Donald at the Bat – Day 1338, “Herd Mentality” (a and b poems)

Day 1338, “Herd Mentality” 

 

The Donald’s peristalsis, eructations, flatulence,

Are no match for experimental data and good sense.

So how can we explain why Trump relies upon his gut? 

Five bankruptcies should teach him not to listen to his butt.

 

Trump’s base believes in him, so where did all their judgment go?

The selfish rich are easy, for they see their money grow.

But what about the average, poorly educated white?

Does Donald make them feel their latent bigotry is right?

 

The CDC says, “Wear a mask; vaccines will take a while.”

Trump says that they’re confused; expert advice is not his style.

 So, Trump’s or Doctor Redfield’s: on whose brain should we rely?

Efficacy of wearing masks: well-known, why not comply?

 

Now Donald’s pushing, “Herd mentality,” (immunity.) (1)

The problem is, we can’t achieve it with impunity.

The number of infections needed, times the known death rate,

Will cost us several million dead for Covid to abate.

 

In 1918 flu, six hundred eighty thousand died. (2)

Now, population three times higher, if that is our guide,

We’d lose two million, thereabouts, if death rates stay the same.

That’s ten times more than have died now; Trump plays a deadly game.

 

The best defense, before vaccines, is simple; wear a mask.

But Trump, of course, disputes this, saying it’s too much to ask.

His base sees freedom threatened, (caring for the other guy.)

Their view of freedom’s costly; now it’s “red state” folks who die.  (3)

 

Trump and his base don’t understand what constitutes a fact.

They don’t respect the scientists, whom Donald Trump attacked.

Such ignorance is fatal; it means many more will die.

From global warming and pandemics, deaths will multiply.

 

(1)  “Herd mentality,” Trump’s slip of the tongue in an ABC “town hall” with George Stephanopoulos, September 15, 2020.

(2)  The 1918 influenza pandemic killed about 675,000 in the USA.  At that time, we had a population of about 103 million.  Now it is about 330 million.  Estimates of our death total, if we let enough people get infected (~70%) with Covid 19 and recover to achieve “herd immunity,” range from 2-6 million, if the currently estimated death rate (1-3%) stays the same.  Multiply it out.  This is the cost of “herd mentality.”

(3) In a September 16th press briefing, Trump noted that, if we take the “blue states” out of the death toll, we’d be doing the best in the world.  

 

Day 1338, b

 

Both Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee,

Espousing naked bigotry,

Are plotting an autocracy,

And threatening democracy.

 

Both Trump and Barr are overweight;

Rocks in their heads exacerbate

The disrespect they’ve shown of late

For those who don’t think they’re so great.

 

Trump’s base prefers an autocrat,

And even a corrupt polecat,

Is better than some Democrat

To be in office, and that’s that.

 

Should he of the expanding ass,

With speech and mannerisms, crass,

Whose tweets are puffs of sewer gas,

Be like our Pope, conducting mass?

 

And should the sycophantic Barr,

Remain in office, there to bar

The rail and feathers and the tar

For those who think Trump their North Star?

 

For those who’ve left Trump, to this day

Not one has something good to say.

No, every one of them says, “Nay,”

When asked if they think Trump should stay.

 

So, ask those sitting on the fence,

Assuming they are not just dense,

Are Trump and Barr and Stone and Pence,

Still worth the obvious expense?

 

Or, when it is November third,

Will our most patriotic herd,

Act on the warnings we’ve all heard

And flush away this noxious turd?