Boo!

Yes, it's time once again for our annual frightfest, where we provide nightmarish scenarios for both left and right. These days, of course, we're always one step away from nightmarish scenarios, so it won't be all that far a journey!

Of course, it being an election year, both our tales of terror start out with what could happen next Tuesday. From this leaping-off point, however, these tales descend into very different pits of despair. One man's horror is another man's dream, in other words.

Our scary stories are presented for your frightful shiverings, as always, with our own attempt at pumpkin art. Since the themes were the same this year, we got away with only carving one design (only the colors needed changing, really). So sit back, relax, and prepare to be terrified right down to your boots. Our first tale of a macabre future should scare the left, and we're ending with a story to scare those on the right. We picked this order on purpose this year, so we could begin with a spooky homage to Dr. Seuss.

So, if you're ready, here we go: "One Wave... Two Wave..."

Red Wave

President Donald Trump announces four days before the election that anyone who votes for Republicans will be exempt from paying income taxes for all of 2018. Furthermore, anyone who votes for Democrats will have to pay double the regular income tax rate, to make up for the shortfall.

Trump's surprise move is denounced as nothing short of fantasy -- after all, with a secret ballot, how will anyone be able to prove who they voted for one way or another? Democratic leaders and the news media also helpfully point out that this plan is wildly unconstitutional, even if it could be implemented. "The president has obviously lost his mind," Nancy Pelosi says in an interview, "and his cabinet should immediately start 25th Amendment proceedings to remove him from office."

While Trump's plan is universally denounced by just about everyone on the national stage (except Republicans in Congress, who are silent as the grave on the issue), Trump's voters dismiss it all as "fake news." Trump has told them they won't pay any income taxes if they vote Republican, and that's good enough for them. Sadly, plenty of Democratic voters believe that Trump actually can make this happen as well. Which means that on Election Day, Republican voters show up in droves while Democrats fearfully stay home. Maybe Trump can't actually double their income taxes by proclamation, but why take the risk?

When the votes are counted, the hoped-for "blue wave" disappears entirely, to be replaced by a "red wave" of Republican victories from coast to coast. Republicans not only hold onto control of the House of Representatives, they actually pick up 42 seats. In the Senate, Republicans sweep the board and pick up nine additional seats -- giving them a filibuster-proof majority of 60.

President Trump, of course, is overjoyed at how well his ploy worked. He immediately instructs Congress to pass a law to make his "tax-free GOP voter" idea a reality. In January, the new Congress obliges Trump, even though nobody can explain how anyone is going to be able to prove how they voted.

Trump doesn't stop there, though. He announces that Jeff Sessions has been fired, and then instructs incoming Attorney General Rudy Giuliani to fire Bob Mueller and destroy all his work, unread. Democrats howl, but Giuliani cheerfully follows through, with a public bonfire in front of the White House where he burns all of Mueller's paperwork and computers to the cheers of Trump supporters. For good measure, Giuliani also tosses all of Trump's I.R.S. tax records on the blaze as well. "Now nobody's going to see those tax returns!" Giuliani tells the frenzied crowd, to their delight.

Trump gives his State Of The Union speech to Congress and reads a list of things he wants done in their first 100 days. Obamacare needs to be repealed, first thing, of course. All money for food stamps and other social services will be immediately redirected to build the wall on the southern border. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 needs to be repealed, so that the U.S. military can take over patrolling the border. Trump declares a state of national emergency (although he pronounces it "emergy" for some reason) at the border, and says he has instructed the Pentagon to lay out a one-mile-wide "no man's land" which will stretch the entire length of the border. Anyone caught within this zone will be summarily shot, Trump announces. Soldiers patrolling the zone will be told it is a "free-fire zone" where they can shoot anything that moves.

Trump also announces new tariffs on 100 percent of Chinese imports, and for good measure that these tariffs will also apply to Japan, Australia, Canada, Mexico, India, Europe, and (for some bizarre reason) Antarctica. If these entities don't immediately sign bilateral trade deals that Trump himself has drawn up, then they'll have to pay the tariffs, period.

Trump also instructs Congress to resurrect the Sedition Act of 1798, which outlaws any criticism of the president or of the government. The new Sedition Act will be applied retroactively, meaning anyone who said anything bad about Trump for the past two years will be immediately rounded up. Re-education camps will be necessary to handle the sheer number of people to be arrested, where they will be indoctrinated into The World According To Dear Leader Trump.

