cell913blog,com #64

In the most recent post in this space, I described the comparison of the archetype of the old man with that of a macho male who struts and acts and speaks in exaggerated, hubristic, hollow and highly deceptive and manipulative manner. Perhaps there is something else going on that seems to put air in the political wings of the twice-impeached, convicted felon, the former president.

Whether from the perspective of the Trickster god, Mercury, or the American iteration of the outlaw, there is a psychic ‘burr’ in both the “shoe” and the imagination of the American anima mundi at the core of American theatre and her body politic. This ‘trickster’ is unpredictable, irreverent, implausible, self-absorbed in his need for centre-stage, manic and irrepressible. He is the leader of those adolescent and/or young male gangs, the ‘shit-disturber’ among the ‘suits’ and the ‘parents’ and the self-righteous. He is the antithesis of politically correct, buttoned-down preppy. He is the imaginative energy of the adult outlaws who have served as a magnet in movies from the beginning.

 Robert Bly, in the Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart, poems for men, in section One, Approach to Wildness writes:

Boys feel wild; they love their tree houses, the wild spots in the woods, they all want to go down to the river, with Huck, away from the domesticating aunts. Boys love to see some wildness in their fathers, so see their fathers dancing or carrying on. Some boys are so afraid that they will become domestic that they become savage, not wild…..Thoreau says, ‘In literature it is only the wild that tracts us. King Lear attracts us, the dervish, the Zen laugher. The civilized eye of man has become dulled, unable to take in the natural wilderness of the planet. Blake says, ‘The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy seam and the destructive sword, are portions of eternity, too great for the eye of man.’ Each of us wants to get in touch not so much with the harsh rebel, the self-destroying outsider, as with the beauty of what the Sufis call ‘Joseph,’ the round-faced trouble-maker. (op.cit. p.3-4)

Two of the more memorable lines to describe those self-inductees of the trump cult, come first from then-candidate Obama and later from candidate Hillary Clinton.

From The Guardian, April 14, 2008, in a piece entitled, “Obama angers Midwest voters with guns and religion remark,” Ed Pilkington writes:

Obama was caught in an uncharacteristic moment of loose language. Referring to working-class voters in old industrial towns decimated by job losses, the presidential hopeful said: ‘They get bitte, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.’ (His opponent, Hillary Clinton called the comments ‘elitist’.)

Ironically, Hillary fell into the same frustration only a few years later.

From Time, September 10, 2016 in a piece entitled Read Hillary Clinton’s ‘Basket of Deplorables’ Remarks about Donald Trump Supporters’ by Katie Reilly, we find these words:

Speaking at a fundraiser in New York on Friday, Hillary Clinton said half of Donald Trump’s supporters belong in a ‘basket of deplorables; characterized by racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic’ views. ‘You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables, Rights?’ Clinton said. ‘The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic—you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.

Link these remarks to remarks by then-president Obama at the National Press Club Dinner. As reported by Patrice Taddonio, pbs.org, September 22, 2016 in a piece entitled ‘Inside the Night President Obama Took on Donald Trump:

It was April of 2011. For weeks Donald Trump had been fanning the flames of the ‘birther’ movement and attacking President Barack Obama on television-demanding that Obama produce his birth certificate, implying that he was not born in the United States, and questioning both his religious identity and the legality of his presidency.

And from abcnews.go.com, Meghan Keneally, in a piece entitled, President Obama’s Long History of insulting Donald Trump, November 10, 2016, reporting on the White House Correspondents Dinner, writes:

Obama noted that Trump was in the room and then went after him. ‘I know that he’s taken some flak lately, but no one is prouder to put this birth certificate issue to rest, and that’s because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter, like did we fake the moon landing? What really happened at Roswell*? And where are Biggie and Tupac#?’ Obama said.

*The Roswell incident is a conspiracy theory which alleges that the 1947 crash of a United States Army Air Force balloon near Roswell, New Mexico was actually caused by an extraterrestrial spacecraft.

#Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls were two rappers.

 (from biography.com): They both were dedicated to exposing the truth of the tribulations of life on the streets, social injustice and the racial divide. But the biggest difference…: They represented different coasts. What exploded into arguable the biggest rivalry in music history, ended up in the death of both artists, just as their careers were skyrocketing. Tupac (also known as 2Pac) was gunned down on September 7, 1996, and died six days later while Biggie (also known as The Notorious B.I.G.) was shot and killed six months later on March 9, 1997.

Sarcasm, revenge, humour, and the social, political, intellectual and social-status divide of these words still hang over the political ethos of America. The disdain for the ‘outlaw’ as perceived and designated by the ‘mature’ adult in the room, (Hillary and Barack), nevertheless, points to a divide wider and deeper than the Red Sea divide in Exodus.

