TUESDAY: The sitting president continues to fail!

TUESDAY, MAY 12, 2026

As does everyone else: As if the rest isn't bad enough, consider us the people. This report by the Washington Post tells a remarkable tale:   

Many Americans think Trump assassination attempts were fake, survey finds

About 1 in 4 Americans think the April shooting at the White House correspondents’ dinner was staged, with a marked partisan divide, according to a survey published Monday.

Roughly 1 in 3 Democratic respondents said they believed the event was staged, compared with about 1 in 8 Republicans, according to a survey published Monday by NewsGuard, a company that rates the reliability of online news outlets. Respondents between the ages of 18 and 29 were also more likely than older people to think the incident was staged, according to the report.

[...]

The NewsGuard survey found that 24 percent of U.S. adults believe the incident at the Washington Hilton was fake, compared with 45 percent who believed it was legitimate. An additional 32 percent said they were unsure. The survey of 1,000 American adults was conducted by YouGov from April 28 to May 4.

The survey was conducted by YouGov, a serious polling outfit! And good God:

"Roughly 1 in 3 Democratic respondents said they believed the event was staged."

Please bring on the grand inquisitor to save us Americans from ourselves! Simply put, it isn't clear that we the people were built for this line of work.   

Then too, you have to consider the failing state of the sitting president. Here's one of the headlines he's generated at Mediaite in the past few days:

Trump Posts Image of Obama, Biden, Pelosi Bathing in Feces in New Truth Social Meme Spree

President Donald Trump posted a Photoshopped image of former presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden bathing in sewage with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) during a Truth Social post spree on Tuesday.

In the post, captioned “Dumacrats Love Sewage,” Obama, Biden, and Pelosi could be seen bathing up to their necks in a version of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool that was filled with human waste. 

And so on from there, astonishing photo included. You can also click on such cries for help as these:

Trump Drowns Feed With MAGA Praise in Late-Night Truth Social Dump Celebrating Himself
(For report by Mediaite, click here)

Trump Says the White House ‘Was a Sh*t House’ With Columns ‘Falling Down’ When He Moved Back In
(For report by Mediaite, click here)

Trump ‘Seriously Considering Making Venezuela the 51st State,’ Fox News Reports
(For report by Mediaite, click here)

And on and on, with little respite, from there. 

Cognitive decline is always a human tragedy. So is serious mental illness, especially where such medical issues may have preceded a later decline.  In this instance, for obvious reasons, those conditions are also dangerous.

That said, we the people simply aren't built for this demanding line of work. Meanwhile, the sitting president clearly seems to be hanging on by a thread.    

Also, the mainstream press corps is still determined to avert their gaze from what's sitting right there before them. Along the way, those of us in Blue America are telling the world things like this:

If somebody fell asleep in 1896 and woke up today in 2026, they would simply say the only difference is now Negroes have a T.V. show and we wear nice suits.

We're giving you the anthropology. Anthropology can be cruel, and it hurts!

ALL AGAINST ALL: Bakari Sellers is a high achiever!

TUESDAY, MAY 12, 2026

But also, here's something he said: Last evening, Abby Phillip imagined a world where "the war of the all against all" had completed its race to the bottom.  

Phillip may be the most dignified person in all of cable news. Ironically, she hosts CNN Newsnight with Andy Phillip, which may be the least signified of all our "cable news" programs, until you cross the border and enter the disordered realm of an outright departure like Gutfeld!  

Phillip is thoroughly bright. Last night, she briefly followed a dystopian path out of the recent Supreme Court ruling concerning the Voting Rights Act:  

PHILLIP (5/11/26): One of the interesting things about Tennessee that we should also keep in mind is—that [Memphis] district that they did away with existed prior to the Voting Rights Act. So Memphis, as a city, has been a district even before they were trying to rectify racial discrimination with the Voting Rights Act.

So you know, we're going to start to see—maybe Virginia might try again and create that. Maybe they might try to create an 11-0 map because now, according to the Supreme Court, you can. We might live in a country where, all around the country, we have states where the minority political party has effectively zero representation in Congress.  

For the CNN transcript, click this.

Yikes! At the end of that presentation, Phillip had pictured a dystopian future—a FutureWorld run like this:

Under current arrangements, "political gerrymandering" is legal; "racial gerrymandering" is not. Could the day come, Phillip now asked, when various states—possibly even all fifty—have gerrymandered their maps in such a way that the dominant party in that state was winning every House seat? 

Under current arrangements, could a day come, Phillip asked, where Democrats win all eleven House seats in Virginia—not just the ten seats the state's Democrats continue to seek through their proposed new congressional map?  Could a day come where every state was gerrymandered to that extent? 

Could some such day ever arrive, in all fifty states? Almost surely not! But Tennessee is seeking to eliminate its lone Democratic House district—the district which currently includes "most of Memphis and its inner suburbs," though not the wealthier eastern parts of the city.

Assuming that proposal succeeds, Tennessee will have nine Republican-friendly districts and none that favors Democrats! (For better or worse, Massachusetts is already configured that way, whether through gerrymandering or not.)

Under current rules of the game, there's nothing which says that some such arrangement is illegal or unconstitutional. Unless the Congress acts to regulate gerrymandering, partisan gerrymandering is legal and constitutional, no matter how squiggly are the district lines which create a map of that type.  

Phillip was picturing a world which included a lot more partisan gerrymandering by the various states. As our nation's "war of the all against all" proceeds, Tennessee may soon have a one-party House delegation, with other states hoping to follow. 

For the record, Phillip is a Harvard grad; she's also plenty smart. Below, you get a tiny glimpse of the route this highly dignified person took on the way to her current post:   

Abby Phillip 

Abigail Daniella Phillip (born November 1988) is an American CNN news anchor who anchors CNN NewsNight and CNN Saturday Morning Table for Five. She previously worked for Politico covering the Obama White House, The Washington Post as a national political reporter, and ABC News as a digital reporter for politics.  

Of Afro-Trinidadian descent, Abby Phillip was born in Alexandria, Virginia, to June Phillip, now a realtor, and Carlos Phillip, a teacher and later an educational psychologist. She has five siblings. When she was a child, the family briefly moved back to Trinidad and Tobago and returned to the U.S. when she was nine years old. The family moved to Germantown, Maryland, before settling in Bowie, Maryland.

Phillip attended Bowie High School. In 2010, she graduated from Harvard College with a Bachelor of Arts in government, after originally intending to study pre-med. At Harvard, Phillip wrote for The Harvard Crimson. 

And so on from there, leading to last night's program, where a bit of street-fighting broke out.

Last night, Phillips pictured a dystopian future, and the dystopian present her producers have wrought briefly crashed down on her head. What happened last night after Phillip spoke? 

Eventually, her program briefly took part in the all against all, with Mediaite eager to tattle:   

‘Don’t Be a D*ck’: Bakari Sellers Scolds ‘Utterly Disrespectful’ Kevin O’Leary in Tense Exchange 

CNN NewsNight panelist Bakari Sellers scolded “utterly disrespectful” Kevin O’Leary in a tense exchange on Monday night.

The heated conversation unfurled as the panelists discussed red states’ recent pushes to redraw their congressional maps, after the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the path for Alabama to eliminate one of two largely Black congressional districts.

O’Leary told his fellow panelists to “get over” the Supreme Court’s decision and map redraws.   

[...]

Sellers, who is no stranger to tense exchanges with O’Leary, criticized him for his comments.    

Briefly, things went downhill from there as Sellers dropped a D-bomb on O'Leary. To appearances, that almost seems like the way this cable news program has been designed to work. 

Under that theory, O'Leary had been booked on the program because he does behave like a "d*ck!" Producers know that O'Leary—co-host of CNBC's Shark Tank—can routinely be counted on to perform that role. 

How did a signified person like Phillip ever get tangled up in a shoutfest program like this? We can't answer that question—but CNN NewsNight routinely functions as a version of the old Crossfire program on a potent diet of steroids. 

