New Poem: LIGHT IN THE TUNNEL

 he will yell his head off

 but we don’t have to be scared anymore

 he can challenge the results he doesn’t like

 but we voted in such large numbers

 he can’t undo the will of the American people 

 >

 a rose breaks through concrete

 a nation recovers from submersion 

New Poem: MIKE GOES TO KINSTON

 it’s Desperation Time

 what’s a few more potential infections 

 it’s raining

 maybe the raindrops will dilute covid droplets

 I’m the good soldier

 doesn’t matter about my sick staff

 don’t want to cancel and go home

 won’t make nice with The Lincoln Project

 just want to be a stoic kinder gentler bigot

 hold on to the MAGAs I secretly deplore

 when I run for the top spot in 24.

New Poem: WHY WE ARE STILL FAR FROM NORMAL

 getting too used to rebellion against common science 

 battle whine of I won’t live this way

 getting too used to not caring about others suffering

 no tears shed for the dying with only health care workers 

 being the ones to see them off prematurely

>

you’ll go ahead and invite your friends over

for a mask free living room jamboree 

and snicker at the roommate who shelters in a motel

so he won’t risk missing work and losing pay

>

the long cold winter is coming

the end of this poem can only be written by you

New Poem: LEAVE THE ROOM PERMANENTLY

 be mindful of your aging friends/as they repeat all the things their parents and grandparents once said/know when to leave the room permanently when they won’t change/talking about lies and Trump and people who are smug because they know more than they do and global warming being a hoax and Black Antifa building public housing next door and again Trump and Joe Biden being the demon from THE OMEN shape-shifted into an old man and Trump again again as the straight-talking savior who kicks liberals to the ground makes them cry then tears out their balls in a way Ted Cruz would approve of

 as you leave the room permanently/remind the people who are no longer your friends/how Ted Cruz had to lose his balls to support Trump in 2016/and that they are racists urinating toxins into the American bloodstream/and these toxins kill as deadly as COVID

don’t smell their smoke anymore/leave the damn room and drive and keep driving 

New Poem: HELLO KENOSHA

 hello Kenosha Wisconsin 

 stop assuming everyone Black is an armed criminal 

 tell the teen and adult vigilantes to go home or be arrested

 remove the handcuffs and the leg irons from the severely wounded

and, above all, tell Donald Trump the following:

yes, you’re the President, but you don’t denounce the violence

of your followers and your presence here is unnecessary 

and potentially inflammatory 

thank you for reading this and giving it some thought

a concerned American who votes

 

New Poem: TIME FOR A ROUND OF GOLF

Well, what do you expect me to do
When I’m kept in the White House
Most of the time except to go on
Field trips to factories where I
Don’t wear a mask unless I
Absolutely have to make a CEO happy
>
Golf relieves stress and enables me to
Pretend there’s no virus and I can
Shake hands with other players
Always aware of telephoto lenses
Watching me hit the greatest drive ever
>
Yes, I used to criticize Obama for playing golf
But that was just politics with a side of
Dog-whistle racism to make me look
Better by comparison—to make people
Think I’d actually be a strong, decisive
President with little time for recreational
Activities once elected to the office
I actually believed Hillary would win
>
What else do you want of me
I said Deborah could do the Sunday shows
In effect saying the dog ate the homework
But we’ll turn it in on time before the
Second Wave when I’ll refuse to lockdown
And punt it back to the states once again
>
The flags were at half-staff all weekend
As the failing New York Times remembered
Some of the dead as I stay at my Country Club
Behind the fence where I don’t have to
Answer for six-figure deaths which are
Just a big regrettable number as I plan
A re-election I probably won’t win
But I’ll make sure when I do my
Outdoor rallies of the dwindling faithful
To divide and inflict  pain on you
That I’ll never ever feel myself

New Poem: THE DEPUTY SHERIFF WEARS NO MASK

the boss won’t wear one
he calls wearing a mask a nasty word
I wouldn’t allow to be said around Mrs. Pence
>
by the time I got to the Mayo Clinic
I thought about the vanity sin
of defying orders of the clinic
who knows what the virus does
to staff and patients alike
>
but I decided to obey the boss
and the uncouth voters we need
taking a big big risk
hoping God knows
I’m rendering unto Caesar
keeping mental fingers crossed

Bill Clinton in 1996 Equals Joe Biden in 2020.

This is what fearful, non ambitious centrist triangulation once gave us—and, after last night, gives again. Turning the floor over to Bill Clinton’s 1996 State of the Union address, excerpt here:

The era of big government is over. But we cannot go back to the time when our citizens were left to fend for themselves.Instead, we must go forward as one America, one nation working together to meet the challenges we face together. Self-reliance and teamwork are not opposing virtues; we must have both.

I believe our new, smaller government must work in an old-fashioned American way, together with all of our citizens through state and local governments, in the workplace, in religious, charitable and civic associations.

