I’ve always voted for narcissistic sociopaths. Whenever a narcissistic sociopath runs for office, I donate, volunteer and cast my vote for him.

Until this year.

To convey how difficult this has been for me, let me establish some context. My father was a card-carrying narcissistic sociopath, and one of my fondest childhood memories is pulling the lever in the voting booth after he’d selected the narcissistic sociopathic candidate and then flicked me in the eyeball. On Sunday afternoons, our living room would turn into a salon, with my parents’ friends drinking coffee and discussing how to spread narcissistic sociopathic values as they slept with one another’s spouses, stole the silver and poisoned our goldfish with Drano.

“Your first duty is to the survival needs of the self: food, water, shelter,” my father would solemnly tell me. “Your second is to the emotional needs of the self: rousing up fear and respect from your enemies and so-called allies. Only then do you take care of the casual entertainment needs of the self: traveling abroad to golf resorts, laughing at funerals, buying Hammacher Schlemmer gadgets. Now, tell me you love me.” I’d express how much I loved him. “That’s so funny,” he’d say, “because I don’t love you at all. Neither does your mother. Actually, no one does.”

On his deathbed, ailing from the Drano his best friend had poured into his coffee, he pulled me close and whispered, “Promise you’ll always support the narcissistic sociopathic party,” before flicking me in the eyeball, spritzing Binaca in his mouth and dying.