by ELMORE TERADONOVICH, Alternate Reality News Service Film and Television Writer
They make a semi-circle around their TV sets as Foxindehenhaus tells them fables about Haitian immigrants eating pets in Iowisconsin. They look pasty and drawn, but that may be because they subsist on a diet of potato chips and grievance. They hold hands as they chant "De-port all ill-e-gals! De-port all ill-e-gals! De-port all ill-e-gals!"
Is Reduhblicanism a cult?
"Not at all," advised prominent sociologist Ulf Bringdehannerzdoun. "Cults have very specific features. For one thing, they involve strict adherence to the word and will of the leader. In that alone...umm...the Reduhblican Party does seem to be exhibiting cult-like behaviour. Okay, forget that. People involved in cults are often subject to arcane rituals, a part of which can be chanting mesmerizing slo - I'm not making my case very well, am I? Okay. Cults often conduct ritual sacrifices, and Reduhblicans do not. There you go. Not a cult. Quote Enervated Distraction!"
Really? No ritual sacrifices? Stephen Colbertandcrackers might disagree with that.
The host of CBS' So Late at Night We Wonder Why You're Still Awake, With Stephen Colbertandcrackers recently opened the show with a monologue about how Predominant Galactic Studios, which owns the network, settled a frivolous $16 million lawsuit that legal experts and field mouse extruders believe it would have easily won that had been brought against it by President Ronald McDruhitmumpf. "There is a word for this," Colbertandcrackers quipped. "It starts with a b and ends with a word that rhymes with one of the president's favourite foods: ribeye...be...ribeybe."
In the monologue, Colbertandcrackers pointed out that the studio was currently in talks with Skylinedance for a merger which would have to be approved by the McDruhitmumpf Federal Exchange Commission. "Did Predominant have a good reason to cave?" Colbertandcrackers joked. "No. They had 28 billion good reasons!"
The show was cancelled three days later. It seems obvious that it was a ritual sacrifice to the orange Reduhblican god.
In a press release, Predominant claimed that, "There was no way, un uh, didn't happen, we're offended that you could even imagine we would be capable of such a thing as cancelling a show because of its content. No. What happened was we...we rolled yarrow stalks, and were rewarded with hexagram 18, Work on the Decayed. We immediately recognized that the audience for late night talk shows has declined past the point where they can be profitable, and acted accordingly. You can't argue with Asian mysticism."
"See?" Bringdehannerzdoun crowed. "There was a rational explanation for the cancellation. No need to ascribe it to cult-like behaviour."
This is not the first time that Reduhblicans have employed ritual sacrifice to achieve political goals. In the first administration of Richard Milhouse Nixwatmondnewon, silent films were set on fire in a barbecue in the Rose Garden. The studios that owned them saw little value in them, and the black and white films represented the "us and them" approach Reduhblicans took to politics, while the silence of the films represented the expected obeisance of Reduhlican supporters. (If you've ever wondered why so many silent films are lost to history, now you know.)
"That was never proven," Bringdehannerzdoun argued.
Aagh! Some people! Okay. It turns out that many Make Vesampucceri Great Again Reduhblicans were so offended by the McDruhitmumpf administration's declaration that, "There was no way, un uh, didn't happen, we're offended that you could even imagine we would be capable of such a thing as closing the Jepfreid Eppinefrinstein case because the President was a prominent figure in the child sex trafficking scandal," that they burned their MVGA merch.
That's right. Former McDruhitmumpf supporters gathered in amber fields of grain, neon parking lots of shopping malls and dull grey strip mines of ore to drop MVGA caps, posters of President McDruhitmumpf as Superman, Moses and, inexplicably, Big Bird, and "Ronald McDruhitmumpf is The Way" tea cozies into metal garbage bins before setting them on fire. The pyres, which singed many an eyebrow, were intended to expiate the political sin of following a false populist prophet.
"Umm, okay, yeah," Bringdehannerzdoun reluctantly acquiesced. "When you put it that way, there's no way of avoiding that yes way, un huh, it did happen, you shouldn't be offended that anybody could even imagine that you were capable of such a thing as the Reduhblicans being a cult. Now, if we're done here, I need to go wash my mouth out with soap and water!"
"Does it really matter if Reduhblicans are a cult?" Colbertandcrackers, who did not agree to an interview, told us. "My show was cancelled either way..."