Whither Civility?

Boss Trump is semi-assassinated and the Prestige Press is ON IT!

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

[Ganglia-stripping “musical” blast. On screen behind UPRIGHT, a limited-action cartoon of angels crying over TRUMP as he pumps his fist after the shooting at his Pennsylvania rally.]

Once again, the tortured cry of “My God, they’ve sort of shot the president, former or current.” If you look at our analysts over at the Decision Desk, you will see how appropriately mournful and concerned and choked up they are.

[UPRIGHT gestures and the camera catches the usual analysts: PEONI DOYENNE, wearing Nineteenth-Century widow’s weeds; BUFF TOEHOLD in an ugly, ill-fitting black suit with a black Tec-9 in a matching chest holster; and CHAFE DRAMATURGY wearing a black hooded robe, under which are visible his beige chinos and deck shoes and the collar of his Yiume paisley shirt. They all actually seem bored rather than concerned and DOYENNE is looking into a compact mirror and fixing her mascara.]

All of us have searched our souls and asked how could this happen in a nation of laws and norms such as ours. Some say it has been the intemperate rhetoric of senile Joe Biden. Let’s roll the clip:

[CUT TO: BIDEN in front of a cheering crowd: “We’re gonna beat Donald Trump!” CUT BACK to UPRIGHT:]

Talking of “beating” one’s opponent was common in the 19^th Century, historical experts tell us, but is this ugly reference to physical violence still appropriate to modern political campaigns in this era of Antifa? We asked Dormat Herpderp, a professor of communications at Tiffany College: