America’s weirdest tradition is once again playing out on social media today, as the White House has enlisted the Twitterverse to help it decide which turkey to pardon this year at the annual holy shit we’re still pardoning turkeys event.
This year we have 47-pound ‘Mac’ going up against 49-pound ‘Cheese’. You might think that Cheese would have the advantage, given he’s a bit heftier. But you should know that Mac apparently has a “rhythmic, melodious gobble”. Also, it’s not really a competition. Also this is dumb.
Using Twitter’s voting cards, the White House is allowing people to vote for which turkey Obama will pardon and which he’ll send to be ground into burgers.
The whole pardoning a turkey thing started in 1989 when then-President George H.W. Bush decided it would be a good idea. The White House got social media involved in 2012, asking Facebook users to help decide the turkeys’ fate.
Recent controversy has forced the White House to issue this disclaimer:
Note: It’s all gravy, no turkeys will be harmed during the selection of the National Thanksgiving Turkey. After the pardoning, both turkeys will travel to their permanent home at Morven Park’s Turkey Hill, the historic turkey farm located at the home of former Virginia Governor Westmorland Davis in Leesburg, Virginia.
Of course, organizations like PETA aren’t happy with that explanation and have claimed that the whole spectacle “makes light of the mass slaughter of some 46 million gentle, intelligent birds and portrays the United States’ president as being in some sort of business partnership with the turkey-killing industry.”
I mean, ok. Sure. That’s a bit extreme. It is America’s stupidest tradition, however, and that’s saying a lot when you consider that we force our citizens to endure a Detroit Lions game every Thanksgiving.