Trump’s Rats (I)
Christopher Hitchens paraphrases the last paragraph of Albert Camus’ book “The Plague:
“The plague is over, the rats have died or disappeared. The city of Oran has returned to health; the Mediterranean is shimmering again, the white buildings have been cleaned, the people are back on the streets.
And yet, the rats were only down in the sewers, and waiting for the day when they could once again set themselves up to die on the streets of a free city.”
Camus actually said:
“And indeed, as he listened to the cries of joy rising up from the town, Rieux remembered that such joy is always imperiled. He knew what those jubilant crowds did not know but could have learned from books: that the plague bacillus never dies or disappears for good: that it can lie dormant for years and years in furniture and linen-chests; and that perhaps the day would come when, for the bane and the enlightening of men it would rouse up its rats again and send them forth to die in a happy city.”
Trump’s Rats
And indeed the rats have been with us all along
Isolated and scorned through the enlightened years.
Held in check by common decency
Essentially an impotent fringe
But exactly correlating with Trump’s election
There has been a resurrection
Of violence and hatred unleashed on our nation
As racial bigots engage in jubilation
Trump who infamously refused to rebuke
The racist history of David Duke
And actively incited racists to recruit
And attack and jeer protesters resolute
And starting with his inauguration
Anti-Semites like the rats immediately appear
To send bomb threats and heighten fear
To JCCs all around the nation
And in Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly love
They have desecrated tombstones
Which Trump belatedly berates
In his speech before the American state
But a few hours before his conciliatory speech
He’s hypothesizing this was actually done
As a “ the reverse” by the Jews we see
As a means of obtaining sympathy
And racist Bannon is calling the shots of late
Setting an agenda of vile hate
Targeting Muslims for deportation
As intolerance rages across the nation
And Trump’s “presidential speech” attracts praise in groves
But proves only that he a wolf wrapped in sheep’s clothes
And is able to act the part of reason, inclusivity and concern
And express the values for which the people desperately yearn.
When in truth this performance’s significance is most chilling
For it exposes the fact that Trump is able and willing
To manipulate, evade and egregiously lie outright
While his actions constitute against us a vicious fight
Trump’s Rats (II)
The week of October 22, 2018 saw the fruition
Of trumps hateful elocution
As Trump declared he was a “Nationalist”
Synonymous with being a fascist
And in rapid succession two black men were killed
After the white shooters attempts to enter a church failed
And then an ardent Trump follower
Sent 14 pipe bombs to Trumps democratic enemies
Ironically the bomber who lost his home
Due to Mnuchin’s machinations
Was homeless and lived in a van
With Trump advertisements and
Pictures of his targets in gunsights
And on the Sabbath a trump supporter
Killed 11 at the Tree of Life synagogue
In Pittsburgh
Trumps gave a perfunctory speech decrying hate
Then right away was dissing with abandon
And as the survivors were in great shock
Trump bemoans that “all this bombing stuff”
Interfered with the coverage of his imagined
Invasion of thousands of Honduran refugees
Hungry, impoverished escaping the tyranny
Obama and Hillary unleashed by supporting a coup
To hear Trump one would have thought
The country was in mortal danger
The equivalent of a Russian attack
So much that Trump was activating the army
And the national guard
But the hateful events intervened and spoiled his hype
But have made it clear that there is a relationship
Of Cause and effect
Between Trumps rhetoric stirring up the mentally disturbed
And these violent attacks
The Jewish community called out Trumps oration
And his welcome in Pittsburgh is rescinded
Until Trump renounces his (white) nationalist affiliation
Howard Charman MD © 2018