America in 2025 

(After Shelley’s “England in 1819”)

An old, bad, vain, despised, and lying prez;
Cronies, sycophants, corrupt, and now in charge;
A tech czar, with a jobs chain-saw, at large;
A loony with a brain worm who now says:
All the things that saved us will be banned–
Fluoride in our water, every good vaccine;
Judges bought and sold, and courts unkeen
To see that justice triumphs in the land;
In charge of schools, a monstrous wrestler’s wife,
Who’s called AI “A1”–a sauce for steak–
And been herself “instructed” how to break
The DOE, and higher ed, a vengeful strife—
Are graves from which some glorious phantom may
Burst to illumine our tempestuous day.

– in Memoriam Marshall Sahlins

James Chandler is the William B. Ogden Distinguished Service Professor of English and of Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Chicago. He is the author of England in 1819:  The Politics of Literary Culture and the Case of Romantic Historicism (Chicago) and  Wordsworth’s Second Nature: a Study of the Poetry and Politics (Chicago). Chandler wrote the “Justice Under Trump” triptiych for CounterPunch in 2020.