Or consider the of 1996, where a physicist submitted a gibberish paper to a humanities journal as a hoax. The paper was accepted. The scandal was contained. But the template was set: use the enemy’s own credibility against them by feeding them something so absurd that their acceptance of it delegitimizes them entirely.
We laugh at the badger, the mime, the hologram. We laugh because the alternative is weeping. But the joke, as always, is on us. The proxy walks away, having accomplished its goal, leaving us to untangle the punchline while the grid collapses and the wetland dies and the election is stolen. ludicrous proxy
One response is —refusing to play the game of interpretation. When the spokesperson presents the badger, the media does not ask "What does it mean?" It asks "Who purchased the badger? What laws were broken in transporting it? Arrest her." But this requires a discipline that modern media, starved for clicks, cannot sustain. Or consider the of 1996, where a physicist