In  response to David Egger’s satirical novella,
 The Captain and the Glory: an Entertainment, I present:

A Look Behind the Curtains at the The Certains of Girdton
(a Dr. Seussian-style allegorical assessment of America’s heartland)
by Barbara Sue Andrus Blackhurst an Advisor to President Donald J. Trump

Now the Certains of Girdton kept things under wraps;
never let things tear loose, burst their seams, widen gaps;
always kept things in check, zipped their lips, held their peace;
made sure things were  proper, controlled, on a leash.
They were neither free spirits, nor puffed up by pride,
They deplored things indulgent, never sought a free ride.
You would not call them cut-ups for their minds were not light.
They were not jerked by cravings. They called things black and white.
All their pasts were unsullied, and their motives were clean.
They moved onward and upward, with minds clear and keen.
They dined upon Truth.  Their convictions were sure.
They rallied to standards kind, noble and pure.
They avoided all bribery, for bribes were unseemly.
And they never did anything spiteful or meanly
or low-down or common or lame or pathetic.
Their brain-waves were tuned to things pure and poetic,
which is why they were joyful, engaged,  energetic.
There was Truth in their wisdom and light in their steps,
and harmonious lines filled their minds while they slept.
To make sure that their judgments were honest and fair;
their decisions were prefaced by fasting and prayer.

When things catastrophic came into their lives,
they chose to stay calm and composed and act wise.
They never would brown-nose, nor kiss-up, nor  flatter
nor flirt with temptations that might make them fatter,
or lead to infections of kidneys or bladder.
For they knew in the end they would feel a lot sadder.
They relied upon principles, standards, and pledges
to keep them from sliding off steep canyon ledges.
They were bounded by laws  that were proven and centered,
and they all worked as one to make sure those who entered
their land known as Girdton were approved by a card
which confirmed they were true, or removed by a guard.
If removed, they’d return when they’d passed all the tests
which allowed them to live as full Certains, not guests.
Yes! The Certains of Girdton were all of one mind
and that mind was inclined to be gentle and kind;
was rarely disturbed, never angry or brooding.
So given were they to ejecting, excluding
anything that might vex them, might cause them to stumble,
might sever their tethers, cause  moorings to rumble;
that gentle civility reigned unrestrained.
The will-power of Certains was so well contained,
that the land known as Girdton in majesty reigned.

Then a Mullet of Bullet somehow ascertained
an impaired  underbelly, an underground hole
and into this passage he silently stole.
He implanted himself as an alien mole;
a blower of whistles which did not need blowing;
a cutter of grass-lands where cattle were lowing
and chewing on grasses in lieu of grass-mowing.
At their passing of gas, he was clearly perturbed.
Their flatulence must not remain undisturbed.
Such natural expulsions must clearly be curbed!

Under cover of night he began to untether
Girdton’s wraps, and their check points, their notes showing whether
this person was certified-- had shown he was not
some drug-dealing pervert who’d crept in uncaught.
With this Mullet let loose in uncertain disguise,
the land began heaving and giving off sighs
as its laws became riddled with loop-holes and lies.
Yes. The land grew unsteady; it seemed quite distraught
for something repugnant, some nebulous blot
was blasting its airwaves with radical rot.
This rot, filled with things which were blurry and gray,
began fogging standards, began bearing sway
in this nation from which things like smoke screens were blocked.
A fissure developed  beneath Girdton’s rock.
Deep, dark, dank and dirty this fissure kept growing.
The Mullet was cunning; no trace of him showing.
Yet his tails with their tendrils, his sharp pointy horns,
his heels which were pitted with deep-slashing thorns,
kept slashing agendas, kept  secretly throwing
a pall over Girdton, its murky mists growing.

The clouds above Girdton were forecasting storm
and nothing to Certains seemed cozy and warm.
Instead there were scary and frightful predictions
of down turns, recessions, confirmed by evictions.
It was into this setting of things going sour,
that a bombshell demolished the land’s tallest tower.
Then a battle ensued as a contest for power,
and a rumor was raised that a wolf in sheep’s skin
had somehow, through stealth and deception, crept in.
Yes. The marks of the beast had been sited for sure;
Girdton’s statutes, for one thing, were growing impure.
This was proof that a wolf, with a bunch of his cronies,
were handing down laws filled with phony baloney.
Mullets occupied benches quite stealthily placed
to accomplish a coup, and they did it bold faced.
Their underground network designed to erase
all the moorings that tethered the land’s constitution,
set things all akimbo, invoked  devolutions.

