the collective trickster emerges at a baseball game in Washington D.C.

1. “Lock Him Up!”: the Antics
of the Collective Trickster

2. • Trump was booed at a baseball game in
Washington D.C. in October 2019
• People at the game chanted “Lock him up!
Lock him up!” and shouted “Booo!”
• Why?
• Because he may have committed some
crimes.
• the House of Representatives in
Washington is now starting impeachment
against him to remove him from office.

3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMXvQDkjx
Gs
You can hear “Lock him up!”

4. In the background of the
impeachment…..(just briefly)
24 September, 2019
Pelosi announces a formal impeachment
inquiry, accusing Trump of “a betrayal of his
oath of office, a betrayal of our national security
and betrayal of the integrity of our elections”.
A “whistleblower” made a complaint against
Trump and this was released on Sept 26
He is anonymous (i.e. no name is released) in
order to protect him.

5. What is a “whistleblower”?
• A person who sees something wrong, a crime
or something unethical (committed by his or
her boss or person with power), while she/he
is doing her/his job.

6. What is “impeachment”?
• The House and the Senate both have to
approve impeachment with a vote.
• If they both approve it, the President
will have to leave and the Vice President
will become the President.

7. • First, the Congress investigates. This
investigation typically begins in the House
Judiciary Committee, but may begin
elsewhere.

8. • Second, the House of Representatives must
pass, by a simple majority of those present
and voting, articles of impeachment, which
constitute the formal allegation or allegations.
Upon passage, the defendant has been
"impeached".

9. • Third, the Senate tries the accused. In the case
of the impeachment of a president, the Chief
Justice of the United States presides over the
proceedings.
• Conviction (a vote of “guilty”) in the Senate
requires a two-thirds supermajority vote of
those present. The result of conviction is
removal from office.

10. Some of the people who gave testimony:
• 22 October
• William “Bill” Taylor, a career ambassador who runs the US
embassy in Kiev, testifies. In a 15-page opening statement,
Taylor described his concern to discover an “irregular,
informal policy channel” by which the Trump
administration was pursuing objectives in Ukraine “running
contrary to the goals of longstanding US policy”.
• 29 October
Army officer Alexander Vindman, the top Ukraine expert
on the national security council (NSC), testifies. He
describes his alarm at witnessing the White House subvert
US foreign policy in favor of Trump’s domestic political
agenda. Vindman took his concerns to the top NSC lawyer.

11. This is Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of
Representatives (the leader). She is leading the
impeachment process.

12. So, what makes the phrase “Lock him
up!” so interesting?
• “Lock him up!” is VERY INTERESTING because
Trump used the line “Lock her up!” while he
was running in the election to become
President.
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQCiIIeN
0Bw
• Even after he was elected, he continues to use
“lock her up” (or ask the crowd to say that
line). Again and again. Hundreds of times….

13. Technically, “Lock her up” is what
Trump supporters say to mean that
Hillary Clinton should be in jail

14. Did Hillary do anything wrong?
• This is a debate that still goes on between the
right and the left in the USA
• “Did Hillary Clinton commit illegal acts with
her emails or anything else?” is the question
• Never any proof, no reason to think so, it’s just
this weird thing the right wing keeps chanting
as a phrase to energize their supporters.

15. Hillary got 19.8% and Trump got 19.5%
of the final vote

16. Hillary actually got more votes
• But due to the Electoral College (“winner take
all” law by state), Trump became US President
• The votes of people living in rural areas carry
more weight and power.

17. • These “red” states tend to have more elderly
and more white voters. They support Trump.
• Even though there are fewer “red state”
voters than liberal voters in the “blue” states,
the red state voters have votes that count
more.

18. I see this as a feminist issue
Anti-“Hillary” means against women
There is no reason to dislike her except
that she is smart, had a job and is the wife
of Bill Clinton who was a liberal President
(1992-2000).
Fundamentally, the older and white voters
have a problem with women who have
power.

19. Hillary went to Yale University to get her law
degree.
She became a lawyer.
She worked fulltime all her life.
Her achievements and her confidence make the
older, sexist people in America annoyed.

20. “Lock her up!”
• “Lock her up” is not about jail. (In fact, she
has never even been accused in a court or
arrested.)
• It’s more about the place where these
Trump supporters want to see women.
• They want to see woman “locked up” under
the power of the men.

21. From “The Disturbing Evolution of
Lock Her up” by Steve Almond
• “Lock her up” isn’t really a political rallying cry. It’s an
attempt to criminalize female ambition and autonomy.
• As a cultural mantra, “Lock her up” has become
entirely unmoored from any specific conspiracy about
Clinton.
• At this point, it’s more like a Pavlovian response,
generated by citizens whose political views and
behaviors are driven not by any coherent ideology, but
by a reflexive hostility toward all women.
• https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2018/07/25/lock-
her-up-jeff-sessions-steve-almond

22. They never get bored of this chant
• Because their desire continues to be to
see women as second-place citizens and
men as first.

