Why We’re Voting Red: Fairy Tale and Nursery Rhyme Characters Weigh in on the Midterm Elections
As a small business owner, I want to see my rights protected. If I want to bake two and twenty blackbirds in a pie, if I want to pat it and prick it, I should be able to! All I want to do is cook my stepson in a black pudding and serve him to my heterosexual husband. Is that so wrong?
It used to be a wolf could eat a girl and her grandmother without all the finger wagging. Now everything’s about “consent” and “body autonomy,” whatever that means. I say, make America Grimm Again!
Sleeping Beauty, 100 yrs, Spindleville, MA, Pageant Contestant:
I agree. What’s wrong with being so beautiful that princes can’t help themselves? If being “woke” means a prince or a president has to ask before he fondles me, then I’ll just stay asleep, please and thank you.
Pinnochio, 18 yrs, Truth or Consequences, NM, Carnival Worker
Jiminy Cricket! Just because you’re born here doesn’t make you “real.” My candidate will make sure only real boys and girls get to be US citizens.
What happened to working your way to the top? You don’t see me begging for a living wage or sneaking into castles—er, I mean countries. Nope. I’m going to keep my nose to the grindstone and scrub these toilets because I know someday my prince will come. And when we get married I’ll go on his health insurance.
Rumplestiltskin, 5000 yrs, Golden, CO, Childcare Worker
I’m a big believer in free trade.
The Pied Piper, 37 yrs, Piper City, IL, Music Conductor
Kids these days don’t have any respect for authority. These athletes kneeling during the anthem need to get in line! My candidate is just the kind of guy to make them face the music.
Grumpy Dwarf, 1035 yrs, Coal City, WV, Miner
Coal is the future!
The Little Mermaid, 23 yrs, Ocean City, MD, Sign Language Interpreter
[In sign] If I hadn’t exchanged my voice for these shapely legs, I’d tell those snowflake environmentalists to grow a pair! The ocean looks just fine to me from where I’m standing on the sand.
The Ugly Duckling, 6 mos, Swansville, MO, Beauty Contestant:
Sure, some of these politicians have ugly pasts. But it’s like what that reverend Jerry Falwell says—they’re baby Christians; they haven’t grown into their real selves yet. I mean, look at me! I used to be an ugly little thing, but now I’m a proud, white beauty!
Bluebeard, 75, Pirates Cove, VA, Seamen:
I’m with Ugly. After all, haven’t we all got a few skeletons in our closets?
The Gingerbread Man, 20 mins., Cooke City, MT, Food Runner
I like a candidate more like me, you know, someone I can identify with. Sure, he’s rich. And powerful. And no one’s trying to eat him. But my candidate isn’t any cookie cutter politician!
The Crooked Old Man, 72 yrs, Crooked Creek, MO, Retired
Frankly, I don’t mind a crooked candidate or a crooked house! If they’ve figured out how to work the system, it just means they’re smart! I say we’ve made our crooked bed and it’s time to lie in it!
I’m a fan of trickle down. When Mother Gothel locked me in a tower, I just brushed my hair and waited patiently. And when my prince fell into the thorns and was blinded, did I go around begging for health care and free eye glasses? Nope. I cradled him in my arms and cried into his gouged-out eye sockets and- Ta-Da!- he was totally healed! If that isn’t proof of “trickle down,” I don’t know what is!
Mother Gothel, 572 yrs, Tower City, PA, Foster Parent
Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up!
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Elizabeth Johnston is a humor writer, essayist, and poet who has written for McSweeney’s, The Atlantic, The Belladonna, The Satirist, Heavy Feather Review, Mom Egg Review, and many others. She facilitates writing workshops at the Breast Cancer Coalition of Rochester, and is co-founder of Straw Mat Writers, a four-woman writing collective.
