The Bay Snapshot

This San Francisco Lawn Features a Graveyard for Conservative Politics, and We Are Here For It

Not all that spooky, really

Sophia Smith
3 min readOct 26, 2020

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3 lawn decoration headstones: Kellyanne Conwoman, William Barr, Rudi Guiliani.
Photo: Elliot Trifilo

The Bay Snapshot is a new TBI series that showcases the current mood of the Bay Area in one picture. If you have a picture or tip for a future post in the series, email us or DM us on Twitter or Instagram.

A rising second wave of Covid-19. Rushing a Supreme Court nominee through at the 11th hour. Voter suppression. Zoom dicks. There’s a lot of scary stuff in the news lately, and I’m tempted to wrap up in blankets and mainline anxiety relievers.

It is Halloween, though, and while my tolerance for spookiness this season is pretty low, local Bay Area photographer Elliot Trifilo recently shared some snapshots of these seasonal decorations on a local front lawn that hit just right.

Among the more generic spooky Halloween tombstones are a handful of bespoke, political ones. Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, William Barr, Kellyanne “Conwoman,” and “Moscow” Mitch McConnell all make appearances. I wouldn’t go so far as to wish death on any of these people, but I’d sure sleep a lot better if we could lay to rest the horror show that is their political antics.

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More decorative headstones, including one for Trump and Moscow Mitch, next to a fountain.
Photo: Elliot Trifilo

Trifilo often haunts Cole Valley, and when he encountered the lawn at 45 Upper Terrace as he was cutting through Roosevelt Way on his route back downtown, he had to stop and snap a pic. He likes this shortcut, because, as he explains, “I get to scope all the weird houses like this one. It’s a very odd property — it looks like something out of an English countryside.”

A decorated front porch lit with dramatic lighting at night, a large fake zombie waiter standing out front.
Photo: Elliot Trifilo

As he approached and noticed the nature of the tombstones, his first thought was “I hope this is a Simpsons prediction.”

Also, that they’re missing Pence.

The aforementioned fountain at night, surrounded by unidentified headstones, lit in purple.
Photo: Elliot Trifilo

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Sophia Smith

writer and editor // Ⓥ // Heavy weights, heavy music, words of all size