Bright Future
Erasure Poem
The source text that I chose was Donald Trump's RNC speech from 2020 where he was nominated as the republican candidate for the President of the United States. I chose this source text because I believe that in our current politics, while there are a lot of controversial players, there is no one more controversial and divisive (or stirring more controversy and conspiracies) than Donald Trump. And his presidency from 2016-2020 proved that. Even now, his trials and lawsuits (and furthermore, his reckless spreading of dangerous lies), have not prevented him from spewing hateful, factually untrue sentiments that reach and connect with too many people from his audience.
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I felt like taking his speech and reworking it to say the opposite of what he stands for was exactly the political and aesthetic objective of poetic political erasure poems. Because in the poem, I re-working his speech, taking his words to rearrange them into something that stands against/speaks against what lies he spews on a daily basis. Plus, it is a nice touch that this speech was for his presidential nomination in 2020, and it was the presidential election that he lost. ​
Gathered here at our beautiful and majestic White House – known all over the world as the People’s House – we cannot help but marvel at the miracle that is our Great American Story. This has been the home of larger-than-life figures like Teddy Roosevelt and Andrew Jackson who rallied Americans to bold visions of a bigger and brighter future. Within these walls lived tenacious generals like Presidents Grant and Eisenhower who led our soldiers in the cause of freedom. From these grounds, Thomas Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark on a daring expedition to cross a wild and uncharted continent. In the depths of a bloody Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln looked out these very windows upon a half-completed Washington Monument – and asked God, in His Providence, to save our union. Two weeks after Pearl Harbor, Franklin Delano Roosevelt welcomed Winston Churchill, and just inside, they set our people on a course to victory in the Second World War.
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In recent months, our nation, and the entire planet, has been struck by a new and powerful invisible enemy. Like those brave Americans before us, we are meeting this challenge. We are delivering lifesaving therapies, and will produce a vaccine BEFORE the end of the year, or maybe even sooner! We will defeat THE VIRUS, end the pandemic, and emerge stronger than ever before.
What united generations past was an unshakable confidence in America’s destiny, and an unbreakable faith in the American People. They knew that our country is blessed by God, and has a special purpose. in this world. It is that conviction that inspired the formation of our union, our westward expansion, the abolition of slavery, the passage of civil rights, the space program, and the overthrow of fascism, tyranny and communism.
This towering American spirit has prevailed over every challenge, and lifted us to the summit of human endeavor.
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And yet, despite all of our greatness as a nation. Everything we haveo achieved is now endangered. This is the most important election in the history of our country. At no time before have voters faced a clearer choice between two parties, two visions, two philosophies, or
two agendas.
This election will decide whether we SAVE the American Dream, or whether we allow a socialist agenda to DEMOLISH our cherished destiny.