New Poem WINNING UGLY 2020

Inspired by a Rolling Stones song from thirty-five years ago.

Pour my endless money into TV commercials
Hope voters stay low information
Respond like lab rats to stimulation
Give them some exhilaration
>
Watch me put Tweedle-Dum down
As I, Tweedle-Dee, paint him as lying clown
Though he says the same things about women
And people of color that I do
>
In a debate, I’ll defend my misdeeds
Then, I’ll pay for a video carefully edited
Making me look like the winner I wasn’t
>
I’ll spend my way to the top
I’ll make liberals cry in despair
I want no taxes raised on me
As a billionaire, I consider this fair
>
If you dare get in my way,
I’ll force you to sign a NDA
And I’ll have you stopped and frisked
On your way home after you’re disinvited
From taking part in my reboot of America

New Poem: LOOKING FOR THE NEXT BARACK

Loosely inspired by Colin Hay’s long-ago song “Looking For Jack”

media pundits looking for the next Barack
admiring Pete Buttigieg’s bomber jacket
waking up to read about Deval Patrick
some day, some way
the electorate will swoon like Chris Matthews

Democratic donors looking for the next Barack
someone cool, mostly unflappable
makes people rest easy after Trump
respects the markets and past trade deals
won’t raise the 1%’s taxes

some day, some way
a majority  will find him excellent
and they’ll cheer him, boo obstruction
drink in his aspirational smile
again accept change only in increments

Jelani Cobb on Joe Biden’s Thursday debate stumbles.

Excerpted from THE NEW YORKER:
For most of the evening, the author Marianne Williamson spoke at the periphery of the issues, but she was right about one thing: the coalition of voters needed to remove Trump from office will be drawn to the candidate who reminds them least of who we are at this moment and most of who we aspire to be. On Thursday, that was not Joe Biden. Kamala Harris’s unsparing sharpness and unsentimental willingness to flay Biden onstage only served to highlight that fact.

Nathan Robinson on Joe Biden’s making nice with toxic people.

Excerpts from a GUARDIAN column:

You can be everybody in Washington’s best buddy, or you can move the country toward justice, but you cannot do both. This is because there are powerful political figures standing in the way of justice, and the steps you need to take are going to alienate them. Biden’s career is best understood as what happens when a person who is not actively evil decides to prioritize chumminess and conformity over taking difficult moral stands.

Unfortunately, Biden’s “DC chumminess” has characterized his entire career. He has long declined to take morally necessary stands that might alienate powerful people, preferring to be friends with “everybody.” This is only possible, of course, because Biden has rarely had to encounter the people outside that “everybody” – the Iraqis blown to pieces thanks to his Iraq war vote, the children thrown in prison thanks to his crime bill.


The problem here is not Biden’s “bipartisanship”. Sometimes you have to work with people whose values you find repellent. Finding points of common interest is basic political pragmatism (see, for example, the bipartisan Yemen resolution shepherded through the Senate by Bernie Sanders). The problem comes when you get so close to the powerful, and spend so long around them, that you cease to be disgusted by disgusting things. At this point, “friendliness” just means a lack of moral seriousness. To be chummy with banks is to be cruel to bankrupt debtors. To be chummy with Mike Pence is to be cruel to LGBT people. There come times when you have to take a stand, when you have to give your answer to that old labor question: Which Side Are You On?

Ultimately, the Biden approach to politics is a bankrupt one. If you’re all smiles and flattery, you are not really committed to a set of progressive political values. As Biden himself recently said to a room full of wealthy people, “nothing would fundamentally change” if he was elected.

But we do not need leaders who want to be everybody’s friend, we need leaders who know who their friends are and in whose interest power needs to be exercised. You can’t be everybody’s chum.

Poetry Video LIFE DURING TRUMPTIME 2019

https://youtu.be/6FLVl5A_n3o

Hamilton Nolan on Joe Biden’s latest political life.

Excerpted from THE GUARDIAN:

I am not mad at Joe Biden. He is a type. His type is “The Old Way of Doing Things.” Now that he is in the race, his type is represented. He rounds out the field. Now, Democratic voters truly have the entire buffet of choices, from “True Leftist Insurgent” to “Bland, Winning Young Résumé-Polisher” to “Indistinguishable Ambitious Congresspersons” to “The Same Old Kind of White Guy As Always”.

This is nothing to fear. This is healthy. This is a perfect referendum on where our country is now. Joe Biden, the avatar of the past, believes that he’s well positioned because after the shock of the Trump years, people want to go back to where we were. Wrong. People want to go somewhere new. I fully expect Joe Biden to step out of his campaign headquarters and fall directly into the huge pit that has opened up as America moved tectonically to the left. There is nothing scary about the candidate that represents the political philosophy that produced in the public the deadly cynicism that gave us Donald Trump. This plain fact will never be accepted by the sort of people who believe that Joe Biden is the answer, because accepting it is an indictment of an entire generation of leaders who consider themselves quite successful.

