The New NotNormal

It's a Cabinet of Curiosities and Received Opinion is ON IT!

BOLT UPRIGHT: Good evening, I’m Bolt Upright and this is Received Opinion!

[Sense of impending doom disguised as an audio sting. On a screen behind UPRIGHT, a limited-action cartoon of RFK JR., with a worm poking out of his head, throws virus particles with one hand while chugging raw milk with the other; to the side, a small rendering of DONALD TRUMP gives him the thumbs-up. Caption: FROM BUGHOUSE TO WHITE HOUSE!]

UPRIGHT:  The latest of Donald Trump’s high-level appointments, Robert F. Kennedy Junior for Secretary of Health and Human Services, is causing controversy among scientists, medical authorities, and other people whose opinions no longer matter but which may alarm some voters, whose opinions may matter in the future. RFK Junior’s vaccine skepticism, as our lawyers have advised me to call it, fits a recent pattern —

[The RFK JR. cartoon is replaced, as UPRIGHT announces them, by limited-action cartoons of KRISTI NOEM shooting a dog, MATT GAETZ groping the buttocks of a girl in a Catholic school uniform, PETER HEGSETH giving a Nazi salute, and finally all four Cabinet appointees in smaller versions.]

— with the announced Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem — Attorney General Matt Gaetz — and Secretary of Defense Peter Hegseth also causing controversy, not to mention concern, as Trump calls for the Senate to recess so he can approve them without Senate involvement. Some say the Senate should insist on its traditional advise-and-consent role; others say it’s over, forget it, we’ll kill you and your family if you try to interfere. But how say our Decision Desk analysts? Let’s find out.

[A fever-shiver in the eardrums disguised as a sound cue. UPRIGHT strolls to the Decision Desk, where we see regular panelists PEONI DOYENNE, wearing a 2004 Yves Saint Laurent/Tom Ford Chinoiserie jacquard skirt suit, a veiled black pillbox hat, and light grey suede Manolo Blahnik pumps; CHAFE DRAMATURGY, wearing a Paul Fredrick camel hair double-breasted peak-lapel sport coat, a cream shirt barely visible under a Loro Piana feather pink graphite “Origins of Excellence” silk scarf that he wears as an Ascot, brown Eglitta corduroy pants, and Frye Duke Roper bourbon short boots; and BUFF TOEHOLD, looking sedated, dressed in a Trump-style suit, shirt, and tie, but barefoot, and with a wire running from one pant leg to offscreen.]

Buff, you look pretty calm, so let’s give it a try. Do you think these controversial if not concerning appointments should wait for Senate approval?

TOEHOLD: [Quietly, eyes going back and forth] Bolt, my people have been waiting for years. Decades. For people to come to their senses. Forget the old liberal pieties. FDR. Eisenhower. Jonas Salk. I would spit, if these pills didn’t dry my mouth out so much. Now. You say, wait. Wait for the Senate. We’re not waiting. We’re not waiting. You get in our way. You said it yourself. We kill. Kill. [Looking at the others, voice rising] Didn’t I say I would kill you, and I will, I’ll kill you all —

[A noise like a bug zapper; TOEHOLD shudders, sinks back in his chair.]

UPRIGHT: Good to have you back, Buff. Peoni, I saw your column on this, you seem to think it’s no big deal.

DOYENNE: Well, you know me, Bolt, I’m no Trump fan.

UPRIGHT: Uh huh.

DOYENNE: But the man just won a landslide victory.

UPRIGHT: Not a landslide.

DOYENNE: Well, we can debate that, Bolt, but he won, and look, even liberals are saying this RFK Junior thing, and you know I’m no RFK Junior fan —

UPRIGHT: Uh huh.

DOYENNE: — but this woman, I forget her name but she’s a scientist and she was in the New York Times and she says it’s fine for RFK to, you know, ask questions. I mean, so many people just don’t believe in vaccines anymore, and you know I’m no anti-vaxxer —

UPRIGHT: Uh huh.

DOYENNE: — but why can’t we just come together and say, OK, you blue state people can vaccinate all you want, and you red state people can just get sick and see what happens. Isn’t that what the scientific method is all about? Compromise?

UPRIGHT: Uh huh. Chafe?

DRAMATURGY: Well, I just can’t believe what I’m hearing. That’s just not how vaccines work, Peoni! Kennedy, Noem, Hegseth, Elon Musk for God’s sake, these people are so absurdly unqualified and such very, very concerning choices —

UPRIGHT: And controversial.

DRAMATURGY: Yes, and controversial! And I think it’s a very urgent sign, and we all better pay attention to this, that the Democratic Party has got to stop protecting trans people. They’re the reason we’re in this mess!

DOYENNE: Oh, absolutely.

TOEHOLD: And defund the police!

DRAMATURGY: Thank you, Buff, I had forgotten that one.

TOEHOLD: And [moves lips silently].

DRAMATURGY: [Eyes bulging] What?

[TOEHOLD’s talking a blue streak but the tape delay has given the control desk time to turn the sound off. DOYENNE plugs her ears. After a few seconds TOEHOLD shudders again, this time more violently, and slides off his chair to the floor.]

UPRIGHT: [Checking his watch] That’s a new record for Buff, maybe next week he’ll get all the way through the first segment. When we come back, a man with a big, thick beard and a forelock of well-oiled blond hair falling on his forehead and his chest all puffed out will explain why calling Pete Hegseth a white nationalist is an insult to Jesus Christ, and that all criticism of Hegseth is just about his tattoos and doesn’t have anything to do with the many things that Hegseth has said and written. Apologies to the network — apparently I was reading the subtext cue cards again.

[Mind-numbing pressure wave expressed as anti-melody; camera soars, supers float, and attentive viewers will see UPRIGHT breathing into a paper bag.]