Earth Doctor / Climate Troubadour

HURRICANE DONALD

It’s Hurricane Donald
Blowing into town.
Backing up the sewers,
Blow the jailhouse down.
Disinformation
Flooding every zone.
Good men and women
Sinking like a stone.

We all know he’s a con man
Extraordinaire.
Take all your  money,
Give it to billionaires.
Believe your eyes,
But don’t believe your ears.
What he’s really selling you
Is fear.

Just trying to make you feel afraid.
And if you buy it, baby,
You’ve been played.

Immigration,
Well, it’s not a sin.
It’s our superpower
Like it’s always been.
And our economy is
Going strong.
He’s just lying to you,
Flat out wrong

Just trying to make you feel afraid.
And if you buy it,
Baby, you’ve been played.

Come on to your senses,
Americans.
Why trust a felon
And his felon friends?
There’s a lotta things we’re
Doing right.
Get out your common senses
And unite!

Just trying to make you feel afraid.
And if you buy it, baby,
You’ve been played.
If you buy it, baby,
You’ve been played.

©Doug Hendren 2024

What’s it about? There are many things uniquely perilous about the simple fact of Donald Trump’s candidacy for president at this time, just three weeks before the 2024 election. Never before have we had as a candidate a convicted felon, a legally defined sex offender, not to mention an insurrectionist who tried in multiple ways to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

In this song, however, “Hurricane Donald” is referring to Trump and his team’s very intentional strategy of consistent and repeated lies on a wide range of subjects. Trump is indeed a very talented liar. Under the direction of then White House chief strategist (now imprisoned felon) Steve Bannon, the fire-hose of lies was entirely intentional. In Bannon’s own words, their plan was “to flood the zone with sh*t.” It was not about debating or persuasion, but was intended to disorient us all.

In the words of historian Heather Cox Richardson (Letters from an American, Oct 6, 2024):

Trump’s lies are not errors. They are part of a well-documented strategy to overturn democracy by using modern media to create a false political world. Voters begin to base their political decisions on that fake image, rather than on reality, and are manipulated into giving up control of their government to an authoritarian. 

Russian political theorists who were key to the rise of Russian president Vladimir Putin after the collapse of the Soviet Union called this manipulation “political technology.”

Another false claim is that the immigrants are mainly criminals. Checking this out, I was surprised to learn that not only are undocumented immigrants arrested less than half as often as US-born citizens, but immigrant families produce an extraordinarily high percentage of prize-winning high school science students. These are the American scientists of tomorrow, on whom our nation will depend to remain competitive in an increasingly high-tech world.

I have written other Trump songs, including “You’ve Got to be Good,” with lyrics derived from the many clever signs I saw at the Women’s March in Washington on 1-21-16. The present moment is much more sober, however. Enabled by allies in the US Senate, Trump has managed to create a rogue Supreme Court majority which has dangerously whittled down the rights of everyday citizens and placed the American president above the law. A second Trump presidency would in the view of many experts, be a disaster for US democracy, and leave the American economy worse off as well.

Trump has very successfully used a strategy of lies and confusion to divide and confuse his critics, his competitors and the American public. At a time when the American economy is “extraordinary” (The Economist), half of the US believes it to be in bad shape. Trump directed his Congressional allies to block a strong, bipartisan immigration bill earlier this year, in order to campaign on this issue later.

Trump is selling fear. His main method is to try to make you afraid, often afraid of things that are simply fictional. Spreading lies about the federal responses to the back-to-back disasters of Hurricanes Helene and Milton this month are worse than just false information – they actually have interfered with rescue operations.

Please share this message. Americans are generally generous and resilient in nature. Most of us were immigrants at one time or another. We have some real problems to solve, like transitioning to a clean and just economy in a time when uncontrolled pollution has let to climate disruption. If we rise above fear and work together rationally, a livable future is still within our grasp. In November, vote for people who understand this.

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