On CBC morning radio today in Canada, pundits decided that the reason Biden did not win a landslide verses a meagre expected victory is because of the “enthusiasm gap.”

But it’s not an enthusiasm gap between Biden and Trump voters, it’s a FANATICISM GAP. Trump is no longer a politician, but a saviour. The Republican party is no longer a party of fiscal conservatism and free-market economies, but rather a NEW RELIGION.

And this is a religion founded on “othering’ — which is the demonization and dehumanization of the other. Sound familiar? Yes, that Hitler strategy of mesmerizing the populace with belonging markers (swastikas) and othering markers (the jewish badge). So far, Trump has the red MAGA hats (the belonging marker) and he and the Q-anon cult have managed to create a rabid movement of true believers who see democrats as diabolical. In fact, the entire Trump campaign strategy was negative polarization, or othering with the goal to foment a frenzy of fear that progressive urbanites are out to destroy suburbs, let rioters run loose, defund the police and take away air-conditioners (really, that was one Trump claim).

But more than just creating a negative polarity instead of say, promoting an an actual policy agenda for a nation in the middle of an escalating pandemic and economic hardship, the othering has become a religious fervour for most Trumpists.

Don’t believe me? This morning Facebook decided to alert me to comments in a group that is aligned to the Q-anon narrative that Trump is a light-worker here to save the USA from the demon-rats (Deep state Democrats) who eat babies in Satanic pedophile rings.

Here is a representative Pro-Trump comment sample from last night (all women by the way).

“This vote is more than political. This vote is for freedom over tyranny. Love over fear. Peace over war. God over the godless. The most important vote we’ll ever make.”

“A vote for Biden is a vote for the New World Order and corruption to continue unabated.”

“This is Spiritual Warfare. I’ve just watched a Zoom conference from Democrat activists trained in ISIS who plan to riot. They’re evil. God needs us to use our voice. This year has been used to open our eyes. 20:20 vision. Socialism is Communism and they want to end God. No more Free Will,”

“What it came down to for me was to send my vote out with a prayer that Trumps will be aligned and in tune with Gods’ will. May it be so. “

“These elections aren’t only about politics but about humanity ascending and stepping into its power, being able to connect and recognize our intuition which is our connection to God.”

There is astrological precedent for this. Back in 1860 after a cholera pandemic swept the USA, in the same time frame that included the divisive election of Lincoln and the succession of southern states from the Union (the start of the civil war) there was a RISE OF A NEW RELIGION. It was called the SPIRITUALIST movement. It involved talking to the dead in seances and it swept the nation — even Lincoln had seances at the White House, in the red room. It was a movement driven by women and catalyzed by a pandemic, and later the loss of so many sons to the civil war, where talking to the dead was a panacea for grief and a feeling that the sky was indeed falling.

Neptune at that time sat in Pisces (1848 to 1861), which he is prone to do every 165 years or so. He’s back there again stirring up religiosity and fanaticism — and strangely a whole lot of new age women are driving the pro-Trump saviour narrative in the same way women drove the much more benign Spiritualism movement of the 1800’s.

Donald Trump’s natal Libra Neptune is square his natal Mercury in Cancer — the sign of the masses and of emotions and the sign placement for the sun in the USA natal chart (yes the USA is a Cancer). At the personal level, it makes Trump a fluid and pathological liar (or confabulator). At the collective level, it makes him a fantastical Messiah for those ready to believe.

The sky is falling, but it’s the sky of rational thought and reasoned sensibility. Religion is a binder, it’s a glue that brings people into unified direction. Trump is a new saviour in the religion of Q-Anon and Biden is just a politician.

This, is what is happening here and it has nothing to do with politics. Pre-election polls failed to account for fanaticism. It’s enough to drive people to mask-free rallies even at the risk of illness or death. It’s enough to divide families and break up marriages.

The USA is like a cracked vase, with no glue to hold it together. Rural Conservative America vs Progressive Urban has split so deeply apart, and the catalyst for the great divide right now is the urgent need to believe in a saviour of some kind.

It’s not just the USA though. Q religion has spread to Canada too. With climate change being so evident and the world feeling far too big and too daunting to deal with, this new religion is no surprise. It helps to find a villain and a messiah when all else fails. Even if Joe Biden squeaks out a win, which as of this writing he is expected to, the great divide is still there. That divide caused a civil war in 1860. The same risk is here again.

Which brings me back to Neptune, and the irony that this same planetary archetype is associated with enlightenment and the knowing that we are all one. Neptune is the “drop in the ocean” idea, that consciousness is primary and that we are a part of the Big Oneness Ocean.

But like any archetype, there is a shadow, and with Neptune it’s religious fanaticism and cult adherence. If there is anyway out of this great American divide, and the drive for othering to make sense of the world, it’s some kind of third radical unforeseen option. You know, like a UFO landing on the Whitehouse lawn.

In the meantime, expect no matter who ultimately wins this 2020 US election, that the othering will not only continue, but escalate. The God Bless America refrain just might become God Bless the Two Americas — the red one, and the blue.