Halloween and democracy

last updated 8 January 2015

Forget election day, said Matthew Taylor in The Baltimore Sun. Halloween is “one of our nation’s most visible displays of democracy in action.” Some see in Oct. 31 only “rampant consumerism” and “trivialized evil,” but on what other night can everybody be who they want to be, equal, the only barrier to success a costume? And houses have to compete for the votes of trick-or-treaters—the biggest drawers get “bragging rights,” the losers “minor vandalism.”

There are important differences, too, said Elisabeth Eaves in Forbes online. Halloween “celebrates the noble truth in artifice, but election day makes it all tawdry again.” Celebrating artifice is “soul-baring” and bracingly honest on Oct. 31. In contrast, politicians usually deploy the “lowest form of artifice”: fakery “in the pursuit of power.”