After a sobering look at the general worldwide “Descent into the Maelstrom” pattern we’re being sucked into, here’s a promised review of one of the major contributing players – America – where the outcome of the recent election is already feeding and will exacerbate the coming frenzy. The questions are: A) how did the world’s biggest democracy put a would-be autocrat into power?  [quick answer: it didn’t, a minority actually voted for him, but he won anyhow, a repeat of 2000] And B) what might be the astrological reasons both inside (natal chart) and outside (transits and progressions) that have pushed America into this unusual spot. Plus finally, C) who is Trump in relation to America, what’s to come of it, and when?

We’ve covered a lot of the contributing factors in earlier articles, so follow the links along the way for further elaboration, but here’s a wrap. It's a perfect storm of national character problems, debilitating surrounding sky developments, and the appearance of a perfectly-constructed (personally and astrologically) candidate to fan the flames of growing but amorphous discontent into an unpredictable wildfire that will without doubt leave behind historic social and economic damage. As we pointed out in our November 2016 editorial, written before the election, the world was locked into a rapidly-developing fateful encounter with destiny, regardless of who won the American election, but the actual outcome has made that path more delineated than ever.

The pre-election U.S. solar return, unnoticeed by most, features new Moon T-square with Uranus and Pluto, Saturn on the Ascendant ...coming after inauguration (r): prog-Moon-chasing-transiting-Saturn, and transiting-Neptune-chasing-prog-Sun.

A. The American Horoscope.

First, America’s natal chart, its inborn inclinations. Like any natal horoscope, it is only a starting point, a set of initial conditions, but its patterns become more evident as planetary cycles repeat and emphasize the original order of planets and their relationships, thus producing a pattern of habits and expectations that become what may be referred to as individual character. In the case of a nation, it also depicts what sort of people will tend to come there and for what reason.

America’s horoscope is at first glance gigantically expansive – Jupiter-ruled, fiery Sagittarius rising with both Cancer Sun and Venus conjunct Jupiter. It’s all about ambition, growth, appetite, and wealth. And with those planets’ ruler, the Moon, in Aquarius it at first tries to distribute those acquisitive energies to the people at large, instead of just the government – the child of a philosophical trend in the decades preceding its birth when the outer planets stood in a rare and hugely-creative grand trine. Thus, the immediate image and attraction of the country is that it’s big, rich, and there’s enough to spread around for everybody. Lots of freedom and elbow room, filled with fertile fields, orchards, and low-hanging fruit for the asking.

 
A full Moon type, like Trump, America is prone to destructive mood swings, but its strengths are in its creative minor aspects.

But how the planets distribute themselves and interact paints a different story. First, that fiery, spiritually-free Sagittarius front door is just that, a front. There is no other inspiring fire in the chart – the much-touted freedom of religion has always been about which Christian sect you were in (though Mormons and even Catholics have notoriously had it hard), not about all religions in general, and the Ascendant quincunx Sun makes religion more competitional than inclusive. Were Neptune not sextile Pluto-afflicted Mercury, there might be no First Amendment.  Freedom has meant allowing choices, but only within a limited framework that itself is conceived as somehow universal. As it is, with Mercury opposite Pluto, it’s about taking entrenched sides and fighting about it. The only earth is outer planets Neptune and Pluto, both of which are afflicters – of Mars and Mercury respectively -- when America gets its feet on the ground, it's usually in a fight. It rises to the occasion after the fact (think Pearl Harbor, among many others), when an obvious mistake has already been made and a pound of cure is required, when a more thoughtful and less expensive ounce of prevention would have done the trick. 

The chart features cardinal water (all touchy, defensive, reactive, denialist Cancer) mixed with more-diverse and inventive air. Reliability is hard to come by, and usually the result of conflict. And the tightest, most intense aspects tend to be the worst ones: Sun square Saturn (insecurity and self-doubt) and Mars square Neptune (confusion and fear of how to take action), Mercury opposite Pluto (stubborn argumentiveness). The more benefic aspects like Moon trine Mars and Saturn trine Uranus are less exact and compelling. There is a lot of the Wild West “my way or the highway” built-in, that in other more crowded locations would be barren ground for democracy and ripe soil for tyranny and war – the very situation America’s immigrants fled, while bringing their individualist predilections with them and thus reinforcing the character of their new home. The many more and sometimes crippling ways these aspects surface in modern life make for an article unto itself, check out American Circus.

       

America's sky pattern swings from Moon and Pluto handle to everything else, and the only "spiritual" fire is the Ascendant.

