Colorado Governor Eats Pet Snake to Prove a Point, and America Should Be Terrified
There is a certain sinking feeling that comes with watching a public figure do something so profoundly idiotic that you have to check your phone to make sure you didn't accidentally time-travel back to the 19th century. That feeling washed over me yesterday as I watched video of Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, a man who once seemed like a reasonable centrist, calmly lifting a six-foot-long pet python named "Monty" to his lips and taking a bite out of its living, writhing body.
Yes. You read that correctly. John Hickenlooper ate a snake. A pet snake. On stage. At a political event. And he did it to prove that he's tough on federal overreach.
Let me be clear: I am not talking about a dare at a frat party. I am not talking about survivalism in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. I am talking about the sitting governor of a major American state, a man who has the nuclear codes for the National Guard, participating in a bizarre ritual that would make a Roman emperor blush. And the worst part? The crowd cheered.
The event was billed as a "Rural BBQ" in the town of Durango. The issue at hand was the federal government's proposed listing of the Lesser Prairie Chicken, a bird that Hickenlooper claims is fine, actually, and doesn't need protection. To illustrate his frustration with Washington bureaucrats, he decided to eat a snake that a local rancher had brought to the event. The rancher, a man named Bob, apparently keeps the python as a pet to control the rodent population. Bob held the snake, Monty, while Hickenlooper took a chunk out of its midsection.
The video is nauseating. The governor doesn't chew. He swallows. He then smiles, blood and snake flesh dripping from his lower lip, and says, "That's how we do things in Colorado. We don't need the feds telling us what to eat."
I have to ask: What is happening to us? I am not a vegan. I am not a PETA member. I eat meat. I hunt. But there is a difference between harvesting an animal for food and committing a public act of grotesque theater to own the libs—or in this case, to own the Bureau of Land Management.
This is not leadership. This is a symptom of a society that has lost its moral compass.
Think about the chain of events that led to this moment. A governor, a man who should be modeling restraint, wisdom, and a modicum of human decency, decided that the best way to convince Coloradans that the federal government is out of touch was to become a human snake. He degraded himself. He degraded the animal. And he degraded the very office he holds.
And the American public? We watched. We shared the video. We laughed. We said, "Wow, that Hickenlooper is a real character."
No. He is a canary in the coal mine. And that canary just ate a snake.
This is the same governor who, during the 2013 floods, appeared in a press conference wearing a wetsuit and a GoPro camera, narrating his own "rescue" efforts like he was the star of a reality show. He is the same governor who once said, "The best way to kill a bad idea is to make it dance," and then proceeded to juggle chainsaws at the state fair. The man is a walking, talking symptom of our national sickness: the desperate need to be liked, to be viral, to be "authentic" at all costs.
But eating a pet snake is not authenticity. It is a cry for help. It is the logical endpoint of a political culture that rewards spectacles over substance, where a governor believes that the only way to get his message across is to become a human carnival act.
I shudder to think what comes next. What happens when the next governor feels the need to top this? Will the governor of Texas eat a live armadillo to prove he's tougher on border security? Will the governor of Florida wrestle a gator while explaining his education policy? We have already normalized the bizarre. Now we are normalizing the monstrous.
The animal rights groups are, predictably, outraged. PETA issued a statement calling the act "a barbaric display of dominance over a defenseless creature." And they are right. But my concern goes deeper than animal cruelty. My concern is that we have elected officials who no longer understand the basic social contract. The social contract says we do not eat our pets. The social contract says we do not consume living things in public to make a point. The social contract says that when you are the governor, you wear a suit, you shake hands, and you explain your policy positions using words, not teeth.
We are living in the ruins of that contract.
Every day, I see another sign that the fabric of American life is fraying. Parents fighting at school board meetings. Random acts of road rage caught on camera. And now, a governor eating a snake. These are not isolated incidents. They are the same disease, manifesting in different forms. They are the death of shame. They are the death of decorum. They are the death of the idea that we owe each other a baseline of civility.
I don't know what the solution is. I don't know how to put the toothpaste back in the tube. But I know that when I look at that video of John Hickenlooper, smiling with snake blood on his lips, I don't see a politician. I see a man who has lost touch with his own humanity. And I see a country that is clapping for him.
Final Thoughts
Having covered more than a few political resurrections and failed comebacks, it’s hard not to see John Hickenlooper’s trajectory as a cautionary tale about the limits of moderation in an era that demands moral clarity. The former Colorado governor's genteel, problem-solving pragmatism, while effective in a purple state, proved utterly toothless when the national party demanded a fighter, leaving him stranded between the progressive base he couldn't excite and the centrists he couldn't fully escape. Ultimately, the "Hickenlooper model" may be a relic—a reminder that in today’s raw political climate, being the sensible adult in the room often just means you’re the first one ignored.