You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in!
Taking the lyrics of a song by a Civil Rights activist and turning it into a dehumanizing fear-based propaganda message takes a certain skillset. Call it The Art of the Hate.
Oscar Brown Jr. wrote it in 1963, Al Wilson made it a hit and while Brown never explained the events that inspired it, the song serves as a warning to use common sense in determining who to trust.
In 2016 a political candidate turned it into a sledgehammer against immigrants, persuading Americans that every immigrant is someone to fear. Oscar Brown’s daughters said their dad “would have opposed Trump’s anti-immigrant message. “The elephant in the room is that Trump is the living embodiment of the snake that my father wrote about in that song,” one said.
The president can’t define a single sentence he likes in the Bible because he’s never read that book, but he knows a few fairytales because propagandists like Roy Cohn and sociopaths like his father mentored him. Twisting stories and events to fit the biggest lies is what they do. Worse, he lacks the intelligence to distinguish reality from conspiracy theory and his lack of self awareness renders him incapable of recognizing any mistake or flaw in his words and deeds.
The majority of his teachers, business associates, financial supporters, golfing partners, employees and wives know well who the snake is, who betrays and cheats habitually. Most adults in the country and most world leaders are now well aware of the toxicity of his venom. The singular trait that amazes herpetologists who study him is that each time he sheds his skin, a dumber snake emerges.
Oh, he’s capable of recognizing when planned events go awry, and he hires and fires others to ‘fix’ things. Today it’s the hired gun Bovino and Pistol Kristi Noem rotated out of the spotlight. The responsibility and blame for the errors are always on them, never himself. And his narcissism is legend. Hand him a shiny bauble, a fake prize or a compliment and he becomes as malleable as Silly Putty in your hands.
Which makes him a magnet for deadlier snakes with far more dangerous motives.
Of course, I’m overstating the obvious at this point. Normal people who I’d like to be one day tend to use their rearview mirrors on occasion, looking back at their younger selves. ‘Boy was I dumb’, my 25 year old self thought while considering my 20 year old version. I’ve long thought that was a normal part of maturation, though it’s entirely possible I’ve just been stupid all along. Until I hit 70 when I finally knew everything.
The scientist-showman Timothy Leary wrote an autobiography about a brief period in his life that was titled ‘Confessions of a Hope Fiend’. I confess to sharing that addiction. To hope. Be it a friend or stranger facing a dire circumstance, be it a broken leg, a failed marriage, a lost job or a diagnosis of a terminal disease, I’m prone to remind them that impossibles occur, that there’s still lights in that 900 mile tunnel, that medical science moves along at the speed of Wow, or simply to comfort and accompany them to whatever outcome awaits. I don’t think it’s a special trait to be empathetic, compassionate or sympathetic. It seems a normie thing to be.
Because hope is essential. Hopelessness is deadly. And between those poles exists pragmatism, the proper weighing of both. And now’s the time when the doomscrollers of the world must unite to know both. And to speak to everyone honestly.
Don’t waste time fearing that our government’s moving towards fascism. It’s arrived. The snake was invited in again in November 2024. And since it walked through the front door, everything has changed, including that front door. A third of that historic house. Nobody voted for a ballroom and nobody pined for one. The exodus of music and arts performers from Kennedy Center schedules could prove dangerous to them as his compulsive need for revenge and retribution towards anyone dissatisfied with him is worse than ‘obey or die.’ It’s ‘kiss his ass or die’.
Yeah fascism is here and we’ve only caught a glimpse of how bad it’s gonna get.
People showing up, visibly or invisibly and his desperate need to maintain a fully Republican Congress next November are the only brakes on this careening limo. If polls show a big loss ahead for him by October, he’ll do what fascists usually do: cancel the elections. Don’t miss or ignore the signposts or the missing guardrails.
Stop the chatter about what you plan to do IF….
Keep your head down. Keep your secrets secret. There is no organized Resistance to join. There are no conspirators nor Resistance leaders to jail. Minnesotans know what it’s like when the jackboots are everywhere. They know the only defense is to be in more everywheres.
It’s exhausting. It’s oppressive. Every choice is a gamble. Showing up. Possessing a whistle. You, your family, everything you own could be targeted with one wrong word or move. Even if they were not wrong a year ago.
The fascist White House has been very busy building an American gulag to kidnap and disappear people to. Nobody does that and leaves it unused.
You can get the gist of how much silence there is or how creepy it is by reading Ana Marie Cox’s latest at TNR, about the tour she was given in Minneapolis and how much remained hidden. Even though she’s never been a snake. More done in silence means more safety:
They keep on coming:
The FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE, Patel says
FBI Director Kash Patel made the statement after right-wing media figures said they joined the chats and claimed participants were obstructing law enforcement.
(NBC News, 26 January 2026)
(and breaking NBC News around 8:30 pm EST this evening)
Man lunges at Ilhan Omar during town hall and tries to spray her with unknown substance
The Minnesota Democrat was not injured and continued speaking after the incident. Police said the man was arrested on third degree assault.
There are plenty of reasons for hope, as well, because visible and hidden, neighbors are working to help neighbors in every city the jackboots have attacked.
BP and ICE morale is low and headed lower. It can’t be fixed with more training as the two agents that murdered two American citizens in the past 18 days aren’t newbies at all. And demands from other elected lawmakers are growing for every federal agent to start wearing bodycams and to dump the masks.
That didn’t work so well when the DOJ agreed to turn over the Epstein files on December 19th and have kept 99% of them hidden. But there’s more Republicans making the demands this time, so we’ll see.
There’s now a flotilla of US warships cruising near Iran. Do they need another distraction? Another decades long war perhaps? Nobody knows but a handful of snakes.
There are plenty of poets and artists, musicians and satirists afoot to recharge your hope propellers. Moments of soul and psyche relief are essential along with times to be tireless.
And as I said, pragmatism is essential now. Listen, more than you speak. Battles for democracy and freedom require ideals but are never won with naivete. Think.
There’s a guy who worked military intel from Alaska and has been in the midst of offensive wars and revolutions in many places. He’s also a great writer. Both gruff and funny, he’s built a huge following in the past two decades.
He recently dominated the discussion in a recent B Cubed Press podcast that included the screenwriter David Gerrold, a screenwriter for several episodes of the original Star Trek tv series, along with Deep Space Nine and Star Trek 2.
It’s long, about an hour and a half, but the pair cover a lot of ground with a helluva lot of hard-earned wisdom. Listen and heed what Jim Wright (Stonekettle) has to say. He’d be the first to say that he and every other fascism and war expert are fallible. He’s just less fallible (in my judgment).
And I’m cutting this newsletter short so you’ll have more time to hear Jim and absorb all he has to say. It’s an abrupt realization when he notes that we’re not all gonna make it through this struggle. But the smarter we are and the better we prepare, more of us might.
A little feedback from you readers would be nice…