Alex's Asteroid Astrology

On October 5, 2017, NBC News broke a story that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had called Donald Trump a “fucking moron” after a tense meeting in August regarding the US nuclear arsenal. On the 8^th, Senator Bob Corker (R-TN), GOP head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who had publically doubted Trump’s fitness for the presidency in August, suggested the White House had become an “adult day care center”, with aides trying to manage and contain Trump. He also expressed himself “concerned” that the path the president has put us on could lead to World War III.

 

Increasingly, it’s not progressives or Democrats who are questioning Trump’s competency, stability, even sanity: it’s conservatives and Republicans, some who have been friends and allies for decades. Terms like “erratic,” “unhinged” and “unraveling” have become commonplace descriptors of 45, who is doing nothing to calm fears that the commander–in-chief may be hopelessly inadequate to the task, even dangerous to the nation’s, and the world’s, security.

 

Steve Bannon, former White House Chief Strategist, reportedly gives Trump only a 30% chance of completing his first term, warning that the real threat to his Oval Office tenancy comes not from impeachment, but the 25^th Amendment.

 

To which Trump replied, “What’s that?”

 

To be fair, several months ago, I’d have asked the same question. So here it is, in all its legislative glory, Article Four of the 25^th Amendment to the US Constitution, which grants a backdoor out of Trump’s chaos without having to bother those nice congressmen with impeachment proceedings:

“Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.”

 

Basically, he’s deposed by the Cabinet, who by majority vote can inform Congress of the President’s inability to serve, and replace him with the Vice President. If the President is unwilling to go quietly into that good night, he can dispute the finding, at which point Congress does have to vote; a two-thirds majority in both Houses will seal the deal, and Trump will be just a disgusting, horrible memory. After we clean up his mess, of course.

 

So, realistically, what are the chances that people hand-picked by Trump to fill these positions will vote to throw him out? Actually, given Trump’s ham-fisted attempts to bully and manipulate those closest to him, this may not be as difficult as it sounds.

 

There’s AG Jeff Sessions, subject of repeated Trump broadsides in connection with his decision to recuse himself from the Russian investigation, which Trump feels was the original sin of that debacle. Humiliated more than once in public, he’s likely to relish getting back a bit of his own. Although Sec State Tillerson disputes some of the reporting about his remarks, he has never directly denied using the phrase “moron” to describe Trump. Let’s put him in the “maybe” category on voting for his boss’s removal.

Elaine Chao, Secretary of Transportation, is the wife of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, whom Trump has similarly Twitter-bashed for his failure to pass health care reform. At the time that feud was at its hottest, Chao professed herself able to stand by “both her men”, but when pushed, will she shove Trump out the door?

 

Current White House Chief of Staff General John Kelly, formerly head of the Homeland Security Department, has his hands full trying to manage the daily turmoil and bedlam at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and knows firsthand what an impossible task that is. (He recently described it as “the hardest … most important job I’ve ever had.”) Reportedly part of a “suicide pact” with Tillerson and Defense Secretary General James Mattis, whereby if one goes, all go, will this alliance act to remove the problem before it destroys the country? Is this, in reality, a “murder/suicide” pact, with the three amigos standing over Trump’s lifeless political body?

 

Moreover, Kelly just got his second-in-command, Kirstjen Nielsen, appointed to replace him as Homeland Security Secretary. Rumor has it that this may be a precursor to Kelly’s departure, a way of giving Nielsen a “soft landing” in the administration when he leaves. But MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski opined that, to her, it looked like a general marshalling his troops. Nielsen would conceivably be one more vote for the “dump Trump” crowd.

 

Then there’s Vice President Mike Pence, who has been about as loyal a consigliere as can be, but whose best shot at taking the top job is to have Trump exit before the first term is through. Pence’s political ambition is obvious, or he wouldn’t be in the unenviable position he’s in, having to somehow normalize and enthusiastically support the abnormal and insupportable Trump.

So much for the political drama, which will play out in due time.   What about the substance behind it? Is Trump, in the vernacular, “just plain nuts”? Have the pressures of the office he is so ill-prepared for gotten to him? Is he, in fact, unstable, erratic, and unraveling?

 

These are all Uranus keywords, and of course we remember that Trump sports a natal conjunction of the Sun and Uranus, at 22 and 17 Gemini respectively. This is the signature of one who can be ungovernable, a nonconformist, chafing at any sense of restriction, incendiary and explosive, unconventional, and rebellious, shocking others and creating tumult for the sheer joy of it.

 

Yes, that does sound like Trump, doesn’t it? Making things worse is the natal square from TNO Chaos at 24 Pisces, reinforced the past two years by Chaos’ transit conjunction to the Sun. The natal square identifies Trump as an agent of chaos, someone who trails havoc, mayhem and disruption in his wake. The transit conjunction is a way of fully awakening that potential, reinforcing the natal propensity to turmoil and anarchy, imbuing Trump with this energy on a cellular level. A Lunar Eclipse at 24 Pisces in mid-September 2016, just as the general election campaign was heating up, exactly conjoined natal Chaos, further emphasizing and showcasing the bedlam created by the man Jeb Bush christened “the Chaos Candidate.”

 

Uranus, of course, has its own connections with insanity. It represents the fine line between genius and insanity, which Trump feels he treads on one side of, though many others feel he’s crossed it. It’s not at all improbable that a highly Uranian type would one day go off the deep end, especially one with an ego as avowedly massive as Trump’s who cannot abide criticism in any form. The office of the presidency is essentially 90% criticism, 10% approbation. For a narcissist like Trump, it must be a living hell, enough to push anyone over the edge.

