Don't Let the Republican Drive the Bus!: A Parody for Voters

by Erich Origen, Gan Golan

Overview

From the satirical masterminds behind the New York Times best-seller Goodnight Bush (more than 125,000 copies sold) comes this scathingly funny political parody of the contemporary children's classic Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!

  As any left-leaning parent of small children will tell you, these days it seems like the Republican Party is taking its tactical and ideological cues from a screaming, mid-tantrum toddler. That's certainly how authors Erich Origen and Gan Golan feel: The parallel came into sharp relief as they read the beloved picture book Don't Let Pigeon Drive the Bus! to their own children. In this wildly funny (and uncannily spot-on) spoof, Origen and Golan take on the Republican political machine, represented here by a cartoonish, hyper-conservative vulture, who wants nothing more than to drive the bus (even though he secretly hates public transit); give rides to his top hat-wearing, white male cronies; and run over as many "socialists," environmentalists, and public employees as he can find.

Timed to coincide with the 2012 presidential election, this witty and hilarious satire turns over-the-top Republican antics into fun-loving political child’s play. But, like most children’s books and their parodies, it also comes with a liberal dose of warning if we, the reader (…and the people), don’t heed the call: If you don't want to get thrown under it, then please...Dont' Let the Republican Drive the Bus!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781607743934
Publisher:	Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed
Publication date:	08/07/2012
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	44
File size:	8 MB

About the Author

Erich Origen and Gan Golan are public-transit-using, public-park-visiting, working-class elitists. They are also the New York Times bestselling authors of the books Goodnight Bush and The Adventures of Unemployed Man. Visit www.letmedrivethebus.com.

Read an Excerpt

AFTERWORD

Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! is the story of a creature putting his own impossible desires above everything and everyone, using all means necessary to achieve an end that is ridiculous and disastrous. Denied his impossible ambition, the bird grows angrier and has a full-blown tantrum. Such behavior is par for the course for your average three-year-old. But while a child’s tantrum may be “developmentally appropriate,” a rampaging id is more frightening in adults – and can have consequences that are far from cute. 

Republicans want government jobs, but they hate government. They prefer “market-based solutions” – like the Great Depression. Yup, the Republicans were driving the bus just before the Great Crash of 1929. After that disaster, Americans kicked the party to the curb and demanded a New Deal. It worked. From the 1940s to the 1970s, America experienced its Great Prosperity. Ever since then, Republicans have attempted to rewrite the rules. Just like the pigeon in Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! they’ve tried everything to get us to hand over the keys. So charming, that bird.

The dominance of the Democratic species ended soon after the defeat of Jim Crow. Republicans smelled an opportunity and hatched the Southern Strategy, which has since migrated across the nation with wild success. 

Republican survival is now fully dependent on the American population remaining bitterly divided against itself. 

Today’s Republicans are more bigoted and anti-intellectual than ever. They want us to take everything on faith, most importantly the idea that markets are self-regulating — a notion that even Alan Greenspan has called a “mistake.” An unrestrained free-market utopia is an impossibility, and attempts to create one have resulted in bubble after bubble.

Not that the Democrats should get a free pass. Like Republicans, they’ve sold out to the casino-economy policies backed by Wall Street. They’ve joined the squawking of hawks, backed the indefinite caging of citizens, and flown with the Republican flock in pursuit of Juan Crow. Yet for all their faults, at least the Democrats profess to believe in the common good and occasionally make an effort at being the party of all Americans, not just a select few. 

Ideologies get passed down from one vulture to the next via regurgitation. We hope this book helps inoculate you against this strain of bird flu. In the meantime, if you don’t want to get thrown under it, then please... 
DON’T LET THE REPUBLICAN DRIVE THE BUS!

Finally, a book you can say "no" to!