I like writing satire. I enjoy reading it and watching it, too. Iām old enough, though, to remember Tina Fey repeating Sarah Palin nearly verbatim during a Saturday Night Live skit and getting loud, snorty laughs. That television moment may have been the beginning of the end of political satire.
Sarah Palin was the Republican Partyās trial run for our current moron in chief. Her comments, such as being able to see Russia from her home in Alaska, seemed harmless at the time, almost quaint. You could also make a case for the veracity of a statement like that, given Russiaās proximity to Nome, Alaska.
But the possibility of her becoming president seriously frightened a lot of people. She seemed almost willfully ignorant, like she enjoyed it.
But it didnāt scare Republicans. They took a look at Sarah Palin and said to themselves, and to the world, āWe can improve upon this many times over.ā
And so, they gave us Donald Trump, one of the stupidest human beings I have ever seen near the levers of power.1
He has refined the art of turning satire into real life. But his self-satire isnāt quaint. His is planet-threatening stuff that is so serious the body politic of America has forgotten about important existential problems facing the world like climate change, while Pam Bondi and Kash Patel round up judges and two-year-olds.
Letās explore, for a moment, the satire of this regime by exploring some real things going on that, under normal circumstances, would not be considered believable enough to write as satire.
The $Trump Meme Coin Dinner Extravaganza
Iām also old enough to remember when the term āinteractiveā was a thing. Well, itās kind of not these days because most people prefer staring at videos on their phones until their brains congeal into liquid form, but letās try it anyway, just for grins.
My first question to you is this, asked in graphic format:
This graphic, aside from my questioning headline at the top, is real.2 Itās part of one of Trumpās get-rich-quick schemes designed to snatch money from unsuspecting Trump fanboys. This particular con job lures investors into his lair by promising access to the highest bidder of people dumb enough to buy the $Trump meme coin.
Who sanctioned this shit? Borat?
Letās unpack that ridiculous graphic, shall we?
We can start with either the left or the right side. Go ahead and vote by raising your hand.
Okay, I hear yāall. āRightā side wins. They always seem to, no?
Sooooo, take a look at that āphotoā of Trump. If youāre one of those smart people who does everything in their power to avoid looking at the orange malevolence of Mar-a-Lago, donāt worry. Itās not him. It is, like his executive orders, AI-generated.
Look at that expression the generated-AI created with his mouth. He wanted that look for a sales piece on crypto?
It looks like he just walked out of a cheap Florida Man motel after dropping a dime on a stripper named Boozy Slinker, who is still sitting on the motel bed wearing severely distressed jean shorts and admiring the snake tummy tattoo she just bought with the $Trump coin the mad king gave her for her services.
I wonāt TMI you on what I think those services might be given his age and physical condition. I also recommend you donāt try to think on this, either.
Next, guide your eyes to the left of the image and check out the subhead: The Most EXCLUSIVE INVITATION in the World!
Admittedly, weād expect nothing less from the mad king, but then the invite is for the āTop 220 $Trump Meme Coin Holders.ā
Heās literally, and I mean this quite literally, as in, yes, really literally, trying to sell access to the President of the United States, and, by proxy, the President of Russia, to the highest bidder.
And heās doing it auction style. Letās say I, as a crazed man of wealth, bought a $Trump coin, which will, of course, someday go the way of the Zimbabwe Dollar, for $5 million.
Because Iām stupid, I get excited and think that should do the trick. Iām in! Yay! Dinner with the mad king!
Maybe Iāll even get to see him slide a hand up someoneās dress while she's sitting next to him! In person! What a thrill! What joy! Praise the Lord!
But no. Some techbro buys the 220th coin for five million and one dollars. Iām out $5 million, and I donāt even get to see the Predator in Chiefās hand glide up a thigh while Pete Hegseth is sitting at the table making war plans on Signal with his wife and whatever Nigerian catfisher heās stumbled into.
Speaking of Hegsethā¦
If you write satire, you canāt make up stuff better than this. You canāt do satire like Defense Secretary Hegesth does reality. Hegseth, in between making war plans on Signal, has arranged for a makeup studio3 to be dropped into the very serious halls of the Pentagon.4
This is not satire. It is comedy, but not comedian comedy. Itās not intentional comedy, either. This goofy announcement came after it was discovered that he held a second Signal chat for blowing up Houthis in Southern Yemen.
Who? Where? Wait, what?
Doesnāt matter.
Where on the timeline this all fits with Kristi Noemā¦
ā¦complaining that someone stole her purse containing $3,000 at a burger joint in Washington, D.C. is something I havenāt quite figured out.
It turns out that Kristi, she of the dog shooting variety (not satire), and who is now head of Homeland Security (sadly, also not satire), lost her passport, ID (unknown if was it REAL-ID-compliant), her work badge (LOL), and $3,000 in cash.
This preposterous little snafu (not satire) was triggered when some guy, whilst our intrepid Homeland Security tsar was dining with her family at the popular burger joint, slyly began sliding her purse closer to him with his foot (not satire).
I realise that this might land me in an El Salvadoran prison camp, but Iād pay $50 million in $Trump coinage to be that guy.
Anyhoo, he kept on deftly sliding Kristiās purse closer to him as she munched away on her burger. She was apparently oblivious to any possibility that leaving oneās purse on a restaurant floor might have minor security implications. Especially when thereās a sneaky guy with feet nearby.
Off he went, like a DoorDasher feeling the burn.
If I recall properly, the regimeās propaganda unit tried to claim she kept $3,000 in her purse to feed her family at the burger joint. I hope theyāre all carrying an OzempicĀ® EpiPen around with them if thatās the case, cuz thatās a lot of burgers, even for a big assed family.
