Since Trump decided to play Republican for the sake of an election, he can expect to get treated like a disease by mainstream media. That’s something he should have steeled up his nerves for.

The reaction of most presidents, at least in recent memory, is to treat the press as low man on the totem pole, as far as their place in the issues of the day.

Sure, Obama was the start of the snotty, petulant child presidency, lashing out at Fox News’ coverage of him, but even then, it wasn’t a daily obsession.

Trump, on the other hand, made attacking the press only second to attacking other Republicans during the primary season, and then the run up to the election.

Saturday’s press conference by White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, was amazing in that it wasn’t so much a press conference as it was the new administration’s attempts to browbeat the press into believing how awesome Trump is.

On Sunday, Trump surrogates, Kellyanne Conway and Reince Priebus, hit separate morning talk programs to further lash out at the press, over their less-than-fawning coverage of Trump.

Said Conway:

“Chuck, if we’re going to keep referring to our press secretary in those types of terms, I think we’re going to have to rethink our relationship here,” Kellyanne Conway said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” after host Chuck Todd asked about press secretary Sean Spicer’s criticism of the press one day earlier.

Specifically, Conway referred to Spicer’s assertion that Trump’s inaugural event was the largest inaugural audience in history. The available numbers say otherwise, but Trump’s camp will not be dissuaded from their narrative.

“This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe,” Spicer said.

Conway said Sunday that Spicer provided the press with “alternative facts” about the crowd size during the briefing.

But Todd pushed back against Conway, saying alternative facts are falsehoods.

Meanwhile, Priebus appeared in a decidedly more friendly venue with Fox News’ “Fox News Sunday.”

“The point is not the crowd size. The point is the attacks and the attempts to delegitimize this president in one day,” Priebus said on “Fox News Sunday.”

“And we’re not going to sit around and take it.”

Hi, Reince. Ever followed politics before?

As I’ve said before, this is not a new occurrence. Having a presidential administration more obsessed with ratings than doing the work at hand is kind of new.

If you can’t handle criticism, or need to be adored and lavished with praise daily, you need to stay far, far away from the political arena.

Trust me, we can’t even write an opinion without nastygrams from people who disagree, so how much worse should politicians expect it to be?

“We’re not going to sit around and let this happen,” Priebus said.

“We are going to fight back tooth and nail every day.”

Every day?

You’re seriously telling us the American people are going to have to hear somebody within Trump’s administration howling about how unfair the press is, every day?

I hope that pays extra, because any credibility Trump’s team members may have had before signing up to be professional whiners will be long gone, along with their job prospects in four years.