BOLT UPRIGHT: Good evening, I’m Bolt Upright and this is Received Opinion!
[Pomp and Circumstance March #1 played by Havana sound weapons. On screen behind UPRIGHT: A limited-action cartoon of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., holding hands and skipping merrily, with the caption COME LET US MAHA TOGETHER.]
Democrats may be leading polls in the coming midterm elections, but some party members are not content to preach to the choir and have started reaching out to some of President Trump’s constituents.
[Silent clips of BOOKER and OCASIO-CORTEZ talking and gesticulating, intercut with anti-vaccination protestors.]
Senator Cory Booker and Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have extended an organic olive branch to the Make American Healthy Again or MAHA movement, saying they too are concerned about the effect of Big Ag and Big Pharma on the nation’s health, though they may differ on minor matters such as the efficacy of vaccination and germ theory. But will that be enough to sway the millions of Americans who follow the lead of our testosterone-taking, tallow-munching Secretary of Health and Human Services RFK Jr.? Let’s ask them!
[Screen goes dark — UPRIGHT strolls over to the little interview desk, where BOOKER and OCASIO-CORTEZ, wearing sober dark suits and smiling broadly, are seated.]
Senator Booker, Representative Ocasio-Cortez, good morning.
BOOKER: [nodding] Hi, Bolt.
OCASIO-CORTEZ: [nodding] Good to be here, Bolt.
UPRIGHT: Now, as we discussed with your people, we’re going to have some voters who identify as MAHA call in to talk about what they’re looking for in elected officials. Is that OK?
BOOKER: [nodding] Absolutely.
OCASIO-CORTEZ: [nodding] Looking forward to it.
UPRIGHT: [Touching earpiece] All right. Our first caller is Daisy from Grackle, Missouri. Daisy, you’re on the air.
VOICE OF DAISY: Senator Booker, Congresswoman, I don’t know how you say it —
OCASIO-CORTEZ: Call me Alexandria!
VOICE OF DAISY: OK. Now my boy Elton had the trots for two whole weeks on account of that lettuce that was full of poop and he wasn’t the only one. What I wanna know is, why can’t we have some kind of food police that can make the food companies clean the poop out of their produce before they sell it?
BOOKER: Well, we already have the Food and Drug Administration already, Daisy, and the CDC too, but the problem is, the Trump administration cut their budgets so much that they don’t have enough people to do their —
VOICE OF DAISY: Oh, oh, now wait just a minute, Mister, this FDA and CDC, they’re part of the swamp, I don’t want a dime of my money going to them! I mean like real food police, like ICE but for food companies - let’s give them the money so if they see some of this food with poop in it they can go in the places that puts it out and just tackle these guys who’re selling it and beat ‘em up and chain ‘em up and send ‘em to Africa. No offense.
UPRIGHT: Thank you, Daisy. Our next caller is Merle from Geranium, Texas.
VOICE OF MERLE: I would like the young lady to tell me if God forbid you was President what you would do with the traitor Anthony Fauci. Hanging or lethal injection.
OCASIO-CORTEZ: Merle, I’m sorry to say I can’t agree with you that Dr. Fauci is a traitor. For one thing you know he worked side by side with President Trump on the Operation Warp Speed vaccine program in 2020 —
VOICE OF MERLE: [Loud] Now that is just what I would expect from a Porter Rican Dumocrat, all these lies about who was President when, you don’t fool me, I know it was Sleepy Joe but they put a Jewish Time Machine in there and mixed everybody up —
UPRIGHT: Thank you, Merle. Our next caller is Justine from Clabber Meadow, California.
VOICE OF JUSTINE: Yes, hello, I would like to ask Cory and Alexandra, if we get Medicare for All, will cupping and reiki be covered?
OCASIO-CORTEZ: That’s an interesting question. I think alternative therapies have value, and there’s a good chance we’ll expand beyond what’s covered now.
VOICE OF JUSTINE: I see. What about chemical peels?
OCASIO-CORTEZ: I... well, I mean if there’s a medical need for it —
VOICE OF JUSTINE: Oh, there is! Our twins got just chicken pox at a controlled infection party, and our shaman says glycol and peptides will take care of the pockmarks.
UPRIGHT: Last one. This is Celeriac from Saltine, Alabama.
VOICE OF CELERIAC: Yeah. If y’all get in, kin I get a exemption from vaccines if I got a disabled condition.
BOOKER: Well, Celeriac, and may I say that is a beautiful name, unless you’re in the school system, which is totally a state and local decision, the federal government doesn’t require you to have any vaccinations at all.
