Dahmer And Political Football

I was inspired by a bit of viewing from Saturday’s college football playoff game between Michigan and Texas Christian.

It was not a stellar play in the game, or amazing commentary by the announcers. Instead, it was a crowd shot showing a disgruntled Michigan fan – judging by his dark blue T-shirt with yellow lettering on it and the fact Michigan was losing big at the time.

What intrigued me was the message written on the shirt. Wait, what is it exactly? I had to stop and restart the broadcast several times before pausing at the correct time to read the thing.

Said the T-shirt: “Dahmer went to Ohio State.”

I checked and Dahmer, as in cannibal serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, was, indeed, once part of the Ohio State student body.

That this fan would wear such a T-shirt to a game in which Ohio State was not even involved, speaks to the animosity between Ohio State and Michigan, who share only the ability to pummel Penn State annually.

Michigan and Ohio State fans are kind of like Democrats and Republicans and it got me wondering about the political affiliation of Dahmer. Alas, it is not clear whether he was a Democrat, Republican or one of those noble fence-straddlers who label themselves Independents, but end up voting for a major party candidate – most often a Democrat.

While Dahmer’s leanings were unclear, a little internet searching found some political fodder to be found among noted serial killers.

Republicans might want to order up some T-shirts proclaiming “John Wayne Gacy Was A Democratic Precinct Captain.”

That would be Gacy, the gay Chicago serial killer said to have killed at least 33 people, mostly teenage males. There is a famous picture from the 1970s of Gacy and Jimmy Carter’s wife, Rosalynn, signed by Rosalynn with “best wishes” to Gacy.

Democrats could counter with a T-shirt reading “Ted Bundy Was A Republican Party Official.” It is Bundy who in the 1970s killed more than 30 people, mostly college girls, in Washington state.

And, while Bundy was an assistant to the chairman of the Washington state Republican party, there are no known photographs of him with any nationally prominent Republicans wishing him well.

Lest the Independents feel left out of all this, as is their wont, we could offer up T-shirts proclaiming “Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols Were Independents.”

It was McVeigh and Nichols, a pair of ex-U.S. soldiers, who pulled off the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 that killed 168 people.

According to no less a source than Britanica.com, neither McVeigh nor Nichols were “directly connected” with any major political group.

Sounds like Independents to me.