Political obstructionism in the USA

Nancy Pelosi, Donald Trump, William Barr & military leaders

As predicted many years ago, the year 2016 marked a revolutionary change in the national life of Americans. A strong leader appeared on the political scene in 2015 intent on righting decades of harmful policies by a corrupt class of ‘establishment‘ politicians benefiting global corporations. After the new President made his agenda clear, the establishment politicians in his own party began to retire from public service.  Meanwhile, the other party, saw this development as an existential threat to its own electoral basis. Rather than undergo its own reform, the leaders decided to defend the organised political corruption, whereby elected officials use their position to become wealthy in exchange for passing legislation benefiting their donors. They did this by uniting with the anti-democratic media owned by the global corporations in attacking the President, and working with them to find any reason that could be used to remove him from office. As a result, President Trump‘s term has been marked by great political obstructionism, reaching a climax in the decision to impeach him the fall of 2019.

Political corruption in the USA

The cause of the political discontent may be traced to the free trade and immigration policies of past decades. As Dr. Ravi Batra first showed in the early 1990s, these policies have proved injurious to millions if not a hundred million ordinary Americans. This is best seen in the increased inequality and poverty in the USA since the early 1970s. While the 1970s and 1980s, the Mercury major period, saw an increase in the liberalisation of the economy, gradually resulting in better economic performance. However, this progress masked an ugly reality of the outsourcing of well-paying US manufacturing jobs to the rest of the world, such that the US became a post-industrial economy, based on a growing share of lower-paying service sector jobs. While free trade was a benefit for the world as a whole, and even brought cheaper goods to American shores, it was a disaster for millions of ordinary Americans who saw their incomes fall precipitously. On the upside, corporate profits and the stock market surged from the early 1980s.  

By the time the Ketu period rolled around in 1989, Soviet Communism collapsed, and the US economic model was perceived as the righteous victor. However, the period was one of social tumult and growing discontent. The shift to the weak Venus major period in 1996, resulted in a new credit driven housing boom that burst in the banking crisis of 2007-2008. Importantly, the ordinary Americans made up for the income shortfall by borrowing more. When housing prices fell and jobs began to evaporate, a disaster befell millions of households. In the wake of deep recession that followed, there was the Tea Party revolt of 2009-2010 aimed a government profligacy and corruption, and the Occupy Wall Street protest of 2011-2012 focused on the surging inequality between the 1 percent of the wealthiest and the worse off rest. In fact, corporate welfare surged when the government saved Wall Street in 2008, while the Main Street had to sink or swim. As the political causes of the mal-distribution were becoming increasingly well-known, despite the best efforts of the corporate media to suppress this information, once the strong Sun period in the SAMVA USA chart arrived, a new vision for the future of the country had emerged. It was to end these policies and political corruption in Washington DC, known as "Drain the Swamp".

  

Prediction of a US resurgence

In April 2008, when the prediction for a resurgence in America‘s political life was first made, little could be said about who this new leader might be. Nor was there time to consider the transit influences of the slow moving planets, as the work on testing the chart was aimed at the more immediate future. On October 20, 2015, however, it was predicted on this blog that a Republican would win the Presidency in 2016. As it turns out, the new leader was a highly controversial business magnate, Donald Trump, from New York. Once he had emerged on the scene, on June 16, 2015 and his horoscope was known, the late astrologer and author, Vinod Kumar Choudhry, predicted on October 22, 2015 that “He has a fairly good chance of political success and becoming President.“ The achievement of this prediction is greater as most astrologers predicted his opponent Hillary Clinton would win. Mr. Choudhry also accurately predicted George W. Bush would win in 2000 and 2004. As an authentic horoscope for Barack Obama was not available, a plausible prediction could not be made for the election outcomes in 2008 and 2012.

Difficult sub-periods and transits

Returning to the Sun major period, it became clear in late 2016, that the transits would be adverse for most of President Trump's first term. Amazingly, President Trump took office on January 21, 2017, coinciding with the entry of Saturn into the sign Sagittarius. In the 20° Cancer rising SAMVA USA chart, Saturn, is lord of the 8th house, whose indications are obstacles and endings, as well as easy gains. As transit Saturn was thus placed in the 6th house, whose indications include political opposition and conflict, the annual prediction for the USA in 2017, made in late 2016, was that this two and a half year transit would bring a more divisive time to the national life. 

“On January 27, transit Saturn will enter Sagittarius and the 6th house, which is expected to bring an energy of obstacles and endings to conflict, financial stability and health matters.”

Trump's mannerisms were unique

The Sun major period, which began on April 19, 2016, had for the first year and two months a sequence of three favourable sub-periods of functional benefic planets, Sun as 2nd lord of status and wealth, Moon as 1st lord of self and Mars as 10th lord of government and legislature. Hence, the trend life was favourable, but adverse significant events were likely to cast a shadow, especially, when the transiting malefic planets were afflicting in the chart. Trump was quickly ridiculed for his mannerisms and communications, which were not considered Presidential.

Dark clouds on the horizon

Critic of Trump: Brian Stelter of CNN.

