Binding Loki
And the Last Battle for the Union
This is the second in a series of posts exploring the mythological foundations of the US Empire. The first instalment can be read here.
When it comes to its national mythos, the US appears lost deep in the woods on dusk. As the shadows thicken and the mist descends, coyote howls can be heard as a disoriented nation prepares to confront its vexed relationship with the archetypal energy of the trickster.
Indigenous mythology in the US is rich with tricksters; mischievous, charismatic characters that come along and shake things up. The best known trickster is Coyote but Raven sometimes plays this role too. Tricksters are schemers, preying on existing weaknesses or hubris, bringing chaos and destruction as often as not. Tricksters are also the breakers of taboos, bringing forbidden knowledge into the open.
The myths teach us that the Trickster brings a necessary, creative energy, often opening up fresh perspectives. Tricksters are an important part of the mythological ecosystem, they maintain cultural vitality. Sometimes things have to die and be renewed. The Trickster will sniff out hubris, unearned privilege and stale official dogma.
I should make it clear that the discussion that follows is about the mythology that underpins the US as a global power which seems to have taken root in the public consciousness after World War Two. This is distinct from the founding national mythology of the nation of the United States of America in the 18th century. The two coexist somewhat uneasily to say the least and in many instances appear incompatible.
In the first post in this series I discussed two related faith-based claims that underpin the US Empire:
the US system of government represents the pinnacle of human achievement (the Exceptional Nation); and
its destiny is to protect ‘freedom’ around the globe (the Beacon of Democracy).
For those who care to look, there are unmistakeable signs that these narratives have an increasingly shaky hold on the popular imagination, particularly within the USA itself. Cognitive dissonance occurs as lived reality increasingly departs from the official narratives and also as the US’s founding mythology of freedom from the tyranny of big government clashes with the ideas necessary to sustain global empire.
To continue with the ecological metaphor from the previous post, cracks are starting to appear in the official narrative opening up opportunities for colourful, colonising life forms to exploit.
In an earlier post entitled “The Bastard Twins of Progress” I discussed the role of the Hermes archetypal character in a modern context. Hermes is the Greek trickster god, the divine messenger, the storyteller, magician and diplomat. He is the weaver of stories designed to captivate his audience and shape consciousness.
And to capture the imagination a story must resonate. Whether it is evocative, uplifting or terrifying, at the very least it must be entertaining.
The striking thing about official Washington these days is how boring and un-entertaining it has all become. There is no soaring oratory setting out a vision of the future or of hope for a better world. Perhaps the hollowness of Obama’s “change you can believe in” sloganeering was the last straw in that charade.
Take the recent spectacle of U.S. military ‘whistleblowers’ lining up to give evidence to the U.S. congress of having seen classified ‘reports’ of captured UFOs and dead aliens in government custody. Notably, none of the witnesses claim to have actually seen an alien body or spacecraft and the public reaction is best characterised as a collective shrug of indifference.
One would expect evidence of the most profound development in recorded history to cause a bit of a stir in the public imagination. But as testament to the dreary cynicism of the times, the popular verdict seems to be that the whole affair is another transparent government attempt to distract and manipulate.
The lack of vitality is perhaps unsurprising, the US is a nation lead by geriatrics. It has an Octogenarian president who can barely read the tele-prompter and staggers around looking confused and in need of a zimmer frame, comfortable slippers and a retirement home. White house spokes-persons blandly repeat dull one-dimensional, politically-correct talking points. It all looks and feels like the late stage of the USSR: an animated corpse, going through the motions.
I recently watched a speech by JFK in 1963 to graduates of American University Washington in which he made a case for peace with the Soviet Union. This was an Ivy-league spectacle with the commander-in-chief addressing a bright-eyed elite audience of future leaders. It was compelling story-telling; a youthful, handsome, charismatic leader presenting an outward-looking, sweeping vision of a peaceful world. JFK brought to life the mythology of a country in the prime of its power, that knew its own soul and had no doubt about its greatness.
This was a time when economic growth was shared, there was a prosperous middle class and the US was more-or-less respected around the world. The thought of compromising and working with its enemies was not seen as a sign of weakness but of strength. In 1963, the US had a good story to sell and a good salesman to sell it.
The contrast to today’s political theatre could not be more stark.
