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The Second Vulture
Squirming and squirming in the brightening glare,
The voters hear an executioner; They’re not sure who; the center is long gone; Extremism rides in like Genghis Khan; The best are unconvinced, and now the worst Say that they are on balance unconvicted. I think there’s something scary going on. I think there’s an election going on! Election! I have hardly said the word When an old cartoon composed by Thomas Nast Comes to my mind: A fat malignant vulture, Born wealthy and still thinking of itself, Is brooding its cash eggs, while all around it Details are indistinct. I must suppose That eight fair years of cautious governance Have cleared the corridors for capital, And what rich tough, his power come home to roost, Crouches over Washington like a storm? 7 November 2016
From the Daily Whale.
Parody of
“The Second Coming” by
W.B. Yeats. As I wrote for the Daily Whale, everybody else is quoting the poem, but I can misquote it. I revised it since the Whale version, which was first written immediately before the 2016 U.S. presidential election and needed a touch of adjustment to fit the result. The cartoon is from 1886: “Our system of feathering nests breeds Tweeds all over the land,” referring to Boss Tweed of the Tammany Hall political machine.
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