media bias

Is the United States headed for a second Civil War? According to a survey of likely midterm voters published by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, 57% of Americans believe it is. Sixty-nine percent say democracy is under serious threat; and an equal percentage of nonwhite voters say they fear rising white supremacy.

While President Donald Trump and his MAGA movement deserve the lion’s share of blame for such findings, the Supreme Court has done its part. Under the stewardship of Chief Justice John Roberts, the court has issued a blistering succession of dangerously polarizing rulings, ranging from presidential immunity, union organizing, the death penalty, environmental protection and gun control to affirmative action and abortion rights. The resulting jurisprudential carnage has accelerated the nation’s rupture into irreconcilable belligerent tribes and prompted speculation that we are headed for another existential conflict.

The Roberts Court has taken a particularly malevolent interest in destroying the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Last month’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais gutted Section 2 of the landmark legislation, which was amended in 1982 to permit the Justice Department and private citizens to challenge election laws that have the effect of diluting minority voting power.

The Roberts Court has taken a particularly malevolent interest in destroying the Voting Rights Act.

The court’s 6-3 majority opinion by Samuel Alito invalidated Louisiana’s 2024 congressional map that created a second majority-Black congressional district to operate alongside the state’s five white-majority districts, roughly reflecting the size of Louisiana’s Black population. The ruling handed a victory to the lead plaintiff in the case, Phillip “Bert” Callais, an election denier and alleged conspiracy theorist who had attended the Jan. 6, 2021, “Stop the Steal” rally on the White House Ellipse that eventually snowballed into the insurrection at the Capitol. Barely concealing their racial animus, Callais and his co-plaintiffs described themselves in court filings as “non-African American voters” who were the victims of reverse discrimination. Louisiana has since moved to redraw its voting maps.

With the demise of the “effects test,” future Section 2 plaintiffs will have to meet the nearly impossible burden of proving that redistricting maps were created with overt discriminatory intent rather than for political purposes. And as the court held in a 2019 opinion written by Roberts in Rucho v. Common Cause, political gerrymandering claims cannot be brought in federal courts because, as the Republican majority sees it, they present nonjusticiable “political questions.”

Both Callais and Rucho built upon Roberts’ 2013 majority opinion in Shelby County v. Alabama gutting two other sections of the VRA that required state and local jurisdictions with histories of egregious voter discrimination to obtain advance federal approval — known as preclearance — before making changes to their election procedures. Like Alito in Callais, Roberts declared in Shelby that racial discrimination in voting was a thing of the past and thus special protections for minorities were no longer necessary.

The combined effects of Shelby and Rucho have led to a proliferation of voting roll purges, onerous photo ID laws and limitations on mail-in ballots in red states across the country. Now, with Callais, election law experts predict that as many as 19 Democratic congressional seats in Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana could be eliminated, returning the former states of the Confederacy to one-party rule.

The court’s handiwork has sparked outrage and alarm. Rep. Bennie Thompson, the only Democrat in Mississippi’s congressional delegation, who will likely lose his seat to gerrymandering, has condemned Callais as “equivalent to a second Civil War.” Other observers have compared the current moment in the U.S. to the 1850s, when debates over the future of slavery eventually led to secession and war.

Chief Justice Roberts has also drawncomparisons to Chief Justice Roger Taney, whose 1857 majority opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford held that Black Americans had “no rights that the white man was bound to respect.” The Dred Scott decision helped precipitate the Civil War, and is widely considered the most infamous in the court’s history.

Neutering the Voting Rights Act represents the culmination of Roberts’ lifelong calling.

The parallels between Taney and Roberts are beyond hyperbole. Both men began their legal careers as zealous partisan political advocates. Before ascending to the Supreme Court in 1836, Taney was elected to the General Assembly of Maryland, and later served as a loyal foot soldier to President Andrew Jackson, first as secretary of war and then as attorney general, in which capacity he penned an advisory opinion that prefigured his Dred Scott ruling, arguing that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were inapplicable to Black people, even those living in free states.

