Astrology Blog: The astrology of Andrew Yang, Democratic candidate for president

Other posts in the series “Road to 2020:”

And posts written about Donald Trump.

Andrew Yang is an unusual candidate in that he has no real political experience. His career path has taken him from corporate attorney, to philanthropic fundraiser, to party organizer, to healthcare and then landed him in a small test preparation company that was later acquired by Kaplan, a giant in the field. This enabled him to begin Venture for America, a nonprofit investing in future entrepreneurs, winning him an award as Champion for Change by the Obama administration. Yang’s primary platform in his presidential campaign is that of Universal Basic Income, where each citizen is given $1000 a month to combat the negative effects of automation on the job economy. This idea is slowly gathering support both on the left and on the right. Although Yang is running as a Democrat, he is not particularly partisan. He cheerfully appears on Fox News and is gathering support among conservatives because he is pragmatic and technocratic rather than stuck in ideological positions. I confess that the more I read about him to research this article, the more I like him too.

Fortunately we have a birth time from Yang himself through his campaign (thank you astro.com) which gives us a more complete picture of his personality. He is a double Capricorn, with both the Sun and ascendant (rising sign) in that sign of achievement and practicality. Yet, he has the Moon, Mercury and Venus all in the innovative sign of Aquarius, bestowing a desire and ability to create change where change is necessary. Both Capricorn and Aquarius are ruled by Saturn; although they are quite different, both engage in life with great seriousness and strong abilities.

With Scorpio on the Midheaven (the point of connection to the outer world), he approaches his search for vocation with passion and commitment; however, Uranus, planet of radical change and innovation, sits right on that point. Uranus is a disrupter – it inspires Yang to disrupt every area in which he engages, but also likely makes it difficult for him to settle into any one thing. I suspect that were he to be elected president he would likely not make a commitment to a lifetime of political aspiration. Instead he would move on to the next area in which he wanted to create change. Uranus is the modern ruler of Aquarius, which makes it especially important in Yang’s chart since it not only rules his Moon, Mercury and Venus but is also locked in a challenging square formation to those planets. This marks him as especially rebellious with a strong dislike of conservative expectations or boxes which confine him – in conflict with the Capricorn influence which prefers that kind of box.

Capricorn typically relishes the trappings of wealth and success, but Aquarius prefers to share the wealth with others. Aquarius rules Yang’s second house of money, which isn’t surprising in light of his philosophy, espoused in his book Smart People should Build Things (Capricorn, incidentally, rules building and construction) that smart people should become entrepreneurs (Aquarius/Uranus) rather than enter careers in law and finance simply to build wealth.

Mars, representing our drive and achievement of our desires, is somewhat weakened in Yang’s chart – it sits in the mutable sign of Sagittarius which tends to run from difficulty rather than face it head on, and also in the twelfth house of that which is hidden. However, a strong square aspect between Saturn (limitations and hard work) and Pluto (power and transformation) denotes someone who may have a difficult time as a young person but if those early challenges are overcome, later life can have quite a powerful effect as the individual then possesses great resilience.

Warning: geeky astrological details ahead. Yang made his announcement of his candidacy in November 2017 as Jupiter moved into Scorpio and transited his natal Uranus/Midheaven conjunction. Jupiter bestows confidence, and had been locked in a challenging square for much of 2017, practically daring him to do something big. Meanwhile Uranus, planet of radical change, had been in a square formation to his Sun during that same period, inspiring him to embrace an out-of-the-norm idea like running for president, and since then has been setting off the other Aquarius planets (Moon, Mercury, Venus) and opposing natal Uranus/MC. Then in 2019 Pluto began transiting his natal Sun, with transiting Saturn opposite natal Saturn.

Basically, for the astro layperson, this is a time of extreme change for Andrew Yang who is a person himself that tends towards extreme change. There’s nothing in his astrological chart to suggest that he can’t win the presidency, since a chart like his thrives under astrological stress where some others may cave. There are some interesting connections between his chart and the US chart: His Saturn sits right on the US Sun and squares US Saturn which is a somewhat negative influence for a chart like the US chart which has Sagittarius rising and prefers optimism to the cold hard truths of Saturn. As we’ve already noted, Yang’s chart has a very strong Saturn influence and whether or not the US population is ready to hear those cold hard truths is yet to be seen.