When I was very young, my aunt and uncle gave me a ponderous elephant pendant necklace on a heavy silver chain. It was a necklace befitting a 45-year-old portly professional – the kind of necklace that would go well with an expansive plush suit in a matronly hue.
“We thought of you when we saw this,” they said. I looked at it and said, “Thanks.”
They said this because I made everyone think about elephants. I brought elephants to the mind because I wore shirts that said “W. for President” and had a red-white-and-blue George W. Bush campaign tote bag. I had a collection of small elephant figurines because elderly relatives kept buying them and saying, “We saw this and thought of you.” I was the kind of child who walked her precinct during Republican primaries and attended state Republican party conventions on weekends. I woke up at 8:00 on Saturday morning to attend county GOP meetings. I was accompanied to these meetings by frail old Republican women who wore tapestry suits woven with elephant patterns and dangly elephant earrings. By anyone’s account it was my destiny to one day become a frail old Republican woman in an elephant-patterned suit, in which case the pendulous necklace would serve my wardrobe well.
I did not become that woman, but I have never – even in seasons of political ambivalence – stopped wearing political t-shirts. When a friend of mine said the other day that she would have nowhere to wear a political t-shirt, it startled me. To me, the only wrong place to wear a political t-shirt is church.
In 2008 I was, for the first time, an undecided voter. Never mind the journey that took me from George W. Bush tote bags to a crisis of political faith, but for the first time I felt myself pulled in two different directions. At first I decided not to vote at all, just for the principle of the thing – because it seemed unfair that I should have to choose between so many principles I held equally. But then one bright Sunday I walked through Union Square, which was brimming with campaign regalia from New York’s hippest artists. I could have bought twenty fashionista political t-shirts but my eye lit upon a light blue one with darker blue lettering that said “Blondes for …” Well, I’ll let you guess.
It was perfect. It said, “I am a blonde and I am my own special interest group, like lesbian Latinas or gun-toting Irishmen. This is my vote and while I am confident enough to advertise my vote on my boobs, there is a part of me that realizes if I have chosen wrongly it won’t be the end of the world; but still I am actually making my choice.”
Or maybe I just thought it was cute and I wanted to buy it as a companion for my “Blondes not Bombs” t-shirt. But I bought it – and the moment of buying the t-shirt and the moment of final decision were almost one and the same. My friend said, “Well I guess you’ve made up your mind then.” And I realized I had.
I wear political t-shirts both to make friends and make enemies. It’s my way of stubbornly standing up for myself when I feel stifled, and finding out who’s standing with me. I bought a t-shirt from Brooklyn Industries that showed Sarah Palin crowning a beatifically smiling Hillary Clinton Miss America. The artistry was ambiguous. (Hillary Clinton was hotter on the t-shirt than she was in real life). The message was somewhat ambiguous, too: Was Sarah Palin crowning Hillary Clinton the next woman in the White House because Palin had already won the White House? Or was Palin ceding First Female President to Hillary Clinton? I gave it my own interpretation. I bought it, loved it, got into arguments over it and lost it when I went to a primarily Republican wedding in Ohio – a memory that still makes me bitter as I search eBay for a replacement I have not yet been able to find.
Sometimes I like to buy my t-shirts a little to the left or right of where I actually am. My latest acquisition is a little pink vintage number that says, “Vote Democrat: A clean sweep.” I am not a Democrat, but I wear it to be a little perverse when I meet up with friends who campaign for Scott Brown. I want a t-shirt with a Jimmy Carter slogan of a grinning peanut, but Jimmy Carter is so lame that I’m torn. Perhaps a McGovern t-shirt with a dove of peace instead: obscure enough that pretty much no one will get it but relevant to today.
I wore that “Blondes” shirt right up until and on Election Day. Campaigners loved it. Elderly black women loved it. A boy staggering drunkenly through the West Village on Election Night also loved it. It’s ratty now but I still wear it to the gym, where nobody comments on it anymore. The big 2008 moment has passed. The hope is all tired and worn out – like my shirt – and no one will care to wear political t-shirts until 2012. Except me.