23. • Hillary is a symbol of all women who
want to work and be professionals.
• Trump always promises with “lock her
up” that the men will be the rulers and
the women will be “locked up”, their
power subordinated to men’s power.

24. “…a convenient scapegoat”
• “In this sense, the pronoun “her” was never just
about Clinton. She was merely a convenient
scapegoat for any woman who refused to accept
the patriarchal yoke, who dared to call her male
opponent a credulous puppet, who decried his
sexual predation, who refused to accept his
laughable excuse that bragging about sexually
assaulting women was “locker room talk.””
• https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2018/07/25/l
ock-her-up-jeff-sessions-steve-almond

25. “…legal dominion over women and
girls”
• “I can hear now much more clearly, in this
despotic chant, the desire to create a culture
in which men have legal dominion over
women and girls.

26. • Sometimes this desire is overt. Women and
girl migrants who come to America fleeing
danger? Lock them up. Women who want to
exercise their reproductive rights? Lock them
up. Woman who dare to speak about sexual
harassment and abuse? Well, if we can’t lock
them up, we can at least shut them up.”
• https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2018/07/
25/lock-her-up-jeff-sessions-steve-almond

27. “Vicious misogyny”
• “This speaks to the moral and intellectual
poverty of the modern GOP, of course. But it
also speaks to a vicious misogyny that extends
far beyond an election. The “her” has become
universal at this point.”
• “If you’re a woman in America, they're talking
to you. They’re talking about locking you up.”
• https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2018/07/
25/lock-her-up-jeff-sessions-steve-almond

28. So why did women vote for Trump?
• Though she is a symbol of a professional woman,
Hillary is not consciously or openly
acknowledged as such.
• (This is important)…if Trump did overtly say
“women should be controlled by men”, he would
look strange.
• This way is subtle, and so much safer….(Goes
straight to the subconscious….)
• Women who have lived their lives as subordinate
to men may not understand anything else….or
they see change as threatening.

29. So, back to “Lock him up”
• Trump was in Washington DC at a
baseball game and also in Chicago
when people chanted “Lock him up”
• These are blue states. They don’t
support him.
• Now it became visually clear to
everyone what situation the country is
in: deeply split

30. More than that:
The crowd saying “lock him up” is a deeply
witty situation.
It is the trickster at work. It is the power
of play and the power of using one’s wits.

31. Powerless (due to the Electoral College),
ordinary citizens at a baseball game or in
Chicago suddenly turned the tables and
the powerful President was helpless.
They didn’t need anything except 3 little
well-chosen words “Lock him up”!!!!

32. A photo of the crowd and Trump

33. In a way, the crowd became a
trickster….
• The trickster is distinct in a story by his
acting as a sort of catalyst, in that his
antics are the cause of other characters'
discomfiture, but he himself is left
untouched.
• a clever, mischievous man or creature,
who tries to survive the dangers and
challenges of the world using his/her wits
as a defense. Wikipedia—Trickster”

34. Famous tricksters
• Naruto
• Captain Jack Sparrow
• Puck
• Monkey in the “my liver is hanging in the tree”
story
• Foxes and monkeys and tanukis (raccoon
dogs) in stories and folktales

35. Some images of tricksters

36. “Lock him up”: unorthodox,
entertaining
• He/She also is known for entertaining people
as a clown does.
• With the help of her/his wits and cleverness,
instead of fighting, she/he evades or fools
monsters and villains and dangers with
unorthodox manners.

37. • Therefore, the most unlikely candidate passes
the trials and receives the reward. From
“Wikipedia, Trickster”
• (these are “unlikely candidates” because their
votes were worth less in the Electoral College;
they are not powerful, they are the least
powerful)

38. A “collective trickster”
• The crowd at the baseball game was therefore
a sort of “collective trickster”
• Acting together, these powerless people
whose vote in 2016 wasn’t worth much, finally
got a say through luck, wits, and quickness.

39. • Tricksters "...violate principles of social and
natural order, playfully disrupting normal life
and then re-establishing it on a new basis.
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.co
m/books/98/02/15/reviews/980215.15mattict
.html

40. Indeed…..
• It was just a few minutes or even just
seconds of “lock him up”
• But it surely disrupted (maybe just a
tiny bit) the political order and now
things have been re-established on a
new basis.
• Everyone saw Trump looking shocked
and frowning.

41. Looking shocked and frowning….

42. But “Lock him up” turns the tables on
“Lock her up”, cleverly rewrites “Lock her
up”, revises it, and sends it, like a
boomerang, back to knock down the
misogynistic president who had used it so
often before.
In that sense, it is perfect “Karma”!

43. The End