With all these problems, you may wonder how America got so far to begin with, but its saving graces are part astrology (very creative minor aspects ) and part geography. Astrologically, the overall chart shape can be seen as either a splash pattern (lots of variety and change) or a double-handle-bucket/see-saw with Moon and Pluto on one side, everything else on the other, meaning it may swing to compulsive extremes but then rights itself by swinging the other way. Geographically, it has been big enough so that when things get impossible in one location, folks can move on to another for more untapped resources and opportunity, while two oceans seal it off from trouble abroad. Until now, that is, when the inhabitants have effectively run out of free resources and space to move away from contentious neighbors, and the oceans are now easily spanned by information, money, and missiles. The original “Giving Tree” is running dry, requiring a modified character that can repair, conserve, and nurture what’s left, the opposite of its natal habit, though with all that Cancer not impossible.

B. The Happenings in the sky

Where the sky finds us now is the “B)" factor, and since the turn of the Millennium, that has been aggravating the limitations of natal “A)”.  In short, the very afflicters that make for difficulties in the American character inside the natal chart are passing above and making trouble from the outside, specifically Neptune and Pluto, with a current blast from Saturn. We noted this twelve years ago when progressed Sun went into Neptune-ruled Pisces: after thirty years of cyber-driven Moon in Aquarius, spanning the evolution from Pong to the full Internet, what would the change in inner style and interest bring? Religious and spiritual miasmas followed by eventual clearer enlightenment? So far it has turned out to be simple Neptunian confusion (as it’s natally afflicted). Just as this affliction caused America to abuse the opportunities of drug usage in the 1960s and ‘70s, the nation faltered into the swamp yet again by 2010 as it was hit by transiting and progressed Neptune contacts, part of an historical rhythm for the country.

Perhaps worse than that, America’s already Neptune-afflicted natal planet Mars – the energizer and provider of strength and assertion, so necessary for winning wars, demonstrating power, and competing in the push and shove of international politics – was slowing down and finally turned retrograde by progression in 2006, likely marking the country’s military highwater for the next 80 years. It was palpable at the time, as the country lost control of its military adventures in the Middle East and hasn’t regained it since (and likely won’t). 

     
As prog Mars went retro in 2006, America unknowingly ran short of ammo, now the world doen't revolve around it anymore.

When Pluto hit the American Ascendant right at the 9-11 attack, the bravado of the Jupiter-Ascendant façade was steamrolled, and then as the country responded with its war-making Mars in an almost randomly-unconsidered way (by attacking Iraq), it just ran out of steam. Back in 1998 in an article for Dell Horoscope entitled “The Hammer of Destiny” we surmised this double-whammy would indicate ”a suppression and then a transformation of the country’s world power and the transfer of control and influence to a cooperative mix of nations in the world community.” Sadly, no one in the government was listening then, and after a now-thwarted brief step in that direction by a crippled Obama administration, it isn’t listening now.  The decline continues unrecognized from within, and each attempt to bluster back to the previous state of superpower has simply weakened the nation further, politically and economically, and will continue to.

The current affliction (right on election day) has been Saturn sitting on the U.S. Ascendant, weighing things down, and we are about to launch on a several-year period of depressing (psychologically and economically) progressed-Moon-chasing-transiting-Saturn, a phenomenon discussed in The Race Is On. And in the middle of that, another, rarer race is on between transiting Neptune and the progressed Sun, bringing paralytic self-doubt and inner confusion to the whole country.  The nation has historically managed to get through many of these troubling cycles before, though not pleasantly, but this is a real pile-on, with less-than-usual inner strength or focus to overcome them. And because it is a vortex period when most governments are out of touch with social needs, the easiest and worst conclusion that an estranged and self-absorbed people can come to is that government itself is not necessary, or that just anyone you elect would be better than what’s there already, regardless of actual qualifications.  That makes easy pickings for would-be autocrats who can stir passions while disengaging real thought, turn voting into an explosive emotional statement instead of a carefully-considered social responsibility. 

The naive conflation of showmanship and money with skills of governance could be the unravelling of American exceptionalism.

C. The New Ringmaster

So now, right on time, the perfect Barnum-like barker and ringmaster to roil up the American Circus has appeared on the scene to stir all of the disparate elements together into a cacophony of social upset. The claim is to make America “great again”, apparently a great leap pastward to when things were better – mainly for wealthy white males, and only select ones at that. But his claim (like other authoritarian populists with similar messages worldwide) that the general establishment is not in tune with social progress is right on cue with the Saturn-outer-planet-nest cycle in progress everywhere, and thus magnetically enticing.  

