A giant pumpkin carved with Donald Trump's features and labeled authoritarianism looms outside a child's bedroom window on Halloween night, denying the existence of the Great Pumpkin in a speech bubble.
The cartoon depicts a massive pumpkin bearing Donald Trump's distinctive hairstyle and facial features, inscribed with the word authoritarianism, positioned beside a modest suburban home. The figure addresses a child visible in an upstairs window, insisting there is no Great Pumpkin and urging a return to sleep.
This visual directly references the classic Peanuts Halloween special while substituting the familiar Great Pumpkin with a Trump-like authoritarian presence. The nighttime setting, complete with bats and a crescent moon, reinforces the spooky holiday theme tied to the October 21, 2025 publication date.
The cartoonist's point centers on portraying authoritarian tendencies as an overbearing force that dismisses hopeful myths, leaving the child in the house to confront the reality outside the window.
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Paul Duginski has spent a half-century in journalism, including 27-1/2 years at the Los Angeles Times, and 13 years at the Sacramento Bee. His cartoons have appeared in the L.A. Times, the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, the San Jose Mercury News, the San Francisco Examiner and the McClatchy Bee newspapers in California, among other places. He was an award-winning graphics journalist at the L.A. Times.
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