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Trick-or-treating on the spooky road to the White House

David Colburn
Posted 10/28/20

Google, that infamous internet search giant that’s the focus of a new federal antitrust indictment, hasn’t let its legal woes stand in the way of having a good time. They’re out …

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Trick-or-treating on the spooky road to the White House

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Google, that infamous internet search giant that’s the focus of a new federal antitrust indictment, hasn’t let its legal woes stand in the way of having a good time. They’re out with another edition of “Frightgeist,” Google’s annual compilation of the most searched-for Halloween costumes, and surprise, neither Donald Trump nor Joe Biden made the list.
You can find masks for both, but the Trump masks are far better than the Biden masks in both likeness and flair. Trump pretty much always looks like Trump. In the worst Biden mask, poor Joe looks a whole lot like a senior citizen version of the second half of Beavis and Butthead (insert your own political joke here).
But as usual, I digress. Follow along with me as I apply Freddy-Krueger-esque razor-sharp analysis to the question you’re all dying to have answered: Which presidential candidate is best suited to wear which of this year’s top costumes?
1. Witch
There are good witches and bad witches, but what all witches have in common is this – they cast spells. Trump’s resume here stands out, starting with the spell he cast over the last election. He was merely a novelty when he entered a crowded Republican primary field in 2016, but he won the nomination. Then to the amazement of pollsters and pundits and teeth-gnashing, garment-rending Hillary Clinton voters, he won the presidency. Today, the Republican Party is so spellbound with Trump that it has inexplicably lost sight of most of its core principles. From once calling Trump “a race-baiting, xenophobic religious bigot” who did not represent the values of his party or this country’s military, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham today loves Trump more than Joanie loved Chachi. When it comes to casting spells, Trump has a track record second to none.
As for Biden? Speaking and acting as we’ve come to expect from those who hold the highest office in the land is refreshing to many of us, but hardly spellbinding. I’ve come up totally dry for moments where Biden has displayed the spell-binding power of Trump.
Winner: Trump.
2.Dinosaur
I’ll steer clear of any critiques based on the fact that for its 3,500-pound bus-like size, the brain of a stegosaurus was teeny-tiny, about the size and shape of a bent hot dog (another opportunity to insert your own political jokes here).
Dinosaurs are extinct because they couldn’t adapt to changing conditions. This criterion clearly favors Trump. For example, he’s been giving the same basic message about health care ever since he was inaugurated: “We have a terrific plan that will be unveiled in _____ (insert fairly soon, two weeks, three weeks, the next four weeks, prior to the end of the month, or, be like Trump and make up something else on the spot). Nothing has changed. He’s running the same campaign he ran in 2016, coronavirus will magically disappear whether there’s 220 cases or 220,000 deaths, and on and on. In many ways Trump is a model of consistency. But he’s clearly not very adaptable to changing conditions.
Then again, Biden went to Congress the same year, 1972, that the first bulky scientific handheld calculator debuted at a price of $395, Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space premiered on Saturday morning TV, former President Harry Truman died, and this sexagenarian writer graduated from eighth grade. To many, Biden represents the end of an era in American politics, and the age of the dinosaurs was measured in, yes, eras.
Winner: Tie – Trump gets a tyrannosaurus rex costume (they both have small hands), and Biden gets a brontosaurus costume (once dismissed as having never existed, brontosaurus is back, kind of like Biden’s latest quest for the presidency).
3. Harley Quinn
Dr. Harleen Frances Quinzel is a fictional character with a fiendishly serious attraction to one of Batman’s arch enemies, the Joker. So which candidate deserves a costume that represents the desire to cozy up to evil?
I can already hear in my lonely writer’s garret the din rising from Trump-aholics clamoring for Burisma Joe and his sidekick, Boy Hunter – “Lock them up, lock them up!” I momentarily refer you back to how Trump won a share of the dinosaur award. His minions apparently share his affinity for unoriginality and broken records.
But no, I’m afraid Trump’s bromance with North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un, one of the world’s most horrible dictators, is almost an equalizer. Add in his doe-eyed envy of ruthless Vladimir Putin’s 82-percent approval rating in Russia and his fledgling courtship with Philippine strongman Rodrigo Duterte. (Intrigued, perhaps, by how Duterte gets away with saying “Just because you’re a journalist, you are not exempted from assassination.”) Then stir in his appreciation of other merciless despots around the globe, and the all-too-compelling evidence of Trump’s multiple man-crushes on evil authoritarians tips the scales bigly. They say Joe’s dirty; I say Donald’s flirty, and that’s just what the costume calls for.
Winner: Trump.
4. Rabbit
Winner: None. As a former Easter bunny and rabbit lover, I would never stoop to even suggesting a politician merits a costume in their fluffy cuddly image.
5. Bonus - Loki
The Norse god of mischief, or at least his cartoon counterpart, is the most-searched-for costume in the Duluth area right now, and as such is a good way to end the best bit of political prognostication you’ve read since I rightly predicted Stymie would be the president of the Ancient And Honery Order Of Wood Chucks in the “Our Gang/Little Rascals” show.
This one deserves contextual consideration befitting the holiday - classic Halloween mischief. There’s decorating trees with toilet paper, egging houses and cars, filling jack-o-lanterns with shaving cream, and one of my personal Kansas traditions, stealing an outhouse and setting it on fire in the middle of Main St. (Disclaimer: None of these pranks is endorsed by the publishers or other employees of the Timberjay. We’re all on our own here with this one.).
So, tell me, and be honest – who would be way, way better (and way more fun) to take along with you on these adventures for successful completion of your chosen missions? Donald Trump or “Sleepy Joe” Biden?
Winner in the largest landslide in presidential election history: Trump!
Now, would someone please get The Donald on the phone and hand me a couple dozen rolls of Charmin? It’s almost Halloween!
And for those aghast that I would even consider consorting with Trump, you should be thanking me. I’m getting him off the campaign trail for a night. Maybe more if we get caught. But then again, if Trump can wiggle his way out of paying more taxes than I do, surely, he can get us out of disorderly conduct charges, right?