Pervy Voters

The rebels who go MAGA for the lulz -- and to show they've been bad, bad girls

A few months before he died, my father confessed something to me. He had voted for Nixon in 1960. “Boneheaded,” he now said. 

But he was 21, and full of ginger. He believed Kennedy had taken “the Catholic vote” for granted. An increasingly ambivalent Catholic, didn’t want anyone taking him for granted. He didn’t want to be a type. 

Instead, he wanted to shock the world with his nonconformity.  In spite of my dad’s brave stand, Kennedy won that one. Razz never voted for a Republican again. 

Boneheaded. One’s vote—like one’s finances—is not a great place to pour mischief and defiance. Democracy is more mundane. You vote your interests. And interests themselves are also banal. Often they’re just money. And, yet, there will always be people who will give up on their interests and their values, and cast their votes out of spite.