Remember when wearing a MAGA hat meant you were certain to lose an election to Hillary Clinton? Remember the days before a red baseball cap became a symbol of all evil in the universe?

I’ve been typing words on the Internet to pay the bills for, I dunno, 12-13 years now. I spent eight of those years disapproving of a cult of personality centered in the Oval Office, and I’ve spent the past few years disapproving of the subsequent cult of personality centered in the Oval Office. I don’t like tribal groupthink, and I’m as immune to Trump’s charisma as I was to Obama’s, so in 2019 that means I have even fewer friends and admirers than usual.

But as we head into week 2 of the MAGA Kid Saga, I’m finding common cause with my Trumpkin brothers and sisters. Whatever our differences, I’ve always agreed with them that the media is astonishingly biased and corrupt. The abject shamelessness of our moral, ethical, and intellectual betters, the self-appointed gatekeepers of the truth, has never been more apparent than it’s been over the past week.

If you attend a march in Washington, D.C., while wearing a cheap red hat that can be purchased at any gift shop or souvenir stand in the city, there’s every chance you’ll be branded a racist for maintaining your composure while complete strangers scream at you and pound drums in your face. And even when irrefutable video evidence proves you’ve done nothing wrong, a pack of bigots with press passes will still blame you for angering them.

Then, when you go on TV to defend yourself, you’ll be depicted as an aggressor:

“As far as standing there, I had every right to do so. My position is that I was not disrespectful to Mr. Phillips. I respect him. I’d like to talk to him…But I can’t say that I’m sorry for listening to him and standing there.” Nick Sandmann on if he owes anyone an apology pic.twitter.com/iiVqPtltjf — TODAY (@TODAYshow) January 23, 2019

And the professional victim who lied about you will be fawned over:

“Do you think he should’ve apologized?” @savannahguthrie asks Nathan Phillips about Nick Sandmann pic.twitter.com/TV13kfaNSW — TODAY (@TODAYshow) January 24, 2019

See, this is balanced journalism. Yesterday, Savannah Guthrie asked the kid who didn’t do anything — he stood stock-still and did nothing — if he thought he should apologize. Today, she asked the fraud who lied to her whether the kid who didn’t do anything should apologize. Gotta get both sides! (And I just love being lectured by Guthrie, the woman who stood by and did nothing while her co-host raped half the building. Hey, he never did anything to her, right?)

Nathan Phillips is a complete charlatan, and he’s lied about every aspect of this incident. He’s not even a Vietnam vet, as he claimed:

🚨Nathan Phillips, January 3, 2018🚨 “I’m a Vietnam Vet. I served in Marine Corps 72 to 76. I got discharged May 5, 1976. I got honorable discharge and one of the boxes shows peacetime or, what my box says is that I was **in theater**. I don’t talk much about my Vietnam times.” pic.twitter.com/nIoYxGoPqM — Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) January 24, 2019

I was only vaguely aware of the Black Hebrew Israelites before this week, but it’s amazing to watch libs make every excuse in the world for why it’s okay for them to scream racist, homophobic, and otherwise hateful garbage at schoolkids in public. It’s acceptable, because those kids were wearing the Hats of Evil. They’re the enemy.

I mean, just look at this nonsense:

Catholic Bishop of Lexington, KY on Covington boys says wearing MAGA hats is not pro-life https://t.co/b934KvkB4L — Elizabeth Dias (@elizabethjdias) January 24, 2019

First of all, adults telling teenagers that they shouldn’t wear a certain item of clothing only makes them more defiant. Second of all, maybe the bishop should spend more time worrying about the pedophiles in his midst and less time worrying about the fashion choices of their prey.

Third of all: It’s a hat. A hat!

Or how about this glittering nugget of brilliance:

Opinion | Noah Berlatsky: Covington Catholic kid Nick Sandmann said he was an silent bystander. But his MAGA hat spoke for him. https://t.co/Nly1Xl0niR – @NBCNewsTHINK — NBC News (@NBCNews) January 23, 2019

If you start to hear hats talk, you don’t need to be cranking out op-eds. You need to get a brain MRI immediately.

Now, of course, saying all these things magically transforms me into a “Trump supporter” and a “Nazi” and whatever else. It doesn’t matter what my actual opinions are. I’ve dared to state plain truths that infuriate Democrats, I’ve stood up to attacks on innocent kids, so I’m an enemy.

I’m not ready to jump on the Trump Train just yet. But those kids didn’t do anything wrong. If you’re determined to hate them, you’re just showing the rest of us who you really are.

If you want Trump to get reelected, this is how to do it. Keep talking. Keep attacking children. Keep losing.