There’s a famous line in Freud’s 1927 essay on humour that describes a man who is about to be hanged at dawn remarking, “Well, the day is certainly starting well.”
That was pretty much the vibe at the Donald Trump-themed bar in the dimly lit basement of Barrel just about a week before The Election That Everyone Wants to Hurry Up and Be Over Already.
Last weekend, I made my way inside the Capitol Hill whiskey joint and down a set of stairs marked with a sign that reads: "Caution: Locker Room Talk." The decor was American-flag bunting, cardboard cutouts of the Donald himself, and a wall depicting “bad hombres” (such as…Mario Lopez). On offer? Legitimately good cocktails named after outrageous things Trump has said, like, “I have great respect for women.” Cue the laughter and extra olives.
The crowd consisted mostly of government workers in their 20s and 30s who wouldn’t be caught dead voting for Trump. And the consensus seemed to be, “Let’s drink and make fun of this bullshit, because civil discourse seems to have gone the way of the landline anyway.”
Forget election stress — which, according to the American Psychological Association, over half of American adults are experiencing — this was straight-up election denial-by-drinking. For the many, many people who feel that democracy, logic, and common sense have been assaulted during this horrendous, never-ending cycle, and for the many women who now feel unsafe thanks to Trump’s endless misogynistic statements and actions, adding a little humour to the situation is the only way to heal. (We’re not sure Trump himself would be in on the joke, though; he doesn’t seem to understand self-deprecation.)
It’s a time during which it’s more important than ever to listen to each others’ opinions rather than preach to the choir in like-minded echo chambers. But when the facts are too unbearable and seem to come at warp speed, sometimes all that’s left to do is have a cocktail and roast the guy while obsessively counting down to November 8.
Ahead, a look inside D.C.'s Trump-themed bar.
Humour aside, there are at least 100 ways to get involved in politics this fall.
Troy Trujillo and his wife Keira McNett were on their way to a fundraiser, but decided to stop by the bar first. "We walked by [the fundraiser], were the only people in costume, and were like, 'We better go get a drink somewhere,'" says McNett. The couple’s 7-year-old son does karate upstairs from the bar. "When I saw it in The Washington Post, I was like, 'Oh, I know that bar.' Otherwise, why would people in their 40s and 50s know about some hipster bar?"
Photographed by Chris Sorensen.
Trujillo, 50 (pictured), and McNett, 40, truly committed to the theme. "I'm a bad hombre, she's a nasty woman," he says. “I got my sombrero at Value Village.” McNett wore cat ears, a leotard, and a tail, evoking the word for the body part Trump seems to be fond of grabbing.
Photographed by Chris Sorensen.
Lauran Pierce, 32 (pictured), holds up the gigantic menu, which is meant to make you look like you have the famously small Trump-like hands in comparison.
Pierce and her husband Greg, 40, were visiting their family, including three young nieces, from Dallas. "We just thought, W e need an oasis from the Dallas Trump supporters, and decided to come here,” says Greg. "We went to a Little League soccer game [here], and the 8-year-old girls were making fun of Donald Trump. It's a completely different world than what we're used to." One day, they joke, they want to move to D.C. and start a politically themed snow-cone stand.
Photographed by Chris Sorensen.
Every few weeks or so, the bar’s basement gets decked out with a different theme — though none have struck as much of a nerve as Trump. They’ve included "back to school" in the early fall, and David Bowie in honour of the musician’s death.
Photographed by Chris Sorensen.
The bartender shows Greg and Lauran Pierce the menu.
Photographed by Chris Sorensen.
Some people came in costume; some didn't. In the early evening, there was already quite a big crowd.
Photographed by Chris Sorensen.
Christine, 36 (pictured), who works in government, is a Clinton supporter who dabbled in the dark side with her costume. She declined to provide her last name because of the nature of her job.
Photographed by Chris Sorensen.
People posed with cardboard cutouts of Trump. Not at all creepy…
Photographed by Chris Sorensen.
The crowd was mainly Hillary Clinton supporters, but a few bona fide Trump voters showed up by the end of the night. All of the Republicans who were asked to be in this story — I met four of them — declined to be interviewed.
Photographed by Chris Sorensen.