It's a program whose panelists are selected with the knowledge that they will end up getting into high-decibel, name-calling fights. 

Under this theory, O'Leary was booked because he is inclined to be "utterly disrespectful" of those with whom he disagrees. With apologies, a person could imagine that Sellers was booked, not so much because he would end up calling O'Leary names, but perhaps because he would open the discussion of the recent Supreme Court decision by making a statement like this:

SELLERS: I want to take a step back and look at this from a 50,000-foot view. 

To be completely honest, I think Ashley [Etienne] and I have to wrestle with the fact that we are going to be the first generation [of black Americans] to actually leave this country worse than the one that we inherited. And I think, for black millennials, the progress that our parents and grandparents gave us, that we're watching being ripped away from us, is something that our generation's going to have to really wrestle with in figuring out how we get out of this conundrum.

If somebody fell asleep in 1896 and woke up today in 2026, they would simply say the only difference is now Negroes have a T.V. show and we wear nice suits. They've—they swapped out Klan hoods for Brooks Brothers suits. And that is the problem. 

I mean, Plessy v. Ferguson was 7-1, and it gave birth to 50 years of Jim Crow. What we have with this Court right now, what we're seeing is watching people who have fought and died and bled so that we would have access to the ballot box, so that we would have access to our voices being heard in Congress, being ripped away. 

Sellers is obviously very smart. In our book, he's an impressive high achiever. The leading authority speaks:

Bakari Sellers

Bakari T. Sellers is an American attorney, political commentator, and politician.

Sellers served in the South Carolina House of Representatives for the 90th District from 2006 to 2014, and was the 2014 Democratic nominee for Lieutenant Governor in South Carolina. Since 2015, Sellers has served as a political commentator on CNN.

Sellers was born on September 18, 1984, and is the son of Gwendolyn Sellers and civil rights activist and professor Cleveland Sellers. He grew up in Bamberg County, South Carolina, and was educated at Orangeburg-Wilkinson High School, a public high school in Orangeburg. 

In 2005, Sellers earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in African-American Studies from Morehouse College, a private all-male and historically black, liberal arts college, in Atlanta. In 2008, he earned a Juris Doctor from the University of South Carolina School of Law. Sellers has worked for Congressman James Clyburn and former Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin.

[...]

Sellers represented South Carolina's 90th district in the lower house of the state legislature from 2006 to 2014, becoming the youngest African American person elected official in the country at age 22.

In our book, Sellers is a high achiever. Last night, he also said this:

If somebody fell asleep in 1896 and woke up today in 2026, they would simply say the only difference is now Negroes have a T.V. show and we wear nice suits. 

Meanwhile, who are the people who have "swapped out Klan hoods for Brooks Brothers suits," thereby creating "the problem?"  Presumably, that would be southern Republican politicians, but also the Supreme Court majority, or so it might possibly seem. 

That said, might we add a further thought? Is it possible that Sellers' statement about the sweep of American history might represent one of the ways we Blues help create "the problem?"

The Supreme Court's recent decision has exacerbated a pre-existing war of the all against all. In our view, O'Leary was briefly disrespectful as Sellers spoke last night. In our view, his endless inanity on programs like Gutfeld! contribute to the current version of the very dangerous "problem we all [currently] live with."

But how about this? As our former nation slides toward the sea, is it possible that Sellers, however well intentioned, may be an unintentional part of the growing problem too?

At this site, we want to get to the heart of the matter involved in the twists and turns of the Voting Rights Act down through the annals of time. We even want to show you the language which was added to Section 2 of the VRA in 1982—the addition to Section 2 which included this specific statement:

Provided, That nothing in this section establishes a right to have members of a protected class elected in numbers equal to their proportion in the population.

Say what? How did we get from that explicit 1982 provision to the explicit "racial gerrymandering" of the 1990s (and beyond), and now back again to the current state of affairs?

Simply put, our American discourse isn't mature enough to cover so complex a topic! But before we attempt to tackle that sprawling topic, we want to ask an overdue, obvious question:

When will we self-impressed denizens of Blue America come to see ourselves in the way others do? 

Also, is it possible that our own behavior has perhaps, in some admittedly tiny way, possibly helped to lead our failing nation to this dangerous killing ground? Do we Blues keep finding ways to fall short as we play this dangerous game?

Tomorrow: The Harvard professor and the Princeton professor speak with the rising star

MONDAY: Nicholas Kristof reports from the world!

MONDAY, MAY 11, 2026

Attention should be paid: Putting it mildly, the New York Times' Nicholas Kristof is in the middle of a very distinctive journalistic career.   

Routinely, he describes the world we actually live in. With apologies for what follows, so it is today.  Headline included, his essay starts as shown:

The Silence That Meets the Rape of Palestinians   

It’s a simple proposition: Whatever our views of the Middle East conflict, we should be able to unite in condemning rape.

Supporters of Israel made that point after the brutal sexual assaults against Israeli women during the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Benjamin Netanyahu and many U.S. senators, including Marco Rubio, condemned that sexual violence, and Netanyahu rightly called on “all civilized leaders” to “speak up.”

And yet in wrenching interviews, Palestinians have recounted to me a pattern of widespread Israeli sexual violence against men, women and even children—by soldiers, settlers, interrogators in the Shin Bet internal security agency and, above all, prison guards.  

There is no evidence that Israeli leaders order rapes. But in recent years they have built a security apparatus where sexual violence has become, as a United Nations report put it last year, one of Israel’s “standard operating procedures” and “a major element in the ill treatment of Palestinians.” A report out last month, from the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, a Geneva-based advocacy group often critical of Israel, concludes that Israel employs “systematic sexual violence” that is “widely practiced as part of an organized state policy.”  

That's the way today's essay starts. The testimony by victims, named and unnamed, begins after that. We suppose we should include some such material as this:

[Continuing directly from above]
What does this standard operating procedure look like? Sami al-Sai, 46, a freelance journalist, says that as he was being taken to a prison cell after his detention in 2024, a group of guards threw him to the ground.

“They were all hitting me, and one stepped on my head and neck,” he said. “Someone pulled my pants down. They pulled down my boxers.” And then one of the guards pulled out a rubber baton used to beat prisoners.

“They were trying to force it into my rectum, and I was bracing myself to prevent it, but I couldn’t,” he said, speaking with increasing anxiety. “It was so painful.” The guards were laughing at him, he said. “Then I heard someone say, ‘Give me the carrots,’” he recalled, adding that they then used a carrot. “It was extremely painful,” he said. “I was praying for death.”  

And so on at length from there. This too is part of the world.

We're reminded of a discussion we had with a person whose memory we treasure when we were both 17. The topic that day was this:  

If a person knows that suffering is happening around the world, doesn't that person have an obligation to go off into the world and try to address it?  

We didn't want the answer to be yes, but it seemed to us that it was.  

That was the spring of 1965. The eucalyptus trees would have been extremely fragrant. This next connection is much more recent:

Why have some young people, perhaps on college campuses, sometimes seemed to be less sympathetic to Israel (at least as Israel currently functions), and more "pro-Palestinian," than their elders may tend to be? 

Several years ago, we suggested a possible answer. It could be that the younger people know certain things about that endlessly tragic situation that their elders may not know.  

(Teach your parents well, the famous song suggested.)

The younger people may know things that their parents don't! That doesn't mean that the younger people will have perfect judgment concerning the things they know because, of course, they won't.

Nicholas Kristof is off in the world! Also, as we all know, reports like his long report today will almost always lead nowhere.

ALL AGAINST ALL: We Blues keep looking for ways to lose...

MONDAY, MAY 11, 2026

...this war of the all against all: Why does a person watch Fox & Friends Weekend? Perhaps for the chance to see presentations like the we'll link to below.   

It was quite a presentation! Here's the way it went down:

Yesterday morning, in the 6 o'clock hour, the friends were discussing the sudden turn of events in the redistricting wars.

