Truth is stranger than fiction.

The letters I published Saturday and Sunday from the "Trump Mar-a-Lago White House" were parodies. 

Some people thought they were real.

Forty-plus years ago, when I held public office, I learned never to use sarcasm, parody, satire, or even subordinate clauses.  Parody and sarcasm are dangerous. Heck, even subordinate clauses are dangerous.

(Remember eighth grade English? A subordinate clause is a clause that is superseded by another. For example, "Although Donald Trump is a gifted crowd pleaser, but he is a dangerous and corrupt would-be Constitution-breaking authoritarian." The "Although Donald Trump is a gifted crowd pleaser" is the subordinate clause.  Advice to politicians: Never use subordinate clauses. Too many people will remember the first part of the sentence, but not the second, the one that carried your real meaning. And if there is still any media in the U.S. to report on what you say, they will focus on the first clause. After all, it is the surprising part of your sentence, the one that went against the grain, making it the newsworthy part. And besides, you in fact said it, your words. Gotcha.)

Sarcasm is a similar hazard. Even if you roll your eyes and make it perfectly clear to most people that you mean the opposite of your words, those sarcastic words in fact would be voiced. Some people won't get your true meaning. And news media -- or people with a phone video camera --  will be there to record you, and they might not catch the eye roll. Am I being paranoid? FAFO.

There's rarely a warning label. It ruins the joke.

That brings me to parody. It works on Saturday Night Live because the audience has been trained to expect parody. The closer the SNL actor looks and sounds like the real politician, the better. We enjoy a good fake. We enjoy seeing that performer say things that exaggerate something the politician might have said. Could have said. It sometimes gets at the real nature of the person being parodied. It isn't deceptive because people realize it is commentary on reality, not reality itself.  

AOC testifying about deep fake porn using her face.

We are surrounded by fakes. Every day I get a credible-looking text telling me a package is being held at the post office needing identifying information from me. It directs me to call a number in the Philippines. Every day I get an email thanking me for having used my Pay Pal account to buy a $495.99 internet security service, and to call them if I have any questions about my purchase. I don't have a Pay Pal account. Lies look true. Scams look about as real as the truth, which is why phishing scams succeed. Trump is a gifted crowd pleaser, and he realizes the simple reality that flagrant, outrageous lies are more interesting, clickable, and re-tellable than the truth. In a communications environment full of rumors, half-truths, deep fakes, and lies, the whole notion of literal truth dissolves. Who can tell the difference? Well, we sometimes can, and it is essential we do.

I attempt to be fair-minded in an old-school journalistic way. Reasonable. Readable by Republicans. Both serious and literally true. An independent blogspot-substack commentator like myself doesn't have the credibility of an institution, so we need to maintain a brand built out of consistency. Mine is that I write what I think. 

I love parodies, and will keep publishing them from time to time, but going forward I am going to make a stronger point of introducing them as parodies. Blowing their cover and calling them parody diminishes their comedic effect, but I am not SNL and I am fighting the wave of credible fakes that are meant to deceive, not inform. 

"Just be for real
Won't you, Baby
Be for real
Won't you, Baby
You see I, I don't want
To be hurt by love again."
     Leonard Cohen, "Just be Real," 2012

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