Donald Trump's path to victory
Traditional time lord techniques reveal why Trump triumphed—and when
Disclaimer: I made no advance public predictions regarding the 2024 Presidential elections.
The 4th edition of A Rectification Manual (“ARM”), published on March 26, 2023, added Zodiacal Releasing from the Lot of Spirit (“ZRS”) as a time lord technique. ZRS Level 1 periods and selected Level 2 subperiods are presented alongside Firdaria subperiods in a side-by-side format for ease of comparison.
While ZRS often identifies key chronological stages in a person’s life (“like chapters in a book”), so too does Firdaria—not to mention Directing through the Bounds. To date, the traditional astrology revival has reintroduced Firdaria through Robert Zoller’s translation of Bonatti’s Book of Astronomy. Zodiacal Releasing and Directing through the Bounds were reintroduced by Robert Schmidt under the auspices of Project Hindsight.
Of these three techniques, ZRS has garnered the lion’s share of recent social media attention, due in part to the accidental circumstance that Robert Zoller’s teaching declined prior to his death in 2000, and because contemporary Hellenistic astrologers currently maintain a larger social media footprint.
In ARM, I advocate avoiding a narrow focus on a few favorite techniques in favor of embracing a richer toolkit of predictive methods. While applying multiple techniques can sometimes yield the uncomfortable effect of clashing predictions, I do not believe that—at this juncture in the traditional astrology revival—we are yet wise enough to establish a definitive predictive hierarchy.
The purpose of this post is to demonstrate how Firdaria and Primary Directions provided a cleaner and more accurate timer of Donald Trump’s political fortunes than Zodiacal Releasing from Spirit.
ARM 4th edition proposed a rectification of 9:42:46 AM EDT, ASC 15LE59’24” which is closer to the initial A-rated birth time of 9:51 AM, from mother’s memory, courtesy of Astrodatabank. It differs from the AA-rated birth time of 10:54 AM, ASC 29LE58 which appears on the current ADB record.
ZRS L1 and L2 periods since the start of L1 Cancer
The backbone of Zodiacal Releasing (ZR) is the prioritization of higher levels of career activity when the profected Lot of Spirit reaches signs that are angular from the Lot of Fortune (LOF). With the Lot of Fortune in Aquarius, the angular houses relative to LOF are Aquarius (1st), Taurus (4th), Leo (7th), and Scorpio (10th).
As chronicled on The Astrology Podcast, Trump was in a Level 2 Gemini subperiod (May 7, 2016 – December 28, 2017) at the time of the 2016 Presidential election. This appeared inconsistent with an electoral victory because Gemini is not angular from the LOF; in fact, it is cadent—or “falling away”—from Taurus, which is angular and therefore supposed to represent a stronger house for career highlights.
The upcoming Level 1 Leo period, beginning April 20, 2025, was indeed predicted to produce high levels of career activity. However, at the time discussions were made in 2016, this prediction seemed too far off to be relevant, especially since Trump would be 78 in 2024—seemingly too old for another presidential bid.
Firdaria periods since 2009
By contrast, Firdaria has demonstrated a better match to Trump’s political fortunes. According to delineation, the North Node in the 11th house of friends, groups, and political alliances bonifies the house by predicting an increase in those affairs. The North Node is co-present with the Ascendant ruler, the Sun, which forges a connection between Trump and political alliances. Moreover, Trump’s birth date follows a solar eclipse, whose conjunctional degree of 8° Gemini 48′ also falls in the 11th house.
By delineation, the South Node in most cases signifies the opposite of the North Node. In Trump’s chart, it carries the added complication of a close conjunction with the Moon. Based on my research, the Moon–South Node conjunction constitutes a debility to the Moon, as it amplifies the Moon’s intuitive style beyond what is appropriate. Instead of the optimistic Sagittarius Moon, we get a version whose optimism is grossly and perversely exaggerated—verging on the ridiculous. With the Moon ruling the 12th house of mistakes, this marks a significant weak spot for Trump. It was the astrological signature for his cavalier attitude toward the COVID pandemic.
Bottom line: Trump won the 2016 Presidential election during the North Node Firdaria period, lost the 2020 election during the South Node period, and announced his 2024 Presidential bid on November 15, 2022—just two days before the end of his Sun–Sun Firdaria period.
