# Post ts_110721130171733104 - Post ID: `ts_110721130171733104` - Platform: Truth Social - Posted: 2023-07-16T01:19:30.062Z (UTC) - Deleted: no - Repost: no - Canonical URL: https://trump.fm/post/ts_110721130171733104 - Analysis page: https://trump.fm/post/ts_110721130171733104/analysis ## Post text > “THE🐍SNAKE” ## What the media says **Video transcript** (3:05), transcribed automatically, so names and numbers may be wrong. Speakers aren't identified, so a voice in it may not be his: > The snake, you know, it's about 100 degrees out, so if we're outside, you say, no, please don't do this thing. But it's great. This was a great song written a long time ago, and we sort of recast it, but it's true. And it has to do with terrorism. We're allowing people to come in. They're going to destroy our country. We have to get them out. We have to take them out. So this has to do with the fact that people are coming into our country through our borders, very sad and very terrible thing is happening, and many of these people are very bad. On her work, and this is, who's heard this, by the way, just before, who's heard this? That's pretty good. It's amazing how few, because they do it, but I think it's pretty terrific. On her way to work one morning, down the path, along the lake, a tender-hearted woman saw a poor, half-frozen snake. Her pretty colored skin had been all frosted with a dew. Poor thing, she cried, I'll take you in, and I'll take care of you. Take me in, O tender woman, take me in for heaven's sake. Take me in, O tender woman, inside the vicious snake. She wrapped him up all cozy in a comforter of silk, and laid him by her fireside with some honey and some milk. She hurried home from work that night, and as soon as she arrived, she found the pretty snake she'd taken in, had been revived. Take me in, O tender woman, take me in for heaven's sake. Take me in, O tender woman, inside the vicious snake. She clutched him to her bosom, you're so beautiful, she cried. But if I hadn't brought you in by now, you truly would have died. She stroked his pretty skin again, and kissed and held him tight. But instead of saying, thank you ma'am, the snake gave her a vicious bite. Take me in, O tender woman, take me in for heaven's sake. Take me in, O tender woman, inside the vicious snake. I saved you, cried the woman, and you've bitten me, but why? You know your bite is poisonous, and now I'm going to die, shut up. Silly woman, said the reptile with a grin, you knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in. That's the end, that's the end, the snake. And that's what we're doing, we're taking in people that are very, very dangerous people. We're allowing them to come in, and they're being sent in here by the millions and millions and millions. Following the Eisenhower model, we will use all necessary state, local, federal, and military resources to carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history. ## Media - video: https://static-assets-1.truthsocial.com/tmtg:prime-ts-assets/media_attachments/files/110/721/129/226/325/646/original/c39ae8cfc2758df6.mp4 ## Engagement - Likes: 14,693 - Reposts: 4,367 - Replies: 466 - Views: unknown - Metrics collected: 2026-02-01T01:19:51.406Z (UTC) # Analysis _Machine-generated by trump.fm on 2026-04-03T15:22:34.496Z (UTC): a model's reading of this post, not his words. Its psychological terms describe the language, not a clinical assessment of him._ ## Summary Posted during ACTCon 2023 in West Palm Beach at 9:19 PM EDT, "THE🐍SNAKE" achieves maximum propagandistic efficiency through compression: a three-word title and single emoji activate a complete ideological payload for a primed audience. The Al Wilson poem Trump has deployed since 2016 categorically assigns predatory animal status to immigrants, frames empathy as lethal naïveté, and invites audience pleasure in the naïve woman's deserved fate — an ego-syntonic sadism marker of clinical significance. Defense mechanisms are primarily splitting (immigrants as snakes by nature, no individual variation admitted) and projection (the snake's deceptive predation reflects qualities extensively documented in Trump's own conduct). The post sits in grandiose supply-acquisition mode at peak rally energy; no narcissistic injury trigger is apparent. Clinically notable features include schema-locked rigidity (device unchanged across 7 years), ego-syntonic sadism, and stochastic terrorism markers: target population identified, threat nature claimed as categorical and innate, protective action logically implied. The danger assessment is