Candy, Power and Delusion – when the president shows his wounds to children. We have seen this before...

Washington – On the South Lawn of the White House, children stood in colorful costumes, between pumpkins and music, as the president of the United States stepped onto the stage of his own self-presentation. Donald Trump appeared without a mask, yet disguised – in his role as ruler over a country at a standstill. It was the 30th day of the government shutdown, millions of Americans did not know how to pay for their food, yet the president celebrated Halloween.

Next to him: Melania Trump, elegant and cool, in a brown coat over an orange dress. The two handed out boxes of Twizzlers and large Hershey bars, decorated with the presidential seal. In front of them a long line of children and parents – superheroes, dinosaurs, princesses. Some children wore red “USA” caps like him, two boys even wore suits and ties, smiling with mini-Trump expressions. A girl beside them wore a white coat, almost a copy of one of the First Lady’s outfits.

While the orchestra played an instrumental version of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” the view of the construction site behind the walls was hidden. Temporary walls concealed what Trump preferred not to show – the construction of his new White House ballroom, for which parts of the East Wing were torn down. Only an abandoned bulldozer was visible through a gap – a symbol of a presidency that prefers to build rather than heal, even on Halloween.

“It’s a long line,” Trump joked. “Almost as big as the ballroom.”

But behind the joke lay the old reflex – to make everything about himself. Just days earlier, he had returned from a six-day trip to Asia – Malaysia, Japan, South Korea – and now presented himself as if nothing had happened. Not a word about the more than 40 million Americans whose food assistance is about to run out because of the shutdown. Not a word about the parents waiting in food lines while their children collect candy in costume in the capital.

Instead, Trump showed children during the Halloween event once again images of himself injured after the assassination attempt of July 13, 2024 – the same photos he had already displayed before children during the Easter celebration of 2025.

Already on April 22, 2025, we documented an identical scene in the article “The Dangerous Smile of the Martyr – How Donald Trump Presents Himself to Children as the Survivor of an Assassination Attempt” under the link: https://kaizen-blog.org/en/das-gefaehrliche-laecheln-des-maertyrers-wie-donald-trump-sich-kindern-als-ueberlebender-eines-attentats-inszeniert/

In the image, Trump is seen with his fist raised and his face smeared with blood. The card bears the slogan “Fight Fight Fight” – and is currently being sold on eBay for 24.95 dollars, sealed in protective plastic, like a historical artifact from a derailed era.

Now he repeated the scene, among pumpkins and smiles, while small children stared at him. It was as if he wanted to portray himself as the hero of the night, both victim and victor. Dozens of selected reporters watched as he walked through the crowd in his red cap. For a brief moment he seemed to enjoy the children – until a boy in an inflatable toilet costume passed by. On the back it read “Wide Load.” Trump bent down to him and said something inaudible, the laughter in the crowd sounded forced.

The White House was decorated with fabric autumn leaves, orange-red chrysanthemums and carved pumpkins on the stairs leading to the balcony. Everything appeared carefully staged, almost too perfect – as if to make people forget that the country outside had stopped. No paychecks for hundreds of thousands of federal employees, no food stamps starting in November, no end in sight. In this setting, Halloween seemed like a mirror of power: children in plastic masks playing innocence while the president wore his own. He spoke of unity but handed out candy on a lawn where no wages, no laws, no compromises grow anymore. What remains of this evening is less the image of a joyful celebration than that of a man who refuses to leave the stage even when the nation stands in darkness. A president who uses the weakness of others as a backdrop and turns his own injury into an icon before children. No normal person would do that. But Donald Trump no longer lives in the world of normality. He rules in the theater of his own wounds – and even on Halloween he calls: Curtain up.