The situation became even more adverse after June 10 2017, when the Rahu sub-period began. In August 2017, transit Sun passed over a nodal station, resulting in a huge uproar over protests in Charlotte and Trump's poor reaction to it. As Rahu is a functional malefic planet afflicting the 10th house of government, the focus was on manipulation in government, by secretive interests. The corporate media also took center stage in making the case that Donald Trump was not a capable leader. The Russian Collusion investigation was launched that spring by intelligence officials, ostensibly more loyal to former President Obama than President Trump. When Trump fired the duplicitous FBI Director James Comey, it was considered a grave threat to the establishment.

Peak difficulties in 2019

On May 5, 2018, the Jupiter sub-period began. Jupiter is 6th lord of conflict, including the political opposition. Hence, this is when the Democrats became more prominent in the political life, based on their political obstruction. Half a year later, they gained a majority in the House of Representatives, and the controversial legislative progress of the Trump administration ground to a halt. However, it was in the sub-period of Saturn, which began on February 21, 2019, that the obstruction kicked into high gear. 

Immigrant Convoy

The domestic political climate became extremely difficult when the seven month conjunction of transit Ketu and Saturn in the MEP of the 6th house began in March 2019, with these malefic also becoming conjunct 4th lord Venus. At that time, the “Border Crisis“ developed, whereby the administration became powerless to stem a growing tide of illegal immigrants, with large convoys emerging in central America. Incarceration of families with children became a flash point in the debate. After 70 miles of the new border wall replaced lower fences by October 2019, especially on the porous California border, did the border crisis begin to abate. Several deadly mass shootings also took place in late July, shocking the nation, amplifying calls for effective gun controls. 

Foreign policy tensions

Iran-US military tension in June 2019

Meanwhile, the President was engaged in a trade war with China, and trying to stop Iran‘s export of terror in the Middle East. A potentially deadly war was averted after Iran‘s military downed a US drone on June 20, 2019. At that time, President Trump decided, at the last minute, not to retaliate. In September, he again reminded of his campaign promise to withdraw US forces from endless wars, and announced the removal of US troops from Syria. This caused great consternation in the military-industrial complex that thrives on such involvement. A brief crisis involving US allies but bitter foes, Turkey and Kurds, also followed. President Trump was quickly able to arrange a cease fire, after warning the autocratic Turkish leader, Recep Erdogan, in a forceful and blunt letter “Don´t be a tough guy. Don´t be a fool“. In these tense foreign policy engagemments, the US President acted with power and wisdom, consistent with the Sun‘s placement in the national horoscope. Indeed, it is a lesson from this year, that despite the sub-periods and transits of functional malefic planets in bad houses, the influence of the powerful Sun major period in the chart has reduced the difficulty.

Russia Collusion

However, in line with the malefic influences in the chart, all the while the President was trying to do the people's work, the US Congress was looking for ways to impeach him. In April 2019, the Special Counsel, Robert Mueller issued a report investigating allegations that President Trump engaged in collusion with the Russian government to influence the 2016 Presidential Election. However, the report did not present any evidence of it. Mueller also gave testimony to the US Congress on July 24, to the same effect: there was no evidence of collusion by Trump and the Russians. 

Ukraine Scandal

On July 25, 2019, President Trump made a call to Ukraine‘s newly elected President, Volodymyr Zelensky. In the call, Trump asked the Zelensky to do us [read: the USA] a favour and root out corruption in the country. He mentioned former Vice President Biden and his son, Hunter, as cases in point. Trump‘s stated concern was that it was not defensible to give hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to a country rife with corruption, as it only resulted in its misuse. However, the Democrats interpreted the call, based on a whistleblower account, as sign of President Trump‘s political corruption, to pressure a foreign power to harm a US citizen for his own political gain. On September 24, 2019, Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, announced an Impeachment Inquiry into President Trump‘s dealings in Ukraine. This is a continuation of efforts by the Democrats, especially after they gained the majority in November 2018, to remove the President from Office. The following was predicted for 2019:

"A likely scenario for the expression of this conflictual and disturbing energy would be the political conflict over the revolutionary policies of President Trump. ... After being denied the Presidency at the ballot box in 2016, the Democrats appear intent on wresting back control of the political domain in 2020, possibly by seeking to impeach a President they perceive as "lawless" or "out of control"."

The Future of American Democracy

In November 2019, Attorney General, William Barr, claimed that the Democrats were undermining political norms through their constant obstructionism. Barr also suggests that the legislative and judicial branches were now undermining the efficacy of the executive branch. He sees such developments as threatening to the very fabric of American democracy. There is some truth in this astounding statement, but the understanding of such national developments must transcend the personalities leading the mundane play. While an intensifying political conflict can destabilise the US democracy, it may also set it on a new and more hopeful path. As the Sun major period is still operating, it is likely the executive branch is in the process of reasserting its place in the constitutional scheme. As such, a US President can then better temper the power of corporations and tendency of corrupt politicians to undermine the integrity of the nation by allowing the exploitation of American workers for their own gain and that of their donors, as has been the case in past decades. The US may currently only be undergoing a rather painful transition to a more citizen-oriented democracy. As such, signs of a more hopeful tenor in the national life may begin to emerge as early next year.