History doesn't repeat, but it rhymes

Ukrainians defy the latest czar
to think the ruthless get to rule the world.
Misunderstanding who these people are;
their blue and yellow banner streams, unfurled.
A charismatic president who'll fight
when Dugin swore he'd hasten to retreat
inspires discussion of ultimate right
and if the Kremlin's facing a defeat.
Like Spanish communists, four lifetimes back
this anti-fascist fight draws volunteers
who see the global threat in this attack
on all that our democracies hold dear.
Reprising blunders empires made before,
now, Putin stands to lose more than a war.

push-back

Ted Cruz is up in arms; Trump crossed a line
imputing Texans ain't all of his class.
El Paso's victims ought not be maligned
but such a stubby-fingered orange ass.
Alberta's Senator saw a hot mic
a vacancy his ego can't abide.
Although he's not the sort a Texan'd like
he'd be a fool to not stroke their fierce pride.
Abe Lincoln's party's gotten commandeered;
no principles are left for which it stands.
The "factions" that our Founding Fathers feared
gave awesome powers to this awful man.
A party with no room for an adult
is now a xenophobic, fascist cult.

It Can't Happen Here

Like Mussolini pumping up a crowd,

Trump's rally conjures Nuremberg of yore.

His  planted BrownShirts got 'em chanting loud

as if they thirst for blood, and for race-war.

No vision of a better USA

no sense all wasn't perfect in our past...

He sells nostalgia for a Golden Age;

historians just shake their heads, aghast.

No innovations from this pompous fool

the hate he preaches wore thin, long ago.

But old Roy Cohn's apprentice is the tool

who'd never win except by a low blow.

The Arsenal of Liberty's been breached, 

and Congress is too feckless to impeach.

populist

Like Mussolini pumping up a crowd,
Trump's rally conjures Nuremberg of yore.
His planted BrownShirts got 'em chanting loud
as if they thirst for blood, and for race-war.
No vision of a better USA,
no sense all wasn't perfect in our past...
He sells nostalgia for a Golden Age
historians just shake their heads, aghast.
The "greatest generation" fought, and bled
to scour such abom'nations from the Earth.
But bad ideas perversely won't stay dead
when they're convenient to clowns of no worth.
Millennials are gonna have to fight
old battle with the revenant far-Right.

It can happen here

Coy Nazis pull the strings in Trump's regime
now Priebus and Sean Spicer've both crapped out.
This president's not playing for our team;
both major parties failed us--in a rout.
The Spencer/Miller tag-team caught Trump's eye
White faces bleating hatred, preaching loud.
Supremely unconcerned citizens die
when racists ram their cars right through a crowd.
Vile policies that Germany renounced
three generations back, resurrect here.
Black souls dispatched to Hell perversely bounced
to found an empire on our basest fear.
Their rhetoric to "Make our Country Great"
cosegregates with codes like "eighty-eight".

creature of shadow

Joe Goebbels' doppelgänger's in the news
he writes Trump's speeches, driving policy
outraging Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, and Jews
and anyone who's had a family.
His own, disowned him for abundant cause
they've seen the human cost of peddling fear.
Still, Stephen's quite contemptuous of laws,
he just mis-cites them as suits his career.
But now, the public's woke, and been in touch.
For want of morals, Trump must lean on polls
and guarding Miller's back would cost too much,
to keep him on would show who's in control.
Trump's starting line-up's almost all retired.
It's long past time that  Miller, too were fired.