We, the Democrats, have always been the party of the people—the champions of the downtrodden, the enlightened shepherds guiding the grubby masses toward a more progressive and culturally sophisticated existence.
Brilliantly captured. That dearth of understanding we see from the university educated. The agonies they have endured to elevate the hoi polloi and not even a token thank you for the sustainable energy or the kale.
I know these people. I work with them. The only thing that matches their ignorance of human psychology is their own confidence in their vision for tomorrow. The 15-minute cities, the beautiful multicultural harmony and the clean, green, endless energy that can't exist outside of people's heads.
It is quite a world they will never live in. No wonder they hate the actual workers wrecking it with their demands for stuff that actually works and jobs that pay a living wage.
They spin grand utopian narratives, oblivious to the fundamental truths that actually sustain a functioning society.
The real tragedy isn’t just their tunnel vision, but how deeply it’s reinforced by confirmation bias and Kafka Traps—like Dory in the deep sea, blindly chasing a light that leads straight into the jaws of a lurking predator.
The antidote isn’t more outrage or noise from those who feel powerless. It’s handing the mic to those with discernment and leading by example—someone who has mastered the art of out-swimming the menacing fish, not through fear, but with skill, clarity, and even a bit of joy. Eventually, people start to notice which path actually leads to the closest thing to a livable utopia.
I believe you and I are some of those trailblazers doing laps around predatory fish. 🐟
sustainable energy (methane) from kale, raw onions, beans and cabbage is a flatulent, mean green dream! hook the elite-left up to portable collection devices, solar propeller hatz and keep them well fed with a vegan diet.
The Dems have been so oblivious to how they've failed to do anything material for the working class for decades and so insensitive to the political winds, I'm pretty sure it's impossible to be too hyperbolic (as I see one person sort of claimed) at this point. If they had a clue — and sense of what the electorate was yearning for — they'd surely have gotten behind Sanders in '16 instead of the most establishment candidate imaginable. But.. nope. And then, yeah, '24 was more or less a rinse-repeat of that.
When the actual industrial working classes rejected international communist class revolution (mass murder sprees by Stalin, Mao, etc.), the neo-marxist, globalist, billionaire oligarchs that pull the strings of the elite-left Democrat party puppets settled into the idea of reducing the working classes to something like the condition of the feudal peasantry.
And the "leftist" intellectual elites, eager to not themselves be downsized or offshored by the oligarchs, went along.
Unfortunately, the father, son and unholy ghost (Trump, Vance and Musk) the trinity of the increasingly incompetent party have no plans to take the last train to the coast. You would think their self imposed rapid decline in popularity would be a boon to that other party’s prospects, but no. No matter how low the Republicans sink the Democrats manage to plummet farther and faster.
Their historic Democratic counterparts, FDR, HST and JFK would laugh at what passes for policy in their own beloved party. Although two were upper class they all understood that victory for their party depended on appealing to working class voters. Current party leaders distain the “deplorable” and “racist” members of the working class.
A laundry list of things for Democrats to keep and to dump if they ever want to win again nationwide.
Keep a woman’s right to choose for the first trimester.
Dump abortion until birth unless the mother’s health is at risk or the fetus is not viable.
Keep a concern for climate change and grow nuclear power.
Dump intermittent, unreliable renewable energy that requires backup continuous generating capacity which is then used intermittently. A ridiculously expensive approach.
Keep and develop new effective vaccines.
Dump vaccine mandates.
Keep equality of opportunity for all. Dump equity of results based on discriminating against men, whites and Asians in a futile attempt to compensate for past discrimination against women and blacks. Recognize that D.E.I. Is unconstitutional.
Keep the protection of gay and lesbian rights.
Dump men in women’s sports, private spaces and prisons. Oh, and mutilating children who might grow up to be gay.
Keep an opportunity for selective high value immigration.
Dump sanctuary cities and open borders.
Keep helping the homeless find jobs and a place to live.
Dump camping in cities, shitting in the streets and allowing open drug use.
Keep a concern for due process in criminal justice.
Dump letting shoplifters and other petty thieves off the hook and releasing predators back on the streets without bail to kill and maim again.
