Satire
Calling The Flawed Democracy Help Line
Helping you avoid systemic governmental problems
Hello, and thank you for calling the Flawed Democracy Help Line. Before we access your situation, which flawed democracy are you calling about? Press 1 for Brazil. Press 2 for Greece. Press 3 for Mexico. Press 4 for Italy. Press 5 for Japan. Press 6 for United States. Press 7 for Ecuador.
Got it, United States. I see the Caller ID for this call is “Merica_f_yeah.” Press 1 if this is correct. Press 2 if it is something else.
Got it. Welcome back, “Merica_f_yeah.” Our records show you acquired your democracy in 1776, and have had only one issue with your system between 1861 and 1865, which was resolved after you renewed your extended warranty. There seems to be a long backlog of systemic racism — is this what you’re calling about? Press 1 for Yes, press 2 for No.
Got it, it’s something else. What seems to be the problem? Press 1 if you’re upset about your updated President hard drive. Press 2 for political polarization between red and blue microchips. Press 3 for electronic voter suppression. Press 4 for all of the above.
Got it, all of the above. It looks like you recently uninstalled an external President hard drive, “Racist Orange Autocrat.” These programs can infect innocent microchips with viruses such as “COVID-19” and “coup rioters.” If this is your situation, please reboot the whole system. Press 1 when you are ready to move on.
Got it, you’ve restarted your program. You may have to run repeated scans and updates for the next few years to reduce as many infected microchips as possible, and remove all viruses either through a mandatory two-step vaccine cleaning-disk, or an in-system jail.
I’m hoping the steps we took today have been helpful. Is there anything else I can help you with? I’ve noticed your system has the top 1% of microchips owning more hardware space and memory than the bottom 99%. If this is something you’d like to fix, press 1 for Yes, press 2 for —
Got it, maybe another time. Hopefully you can look at this soon since these imbalances of power often end up with dysfunctional readouts including higher poverty, unemployment, and unskilled worker rates, which will lead to a complete system failure. One easy step you could take right now is to increase upper income tax rates on the 1% microchips to help lower your inequality index.
Thanks for stopping by. Before we end our call, would you like to be added to our mailing list to hear about our fantastic new operating system, Democracy 2.0? It has many new features including easier microchip registration and voting procedures, eliminating the voter suppression installation, discarding the outmoded Electoral College subroutine, reducing the gerrymandering simulator, and rebalancing Congressional representation. It’s completely optional, but I highly suggest you consider it. Press 1 for Yes, Press 2 for —
Got it, maybe another time. Thanks for calling, and good luck…you’re going to need it.
David Martin is the author of the humor collection “Screams & Whispers.”