elevated not primarily from this single post but from the structural pattern it represents — systematic, mass-broadcast, emotionally resonant dehumanization of a population sustained without revision or remorse across a decade of political rhetoric, consistently activating primal fear responses and removing moral constraints on escalating hostility. ## "THE🐍SNAKE" — Analysis **Platform:** Truth Social | **Post ID:** ts_110721130171733104 | **Local Time:** ~9:19 PM EDT, July 15, 2023 --- ### Contextual Frame Posted during or immediately after Trump's appearance at Turning Point Action's ACTCon 2023 in West Palm Beach, Florida. The five surrounding posts all link to the same Rumble livestream of his ACTCon speech. The attached MP4 almost certainly contains his performance of the Al Wilson "Snake" poem — a recurrent rally set piece since 2016. The post functions as a rally highlight reel fragment, compressed to its purest symbolic form. --- ### Authorship Attribution **Local time conversion:** UTC 01:19:30 on July 16 = 9:19 PM EDT (West Palm Beach, EDT = UTC−4). This falls just before his typical authentic late-night posting window (10 PM onward), in an evening zone that is ambiguous. **Authentic indicators present:** - ALL CAPS framing - Single-emoji punctuation (🐍) used as visual/dramatic emphasis — consistent with Trump's emoji deployment patterns - Terse, theatrical phrasing with no grammatical structure ("THE🐍SNAKE" — not a sentence) - Emotional compression rather than informational content **Aide indicators present:** - Video attachment requiring technical upload coordination - The post is one of a rapid-fire coordinated series of rally quote clips, suggesting a workflow - 9:19 PM is within business-adjacent hours for a Florida-based operative managing the rally feed **Assessment:** Likely hybrid authorship. The video attachment and coordinated series structure suggest aide-managed upload infrastructure, but the text itself — three capitalized words and a snake emoji — is stylistically indistinguishable from authentic Trump. The text may have been his verbal instruction or direct input; the technical execution may be Scavino or team. Authorship confidence: medium. --- ### The Snake: Semantic Compression as Propaganda "THE🐍SNAKE" encodes a complete ideological payload in four characters plus an emoji. For a primed audience, the title alone activates the full poem narrative without requiring its text — a hallmark of mature propaganda symbology. **The poem's structure (for analytical completeness):** Al Wilson's 1968 song "The Snake" tells of a woman who finds an injured snake in the snow, nurses it to health, and is fatally bitten. When she asks why, the snake replies: *"You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in."* Trump has read this poem at rallies since January 2016, applying it explicitly to immigration — America is the naïve woman; immigrants (particularly undocumented) are the snake. The application has never materially changed across 7+ years. The snake emoji (🐍) functions as an in-group flag: supporters immediately decode the full message. The compression itself is a rhetorical achievement — the ideology has been so thoroughly internalized that the symbol alone suffices. --- ### Level 1: Dispositional Traits (Big Five) **Low Agreeableness (marked):** Dehumanization of an out-group as a venomous predator is one of the most extreme forms of low agreeableness — absence of tender-mindedness, trust, or modesty regarding one's own characterizations. **Low Openness (marked):** The device has been deployed identically for seven years with zero evolution. No new information, no complexity admitted. Cognitive rigidity consistent with schema-locked processing. **High Extraversion:** Rally performance mode. This post is an exclamation point to live crowd engagement — theatrical, performative, designed for effect. **Neuroticism signal absent:** The post is in grandiose rather than vulnerable mode. No anxiety, victimhood, or wound visible in this fragment. --- ### Level 2: Characteristic Adaptations — Goals, Motives, Schemas **Agency motives dominant:** The Snake poem positions Trump as the one who *knows* — epistemically superior to the naive woman/establishment/Democratic party. This "I told you so" structure flatters the in-group and casts Trump as the oracle with special perceptual access to the snake's true nature. **Power schema:** Classic strongman framing. The world contains predators who will harm the naïve. Only the strong, knowing leader can protect the group. The schema demands the leader (not institutions, law, or norms) as the necessary protective agent. **Self schema:** Vindicator. Not the unheeded Cassandra but the returning prophet proven right. The contamination narrative (America took in the snake) implies only Trump's return can reverse the damage. --- ### Level 3: Narrative Identity **Protagonist role:** Wise protector / oracle. The one who recognized the snake's nature when others did not. **Narrative sequence:** Contamination — America's goodness (taking in the "snake") leads inevitably to betrayal and harm. The redemptive counter-sequence is implied: the 47th presidency restores the proper order by removing the snake. **Identity claims encoded:** - "I know what these people really are" - "I warned you and I was right" - "I am the only one who will protect you" **Contrasting other:** Immigrants rendered categorically as predatory non-human animals; immigration advocates (Democrats, Biden) implicitly as the foolish woman who will get you killed. **Contamination + redemption arc:** The post sits within a rally where Trump has explicitly invoked "liberating America from communists" and becoming the 47th president — the full redemption sequence is the surrounding context; "THE🐍SNAKE" names the contaminating threat. --- ### Level 4: Clinical Indicators **Narcissistic dynamics — trigger and state:** - **State:** Grandiose. Peak supply acquisition at a friendly rally. No vulnerability signals. - **Trigger:** Supply-seeking/maintenance. The rally is an orchestrated supply event; the snake post extends that supply to the Truth Social audience. - **Parasocial technique:** In-group signaling via shared cultural artifact. The poem creates an intimacy bond — "we know what this means, they don't." **Malignant narcissism markers:** *Narcissistic features:* Grandiosity (special knowledge), entitled use of dehumanizing rhetoric, absence of empathy for the targeted population. *Antisocial features:* Repeated deployment of rhetoric that categorically denies humanity to an ethnic/national population — sustained across 7+ years without remorse or revision. *Paranoid features:* The snake narrative encodes a paranoid schema — the threat is hidden, disguised as vulnerability, infiltrating from within. You cannot trust the appearance of innocence. *Ego-syntonic sadism:* The poem's rhetorical pleasure comes partly from the snake's defiant cruelty at the end — "you knew damn well." The audience is invited to enjoy the image of the naïve woman's deserved fate. This is not merely a policy argument; it is a pleasure-in-cruelty performance. **Defense mechanisms:** - **Splitting (Level 2 — immature):** Binary morality. America (us) vs. predatory snake (them). No complexity admitted regarding any member of the targeted population. - **Projection (Level 2 — immature):** The qualities attributed to the snake — deceit disguised as helplessness, ingratitude, predation, self-serving manipulation — are qualities extensively documented in Trump's own conduct. Classic shadow projection: the disowned self is attributed to the out-group. - **Rationalization (Level 3 — neurotic):** The poem provides a pseudo-narrative structure that gives the audience a logical-seeming framework for categorical rejection of an entire population. The story form launders the hatred. --- ### Rhetorical Analysis **Dehumanizing language:** ✓ (marked). Comparing an entire population to a venomous predatory reptile is among the most explicit dehumanization devices in Trump's repertoire and in political rhetoric generally. The snake is not a neutral animal — it carries cross-cultural connotations of deceit, danger, and evil (biblical, mythological, folk). **Violent imagery:** ✓. The poem's core image is a fatal snakebite; applied politically, this frames the target population as lethal threats. The violence in the metaphor is not incidental — it is the rhetorical point. **Propaganda techniques:** - *False dichotomy:* Wise in-group (knows snakes) vs. naïve out-group (takes snakes in) vs. predatory snake - *Symbol compression / metonymy:* Four characters encode a complete ideological worldview - *Parasocial intimacy:* Shared narrative creates in-group bonding - *Repetition (RAND Firehose element):* Same symbol deployed unchanged for 7+ years; mass repetition is itself a mechanism of reality assertion **Violent imagery framing note:** The poem does not call for explicit violence against immigrants. However, the framing establishes the psychological and emotional preconditions — the target population is lethal by nature, your empathy will get you killed, there