Is Election Year Civility Likely To Improve?

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Astrologer says planetary alignments suggest brutal fight to bitter end in 2020 -

Those hoping the civility index will show some signs of improvement as the 2020 Presidential election campaign grinds on in the U.S. will not be cheered by the astrological alignments forming in the heavens, especially during the second half of the year.

In his annual MMA Forecast 2020 Book, business astrologer Raymond Merriman reports that Mars, the planet of combat, competition and confrontation, moves into Aries (the sign it rules) in June.  From August through the end of the year, a period that includes the most intense part of the election season, Mars will be forming stressful 90 degree aspects to a cluster of planets – Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto – that are conjoined or bunched together in the late degrees of Capricorn.

“With Mars stressfully challenging Jupiter there will be no limits on hyperbole and exaggerations because, with Jupiter, everything is magnified.  With Mars, anger and passion are both prone to excessive displays,” Merriman writes.

“Mars in a hard aspect to Saturn is a classic war-like signature and the Mars/Pluto standoff can get downright nasty and brutal.  The fight is to the bitter end, where the objective is usually to completely destroy and dismantle one’s opponent.

“The winner is usually the one who can absorb the most punishment, the last person standing. As hostile and antagonistic as the 2016 election was, the 2020 election is apt to be considerably more malevolent, just based on the challenging Mars to Saturn and Mars to Pluto aspects,” he added.

There is a silver lining, Merriman believes.  The good news is this is probably the peak of incivility and bad manners in American politics.

“Saturn and Pluto will start separating from their conjunction after 2020.  As these two planets enter their waxing stage for the next 16 years, the general mood of anxiety, discontent, and stress over political leadership and the political process begins to lessen,” he said.   

So who will be the last man standing following America’s monumental 2020 political fracas?

Presidential elections in the U.S. occur every four years, and every fifth election year closely coincides with the 20-year Jupiter/Saturn conjunction cycle.  For example, on Election Day in 2020, Jupiter and Saturn will be forming a conjunction aspect in Capricorn.

Worrisome for some observers is the fact that, since the democratic experiment in America began more than 230 years ago things haven’t turned out well for the incumbent party during an election year when Jupiter has conjoined Saturn in the heavens.  Either the party out of office has won the election or something unexpected, like a Presidential assassination, has prevented the winning incumbent from completing his term.

Since 1800, 11 elections in the U.S. have occurred under the Saturn/Jupiter conjunction aspect.   Merriman provides this breakdown:

1800:  Thomas Jefferson defeated incumbent President John Adams.

1820: Incumbent James Monroe won re-election without any major opponent.  This was the third and last election in which a candidate ran unopposed. George Washington was the unopposed candidate in two other campaigns.

1840: William Henry Harrison defeated incumbent President Martin Van Buren but died one month after his inauguration.  This began a string of elections under Jupiter/Saturn where the elected President died and did not complete his term in office. This has often been referred to as the “Curse of Tecumseh,” or the “20-Year Presidential Curse,” or the “Zero Year Election Curse,” which lasted through John F. Kennedy’s election in 1960.

1860: Republican Abraham Lincoln replaced incumbent Democrat James Buchanan but was assassinated before completing his second term.

1880:  Republican James Garfield won the election after Rutherford B. Hayes, also a Republican, decided not to seek a second term.  Garfield won by only 1,898 votes and was assassinated six and a half months later.

1900: Republican President William McKinley defeated Democrat William Jennings Bryan but  was assassinated six months into his second term.

1920: Republican Warren Harding won the election, replacing Democrat Woodrow Wilson who was denied his wish for a third term. Two years later Harding died in office.

1940: Democrat Franklin Roosevelt, the incumbent, was re-elected after breaking with tradition and running for a third term. He also ran for and won a fourth term in 1944, but died in office the following year.

1960: Democrat John F. Kennedy won the election over Republican Richard Nixon in the latter’s first Presidential campaign.  But Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963.

1980:  Republican Ronald Reagan defeated incumbent Jimmy Carter and survived an assassination attempt during his first term.

2000: Republican George W. Bush defeated Democrat Al Gore and the incumbent party in a hotly contested race that saw Gore win the popular vote but lose the Electoral College tally.

Merriman notes that in eight of 11 elections held under a Jupiter/Saturn conjunction the incumbent or incumbent party was not re-elected.  In seven of the 11 cases the President-elect did not leave office alive.

Edward Snow

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