Primary Directions
During Trump’s interregnum, he faced numerous lawsuits. These included efforts by Democrats to hold him responsible for the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot in order to render him ineligible for the 2024 election. On July 1, 2024, the Supreme Court handed Trump a victory by ruling in his favor on questions of Presidential immunity—effectively ending those legal challenges. As I will show next, this event was timed by the primary direction of Jupiter to the Ascendant degree.
First, a word on Jupiter. I assign Jupiter as the Victor of the Horoscope. Jupiter receives three points for bound rulership in Stage I of Victor testing: it rules the bounds of the Lot of Fortune, the Lot of Spirit, and the Prenatal Syzygy. This is the highest score —3 out of 7—and no other planet ties Jupiter. Moreover, I have observed that for nativities following eclipses, the bound ruler of the Prenatal Syzygy tends to carry more weight in Victor scoring than a single point might suggest.
What does Jupiter signify for Trump? Jupiter in Libra reflects an egalitarian philosophy; however, because Jupiter is retrograde, we get the opposite. Jupiter’s actual behavior replaces egalitarianism with judicial militancy—Jupiter in Libra retrograde becomes the functional equivalent of Jupiter in Aries. This delineation can be developed further: Mars in Leo in the 1st house rules Trump’s reimagined Jupiter-in-Aries in the 9th. That is, Trump’s self-styled role as sheriff (Mars ruling the 9th of law) governs the judiciary (i.e., functional Jupiter-in-Aries in the 9th). Trump demands that the judiciary implement the law as he sees fit.
I first published this delineation of Jupiter in the 4th edition of A Rectification Manual, dated March 23, 2023 (pp. 22–23), in advance of the following primary direction sequence:
October 5, 2023: Trump’s lawyers requested that the classified documents trial be delayed until after the November 2024 election.
October 5, 2023: Trump’s lawyers filed a motion to dismiss the federal election case, citing presidential immunity.
April 25, 2024: The Supreme Court heard arguments in Trump v. United States on election interference and presidential immunity.
May 2, 2024: New York Times op-ed: “Trump Embraces Lawlessness, but in the Name of a Higher Law.”
July 1, 2024: The Supreme Court ruled that former Presidents have immunity for official acts.
The first two events align within 24 hours of the first primary direction. The last three events bracket the second primary direction, falling between 11 and 56 days of its exactitude. The ability of two separate primary directions—computed under different latitude assumptions—to anchor two corresponding sets of events is an innovation I originally named the Primary Direction Sequence in ARM 1st edition (2007). I argued then, and continue to maintain, that the rare statistical odds of such alignments make the Primary Direction Sequence the long-lost holy grail of rectification. ARM demonstrates dozens of examples, with this case for Trump serving as a valid out-of-sample test of the Primary Direction Sequence for the proposed rectification of Donald Trump.
Bottom line: Trump’s natal Jupiter in Libra (retrograde) timed the Supreme Court’s decision to grant presidential immunity and helped pave the way for his 2024 presidential election victory.
Mundane Connections: Wiring Trump to the Nation
There are multiple connections between Trump’s horoscope and the USA. In this section, I will focus on two dynamic connections relevant exclusively to the 2024 Presidential election campaign.
Mercury/Cancer
Common to the horoscopes of Donald Trump and the Regulus USA National Horoscope is Mercury placed in the sign of Cancer. During 2021/2022 there was a series of Mercury-Ascendant primary directions in the Regulus USA National Horoscope that timed the creation of Trump’s Truth Social media platform and Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, now X.
Here is the Mercury-Ascendant primary direction sequence:
Chronology
6 Jan 2021 — Capitol Insurrection
8 Jan 2021 — Twitter banned Trump’s account
30 Mar 2021 — DJT launched 44office.com website
May/Jun 2021 — DJT launched and shut down blog "From the Desk of Donald J. Trump”
20 Oct 2021 — DJT announced plans for Truth Social
31 Jan 2022 — EM began to purchase Twitter shares
21 Feb 2022 — DJT launched Truth Social
3 Oct 2022 — EM offered to buy Twitter at full original price
27 Oct 2022 — EM completed purchase of Twitter
By delineation, how are these events a match to the set of Mercury–Ascendant primary directions?
For the Regulus USA National Horoscope, Mercury in Cancer is retrograde and functions like Mercury in Capricorn, which is a conservative political placement. In America is Born, I also delineate Mercury in Capricorn as the methodical application of industry responsible for the successful detonation of atomic weapons over Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the close of World War II, timed by Mercury’s primary direction to the Ascendant degree by conjunction.
