“Donald Trump has ruined the American brand and the American birthday celebration,” said former “Meet the Press” host and current podcasting also-ran Chuck Todd.

While it’s true that any Trump-deranged leftist could’ve uttered those words, it’s not so much what Todd said as how he said it — namely, without a hint of irony about the brutal American brand-busting that defined the four years of the Biden administration.

Think about it: Had Joe Biden somehow been both competent enough and popular enough to serve another four years, or had Kamala Harris somehow been, well, never mind — in either case, we’d have been treated to a 250th birthday scolding rather than a celebration. We’d have been beaten down about slavery and Jim Crow and stolen land, and about root causes and those beautiful caravans of brown-skinned immigrants just yearning for their shot at the American Dream. And we’d have been lectured to about transgender rights while we tried to explain to our young kids how that one girlish-looking guy was simply showing off his new “top surgery” and how that middle-aged black man in the sequined gown was really a Tony Award-winning artist from the Broadway musical “Kinky Boots.”

So spare us, Chuckie Boy, about how the America First president is despoiling the American brand.

Apparently, Todd doesn’t like the fact that Trump put his own unique stamp on this spectacular celebration, and that it wasn’t sufficiently sobering — you know, with the trannies and the drag queens. “It could have been broad,” Todd whined, “it might have been a little messy, might have even been a little bland at times, but that would have been fine because sometimes bland is the point. … He couldn’t leave it alone. He created his own version of the celebration. … Trump just took it all over. He staged his own little UFC fight on the White House lawn.”

To the winner go the spoils, Chuck. And if you thought Donald Trump was simply going to win the presidency and then settle for a soporific semiquincentennial celebration, or a celebration replete with trannies and drag queens, well, maybe that’s why he won the presidency and you got the Vaudeville hook at 30 Rock.

Todd kept going, and going, and going: “And I should be clear about something,” he said. “I’m not mad at the voters. Voters make choices for all kinds of reasons. Some are wise, some are not. That’s democracy. I’m mad at the leader. I’m mad that someone handed this responsibility keeps showing he does not understand the story he’s supposed to be helping this country tell. … And this is why I’m so pissed off. Not because I love the country less, but because I love the idea of America enough to resent seeing it cheapened by this man.”

Here, I can’t help but wonder how many presidential elections Chuck Todd has won, and how, absent that singular accomplishment, he nonetheless became the arbiter of what story Donald Trump is supposed to tell.

For the defense, here’s White House spokesman Davis Ingle:

The celebration of America’s 250th anniversary displayed great patriotism in our Nation’s Capital and throughout the country, and the President was proud to participate in our historic semiquincentennial celebration. Only people who suffer from a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome would find a problem with that.

Exactly that. Chuck Todd could find plenty of reasons to be happy and grateful, if only he could get beyond his Trump derangement.

Folks, this country is it. As Ryan Cole writes at City Journal, we Americans are a lucky bunch:

Maybe, given two and a half centuries of success in this experiment in liberty, Americans have lost some of our capacity for gratitude. We should seek to revive it. Despite political turmoil, technological disruption, wars, economic volatility, social upheaval, and institutional decline, America remains the best and freest place on earth. On this, the 250th anniversary of our freedom, let’s give thanks for that and resolve to press onward. As Americans have always done.

I think giving thanks is a great idea. And if you can’t figure out where to start, maybe just pick one of these 250 reasons and keep on going.