As I write this, the U.S. is waking up to a new, more joyful reality in candidate Kamala Harris’s campaign: as promised, she announced her new V.P. pick, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz yesterday, and last night,
Walz
demonstrated in their first rally as a team just why he was a compelling choice
for her ticket. Speaking in Philadelphia—our birthplace as a nation—Walz
delivered what some are calling a “happy warrior” speech, lifting Harris and
their shared agenda into the rafters and deep-sixing the Trump/Vance campaign with a grin and a great turn of phrase. A visibly delighted Harris recounted his
long career as a teacher, as a 25-year veteran of the National Guard, as a Congressman and Governor and finally, as “Coach” Walz, soon to be “V.P.
of the United States” Walz, and the crowd roared. It was a great start, but the
path ahead is anything but certain. Much more to come in future posts about this development.
For now, however, today’s post will pick up with the important issue the last post left hanging: how Trump and Vance are likely to operate as a unit for the remainder of this year’s presidential campaign. Given all that’s been said in the news about Vance, his deep ties with the so-called "broligarchs"—and all that isn’t being said by Trump himself about his pick—this may seem almost unnecessary, but the chemistry (good, bad or indifferent) between these men is still an essential issue.
It still matters that Vance may be too “needy” for Trump to stomach and vice versa. It still matters that Trump may feel threatened by the almost “hereditary” dynamics between them because—just a wild guess here—the last thing he wants to hear is discussion about a political “son” replacing him.
So, given that vice-presidents are a “heartbeat away” from the presidency and that Vance is paired with an older presidential candidate, we need to get to know these two men as an astrological pairing. There are more complicated ways of examining relationships astrologically, but I think you’ll find what we can glean from a simple biwheel between their nativities is quite enough.
L-R: Elon Musk, J. D. Vance, Peter Thiel.
First, the “broligarchs” and a little background
Writing for The Atlantic, Brooke Harrington recounts the pro-billionaire policies the Trump ticket is busily espousing—and how the Trump/Vance ticket has been gaining the support of who she calls the “broligarchs” who seem certain they are entitled to run the political show these days. Apparently, her insights into these powerful men (always men) have evolved over long study:
“I am a sociologist who studies the ultrarich. Over the course of 17 years of research, I’ve heard repeatedly from financial advisers that multimillionaire and billionaire clients view themselves as above nationality and laws. One wealth adviser told me that some of his clients sincerely ‘believe that they are descended from the pharaohs, and that they were destined to inherit the earth.’
This mindset comes through in a 1997 book that [Peter] Thiel has listed among his favorites of all time: The Sovereign Individual, by James Dale Davidson and William Rees-Mogg. The text unironically likens the ultrarich to ‘the gods in Greek myth,’ and assures readers that they deserve no less than world domination: ‘Commanding vastly greater resources and beyond the reach of many forms of compulsion, the Sovereign Individual will redesign governments and reconfigure economies.’ In describing why he included the book, Thiel said that it offered a ‘prophecy’ of ‘a future that doesn’t include the powerful states that rule over us today.’ Thiel has famously argued that freedom and democracy are incompatible.
To many billionaires’ dismay, democratic governance involves taxation, regulation, and scrutiny by the free press. The same system that facilitated their prosperity through the rule of law and good economic stewardship also constrains them—as it does all of us. But hell hath no fury like a broligarch who doesn’t get his way.”
All of which seems like a fitting place to begin this examination of the birth charts of Donald Trump and J.D. Vance as an electoral pairing that is clearly committed to serving the purposes of these would-be pharaohs and gods. There may be some effort afoot to confuse and obfuscate what really drives them with talk about abortion bans and other Top 40 Culture War “hits,” but in the end, it’s probably safe to say that “follow the money” is still good advice.
As it has been since our very earliest days as a nation—bear with me here, as we revisit a bit of history that speaks to all this.
