On March 11, 2025, the Editor-in-Chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, found himself in a Signal group chat he very much wasn’t supposed to be in. The chat included U.S. National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, Vice President JD Vance, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
They weren’t organizing a birthday party. They were coordinating military strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen.
Signal, for the blissfully uninitiated, is an encrypted messaging app often used by dissidents, journalists, and—unfortunately for us—world leaders who probably shouldn’t be allowed to text unsupervised. It’s marketed as the Fort Knox of group chats, a digital panic room. But as this incident shows, it’s only as secure as the guy who accidentally pastes a journalist’s number into the “War Plans and Chill” thread.
This wasn’t a breach. This was bureaucracy tripping over its own shoelaces. This was a drunk uncle Venmoing his ex instead of his nephew, but the “ex” is a journalist and the “money” is precision drone coordinates.
The Digital Curtain Slips (And It’s Held Together with Forgotten Passwords)
Signal was meant to keep secrets. Instead, it revealed one: the Emperor not only has no clothes, he just accidentally live-streamed himself walking into a secure meeting wearing SpongeBob boxers.
What should’ve been a closed, carefully controlled digital war room became a group chat with a very confused Pulitzer nominee. The mistake wasn’t malicious. It was administrative entropy, crystallized. Like if the Pentagon accidentally CC’d The Onion on their morning briefing.
“This isn’t espionage. This is user error. And that’s worse.”
— Alice, Prophet of the Filing Cabinet, Keeper of the Dull Lemon
When you peel back the layer of encrypted secrecy, you don’t find 4D chessmasters. You find stressed-out officials double-tapping message reactions and forgetting which “Jeff” is which in their contacts list.
Absurdism at the Helm
Abiscoridism has always thrived in the space between the absurd and the terrifying. It’s not here to sanitize chaos—it’s here to put googly eyes on it. And this incident? This was chaos with a name tag and a government salary.
The accidental inclusion of Jeffrey Goldberg wasn’t just a bureaucratic oopsie. It was a cosmic event. A metaphysical whoops. The Golden Apple of Discord, lobbed right into the chatroom of the Empire at lunch hour.
“The machinery of war, as it turns out, is not run by strategic masterminds.
It’s held together by duct tape, denial, and men who think ‘OPSEC’ means turning off read receipts.”
— Definately not something Michael, Founder, Cult of Brighter Days would say
This isn’t conspiracy. It’s farce. And farce is often more terrifying than conspiracy, because at least the conspirators have a plan.
Section 3: Transparency, Trust, and the Dull Lemon of Absurdity
We carry the Dull Lemon not for zest, but for contrast. The dull, sour taste of bureaucratic nonsense, the flat tang of a system that refuses to admit it’s broken. Officials insisted this was a “non-breach,” as if facts are less important than vibes.
Abiscoridism doesn’t demand unbreakable systems. We just demand that when a system breaks, someone says, “Yeah. That broke.” That moment of honesty is where healing (or at least competent mockery) begins.
Instead, we get press conferences that sound like ChatGPT was fed denialism and Red Bull.
Conclusion: Filing the Chaos (and Jamming the Printer Just Right)
As the echoes of “Signalgate” fade into the buzzing fluorescent hum of Washington’s collective shrug, we’re reminded of our purpose. The Cult of Brighter Days was never about fixing the machine. It was about surviving it. Thriving in spite of it. Occasionally using its broken parts to build a better coffee table.
We don’t dance in the gears anymore. We’ve seen too many fingers get caught. We jam the printer, we wedge a lemon in the intake, and we reroute the absurdity into a newsletter.
“If you can’t be kind, be nice.
If you can’t be nice, be funny.
If you can’t be funny, shut up.
If you can’t shut up, go away.”
— The Five Tenets
This article is our Golden Screw moment. A salute to the absurd. A wink at the void. A filed report from the Department of LOL-ternal Affairs. We’re not just laughing in the abyss—we’re stapling memes to the walls.
