One Monkey Don’t Stop No Show

Greg Middleton
5 min readApr 24, 2020

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This song title was recorded by several R&B singers dated back as early as 1950 according to an article posted on Wikipedia. I copied just a snippet of the post here but you’re welcome to dig deeper if you like.

“One Monkey Don’t Stop No Show” is the title of several different songs, mostly in the R&B genre, deriving from a common African-American phrase with the general meaning of “one setback should not impede progress.” The first known recording with this title was by Stick McGhee and His Buddies in 1950. Big Maybelle recorded another song of the same title in 1955. It was the B-side of her original version of “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On.” Other commercially successful songs with the title were recorded by Joe Tex (1965), Honey Cone (1971), and Little David Wilkins (1975). –Wikipedia-

I was particularly interested in the general meaning of the phrase; “one setback should not impede progress.” But, come to think of it, the part about the one monkey might be more in line with what I am thinking. One person shouldn’t be so powerful that they would be able to stop the forward progress of everyone else. Even though we have elected leaders in our democratic form of government, these leaders only serve term limits plus their power is somewhat restricted. Some of this may be determined by the law and some by age or death of the leader. No human being is immortal so eventually, all leaders will die and we are forced to select another one to take his or her place.

Since our current president was sworn into office in 2017 we have been compelled to learn more about our system of government. It appears that our constitution is being constantly challenged by him. You would think that most people follow the rules of law and generally abide by the constitution as it was written. If someone thinks that they are above the law then you would have to challenge their stand based upon the interpretation of the written law. Our law mandates that infractions against the agreed-upon rules must be adjudicated. Unfortunately, this president is either ignorant of the written law or he just doesn’t think it should apply to him. The third choice is that he really doesn’t care about the law. He actually says, “I alone can fix it.”

Ironically if one monkey happens to be the president of the United States you might imagine how much turmoil that could cause. He alone could cause quite a bit of damage, confusion, unrest, and even chaos. As the head of the body goes, so does the body. That is usually the case but in a democracy as such that we have, our presidents are not above the law, and thankfully their term of service is strictly limited to two terms subject to a national election every four years. The other method of removing him or her from office is impeachment if his actions are so detrimental to the welfare of the citizens of this country. If impeachment is not successful then it is up to the people to decide if this person is worthy of keeping the office for a second term of service. This is why our national elections are so very important. We decide who we want to be our president to a certain extent. As of late, it appears that there are powers that can influence our sacred elections. The final results of our elections might not be solely the will of the people that decide who will become president. Many people are losing faith in the election process because of a lot of questionable factors.

Back to this one monkey stopping the show: Never in the history of this nation have we experienced one person that has no idea how to govern a nation. He has no experience in governing and besides that his ethics and morals are questionable. He touted his business skills to run the country like a successful business enterprise but governing the will of the people requires other skillsets that he has no idea how to use. The position requires compassion, empathy, a tremendous delegation of responsibilities, the ability to find experts in every imaginable area of government, and most of all the heart of a servant. The president is a servant of all the people and not the other way around. We do not serve him! If a president lacks any or all of these skillsets we are in a heap of trouble.

If there is a silver lining or a backstop to our current predicament it is the fact that this country has been in existence for hundreds of years. Even though the system is not and never has been perfect, we do not necessarily put all our eggs in one basket. There are systems in place that essentially run the country. Our term-limited presidents are given the opportunity to drive the vehicle that was already there when he/she was sworn into the office. This vehicle will still be there after he leaves the office. The one major problem we have is how much damage can he inflict upon the vehicle while he is behind the steering wheel. Apparently quite a lot of damage has already been done that will take us years to totally recover.

So even though one monkey don’t stop no show, this monkey seems to want to crap all over the walls and single-handedly divide every race, nation, culture, sexual orientation and other unique qualities that make this nation unique among all the nations of the world. Rather than the commander-in-chief, he is the divider-n-chief. He is a narcissistic egotistical maniac that cares only about himself and more than likely would throw anyone under the bus that does not agree with him. I have a feeling that this one monkey would actually relish in being able to stop the show just for kicks. He wants to be worshiped and treated like a king. If he actually knew how stupid and silly he looks to the rest of us you would think he would develop a conscious. Another statement that we are also familiar with is “you can’t teach old dogs new tricks.”

So… I guess we are stuck with this big monkey of the “orangutan” variety. Funny how the word orange is almost in that name. A big orange primate. Wow! That wasn’t nice of me! Oh well, it appears that we have a little over six months to deal with this character and a couple more months while we transition to someone with a heart and soul that actually knows how the government should work. The challenger has served in various governmental leadership positions for most of his adult life. All we need to do is get out and vote so there is no question about who actually won the upcoming election. If it is close there are elements that are happy to interfere creating panic to help this monkey stay in office to spoil the show, but I am actually counting on the American People to step up to the plate and do what is best for not only America but the entire world as well. If you give this monkey another term I am almost certain that he will find a way to stop the show and take down so, so, many decent people with him. He will take this vehicle that we allowed him to steer and drive us completely off the cliff. One monkey don’t stop no show but this one… might be the first one that has a chance… Selah!

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Greg Middleton
Greg Middleton

Written by Greg Middleton

Greg is a prolific writer of books, essays, blogs, and videos where he shares his opinions on life. Visit Straight Talk with Greg on YouTube.