On April 15, 1783, a preliminary peace agreement was recognized by the then-U.S. Congress of Confederation: Mars, Jupiter and Pluto conjoined in Aquarius and all trined Libra Neptune, with Saturn tying into all of them by dispositorship (Aquarius) or exaltation (Libra), from home-sign Capricorn. Significantly, Cancer Uranus and Libra Neptune were about to enter their 3Q cycle phase (first exact that June), marking that an approximate 40-year period lay ahead for paying war debts, sorting through and establishing geopolitical relationships and becoming financially independent for the infant nation’s debut on the world stage.
By January 1820, Uranus and Neptune had both finished a lively tour of Sagittarius and had joined the nation’s radix Pluto (Sibly chart, see Note [1])in the more disciplined, but equally ambitious and potentially ruthless Capricorn. The “business of America is business” was well-established and widely recognized even then. By the time Uranus had come within orb of that late Capricorn Sibly Pluto in 1827, the stress of maintaining a Union between free and slave states was already taking a toll because the shocking institutions of African slavery and Indigenous genocide/land-grabbing had become so key to the American economy that slave holders were determined—against Northern resistance—to populate the new territories and states that were fast joining the Union.
Unfortunately, nothing in the seemingly principled, but mostly pragmatic fight against the spread of slave-holding states spared our Indigenous tribes the tragedies to come.
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| A new twist on the 3/5ths Compromise lives on today.. |
But I’ve gotten ahead of the story: rewinding to that key period in April, 1783—specifically on April 18th—when our new nation was laying down its foundational principles and laws, a contentious proposal was presented that went on to become part of the Constitution in 1787. It was known as the “Three-Fifths Compromise,” and is summarized by Wikipedia as follows:
“The Three-fifths Compromise was an agreement reached during the 1787 United States Constitutional Convention over the inclusion of slaves in a state's total population. This count would determine: the number of seats in the House of Representatives; the number of electoral votes each state would be allocated; and how much money the states would pay in taxes. Slave holding states wanted their entire population to be counted to determine the number of Representatives those states could elect and send to Congress. Free states wanted to exclude the counting of slave populations in slave states, since those slaves had no voting rights. A compromise was struck to resolve this impasse. The compromise counted three-fifths of each state's slave population toward that state's total population for the purpose of apportioning the House of Representatives, effectively giving the Southern states more power in the House relative to the Northern states. It also gave slaveholders similarly enlarged powers in Southern legislatures; this was an issue in the secession of West Virginia from Virginia in 1863.[citation needed] Free blacks and indentured servants were not subject to the compromise, and each was counted as one full person for representation.[1]”
Long story short, the Sibly Pluto ultra-wealthy who have always wanted to gain as much political power as possible without the messy business of democracy intervening—all those “little people” voting and demanding consideration in the halls of power—were there at the birth of our American experiment and that’s the nation today's "broligarchs" want back. In the wake of our still-lingering Sibly Pluto return and despite almost 250 years of slowly emerging from the 18th century’s idea of “one [white] man/one vote” democracy, these would-be “pharaohs” now feel entitled to move us back to square one for their own narrow purposes.
Back to that founding “compromise” that blueprints like Project 2025 promise to redefine and resurrect, consigning most Americans (of any race) to "less than" personhood, entitled to “less-than” representation in their own government. “Less than” persons, subject to voter registration cancellation at the GOP’s whim; subject to voter suppression with SCOTUS’s decimation of the Voting Rights Act and support of state-level gerrymandering; subject to the loss of a public safety net, the loss of bodily autonomy and any control over reproductive health. Subject to self-serving misinformation (Sibly Pluto opposes Sibly Mercury (Cancer), which sextiles Sibly Neptune in Virgo) and an economy manipulated by those at the top and for them.
But then there are “We the People,” the Sibly Moon (Aquarius) masses who want to hold America to its original ideals of equality under the Law, as stated in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, and who have an equally urgent stake in the “business” of America.
