DENVER — Leaders from the political left and right met in the swing state of Colorado on Wednesday to sign an accord to politicize every last thing, from “children’s TV shows to fashion trends, and from tap water to a new Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream flavor.”
“Getting offended by almost everything is a right,” said Lisha Sapp, an NPR producer and representative of the left. “Many Americans no longer bat an eyelash if a Colombian policeman uses an ethnic slur against an indigenous protester. If conservatives in this country had it their way, they’d have the cop give the protester a fat slap to the face as well.”
Carla Burnett, a conservative blogger and self-styled “patriot soccer mom,” said Americans need to become more enraged about remarks liberal celebrities make when they travel abroad. ”I mean, do you know what Gwyneth Paltrow has said about her fellow countrymen?” Burnett said. “She absolutely despises America. Typical Democrat.”
Burnett said people need to castigate advertisers who employ effeminate male models. “Otherwise,” she said, “in a few years you’ll have the socialists forcing school boys into gay marriage. And that’s why this summit today is so important. We are telling the country, ‘it’s time you got really pissed off again.’”
Attendees gathered in the auditorium of an underperforming school in Denver, a backdrop both parties felt they could adequately politicize, with the left clamoring for more federal school aid, and the right decrying the National Education Association, the nation’s largest union of teachers.
The two sides agreed that Americans are not angry enough about greeting-card messages and the mascots of cleaning products.
“People need to wake up,” said one event organizer, speaking for both sides. “Hallmark isn’t the politically-neutral well-wisher you think it is. They have a very nefarious agenda. And we don’t even want to bring up Mr. Clean, the muscled bald man with an earring. It’s clear what he symbolizes, and it goes against our very notion of liberty.”
“Mr. Clean is a militant homophobe,” said Sapp.
“No, he’s a homosexual socialist,” said Burnett.
While it’s uncertain why Americans are tiring of politicizing of every little thing, some experts suggest the public simply has no energy left due to lingering anxiety about unemployment, the impending Obamacare standoff, as well as violence in Egypt and Syria.
Sara Kearse, a spokesperson for the right, implored the public to muster up any bit of rage they can, and to remember that “liberals are in every corner, and they’re up to no good.” She cited “Elysium” as one of a million examples of how liberals are spitting on the United States, saying the movie aims to depict American corporations as the source of the world’s misery. “There’s no doubt that most Hollywood movies are thinly-veiled Marxist critiques of the United States,” Kearse added.
Roberto Villa, a spokesperson for the left, said liberal Americans must continue getting hysterical about corporate sponsorship of local softball tournaments. “And as for Elysium,” Villa said, “it’s obviously a work of racist anti-immigrant propaganda with the goal of depicting a pristine world ‘ruined’ by savages from the third world.”
From the left, the accord’s signatories included Democrats, a few rare communists, sociology faculty from Oberlin College, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, and your friend Ryan who studied abroad in Sweden. Signatories from the right included Republicans, the Tea Party, radio host Michael Savage, and the hip-hop artist 50 Cent.