Ogling, groping, racists, racism, accused-rapists, mean-girl snubs, inappropriate rants, cheap shots delivered to humiliate invited guests as the crowd roars its approval… No, this was not a sorority hazing or a prison riot or the last gasp of Ancient Rome; it was how America’s establishment behaved at the funerals for Aretha Franklin and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).

Here we are in an America with a roaring economy, manufacturing jobs are coming back (without a magic wand), the War on Terror feels like ancient history, we’re not launching stupid wars, Putin’s adventurism’s been halted, and North Korea has gone from launching missiles to arguing over how quickly it will denuclearize…

In other words, for the first time in 17 years, for the first time since those passenger planes hit the World Trade Center, we are at long last enjoying some well-deserved Peace and Prosperity.

But how did our self-appointed media and political elite spend the last few days? Lashing out at the man primarily responsible for America’s comeback while longing for the good ol’ days when they were in charge of endless wars and managing America’s decline.

And all of this happened at the most inappropriate venue imaginable: a funeral.

There is only one way to describe what we witnessed over the last few days. Basically, in front of the whole world, we watched those who piously lecture the rest of us about decency, decorum, and civility, bare their sorry asses.

And this baring of elite asses did not happen at just any funeral. The passing of the legendary Aretha Franklin and war hero John McCain… These should have been unifying events, a time for America to come together to practice the traditions that unite us, to engage in the kind of unified civic behavior our Apostles of Decency claim to lament the loss of.

If nothing else, this was their opportunity to show us Trumptards how it’s done… Watch us unite the country! Watch us lead by example! Watch us be the change we want!

But what did they do instead? Pulled their pants down. And this happened for only one reason: Trump doesn’t just live in their heads — he’s in there blasting Chuck Berry, banging Playboy Bunnies in threes, wolfing down cheeseburgers, and accomplishing what they never could: making America great again.

Over at Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds puts it best: “One of Trump’s major accomplishments has been to reveal the lack of civic virtue and self-control across our elite institutions.”

Trump has forced them to reveal who they really are.

May I be honest? Am I allowed to be honest in the age of CorrectThink? Please do argue with me if you disagree, but if the media reports are true, was it not John McCain himself who set the childish tone with his mean-girl invite list?

Apparently, he spent eight months planning his own funeral, which was, to begin with, — am I allowed to say it? — just a tad ostentatious. But to snub a sitting president, to snub Sarah Palin, his unfailingly loyal 2008 vice presidential running mate? What was that other than petty and childish?

If I wanted Trump to look bad, I would have invited him to my funeral in the hope he would make himself look bad. If the man is as boorish as our Ruling Class says, why not be the bigger man, even if you are hoping to set him up?

But someone who did make McCain’s invite list was credibly accused rapist and perjurer Bill Clinton. And on the invite list at Aretha’s funeral was that same credibly accused rapist and perjurer Bill Clinton, who shared the front row dais with raging racist and anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan, anti-Semite Al Sharpton, and Jesse “Hymietown” Jackson.

This was the least of it, though. The behavior at both of these funerals was so cheap, so crass… And all of it on national television.

To begin with, in a fit of mean-spiritedness that beggars belief, the McCains obviously invited Trump’s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared to humiliate them, to force them to sit there as Meghan McCain and former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush took cheap shots at Ivanka’s father.

Worse still, while a war hero’s national funeral was turned into a bitter and divisive campaign rally, a cathedral full of elites cheered.

Meanwhile, over at Aretha’s funeral, the very same people teeing off on Trump ogled Ariana Grande and then groped her breast and then — no joke — made a joke about Grande being a “new something at Taco Bell.”

These are the people lecturing us about decency, y’all.

All I could think of was The Masque of the Red Death or, as “Virgil” put it, “the Establishment is raging against the dying of the light [and] know that this is their political twilight[.]”

Trump’s accomplishments are not only making fools of establishment elites; his accomplishments are goading establishment elites into making fools of themselves.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.

This article misidentified Ariana Grande as Hispanic. She is Italian.