Ballad of a Presidential Candidate

(Homage to e.e. cummings, "Ballad of an Intellectual")

Listen, you voters great and small
To the ballad of a candidate presidentiall
(And if you don’t emuhllate what he's done
You’re missing out royal on lots of fun)
Seems like his problem wasn’t with smarts
Brains, nerves, etc.—he had all the parts
Nothing seemed missing, when he peered inside,

Except for a gap, where most men find pride
So he said “good gravy, I see here a hole
I’ll have to fill it with something in lieu of a soul”
So he went up to Hardeharverd and got his Bullshitters of Artz
And tooled around snappy with all the rich farts
But still, nothing stayed put when he gobbled it down
It fell right through his hole and into the ground.
But he wasn’t the sort to put two and two together
Or learn from experience to try something better,
So he said to himself “I must gobble some more”
And he went down to Yayle to study up on the lawr.
But no matter how much cash, power, prestige
He seemed to amass, it still failed to please
“What is this thing,” he said, “that other folks have?
“That makes them not need so to grapple and grab?
“It can’t be a problem,” he said to himself,
“With me, that’s absurd, Why, I’m the picture of health.
“It can’t be I’m the one strangely empty inside
“It must be everyone else simulating this pride
“It can’t be I’m the one whose whole life is fake
“It must be America that’s hollow, not me, Vivek.”
And so he decided, “If everyone’s lying
“There’s no harm in me stepping up and trying
“To take on freedom’s flag an enormous dump
“How could it go wrong—look, it worked for Trump!”
So he first wrote a book, endorsed by prominent cheats
From Vance to Greenwald (mark your bingo sheets)
And a bunch of other frauds who never saw a grift
They’d pass up if it could give their paltry careers a lift
So Ramaswamy rose on the shoulders of phonies
A great standard-bearer in the Cause of Baloney
Then he got on stage and did what ol’ Trump did too
He said just the oppuhsite of whatever was true
“One and one,” he declared, “makes three; up is down;
“Democracy stinks, so just hand Trump the crown
“Putin's best buds with the people of Ukraine,
“Who are wusses anyways, unlike me, just sayin’
“Plainly it’s cooler to wear sunglasses and rap
“Than to save your country from gettin' turned into scrap
“And if you too want to deport everyone and make
“Trump the God-King with me number 2, vote Vivek!
“And speaking of number 2, I’ve got one final contendment
“How’s about we shit all over the Fourteenth Amendment?”
And all the people listening, who, when they looked inside
Found they too had a hole wherein their manhood had died,
The same ones always sporting the red white and blue
Strangely didn’t mind smearing the Constitution with poo
So I hope all you voters and Ree-publican factions
Don’t pass up this chance to get in on the action
Turns out you too, no matter how gutless a twirp
Can do your humble best to help the party usurp
The lingering shreds of a constitutional order
While bedding Vlad the Putin and shuttering the border
Thereby ensuring not only the Ukrainians don’t make it
But that they’ll find no asylum if and when they can’t take it
So there’ll be no democracy whether here or abroad,
Where Marine Von Storch will help put it in the sod
And liberty’s torch will burn down to a stump
With the help of their majesties Ronald DeTrump
Or maybe you don’t believe all that’s really at stake
Well try it then and see—vote Vivek!