Will this tension within the American
Soul between the Sibly Pluto and Sibly Moon, sitting uncomfortably semi-sextile
each other (see Note [1]), ever be fully resolved as an “either/or”
proposition? Probably not—but real democracy has always provided for power-sharing between uneasily
co-existing stakeholders. But now, our extremist political
stage seems to be set for a true David & Goliath story, only “David” is a 50-something woman of Black and East Indian heritage, running against the
mega-MAGA—some might even say fascist—forces
and ideals that Donald Trump and running mate J.D. Vance are promoting.
Subtlety is not their thing
It's not like the “bros” are being subtle about how they want to gain ultimate power in this nation: witness what’s been going on with SCOTUS and select Justices’ relationships with various billionaire benefactors. Then, there’s this, from Substacker and astute political analyst, John Ganz:
“Every time I think my insistence on the fascism thesis might have gone too far, something comes along to bring me back to my senses. So, sorry to sound like a broken record, but come the fuck on already. In her New York Times column yesterday, Michelle Goldberg highlighted JD Vance’s blurb of Jack Posobiec’s book Unhumans. You may remember Posobiec as one of the people that pushed the ‘Pizzagate’ conspiracy theory. What’s his argument? That leftists are not human beings. They are unhumans. Another way to put that is subhumans. Untermenschen. Goldberg:
The word ‘fascist’ gets thrown around a lot in politics, but it’s hard to find a more apt one for ‘Unhumans,’ which came out last month. The book argues that leftists don’t deserve the status of human beings — that they are, as the title says, unhumans — and that they are waging a shadow war against all that is good and decent, which will end in apocalyptic slaughter if they are not stopped.”
And Vance is out there these days claiming that Dems are trying to kill Trump? The fantasyland he and Trump inhabit and that they’re promoting on the strength of broligarch financing is getting dangerous, indeed.
Vance and the “bros” are tight, of course, and according to Rick Wilson, they’ve baited Trump into picking him for V.P. with promises of money (Elon Musk), promises of money/influence (Peter Thiel), and probably lots of luxurious goodies, including bills paid and loans forgiven—see Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse on the “creepy billionaires” who have “captured the Court” and clearly don’t plan to stop there.
So, the astrological question before us in this post is, how is the pairing of Trump and Vance likely to fare? Will they bring out the best in each other or quite the opposite? What will the likely points of contention and agreement be between them? We’ll address these questions as we explore Biwheel #1 below for their two birth charts, set against each other. Because he is older, I’ve placed Trump’s nativity in the inner wheel.
Let’s begin.
One picture worth a thousand words!
The astrology
Biwheel #1. (inner wheel) Donald J. Trump, June 14, 1946, 10:54 a.m. DST, Jamaica, NY. Source: BC/BR, Rodden rated AA; (outer wheel) James Donald Bowman (J.D. Vance), August 2, 1984, 8:11 a.m. DST, Middletown, Butler, OH. Source: BC/BR, Rodden rated AA. All charts are cast by the author on Kepler 8.0, with Tropical Equal Houses and True Node and courtesy of Cosmic Patterns Software.
Not surprisingly, both men’s Leo ASC and Taurus MC angles align and each man has a powerful planet conjunct his ASC and square his MC (Mars in Trump’s case; Venus in Vance’s). As a pairing we can expect that they will realize a mutual benefit from these relationships: a bit of Trump’s so-called “tough guy charm” may rub off on Vance and perhaps Vance will function as a sort of “trophy wife” for Trump—one who reassuringly reflects Trump’s potency and pugilistic approach to all relationships back at him. One who can take Trump’s angry tirades with equanimity because he knows he might have the last laugh.
Yes, one man’s ego will need to give way to the other’s need for dominance for them to work together at all—guess who will be deferring to whom!
And deferring is no mean feat for Vance, with his Leo Sun tightly conjunct Trump’s Leo Pluto—but because Vance needs to shine so intensely, the relationship is likely to be laced with humiliating and/or abusive power struggles, especially if Vance isn’t quick to pick up on cues. Please see the last post here for a more thorough examination of his nativity on its own, but for now, we can expect that Vance may be feeling that his progressed Sun—now in mid-Virgo, t-square Trump’s full Moon Gemini-Sagittarius oppositions (progressed chart not shown)—has all of a sudden regressed back into his 12th house of childhood struggles.
