Saul pored through his transcript of this debate. He clumsily dragged a purple, jagged line with his marker pen; an unusual choice for a task like this, but so be it. As he stood up and moved towards the restroom, Deborah subtly inched over to have a look.
She was quite shocked to read the transcript, and she wondered if Saul was quite well. She found it hard to believe that what she was reading was a true and authentic transcript of the recent debate.
MARCUS CHARLIE-ASS BUBBLE:
Ha! Are you here to save the little guy?
HONEST ADOLPH
No, I am not here to save the little guy. And there is no little guy. Each one of us, I say yes, every one of us, we are all mighty giants! But we are ever under the boots of cringing dwarves.
[ENSUING SOCIALIST UPROAR AT CHOICE OF WORDS]
I will call it as I see it. I believe in the individual, which as our friend Father Jeffries here on the podium with me will surely acknowledge, is the only name under Heaven by which man shall be saved.
[MORE MARXIST BITCHING AND WHINING AT CHOICE OF WORDS]
What? Is this how you respond to the name of the individual? Well, I do beg leave to apologise to my friends and, I trust, in many cases, my future comrades in arms. I meant no offence. There is no such thing as a disproportionate advocacy of individualism. Individualism is the only –ism which isn’t an –ism.
BELLA SNOWFLAKE BRAUN
You mean, ‘sorry if you were offended.’ You misogynistic swine! Just quit your semantics? How about your silence on that show the other night?
Yeah, you know, the other night? The night ten people were shot inside an abortion clinic? Why the hell didn’t you speak up then? Just goes to show, a leopard never changes his spots. You’re still that same naive, callow Austrian anarchist of way back then.
HONEST ADOLPH
I’ve already given my reasons. In my view, it wasn’t the time to discuss policies and legislation. It was a time of mourning.
BELLA SNOWFLAKE BRAUN
You have never mourned for a woman in your life; not once. Not even your own mother last week. You fucked-up, fucked-up, anti-choice piece of shit!
FATHER JIM JEFFRIES
Excuse me, may we moderate…
BELLA SNOWFLAKE BRAUN
I’m done! He obviously wants to have his say anyway. Have his say over my body and my choice. Fuck you, Adolph Adams… Fuck you!
HONEST ADOLPH
Neither life nor choice are pristine. Naomi Wolf once…
SNOWFLAKE BELLA
Who are you to talk about Naomi Wolf, you misogynistic hypocrite?!
HONEST ADOLPH
This is all getting rather personal.
LONGWINDED BELLA
What’s more personal than an abortion? You ever had one? No? Then shut the fuck up! I don’t care who endorses you; beneath the rhetoric, you’re just a Republican, an unrepentant Austrian oxygen thief who is making some kind of disingenuous pretence, that he’s already seen the error of his ways!
I’ve seen the way you sit on the fence. Saying all that crap about how ‘excessive’ abortion regulation (hah!) is ‘counterproductive to the aim intended, and may make the problem much worse for everyone than it might be under a more moderate system.’
Look, when you are sitting there intellectualising shit like that, people are literally dying because they can’t get access! What the hell have ‘means and ends’ got to do with it? My body is not for negotiation and intellectual speculation. Don’t you dare ever, ever, ever start discussing whether anti-choice laws are counterproductive. It doesn’t matter whether you say they are or they aren’t. Saying they are is just as bad as saying they aren’t. I am not having some privileged straight white guy with a fucking Jew nose and unacknowledged Zionist privilege, talking about whether such laws ‘don’t work.’
CONFUSED STONER BOY
Yeah, but are you surprised? This guy is probably owned by the Zio-Rothschild Venture Banking Fraternity; no wonder the controlled media love him!
MAGNANIMOUS BELLA
Oh, my, gosh! How DARE you say something so antisemitic?!
EVEN MORE CONFUSED STONER BOY
Huh? You just said precisely the same thing!
DRINKING GAME BELLA
Uh-uh! Bigot fail! I was talking about Zionism, not Jews!
STONER BOY ASSHOLE
Same frickin’ shit!
STRAWMAN BELLA
But anyway… I am not being talked down to by a pacifist isolationist!
FATHER JIM “ONCE IN A LIFETIME” JEFFRIES
Now, now…
BINARY LOGIC BELLA
Ohhh, would you just shut up!
