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© January 12, 2022, the Griot Poet
McConnell, Grassley, Shelby, Crapo, Collins, Burr, Inhofe,
Graham, Thune, Cornyn, Blackburn, Blunt, Boozman, Capito, Moran, and Wicker,
Sixteen senators voted for the 2006 reauthorization of the
Voting Rights Act.
The vote in the senate was 98 to 0.
These sixteen STILL serve in the senate!
In 1982, Sen. Grassley both voted for and co-sponsored the VRA
reauthorization.
Because “playing nice” with constitutional norms wasn’t
painful then,
Go to Senate dot gov and count the number of “motions filed,”
or filibusters recorded:
1957 - 1958: 0
1967 - 1968: 6
1977 - 1978: 23
1987 - 1988: 54
1997 - 1998: 69
2007 - 2008: 139
2017 - 2018: 201
2019 - 2020: 328
2021:- 2022: 181, and counting
They’ve lost eight of the nine last presidential elections in
the popular vote contest,
Fifty Republican senators represent 43 million fewer Americans
than Democrats!
It’s not a mystery WHY they favor the electoral college and
the filibuster: it’s MATH!
Other than tax cuts for billionaires, what have they
accomplished?
They are themselves typically multimillionaires from states
with the lowest:
Life expectancies,
Educational outcomes,
Poorest infrastructures,
Their voter base is the white racist proletariat,
Whipped up on echo chambers of bullshit,
Promising the wealth of “trickledown.”
That is forty-two years they’ve been played and clowned,
(Psst: because it doesn’t exist)
Their REAL constituents are the descendants of plantation
oligarchs,
The filibuster came in 1806,
It was meant as a check on the majority in power,
It’s not sacrosanct,
Or spelled out in our founding documents,
Moscow Mitch abused it beyond recognition,
Both relics of the Jim Crow era,
Moscow’s family got its wealth on the backs of my ancestors,
He’s KEENLY not enthusiastic about reparations,
It’s true: he did not personally own slaves,
But he’s determined to keep a Derik Chauvin
Knee on the neck of the poor and depraved,
Charity is “love in action,”
None of this exists in Republican factions,
From Hedge Fund Mitt to QANON shamans,
Instead of fishes and loaves,
They often give the poor a bag of stones,
Clarence Thomas,
Ben Carson,
Herschel Walker,
Tim Scott,
Are step-in-fetch window dressing,
“We can’t be racist,” they say,
Beaming proudly:
“Look at our pets!”
The “gang of Putin” are performance artists,
Less concerned with legislation,
[Than] lining their pockets,
More concerned with pumping racism,
That raises the endorphins of fascists,
Stochastic terrorists shouting fire in crowded theaters,
Blocking escape exits,
Then, denying they’re obstructionists,
SEVEN states sent slates of fake electors to the electoral
college,
In violation of federal election laws,
Craven McCarthy’s not cooperating with the January 6th
committee,
When he initially said he would,
Blaming the previous loser for the Capitol violence in the
aftermath of January 6,
As did a shaken Moscow Mitch,
“Leningrad Lindsey,” said “it was a hell of a ride” in the
well of the senate,
After recoiling from QANON domestic terrorists,
He and Craven “kissed the ring” of Dumbo Gambino
At Mar-a-Lago,
Because they know:
Their party has lied to its electorate,
In right-wing echo chambers
Birthed and incubated by
Nurse maids Rush Limbaugh and Rupert Murdoch,
Making their riches off propaganda, lies, and hate,
The country is younger,
Browner,
Less cisgender,
Women are delaying childbirth,
Putting careers first,
Opposition to abortion rights isn’t about the fetus,
It’s for oligarchs, reducing female competition,
When the visible world was
“Leave It to Beaver,”
“My Three Sons,”
“Ozzie and Harriet,”
The rest of us were on the back of the bus,
Single mothers working two jobs,
Picking tobacco, fruits, and vegetables,
Living in lead water pipe ghettos,
Or, in the closet,
They are defeated.
We can smell their fear.
They have no agenda
Except to pump the algorithms of angst, hate, and fear,
Moscow Mitch,
Hedge Fund Mitt,
Leningrad Lindsey said:
“The demographics race we’re losing badly. We’re
not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term.”
Every dirty trick,
Every closed voting precinct,
Every law making it illegal to hand food and water to voters
waiting in long lines,
(That themselves should be illegal),
Are acts of desperation,
By afraid, cisgender white billionaires,
Who knows a “more perfect Union.”
A simple step that would lead to equality,
Employee unions,
Wealth redistribution,
And reparations,
Universal healthcare to handle a pandemic,
Reversing the flow
Of the Hoover Vacuum Cleaners
Their lawmakers and lobbyists attached
In each of our back pockets,
To siphon our assets,
To paraphrase a Ulysses S. Grant quote:
“There are but two parties now, fascists and
patriots. And I want hereafter to be ranked with the latter, and I trust the
stronger party.”
You’re tired, I know.
But democratic republics come and go,
And this one is on a slippery precipice,
Facing the maw of dystopian governance,
Think of a national amalgamation
Of the states led by Greg Abbott and Ron Death Santis,
At 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,
Nightmarish,
Or, an American Frontline Quack Doctor as Surgeon General,
Prescribing hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin,
On the Coronavirus Herpes Simplex Type 10 variant!
At that point, we’ll wear out the Greek alphabet.
Make calls to voters and representatives,
Knock on doors,
Run for local office,
The armed terrorists at school board meetings,
Are there because they’re scared shitless,
Of what real democracy looks like,
Everyone focuses on the presidency,
Because it sounds so sexy,
A quarterback nor a president,
Can score a touchdown, or push an agenda,
With a group of eleven different members,
Running in eleven different directions,
Be the ground troops; stay focused,
Stop looking for The Avatar,
In E Pluribus Unum,
We have to be the many who become one,
To quote President Barack Obama:
“We are the ones that we’ve been waiting for.”
Make the oligarchs fret and gasp,
The future is within our grasps!
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