In order to show how much they care, the folks in the White House have set up a website for people to make petitions about issues they care about. What the politicians didn’t count on was someone using their system to satirize how vapid and condescending the actual responses are.
Any sane and realistic person knows that the administration doesn’t care how many petitions you sign. (It’s not just this one, of course. No administration cares about petitions, contrary to what many people assume.) It’s only interested in how many votes you can deliver and how many dollars you can give.
For the rest of us, they’re just interested in placating us. They’ll pretend to listen. They’ll write boilerplate responses. They might even promise a pony sometimes. But it’s not going to change reality.
The White House petition system is for PR purposes, pure and simple. We all know that. And when politicians go through the motions of pretending to take us seriously, it’s condescending. So here’s a petition that I hope you’ll actually consider signing:
Todd Akin is just another ideologue who thinks it’s OK to make up facts
Local politics isn’t a Frank Capra movie; it’s every man for himself
It took me years to feel the anger I’d repressed since childhood
World is a surreal alien landscape where nothing makes sense to me
I’m trying to silence inner critic who says I ought to be perfect
For some of us, loss of trust is a deep existential threat to heart
If you believe petitions truly matter, here’s one we can really get behind
After chimp’s mother died, mama dog raised baby as one of her pups
Want to really understand someone? Visit the places that shaped his past