Poor Choices
Poet Dale K. Nichols lends some rhyme and rhythm to the pro-democracy movement. Proceeds from paid subscriptions go to support pro-democracy legal organizations.
Dale K. Nichols
Poor Choices
When people make poor choices, you see
Bad things are bound to happen
When they exercise First Amendment rights
To demonstrate their passion
They must realize when they take to the streets
That they might not make it home
Says Greg Bovino of Border Patrol
Who answers to Kristi Noem
When people make poor choices, you see
Bad things are bound to happen
When they choose as their leader a would-be King
Who’s a loose and deadly cannon
They can forfeit their hard-won freedoms and rights
And live their lives in fear
Mistakenly thinking those sorts of things
Could never happen here
When people make poor choices, you see
Bad things are bound to happen
When they go to the polls and give up control
Unleashing the wrath of the Kraken
They have no one to blame but themselves
When everything falls apart
Choices matter—the things that result
That should have been stopped from the start
Editor’s Note
by Michael Broder
You must take a look at the video below. Start at the beginning and watch until Bovino hands the mic off to the other guy. It plays like a scene from VEEP or Space Force — two fabulous sitcoms with some of my favorite actors (Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Steve Carell, Lisa Kudrow, and others) doing an amazing job of satirizing our government and our leaders.
But of course, the remarks made by Greg Bovino about “choices” at this press conference are not a sitcom or a satire. I would love to be able to laugh at the absurdity. But I can’t. Not this time.
This incident — this execution-style murder — is having a lot of repercussions right now. I’m calling it “the shots heard round the world,” because this unprovoked lethal shooting is causing people to sit up and take notice who did not necessarily do so before. The administration is pivoting from cover-up mode to scapegoat mode, and Trump appears to be targeting Noem herself for that unenviable role.
It’s too soon in the process for me to say very much about it. But we will definitely be seeing and hearing much more about this tragic moment for quite some time.
— MB
About the team
In the words of Dale K. Nichols, Poet
Whatever I might feel about the merit of particular aspects of the MAGA agenda, I believe that Trump, as the movement’s standard-bearer and chief instigator, is a clear and present danger to the future of America and our way of life. That we the people decided to elect him to a second term points to certain dark undercurrents in our nation’s psyche that had been pushed to the shadows for decades until they were recently coaxed back into broad daylight. For those of you who are Harry Potter fans, I believe that Tom Riddle has reemerged as Lord Voldemort, and we Muggles are in the midst of an ugly Wizarding War that has already suffered many casualties.
In the words of Michael Broder, Editor
I am a gay white male lifelong registered Democrat. I took this project on because I believed Dale’s work could create community around the kind of satiric political poetry that used to be more prevalent in American life. While I am indeed a Harry Potter fan, my pop-culture metaphor for the Orange Menace is Burgermeister Meisterburger, the sadistic, oppressive, and abusive mayor of Sombertown who despises toys—and will arrest anyone who plays with or owns a toy—in the classic 1970 stop-motion Christmas television special, Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town.
I like "stopped from the start."
The use of the word “choice” — gutted of meaning. The “party” of “pro life.”