I Know Who You Are

I Know Who You Are

You, orange face, yellow hair, red MAGA hat,
I see you, hear from you everyday of my life.
It has been over three years now that you have been our “leader”
and I still wonder who in a sane mind, a sound mind, for that matter any mind, could see you in such a role.
You are that inflatable thing that stands in front of the microphone wanting to impart wisdom and guidance.
Without either, you are left to pretend, to make it up as you go.
You don’t know that we have always known this.
But even if you did it would not matter, for it is not us you are speaking to.
We are not in your America, nor do we choose to be.
You don’t like us because we know the truth;
America is not great, it has never earned that status.
We know where the skeletons and ghosts are and you do not like us for that.
It is not your history book that we choose to read,
your TV channel that we choose to watch, nor mouthpieces that we listen to.
No Mr. T, you are now just the chief buffoon instead of one of the many that made the headlines of the cheap City tabloids.

But here you are and it has taken all this time for the realization to surface that not only were you electable, but you were a “sure thing”.
H. Clinton never had a chance.
Forget that she was not very likable, ran a horrible campaign,
she was the underdog and no one knew it.
The horse that should never have been brought to the starting gate,
partially lame, unbeknownst to the betting public.
An aura of strength but really weak and destined to lose.
We never knew, but we should have,
money remaining in our pockets, looking for another horse to bet on.

I know now how you did it and who did it for you.
I know the people who were just waiting in the shadows.
I have seen their faces over the years.
They were out there, hidden, with many things to say and angry at being ignored.
They never had a spokesperson until you came along.
There’s was a bubbling silence that took the form of rage at being left out, not counted.
America to them had become someone else’s country.
It’s promise at another’s doorstep.
They were the fermented, unheard masses that have always been there to rally behind a zealot or conman who was willing to return their sense of glory.

Mr. T, you were the latter,
a City conman born with a silver spoon in your mouth, the laughing stock of the legitimates who watched you for years.
They knew the shady side, the secrets, the bad behavior, and the myth that you really were.
No news there, not to them.
They had seen you in true form for too long to take you seriously.
You were a tabloid page six story, a radio guest who might say anything.
Serious you were not,
legitimate you were not,
and sadly for us, stupid you were not.
Successful conmen, as despicable as they may be, are never stupid.
They understand where their advantage is and who the suckers are.
You did to.
Their’s was a fortune to steal, your’s was the presidency in what was to be the greatest con of all time.
Those who play in this game, now behind bars or not, should fall to their knees in your presence.
You, Mr. T are the best, hands down.

2

Those who willingly stepped up, I know them.
They never had a chance.
The country bumpkin stumbling on a three card monte game seeing easy money to be made.
That bridge for sale at bargain prices.
What a spell you cast over them.
Just sign on the dotted line and they would be whole again.
Yes, I know who they are and they are all around us, not just here but everywhere.
Impotent, intolerant, greedy, shortsighted, and disabled in any sense of enlightenment,
plagued by their mediocrity, and ignorance.
Sheepish, but dangerous in their limitations,
they are found in the dark chapters of our history books and the shallow closets of our present.
Ask any despot or authoritarian who has found them and brought them out into the light.
Yes, I know who they are,
I have seen them in person.

They have sat in my classroom over the years.
Not in the front, but in the rear, close to the windows or door.
If you had walked through that door you may have recognized them,
coats on regardless of the inside temperature, slumped in their seat,
perhaps a book or notebook they rarely opened.
Maybe head folded in their arms, or a distant stare into another space.
They dreamt of fast money, fast girls and anywhere but here.
Others in the same room were attentive, engaged, open to the process who dreamt of college days and prosperous careers.
They were not shutdown, somewhere else, or unreachable.
My recollection is that those in the back had average ability and were not overly troublesome.
The classroom, the educational process was not designated important in their worldview.
Some were underachievers, and turned off for whatever reason.
Most managed to do just enough to get by, to graduate, and to go on out into the world.
They were never a threat or dangerous in my classroom, but out there things would be different.
All those rights, freedoms, and so little understanding of what they really were about and how important they were.
Undereducated, underprepared, unable to really compete, disadvantaged, and frustrated that their possibilities were so limited.
Angry at those who took off their coats, sat up, engaged, self-actualized, and moved on to open doors instead of doors that allowed no admittance.
No, for them the sky was not the limit.
Limits were all they saw, right in front of them, all around them.
A reality check, a clarifier as to what their lives were most likely to be.


