Keeping a proper perspective on the news of the day can be a challenge, particularly when it involves anything involving Donald John Trump.

A big-time fan of Trump got gunned down this week in Utah Valley University. Charlie Kirk died when he was shot in the neck by someone who reportedly disagreed with his right-wing screeds. Kirk was just 31 years of age and he leaves behind his wife and two young children.

Trump’s reaction was to order every flag in the nation to fly at half-staff; he flew Kirk’s body back to DC aboard the plane used to ferry the vice president; Trump is going to honor Kirk’s memory with the Presidential Medal of Freedom; the news networks are covering this story with the kind of attention reserved for the deaths of heads of state.

Charlie Kirk was a political hack. Yes, his death is a tragedy and I join the Trumpkins in mourning his senseless and grotesque murder. Trump surely didn’t need to react in the manner he did, particularly after he ignored the assassination of a Minnesota state senator and her husband, both of whom were anti-Trumpsters; or the deaths of the two children shot by a dipshit who killed them as they were praying in a Minneapolis church.

The outpouring of grief for a political operative — who’s never been elected to public office — is too much. It’s time to dial it back.