Dayenu – or The Eleventh Plague – an alternative reading for Passover 2020
i. If he had mocked only the differently-abled
And not also praised the “good people,” chanting Jew Will Not Replace Us
It would have been enough
ii. If he had dog-whistled hate-group-conspiracy-theorists suffering white-anxiety
And not also hyped birtherism, called black kids thugs, and their mothers “low-IQ”
It would have been enough
iii. If he had pegged Warren- Pocahontas, Clinton- Nasty, Pelosi- a Sick Puppy
And not also dubbed immigrants ‘animals,” while separating families at the border, and putting
children in cages
It would have been enough
iv. If he had stigmatized Mexicans as rapists
And not also molested Moriah, Mindy, Jill, Jessica, Cassandra, Jennifer, Natasha, Samantha,
Lisa, Rachel, Kristin, Cathy, Karen, Ninni, Summer, Stormy, and Temple
It would have been enough
v. If he had boasted of grabbing women by their genitals
And not also nominated a sex offender to the Supreme Court
It would have been enough
vi. If he had packed the Judiciary with unqualified, NRA Hand-Picked incompetents
and given them lifetime tenure
And not also played Wayne Lapierre’s lap dog, letting the gun lobby curb his pledge for “very meaningful background checks” after multiple mass mall, and school shootings
It would have been enough
vii. If he had defrauded students at Trump University, and misused charitable funds
for his own political gain
And not also offered a quid pro quo to a Ukrainian foreign government against an American
citizen for his own political gain, and then perjured himself for his own political gain
It would have been enough
viii. If he had labeled lies “alternative facts” and every criticism “fake news” and termed
the Press the Enemy of the People
And not also paraphrased Minister of Propaganda Goebbels, “if you repeat a lie often enough, it
becomes accepted as truth”
It would have been enough
ix. If he had mimicked Hitler’s strategy that “broad masses of a nation … more readily
fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies
but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods”
And not also praised Putin’s “82 percent approval rating,” called Kim a “smart cookie,” cozied
up to Crown Prince Salman, “very friendly” Duterte, “Big Daddy” Xi, and “my favorite dictator”
el-Sisi
It would have been enough
x. If he had turned his back on our traditional Canadian and South Korean friends
And not also threatened NATO’s 70-year alliance, and withdrawn from the Paris Climate Accord
It would have been enough
xi. If he denied global warming while gutting the EPA
And not also rolled back Obama-era laws limiting toxic emissions; allowed drilling on Native
Sacred Lands, repealed policies protecting wetlands, and defanged the Endangered Species Act
It would have been enough
xii. If he had thrown paper towels, “these beautiful, soft towels. Very good towels,” to
hurricane-ravaged Puerto Ricans while withholding disaster relief funds
And not also cut the budget for CDC and dismantled the global health security team in charge of
Pandemic Preparedness Response in spring 2018
It would have been enough
xiii. If he had compared Covid-19 to the common flu and insisted social distancing was a
hoax while continuing to push for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act
And not also crossed out Corona and called it the Chinese-virus
It would have been enough
xiv. If he had said on national television “I don’t take responsibility at all,” and “one day
it’s like a miracle, it will disappear”
And not also continued to encourage Church gatherings on Easter Sunday, before finally
admitting in the same press conference on April 4th 2020, as I was writing this, that “there will be
a lot of death”
It would have been enough
We should have said enough
We could have cried enough
We did not do enough—
You may now all drink your second cup of wine
Richard Michelson, April 6, 2020
RICHARD MICHELSON received the 2017 National Jewish Book Award, and the 2018 Sydney Taylor Gold Medal from the Association of Jewish Libraries. His many books for children and adults have been listed among the Ten Best of the Year by The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, and The New Yorker. His most recent poetry collection More Money than God (Pitt Poetry Series) was a finalist for the Paterson Prize. Michelson served two terms as Poet Laureate of Northampton MA where he hosts Northampton Poetry Radio.