For this one: You must turn the tables on your political opponent during a debate. Matt's note: This one is sourced from Hermia's retort to Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream. The original text follows this monologue.
MELTDOWN (any gender, late thirties through late life)
Barbarian? Ladies and gentlemen, you heard him. My opponent is calling me a "barbarian."
Did I not shake hands at the beginning of this debate?
Have I not been respectful throughout?
Have I called MY OPPONENT names like "Barbarian"?
And what exactly does he mean? Am I a barbarian because of the tragedy in my state? Does my opponent think that I ENGINEERED the meltdown? Ladies and gentlemen, just because I supported a new source of electricity... just because I was trying to save people money... just because I was trying to ELIMINATE waste from the environment... I'm a BARBARIAN.
No, forget it: My opponent is RIGHT. Clearly I must be a force of destruction. I caused the meltdown at the power plant and dumped the chemicals all over mother nature. All by myself-- right? I did it for FUN, right? Because I'm a REPUBLICAN and we're all just meatheads stomping about, squashing everything around us. We're BARBARIANS. Right?
Ladies and gentlemen... what does it take to prove that I'm human? What could it be? Ladies and gentlemen, how about this: I'll ask my opponent how he felt about the little accident last year. The one that conveniently killed his former rival? I cried during the press conference on that one. Let's have a look at my OPPONENT'S face right now.
Copyright 2016 by Matt Haynes.
If you would like to use this piece, please credit: "Courtesy of Matt Haynes and The Pulp Stage"
SOURCE TEXT
Puppet? why so? ay, that way goes the game.
Now I perceive that she hath made compare
Between our statures; she hath urged her height;
And with her personage, her tall personage,
Her height, forsooth, she hath prevail'd with him.
And are you grown so high in his esteem;
Because I am so dwarfish and so low?
How low am I, thou painted maypole? speak;
How low am I? I am not yet so low
But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes.