Sometimes what we hear from the far right crazy contingent sounds like it is either the rantings of an unmedicated delusional paranoid schizophrenic (those I knew in my career as a psychotherapist had an excuse and I felt empathy for them) or a cold calculating opportunist selling a brand or pandering for votes.
Whether the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene, Kari Lake, Herschel Walker (who says he was diagnosed with and recovered from multiple personality disorder), Alex Jones, and others believe what they say and their words are manifestations of a thought disorder or calculated can’t be determined without a thorough psychological assessment.
Would it be that we could consider their raving and fulminating as at best very poor satire. We can’t laugh at what they say because they influence people who actually have enough compos mentis to figure out how to vote.
Unlike pornography about which U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously said in his 1964 Order that he could not use words to describe pornography but “I know it when I see it.”“ sometime you do don’t know whether or not something is meant to be satire when you first read it.
Here’s a definition
Satire Definition
Satire (SAH-tie-urr) uses humor and exaggeration to criticize something or someone, typically a public figure, social norm, or government policy. The term can describe both the genre of satirical writing and the literary device of satire, which a writer might utilize in a particular scene or passage of a work that isn’t a wholly satirical piece.
Most satires aim to make the reader laugh at the foolishness and absurdities of human nature, but they also possess an undercurrent of seriousness by shedding light on important social issues or commenting on corruption, hypocrisy, or incompetence. Fictional characters and events in satires are often allegorical, symbolizing real people or incidents as a way of critiquing behavior or policies. Read more here.
We may find it difficult to find anything remotely amusing about how our country is verging in the direction of being run by a contingent or cabal of more or less mentally stable fascists and fascists whose beliefs are so unmoored from reality that if they were a boat they would have fallen off the edge of the flat earth some of them may believe in.
Sometimes, even though we take them seriously, for our own mental health we just need to laugh at them. I wrote about this in “Mocking MAGA may be good therapy for us, but what good does it really do?”
There’s a good chance you missed this satire which prompted me to laugh out loud. I would have missed it if a friend hadn’t sent me a link.
The satire begins:
Hell’s Department of Suffering and Horror, in conjunction with the Lake of Fire Institute and the Ceaseless Misery Foundation, is now accepting proposals for the next plague or nightmare to be inflicted on the United States, tentatively planned for the 2022-2023 academic year.
Here’s an explanation of just what the the’’ DSH is:
The Department of Suffering and Horror (DSH), founded in a pitch-black cave amidst writhing snakes over two millennia ago, has worked to bring some of the worst pestilences to the pitiable affairs of humanity. DSH has worked with professionals as various as corrupt merchants, money-changers, false prophets, rogue assassins, weapon inventors, and rats to make horror not an event but a way of life. While its activities have been global, its focus on bringing dread and misery to the United States has been significant in the 21st century.
Here’s a snippet:
Those who submit proposals with significant promise may be asked for revisions if they lack focus. Two hundred years ago, we received a nightmare proposal called The State of Florida. We were intrigued by the premise—“create a whole state that, top to bottom, is a kingdom of disquiet and dire havoc”—but it was clear that crucial details were missing. So we worked with the author, connecting them with researchers, politicians, real estate developers, criminologists, religious leaders, storm gods, and city planners to flesh out the proposal and make unaccountable chaos rain down on the Sunshine State.
Writing good satire, or what we sometimes refer to as snark and often label /S lest readers think we’re being serious, is very difficult. I often include a snarky phrase or two in my diaries but I can’t recall writing a diary that was totally satirical. Maybe I did and it was so forgettable I just don’t remember. I’m not about to review the more than 1700 diaries I’ve posted to see. Writing a satire that is either so poorly done that most people don’t get it, let alone don’t think is even slightly amusing, is not something I want to do.
Daily Kos is a semi-safe place to post satire since all you risk is commenters telling you that they hope you have a day job. If you are recklessly confident and have an idea I’d say what do you have to lose but your dignity? I may do it sometime… but the competition from far better writers than me (Kos community member Aldous J. Pennyfarthing and Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank for example) is something to be reckoned with.
Update:
By doing a web search of HalBrown (Hal Brown my name doesn’t always work), satire, and Daily Kos I found some diaries I posted which were attempts at good satire. Most bombed. They are in the comments below.