đ Part 2 of The Snake Series
Missed the first one? Catch up here â
My father was big into local and statewide politics.
If things didnât go his way, it was rigged.
If he lost at the horse trackâsame thing: rigged.
âThey rigged it.â
âThe fix was in.â
The ominous âTheyâ was always to blame.
That was the outward message.
The inward message was more insidious:
If your opponent gets the best of you, itâs because they cheated.
You never had a bad idea or a weak proposalâthey took it from you.
It didnât take me long to figure out Iâd have to disregard his âlessonsâ and learn to trust my own judgment.
That kind of thinking doesnât teach resilience.
It teaches suspicion and self-protection.
It wasnât strengthâit was just survivalâloud, brittle, and scared underneath.
đ§ Pattern Recognition Isnât Paranoia
When I heard Trump say things were rigged, I recognized it immediately.
Same tone. Same certainty. Same fear disguised as control.
We learn to read the temperature in a room.
We catch the shift in tone before the blow lands.
We sense when thereâs a disturbance in the Force.
Thatâs not paranoia. Itâs pattern recognition.
We remember what manipulation felt like.
We remember how exhausted we were trying to make sense of it.
And we remember when we stopped tryingâand started getting out.
đ„ Listen to That Voice
The difference here is: you are not alone.
If this resonated, stay with me for the rest of The Snake Series.
We are with you.
And together, we can say:
No. No more.