(With apologies to Dr. Seuss)
Every Mensch down in Menschville
Liked Christmas a lot,
But Republicans,
Who lived far from Menschville,
Did NOT.
They all hated Christmas! The whole Christmas season!
Now please don’t ask why. No one quite knows the reason.
It could be their heads weren’t screwed on quite right.
It could be, perhaps, that they budget too tight.
But I think the most likely reason of all
May be because their hearts are too small.
But budgets or heads, whatever their reason,
They did what they could to dampen the season.
Cutting back food stamps with haughty disdain
For children at Christmas. It just was insane.
“Oh they’re whining and crying,” they snarled with a sneer,
“But if we give ‘em all food stamps, their dads sell ‘em for beer.”
Tax money for poor folks was too much like slumming,
But contracts for donors kept everything humming.
Some Mensches were black folks, Republicans knew,
And votes from those people were just very few.
So why give ‘em goodies to gladden Obama.
If kids wanted cookies, they could just ask their mama.
If poor Mensches were pampered, they’d all wanna eat,
Or buy junk at WalMart from the government teat.
And they’d EAT! EAT! EAT! EAT!
They’d start with Ritz crackers, and advance to prime meat,
Reserved for the wealthy, and not for deadbeats.
But there was something Republicans liked least of all,
What if Mensches in Menschville all answered the call,
And all stood together, and turned out for voting,
Even on off years? The thought was revolting.
They’d vote! And they’d vote!
And they’d VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!
So Republicans huddled and schemed how to stop it
And force the poor Mensches to shut up and drop it.
Since Franklin D. Roosevelt gave folks the New Deal,
Right-wing complainers had not ceased to squeal.
But health care for poor folks was just the last straw.
They just couldn’t stand it; it stuck in their craw.
They hated Obama and health care for all.
“Entitlements will destroy us! Roll it back!” they would call.
The Dems must be shown,
They would shout through the phone,
Twas money that dictated who sat on the throne,
Not Occupy and libbies with bases homegrown.
If the rich had their druthers,
We’d all listen to the Koch brothers.
And Christmas and loopholes would be just for the “makers,”
Not the mooching Mensches and other such “takers.”
Then they got an idea!
An awful idea!
Republicans
Got a brilliant, awful idea!
“We know what we’ll do,” they said at Fox News.
“We’ll befuddle the Mensches, their minds we’ll confuse.
“We’ll lie and distort and threaten their sanity
“With daily bleats from O’Reilly and Hannity.
“Tell ‘em the government is their biggest foe,
“And the private sector is the way to go.
“At gay folk and teachers we’ll make ‘em all sore,
“And all those enviros who worship Al Gore.”
“It’s a trick that’ll work,” said leader Ted Cruz,
“We will all win, and dumb Mensches will lose.”
“We’ll sell ‘em a line we know they will buy,
“If it’s pitched to ‘em daily by a snippy fat guy
“Like Rushbo, himself, or New Jersey’s Chris Christie,
“Who’ll make ‘em get all choked up and misty
” ‘Bout family values and Amendment Two,
“That ensures lotsa guns for me and for you.”
THEN
Supremes ruled corporations were people,
And fixed it so elections weren’t for the sheeple,
But meant for outfits like the Goldman Sachses,
To buy politicians who’d shield ‘em from taxes.
The Mensches were snoozing, not staying alert,
Paying no attention as they lost their shirt.
It had gotten so bad that even the Pope
Said the poor Mensches were losing all hope
For a life that held promise for their little tots
In a system so rigged ‘gainst those little snots.
Republicans knew that by just saying no,
They could keep all the poor folk out in the snow,
No hikes in wages, nor job creation
Would be advanced to help the nation.
They had no compunction about acting so Grinchy
When fooling the Mensches had proven so cinchy.
Sarah Palin told ‘em she could spy
The North Pole with her naked eye,
And Santa told her they should know
The GOP was the way to go.
All the good stuff would trickle down
If they’d just impeach that Kenyan clown,
And cheer the Tea Party patriots
Who tied the Congress up in knots.
We can get the government out of hock
If we just keep everything deadlocked.
Prosperity will bless us never ending
If we’d just stop the wasteful spending.
So they cut and they cut and they CUT! CUT! CUT! CUT!
They threw a big tantrum and the gummint they shut.
All spending not for the big investor
Was stripped away by the sequester,
An act of legislative slash-and-burn
That left poor Mensches nowhere to turn.
It all looked grim for the Christmas season,
The right wing seemed to have lost all reason.
Bachmann, Gohmert, Paul, and Perry
Turned the yuletide quite un-Merry.
And when a Mensch kid asked ‘em why,
They answered with a cunning lie.
“Not stealing Christmas,” they all said,
“We’re just patchin’ it up instead.”
They laughed to themselves as they told this lie,
“The Mensches will have Christmas in the sweet by and by.
And when they find out, we know what they’ll do.
All the Mensches in Menschville will all cry BOO-HOO!”
But the joy they would spoil with their dastardly plan
Rose to the surface, and throughout the broad land
The Mensches in Menschville found ways of giving,
And despite the resistance, they persisted in living.
Then upon that midnight clear, Republicans felt the Christmas cheer,
And underwent a transformation that helped thaw out a frozen nation.
They saw the error of their ways, and vowed to work for better days.
Not just for the wealthy one percent, but even those who can’t make rent.
Alas, it was but a dream, fueled by eggnog and ice cream.
When I awoke from Christmas sleep, the GOP remained real cheap.
And so I make a yuletide plea, for those hard hearts to finally see
That Christmas is a time of sharing, and all-year-long’s the time for caring.
So let us have no if or buts, just knock off all this acting nuts
And join the Mensches in the next session, to help us end this long recession.
Then perhaps next year’s Noel will find our people doing well,
With infrastructure much repaired, and jobs and income broadly shared.
If that happened then … ?
Well, in Menschville they say
That Republican small hearts
Would grow three sizes that way.
And the minute their hearts stopped feeling so tight,
They’d start in to do all the things that are right.