Losing Our Democracy

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

Losing our Democracy

 

“Once fully enslaved, no nation…

ever afterward resumes its liberty.”

 

W. Whitman

 

Losing our democracy is easy

Offer two parties dominated by money

Until ordinary people stop voting

Promise change but don’t deliver

Until people give up the right to vote

Tell people this is the one true moment

The most important election of a lifetime

The live-or-die a horrible death election

And then badger them for contributions

Every moment of every day

Until they no longer even listen

No longer even care

Turn off, tune out, turn away

Then offer a false prophet

A grifter and a con man

Who promises to fix it all

If only you give him the power

Run him against an old-school politician

Who says the same old things

Makes the same old promises

And fails to show at the critical time

The false prophet takes hold of power

And bends it to his will

Elections are for fools

Laws are for suckers

Power breeds power

He will never let go

The whole system is rigged

Unless he gets his way

And if he ever does

If we ever allow him back in

Strike up the band for the final rites

American democracy is dead

Long live autocracy

Democracy is dead

 

Losing democracy is easy

Building it back is hard