And while the words of both Clinton and Obama merely served as political theatre, the mountainous vesuvian eruption of the outlaw-trickster-megalomaniac continue to pose a threat for the nation and the world. Indeed trump’s own deep-seated revenge archetype may be one of the prime movers of his modus operandi.

The apparent fusion and conflation of the warrior-outlaw-trickster archetype under the orange-dome by a large segment of the American electorate comes as no surprise in a time when nuance is disdained as ‘ephemeral’ and ‘effete’ and ‘unmanly’ (remember George W. Bush’s ‘I don’t do nuance!’ uttered after he had to clean up his own, ‘I don’t think you can win it’ (The Iraq war).

Discerning between a healthy trickster with ‘wild imagination’ of a romantic youthful poetic imagination and the puer-outlaw-trickster-Nemesis (Greek God of Revenge) with devious, nefarious and corrupt motives and visions, however, is a task for critical, nuanced, sensitive and imaginative interpretation. The language, and the current ethos of the political theatre in the U.S. are both not only devoid of critical, nuanced, sensitive, imaginative words perceptions and approaches; they are disdainful of such an approach.

Try to imagine yourself as a self-respecting, thoughtful, sensitive, empathic and serious octogenarian standing a mere 8 feet away from this trickster under klieg lights, even with his microphone muted, while he shout inane crudities as you try to articulate some finely honed response to a serious question from either Jake Tapper or Dana Bash. That is, according to reports, what happened in the “debate” two weeks ago. trump knows and epitomizes the most devious, distracting, dissembling and bullying tactics and strategies of the trickster-bully. He is also shameless in how, when, where or under what pretenses these under-handed motives and methods must be deployed. This untrained, highly unsophisticated and belligerent, spontaneous, shameless cardboard cut-out of a shrill-huckster poses a serious challenge, for the media, for the political opponent, for the academic, and for the public. Presuming that the “Archetype of the deal” transacting a devious, deceptive and narcissistic business deal with innocent, poor and unschooled labourers, on some construction project in Manhattan were even a remote analogy to the complexities and nuances of the geopolitical games currently being played is an act of such blind and ignorant hubris that would put Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid to shame. And then ‘selling’ that ‘junk-bond’ of a political caricature to an American voter in Michigan who truly believes that s/he has been screwed, left behind, ignored and dismissed by those effete ‘woke’ Democrats likely seems to evoke another layer of revenge: a vote for trump and his cult. It is not only a fear of old age, and the seduction of a papier-mache ‘puer’ image but also a deep-seated connection to the revenge God, in both trump and the electorate, that may seal the fate of any Democratic candidate for the presidency in this election.

However, just as we all have the capacity and the blindness to succumb to our own worst instincts, and to self-sabotage, so too does the nation have the capacity to sabotage itself, in its wild pursuit of revenge. The deeper the feeling and perception of emotional injury, (and hubris wounds easily and deeply), the more pronounced and profound and relentless is the motive and the pursuit of revenge.

One of the more myopic features of the anima mundi of the U.S. culture is that ‘personalizing’ is a key signature of that ethos. Personality, personalizing, personal ego, personal characteristics, personality awards, accomplishments, personal falls from grace….these are the stuff of both the tabloids and the mass culture. The notion of God is personalized in and through the name of Jesus, as if a ‘personal relationship’ is expected, required and fully embraced especially by many in the trump orbit.

And, as if to underline the primary archetypes that haunt the anima mundi, the ‘puer’ and the ‘trickster’ and the god of Revenge, Nemesis, all seem to have taken up permanent psychic residence in the atmosphere. And, whether consciously or unconsciously, it seems that a large segment of the American population ‘identifies’ with the  archetypal salad of these images, and identifies too with the ‘personalized image’ of the archetypes. Reason, facts, rational arguments, environmental crises, world events, overt undermining of the American institutional democracy by world leaders in their devious attempt to ‘elect trump….all of these highly important issues be damned. And the triumph of the intertwined  will of a vengeful narcissist with an angry vengeful mob has reduced what previously was considered honourable, respectable, reasonable debate of legitimate political opinions to a dialogue of the deaf.

The louder trump shouts inanities, and the judicial system pursues the charges against hi, the more enflamed are his sycophants; the more Biden attempts to ‘attack’ with his record of accomplishments, and his supportive media trumpet is value and worth, the more the trump numbers climb, as if all those supporters have turned off their hearing aids.

Summoning, even by a dream, the voices of Obama, Clinton, and even sports stars or movie stars in support of the Democratic ticket only seems to underscore the defiant rejection of anything resembling truth, facts, reason, and international co-operation.

For the first time in eight decades, this scribe is starting to lose sleep over the state of the relationship of the United States to/with the rest of the world.

Is anyone else experiencing sleep-loss?