How I Done Fucked Up Predicting the 2016 Election Straight Up

All right let’s get this out of the way.

I. WAS. WRONG.

I’m not here to disavow my past statements – I take full responsibility for everything I’ve said about it, and readily admit that I was wrong. I just want to explore why I was wrong.

Congrats to the minority of astrologers who called the election for Trump! You were right.

First, a painful accounting of the ways I was wrong, in order of shame.

1. I based my prediction on a DD-rated birth time for Hillary Clinton. Not a whole lot of shame in this just because we don’t always get to have the birth time, and often have to work with speculative charts. I might have just been able to leave it at that, but my error runs much deeper than this.
2. Even if I had the RIGHT chart for Hillary Clinton, I made the WRONG call.
3. I had the RIGHT chart for Donald Trump, and I made the WRONG call.
4. I had the RIGHT chart for Tim Kaine, and I made the WRONG call.
5. I had the RIGHT charts for their nomination acceptance speeches, and made the WRONG call.

Potential reasons I was wrong:

I’m not a good astrologer

I did predict the 2012 election correctly, and I also predicted 6/7 games of the last World Series, predicting a win for the Chicago Cubs. Out of all my predictions, I have had more success than failure. Any way you spin it, this particular prediction has rightly taken me down a few pegs, and my reputation, such as it is, has taken a big hit. I have been humbled to the core. One reason I might have done better on the World Series prediction is because I generally don’t give two flying fucks about baseball. But I did give several flying fucks about the election, which like most people means…

I’m probably vulnerable to bias

I admit, as an individual person, I had an opinion on this race, and feelings about how things are looking going forward. I generally feel, y’know, a little apprehension about the American President being  a trashy D-list celebrity who seemingly wants to start a nuclear war and is enthusiastically supported by the KKK and American Nazi Party. My mistake was letting this overcome some things I noticed as an astrologer but deliberately overlooked. Here is a list of things that made go “hmm, maybe, but it’s probably something else”.

Trump’s Jupiter Return

Something super stupid simple, but there it is. Bill Clinton had a Jupiter return as he became President. Obama had a Jupiter return before he became President. And now Trump has had his Jupiter return. I chose to overlook this because there are just as many examples of this not happening. George W. Bush didn’t have a Jupiter return when he became President after the 2000 election, nor did George H.W. Bush in 1988 or Reagan in 1980. Still, it was something that made me go ‘hmm’ when I saw it, but then thought “Meh, it’s just about him starting a new cycle of productivity after losing, some media venture or something”.

Tim Kaine’s cadent period 

In the version of Hillary’s chart I was using, I thought she would win the presidency in 2016, but not get elected in 2020, because of serious troubles that would begin in 2018, which would also match up with her Mars-Saturn-Pluto recurrence transit (which will be happening regardless of her birth time). In Tim Kaine’s AA-rated chart, I saw that he had entered a 12 year cadent period, with a 15 year angular period beginning in 2026. I presumed that the cadent period described his vice-presidency without considering the other now-obvious option – that it was cadent because she didn’t win, and thus he didn’t win. And if Hillary was going to lose in 2020, then I would have seen that in Kaine’s chart as a loss as well. I just didn’t consider the possibilities suggested in Kaine’s chart because I was so focused on what I thought Clinton’s chart was.

Astrology is actually bullshit

No. But even if it was, scientific polling was largely incorrect about the outcome of the election as well. Is the whole field of statistical analysis bullshit as well? If the weatherman gets the weather wrong, is the whole field of meteorology discredited? I think not. And while Hillary Clinton did win the popular vote, polling in the swing states were clearly inaccurate. Only 10 out of 93 polls published in the 30 days before the election showed Trump winning, which is just over 10%. While this list is incomplete, it shows about 32% of astrologers predicted Trump would win. So,  stones and glass houses and such.

Your technique is bullshit

When it comes to the nomination acceptance speeches, it’s still hard to believe that Trump could have such a brutalized Moon at the time of accepting and still win. In that respect, I am still baffled. I still think Zodiacal Releasing is the crown jewel of Project Hindsight’s discoveries, but astrologers haven’t even been using it for 30 years yet. There is still so much to discover and understand about the procedure. A big part of my prediction relied on my understanding of Trump’s ZR, and I was confident he couldn’t win for these reasons:

He was in a cadent period!

Usually, presidents are in angular periods upon getting elected or getting sworn in. Maybe even succedent periods if they’re well supported. But cadent periods? Cadent periods are preparatory periods, where opportunities tend to be deflected away, a time for exploration, reaching a few dead ends and twists and turns. The one interpretation of Trump’s cadent period that I thought was very interesting came from the inimitable Jenn Zahrt – that since Trump was already famous by the time he reached the cadent Cancer period, the only movement he could make was lateral, a sideways step into reality TV celebrity fame and politics. Not bad, Jenn.

No lords of the Lot or major period contacted!

Really, the only thing he has going on for him in Cancer are two of his trigon lords, Mercury and Saturn. Otherwise, even on the sub-levels, the case of Donald Trump’s zodiacal releasing is unlike any previous president whose chart we have. The last several Presidents satisfied some of these conditions.

Previous Gemini-Virgo-Pisces releasing sequence suggested defeat!

I wasn’t wrong in this approach because it’s still instructive, but my interpretation was incomplete. I figured that since under Taurus-Gemini-Virgo-Pisces he had to give a deposition in response to racial discrimination charges and under Gemini-Virgo-Pisces-Pisces he had to give in to the demands of tenants he tried to kick out, that Cancer-Gemini-Virgo-Pisces on election night would mean facing a thumbs down from the voters. And he did, but…

The problem is, while he was charged with racial discrimination, he settled instead of being sentenced. He gave in to the tenants he tried to kick out, but he ultimately got to renovate the building into luxury apartments anyway. The parallel to November 8th 2016 is tragically clear. Nearly 3 million more Americans voted for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump, but he eked out narrow victories in a handful of states which afforded him a victory through the electoral college. 

Sigh.

What I’ve Learned

1. The best rectification in the world is still not AA-rated.
2. There is some birth data we just do not get to have.
3. Anything is possible in American politics. Sometimes this fact gives me hope. These days, less so.

I promised you guys I’d eat a bitter humble pie if I was wrong. Fruitcake will have to do. Happy Holidays everyone, and more than ever, have a Happy New Year.