Coronavirus cures: What’s wrong with Donald Trump’s Mercury?

By and large, Western leaders make sensible comments. We might not agree with what they say, but there is an underlying logic. However, when you are dealing with Donald Trump, there’s a problem. He sometimes says things that are nonsense. For example, he recently discussed the possibility that light, heat and disinfectant might be cures for coronavirus. He even suggested that it might be appropriate to inject the body with disinfectant.

You can kind of understand the logic. If coronavirus is on a surface, for example a kitchen countertop, it can be destroyed very quickly with bleach, or maybe a UV lamp. You can therefore apply this to the body… get the bleach or the heat or the light into the body, and you’ve got a cure. Yes, if I have coronavirus, and I spend a few milliseconds on the Sun’s surface, I’ll be cured.

This makes me wonder how Donald Trump’s brain works. I assume that unlike Ronald Reagan, he is not suffering from early-stage dementia. But be seems to be unable to grasp basic scientific principles. It is as if he hasn’t thought the matter through, or done any intelligent Googling. And furthermore, when communicating, he doesn’t seem to realize how stupid he sounds.

Now it may be that it is a deliberate and very clever act. He might know that many of his supporters are as thick as two short planks, and they don’t want to be patronized by smart ass intellectuals. We saw this in the 1980 presidential debates, when Jimmy Carter was up against Ronald Reagan. The two candidates were discussing healthcare, and Carter described the idea of a national health insurance, as a way of dealing with the inequalities in the American health system. Reagan was smirking throughout Carter’s earnest and intelligent speech, and then responded with four words, which won him the debate and possibly the Presidency: “There you go again”.

I don’t think we can credit Donald Trump with such deliberation and guile, even if his cluelessness helps shore up his base. Instead we can probably see it in terms of scrambled signals. He is suffering from information overload, and from a cognitive perspective, there may be problems with the way he represents information. Compare a neatly ordered library with a huge pile of random books. Donald knew that disinfectant and light could destroy the virus, but he got the context confused.

In terms of astrology, how do we see this? In the West the planet Mercury is connected with communications and the intellect. In Vedic astrology the Moon is also linked with mental functioning. To keep it simple I’ll focus on Mercury. Here is Trump’s horoscope:

The Western astrologer would want to see evidence that Trump’s Mercury is weak. From the perspective of traditional astrology, it is weak. It is in the ninth degree of Cancer, and therefore has no essential dignity. Furthermore, it is in later degrees than the Sun, meaning that it is an evening rather than a morning star. The evening star Mercury functions best in night-time charts, and in day-time charts it is happiest below the horizon. Trump’s Mercury is above the horizon.

Looking at aspects, Mercury is at 8 degrees 52 minutes Cancer, Neptune at 5 degrees 41 Libra. So Trump has a square between Mercury and Neptune. Mercury and Neptune do not make major aspects to any other planet in his chart.

Mercury and Neptune squares can be associated with confused thinking, or getting the wrong idea about something. They can also be about muddled communication. On the plus side, Neptune may allow Trump to have a fleeting understanding of popular trends, in a glitzy kind of way.

But what makes the Mercury-Neptune square really bad is the fact that by aspect it is unconnected to the rest of the chart. It is an autonomous subsystem. Mercury speaks without knowing what it is doing. Also, Mercury’s position in Cancer may suggest that Trump’s thought processes are overly subjective, and given everything else, can’t be treated as being discerning or analytical.

One might then ask how a man with such a large intellectual deficit has become President. We shouldn’t get too attached to people as individuals. Trump is simply a reflection of America, a country where one person’s ignorance is just as valid as another person’s knowledge. Besides, the rest of Trump’s horoscope is incredibly dynamic, easily enough to have propelled him into the White House.