Welcome to the Year of the Snake.

Not the one on the ancient Chinese calendar that marks a time of wisdom and fortune, power in summer and submissiveness in winter. Nothing so tame. I’m talking about the early actions of President Donald Trump’s administration via executive order, moves that portend a 2025 filled with rattle and fang.

Some vipers are back on the street thanks to the president’s pardon or commutation of more than 1,500 Jan. 6 rioters convicted of crimes after storming the U.S. Capitol under the false flag of a stolen presidential election.

Trump tried to defend his decision by dissembling as he described the living conditions of the felons who violently tried to stop the peaceful transition of power, assaulted police officers and threatened to kill members of Congress and hang then-Vice President Mike Pence.

“These people have already served years in prison, and they’ve served them viciously,” Trump said. “It’s a disgusting prison. It’s horrible. It’s inhumane. It’s been a terrible, terrible thing.”

Even the national Fraternal Order of Police, which had shown fealty for Trump, registered its protest regarding the pardons of violent offenders. So far, Nevada’s Gov. Joe Lombardo, formerly sheriff for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, hasn’t made a statement on the issue. That puts him in the company of most congressional Republicans, who continue to downplay the issue and stare at their shoes.

Many of those who entered the Capitol were glorified trespassers, albeit ones who stood by as Capitol police fought for their lives and members of Congress ran from them. Encouraged by Trump to “fight like hell and if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore,” they followed their leader’s directive and marched into infamy.

Others were organized and intent on committing violence under the guise of “Stop the Steal.” It sounded so much more patriotic, and certainly less fascist, than “Stop the peaceful transition of power.”

They are now considered MAGA heroes. Trump calls Jan. 6 “a beautiful day” and the convicted rioters “hostages,” lies that have gained nodding acceptance by much of the country. They were simply out to stop a steal that wasn’t, in a campaign that saw Trump lose the 2020 election by 4.5 percent of the popular vote — 7 million ballots — and call it a theft.

Never far from the country’s cauldron of right-wing extremism, Nevada was well represented among the worst offenders to gain release. Chief among them was Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, the former UNLV student whose conviction and 18-year prison sentence on charges of seditious conspiracy — the most serious allegation pursued by the Justice Department in its prosecution — was commuted by Trump.

Rhodes, a Yale Law School graduate, wasted no time lawyering about the innocence of the insurrectionists and thanking Trump for his freedom. Rhodes helped plan the Oath Keepers’ key role in the breach of the Capitol, but left the messy business of bashing heads to others. The Southern Poverty Law Center calls the group, "one of the largest far-right anti-government groups in the U.S. today.” Rhodes started the Oath Keepers in 2009 in Las Vegas and claims thousands of former law enforcement officers and military members among its members. He was a brief presence at the 2014 Bundy Ranch standoff with federal officials.

Some of those with Nevada connections were bit players on Jan. 6, but others who protested under a fraudulent premise found ways of justifying using their violence against police. That includes Winnemucca resident Josiah Kenyon, who pleaded guilty to using a pylon and nail-spiked table leg to attack police officers.

Hey, three cheers for the big hero.

I suspect Trump, who was on his way out of office when he called on the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by,” isn’t finished making use of his loyal goon squads. In addition to their willingness to desecrate government institutions, their ability to strike fear in the citizenry is an important part of their roguish charm.

Their ability to menace might come in handy as Trump and his Big Tech bros send a message to doubters, Democrats and democracy-firsters that resistance is futile. If Trump’s plan to silence his opposition and revise his felonious record is to succeed, he might still need the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, III Percenters and other self-styled militia to serve as intimidators against Americans who oppose his Project 2025-influenced worldview.

Now that he’s back in the White House, though, he has a greater opportunity to make use of the military, National Guard in agreeable states, and state and local law enforcement agencies to serve his interests, whether it’s policing immigration, or snuffing out diversity, equity and inclusion in government and private business, or hounding the NCAA’s four dozen or so transgender athletes to the sidelines.

Although he controls both houses of Congress and has VIP privileges with the U.S. Supreme Court, dispatching the military, police and private militias to enforce his immigration edicts is easier than carving out effective legislation. His threats to invade and control other countries, especially the ones he sees as weak, echo the course of another authoritarian strongman from history. Benito Mussolini’s Italy had its hands full with Ethiopia and Greece, but Trump is the commander in chief of the most powerful military in the world.

Mussolini relied on his fascist hooligan squadrismo, the Black Shirts, Fascist Militia and their small-town counterparts, the caribinieri and Organization for the Surveillance and Repression of Anti-Fascism secret police. Once he was in power, fascist policing methods became the norm, writes Michael R. Ebner emphasized in his book Ordinary Violence in Mussolini's Italy. Is it far-fetched to imagine that Trump might do something similar if he truly gains “his” Department of Justice, FBI and CIA and more?

While we’re on the subject, Mussolini also used his journalistic and political acumen to turn the country’s once-socialist newspaper L’Avanti! into the voice of fascism. With America’s working press now considered “the enemy of the people” by a large segment of the population, thanks in part to his own efforts, Trump is way ahead of the game. He also has the lapdog loyalty of the social media giants led by Elon Musk. They’re doing more tricks for Trump than an America’s Got Talent dog act.

There’s another thing Mussolini had — cooperation from a populace either like-minded or silenced by a fear of reprisal. Instead of standing up, they often became informants against their friends, neighbors and family members. With an undocumented immigrant hotline already up, how long do you think it will take before it is used to harass citizens as well as noncitizens?

It's only January, but the Year of the Snake is already coiled and hissing.

John L. Smith is an author and longtime columnist. He was born in Henderson and his family’s Nevada roots go back to 1881. His stories have appeared in New Lines, Time, Readers Digest, Rolling Stone, The Daily Beast, Reuters and Desert Companion, among others.