Hard to believe, but on June 16th, it will be ten years since Donald J. Trump rolled down that golden escalator in Trump Tower to announce his candidacy for US president, setting in motion a disruption in our political life as a nation the likes of which we’ve never seen before (to use one of Trump’s favorite catch phrases). As always, the moment encapsulates the future, crystalizing latent potential into manifestation.
Late April and early May 2025 witnessed two vital democracies elect new governments, in the teeth of a tense Mars/Pluto opposition, as Canadians and Australians lined up to cast ballots for the candidates of their choice. Both countries saw foundering incumbents, once thought to be sure losers, given new life and rescued from defeat to retain power. This was, at least in part, aided and abetted by a series of poorly chosen acts and statements from US President Donald Trump, whose trade war tariffs and belligerent rhetoric aimed at these erstwhile allies tarred his fellow conservatives with a brush so toxic that voters fled into the arms of their progressive rivals. Donald Trump, Making Democracy Great Again – everywhere but in America.
And postmortem is a good word for it, with many Americans and others across the globe feeling like they’ve died and gone to hell. For whatever reason, on November 5th, more than half the US voting electorate chose to once again turn over the keys of the White House to Donald Trump, a convicted felon awaiting sentencing on 34 criminal counts, with three more criminal cases pending, an individual adjudicated guilty of fraud, liable for sexual abuse and defamation, a serial sexual predator who has declared bankruptcy multiple times, who spews hate, racism, invective and misogyny with every breath. And this time, Trump achieved a feat he hadn’t before – he won, not just by the antiquated machinery of the Electoral College, but with an outright majority of votes, having lost that measure by three million votes in 2016 and seven million votes in 2020. Shame on us.
From the moment she stepped on stage at the presidential debate held at Constitution Hall in Philadelphia, PA on September 10, 2024, Kamala Harris dominated, striding purposefully across the platform to force Donald Trump to shake hands with her as an equal. Trump had been evading that moment (as indeed, he avoided even glancing her way throughout most of the debate), but she walked directly into his space and demanded compliance with the time-honored norm.
The 2024 DNC kicked off in Chicago on 19 August, under very different circumstances than those under which it was conceived and planned. Originally intended as a re-up ceremony for incumbent US President Joe Biden, likely a fairly sedate affair (given his age and the flagging poll numbers in the race against Donald Trump), after the former withdrew from the race and passed the baton to VP Kamala Harris, things changed dramatically.
When Kamala Harris announced her run for president in 2019, she looked like a long shot. And she was, with a troubled campaign that ended before the first primary votes were cast. But looking at her birth chart then, it seemed to me that she was going to get to the Oval Office at some point, however distant. When Joe Biden chose her as his running mate a year later, she took a major step towards that goal, and when they won that November, a giant leap was made.
But there were still a number of hurdles to cross in the race to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, such as waiting her turn after a successful re-elect gave Biden a second term (should that even occur), and then fending off Democratic competition for the open seat in 2028, and winning that election. US Vice Presidents don’t have a compelling track record of succeeding to the office, barring the death of the boss mid-term, and she still faced a strong headwind.