For one thing, the state of Virginia's Supreme Court had rejected Virginia's proposed redistricting map—the map which was designed to let Virginia's Dems win ten of eleven House seats.

Also, the United States Supreme Court had ruled that co-called "racial gerrymandering"—the deliberate construction of so-called "majority minority" congressional districts—violates constitutional strictures.

With that pair of judicial decisions, the tide does perhaps seem to have turned against the Democrats in the ongoing, highly unusual, mid-census redistricting war. As our former nation slides toward the sea, it's turning into a "war of the all against all"—something resembling the kind of war Thomas Hobbes once described:

Bellum omnium contra omnes

Bellum omnium contra omnes, a Latin phrase meaning "the war of all against all," is the description that Thomas Hobbes gives to human existence in the state-of-nature thought experiment that he conducts in De Cive (1642) and Leviathan (1651)...   

In Leviathan itself, Hobbes speaks of "war of every one against every one," of "a war of every man against every man" and of "a perpetual war of every man against his neighbor," but the Latin phrase occurs in De Cive.

And so on from there.

In Hobbes, it's every individual for him or herself without the various protections afforded by the state. In fairness, that isn't quite what we're facing today, as the nation's governors change district maps like hockey teams changing lines in the fly.

This isn't quite "the war of the all against all." But if you throw in cable news and the nation's podcasts, it starts to come pretty darn close!

In the current redistricting war, it's a war into which two tribes may descend when one or both has abandoned all adherence to prevailing societal norms—and sure enough:

We're now suck in a deeply consequential partisan war. And, though your mileage may differ from ours, it seems to us that those of us in Blue America keep looking for ways to lose it!

We return you now to the conversation we watched on yesterday's Fox & Friends Weekend:

Yesterday morning, there they sat! Two of the regular weekend friends were present, joined by substitute friend Kevin Corke. 

As you can see by clicking our link, a festive atmosphere prevailed. 

The friends were chuckling about the recent turn of events in the redistricting rampage. We'll start with Rachel Campos-Duffy, who chuckled as she said this:

CAMPOS-DUFFY (5/10/26): It's so crazy. They always go back to this!

First of all, we've been talking about the freakout on the side of the Democrats. We haven't been talking about the elation that's been happening on the Republican side, because this is not—

They weren't sure how this was going to turn out, and it really did come up roses for them.

Briefly, let's be fair:

At this point, it does look like the Republicans may emerge as winners of this race-to-the-bottom redistricting war—of this Red versus Blue tribal war which pits the all against all.

Maybe it won't turn out that way! But maybe it actually will. 

Imaginably, the GOP could retain control of the House in November's midterm elections! But plainly, that's the way it seemed to the friends as their presentation continued:

CAMPOS-DUFFY (continuing directly): Look at this map. It really couldn't have been worse for the Democrats, but they started this war. 

It's just that the Republicans ended up looking like they're going to be winning this one.  And it's going to save them in the midterms, Kevin!

CORKE: I think so, for sure. 

Say what? It was the Democrats who started this highly unusual mid-census redistricting war? That's what Campos-Duffy said, and no one challenged her statement.  

Full disclosure! As our nation continues to split in two, we the people, Red and Blue, tend to hear differing sets of factual claims:

In Blue America, we hear that President Trump started this highly unusual war when he insisted that the state of Texas rework its House map.  

That's what we Blues hear. But over on the Fox News Channel, viewers tend to hear that it really started in New York, or possibly up in the New England states, where no Republican House members currently exist. 

(The New England states have twenty-one House members. At present, all twenty-one are Democrats.)

For better or worse, those are the dueling presentations our two tribes tend to hear. Whatever she may have meant by her statement, you can see what Campos-Duffy now said. 

Moments before, she had played tape of five liberals and Democrats allegedly bemoaning the newly emerging state of play in the redistricting wars. Speaking of the last person shown, this is what Campos-Duffy, interrupted by Corke, had laughingly said:  

CAMPOS-DUFFY [laughing]: They're going back to that one! It's not gonna work!  You started this—

CORKE: I was looking this up, and I can't believe he actually said that! I've got it in my notes. Come on!

CAMPOS-DUFFY (as shown above): It's so crazy. They always go back to this!...   

And so on from there. The friends were chuckling about what had been said—but what were they laughing about? 

They were chuckling about what Elie Mystal had said. On Saturday, he had appeared on the Velshi show on MS NOW. 

It isn't going to work, Campos Duffy said—but what was she laughing about? As you can see on the Fox & Friends Weekend tape, here's (a tiny part of) what Mystal had said:  

MYSTAL (videotape, 5/9/26): It is being framed as a Democrat versus Republican issue, as a battle for the soul of the House of Representatives. It is not. It is an attack by white people against the very concept of black representation. It is Jim Crow 2.0.

CAMPOS-DUFFY [laughing]: They're going back to that one! It's not gonna work!   

So it went as the friends played a brief excerpt from Mystal's extensive remarks. Rightly or wrongly, the friends all thought that Mystal's approach wasn't going to work for Dems.

You can see Mystal's full remarks on the Velshi program simply by clicking this. Regarding his extensive remarks, we would offer this:   

Except at one brief point, Mystal didn't criticize President Trump, or Republican pols, for the new redistricting surge in some southern states. Instead, he seemed to criticize "white people." 

In fact, he seemed to frame the situation that way again and again and again. By clicking, you can see Mystal's full remarks, with Velshi nodding along:

Rightly or wrongly, he said the United States Supreme Court had issued "a white supremacist decision." He said the decision by the Court was "an attack on black people specifically" in search of "a reconstituted apartheid state." 

He compared the Supreme Court's decision to Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), adding this:  

When white people get it in their heads that they are allowed—to use Trump's word, that they are "entitled"—to be this racist, that's the kind of generational-long timeline we're talking about.

Soon, he added this remark about These White People Today:

White people aren't going through a phase right now. They have decided, since 1964, that the project of a multi-racial, multi-ethnic democracy, based on fairness and justice, is not a project they want to be in.

At one point, he did refer to"the few whites of good conscience" which our country apparently contains. He said they've worked in favor of that project, but then he added this:

Unless white people get over themselves, unless they reverse themselves and their ancestors and their voting habits since the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, they will get exactly the racist country that they have long desired.

These White People Today! Mystal went on at substantial length, with Velshi seeming to agree with his striking generalizations. 

Mystal was speaking about the peregrinations of the venerable Voting Rights Act—about its absurdly complex and incoherent political / judicial history. But mostly, it seemed that he was speaking about These White People Today.

Over the weekend, we saw several chunks of peculiar commentary on several MS NOW programs. That said, Mystal's presentation, which on one occasion seemed downright delusional, pretty much took the cake.

On this campus, reaction was instantaneous:

There we go again, one young analyst cried. The youngster then took a guess—a guess with which we're inclined to agree: 

There we go again, she cried. This isn't going to work!

Campos-Duffy most likely had it right! Or so this youngster surmised.

Tomorrow: Pathways to defeat

SATURDAY: You no longer live in a functioning nation!

SATURDAY, MAY 9, 2026

Memphis, split three ways: With a population of roughly 630,000 at the time of the 2020 census, the city of Memphis wasn't large enough to form a congressional district all by itself.

That said, the city sat there, all by itself, in the far southwestern corner of Tennessee, bordered by the state of Arkansas to the west and the state of Mississippi to the south. 

For the record, the city's population was 61% black and 24% white at the time of that census. It was also 10% Hispanic, 2.6% multiracial.

Under the less maniacal rules of the game which prevailed at the time, it made an obvious bit of sense to let the bulk of the city continue as the centerpiece of Tennessee's 9th congressional district. And that's what happened when district maps were redrawn in the wake of the 2020 census. 