Unlike other leaders in similar times and places in history (Lincoln, FDR, Churchill), there doesn’t seem to be a new, well-crafted plan to fix the situation, just random exhortations that expand the chaos of the many for the profit of the few. If this had been any other election, that would have mattered, but this time it did not.

Inauguration Day: Trump's chart overlaps and inflames America's chart's deepest afflictions, as both cross paths precisely.

That's perhaps in part because Trump is astrologically such a tight fit for the position, as his hyper, lunar-eclipse mutable full Moon-Sun opposition stretches right across America’s afflicted Mars, giving him instant rapport with the country’s confusions and fear of impotence, his Venus-Saturn conjunction (perceived impoverishment) sits right on the combative Mercury-Pluto opposition, so he adds to the illusion that the nation is the worst off it’s ever been, even though it’s not. His Jupiter sits right on the national Saturn, so he can overstate its woes and claim to be the solution, while actually stoking and profiting from them. This is doubly-enabled by his deceptive Neptune-squared Mercury right on the national Sun/Jupiter/Venus (its pride, and its bank account). 

He lacks any Earth (innate stability) in his chart and has Uranus conjunct and rising ahead of the Sun, a natural icon-smasher, aggravated by in-your-face Leo Mars exactly rising and opposite America's Moon, giving the appearance of a pistol-packing General Patton leading an armored cavalry charge, but in exactly the wrong direction. And unlike that precisely-outspoken WWII tank corps commander, Trump's proclaimed enemy is uncertain and ever-changing, and the strategy momentary, contradictory, or non-existent. That's a plus in entertainment, but not government, and America in its own confused self-absorption has failed to discern the difference, confusing reality show with reality.

A good portion of America sees Trump as coming to the rescue - but of what, and just how, seem to have been omitted.

It is hard to imagine a pair of charts more perfectly-tailored for a con man and his mark than Trump and the U.S., as in every planetary contact, the benefit goes to Trump and not to America. But considering over half the voting populus voted for someone else, it may not be long until this becomes more obvious, albeit late in the game, particularly when things don't instantly improve for impatient Trump voters. At inauguration, Saturn begins a repeated transit of Trump's full Moon/Sun, followed by Pluto opposing his Saturn and on his Vertex. And just as a continuingly-recalcitrant Congress would have blocked anything Hillary Clinton would have done had she been elected, so the Senate, the lower courts, and growing protests in the streets (including disillusioned former Trump backers) may slow the progress (or rather, regress) that parts of the Republican Party want to push through using their new champion. 

But those betting that the chimerical Trump will take anybody's side except his own for more than a moment will be disappointed. This is the chart of a man whose most innately-troublesome aspects have been continually rewarded lifelong and has neither reason nor ability to change. As we have remarked before the election, the next four years will most certainly be marked more by chaos, confusion, and fear than any permanent movement backward or forward, but with lots of blame to go around. But as he is so tied to the U.S. chart, anything that brings the country down will bring him down with it, and vice versa, which will happen  In the long run, it all may be a needed maturing of a still-adolescent America, a gullible sophomore yet to be wiser for its foolishness, self-wounded for the second time in a single generation, that will have stood quarreling and posing while being fleeced, as the rest of the world passed it by. 

But in sum, in a time of inner and outer American confusion, increased by a generally devolving world situation, America has plunged into the four-year timeline to 2020 and its own Pluto return kicking and screaming, instead of stepping with care. The core of the issue in America is the same as the rest of the world -- the disconnect between the individual's part in social evolution and the establishment governments, and their mismanagement of it. And as the techno-driven trend to more direct democratic elections continues, it will be critical that greater numbers of participants be both better educated and more involved in how government works to avoid the very real pitfalls of clever totalitarian takeovers, even in apparently-stable countries.  As long as media is willing to uncritically report -- and Americans are willing to believe and then act upon -- anything they hear, unselectively, the country is headed for a fall. And these skies are not going to help.

It will be interesting to see how this U.S. misadventure evolves and what can be done to ameliorate the situation after the fact...but this example of history repeating, in yet another easily recognizable and avoidable variation, is already certain to engender ongoing tragedy for many, for years to come...

In our November editorial, we also referred to Shakespeare's St. Crispin's Day speech from Henry V, evoking the dubious sense of envy for "being there" when history was made. But if you are an American, as with the English at Agincourt (and now Brexit!), you will have to answer not just that you were there, but which side were you on...