I am currently working on a book that is a science fiction comedy with a heavy emphasis on political satire. Because of this, there is no way I can specifically target out people in our current era. I could create characters obviously like current politicians, but I am making humor out of ideas not people.
One way to do it (an approach often taken by Douglas Adams) is to take something to the logical extreme. I have two examples of that. First, I have a bureaucratic race to emphasizes the problems of bureaucracy. The main character has to fill out huge amounts of paper to leave a single planet. However, I didn't want to say that bureaucracy is always bad, so I have a race that is entirely unorganized and go over some of the problems that arise form that. Second, (this isn't politics. It's religion, you could do the same kind of thing) many Christians churches today seem to working to make money more than actually doing what their actual purpose is. To show this, I have a planet dedicated to religious sales people. Again, we're not to that extreme yet, but it shows the flaws in the system.
You could also try modelling actual events that you think are ridiculous and try to convince your reader of the same.
Finally, compare and contrast view points. You can do this in such a way that people can see that they hold highly onto the not so important stuff, but let go of the important issues.
As a final suggestion, I would recommend trying to present your ideas in your book. This would make it more interesting. Even then, be able to laugh at yourself.