Donald Trump’s COVID diagnosis — and, if all goes well, defeat of the virus — solidified something that seemed true but was hard to admit. The left, not able to defeat the man at the ballot, nor oust him from office with a cooked up Russia collusion hoax, did the one they could that turned out to be a rousing success (their only real success given it, rather than work for the country, is all they’ve done for the past four years): they poisoned the well against Trump so effectively they turned his decision to take experimental drugs that could have been worse than the virus itself, and his subsequent joy at the fact that they worked and that there’s treatment on the way, into a diabolical and thoughtless decision by an uncaring and selfish man.

Trump’s time at at Walter Reed Medical Center, taking unapproved drugs, was actually the opposite of selfish. Rational analysis tells you so. But the members of the Cult of the Useful Idiot will never see it. And that is the biggest problem this country faces at the moment. We are in an alternate universe.

Don’t believe it? Just look at what super thoughtful MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes said earlier today about an idea he has that is little more than dressed up fascism. Covered here by my colleague Bonchie, Hayes wants a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” for anyone who professes ideas contrary to, well, his own.

The most humane and reasonable way to deal with all these people, if we survive this, is some kind of truth and reconciliation commission. https://t.co/PopsRhmKvz

— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) October 6, 2020

As Bonchie writes: “these people want you in camps, and if they had the power to do it today, does anyone doubt they wouldn’t make it happen? What in the world is a ‘truth and reconciliation’ commission anyway? I’m assuming the idea here is to drag Trump supporters before Congress and have them repent for their sins in true Stalin fashion. What happens if they don’t?”

Of course history is replete with these kinds of “commissions,” famous for jailing people for thinking the planets revolved around the sun; or if they failed to pay indulgences to Rome; or if they ran afoul of church elders and were behaving a bit “witchy”; or if they just wanted to be Jewish in Germany in the early part of the 20th Century.

But Hayes suggests — despite centuries of proof to the contrary — his idea is “humane.”

What’s more? I think he believes it.

He is a useful idiot. And he is not alone. There are many, many like him certain they are informed, and that their virulent hatred of Trump is different from their mirror images on the other end of the spectrum, the Trump sycophants. And that they are not influenced by a protracted effort — and a very successful one — to poison the well against the man and his administration because those who lost to him were powerless to do anything else. It was the only arrow they had left in the quiver. And Hayes, like every other leftist who argues Trump is a thoughtless oaf when he encourages Americans not to be afraid nor obsessed by a virus because we are on the verge of beating it, was shot through the heart with that arrow. I’m not sure he knows it, though.

The fact is, Trump — whatever personality flaws he carries — behaved like a leader following his COVID diagnosis. But the Cult of the Useful Idiot will never be convinced. Because they’ve sipped from that poison well and thoroughly enjoyed the taste.

It’s useless trying to tell them, or argue in good faith. They believe their libation is righteous and clean water from a pristine mountain spring reserved only for the most informed and thoughtful. That’s all well and good. They’re allowed their spirits.

But Americans should remember when they head to the polls exactly who spiked the water and decide if they want to be forced by some “commission” to partake of the same poison brew.