I remember that they meant no harm, but knew it all.
I recall the swagger, the surface self-confidence.
And I remember who they were popular with,
the girls who tagged along and bought into their world.
They were there next to them, and probably still are today,
also unengaged, underachieving, and under-actualized.
And yes able to move on beyond our influence, but to the same limited opportunities that awaited their heroes.
I remember all of them now with the clarity and sadness that I felt then.
I worried for them and felt sorry that life would be a much more difficult path.
I did not know then what a threat they would become to us all.

3

When he speaks at those rallies they are behind him.
I see them.
They are out of the shadows, empowered, cheering and clapping with signs in hand and hats on head.
MAGA!
They have become willing members of his cult, finally finding someone who says what they feel,
who pretends to understand their frustration, and who is committed to restoring their glory,
the inheritance that was suppose to be theirs.
He will be their champion, fight the fight that they could not; weak, defeated, impotent as they have been.
A savior has finally come.
Their America will be great again,
They will experience greatness at last,
The future will be theirs as they understood it to be.

What they don’t know is that he will say anything for he believes in nothing.
He is a liar.
Make your list,
Stake your claim,
He will tell you how right you are and promise to deliver.
Those dark thoughts, the things that occupy your shadowy cerebral corners are okay to say now.
He will vocalize them for you in some coded fashion.
He knows what he is doing and so do you.
Someone to say what you could not, in public anyway,
Your champion, your spokesperson, your leader.
You own him and he owns you,
your deal with the proverbial devil.

Yes America can remain “white”,
we can close those borders, keep out people of color who threaten the purity of our race and culture.
We can remind Jews and Blacks where they stand,
where they have always stood and always will.
We can limit individual freedoms, limit the right to vote to those who think differently from us,
make every court in this country a bastion of conservative thought.
Yes, we can do all that, and more!
America will be returned to it’s greatness,
it will be a beautiful thing.
We have agreed what that means and how it will get done.

Yes, I see you at those rallies, in front of those TV screens,
smiling, clapping, roaring as he belittles our free press, past presidents, accepted heroes, and anyone who might challenge what you want and what he is saying.
You are his cheering squad and more frighteningly his foot soldiers,
now empowered to wreak havoc on all that we stand for.
Cultists, brown shirts, is what you have become.
He has brought you into the light and legitimized your ignorance and irrational fears.
Yes, he is your spokesman,
But YOU have helped him write a dark chapter in our history that
generations to come will read and wonder how it all could have been.

Of course, cheer at those rallies, wear proudly those red hats, shout down anyone who dare object to the savior’s message.
Punch him, kick him, drag his liberal ass out of that sacred place.
Make sure your gun is close to you and that his mouth pieces are dialed in on every audio/visual device you own,
his message heard at every possible moment.
And put away the memories, the recollections of what you perhaps once stood for.
There was a decency about you,
I remember it being there.
Our efforts to enlighten you failed, but you were not a threat,
just no interest in the message.
You liked me and I liked you, we just never connected in that important way.
You could not be bothered, already focused on what was beyond.
Remember, you knew it all.

4

I wished then I had had a way.
Something that grabbed your attention, caught your interest.
I wonder how I was unable to get you onto a better path when my efforts had helped so many begin their journey.
I am unsettled by this sense of failure and the threat you have become.
Perhaps it was just meant to be,
Forces that were unknown to me that were directing your way.
We always think that more can be done, that greater influence is possible.
Maybe, in some cases, it is not.

So now I sit, much more inactive, and watch and listen to your rage.
The nonsense and mediocrity that make up your lives.
The blindness and ignorance that keeps you under his spell.
I liked you then, but no longer.
You are a threat to me and those like me,
who are very different from you and want a much different present and future.
Whereas before, you left my world after our forty minute session,
Now you are with me much more,
Still a worry but for very different reasons.

Yes, I know who you are and I watch you more closely now.
Much of my time is spent avoiding you,
not wanting to get too close………the exposure, the possible contamination.
You and your kind have became a scourge……………who would have thought!
And you have undermined the optimism and sense of pride of what all has been accomplished in this not so great nation.
All the progress that has been made,
all the wrongs that have in full or at least partially been made right,
you now threaten to neutralize.
You, the foot soldier, marching in lock step, in the name of a nonexistent past glory under the spell of a maniacal leader with that multi-colored aura that enables him to glow in the dark.
Out of your ignorance you have sold your soul and mortgaged the future of your children.
Stand proud if you like, head high at what you are doing.
You will do your damage as others like you, before you, have done.
But in the unfolding of things, you will be cast aside,
since you stand in the way of certain inevitable truths that will win the day.
Not in my lifetime or yours, but count on it.
You will have your fifteen minutes, but along with your leader exist only as
troubling and embarrassing memories,
viewed by those generations that follow with sadness and dismay that we could have strayed so far from the hopefulness of our mission.