But now. Now, now… now look, just you listen to me! At least the people who say they want to ban abortion completely are honest. ‘Abortion regulation is counterproductive?’ My ass! Next you’ll be saying rape laws are ‘counterproductive.’ It’s not about you and your dusty theoretical speculations, you filthy, shitty, male-chauvinist, misogynistic sack of crap! There is no middle ground on abortion. Don’t you dare EVER talk about ‘the right balance.’ There is no balance, and there are no compromises. You either want women to die, or you don’t! A dead woman is a dead woman, there’s literally no in-between! If you want to mess around and try and fence-sit the way you do, you’re ever bit as sexist as the Republicans. You are on the side of evil, pure evil! Every bit as much as they are!
FATHER JIM “ONE MORE TRY” JEFFRIES
Excuse me, but please may we…
NUCLEAR BELLA
Shut the fuck up, padre! Don’t you dare ever try and interrupt me. You’ve had it your own way a bit too long, alright?
[LOUD APPLAUSE AND JEERING FROM ALL THEM FRICKIN’ SJW SNOWFLAKE WANKERS]
BUBBLE BUTT MARKIE
Ha! Waterworks, eh? So it begins. What’re you crying about, Adams? Whew, this guy must have had some kind of, you know, failed nomination campaign or something. Still, don’t forget, this guy may well be an anarchist when it comes to male-dominated political life. But he’s also an authoritarian; in some contexts anyways, or I guess, in one way or another. Make of that what you will!
[LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE, JEERING]
HONEST ADOLPH
Am I an anarchist? How do you define anarchy? For, ‘I have sworn vengeance against…’
TEN-GALLON PIEHOLE BELLA
No, no, no! Senator Bubble knows Thomas Jefferson! But you, sir, are NO Thomas Jefferson!
HONEST ADOLPH
Well, I would like to think we are all Thomas Jefferson! No-one else can save you but yourself, but we can all stand together, no matter what befalls!
BOO HOO BELLA
That’s sheer libertarianism! Just like you were spouting 40 years ago, yeah? So much for your change of heart. What a pathetically suck-ass attempt to pretend to be progressive.
HONEST ADOLPH
It’s really not! You see what I am saying here? That’s what progressive constitutionalism is all about!
BELLA
You’re still no Thomas Jefferson!
HONEST ADOLPH
Well, it’s an old joke, and a good one! But now, I should say…
BELLA
Old joke? You mean like the charity advert? You’re making light of how Governor Bubble paid to his late father who reminded him of Thomas Jefferson?! He only died three days ago! Just show some frickin’…
HONEST ADOLPH
Oh, come on, now. You can’t surely think that?
BELLA
Defamer! Well-poisoner! Anti-choice Nazi! Respect my choice! Stop triggering us! You want to gas us all! You are funded by literal Nazis! They pay you in Bitcoin!
HONEST ADOLPH
Wh… Are you out of your mind?
BELLA
… I literally cannot believe you just said that!
IDIOT SCHMUCK #1
Oh, my, God! He did not go there!
IDIOT SCHMCUK #2
He’s LITERALLY talking about her autism!
HONEST ADOLPH
Hey, hey now, wait a minute…
BELLA
Wait a minute?! Check your privilege, you bigoted bastard! I’ve been self-diagnosed for over four months! I’m suffering, so, so much, when people like you try and silence us!
HONEST ADOLPH
Hey, hey now, can we all just…
BELLA
Don’t you ever dare infantilize me! I am neurodiversity! And you are not neurodiversity, you filthy, repugnant neurotypical bigot! I bet you’re a pro-cure privileged white guy who supports genocide of the autistic community!
IDIOT SCHMUCK #1
Yeah, don’t you dare infantilize her! Let her speak for herself, and let her have a voice, and stop censoring her, you authoritarian bigot!
BELLA
You talk to me like you’re scolding some, some kind of stupid…
HONEST ADOLPH
Look, nobody is stupid here.
JACOB
Well somebody sure is stupid! Get the fuck back to Kansas, you ignorant frickin’ hick!
HONEST ADOLPH
Oh well, heh heh… Mississippi, but close enough. Kansas is magic territory. I’m from the Blues country. ‘Pale pagan blues,’ by the Chip Johnny Hops. All that stuff.
BELLA
What the fuck did he just say? That is a hate crime!
HONEST ADOLPH
A what?
BELLA
He doesn’t even know, does he? How dare you talk to me that way? Don’t you know pagans are an oppressed minority? This campus should be a safe space! If it was up to me, our protest would have succeeded! I don’t feel safe.
[BELLA BURSTS INTO TEARS]
HONEST ADOLPH
This is… Now, this is America. Freedom of speech is what we are all…
BELLA
Don’t you dare use that racist ‘blues jive’ trope to a person of color! I’m transracial! Freedom of speech demands accountability!
HONEST ADOLPH
No, it doesn’t. It really doesn’t. You can trust me on that one.
