On Friday I listened to President Trump’s inaugural address; yesterday, I watched footage of the millions of people all over the globe coming out in protest at the policies and attitudes he represents, and last night I dreamt about the Donald.
I’m in a small group of journalists who have been invited to do a feature about Donald and Melania Trump. The venue is a swimming pool at the very top of a tall tower, all glass and steel and, when they arrive, it’s clear the reason why they’ve chosen this venue is because Donald wants to show off his trophy wife. They both arrive in robes over swimwear – ‘Just wait till you see what she’s wearing underneath,’ he says. ‘Her body is just sensational. Sensational!’
He goes first, with her behind him and the rest of us following, so that we can admire her legs. Her shoes are impossibly high heeled, and she will have to climb to the top of the tower in them. We can see how hard and painful that is, though she’s trying not to show it. How can he not realise how completely unimpressed anyone is by this? He’s the President, she’s the First Lady, and this is his whole agenda. It’s frightening.
When I woke up, I immediately thought of the Tower archetype in Tarot, which I’ve blogged about previously in a post I called Death and Regeneration. The Tower card always looks alarming, with a tower being struck down, often by lightning, and people being thrown from the top.
The Tower is change of a radical nature; not gentle evolution but complete destruction and rebuilding. It’s an archetypal principal, because change is the nature of life, and where systems are so powerful and entrenched that they can resist evolving, change will be thrust upon them.
We who remember the austerity of the post war years, the inequality of the class system, the oppression of women and the persecution of minorities are feeling scared, because all the wonderful developments we have striven for seem to be being swept away.
But beneath the legal protections we have put in place, the cultural repression of women continues – pornography and plastic surgery are huge industries built upon it – and the inequality of opportunity is as great for people born into poverty now as it ever was for those born into working class families in former times. Racism and homophobia are still easy to stir up, as we’ve seen in all these anti-establishment movements going on in the Western world at the moment.
So there is still work to be done, but our sense of being able to have a voice in politics has been eroded so much in recent years that people have felt too despondent and disenfranchised to engage with it.
The election of Trump is galvanising people to stand up for the higher human values again, and the sheer force of numbers turning out on the streets all over the world yesterday shows the grassroots is not dead.
Where the tower falls, something new always springs up. There’s room, in my view, for some hope that the new order will be fuelled by this re-energised mass movement for social equality, but it will only happen if everyone who objects to Trump and his values stands up, speaks out and plays an active part.
I couldn’t march yesterday, but I’d like to thank everyone who did.
What are your thoughts about this new presidency? Have you had any Donald Trump dreams?
Jenny Alexander's blog: Writing in the House of Dreams 
Excellent spin on a difficult stage to go through. Thanks Jen!
Thank-you, Tessa x
I was only thinking today that the unbelievably awful ideas, threats and opinions expressed by Trump, although very concerning, are making me examine and qualify my personal beliefs. I think this is true worldwide. This is change so radical that it’s firing us up and forcing us to act, even if it is in small ways. Thanks for this blog Jen – inspiring as ever!
Firing us up and forcing us to act – yes! I think that sums it up, Pat.
Any dream about Donald Trump would actually be a nightmare, as well as a waste of time and energy! I’ve been following U.S. politics since the Watergate fiasco (my parents would watch the congressional proceedings on the local PBS channel, and I subsequently became enthralled also. This was light-years before CNN, MSNBC, etc.), and I’ve never seen a political candidate / president so temperamentally unstable as this one. George W. Bush was just a puppet, and I’m starting to suspect the same is true of Trump. There are too many coincidences: Russian hacking; Rex Tillerson personally knows Vladimir Putin; and so forth.
I honestly believe the elections were deliberately manipulated to ensure Trump’s win; whereupon he’ll either send our military into Syria or do something politically provocative that will prompt another 09/11-style attack, which Trump will then use as an excuse to engage in some kind of military action, in the same way Bush used 09/11 to invade Iraq. Please understand I’m not a conspiracy nut. I just have the tendency to look at seemingly disparate situations as part of a larger puzzle.
