Donald Trump’s 1st Year

(warning: some colourful language used, from the outset)

It has probably been the most bizarre year in the history of the U.S. Presidency, with many hoping that his tenure would not last even this long, let alone go into a second year.  I am taking a historical and astrological retrospective, picking up on some of the interesting twists and turns on this hair-raising trip.

20th January 2017: Inauguration

From the Guardian:  “From its first moments, the Trump presidency defied normal conventions.  Witnesses reported that the former president George W. Bush left the scene of Donald Trump’s inauguration remarking: “That was some weird shit.”  On the day, Uranus was exactly sextile his North Node (a weird manifestation of his karmic mission).  Saturn was pulling away from an opposition to his Sun, so the run up to this event may have been stressful to him.  But Jupiter was trine his Sun, and he was trusting his luck. Pluto was squaring his natal Jupiter, hinting at possible mis-use of power.

21st January 2017: Women’s March

“The months of his campaigning had seen him insult women, gays, other races, the disabled and climate protection.  A show of strength was needed, on behalf of human decency.” (from the blog).  The transits to his chart were very similar to those for the inauguration.  The women marched again yesterday, one year on.

28th January 2017: Travel Ban

Yesterday’s Guardian took a look back at the ten strangest days of Donald Trump’s presidency, starting with the “Travel ban chaos.”

From the Guardian: “He told reporters: ‘It’s not a Muslim ban, but we were totally prepared.  It’s working out very nicely.  You see it at the airports, you see it all over.’  But in reality there was chaos and anger after scores of immigrants and refugees were kept off flights and stranded in airports.  Even green card holders were being stopped in foreign airports as they tried to return home”.

The Jupiter trine to his Sun was nearing completion at this point, as was a trine from Uranus to his Moon.  He was already getting away with preposterous behaviours, although a federal judge began a challenge to this initiative.

4th March 2017: Wiretapping Claim

From the Guardian: “Accusing his predecessor, Barack Obama, of illegally wiretapping Trump Tower, Trump tweeted: ‘How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process.  This is Nixon/Watergate.  bad (or sick) guy!’ … Obama denied he or the White House had ordered a wire tap.  The investigation into alleged collusion with Russia during the 2016 election continues to dog Trump”.

The set of astrological influences prevailing in January were on the wane, and the astrological triggers behind this event seems to have been the stirring of his emotions, on which he tends to act immediately: Mars squared his natal Venus, and trined his natal Mars, while Jupiter sextiled his natal Moon.

18th April 2017: Popularity Slide

Donald’s popularity rating had begun to slide around this time, though his Jupiter (luck) was still holding out (he had a Jupiter Return, and Jupiter was trine his Uranus).  Some alienation with the public was due to Uranus square his Venus, and Uranus square his Saturn.

11th May 2017: Hirings and Firings

There were many hirings and firings throughout the year, and it is difficult to choose one’s favourite.  Here is one from a blog comment:

“We heard about Trump’s firing of Comey late on Tuesday night, another amazing moment.

Comey has Uranus trine his Uranus at the moment, showing a surprise twist and turn in his life, but one that might benefit him, e.g. he may be relieved at being relieved of a difficult job.

Trump has the Nodal Axis on his Ascendant/Descendant Axis at the moment, with the North Node on his Ascendant. So he may feel the karmic power is in his favour, in that he can fire whom he jolly well likes. But the karma is not just about his ego (Leo Ascendant) and may have repercussions that backfire on him.”

And still the hirings and firings continued…

31st May 2017: Covfefe

From the Guardian: “It was just after midnight when Trump sent out a very peculiar tweet: “Despite the constant negative press covfefe.” A tsunami of Twitter speculation trying to decipher its meaning coursed through the night.  Just after 6 a.m., the president woke up, deleted the post and wrote another: “Who can figure out the true meaning of ‘covfefe’??? Enjoy!”  To this day, the mystery has never been sold, but the covfefe cottage industry now includes hats, mugs and T-shirts.”

One imagines him falling asleep over his i pad…Again, he had the sort of transits which might trigger hasty words: Mars was exactly sextile his Mars, and Uranus trine exactly his Mars.  At least it provided some opportunity for light relief and release of tension for a short while.