Similarly, the young Roberts established himself as a dependable right-wing operative, clerking for Chief Justice William Rehnquist and afterward serving as special assistant to Attorney General William French Smith in the Reagan administration. There, he authored upward of 25 memos opposing the 1982 amendment that added the effects test to the Voting Rights Act in addition to ghosting op-eds for Smith and preparing administration officials for their testimony before Congress on the test. Later, as an attorney in private practice, he played an important role as a consultant, lawsuit editor and prep coach for the GOP’s legal arguments in the run-up to Bush v. Gore, the case that decided the 2000 presidential election.

Neutering the Voting Rights Act represents the culmination of Roberts’ lifelong calling and warrants his ranking alongside Taney as the most disgraceful chief justice in history. As the civil rights activist and writer William Spivey argued in an essay published earlier this month in the online journal Level:

Taney held that no Black person, free or enslaved, could ever be a U.S. citizen. He believed that Black people were not part of the political community and the Constitution was written for white men only.
Chief Justice Roberts has been more effective than anyone in disenfranchising Black people. Most of what Taney accomplished can be traced to a single decision that remained in place for 11 years before being reversed [by the 13th and 14th Amendments]. Roberts has spent an entire career whittling away at the Voting Rights Act of 1965, affirmative action and, most recently, the diversity, equity and inclusion movement.

Roberts will also be remembered for composing the majority opinion in Trump v. United States in 2024 that gave the president near-complete immunity from criminal prosecution for his official acts. That decision, along with the evisceration of voting rights, has emboldened Trump to threaten the deployment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the military to polling places and hatch other plots to rig the midterm elections and consolidate Republican power.

It may be premature to conclude a new Civil War is upon us, but a high-stakes battle for the future of the country is well underway.

Life finally man-handled President Donald Trump like it typically abuses Democratic presidents: with pushback and disappointment. But don’t expect to see this brand of ego acknowledge it, says Washington Post writer Luke Broadwater.

“By pretty much any estimation, President Trump has had a very bad week,” said Broadwater. “New poll numbers show his approval rating has hit a second-term low. He is weighing whether to restart a bombing campaign in an unpopular war against Iran. Gas prices are high and inching higher heading into Memorial Day weekend. And his grip over Republican lawmakers is beginning to slip after he proposed a pair of deeply unpopular spending items, prompting an unusual revolt from the Senate.”

Normally when confronted with so intense a backlash ahead of precarious midterm elections, politicians pivot — maybe even display some humility — while redirecting their priorities to more popular policies.

“But Mr. Trump has decided to double down, presenting himself as politically all-powerful even in the face of indications that he is not,” said Broadwater.

Trump has proven invincible after winning re-election despite being under multiple criminal indictments. He has managed to twist the nonpolitical DOJ into his personal team of lawyers to prosecute his enemies and he has successfully targeted members of his own party for daring to oppose his policies, acknowledge his Jan. attempted coup or push for the release of the Epstein files — which for some reason Trump really wants to keep under wraps.

And Trump has doubled down on his despised $1.8 billion slush fund to reward, said Broadwater, moaning that he could have simply used the taxpayer money to enrich himself. And he has sent his former personal lawyer and now acting attorney general Todd Blanche to ply Congressional Republicans to approve the fund. But what Blanche got was a verbal trouncing for daring to broach the topic.

“The meeting went so poorly for Mr. Blanche that party leaders scrapped planned votes on another of Mr. Trump’s top priorities: a $72 billion immigration crackdown measure lawmakers had planned to muscle through before Memorial Day,” said Broadwater.

“There’s a boiling point here,” said George Washington University political science professor Sarah Binder, driven primarily by Trump’s habit of doubles down instead of showing any sign of self-awareness or awareness in temperature changes around him. His dogged pursuit of other taxpayer-draining projects like his ballroom and the Trump Arch, while Americans struggle with his self-caused inflation and high gas prices, are other examples.

And Binder says it does not appear to matter to him that he is jeopardizing the very Republican enablers that make his invincibility possible.

“He’s focused on the arch. I think he’s focused on his own personal legacy. He’s focused on vengeance,” said Binder. “He doesn’t have a legislative agenda, so does he really need a Republican Senate?”

