Once again proving himself a magnificent asset to Democrats, Donald Trump continued his slash-and-burn path toward the Republican nomination on Wednesday, ripping into yet another rising star in the conservative movement, this time Gov. Scott Walker.

“There’s a $2.2 billion deficit and the schools were going begging,” asserted Trump of the extremely brave and successful Republican governor of Wisconsin, who fearlessly took on the state’s out-of-control government unions. In fact, Trump informed us, “everything was going begging” in Walker’s lousy state. And why is that? The Republican front-runner expertly explained Walker’s fatal flaw: “because he didn’t want to raise taxes.” Sounding like a cross between Bernie Sanders and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Trump affirmed: “So instead of raising taxes, he cut back on schools, he cut back on highways, he cut back on a lot of things.” And thus, surmised Trump, “Wisconsin has a lot of problems.” These include, said the master of the insult, a “tremendous hatred” that permeates the Midwest landscape.

Gee, what could have justified this nasty treatment of Scott Walker? The answer, of course, is obvious in Trump’s case, as it’s always obvious in Trump’s case: Scott Walker endorsed Ted Cruz. Walker’s endorsement of Cruz is thus a non-endorsement of the Donald. It is, thereby, judged a ferocious criticism of Donald Trump beyond the bounds of any possible legitimacy or acceptability. And we know how Donald Trump handles dissenters. To quote from his advice to advocates at his rallies, he “knocks the hell out of them.”

Any criticism of Trump is deemed fundamentally unjust by him and by his unwavering, unbending, unpersuadable followers. If you don’t stand with Trump, then you are against Trump, and you are loathsome, and you will be excoriated. You will be taken down.

Just ask “Lyin’ Ted,” and his suddenly ugly wife. She’s mean ugly like Carly Fiorina. Just ask “sweating, choking, little Marco.” What an amateur he was. Just ask that “liar” George W. Bush, that “loser” Mitt Romney, or that farce of a “war hero,” that Vietnam-surrender-monkey John McCain, once hoisted in the air of the Hanoi Hilton, wrists tied behind his back, but really merely another in a long line of Republican “losers.”

Or let’s just stick with the governors of successful Republican swing states who resist the Donald. “Kasich cannot do the job,” said Trump to Ohio residents last month — pouncing on a man whom, for all of his undeniable inarticulateness, has done a nice job in his home state. “We are going to win Ohio. Kasich is a baby. Too many problems.” As Trump’s acolytes chanted, “Build the wall! Build the wall!” Trump further delineated Kasich’s liabilities: “He’s not the right guy to be president. He’s not tough enough. He’s not smart enough.”

But why be so nasty to Gov. Kasich, Mr. Trump? The reason, of course, is that Kasich stood in the way of the Donald. And no one does that to Donald Trump.

Funny, but why do other Republican candidates — including the legitimately conservative ones with actual conservative track records — not find it necessary to set ablaze their fellow Republicans?

Donald Trump, however, is a one-man flame-thrower. On the debate stage, he can fluidly look left and torch rising conservative star Ted Cruz before seamlessly swiveling right to smoke rising conservative star Marco Rubio. There is no pause in between, because the incendiaries launch so freely.

And so, Trump sets foot in the crucial Republican swing state of Ohio, run by John Kasich, and denounces the place as a stinking mess, a laughing stock. And now, he sets foot in the crucial Republican swing state of Wisconsin, run by Scott Walker, and denounces the place and the governor’s record as a mere fraud.

The flamethrower now engulfs Walker, as it had engulfed Kasich. Your states are horrible! shouts Trump. They stink! His supporters cheer, fists in the air.

Slash-and-burn. Nothing left standing. This week, the Trump tornedo touches down in Wisconsin. Last week, it hit the home of Ted Cruz and his ugly wife. Where will it land next?

This is the path that Donald Trump winds as he sinks further behind not only the corrupt Hillary Clinton but the socialist Bernie Sanders, the two most beatable Democrats in anyone’s memory. He loses to both by double-digits (Hillary by 11, Bernie by 17). He behaves like a man on a suicide mission (actually, his supporters more so), hell-bent on destruction for himself as well as the conservative movement and Republican Party.

All the while, his supporters roar in approval, ensuring us that Donald Trump is actually like Ronald Reagan, including the uncanny similarity that the Gipper, too, was trailing the Democrat front-runner at this point in 1980. And so, just like Reagan against Jimmy Carter, the public will surge toward Trump in November as their political savior, especially women and Latinos (and African-Americans). They will love him. You’ll see.

This, my fellow conservatives, is a political tragedy unfolding before our very eyes. If current trends continue, with Donald Trump somehow winning the nomination, the year 2016 — the onetime year of promise for conservatives — will witness a Hillary Clinton sweep of (truly) at least 40 states. And when it happens, Donald Trump and his supporters can blame it on us Republican “losers” who stayed home, not recognizing the greatness that stood before them.