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First they... no! First you ignored the warning signs [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-04-19

First they came for… Nope, you don’t get to say that

You do not get away with saying that poem, because you have had examples upon examples of how this works thrown at you in every way possible since your school years. You do not get to say or pretend ignorance of how this happened here. It happened with your complicity and acquiesced or silence.

You had ample warnings, from trump’s first term, to project 2025, to rallies with mass deportation signs, you had every single red flag possible and imaginable waving in front of your wide open eyes. Still you chose this.

Even before the reelection, red states were giving you a taste of dictatorship, from jailing women for miscarrying to laws banning pregnant women from using highways to get an abortion, to banning books, to offering bounties to snitch on teachers and doctors and parents. You had plenty of warnings, you are not some innocent bystanders taken off guard. And don’t you dare tell me about rural areas, for that is where the damn laws started!

This is how your poem is written

First I ignored all the warning signs

Then I ignore all the rising voices

Then they did a trial run, and I still did not care

Then they came back, and I still couldn’t be bothered

For the truth is I didn’t care about the lives of others

For the truth is I sometimes agreed with the measures taken

For the truth is I was selfish and greedy

I understood the risks and decided they were worth it

For I had grown weary of democracy

I wasn’t blindsided when I gambled my rights away

For the truth is I didn’t care about the ideals of my country

I wanted all its bounties to be kept just for me

If today I pretend to be shocked and outraged

It is only for your benefit, deep down I’m happy

That finally I get to live in a country just for me

Today, you’re still blissfully pretending ignorance of the magnitude of your decadence. As people are being disappeared off your streets, tourists being jailed at the borders, Americans being held by ICE, dissident voices being deported or silenced, universities being bullied by the government along with law firms, schools and hospitals, history from the army to the government sites being whitewashed, and so many more atrocities, you still think you’re fooling us with your self indulgent peaceful rallies which are nothing but a card held in reserve, if things don’t go as planned you can pull it out and say but look “I protested”, I got in “Good Trouble”.

You did not in fact get into “Good trouble” for you risked nothing. Your plannings were artfully constructed to avoid any kind of risk! That is not Good trouble, if you want to see Good Trouble, look for the pictures of those arrested on Bloody Sunday and see the difference.

If it doesn’t apply to YOU let it fly.

#Writing #Poetry #BlackPoetry #BlackHistory #SocialPoetry #BlackKos #TheAmericanHaitianPoet

paypal.me/murielvieux to help Haitians families 10$ x donors can go a long way.

#ThePoet - Muriel Vieux – April 18th, 2025, ©All rights reserved

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