Trump further announces that his Space Force idea will become reality within six months, and that they will be responsible for launching continuously-orbiting nuclear weapons, so that we can drop them on any country we feel like without warning. At the end of his speech, Trump casually declares war on Iran. Republicans leap to their feet, cheering Trump on.

For one brief, shining moment, Republicans bask in the Trump agenda. Congress passes everything Trump demands, and sends all the bills to Trump for a gigantic signing ceremony. Liberals flee to Canada by the millions, and those who remain behind are arrested in the middle of the night and sent to the camps. The U.S. border with Mexico, meanwhile, becomes a killing field. The military successfully deploys "hunter/killer" drones armed with machine guns to shoot down anyone attempting to illegally cross the border. Construction on the wall begins at a furious pace.

CNN, MSNBC, the Washington Post, and the New York Times are all padlocked by federal agents for their past indiscretions against Trump. This probably wasn't even necessary, since all their reporters had already fled to Canada, but it leaves Fox News with a virtual monopoly on how citizens get their information.

Trump's glory days don't last long, however. When April rolls around, the I.R.S. reports that absolutely nobody has paid any income taxes at all, since all the conservatives were told they didn't need to after voting for Republicans, and since all the liberals are now cheerfully paying taxes to Ottawa from their new Canadian homes.

On top of this news of empty federal coffers, trade comes to a virtual standstill, as all other countries decide doing business with America just isn't worth it anymore. To add insult to injury, the price of gasoline hits $20 a gallon as the war with Iran gets underway.

With no money in the bank, the federal government begins to grind to a halt. Trump announces he will be printing "lots and lots of new money" to fix the problem, and that the United States would be defaulting on its monstrous debt -- "kind of like going bankrupt," Trump helpfully explains. "Hey, it's worked wonders for me in the past!" The price of gas hits $200 a gallon. Then $2,000. Then $200,000, as the dollar rapidly loses all value whatsoever.

Inflation soars to astronomical proportions. The American economy basically hits a brick wall and shatters into tiny pieces. Vladimir Putin generously offers to buy back Alaska, if Trump will also throw in California and the rest of the West Coast as well. Trump, desperate to hold off economic collapse, agrees.

The infusion of new money, however, doesn't help much, as Trump directs that it all go to completing his wall. "If we can just get the wall built, everything else will work out," he assures the country.

What he hasn't noticed, however, is that the wall is no longer necessary, since no one in their right mind would try to immigrate to Trump's America now. Why go to a country where it takes a truckload of dollar bills to pay for one tank of gas? Why go to a country that is ostracized by the rest of the world's economy? Why go to a country that is broke and bankrupt? Why go to a country where you could be locked up for saying the wrong thing about the leader?

The real irony, of course, is that Trump used to warn everyone that voting for Democrats would turn America into Venezuela, but by voting for Trump's agenda, that's exactly what the voters got, as a direct result.

Blue Wave

Next Tuesday night, the blue wave washes across the country. Democrats pick up 68 seats in the House, but only manage to flip one seat in the Senate. Republicans breathe a sigh of relief, since this will leave a 50-50 tie, with Mike Pence to cast the deciding vote. But then Lisa Murkowski stuns the country by announcing that she can no longer call herself a Republican and will henceforth be joining the Democratic caucus. This gives Democrats control of both houses of Congress.

President Donald Trump lashes out at the election results. In a rage, he demands a primetime address to the nation, and the next day gives a speech where he blames everyone in sight for the election loss, and then goes off script and begins ranting that the election was stolen by illegal immigrants voting by the millions across the country. He promises he'll sic the Justice Department on every elections official across the country that didn't report more Republican votes than Democratic votes. The speech is abruptly terminated when John Kelly personally begins yanking all the wires to the cameras recording it. Television screens are left with "We've experienced a technical error" messages.

An hour later, Mike Pence appears in the White House press room and reads an announcement that says the president is "overwrought" and that the nation should just ignore what he said earlier. Pence tries to calm the situation down by stating that of course the White House agreed that the election results were valid and would not be using totalitarian tactics to try to change the outcome. "President Trump obviously feels strongly about this, but we've all told him that losing an election isn't the end of the world. Let's give him a few days to accept the results, and he'll calm down, I promise." And as for everything the president said earlier, Pence ends the speech with: "In the immortal words of Emily Litella, 'Never mind.'"