Keep support for unions and fair wages
Dump “free trade” policies that have devastated our manufacturing sector.
Do all of the above and start governing like you know what the fuck you’re doing and you might just find your way back to power.
I see your point and agree with you on a lot of things.
At the end of the day, good policy should do one thing: make life better for people.
People should feel safe in their communities. That means holding criminals accountable and making sure the justice system is fair.
We need energy that’s reliable and affordable. If nuclear is the best option, use it. If a policy doesn’t work, scrap it—doesn’t matter if it came from the left or right.
Everyone deserves equal opportunity, not forced outcomes. If you discriminate against one group to “fix” discrimination against another, you’re just repeating the same mistake.
Borders should be secure, immigration should make sense, and trade policies should actually benefit American workers instead of gutting entire industries.
Personal freedom is important, but so is responsibility. You don’t get to claim rights without also respecting the social contract that keeps a society functioning.
Most people aren’t extreme—they just want a country that works. But politicians keep playing to the loudest voices instead of doing their jobs. If either party started focusing on results over rhetoric, they wouldn’t have to fight their way back to power. People would trust them again.
The weird logic is to debate with principles rather than political talking points. That’s what every effective human rights movement since Moses was founded on—because principles are universal and have the power to rise above even the deepest hatred. 😉
It’s amazing having great seats to the cognitive dissonance on Nantucket Island. I’m watching 160 Eiffel Tower sized wind turbines be erected on the horizon, but it turns out they actually only create the equivalent energy of 1 day of jet fuel from Atlanta’s airport, and are built by a foreign oil consortium.
The clean power is actually made of non degradable fiberglass, prone to industrial accidents, prone to be lied about and hidden by said consortium. Our brains break when we see the refuse wash up in splinters on the pristine beach where I used to walk my dogs and let my kid play barefoot. The ingratitude and ungratefulness is well captured here! 😀
I’ve tried to change their political behavior by calling them white supremacists over and over, but they STILL vote for the candidates and policies I hate. The only solution I can think of is to keep calling them white supremacists until they finally do what I want.
For the record, I am an urban liberal. The Democratic Party is supposed to represent the interests of the working class, but in many ways, they—like everyone else—have largely abandoned them.
I’m not saying urban liberals need to step in and fix everything. I’m just pointing out how certain cultural and institutional forces have shaped the situation. Whether the working class should handle their own problems or not is a separate question.
went way off the rails into overclaiming at this point:
"We [Democrats] defunded their police, dismantled their military, and threw Molotov cocktails at their institutions of national security, ensuring that when things inevitably collapsed, we could blame the Republicans. And when crime skyrocketed, and their streets became unlivable, we told them they were imagining it, that law enforcement is an oppressive tool of the patriarchy, and that if they really wanted safety, they should just take up kickboxing or call a social worker.
And still, they failed to see the gift we were giving them. We gave them fentanyl to help them cope, and polyamory to dismantle their oppressive nuclear family"
Is no one else sick and tired of Manichean Hyperbole? the Generational Amnesia and Presentism required to construct the Caricature? The elevation of idealized Mythology over the real-world messiness of Factual History?
Agitprop is never going to be either "thoughtful" or "reflective." It's a button-pushing guided meditation.
I get that my words were intentionally exaggerated and provocative—that’s the nature of satire. It’s meant to push boundaries and force us to confront uncomfortable realities. The over-the-top nature of the claims isn’t meant to be taken literally, but rather as a way of highlighting what I see as some of the contradictions and unintended consequences of certain ideological movements.
I’m not claiming that these things are as simplistic or one-dimensional as they might appear on the surface. The point is to show the absurdity in certain trends, not to paint everything in black and white. The goal here is to invite reflection, not just to provoke for the sake of it.
If we dismiss the critique based on the style or tone, we risk missing the more nuanced questions about the effects of policies and ideas. It’s easy to default to calling something “over-claiming” or “propaganda” but let’s consider whether the real-world messiness of these issues is being addressed thoughtfully or whether we’re so entrenched in our sides that we aren’t seeing the full picture.
I hope that, despite the strong language, you can still see the heart of the critique—how often we reduce complex issues to oversimplified narratives that serve an ideological agenda, rather than engaging with the real consequences on the ground.
