Washington, D.C. – In what officials are describing as “the most significant metaphysical blunder of the session,” Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH) inadvertently uncovered the primary accelerant for an ever-expanding political black hole during a routine Senate hearing on podcasting ethics Tuesday. The revelation reportedly occurred after Vance’s offhand comment regarding “truthless amplification metrics,” which instantly destabilized several area ideologues and drew audible gasps from both sides of the aisle.
Capitol custodians described “an immediate and forceful suction” toward the hearing room following the remark, with junior staffers observed clutching their opinion memos as they slid, inexorably, toward the epicenter of rhetorical gravity. The hearing, originally intended to establish guidelines for responsible podcast advertising, quickly pivoted to an emergency containment effort. Congressional stenographers reported entire page gaps in the official transcript, where “common sense and pundit decorum” had once resided.
According to Dr. Roscoe Gartner, Chair of the National Institute for Theoretical Polarization Studies, the secret ingredient seems to be a hitherto-unknown compound—identity-based anecdotal evidence—combined with low-moderation podcast environments and an endless supply of speculative hot takes. “Our models show that when personal branding meets dynamic ad insertion and an untrained co-host, the quantum integrity of public discourse collapses instantly,” explained Dr. Gartner. “We even lost a research intern to semantic spaghettification earlier this morning. Truly tragic.”
The black hole’s rapid expansion quickly attracted an array of lobbyists, pollsters, and casual cable news personalities, all drawn to what one witness called the “maddening fusion of self-righteousness and irreconcilable ambiguity.” Despite bipartisan agreements to avoid proximity, several legislators were seen tossing draft bills and outdated family values platforms into the vortex, hoping to lighten their legislative burden. The Office of Governmental Integrity issued a memo warning that “attempts to weaponize the singularity for midterm advantage will likely result in total issue evaporation.”
Republican and Democrat committee members alike scrambled to preserve their media narratives, only to watch as entire talking points were stretched to a point of infinite contradiction before vanishing with a faint, echoing sound resembling “the K Street hum.” Speaker Emerita Susan Blackwell, clad in lead-lined nuance gear, attempted to read a statement about responsible dialog but was interrupted by her words looping endlessly back on themselves.
Constituents nationwide have expressed mixed reactions. Some greeted the news with philosophical resignation, noting that their family group chats were “already well into the event horizon.” Others voiced concerns about the gravitational pull interfering with the upcoming county fair, where booth-based political theater is central to local economic development.
The Senate has now commissioned a bipartisan task force to study “the irretrievable compression of ideological mass,” though early findings suggest that any solution requires first acknowledging the existence of objective reality—a prospect widely considered “politically unviable” ahead of next year’s primaries. At press time, Senator Vance was reportedly preparing a Substack explainer in the hopes his findings might eventually reach escape velocity.
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