When a reporter gets assaulted
For querying a candidate,
Or legislator goes unfaulted
For saying he’d not hesitate
To shoot a colleague,
I think that you can say
America has changed.
When so-called white supremacists
Have no compunction in assaulting
Whomever they have on their lists,
Such violence a way of halting
The scapegoat that they fear
In its embodiment,
America’s off track.
When persons known as cheats or fakes
Become appointed or elected
To office, mockery it makes
Of government Lincoln protected,
As told at Gettysburg,
It takes the Constitution
And puts it in the trash.
When judges are evaluated
Not for the caliber of thought
But how they are affiliated,
Then hope is rendered nought
For fairness in the courts—
You get flunkies for men
Like Mitch McConnell then.
When people are afraid to speak
Upon threat of retaliation
Severe in kind, even oblique
Criticism a provocation
To those of wealth and power,
The monied oligarchs,
America has lost it!