Las Vegas has always had a reputation for doing things bigger, louder and glitzier than everyone else. On Sunday, May 24 2026 it continues that tradition when the inaugural Enhanced Games take place at a purpose-built entertainment centre at Resorts World, a giant hotel complex on the city’s famous strip.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche took an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, including domestic. He also took an oath to faithfully discharge the duties of office without mental reservation or purpose of evasion, meaning without trying to find loopholes to serve a different master.

Because Blanche served as Trump’s personal criminal lawyer prior to assuming the AG role, he explicitly swore during his Senate confirmation hearing that he would recuse himself from any case relating to Trump personally, if advised to do so by government ethics lawyers. Blanche was, in fact, advised to recuse by government ethics lawyers, who presented Blanche a PowerPoint presentation on DOJ ethics that explicitly detailed his recusal requirement.

Blanche did not recuse. Instead he fired the lawyer who so advised him, and continued representing the DOJ in Trump’s personal lawsuit seeking a preposterous $10 billion from the IRS. Trump filed the suit in his personal capacity, after a contracted IRS employee embarrassed him by revealing that Trump paid only $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017, and paid zero in federal income taxes for ten years before that.

Instead of following legal advice to recuse from the case, Blanche shot the messenger, “settled” a non-existent case, and orchestrated a $1.8 billion heist.

Blanche helped his client steal from taxpayers

Blanche, who is legally required to represent the public interest on behalf of the federal government, engineered Trump’s $1.8 billion theft of the U.S. treasury before a judge could stop it.

Trump filed his IRS complaint in January 2026. By April, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams had expressed obvious doubts about the merits of the case because Trump was both plaintiff and defendant. If a party sits on both sides of lawsuit, there’s no real case in controversy as required under Article III of the Constitution, and the court lacks jurisdiction to even hear the case. Seeing the obvious flaw, Judge Williams ordered both parties to file legal briefs addressing “whether a case and controversy” even existed by May 20.

Instead of submitting legally vacuous arguments, Blanche sought formal dismissal of the complaint, which was granted. Blanche then announced the “anti-weaponization fund” to “settle” a case that had already been dismissed on his request. It is important to understand that after a case is formally dismissed, there’s nothing left to settle. The court did not approve the ‘settlement,’ having never acceded to jurisdiction over the claim in the first place.

The $1.776 billion “resolution” was not authorized by any statute either. Blanche claims that 31 U.S.C. § 1304 authorizes it, but the Judgment Fund is statutorily limited to paying legal settlements and judgments against the United States, which this was not, because there was no case in controversy, no jurisdiction, the complaint was dismissed with prejudice, there was no judgment, and no “settlement” was approved by any court. The $1.8 billion fund is simply untethered from the law or case, Blanche’s own legal invention to hold open the treasury cookie jar while Trump dug deep.

Blanche mocks ABA ethics rules

The deal Blanche approved in Trump’s IRS lawsuit also granted Trump Audit Immunity through a highly controversial addendum that forever seals and ends any IRS investigation or audit into Trump, his family members, and his businesses. Blanche signed the addendum on behalf of the citizens whose interests he is supposed to represent.

Blanche is licensed to practice law in New York. All practicing lawyers, including those employed by the government, are bound by ethics rules, standards, and commitments. Under the American Bar Association’s model Rules, a lawyer cannot assist a client in breaking the law, nor can they advise a client how to commit a crime or fraud with impunity. They can explain legal consequences, including the scope and application of laws, but they cannot help their client get around them.

In pursuing money on behalf of a former client at the expense of a current client, Blanche is not only violating long-standing conflict of interest rules, he is also concocting another violation of the 14th Amendment. Blanche is obviously planning illegal payments to white supremacists and J6 insurrectionists who attacked the US capital. When asked to deny that plan, Blanche refused, repeatedly.

The 14th Amendment could not be any clearer that the US shall not “assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States…” but Blanche appears to be helping Trump get around it. The only reason to openly violate the 14th Amendment by paying J6 insurrectionists up to $1 million each is to reward them and publicly inspire others to do it again at Trump’s behest. Blanche not only helped Trump break the law with this IRS heist, but also seems to be paving the way for Trump’s future criminality.