Great response to criticism that encapsulates the kind of obtuse obliviousness the article is satirizing. I now walk away from conversations with formally rational, creative friends shaking my head. Instead of dialogue my reward is a seeing a total lack of self-awareness, humility, faux empathy that stops post virtue signaling, an inability to incorporate information outside of the Borg, and alas, a total loss of sense of humor. It’s like living in the twilight zone now.
The thing is, my criticism isn't coming from an ideological bias, or out of a compulsion to defend the Democratic Party. I'm calling a foul, like a referee, in the spirit of maintaining an ideal of impartiality and calling for fidelity to ordinary standards of accuracy. I'm not assuming the power of a referee, of course. I'm just letting you know the spirit in which my criticism is intended. So this is a Critique. Be prepared.
There's a difference between Satire and Sarcastic Polemic. It's roughly the difference between George Will and Ann Coulter. Satire is pointed, both as regards its targets and the subtlety of its details. Satire can utilize either dry humor and understatement (George Will), parody and exaggeration (Dave Barry, Matt Taibbi), or it can shift back and forth between the two modes (P.J. O'Rourke.) But in either case, for best results it always maintains a finely tuned sense of proportion, realizing that the statement is undercut by any resort to invalid or off-base claims. And while the tone of satire can be bitter, it has no need to sneer.
Sarcastic polemic, on the other hand, loves its sweeping generalizations and its partisan political agenda. It thrives on hyperbole, has no restraint about miscasting facts to make misleading points, and celebrates its meanness. That would be Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, and practically all of Rush's Political Hot Talk Radio acolytes. More often than not nowadays, it's also Seth Myers, Amber Ruffin, John Oliver, Jimmy Kimmel, Trevor Noah, and most liberal Democrat-coded professional comics--many of whom who I used to like a lot, back before they began confusing satire with sanctimony. I get that it still seems to play well with an audience of fellow partisans, although even there the applause often sounds rote, with overtones of ritual obligation. But cheap shots mixed with sanctimony is no niche for a professional comedian. If all you've got are mean-spirited one-sided partisan mockeries and stock villain name-checks, congratulations: you're Ann Coulter. Working in a propaganda mill instead of mining comedy gold. I have to say it; some of my old heroes are unwatchable. Seth Myers deserves a ribbon for bravery for his performance before the Bush crowd at the National Press Club in 2004, and for that alone he'll always have my respect. But nowadays Gilbert Gottfried and his guests are funnier.
Admittedly, it isn't always easy to know where satire leaves off and nut-kicking polemic begins. As Garrett Morris once said, "comedy practically requires putting somebody at the bottom", to have some target as the butt of a joke. And even very skilled satirists occasionally cross the line, in my opinion: Norm MacDonald. Bill Maher. Louis CK. Dave Chappell,. H. L. Mencken. Tom Wolfe. But their egregious slights and knocks are far outweighed by a way with insight that can land on any deserving target. And that's the hallmark of a top-notch satirist, that they can shift their gaze unpredictably, and make points that don't resolve to some Orwellian Color Wars diatribe.
In your case, you start off by making some fair satirical points. You could have wrapped it up halfway through, arguably. Even given the problems of satirizing a group as large as "Democrats", the most vocal Democrats really do appear to be clutching some failed narratives in common as a group, and that denial can only increase their already unhealthy level of cognitive dissonance. But then you began to lay it on too thick: the Democratic Party is not responsible for the fentanyl epidemic, much less peddling it as an intentional plot, and yes, that is what your words imply. Just as you imply that the outbreaks of arson and violence in the summer of 2020 were applauded by Democrats, and possibly even the result of some sort of conspiracy and collaboration with the extremists and rabble who used the massive nationwide demonstrations as cover for their looting and burning. Hundreds of people were arrested and convicted for those crimes. https://apnews.com/article/records-rebut-claims-jan-6-rioters-55adf4d46aff57b91af2fdd3345dace8
Really. It looked like you were about two column inches away from indicting all Democrat voters en masse, as Satanic Child Trafficking Abortionist Ritual Murderers.
