go back to watching HGTV. … I would want to urge them to — like, ‘You can’t look away, because it doesn’t affect you this minute, but it’s going to affect you eventually.’”

But Trump got a lower percentage of the white vote than did Mitt Romney. So why didn’t Fey attack the black voters who voted for Trump in a greater percentage than for any Republican since Gerald Ford? Because that would have required the Hollywood liberal to go after blacks, some of whom voted twice for Obama. That’s a tough putt.

Handler and Fey are comedians. But when it comes to Trump Derangement Syndrome, it’s hard to tell the comics from the politicians.

COPYRIGHT 2017 LAURENCE A. ELDER