Do The Snake (or, Right of Recall)

“Could you do The Snake?”

Trump has almost certainly committed treason. At very least, he should be removed from office – if not blindfolded, offered a last cigarette, and summarily ... well, you can fill in the blank on that one.

This presidential aberration cannot be allowed to continue. A dozen or so years ago, disgruntled voters in California recalled Gray Davis, and handed the governorship to Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Unfortunately, there is no mechanism for recall at the federal level. Nor is there a means for a no-confidence vote. A censure would not be enough; impeachment is it. (In spite of appearances, I do not endorse execution.)

“I suppose it might be simpler to add a Constitutional amendment creating the right of recall,” Gore Vidal once wrote, “so that the people, when they realize that the administration is insane, or totally corrupt, or is going to destroy the country through attacks on enemies that are no threat, may act to address the crisis.”

Vidal, who died in 2012, was speaking of Bush II, but we are at that point with Trump. We were there before his inauguration – before, even, his bogus election in November 2016. I’ll spare you his well-publicized laundry list of sins.

He continues to offend. “I had five people outside say, ‘Could you do The Snake?” he said the other day, at the annual CPAC convention. And Trump, that huckster, that P.T. Barnum of the Oval Office, was only too happy to oblige.

As charlatan Trump tells the Aesop-like tale, a woman helps a snake in need. Once he has benefited from this help, the snake fatally bites her. (There was something similar to this in that movie, The Crying Game, but with a scorpion.)

Apparently “The Snake” is also a song. As the snake’s dying victim protests her betrayal, it goes like this: “Oh, shut up, silly woman, said the reptile with a grin. You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in.”

Trump faithfully quoted these lyrics, and his audience of conservative CPAC louts, recognizing the snake as a stand-in for evil brown immigrants, loved it.

“Could you do ‘The Snake’?”

My only recourse, really, is to mock this fraud, so join me in imagining “The Snake” as an interpretive dance. Eyes closed, arms above his head, hands together, Trump begins with an evocative hip-thrust, thrilling his crowd as he enters a trance-like, anti-immigrant, pro-gun, whirling dervish state, wriggling serpent-like...

Or we can imagine The Snake as a 1950s dance craze.

Another available recourse is the ballot – but while I always fill mine out, I don’t have much faith in the process.