You, an Elected Representative:
A voice in your representative democracy? Not in THIS economy, buddy! What’s in it for me?
Us: How about... the chance at a dope social media post?!?!?!?

Contacting politicians, the goal of so many aspirational Engaged Citizens, is an exercise in futility. Telephone calls are rendered toothless by the combined staffer/answering machine airgap between caller and politician. Letters go straight to the crank pile, and emails–as if!

And yet, one pure sword neatly cleaves this dense and impenetrable screen: a crayon scrawl of “dear Senator” alongside a crudely-rendered daisy and smiling top-right-corner sun.

Famously, eleven-year-old Grace Bedell wrote to then-beardless Abraham Lincoln recommending that he grow out some whiskerature. That this letter, of all letters, reached and elicited a response from Lincoln stands as testament to the timelessly compelling nature of a child’s note.

Children’s letters epitomize the aesthetic of naivety - a quality that elected officials already project onto all their constituents with callous condescension - and it is this that makes them resonate so with members of the government. A child’s letter poses absolutely no threat in the mind of the recipient.

And, far beyond simple emotional charm, children’s letters offer up potent political branding opportunities. A politician can make no Instagram post that more poignantly demonstrates the rightness of their cause, indeed the rightness of the political system, than the adorable visual anecdote of a kindergartener’s earnest entreaty (I hear a voice louder than all the music cry “free clout!”).

Children’s letters, then, manage to act as enticing bribes behind a veneer of guileless sincerity. This makes them the most potent communicatory weapon available for us to leverage.