Havoc has a name — and a fixed-move-out-date-residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. The tendrils of ineptitude and turpitude slithering from out of there have already wrought devastation within and without cherished borders. Surely, the destruction is not done.

On the bright side, most of what has been and will be done can be undone. On a dark note, the possibility for reversal won’t apply to the damage done if/when all environmental sanity goes out the window in a frantic act of short-sighted economic-induced mass suicide — at least not until centuries after our extinction.

Which brings us to what is possibly the second greatest harm visited upon us so far in 2017: the ruination of irony.

Though language is a living thing that adapts and changes, today faster than ever, this might be a blow from which it never recovers. It would a tremendous loss. Language is knowledge and power. Irony is one of our essential linguistic tools to unlock meaning. And it is at the center of the human condition.

The fact that irony been hollowed out through misuse and ignorance is all the sadder.

Verdict: yes, irony is on its deathbed, and meanwhile the idiots are mating.