In 1988, during a 4-issue Batman run called "A Death in the Family," readers were allowed to vote, via two 900 phone numbers, whether Robin lives or dies.

By a weirdly narrow margin, readers voted Robin die.

That these votes were easily, obviously rigged is small part of a larger, more invisible reality. After a cataclysmic century that also saw some hopeful gains for an American social compact—the New Deal; Civi Rights; the proliferation of long-oppressed voices across many disciplines; the bloom of critical theory, critical education—a New Right, under the moniker of Reaganism, was ascendant.

We vote others die.

[Preview of "Deaths in Other Families" — forthcoming from Justin D. Stone.]