Buzz Ballad: Send in the Thugs

—apologies to Stephen Sondheim and “Send in the Clowns“

Should you be rich
Or a Wall Streeter
Hippies are milling around
Saying you should “care”
Send in the thugs

Diffuse protests
Trying to feed
An astroturfed sense of outrage
Against “corporate greed.”
Where are the thugs?
Send in the thugs

Counting upon a press willfully blind
The demagogue in the White House leads from behind
Hoping the street theater of a ragtag rabble will
Convince Congress
To pass his bill

But the students
With puerile pranks
Proved not to be quite enough, and so their ranks
Were swelled with thugs
With paid union thugs
You can see they’re here

It is to laugh
It is to deride
Seeing the elements with which
Our president’s allied
Here are the thugs
You knew there’d be thugs
‘Cause to him they’re dear