The weakness of the national vision presented by the US’s leadership today provides the perfect setting for a yarn-spinning trickster-type to enter the fray and turn things on their head.
And just in case anyone has forgotten him, a brazen orange-coloured trickster popped up and spun his way into the White House in 2016 and the political establishment has not recovered. It remains fixated on Trump the person and has failed to grasp that its real enemy is an archetypal energy that exists in the collective imagination.
One of the most famous tricksters in European Mythology is the Norse trickster-god Loki. Loki is a fascinating and vital power in the Norse universe. Like most tricksters, he is untrustworthy, amoral and unpredictable, but he is also exceedingly clever, creative and brings different perspectives to solve problems. He knows all the weaknesses of Asgard’s rulers and is happy to exploit them.
The Norse tale, The Death of Balder, teaches us that when a culture goes to war with the Trickster, bad things happen.
In that tale, the much-loved, handsome and gentle Balder dreamed a prophetic dream of his own death. After a counsel of the gods, Balder’s distressed and dedicated mother Frigg went about procuring a promise from every entity in the universe, whether animal, mineral, vegetable, microbial or elemental, that they would not harm Balder.
After the immense effort of obtaining the necessary promises, Frigg finally felt that she had removed from the world all risks to her son. To test the situation, Odin invited all the gods to strike Balder with any weapon available. No matter what material was used no harm came to Balder all turned aside, keeping their promises. The gods were pleased and set about congratulating themselves on their own cleverness.
Tricksters tend to hate hubris and Loki took all this in with a cynical eye. He watched the golden-haired son-of-privilege fawned over and doted upon by his beautiful mother and aunts and he noted the smug satisfaction of the gods and their belief in their infallibility.
Disguised as an old woman Loki visited Frigg and enquired about the promises she had gathered. Loki soon learnt that Frigg had forgotten one seemingly harmless entity: mistletoe.
Loki, had his opening and fashioned an arrow from a mistletoe branch. When the gods gathered again to engage in what had become one of their favourite pastimes of striking Balder with all manner of objects to demonstrate his imperviousness, Loki handed the arrow to Hod and suggested that he shoot Balder with it. Hod did what Loki asked and the arrow struck home and killed Balder.
The illusion of safety had been shattered courtesy of the Trickster.
When Loki’s role in the affair was discovered, the gods were enraged and vowed to capture him. Eventually they caught him in a net of his own design disguised as a salmon in a deep pool. Odin ordered that Loki be bound to a table with the intestines of his own child, which magically fastened into unbreakable iron bands.
The gods thought that by binding Loki in this way they would forever be rid of the Trickster and his mischief. But this declaration of war on the Trickster only served to precipitate Ragnarok, the last battle and the end of the world. The gods, in their anger and hubris had forgotten that Loki’s children included Jormungandr, the world serpent, Fenrir the great wolf, the harbinger of Ragnarok and Hel, the half-corpse half-maiden guardian of the underworld. The Trickster was intertwined with the fate of the world and was most certainly not someone you wanted to wage war on.
Just as the US political establishment thought that its candidate was unassailable in 2016, she was brought down by a wily trickster who could see and exploit her weaknesses. Just as Asgard pursued Loki, the political class has relentlessly pursued Trump with an unsuppressed desire to cage him.
Let us imagine what would happen if the political class actually got what it wanted and Donald J Trump was sent to jail in the lead-up to the 2024 election. Like Odin binding Loki, jailing Trump would be Ragnarok for the Union regardless of who wins in November 2024.
But Ragnarok may be inevitable regardless of Trump’s fate. Powerful forces have been unleashed. Like Loki’s children, mythic monsters have been spawned in the national psyche from Trump’s role on the political stage.
Part of the hatred for (and fear of) Trump comes from his direct challenge to the official mythology. His folksy MAGA slogan appealed to the sense that America was in decline. This matched the lived experience of his supporters but defied the official mythology of the ‘Exceptional Nation’.
From the start of his candidacy, Trump challenged US involvement in foreign wars. In his first primary debate he claimed that the government lied to go to war in Iraq and that it had de-stabilised the Middle East. He takes an anti-NATO line and rails against the ‘neo-cons’ in charge of policy and the ‘forever wars’. Again, this sentiment matches the observations of his supporters but defies the official narrative of the US as the ‘Beacon of Democracy’.
