They’re neo pagans. I used to hang out on that sub before I quit reddit. It’s NOT satire, but there IS a lot of joking around.

Some of them are as serious (and the same as) Christians praying to try to influence politics. I’m sure quite a few people are casting curses and wishes of destruction at Trump. I’m sure many many more are just casting wards and protections against him (Google the Law of Three and the Wiccan Rede for why EVERYONE’S not doing that).

The big difference between Christians praying and pagans casting spells is that many pagans don’t take their religion that seriously, basically 99% of the rest have a good sense of humor about it, probably about 80% of them approach their religion with an attitude of “this is allegory, but it makes me feel good and I like the community” and the ones that DO take magick really really seriously tend to be good natured about skeptics and to not give a fuck what other people think and perfectly happy to engage in reasonable discussion about why they think magick MIGHT work and why they think gods / goddess MIGHT be listening in some way and what that even means. Another big difference between Christians and pagans is, ask 20 pagans what magick is, how it works and why they do it and you’ll get 20 different answers.

The 5% of pagans who take their religion SUPER SCARY SERIOUSLY tend to be either goth teenagers who read way too many fantasy novels, want to be edgy, want magick to be “real” and want to piss off their parents and pretend they’re persecuted OR weird old polyamorous boomer hippies who took tons of LSD in the 60s and then made money writing books about it. Lots and lots of pagans are atheist / agnostic adjacent. Heck, lots of people I’ve stood in circle with (including me) are openly “I’m an atheist / agnostic, but I miss the community of church and something about honoring the earth and the seasons FEELS sacred.” The truth about pagan communities is that no one gives a fuck about converting you or changing your mind about anything, no one needs you to agree with their version of “the Truth,” everyone just wants you to bring food to the pot luck and then chat you up to see if you’re interested in their D&D game / hacker space / poly collective / art exhibition / ecstatic dance class. They’ll try to get you to drink their homebrew mead and look at their sketchbook, not convert you to believing (or not believing) in something.

The REAL satire is that someone at ABC thought it was worth writing about witches casting spells at politicians to get some clicks. Classic “I’m gonna write an article about these people without having a CLUE what they’re about.”