Every accusation from Trump is a confession

In creating a $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” to compensate people Trump claims were ‘victims’ of Biden’s DOJ, Trump is again accusing political rivals of criminal offenses he, himself, is committing. But Biden’s DOJ, unlike Trump’s, only prosecuted people who broke federal law.

Trump’s DOJ also attacks Trump’s accusers, and those who pursued prosecutions against him, in order to convince voters that Trump didn’t commit the crimes for which he was convicted. It is an ongoing effort to undermine American’s faith in the rule of law, to further enable Trump’s erosion of it.

Trump, with Blanche’s help, flexes corruption on steroids. Blanche must know how many lawyers assisting Trump’s illegal efforts have already faced disciplinary and disbarment proceedings, including Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Kenneth Chesebro, Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell.

Blanche surely realizes that ultimately, he will likely join that list.

Sabrina Haake is an opinion columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.

President Donald Trump’s committed bloc of grievance voters has largely made him immune to his stumbles, snafus, overt displays of hate and his seemingly bottomless racism. But there is a limit to what even the most cultlike public is willing to tolerate, and Trump has staggered past it.

Mike Murphy has served as a political strategist for the likes of John McCain, Mitt Romney, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Jeb Bush — so he knows when a politician has hit a certain point where everything sticks, and Trump is in it neck deep.

There's kind of a Velcro effect when you start getting down to the 40 percent — let alone 30s—in approval,” said Murphy. “Then everything's your fault because people are already sold on the belief that you're just a screw up.”

"[When] two thirds of the country thinks you're not good at your job. Then, hey, you know, we had five days of thunderstorms — that damn Trump. You know, it just becomes easier for all the bad s—— to stick to you,” Murphy told Bulwark podcaster Tim Miller. “And that's where [Trump] is now.”

Trump’s polling is at historic lows, blowing beneath floors once smashed by unpopular presidents like former president Jimmy Carter, surpassing even presidents who served at the onset of the Great Depression.

When you’ve got numbers like this, Murphy said even cult voters take inventory of their gas and grocery prices. And suddenly irritating issues like unpopular ballrooms and deeply reviled Iran wars become infuriating — and they stay that way. Additionally, other certain overlooked flaws, like Trump’s age, suddenly become more of a factor.

“[There’s] all this talk about Trump's birthday. You know he's gonna turn 80. But he's already 80,” said Murphy. “The birthday is the last day of that year, like you're a one-year-old means you've been one for a year, so he's been 80 for a year and we're going into 81 now. And the crazy old man stuff is really out there and becoming a thing.”

Now that Teflon Trump has edged into “Velcro” Trump, Murphy said Democrats will have a much easier time blasting him with messages that stick just as easily.

“They can do stuff like that and it is gonna resonate as long as they keep some kind of offensive message,” Murphy told Miller.

Is there a greater pleasure than watching a thundering narcissist stride proudly into his own pit? Texas conservative Nick Catoggio says he can’t wait to find out.

“Specifically, I’m intrigued to see what happens to an unpopular president’s support when he starts an unpopular war that no one saw coming while struggling to resolve another unpopular war he started that no one saw coming,” Catoggio told the Dispatch.

Having grown bored with the stalemate in Iran, Catoggio said a “frustrated” Donald Trump allegedly complained to advisers that the plan to squeeze Cuba into submission is going too slow, so he’s decided to speed things up by going “Venezuela” on them. This means indicting the nation’s leader on federal criminal charges as a pretext to kidnapping, positioning U.S. warships near it to intimidate leaders, and then asking Americans “to believe that a banana republic that can’t feed its people is a threat to the United States.”

But Americans hate the idea of invading Cuba, with disapproval registering at a lopsided 64-to-15 in favor. And Americans are still disapproving of Trump’s Iran War at 60 percent – which happens to be the same disapproval for Trump’s handling of the economy.

“That’s why I’m excited,” said Catoggio. “The Cuba takeover will amount to a novel political experiment to gauge how voters react to a democratic leader all but formally notifying them that their opinion no longer matters to him. Although, now that I think about it, I suppose he’s already given that notice.”

