How much longer must we as a nation endure this rottenness?

And that’s exactly what it is; it’s a sense of decay, and what’s decaying is really the defining essence of our democracy.

Surely even the loosest cannons among us have to know we’re called to be better than this.

So Donald Trump wasn’t their choice. So what?

Millions who didn’t vote for Barack Obama still called him Mr. President, not out of affection or admiration but out of an understanding he was placed in that office by fellow Americans who saw things differently.

That’s how it goes. It’s basic civics.

As a trite old line reminds us, life is not like Burger King; we can’t always have it our way.

And when we don’t, we lick our wounds and move on, or at least we used to. But that’s not happening now, is it?

It’s been almost 60 years since novelists Eugene Burdick and William Lederer took the literary world by storm, not so much by the content of their landmark book, as by its riveting title: “The Ugly American.”

In essence it nailed the haughty arrogance of American diplomats who looked with disdain upon any customs or cultures other than their own.

In other words, their attitude was, “It’s my way or the highway.”

There is indeed an ugliness to such an air of entitlement.

Sometimes reluctant acquiescence is necessary. Regarding his players’ submission to his authority, Red Auerbach used to quip: “I may not be right, but I’m never wrong.”

In electing a president, however, there’s little wiggle room in how we do it. He or she serves at the will of the people. There’s nothing complicated about it. As our Founding Fathers explained in authoring our Declaration of Independence: “Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just power from the consent of the governed.”

But more than 100 days into the incumbency of Donald Trump we’re not seeing that consent, are we? Certainly not from the shamelessly self-promoting likes of Elizabeth Warren, and certainly not from the repugnant likes of CBS’ Stephen Colbert, whose disparagement of Trump broke new ground with vulgarity that was nauseous.

Perhaps he was just desperate to prove he can be as reprehensible as HBO’s Bill Maher, who thinks it’s witty to imply the new president has an incestuous relationship with daughter Ivanka.

Humor may be subjective, but language from the gutter is not.

Yes, Colbert has a right to foul the air, but does CBS not have a commensurate responsibility to keep that same air free of filth?

Right now the ugliest of all Americans can be found ruthlessly undermining a properly inaugurated president because he wasn’t their cup of tea.

Don’t they understand acceptance does not mean approval?

It’s not a large understanding, but it’s as American as it gets.