In chapter eight of Neil Gaiman's new book, Norse Mythology, there is a retelling of a story that eerily mirrors the real world of today. It concerns building a defensive wall against an elusive enemy on the premise of that someone else will eventually foot the bill. Sound Familiar?
In this story a strange traveller rides into the city of the Norse Gods, Asgard, hearing that the people are looking to protect themselves from a race of monsters called the Frost Giants. This strange traveller offers his services to single-handedly build a wall to impossible standards in record time.
The traveler only wants three things in return: a Goddess' hand in marriage, the sun, and the moon. The Gods of Asgard are wary of promising these things as payment until Loki (trickster God and all around asshole) enters the discussion. Loki assures the Gods that if they give this traveler a strict set of standards for completion and a tight timeframe that they will come away without paying and at the very least the wall will be half completed.
When the traveler looks like he'll complete the wall on time, Loki convinces the Gods to betray the builder. It becomes clear that the trickster God's deal was never made to last.
It looks as if Donald Trump is pulling the same sort of deception on the American people. Yet, in our story he plays both the role of the trickster god and the traveler. He began with the promise of a wall along the Mexican border, and all he asked for in return was the seat of the powerful Presidential throne. Now, the promise is that American taxpayers will initially begin paying for this inane piece of architecture, only to be repaid by Mexico later. This is a plan that isn't supposed to work. The promise of changing a deal later never works. In the end everyone gets burned and time is wasted.
The people of the United States are being manipulated by a trickster who only acts in self interest. The ramifications of a large border wall with Mexico are far reaching and determinantal. Border security is far from an issue but the wall allows fear and general xenophobia to be perpetuated among the American people.
Myths have morals. They are incredibly important storytelling tools that display the pitfalls of human error. There's something to be learned from the Norse myth. If we empower Donald Trump into deceiving us, he will, and he'll leave us to foot the bill for his misdeeds.
Donald Trump is nothing more than a trickster God playing with the lives of those beneath him. Don't put up with his shit. Asgard always allowed Loki to stick around and we know how that ended for them - Ragnarök (that's the apocalypse btw).