Cthulhu for President is a political parody of the

United States presidential election The election of the president and the vice president of the United States is an indirect election in which citizens of the United States who are registered to vote in one of the fifty U.S. states or in Washington, D.C., cast ballots not dire ...

, in which

Cthulhu Cthulhu is a fictional cosmic entity created by writer H. P. Lovecraft. It was first introduced in his short story "The Call of Cthulhu", published by the American pulp magazine ''Weird Tales'' in 1928. Considered a Great Old One within the pan ...

, the fictional cosmic horror, runs for President of the United States. Parody campaigns with accompanying political advertising materials were run for each of the US presidential elections since 1996, usually with the motto "Cthulhu for President: Why settle for the

lesser evil The lesser of two evils principle, also referred to as the lesser evil principle and lesser-evilism, is the principle that when faced with selecting from two immoral options, the least immoral one should be chosen. The principle is sometimes rec ...

?" Similar parody campaigns have been run for presidencies of other countries.

Cthulhu

Cthulhu is a fictional cosmic entity created by writer H. P. Lovecraft and described as an enormous clawed and winged anthropoid shape, with a head like an octopus, which is worshipped by maniacal cultists across the world. The creature was first introduced in the 1928

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest ...

The Call of Cthulhu "The Call of Cthulhu" is a short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written in the summer of 1926, it was first published in the pulp magazine ''Weird Tales'' in February 1928. Inspiration The first seed of the story's first chapter '' ...

", but has since been featured in numerous popular culture references.

Chaosium

The American games company

Chaosium Chaosium Inc. is a publisher of tabletop role-playing games established by Greg Stafford in 1975. Chaosium's major titles include '' Call of Cthulhu'', based on the horror fiction stories of H. P. Lovecraft'', RuneQuest Glorantha'', ''Pendragon'' ...

publishes multiple games about Lovecraft's work, starting with the Call of Cthulhu horror

role-playing game A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within ...

in 1981. In 1996, Chaosium published a "Cthulhu for President" political campaign kit, including a

campaign button A campaign button is a pin used during an election as political advertising for (or against) a candidate or political party, or to proclaim the issues that are part of the political platform. In the United States, political buttons date as far ba ...

, posters, yard and window signs, speeches, and a vision booklet, " Contract on America" (parodying the 1994 Contract with America). This won the 1996 Origins Award for Best Game Accessory. In 2004, Chaosium, in cooperation with Chris O'Neill and Daniel Landis of 9th Level Games, a humorous role-playing game publisher, made a complete "Cthulhu for President"

beer and pretzels ''Beer and Pretzels'' is the second of five short films starring Ted Healy and The Three Stooges, His Stooges (Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Curly Howard) released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer on August 26, 1933. A musical-comedy film, the film also feat ...

role-playing game. In it, the players portray Elder Party campaign staffers serving the Great Old Ones in an occult political struggle. The 2016 edition parodies the

2016 United States presidential election The 2016 United States presidential election was the 58th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016. The Republican ticket of businessman Donald Trump and Indiana governor Mike Pence defeated the Democratic ticket ...

between

Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, and former lawyer who served as the 67th United States Secretary of State for President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a United States sen ...

and

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...

Presidential elections

The Cthulhu for President parody campaign recurred over multiple election cycles. Cthulhu.org was the home of the first Internet Cthulhu for President campaign, starting in 1997, accompanying the Chaosium campaign materials, and running at least through 2007. Buttons and T-shirts depicting Cthulhu with the "Why Choose the

Lesser Evil The lesser of two evils principle, also referred to as the lesser evil principle and lesser-evilism, is the principle that when faced with selecting from two immoral options, the least immoral one should be chosen. The principle is sometimes rec ...

? Cthulhu for President" logo were sold during the

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

and

2004 United States presidential election The 2004 United States presidential election was the 55th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 2, 2004. The Republican ticket of incumbent President George W. Bush and his running mate incumbent Vice President Dick Chene ...

campaigns. Cthulhu for President videos and posters were made for the United States presidential elections in

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

and

2012 File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gather ...

, and for the

2010 Polish presidential election Presidential elections were held in Poland on 20 June 2010. As no candidate received a majority of votes in the first round, a second round was held on 4 July 2010. Bronisław Komorowski, the acting President of Poland and vice-chairman of the C ...

. A Spanish website (Vota Cthulhu: Partido No Euclidiano Por el Fin de los Días – the Non-Euclidian Party for the

End of Days End of days may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''End of Days'' (film), a 1999 supernatural film Music * ''The End of Days'', a 2010 album by Abney Park * ''End of Days'' (soundtrack), a soundtrack album from the 1999 film ...

