An excerpt from, "Trump and the Tower: Understanding Our Chaotic Times through the Lens of Tarot’s Major Arcana" by Frank Kwiatkowski, tarotawakenings.com:
Within the standard tarot deck is a set of 22 cards called the major arcana. These special cards symbolize the principle themes of the life experience. “Major arcana” translates to a great hidden reality. This hidden reality is everywhere all the time, but remains unseen because we are so busy and distracted by the daily grind of modern life. But once we gain familiarity with these cards, we gain access to the deeper truth that is so elusive most of the time.
In a bizarre coincidence, the major arcana are commonly referred to as “trump” cards. And the 45th president uniquely embodies many of these archetypes. Let’s begin to take a fresh look at Trump through the lens of symbol, specifically that of the “trump” cards.
Trump as The Emperor is an obvious fit. This symbol is the world builder, deal maker, alpha male, sitting on his throne, with the nation at his feet. The Emperor is major arcanum number 4, which numerically symbolizes structure, power, and authority. With golf courses, hotels, and other properties across the world bearing his name; “Trump” has always been synonymous with luxury and commerce. Who else but the Emperor would live in a house made of gold, as Trump did before entering the White House? The Emperor is the ultimate ruler, and we may remember that Trump assured us during his presidential campaign that he alone could fix the nation’s problems. Trump has also intimated that anything he does is legal exactly because he is president, an idea that does not apply to democracies with the Rule of Law. This idea is common to nations led by absolute rulers: Emperors.
The Fool is another archetype befitting Trump. The Fool is card 0, symbolic of emptiness or pure potential. And Trump may easily be seen as a clown, a child, someone devoid of direction or conviction. Many world leaders think of him as a joke, uneducated, and not serious. Contributing to this viewpoint, Trump is perhaps the least knowledgeable president America has had in recent history, in terms of policy and governance, another sign of his emptiness of substance. He loathes feeling reigned in, even verbally; he prefers to give unprepared speeches, where he can riff spontaneously in the moment. He flips his position on nearly every issue, sometimes in the very same speech. His reputation is of someone who needs constant reassurances from sycophants he surrounds himself with, filling the hole of insecurity within him.
We may also see Trump as the Magician. He pulled the biggest upset victory in recent electoral history out of a hat, as if by magic. He is a master communicator, shaping the daily news cycle to his will, through his Twitter rants and various obfuscations. The Magician – major arcanum number 1 – is a skilled doer, but also an illusionist, skilled at misdirection. Is his magic a true feat of skill or little more than sleight of hand? Donald Trump has a history of dubious business dealings, bankruptcies, a “university” that was little more than a scam. He is also the first president in modern history not to release his tax returns, leading many to wonder what he’s hiding. In his famous book, The Art of the Deal, he suggests the use of hyperbole and exaggeration as the way to success, which is perhaps an admission of lying as a means achievement. Are Trump’s massive accomplishments genuine or is he a total fraud? We may get a sense that in some cases, like that of the current leader of the free world, there is a conflation of the two, each feeding upon the other.
The Devil, major arcanum number 15, makes an obvious choice as a symbol for Trump. The Devil is synonymous with materialism, wealth, deceit, and the abuse of power. Throughout his electoral campaign and presidency, Trump has become notorious as a pathological liar. He insults women, the disabled, foreigners, “losers”, and anyone who does not agree with him. He appears to go out of his way in his cruelty, making draconian cuts to programs for the poor, elderly, schools, and the environment. His administration has ruthlessly separated children from their families at the border and locked them in cages. He’s openly threatened nuclear war, picks fights with America’s longest-held allies, and expresses admiration for the world’s worst tyrants. Adding to his devilish credibility, Trump is a hero of the alt-right, best known for its worldview of white supremacy and desire to tear down the institutions of democracy.
As tempting as it may be to see Trump as a “Devil”, a deeper look may reveal something important about what he represents.
With the Devil, our examination of Trump shifts. It’s inadequate – although more comforting, perhaps – to view Trump as the Devil without deeper scrutiny. But let’s now shift our focus from Trump the man to what Trump represents. Let’s pivot from looking at Trump to looking at us.
The Devil is most easily associated with evil, but a more helpful interpretation of this archetype is as the shadow side that resides within us all. Our shadow is not intrinsically malevolent, but merely hidden deep inside, insidiously bringing out the worst in us. A widely understood phenomenon in psychology is the universal tendency for people to project their worst qualities onto others to avoid having to deal with those qualities within themselves. Our shadow, then, creates unconscious behaviors and beliefs based on our most taboo and unacknowledged aspects of ourselves.
We cannot eliminate the shadow by ignoring it. If we try, it shows up in different and increasingly noticeable ways until we’re forced to deal with it. Eventually, the shadow becomes so obvious there’s no more mistaking it. Like an alcoholic who eventually hits rock-bottom, a day comes where we are forced to deal with the underlying bits of ourselves we try so hard to ignore. Every person has a shadow; it’s intrinsic to being human. Possessing a shadow doesn’t make us devils, but that shadow does represent the little devil inside each of us.
Like individuals, every collective entity – such as a nation – has a shadow as well. That shadow remains buried underneath the collective consciousness, until eventually a day of reckoning comes, and everyone within that collective comes face to face with it.
The election of Trump represents a flash point, where America has elected and manifested its own shadow.
The 22 cards of tarot’s major arcana are a sequence. Their order is not arbitrary; they can be understood as a natural progression that a person makes throughout their lives, or during specific chapters of their lives. Or seen in macrocosm, the majors may represent the evolution of a collective entity, like that of a nation.
The Devil is card number 15, and what follows is number 16, The Tower. After electing the projection of our collective shadow, America has wittingly or unwittingly brought forth the Tower.
Think for a moment of a symbol that best represented Trump before he ran for president. More than his television show, his playboy lifestyle, or any other aspect of his legacy, Trump was always best known for his real estate empire. And nothing symbolizes that better than Trump Tower.
In terms of the tarot archetype, a tower is a structure that has been building over an extended period of time. Because it’s been built so high, that tower structure is ripe for toppling by some greater force. Therefore, the Tower represents sudden and colossal change. It is the toppling of old power structures; a shock to the system; tearing down the old without regard for what’s to follow. It is destruction and mayhem, brought on by a tower having grown too high for its own good.
We can look at the physical structure of a tower and see how it applies to metaphorical structures, such as institutions, organizations, and long-held assumptions taken for granted. The longer a tower is built, the higher it gets and the further removed it is from where it began. By its nature a tower is a high structure, and therefore becomes increasingly unstable as it grows over time. No tower can keep growing forever; a point comes when any further attempts to grow it are met by catastrophe.
The Tower as a description of the Trump Era is eerily prescient. We are witnessing in real time the toppling of an American government that in some crucial ways had become corrupted and in need of radical changes. It’s undeniable that for at least a generation, powerful moneyed interests have increasingly written most of the laws in Washington through their lobbyists. We could easily see Trump’s promise to “drain the swamp” as to “topple the tower” that was a bloated government in desperate need of a redeemer and emancipator of the rot. He’s approached his mandate enthusiastically, shaking the foundations of norms, alliances, and long-held customs we’ve taken for granted our whole lives.
The current Tower era is being experienced collectively by all of us, while felt individually by each of us. In the process, our personally held mental structures are collapsing as our institutional ones do. Just as physical towers can grow too high, mental towers can as well. Our assumptions can be taken too much for granted, and only through their destruction can we look at things in a whole new way.
