It’s a small man who delights in the misfortune of others, but I can’t help myself.  As much as I regret that he is being forced to deal with the vile underbelly of hatred emanating from the bowels of the Party of Slavery and Segregation, I am having a blast watching the left try to deal with Dr. Ben Carson.

After months of attempting to marginalize him as a mere fringe candidate who would fade quickly in the crowded Republican presidential field, liberals are having to come to grips with the reality that Carson is a legitimate contender.  And it isn’t going over well. 

Why?  First, it proves that the annoying habit liberals have exhibited the last seven years of shoving their fingers in their ears and screaming “racist” at any person who opposed the presidency of Barack Obama has been as wrong as it was despicable. It turns out the Party of Emancipation and Civil Rights doesn’t mind electing a black president at all -– they just haven’t enjoyed a socialist one.

But the rise of Carson stirs a more primal reaction on the left that shouldn’t be ignored given that it reveals much about the true origin of current racial discord in our country. Progressives are furious that an accomplished black man would dare to leave their liberal thought plantation, because doing so threatens to undo the carefully constructed engine of exploitation that fuels Democrat political power.

As the party of big government social welfare spending, liberals have enacted policies that have locked blacks in failing inner city schools, ended scholarship programs designed specifically to help black children excel, facilitated a dangerous dependency that has led directly to an epidemic of fatherless black homes, encouraged an influx of illegal immigrants that have disproportionately deprived young black men of jobs, and funded a genocidal ‘family planning’ strategy to suspiciously target black communities.

If you are tempted to excuse those offenses as unintentional or coincidental, note that both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are disciples of leftist icon Saul Alinsky. It was Alinsky who articulated the strategy that in order to control a group of people they, “must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and chance the future.” While gutting the black community with their policies, Democrats have managed to successfully portray themselves as that group’s only hope. 

Alinsky continued, “The despair is there; now it's up to us to go in and rub raw the sores of discontent, galvanize them for radical social change. We'll give them a way to participate in the democratic process, a way to exercise their rights as citizens and strike back at the establishment that oppresses them.” If this doesn’t perfectly describe the race-baiting behavior of Democrat political activists, I don’t know what does. 

The only thing that upends such a diabolical electoral scheme is the emergence of a self-made member of the oppressed group –- one who rose to prominence without the crutch of liberal social programs, and who articulates the inherent danger and destructive nature of their bloated existence.  Meet Ben Carson, a man born into the crucible of inner-city strife, but who escaped the cycle of poverty intended for him to become a brilliant neurosurgeon.

Carson’s message of a smaller government, self-reliance and Christian faith offer a stark contrast to the grievance mongering, victim mentality that’s been force fed to blacks for decades by Democrats desperate to perpetuate a reliable voting bloc. The good doctor praises the existence of government safety nets but deplores the use of dependency programs for political ends. Consequently, the same people that have claimed for years to be the champions of minorities are doing all they can to stop one from succeeding.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has decided they don’t really want all “colored people” to advance –- just the ones with liberal politics. They’ve even declined to condemn racist slurs hurled at Carson. Meanwhile, lily-white journalists like Politico’s Michael Grunwald and GQ’s Drew Magary don’t even attempt to hide their racist contempt for Carson’s message, using the vilest of playground taunts to deride the candidate.

When you come to believe that a person must think a certain way simply because of their skin color, and you despise them when they don’t, you are the one with the race problem. That is the uncomfortable truth Ben Carson’s candidacy is revealing, and it’s why the left will stop at nothing to destroy him.

Peter Heck is a speaker, author and teacher. Follow him @peterheck, email peter@peterheck.com  or visit www.peterheck.com.