That's what I mean by the difference between satire, which can be as finely focused as a scalpel, and partisan polemic, which is typically about loading a blunderbuss with whatever is handy.
Another difference between satire and scattershot polemic is well-known. "Satire is what closes Saturday night." And scattershot polemic is big box office clickbait. The same shows have been playing for 35 years--in so cases, more like 70 years, or even before then. The John Birch Society Revue has gotten new life infused into it, using the same script it had in the 1950s with a handful of changes and updates. The Jewish Conspiracy, that evergreen narrative. And more recently the Satanic Democrat Panic, which happens to draw from both of those plot lines.
Hence, my original comment post--the one to which you've replied: I had to say it. Someone has to say "enough." Check yourself. Dial it back. Don't get Carried Away.
I see your point and I appreciate the thoughtful breakdown of the different modes of satire. It’s always refreshing to engage with a perspective that emphasizes precision and nuance. But in this case, my aim was to take the chains off and let the absurdity run wild. Sometimes, the only way to make people feel something is to take it to extremes—because real change often comes from shaking the ground beneath us.
In a world where the lines between rhetoric and reality blur so often, I think there’s a place for the loud, exaggerated, over-the-top moments that make us pause and reconsider—sometimes in ways that a finely honed scalpel of satire just can’t reach. Maybe my approach isn’t about finding balance but about highlighting the chaos itself. In the end, sometimes the most effective way to wake people up is not through subtlety, but through a raucous, unapologetic truth that forces them to confront their assumptions.
That’s what I was aiming for—whether or not it landed, who knows. But I do wonder, is there room for the exaggerated in our search for meaning or must we always play within a set of conventional refinement?
Brilliantly captured. That dearth of understanding we see from the university educated. The agonies they have endured to elevate the hoi polloi and not even a token thank you for the sustainable energy or the kale.
I know these people. I work with them. The only thing that matches their ignorance of human psychology is their own confidence in their vision for tomorrow. The 15-minute cities, the beautiful multicultural harmony and the clean, green, endless energy that can't exist outside of people's heads.
It is quite a world they will never live in. No wonder they hate the actual workers wrecking it with their demands for stuff that actually works and jobs that pay a living wage.
Well said, Spacemen. You’re always spot on.
They spin grand utopian narratives, oblivious to the fundamental truths that actually sustain a functioning society.
The real tragedy isn’t just their tunnel vision, but how deeply it’s reinforced by confirmation bias and Kafka Traps—like Dory in the deep sea, blindly chasing a light that leads straight into the jaws of a lurking predator.
The antidote isn’t more outrage or noise from those who feel powerless. It’s handing the mic to those with discernment and leading by example—someone who has mastered the art of out-swimming the menacing fish, not through fear, but with skill, clarity, and even a bit of joy. Eventually, people start to notice which path actually leads to the closest thing to a livable utopia.
I believe you and I are some of those trailblazers doing laps around predatory fish. 🐟
We may very well be. I do think a bracing collapse will waken many people up to the clownshow.
sustainable energy (methane) from kale, raw onions, beans and cabbage is a flatulent, mean green dream! hook the elite-left up to portable collection devices, solar propeller hatz and keep them well fed with a vegan diet.
That is a plan we could all get behind. Or perhaps in front of.
definitely fetid! maybe even redolent.
The Dems have been so oblivious to how they've failed to do anything material for the working class for decades and so insensitive to the political winds, I'm pretty sure it's impossible to be too hyperbolic (as I see one person sort of claimed) at this point. If they had a clue — and sense of what the electorate was yearning for — they'd surely have gotten behind Sanders in '16 instead of the most establishment candidate imaginable. But.. nope. And then, yeah, '24 was more or less a rinse-repeat of that.
Sublime. Magnificent.
---
See Kotkin on Neo-Feudalism.
When the actual industrial working classes rejected international communist class revolution (mass murder sprees by Stalin, Mao, etc.), the neo-marxist, globalist, billionaire oligarchs that pull the strings of the elite-left Democrat party puppets settled into the idea of reducing the working classes to something like the condition of the feudal peasantry.
And the "leftist" intellectual elites, eager to not themselves be downsized or offshored by the oligarchs, went along.