Anyone who thinks it’s a stretch to imagine such machinations should look to the 1920 U.S. presidential elections when Warren Harding, the junior Republican senator from Ohio, won. His presidency became scarred by the “Teapot Dome” scandal, but Republicans still managed to hold onto both houses of congress as well as the presidency throughout the 1920s. Decades later, analysts discerned that Warren’s win was fraudulent; he didn’t garner a majority of either electoral college or popular votes. The entire scheme was to ensure he’d win, so big oil companies could access the “Teapot Dome” region.
I believe something similar happened with the 2000 presidential elections. What are the odds that a questionable vote count would come down to a state (Florida) where the younger brother of one of the candidates just happened to be governor? In 1998, the then-CEO of Chevron, Kenneth Derr, said, “Iraq possesses huge reserves of oil and gas-reserves I’d love Chevron to have access to.” In May of 2000, Dick Cheney abruptly resigned his position as CEO of Halliburton and moved from Dallas with his wife back to his native Wyoming. There, the couple registered to vote, and just a few months later, Bush selected Dick Cheney as his running mate. Federal law prohibits presidential and vice-presidential candidates from having residencies in the same state.
In 2001, Derr became CEO of Halliburton. Halliburton was among a handful of companies awarded no-bid contracts to rebuild Iraq. The U.S. Army awarded the first no-bid contract to Halliburton in March of 2003 (the same month the U.S. invaded Iraq) to rebuild Iraq’s oil infrastructure. The move generated enough outrage that the Pentagon cancelled that particular contract and opened up bidding to other companies. But, Halliburton was never shoved out of the loop and eventually earned nearly $40 billion from the Iraq War.
I have friends and relatives who voted for Trump, but I don’t consider them “deplorable.” If anything, Trump and Hillary Clinton are deplorable. We average citizens are trapped in this…well, this nightmare. I opted for Jill Stein, even though I knew full well she had as much of a chance of getting into the White House as Iceland does of seeing 90° on Christmas Day.
Have you ever read the novel “Shibumi” by Trevanian (Rodney William Whitaker)? It’s about the fictitious Nicholai Hel, a Shanghai-born spy of Russian – German heritage who is the world’s most accomplished assassin. After surviving the carnage of the Hiroshima bombing, Hel retreats to a lavish and isolated mountain citadel with his beautiful Eurasian mistress. Everything is grand and everyone is gorgeous in this story! But, Hel is coaxed back into the netherworld of international espionage by an attractive young woman. Hel soon learns, however, that he’s being tracked by a mysterious and omnipotent global entity known simply as the “Mother Company.” The “Company” is a composite of corporate giants that installs leaders in key nations – even those in the developed world – manipulates the markets for such necessities as food and oil and incites wars whenever it deems appropriate. The conflict between Hel and the “Mother Company” becomes something akin to a board game, where millions of lives are used as toys for the benefit of a few powerful elitists.
All these years later, it sounds more than a little true. I fear – with this maniac now in the White House – the U.S. is headed into another war and another economic calamity. How soon can that colony on Mars be built?
Don’t think I’m being complacent, Alejandro. It’s pretty terrifying this side of the pond, in a small country that’s just voted itself out of Europe after a campaign built on barefaced lies, and whose new PM is the first foreign leader Donald Trump has invited to Washington. I’m a naturally optimistic person, but for the first time these last few months, I’m feeling a sort of dread for my children’s future, and now I have a grandchild too. Scary times.
“The election of Trump is galvanising people to stand up for the higher human values again, and the sheer force of numbers turning out on the streets all over the world yesterday shows the grassroots is not dead.”
To me this says it all. Things can’t be all bad if it galvanises ordinary people into politics. Isn’t that what started the Labour party?
Thank you for a positive blog and great insight into the Tower tarot card 🙂
Yes – I feel we’ve grown increasingly apathetic and powerless in recent years, with people not even bothering to vote, so I was hugely cheered to see these massive marches. Thank you for commenting 🙂
Loved this post Jen – I think it’s so important to see what is behind the massive symbol that is dominating our news and your post gives a radically different take – thank you xx
Thank you, Vicky xx