The Trickster is a curious archetype, two-faced, actually. Sometimes he/she is an oddball with a wry wit and sense of humor. That trickster makes you laugh at yourself. But other times, the trickster is dark, a narcissist that thinks it’s all about him/her and everything and everyone else is collateral damage. Trump fits the dark trickster.
With the help of former AG Bill Barr, one of his best enablers until January 6, he coasted through the Mueller investigation. The repugs were behind their chosen one throughout two impeachments. And through it all, through four years of his admin, this dark trickier was cackling all the way to the bank. The civil suit by New York’s attorney General, Leticia James, is just the most recent legal headache for trump. It’s likely to fulfill a prediction that Danish astrologer Adrian Duncan made on our podcast: that the trump brand would fade away.
He got his special master for the classified documents taken from Mar a Lago but the DOJ went to an appeal court and won so they can now have the 100 or so classified docs and continue with their investigation. The trickster’s delay delay ploy backfired. For a full list of trump’s legal jeopardy right now, just Google “trump’s recent legal problems.”
Trump fits the dark trickster archetype perfectly. He gets away with his scams for decades and when he becomes prez decides nothing needs to change. Barr was a major facilitator in that sense. You can’t charge a sitting prez with a crime. Then with J6, Barr seems to have experienced a major attitude correction. So what kind of archetype is he? Treasonous traitor?
But now the dark trickster hasn’t been president for nearly two years and all his previous crimes and grifter antics are closing in. He rages on his Twitter ripoff platform. He plays to QAnon. His rallies are long rages against the media, the deep state, the FBI, the “radical left.” He names his enemies. His followers out there at the rallies in increasingly diminish numbers, offer a QAnon salute, arms raised, index finger standing at attention.
Think about that for a moment. An ex-president cozying up to a fringe extreme right domestic terror group. An ex-prez who incited an attempted insurrection. An ex-prez who lives in a delusional world where he’s still prez and thinks he has executive power.
It isn’t just tragic, it’s dangerous. Trump has become a threat to democracy.
But he isn’t the only threat. Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, is also a dark trickster. But he’s another story.