“He was born angry, he was born fighting. This is just who the guy has always been.” (Devil’s Bargain by Joshua Green)
Steve Bannon is in the news again. After failing in his attempt to use the Trump presidency to take down the GOP establishment, he has now turned against Donald Trump in a new book, resulting in a firestorm of fury from the White House. Since Bannon rose to fame in 2012 as the director of Breitbart News, his rage has been directed at immigrants and immigration, Islam and Muslims, Hillary Clinton, to name only a few. His incendiary philosophies led a Breitbart colleague to comment, ““If there’s an explosion or a fire somewhere, Steve’s probably nearby with some matches.” An ex-employee called Bannon “a seriously sinister figure.”
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Bannon is the kind of character that makes me want to look into his astrological chart to see why he behaves as he does – what motivates him. Unfortunately there is not a known birth time for Bannon so we are missing some key pieces of information, but there is enough here for us to sink our teeth into.
Steve Bannon was born with the Sun in Sagittarius, the sign of ideology, religion, philosophy and expansive thought and goals. His Sun makes no (major) aspect to any other planet, suggesting that he tends to operate as a loner and may have had difficulty fitting in, even as a child. His Leo Moon (emotional needs) craves attention and validation from others, but it is locked in a death match with Pluto, planet of obsession, death and power. This dynamic suggests a challenging home life in childhood and since he was the middle child of five, this planetary placement suggests that he struggled to be seen by the parents and acted out for attention.
Mars is the planet that we typically associate with anger and rage – it is the force of assertiveness and motivation that when thwarted is transformed into a monster of resentment and outrage. Bannon’s Mars is in the peace loving sign of Libra, making it more difficult to express one’s needs and desires outwardly. The fact that Chiron, denoting psycho-spiritual wounding, is in a challenging aspect to his Mars echoes the difficulty that his weak Mars has created in his life. This is an individual that found it difficult to get what he wanted out of life and became more and more frustrated as a result, to the point where the rage could no longer be contained. Uranus, planet of radical behavior, is also in stressful aspect to Mars, encouraging this reactionary approach to self-expression and reflecting the incendiary nature of the comments made about him by those who know him well.
This combination of planetary frustration made him restless and unable to stay in one career for very long. He joined the navy but was restless, and during his Saturn Return graduated from Harvard business school. He joined Goldman Sachs but left soon after to start his own investment firm. He financed films until he became bored with that, and then started making films himself.
With Mercury in Scorpio, he is an intense thinker with strongly held opinions. His Scorpio Venus means that relationships for him are all or nothing. This is a chart that holds a lot of power, and also the undoing of the individual if he is consumed by this power.
One interesting factoid in the chart is the challenging inconjunct between the Black Moon Lilith and Saturn, denoting a deeply held distrust and fear of women. He has been married three times for short periods, and one of his wives charged him with domestic violence.
The challenging dance between Uranus (breaking up the status quo and fostering rebellion and radical behavior) and Pluto (destroying the old paradigm and forcing the rebuilding of a new one) triggered this Mars system in Bannon’s chart between 2015 and 2018 as the Trump campaign was unfolding. Trump and Bannon have a lot of links between their charts which intensifies the connection between them. Trump’s ascendant falls right on Bannon’s Moon, so Bannon must have felt that Trump understood him. Trump’s Sun falls right on Bannon’s Jupiter so Trump must have felt that Bannon could help expand his agenda. But Trump’s Mars falls on Bannon’s Pluto, which means that power issues were inescapable.
As Bannon continues to rage against the political machine, he will soon find he has no machine of his own with which to fight his petty wars. Though he is still in charge of Breitbart News, rumors of his imminent ouster are rampant. Still, Bannon will enjoy a number of empowering Jupiter transits over the next year which will serve only to expand his confidence and encourage his brand of schoolyard bullying no matter which pulpit he chooses to use.
Thanks for this excellent write-up!
Want to add that Uranus is conjunct the South Node! That can be intense–I have a friend who has the same placement, and talk about eccentric! They really have to go their own way, that Uranus has a hold on them. Half the time, I don’t know what this friend of mine is talking about…
But additionally, Bannon’s nodes are squared by Neptune. Talk about some hard, karmic lessons–This can be all about learning to deal with fantasy, illusion, deception both self- and otherwise, and ultimately, disappointment (you’re supposed to learn to put a good spin on Neptune, and use it for creativity or spirituality, i.e., dispense with the negative aspects of the sign and make them positive. AND do it in Libra, i.e., be helpful to others in this regard).
Fascinating. Thanks again!
PS: Harvey Weinstein also has a Sun singleton. :0
a helpful and fascinating post – thank you.
Love this post. However I don’t see the “challenging square between the Black Moon Lilith and the Sun,” Lilith is 6:55 Libra and the Sun is 5:10 Sagittarius. What am I missing?
You’re not missing anything, and thank you for your eagle eye! What I meant to say and will correct is that the Black Moon Lilith is inconjunct Saturn.
Thanks for your reply. Ladies who are interested in Steve Bannon, you have been warned!
well the undoing of bannon is happening, now – and he will take quite a few ppl with him.
Thank you for the analysis. Maybe it’s a typo, but Bannon’s BML (Libra) and Saturn (Scorpio) are semi-sextile, not inconjunct/quincunx.
I’ll add that Saturn is conjunct his Sun/BML midpoint, which could definitely adversely affect his dealings with women.
What is commonly called a semi-sextile IS an inconjunct. I don’t call it a semi-sextile.
He also has Toro (bullying) conjunct Mars, both at 16 Libra, conjunct Ixion (bad boy) at 19 Libra. Nessus (cruelty) at 16 Taurus is opposite Mercury. His Juno (partnership) at 25 Leo conjuncts his Pluto (power) and conjuncts Trump’s ascendant. His North Node square Neptune creates an alienated visionary. Jupiter trining Neptune, quincunx the North Node expands this.