There are moments when satire just gives up. When reality walks out on stage, takes the microphone, and delivers a performance so absurd, so painfully self-parodying, that there’s simply nothing left for me to exaggerate.
Take the U.S. Navy versus the drug boats.
We’re talking about fiberglass skiffs with outboards — basically the aquatic version of a lifted pickup with three mismatched tires. And yet the Navy treats them like Bond villains. The playbook seems to be: See fast boat. Panic. Blow it out of the water. Collect splinters. File no report.
All hands lost, mission accomplished, nobody has to explain a thing.
But over on the other side of the family tree, Little Sister Coast Guard didn’t get the memo.
They roll up in their white hulls, aviators on, probably a little classic rock on the radio. They spot a massive Venezuelan oil tanker violating sanctions and go:
“Yeah… we’ll take that.”
No shots. No explosions. No nervous sweating. Just a polite but firm: “Captain, we’re boarding your ship now.”
And the tanker captain — maybe high, maybe bored, maybe both — basically hands over a 600-foot steel fortress like it’s a lost dog he found on the highway.
So here we are: The Navy vaporizes fishing boats like they’re running a Death Star internship program. The Coast Guard arrests an entire tanker crew like they’re checking for expired flares.
At this point, the joke isn’t the joke. Reality is the joke. And satire just sits in the back of the room shaking its head, muttering, “I can’t compete with that.”
When Reality Out-Parodies Parody – The Hegseth Way
There are moments when satire just gives up. When reality walks out on stage, takes the microphone, and delivers a performance so absurd, so painfully self-parodying, that there’s simply nothing left for me to exaggerate.
Take the U.S. Navy versus the drug boats.
We’re talking about fiberglass skiffs with outboards — basically the aquatic version of a lifted pickup with three mismatched tires. And yet the Navy treats them like Bond villains. The playbook seems to be:
See fast boat. Panic. Blow it out of the water. Collect splinters. File no report.
All hands lost, mission accomplished, nobody has to explain a thing.
But over on the other side of the family tree, Little Sister Coast Guard didn’t get the memo.
They roll up in their white hulls, aviators on, probably a little classic rock on the radio. They spot a massive Venezuelan oil tanker violating sanctions and go:
“Yeah… we’ll take that.”
No shots.
No explosions.
No nervous sweating.
Just a polite but firm:
“Captain, we’re boarding your ship now.”
And the tanker captain — maybe high, maybe bored, maybe both — basically hands over a 600-foot steel fortress like it’s a lost dog he found on the highway.
So here we are:
The Navy vaporizes fishing boats like they’re running a Death Star internship program.
The Coast Guard arrests an entire tanker crew like they’re checking for expired flares.
At this point, the joke isn’t the joke.
Reality is the joke.
And satire just sits in the back of the room shaking its head, muttering, “I can’t compete with that.”
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