Maybe “Dadaist” is an obscure reference when I call myself that, but, because I love Wikipedia, here’s the Wiki on it!
Dada was a brief 1910s and 20s art movement for which the pompous failures of monarchies, the horrors of trench warfare in WWI, and the shattering of nationalistic empires inspired a bunch of pacifist absurdists who fled their warring nations to neutral Switzerland to agree that the only reasonable reaction to such catastrophe was insurrectionary nonsense.
They created what I think might poetically describe as “revolutionary gibberish art,” which was a clear break from the Belle Époque’s symbolism, romanticism, academism, and even rationalism. It led eventually to more well known and longer lasting movements like surrealism, expressionism, and, some argue, most modern art.
Fundamentally, Dadaism was an aesthetic of absurdity for absurdity’s sake. Some famous early Dadaist masterpieces include recitations of literal gibberish poetry in a lobster costume, Duchamp’s signed urinal, and Dadaists also kind of popularized the artform of collage doing things like cutting up newly affordable and convenient photography of aristocrats and political leaders, and putting their heads on the bodies of obese men in bathing suits at the beach. That’s the kind of political disrespect for authoritarians that inspires The Halfway Post!
I feel like, in this fascist era of Trumpian tyranny in the ancient Greek sense, if the Trump Administration is going to try to compel us to accept absurd democratic backsliding, the democratic and American thing to do is to tell him to fuck off with unrelenting disrespect of which the Dadaists would approve. “#NoKings” isn’t a suggestion, and my graffiti news headlines are an act of comedic resistance.
And, honestly, I’m not sure my Dadaist journalism is silly enough for the civic insults to government of the people, by the people, for the people Trump represents while trying to copy what Putin has done to Russia, and what Orban has done to Hungary. His autocratic efforts are so unbelievably unAmerican that graffiti news is a fair opposite reaction!
It’s well deserved for his efforts to invade our cities with the military, trash our Constitutional rights, and turn our democracy into a giant grift operation constantly doing pump & dump crypto scams and parking hundreds of millions of dollars in crypto bribes from around the world. He seems psychologically incapble of separating his personal interests from the national interest.
Which is why I don’t report the facts, I improve them. My best headlines dance right on the line between believability and absurdity, and the punchline is kind of how it takes a moment to guess whether what you’re reading is real or satire. Is it my fault my cartoonish headlines fool people, or is it Trump’s fault for being such a cartoonishly bad president? 🤷♀️
Plenty of people have said Trump “ruined satire” by being too outrageous to parody. I disagree. He just picked up the pace, and I intend to keep up. Democracies can’t let any tyrant win the marathon of taking over their country.
So that’s my Dadaist approach to satire and political comedy. I feel like The Halfway Post is a kind of Twitter/Threads/Substack cartoon show, where I exaggerate all of the Trumpists’ worst character traits to satirize their bad faith governance of us and regrettable stewardship of the country. Maybe my headlines didn’t really happen — but they could have happened. And, in some cases, they even should happen, so that, maybe by posting my little, liberal fibs, I am actually manifesting them into existence. Halfway real news, baby!
So call it Dadaist journalism, call it graffiti news, or call it what happens when a liberal Millennial refuses to silently watch Trump pretend to be a big, strong man. All the bootlicking yes men with which Trump has surrounded himself might compliment him on his beautiful emperor’s clothes, but The Halfway Post will keep pointing out that he’s an ugly, naked slob facially caked like a clown, whose decaying body smells like rotten roast beef.
Maybe this Dadaist branding is silly, and I’ll be the first to admit I definitely can be juvenile, but occasionally I think some of my headlines are zeitgeist-surfing home runs of Dadaist hilarity.
They say write what you want to read, and that’s 100% what I do. And I suppose it cracks you too because you’re a reader or subscriber of my work!
Cheers, my fellow Dadaists! 🥃
☕️ I’m trying to be the most relentless satirist of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement on the Internet, so if you like my graffiti news comedy here’s a 50% discount on paid subscriptions to help support me, for just $2.50 a month, write full-time and tirelessly mock Trump’s fascism with comedy.
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If you think Donald Trump is a joke, I published two books for you: Satire In The Trump Years and Satire In The Biden Years, available on Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and Kobo. Or, better yet, request your local library order a copy on their website.
I’ve also published three existentialist poetry books, Cabaret No Stare, Moon Goon, and Hotel Golden Hours available in print and on Kindle.
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The Halfway Post 
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