Unfortunately, the father, son and unholy ghost (Trump, Vance and Musk) the trinity of the increasingly incompetent party have no plans to take the last train to the coast. You would think their self imposed rapid decline in popularity would be a boon to that other party’s prospects, but no. No matter how low the Republicans sink the Democrats manage to plummet farther and faster.
Their historic Democratic counterparts, FDR, HST and JFK would laugh at what passes for policy in their own beloved party. Although two were upper class they all understood that victory for their party depended on appealing to working class voters. Current party leaders distain the “deplorable” and “racist” members of the working class.
A laundry list of things for Democrats to keep and to dump if they ever want to win again nationwide.
Keep a woman’s right to choose for the first trimester.
Dump abortion until birth unless the mother’s health is at risk or the fetus is not viable.
Keep a concern for climate change and grow nuclear power.
Dump intermittent, unreliable renewable energy that requires backup continuous generating capacity which is then used intermittently. A ridiculously expensive approach.
Keep and develop new effective vaccines.
Dump vaccine mandates.
Keep equality of opportunity for all. Dump equity of results based on discriminating against men, whites and Asians in a futile attempt to compensate for past discrimination against women and blacks. Recognize that D.E.I. Is unconstitutional.
Keep the protection of gay and lesbian rights.
Dump men in women’s sports, private spaces and prisons. Oh, and mutilating children who might grow up to be gay.
Keep an opportunity for selective high value immigration.
Dump sanctuary cities and open borders.
Keep helping the homeless find jobs and a place to live.
Dump camping in cities, shitting in the streets and allowing open drug use.
Keep a concern for due process in criminal justice.
Dump letting shoplifters and other petty thieves off the hook and releasing predators back on the streets without bail to kill and maim again.
Keep support for unions and fair wages
Dump “free trade” policies that have devastated our manufacturing sector.
Do all of the above and start governing like you know what the fuck you’re doing and you might just find your way back to power.
I see your point and agree with you on a lot of things.
At the end of the day, good policy should do one thing: make life better for people.
People should feel safe in their communities. That means holding criminals accountable and making sure the justice system is fair.
We need energy that’s reliable and affordable. If nuclear is the best option, use it. If a policy doesn’t work, scrap it—doesn’t matter if it came from the left or right.
Everyone deserves equal opportunity, not forced outcomes. If you discriminate against one group to “fix” discrimination against another, you’re just repeating the same mistake.
Borders should be secure, immigration should make sense, and trade policies should actually benefit American workers instead of gutting entire industries.
Personal freedom is important, but so is responsibility. You don’t get to claim rights without also respecting the social contract that keeps a society functioning.
Most people aren’t extreme—they just want a country that works. But politicians keep playing to the loudest voices instead of doing their jobs. If either party started focusing on results over rhetoric, they wouldn’t have to fight their way back to power. People would trust them again.
Not so Weird: Well said. 👍
The weird logic is to debate with principles rather than political talking points. That’s what every effective human rights movement since Moses was founded on—because principles are universal and have the power to rise above even the deepest hatred. 😉
They are narcissistics unable to do any wrong. That's why it's always somebody else's fault.
I used to be one of the worst offenders. Humility and discernment is what these people need.
It’s amazing having great seats to the cognitive dissonance on Nantucket Island. I’m watching 160 Eiffel Tower sized wind turbines be erected on the horizon, but it turns out they actually only create the equivalent energy of 1 day of jet fuel from Atlanta’s airport, and are built by a foreign oil consortium.
The clean power is actually made of non degradable fiberglass, prone to industrial accidents, prone to be lied about and hidden by said consortium. Our brains break when we see the refuse wash up in splinters on the pristine beach where I used to walk my dogs and let my kid play barefoot. The ingratitude and ungratefulness is well captured here! 😀
I’ve tried to change their political behavior by calling them white supremacists over and over, but they STILL vote for the candidates and policies I hate. The only solution I can think of is to keep calling them white supremacists until they finally do what I want.
Wow. Perfect.
Satire is good and appropriate, in this context.
I see a Hunger Games cover photo, I subscribe.
Ty!