Is Trump—perhaps unconsciously for Vance—being cast in the role of
the strong father figure who could have saved him from the chaos of an unstable
birth family and his mother’s addictions early on? Good luck with that...just make sure the font saying "Trump" looms bigger and more eye-catchingly over the one saying "Vance" (see pic above)!
Or is Trump Vance’s imagined benefactor/trophy wife (Venus in Leo)? Who’s using whom here? My guess is that it’s probably a mutually transactional relationship that is likely to go toxic in a hurry. For Vance, the ongoing job of indulging Trump’s racist/misogynistic ego-puffery will likely wear thin quickly because rewards and appreciation are likely to flow in one direction only, to the archetypal “Tyrant” Father—which may resonate with Vance’s natal Sun-Saturn square (Leo-Scorpio), but given Vance’s clear ambitions and need for attention in his own right, how long can an arrangement like that last?
Or perhaps they will begin competing for who can shoot out the most outrageous tweets or make the most outrageous speeches on the campaign trail: Vance has a better facility for coherent thinking and speaking with his dignified Virgo Mercury, while Trump meanders and muddles along with his Cancer Mercury, which squares his Libra Neptune. The sextile between these two Mercuries suggests a potential “spokesman” relationship, which could make sense, as long as Vance doesn’t start thinking he’s the star of the show (a pitfall with Leo Suns).
Their respective Mars placements do fall square from Leo (Trump) to Scorpio (Vance), and Vance’s Mars conjoins Trump’s Moon and opposes both their MCs, creating fixed interchart t-squares that pull in Vance’s Venus-ASC and Trump’s Mars-ASC…one possible question here is, will these impossible tugs-of-war threaten this relationship, or will these men “solve” the tension by instinctively projecting their mutual hostilities out onto Others (into their Aquarius 7th houses) in ever more toxic ways? Oh, to be a fly on the wall…
The fact is, Trump could have chosen a running mate who wasn’t quite the clone of him that Vance seems to be, maybe even a partner who would “soften” Trump’s appeal a bit, making it possible to reach out to disenchanted women at this raw moment for that constituency.
But no, he chose a partner who is clearly willing to match his own misogyny, the more offensive the better. With Trump, however, the hatred of women—especially women of color—seems intensely personal; Vance seems to be possessed by negative dogmatic views of women as a collective that—as the dogma goes—should feel happy and fulfilled to live limited lives of pleasing their men and submitting their reproductive lives to the control of Church and State. Even Trump doesn’t come across that extreme in matters of reproductive rights.
So, what if Vance’s more extreme views—in total accord with the Project 2025 blueprint that Trump has been trying to disavow—starts getting more press than Trump does and—most damagingly—starts to pack rally arenas better than Trump does? Perhaps accommodations will be made: Vance has a less needy Libra Moon that conjoins Trump’s Chiron-Jupiter Rx conjunction (Libra), while Trump’s sensitive Venus-Saturn conjunction in Cancer is disposed by his aggressive Sagittarius Moon. His neediness is a bottomless pit.
Even so, we shouldn’t underestimate how Vance’s needs drive him: his ambitious Sagittarius Uranus trines his Leo Sun, squares his Virgo Mercury and opposes his Gemini Chiron, with the ends of this opposition pulling his Gemini-Sagittarius Nodal axis into the mix (he and Trump also share Nodal axis signs and a Mercury-Chiron square).
In other words, Vance’s nativity features a mutable t-square between Uranus-Chiron-Nodal axis and Mercury: clearly, he—like Trump—relishes the role of shock agent, but Vance also wears his woundedness on his sleeve (having written a whole memoir about it), and that could wear thin with Trump, who admits no weakness and still manages to play the role of eternal Victim. My guess is, if Vance threatens Trump’s hold on that role with his folksy stories about childhood trauma, the relationship will be short-lived. Better to keep his focus on Trump as the ultimate victim. Maybe that explains why Vance has been out there accusing Dems of trying to kill Trump?!