VOICE OF CELERIAC: But my faith healer Jehoshaphat Smith says y’all want to shoot NAY-nobots into my blood and make me transsexual.
BOOKER: [Chuckling] No, Celeriac, we’re not doing that at all. What we want is for everyone to have healthy food and decent medical treatment —
VOICE OF CELERIAC: So are you sayin’ my faith healer Jehoshaphat Smith is a lahr?
BOOKER: No, ma’am, I’m not. He may be confused about what the role of the federal government —
MALE VOICE: Hey! This here is Jehoshaphat Smith, Doctor of Divinity and a Sovereign Citizen, shame on you tellin’ sech lies to this poor woman what suffers terrible from pellagra and rickets on account of gummint NAY-nobots they’s streamin’ by fahv-G into her bloodstream.
BOOKER: Sir, sir, excuse me, but aren’t pellagra and rickets caused by a vitamin D deficiency?
MALE VOICE: Vitamins, pah! Ain’t no sech-a thing. I’m tahrd of you know-it-alls tellin’ mah congregation ‘bout vitamins an’ minerals an’ all that hocus-pocus —
UPRIGHT: It’s been a hard session, I know, but we have a caller from Senator Booker’s home state, Anthony from Fair Lawn, New Jersey.
BOOKER: Great!
VOICE OF ANTHONY: Baba booey! Baba Booey! Baba —
UPRIGHT: And that wraps it up. Senator, Congressmember, thanks for your time. Now for our Received Opinion Decision Desk!
[Sound of variously-tuned tympani fired by cannons into a brick wall. BOOKER and OCASIO-CORTEZ nod dejectedly as UPRIGHT joins his colleagues PEONI DOYENNE — wearing a white Diotima veil asymmetric cotton maxi dress, an Alexis Bittar Solanales Crystal Pavé toggle necklace, and black Herbert Levine Gather Around 50 low heels — and CHAFE DRAMATURGY, wearing a black Studio Nicholson Denison linen and wool-blend suit, a The Row Lukre oversized cotton-poplin shirt open at the neck, and green Keds.]
Peoni, why don’t we let Chafe go first? He seems in a hurry to get somewhere.
DRAMATURGY: Oh, forgive me, Bolt, I’ve been working on a participatory journalism MAHA story and I don’t think I got the raw milk and sauerkraut mix right. I’ll just say that I’m torn.
UPRIGHT: Intestinally, you mean?
DRAMATURGY: Oooh, Bolt, it hurts to laugh! Sorry, I mean on the one hand, I love to see Democrats pick up Republican ideas, that’s the soul of centrism! But on the other hand, it seems presumptuous. You know, like when Democrats pretend to be the party of the working class instead of the party of college professors and baristas.
UPRIGHT: Or people who say “presumptuous.”
DRAMATURGY: Ha ha, guilty as charged!
DOYENNE: Bolt, I think Chafe has a point. These people we just heard from, they just aren’t buying what these Democrats are selling. They know they’re just trying to distract people from the real issues, like Hasan Piker. I predict a landslide come November.
UPRIGHT: You predict the Republicans will carry the midterms in a landslide?
DOYENNE: Don’t be ridiculous. The Democrats will win the midterms in a landslide. But socialism will lose in a landslide! Or this isn’t the America I grew up in.
UPRIGHT: [To the camera] Opinions vary! When we come back, Mike Allen will explain how, just as the Tea Party inspired Republicans in the oughts, the Party might pull out of its Trump tailspin by following the example of Germany’s scrappy AfD Party.
[Sound of exploding time; camera turns in on itself; darkness.]
I hope Peoni is wearing a bodysuit under that dress. It's important for a woman to retain her aura of mystery.
I maintain whether it's MAHA or MAGA, the winning move is to not give these people and their ideas so much as an inch. The concept of "outreach" is bullshit, as an even-handed exchange of ideas isn't possible with people who believe conspiratorial disinformation. They live in a closed loop, and by saying some variation of "well, that's an interesting theory, but..." you give their loony beliefs the veneer of credibility. The best tactic is simply to say "that is incorrect" and state the facts.
"Pomp and Circumstance March #1 played by Havana sound weapons."
I thought HSW was a spin off group from Miami Sound Machine. Turns out, I guess it's more ambient music than anything,. I don't care, I'd buy the album!
I've been to Saltine Alabama. It's about halfway between Mentone and Fort Payne.
Did you know that Ft. Payne was once the Sock Capital of the World?
Ain't that something?
Funny stuff Roy! I remember when laughing through my tears was a rare, notable event. Now it's an everyday occurrence!