Trump as shadow self

We all have a little bit of Trump in all of us, hopefully only metaphorically

I had a dream last night that was so violent that I woke myself up. I was in the entryway of an old apartment building. There was a lot of steel gray metal circa 1950s and outside, President Tr*mp was trying to break in. He was wearing his uniform of ill-fitting navy suit and cherry red tie. His face was a blur but I knew it was him from his fluff of corn stalk yellow hair and his self-tanner-orange complexion. He didn’t have a key, but was somehow able to break into my front door over and over again. I kept pushing the door closed and locking it, but somehow he finagled his way to open it again. Finally, exhausted by the effort, I was not able to close the door fast enough so there he was standing in front of me. So, I did the only reasonable thing when an intruder is trying to break into your house: I kicked him. Hard.

I kicked him so hard that I pushed off all my blankets, scared the bejesus out of my cats, and woke us all up. I sat there stunned for a moment before I got mad, and also a little proud. It’s hard enough to avoid unsavory news and the image of Cheeto-in-Chief from coming across my eyeballs while waking. Why does he have to invade my subconscious? Although maybe it’s not so bad if I get to kick him one in the stomach without getting deported.

As I tried to go back to sleep, I considered why such a figure would show up at my doorstep. Was this a disembodied version of his soul trying to rough me up? Or was he merely a symbolic figure that is ultimately me, since all characters in our dreams are us according to Freud? I assume it’s probably the second, since the divine energies that created us all are averse to easy villains.

So what part of me is like Trump? Why is he/me breaking into my apartment building (and why not a house)? And why have I not won this battle already?

As I consider what archetype Trump embodies, the first thing that comes to mind is the angry toddler. He is a forever child. That’s why he’s so easy to recognize, and then for us highroad-taking liberals to make fun of. His wounded inner-child is on full display and it is so obvious to all of us because we have been there. Inner-child mad!

We have all, at one point in our lives, thrown tantrums because we want the toy and no we will not be leaving this Target floor until we get it. In us, we have an unfullfilled wish to get everything we want right now, and to throw tantrums of varying degrees when we don’t. The parents among us may have seen this behavior repeated with their own children who are just doing what we all are thinking - refusing to accept the limitations of our stuffy, boring society. Sharing and being compassionate can be so lame.

At my painting gig job, during our lunch breaks when we painters join my boss’s wife for lunch, I learn from her, a former Oakland prosecutor, that doing crime is actually a ton of fun. A lot of the repeat offenders she came across absolutely loved robbing and scheming. They didn’t love the consequences, but would they go back and do it again? Yes. They would rob all the banks if they could.

And now, Trump has been given the opportunity to rob all the banks and then some, seemingly without impunity. Who can blame him for expressing his inner ego without absolute relish? I believe that’s partly what makes him so entertaining to watch (stay with me here). He is having a great time even when he’s mad or free-associating random buzz words. He loves attention, and he is getting it. Inner-child happy!

So back to what this has to do with me, and maybe all of us. Who is Trump in my dream and why is he showing up in this lifetime as the head honcho, boss villain #1? Another reason might be is that he embodies the last dying gasp of capitalistic, patriarchal structures that have, specifically in America, brought us to this tipping point where the returns are no longer worth the costs for the majority of people.

We can no longer force our way through this broken, always-be-closing system, faking it till we make it, looking good but feeling bad. We now have to face the reality that our souls do not enjoy the game that has, up until now, made America what it is - great or whatever.

Martha Beck, in her latest book The Way Of Integrity, talks a lot about the hustle as an embodiment of this. She compares her “Woods of Error” to Dante’s Inferno’s circles of hell, which is where we find ourselves when we are off-course. When we are hustling, following society’s norms, and doing things just to look good, we are in one version of hell or another. When we follow our inner compass, we transcend our conditions and somehow find a path back to sanity/paradise.

This is a road I have been doubling back on since I left my 9-5 life in San Francisco in 2018. Since then, I have slogged my way through the dark woods, and have slowly brought myself back to some form of integrity, if not exactly paradise. It’s still a path with many wooded areas where I find myself getting lost from time to time, but by coming out as trans, I have been able to recenter my priorities and forgo many of the temptations that offer validation, but nothing more.

And yet still, this maniacal, approval-obssessed, Trumpian part of myself does not want me to be trans, or single, or poor. It’s mad that I’m just a lowly artist. It does not want me to be forging my own path, unless I am immediately successful at it and get tons of praise- then that’s ok. It does not want me to be old or ugly or fat. It tells me not to eat the chocolate cream pie from Harry’s Roadhouse that I got last night. It tells me that if I don’t stay in line, no one will love me. And if no one loves me then my only bet is to be bigger and badder and more powerful, at the expense of anything and anyone else.

I’m not sure that kicking Trump in my dream will make this part of myself evaporate or transmute into something else. But I also don’t know how dreams work, so maybe it will. But can you really stand up to your shadow and kick it to the curb? Or do you have to love part of it and integrate the rest in a healthy way?

According to Jung, the answer is b, you have to integrate your shadow or it will come back as a new baddy. I am no longer talking about Trump now, because I would gladly kick the IRL Trump to the curb. But his Trumpiness might be something I / we have to contend with a bit more. There might be a tantrum-throwing inner child that needs tending to, or the part of us that still wants acceptance and attention despite not living up to ye olde society’s standards.

I think integration for me personally looks like being ok with to wanting more, but love myself while I have less and am floundering. Being grateful for what I have while moving forward towards what I want, just more slowly and mindfully than I have in the past so that I don’t burn out.