Trump was apparently breathtakingly awful at CPAC today. (Conservative Political Action Conference. By “conservative” they mean whatever jumble of racist malevolence and boastful rapey contempt for women and shameless greed comes close enough to describing Trump.)

Addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference, the president read “The Snake,” a parable about a tenderhearted woman who takes in an ailing snake and gives it milk, honey and a silk blanket, only to be killed by the revived creature’s poisonous bite.

Trump explained the metaphor: “You have to think of this in terms of immigration.”

On the campaign trail in 2016, Trump frequently told the tale of the snake. The crowds at his rallies loved it. Other Americans were appalled and found it racist.

Nooooooooooo, it’s not a bit racist to compare immigrants to snakes who kill their kind generous hosts.

Trump mocked Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a war hero and Republican elder statesman with a terminal form of brain cancer, for his health-care vote. He vowed to “fight” a current Democratic foe, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California. And he revived his row with a previous one, former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, by encouraging chants of “lock her up” and sounding off about her alleged “atrocities.”

“They’re crazed anyway, these people,” Trump said of Democrats. “They are really crazed.”