We'll let the leading authority on the topic tell the story of that congressional district as it existed at that point in time:

Tennessee's 9th congressional district

Tennessee's 9th congressional district is a congressional district in West Tennessee, covering most of Memphis and its inner suburbs. It has been represented by Democrat Steve Cohen since 2007.

The district was re-created as a result of the redistricting cycle after the 1980 census. The district is almost exclusively urban, due to its mostly cohabitant nature with Memphis.

[...]

It is the only majority minority congressional district in Tennessee. With a Cook Partisan Voting Index rating of D+23, it is the only Democratic district in Tennessee. Since 1875, the area has sent mostly Democrats to Congress with the exception of a brief period from 1967 to 1975 when it was represented by Republican Dan Kuykendall.

It didn't take any elaborate "racial gerrymandering" to create this congressional district as a "majority minority" district. The population as it existed within this corner of the state (and within Memphis itself) pointed that way, especially when joined to something possibly resembling a type of common sense.

That's the way it still was—then. But now we're engaged in a great civil war, and the Republican powers that be in Tennessee are splitting Memphis (and its inner suburbs) three ways for congressional districting purposes. 

They're doing so as part of a new map which will attempt to take Tennessee from an 8-1 congressional split into a brave new era in which all nine of the state's members of Congress hail from the GOP.

The state will be able to do this because of the recent Supreme Court decision which basically says that "partisan gerrymandering" is constitutionally permissible, but "racial gerrymandering" isn't. A bit more on that below.

Meanwhile, also this:

The state of Virginia's newly reinvented Dem-friendly map has now been struck down by that state's Supreme Court. Gone are the dreams of a Virginia congressional delegation which would favor Dems by a margin of ten to one.   

The Memphis district is dead and gone, following the earlier dismantling of Tennessee's Nashville district. Meanwhile, the two major parties are caught in an ugly redistricting war—a war which, it now seems, may make it hard for Democrats to win the House in November. 

(Or not. Also, and just for the record, there's no such thing as "redistricting" when it comes to Senate races.)   

We offer one lonely thought about the recent Supreme Court decision:  

In the main, the Supreme Court isn't in the business of creating sound public policy. In the main, the Supreme Court is in the business of deciding whether various public policies are constitutionally permissible (and are consistent with established law).  

In the main, it isn't the job of the Court to create good, sound policies governing the creation of congressional districts. In the main, that's the job of the United States Congress, the legislative body which created the original Voting Rights Act in 1965, and then amended it at several points along the way.

Now for the rest of the story:

The United States Congress was capable of functioning in 1965 (though not always perfectly). At the present time, as you may have noticed, the United States Congress isn't capable of functioning at all.

All in all, we no longer live in a functioning nation. We now live in "a war of the all against all," and we live in a race to the bottom.

Congress could intercede to improve the current situation. Nothing like that is going to happen. The reason for that is easily stated:

We live in two different countries now, and there's no sign that things won't get worse.

Most of Memphis: Why did the 9th district, as it existed, only include "most of Memphis and its inner suburbs?" Why didn't the district include the city as a whole? 

You're asking a good question. The leading authority speaks:

Tennessee's 9th congressional district

[...]

The district has voted Democratic in every congressional race since 1974. After the 1980 census saw it become the 9th once again and was drawn as a black-majority district. This allowed the Democrats to consolidate their hold on the seat. With most of Memphis' wealthier and now heavily Republican eastern portion now in the 7th, the GOP largely lost interest in the 9th; only nominal Republican candidates have run there from 1982 onward.

The city's wealthier eastern portion got split into a different district. Which party was in charge of that process?

You'll have to look it up!

At any rate, the city has long been part of two different districts. Now it's being further split, in search of Republican dominance in the ongoing all against all.

DIAGNOSIS: This is no country for rational discourse!

FRIDAY, MAY 8, 2026

Three medical experts agree: This is no country for rational discourse.  

We've complimented Adam Kirsch for announcing that rarely acknowledged fact. He recently did so in The Atlantic. 

At this point, we link to his essay for the third and final time:

IDEAS
The Era of Rational Discourse Is Over
For Jürgen Habermas, who died in March, the essence of democracy was thoughtful back-and-forth argument. 

It would be hard to argue with Kirsch's principal thesis—unless you argue, as a sane person might, that no era of rational discourse ever existed to start with.  

If some such era did exist, that era has plainly ended. We'll start today with something we saw, just yesterday, on this nation's most-watched "cable news" program.   

As a TV show, it's a smash hit. Airing at 5 p.m. each weekday, its audience is almost three times the size of the audience watching MS NOW's Deadline: White House in the same time slot.   

Yesterday, the election for Los Angeles mayor came under discussion on this Fox News Channel program. Here's the overview from the leading authority about one of the top three contenders:   

Nithya Raman 

Nithya V. Raman (born July 28, 1981) is an American urban planner, activist, and politician serving as the Los Angeles city councilmember for the 4th district since 2020. Raman, a member of the Democratic Party and the Democratic Socialists of America, defeated incumbent councilmember David Ryu in 2020 and was re-elected in 2024.

[...]

Raman was born into a Tamil family in Kerala, India, and moved to Louisiana at 6 years old. She earned a bachelor's degree in political theory from Harvard University then a master's degree in urban planning from MIT.

After living in the United States for many years, Raman returned to her home country of India and founded the research firm Transparent Chennai. The firm's goal was to improve sanitation in the city of Chennai. In 2013, Raman moved to Los Angeles and worked for the city administrative officer of Los Angeles. In 2017, Raman founded and headed SELAH Neighborhood Homeless Coalition, a homelessness outreach nonprofit in Los Angeles; she also served as the executive director of Time's Up Entertainment. Raman became a naturalized American citizen at the age of 22.  

Back then, she was 22. Today, she's 44. Would she be a capable mayor?  We have no idea! 

On its face, Raman's resume seems impressive. But here's what millions of people were told about the impending mayoral election when the garbage can was opened yesterday afternoon and a cast of Unrecognizables suddenly appeared on their screens:  

WATTERS (5/7/26): The one woman, [incumbent mayor] Karen Bass, is like, "You know what? We did a great job with the fire."  

Are you kidding me? It's like Biden saying the border is secure! And then you have this "Raman"—rhymes with noodle—whatever her name is. 

That's what this silly child actually said. Fumbling with the candidate's name, he had produced a wonderful play on the familiar supermarket product!  

Three hours later, he went there again, on his own "cable news" program:

WATTERS (5/7/26): L.A.'s no bueno. You see it and smell it. Karen Bass says, "Just keep your eyes forward and your nose closed. 

Nithya Raman, like the noodle, says, "Smell? What smell?"

Yes, he said it again! But so it goes within a society whose major figures, Red and Blue, have agreed that we will no longer try to be a country for rational discourse. 

(David French won't discuss this journalistic squalor. Neither will David Brooks, or Joe or Mika, or Rachel Maddow. No one at The Atlantic is going to say the names of these Fox News figures. Under current agreements, Corporate Red churns this garbage out, and Corporate Blue defers.)

Remarkably, Corporate Red has made Watters the most-watched "personality" in American "cable news." Sitting in the program's equivalent of the center square, he anchors The Five at 5 p.m. He then hosts his own show, Jesse Watters Primetime, three hours later. 

The Five is this nation's most-watched "cable news" show. Watters Primetime is second most-watched, and it's not real far behind. 

Gutfeld! comes on at 10 o'clock, 7 p.m. on the coast.  Last night's program started with a familiar insinuation—the insinuation that Hillary Clinton killed Jeffrey Epstein. That's just how this train wreck rolls.

It rhymes with noodle, today's Cronkite said. But then, this is no country for rational discourse, as Adam Kirsch noted. 

In all candor, this is no nation for such discourse even when large news orgs try. Such attempts aren't always successful, of course. But on May 5, in print editions, the New York Times did in fact tackle a relevant topic.

For the third time in less than two years, an assassination attempt—or perhaps an attempt at such an attempt—had been aimed at President Trump. 

