I wish I could buy into the argument that Trump’s penchant for the civic equivalent of Reddit flame wars is worth the endless amount of attention given to it because it speaks to his weaknesses as a leader. It is not untrue that a man touchy enough to care what the hosts of a television program he claims to neither like nor watch say about him is probably going to have a less than steady hand on the presidential tiller. It would be easier to take these concerns at face value if they were not expressed so often by people also given to voicing the most fawning, gag-inducing praise for the hip social media prowess and all-around memeability of certain bland liberal politicians. If you’re writing gushing stories about what was inscribed on the cute socks that Justin Trudeau — a man who actually brags about how ruthless his pursuit of free trade is — wore to Toronto’s Pride Parade, forgive me for not thinking that your online reactions to the other team reflect the sober hard-headed realism with which you approach political questions.

But the worst thing about having a news cycle devoted to micro-analyses of his Twitter blowouts, with follow-up stories and reaction GIFs and high-five emojis and ostentatious displays of faux-offense on the behalf of strangers, is that it distracts us from the actual things that actually make Trump a terrible president.