Day 738, The Shutdown

 

Though Donald lost the shutdown game, he tweets to say he won.

He threatens an “Emergency!” and waves it like a gun.

At first, the “wall” was a device reminding Trump to dump

On immigrants, a standard part of Trump’s speech on the stump.

 

Eventually he said he’d build a wall from sea to sea

And Mexico would pay for it, so Donald’s wall was free.

He got such crowd reaction that he left it in the act.

And now, Trump’s oft-repeated lie has morphed into a fact.

 

Then Mexico said they can’t pay, and wouldn’t if they could.

(No one but Trump’s benighted base had ever thought they would.)

So Donald turned to fight with Nancy’s Democratic House.

Though Donald was the big cat, Nancy proved she was no mouse.

 

With government shutdown, our federal workers had no pay.

Trump made them pawns and showed he’d sacrifice them any day.

Apologists for Donald showed they really did not care

Or know much of our average folk in their five week nightmare.

 

And, finally, with food lines growing and polls going down,

Republicans told Donald he was facing a meltdown.

He might end up like General Custer at the Greasy Grass. (1)

He’d have to face it; this time Nancy handed him his ass.

 

The problem with the Donald’s wall: it was not well thought-out,

A prop for crowd reaction, to get them to clap and shout.

A wise use of our money would use new technology

And should we spend five billion that’s just based on bigotry?

 

So government’s back open for three weeks to make a deal.

Pelosi still says, “No wall;” there’s no reason she would kneel.

While Donald blusters, “Shutdown!” and “Emergency!” We’ll see.

Smart money’s still on Nancy to block Trump’s obduracy.

 

(1)  The Greasy Grass is the Crow Indian, later Lakota (Sioux) name for the river we call the Little Bighorn, where a superior force of Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho, wiped out five companies of Custer’s Seventh Cavalry, including George Custer himself, on June 25, 1876.  This is generally known as “Custer’s Last Stand.” Custer made several mistakes, the worst of them being grossly underestimating the size of the Indian village he was attacking and grossly overestimating his own prowess.