Tweet by Tweet

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

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Dale K. Nichols
Tweet by Tweet

COWARDS KNEEL
TRAITORS BOW
LEADERS LEAD
This is how

Freedom dies—
In deceit
Lie by lie
Tweet by tweet

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Editor’s Note
by Michael Broder

Dale’s poem today was inspired by the vile meme President Trump posted yesterday (May 4) on Truth Social.

You know, in my (relative) youth, I lost two jobs because I did not kneel or bow to what I perceived as injustice.

In one case (when I was 29), the director of the nonprofit I worked for fired our business manager (John) because the former business manager (Stephen) — whom she preferred, and who had left for another job at another nonprofit — wanted his old job back. The director called us into her office one by one and told us not to talk about “what happened with John.”

The nonprofit was a law firm that provided no-cost services to ex-offenders facing employment discrimination based on their criminal records. The weekly staff meetings were mostly a status review for the lawyers. I was the executive assistant, and usually had no occasion to speak.

This time, however, near the end of the meeting, when the director asked if anyone had any other business, I raised my hand, waited to be called on, and then said, “I think we should talk about what happened with John.”

I was fired the next day.

The other case had greater public interest ramifications. I eventually found my way into the medical communications field. When I was 40, I got a project management job at a high salary with a well regarded firm.

My supervisor was a man about my age on his way up the corporate ladder. When I found out that he was lying to our pharma clients about attendance at their marketing-oriented teleconferences for physician audiences, I told my team about it.

That was a dumb move for many reasons, but the most consequential was that one of my team members had greater allegiance to our supervisor than she did to me. She told him what had I told my team.

The next day, I was invited by the most senior of senior management to find another job within 30 days, or be fired. I found the job.

No tears, please. Within two years I decided to go freelance again, and have been happily self-employed for the last 23 years and counting.

Oh, and as for the public interest ramifications: The pharma client in question was suppressing negative information about the safety of its then-recently approved COX-2 inhibitor (a class of pain medications). In fact, the drug was ultimately taken off the market in 2004 because of an excess risk of myocardial infarctions and strokes.

Maybe my teleconferences were the 2001 version of tweets.

—MB

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Click here to order your copy of Never Trump Poetry: The Book.

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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 and 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.