Time to Talk About Biden

"The trouble is, as a dusty old remnant of the straight-party-ticket days, Biden's from an era that’s over. 2024 isn’t about ordinary politics; it’s about apocalyptic politics." —Jessica Murray

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Part One of my discussion with Jessica Murray, Time To Talk About Trump, can be found here.

THE UNITED STATES IS CAUGHT in a bizarre phase shift in the lead-up to the 2024 election. As the fumes from the 15-year-long Pluto through Capricorn transit float over the cusp leading into Aquarius, the nation is caught in a protracted fugue—forced to witness—and live out—the crumbling remnants of The American Dream.¹ The shining ‘City Upon a Hill’ has become an open-air nuthouse. Overseeing this dilapidated cultural moment are two elderly white men—two Plutonic figureheads overseeing a country collapsing into some kind of rebirth. Disclaimer: That’s just a guess, as all predictions inevitably are. Even astrological ones.

Again, this coincides with Pluto’s ongoing toggle between Capricorn (old world order) and Aquarius (new planetary awareness). It’s important to note that Pluto does not officially enter and remain in Aquarius until November 19th, weeks after this year’s US election. So we have months more of this particular death rattle’s exhalation, which includes the defining moment of choosing a new president in November.

After publishing the close read on Donald Trump last year, I invited my friend and colleague, astrologer Jessica Murray, to return again. Her expertise and astrological wisdom will be invaluable as we attempt to make sense of Joe Biden’s horoscope.

Wherever I go and whomever I talk to about US politics, I hear the same quizzical complaint: “How is it possible that these are the only two options we have to choose from?” With that question uppermost in my skull, I kicked off our discussion.

FW: You avoided watching the debacle of the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump on June 27. Why?

JM: Too dumb and too ugly. I can take a certain degree of dumb—one builds up an immunity, following the news—and a limited amount of ugly won’t kill me, either. But not both dumb and ugly together. Watching these pathetic specimens of humanity reinforce what we already know about them, in the least enlightening format possible, would have been too much for my Pisces rising. 

Anyone who’s been tracking the campaigns, even minimally, has already gotten a snootful of each candidate’s character and lack thereof, flaws and venality. All that remained to be seen, with the media circus of the debate, was these two hollowed-out men doing what they do, and the pundits doing what they do. 

I’d have felt differently if it had promised information that could actually inform us about these two guys. For example, I’d love to hear a commentator reminding the public about Biden’s role in the Iraq war, or about Trump’s father’s history with the Mafia: tidbits that people seem to have forgotten or never knew, that could fill out the picture. Information that would offer perspective on this freak show, rather than just banging the drum for the slugfest between Tweedledum vs. Tweedledee, as you have called them. 

The awfulness of this political season has become more and more sensationalistic. The debate itself—I did watch the energy buzzing around it—felt weirdly pornographic. Maybe there’s a perverse titillation involved whenever an extreme lack of consciousness is put on display. The way the corporate news offers up something stupefying (in both senses of the word: jaw-droppingly alarming, and stupid-making) like this “debate,” without intelligent commentary or any kind of perspective that might give the spectacle a glimmer of educational value. Their reportage reminds me of those detective shows that purport to be about justice winning out, or clever problem-solving, or something, but are really just excuses to titillate the audience with torture porn featuring a young woman’s murder.

FW: Yes, we’re now firmly lodged in ‘carnival culture.’ In the past, political media coverage feigned presenting us ‘facts.’ But Trump’s arrival into the 2015 election cycle changed that. And then there was the internet—especially the brain-atrophying fallout from social media; people could find their own ‘alternative facts’ from within their preferred echo chamber. During the debate last month, neither moderator interrupted Trump to challenge his continual spewing of lies. How is that helpful to any of the 52 million people watching the train wreck?

But that tactic was just part and parcel of modern-day network news. I mean, post-internet media learned that dumbing down and offering tabloid-like coverage, presented within partisan echo chambers, would be the key to eyeballs and ad dollars. Trump’s arrival made them double down on that strategy. This is why media across the board began to collapse after Biden’s election. There was no more Trump (at least for a spell) to provide the shock and the awe.

Your use of the word ‘pornographic’ is spot-on, and it fits with a thesis that I’ve chewed on throughout the year. I shifted my perspective this year and studied the particulars of this election through a dreamlike lens. I mean, what would my soul dad, James Hillman, say about these two characters? 

Biden, represents the disembodied state that coincides with a majority of the population gone missing in the electronic lattice of the internet and social media. People constantly on their computers, on their phones, engaged with social media, are ‘zombied out,’ not ‘present.’ They are disembodied, lost in a state you could equate with digital dementia. They also rage-imbibe without discretion. Whatever FOX or CNN mainlines them, they take and then feel good about their ‘position’.

On the flip: Trump, is the rogue animal-like mascot who mirrors the crudest stratum of the culture. His pugnacity, brazen lying, and unedited rhetoric—he’s the id unleashed: