PITY THE NATION

By Fareed Khan 
A version of this can be found on Substack.

Pity the declining nation, a one-time lone superpower,
starved of truth and made ignorant by alternative facts.

Pity the nation that crowns a criminal fraudster as a
political saviour, and hails the corrupt billionaire as its hero.

Pity the nation that mocks empathy and calls it a weakness,
and embraces cruelty with every breaking dawn.

Pity the nation that refuses to express its outrage at vicious
acts of injustice committed by government agents, but does
so when a convicted felon is called out for his lies.

Pity the nation whose leader is a thieving con man and fascist,
where his supporters consume conspiracy theories, and
ugly social media memes like food and water.

Pity the nation that greets its orange overlord with fanfare, flatters
him when he stands naked, bids him adieu with subpoenas
and scorn, but then invites him back with fanfare anew.



Pity the nation whose leader supports a fog of fascistic decrepitude,
while tech moguls play apprentice to a man that is beneath them.

Pity the nation split into racist and hateful echo chambers,
each declaring itself the apex of their society’s supremacy.

Pity the nation that wreaks havoc across the globe,
refusing to see how its actions are like dragon’s fire
scorching the lands on which its power is constructed.

Pity the nation with its criminal attacks flooding distant shores,
its fiery lies igniting forests far beyond its borders, with the
heat of its greed boiling oceans lapping at every coast.



Pity the world forced to watch this corrupted giant thrash,
knowing one wild swing of its gilded fist could tip the scales
of humanity towards a frightening and irreversible night.

Yet as pity turns to warning, and warning to resolve,
time is a luxury the world doesn’t have, in the face
of a catastrophe we all know is on the horizon.

Let the people, wounded, weary and wary, of the
orange-tinged spectre, link hands across the globe,
and raise their voices to condemn this agent of chaos.

For with his ability to ruin the world, the maniac must be
stopped and silenced, lest the cancer he disseminates
infects the world, fracturing the foundations of civil society,
and lays waste to societies and cultures.

His menacing mantra, fed by insanity, inhumanity, and
a diseased mind, will burn all nations in the fires of calamity,
and the nation that once proclaimed itself as a shining beacon
to the world, will slowly be silenced and die, as happens,
following the decline and fall of all empires.

(Inspired by Khalil Gibran)

 

© 2026 The View From Here. © 2026 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.