If you watch The Five, you now see Gutfeld insist, on a nightly basis, that political violence only emerges from people on "the left."  

His ability to wish contrary examples away takes us the border of stone-cold mental disorder. But on May 5, Linda Qiu published a detailed report on this general subject. We call attention to one claim which appeared in her report:

The Facts on Political Violence and Threats to Presidents

A gunman’s breach of a Washington hotel where President Trump had gathered with hundreds of journalists over the weekend has reignited the debate over which political faction is more violent and which faces more threats.

[...]

An analysis in September of terrorist attacks from the 1990s through July 2025 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, found a similar trend: Right-wing terrorist attacks outpaced left-wing attacks from the 1990s to 2024. But, the analysis noted, 2025 was the first time in 30 years in which left-wing attacks outnumbered far-right attacks. That finding remained true through the end of 2025, the authors of the analysis said in an interview.

But they cautioned that it can be difficult to categorize the motivations of attackers as right wing or left wing. Many perpetrators have mental health issues, with indecipherable motives or conflicting beliefs. Attackers may also be driven by personal animus or a desire to seek fame, not necessarily a political goal. 

Really? People who ride choo-choo trains across the country in hopes of shooting government officials will often "have mental health issues?" Who would have imagined that something like that could possibly be the case? 

Setting aside everything else in Qiu's report, who could have imagined that? Certainly not the medical experts who soon popped up on our TV programs, eager to let us know that, even as the nation disintegrates, The Doctors are (very much) IN.

As we noted yesterday, the first experts to speak up were Doctors Watters and Gutfeld. Less than 48 hours after the Correspondents Dinner event, here's what these messengers said:

DR. WATTERS (4/27/26): What makes it so dangerous is these assassins are smarter. These aren't like low-IQ lunatics. If you look at the people that have targeted the president and other Republicans, it's not like they're hearing voices and are disassociated from reality. These are well-educated people who are politically involved.

[...]

The Democratic Party has become a violent revolutionary movement...Trump keeps kicking their butt, and they can't do anything about it. He's pursuing an ambitious America First agenda. So because they're powerless, what they're doing is inspiring their base to violently overthrow the government. 

Moments later, a second expert said this:

DR. GUTFELD (4/27/26): This guy was not a crank. He's not deranged. Don't buy into that narrative, because it lets these pompous asses off. 

He didn't do this because, as Jesse said— He didn't have voices in his head. He was just following orders. He was operating on a filter that said Trump was Hitler and it would be immoral if you didn't take Hitler out.  

Less than two days later, the medical experts / messenger children had their diagnosis. 

Cole Allen didn't have some sort of significant mental health problem, the pair of experts said. Apparently in Manchurian fashion, he was simply "following orders" from his vile Democratic handlers, whose cries of Hitler / Hitler / Hitler had told him to do what he did.

In even a slightly rational world, that would register as astonishing journalistic misconduct. But we don't live in any such world, as we learned five nights later.

It happened last Saturday night. We heard our young analysts scream and cry as they watched the CNN replay of Real Time with Bill Maher. 

Is Gutfeld writing Bill's stuff now? Here's what the analysts saw Bill say, in tandem with Gillian Tett:

DR. MAHER (5/1/26): This guy wasn’t crazy crazy. Like, you know, the dog wasn’t talking to him, and the moon. He just was, like, watching the—

 

TETT: Social media.

MAHER: Yeah, and media media!

TETT: And media media, yeah.

Good God, that's thoroughly awful! But as with Fox News, so too here:

"Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler," Bill had said throughout.  He and Tett now seemed to agree:

Allen had been triggered by such claims. He'd been triggered by the claim that Trump = Hitler from the media media!

Bill gave no examples of any such recent statements by any such media figures. Neither did Gutfeld or Watters, of course. 

But all three knew that there was nothing really wrong with Cole Allen's mental health. Allen wasn't "crazy crazy," one of the specialists said.

All three of the doctors were IN. Fox News Channel? HBO? They all seemed to pimp the same line!  

Was this epistemic capture? Was it epistemic drift? Whatever it is, we can tell you this:

On several occasions during the week, the analysts had seen Watters and Gutfeld and the rest of the gang pushing this assortment of messages. And then, a few nights later, they settled in to watch Real Time with Bill Maher:

When they did, they saw Bill as he weirdly sold the same unsupported lines.

"What have they done with the real Bill Maher," the earnest young analysts asked. 

We thought they were asking a sensible question. Skillfully, though, we offered them this:

This is no country for rational discourse.

It was the one lonely thought we expressed!

For transcripts and videotape: To watch the full discussion on Real Time with Bill Maher, you can start by clicking here.

Partial transcripts and videotape of the Real Time discussion are available from Real Clear Politics and from Breitbart. Click this, or just click here.

THURSDAY: This is no country for serious people!

THURSDAY, MAY 7, 2026

Tarlov among the chimps: How fraudulent is much of the "cable news" discourse afflicting this failing nation? 

Thanks to Willa Pope Robbins of Mediaite, we can steer you to the latest pitiful, sad example. 

Yesterday, we watched the program known as The Five—but Robbins got busy transcribing. Here's the start of her news report. Videotape is included:

Jessica Tarlov Speechless as Fox Colleagues Scream at Her On All Sides

Fox News host Jessica Tarlov was left speechless on Wednesday as her colleagues screamed at her on all sides, in a brutal shouting match over the morality of both political parties.

The conflict on The Five began with a comment from host Greg Gutfeld about liberals’ feelings toward supporters of President Donald Trump. When host Jesse Watters asked Tarlov if she had an explanation for the phenomenon, her response triggered sharp pushback from the hosts. 

As Watters, Gutfeld, and host Paul Mauro berated her across the table, Tarlov repeatedly looked into the camera, her mouth open in shock while her colleagues shouted.   

Watters and Gutfeld and Mauro oh my! So began the Robbins report. 

We'll offer a quick observation:  

Robbins felt that she was watching a "brutal shouting match." That assessment may be accurate.

That said, to our own despondent eye, there almost seemed to be a certain "staged" quality to the inanity we were watching. 

We've often mentioned the way the program's four pro-MAGA co-hosts interrupt and overtalk Tarlov when her rebuttals are perhaps a bit too persuasive. We've also said, within the past few weeks, that we thought we'd spotted some new stage managing, with Tarlov perhaps having been instructed to start fighting back against her rude tormentors.   

For us, yesterday's shouting match almost extended that vibe. That said, the sheer stupidity of this, our most-watched "cable news" program, was put on especially vivid display right as the nonsense started.  

Robbins offers a transcript which is almost complete. In our view, the sheer stupidity brought on the set each day by Greg Gutfeld each day is rather hard as Robbins' transcript starts:  

WATTERS (5/6/26): Do you have a theory about why liberals care so much that other people like Trump?

TARLOV: Because he’s like a completely morally bankrupt person that’s imposing all of these–

GUTFELD: But why should you care that I like him? Why should you care?   

Watters had asked a somewhat puzzling question; Tarlov answered it anyway. 

President Trump is a "morally bankrupt person," she said.  This caused Gutfeld to wonder why Tarlov should care if he likes him!

For the record, there was no sign at that point that Tarlov actually does "care" about the fact that Gutfeld "likes" President Trump—or is at least prepared to pretend that he does when appearing on cable TV.

Patiently, Tarlov answered his weird question too. Just like that, it was Tarlov among the chimps!

Robbins transcribed the nonsense which followed from there. As you can see on the videotape, there was a lot of mugging for the cameras. It seemed to us that this exercise in sheer inanity exuded a certain "stage-managed" feel.

Question:

Have producers of our most-watched "cable news" show seen something on the gruesome CNN Newsnight with Abby Phillip from which they've decided to borrow?

We don't know! But at any rate this:

Trump is morally bankrupt, she said. Mugging for his $9 million, Gutfeld didn't quite seem to get why a citizen would care about that! 

