(It’s not what’s reported, it’s what’s repeated)

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Hey, media! Donald Trump.

heh heh heh heh heh…

That’s all you have to do: just say those two words. To ruin the mainstream media’s day, you just have to say his name. So I’ll do it again – Donald Trump. Hold on, I’ll say it louder…

DONALD TRUMP

heh heh heh…

That’s all it takes. To make the formerly respectable Fourth Estate lose its collective cool, that’s all it takes. Two words. And you know I’d never miss an opportunity to irritate hypocrites in under five syllables.

If you want to really chap their lips, spend three more syllables: President Donald Trump.

The last time we saw the collective media this obsessively…well…obsessed over a President was…well…never. Maybe – maybe – Richard Nixon was a close runner-up in the 1970s, but at least the media waited for Watergate to actually happen before pouncing. And, true, “Dubya” Bush was blamed for everything from hunger to the heartbreak of psoriasis, plus the financial failure of the Ford Edsel and the existence of colon polyps, but the media weren’t fanatically vicious. (maybe they were too busy monitoring Al Gore to see if he had a second facial expression)

To be sure, it’s not just the media that are caught up in Trump Derangement Syndrome. Huge chunks of the heavily polarized public are equally furious, or distraught, or not reading this anyway because they’re texting and downloading some more emoji. Heck, I lost half my audience in the very first paragraph of this humor column, simply by bringing up Trump’s name…half the country immediately stopped reading and went back to pondering the South Beach Diet.

Believe it or not, there’s even a particularly disturbed member of Congress (well, of course she’s from California) who’s already calling for the brand new President’s impeachment…and it’s been less than twenty-five days since he was sworn in – sheesh, the man hasn’t even unpacked yet. To be fair, the woman has a history of being bizarre; she’ll just randomly launch triply-confusing comments like “I have to march because my mother couldn’t have an abortion,” a philosophical and political point-of-view which is frightening on several levels. (I won’t mention her name, but it rhymes with Waxing Otters.)

Meanwhile, out here in the public sector, some overly distraught anti-Trump factions have gotten neurotically creative: they’ve simply decided to believe President Trump doesn’t exist. It’s a lot like when little kids cover their eyes and shout, “You can’t see me!”, except less mature. Shrieks of He’s not my President! are ringing out in places like Hollywood and insane asylums, which is redundant.

Every day, the “media” are ecstatic to cover people protesting in the streets, waving placards that were apparently hand-lettered (and nearly spelled) by over-medicated four-year-olds. Often, the cameras will capture the crowds participating in lively, reasoned civil debate: aka, destruction of private property and burning innocent cars.

And what are they protesting? When asked, they don’t know. Once they move past He’s not my President! it’s pretty much deer-in-the-headlights, except deer are better dressed.

You’d think the media and the not-all-that-Fast-but-still-Furious protestors would at least wait for the new President to actually do something they didn’t like, other than be born. But I suppose it’s a fair cop; after all, the previous President was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize, not for stuff he’d actually done, but simply for stuff he said he really, really, really wanted to do. What a guy.

Nor is the loathing limited to President Trump himself. His family is getting gut-punched, too, as if we were reliving living in a warring European enclave that can’t be safe until the entire ruling family is displaced. It’s as if half of America had decided to return to the Middle Ages, but without all the music.

Even the retail industry is frantic to pre-participate in this Stalinesque pre-purge to pre-erase any evidence of all things Trump. The fashioneer Nordstrom allegedly led the charge by 86-ing some items marketed by the President’s innocent bystander daughter, Ivanka Trump (see Middle Ages).

(I still can’t figure out which demographic is Nordstrom’s target audience. Based on the people modeling clothes at the Nordstrom website, their niche would be sullen young people with very little income. That can’t be right.)

But let’s be honest. If the store is dropping Ivanka’s trinkets, it’s because Ivanka’s trinkets aren’t moving. It’s not her relatives. Any adult with an IQ higher than the head count of Snow White’s dwarves knows better. If something sells well at Nordstrom, Nordstrom will continue to carry it, period. Profit trumps (sorry) politics, every time. Nobody but Ben & Jerry’s could get away with financial foolishness like that, but they’re hippies. Any giant retailer’s buyers who made purchasing decisions just because they didn’t like somebody’s Dad would soon come down with a debilitating medical condition, commonly known as “unemployment.”

Admit it, media. If sales figures supported it, Nordstrom would carry “Beelzebub’s Barbed Garters.”

And feature them in a front window display.

At Christmas.

Nordstrom’s alleged “boycott” was allegedly adopted by other retailers, too, including Macy’s, Kmart, Walmart, and the Dallas-based luxury department store, Needless Markup.

So far, the popular gadget merchant Hammacher Schlemmer has not participated in the Great Purge Boycott, but I included them anyway…

…just to watch the protestors try to spell it.