Living in a Dictatorship

I wrote this poem for Entertainment night at our annual beach vacation 2018:

Living in a Dictatorship
By Michelle Brodie
July 20, 2018

I was born in the baby boom

The Greatest Generation had rid the world of a despot and from impending doom

Rosie the Riveter could put those muscles to rest

And replace them with a baby at the breast

We baby boomers were taught to respect , to aspire, to reach ever higher

Even be president

But can anybody be president?  I was very skeptical

In fact, it seemed quite impractical

We would find out quite soon

For then we had Ronald Reagan, a B Movie Actor and quite the buffoon

Amazed so many found him appealing

I was only pleased he raised the speed limit ceiling

Next was a Rhodes Scholar

I remember election day well, how it made me holler

Yes, he turned out to be a lascivious little cad

But the unemployment rate went down quite a bit more than a tad

Anybody could get a job

Even a worthless lazy slob

Things in our little democracy seemed to get better

A decade of economic prosperity and a president who could even write a letter

But then we had a president as dumb as a rock

Followed by a constitutional law professor, our very own Barack

Eight blissful years seemed to make a mockery of Plato’s proclamation

Until the election of 2016 nearly brought an end to our democratic nation

“Oh Vladimir

I always want you near

Let me whisper in your ear

Oh Vladimir

I want to be just like you

I want you to help me see this through

Oh Vladimir, my darling Vladimir

I want to be just like you, a bully, a tyrant, and a brute

A monster, a killer dressed up in  a suit

I already have luxuries and lavish possessions

Now help me Vladimir restore my white supremacist obsessions.”

Policy Makers condemned Socrates to death

And it was like a doctor being persecuted by a pastry chef

I think the calamity Plato had predicted

Was coming to fruition and democracy was being evicted

I think I am living in a dictatorship

Our president and the brutish killer Putin are joined at the hip

Clean water, clean air, open spaces, ecological diversity, and yes, even human diversity too

All dispensable in the current milieu

The things I cherish most are vanishing before my very eyes

My beloved Grand Staircase stolen for the coal and oil it contains: I shouldn’t be surprised

But I won’t stand by and let the brute prevail

I’ll go to the land of ice and snow,

The land of Sulphur works, fumaroles, steam vents, hostile cattle ranchers, and stinky cows

And there I’ll cast my ballot all blue

It doesn’t matter who

As long as the column isn’t red

I will have done my duty to stop this country from becoming a white supremacist hotbed

And when people ages hence

Ask how did your country become so forsaken?

For it seems you are living in a dictatorship of your own making,

I’ll be able to stand up and say, “No I did not make Schindler’s list

But by god, I did resist!”