During his presidential campaign, President Donald Trump promised to “drain the swamp.” As he didn’t specify exactly how he was going to do the draining, it’s possible he’s living up to his promise. It’s possible he meant to appoint swamp-dwellers to White House and Cabinet positions and then humiliate them into resignation or unemployment.

According to the count in this Business Insider article, including recently-resigned Secretary of Defense James Mattis, there are 29 “casualties” of the Trump Administration.

Or were they 29 “swamp dwellers?”

One man’s swamp dweller is another man’s Attorney General so I don’t think there is any way to argue this one.

Purge and propaganda

Growing up during the Reagan Presidency and the Cold War when the greatest enemy of the United States was Communism as promoted primarily by the USSR (and secondarily by China), there was occasionally news of Communist party “purges.”

Purging isn’t just for Communists. Maybe Trump’s revolving-door Administration is just the capitalist way of purging and cleansing toxins of the state.

“Propaganda” is another interesting word that was used during Reagan’s times to describe any public relations or philosophy espoused by the Communists. Our own narrative, of course, was viewed as true and accurate.

Because “propaganda” is what others do and not us (in the United States), it’s taken the citizens of my homeland quite a while to recognize it at home. Propaganda has recently been acknowledged and is referred to as “fake news.”

Evolution

To those in countries with longer continuous histories, the United State is seen as a “young” country, immature in its understanding of world history and global politics.

No longer!

The United States now has purges and propaganda and leaders with almost tyrannical power. We have arrived.

When the United States was “born” in 1776, Pluto the planet of evolution (through the paths of destruction and transformation, in that order), was in 27 degrees of Capricorn. Pluto will return to that exact degree in February 2022.

While humans like to celebrate birthdays in tens and hundreds, astrologers have different ways and look at cycles based on the planetary revolutions. The 246th birthday of the United States is the “first” birthday in evolutionary terms.

By February 2022, the United States will have evolved in the sign of Capricorn which rules society’s structures, government, law and order. Since 2008 when Pluto entered Capricorn, societal infrastructure has been shaken and broken, starting with the financial structure. Eight years in, government began imploding.

I’ve written much of this Pluto return including America’s Material Evolution and Pluto’s Return to Capricorn, among others.

Draining the Swamp

While President Trump appears both corporeally and astrologically to be the opposite of Capricorn (respect for authority, structure, laws and maturity), he was brought to power and represents the “Pluto” in Pluto in Capricorn. Trump’s immaturity as puer (in contrast to the Capricorn mature senex) is inadvertently taking us into political maturity.

In a PBS roundtable in 2017 columnist David Brooks commented that “we used to have a better class of criminals.” Now the line between “business mogul” and “criminal” is a thin one. Government and business have been converging and now are one.

Pluto as king of the underworld has taken the country to the bowels of politics, that which has always existed but remained hidden under ground. Based on your political perspective, “the swamp” may or may not be undergoing drainage. The swamp, however, is much closer to each of our neighborhoods.

“News” is now understood to be a combination of traditional reporting, commentary and public relations. Pluto in Capricorn has risen our degree of maturity in understanding the political manipulations that occur in a society, any society. The citizens of older nations already have a basic understanding of this reality having gone through many, many Pluto returns.

Pluto Evolution

If Pluto is evolving the United States into political maturity, what’s next?

After Capricorn comes Aquarius. Like Capricorn, Aquarius is interested in society, structure and organization. The difference is that Aquarius develops such things based on ideals, the very way in which this country was developed (the moon is in Aquarius in the United States’ 1776 horoscope).

The ideals of a perfect society are based upon the consciousness of those involved. In 1776, during the Age of Reason, the basic rights of a person were identified and acknowledged (if not completely honored). If Pluto in Capricorn evolved the nation politically, Aquarius should evolve us socially.

President Trump is clearly destroying the institutions of government. If I had a nickel for everyone who said they dislike government I would be rich; if we truly dislike government, we should be happy.

Yet when traditional government dismantles, other power (Pluto) structures tend to fill the void. If as a nation we are not conscious and willing participants in the dismantling, we may find the Aquarian evolution to begin with disparate “ideal” societies.

If we consciously dismantle the government structure, possibly we can re-think some outdated concepts and continue what was intended in 1776 to bring it to full realization.