As a teenaged “Saturday Night Live” fan (even into the crummy post-“Not Ready for Prime Time Player” years), I remember a 1980 sketch called “Invasion of the Brain Snatchers,” in which zombie conservatives would turn liberals into Reagan voters. Being a political ignoramus at the time I was easily duped into joining this ridicule, which was reinforced by my friends in my Rhode Island high school.
I was suddenly sucked into reality when Reagan won, and my Dad shocked me by telling me he voted for the Gipper instead of Carter. Dad had just about completed his conservative transformation by then, whereas mine was just beginning. “I just couldn’t see voting for Jimmy Carter again,” I remember him saying. In the following years Dad would buy me subscriptions to Human Events and National Review, and the rest is history.
Why do we remember seemingly meaningless episodes like this in our lives? Who knows.