is no rehabilitative possibility — that researchers associate with escalating hostility. --- ### Stochastic Terrorism Assessment The Snake poem meets multiple established markers: 1. **Target clearly identified:** Immigrants as a categorical class 2. **Grievance precisely articulated:** They are predatory by nature; their apparent vulnerability is a ruse 3. **Action logically implied:** Do not admit snakes; those who advocate admission are naïve or complicit in your death 4. **Dehumanization:** Animal-predator frame removes moral constraints on escalating responses 5. **Mass audience delivery:** Rally + Truth Social broadcast maximizes reach **Assessment:** Stochastic terrorism indicators present. The post does not constitute direct incitement, but it consistently and deliberately maintains the rhetorical conditions that correlate with anti-immigrant hostility and violence, across a 7-year repetition pattern that constitutes structural rather than reactive threat rhetoric. --- ### Gaslighting / Reality Distortion The poem's application is itself a form of reality distortion — presenting a morality fable about a fictional snake as empirical truth about the nature of an entire human population. The rhetorical structure is self-sealing: disagreement confirms naïveté ("see, you're just like the woman in the poem"). This is not gaslighting in the interpersonal sense but operates as audience-level epistemic manipulation. --- ### Jungian / Archetypal Analysis **Archetypes activated:** *Shadow (projected outward):* The snake embodies the Shadow archetype — the rejected, dangerous, deceptive element. By projecting the Shadow onto immigrants, Trump externalizes the threatening qualities and offers the audience a clear target for their own disowned impulses. *Warrior / Protector:* Trump as the one who correctly identifies and will eliminate the shadow threat. *Trickster (attributed to the target):* The snake's deception — appearing harmless, exploiting sympathy — is the Trickster's function. Trump attributes Trickster qualities to the out-group, positioning himself as the one who cannot be tricked. **Order/Chaos axis:** Trump as Order Restorer against the chaotic infiltration of predators. Current immigration policy = the naïve woman's fatal error. Trump's return = excision of the snake before the bite. **Mythological resonance:** The snake symbol activates deep cross-cultural fear and disgust responses (ophidiophobia is among humanity's most common primal fears). This is not incidental — it is why the poem has been effective for 7+ years. --- ### Cognitive Status No assessable cognitive markers. The post is a three-word phrase. The device itself is unchanged from 2016, consistent with either stable functioning or schema-locked rigidity; the longitudinal repetition does not resolve this ambiguity. --- ### Fact Verification | Claim | Verdict | Evidence | |-------|---------|----------| | "Implicit empirical claim: immigrants (particularly undocumented) are by nature deceptive predators who will harm those who show them compassion" | **False** | Peer-reviewed research on immigrant criminality consistently finds that immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, commit crimes at lower rates than native-born citizens. Studies by Cato Institute (libertarian), National Academy of Sciences, and multiple peer-reviewed criminology journals converge on this finding. The poem's core empirical premise — that showing compassion to immigrants leads to harm — is not supported by aggregate evidence and applies a fictional animal fable as a factual claim about human populations. | Overall Veracity: 0% ## Authorship Analysis **Uncertain** (score: 65%) ### Indicators - ALL CAPS framing consistent with authentic Trump style - Single-emoji visual punctuation (🐍) matches known Trump emoji usage patterns - Terse theatrical phrasing with no grammatical sentence structure - Evening posting time (9:19 PM EDT) near but slightly before his typical late-night authentic window - Video attachment requires technical upload coordination suggesting aide involvement ## Psychological Profile ### Traits **Big Five:** - Extraversion: 85% - Agreeableness: 8% - Conscientiousness: 35% - Neuroticism: 25% - Openness: 12% Strongest facet: Low agreeableness / high extraversion in performative rally mode **Motives:** - Agency: 88% - Communion: 5% Primary drive: power ### Narrative - **Role:** Wise oracle-protector who correctly identifies the predatory snake and will eliminate the threat - **Arc:** contamination - **Contrasting:** Immigrants as predatory