The next day, Trump abruptly announces on Twitter that he has accepted Vice President Pence's resignation. Apparently someone forgot to take Trump's iPhone away, it seems. Pence is in the middle of a meeting when this tweet appears, and reacts with astonishment: "I didn't resign -- I have no idea what he's talking about." An hour later, though, Pence gives a formal statement that backs Trump up, and says he's stepping down "to spend more time with my family." His family looks on, in horror.

Trump spends the next few months trying to get the lame duck Congress to pass his entire agenda before the Democrats take control. He is spectacularly unsuccessful in this regard, since Democrats filibuster everything to death in the Senate. Trump even attempts to appoint his daughter Ivanka to the vice presidency, but Congress refuses to vote to accept the appointment, leaving the office vacant.

In January, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer take over. Oversight committees in both houses immediately request Trump's tax returns from the I.R.S., going back twenty years. These are leaked to the media in a matter of days. Journalists and tax professionals engage in a feeding frenzy, vying to outdo each other in pointing out how Trump has manipulated the tax system. Information also comes to light that shows the Trump organization has enormous outstanding debts with several Russian banks who have been implicated in money laundering for Russian mobs, and also Trump's very close economic ties with the Saudi royal family.

Further embarrassments also come to light, like the 47 times Trump had to pay to settle sexual harassment suits, and the 58 "hush money" payments Trump had to make to women he slept with. These payments range from $130,000 to $5 million, proving that Stormy Daniels really should have held out for more money. Also, the ultimate embarrassment comes as Trump is shown not to be worth anywhere near what he claims -- in fact, he's got less money than the Clintons.

Bob Mueller then issues his final report, which is also leaked to the press. In it, he exposes solid proof that Vladimir Putin is indeed blackmailing Trump with (as Mueller puts it) "a rather unsavory videotape." Recordings of Putin instructing Trump exactly what to do and what not to do as president are also revealed.

All of this makes Trump's head explode further, of course. He begins openly threatening Democrats, up to and including Pelosi and Schumer. He darkly warns they will all "soon face tremendous consequences" for exposing his financial shenanigans to the world.

Finally, on one particularly stormy night, Trump sees on the news that Nancy Pelosi is visiting her home district. Trump picks up the phone and calls the Pentagon, and demands they immediately launch a nuclear missile targeting San Francisco.

The Secretary of Defense refuses the order, hangs up, and calls the Secret Service. He explains the situation and begs them to act. The Secret Service decides the best course of action is to switch on a powerful cell phone jammer that blocks any signal from reaching anyone in the White House. This stops Trump's Twitter tirades for good. They also block the landlines, leaving Trump completely isolated.

Meanwhile, the Defense Secretary calls the rest of the cabinet to a meeting, where he plays back the audio of Trump ordering a first strike on San Francisco. The cabinet members react in horror, and decide that they simply have no choice but to remove Trump from office. They draw up the paperwork necessary under the 25th Amendment, and send it to Congress. They also instruct the Secret Service not to let Trump out of the White House and not to let him communicate with anyone other than his wife and the White House kitchen staff. Trump instructs the cooks to send up a cheeseburger and then to call the Pentagon up and ask them why San Francisco is still standing.

Congress not only ratifies the removal of Trump from office, but they also release the audio tape of Trump's illegal nuclear launch order. This stuns America, and Trump finally loses the support of about half of his base (the other half loudly cheer the idea of nuking San Francisco, though).

Trump being forced out of office sets up a unique situation that America has never faced before, since the vice presidency is also vacant. So immediately after Congress votes to remove Trump by overwhelming majorities in both houses, Nancy Pelosi is sworn in as America's first female president. The speaker of the House is second in line in the order of succession, and since there is no vice president, Pelosi becomes our 46th president.

President Pelosi begins her term by overturning every single executive order ever signed by Donald Trump. She fires his entire cabinet except for the Secretary of Defense, and installs competent people who are not loyal to Trump.

America's long national nightmare ends in the bright light of a new dawn, with Pelosi at the helm. After two years of passing a very bold and progressive agenda, Pelosi announces she will not run in 2020, and instead throws her support behind Elizabeth Warren, who wins in a landslide. Thus the first female president in American history is replaced by the second female president, thanks to the most misogynistic president ever.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant