Come on, who doesn’t love a clown show? Bozo the clown. Clarabell. Weary Willie. These were the clowns of my youth. There were also the clowns of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. The clown cars. The rodeo clowns. The silliness of acting, well, silly, that spilled out into daily life and made me laugh. Clowns fascinated me. They tickled my funny bone. They taught me not to take all of life’s chaos seriously.

They were innocent. It wasn’t about their IQ level, although some were great at dispensing simple folksy wisdom. They were about showing you the innocence of life, its simplicity, and how to enjoy it in its most natural form. Laughing was therapy for what seemed often to be a highly complex world.

The silliness that always seemed innocent enough. As long as someone didn’t get hurt. Even pratfalls seemed innocent because you believed the person falling wasn’t hurt. It’s okay. It’s all for a laugh.

I never understood the other clowns. The evil ones. The ones that scare the heck out of you. The ones that parents conjure up to make their children fall in line. What the heck is funny about being scared to death, or is that the point? You take an amusing, silly symbol, and suddenly you’re pissing on yourself from fright. I guess there is some point to it. I don’t get it.

They scare me. According to the Cleveland Clinic, there’s a name for the fear of clowns. I would assume, in my case, it’s the evil ones: Coulrophobia. They bring “…on feelings of fear when you see clowns or clown images. It’s a specific phobic disorder that causes anxiety, a racing heart, nausea and profuse sweating.”

I’m thinking this as I survey the clowns preparing to take charge of the federal government in January 2025. With all due respect to the clowns that make me laugh and feel silly, these are not those types of clowns. These are about scaring the bejesus out of us. These are the ones that will shove our bodies and minds into the inside of an inner tube, throw us into a screaming flood of chaos, and laugh while they do it, shouting at the top of their lungs, “Suckers!”

There is nothing innocent about these clowns, if you can call them that. These are also not about IQ because they have redefined intelligence. Theirs is based on a primordial essence of evil and the fear and horror they can instill in people. Trust me, it will never be about laughter or silliness.

No, this is about something else. This is It, Killer Klowns, and The Joker all rolled into one. They want us to trap ourselves in our fear, anxiety, and trauma and hope their killer clowns will not see us as they pass over on the way to scare the blood out of their next victim. Not us, please, not us. Take them.

I’ve seen this before in my lifetime. McCarthyism. The Hard Hat Brigades of the Sixties. The xenophobia against immigrants anytime during my lifetime. The anti-muslim hysteria after 9-11. All these and the other fear campaigns were conducted by evil clowns who enjoyed scaring us to death as their masters distracted us from the plunder happening behind our backs.

This week is evidence of a clown show to top all clown shows. The clown show that so many of us predicted based on what we’ve seen before. Look at the nominees for the next clown show set to bow on January 20, 2025. You must check out some of the analysis so far to realize this is no laughing matter. Jamelle Bouie’s “There Is a Reason Trump Wants Fewer ‘Adults in the Room,’” The New York Times Editorial Board’s “Trump’s Reckless Choices for National Leadership,” or Ruth Marcus’s “Welcome to the Donald Trump Amateur Hour. Can democracy survive it?”

But these killer clowns are amateurs (well, yes, they are) compared to those in the United States Senate, where the expected Republican majority does not intend to take their constitutional responsibility of Advice and Consent seriously. You know, the part where they hold hearings to question the candidates about their views and expected policies. While we can hope for some sanity among these clowns, the desire to be a killer clown versus a happy clown is greater.

I wish I could say I told you so and feel good about it. I wish I could boast about the advance of the Killer Clowns as some nod to my psychic abilities to see into the future. However, no special skills are necessary to have seen this scenario unfolding since 2016. Hell, all you need is to remember what has passed before. It’s all right there on the Internet, if not your memory. Come on, don’t act surprised that this is the first time you’re watching a clown show from the head clown. You cannot sit there and tell me that you forgot or that maybe this one will be different or that it is the best clown show you’ve ever seen. I have news for you: we don’t need this clown show.

Look, I get it. Our culture has been declining into meanness for years (another essay). This evil clown show is to be expected. Somewhere, somehow, we’ve gone from loving Bozo the Clown to genuflecting at the oversized shoes of Killer Klown.  

With all the clowns coming to Washington, D.C., on January 20, 2025, I’m going to suggest that they get a bigger Clown Car. They’re going to need it.