Trump, he said, appears to have learned nothing from his brush with the tragi-comedy of his “Liberation Day debacle.”

And while he’s making enemies among American voters, Catoggio said Trump turned Bill Cassidy into a lame duck who no longer owes him anything, then promptly did the same to John Cornyn. (Assuming Cornyn loses next week’s primary runoff in Texas, that is, which is likely.)”

“And then, with Senate Republicans already seething, he dropped two flaming bags of dog s—— on their porch, launching a new taxpayer-funded slush fund for his criminal cronies and demanding that lawmakers give him $1 billion for a ballroom while voters are screaming about the cost of living,” said Catoggio.

Why does Trump do it? Catoggio says he has the answer.

“I don’t think there’s any mystery to it. Almost the opposite: When, throughout history, have megalomaniacs trusted with immense power not eagerly bitten off more than they can chew?” he said. “… When you regard yourself as the most powerful person to ever live, when you imagine the only obstacle to getting your way is your own restraint in insisting upon it, the idea of being ‘overextended’ must be unfathomable. You won’t learn your lesson about it because you literally can’t.”

Former National Review writer Kevin D. Williamson says there just aren’t enough corruption counters to count all the corruption leeching out of the Trump White House these days.

“To recap: Donald Trump has sued the Donald Trump administration over alleged wrongdoing by the Donald Trump administration, and an out-of-court settlement between Donald Trump and the Donald Trump administration will have Donald Trump’s DOJ ponying up the better part of $2 billion to be put into a fund controlled by Donald Trump and used for the benefit of — let’s check in here with dead-eyed White House trash panda J.D. Vance — “people who voted for Donald Trump and participated in the January 6th protests,” Williamson writes in the Dispatch.

“We are going to need a whole brigade of additional tally-men to tally the bananas in this bananas republic,” added Williamson, a writer-in-residence at the conservative Enterprise Institute.

The situation amounts to “one group of Trump sycophants negotiating with another group of Trump sycophants for the benefit of Trump sycophants and Trump himself,” said Williamson. Trump did not demand outright immunity from taxes — he only demanded immunity from being investigated or prosecuted for not paying his taxes, or for tax fraud, or for other tax-related mischief.

“Immunity for himself, for his business associates, for Uday and Qusay and the rest of his ghastly cretinous spawn,” explained Williamson.

And Williamson invested extra disgust for Vice President JD Vance, who he describes as “the coprophagic charlatan who once compared Trump to Adolf Hitler before becoming the full-time monkey-butler serving the totally-nothing-like-Hitler administration.”

Vance, said Williamson, “thinks the January 6 rioters — the dimwitted brownshirts in Trump’s failed 2021 coup d’état — just need a little more love and understanding, saying, in defense of the slush fund gambit," claiming “You know who never, ever gets an ounce of sympathy when it comes to that disproportionate sentencing is people who voted for Donald Trump and participated in the January 6th protests.”

Worse, said Williamson is who’s already “lining up with their hands out,” which includes “Proud Boys gruppenführer Enrique Tarrio. Registered sex offender Andrew Taake, who got a six-year sentence for assaulting police officers on January 6, was pardoned by Trump with a bonus get-out-of-jail-free card on a separate child-sex charge."

It’s “the biggest parade of schmucks, chiselers, lunatics, conspiracy kooks, and criminals since Trump’s last Cabinet meeting,” said Williamson — and don’t expect this outrage to break the MAGA spell, he adds.

“Trump’s slavering loyalists already have forgiven him for trying to overthrow the government — you think they’re going to get big mad over his stealing a little money?” asked Williamson.“… Trump was right about his being able to shoot someone on Fifth Avenue without losing any political support—and his implied contempt for his voters is entirely justified.”

A disenchanted Ex-GOP party-switcher clearly had no patience for President Donald Trump’s opportunistic jab after losing his Democratic bid for governor.

Former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan lost behind former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, and the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports Trump could not wait to take to social media and kick Duncan when he was down.