Wait. I donāt mean big-assed in that way. You people are awful.
Meanwhile, and sorry, but there are many meanwhiles hereā¦
ā¦JD Vance visited Pope Francisā¦
ā¦who, upon that initial sighting, promptly died.
Too soon? Hey, I didnāt start all this unclassy bullshit, so donāt blame me. Speaking of unclassy, Trump fell asleep during the Popeās funeral (not satire), provoking oneās memory to recall a scene from the movie, āWeekend at Bernieās.ā
Poor Pope Francis probably took one look at the worldās most famous couch potato, and said, āFuck this, Iām outta here.ā Vance was a reminder to his holiness what the world has become, and a reminder that millions of American Christian voters flocked to the polls to vote for a common criminal and woman-hater/abuser as the leader of the world formerly known as free.
But hey, they enabled the worldās most prolific (by far) child trafficking and pedophile ring, so no surprise there.
Meanwhile, Joe Roganā¦
ā¦has gone full nutcase and is leading his illiterate listeners into such exciting new territory as polio vaccine denial and conspiracy mongering. One of his favorite guests is libertarian ācomedianā Dave Smith, who is about as funny to me as a noseplug superglued into my nasal passage while a dentist is hammering away at a tooth that should have been pulled in 1974.
Smith and another of Roganās Dumb and Dumber bros, Tim Dillon, regularly get into mindless spats with neoconservatives like Douglas Murray, who nobody would know if he wasnāt another Joe Rogan guest. This brosphere talks about things they know nothing about, like Gaza, while accusing each other of knowing nothing about it.
Itās like Schrƶdingerās cat for drunk bro day traders/drinkers who just lost all their money trying to game Trumpās tariff totter (which is also not satire). Itās all one big bro-everything everywhere, all at once, and itās all nonsensical claptrap that appeals to young men who havenāt read a book since they passed around porny graphic novels to each other in eighth grade.
While all this is happeningā¦
ā¦the Executive Order AI Generator Machineā¦
ā¦keeps cranking out Executive Orders modeled on Project 2025, which is designed to destroy government in all its forms, everywhere, all at once. That is, unless it involves the government creating mayhem in the lives of immigrant families and crushing the construction industry (among others). In that case, government is good.
If you donāt think the 100-plus executive orders are written by AI, peruse this snippet from just one of them:
Section 1. Deployment of Personnel and Resources. The Secretary of Defense, or the Secretary of each relevant military department, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, shall order as many units or members of the Armed Forces, including the Ready Reserve and the National Guard, as the Secretary of Defense determines to be appropriate to support the activities of the Secretary of Homeland Security in obtaining complete operational control of the southern border of the United States. The Secretary of Defense shall further take all appropriate action to facilitate the operational needs of the Secretary of Homeland Security along the southern border, including through the provision of appropriate detention space, transportation (including aircraft), and other logistics services in support of civilian-controlled law enforcement operations.
If the mad king understands what this is saying, much less wrote it, and he can prove it by explaining it on national TV without notes, I promise I will build an altar to him live on CSPAN made from portions of the border wall that was never finished (the whole border wall fiasco is also not satire).
There are dozens of executive orders written like this, all courtesy of AI. How do I know this? Because I can recognize AI in my sleep, thatās how.
But wait, thereās more!
Iāve covered barely a fraction of the clown š¤” show, probably because my brain is still distracted by Little X, Muskās four-year-old mini-bully, hanging out in the Oval Office telling Trump, āYouāre not the president ā¦ you need to go away.ā Thereās some dispute about the first part of that, but thereās also video that is conclusive enough to say that, at a minimum, Little X does not hold the mad king in high regard.
Thereās more, a lot more, too many more to share in a short post. Iāll finish off with two more, randomly picked from about a thousand:
Musk claimed DOGE halted $50 million in condom shipments to Gaza (not satire). The reality was a bit different. According to a recent BBC headline: āGaza, Mozambique was awarded $83.5m for āprevention, care, support and treatment interventions within HIV and TB facilities and communitiesā for a programme running until September 2026.ā Well, thatās gone, instead.5
Not funny, and not satire: Musk also halted Ebola prevention aid to Uganda, said it was all a big mistake, and, as far as I can tell, hasnāt fixed it. Muskās BabyBros must be too busy peering into my Social Security account to deal with the bossās little mistake.
As you can see, these idiots are putting satirists out of business.
Thatās the bad news.
The good news is that with satire now writing itself, prospective satirists can simply report what is happening straight up, like Tina Fey, and you can decide whether to laugh or cry.
Thanks for reading!
Notes
Borat image is by Hazel Motes / Greg Scales, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Footnotes
The clever, nefarious actions of his regime are not because he has suddenly rediscovered a portion of his hippocampus. The actions are directed by a team of strategists, quietly led by his Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, who gets no press attention because sheās very good at not getting press attention, even from the Substack resistance ecosphere.
Silva, JoĆ£o da. 2025. āTrump Crypto Soars as US President Offers Dinner to Top Holders.ā Bbc.com. BBC News. April 24, 2025. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce8g2kpzx0go.
Jacobs, Jennifer, and Eleanor Watson. 2025. āHegseth Orders Makeup Studio Installed at Pentagon.ā Cbsnews.com. CBS News. April 23, 2025. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hegseth-orders-makeup-studio-installed-pentagon/
Hegseth also left the entire B-2 bomber fleet out in the open at the Diego Garcia airbase as a āshow of forceā against Iran (not satire), but Iām getting ahead of myself here.
Horton, Jake. 2025. āFact-Checking Elon Muskās Claims in the Oval Office.ā Bbc.com. BBC News. February 12, 2025. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyjz24ne85o.
ā
But still we try.