Florida doesn’t have basements. Why do Trump fans think I write from one?

I’d like to address a rhetorical tact that completely misses the mark here in Florida.

As somebody who has sloshed through the world of opinion for decades, I have become a connoisseur of the well-played put down.

Practically from the first column, I have found that some readers relish the opportunity to tell me just how much they disliked the column of mine that they had taken the time to read.

“By all that is holy, keep him hidden in your back pages,” wrote reader John J. Robbins of Stuart. “Preferably between the personal and help wanted section of your classifieds.”

That comment was written back in 1992, the year I started this column, and similar messages have carried on that way for the past 32 years.

Donald Trump apologists are well represented lately

“One of the most foremost reasons most will not subscribe to Palm Beach Post is the comments, opinions of the inept, malicious, ignorant Cerabino,” wrote reader Myriam Lynch last Sunday.

The Donald Trump apologists are well represented lately, and I have to say that they’re a “cut below” the norm in terms of language skills. But I’ve noticed something else recently, and I find it kind of mind-boggling as an intended put down.

Here are excerpts of emails I received the past month from two readers who had taken the time to write me:

“The biggest crime in Palm Beach County is that your brain dead publishers give you space to print your garbage,” wrote Lawrence Demme. “Go back to mommy's basement, you empty headed liberal snowflake.”

Now here is a taste of Reader No.2, Robert Stotler.

“Give it up idiot. If any of us saw you in public we would gladly show you what we think of you. You are a complete piece of (expletive deleted) and have no business giving opinions for a major news outlet.”

Stotler elaborated on that cerebral theme in a second email.

“You simply write garbage from your parents basement in Hialeah,” he wrote.

Do you see any connections in the intellectual firepower on display here?

Spending time with my parents would be nice, but it's not possible

They both imagine me writing my column from a basement. And not just any basement, but one owned by my “mommy” or “my parents.”

For the record: I will be 70 next year, and as much as I would love to spend time with my parents, that’s no longer possible.

The last time I lived with my parents was my senior year in high school in 1973. And yes, they had a basement, as did just about all houses on Long Island.

It was a dank place with cinder block walls and full of storage boxes, the extra freezer and the oil burner. Nobody spent any time there to write.

I no longer have a “mommy’s basement” to go to, as Demme has imagined, and I don’t write from my parents’ basement in Hialeah, as Stotler wrote.

By the way, I’ve never worked or lived in Hialeah, which I will point out, is 94.7 percent Hispanic. So, to put my mythological basement home there is why people have careers conducting HR seminars.

I realize that readers who write cutting emails directed to their local newspaper columnists should be afforded a measure of poetic license to exaggerate and use hyperbola.

But to imagine a South Florida writer living and working in a basement — whether or not it’s one owned by his or her parents — is just the laziest, most inept form of putdown imaginable.

Florida can't really have basements

We don’t have basements in Florida. There isn’t a basement within hundreds of miles of here.

Take the extra 10 seconds to think of a more plausible line of attack. Sparkle me with a display of intellect. This isn’t a Trump rally.

The “parent’s basement” line has gotten way out of hand. Here’s another example.

Political podcaster Dan Bongino posted this month on the social media site X that President Joe Biden is “an embarrassment to the human race in every respect.”

This drew a response from Stephen King, the renowned novelist and short story writer.

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“Yes. But he’s got a real job, not a podcast,” King wrote.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Bongino fired back. “Millions of listeners a day on a podcast while you’re watching porn in your momma’s basement yearning for the days that people actually gave a s— about your dumb a–. Nice comeback dip—-. Get a job loser.”

Calling Stephen King, age 76, a loser who needs to get a job rather than watch porn in his “momma’s basement” is perhaps the most ignorant, thoughtless thing typed on a medium that is known for its ignorant thoughtlessness.

Stephen King is the author of more than 50 books with hundreds of millions of copies sold. Many of his stories have been turned into movies and TV series. His book, “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” is an indispensable resource for any aspiring writer.

In 2014, King received the National Medal of the Arts, a presidential award recognizing “outstanding contributions to the excellence, growth, support and availability of the arts in the United States.”

Notes from hell: Reader mail on political flotillas, garbage mountains, and gay trails

I’m guessing that Bongino had no idea who Stephen King is, and just reflexively resorted to the old “momma’s basement” line.

Yes, ignorant thoughtlessness from Bongino. But I’m not going to say that he broadcasts his podcast from a basement.

After all, he lives in Martin County.

Frank Cerabino is a news columnist with The Palm Beach Post, part of the Gannett Newspapers chain.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Does Florida have basements? Stephen King likely doesn't write from one