🐍 They Rigged It

A Trauma-Informed Guide to Trump’s Projection – Part Two

🐍 Part 2 of The Snake Series

Missed the first one? Catch up here →

My father was big into local and statewide politics.

If things didn’t go his way, it was rigged.

If he lost at the horse track—same thing: rigged.

“They rigged it.”

“The fix was in.”

The ominous “They” was always to blame.

That was the outward message.

The inward message was more insidious:

If your opponent gets the best of you, it’s because they cheated.

You never had a bad idea or a weak proposal—they took it from you.

It didn’t take me long to figure out I’d have to disregard his “lessons” and learn to trust my own judgment.

That kind of thinking doesn’t teach resilience.

It teaches suspicion and self-protection.

It wasn’t strength—it was just survival—loud, brittle, and scared underneath.

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🧠 Pattern Recognition Isn’t 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 there’s a disturbance in the Force.

That’s not paranoia. It’s 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 trying—and started getting out.

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🔥 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.