(Red Corporate churns this inanity out. Blue Corporate agrees not to notice.)

To watch this segment from start to finish: To watch this segment from start to finish, you can just click here.

HITLERESQUE? Dr. Gutfeld analyzed the assailant!

THURSDAY, MAY 7, 2026

So did Dr. Maher: In yesterday's report, we showed you what the messenger children were saying on last Wednesday's edition of The Five. 

Hitler Hitler Hitler, the well-schooled children said. They were explaining the way the lunatic left—and the mainstream media—had triggered the latest attempt on the president's life.

On Monday, April 27, it had been the same darn thing. 

Fewer than 48 hours had passed since Cole Allen had made his hapless attempt at an assassination attempt—but messaging within MAGA World had changed on a dime.  

The Strait of Hormuz was still closed. The price of gas continued to rise. But all of a sudden, the obedient children of MAGA World had new agitprop to pass on.

Already, as early as Monsay, the obedient children were riding the Hitler train. As the first half hour of that' day's messaging ended, Kennedy—the former VJ with no clothes on—was still saying this: 

KENNEDY (5/27/26): The media has to get off the addictive syringe of the conspiracy theories and "Trump is bad, Trump is evil, Trump is Hitler, he's a fascist."

It was all the media's fault. The media had triggered Allen by saying that Trump = Hitler!   

So the new messaging went. Even after half an hour of messaging, she was still playing the card! 

Earlier, the most obvious nutcase of them all had taken a deeper approach. All of a sudden, The Doctor was IN.

He went inside Allen's head:   

DR. GUTFELD: This guy was not a crank. He's not deranged. Don't buy into that narrative, because it lets these pompous asses off. 

He didn't do this because, as Jesse said—

 He didn't have voices in his head. He was just following orders. He was operating on a filter that said Trump was Hitler and it would be immoral if you didn't take Hitler out.  

So his filter is actually making him logical. He's the sanest one in the group, because he took them at their word. When MS NOW says Trump is Hitler, he's the sensible one. He went out—went after Hitler.

Right there on Monday's edition of The Five, The Doctor was very much IN. 

Allen isn't mentally ill, we viewers were authoritatively told. He was simply "following orders" from the (unnamed) people at MS NOW who were saying that Trump = Hitler!

So the doctor said. Earlier, the program's resident sociologist had offered his analysis of what Allen's attempt had shown.

First, he prefigured The Doctor's analysis. After that, he told all:  

PROFESSOR WATTERS: What makes it so dangerous is these assassins are smarter. These aren't like low-IQ lunatics. If you look at the people that have targeted the president and other Republicans, it's not like they're hearing voices and are disassociated from reality. These are well-educated people who are politically involved, 

[...]

The Democratic Party has become a violent revolutionary movement...Trump keeps kicking their butt, and they can't do anything about it. He's pursuing an ambitious America First agenda. So because they're powerless, what they're doing is inspiring their base to violently overthrow the government. And they're angrier, more than ever, because Trump responded [on Saturday night] with class. 

A slight distinction could be drawn between the views of the two academics:

According to the sociologist, the violent revolutionary Democratic Party has been trying to inspire people like Allen to undertake attempts on the president's life. 

But according to the psychiatrist, it was MS NOW which was really to blame. Unnamed people at MS NOW had been saying that Trump = Hitler. Allen had responded to that in a logical way! 

So the new messaging went. Two days later, the messenger children played the Hitler card all over again.

The Hitler card was repeatedly played on each of these heavily watched "cable news" programs. But as we noted in yesterday's report, these messengers never produced a single example of anyone within "the media" or at MS NOW saying that Trump = Hitler.   

They played the card again and again—but they offered zero examples!  At this point, a quick aside:  

On Wednesday's edition of The Five, Emily Compagno seemed to say that "a lot of journalists use words like Kristallnacht in discussing Trump." She said that "a lot of journalists" had "likened his campaign rally here at MSG to a Nazi rally and Hitleresque" (see yesterday's report).   

Were such things ever true of "a lot of journalists?"  Our general impression would be no—but Compagno was going all the way back to 2024 to cite the way some observers had responded to Candidate Trump's high-profile campaign rally at Madison Square Garden. 

Had Allen been triggered by two-year-old comments?  (Is it even possible that his triggering had started with his own private reaction to events which occurred two years back?)

Like the children on the TV show, we don't have the slightest idea what set Allen's conduct in motion. In full fairness, we will mention this:

Amazingly enough, Maureen Dowd had actually used the word "Hitleresque," though only on one occasion. This (one) journalist had actually used that word (one time), in exactly one column, in the New York Times.

The column appeared a bit more than two years ago, on April 6, 2024. Here's part of what Dowd said:  

Donald Trump’s Insatiable Bloodlust

[...]

My Irish immigrant father lived through the cruel “No Irish need apply” era. I’m distraught that our mosaic may shatter.

But Trump embraces Hitleresque phrases to stir racial hatred. He has talked about immigrants “poisoning the blood of our country.” Last month he called migrants “animals,” saying, “I don’t know if you call them ‘people,’ in some cases. They’re not people, in my opinion.”

Trump’s obsession with bloodlines was instilled by his father, the son of a German immigrant. He thinks there is good blood and bad blood, superior blood and inferior blood. Fred Trump taught his son that their family’s success was genetic, reminiscent of Hitler’s creepy faith in eugenics.

So (one) journalist had said, on that (one) occasion, a bit more than two years ago. 

In all honesty, "a lot of journalists" haven't been using the word Hitleresque at any point in this profoundly unfortunate process. Nor is there any particular reason to think that any of that had actually triggered Cole Allen.   

For ourselves, we'd advise commentators to stay away from words like "Hitler," even from "Hitleresque." But in all honesty, it's been a long time since we saw mainstream journalists citing the monstrous Adolf Hitler in this particular context.

On the other hand, we see various children citing Hitler again and again on Fox News Channel programs. Last week, playing that card seemed to be part of the messaging strategy the obedient children had apparently received from their horrible corporate handlers.

First on Monday, then on Wednesday, the children played the Hitler card on The Five. Astonishing accusations were lodged—but who had actually been saying that Trump = Hitler?

Zero examples were ever given. In this way, the game is now played.

As we leave you for today, we return to what The Doctor said last Monday. Based on decades of study and clinical experience, Dr. Gutfeld had been happy to take us inside Cole Allen's head.

Allen had simply been taking orders, this strangest child now said. There was nothing psychiatrically wrong with him, the medical giant insisted. 

(Professor Watters had said the same thing.)

Saturday night, watching the Real Time re-broadcast on CNN, the analysts suddenly screamed. What have they done with the real Bill Maher, the disconsolate youngsters now said.

Tomorrow: Dr. Gutfeld's medical partner was IN

WEDNESDAY: Violent Gen Z shocks the world!

WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2026

Harvard's fuzzy questions: These members of Gen Z today! 

To what extent, do such youth condone "political violence?" A Harvard entity, the Harvard Youth Poll, decided to try to find out. 

True to their nature, they conducted a survey—and the survey has attracted a fair amount of attention.

In our view, the strength of this survey's findings is perhaps a bit overrated. Before we tell you why, here's the organization's official report about that part of their sweeping survey: 

Harvard Youth Poll  

[...] 

A strong majority of young Americans reject political violence—but some see it is acceptable under certain circumstances.

Across the measures we tested, most young people do not endorse political violence. But a substantial minority tell us that they are willing to justify it in certain, situational contexts—and those attitudes reflect emotional and economic strain far more than political identity.

Sixty-one percent (61%) fall into the “no violence” category of our index, while 29% show some acceptance (1–2 items) and 10% show high acceptance (3–5 items). 

In total, 39% of young Americans say political violence is acceptable under at least one circumstance. The item-level data show where this openness comes from:

28% say political violence is acceptable when the government violates individual rights.

12% say it is acceptable when election outcomes are fraudulent.

11% say it is acceptable when someone promotes extremist beliefs.

