The Swinger Vote Dilemma

Inside Brooklyn Millennial poly-tics and 2024 election apathy

Listen to an audio recording of the following text while you’re standing on line to do your civic duty or standing on line for an overly-hyped bagel:

Hyperlinks take you to QL entries pertinent to the topic—like Wikipedia, but more useful.

Millennials are the largest age demographic in the United States, and Brooklyn and places that try to seem like Brooklyn contain the largest concentration of Millennials, which makes Brooklyn Millennials (BKM) the most influential voting constituency in the world. Motivating Brooklyn-based and Brooklyn-vibe Millennials to vote—which does not provide immediate gratification, is totally binary, and has long-term implications—has, however, proven difficult.

“I would be much more into voting if the aesthetic were more chill,” says Marina, a Burning Man stylist who primarily resides in the more expensive part of Greenpoint but splits her time between Miami, Austin, Aspen, Venice Beach, actual Venice, Lisbon, Careyes, Tepoztlán, and Puerto Escondido. “Like, you walk in, and it’s this assault of overhead fluorescent lighting and eight different shades of beige. Would it kill democracy to add a few Edison bulbs? Can we have a ring light in the voting booth? Why can’t I design my own sticker and make it an NFT? And why isn’t there a social voting app where I can like, press a button to vote, automatically upload my I VOTED NFT to my socials, and then also see who my friends voted for? The whole electoral vibe is just totally off.” A recent Brookings Institute poll carried out at the turnstiles of the Bedford Avenue L subway station found that vibe was one of the top five issues that made BKMs feel triggered about voting in the 2024 presidential election and also doing every other thing that is responsible, productive, and done by other people.

Millennials in every part of the United States are known for their very large collections of participation trophies, and a silent majority of BKMs are reluctant to vote because someone must lose, which is also triggering.

“Why can’t both of them win?” asks Dylan, a nonbinary female-expressing BKM wearing a sleeveless acid washed jean jacket and a vine tattoo that winds up from their sternum and wraps around their neck. They lean against a gleaming La Marzocco espresso machine behind the butcher block counter of the Bushwick coffee shop collectively owned by their polycule. “I have two boyfriends, because neither of them are enough on their own.” With 63% percent of BKMs identifying as ethically non-monogamous (ENM) and the rest not identifying their non-monogamy, many BKMs see voting in a binary election as a repudiation of their identity. “Maybe it’s time we have a poly-presidential election,” they say.

Like BKM romantic relationships, American politics are comprised of two constantly bickering primary parties that are frequently disrupted by a much more fun third, who would be disastrous as anything more than a fling but linger in the relationship for a really long time. BKMs have grown so accustomed to integrating thirds (and fourths and fifths) that some are calling for Kamala Harris, Donald Trump, and RFK Jr to govern the country together as a primary presidential throuple that integrates Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Elon Musk for polytical play parties.

“The Jedi High Council had like twelve members, right?” asks Nathan, a mustachioed man in his late twenties holding a weathered mate gourd and wearing a faded Atari t-shirt shirt standing on the corner of Driggs and 4^th Street. “You didn’t hear anyone complaining about inflation in Star Wars, did you,” he says. He raises his eyebrows and takes a long drag from his vape.

BKMs are as apathetic about the electoral process as they are about the issues at stake, which do not affect their lifestyles. They are not motivated by the economy, because they inherited their own personal economy in the form an irrevocable trust. Taxes are not a concern for them, because they do not work, and healthcare isn’t a hot-button issue, because they buy very expensive longevity placebos at Erewhon, and ayahuasca ceremonies are not covered by insurance. Inflation has not yet hit the cost of ketamine, most BKMs have farms upstate where they grow their own food, and they harvest milk and eggs in the backyards of their Williamsburg and Fort Greene townhomes. Issues beyond US borders are also not compelling; immigration does not worry BKMs, because they themselves become immigrants every May when they depart for Europe for the Summer, and in the Winter, like salmon struggling against a counter current, they cross the border into Central America to seek weather asylum. BKMs are not upset by homelessness, because for 10 days each September they live in clusters of tents and subsist on Doritos and molly water.

The only political issue that has BKMs’ attention is climate change, which is having a deleterious effect on the length of the ski season, on the future of butter lettuce, and on the range of costumes they can wear at Burning Man. This is why RFK Jr was such a compelling candidate for BKMs. Bobby Kennedy was for BKMs the full-throated, unanimous answer to the classic political thought experiment, who would I want to rip a line with? This is because (before failing off of the ballot) he was the only presidential candidate who came from generational wealth, recreationally sold recreational drugs at an Ivy League university to which he was admitted as a legacy, and consistently disappointed his family. Many BKMs found RFK Jr too mainstream, though, longing instead for a presidential candidate who no one else had ever heard of.

“I would really like to discover my own presidential candidate,” muses Mattias, a nano-indie folk music producer in his mid-forties who identifies as a Gen-Z/Millennial cusper. “Everyone who ends up on the ballot gets churned out of the same assembly line of political influencers, power brokers, and biased journalists who are just not as smart or tuned-in as I am,” he says from the corner booth at Public Records. “I feel like I have my thumb on the pulse of the people who matter most to the people who matter. Like, if I found someone who I thought had presidential vibes, and I told a few people about them in June, they would totally be a hit by November.”

Low vibes, binary choices, irrelevant issues, and unrelatable candidates are all contributing factors to BKM voter stay-in, but the top issue behind their Election Day apathy is that, after waiting on a very long line, they will not receive an artisanal bagel, an expensive slice of pizza, or an inventive pastry.

“I’m supposed to wait on a fucking line for two fucking hours and not get the best bagel in New York this week?” demands Chad, one of the four BKMs who work in finance. “I’m sorry, but if I’m going to wait that long for something it better fucking be a delicious carbohydrate.” In a stroke of cultural insight, election officials in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Austin have integrated polling stations into the Square iPad checkout interface at Apollo Bagels and Mama’s Too in the West Village, both outposts of L’Industrie Pizzeria, Courage Bagels in Los Angeles, Arsicault Bakery in San Francisco, and Tacos El Charly in Austin. BKMs in these locations who wait on lines that are expected to exceed 4 hours will receive a limited-edition specialty carbohydrate that comes with an “I WAITED” pin, which indicates that they know what is cool right now, have both the disposable income and the disposable time to participate in a food trend that will definitely die in a month, and may have also done their civic duty after not adding a gratuity.