The sickening irony is that “the people Trump despises most, love him the most . . . the Trump voter who idolizes the guy, he despises,” according to entertainment personality Howard Stern, who’s known the man familiarly for decades. Others have said the same.

I thought of Stern’s words when reading the Jan. 15 article about Trump champion Mitch Simon (“Minot man who marched at Capitol says crowd full of ‘patriots’“) who was among the mob that trashed the U.S. Capitol, though he denied participation in the vandalism.

Let’s not forget who else the flag-hugging, draft-dodging pseudo-patriot despises: POWs and those maimed or killed in war. “Losers” and “suckers,” he’s had the impudence to call them.

Naturally, he denies ever saying such things; on the contrary, nobody respects them more than he does because, naturally, no one excels him. He has the best words, he loves the Bible more than anybody, respects women more than anybody, etc., ad nauseam. He’s the King Kong of malarkey.

Speaking of war: Recently I watched a YouTube video about Trump in which he dimwittedly asserts that nobody asks why the Civil War was fought. President Lincoln? He had a “phobia” about General Robert E. Lee that drove him “crazy.” Ulysses S. Grant? He’s “finally” being recognized as a great general. President Andrew Jackson? Astoundingly to relate, he was “really angry” about the war, protesting — from his grave, apparently, since he died 16 years before it began — that “there’s no reason for this.”