11% say it is acceptable when someone else encourages violence.

10% say it is acceptable when peaceful protests fail to accomplish their goals. 

Respondents were asked about five different types of circumstances. The numbers are there for you to review.

So says the official report. On last week's Real Time with Bill Maher, Gillian Tett was suitably upset by the youngsters' answers:  

TETT (5/1/26): If you look at opinion polls, it's scary how much a proportion of Gen Z are now saying that they support some form of political violence to express, you know, their opposition. And that's got to change. I mean, that is simply not, as Bret [Stephens] says, the way to build a democracy.

 Maybe—but also maybe not! In our view, here's the problem:  

Some survey questions are quite straightforward. Everyone knows what's being asked, and everyone knows what's being said when a respondent answers. An example would be this:   

Who are you going to vote for—Candidate Trump or Candidate Harris?   

The question is completely straightforward. Respondents know what they're being asked.  Pollsters know what's being said when the question gets answered.

That isn't the case with the set of questions which were asked about "political violence"—with this question, for instance:  

The past year has seen an increase in political violence in America. Do you think political violence would be acceptable in America today when the government violates individual rights?

With a tiny bit of editing, that's the way the question was asked in the Harvard Youth Survey—and 28% of respondents answered in the affirmative!  

For some observers, that percentage seems to be shockingly high. But what kind of "political violence" were those respondents endorsing? Also, what type of violation of individual rights did those respondents have in mind? 

As posed, the question was strikingly fuzzy. There's no way to know what kind of "political violence" was being endorsed, in what type of circumstance.  

For ourselves, we'd be reluctant to answer a survey question of that type. The question is so vague as to be virtually meaningless. If someone asked you that question in everyday chatter, you'd ask him to be more specific

A final point:

In reactions to this survey, observers like Tett have often taken the standard "shocked, shocked" approach. They almost seem appalled to think that any political violence would ever be acceptable to these kids today.  

We're no fan of political violence, even in a democracy as imperfect as our own. But we can think of some famous Americans who may have been a bit less fastidious: 

George Washington would be one such person. Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry might be two others.  

The questions were extremely vague. The answers are hard to interpret.

THE HITLER CARD: Watters played the Hitler card!

WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2026

So did Compagno and Gutfeld: Friend, we'll start today with a question:

Is the era of rational discourse over?  

As we noted in Monday's report, that's the claim which sits atop a recent essay by Adam Kirsch. Indeed, the dual headline in The Atlantic is still making that allegation:

 IDEAS
The Era of Rational Discourse Is Over
For Jürgen Habermas, who died in March, the essence of democracy was thoughtful back-and-forth argument. 

Thoughtful back-and-forth discourse? In all honesty, we don't know why Kirsch seems to think that any such era ever existed. But it has long been abundantly clear:

No such discourse exists today. The era in question is over.

No such discourse exists today? Just consider what we saw when we watched last Wednesday's edition of the Fox News Channal ratings blockbuster, The Five. While you're at it, please note the way that program's insane imitation of discourse foreshadowed the inexcusable effort by Stephens and Tett (and even Bill Maher!) on last Friday night's Real Time.   

It was Wednesday, April 29. Four nights earlier, a 31-year-old California man had rushed the ballroom at the Washington Hilton, with the apparent intention of assassinating President Trump.   

He was stopped before he could enter the hall. In the wake of this event, large segments of the national discourse underwent an instant adjustment.   

Red American orgs like the Fox News Channel now had a way to change the subject from the faltering war in Iran and from the president's ballroom. According to the new line of discourse, this third assassination attempt showed the way the irresponsible rhetoric of lefty lunatics and the Democrat [sic] Party had been putting the president's life in danger.  

As you know, The Five is our flailing nation's most-watched "cable news" show. The size of its audience dwarfs the size of the congregations which watch any of Blue America's corresponding shows:

Average audience, April 2026   
The Five, Fox News Channel: 3.8 million
Deadline: White House, MS NOW: 1.4 million

The numbers are hard to ignore. 

On Monday, April 27, the children who appear on The Five had started to explore the new line about the irresponsible rhetoric of those on the left. We'll visit that program tomorrow—but two days later, the children went there again.   

Below, we'll offer links to the videotape of last Wednesday's opening segment. You can watch the entire segment for yourself, possibly seeing why we'd say that rational discourse has ceased to exist within this failing nation.

You'll be able to make an assessment yourself. Our summary of that day's imitation of a news discussion starts like this:   

As the program started, the routinely excitable Emily Compagno was serving as moderator for the day's first segment. She offered this overview: 

COMPAGNO (4/29/26): The shooting marked the third attempted assassination plot targeting President Trump in just two years. And despite fresh calls to cool the rhetoric that puts a target on Trump's back, some on the left are digging in.  

Some on the left were digging in, despite that latest attempt! At this point, as you can see, Compagno played videotape of three "people of the left." 

One was said to be "digging in." Two were said to be in denial about the sweep of the problem with the rhetoric of the left.

Lost in denial were George Stephanopoulos (ABC News) and Jen Psaki (MS NOW), aides to former Democratic presidents. Governor Pritzker (D-IL) had been cast in the role of the one who was still "digging in." 

Eventually, we'll show what all three of these people had said.

Having played three chunks of videotape, Compagno threw to Jesse Watters. Watters proceeded to pretend to discuss what the three had supposedly said.

This is no country for rational discourse! As Watters described the nature of the problem for this program's very large audience, he quickly employed a rhetorical truck—

He played the Hitler card:

COMPAGNO: Jesse, it's incredible how lopsided [the problem with the rhetoric] is. I don't know the rose-colored glasses they're using.

WATTERS: Well, the glasses are worn by two Democrat press flacks for Democrat presidents. 

Where would they get this idea, Emily, that Trump is such a threat—that he needs to be taken out? Where would they get this idea that he's such a unique danger—that he's a genocidal dictator like Hitler who, at any day, could just kill everybody in sight? Where would they get the idea that he's mentally deranged, and that the cabinet, and perhaps the military, might have to do something about that?  

That's the way he started. (He went on at length from there.) In fact, none of the three people in question had said anything dimly resembling the summary this imitation of life now seemed to provide.   

The president "needs to be taken out?" None of the three had said anything dimly resembling that. And needless to say, none of the three had played the Hitler card, as Watters instantly did.   

Later in the same monologue, Watters played that treasured card again! As he did, he told millions of Red American viewers how widespread this problem is:

WATTERS: This isn't coming from the dark underbelly of the Internet. This is coming from the mainstream media—in the New York Times, on network TV, on network late night television. You go online and this is what they say. 

And they can't stop saying it because they can't dial it back. It's who they are. Everything they're saying defines everything about them. If you strip out the hate, they have nothing. There's no policy. There's no agenda. 

They can't have an executive say, "Hey, you know, guys? Maybe you don't book the guy who calls Trump Hitler? Maybe you don't have him on again? Do you know the rundown where you're calling him a genocidal maniac conducting illegal wars and raping and pillaging people? Maybe you don't use that tonight."

No one's telling them that, because hate is profitable. Until you break the business model, you're never gonna be able to tear this system apart. And that's what it is. It's about money. 

That's what Watters said. In that passage, he played the Hitler card two more times—and as he did, he insisted that this kind of rhetoric is all over the mainstream press!   

It's all over the mainstream media, this Fox News tool had said. And yet, how remarkably odd:

In support of this inflammatory rhetoric, producers had played videotape of exactly no one comparing President Trump to Hitler. No examples of this widespread conduct had been offered at all! 

Weird, isn't it? They call him Hitler all day and all night—but no examples were offered! 

Full disclosure! People who watch the Fox News Channel may not sample much work from the mainstream press. For that reason, they may have had no way of knowing that they were possibly being deceived this day—but as the segment continued, Compagno extended the game. 

Compagno had been at the Correspondents Dinner that fateful Saturday night. She had been forced, like everyone else, to hide beneath her table until order had been restored. 

