Donald Trump sees himself as a guy with a unique ability to stage epic events. However, the reality of the situation is that quite often he winds up presiding over epic flops. He creates a military parade for himself on his birthday, and nobody shows up to watch it. He stages a national version of the state fair on the National Mall, and the crowds are so thin (after all the musical acts he had booked pulled out) that the whole thing turns out to be nothing more than a sad joke. Over and over again, starting with his first inauguration, events that Trump touts as the biggest spectacles of all time turn out to be embarrassing disappointments for him (not that he ever admits it, of course).

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Whenever pundits try to form an all-inclusive storyline for what is currently happening in the world of politics, they usually are forced to ignore situations that cut against the grain. It's inconvenient while trying to explain "the voters are feeling X right now" when you stumble upon an individual contest where the voters are doing exactly the opposite thing. As Al Gore might say, sometimes you have to deal with inconvenient truths.

I certainly don't exclude myself from that statement -- at times, I've been just as guilty as other pundits of buying into a sweeping storyline that attempts to take the pulse of the American voter while brushing off data that directly contradicts such a storyline. Which is why it is worth pointing out that today's Democratic primary race in Massachusetts seems to be one of those "doesn't quite fit the conventional wisdom" types of races.

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At this point, you have to kind of wonder... is Donald Trump trying to lose the midterms?

That's a rather extraordinary question to ask, of course. After all, what sane president would want to tank his own party's chances of success in the midterm congressional elections? The entire next two years could include plenty of legacy-defining moments for a lame-duck president who cannot run again. Winning the midterms could be the difference between being impeached for a jaw-dropping third time and having a Republican House do Trump's every bidding. It could mean the difference between a Democratic Senate that refuses to confirm anyone Trump nominates for any office and a GOP Senate that cheerfully confirms every quack, flim-flam man, and carnival barker Trump decides is worthy of high office. The difference between muscular oversight of the executive branch and a bunch of spineless toadies who all follow every Trump command to the letter all hangs in the balance.

But Trump just doesn't seem to care.

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Here we go again. Our toddler-in-chief threw another tantrum this week, because he was mad at Canada. Donald Trump was astonished that Canada didn't immediately knuckle under and agree to all his kooky demands, so he went ahead and opened up a whole new trade war with our neighbor to the north. These demands (to show you how inane the negotiations must have been) included trying to force Canada to reject their bilingual nature and get rid of all that French stuff. Canada refused. So Trump announced a new 50 percent tariff on Canadian goods. Canada then announced their own tariffs on American goods. Trump then threw his tantrum, announcing that he had just renamed Lake Ontario, which will now officially and henceforth be known by the U.S. government as "Lake America" (or possibly "Lake Of America," Trump didn't seem too sure). Which (of course) spurred the internet to respond. The site MapQuest helpfully pointed people to a tool they could use to rename the lake to anything they wished, which (of course) led to all sorts of amusing new names for it (Lake Epstein Files? Lake Hormuz? Lake Cheats At Golf? Lake Gulf Of Mexico?). The funniest one (to us, at any rate) came from "Mister Cool" on the site formerly known as Twitter, who posted an image showing: "Lakey McLakeface."

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It's Tuesday, so yet again it is primary day, but this week doesn't have any really exciting races on the Democratic side so I thought it was time to take an overview of how the Senate races are going in all the other states.

At this point, regaining control of the Senate is well within reach for Democrats, but will still require a massive shift towards the party from the electorate. This isn't out of the question, as Donald Trump's polling is still at record lows and he keeps actually going out of his way to remind people why they are so dissatisfied with his economic record. Starting up a new trade war with Canada isn't going to do the Republican Party any good in states like Maine and Michigan, to state the obvious. The war with Iran continues to stagnate, with gasoline prices showing no signs of coming back down to pre-war levels any time soon (indeed, they are still up over a dollar a gallon from when the war started). And Trump doesn't care one whit -- he still says affordability is some sort of Democratic hoax. Voters aren't in the mood for such gaslighting, which is why the wind is at the Democrats' backs.

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Much is being made over the ideological struggle happening within the Democratic Party, with some likening it to a "Democratic Tea Party," or even a civil war among Democrats. Both terms are a bit overblown, but there is indeed a struggle for the soul of the party happening. It didn't spring into existence overnight, or even with the election of New York City's Mayor Zohran Mamdani, for that matter. Instead it is a movement that has gradually built up steam to reach the point in Democratic politics where it is now.

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Progressives just scored a truly shocking victory in last night's Florida primary election, as state lawmaker Angie Nixon defeated Alex Vindman in the Democratic nomination race for a Senate seat, by a whopping 12 points. The biggest takeaway from this race was that Vindman had raised 16 times the amount of money that Nixon did, but in the end it just didn't matter. The other big takeaway from the race is that Nixon's victory was an impressive one for a progressive because she won demographic groups that don't normally go for progressive candidates -- they are usually a stronghold of votes for establishment candidates instead.

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So doubtlessly you've heard the story -- which has gotten heavy coverage in the political press all week long, of course -- of the very progressive Democrat who not only won the primary for an open Senate seat but also impressively outperformed polling expectations, right? It was a huge story -- because it will mean there will now be three progressives on November Senate ballots in three swing states. Progressives scored a big win, which has given rise to much discussion among the pundits over whether this is a good thing or a bad thing for the Democratic Party, because it is such a risky strategy right now (with control of the Senate hanging in the balance).

What's that? You didn't hear about all of this?

Well, that's because the mainstream media decided a different primary race was worth all their ink and airwave time instead. They obsessed over a progressive who very narrowly lost a primary in a governor's race (which is just not as important, to national politics, as the Senate races), because they could barely contain their relief and glee over seeing a progressive lose (even though the polls said she would win).

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I have to begin by pointing out that, technically, that headline should be in quote marks, since it is a direct quotation (from the guy who inadvertently started the whole thing). I was thinking of calling this article "Whistling Past The Graveyard" before I came across that quote, but I had to admit it was indeed a catchier title.

So what is the "great burrito debate," if you haven't already heard about it all? Here's how Forbes explained it (complete with the quote's source):

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Another bundle of primary elections happened last night, and this morning all the political news was focused on what turned out to be the closest race of the evening: an upset victory in the governor's race among Democrats in Wisconsin. Which is understandable enough, I suppose, since it truly was a close contest (decided by less than a half a percentage point, only a few thousand votes), but this focus managed to crowd out another interesting primary next door, in Minnesota.

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