I May Not Understand the Crazy Trump Political Phenomenon But the Shadow Knows

Jung’s shadow archetype can help us make sense of the Trump political era.

I know I’ve been writing a lot about Trump recently. I don’t really plan this. It just seems that every time I commit to writing about something else, my psyche whispers to me. “But what about . . . ?” And I’m off again.

I’m sure there are many out there who find me naïve. I mean, how many times can one person say, “But I just don’t understand,” or ask, “How on earth is this possible? It isn’t possible is it? Not really? But it’s happening so I guess that it is then?”

I guess this naivete comes from my belief that most people are good at their core and that foundation means certain things. It means not actively wanting to hurt others and not wanting to be hurt ourselves. It means understanding that sometimes we can’t have what we want for a variety of reasons including the idea of sacrificing for the greater good. It means not acting like children who put their fingers in their ears and loudly hum so as not to hear something that goes against what they want to believe without going through the trouble of defending it or thinking too deeply about it. It’s too much work for a 5-year-old. It shouldn’t be for a 25-year-old.

Regardless of what before now were certainties in my mind, I have come to experience a time I can’t make sense of at all. This is an unusual occurrence for me and one that brings me a lot of frustration.

I was never one of those kids who was satisfied just letting something go if I couldn’t understand something. It is why I was the kid they used to say could tease out the exceptional teachers from those who were just adequate. If I didn’t understand, I kept asking question after question until I did. This meant that the teacher had to come up with different ways to explain the same thing and know how to relate it to what I knew and my developmental level. When you have to explain something over once in a different way, it’s usually not a big deal. But a dozen times? Exceptional.

I think this is also why I went into psychology and not medicine. I have never been one for memorizing a bunch of facts. My love was explaining concepts, deconstructing and reconfiguring them in ways that made sense to me. Memorizing facts for a test was a chore and while I could pull it off when necessary, I rarely remembered anything of them after I turned in my paper. Coming to terms with a concept and finding ways to make sure I remembered it meant making it my own somehow. This is simply how I interact with the world and come to understand it.

Trump though, now he has thrown me for a loop as have his followers. I’ve done what I usually do when I can’t come to terms with something. I looked at the literature and other people’s opinions. I wrestled with it in bed at night and during the day. I researched related concepts and I wrote about it. And in the end, I was no closer to understanding what was going on in this country than when I started. If anything, I was further away, more confused and “throwing things frustrated.”

My mother advised me to not think about it. Keep the t.v. off. Don’t look online. There wasn’t anything I could do about it anyway.

But regardless of what I could or couldn’t do, I wanted to, no, needed to, understand. So when I couldn’t sleep again last night and finally quite trying around 3:30am, I considered where else I could look for insight. As if in answer to this question, a book by Jung fell off my bedside table. Now, I’m not a Jungian though I do find him fascinating, but if nothing else, it was a new avenue. And the book literally fell open at my feet. I’m not sure if omens exist but I’m sure not going to ignore what might be one just in case.

Jung’s Concept of the Shadow Archetype

As I read more of Jung’s work, something became clear that I hadn’t thought about before. I keep hitting my head against a wall trying to figure out how such a truly bizarre person with a less than admirable commitment to those he swore to serve, and an abnormal view of what defines a functional way to run the country, came to exist and how on earth we elected him.

As I began to see him and the situation from Jung’s perspective, I understood, at least from that point of view, Trump isn’t truly bizarre or atypical at all. In fact, he represents something universal, not the rare exception to the rule. He embodies a part of the human psyche that we are ashamed of, that embarrasses us, a part that we’ve made our collective secret. Jung gave this secret side of our nature a name: the shadow.

The shadow is comprised of all our dark impulses; hatred, aggression, sadism, selfishness, jealousy, resentment — that we keep hidden. According to Freud, we are dualistic in nature, the division existing between the conscious and unconscious. The function of the unconscious is to keep our unacceptable urges and characteristics out of our consciousness through strategies such as repression.

The fact that we can live in communities shows how well we normally listen to our conscious mind and suppress our unconscious mind. But what we suppress and keep hidden in the shadows will eventually win out. If it does so on an individual basis there may not be much harm. If it does so on a group level, however, then we can be facing some dire consequences. This is what we are currently experiencing.

The Collective Unconscious Shadow

When the shadow appears in the population at large, even those societies that normally seem rational, fair, just, ordered and at least mostly unified with a healthy system for working out differences can suddenly explode and becoming characterized by the very things they believe they are not — violent, prejudiced, and chaotic.

The irony, and what seems to have happened in the U.S. is that the worst displays of shadow have always occurred in those places that seem to have the least to worry about in that regard. When Europe was at it’s most civilized it suddenly found itself in the midst of World War I.

