A Poem For Those Who Do Not Vote (Self Defense is Such a Nasty Business)

"Election Day is a Holiday
by Ogden Nash

November 1932

People on whom I do not bother to dote
Are people who do not bother to vote.
Heaven forbid that they should ever be exempt
From contumely, obloquy and various kinds of contempt.
Some of them like Toscanini and some like Rudy Vallee,
But all of them take about as much interest in their right to ballot as their right to ballet.
They haven’t voted since the heyday of Miss Russell (Lillian)
And excuse themselves by saying What’s the difference of one vote in fifty million?
They have such refined and delicate palates
That they can discover no one worthy of their ballots,
And then when someone terrible gets elected!
They say, There, that’s just what I expected!
And they go around for four years spouting discontented criticisms
And contented witticisms,
And then when somebody to oppose the man they oppose gets nominated
They say Oh golly golly he’s the kind of man I’ve always abominated,
And they have discovered that if you don’t take time out to go to the polls
You can manage very nicely to get through thirty-six holes.
O let us cover these clever people very conspicuously with loathing,
For they are un-citizens in citizens’ clothing.
They attempt to justify their negligence
On the grounds that no candidate appeals to people of their ‘integligence,’
But I am quite sure that if Abraham Lincoln (Rep.) ran against Thomas Jefferson (Dem.)
Neither man would be appealing enough to squeeze a vote out of them."