Editorial: Halloween parade was no place for jump-scare of political retribution
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Halloween is a blend of surprises and traditions.
It’s a child-centric holiday that encourages time spent as a family. At the same time, it’s a celebration of the dark and scary, with plenty of blood and gore not generally fit for a G-rated crowd. It is both tricks and treats. You may be more likely to get a Snickers bar, but you never know when you’ll get a toothbrush.
But generally people agree that it is about having fun.
It is not supposed to be about politics. In an election year, that might be a lot to ask. It shouldn’t be.
We have been drowning in nonstop political intrigue and messaging. The whole nation has, yes. But since the primary in June pivoted the conversation from “who will win the nominations” to “who will win the election,” Pennsylvania’s swing-state voters have been unable to take the shallowest of breaths without being lobbied by campaigns or pestered by polls.
Halloween might have been a welcome respite. It wasn’t.
On Wednesday, Mt. Pleasant’s annual Halloween parade stepped off with plenty of what you expect from a small-town Pennsylvania event. There were fire trucks. There were high school sports teams and dance troupes.
And there was a golf cart decked out in flags and Donald Trump campaign signs with a rifle mounted on the roof and people dressed like federal agents. A woman dressed like Vice President Kamala Harris was handcuffed and leashed to the back.
It was a vile and offensive tableau evoking racism and retribution. It had no place in an event celebrating family and community.
“It had no place in any parade of any kind in this country,” said Diane Bailey, mayor of Mt. Pleasant Borough.
Let’s be clear. It is not untenable because it is Harris. It would be just as disgusting and inappropriate if it showed a shackled Trump or re-created the Butler assassination attempt.
For months, there have been pearl-clutching statements about how the campaigns need to stop with violent rhetoric and the media need to stop giving it a microphone.
It is equally incumbent upon other agencies to understand propriety and restrain rhetoric — and to understand that just like free speech, sometimes rhetoric isn’t just words. It can be a visual.
The Mt. Pleasant Volunteer Fire Department organized the event. It issued a statement apologizing but also distancing itself from the parade entry. The participants are “first-come, first-served,” the department claimed. It “does not share in the values represented.”
That is easy to say. The department, however, shares in the blame for those values being on display because it allowed them to displayed.
Would any such presentation have been allowed? Where would the line have been drawn? Did it matter who the target was? Did the apology have more to do with the vice president chained like a slave — or the vocal opposition to the entry’s inclusion?
Mt. Pleasant had an opportunity to give the community a much-needed deep breath free of the weight, partisanship and increasing anxiety of a tense and overwhelming election season.
But instead of the fantasy scares of rubber monster masks and plastic vampire fangs, the parade brought people face to face with a more realistic fear of political punishment.
It wasn’t fair to the vice president. It also wasn’t fair to Trump, who might be tacitly blamed for the actions of the unidentified group who entered the parade.
More than anything, it was unfair to the people who were dragged out of the fun they were promised and back into the ongoing horror story of the 2024 election.