For a change of pace, our German translator JLH channels Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in this little ditty about the Bumpkin From the Big Apple.

The Ballad of the Blue-Collar Billionaire

by JLH

I

Come listen my children and you shall hear

A political tale that will bring you good cheer.

On November the eighth in the year ’16,

A man was elected that none had foreseen

Or thought or guessed, let alone, expected

Would be nominated, much less, elected.

He stepped on the stage at that very first meeting,

Expected by all to take a great beating.

The Fourth Estate was in tears of joy:

Here was the perfect whipping boy.

His mouth was so big, his tweets even bigger,

And always good for a snort or a snigger.

Whatever he said — be it false, be it true,

There just was no limit to what they could do.

They prepared to record the brief but wild flare,

Of the man who would be the Blue-Collar Billionaire.

As the Redcoats had massed at Lexington,

So “neutral” moderators first sought to stun,

With fusillades of factoids and lethal spin,

But it all bounced off a fight-toughened skin.

Questions intended to demonize him,

To tear him asunder and limb from limb,

Were seen by the watching multitude

As proof of humanity, if not rectitude.

When interrogators wanted a loyalty oath,

He said that’s alright, but only if both

The party and others said to his face

That they would support him, if he won the race.

There were some opponents who looked down their noses

And made cutting remarks while striking great poses;

Claimed knowledge, experience and comprehension

To smooth over quarrels and lessen dissension.

All versus a man from the building domain,

Whose language was blunt, if not outright profane.

Then there began the chipping away:

His crazy ideas would make taxpayers pay

For impossible schemes that no one could do —

Politically impractical, as everyone (else) knew.

His demeanor was bumptious; his language askew;

How could he know what statesmen should do?

The elegant thinking of political types

Was beyond a man who lived only by hype.

But there also began a most startling display

Of competing in a counterintuitive way.

He played the bully as well as the fool;

He called them all names like a kid after school.

And then he did something that was really unfair —

So embarrassing it was, it was so hard to bear.

He did something that almost seemed underhand:

He proclaimed his unabashed love for this land!

He also had a cap that was red with white letters,

Which he proudly flourished in front of his betters.

Not patriotism, too! For the love of God!

Does he not know that makes him look odd?

And what was that, that he just threw out?

He’s pledging support to those credulous louts,

Evangelical Christians — he’s got their back.

When we already have them! The ignorant hack!

And another religious wave he would make —

He read out the story of Al Miller’s “The Snake.”

A loving woman takes a cold snake inside;

If she hadn’t done that, it would surely have died.

She kissed it then and held it tight

But as thank you, the snake gave her a big bite

“I saved you,” she cried,” And you’ve bitten me — why?

You know that you’re poison and now I will die”

“Shut up, silly woman,” said the snake with a grin

“You knew what I was when you took me in”

The moral of that, it was not hard to tell —

Diversity’s culture can lead you to Hell…

He’s Islamophobic! And that is no joke.

This is a man who will never be “woke.”

He’s an immigrant hater — except for his wife.

People like him have caused all the strife

In the last eight years of peace-loving rule.

Though our leaders did show unparalleled cool

And love for all people (except for a few),

Their vision of hope had never shone through.

Not their fault that Antifa ran its black ops,

Or that people were suddenly targeting cops.

They did their best, and they told us so.

Responsible for anything? That’s a big, fat NO.

After eight years of cool, along comes this dude

With a gold-plated airplane, who lives on fast food.

But somehow, he set some people ablaze,

Who thought they had seen the end of the days

When they could work hard and bring home good pay,

Like their parents before them, way back in the day.

Others wanted no more apology tours,

Or hearing “We’ve been evil, and what’s ours is yours.”

Still others had tired of meaningless prose,

And not knowing anymore who were friends, who were foes.

So when the world, as Will said, had seemed out of joint,

Here at last came someone who spoke to the point.

II

Now when it was clear that he did win the race,

The media boffins had egg on their face.

The weeping and wailing was epic of its kind,

As journalist leftists went out of their mind.

Democrats joined them and then we found out.

There were also Republicans who needed to pout.