22nd June 2017: Repealing Obamacare

Trump began to try to dismantle Obamacare and replacing it with his own alternative plan for health care.  This act was close to the transit of the North Node (karma) to his natal Mars in 12th House (of chronic health).  Instead of this being an endangering of his own person, as I had earlier surmised, it turned out to be his wounding and endangering of the circumstances surrounding the chronic health of his people.  Various politicians sought to block his attempts, and the matter is still not resolved, but has already created chaos particularly in the poorest sectors of society.  It does highlight how much time and energy he has devoted in the year to overturning Obama’s constructive policies, and like Theresa May in the U.K., but for different reasons (hers was a preoccupation with Brexit), he has achieved virtually nothing.

4th July 2017: Personality Disorder

I love this quote from one of my favourite American Astrologers, Nancy Sommers, who wrote in her blog Star Light News:

“It is pretty much uncontested that DJT has a narcissistic personality disorder. This does not preclude being charming and successful but describes an underlying imbalance of significant proportion. It can manifest in being very thin skinned due to a very fragile ego, and, as with most personality disorders, a tendency to blame everyone else and never take responsibility for anything (again due to an over-fragile ego). The impulsivity, projection, quick anger, lack of frustration tolerance are all symptomatic.”

14th July 2017: Celebrating Bastille Day

From the Guardian: “First there was the hand-hold with Theresa May, the epic handshake with the Japanese prime minister, Shinz Abe, and the non-handshake with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel.  Then, during a visit to France for Bastille Day, there was a handshake with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, that lasted 29 seconds.” Trump was treated to a display of pomp and circumstance which he described as “one of the most beautiful parades I have ever seen”. His transits were definitely geared to enjoyment and hedonism that day: Mars was on his Venus, and Jupiter on his Chiron.

21st July 2017: More Notable Hirings and Firings

From the Observer: “Commentators said the past week was the worst endured by any US president in living memory and warned that, as Trump becomes increasingly isolated and volatile, the situation could rapidly deteriorate – especially if he is tested by an international crisis”

From the blog: “Re-winding to Friday July 21st, Donald appointed Anthony Scaramucci as Communications Director.  White House staff come and go, under Trump, but this one gave an arresting interview on our British television screens with Emily Maitlis (mentioned last week as one of those who didn’t quite make £100,000 p.a.).  “Can he be for real?” we wondered (in this house, anyway).

Scaramucci is an ambitious Sun in Capricorn, with Mars and Mercury also in that sign.  His flamboyance may be due to a square between his Sun and Jupiter, but also Uranus trine his Sun (so he is not a typical or staid Capricornian).  The power in his chart comes from an almost exact double trine from Sun and Mercury in Capricorn to Pluto and Uranus in Virgo.  Like Trump, he has Venus conjunct Saturn.  Saturn rules Trump’s 6th House of Employees, so the conjunction may reflect his unsentimental ability to dispatch them, and Scaramucci seems to emulate his style in some ways.”

From the Guardian: “The reboot of the administration’s media operation lasted all of 10 days.  Scaramucci’s fate was sealed by an expletive-laden New Yorker interview in which he denounced Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus (“fucking paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac”).”

30th July 2017: Kim Jong Un

From the blog: “Donald Trump’s karma saved the most dramatic for the end of the week, with his North Korean nemesis Kim Jong Un deciding to trial another nuclear missile launch, and declaring that North Korea had the capacity to fire anywhere in the U.S.  As dramas go, this international crisis has to be top in the league of seriousness.  I have two charts for President Kim Jong Un of North Korea.  The first, for 1983, reveals a current transit of Uranus opposite his Pluto, which is destructive enough.  The second, for 1984, shows much more suitable transits for such an event:  Pluto on his Sun (trigger happy), Uranus opposite his Mars (unpredictable) and Chiron square his Neptune (slightly unhinged).  By now, Jupiter was exactly conjunct Trump’s natal Jupiter (a Jupiter Return) in Libra, as well as the aspects reported for midweek.  Donald may be at his most reckless, arrogant and careless.  How will he react, we wonder, to Kim Jong Un’s irrationality…”

15th August 2017: Charlottesville March

At a white supremacist march in Charlottesville, a civil rights activist was killed.  Trump made one of his most extraordinary pronouncements, refusing to condemn the white supremacists: “I think there is blame on both sides. You had a group on one side that was bad.  you had a group on the other side that was also very violent.  Nobody wants to say that.  I’ll say it right now.”

The transits for his chart at that point were interesting: Mars was sextile his Jupiter, upping his usual arrogance.  But Saturn was transiting his natal Moon/South Node, a feature of his chart which hints at his strong emotions about his fellow man which go back a long way, way back to childhood or even past lives.

