Trump is not a snake.

[cab67]

Last edited Tue Jan 12, 2021, 03:07 PM - Edit history (2)

I've seen way too many people calling Trump a snake. Or comparing him to one. Or doing that with some or all of Trump's followers.

This has to stop.

Snakes are amazing. That they lack limbs doesn't make them lowly - indeed, if one watches a snake move through its landscape, one sees elegance personified. (Or animated, I suppose.) And all kinds of animals move close to the ground - mink, for example - without risk of being misused as a metaphor for low or corrupt status. Snakes may sneak up on their prey, but that's equally true of owls, cats, alligators, badgers, and any number of other ambush predators - none of which is used to symbolize treachery or cowardice.

More importantly, snakes actually play a valuable role in their world. Many of them help keep rodent populations under control, for example. If someone's found a valuable role played by Trump, I haven't seen it.

Trump is no snake. He is unworthy of the comparison.

(The same is true for the McConnell-turtle trope that floats all over the place. Turtles are far too noble for that comparison to work.)


just saying.


Added on edit - if I had to compare Trump with a vertebrate, that vertebrate would be a hagfish. There's nothing among vertebrates slimier than a hagfish. But even hagfish have the nobility of purpose as scavengers, and being able to make a granny knot out of your body - something hagfish can actually do - is actually kind of cool, so I've taken to describing Trump as hagfish shit that walks as a man does.

[samnsara]

1. i think snakes are beautiful. I belly danced with a 8 ft boa named Sheba..

...to help pay for tuition for college. Mostly womens clubs and malls and stuff. Everyone loved the snake...

[Freedomofspeech]

8. Wow...

How interesting and I was a waitress at Howard Johnson's on the PA Turnpike. Fifty cents an hour plus tips....I officially feel like the most boring person on earth compared to you.

[Freethinker65]

2. Many are referring to Trump's little story about the smooth talking snake

That at the end reveals he was the evil snake all along.

Trump loved telling the story at rallies. Trump always was the snake, but his rally goers were too stupid to realize it.

[sop]

3. Trump is a sewer rat.

[PJMcK]

4. Great point

Comparisons with animals that are meant to be insulting don't really work for me, either.

Take dogs, for example. Trump frequently makes negative comparisons about dogs. Dogs are humankind's best friends from the animal kingdom! Of course, he's never had a dog or experienced true love so his ignorance about animals is clear.

Your post reminds me of a song from a musical by Maltby & Shire called "The Bear, The Tiger, The Hamster And The Mole." The woman who sings the song observes how female animals are used to derogatorily refer to women:

The bitch, the vixen,
The queen bee and the shrew.
What men have done to those fine words
We never can undo.

McConnell does look like a turtle, though!

[Celerity]

10. Vixen is high praise for me personally, I relish the label

a spirited or fierce woman, especially one seen as sexually attractive

Zero wrong going on there!

[Cirque du So-What]

5. He is, unfortunately, all too human

and that’s a more wretched realization than comparison to any animal or even ascribing supernatural characteristics like ‘demon.’ No, he’s made of the same stuff as anyone else, and that’s more scary to consider than calling him a snake.

[exboyfil]

6. They are parasites that give a deadly disease

Mosquitos, tsetse flies, or ticks being three examples.

Even these insects are part of the biosphere and serve there purpose (mosquito larva is food for small fish which are eaten by larger fish and on up the food chain).

[cab67]

11. I dislike tsetse flies.

They will actually follow a moving vehicle, at the window, if they know there's someone in it. And their bites are like deerfly bites - you really feel them.

I wasn't entirely reassured when someone with us - this was in western Uganda - said, "Oh, don't worry! Our tsetse flies are disease-free!"

[Wicked Blue]

7. He is a tick

Ticks latch on to their victim,inject bacteria through their saliva, suck their fill of blood, and drop off to lay eggs to make more bloodsuckers.

[3catwoman3]

9. I compare him to a tapeworm - repellently...

...ugly, results in vomiting, and sucks the life out of its host.

[lame54]

12. What are your thoughts on dung beetles?

[cab67]

13. Ever seen one?

Most of them are actually quite beautiful.

And again, they play a seriously important role in nature. They help process a whole lot of dung, moving it along toward it becoming soil.