The Political Virus: A Poem

Our World has caught the Political Virus —

It’s an invisible bug but it’s inside us.

Oh, yes, it’s inside us all…

And when it does come out?

You can be left in anything BUT doubt.

The Political Virus.

What is it?

It’s the urge to scream and slander.

It’s the urge to protest and meander —

Blocking traffic and spitting on windshields:

“We know better than you!”

But don’t be fooled.

Those behind the wheel are infected, too.

They slam on horns and nudge protestors.

They shrug and say, “they’re not humans, they’re obstacles.”

But don’t be fooled.

The protestors treat their fellow (wo)men like objects, too.

Looting and pillaging and stealing electronics in the lusty name of Justice.

The Political Virus is nonjudgmental. It infects in the covert form of Donkeys and Elephants alike. The particular strain of virus is inconsequential — you are still very much sick with it. It only determines the manner in which it manifests.

A hee-haw or a trunk trumpet.

But don’t be fooled.

*A confidential whisper*

Even the independent-minded are infected.

They count themselves as the ‘sane’ ones. The Moderate Middle Ground.

But even They must choose one evil or the other.

Unless they write in Oprah or Ozzy Osbourne on the ballot.

They say the Political Virus will be cured on November 3rd.

I call bull feces.

There won’t be a cure.

One half or just-over-half will be dissatisfied with the election.

Their virus bubbling and brewing in their Patriotic Heart until steam and flames burst from their nostrils and they Make Ready For War.

Make no mistake, Dear Reader. This tired writer is predicting a civil war due to the political virus.

Oh, maybe not tomorrow. Maybe it will be months or years or even when the next Chief of the Restless Nation is elected. Who can say?

I am no Nostradamus. (No, this doesn’t count as a double negative!!!)

But believe you, me. The Infected Individuals will become a Sickly Swarm.

Their Political Virus, which until now (‘now’ being the moment when civil war erupts, whenever that may be) has been festering as political outrage and moral righteousness and The Certainty That They Are Right And The Other Side Are Depraved Soulless Idiots and at its worst, perhaps Delusional Debating or perhaps at its absolute worst, Unfriending or even Shunning Of UnLikeMinded Family Members…

Now?

Now the Political Virus take its true form.

Wart!!!!!

Pardon…I’m tired. (The virus does that too)

War!!!!!

Will the masses be green-minded liberals, strumming their heartstrings and assuring themselves they are on the side of Good? Or will it be the green-as-in-money minded conservatives, convincing themselves they and only they can save America and its economy?

Who can say?

Only November 3rd can tell.

You know, elections ruin my favorite time of year: Fall.

Now, this season is all of a kerfuffle thanks to the Political Virus. Instead of Fall, now it’s Fall Into Chaos, one way or the other.

Those who have been infected can’t tell this one essential gem of truth:

It doesn’t matter who wins…we WILL fall into chaos.

Yes, I know they have convinced themselves that the next Prez is the end-all-be-all, THE ALPHA AND THE OMEGA, the determiner of all things good or absolutely awful.

This is false. This is a paradigm of the Virus.

It convinces the infected persons that this is the only pattern that makes sense.

Elect →President elected →good or bad follows.

This. Is. Wrong.

Why, you ask? Surely, (surely, surely) he (sorry, only male XY’s are in this year’s election; we’ll get there, ladies) is the most powerful male on Earth (ha, ha.)?

Nope.

We are the most powerful people on Earth.

No, I don’t jest. No, I’m not ashamed to be saying this you Liberals, don’t throw a urine balloon at me... I am not a Trumpet for espousing my pride in being American, as the last four years are not all that has defined America. No, you Conservatives — get your hand off the trigger of your AK47 (yes I know it’s SEMI automatic), I am not saying I’m ashamed of the last four years either, nor am I denying he is my President. Because he is. Was. Will be. Who can say? Don’t shoot me! Not yet! Just listen. Or read on. Whatever.

Anyway…back to my point.

We have Freedoms that are Guaranteed.

Birthrights.

We don’t have to contest or confabulate this…it is quite literally written into our nation’s backbone: the constitution.

Why the bold affirmation of these words?

Because…you see, the Political Virus makes it difficult for you to understand them.

The Virus has convinced you that the only directions are Left or Right.

