Ghosts of Election Days Past (or, "I Was and Remain Pro-Puppy and Anti-Goblin")
Puppies will save us.
A kid in my 4th grade class in 1988 said if Mike Dukakis won the election then the guy from Labyrinth would kidnap us all and eat us. George Bush could protect us though. I was like, “I now have a stance on this matter, and it is anti-goblin.” Mom and Dad vaguely agreed with me, in that they were vaguely aware an election was happening. We weren’t very interested in politics. But I was, for two or three hours that afternoon, because I didn’t want David Bowie to eat me. But then I forgot about it when I got home from school and started playing Dragon Warrior, which acts as a time warp in which several days can pass that seem like a mere hour, but then you find you haven’t moved in a fortnight, and you’ve wet and soiled yourself many times, and you are ashamed.
I remember faintly understanding that Bill Clinton liked interns. Mom and Dad sort of disapproved, but there was a sale on geranium bulbs down at Freddie’s so we had other things going on I guess.
I briefly flirted with far-left politics as a high school senior. And by “flirted,” I mean I had to do a project on a political party, and Ms. Hartford, my cheery Government teacher who heartily endorsed my Grateful Dead t-shirts and who I think was high 40 percent of the time, said I should study the Pacific Party. Their political platform consisted of trees, spotted owls, and Phish. I gotta say, I was hooked. But then I started flirting with the cute cashier at Little Caesar’s, and I can only flirt with one thing at a time, otherwise I get a headache.
The 1996 election left no impression on me whatsoever. I always associated Bob Dole with canned fruit. That’s not a bad thing.
By 2000 I was a full-fledged voter. A full-fledged uninformed voter. I asked Mom and Dad for the first time which political party they belonged to. “Reagan,” they said. “That’s not a political party,” I said. “It’s not?” they said. Then I doubted myself. “Let me check,” I said. I used the internet for like the fourth time. “No, Reagan is not a political party,” I confirmed. But Republican also started with R, so that’s what I did. Dick Cheney ended up winning that election somehow.
A kid in my 15th grade class in 2004 said if John Kerry won the election then the Taliban would kidnap us all and eat us. George Bush could protect us though. I was like, “I’m voting no to cannibals.” Mom and Dad were like, “That’s my boy.” I was proud to continue the long family tradition of opposing cannibalism.
As the Iraq War drug on I turned into a Democrat. I was an Arabic major. Mom and Dad were like, “I think your professors are brainwashing you,” and I was like, “Yeah, it tingles.” By the middle of 2005 I was totally politically active in liberal causes, which on BYU campus means listening to the Beastie Boys. Real quiet so nobody knows. If people find out, they’ll tell everyone you swear like Mike D. And you’re like, “Nuh-uh, dumb head,” and they’re like, “See?”
I got a little older and little wiser as the years piled up. Partisan politics got less confusing, but also more confusing. John McCain picked Sarah Palin as a running mate. She started saying things where I was like, “Wha-? That violates basic laws of rational thought and possibly the English language.” Mom and Dad were like, “Reagan’s dead, nothing matters anymore.”
I genuinely liked Mitt Romney in 2012, but truly bizarre factions of the country supported him. I am many things, but bizarre is not one of them. “Sorry, Mitt, “ I said. “You’re on your own.” He said, “I actually don’t need you, I’m super rich.” I said, “Touche.”
Nobody needs me to rehash 2016, or any other year since. I’ll say though that Mr Trump has proven himself antithetical to a democratic republic. At the same time, I’ll say that I don’t think progressives have given him his fair due, which isn’t much, but is still something. A thing can be wrong overall while still being right in some small ways. Although I believe the Democratic party to be the saner, more rational, more compassionate, more correct of the two major parties, while also hewing far nearer to the spirit of the Constitution, it has its warts. The Republican party, in my view, is almost entirely warts right now, but good people affiliate themselves with it.
Making continual, sometimes Herculean efforts to understand those with whom we differ is needed now. When you vote, I hope you vote no to division, extremism, myopic vision, conspiracy mongering, and reflexive distrust of things that don’t align with your worldview. And also to cannibalism. It’s unconstitutional.
