THE TRICKSTER

Today, I remarked to someone that it feels like the country has lost its soul. Just take a look:

– Banned abortion, a right women have had for nearly 50 years

– Invalidated gun restrictions, no licenses needed in states that used to require a license

– Publicly funded school voucher programs must now include religious establishments and districts are required to allow coach-led, post game prayers on the field

– Oh, and they also struck down carbon emissions standards, limiting the EPA’s ability to slow climate change. The principle they used to do this can also reduce the government’s power to regulate much of anything.

People who throughout the pandemic were screaming about my body, my right about not taking vaccines, probably don’t have any problem with the government controlling women’s bodies when it comes to pregnancy. After all, they reason, abortion is murder.

A neighbor said this to me during a heated text exchange one night and what I should have asked was: By what edict is abortion murder? God? Religion? Science?

When I told another podcaster about the flooding in Miami Beach at high tide, he nearly lost his mind. “Trish, the sea hasn’t risen a centimeter in a century. Show me your proof!”

My proof? Drive to Miami Beach during high tide.

And people like the podcaster will be celebrating the supremes’s decision about carbon emissions. No such thing as climate change, nope, not happening.

Many in this crowd also adhere to the belief that the pandemic was all a government hoax intended to instill fear in people, to get them to take the evil vaccine which would enable the government spy on them. This theory is all twisted up with 5G, with multiple versions of the perils of the vaccine. In another text message exchange with the person who claimed abortion was murder, I said, “Well, we’re all vaccinated and if we turn into aliens, we’ll come for you.”

The erosion of the separation of state and religion is evident. Unless something drastically changes – in the makeup of the supreme court, in their apparent impunity, in the length of their appointments – then things look terrifying. We’ll be living not only in an autocracy, but a theocracy, where you’re told what you must believe in terms of religion.

Throughout all this bedlam the supreme court has created, there are some interesting synchronicities. Here’s the trickster.

– Rudy Gulliani, when disputing the testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson about who asked for pardons, said, “She wasn’t around when I asked for a pardon.”

-Or take Ron Johnson, republican senator from Wisconsin, who pretended to be on his cell while being pursued by a reporter by an NBC who wanted more information about the “alternate state of electors.” This was after the June 22 hearing, when it was revealed that his chief of staff had texted an assistant to Mike Pence to offer an “alternate slate of electors” backing Trump before Congress officially certified the 2020 election results.

The reporter – Frank Thorpe V- told Johnson he could see the screen of the senator’s phone and he wasn’t on a call. Johnson finally gave up the pretense and engaged with reporters. Another trickster? Or does that one even qualify as a synchro?

But here’s another oddity. A neighbor ended up owing $111,000 to a hospital for an ailment she had in early 2020. She divulged this particular fact when we ran into each other at the grocery store. I said, “That sure makes the case for universal health care.”

“Forget that,” she snapped. “I want to be able to choose my own doctor.”

Huh?

This is an instance, I think, where the trickster provides the missing link. Universal health care means you walk into a hospital and pay a minimal charge for the visit or nothing at all. Health care for profit means you’re charged $111,000 for your care. The trickster whispers, You’re not connecting the dots.

The problem with the trickster is that all too often we don’t recognize its presence or hear its voice because it makes us look bad. We can’t laugh at what we don’t perceive, especially when it concerns ourselves.