OF the Base’s Disobedience, and the Rise
Of th’orange Fiend, whose dreadful words
Brought Strife into the Right, and all our woe,
With loss of Donors, which allow’d the Dems
In four quick years to right their myriad Ills,
Sing, Reag’nly Muse, that with thine glowing talk
Of shining City on Hill, didst inspire
This Party, and first taught the chosen Pols
In the Beginning how th’Income of All
With Tax Cuts for the Rich would rise; I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventurous Song,
That if I get some luck might someday grace
The hallowed Leaves of Kristol’s Standard, or,
I daren’t dream, the National Review,
That pinnacle sheer of Right-wing Thought.
Say first, for Reason hides nothing from thy view,
Nor Mainstream Media foul, say first what cause
Moved our feal Voters from their happy State,
Favor’d of the Kochs so highly, to stray
From their obed’nt Path, and flout our Will
For a man who the badge “Conservative”
Op’nly mock’d? How were they by him seduc’d
To foul Revolt, against all we have deem’d
Moral and true, against all right and Right?
Th’infernal Donald: ‘twas he whose boasts
Stirr’d ‘mongst working class Whites twin burning fires
Of Envy and Revenge. We laugh’d him off
And from the Prim’ry Race did not evict,
But gave him licence broad to stir the Pot
And thrill the Base, and draw the Media’s gaze:
A harmless flight before simple Marco
Or placid Jeb was picked, or so we thought:
And now, behold our dismal current State,
To braggart Demon we by Party lines
Beholden render’d, by our Leadership
Betray’d for naught but Power’s fleeting taste.
Muse, tell our Story; start, before all else,
Late in the Primaries, the last Debate
Before Nomination, that we might know
The devastation first, the character
O’th’ Ghoul which was unleash’d upon the land,
And then extrapolate his Origins,
Derive his Engineers and Architects
With understanding full of what they wrought.
High on the Stage of cable CNN,
Which had for once the Nielsen Ratings huge
Of Maddow and of Hannity o’ertopp’d,
At last the dismal loss to vicious Fox
And MSNBC of Viewers stopp’d;
The Don exalted stood, by Polling raised
To that bad eminence; and, from dark horse
To frontrunner uplifted fast, aspires
To the White House, insatiate to construct
Vain Wall ‘twixt Mexico; and, by counsel untaught,
His proud imaginations thus display’d:—
“America is in bad shape. We don’t
Win anymore. We’re losing all these jobs
To China, to Mexico. We’re losing
Billions of dollars in trade. It’s bad, it’s
Very bad. And I’ll tell—I’ll tell you why
It’s happening. It’s because the people
We have in charge now, they’re terrible.
They’re incompetent. Obama, he doesn’t
Know a damn thing about making deals. Not
Like I do. When I’m president, I’ll do
A much better job. I’ll negotiate
The best deals in American history,
The best deals. Great deals. I’ll go and talk
To Mexico, and I’ll make them build
That wall, and they’ll pay for it. I’ll take
The Iran deal, and tear it to pieces
On my first day. It was a terrible
Deal, and I’ll get rid of it. And I’ll put
Something so good in its place, all anyone
Will be able to say is, ‘Thank you, Donald!’,
Believe me.” He ceased, at which in raptures
The Crowd mass’d tight erupted, howling long
Their approval in phrase cacophonous,
By his straight talk enchanted, with Politics
As Usual undetectable within,
And loath’d “Correctness” present even less.
Observing now this roar, and knowing he,
To reach this crowd, and no Elitist seem,
Must replicate the Donald’s phrase, and hide
His Princeton pedigree, the Texas Sen.,
Ted Cruz, of vicious mores and grating tone,
But to the Right of whom in rhetoric
And Policies propos’d existed none,
Took the stand, and these words thereafter spake.
“On one thing only I agree with Trump:
Our Country is a mess, and Obama
A Leader fail’d and weak, who yet abstains
From doing right, and cannot courage find
To say the magic Words three: Radical
Islamic Terrorism. On this point
There is no doubt. But of this fickle man
My foe, whose Orthodoxy is in doubt
Perpetual cast, as now the Truth most foul
Of his pernicious Claim that he, like us,
Republican be, has spread wide, and here
Been bar’d before us, no more shall I say
Than that his fickle Nature has to all
In Reagan’s light most clear and true been shown,
And Revelation harsh dispers’d upon
This man duplicitous, dishonest; yea,
Not only not a true Conservative,
Worse: Liberal he is, vile Expositor
Of New York Values. This man, I vouch,
Must not be giv’n Reign o’er our noble Cause:
He must be stopp’d forthwith; and I, Ted Cruz,
Will lead the charge, and the downtrodden Right
To Glory and White House once more restore.”
To smatter’d claps he stepp’d aside, his speech
Failing as all before to sway a Mob
Infatuated with the Hotelier
And his coarse jeremiads, long since fix’d
Behind their Candidate, and would not give
The time of day to any alternate,
Nor entertain any who sought adopt
His style: no imitation necessary
When the original remain’d. So then
Last to the microphone John Kasich stepp’d,
And said: “[Eh, who cares? He was not e’en once
A factor, and boring as hell besides.]”
These insufficient proclamations could
Perhaps have work’d some months ago, before
Th’insurgent Magnate’s lead had calcifi’d,
Before the Media’s eye had fix’d upon
His lunatic displays at the expense
Of airtime for his Rivals, so that none
Would come before him in th’Electors’ minds;
But in those early days not one had thought
To raise against the Donald any sort
Of challenge or rebuke, instead consum’d
By petty Rivalries, attention latch’d
On th’exposition of their Counterparts,
By ideology or intellect
Presum’d to be longstanding Challengers;
And Trump assum’d by his own hand would be
Expos’d, that problem solv’d without the need
For confrontation, nor risk’d subjection
To th’ire of that barb’rous Tongue, so each
Impeded from success the rest, th’ascent
Of all torpedoed thusly, and allow’d
The Don an uncontested saraband
Towards the Nomination. Yet the Right
Still fail’d to grasp their dire predicament,
Instead expecting still Trump’s implosion,
Or else perceiving the dire circumstance
As first a threat to their own Punditry
And sage Predictions, only afterward
As imminent catastrophe across
The board for the Republican Crusade,
Defended thus their own Posteriors
Ahead o’th’ Party’s, and so doubl’d down
Upon their earlier Prognostications,
Insisting still they’d turn out true. Thus they
The victor of the night’s Debate Ted Cruz,
Renounc’d Canadian, extoll’d as one:
And in the same breath once more imminent
Proclaim’d the Fall of Trump: still no more true
On this occasion than the rest before.
The Desk of Dr. #Content 