snake by nature; immigration advocates as fatally naïve woman **Identity Claims:** - I know what these people really are - I warned you and I was right - Only I can protect you from the snake you were foolish enough to admit ### State **Grandiose State** **Trigger:** Supply Seeking (ACTCon 2023 rally audience) Sentiment: -0.55 **Mildly Hypomanic** - Rally performance mode with elevated energy across coordinated post series - Grandiose framing in surrounding posts ('liberate America from communists', 'INCREDIBLE YEARS') - Rapid-fire posting during live event - Theatrical compression and dramatic staging of content ### Clinical **Malignant Narcissism:** - Narcissistic: 72% - Antisocial: 65% - Paranoid: 60% - Sadism: 55% **Defense Mechanisms:** - splitting (immature) - projection (immature) - rationalization (neurotic) **Cognitive Complexity:** - Complexity: 10% **Parasocial Techniques:** - In-group signaling via shared cultural artifact (poem familiar to base, opaque to out-group) - Symbol compression creating intimacy — we know what this means - Shared enemy construction reinforcing group cohesion - Oracle/vindicator positioning — I told you so framing ## Danger Assessment **ELEVATED** **Stochastic Terrorism Pattern Detected** ### Indicators - Dehumanizing language: categorical assignment of predatory animal status to immigrant population - Violent imagery: fatal snakebite as core metaphor applied to a human population - Stochastic terrorism pattern: target identified (immigrants) + threat nature claimed (predatory by nature) + protective action implied (do not admit snakes) - Seven-year repetition pattern indicates structural rather than reactive threat rhetoric - Mass audience delivery at rally amplified by social media broadcast maximizes reach of dehumanizing frame - Ego-syntonic sadism: audience invited to enjoy naïve woman's deserved fate, normalizing pleasure in target population's harm **Dehumanizing Language Present** **Violent Imagery Present** ## Fact Checks (1) _The model's verdicts from 2026-04-03._ > Implicit empirical claim: immigrants (particularly undocumented) are by nature deceptive predators who will harm those who show them compassion **FALSE** Peer-reviewed research on immigrant criminality consistently finds that immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, commit crimes at lower rates than native-born citizens. Studies by Cato Institute (libertarian), National Academy of Sciences, and multiple peer-reviewed criminology journals converge on this finding. The poem's core empirical premise — that showing compassion to immigrants leads to harm — is not supported by aggregate evidence and applies a fictional animal fable as a factual claim about human populations. Sources: Cato Institute immigration crime research; National Academy of Sciences 2015 immigration report; Multiple peer-reviewed criminology studies on immigrant crime rates Overall Veracity: 0% ## Tags - dehumanization (90%) - snake-poem (95%) - immigration (90%) - stochastic-terrorism (75%) - grandiose-state (80%) - supply-seeking (75%) - splitting (85%) - projection (80%) - rally-content (85%) - symbol-compression (80%) - ego-syntonic-sadism (65%) - schema-locked-rigidity (70%) - epistemic-closure (75%) - violent-imagery (70%) ## That day _From trump.fm's machine-generated digest of the day, not his words._ **Rally High Meets Grievance Gravity: ACTCon Supply Fuels 34-Post Marathon Before Club for Growth Triggers Afternoon Rage** Trump rode the afterglow of his Turning Point Action conference speech all day, flooding his feed with rally clips, media appearances, and favorable coverage. The highlight came when straw poll results showed him at 85.7%, prompting gleeful ridicule of DeSantis and Christie. But the supply high couldn't hold — within 30 minutes he pivoted to an angry attack on Club for Growth for spending Republican money against him, calling it a "DEATH WISH." The day ended with a barrage of aide-posted links amplifying rally themes, including dehumanizing rhetoric about immigrants and opponents that maintained an elevated but controlled threat level throughout. Full digest for 2023-07-16: https://trump.fm/date/2023-07-16/analysis ## Citation - APA: Trump, D. J. (2023, July 16). “THE🐍SNAKE” [Social media post]. Truth Social. trump.fm. https://trump.fm/post/ts_110721130171733104 - MLA: Trump, Donald J. "“THE🐍SNAKE”" Truth Social, 16 Jul. 2023. trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/ts_110721130171733104. Accessed 9 Oct. 2026. - Chicago: Donald J. 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