It’s saddled your brain with complete confusion regarding directions.

Your poor, addled virus-ridden organ has entirely neglected to remember that — though there is left and right — there is also forward and backward, up and down, north, south, east, west and many other options, besides.

Left and Right are quite boring, after all, when you start remembering all the other directions.

The other directions are the paths in which we find ourselves.

And also find each other.

A House Divided Cannot Stand.

A House Divided Will Fall.

The goal of the Virus is to Divide and Conquer.

The ‘Leaders’ know this. I say Leaders with the utmost scorn.

They’re one and the same.

Just like the virus, they are only different strains of the same sickness.

A varying variety of myriad marauders.

The blue donkeys and the red elephants.

They sound like a bad hallucination, which is precisely what they are, drummed up from the nastiest nightmares of our Founding Fathers.

Rolling in their graves…just like all those people who are gone from that other virus.

In the wake of the Political Virus, we have forgotten the many, many wakes that took place for the many, many dead.

Covid-19.

2019 was a better year. They should have dubbed it Covid-2020.

A virus that should have brought us together only pushed us further apart. The virus became the Political Virus.

Corona became pure, oily, politics, slippery and sly like Washington’s Worst.

We argue about masks and social distancing.

We argue about conspiracies and racial inequality.

We fight about colors; black and white and red and blue.

We fight.

Instead of fighting together, we have fought another.

Instead of fighting the virus, we have spread it — not because we are unhygienic — but because we have forgotten to care that other people are, well, people.

The hate and restlessness and paranoia was released by the Elites and it has consumed us correctly, as it was meant to, encapsulating the other virus and turning it into the Political Virus.

Dear Liberals, you must understand: the democrats you heed as social justice warriors are nothing but conservatives in social justice warrior face paint.

Dear Conservatives, you must understand: the republicans you view as true patriots are greedy and corrupt and do not serve the common people.

They are all the Same. Infected.

Why have we allowed ourselves to get sick?

We, who are the true People. We the People.

I for one saw this virus as an opportunity for a World To Change.

Instead, it became the title of this poem.

Political.

Instead, it drew us apart and covered our eyes so that when we looked at one another, we saw not people, but Threats.

Threats of illness.

They will infect us!

Threats of war.

They are the enemy!

We see — but we are blind.

We hear — but we are deaf.

We stand up — but we have fallen.

We claim we are together in this — but we have utterly forsaken one another.

We shout that we are Proud To Be An American, Where At Least We Know We’re Free…

But we are not a Nation. We are a Divided Democracy. The problem with fighting against your fellow American is this: we turn on one another in favor of those who have turned their backs on us.

We became a democracy instead of becoming a country.

We are not a homogenous people.

We are a quilt-work of extraordinary beauty. We are stitched together from every country, ethnicity, culture and language in the world.

We built our backbone — vertebrae by vertebrae — by celebrating one another, adding more and more colorful people to our numbers.

But we have forgotten this.

Instead, we listen to torrents of buzzing bullshit bees that pour forth from the mouths of old men.

They have sweetened their words with honey so you won’t feel the sting of their lies and betrayals.

They did not build this hive…we did.

So are the effects of the Political Virus.

I cry for the world we wished for.

Our hearts are in the right place.

No matter what ‘Party’ you brought your gifts to — your loyalty, your confidence (although they don’t deserve you) — your heart was in the right place.

We wanted a better world for our children.

Every generation sighs and cries for the same dream, etched in their hearts, lofty as the stars.

We want a better world.

We want a good future.

We could have it. We live in a world where opportunity exists at our fingertips, waiting patiently for us to reach out and take it.

We live in a world where our thoughts and opinions are heard, with so many different mountaintops to shout them from.

Someone will hear.

We have it all.

But we don’t see it.

We see only ourselves. We don’t look to one another.

We put our faith in those who don’t live with their feet on the ground, but with their heads in the sky.

We put our faith in men who stand on our shoulders to get to the moon.

How is that right?

If we looked beyond Left and Right…

What would we see?

One another.

What could we do?

Reach each other.

The Political Virus has a cure.

It consists of three words. It is spread by something as simple as a smile, a kind word, a connection. A human connection.

The cure is this.

Open your eyes.

And this.

Open your heart.

And this.

Open your mind.

Finis