You are fast becoming my new spirit animal! 😂🤣😂
#Kearney4Congress
Just at how evil you have become. You not the party it used to be. Now it is the right hand of the devil.
What a bunch of whining. Take responsibility for your own problems.
It’s satire.
I know. You think urban liberals are responsible for all the problems of the non-liberal working class.
For the record, I am an urban liberal. The Democratic Party is supposed to represent the interests of the working class, but in many ways, they—like everyone else—have largely abandoned them.
I’m not saying urban liberals need to step in and fix everything. I’m just pointing out how certain cultural and institutional forces have shaped the situation. Whether the working class should handle their own problems or not is a separate question.
Made my head hurt. No, I don't think I'll subscribe
went way off the rails into overclaiming at this point:
"We [Democrats] defunded their police, dismantled their military, and threw Molotov cocktails at their institutions of national security, ensuring that when things inevitably collapsed, we could blame the Republicans. And when crime skyrocketed, and their streets became unlivable, we told them they were imagining it, that law enforcement is an oppressive tool of the patriarchy, and that if they really wanted safety, they should just take up kickboxing or call a social worker.
And still, they failed to see the gift we were giving them. We gave them fentanyl to help them cope, and polyamory to dismantle their oppressive nuclear family"
Is no one else sick and tired of Manichean Hyperbole? the Generational Amnesia and Presentism required to construct the Caricature? The elevation of idealized Mythology over the real-world messiness of Factual History?
Agitprop is never going to be either "thoughtful" or "reflective." It's a button-pushing guided meditation.
I get that my words were intentionally exaggerated and provocative—that’s the nature of satire. It’s meant to push boundaries and force us to confront uncomfortable realities. The over-the-top nature of the claims isn’t meant to be taken literally, but rather as a way of highlighting what I see as some of the contradictions and unintended consequences of certain ideological movements.
I’m not claiming that these things are as simplistic or one-dimensional as they might appear on the surface. The point is to show the absurdity in certain trends, not to paint everything in black and white. The goal here is to invite reflection, not just to provoke for the sake of it.
If we dismiss the critique based on the style or tone, we risk missing the more nuanced questions about the effects of policies and ideas. It’s easy to default to calling something “over-claiming” or “propaganda” but let’s consider whether the real-world messiness of these issues is being addressed thoughtfully or whether we’re so entrenched in our sides that we aren’t seeing the full picture.
I hope that, despite the strong language, you can still see the heart of the critique—how often we reduce complex issues to oversimplified narratives that serve an ideological agenda, rather than engaging with the real consequences on the ground.
Great response to criticism that encapsulates the kind of obtuse obliviousness the article is satirizing. I now walk away from conversations with formally rational, creative friends shaking my head. Instead of dialogue my reward is a seeing a total lack of self-awareness, humility, faux empathy that stops post virtue signaling, an inability to incorporate information outside of the Borg, and alas, a total loss of sense of humor. It’s like living in the twilight zone now.
The thing is, my criticism isn't coming from an ideological bias, or out of a compulsion to defend the Democratic Party. I'm calling a foul, like a referee, in the spirit of maintaining an ideal of impartiality and calling for fidelity to ordinary standards of accuracy. I'm not assuming the power of a referee, of course. I'm just letting you know the spirit in which my criticism is intended. So this is a Critique. Be prepared.
There's a difference between Satire and Sarcastic Polemic. It's roughly the difference between George Will and Ann Coulter. Satire is pointed, both as regards its targets and the subtlety of its details. Satire can utilize either dry humor and understatement (George Will), parody and exaggeration (Dave Barry, Matt Taibbi), or it can shift back and forth between the two modes (P.J. O'Rourke.) But in either case, for best results it always maintains a finely tuned sense of proportion, realizing that the statement is undercut by any resort to invalid or off-base claims. And while the tone of satire can be bitter, it has no need to sneer.