The Republican party has long been a corrupt tool for serving the interests of the rich by lying to the poor; dwelling on their role in bringing us here is like scolding an alligator for biting off your hand after you stuck it in his mouth. The Democrats are the ones who were supposed to save us. It was their failure in this duty that allowed the catastrophes to pile up. They failed to stop the post-Reagan explosion of economic inequality; they failed to stop the militarism that has embroiled us in endless war; they failed to argue for things like healthcare and education as rights rather than purchases; they fed our most vulnerable citizens to an evil machine labeled “criminal justice” in exchange for votes from racists. They earned their turn in power by agreeing not to use that power for the common good. And here we are: incredibly divided, hopelessly unequal, justifiably sick of our broken institutions, and very, very angry.

Good luck on the campaign trail, Joe. You’re about to meet an America that has already left you behind. I’m sorry you’ll have to find out the hard way.

Moira Donegan on excuses made for Joe Biden’s behavior

Excerpted from THE GUARDIAN:
The argument that Biden’s inappropriate touching of women is somehow innocent also implies that feminists who object to Biden’s brand of touching have set the bar for women’s public dignity too high – especially considering who’s currently in the White House. Wouldn’t you rather have the infantilizing shoulder rubs and hair kisses of Joe Biden, the thinking goes, than the boorish pussy grabbing of Donald Trump? To those who argue that while Trump’s alleged harassment is unacceptable, Biden’s is tolerable, I would reply firmly that women should not have to accept either. A culture that does not tolerate sexual harassment – the kind of culture that ours must become – must not allow for lesser evils to continue simply because worse violations exist. It must value women more highly than that.

Full column available here: 
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/02/joe-biden-inapprorpriate-touching-lucy-flores?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Rebecca Traister on the deficits of Joe Biden.

Excerpt from Rebecca Traister’s article for NEW YORK magazine: https://www.thecut.com/2019/03/joe-biden-isnt-the-answer-for-president-in-2020.html
Biden carries himself with the confidence of a winner, despite not having won, or even come close to winning, either of the previous presidential primaries he’s entered. He is the guy whose self-assured conviction that his authority will protect him from rebuke has always preceded him into any room, whose confident sense of his own entitlement repels potential objection like Gore-Tex repels rain. He is the gaffe-master, the affable fuck-up, and also, oddly, the politician who’s supposed to make us feel safe. He is the amiable, easygoing, handsy-but-harmless guy who’s never going to give you a hard time about your own handsiness or prejudice, who’s gonna make a folksy argument about enacting fundamentally restrictive policies.

For his whole career, Biden’s role has been to comfort the lost, prized, and most fondly imagined Democratic voter, the one who’s like him: that guy in the diner, that guy in Ohio, that guy who’s white and so put off by the changed terms of gendered and racial power in this country that decades ago he fled for the party that was working to roll back the social advancements that had robbed him of his easy hold on power. That guy who believed that the system worked best when it worked for him.

Biden is the Democrats’ answer to the hunger to “make America great again,” dressed up in liberal clothes. The New York Times’ Jamelle Bouie has in fact argued that Biden’s racial politics have offered a form of Trumpism on the left, a “liberal cover to white backlash.” To that I would add, he has provided liberal cover to anti-feminist backlash, the kind of old-fashioned paternalism of powerful men who don’t take women’s claims to their reproductive, professional, or political autonomy particularly seriously, who walk through the world with a casual assurance that men’s access to and authority over women’s bodies is natural. In an attempt to win back That Guy, Joe Biden has himself, so very often, been That Guy.

Now it seems, That Guy is widely viewed as the best and safest candidate to get us out of this perilous and scary political period. But the irony is that so much of what is terrifying and dangerous about this time — the Trump administration, the ever more aggressive erosion of voting and reproductive rights, the crisis in criminal justice and yawning economic chasm between the rich and everyone else — are in fact problems that can in part be laid at the feet of Joe Biden himself, and the guys we’ve regularly been assured are Democrats’ only answer.

New Poem: 2020 FORETOLD

both parties have paid almost two years of rent

on the National Electoral Battlefield

so let the cable news speculation run rampant

and allow the online and print media to join in

with lots of chatter about electability

also please don’t impeach the President

because it messes up the timetable

> 

brush away any Green New Deals

plus talk of Medicare For All

not to mention Free College Tuition

keep Incrementalism alive by

dry repeats of “how do we pay for this”

> 

smash the hopes of young voters,

children and teens taking Civics classes

and the yet-to-be-born

> 

teach them how the concept of Change

doesn’t mean real change for the better

> 

instead, it’s merely a shiny buzzword 

used by a minority party

as a giant crowbar 

to separate power

from the majority party