Ludicrous Proxy May 2026

A militia group stages a mock execution of a politician using a mannequin and posts it online. When asked, they claim it was "performance art." The media debates whether it was a threat or satire. In that gray zone, the militia wins. They have communicated their intent without consequence.

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. ludicrous proxy

We are already seeing the signs. The employee who calls in sick with a reason so implausible ("My cat is on fire") that the manager cannot question it without looking absurd. The student who submits an essay composed entirely of emojis, then claims "post-literate expression." The defendant in a small-claims court who represents himself as a chatbot. A militia group stages a mock execution of