This year's girl

Everything is going back to normal, just you wait

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

[Music. Screen behind UPRIGHT: Picture of NIKKI HALEY with a halo and rays of light emanating – chyron: GOP GIRLBOSS!]

If you’re worried, as all of us at Received Opinion and this network pretend to be, that Donald Trump will be reelected in a walkover against the senile President Biden in 2024, don’t give up hope because the GOP may have found a new savior — former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley!

[Screen behind becomes a dramatic montage of HALEY addressing crowds, smiling, wagging her finger, smiling, serving hamburgers to decrepit seniors, smiling, etc.]

Once dismissed as an also-ran by the media, Haley has surged to an impressive eight percent in Republican presidential polls, breezing past rich guy Vivek Ramaswamy and closing in on Florida Governor I Forget His Name — and polls show her pulling even with Forgethisname in the bellwether state of Iowa! And look at this, from the very distinguished Washington Post which, some of our younger viewers may not know, is a newspaper:

[Screen behind shows clips from this WaPo editorial.]

“…former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley looks increasingly well-suited to emerge as a viable alternative to Mr. Trump.” And listen to this: “While she trails Mr. Trump by 31 points in South Carolina, 50 percent of likely voters in her home state said in an Oct. 31 CNN poll they would consider supporting her.” That’s as good as it gets! We’re so excited here at Received Opinion that we’re going straight to our usual roundtable.

[A few seconds of DYNAMIC traveling music as UPRIGHT goes to the Round Table; costume notes may be taken from “Three Swells,” with the addition of SANCTIMONI TWERP, who wears a little black dress and a silver cross on a silver chain and has had, despite her relatively young age, slightly Jokerfying plastic surgery.]

Today once again we have with us syndicated columnist and author of When Republicans Wore Nice Suits and Tsk Your Way to the Moral High Ground Peoni Doyenne; Democratic consultant, New York Times contributor, and author of Bring Back the Marquess of Queensberry and The Comity Chronicles, Chafe Dramaturgy; syndicated columnist and author of Cigars with Rush Limbaugh and No More Mr. Nice Guy: Diary of an Insurrectionist Buff Toehold — and, joining us for the first time, Sanctimoni Twerp, an author of many internet essays sent to us by the Federalist Society. Peoni, let’s start with you. Is this the turnaround the Grand Old Party has been waiting for?

DOYENNE: Oh, absolutely, Bolt. I was just talking with some of the Party’s movers and shakers, and we covered a lot of subjects, like how everyone under the age of thirty is an antisemite and you can’t get a decent Gibson even at the Sherry-Netherland, but the one thing they all agreed on is that this young woman is the new face of the party. She’s bright, she’s ethnic, and you wouldn’t be embarrassed to take her around in decent society, though of course we have to do something about her hair and makeup first.

UPRIGHT: Encouraging! Chafe, how does she look from your side of the aisle?

DRAMATURGY: I’ve been saying all along, Bolt, America needs a vital, competitive Republican Party as a counterweight to all the things that as Democrats we pretend to believe. Obviously Trump can’t do that.

DOYENNE: Ugh, no.

DRAMATURGY: Look at how his first term damaged his Party! People are afraid to even say they’re Republicans anymore — they say they’re for Trump, or they’re MAGA, or they hate you and want to kill you, but never that they’re Republicans.  And if he wins in 2024, and it increasingly looks like he will, he has promised to, well, basically become a fascist dictator, and I fear that could be the end for the GOP. Oh, and America, too.

DOYENNE: I do so wish you wouldn’t call him a fascist, Chafe, it’s so unseemly.

DRAMATURGY: Ha ha, I’m sorry, Peoni. I sound like one of those DSA crazies!

UPRIGHT: Buff, your reaction.

TOEHOLD: Well, you know how I feel about President Trump. I love him and I’ve been looking forward to seeing him get back in and murder and humiliate his enemies. Like you, Chafe. You know when he gets back in, he’s going to firebomb that nice house you have in Kalorama, you and everyone in it, ha ha ha!

EVERYONE: Chortle chortle chortle!

TOEHOLD: But sometimes things just don’t go your way, so if this little Indian gal gets the nomination, I can live with it. She believes all the same things Trump does, after all.

DOYENNE: Now, that’s hardly fair, Buff. Trump is a great hulking brute who, I have it on good authority, smells like Mennen Speed Stick and tetracycline. Miss Haley is a decent person, very well brought up.

TOEHOLD: Peoni, can you name one issue on which she and President Trump disagree?

UPRIGHT: Buff, you know political beliefs are something we don’t talk about on this show. Have you been drinking?

TOEHOLD: What do you think?

EVERYONE: Chortle chortle chortle!

TOEHOLD: I haven’t drawn a sober breath since the Bush administration.

UPRIGHT: But where are my manners. I forgot to ask Miss Twerp to weigh in.

TWERP: We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.

UPRIGHT: An interesting perspective. When we come back, we’ll join Chaya Raichik, who’ll tell us why she’s happy viewers of her controversial website Libs of TikTok are sending death threats to trans people, and Trump lawyer Alina Habba, who’ll explain why Judge Engoron should hire a food taster.

[DYNAMIC music; camera flies away, catching DOYENNE, DRAMATURGY, and TOEHOLD checking their phones, and TWERP frantically trying to get the camera to pick up the White Power sign she’s flashing.]