Sarcastic polemic, on the other hand, loves its sweeping generalizations and its partisan political agenda. It thrives on hyperbole, has no restraint about miscasting facts to make misleading points, and celebrates its meanness. That would be Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, and practically all of Rush's Political Hot Talk Radio acolytes. More often than not nowadays, it's also Seth Myers, Amber Ruffin, John Oliver, Jimmy Kimmel, Trevor Noah, and most liberal Democrat-coded professional comics--many of whom who I used to like a lot, back before they began confusing satire with sanctimony. I get that it still seems to play well with an audience of fellow partisans, although even there the applause often sounds rote, with overtones of ritual obligation. But cheap shots mixed with sanctimony is no niche for a professional comedian. If all you've got are mean-spirited one-sided partisan mockeries and stock villain name-checks, congratulations: you're Ann Coulter. Working in a propaganda mill instead of mining comedy gold. I have to say it; some of my old heroes are unwatchable. Seth Myers deserves a ribbon for bravery for his performance before the Bush crowd at the National Press Club in 2004, and for that alone he'll always have my respect. But nowadays Gilbert Gottfried and his guests are funnier.
Admittedly, it isn't always easy to know where satire leaves off and nut-kicking polemic begins. As Garrett Morris once said, "comedy practically requires putting somebody at the bottom", to have some target as the butt of a joke. And even very skilled satirists occasionally cross the line, in my opinion: Norm MacDonald. Bill Maher. Louis CK. Dave Chappell,. H. L. Mencken. Tom Wolfe. But their egregious slights and knocks are far outweighed by a way with insight that can land on any deserving target. And that's the hallmark of a top-notch satirist, that they can shift their gaze unpredictably, and make points that don't resolve to some Orwellian Color Wars diatribe.
In your case, you start off by making some fair satirical points. You could have wrapped it up halfway through, arguably. Even given the problems of satirizing a group as large as "Democrats", the most vocal Democrats really do appear to be clutching some failed narratives in common as a group, and that denial can only increase their already unhealthy level of cognitive dissonance. But then you began to lay it on too thick: the Democratic Party is not responsible for the fentanyl epidemic, much less peddling it as an intentional plot, and yes, that is what your words imply. Just as you imply that the outbreaks of arson and violence in the summer of 2020 were applauded by Democrats, and possibly even the result of some sort of conspiracy and collaboration with the extremists and rabble who used the massive nationwide demonstrations as cover for their looting and burning. Hundreds of people were arrested and convicted for those crimes. https://apnews.com/article/records-rebut-claims-jan-6-rioters-55adf4d46aff57b91af2fdd3345dace8
Really. It looked like you were about two column inches away from indicting all Democrat voters en masse, as Satanic Child Trafficking Abortionist Ritual Murderers.
That's what I mean by the difference between satire, which can be as finely focused as a scalpel, and partisan polemic, which is typically about loading a blunderbuss with whatever is handy.
Another difference between satire and scattershot polemic is well-known. "Satire is what closes Saturday night." And scattershot polemic is big box office clickbait. The same shows have been playing for 35 years--in so cases, more like 70 years, or even before then. The John Birch Society Revue has gotten new life infused into it, using the same script it had in the 1950s with a handful of changes and updates. The Jewish Conspiracy, that evergreen narrative. And more recently the Satanic Democrat Panic, which happens to draw from both of those plot lines.
Hence, my original comment post--the one to which you've replied: I had to say it. Someone has to say "enough." Check yourself. Dial it back. Don't get Carried Away.
I see your point and I appreciate the thoughtful breakdown of the different modes of satire. It’s always refreshing to engage with a perspective that emphasizes precision and nuance. But in this case, my aim was to take the chains off and let the absurdity run wild. Sometimes, the only way to make people feel something is to take it to extremes—because real change often comes from shaking the ground beneath us.
In a world where the lines between rhetoric and reality blur so often, I think there’s a place for the loud, exaggerated, over-the-top moments that make us pause and reconsider—sometimes in ways that a finely honed scalpel of satire just can’t reach. Maybe my approach isn’t about finding balance but about highlighting the chaos itself. In the end, sometimes the most effective way to wake people up is not through subtlety, but through a raucous, unapologetic truth that forces them to confront their assumptions.
That’s what I was aiming for—whether or not it landed, who knows. But I do wonder, is there room for the exaggerated in our search for meaning or must we always play within a set of conventional refinement?
The satire is not only appropriate but needed. As well as being delightfully irreverent. Mockery is absolutely the best weapon for this insanity.