My all-time favourite Sean Spicer quote is the one about the chewing gum. Apparently, the White House press secretary has a fresh piece of cinnamon Orbit on the go almost constantly. Although he doesn’t spit the old ones out. He swallows them.

“Two and a half packs by noon,” he told the The Washington Post last year. “I talked to my doctor about it, he said it’s no problem.”

Isn’t it perfect? All the essential Trump-era mechanics are there, and it’s only about chewing gum. You have a blunt assertion that challenges the liberal elite (for the liberal elite does not believe you should eat chewing gum) followed by an insistent, unblinking appeal to frankly unlikely authority. Is he serious? Can this really, actually, be