Trump and diesel prices spell trouble for farm

The Surge is your weekly political sanity check: What matters, what might, and what’s just political theater. Sign up here to get it in your inbox.

Welcome to this weekend’s edition of the Surge, Slate’s politics newsletter. Oh, you think it’s “bad” or “completely and obviously illegal” that Donald Trump has used taxpayer dollars to air a campaign-season ad celebrating himself while the lyric “love me” plays repeatedly in the background? Sounds like you’ve got Trump Derangement Syndrome, cowpoke.

We are little more than a month from the stupid midterms, and Republicans Are in Disarray. They were specifically promised that the Iran war would not have trade-offs! Susan Collins is not concerned about a major story that dropped this week, but perhaps she should be. Plus, why do some Democrats keep describing one New York Republican House member as unbeatable? He may be with that attitude.