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My book Faultlines argued our country is going through on of the most divisive periods in Western history, at three progressively deeper levels. First is the cultural split rooted in the divergent paths the North and South took over slavery, a split reignited with the Civil Rights movement and the Republican Party’s “Southern Strategy.” 

Neptune was running wild through the Republican convention last week, and all the security in the world couldn’t stop it.

Saturn and Jupiter are the planets that we look to for governance — Saturn offering the discipline, organization and infrastructure, while Jupiter provides the legal structure and underlying philosophies and ideals. But politics is not governance, and a candidate’s campaign promises are frequently honored more in the breach than in the observance. Political campaigns use persuasion, illusion, and even glamor to acquire material power — and that’s where Neptune comes in.

Neptune is a planet of transcendence, spirituality, non-physical realities, myths, mysticism, fantasy, fusion, illusion and disillusionment, devotion, utopian ideals, and compassion based in a recognition of ultimate oneness. It speaks in symbol, metaphor, visions and dreams. It rules the oceans, fog, and all things watery, as well as the oceanic depths of the unconscious, and altered states of consciousness. When this expansive and transcendent energy is yoked to the service of Saturn, of material reality, what we frequently end up with are states of delusion, deception, glamour used to manipulate, addiction, confusion, escapism and ambiguity.

Thursday morning, the news was full of Paul Ryan’s acceptance speech the previous evening, and the commentaries on the speech were full of phrases like “profoundly dishonest" "hypocritical" and "appallingly disingenuous”. All those phrases reflect a negative manifestation of Neptune. (The NY Times parses the speech here, and the Atlantic also gives a good overview.) 

Taking a look at Ryan’s chart (see it here), we note Neptune prominently placed conjunct the Ascendant, the closest aspect in his chart. It is also inconjunct his natal Mercury (communications) and trine Mars (aspects between Mars and Neptune often denote charisma). At the time of his speech, the transiting North Node was conjunct, and transiting Neptune within one degree of a square to Ryan’s Ascendant-Neptune conjunction. Neptune’s influence was strong indeed.