Yes, they've officially lost it, gang. 

"They" being the Democrat Party and their bitter sycophants in the lapdog media, whose daily spewing of Trump-loathing venom has actually become funny in closing days of the 2024 presidential campaign, as Donald Trump surges and fraudster extraordinaire Kamala Harris continues to hang by a desperate thread. 

While anything can happen on November 5 — which should remind us that votes matter; over-confidence doesn't — but it appears to this political writer that Trump should regain the White House. Should.

Anyway, MSNBC trotted out contributor Jonathan Alter (I was unaware that Alter was still relevant on the left) to predictably trash Trump while also hawking his book, "American Reckoning: Inside Trump's Trial—and My Own," which he said he hoped would convince people not to vote for the former president. It won't; it's laughable.

Before we get to Alter's venomous commentary on MSNBC, here's a bit about his book (emphasis, mine):

A vivid eyewitness account of the historic first criminal trial of a president and a cri de coeur [a passionate appeal, complaint, or protest] for democracy from a New York Times bestselling author and presidential historian.

As one of a handful of journalists allowed in the courtroom, for 23 days Jonathan Alter sat just feet away from the most dangerous threat to democracy in American history, watching the spectacle of the century: the felony trial of Donald Trump. Highly publicized but un-televised and thus largely hidden from public view, this landmark trial offered hope of real justice amid a grueling eight-year national ordeal and foreshadowed the drama of the 2024 presidential election.

[...]

Deeply personal and passionate, "American Reckoning" is an eye-opening book from a journalist with a front row seat on history, offering a troubled yet hopeful look at our national moment of truth.

"Hopeful." That's rich.

After Alter was asked by fill-in host José Díaz-Balart where he thinks Trump fits in among "characters in American politics over the decades," Alter went straight to work.

Well, he has the worst character of any man who has held the office of the presidency, full stop. Nobody else is even close. Richard Nixon isn't even close. And so he's just a despicable, cruel, lying person. And this is what is so -- the reason I call it, you know, "Inside Trump's Trial and My Own," is that I'm having my own American reckoning in trying to come to terms with how this country, which was founded on the idea of not just freedom and democracy, but basic decency -- how we could be in this place where we have this man who lacks all of the most elemental qualities of character that the founders knew were important if we were going to have a successful republic.

Incidentally, if you're not sure if you've ever seen the ravages of final-stage Trump Derangement Syndrome, this is it. Alter continued: 

if you read my book, you can do something -- you can't not do something to keep this man from coming back to office. He's that evil, and I use that word very intentionally.

If you take the totality of the record, it's an evil record ... And then, just in the last few days, when he was talking about the "enemy within," he said he would use the military against the Pelosis, including Paul Pelosi. As, you know, Biden said, 'That's a sick F thing.' This guy is a sick F, and we really have to think hard about putting him back in office.

Tens of millions of Americans have thought really hard about putting Trump back in office indeed, Mr. Alter. 

People who see and now fear the never-ending surge of illegal aliens into our country, including convicted murderers and rapists, and those who have committed other violent crimes, a growing number of whom have raped and murdered American citizens after being allowed into this country by the Biden-Harris administration. We've also thought hard about the irreversible mutilation of confused children's bodies, including mastectomies and castrations and out-of-control violent crime in our decaying cities.

Is any of that reality an "evil," Mr. Alter? Is any of it a "sick F" thing?

What Tirade Against Trump Would Be Complete Without Another 'F' Word?

After declaring that the 2024 presidential election is the most important since the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1864, Alter couldn't resist dropping the ever-popular 'fascist" label on Trump.

We're at a moment of national truth. This is the most significant election since 1864 when, if Abraham Lincoln had lost, there would have been a separate peace with the South -- as Trump said last week he'd favor. We would have had a confederacy -- no abolition. So this election is as big as that. We now have the former chief of staff of Donald Trump, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, top military officer, they both used the F word -- "fascist." This is not a drill. 

Nonsense. Although Alter was right in one respect. 2024 is arguably the most important election since 1864. If Kamala Harris and Tim Walz win the election, America will be on the precipice of profound change — every bit of it ominous for freedom and democracy.