Concerning which, here's what she soon said:

COMPAGNO: Some argue, Dana, the breaking point is three assassination attempts on the president that, by the grace of God, he survived them. The future seems really terrifying. And to your point, I was under the table with a lot of journalists that use words like Kristallnacht, and likened his campaign rally here at MSG to a Nazi rally and Hitleresque. 

I mean, these are words that are in headlines in these mainstream media journalists [sic].  

Words like those can be seen in mainstream media headlines! Oddly, though, no examples were given. 

No such excerpts were flashed on the screen! Of course, that didn't keep the Hitler card from being played one last time, as the segment ended:

COMPAGNO: Name me one Republican president that has not been called a Nazi! You can't name one. And that's an issue on the left.

GUTFELD: What did they call Republican before Hitler?

That's the way the segment ended. If anything, a similar segment, two days earlier, had been a bigger and uglier mess.

For the record, this is highly conventional gruel on this relentless imitation of a "cable news" program. Routinely, innocuous video clips are played, at which point then the crazy paraphrasing begins.

In this instance, it was said and implied, again and again, that President Trump is routinely referred to as "Hitler" in the mainstream media—even that it's routinely said that "he needs to be taken out."    

But how odd! No examples of such conduct were shown on videotape this day. No examples of such written declamations were thrown up on the screen. 

Just for the record, Compagno belongs on a major news program the way we belong in the Bolshoi Ballet. She may be the nicest person on earth, but she simply isn't equipped to be on our nation's news screens.

Watters is waste meat all the way down. At this point, Gutfeld almost seems to be more deranged by the week.  

As for two of the demons who had been shown on videotape before the garbage from Watters started, here you see the full texts of what the two "flacks" had said:   

STEPHANOPOULOS: No one is legitimizing violence in any way. I have very little patience for this. Has the president faced three threats in the last couple years? Absolutely. Is that abominable? Absolutely. The problem with political violence and extremism, it's evident on both sides.

[...]

PSAKI: The Democrats are blamed all for their rhetoric when what I hear, over and over again, is Democrats saying, "Please tone it down. Please tone down the rhetoric. That's not what we stand for." And we have seen, frankly from the other side, from Trump and others, elevated rhetoric. Now you don't want to get in a "he said/she said" place, but frankly it's infuriating.

The pair of "Democrat flacks" had dared to say that there are problems with political violence and with elevated rhetoric "on both sides!" Racing to prove the latter point, Watters, Compagno and Gutfeld jumped right in with classic examples of playing the Hitler card.

Three Democrats were aired that day—Pritzker, Stephanopoulos and Psaki. None of the three had mentioned Hitler or Kristallnacht. None of the three had said anything dimly like that—but then, up jumped the Fox News claque, shouting Hitler from morning to night.

This is no country for rational discourse. Two nights later, up stepped Maher, who we greatly admire.

As we noted yesterday, Bill kept playing the Hitler card too. This is no country for discourse!

Tomorrow: The Five on Monday, April 27. Also, what the fiendish Pritzker had said.

.

TUESDAY: Obama's a traitor all over again!

TUESDAY, MAY 5, 2026

Tyrus drops in on The Five: Is the era of rational discourse over?   

As we noted yesterday, that's what the headline says on a new essay for The Atlantic. To show how obvious that notion is, let's think about the latest thing the sitting president has said.

Headline included, here's the start of Mediaite's report:   

Trump Posts Bonkers Memes Slamming Political Foes From ‘Traitor’ Obama to Powell In a Dumpster

President Donald Trump went on a social media spree on Monday afternoon that included posting memes of “traitor” ex-President Barack Obama bowing before Iran’s Ayatollah and outgoing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell falling into a dumpster.

The commander-in-chief posted the pictures of his political enemies on Truth Social.

His first post was a three-part meme that showed a triumphant Trump raising his fist alongside a kneeling ex-President Joe Biden donning a mask and Obama bowing.

That picture said “LEADERS LEAD” above Trump, followed by “COWARDS KNEEL” under Biden and “TRAITORS BOW” under Obama.  

And so on, insanely, from there. You can see the madness in question, including the Fed chairman's descent into a dumpster, simply by clicking here.   

The New York Times rarely reports very strange conduct of this type by the sitting president. The paper has been disappearing conduct like this for the past fifteen years

The sitting president has been messaging the world this way since 2011. Our major orgs have never had the courage to ask what this behavior might mean. 

Can an "era of rational discourse" survive this sort of messaging from the Oval Office? Then too, there was yesterday's hard-hitting report by Jesse Watters and Tyrus yesterday on The Five:

Jesse Watters Blames Biden for Spirit Airlines Collapse: ‘Let Thousands of Workers Lose Their Job’

Fox News host Jesse Watters blamed former President Joe Biden for the collapse of Spirit Airlines and letting “thousands of workers lose their job.”

Watters and his co-hosts on The Five slammed the Biden administration’s Department of Justice for blocking the $3.8 billion merger between JetBlue and Spirit Airlines in January 2024 on antitrust grounds. At the time, the DOJ argued that removing the “ultra-low-cost” airline would deprive travelers of options and increase ticket prices. 

And so on from there. We interrupt this transmission to ask an obvious question:

How many people think Jesse Watters knows anything whatsoever about the merger proposal which the Biden DOJ opposed? 

Surely, no sane person will have any confidence in Watters' competence in this area. Adding insult to injury, Watters was joined by Tyrus, the former professional "wrestler," in the task of pretending to analyze this matter.  

Mediaite offers videotape of the ruminations of Tyrus. Here's what the "bloated blowhard" had to say on our clownlike nation's most-watched "cable news" TV show:

TYRUS (5/3/26): Well, mission accomplished! Because less competition!

I’m going to miss Spirit Airlines—I'll be honest with ya. I’m going to miss the hours of sitting in the airport watching people behave the way they behave, the fights, the dragging out, you know? You always kind of feel a little better when you go to get on your Delta—love you guys, millionaire miles! 

You know, but the sad part is she [Elizabeth Warren] was right. Fewer flights, higher fares, mission accomplished! You just don’t get it. 

They get involved in things they don’t know. I think it’s funny that people who fly private are so concerned with JetBlue and Spirit merging together. And they stopped it, and they’re great, and now— What do we have? How many people were stranded? 

Why do they hate the airports? What happened? Did the airports not give them complimentary water in first class? They don’t want to pay the TSA agents, they don't want—

I mean, why does the Democratic Party continually go after airports? And in the name of the people! I don’t think any person who was flying Spirit this weekend, whose flight was canceled and you can’t transfer the ticket because it’s gone, was saying, "Wow, thanks, Warren! This is great! I'm so happy that I'm not gonna be able to go see my family at affordable ticket [sic]," although the bag stuff was ridiculous. 

But they just eliminated a place for people who can't afford airline tickets normally to go see family members and travel and go to work and stuff. So, nice job! Nice job, guys!

"Why do they hate the airports?" Tyrus wanted to know!    

Like Tyrus, we don't have the slightest idea about the wisdom, or lack of same, involved in the rejection of last year's merger proposal. We do remember a different era, when this nation's major news shows would bring a specialist or two on the air to evaluate a matter like this.   

In the case of The Five, a gang of willing messenger children are shoved out onto the set each day, armed with producers notes about the topics which will be subjected to a form of pseudo-discussion.

Agitprop follows from there. 

In fairness, we'll assume that Tyrus was doing the best he could with the topic at hand. He's normally confined to the 10 p.m. sewage flow which takes place on Gutfeld!

Following Tyrus, Watters then launched some comedy shtick, leading to his closing thought: Biden Bad Bad Bad!

Is the era of rational discourse over? Over there, in Red America, this is what now passes for news. 

Over here, in Blue America, our timorous but heralded major news orgs refuse to discuss this state of affairs. They disappear the president's troubling conduct. 

They disappear The Five.