A Guide to Group Names in Late Stage Democracy

Apathy: The depressingly large group of eligible voters willing to let others decide the fate of 20 million immigrants, Social Security, and common decency.

 

Ardor: The group of people still using facts to argue with @carl93587 on social media despite years of evidence that he is never going to believe the moon landing was real because he didn’t see it with his own two eyes and HE WAS STARING INTENTLY AT THE MOON THAT NIGHT.

 

Breach: A group of Congressmen that legislates to ban TikTok but does nothing about the data mining used to assail you with Instagram ads for Brazilian wax studios after an unfortunate typo in your Google search for “public art studios.”

 

Chomsky: A group of journalists convinced that the verbatim tweeting of politicians’ non-responses to important questions is journalism. See also: Gaggle.

 

Contradiction: A group of people that sees abortion as humanity’s gravest moral failing while spit-screaming “government meddling!” over climate measures that will protect 8 billion people’s unborn descendants.

 

Danger of Guy Energy (DOGE): A group of bro-crats stoked to move fast and break things (like democracy, the Constitution, and your spirit).

 

Denial: A group of ordinary people demanding that health insurance companies provide the service for which they have paid extortionate sums of money, exposing their blasphemous beliefs about unfettered capitalism.

 

Fix: Collectively refers to the lawyers, lobbyists, and financial advisers that help the wealthy exploit tax loopholes while Thomas Jefferson Middle School students fundraise to buy civics textbooks to learn how government works.

 

Fodder: A group of artists, musicians, and writers whose lives’ work – painstakingly crafted in the face of debilitating self-doubt and parental side-eying – was brazenly stolen by an asshole named AI.

 

Fuss: A group of people making a stinkburger over They using the girls bathroom but unconcerned that They (and also She and He) can’t afford today’s school lunch burger.

 

Gaggle: A group of journalists that spend more time building their social media followings than investigating the root causes of democracy’s demise.

 

Giggle: Children blissfully ignorant of the political eggshells being walked on at family gatherings.

 

Gleam: A small, resolute group of people that can see light at the end of this very long, very dark tunnel, no matter how many randos get put in charge of powerful government agencies.

 

Letdown: Members of an opposition political party who show up to a fight against fascism armed with water pistols and popcorn.

 

Nextpert: A group of pundits with breathtaking expertise dexterity, capable of transforming from China expert to an authority on cat-eating immigrants in just one news cycle.

 

Panic: The large group of people whose 401ks are unwilling participants in a bankruptcy artist’s most baffling performance yet.

 

Plea: A gathering of climate scientists exhausted from explaining to your cousin Todd the difference between climate and weather after he tossed a snowball at their heads “to prove that global warming isn’t real!”

 

Revolt: A group of Pictionary-playing billionaires unable to identify PITCHFORKS before time runs out.

 

Scream: The millions of people who didn’t want this, didn’t vote for this, and somehow manage to get through their days in spite of this.

 

SOB: A caucus of Congressional members that take overwhelming action to weaponize yet another cultural issue but remain impotent at addressing actual problems impacting millions of people counting on them to do something, anything, PLEASE JUST ONE THING, the bar is that f***ing low.

 

Tenure: A group of political scientists whose warnings about blossoming authoritarianism are read only by the 279 people with institutional access to Political Science Biennially, because proactively using expertise to influence public policy is deemed antithetical to doing social science and getting promoted.

 

Whitelash: A group of people disapprovingly discovering 22-time Grammy winner Kendrick Lamar after he interrupted their Super Bowl party with music they for some reason “just couldn’t relate to.”

 

Wreck: The group of people binge-watching Silo because living in a small, self-sufficient underground community isolated from the rest of humanity suddenly doesn’t sound like the worst possible outcome.