Just when they thought it was safe to go outside again, the political press is breaking out the smelling salts again.

They’re back to having the vapors and breaking out in warts over the orange-haired vulgarian holding court at his fabulous and opulent New Jersey golf course. Trump National Bedminster has become President-elect Donald Trump’s White House-in-waiting as he hosts countless dignitaries, revolutionaries, and even establishment politicians who have come from near and far to kiss the giant ring.

There is Gov. Chris Christie, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and retired Gen. Jim “Mad Dog” Mattis. And Republican Mitt Romney, who was never elected president.

The personal, private torture all this public groveling must be for Mr. Romney, who spent the past year and a half doing everything he could to keep the Republican nominee from winning the White House he himself failed to win four years ago.

At least you can’t say Mr. Trump did not warn us: Early on, he announced that he was a big believer in torture — as long as it works.

In the case of Mr. Romney, it apparently does. He may be a good upstanding Mormon, but the guy just cannot get enough of this torture and domination. Called back for a redo of his interview to be secretary of state, Mr. Romney clicked his heels and saluted.

This is the same guy who said Mr. Trump was immoral, dishonest, tyrannical and unfit to hold public office. Now the guy wants to carry out Mr. Trump’s foreign policies around the world.

Wow. Who knew what a bullet we actually dodged in 2012 when this bumbling loser lost the race for the White House? And we thought another four years of Barack Obama was bad.

Now the press is breathing heavily into a paper bag, hyperventilating that Mr. Trump is still tweeting.

Really? So the guy breaks the media and scraps his way around them to talk directly to voters unfiltered, and now that he is going to the White House they want him to give up his megaphone? I don’t think so.

That is not going to happen.

So, in a typical Trumpian flash of flaming glory, the president-elect opined about throwing people in jail for burning the American flag. Or stripping them of citizenship.

So delightful! How about sending them to Cuba to practice free speech for a year? See how they like the thin gruel served in Fidel’s well, now Raul’s gulag. Truly, the vacation that never ends.

Should Americans be tossed in the slammer for burning the flag? I don’t know. Apparently, it is “free speech,” according to the Supreme Court, even though you could burn a flag without uttering or writing a single word. Freedom of “speech” is pretty absolute in this country. Freedom of “action” is not. But I don’t wear a black robe.

Still, it is incalculably hostile, rude and uncivilized to perform such a public desecration in the eyes of all those Americans who have sacrificed sons and daughters and mothers and fathers and brothers fighting for that flag.

The message from flag burners is: “Take your sacrificed son and go screw yourself!” And if anybody responds to these sniveling, spineless cretins, they go running, screaming and crying for the nearest safe space.

So, not sure about jailing flag-burners, but I do love the idea of stripping them of citizenship. Or forcing them to take a course in American history.

Is it “unpresidential” for Mr. Trump to tweet out back-of-the-envelope thoughts on jailing protesters? Maybe.

But it is undoubtedly unpresidential and anti-American and an utter desecration of the values this country was founded on for the sitting president to mark the death of Cuba’s murdering dictator with anything short of total condemnation.

If only all the people Fidel Castro viciously murdered could have died as peacefully.

• Charles Hurt can be reached at charleshurt@live.com; follow him on Twitter via @charleshurt.