Walz to the balls

A likable liberal gets boosted and Received Opinion is ON IT!

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

 [Seconds of musical vomit. On a screen behind UPRIGHT: a limited-animation cartoon of Tim Walz’ smiling face, with little Kamala Harris cupids and hearts flying around it; caption is SUGAR WALZ.]

Kamala Harris has chosen her running mate and he is not a slim white technocrat from Pennsylvania so FIVE SECOND SNARL, GO!

[Quick cut to the Decision Desk team — PEONI DOYENNE, wearing a strawberry pink Dolce & Gabbana two-piece suit with a black turtleneck, ruby solitaire necklace, and tan Boden ankle-strap point flats; CHAFE DRAMATURGY, wearing a very light grey Thom Browne seersucker suit with matching tie, deconstructed white dress shirt, and black Prada Monolith brushed leather loafers; and BUFF TOEHOLD, wearing a dark blue Trump suit with red tie and black shoes, with a wire leading up one of his pants legs — all roaring incoherently for five seconds until cut off by a buzzer.]

Time! Alright. Now that we have that out of our systems, let’s get to the more detailed analysis. Peoni, why is this good news for Donald Trump?

DOYENNE: Ha ha well Bolt, I mean, all this man-of-the-people talk, I mean this is a Democrat. He is by definition no more a man of the people than Chafe. No offense, Chafe!

DRAMATURGY: Ha ha, none taken!

DOYENNE: Oh, sure, he seems to enjoy what the liberal media calls regular-guy stuff, like what do they call it, ice-fishing — I guess you fish for ice and whoever gets the most ice wins? I don’t know, I asked some of my sporty friends in Amagansett and they knew nothing about it. I think it’s one of those made-up things like Deez Nuts, which my nephew told me about last week. He seemed to think it was funny.

TOEHOLD: Plus Walz is a radical leftist, Bolt! A radical! Leftist! They breed ‘em like mosquitoes in Minnesota — Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale, all the big commies. Scandinavia, that’s where it comes from, they invented the welfare state and nudity. I Am Curious Yellow! You saw it!

UPRIGHT: Before my time, Buff.

TOEHOLD: You see those pictures of Walz laughing? Well he was laughing all right when BLM burned Minneapolis to the ground! To the ground, people! That’s why the Vikings and the Twins and the Timberwolves had to play their home games in North Dakota!

UPRIGHT: The Vikings, Twins, and Timberwolves did not play in North Dakota and Minneapolis was not burned to the ground.

TOEHOLD: [Enraged] What are you, Community Notes? You’re not supposed to say what’s real!

UPRIGHT: Buff, we discussed this —

TOEHOLD: [Agitated, in a trance like Lucky in Waiting for Godot] And antisemitic! Antisemitic! He’s not the Jew and they could have had a Jew and they didn’t because they hate Jews even if they’re Jews they hate Jews they hate Jews they’re antisemitism, antisemiticalism, antiestablishmenticism, antismidemihemi –

[Electric sound; TOEHOLD spasms, falls forward, shudders and tries to steady himself.]

UPRIGHT: OK, a little time-out for Buff. Over to you, Chafe.

DRAMATURGY: Well, Bolt, I’m as sensitive to radical leftist antisemitism as anyone but that’s not the only radical leftism Walz is guilty of and that’s why I wrote my column today on why the radical liberals Harris and Walz must tack to the center. Now you know I’m no Trump fan —

DOYENNE: Heavens, nor am I!

TOEHOLD: Grrrrnnnt.

DRAMATURGY: — but like millions of Americans I may be forced to withhold my vote if the Democrats can’t back off on some of these radical Tim Walz proposals like free lunch for schoolchildren. I mean, they passed that without any means testing! Means testing is the backbone of responsible liberalism! What if someone who doesn’t really need a free tuna fish sandwich gets it? That’s moral hazard! And that’s why some people — and I don’t mean this in a racist way, and I apologize to the very hard-working young woman who frothed my latte in the green room — that’s why some people live in what we used to call ghettos.

UPRIGHT: So, to be clear, you’re against free lunches for schoolchildren?

DRAMATURGY: I prefer to talk about what I’m for, Bolt, and what I’m for is welfare reform, school vouchers, enterprise zones, and the repeal of the Civil Rights Amendments.

UPRIGHT: I’m sorry, what?

DRAMATURGY: [Pointing to a piece of paper in front of him] I’m sorry, I drew my red line a little too far down on this list. It’s a good list, it just goes a bit too far!

UPRIGHT: I see. When we come back, J.D. Vance, clutching his wife Usha’s hand, will relive the tragic toll of the unfair accusations against him — that he had sexual relations with a couch.

TOEHOLD: [Screaming] YOU WEREN’T SUPPOSED TO SAY THAT!

[UPRIGHT holds up what looks like a TV remote and squeezes it – TOEHOLD does a backflip and crashes to the floor]

UPRIGHT: But first a word from Academi!