Blonde on Blonde

MEA CULPA. I’M GOING TO WRITE about Donald Trump and Taylor Swift. Two people I would gladly forgo ever reading another word about in this lifetime.
So why do it?

I’m fascinated by the bond that links Trump and Swift’s horoscopes to the United States’ horoscope (yes, nation and countries have birth charts). And we’ve gotten to a place where a pop artist could derail the presidential hopes of a former reality TV star, things are definitely parked in Crazy Town.

You’re familiar with the babble: The hysteria from MAGA enthusiasts related to Swift and how the pop singer is a psyop maneuvering to hand the addled Joe Biden the presidency in 2024. The nonsense has been broadcast non-stop on SM and FOX — a network that increasingly seems affiliated with The Onion.

But, hold on to your wig hat — as nuts as it sounds, if you consider the synastry between Swift’s and Trump’s horoscope, you might conclude that the network is on to something. Although not in the conspiratorial way they keep blathering about.

At any other time in history, a theory like this would seem an unhinged delusion, but we’re living in 2024, a year that chroniclers will one day define as the moment U.S. democracy was sucked over the event horizon of the Twilight Zone.

During the past decade, Trump and Swift have become imbued with supernatural power. Which isn’t unusual when searching-for-meaning plebs transform celebrities into cult idols. Each icon becomes a totem — a raison d’être for the ideological mission of each group. How the cult camps impact each other can be outlined by studying the icons’ birth charts.

When considering their horoscopes, MAGA-ites have a Martian crisis regarding the Swifties. Meaning: The pop music star’s natal Mars squares Trump’s natal Mars to an exact degree — a classic confrontational call to arms. And more lethal, Swift’s Mars in Scorpio opposes Trump’s Taurus Midheaven — his chart’s “high career” or aspiration point — exactly as well. More on this as I go.

Something extraordinary happened to Taylor Swift during the past 20 years. The planet Pluto’s long transit to — first — Swift’s Sagittarius Sun (when she began composing music) and — then — her stellium in Capricorn. This transformed Swift into a pop music colossus.

Swift’s Capricorn stellium (forged her into the hardest-working woman in showbiz) is super-juiced by a powerful Moon-Jupiter conjunction in Cancer, a combination considered incredibly fortunate in traditional astrology — until it isn’t.

Moon-Jupiter contacts can devolve into emotional overindulgence that borders on hedonism. Another way of putting this is that mundane feelings (Moon) are exaggerated into mythic significance (Jupiter), regardless of how prosaic they are.

Pluto’s glacial transits to natal planets are wild cards, in the same way that Uranus is unpredictable. But where Uranus electrifies and shatters, Pluto rearranges and recycles. The line between annihilation and larger-than-life-ness is razor-thin. A touch from Pluto and what is ho-hum is made epic, and vice versa; what seems important and unmissable can evaporate in a heartbeat — into the void. For this reason, I associate the planet with all things nuclear.

Imagine you were a client, and you visited an astrologer who foresaw a decade-plus Pluto transit that would pass over and conjunct (and oppose) 80% of the planets in your horoscope. Do you think they would prepare you for becoming the next Taylor Swift? Or, instead, would they recommend a good mortician?

Swift’s birth chart illustrates why astrologers should rethink their knee-jerk takes (and keywords) associated with the lights and planets. What’s parroted as an affliction related to Pluto’s transits might be a delayed event that doesn’t unravel completely until years later. But Pluto’s build-up-to-take-down function will eventually play out. As Sophocles noted, “Nothing vast enters the life of mortals without a curse.”

Weeks after Pluto entered Aquarius in 2024 — and conjuncted Swift’s Venus at 1° of the sign — Twitter was flooded with deep fake pornographic (Pluto) “art” (Venus) featuring Swift. The AI porn extravaganza was followed by far-right conspiracy kooks, like white supremacist Jack Posobiec, suggesting that Swift was integral to an elaborate plot to secure Biden the election.

Whenever Pluto sets off a personal planet in someone’s chart, it creates the potential to yank the individual into shadow realms played out on the collective stage.

Swift was first merged to a boorish shadow figure in 2009 when Pluto set off her natal Uranus (shocks and surprises), and her acceptance speech at that year’s American Music Awards was hijacked by an off-his-meds Kanye West delivering one of his lunatic rants.

As I mentioned in a recent Rage of Aquarius podcast, Swift’s ascent and complete dominance of pop culture coincides with Regulus — a star associated with male royalty — progressing into Virgo, a feminine-associated constellation.

After a 2,500-year occupation in Leo, the fixed star finally moved into Virgo (the symbol of the maiden) in September 2011. This coincided with Swift gaining traction with her music career. And it has been a steady ascent ever since.

Symbolically, the royal qualities associated with the fixed star have now shifted to the realm of the commoner represented by Virgo. Swift’s early singing-songwriter identity was forged in the country music arena, and her earthy, folky persona fits well with classic Virgo symbology — at least one-half of it.

Virgo, as a mutable/dual sign, is both a virgin and a harlot. And as Swift’s fame crossed attention boundaries, she shifted into a more alluring and universally familiar diva mode. This seems to be a requirement of any young woman hoping to secure a firm footing in the glitzy province of the pop pantheon. And yet Swift has found a sweet spot between sexiness and conventionality. Part of her allure to young women (especially) is this refined Virgonian toggling between maiden and playful vamp.