That was not what we learned when we played a team sport:

That any snowflake could choose to abort.

So the folks now behind him, from the old to the youth,

Were the ones who were dying to just hear some truth;

And indeed, as they soon discovered with glee,

“This is a guy who talks just like me.”

In the primary held by the other side,

An elite, wealthy hippie took a last ride,

To snatch the gold ring, but he had little chance

Against Madame Secretary, who wore the pants.

He toiled and labored to get his vote out,

But the end result was never in doubt.

When the heiress apparent was duly enthroned,

They lined up their spies and agents and drones.

Their own candidate, they knew, was no charmer,

But they thought Mr. Trump had pretty weak armor.

So they did what the media taught them to do —

They shot all they had, to see what would get through:

Misogynist, narcissist, homophobe, vandal,

Nazi, Islamophobe, fraudster with scandals…

But the racist, misogynist, everything-phobe,

Was not like a spotlight, but more like a strobe.

If he didn’t insult you by Twitter or mention,

You were too unimportant to merit attention.

He challenged false news with succinct regularity.

Of his possible opponents, he noted the disparity

Between “Crazy Bernie” and the crime family queen,

And what the victory of either would mean.

If One, by profligacy — we’ll drown in red ink;

If Two, by corruption — in the swamp we will sink.

So when “Crooked Hillary” won the gold cup,

His fans were chanting, “Lock her up! Lock her up!”

A game of Monopoly played with the states —

The pundits assessed the two parties’ fates.

The most populous states were the states that were blue,

While in flyover country, the people were few.

The states where industry once paid the bills,

From Michigan’s lake to West Virginia’s hills,

Were the states where Trump had nary a chance.

They all belonged to the Lady in Pants.

A classic case of not seeing the truth

By folks whose thinking was long in the tooth.

Breathes there a candidate whose brain is so dead?:

“Why, you might ask, am I not 50 points ahead?”

The media tried with might and with main

To change the result and couldn’t explain

How it all went so wrong, so refused to believe it

And looked for someone or something to retrieve it.

III

When it was over, and it had been a rout,

From all the woodwork, the termites crawled out.

The bureaucrat army of the last eight years

Tuned up their computers and pricked up their ears.

They knew what they had been left in place for —

The underground apparatchiks would wage secret war.

Reporters — or agents, it’s all the same —

Set the press of the world, as they knew it, aflame.

What crime or skullduggery, what false imputation

Has brought us, alas, to this inauguration?!

In Hollywood, where pretending gives life its meaning,

And thinking is much less common than preening,

Where actors play real people and how they may feel

And, for a brief moment, think themselves to be real,

The willing suspension of disbelief

Gave way to theatrical spasms of grief.

Celebrities here, celebrities there

Are gnashing their teeth and rending their hair.

Be it actor or journalist, Never-Trumper elite,

Many feel the sting of an answering Tweet.

From all directions, all hours of the day,

Demands that this imposter please go away.

“He can’t keep a civil tongue in his head —

Those in our government must be well bred.

No matter what noisome garbage we throw,

He just has to accept it — doesn’t he know?!”

The reply is: don’t tell us how to behave,

If your own etiquette was learned in a cave.

But civility’s not really the question here.

The problem’s far deeper and wider, I fear.

When a president begins on the very first day,

A cautious optimism comes into play

Among supporters and those who were not.

The public is waiting to see what is what.

That’s supposed to be true for government types, too.

Power may have shifted, but the principles remain true.

But what we have now hasn’t happened before.

This is an undeclared civil war —

Paul Revere once rode to spread the alarm

To every Middlesex village and farm.

If he hadn’t, and the Redcoats had quickly prevailed,

Our country, a-borning, might well have failed.

Our new Redcoats have no respect for elections.

They believe the People made the wrong selection.

False dossier, bald lies, Special Counsel too —

For the first time ever, a full-fledged coup.

They give lame excuses and spurious reasons,

But, in the end, it’s just unvarnished treason.

It’s beyond every Middlesex village and farm —

America, as we think of it, is open to harm.

So the spirit of Revere now rides through the air,

With the message of the Blue-Collar Billionaire.

MAGA!