What’s more terrifying than vampires, werewolves, and mummies? How about a world without progressives? How about a return to the Gilded Age, to a world that serial killer-inspired Ayn Rand would celebrate? That can happen if enough regular people vote against their own interests and with the interests of giant corporations and billionaire-backed movements like the Tea Party, anti-health care reform groups, and anti-green jobs organizations. So celebrate Halloween in any costume you like, but if you don’t vote for a progressive (or at least the closest thing to) on November 2, the real monsters will be roaming the streets of D.C. not just for a night but for a whole term.

FIGHT THE MONSTERS: VOTE PROGRESSIVE

NIGHTMARE ON MEAT STREET – Scare your friends vegan with this classic conservative values-inspired costume! Not seen very often since THE JUNGLE by Upton Sinclair came out. If you were indoctrinated into the cult of modern conservatism in the last 20 years, you probably skipped the FDA-inspiring classic about the terrible labor conditions and even more atrocious quality of the meat being processed in plants across America at the turn of the last century and instead took in a Heritage Foundation-funded “fair and balanced” pamphlet about how letting the weak get their fingers chopped off by factory equipment contributes to the economy by increasing demand in the medical sector. Damn that big, bad government that keeps poor, innocent corporations from regulating their own industries!  Don’t worry though, because very soon we may all get a free one way trip back to the jungle! Did I say free? I meant it would cost a few thousand lives a year. And what’s that, barely a war’s worth. EASY!

CAP’N TRADE - Possibly the only thing conservatives prefer black is the human lung. Whether from air pollution or an unregulated tobacco industry, they don’t care as long as it’s big, black, and breathless! The Captain Trade costume stands for all that is purest about conservative politics: ignoring overwhelming evidence if it doesn’t fit in with your backwards ideology! Can you breathe in the freedom? Good, because that’s about the only thing you’ll be able to breathe very soon.

…and lastly…

REPO MANCHU - Say hello to our new Chinese masters! Thanks to the miracle of “free” trade, all our middle class jobs were sent overseas, the trade deficit is possibly the only thing worse off than the federal deficit, and we’re practically swimming in cheap, plastic shit that no one needs or really wants. But hey, at least there’s no way things could get spoooooookier, right? I mean, the only way things could get worse is if the Republican Party got into majority power again and somehow got the W. tax cuts extended, forcing us to borrow almost $700 billion from our human rights-loving pals in Asia. Har har! I jest of course because that will never happen! Hey, it’s almost Halloween. A little gallows humor is ok.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, Drink At Work fans!

FIGHT THE MONSTERS: VOTE PROGRESSIVE