Randi Kreiss

When real-life horrors hijack Halloween

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Really, could you make up Donald Trump if he didn’t already exist?

What book publisher in their right mind or movie producer hoping for a hit would create a character as unlikely as the Republicans’ very own Great Pumpkin?

Imagine a hungry screenwriter pitching a story to a movie mogul: “See, you have this super-rich guy who decides to run for president against 17 other candidates seeking the GOP nomination. He has some problems, sure, some ADD, maybe, some narcissistic personality disorder, some grandiosity. Yeah, I’m pretty sure there’s tape out there with him bragging about grabbing women’s genitals and getting away with it because he’s a star. Student of history? Not his strong suit. Also, yeah, he has no experience at all in government or foreign affairs …

… “He did host a reality TV show. And he has experience hosting the Miss Universe pageant, which will help when negotiating with Russia and Syria and Iraq …

… “He’s planning to build a wall along the border with Mexico, reduce taxes on the rich and create a religious test for immigrants trying to get to America. Also, there are TV clips of him gyrating while mocking a disabled reporter, and, oh, he insulted the parents of a Muslim-American soldier who was killed in Iraq …

… “OK, he isn’t perfect, but he is flamboyant, and a fast talker, and he knows how to amp up a crowd — even inciting anger and violence, which will make for a great plot line, maybe even ending in another American Revolution. Think of the Fuhrer without the mustache but with a fascinating comb-over ’do.

Would any publisher or producer want to invest in this preposterous story? And yet here we are, on the cusp of Election 2016, and one of the two (realistic) candidates for president is a profoundly unprepared, uncouth, blatantly racist xenophobe.

Sorry, Halloween, you’ve been hijacked by the facts on the ground. Nothing can be as scary as the regular news.

Between last year and this year, certain bedrock beliefs, such as the peaceful transition of power in presidential elections, have been challenged. Trump says he may not concede to Hillary Clinton if she wins. Double double toil and trouble. From which caldron did he pull the idea to destabilize the country? Halloween, can you really do better than that? Fake Freddy fingernails and monster teeth just don’t cut it anymore.

When I was a kid, we felt a bit scared, in a good way, when the big kids in creepy costumes rang our doorbell. Now the kids are polite and sweet and most always accompanied by parents. The trick-or-treaters are all well behaved, Halloween, but we see Candidate Trump huffing and puffing and trying to blow our house down. You just aren’t scary enough by comparison, Halloween.

In other news, about that whole trick thing? Egging a car? Toilet paper in the trees? You call those tricks? They’re lame when compared with Russia hacking the Democrats’ emails and publishing them online. Now that’s a trick that gets everyone’s attention.

Last Friday morning, Dyn, whose servers monitor and reroute internet traffic, reported that they were under cyber attack, and millions knew it because we couldn’t get online. Netflix, Reddit, The New York Times and other websites experienced outages. Talk about goblins and gremlins — cyber warfare is terrifying. Those scary masks with the fake hair just don’t have the same ability to reach inside our lives and twist until we scream.

As for ghosts, Halloween, I’m seeing the spirit of Mussolini and Hitler dancing across America. What have you got? White sheets and green makeup? Peh. Ghosts of elections past certainly escort Hillary wherever she goes. Trump is actively summoning the spirits of his brethren, Nicolae Ceausescu, Papa Doc Duvalier and Vladimir Putin, to name just a few. He invokes their spirit every time he promises to fix everything that’s wrong in America all by himself, due process be damned.

Clearly, this year the Donald trumps Halloween. He has ruined my taste for manufactured terror. I just can’t get interested in candy corn.

We need to invent a special holiday for him. Let’s call it Inauguration Day, when we celebrate our new president and consider our close encounter with Trump and his cohorts a near miss.

Maybe next year, fright wigs and skeleton costumes will be amusing again.

Copyright © 2016 Randi Kreiss. Randi can be reached at randik3@aol.com.