Donald Trump is so ticked off about being made the butt of jokes on late-night television that he’s now asking for equal time. He popped out of bed this morning to tweet:

x Late Night host are dealing with the Democrats for their very "unfunny" & repetitive material, always anti-Trump! Should we get Equal Time? — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2017

Four minutes later, having quickly built an entire grassroots movement in support of this notion, he tweeted:

x More and more people are suggesting that Republicans (and me) should be given Equal Time on T.V. when you look at the one-sided coverage? — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2017

Perhaps if he weren’t so adept at giving comedians megatons of slam-dunk material, he wouldn’t be such a laughingstock. Unfortunately, as we have learned over the nearly eight months he has been squatting in the White House, while he is a joke, he’s also a dangerous, impulsive megalomaniac whose actions and threats of action, thoroughgoing ignorance, petty rages, and constant barrage of lies about matters great and small are far from funny.

This isn’t the first time since Trump won a majority of the Electoral College that he’s made this charge of unfairness and called for equal time. On November 20 last year, he tweeted:

x I watched parts of @nbcsnl Saturday Night Live last night. It is a totally one-sided, biased show - nothing funny at all. Equal time for us? — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 20, 2016

Given how hard it is to be sure what Trump actually knows and understands, he may be conflating the FCC’s equal opportunities requirement still on the books and the Fairness Doctrine abolished three decades ago. The former rule only applies to candidate coverage. And even though Trump declared himself a candidate for reelection on day of his inauguration, the idea that this triggered the FCC requirement is a bigger stretch than Trump’s claims for huge numbers attending that inauguration.

The Fairness Doctrine dismantled by the Reagan administration, on the other hand, did call for equal time, sort of. Its abolition gave hate radio a huge boost and paved the way for Fox Newsification of the media, and Republicans certainly don’t want to resurrect the doctrine that could undermine if not destroy those propaganda operations.