New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin recently endorsed Donald Trump for president but with a caveat: Trump should be “heading toward a landslide” due to his opponent's failed policies and ineptitude, but the race remains tight because of Trump’s intemperate language. “His use of nasty, childish insults instead of arguments is part of an inexplicable pattern that turns off many voters,” Goodwin noted. “Day after day he calls opponents and critics dumb, stupid, lunatics, crazy, and idiots. Women are the most frequent targets.”

“If you were an undecided voter, especially a woman, would Trump calling Harris or Liz Cheney dumb or ‘stupid’ make you vote for him — or against him?”

For the Democrats and the left, Trump’s main problem is not his insulting language but his refusal to allow them to run things as they please.

I fully share Goodwin’s revulsion for some of the childish insults Trump throws at his opponents. Like Goodwin, I wish he would abandon this practice. I'll still vote for Trump, despite his speaking style, which annoys me as much as it does many critics. However, I also think this defect has little to do with why this election remains so close. More decisive factors are at play.

One, Democrats have a significantly larger war chest for this campaign, thanks to the generous backing of Hollywood moguls, corporate boards, and the Soros family, who are heavily financing Democratic candidates across the country. Republicans can't come close to matching these astronomical donations. Some previously secure Republican candidates, like Ted Cruz, have run out of campaign funds in their races. Cruz, for example, is struggling against his far-left opponent, Colin Allred. Allred, a congressman from Houston, has received $30 million in just three months, almost entirely from out-of-state Democratic donors.

Two, the corporate left-wing media overwhelmingly supports the Democrats. It's worked hard to defame Trump while promoting Kamala Harris’ hollow “politics of joy.” Over 90% of the information from these so-called purveyors of “facts” is biased toward the Democrats and the left. It hardly matters what the presidential candidates say or do; the media’s bias is evident in how it shapes the narrative for the public.

A large portion of the American electorate — roughly four in 10 — aligns with the left and is likely to vote for its candidates, regardless of how politely or impolitely competing candidates express their views. A Reuters poll shows that 41% of likely voters do not consider the illegal immigrants who have entered the country under the Biden-Harris administration to be a public threat.

What influences ideologically divided voters are the candidates’ positions on issues such as LGBT rights, Black Lives Matter, abortion, and asylum. Western countries have long displayed social and ideological divisions, and these splits have little to do with the tone of political rhetoric. American journalists, including Republican ones, tend to believe that “most of us are somewhere in the center.” While this may have been true during the Eisenhower era, there is little compelling evidence that it still holds today.

What proof exists that the impeccably polite JD Vance appeals to suburban women more than his outspoken running mate? Both candidates perform poorly with this group, unlike the culturally leftist, verbally stumbling Tim Walz, who attracts overwhelming support from progressive women. No evidence suggests that right-of-center candidates, whose speaking style Michael Goodwin and I appreciate and enjoy, would perform better than Trump among groups that reject his views.

Even more relevant, I don’t notice those who claim to be offended by Trump’s offensive language expressing the same revulsion for inflammatory language from the other side. Having spoken to gaggles of Harris voters, I haven’t heard any of them complain about how the Democratic Party and its media lackeys go after their Republican enemy.

Why is it that suburban women and chic professionals only hit the roof when Trump speaks but are not in the least offended by, say, Rep. Dan Goldman’s (D-N.Y.) call to “eliminate Trump”? In an effort to clean up Goldman’s enormity, Reuters assures us that it was spoken before the first assassination attempt on the former president. I’ve no idea how that makes Goldman’s statement less toxic or morally acceptable. Moreover, 28% of Democrats polled by Barron’s last month said that it would have been fine with them if Trump had been killed.

Even if Trump sounded like the mellifluous Vance or the well-ordered Ron DeSantis, that would not result in giving him a landslide. The growing political and cultural polarization in this country is unlikely to vanish even if Trump became a more tactful politician. For the Democrats and the left, Trump’s main problem is not his insulting language but his refusal to allow them to run things as they please. What is even worse for his enemies, this hated figure might win back the presidency in a few weeks.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot said 'my dk is bigger than yours ... I have the biggest dk in Chicago' amid tirade over Columbus statue, lawsuit alleges

Far-left Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is accused in a lawsuit of berating a pair of Chicago Park District attorneys in 2021 over the city's controversial Christopher Columbus statue and telling the two men "my d**k is bigger than yours ... I have the biggest d**k in Chicago."

What's the background?

Lightfoot ordered the Columbus statue removed from Arrigo Park in 2020 after it was vandalized amid the George Floyd protests, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. The Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans sued the Chicago Park District — which owns the statue — in an attempt to get it back in the park.

The lawsuit noted that the park district reached an agreement giving the Italian-American group temporary possession of the statue so it could be shown in the city's 2021 Columbus Day Parade.