The strategists of pop publicity (i.e., Swift’s publicity machine) have conspired to make me think about Swift even if I’m not exposed to her music. There hasn’t been this kind of assault since Beatlemania in the 60s. But where the Beatles were extraordinary musicians and performers, Swift seems extraordinarily clueless about her limitations.

Disclaimer: Taste is subjective. I am not a fan of Swift’s music. As a Boomer raised on the genius of Joni Mitchell, my incredulity meter exploded some years back re Swift who, no matter where I turned, I couldn’t shake off. Karl Lagerfeld once said: “I’m open to everything. When you start to criticize the times you live in, your time is over.” True. As an astro-oriented culture critic, I’ve continued to track her career. And I applaud Swift’s savvy command of the cultural moment (and the lower left corner of my brain pan).

So let’s go ahead and talk about Trump and Swift as a kind of ungodly unit because right now, each of us is bookended between their existence. Yours and my future might hinge on how the two eventually collide later this year. Be it Joe Biden (or Gavin Newsom) — Swift could realistically influence in a radical way the election.

Theirs is a fairytale-like merger: Swift as the perky, impeccable princess. Trump as the Dr. Seussian ogre. But both draw equally from the wells that fuel mythic levels of fascination. Each one commands a swirl in the yin-yang symbol of pop cultural mania.

What defines their alchemy? Well, astrologically, it’s the polarity principle. Swift is Sagittarius. Trump is the opposite sign, a Gemini. Both signs are interwoven into the national psyche in fatalistic ways. The Sun, in both of their horoscopes, sits in exact opposition.

It’s interesting to note, in this weird lead-up to the Super Bowl, that the U.S.’s natal horoscope has a Sagittarius Ascendant opposed by a Mars in Gemini. A shorthand reading of this: A person, or nation, in love with cinematic (Sagittarius) battle royales (Mars). No wonder the recent conspiratorial hype about Swift has involved today’s championship game — Western culture’s recreation of the gladiatorial Bread and Circus franchise.

Occupying opposite Sun signs, Trump and Swift are tethered to the law of enantiodromia, where opposites can polarize so hard that they might turn into one another. This offers both of them an opportunity to see each other’s shadow — and perhaps show us something new in the process. Both signs have strong trickster tendencies and can waylay the other in shocking ways.

Gemini’s dark side involves the paranoiac idea that everyone is out to trap and lock them into a fixed identity. The Sagittarius shadow involves an over-extension of their ego. This is linked to their difficulty adjusting to life’s limitations. More is never enough.

Sagittarius’ vision is much broader than Gemini’s (and inspiring). Gemini makes us laugh with its quips and wordplay and ability to shape-shift before our eyes. But Sagittarius, beneath its fiery showmanship, is interested in justice and championing the underdog.

You see this side of Swift in her generosity with her employees and philanthropic efforts. And her willingness, back in 2018, when her career wasn’t quite as mega as it is now, to risk her fandom by jumping into the year’s political fray. With one IG post alone, she inspired over 78 thousand kids (and adults) to register to vote.

As I mentioned, there is a potent set of Mars aspects between Trump and Swift’s horoscopes. Trump’s Leo Mars (on his Ascendant) squares Swift’s Scorpio Mars (there is no birth time that I know of for Swift, so I don’t know the angles of her chart).

Martian squares indicate a fierce clash of wills, especially when Mars is placed in the fixed signs. Each agitates the other in ways that disrupt their equilibrium, although a Scorpio Mars is more strategic and uses covert methods to undermine their foe. They have little compunction when it comes to playing nasty or underhandedly if it ensures a win.

Of course, being on his Ascendant, we witness Trump’s Mars every time he opens his mouth. This is the unedited Mars that invests all of its energy in support of what will garner acclaim — negative or positive. It’s also Mars as the over-the-top entertainer. Consider how you lost interest in watching the GOP debates. Without Trump in the line-up, who cared?

Both Trump and Swift seem specifically designed for fame, like an athlete born with a set of genes that gives her that extra oomph over their competitors. Trump with his Leo ascendant and Mars. Swift, with her freedom-loving Sagittarius Sun and eclectic Venus in Aquarius — makes her a fascinating example of “the modern woman.” (I don’t think any other female songwriter has ever put on display, so incessantly, the intricacies of her love life. Oh wait, there was Joni Mitchell.)

Is it ridiculous that both individuals would be intertwined as they are in our current socio-political dialogue? As I said above, not really. But as novel as all of this is, it’s also rather depressing.

For a Boomer (me) who vividly recalls the politically active musicians from the ‘60s and ‘70s, I need to shift into a Lagerfeld mode; to acknowledge that Swift has become the symbol (perhaps unwittingly) for something strangely unstrange in 2024 — how voters will (possibly) rethink and shake up the election.

And I’m down for that.
Love,

Frederick

Bio: Frederick Woodruff works with artists, writers, spiritual aspirants — anyone involved with the creative quest as an expression of active service and beauty. You can subscribe to his Substack here.