Let’s face it, 2016 has been rough.  Somewhere up in the North Pole, Santa Claus is telling the Missus that he’ll be home early this Christmas Eve.  Meanwhile, somewhere deep in the Black Forest of Germany, Krampus is shining his chains and cutting extra birch switches.  He’s going to need them.  The ugliest parts of humanity seemed to rear their ugly head this year.

Let’s face it the anti-Santa is going to be busy this year.  So, in proper iHorror style (you can see last year’s list here), here are my nominees for 2016 Krampus List.

Heather Bresch and Big Pharma

Last year, there was Pharma Bro.  You’d think that the pharmaceutical lobbies and the CEOs of drug companies would learn.  But oh no!  Prices for medication continue to soar for no particular reason other than they can.  Witness Heather Bresch.  Her name became synonymous with pharmaceutical price gouging earlier this year when the price for her company’s EpiPen, a life saving emergency drug injector for those with serious allergies, rose from just over $100 each to over $600!  The public at large was understandably outraged as parents tried to figure out how they were going to pay for their children’s medicine.  For this alone, she might have earned her place on the list.  But when she attempted to explain away the price gouging as natural inflation in the market she cemented it.  It’s coal and switches for you this year, Heather and all your Pharma Bros.

Boris Johnson

A lot of you are scratching your head right now.  Allow me to introduce you to Boris Johnson, the UK Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs put his endorsement on the Brexit campaign.  When President Obama released a statement to the people of Britain urging them to stay in the EU, Johnson, in a remarkably Trump like imitation, suggested that perhaps President Obama harbored an intrinsic dislike of the “British Empire” due to his Kenyan heritage.  Long story short, with Johnson’s campaigning and urging, Brexit passed and the British immediately began to see the real economic and social repercussions, but by then it was far too late.

Mitch McConnell

Republican Senate Majority Leader and asshat supreme, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has become the face of a belligerent Republican senate dedicated to defeating the President’s every suggestion rather than governing for the people.  Americans on both sides of the aisle were shocked when McConnell announced earlier this year that he would allow no confirmation hearings of any Supreme Court nominees from President Obama because Obama was in his final year in office and could not make nominees then.  Never mind that it’s been done numerous times in the past.  As a matter of fact, McConnell gloated that one of the finest moments of his life was the day he looked the President in the eye and vowed that Obama would never nominate a new Justice.  For many, the Senator has become the poster boy for power hungry career politicians.  He represents everything wrong within the system and has earned his place on this list a thousand times over.  In other words, he should be on the lookout this Krampusnacht.

Reverend James David Manning

The Reverend James David Manning has made quite a name for himself.  The pastor of the Atlah Worldwide Missionary Church on Lenox Ave. in Harlem has spent the better part of his ministry preaching about the evils of homosexuality.  The signs outside his church have suggesting stoning the gay community and warned of President Obama releasing the “homosexual demon” on the black community with a further admonishment to black women to be on the lookout because the “white homosexual demons” would be coming for their black men.  He has, repeatedly since the beginning of the year, struggled to keep his church open with the over $1 million in debt that he has racked up and we’re all just waiting for the other shoe to drop.  One thing seems for sure, Manning is on the Krampus List for a whole lot of reasons.

Debbie Wasserman-Schultz

Debbie, Debbie, Debbie.  It’s hard to imagine, in this day and age, that someone would assume their e-mails are hack proof.  I mean, it’s almost anti-climactic now when WikiLeaks drops a new batch of e-mails.  And still, Debbie wrote a series of e-mails voicing her bias for Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Party’s primary.  That wouldn’t be so bad except that she happened to be chairing the DNC at the time and the e-mails suggested that the DNC would nominate Clinton regardless of Bernie Sanders polling numbers, popularity, and probability that he could win the election.  It cost her the job, but it also contributed to the distrust many already felt toward Clinton in the election.  Debbie’s getting coal this year and a visit from Anti-Claus.

