Mustafa Santiago Ali
Dr. Mustafa Santiago Ali is the Executive Vice President of Conservation & Justice for the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), former Interim Chief of Programs at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), and Instructor at American University. He is the Founder and CEO of Revitalization Strategies. He also serves as a commissioner for The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS). He is an award-winning writer and poet focused on social justice. Dr. Ali is frequently seen on television, including appearances on MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, VICE, FUSE, BET, National Geographic, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, and Democracy NOW! Mustafa is also a regular guest on Roland Martin Unfiltered, Black News Channel, Tavis Smiley Show, The Dean Obeidallah Show, and many others…
Editor's Note: This poem is the eighth in our Democracy and Peril Series. This series will highlight the threats and challenges to our Democracy using various genres including poems, interviews, short stories, and articles about political events.
First, we thought Donald Trump was a bit peculiar, the way he spoke in half-truths, his words a blur, a tangle of bravado and bravura, his sentences tripping over each other, like children racing to a playground.
He built towers in the sky, phallic monuments to his ego, each floor a step closer to a throne of gold, a kingdom of his own making, where facts were clay, easily molded, reshaped, his reality a smokescreen, a mirage in the desert of reason.
We watched, bemused, as he danced with dictators, a waltz of the bewildered, his partners grinning with iron teeth, his steps a stumble into chaos, a pirouette of policy turned parody.
Neighbors whispered in the key of caution, murmuring about his midnight tweets, the way he'd rage at shadows on the wall, each tweet a shout into the void, a plea for attention, validation, a digital diary of delusion.
His rallies, carnivals of the grotesque, where truth was a sideshow, a bearded lady behind the curtain, his promises a snake oil sold to the desperate, the lost, his smile a veneer, a mask of charm barely hiding the void beneath.
We thought Donald peculiar, then stranger, then saw the truth undress itself in the glare of a thousand cameras, his face a canvas of contradictions, a mosaic of missteps and madness. He wasn't just weird; he was a storm in a teacup, a tempest in a Twitter feed, a tornado of tirades.
He’d sit in the Oval, a king on a paper throne, signing edicts with a flourish, his pen a wand of chaos, each stroke a spell that twisted reality, bent it to his will, a master of the absurd, a jester in a crown of thorns.
In the end, we realized he was more than strange, more than a curiosity to be watched from afar. He was a harbinger of the bizarre, a prophet of the preposterous, singing hymns of hubris, each note a discordant cry for a world turned upside down.
Donald, the peculiar prince of paradox, taught us to embrace the absurd, to dance with our own delusions, to hum our own discordant melodies, unafraid of the symphony we might become.
We watched, bemused, as he painted the world in hues of madness, his brush a blur of chaos, each stroke a testament to the weird, the wild, the deranged, the strange beauty of a world unhinged. ©️MustafaSantiagoAli
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