21st August 2017: Leo Solar Eclipse

The August 21st New Moon and Eclipse last year was a turning point for many Leos, but for Donald Trump, whose Ascendant and Mars were close to the end of Leo where the eclipse fell, it wasn’t the change that many hoped for.

Astrologer Wade Caves was reported to comment in Newsweek: “The effects of the coming eclipse could take time to show up, according to astrologers’ claims. Caves believes the impact will appear over the next two years because the eclipse will take around two hours to cross the continent (for a solar eclipse, astrologers interpret each hour as a year). The result could be “a loss of a leader in some sense,” he says, whether literal or symbolic. ‘It seems to me very possible that by this time next year, we’re looking at the reality of Trump not being in office.’ ”

The results of an eclipse can take a while, often six months, or more.  We are still waiting…

29th November 2017: The Muslim Videos

Donald Trump shared videos and tweets originating from the far right group Britain First without checking their veracity, which purported to show Muslims committing acts of violence, but in fact were not the case at all.  Theresa May was obliged to condemn this.

This was another case of Mars triggering his chart in an inflammatory way: Mars trine his Sun and Mars square his Saturn.  We need a member of the White House staff permanently tracking his Mars transits.  Another interesting astrological feature encouraged him in the mis-use of power: Jupiter squaring his Pluto, at the same time as Pluto also squared his Jupiter (a double whammy!)

5th December 2017: U.S. Embassy moving to Jerusalem

Another edge of the seat moment, as Donald Trump reverses decades of foreign policy in failing to sign a waiver delaying plans to move its embassy to Jerusalem.  The implications for the Middle East peace process (slim though it currently is) are potentially disastrous.

What was he thinking?  Some of the transits from earlier in the year were recurring, but Uranus squaring his natal Saturn seems the most disruptive and destructive, and descriptive of not preserving the status quo.

20th January 2018: Government Shutdown

Exactly on the cusp of his second year, there is a government shutdown caused by a standoff in the Senate about a new budget: it’s an event that we are told does happen from time to time, and last happened in 2013 during Obama’s administration. Emergency services will continue to function.  Currently, Jupiter squares his Neptune and Neptune squares his Sun, bringing confusion.  In addition, Saturn is on his Chiron, impeding healing, and causing a block.  For the U.S. chart, Saturn opposes its Venus, and Uranus squares its Mercury, both difficult transits for the populace.

From my New Year blog:

Is there any chance of unseating him this coming year?  On 10th May the North Node transits his Pluto in 12th House, which could indicate a possible unseating.  If not, he may still be around in October, when on 12th of that month Jupiter transits his I.C. in 3rd House: he could cause a twitter storm on that day.  On 8th November Jupiter squares his Ascendant, causing even more than usual exaggerated behaviour, then moves into his 4th House of Home – could there be home changes? 16th November sees the North Node on his 12th House cusp, and entering his 11th House, so he may be making new karmic alliances at that time, possibly away from the White House…Looking at the U.S. chart, on 4/5th July (2018) Uranus will be transiting its natal Chiron in the 5th House, which may be a sudden healing crisis.

Aspects

Aspects begin in earnest on Wednesday (24th), though if you wish to work with the tail end of last week’s aspects in the meantime they will still be operable.  On Wednesday Mercury is conjunct Pluto, an aspect which requires a depth of thought.  If you are skimming the surface, you may be wondering why something isn’t working, or what you are not seeing about a situation.  There’s also a taste for the dramatic about this aspect, which may be assuaged by some creative scriptwriting.

Thursday (25th) brings us a much more upbeat aspect to Mercury: a sextile with Jupiter.  This is reinvigorating for teaching, business and sales.  The uninspired and jaded post-Christmas high street stores may suddenly have a spike in interest and success.  It is a good time for broadening the mind with literary input: you may start on that pile of books you received for Christmas which have occupied the living room floor and blocked access to the shelves.

Mars enters Sagittarius on Friday (26th) which is a less combative energy than Mars in Scorpio, but equally dynamic.  Mars in Sagittarius can be a green light to new exercise regimes and sports initiatives, foreign transactions, and further education studies.  If you are seeking to pursue a line of life philosophy with gusto in order to test out if it actually works, then pick your mantra and go for it!  You’ll have the energy at least, though success is not absolutely guaranteed.

The week in bullet points:

  • Wednesday – think things through
  • Thursday – mental uplift
  • Friday – energy and enthusiasm
Date: Jan 21st, 2018 · Comments RSS · Tags: News