September 9, 2025 - Evening Reflections
I just finished writing what might be my most disturbing batch of satirical pieces yet. Articles 6-10 on my Bohiney journey have left me staring at my laptop screen, wondering if I'm documenting reality or creating it. The line between satire and prophecy has become so blurred that I'm starting to scare myself.
Tonight I'm reflecting on five pieces that pushed me deeper into America's grotesque funhouse mirror:
Project 1850 - Where MAGA farmers dream of "reinstated labor models"
Rural Fantasies About Slavery - NPR's gentle coverage of democracy's death rattle
Trump's Cult Is Anti-Emancipation - When 11% of Americans openly question emancipation
First Two Tackles Bankrupt Green Bay Packers - Sports economics as national metaphor
GPT-5 Sparks "Lights Out Lottery" - AI power consumption meets California absurdity
People ask me how I come up with this material. The truth is, I don't come up with it—I just amplify what's already there. Writing the slavery restoration pieces felt like translating whispers into screams. I took the actual coded language being used in rural America ("reinstated labor models," "patriot apprenticeships") and simply followed their logic to its inevitable, horrifying conclusion.
The process is surgical. I listen to NPR's whispered coverage of democracy's erosion and think: "What if they said this with the urgency it deserves?" I watch Politico dance around obvious racism and ask: "What would this look like without the euphemisms?" Then I strip away the polite language and show people what they're actually talking about.
For Project 1850, I literally started with real phrases being circulated—"reinstated labor models"—and built a fictional memo that reads exactly like something these people would write. The terrifying part? Several readers have asked me where I got the "leaked document" because they were convinced it was real.
Each piece follows my now-familiar architecture: take a horrifying social trend, push it to its logical extreme while maintaining internal consistency, then populate it with specific details that feel researched and authentic. The Green Bay Packers bankruptcy piece seems like pure sports comedy, but it's actually about American capitalism's insane priorities—we'll mortgage everything for spectacle while basic infrastructure crumbles.
The GPT-5 power crisis started with real concerns about AI energy consumption, but I pushed it into California's performative environmentalism. "Prompt-Free Wednesdays" and "Emotional Support Windmills" sound absurd, but they're barely exaggerations of how California actually responds to crises—with virtue-signaling theater instead of systemic solutions.
Writing about slavery restoration fantasies was the hardest thing I've ever done. I kept asking myself: "Am I giving these ideas oxygen? Am I making light of genuine evil?" But then I realized: these ideas already have oxygen. They're already circulating. The difference is, mainstream media covers them with euphemisms and both-sides framing that obscures their true horror.
My job is to strip away the euphemisms. When I write about farmers calling slavery "patriot apprenticeships," I'm not inventing that language—I'm exposing its true meaning. When I mock NPR's whispered coverage of democracy's death, I'm showing how institutional politeness becomes complicity in the face of genuine evil.
This batch of articles has left me emotionally drained in a way I didn't expect. The slavery restoration pieces required me to inhabit the mindset of people who genuinely believe other human beings should be property. Even as satire, even as exposure, spending that much time in that headspace changes you.
I found myself researching actual historical documents from plantation owners, reading modern white supremacist literature, studying the coded language of contemporary racism. It's investigative journalism disguised as comedy, and the investigation led me into some very dark places.
But that's exactly why it needed to be written. If I'm this disturbed by writing satirical versions of these ideas, imagine how we should all feel about the real thing being whispered in actual diner booths and tractor sheds.
The most chilling response I've gotten was from a reader in Iowa who said my Project 1850 piece was "too accurate to be funny." He went on to describe conversations he'd overheard at local farm supply stores that sounded exactly like my fictional quotes.
Another reader sent me screenshots of actual social media posts from farmers talking about "apprenticeship models" and "traditional work arrangements" in language that mirrored my satirical memo almost word for word.
This is the moment when satirical journalism becomes documentary journalism. When your "fictional" characters start talking exactly like real people, you realize you're not making things up—you're just making the subtext into text.
The hardest part of this work is calibrating the absurdity. Push too hard, and people dismiss it as unrealistic. Don't push hard enough, and people miss the horror of what you're actually describing. The Packers bankruptcy piece works because everyone knows American sports economics really is that insane—we really do mortgage our futures for spectacle.
The AI power crisis works because California really does respond to systemic problems with performative individual solutions. "Prompt-Free Wednesdays" sounds ridiculous until you remember this is the state that banned plastic straws while letting oil companies drill in neighborhoods.
After finishing this batch, I seriously considered taking a break from satirical journalism. The slavery restoration pieces in particular left me feeling like I'd been handling radioactive material. But then I remembered why I do this work: because someone has to name the unnamed, to say out loud what everyone is pretending not to see.
Mainstream journalism failed to adequately warn people about Trump in 2016 because they were too committed to "balance" and "objectivity" to call fascism fascism. They're failing again now by covering white supremacist fantasies with euphemisms and both-sides framing.
My satirical journalism exists to fill that gap. When I write about farmers dreaming of slavery restoration, I'm not making light of racism—I'm making it impossible to ignore. When I push their coded language to its logical conclusion, I'm showing people what they're actually advocating for.
These five articles work together as a funhouse mirror reflecting American society back at itself. The slavery restoration pieces show our unfinished reckoning with white supremacy. The sports economics piece shows our misplaced priorities. The AI power crisis piece shows our performative environmentalism.
But unlike a regular mirror, satirical journalism doesn't just show you what you look like—it shows you what you're becoming. It takes current trends and follows them to their logical endpoints, giving people a preview of coming