Universal Studios has canceled the release of its violent new R-rated massacre movie, “The Hunt,” for now, but the fact it even was made shows we’ve reached a dangerous new point in our political culture.

You have to wonder what twisted minds would dream up this liberal fantasy of jet-setting elites hunting down conservatives like vermin.

“They’re not human beings,” the Hillary Swank character says at one point, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

“The Hunt,” originally titled “Red State vs. Blue State,” is a sign of where irrational Trump hatred has taken us.

It’s what the left is doing in real life. They’re dehumanizing their opponents and trying to incite violence against them.

The president’s detractors have tried for almost three years to break him. Russia didn’t work, Stormy didn’t work. Impeachment won’t work.

They’ve smeared his wife, his kids. They call him a fat slob, a psychopath and a Russian agent.

They’ve used the most violent rhetoric imaginable, from Madonna thinking about blowing up the White House to Kathy Griffin posing with a severed fake Trump head to Robert De Niro wanting to punch Trump in the face.

But nothing works. The more they abuse him, the more he relishes baiting them. He is impervious to their attacks, and his approval ratings haven’t budged.

So they have gone berserk. First, they projected their own murderous thoughts onto Trump, blaming him for the recent El Paso and Dayton massacres.

And in the next breath, they issued death threats against Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

“Just stab the motherf–ker in the heart,” said one charming protester on the lawn outside his house last weekend.

For Trump haters, the means justify the ends, and everyone knows that removing the president from public life is the only end worth pursuing, no matter how foul the means.

The real coarsening of American life comes not from a president who tweets low barbs at his enemies 24/7, it comes from his opponents, who have broken every rule of truth and fair play in politics and journalism.

So unscrupulous are they in their blinkered hunt for Trump’s scalp that they don’t care if the lies they tell endanger people and deepen the divisions in the country, even while they lament the coarsening of the political debate.

Now, having failed in their pursuit of Trump, they’re coming after anyone who supports him. It’s demonization by association.

When Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro published a hit list of 44 Trump donors on Twitter last week, he knew exactly what he was doing.

With the approval of his brother, 2020 Democratic candidate Julián Castro, he knew that the outcome would be a Twitter mob intimidating and abusing those innocent people, bombarding them with hateful phone calls, boycotting their businesses and potentially committing violence against them.

In a country where guns are plentiful and emotions are high, why would you risk that unless you regarded your political opponents as vermin?

This is the new normal for Democrats: If you disagree with their agenda, you are a deplorable, a bigot, a racist, a white supremacist — and any retaliation is acceptable.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s true. Truth is whatever version of reality best suits your purpose.

Almost 63 million Americans voted for Trump, in part because they reject the leftist project to remake their history and their culture.

It is not rational or healthy to imagine you can intimidate them into not voting for him in 2020. But that is all the Democrats have.

Epstein mystery the new JFK

Move over, Lee Harvey Oswald.

Jeffrey Epstein’s supposed jail cell suicide looks so fishy that the conspiracy theories could eclipse JFK and the grassy knoll in the public imagination.

Coming 24 hours after court documents implicated big names in his kiddie-sex ring, it’s all too neat.

Not since Jack Ruby shot Oswald has there been so much skepticism about a death in custody.

I subscribe to the cock-up theory of life: “Never assume malice when stupidity will suffice.”

But whoever authorized the alleged pedophile’s removal from suicide watch deserves to be fired.

It is inexplicable after he had just been hospitalized for what was either a previous suicide attempt or an attack from another inmate.

The inquiry into his death needs to be thorough and transparent to put any doubts to rest.

His victims have suffered enough. Now they’ve been cheated of justice. They were treated like used tissues by Epstein and his team of enablers. Only a proper explanation of who screwed up will accord them the respect they deserve.

All too zany but Delaney

The one Democratic candidate who cut through at the Iowa State Fair was John Delaney. He looked vital and energetic on the political soapbox.

He calls himself a “common sense, problem-solving Democrat” who wants to bring the county together. “I’m a different kind of Democrat. I believe in getting stuff done.”

He talked about building infrastructure and practical environmental measures.

He refused to demonize Trump as a white supremacist, despite the best efforts of reporters, although he was tough on the rhetoric.

“We’re divided,” he said. “It’s a disease. Trump is a symptom of the disease.” But Trump is not the disease.

Delaney is a can-do businessman who’s made a lot of money and says he is called to service.

He’s admits to being Catholic, has been married for 29 years and even signed off with a “God bless you all.”

The rest of the candidates were hopeless. Joe Biden was foggy, Cory Booker was shouty, Kamala Harris was fake, Bill de Blasio was his usual putzy self, Elizabeth Warren was dogmatic, Marianne Williamson was flaky, though stylish, Amy Klobuchar was whiny, Beto O’Rourke wasn’t even there and he was annoying. Just a very unimpressive mob.

But Delaney wouldn’t repel conservatives, which probably means he’s doomed.

Supporters’ cardinal sin

What were Cardinal George Pell’s supporters thinking when they tweeted a letter he sent them from an Australian jail last week?

Now, as the former Vatican treasurer awaits the result of an appeal into a shaky child sex conviction, he could face additional punishment under a new law that prohibits inmates from posting material on social media.

He wrote in the letter of “the knowledge that my little suffering can be used for good purposes by joining Jesus,” which has been interpreted by people ignorant of Christianity as a comparison of his suffering to that of Jesus Christ. His appeal decision is imminent, and I’ll have a lot to say about the case then.