In light of the fact that Trump may have been a target in an alleged Iran-backed “murder-for-hire” scheme the FBI just broke open yesterday (Aug. 6), a scheme that was meant to retaliate against the U.S. for the killing of one of their top officials, I would hope Vance would zip his lip and drop the wild conspiracy theories about political violence of any kind. Investigations into the murder-for-hire scheme are ongoing, but here’s a brief description from the Department of Justice:
“Earlier today, a complaint was unsealed in Brooklyn charging Asif Merchant, also known as Asif Raza Merchant, 46, with murder-for-hire as part of an alleged scheme to assassinate a politician or U.S. government official on U.S. soil. Law enforcement foiled the charged plot before any attack could be carried out. Merchant is in federal custody.”
Unfortunately, we live in extreme times, but for Vance or Trump or anyone to leap into reckless finger-pointing that could turn deadly if the wrong people happen to be listening, is just irresponsible and, as Joe Biden would undoubtedly put it, “has no place in American politics.” IMHO, maybe our new “normal” should be to hold accountable anyone who incites violence for the sake of political power. Vance graduated from Yale Law School: he knows the dangers of making claims he can’t back up with facts.
But perhaps Vance will experiencing a different sort of accountability: not only does his Saturn square Trump’s Pluto (Scorpio-Leo), but his Moon/Pluto midpoint’s (Libra) also squares Trump’s Saturn-Venus (Cancer) conjunction, so one false move—especially if he makes mistakes that implicate Trump—could trigger Trump’s defensive impulses. In other words, game over.
Yet,Vance’s Uranus/Neptune midpoint (Sagittarius) conjoins Trump’s Moon and opposes Trump Sun-No. Node and Uranus, and all this is t-squared by Vance’s Pallas (Pisces). Trump may be a useful tool for effecting the change that Vance and his "bros" want to see, but will Vance be properly subservient and sycophantic?
The jury’s out on that. Vance’s Jupiter-Neptune conjunction (Capricorn-Sagittarius) squares Trump’s Libra Neptune, which feels like a generational torch-passing dynamic. This fits, considering Vance may be the ambitious political “son” who thinks he can out-deal Trump and leverage some key prize (the presidency?) from their relationship. I suspect Vance is being played if he believes selling his soul to Trump will work out well for him in the end.
The truth is, Trump’s base is Trump’s base and it will be very surprising if the almost cultish fealty they show him as their anointed Victim Hero and “second coming of Christ” is transferable. Trump is aging and diminishing before everyone’s eyes and that’s the last thing he wants to acknowledge. Yet, reality will have its day as it always does, and Vance is likely to remind Trump of that, simply by the mere fact that he is young. This is probably not a recipe for Vance’s longevity on the ticket, although youth does have its uses. Contrary to his television persona, however, candidate Trump isn’t likely to take an “apprentice” in the end—ask Mike Pence.
More on the Harris/Walz team next time...meanwhile, keep it light, folks!
Notes
[1] U.S. (Sibly) chart data: July 4, 1776, 5:10 p.m. LMT, Philadelphia, PA. Source: Ebenezer Sibly, cited and documented by Nicholas Campion, The Book of World Horoscopes, Chart #370, pp. 363-4.
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Raye Robertson is a practicing astrologer, writer and retired educator. A graduate of the Faculty of Astrological Studies (U.K.), Raye focuses on mundane, collective-oriented astrology, with a particular interest in current affairs, U.S. history, culture and media, the astrology of generations, and public concerns such as education and health. Her articles on these topics have appeared in several key astrology journals over the years, and she has authored three books on key mundane astrology topics that are currently available on Amazon Kindle. For information about individual chart readings, contact: robertsonraye@gmail.com.
© Raye Robertson 2024. All rights reserved.
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