Tag Archives: MAGA

Decoding Authoritarian State Language in the MAGA Era

A distorted black-and-green closeup photo of Donald Trump with his mouth open as though he is yelling. Superimposed over his face (and centered around his mouth) are overlapping red, yellow, and blue spirals, each broken up into different sized segments.

Before anything else, I should point out that my research over the past decade or so has focused primarily on the language and narratives of far-right populist movements. That covers a lot of territory, but I generally have not looked closely at, for instance, the language of authoritarian states specifically. The reason is not because there is always a clear line between the two, but because there are only so many hours in the day, and sometimes you just have to set limits.

There clearly is a lot of overlap between the two, and the current Trump administration and its Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement make that abundantly clear. Trump’s persona going back at least to the 1980s has been that of a man who wants to do nothing more than project a cartoonish image of wealth and splendor. One of his superpowers is that he has been able to maintain that image at the same time that he has built up his current self-projection as an enemy of elites. Now he is both extremely wealthy and literally the president of the United States. The populist rhetoric continues, and the absurdity just accumulates.

The upshot is that, even when a populist movement takes state power, it doesn’t have to stop attacking purported “elites,” although it may have to find new people to fill that role in the eyes of the faithful. As I said, state language is not really my field of expertise, but I believe that looking at the emerging official verbiage of the US government in terms of reactionary populist language may be useful here, even if I do not have a wide range of references to state actors to draw on.

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Subtlety, MAGA-Style: “The Snake”

One thing that even casual observers may recognize as a staple of Donald Trump’s rallies over the past decade is his recitation of the lyrics of the 1963 song “The Snake.” There’s a formula to it. He presents it as a poem as he theatrically pulls out a piece of paper to read it, often saying that he only does this because of all the requests he gets for it. He has read the text so many times that you might wonder why he still needs it written down. After building so much of the Trump 2.0 brand on the feeble-mindedness of his only slightly older predecessor, could he be losing his memory? It’s a distinct possibility. But also, theatrics are his strong suit, and it’s too late to teach him new tricks.

A closeup photo of Donald Trump's face, solarized and high contrast, making all the contours of his skin look a bit scaly. There is a colored filter making the whole image look green, and his eyes have been turned yellow with pupils that are vertical slits like those of a snake.

His “poem” was written and recorded by soul singer Oscar Brown (complete lyrics here), although Trump never acknowledges its author. It sold relatively well at the time and was then recorded by Al Wilson in 1968, which became the best-known version. The lyrics tell a story of a woman who finds a “half-frozen snake” on her way to work one morning. She takes the snake in, warms him by the fire, and gives him “some honey and some milk” until he has been revived. But being a snake in a parable, he bites the woman, and before she dies, she asks him how he could do such a thing. His reply:

“Oh shut up, silly woman,” said the reptile with a grin
“You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in”

Each verse ends with the same refrain:

“Take me in, oh tender woman
Take me in, for heaven’s sake
Take me in oh tender woman,” sighed the [vicious] snake.

Brown didn’t include the word “vicious.” That’s just something Trump likes to add, likely because he can’t work out the rhythm otherwise.

The lyrics are not particularly complex, but in context, the story they tell says a number of things about Trump, his supporters, and the way that far-right narratives often function. So the following is going to be an attempt to break down why its content appeals to MAGA movement participants, how Trump’s presentation deviates from what Brown (or Wilson or any other singer who has ever recorded “The Snake”) likely ever intended, and how it fits into the cosmos of reactionary rhetoric more broadly. It’s about gender, it’s about race, it’s about history, and it’s even about empathy. That sounds like a lot to suck out of such a simple song, but its simplicity is what makes it a useful entry point into the broader issue of far-right narrative. So here goes…

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