Trump’s Viral Moment: A Plutonic Pandemic

Astrology and Donald Trump. Two subjects that don’t play well together, especially for predictive astrologers.

The moment Trump took office in 2017, liberal-leaning astrologers (probably about 90% of the field) released regular predictions that earmarked failure for the president. Very much in the spirit of: “If you build it the disasters will come.”

But like “…grab ’em by the pussy”, and Robert Mueller and Russiagate and a litany of alleged rapes and the dreary impeachment acquittal, Teflon Trump always emerged unscathed. Slice off one tentacle and two more grow in its place.

Remember all of the hyperventilated excitement about The Great American Eclipse of 2017? A total solar eclipse that was scheduled to hit Trump’s Leo ascendant like a bullseye. Ruin and karmic blowback were to ensue.

And then — nothing.

Trump did set a new record for low favorability numbers, a cipher that instantly equated to his devotees hunkering in even harder for their victimized hero.

I think if I were younger and not so busy with clients, I’d spend more time attempting predictions; but the pastime doesn’t interest me because astrology has a terrible track record for successful predictions.

Although I am always curious to study planetary transits after the fact because they will reveal something new about astrology and the antiquated rules astrologers work with to compose predictions.

Recently I took a different approach and melded dream symbology with some horary techniques in the chart I constructed for the 2020 election. That fit more my style, where an open-ended, out-of-time outcome dropped hints along the way (if you could catch them with your imagination).

A big factor that’s a problem for predictive astrology is that astrology is a living art, not a static, etched in stone, collection of rules.

Just because we have a good understanding of how one species lives, doesn’t mean that there isn’t new information to research and cull about its habits, lifespan and the ecosystem it occupies.

Life is one endless stream of revelations and that includes the various components that comprise the astrological logos.

Just as our Earth is constantly evolving so too are the planets and our Sun and Moon. Nothing is static although the rules astrologers attempt to apply are.

But let’s get back to President Trump because it appears that we are in the midst of a major revelation related to what astrologers started to speculate last year.

Astrologer Ray Grasse wrote an excellent prelude to this moment for The Mountain Astrologer.

Anyone with even just a cursory interest in astrology has been tracking how the ongoing Saturn and Pluto transits in Capricorn were about to trigger an opposition to Trump’s Venus Saturn merger in Cancer.

If Saturn aspects a planet, especially by conjunction, the planet takes on qualities beyond the norm, usually as a compensatory response to Saturn’s divestment and sense of lack.

As Grasse notes in his article on Trump:

“…I find it fascinating how so many ultra-rich types have Saturn–Venus connections in their charts. Take computer giant Bill Gates, born with a Saturn–Venus conjunction; or Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, also born with a Saturn–Venus conjunction (as was his estranged wife MacKenzie); or Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, born with Saturn opposite Venus; John D. Rockefeller Jr., born with a Saturn–Venus conjunction; or media powerhouse Oprah Winfrey, born with a Saturn–Venus square — the list goes on.”

The power of accretion (Saturn) married to the power of attraction (Venus) becomes an earmark of that particular merger; Venus’ magnetic force to attract is amplified or distorted by Saturn’s sense of ‘never enough’.

Whenever I’ve studied Trump’s natal chart I’ve viewed this conjunction as his lucky charm. It certainly earmarks the power (Saturn) he’s accrued (Venus) through real estate (Cancer) — with scores of disasters, bankruptcies and accusations of fraud (12th house) along the way.

C0nventional astrology tints Saturn with depressive hues: limitation and restriction. But it’s said that Saturn is very happy in the 12th house of a horoscope. I suppose because of Saturn’s propensity for mischief and the 12th house’s penchant for self-undoing.

Trump conducted a rare news conference last week to announce his “great” plans for preparing the U.S. for the coronavirus.

More sideshow than an official briefing, Trump also announced that he was placing Vice-President Mike Pence in charge of what looks to be a full-blown epidemic.

The irony was not lost on those folks who still recall Pence’s disastrous handling of an HIV uptick in Indiana. One of Pence’s strategies came straight from the Evangelical playbook: Pence listened to community leaders’ alarm and told them that he would pray on the situation.

So should you contract COVID-19, please know that Mike Pence is praying for you.

After the Pence assignment and instead of offering more information as to what measures were being enacted to protect citizens Trump talked about the virus’s negative impact on the stock market (long considered his golden ticket to a second term as president).

The vulgarity of the press conference supernova-ed the following day when Trump declared that the coronavirus scare was a “hoax” perpetrated by the Democrats.

And then, boom!

Finally the obvious was staring astrologers right in the face.

Although Saturn had moved beyond opposing Trump’s rabbit foot conjunction, slower-moving Pluto (always late to the party) was just starting to lock into direct opposition with Trump’s natal Venus, right as the coronavirus began to bloom in the United States.

But wait, there’s more! From out of the shadows the 12th house’s propensity for self-ruin moved into high gear.

Sociopolitical critic David Talbot revealed that a Health and Human Services whistleblower’s report recently announced that the Trump administration itself, “opened the first major U.S. door to the epidemic by ordering untrained and unprotected HHS staffers to greet passengers from the virus-ridden Diamond Princess cruise ship at two Air Force bases in California.”

Talbot went on to explain how, “These government employees then dispersed around the country, with at least one infection (in the community near Travis Air Force Base) resulting from this bone-headed Trump maneuver.”

Pluto is often associated with epidemics and pandemics, especially when Saturn is hovering nearby. I wrote about this earlier and how the AIDS virus got traction during the Saturn Pluto conjunction in Libra in the early 80s.

For the past three or four months, when asked about predictions based on Trump’s astrology, I’ve told friends and clients that only the grim reaper could intervene.

Meaning, Trump’s lucky streak could only be daunted by some natural calamity. I ventured heart trouble given the combustibility of his natal Mars conjunct his Leo ascendant at a critical degree.

But the coronavirus is more literal and fitting a Pluto opposition — where outside events or forces bring destruction.

As the stock market reels from its fatal plunge, one of the worst in its history, Trump, too, is scrambling to remake the narrative by sucking dry whatever fumes are still animating his Venus Saturn conjunction.

But in the end, no one ever ‘wins’ when it comes to Pluto. Liz Greene once said about Pluto that you have the option of losing an arm or losing a leg during a Pluto transit.

Nature melts us all down eventually and returns us to her chthonic cauldron. Even Teflon-coated souls like Mr. Trump.