“It was a great time and success in Georgia on Tuesday night where Geoff Duncan, a failed Lieutenant Governor, and Disgrace to the Republican Party, ran for Governor, as a Democrat, and lost BIG — A solid 50 points! He wasn’t even close, and is now, I assume, officially out of Politics,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “He has now failed in two Parties. This guy was a LOSER from the first day I met him and now, we can call that official! President DONALD J. TRUMP

But in his social media slap-back, Duncan was unrepentant in his decision to reject the Republican Party and the man it nowe serves.

“Oddly enough Trump, losing by 50 percent still feels better than supporting you,” Duncan wrote defiantly. “Doing the right thing will never be the wrong thing.”

Duncan was one of few Republicans who refused to play along with Trump’s 2021 fake elector scheme and his demand to set aside the results of the 2020 election in Georgia and call a special session of the Georgia legislature to declare Trump the winner.

As Lt. Governor, Duncan appeared on CNN in the weeks following the election to order Trump to accept the election results and to focus on Georgia’s two US Senate contests, rather than “damage the brand,” according to AJC.

Trump instead added Duncan to his enemies list — as he has most Republicans who dared to think for themselves and call out his undemocratic scheme. Afterward, Duncan told reporters that Trump’s MAGA army of hooligans threatened the health of himself and his family.

“Our family received death threats virtually every time Donald Trump went to Twitter and lied about me,” Duncan confessed later in congressional testimony. “We were harassed by MAGA disciples almost everywhere we went out in public. Our kids got picked on in school. The list goes on and on and on, all because I was telling the truth.”

Duncan's defiant response underscores a broader pattern: Republicans who break ranks with Trump face relentless attacks and personal consequences. His willingness to lose a gubernatorial race rather than compromise his principles stands in stark contrast to GOP lawmakers who remain silent despite their private misgivings.

Duncan's journey from Republican lieutenant governor to Democratic candidate reflects the party's transformation under Trump—a shift that has cost him politically but, by his own assessment, preserved his integrity. His story serves as a cautionary tale for other Republicans considering whether loyalty to Trump is worth the personal toll.

President Donald Trump’s presence is becoming more and more of a liability in the state of Wisconsin, despite state voters choosing to send Trump to the White House in the last election. The president’s plummeting polls may have something to do with a Republican group having to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in television ads in Milwaukee and Green Bay to salvage the campaign of Republican state attorney general candidate Eric Toney.

“The Republican Attorney General Association will purchase $500,000 in ads in the coming months, targeting Attorney General Josh Kaul and what the organization says has been a weak-on-crime approach to his office over his last two terms,” reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Wisconsin is one of four states with Democratic attorneys general where Trump won the 2024 vote, and the Sentinel reports RAGA and other GOP groups have chosen Wisconsin as one of five states for $11 million in ad buys — including Georgia, Kansas, Michigan and Minnesota — because of their status as battleground states.

But Republicans are finding Wisconsin’s “battleground” status more and more slippery, primarily because of the president’s sinking popularity and tanking poll numbers. After dominating state courts and election, Republican candidates are up against the headwinds left in Trump’s massive wake. In many Wisconsin races, Republicans have gone from domination to not even playing the game, with one GOP strategist warning the party has simply “given up.”

This is a massive turn from 2017, when Democrats did not bother to field a candidate for that year's Wisconsin Supreme Court race after a string of harsh losses, including one that cemented a healthy conservative majority on the state's highest court. Now, Republicans acknowledge that Trump has angered enough voters to incite a massive backlash at the polls.

This week, the Democratic Attorney General Association remained confident that the Democratic AG incumbent would survive the monetary onslaught.

“RAGA can try all they want, but they know voters are fed up with the corruption and extremism that Republican AGs and candidates have been defending. The wind is at our back," said Lottie Ash, the DAGA political director in an emailed statement. "With this election serving as a referendum on Trump, RAGA can’t distract from Democratic AGs being relentless fighters for their constituents, standing up against this [Trump] administration and bad actors. We’ll hold Republican AGs and candidates accountable in states across the country.”

The reversal in Wisconsin's political landscape reflects a broader national pattern: Trump's toxicity is spreading to down-ballot races.

