Up with democracy! Down with Trump!"
Thus ends the preface to Trump Über Alles: Rhymes for Trying Times. But rather than spewing invective, the book spills over with incisive wit and high humor. As David A. Horowitz, history professor at Portland State University, writes, "If humor truly is the greatest weapon in times of crisis, David Hedges has provided invaluable assistance to the psychological well-being of the nation with a lighthearted record in verse of the tenure of America's former president." In the insightful mind of the poet, Trump "begged and pleaded to be satirized, parodied, and skewered. No character since Shakespeare's Falstaff has been so ripe for ridicule, and so prone to pratfalls. No political figure in American history has boasted such a broad and deep assemblage of unsavory and unscrupulous associates." A fertile field, indeed! And Hedges plows, tills, sows, and reaps with a deftness honed over more than four decades of writing and publishing poetry, essays, and fiction. Poet and author X.J. Kennedy dubbed his verse "masterfully crafted, " and declared, "I'm a Hedges fan for life.