Joe Manchin Has His Saturn Moment
Joe Biden wasn’t the only Joe to get a big promotion in the 2020 election. The same vote that put Biden in the White House made Joe Manchin the most powerful person in the U.S. Senate. Some might say he’s the most powerful man in the country since, with the Senate evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, his vote has become the deciding factor in many of the initiatives put forth by the Biden administration.
Manchin in a rare creature in today’s politics. He’s a conservative Democrat. He’s also a politician who is more attuned to the needs and opinions of his constituents than the dogma of his party. Back in the day, congress was full of conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans and they made deals in which party principles got bent but stuff got done. In the intensely partisan atmosphere of today’s political world, however, that kind of deal-making is rare.
Astrologically speaking, Joe Manchin is also an outlier. Born in 1947, he part of the Baby Boom Generation born with Pluto in Leo and Neptune in Libra. This is the generation that invented extreme partisanship. It is a generation full of people consumed with the idea that they had to save the world but sharply divided in their opinion of what they were saving it from. It is also a generation for which adhering to one’s principles and ideals matters much more than getting stuff done.
We don’t have a time of birth for Manchin (click on Joe Manchin to see a chart done for noon on his date of birth) but even a partial horoscope gives a clue to what separates him from his generation. Manchin is Virgo by Sun sign with the Moon in Sagittarius, two Mutable signs. Flexibility is baked into his astrological DNA. This is why Manchin has avoided the doctrinaire approach of some his more liberal colleagues. It is also why he has managed to hold on to his seat in the Senate despite the fact that he represents the strongly Republican state of West Virginia.
This doesn’t mean that Manchin is a pushover. With Mercury, Venus, Saturn and Pluto in Leo and Jupiter in Scorpio, his Mutable sign elasticity is supported by plenty of Fixed sign steel. Despite vociferous complains from his fellow Democrats, Manchin has remained adamant in his flexibility. Both his Venus and his Mercury are sextile Uranus, so he has no problem disrupting expectations. In fact, he probably secretly enjoys it.
Also, this is a significant time for Manchin. He is in the middle of a Saturn Cycle aspect. Last month transiting Saturn turned retrograde just a little more than a degree away from and opposition to his natal Saturn. When transits like this come along decisions we’ve made and positions we’ve taken in the past often come to a head. We have to account for them and deal with their ramifications. In Manchin’s case, those past decisions are based on one profound hope.
For people with the Moon is Sagittarius, hope is the bread of life. Manchin seems to be clinging to the hope that, if Democrats just show a willingness to make deals in order to get things done, Republicans will concur. It is that hope that is being tested in Manchin’s Saturn moment. Personally, I seriously doubt that his hope will survive this test and by the time this transit completes in Jan. 2022, that will be painfully evident. But, for the moment, the nation has no choice but to let Saturn instruct Joe Manchin on what that hope could mean to the future of the country.
