What I Will Miss if Trump Wins

by Ernie McCray

When I think of
another Trump presidency,
I shiver to my bones
from just knowing
that he will,
based on his granted immunity
if he commits a crime,
devise, out of his love of dictators,
some yet to be seen
extremely obscene
form of autocracy
that will relatively-speaking
bring our society
to its knees.

And, oh, there would be
so much that I would miss
if it came to this:
the loss of human decency,
a time when politicians
didn’t necessarily
see their opponents
as natural enemies
and would occasionally
speak to how they wanted
to reasonably
make the country better
rather than badmouth it,
a time when there wasn’t quite so much
bullshitting
and lying
and when
women had control of their bodies,
a time when
no leader would dare say
that Haitian immigrants were
eating their neighbors’
cats and dogs,
or invite someone to speak at a rally
who would make jokes
about watermelon loving
Black folks
and claim
that Puerto Rico is
“a floating island of garbage”
when it is a land
of intense beauty
as far as the eye can see,
home to many
amazingly outstanding people.

I will particularly long for the days
when we were in step with
our allies
who have been determined,
as we have been,
to keep democracy
in the world alive,
days when we were not the least bit
willing to toy
with the dark ideas
of a man who is focused
on himself alone
with “concepts of a plan” to destroy
the beauty
that lies at the center of our way of life,
the notion
that each of us, through our participation,
can create a nation
that can meet the social and political needs
of everyone.

I would miss
how, I, over my lifetime,
never once considered,
as I have lately,
that pursuits for liberty and justice
could someday
be dead and done.

And, of course, now
since election day is yet to be
I wish,
with all that is within me,
that when the ballots are counted
that this menace to humanity
has lost
and Kamala has won
by the ton

You can call me one
well-wishing
son-of-a-gun.