Ugh. Photo: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

Last year at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, President Trump literally embraced the American flag after walking out onto the stage to give his marquee speech (in which he embraced himself, rhetorically). The bizarre moment was a solid orange, red, white, and blue hit at the conference, so it was no surprise that this year, the ringmaster president would probably try to repeat — and top — the feat, thus dethroning himself as the greatest living flag-love exaggerator in the U-S-of-A.

After all, in the past year the president has survived, among countless other scandals and transgressions, the Mueller report, a credible rape allegation, the Ukraine scandal, a standoff with military leaders over unthinkable pardons for war criminals, a thoughtlessly abrupt exit from Syria, Rudy Giuliani’s help, a dangerous attack on Iran, and an impeachment trial — all while successfully demanding absolute loyalty from his party and blatantly challenging every possible check on his power.

So while last year’s CPAC stunt could have been considered a kind of awkward mug for the fans, still-President Donald Trump took far more liberty in his 2020 encounter: