United Snakes (United States nickname)

“United Snakes of America” is a derogatory nickname of the United States of America. “United Snakes of America” has been cited in print since at least 1896, but became a popularly used epithet with the growth of the Internet in the 2000s.
 
   
20 June 1926, New York (NY) Times, “To Sell Rare Coins of Many Countries,” pg. E7:
The Bryan silver money campaign of 1896 is represented in several medals issued at the time, one in silver showing on the obverse a goose with a mule’s head and inscribed, “United Snakes of America.”
 
29 December 1942, New York (NY) Times, “4 Harlem Fascists Deny Sedition,” pg. 42:
Leonard Robert O. Jordan and three of his fellow Negro leaders of a Herlem movement offered denials or explanations yesterday of statements attributed to them by the government in substantiation of charges of sedition. Jordan ended his testimony, and was followed on the witness stand in Federal court by the Rev. Ralph Green Best and James Henry Thornhill.
(...)
Thornhill also explained a reference to the “united snakes,” which had been characterized as a slur on the United States. He testified he had said in a speech that Negroes were so disorganied in this country as to be “like a bunch of united snakes, going in all directions.”
 
Google News Archive
26 December 1942, The Afro American (Baltimore, MD), “Axis Spy Trial Reveals Powell Marked for Ax,” pg. 2, col. 7:
Holmes, who he said always acted as chairman, would comment on the speeches of leaders and applaus, he said, while thornhill referred to this country as the “United Snakes of American” (sic) and said if the U. S. was “stupid enough to give me a gun” he’d shoot the white officers and men because they all “resemble Hitler.”
 
Google News Archive
5 December 1959, Bend (OR) Bulletin, pg. 4, col. 3:
To the Editor:
Every penny in this United States of America tells us “In God We Trust.” Are we United Snakes of Communism or are we United States that have had such a firm faith in God that he has helped our country to be a great people?
(...)
Mrs. William White
Bend, Oregon
   
New York (NY) Times
Would Groucho Have Joined a Party That Would Have Him as a Member?
By DINITIA SMITH
Published: September 14, 1998
During the cold war, while the F.B.I. was investigating the followers of Karl Marx, it was also focusing its attention on another Marx, Groucho, an article by a professor at the University of California says in this week’s issue of The Nation.
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There are also letters from viewers and memorandums from unnamed F.B.I. officials to Hoover about Marx’s hit television show ‘‘You Bet Your Life,’’ which appeared in the 1950’s. One viewer complained that Marx had called the United States ‘‘the United Snakes.’’ Hoover’s secretary replied that she would call it to the director’s attention.
 
OCLC WorldCat record
The united snakes of America
Author: Leslie Schwerin; Michael Dolan; Sandra Bernhard; Calvin Krinksky; Paige A Smith; All authors
Publisher: Clifton, NJ : National Geographic Video, ©2001.
Series: National Geographic Society special. 
Edition/Format:  VHS video : VHS tape Visual material : English
Summary: Addresses the ways, some bizarre, in which the lives of Americans and snakes have becomes intertwined. Includes exotic snakes and their owners, snake-phobia therapists, a suburban rattler-removal service, religious snake handlers, scientists doing snake venom research and an emergency room doctor who treats snakebite.
 
OCLC WorldCat record
In oil we trust : the united snakes of America
Author: Erik Valenčič
Edition/Format:  Article : Slovenian
Publication: Zofa, Št. 26 (maj 2002), str. 6
         
New York (NY) Times
THEATER REVIEW; A Tale of a Laborer In California’s Fields
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON
Published: March 27, 2005
“THE Romance of Magno Rubio,” Lonnie Carter’s play about Filipino laborers in 1930’s California, has been directed by Loy Arcenas in seven different productions.
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The banal wordplay in Mr. Carter’s script about the ‘‘United Snakes of America’’ is not nearly as powerful as the innocent gleam in Mr. Gonzalez’s eyes.
 
New York (NY) Times
Pop and Rock Listings 
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: March 21, 2008
BROTHER ALI (Thursday) Long a part of the circle that has surrounded the underground hip-hop group Atmosphere, this albino Minneapolis rapper has lately been coming into his own with politically caustic rhymes about the “United Snakes — land of the thief, home of the slave.” With Abstract Rude, Toki Wright and BK-One. At 8 p.m., Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey Street, near the Bowery, Lower East Side, (212) 533-2111, boweryballroom.com; $13. (Sisario)
 
OCLC WorldCat record
THE UNITED SNAKES? : PETER REDGROVE’S VISION OF AMERICA
Author: E Martiny
Publisher: Carrollton, Ga., West Georgia College.
Edition/Format:  Article : English
Publication: Notes on contemporary literature. 38, no. 2, (2008): 8-10
Database: ArticleFirst
   
HipHopWired
Weapons of Mass Destruction: Bush-it!!!
by Ice Pick Slim 17 September 15, 2009, 14:36pm
(...)
As the United Snakes of Amerikkka’s daily activities grounded to a screeching halt that morning and remained so for the next few days, news channels blamed what some reports later revealed to be a former colleague of the Bush clan – Osama Bin Laden as being the master-mind.