Listen up. If you want your political views to be noticed and remembered, you’ve got to wrap them around the distended belly of a teetering one year old.
People will ignore your meticulously crafted blog posts, they’ll rip up your pamphlets and (if you’re anything like me) they’ll punch you in the face and steal your Timbuk2 satchel when you bring a megaphone to the beach.
But ever since I drew a small crowd at the mall with my nephew Joey wearing a onesie that said, SANDERS & COOKIE MONSTER IN 2020, I decided that the baby onesie is probably the most effective modern medium for communicating radical policy views to a broad audience.
So now we hit playgrounds and I send Joey down the slide delivering truth bombs like: GRAMMY SPOILS ME—AT LEAST SHE WOULD IF CONGRESS WASN’T PILFERING HER SOCIAL SECURITY.
I got him wobbling on mechanical horses outside supermarkets schooling shoppers on the hegemon: I WAS AN “OOPS.” BUT DEREGULATING AIR EMISSIONS WASN’T. THAT WAS JUST BAD POLICY.
I toss Joey in a ball pit and he’s a bobbing, drooling blob that’s spouting cold reality: I’M A SPECIAL DELIVERY (THAT COST BETWEEN $5-$11K—THAT’S BULLSHIT!)
Every week we’re doing somersaults at the Gymboree, getting in some good tummy time and blowing minds: MOMMY’S CUDDLE MONSTER (WHO WILL INHERIT A DANGEROUS AND DYING PLANET IF WE DON’T ACT NOW!)
This beats the hell out of pamphlets. No one is going to fake a smile as they take my nephew, fold him up and put him in their pocket only to toss him in a dumpster once they round the corner. No, this cherubic little munchkin is the ideal vehicle for spreading the brutal truth about how fucked up everything is right now.
Though we almost got kicked out of his Wiggle Worms music class because the other parents couldn’t handle the fact that I GOT DADDY’S LOOKS—AND A SYSTEMATICALLY CORRUPT JUSTICE DEPARTMENT—AND MOMMY’S GIGGLE.
Some parents strap their kids into a Guns N’ Roses or AC/DC onesie, but if you’re going to exploit a kid to proliferate your own preferences, at least make it count. PRETTY EYES & CHUBBY THIGHS…AND WAR PROFITEERING IS AN AFFRONT TO CAPITALISM!
Recently I went to an anti-war demonstration that got pretty heated when a counter-demonstrating group confronted ours. In lieu of a sign, I held Joey up high in a baby blue onesie with a skunk on it that said, I’M A LI’L STINKER, BUT DEPLETED URANIUM IS A SADISTIC MUNITION!
And I’ll be goddamned if I didn’t come face-to-face with a counter protester holding up an infant of his own in a onesie that said, CRAWLING LIKE A BOSS, BUT I WILL NEVER KNEEL TO A FOREIGN AGGRESSOR!
As we faced off with our protest babies held aloft, the babies smiled at each other and started cooing and touching each other’s faces and giggling. Watching it was kind of beautiful. Pure. Innocent.
Then my aggressor and I finally looked each other in the eye. Everything slowed down. Everything got quiet.
“Fuck you,” I mouthed silently.
“Fuck you,” he mouthed back silently.
Yeah, the infant onesie is definitely an essential tool for any political activist.