Brock Turner

Everyone knows this name, right?  Brock Turner, the Stanford swimmer who raped an unconscious woman.  To add insult to injury to the poor woman who was violated in the most egregious manner possible, Turner received only six months in jail for his crime from Judge Aaron Persky.  Turner actually ended up serving only three months of that sentence.  Rarely have we witnessed such a miscarriage of justice and all because Persky said that Turner was a young man with his whole life ahead of him who made a mistake.  A MISTAKE?  Turner and Persky can both expect a visit from Krampus and I expect he would hand out some real justice.

Milo Yiannopoulos

Milo Yiannopoulos.  It’s hard to imagine a more crummy person on this list.  A self described leader in the alt-right political movement, Yiannopoulos is the technology editor for Breitbart News and has given the world a multitude of reasons to despise him.  This year, however, he reached an all new low when he led a Twitter mob against actress Leslie Jones.  Yiannopoulos fed the frenzy as the Tweets became more and more racist and misogynist.  Jones stood her ground for as long as she could before fleeing the social network and ultimately the storm waned.  In the wake, Yiannopoulos was banned from Twitter permanently.  It hasn’t slowed him down at all, however, and he continues to spread his own vicious version of racist conservatism.  This dude needs about three or four visits from Krampus.

Ann Coulter

I mean, really, should I have to explain this?  This woman may be one of the most offensive in the world.  I can’t imagine anyone taking her seriously.  She spews vile venom at anyone who disagrees with her, which is everyone.  She repeatedly makes up her own “facts” to support her arguments.  And as recently as election day, was spouting her racist vitriol on Twitter when she said that if we could limit the voting pool to only people with four grandparents born within the U.S., Trump would win in a 50 state landslide.  No one had pointed out to her that it meant that Trump would not have been able to vote, himself, were this true. Yeah, Ann’s getting a visit and it’s not going to be pretty.

The Country Music Association Awards

This year, a special performance was given at the CMAs.  Beyonce joined the Dixie Chicks to perform the former Destiny’s Child frontwoman’s hit song “Daddy Lessons”.  The song was well received by the crowds with a majority on their feet dancing to the show stopping number.  When the group and their special guest finished to thunderous applause, a lot of us were convinced this was a moment that would live on forever.  That is, until pictures and posts went up on the CMA website and country fans began a rant of racist slurs and comments against the performer being on the show.   Rather than use it as a moment to step up for equality, however, the CMAs did their level best to remove any image or mention of Beyonce from their website.  This is 2016, right?  I’m including video of her and the Dixie Chicks performing here because she was there.  She was fierce.  And the performance was amazing.  I don’t know if you guys will be hanging out together on Krampusnacht, but if you did, you might get off light for not making Krampus hunt you each down separately.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1Y7h9heQjw

Basically everyone involved with the 2016 Election Cycle

Here in the states, we just lived through what may be the most embarrassing election cycle in recent memory.  We witnessed events and heard statements we never dreamed of from a Presidential candidate.  I’m not sure I could name everyone or the reasons why they should expect Krampus on their doorstep come Krampusnacht.  On one side, we have Trump who built his campaign around racist, misogynistic, and xenophobic rhetoric, and would then stand idly by and act as though his followers who acted out on that rhetoric had nothing to do with him.  He seemed unable to take responsibility for any of his actions.  He appoints a vice presidential candidate who has spent his entire career in government doing his level best to deny rights to the LGBTQ+ Community.  On the other side,we have Hillary Clinton who despite being completely qualified cannot escape scandal, real or imagined, from e-mails to conspiracy theorists trying to convince us that anyone who opposed her would end up dead.

We’ve seen media outlets report complete lies as fact.  We’ve seen people mocked and witnessed that mocking become something much worse as protests turned to riots.

We witnessed the worst of the worst of humanity as we approached Super Tuesday, and the world laughed and the stock market dropped as the polls closed and Clinton was forced to concede to Trump.  We learned nothing from the mistakes of Britain and Brexit.  Hell, we’ve learned nothing from the Roman Empire.

In the face of the results, protesting broke out across the nation and instances of overt racism and bigotry shot through the roof.  Our future is more uncertain than we have ever seen it.