Wake up, America!

“Covering the Trump administration is difficult because it requires disentangling three strands of its behavior: the normal, the incompetent, and the dangerous.
[…]
“How seriously you take these behaviors depends on how you assess the motivations behind them, generating a game that some have taken to calling ‘Stupid or nefarious?’ or ‘Veep or House of Cards?'”

 

Present at the Destruction?
Gideon Rose, Foreign Affairs

 


 

Is looming deconstruction
à la Veep or House of Cards?
It matters not when ruction
shatters peace and scatters shards.

“Stupid or nefarious?”
Regardless how it’s tagged,
this liar’s game could bury us
before the body’s bagged.

Mary Boren, 4/29/17

 

The President’s wrecking ball swings

“Mr. Trump made clear that the United States had no intention of meeting the commitments that his predecessor had made to curb planet-warming carbon dioxide pollution, turning denials of climate change into national policy.”

Trump Signs Executive Order Unwinding Obama Climate Policies
The New York Times

 


The President’s wrecking ball swings
at the whim of industrial kings.
“In Money We Trust”
will be scribed in the dust
of the rubble their avarice brings.

© 2017 Mary Boren


 

The Madness and the Method (3-link limerick chain)

One could infer a lot about Trump’s goals for the next four years from what Bannon said. Here are some of the most interesting passages and some of his more interesting word choices:

Steve Bannon outlines his plan to ‘deconstruct’ Washington
CNN


Bannon proffered his plan from the start;
deconstruct and replace is its heart.
With the crew all on board,
now they’re swinging the sword,
while Distractor-in-Chief does his part.

© 2017 Lily Beth Baker
The Distractor-in-Chief does his part,
By choosing his tweets à la carte
From a mish-mash of news
That is ripe with pee-yews
And usually comes out as a fart.

© 2017 Susan E. Eckenrode

Each tweet that comes out as a fart
is more foolish and putrid and tart.
With his juvenile sprees
he has launched a disease
that is ripping the country apart.

© 2017 Mary Boren


 

The Nayslayers

Destroying the “administrative state,” you would think, requires that he tell us whether the “administrative state” includes the safety net, entitlement benefits, anti-insider trading and consumer protection laws, anti-discrimination statutes, labor restrictions, transportation/infrastructure building, etc.

What would Trump and Bannon ‘deconstruct’?
The Washington Post

 


The Bannon Bunch,
the Bannon Bunch,
They’ll deconstruct your house
then munch
on liberty,
equality,
a constitution shredding spree
with every scrap of justice too.
Don’t let Nayslayers
threaten you!

© Susan E. Eckenrode


 

Now our country’s adrift and divided

While we were distracted by Trump, Republicans advanced these 9 terrifying bills
“With both houses of Congress solidly under Republican control, there’s little in the way to stop House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) from sending bills to President Trump’s desk that embody the most dangerous aspects of radical right-wing ideology.” -Resistance Report

 


 

Now our country’s adrift and divided
with its POTUS unfit and misguided.
Deconstruction’s the goal;
kill America’s soul!
with the vision that Bannon provided.

© Lily Beth Baker, 2017

With the vision that Bannon provided,
the pretending Decider decided
that the tantrums he tweets
are the media’s treats
until they’re completely blindsided.

© Susan E. Eckenrode, 2017

 


 

Deflection

“Bannon revealed all, about the reasons behind the president’s curious Cabinet choices. The plan, he said, was ‘deconstruction of the administrative state,’ which he and Trump apparently believe robs people of their independence and hurts economic growth.

So that’s why Trump nominated a labor secretary who wants to replace workers at his fast-food restaurants with robots, an energy secretary who once advocated abolishing the department and an education secretary who doesn’t care much for public schools.”

;
News & Observer Editorial

 


 

The mind of a horrified nation
indulges its shallow fixation
on the brazen buffoon
sucking air from the room
twee-twee-tweeting his posts by dictation …

while his cabinet’s poised like a cannon
behind the unscrupulous Bannon.
They’re loaded and lethal,
exceedingly gleeful
about the destruction they’re plannin’.

© Mary Boren, 2017