How dumb does this congressman think we are?

As famous a phrase as it is, it’s unlikely that some fastidious but oblivious boatswain actually spent any time rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic as it was sinking to a watery grave in 1912.

But the idea has come to illustrate an utterly pointless, wasteful and insignificant endeavor that, in the grandest scheme of things, matters not at all. Sort of like sending a strongly worded letter over something stupid while Americans are dying in record numbers.

Or in the case of U.S. Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana, exactly like that.

During a global pandemic, which has seen a staggering fall surge in U.S. cases and a death toll reaching more than 284,000, the Republican congressman spent actual time and energy manufacturing outrage over the masks of two of his Democratic colleagues in the House. Mind you, his outrage was not over the safety of the masks — whether they fit properly or were being worn in accordance with the House requirements.

This was about the designs on the masks — what was on them. One, worn by Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, displayed the congressman’s campaign logo, which Banks wrote in a real letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi violated the “House’s prohibition on the use of official resources for campaign purposes” and maybe also the House’s prohibition on “using Congressional broadcasts for partisan political purposes.”

The second offensive mask belonged to Rep. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, and featured a marijuana leaf design.

“Legality aside, it’s unbecoming for a House member to wear clothing that promotes the use of any recreational drugs on the House floor,” he wrote in the same real letter to Pelosi. “It’s a clear violation of the House’s Code of Conduct, which prohibits all behavior that does not ‘reflect creditably on the House.’ ”

“The best solution is likely a blanket ban on stylized facemasks,” he wrote, and ended the real letter by declaring, “It’s time to restore dignity to the House.” Pause for eyerolls.

Let’s put this in perspective.

As previously mentioned, the United States is reeling from a deadly pandemic that the Trump administration has denied and bungled from the start.

The president, meanwhile, is AWOL — as of Nov. 15, he hadn’t attended a Coronavirus Task Force meeting in five months, according to his own assistant secretary for health, Adm. Brett Giroir.

Trump worked just eight days of an official schedule between Nov. 4 and Nov. 23 — during which he also managed to play golf at least six times.

Since losing his re-election bid to Joe Biden in November, Trump has said little at all about the skyrocketing COVID-19 cases and U.S. death, instead embarking on a delusional, conspiratorial and doomed campaign to convince his own supporters — who already voted for him — that the election was stolen.

He’s tied up the courts, administration officials, governors, election officials and his own staffers in meaningless wild goose chases all resulting in the clear conclusion that he lost, legitimately.

Health officials said Trump’s refusal to concede and hand over key COVID-19 response information to Biden was hindering efforts to help curb the pandemic.

Meanwhile, at least 40 people in Trump’s inner circle — including Trump himself, his wife Melania, his son and son’s girlfriend — contracted COVID-19, most recently, his lawyer Rudy Giuliani. Others include policy adviser Stephen Miller, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, adviser Kellyanne Conway, campaign adviser Corey Lewandowski, HUD Secretary Ben Carson and adviser David Bossie.

For months, Trump and his goons dismissed the seriousness of the virus and shrugged off the importance of mask-wearing and social distancing.

It’s pretty rich, therefore, and even quite silly for Banks to complain about two Democrats in the House — who, unlike Banks’ Republican colleagues on Pennsylvania Avenue, are complying with mask-requirements — simply because he doesn’t like what they look like.

Banks may indeed have a point about what is and isn’t appropriate on the House floor. And if Republicans had taken mask-wearing and other precautions more seriously over the past nine months, it might carry more weight. But the idea that it’s two Democratic mask-wearing congressmen who are not reflecting “creditably” on the House, or that Republicans are in any position to demand a restoration of “dignity” to the House, is laughable and contemptible.

If Republicans were half as outraged at the president’s desertion of duties during COVID-19, his refusal to wear masks, his flouting of health and safety restrictions and his refusal to concede election defeat as they are at pot leaves on face masks and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s tweets, we might be in a better position today with COVID-19 than we are.

And strongly worded letters like Banks’s might be taken even a little seriously.

S.E. Cupp is the host of “S.E. Cupp Unfiltered” on CNN.

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