 

But what about other markers of insanity? If Uranus represents the more volatile, violent forms of mental instability, Neptune can be an indicator of the type of insanity where one cannot connect to reality, has an altered perception of it, and mistakes fantasy for the real thing. Trump natally has Neptune at 5 Libra, in square to Mercury, ruling the brain, perception and thought processes, at 8 Cancer. This is a particularly unfortunate linkage in Trump’s psyche, encouraging grandiose delusions, an inability to discern fact from fiction, wishful thinking, and poor decisions, flights of fancy, not based in substantive realities on the ground.

In September of 2015 and March of 2016, during the presidential primary process, Trump received successive Lunar Eclipse hits to this square, at 4 Aries and 3 Libra, energizing the natal tendency toward self-delusion and deception. Natal asteroid Whitehouse at 4 Capricorn feeds into the natal and eclipse patterns, creating a T-Square natally and a Grand Cross by transit. In essence, any contact Trump has with the White House exacerbates his innate potential to see things from a skewed, irrational perspective, as well as to dissemble and mislead, or outright lie (all additional Mercury/Neptune manifestations).

 

The leading indicator of insanity as far as minor bodies are concerned is asteroid Ophelia, named for the tragic character in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” who loses her mind and accidentally drowns herself. Significantly, Ophelia’s problem is a perceived lack of love or affection from others, the dearth of which pushes her into self-destructive insanity. (Reportedly frequently lashing out at those around him, Trump has recently been quoted as saying that he “hates everyone at the White House.” His obsession with polling, especially during the primaries, and the size of his inauguration crowds, betrays a deep desire to be loved, approved of, and admired, and he displays a wounded nature when he perceives he has been rejected.)

 

Trump’s natal Ophelia is powerfully placed: at 27 Aquarius, not only dies Ophelia trine the Sun at 22 Gemini, but it closely conjoins the 29 Aquarius Descendant, giving it angular force and potency, and is also opposed natal Mars at 26 Leo, implying that whatever form of insanity she evokes could include violent actions or outbursts. Ophelia is also stationary, about to turn retrograde four days Trump’s birth. Stationary bodies exert an inordinate amount of power and influence in a psyche and biography, far outstripping their typical impact. They are the still points upon which the rest of the chart revolves. This gives Ophelia’s tendency toward mental health issues an embedded quality, something deep-seated, with a disproportionate ability to manifest itself.

 

And once again, we see recent eclipse activation, with the total Solar Eclipse of August 2017 closely opposed Ophelia from 28 Leo, and the subsequent Solar Eclipse at 27 Aquarius due in February 2018 about to exactly conjoin it. The timing could hardly be worse.

 

Have these factors combined to push Trump over the edge? Is his mental state disintegrating? Has he become a danger? At this point, we’re just speculating, but if there’s one thing a Sun/Uranus native is not, it’s subtle. If there is something seriously wrong here, Trump will make it very obvious, very soon.

 

We started this piece with a quote from Rex Tillerson, to the effect that his boss was a “fucking moron.” Not in a technical sense, certainly – his IQ would have to be between 51 and 70, and even Trump’s loudest detractors wouldn’t support that view. But in a colloquial sense, Tillerson is probably right. Only a moron could do the things Trump does and expect outcomes any different than what he’s gotten, falling poll numbers and increasing political isolation.

Just on a whim, I went to check if there was a “Moron” asteroid. No such luck, but there are several suitable phonetic and spelling stand-ins, and they fit snugly into the astrology of the situation.

 

Chief among these matches is probably “Morin”, which is closest both by spelling and pronunciation. When Tillerson’s assessment became public on October 5^th, asteroid Morin at 7 Aquarius was tightly trined Mercury (words, statements, the brain and mental capacity, the Press) at 8 Libra (also within orb of trine to the Sun at 11 Libra), as well as Tillerson’s (born 23 March 1952) natal Saturn at 12 Libra. Transit Morin also formed a synastric Grand Trine with these points and Tillerson’s natal asteroids Troemper and Achilles, at 8 and 5 Gemini respectively. Troemper of course is our celestial moniker for Trump and Achilles represents a point of inherent weakness or vulnerability, which threatens to bring down or destroy the native. So natally, Tillerson is predisposed to take note of Trump’s weakness, and his frank assessment (Mercury) threatens his career (Saturn).

 

This is supported by Tillerson’s own Morin, which at 22 Capricorn is exactly inconjunct Trump’s natal Sun at 22 Gemini, and was receiving a cosmic visit from transit asteroid Nemesis, at 24 Capricorn when his words became public. Nemesis had recently stationed at 21 Capricorn, dramatically energizing Tillerson’s Morin at just about the time the comment was made. Nemesis represents a point of self-undoing, and if Trump publically acknowledges the comment, Tillerson could well be out of a job because of it. Regardless, whenever there is a parting of the ways, this incident is likely to be behind it, at least from Trump’s side.

 

Trump’s natal Morin backs up the assessment, generally speaking. At 18 Virgo, it’s squared his natal Sun, making a certain degree of moronic utterances and acts a part of his core being. Morin was conjoined by transit Venus and Mars at 17 and 18 Virgo when Tillerson’s comments were released, identifying them as “fightin’ (Mars) words” from America’s chief diplomat (Venus).

 

Funny how that works…