As well as skewering the official mythology, Trump, like all tricksters, is not frightened of breaking taboos. And until recently one of the most important taboos in political discourse was talking about the US as an empire.
At the conclusion of his presidency in 1960, the popular wartime General Dwight Eisenhower included in his final address to the nation a warning against domination of US politics by the military-industrial complex through the political donation system. He pressed the importance of an alert and aware citizenry to avert the corruption of the political system by the arms manufacturers.
The US has been involved in armed conflict abroad virtually continuously since Eisenhower’s warning, it now has over 800 military bases around the world and its military spending dwarfs all other nations.
Yet public criticism of the malignant influence of the arms industry and its role in propagating the US Empire has been limited to the radical fringe. Everyone who wanted to be taken seriously had to pretend that it didn’t exist.
That is, until recently.
As we head into an election year, we have the overwhelming favourite for the Republican nomination openly challenging the US’s role in policing the globe. Attacking the foreign policy orthodoxy ties in neatly with a call for domestic renewal. The “Make America Great Again” slogan of 2016 merges into the “put America First” of 2024.
Other candidates for President now take a similar line on foreign policy. The likely Green Party candidate Cornel West is a socialist intellectual and political activist with a Ph.D in philosophy. He is a vocal critic of neo-liberalism and openly calls to end the US Global Empire abroad. West has the capacity to attract a lot of voters from Biden, particularly African-Americans.
Perhaps the most interesting challenger in the 2024 elections comes from within the Democratic Party itself, in fact from a family that is party royalty. Robert Kennedy Junior (the nephew of JFK, and son of Robert Kennedy senior - who himself was assassinated in 1968 while a Democratic presidential candidate) is running against Joe Biden for the Democrat nomination.
Kennedy is an opponent of “Big Pharma”, government surveillance and censorship. He has promised to pardon Julian Assange and Edward Snowden on day one of his presidency. He is the lead plaintiff in the case of Missouri v Biden, an anti-censorship law suit against the Biden Administration for pressuring social media companies to promote political narratives on the government’s behalf and to remove or demote opposing views.
Kennedy is also a critic of US foreign policy. He quotes his uncle JFK in saying, “America cannot be a democracy at home and an empire abroad”.
This is from his campaign website:
As president, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. will start the process of unwinding empire. We will bring the troops home. We will stop racking up unpayable debt to fight one war after another. The military will return to its proper role of defending our country. We will end the proxy wars, bombing campaigns, covert operations, coups, paramilitaries, and everything else that has become so normal most people don’t know it’s happening. But it is happening, a constant drain on our strength. It’s time to come home and restore this country.
In echoes of what happened to Bernie Sanders, the Democratic elite have moved from attempting to censor him to waging a smear campaign. The White House press secretary, along with other establishment figures, has vilified Kennedy as a “racist anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist”. This has been amplified by the corporate media, itself now just a wing of the political class.
The hate from the establishment, sensing that its days are numbered, is not surprising. As George Orwell observed:
“The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it.”
It appears that the Democratic elite fear Kennedy almost as much as they fear Trump. Perhaps this is because he exposes the same weaknesses but with a more presentable face.
Kennedy is certainly running his own version of ‘Make America Great Again’. Like Trump, he appeals to a bygone era of American prosperity. But rather than invoking conservative values of church, family and state, he summons the socially democratic progressive policies of the 1960s: ending racial inequality, economic opportunity for the marginalised and a peaceful world. All of these he associates, not entirely implausibly, with the Kennedy name. It is potentially a powerful narrative with broad appeal.
But it is unacceptable to official Washington because implicit in this narrative is the recognition of America’s decline, that it has gone down the wrong path and needs to change course. The palpable fear, hence the hate, is that recognition of this reality will collapse the key pillars of the myth of the US Empire and interrupt the lifestyles of those who profit from it.
Events are converging around the 2024 election like the event horizon around a black hole, everything seems drawn towards it. There doesn’t seem to be any good options for the continuation of business as usual for Imperial Washington. My guess is that it will, to borrow a delightful American phrase, “double-down on stupid” and back the current administration to the bitter end.
In the next post we will take a look at the mythological patterns that may shape what that bitter end might look like.