In 2024, Republicans benefited from Trump's coattails, but 18 months into his second term, that dynamic has completely inverted. Trump's unpopularity—driven by his unpopular Iran war, skyrocketing inflation, and constant corruption scandals—is now dragging GOP candidates underwater. Wisconsin, which Trump won by a narrow margin, has become a microcosm of Republican vulnerability.

President Donald Trump appeared to thrill his supporters in New York on Friday as he shared how he came up with his latest nickname for Democrats — his explanation included a spelling lesson.

“Blue means Dumocrat,” the president said, remixing a gag he shared with Fox entertainer Sean Hannity days ago. “That’s a new name I came up with.”

“I was, I was thinking about this character we have in the House. His name is Hakeem Jeffries,” Trump said to boos from the audience.

“And he’s a low IQ person, very low IQ.”

“And I watched what he was saying, and what the horrible things he was saying, and I said, ‘He’s a dumb guy.’ I said, Wait a minute, he’s a Dumocrat. That’s how I got the name,” Trump excitedly said.

You take the ‘e’ out, you don’t use the ‘b’. A lot of people don’t know ‘dumb’ has a ‘b’ in it, actually. You don’t need it. You discard the ‘b.’

“But you take the ‘e’ out, and you replace it with a ‘u.’” Trump repeated, in an effort to make the joke really connect.

“They are Dumocrats. You know why? ‘Cause their policies are dumb. Their policies are very dumb. All of their policies.”

Critics liberally mocked the president on social media.

“His uncle taught at MIT, but Trump just recently learned there is a b in dumb,” wrote political strategist Jeff Timmer.

“Dumbo [Donald Trump] here is the only one who doesn’t know there’s a b in DUMB,” said former GOP Congresswoman Barbara Comstock.

“It’s impossible to overstate how f— — stupid Trump looks on the world stage,” wrote another online commenter.

- YouTube youtu.be

There’s stupid … and then there’s special stupid — and President Donald Trump’s spite is framing him up to be the latter, said former Bulwark editor-in-chief Charlie Sykes.

For example, with Trump’s razor-thin majority in the Senate and Democrats threatening to take both the Senate and House in November, you’d think Trump would do everything he could to keep his barely-majority gang happy and on his side. But that’s not what he did, said Sykes.

“This week, Trump crossed an invisible line, and for the first time in the Trump Restoration, GOP senators and reps seem genuinely p—— at the president; and willing to break with him on issues that Trump cares about deeply,” said Sykes. “Liberated by his defeat, Bill Cassidy cast the decisive vote on the War Powers resolution on Iran, announced he would vote against Trump’s billion-dollar ballroom, called Paxton a ‘felon,’ and said that he might actually start holding RFK Jr. accountable.”

In fact, the GOP Senate — as a whole — officially killed the ballroom funding. House Republicans also cancelled a vote on Trump’s Iran war and also scrapped a big reconciliation bill that Trump was looking forward to. Sykes pointed out that Republicans even descended on Acting AG Todd Blanche (Trump’s former personal defense attorney) and bushwhacked him, with roughly 25 GOP senators openly opposing Trump’s weaponization fund.

“You know you’ve reached a new level of clusterfuqqery when you lose Tommy Tuberville and Ron Johnson,” said Sykes, adding that the sudden backbone could evaporate — or it could become something much worse for the president.

“It is also possible that it could do lasting damage,” said Sykes. “The GOP has a 53-47 majority, but the number of ‘unchained,’ or free-range Republicans keeps rising. As right-wing talker, Erick Erickson, wrote: ‘Between Cassidy and Cornyn, the President’s agenda is going to be DOA in the Senate now. Add in Tillis, McConnell, etc., and why would they bother a heavy lift for Trump?’”

Sykes notes that journalist Issac Saul recently said that Trump “basically just nuked his Senate majority for the next months.” And up to 10 venomous and bitter GOP senators now qualify as “reasonably qualified to be ‘Trump-skeptical.’”

It would be a shame, said Sykes, if Trump found his agenda deep-sixed by his own team until Dems storm the Senate and House and bury it for good in November, as polls suggest they will.