I commented to John Semmons a few months ago about my understanding of what satire is and is not, but he would not hear of it. I am glad to see others are seeing my point. Just restating or elaborating the news in a way that follows it to an unsurprising, logical end does not seem all that satirical to me. ....Not saying I could do better, John is an excellent wordsmith..... I meant it as constructive criticism, but he only answered by saying his post were clearly marked as “satire” as if the label was the most important feature of the literature.
Trying to satirize the left these days may be an impossible task. Satire needs an element of outrageousness (and humor) and the way things are going these days it is hard to keep up with the left. What is silly and an outrage today, is fully adopted leftist doctrine by tommorrow morning. John Semmens’ writing may just be a victim of how fast the progressives are descending into madness so that no matter how creative the writing is, it comes across as totally believable and therefore belongs more in the hoax or even the fan fiction genre than satire.
> I am glad to see others are seeing my point.
Alas, I was insufficiently clear about my intent in my comment. I wasn't so much telling John what I thought of his work (although I did that later); I actually was making a statement about the fact that the Leftists are doing and saying things that are so outlandish and outrageous that they make it impossible to write satire about them.
John knows from my previous comments over many years, that when he's done a particularly good job of blurring the line between reality and satire, I jokingly "berate" him for not writing satire but only reporting the news. Unfortunately, without that background, you seem to have taken my comments literally, as if I was complaining about his style of satire. In fact, I was complimenting him.
That said, your point about the difficulty he faces ("Trying to satirize the left these days may be an impossible task. Satire needs an element of outrageousness (and humor) and the way things are going these days it is hard to keep up with the left.") is on the mark. You are quite right that one can't very well write satire about something that on its own reads like satire.