Over the past several days, I have had encounters with two friends — one male, one female — who, from my point of view, both suffer from TDS, Trump Derangement Syndrome. With the male, a retired professor, as he was ranting on and on about Trump (“I hate him! I just hate him!” He had been watching — and believing — the Democrat accusations during the impeachment trial), I just commented, “It’s okay, we can hold different political views and still love each other.” Well, to this, he responded, “Aha, so there’s a love affair between us, only we can’t talk about Trump!” To which I thought, “No wonder there isn’t a love affair between us!” and then my thoughts further segued to someone I know well whose live-in girl friend is similarly afflicted. A “snowflake,” he calls her. “So I just don’t bring the subject up,” he tells me.

Then yesterday, I went out to lunch with the female with whom I politically disagree. I had told her I wanted to take her to lunch; that I want to get to know her, who she really is, because, she has told me over and over again, “You have no idea who I really am!”

So we met for lunch at a quiet local Thai place. And every time she tried to get off her own personal story (which was full of hardship since childhood, plus remarkable grit and determination to overcome) and on to the hate-Trump parade I just said, let’s not go there. Let’s just stay with getting to know each other better, as people, not as battling ideologies.

I did, and do, marvel how what appear to be the just about exact same set of circumstances can be colored in utterly opposite ways by apparently intelligent people. So that, for anyone to try to “explain” his or her point of view, he or she has to somehow say something that will change the coloration for the other person, and vice versa. And that’s just not possible. There’s no argument one can make that will sway another person to step out of what he or she has carefully or carelessly erected as his or her comfort zone.

I do think it all comes down to this: Is Trump’s heart in the right place? I think it is. She, and the professor, think not.

So now, today, the Republican response to the Democratic charges begins. I’m not going to watch more than brief clips from this part of the trial either, as I see the whole thing as theater — humans battling each other by cavorting (twisting, thrusting) with man-made Saturn rules set up by man-made Saturn structures (the congress, the constitution, etc.) against other man-made rules set up by other man-made structures, in order to (grab, undermine, overwhelm, touch into) Plutonian power. During this extraordinary Saturn/Pluto conjunction moment,  one by one, they get up  on the podium and cleverly or not so cleverly, cite some rule or law that contravenes or exonerates how they claim the one accused has behaved. A perspective on the context in which that law is embedded is then declared, to buttress the argument.

And of course, on this one point, my female friend and I decidedly agree: the stakes are enormous! Will we save (or more precisely, return to) the United States as a Republic? For her this means, Trump has got to go! For me it means, Trump has got to stay!

With transit Pluto approaching its own natal place in the U.S. chart for the first time in history, after 248 years, yes, the stakes could not be higher. Will the United States learn to use power in a way that is not just that of an adolescent, insisting on getting his own way in the world? Or will this “hyperpower,” currently being challenged on many fronts world-wide, learn to let go and get along. Will the United States finally learn to govern itself (Saturn) in concert with Nature’s laws (Pluto), observing and enhancing the primal life force within this beautiful planet?

But it’s to the matter of coloration that I want to return. For I find it exceedingly strange  how deeply emotional, in short, how Plutonian! — this entire Saturn drama feels to all of us. People either hate Trump or love Trump, and there seems to be no in-between.

Myself: I see him, complete with his over-the-top egocentric persona, as exactly what is needed to begin to regenerate this nation to what its founders intended. As the Great Disruptor of the systematically corrupt status quo, he takes whatever negativity anyone throws at him and turns it into fuel. There is no one else remotely capable of accomplishing this herculean, long-term, and multi-layered “drain the swamp” task. His immense courage, and his willingness to sacrifice both his own comfort zone and that of his family to “make America great again,” is the stuff of legends.

As for his environmental views? Agreed. Donald Trump is not (yet?) in touch with Earth as a living being, this vast, mysterious, nourishing host who feeds and waters and shelters us, making it possible for even more argument. Which is why I’ve been saying for years now, if only Trump would begin

to walk

barefoot

in the forest

on mushrooms

with a dog.