There was a crooked man
Who ran a crooked race [1]
And with his crooked words,
Put opponents in their place
He chopped them down, one by one
’Til a single foe remained
On merit, she’d win handily,
So he painted her with disdain [2]
This shameless huckster’s style
Is totally ‘in your face’
At any time in memory,
It would have brought him great disgrace
But that isn’t how it happened,
Not in this odd campaign
His way: relentless bullying,
Name-calling [3] a constant refrain
Surprisingly he snagged the post,
But owing to immense conceit,
Could not admit (though we all knew)
‘Victory’ came through lies, [4] tricks [5] and deceit [6]
He sold snake oil by the barrel,
Promised a big, beautiful wall
Folks bought the hype, even those who know
There is no such elixir, no magic cure-all
Some were actually fooled
Their desire to believe replete
But he couldn’t fool everyone
And the vigilant shall not retreat
He has a gift for distraction,
Has perfected the strident squall
No matter how minor the issue,
Check Twitter [7] for a public brawl
He lied [8] and lied [9] and lied [10] and lied, [11]
And then he lied [12] some more
What makes you think he’ll tell the truth
When it’s you he’s gunning for?
His action plan: cheat, swindle, deflect,
Twist, turn, dodge, prevaricate
Spread fake news [13] across the land
To fuel fear, [14] despair, [15] mistrust [16] and hate [17]
Whenever he is challenged,
His spite [18] comes to the fore
That’s when his true self really shines,
Illuminating a rotten core
There was a crooked man
That fact bears no debate
And given all you’ve seen so far
Still think he’ll make our country great?
* * *
© 2017 by M.P. Witwer • All rights reserved
* * *
Sources:
1. Sanger, David E. and Scott Shane, “Russian Hackers Acted to Aid Trump in Election, U.S. Says,” nytimes . com, Dec. 9, 2016
2. Gallagher, Brenden, “The Most Sexist Things Donald Trump Has Said About Hillary Clinton (So Far),” vh1 . com, Sept. 27, 2016
3. Itkowitz, Cory, “‘Little Marco,’ ‘Lyin’ Ted,’ ‘Crooked Hillary:’ How Donald Trump makes name calling stick,” washingtonpost . com, April 20, 2016
4. Dale, Daniel and Tanya Talaga, “Donald Trump: The unauthorized database of false things,” thestar . com, Nov. 4, 2016
5. Preza, Elizabeth, “Trump's Dirty Trickster: The Staggeringly Shady Dealings of Political Operative Roger Stone,” alternet . org, May 11, 2016
6. D’Antonio, Michael, “Trump’s art of deception,” cnn . com, Oct. 3, 2016
7. Trump, Donald J., Twitter feed, twitter . com / realDonaldTrump
8. Carroll, Lauren, “Fact-checking Trump's claim that thousands in New Jersey cheered when World Trade Center tumbled,” politifact . com, Nov. 22, 2015 *
9. Jacobson, Louis and Linda Qiu, “Donald Trump's Pants on Fire claim linking Ted Cruz's father and JFK assassination,” politifact . com, May 3, 2016 *
10. Jacobson, Louis, “Donald Trump wrong that Hillary Clinton wants to release all violent criminals from prison,” politifact . com, May 26, 2016 *
11. Valverde, Miriam, “Pants on Fire! Trump tweet about White House, Russian hacking probe,” politifact . com, Dec. 15, 2016 *
12. McAfee, Tierney, “Trump’s Mockery of a Disabled Journalist: Watch for Yourself,”
people . com, Jan. 9, 2017
13. Holloway, Kali, “14 Fake News Stories Created or Publicized by Donald Trump,”
alternet . org, Jan. 12, 2017
14. Emery, C. Eugene Jr. and Louis Jacobson, “Donald Trump's first TV ad shows migrants 'at the southern border,' but they're actually in Morocco,” politifact . com, Jan. 4, 2016 *
15. Jacobson, Louis, “Donald Trump repeats Pants on Fire claim that unemployment rate could be 42 percent,” politifact . com, Feb. 11, 2016 *
16. Qiu, Linda, “Donald Trump's baseless claims about the election being 'rigged',”
politifact . com, Aug. 15, 2016 *
17. Jacobson, Louis, “Donald Trump suggests Barack Obama supported ISIS, but that's a conspiracy theory,” politifact . com, June 15, 2016 *
18. Trump, Donald J., tweet, twitter . com / realdonaldtrump / status / 818419002548568064, Jan. 9, 2017
* Note: PolitiFact is a Pulitzer Prize-winning website that checks the accuracy of claims by elected officials and others in American politics. The site is run by editors and reporters from the Tampa Bay Times, an independent newspaper in Florida. PolitiFact assigns a rating to each statement: True, Mostly True, Half True, Mostly False, False, or Pants on Fire, which is reserved for the most outrageous falsehoods. The lies cited in this work are from the Pants on Fire category.
