On Sunday, my favorite left-wing newspaper of record — to which I have, unaccountably perhaps, subscribed for three decades — cried aloud that Trump “could have” (legally, yes, but never mind that) avoided paying income tax for 18 years. Not that he “did,” just that he “could have,” in light of losses from what the Times helpfully characterized as “the financial wreckage he left behind in the 1990s through mismanagement” of various enterprises. Ah, the objectivity, the impartiality, the civic spirit of our journalistic eyes and ears — the media!

The great American commentariat, online and off, appears to have made up its own mind concerning the choice in November — and to have dedicated itself to making up everyone else’s as well. This, through subjecting the Republican presidential candidate to the journalistic equivalent of a horsewhipping, followed by a trip to the city limits astride a rail.

One of the Times’ blacksnake masters, columnist Charles Blow, obliged the curious as the current week began with the remarkable psychiatric diagnosis that Trump is a “puerile, sophomoric sniveler” and a “terroristic man-toddler.” Also “a bit of a bigot,” “a bully” and “fickle and spoiled and rotten.” By the time the media has worked its will in this enlightened manner, Melania Trump will have filed for divorce and a public apology.

One thing you have to say for the “progressive” media’s anti-Trump campaign: It takes the readers’ and the viewers’ minds off Hillary Clinton. That is important, as a deep examination of the lady’s credentials could get voters worrying over how much liberty is likely to be left at the end of a Clinton term.