From a conscious perspective, this command to “release the Kraken” makes no sense, as it will only result in destruction. From the opposite side of the coin however, it makes perfects sense, as it is coming from the unconscious. This turns everything on its ear, whereby what’s wrong is now right. When Trump engages in wildly erratic bad behavior while saying to his followers, “Gee, isn’t this fun?” he’s publicly expressing our shameful impulsive desire to stop obeying the rules and social guidelines. At the same time, he’s giving permission. Were all of this to happen on a conscious level more people would resist. But with it all happening on an unconscientious level, there’s no need to wrestle with the ethics of it all.

Those who are governed by a firmer ethical framework of right and wrong, will still resist the urge to indulge their shadow selves. Those who have been freed from the shame, guilt and fear of retribution or rejection, will feel a kinship with the leader responsible. Giving into the shadow self is a very powerful force, and these individuals are likely to develop a sense of complete loyalty to the individual regardless of what the person does or says. The pleasure of giving into the shadow outweighs any old ideas of moral right and wrong.

Once the shadow has been released, it is very difficult to make it return to the underground and remain locked away. The GOP has been keeping the shadow in their party mostly at bay for years, ever since Nixon and Watergate. They thought they could do the same thing with Trump. They were wrong.

Along with a particularly pathological shadow archetype found in his person, they hadn’t counted on the country, and world, being plunged into the COVID healthcare crisis. Serious crises on a large-scale basis makes the shadow more likely to come out.

It may be that when the laws of nature are no longer adhered to, the other rules and laws should be able to be disregarded as well. It may also be seen as a type of compassionate reinforcement, providing exceptions to some of the more stringent regulations for the duration of the trauma. We are now finding just how impossible it may be to return the shadow that has been unleashed by Trump back to its dungeon where it can be locked up so as to not cause people to further decompensate supporting things that are tearing our country in two.

That is what I find to be the most frightening part. Like Pandora’s box, Trump seemed to throw open the lid to something and all manner of ills flew out. I don’t think he created these impulses or hateful urges in people. I think that they had been held at bay by social structure, an overriding framework of good and evil and a judicial and disciplinary force that kept those who might otherwise act on these urges in check, if not because it was right then for fear of punishment. Suddenly, this yoke was thrown off by not just any role model, but the one who was the leader of the free world. It was as if the gates of hell had opened wide.

Putting the Genie Back in the Lamp

The question now is how to reverse this process, get people to accept that they must pull back their more nefarious impulses and keep them locked away, how do we even get to a point where this is put forth as a desirable goal? Basically, how do we coral our demons and put them back behind the locked gates of hell?

I’d like to offer some suggestions here for doing this. I’d like to be able to say I’ve considered the situation conceptually and here are my conclusions as to what will help. But considering how out of whack our country has gotten, and how what should be able to be seen as bad is ignored while the incomprehensible is allowed to reign — I’m sorry to say I have no good ideas of how to turn the tides. I think it must come down to a fundamental change in who we are both on an individual level and a collective level.

We first have to recognize that what is darkest in ourselves will only become known indirectly through projection. The way we discover our darker side is by observing what dark characteristics we think we are observing in others in our lives — our friends, family members, work peers or even fictitious characters were read about.

As for discovering the shadow in our leaders, especially when they are charismatic and very powerful, this is more difficult. First, this is because when we admire someone and feel attached or connected to them, we don’t want to see the bad side of them. Second, in following with what was said above, if we see something we don’t like in someone else, this usually says more about who we are rather than who they are.

For example, why is it some of us get so irate over what Trump does, especially if it is already being called out by others who have the ability to reign him in? Why can’t we stop talking about certain failings we see in him, going over it again and again with the same people? It’s not that what we see in others are only a reflection of ourselves. What we notice about others generally reflects back on us in some way. These characteristics still may be a very big problem in the other person as well.

One of the most telling signs of what is going on, is that while the Shadow usually remains hidden, Trump is not attempting to hide his atrocities. We see what he is doing and no matter how disturbing it is, we allow it to continue.

We know that his claims of winning an election he so clearly lost are lies, but fail to take action quickly enough to prevent his ridiculous assertion from negatively impacting the next presidency and by extension the country itself. It’s not enough to wait for him to be forced from office. By then, the damage will have been done. There must be an active approach to making him stop doing harm. If we are unable to do this, we shouldn’t be surprised if one day the world will look back at our country during these times as we do now of Germany and ask, “How could things have gone so far and so much harm have been done with the country and the world watching on?”

Natalie Frank has a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology. She specializes in Pediatrics and Behavioral Medicine. Her collection of poetry, Disguised I Breathe, In Love I Hold, can be found here on Amazon.

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