BELLA
We can’t trust you on anything! Call yourself anti-establishment? You’re actually advocating, and yes you are actually perpetrating literal violence against every last innocent student on this campus!
HONEST ADOLPH
Violence? What violence? Well, I have a gun, sure. It’s in the Second Amendment, as we all know.
BELLA
Condescending asshole! C, c, c… condescending f-f-fucking asshole!
HONEST ADOLPH
Yes, I have a gun. But I haven’t brought it today. Because it is a right, not a duty. Now how about we talk about that one instead?
BELLA
WTF? A duty to kill us? What the literal fuck?! This guy is insane!
HONEST ADOLPH
And it just so happens, I believe the topic for I will be discussing in the last part of my closing speech is actually…
BELLA
Did you hear that?!
IDIOT SCHMUCK #1
don’t you fucking dare threaten us! Security!
HONEST ADOLPH
Hey, hey, now wait…
[MOB CHANTS: SECURITY! GET HIM OUT! GET HIM OUT! SECURITY! GET HIM OUT! SMOKE BOMBS BEGIN TO FLY, AND ANTIFA START BEATING PEOPLE AT RANDOM]
HONEST ADOLPH
Just one moment. Please, please just listen to me…
[MOB CHANTS: SAFE SPACE! SAFE SPACE! SAFE SPACE!]
HONEST ADOLPH
I’m all for safe spaces. But I’m not going to let this become a whole safe campus!
[MOB CHANTS: SAFE SPACE! SAFE SPACE! SAFE SPACE! GET HIM OUT!]
HONEST ADOLPH
Hey, this is sheer anarchy! ‘Get me out?’
[MOB CHANTS: Safe space! Safe space! Safe space!]
JACOB
What the fuck is wrong with anarchy anyways, you privileged asshole? Fricking jerk! Bring down the government! Bring down the shit-sucking, isolationist, pacifist, liberal bureaucrats! Liberals get the bullet too!
IDIOT SCHMUCK #2
Ohhh, I could strangle this bastard with my bare hands. Just let him bleed!
IDIOT SCHMUCK #3
You’re not the only one!
HONEST ADOLPH
Please let’s discuss this. I’m not going anyw… URGH!
[MASS LAUGHTER, JEERING, APPLAUSE]
IDIOT SCHMUCK #1
This is only the start…
BOUGHT & PAID 5-0 OXYGEN BANDIT
Come this way, sir! Resisting arrest is an offence in itself!
BELLA
Somebody bite your tongue, huh?
JACOB
Yeah, some liberal pacifist straight white guy bigot just bit his tongue!
BELLA
How about that suspended sentence, asshole?
JACOB
We are taking this campus back!
IDIOT SCHMUCK #1
The oppressors have lost!
JACOB
This cynical bastard. Three cheers for ‘Emperor’ fuckin’ Bubble! You call him the Emperor, huh? Well, rather him than you, right?!
[BUBBLE SMIRKS. MOB CONTINUES TO CHANT: SAFE SPACE! SAFE SPACE! SAFE SPACE!]
***
When Saul arrived back, he nodded grimly.
“It… didn’t happen quite like this?” she asked him.
Saul nodded his head.
There seemed to have a bit of artistic licence.
Later on, Deborah watched the debate from start to finish. One thing that stuck in Deborah’s mind was how during that debate, the media harshly accused him of being self-seeking; because he debated the Republican frontrunner when he hadn’t even won the Democratic nomination yet. He was accused of showing a false loyalty to his institution; i.e. it was alleged he had never paid a penny to support them his own alma mater. Of course, Bubble had never given a penny in a life to his old university, and he often used to speak of them disparagingly both in public, and in private. Adams, perhaps regrettably, was too scrupulous and over-nice to pick him up on the inconsistency between years of disparaging his alma mater and years of refusing to give them money, versus his current glowing praise and recent very large donation. The latter donation was given, in a very public and ostentatious manner, shortly after he began to run for the Republic nomination. Trying to outdo Pilder and Adams both in populist terms, Bubble insisted in providing a large sum of money to fund students living in poverty; particularly for military strategy, intelligence and ‘humanitarian liberation studies’ (which latter seems to have been curiously exempted from the customary Republican disdain for soft subjects).
In reality, Adams had accumulated quite a lot of wealth from his past career, and had been a frequent contributor to the university for many decades. But as with his other charitable deeds, he never permitted public disclosure of his contributions.
In a world where the mere hollow, superficial substance of virtue is everything, and true and authentic goodness means absolutely nothing, Adolph seems to have ended up with a serious competitive disadvantage.