) supported Cthulhu for President in the

2011 Spanish general election The 2011 Spanish general election was held on Sunday, 20 November 2011, to elect the 10th Cortes Generales of the Kingdom of Spain. All 350 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 208 of 266 seats in the Senate. An elec ...

. A Cthulhu 2012 campaign website gave Cthulhu a vice presidential candidate, Dagon, from one of Lovecraft's earliest stories.

Cthulhu for America

The

cycle included a larger "Cthulhu for America" website, which drew celebrity and international attention. The site was launched in August 2015, and included merchandise like t-shirts, stickers, flyers, and mugs with slogans including "Why choose the lesser evil?", and a take on

Black Lives Matter Black Lives Matter (abbreviated BLM) is a decentralized political and social movement that seeks to highlight racism, discrimination, and racial inequality experienced by black people. Its primary concerns are incidents of police bruta ...

/ All Lives Matter: "No lives matter". Its

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

account had over 35,000 followers. In December 2015 Cthulhu for America put out a

War on Christmas War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...

kit including Cthulhu stickers meant to be put over the logo of

Starbucks Starbucks Corporation is an American multinational chain of coffeehouses and roastery reserves headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It is the world's largest coffeehouse chain. As of November 2021, the company had 33,833 stores in 80 c ...

coffee cups. The site gave credit to

for the 1990s and 2000s "campaigns" but distanced itself from the company. The Cthulhu for America campaign was " endorsed" by Mexican filmmaker

Guillermo del Toro Guillermo del Toro Gómez (; born October 9, 1964) is a Mexican filmmaker, author, and actor. He directed the Academy Award–winning fantasy films ''Pan's Labyrinth'' (2006) and ''The Shape of Water'' (2017), winning the Academy Awards for Be ...

and his Twitter followers in June 2016 (also referring to the Spanish Vota Cthulhu page). del Toro also inverted the Cthulhu for President logo (of VoteCthulhu.com, an alternate URL of Cthulhu for America), and called it "Donald Cthrump", referring to candidate

. In September 2016, American horror author

Stephen King Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, crime, science-fiction, and fantasy novels. Described as the "King of Horror", a play on his surname and a reference to his high s ...

wrote that Donald Trump was actually Cthulhu in disguise: "The absurd hairdo isn't absurd at all. It hides the tentacles." The Cthulhu for America campaign responded with an angry denial ("Trump could barely hope to be 1/63 as great as I am if he weren't such a buffoon") with a longer statement including references to many of King's books. The campaign had earlier made a similar rebuttal to

John Boehner John Andrew Boehner ( ; born , 1949) is an American retired politician who served as the 53rd speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 2011 to 2015. A member of the Republican Party, he served 13 terms as the U.S. represe ...

's statement that candidate

Ted Cruz Rafael Edward "Ted" Cruz (; born December 22, 1970) is an American politician and attorney serving as the junior United States Senator from Texas since 2013. A member of the Republican Party, Cruz served as Solicitor General of Texas from ...

was " Lucifer in the flesh", writing "The only being of pure evil in this race is myself". Cthulhu for America continued into the

2020 United States presidential election The 2020 United States presidential election was the 59th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020. The Democratic ticket of former vice president Joe Biden and the junior U.S. senator from California Kamala Ha ...

, this time with the slogan "Wreck. World. Worse.", parodying the Build Back Better slogan of the

Joe Biden 2020 presidential campaign Former vice president Joe Biden began his presidential campaign on April 25, 2019 by releasing a video announcing his candidacy in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries. The campaign concluded with him and his running mate Kamala H ...

. When the initial logo used for the

2020 Republican National Convention The 2020 Republican National Convention in which delegates of the United States Republican Party selected the party's nominees for president and vice president in the 2020 United States presidential election, was held from August 24 to 27, 202 ...

had a tangle of lines apparently emerging from the

Republican elephant The Republican Party, also referred to as the GOP ("Grand Old Party"), is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States. The GOP was founded in 1854 by anti-slavery activists who opposed the Kansas–Nebraska Act, ...

, it was popularly compared to Cthulhu and its tentacles.

Selected electoral slogans and policy planks

* "Cthulhu for President: Why settle for the lesser evil?" * "Equality through Insanity" * "I want you to get a head and consume it for nourishment." * "Keep climate changing" * "Legalize human sacrifice" * "No lives matter" * "No More Years" * "Vote for Cthulhu... and you'll never have to vote again."

References

External links

*{{Official website, 1=https://cthulhuforamerica.com/, 2=Cthulhu for America, official website American political satire Political Internet memes Chaosium games Cthulhu Mythos role-playing games Fictional candidates for President of the United States