But the lawsuit added that two days before the parade, Lightfoot told "a leading representative of the Italian American Community that the Columbus statue should not be shown in the Columbus Day parade, even for 20 minutes, and that unless he promised that the statue would not be in the parade she was going to pull the permit for the entire Columbus Day parade. The representative agreed and the statue was not used in the parade."

'I have the biggest d**k in Chicago'

The lawsuit also alleges that on the evening of Columbus Day, Lightfoot had a Zoom call with a number of officials, including park district general counsel Timothy King and the lawsuit's plaintiff, George Smyrniotis, then-deputy general counsel for the park district.

The suit said Lightfoot berated Smyrniotis and King, saying, "You d**ks, what the f*** were you thinking?” In addition, according to the suit, Lightfoot accused King and Smyrniotis of making “some kind of secret agreement with Italians, what you are doing, you are out there measuring your d**ks with the Italians seeing [who's] got the biggest d**k, you are out there stroking your d**ks over the Columbus statue, I am trying to keep Chicago Police officers from being shot, and you are trying to get them shot. My d**k is bigger than yours and the Italians, I have the biggest d**k in Chicago.”

Smyrniotis claims in the lawsuit that Lightfoot defamed him with “crude, insulting, false, and disrespectful statements," even asking him, “Where did you go to law school? Did you even go to law school? Do you even have a law license?” In addition, the lawsuit alleges that Lightfoot told Smyrniotis: “Get that f***ing statue back before noon tomorrow, or I am going to have you fired.”

In addition, Smyrniotis' suit claims he suffered a damaged reputation, was portrayed in a false light, suffered impairment of his ability to perform his job and great emotional distress, and that he was forced to resign last month. He's seeking monetary damages.

'Astounded'

Ron Onesti, president of the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans, told the Chicago Sun-Times he's outraged by what Lightfoot is accused of saying in the lawsuit.

“I’m literally beside myself with amazement. Even though she’s shown signs of this type of behavior in the past, I can’t believe, number one, that she would talk to her attorneys this way. How do you talk to anybody this way?” Onesti wondered to the paper, adding that "it's offensive. We’re Chicagoans first. That’s our mayor. And our mayor is talking about her constituency that way. About an ethnic group that way. A very large ethnic group. There isn’t an ethnic group that deserves that kind of vulgar referencing. ... I’m astounded . . . It’s embarrassing, and it’s insensitive.”

The Sun-Times said Onesti demanded Lightfoot issue an immediate apology and that he had been “on the verge of demanding the mayor’s resignation."

“I’ve got to say it’s practically irreparable. That’s why I’m teetering on the apology issue. Because, for her to apologize — I mean, there is irreparable damage,” Onesti added to the paper.

What did the mayor's office have to say?

The mayor’s office had no comment on the lawsuit or on Onesti’s demand for an apology, the Sun-Times reported, adding that the city law department on Thursday added that it “has not yet been served with a complaint and will have no further comment as the matter is now in litigation.”

It wouldn't be the first time

This wouldn't be the first time that Lightfoot has gotten verbally nasty or profane in the heat of political battle.

Amid a spike in city violence in June 2020 following George Floyd's death, Lightfoot held a meeting with city officials, and Alderman Raymond Lopez (15th Ward) demanded she answer his concerns before Lightfoot told him, "I think you're 100% full of s**t."

But Lopez didn't back down: "F*** you, then. Who are you to tell me I'm full of s**t? Maybe you should come out and see what's going on."

Lightfoot replied that Lopez's comment was "the stupidest thing I have ever heard. I understand you want to preen." Lopez, however, was undeterred: "Mayor, you need to check your f***ing attitude. That's what you need to do."

In April 2020, amid lockdowns of non-essential businesses, Lightfoot got testy with reporters who questioned why she got a haircut they were banned for everyone else: "I'm the public face of this city. I'm on national media, and I'm out in the public eye. I'm a person who, I take my personal hygiene very seriously. As I said, I felt like I needed to have a haircut. I'm not able to do that myself, so I got a haircut. You want to talk more about that?"

A bullying email Lightfoot sent to her then-scheduler in January 2021 — in which the mayor demanded more "office time" and repeated sentences over and over — actually drew comparisons to a creepy scene from iconic horror film "The Shining."

Oh, and in late May 2020 Lightfoot infamously directed an expletive — well, two letters anyway — at then-President Donald Trump for calling Minneapolis rioters "THUGS" and tweeting "when the looting starts, the shooting starts."

She added, "I will code what I really want to say to Donald Trump. It's two words. It begins with F, and it ends with U."

'Coffee, Corruption, Donuts': Cake celebrating cop's years of service uses decoration mocking police. Bakery says it was unintentional.

Tina Jones wanted to give her friend — a Philadelphia police officer — a cake to help him celebrate 25 years of service to the department, so she decided to have a local bakery decorate it for the occasion, WPVI-TV reported.

It was a pretty simple design: "Happy 25th Anniversary" written to the officer in blue atop white frosting, his badge number — and a Philadelphia police badge with the motto, "Honor, Integrity, Service," the station said.