Yesterday's Satirical Newsletter: Lessons Learned

“A Modest Proposal” was a better title. It invited people in, made them ask, “Just what is this modest proposal?” Oh, selling poor children to the rich as food: I do believe this is satire! This Jonathan Swift fellow is a first-rate humorist.

“A Bipartisan Happy Birthday to America,” on the other hand, made people ask, “What is this doing in my inbox?” Morally bankrupt government officials are smugly celebrating cages for human beings and ripping health care from the neediest Americans: I don’t want to hear anything about bipartisanship! This Trygve Hammer is a first-rate dipshit, and I am sending him an angry email based on this title.

In my Wednesday newsletter, I wrote:

I am trying to balance things, not be balanced. You don’t tip an unbalanced scale by standing at the fulcrum.

So, I do understand the uugh! folks feel when they see something that hints of excess civility toward or seeking common ground with those who celebrate cruelty. I don’t want to hold hands with the pleased-as-punch jailers who smile as they pose beside the cages they cannot wait to fill with people snatched off of our streets. I am as angry as anyone that these clowns seem to be winning at every turn lately.

Every turn is a battle, and it sucks to lose, but the fight continues. I will attend and speak at more protests. I will continue using my pen/keyboard to skewer those who so richly deserve it. (There are so many.) My wife has suggested that before I publish a newsletter, I should read the title and subtitle from the perspective of someone who gets a lot of email and isn’t expecting satire. I guess I can do that. It is, after all, a modest proposal.