Danny, 29, works for an IT firm in Florida and says he has already voted — for Gary Johnson — in early polls. Visiting friends in Virginia, he randomly found the bar and thought it’d be interesting to check out. "I think that more of America should become comfortable with voting third party,” he says. "I don't think that all of Trump's ideas are necessarily bad, but I think him as a person is a bad representation of our country."
Photographed by Chris Sorensen.
The “I moved on her like a bitch” cocktail looks appropriately sad. We’re also pretty sad that a major-party nominee in the United States of America uses that kind of language.
Photographed by Chris Sorensen.
"Trump would probably sue this bar," says Trujillo.
Photographed by Chris Sorensen.
Richard Johnson, who is from London, was celebrating his 29th birthday party at Barrel. "My boy is a big fan of random things on the internet, and I just want to drink bourbon, so it seemed like a perfect excuse," he says of why he decided to come here.
He says he laments that he can’t vote in the U.S. election. "Seriously, the guy is very dangerous. He's genuinely scary. I've never seen an election like this in my entire life. It's everything that would normally make people scared, but they don't care," he says, adding: "Hillary Clinton is a very beatable candidate politically. She's not very exciting, she's been around for a really long time… If he had half a clue, if he was even a little bit sensible politically, he could win the election. And that would be terrifying."
Photographed by Chris Sorensen.
By the end of the night, the bartender ran out of dainty cocktail glasses and started pouring into the tall ones. This is the “Great Respect for Women.”
Photographed by Chris Sorensen.
General manager Mike Haigis says the bar was "100% a group effort” — he and manager Parker Girard spitballing ideas. "We usually try to capture something that's relevant or zeitgeist-y, whether it's like movies, or we did 'back to school' in September. D.C.'s a really unique market; people here treat their elections and debates like Super Bowls, so we wanted to do something related to that. And the one thing that's different about this election, consistently…is Donald Trump and his crazy insanity and outrageousness. So we were like, 'Let's try to capture that.'"
Photographed by Chris Sorensen.
Sharon Glenn, 50 (pictured), was there with her daughter Katie Glenn, 26, who is a First Amendment attorney. "So that's why we need to have this free speech!" quips Sharon. "We're definitely in on the joke," adds Katie.
Photographed by Chris Sorensen.
Joe Biggs from conspiracy website Infowars showed up.
Photographed by Chris Sorensen.
At this point, Knope 2016 sounds like a pretty good idea.
Photographed by Chris Sorensen.
"Their cocktails are super good and normally interestingly named, so when I heard they were doing Trump cocktails, I wasn't going to pass up the offer," says Liz, 25, who works in government. "They definitely committed. I wouldn't expect anything less of this place."
Photographed by Chris Sorensen.
Haigis, the manager, says the bar will obviously have a big party on election night. What happens if Trump wins? "If he wins, we'll probably turn it into like a fallout bunker," he says. "If he loses, I'm afraid that he'll be irrelevant immediately, so I just don't know. If he's still in the news cycle and he's still something people want to make fun of and laugh at, we'll keep it as long as people like it."
Photographed by Chris Sorensen.
The bar hasn’t been without its critics. “We've had some people who kind of pushed back a little bit, saying that some of the things that he said shouldn't be made light of, which I'm 100% sympathetic to,” says Haigis. “That's probably been the hardest negative response we've had… Our thought is just that very, very smart and talented writers and commentators engage in a dialogue about that, and we wanted to join the conversation, but we're a bar, and humour and irony are kind of our only way to do it."
Photographed by Chris Sorensen.
Says Haigis: "I think it’s like, gallows humour, you know? I think that has a place…for people to blow off steam, have a few drinks, and kind of just laugh at how we got here."
Photographed by Chris Sorensen.
“I think a lot of people are trying to get their mind off everything that happened yesterday" (last Friday’s announcement about reopening the FBI investigation into Clinton’s emails), says Ashley Mitchell, 32, a Clinton supporter.
"I think as a young thirtysomething…there's so many things in an election that affect you at this point in your career," she says. "I have student loans to pay, and then…you're worried about how this election is going to affect the economy, how it's going to affect your well-being, considering one of the presidential candidates comes off as very racist and misogynistic, and being a Black woman kind of makes you second-guess how other people view you."
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