Now the sensible Certains found this really revolting.
But what should they do?  They deplored things insulting.
Things that smacked of a fight,  or a scene of contention,
to Certains were banished, were deplored, never mentioned.
Nonetheless they would not stick their heads in the sand.
With mischief afoot, they would rise up and stand.
So they gathered their forces, and smelled out the mole,
then calmly established their paramount goal,
before it caused death, they must  root out this cancer.
They must do it at once!  Surgery was the answer.
Yes! Alternative values which Mullets embraced,
must be plucked in a way that completely erased,
their malevolent toxins which, should they increase,
would cause Girdton to fail.  Bring on war.  End their peace.
Wolfie must  be expelled with his faux-card and fleece!

With scalpel and scissors they carefully chopped
making sure the financial hemorrhaging stopped.
In their homes and their parlors the Certains increased
their allegiance to things that they knew had released
the powers that had made and preserved them a nation
had blessed them with long-lasting peace and  salvation.
They battened down  hatches, one- by-one made it clear
they could not be befuddled, nor crippled by fear;
that the ways of the Certains were not going to change;
that life would go on in their home, on the range,
as it always had done, nothing novel nor strange
would level foundations that on heart-strings were sown;
foundations that had with the Light of Truth shown.
These had, in the trying times, passed every test
to assure that with freedom each Certain was blessed.

What was done without sword or the use of a bullet,
confirmed that the land could get rid of a Mullet
without raising a voice or an ax or a mallet.
It was peacefully done by a mark on a ballet.
And the quiet, but resolute guard on the tower
who sealed up the holes where the Mole got his powers.
And the man whom they voted to stand at their head
did not look upon Mullets or things that they said
as something to cause him to tremble with fear.
He was, in a word, a bold man, with no peer.
A man of few words, but a man of conviction
who looked upon Girton and made this prediction:
that the land know as Girton would once more be strong
by returning to values that had for so long
been bulwarks for vanquishing bastions of wrong.

Entitlements, hand outs, gratuitous  perks
were replaced by belt-tightening, thrift and good works.
Sustainable energy flowed in the veins
of Certains whose labors ignited their brains.
Their renewable fuels, know as Study and Work
were once more enthroned, not dumbed down  by a perk.
These fuels gave the Certains competitive edges.
They steered them through land mines, ‘round quick sands, passed ledges.
Where  tumults  of lies, double-speaking,  gang-banging,
had left the land’s laws by the sheerest  threads hanging,
the guards on the towers and the voters at polls,
used means both pure and civil for flushing out moles.
Leaning hard on their moorings, the Certains made clear
that God’s roles for His children were things to revere.
The Certains found Truth, underneath what appeared
to be cesspools and eddies of muddied up hopes
which ended in  life-styles that mimicked the soaps.

The Truth was quite clear, quite direct, quite unsullied;
not entangled by compromise, not apt to be bullied.
In homes and in tea-parties, in small institutes,
the Certains retrenched. They rose up from grass roots
to re-bar their foundations, to engage new recruits;
in enshrining old values, giving virtues  reboots;
virtues that championed stellar behavior
virtues they’d learned from their Lord and their Savior.

With these virtues in vogue, all the Certains rejoiced
As they watched  Lady Liberty rise to give voice
to the standard:  “no slandering person, who flatters,
shall ever indoctrinate, threaten nor shatter
the Truth; for Truth is that liberty which sets men free.”
The Certains of Girdton knew Liberty’s Tree.
They knew life from  death--were pro-life, not pro-death.
They knew that  pro-choice smelled of Mullet’s bad breath.
Yes. The Certains of Girdton knew truth when they saw it.
They knew the beast too and had ways to declaw it.

Thus, the once-mighty Certains, freed of moles and addictions,
returned to their moorings, their long held convictions
that things held in check, tethered down, and kept leashed,
were Republican means for restoring lost peace.