There, I Voted and Ate My Vegetables, Now to Spend the Evening Unplugged

Comic book cover: campaign button reading "Vote the People's Choice: Captain America for President!" His smiling face is on a flag background. The rest of the cover is yellow.

I was 8 when Cap declined the chance to run for President. Today I’d vote for him three times if I could.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: I’m an introvert, I suck at belonging to things, I don’t do sports or frats or hivemind collectives, I tend to be disqualified from group identification, and yes, sometimes I feel extremely sad about this weekly during Sunday church service. My misfit attitude — some of it my own fault, some of it everyone else’s — goes double for political parties. Were it up to me, all parties would be dissolved, everyone would be forced to deliberate their votes alone in a soundproof closet, and all candidates would be forced to run alone with no support system whatsoever, just their resume and their wits, exactly like any applicant for every ordinary job ever.

But I vote! Because I can and I should. I’ve voted in every Presidential election since 1992. I have never, ever been given the option to vote enthusiastically for a Presidential candidate who radiated wisdom through their every gaze and was demonstrably, empirically without sin. I’ll keep a light on for my future President Dulcinea, should they be born and ascend through the mud-slung ranks before I die.

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“Democracy, Democracy”: An Election Day Carol

Election Day Voting Sticker 2022!

Any resemblance between my Daredevil T-shirt and the Doomsday Clock, or any significance of placing my free “I Voted!” sticker at five minutes till, are largely incidental.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: I do the democracy thing twice a year (yes, even primaries) because I believe I ought to and because they keep letting me. I don’t recall why I didn’t post about it last year. Maybe society was to blame? Or maybe the reason was so dumb that I was counting on my aging brain to forget the reason why, just so I couldn’t blame myself for not writing about it I can’t recall, so maybe Past-Me’s plan worked. Politicians prefer long-term memory loss in their constituents anyway, so really this is just my brain getting into the spirit of the occasion.

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Last-Minute Cramming Before Election Day 2020

Bobby Newport against crime!

Bobby Newport: the kind of simpleton America needs now more than ever. Or at least thinks it needs.

It’s that time again! Election Day is nigh, which might need to be mentioned to anyone outside America who was wondering why everything American and online intensified above and beyond our average 2020 levels of hysteria over the past few days. Whatever happens Tuesday and over the next several days as election staffers count ballots cast across a multitude of platforms and processes, America guarantees we won’t be dull to watch. Outsiders looking in may find themselves worn down by our emphatic, repetitive displays of all our worst concerns, fears, prejudices. and fiercest histrionics. If you stay tuned, we’ll have some cool toy commercials coming right up, we swear.

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Vote! Vote! Vote! Vote! Vote! Vote! Vote! Vote!

I Voted!

Me as of 15 minutes ago.

(sung to the tune of the old “Meow Mix” commercial)

Vote vote vote vote!
Vote vote vote vote!
Vote vote vote vote!
Vote vote vote vote!

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Primaries Count as Voting, Too

Electiontrooper!

Free stickers: a cornerstone of our democracy.

It was that time again! The first Tuesday in May was once again the pre-Election Day dry run when Americans in many districts have the chance to vote in primaries to decide which candidates will move forward in our aggravatingly binary political system. Primaries tend to lure a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the votes that actual Election Day does, but in some local races, our votes are no less important. Basically, 90% of the population cedes quite a few decisions to the 10% of us who feel compelled to show up and take advantage of their inertia. Advantage: us.

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It Takes More Than Seven Minutes to Save America

I Voted! I Count!

Another year, another free sticker. Too bad I haven’t owned a Trapper Keeper for sticker displays since junior high.

Once again it’s Election Day here in America, the taut finale to one of the worst seasons our political showrunners have written for us to date. When I began typing this shortly after a new episode of Chopped Junior ended, Twitter was having itself a series of roiling meltdowns as everyone insisted on paying too much attention to the early returns even though some states won’t be finished tabulating or even voting for the next several hours. That’s setting aside any pending conflict resolutions or triple-overtime recounts for those neck-and-neck battleground states where the Big Two are finding their supposedly easy leads in the Presidential race thwarted by votes siphoned away by third-party candidates and repelled away by their own morally compromised candidates and constituents.

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Greetings and Regrets from the Indiana Primary Scene

Indiana Primary!

The pathway to my precinct’s voting HQ, marked along the way by glimmers of hope and dread.

Today I performed my civic duty as an Indiana voter and participated in our May 3rd primaries despite the options. My wife and I have differing political philosophies, but we were unanimous in our non-enthusiasm for any of the four remaining contenders going into our less-than-super Tuesday. Once upon a time, my wife could walk into any election headquarters, throw the straight-ticket lever, and be out the door before they could finish peeling her “I VOTED!” sticker off its backing paper. Not so much anymore.

Indiana’s voting laws are flexible enough that it doesn’t matter which party you normally identify with — for primaries you simply tell them which party’s ballot you want to use, then you’re off and running. No proof of allegiance, no mandatory party registration, no pop quiz, nothing. Despite that flexibility, Anne and I each deliberated much longer than usual in choosing between the Reality Star, the Clinton dynasty, the Televangelist, and Old Man Cloud-Yeller. And this is just the primaries. We have a lot of thinking to do between now and actual Election Day in November.

But of all the messages I’ve been sifting through on social media tonight in between The Flash live-tweets, one will stick with me longer than any other.

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