All over the United States an anti-Washington fervor is throwing incumbents out of Congress in favor of unknown candidates with no ties to party machinery.

Barack Obama won the presidency in November of 2008, the day of the first opposition between Saturn and Uranus.  Saturn represents conventional thinking and structures; Uranus represents the breaking apart of the old order in favor of something as yet unknown.  At the time astrologers wondered, who would win, Saturn or Uranus?

This opposition between Saturn and Uranus has occurred in five phases with the fourth phase just a few weeks ago, and it affects the United States directly because the whole Cardinal Grand Cross we’ve been talking about aspects the Midheaven in the (Sibley) chart for the United States.  The Midheaven of a national chart represents that nation’s government and its standing in the world.  The US Midheaven has been under pressure since Pluto formed a challenging square to that point shortly after entering the sign of Capricorn which is associated with government structures.  Saturn followed shortly behind, and there’s no doubt that the US government has been in a period of great transformation.

At the same time Chiron and Neptune, transiting through the sky, have been passing back and forth over the US Moon (signifying the mood of the people).  Chiron has been bringing up all of our anxieties, and Neptune has been instilling a longing for something more true and more pure.

All of this is very visible in the changing American political landscape.  No longer are there two political parties with established platforms and party bosses who call the shots.  Not only is there divisiveness now between the parties, the divisiveness has penetrated within the parties.   On the right the Tea Parties have become a political force to be recognized with that divides the Republican party; on the left, which tends to be more rebellious by its very nature, the division between the left wing and the moderate center is increasingly bitter.

This is to be expected as Uranus seeks to break up Saturn’s structures that serve little or no purpose.

When Uranus enters Aries in a few weeks it will begin to form a challenging aspect to the US Midheaven, although that square will not culminate until 2011 when it will begin to form a square to Pluto and both planets will be challenging the US Midheaven.  Then it will really get interesting!

From the New York Times:

A final truism to emerge from Tuesday’s primaries is that the politics of issues, the stuff of which parties have most often crafted their core identities, has now been largely displaced by a politics of personal conviction. In other words, Tuesday’s results were less about the ideological purging of either party than they were about a rejection of the culture of both, a sense that Washington acts from expedience and little else.

So while Mr. Specter may have thought he was being transparent by announcing to the world that he was switching parties in hopes of continuing to pursue his life’s work, what a lot of voters probably heard is that his beliefs were fungible in the service of his own ambition — a vulnerability that Mr. Sestak exploited with one of the most eviscerating advertisements in recent history. (“My change in party will enable me to be re-elected,” Mr. Specter said in a clip shown several times in the ad.)

Similarly, the sober-minded Senator  Blanche Lincoln, running for re-election to the Senate in Arkansas, may not have helped herself much in the closing weeks of her primary, when, under assault from unions over her centrist record, she took an uncharacteristically populist stand against Wall Street in the debate over regulating the financial industry. The move appeared calculated for political gain, which, after all, is the very impression of Washington that may be fueling much of the resentment to begin with.

What all this probably means is that we are living in the era of the upstart. Thirty years ago, when you needed a party infrastructure to make a serious run for higher office, taking it to the establishment was quixotic venture undertaken on the national level …

Those days are gone. The intraparty rebellions now will be increasingly local, sufficiently financed and built around credible candidates — the kind of campaigns that made Barack Obama president and that may yet give us Senator Paul or Senator Sestak. My gosh, these people in Washington are in for it now.