Wacko election denial the direct outcome of denying character and competence

When voters made job smarts taboo,/ That shredded the national I.Q.

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Image Credit: Frank Hulley-Jones/The Washington Post

Once upon a happier time, 
Ere Trump soiled politics as crime,
A candidate’s clean character
Declared “I’m no malefactor.” 

Recall when statesman-like virtues 
Were prized with oversized statues;
When principles sorta mattered,
Authoritarians got battered.

Job savvy skills were far more prized
And sexual harassment despised. 
Unfitness did disqualify—
Non-stop lies incurred a landslide. 

During nostalgic good old days,
Decency, if not prestige won praise;
A life story foretold our futures,
Not vile, parasitic moochers. 

Sans character, what’s leadership—
Other than smash-mouth ego trips?
Thus politics descends to war—
A jungle ripe for the predator. 

When voters made job smarts taboo,
That shredded the national I.Q.
Whenever dupes backed a hustler,
Upsurged a Trumpist bloodsucker.

A slew of nasties with evil minds,
Every foe maliciously maligned;
Every race lost is rigged and crooked,
“We’re victims fleeced, the totals cooked.” 

Instead why not a lottery—
Refuting votes with alacrity? 
Why bother even to campaign
When justice meets a hurricane?

Alas, the end’s no mystery, 
A body-blow to democracy;
If fair elections can’t be “lost,”
That’s a systemic holocaust.

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For over a decade, Robert S. Becker's independent, rebel-rousing essays on politics and culture analyze overall trends, history, implications, messaging and frameworks. He has been published widely, aside from Nation of Change and RSN, with extensive credits from OpEdNews (as senior editor), Alternet, Salon, Truthdig, Smirking Chimp, Dandelion Salad, Beyond Chron, and the SF Chronicle. Educated at Rutgers College, N.J. (B.A. English) and U.C. Berkeley (Ph.D. English), Becker left university teaching (Northwestern, then U. Chicago) for business, founding SOTA Industries, a top American high end audio company he ran from '80 to '92. From '92-02, he was an anti-gravel mining activist while doing marketing, business and writing consulting. Since then, he seeks out insight, even wit in the shadows, without ideology or righteousness across the current mayhem of American politics.

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