As the USA transitioned to the Cold War, fears of Communist infiltration became intertwined with nuclear fears (e.g., the execution of the Rosenbergs) during the McCarthy era. The best summation of this political strand is The Paranoid Style in American Politics by Richard Hofstadter, written after Barry Goldwater’s unsuccessful 1964 Presidential bid. In that campaign, Goldwater advocated for tactical use of nuclear weapons against Communist enemies, a position considered too extreme for Americans at the time.
I am already meandering here, reflecting an attempt to write about an afflicted Mercury in Cancer in the USA National Horoscope. But here are the points I want to hammer home:
Mercury in Cancer for the USA is a populist but conservative political signature.
It is tied to nuclear weapons and the fears of the McCarthy era.
In contemporary political parlance, it is tied to the phrase “going nuclear” as a conservative-styled, take-no-prisoners attack method.
Some political commentators observe that the current political climate bears similarities to the McCarthy era. From a USA mundane perspective, the above Mercury partner directions are responsible for this trend.
That Mercury in Cancer retrograde yields conservative politics is confirmed by a Gallup poll conducted May 1-23, 2024, which showed a low in Americans’ liberal self-identification on social issues in 2021 and a two-year increase in conservative self-identification reaching the highest conservative ranking since 2012 by 2023. Gains in conservative self-identification reversed in 2024 but remain above the 2021 low.
With Mars in Virgo as the active Ascendant Distributor for these Mercury partner directions, Mars adds themes of:
Increased gym participation and extreme sports activities
Revival of U.S. Army and military logistics
Expansion of hard rock mining and other extractive resource projects on federal lands
Conflict with Latin American immigrants
These Mars themes extend Mercury’s topical range.
The circle is completed with the creation of two conservative social media platforms: Truth Social and X, which during the 2024 Presidential election campaign flooded the zone with themes of reclaiming masculinity, military prowess, oil well drilling, and an anti-immigrant message.
As owner of X, Elon Musk endorsed Trump for President following the unsuccessful assassination attempt on Trump’s life on July 13, 2024, in Butler, PA. Musk’s embrace of Trump as a Presidential candidate recalls Musk’s earlier defense of Trump as an unfair target of media censure following the January 8, 2021, Twitter ban. That ban triggered Musk’s decision to buy Twitter.
Bottom line: Trump and the USA are linked via Mercury in Cancer in both horoscopes. The American shift toward conservatism on social issues timed both the formation of Truth Social and Musk’s revamp of Twitter into X. Both platforms helped steer political dialogue in a more conservative direction, to the benefit of Trump.
Lunar Nodes and the Eclipse Cycle
A second mundane factor that raised Trump’s natal horoscope to the level of national prominence was a link to the Lunar Nodes. From July 12, 2023, to January 29, 2025, the North Node transited Aries and the South Node, Libra.
There is a direct link between the sign of Libra and the liberalism of the American political left. For the 2024 Presidential campaign, Democratic nominee Kamala Harris’ Sun is positioned at 27° Libra 48′, with her Prenatal Syzygy at 12° Libra 26′. As the South Node diminishes, American liberal issues and politics diminished during the South Node transit of Libra.
Attacks against corporate DEI initiatives first “counted coup” in June 2024 with Tractor Supply Company’s termination of DEI policies, quickly followed by John Deere, Harley-Davidson, Ford, and others. In the political landscape, Kamala Harris’ peak poll numbers occurred within a week of a South Node solar eclipse on October 2, 2024 located at 10° Libra 03′ in the same bound as her Prenatal Syzygy.
To Trump’s benefit was the conclusion of the North Node Aries transit. Since the Nodes move backward, the transit ended with the first six degrees of Aries, assigned to the bound of Jupiter in Aries. The North Node entered the bound of Jupiter/Aries on October 8, 2024 just six days after the solar eclipse on Harris’ Prenatal Syzygy. Trump’s poll numbers surged after October 8 and continued unabated through the Presidential election. The North Node left the bound of Jupiter/Aries on January 29, 2025 just after his inauguration on January 20, 2025.
The Antiochus/Porphyry model identifies Jupiter in Aries as Trump’s functional victor (Jupiter in Libra retrograde acting like Jupiter in Aries). Linkage between Trump’s victor and the transiting North Node in the bound of Jupiter in Aries is the second mundane factor that lifted up Trump’s style of judicial militarism at the expense of Democratic liberalism.