The Scene
In a despondent video viewed by more than a million users on TikTok, @blisabutimspamming confessed that Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 presidential election had shaken her faith in the stars.
“I’m sad about the election too, but what I’m especially sad about is that I can no longer trust a single TikTok astrologer on this app.”
On TikTok, where they’ve collectively racked up millions of followers, many popular astrologists predicted before the election that Vice President Kamala Harris would win. Trump’s victory has sent the community into a tailspin, with many wondering whether they misread the signs in the cosmos or if factors more earthly were to blame.
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TikTok has helped boost the popularity and visibility of astrology, which has become more prominent this election cycle, as influencers read the stars and birth charts of Harris, Trump, Biden, and the US itself.
Many had agreed that Harris’ chart aligned with success on and after Election Day. For example, on Harris’ birth chart on Tuesday, Saturn was transiting her tenth house of career and public image, which can signify stepping into a more powerful role. On Trump’s chart, Jupiter was conjunct his Uranus, suggesting chaos and disruption.
Faced with Harris’ loss, some of the most popular accounts have become a home for conspiracy theories. They’re also leaning on past predictions that proved more accurate — such that Biden would drop out of the presidential race, and that Trump would face violence around the time of his assassination attempts.
“I stand by what I said. I don’t think that we’ve seen the end of it at all, if anything this is just the beginning of a fight,” one astrologer, @meggly, said in a video that has hundreds of thousands of views. “Based on the astrology alone … I feel like Harris is president overall.”
Another user, who has a podcast about astrology, said: “I don’t think we’re done. I don’t think the count is done. … These astrologists, with their track record, with their history, have not been wrong.”
Vague predictions of some sort of disruption to Trump in mid-November — career, legal, or otherwise — are now common.
“It’s kind of looking really likely at this point that neither of these candidates will be president come January,” another astrologer said.
J.D.’s view
The rising popularity of political astrology on TikTok is partly a symptom of the media fragmentation that defined this election.
More people consumed election-related content and news from influencers on podcasts and social media this election cycle than ever before. The struggle of polls and forecasters to definitively predict the nationwide rightward shift prompted some people to look for certainty in other venues, such as the betting markets, which favored a Trump win in recent weeks, and seized on Tuesday’s victory to dunk on polls and legacy media. A distrust of credible journalists and mainstream pundits and political commentators also led some Americans to more out-there venues like astrology, where influencers purport to have a better sense of what’s happening than politicos do.
Much of the content is harmless, but some veers into darker territory, with talk of uncounted ballots and predictions of something being “exposed.” As results were coming in Tuesday night, one prominent star-reader who had predicted a Harris win said that “we wouldn’t have final results until mid-month” and told followers that “the media is irresponsible in projecting winners.” (She appears to have since made her account private.)
People have always leaned on divinatory practices for comfort in times of uncertainty. But social media platforms like TikTok take what used to be a standard visit to a palm reader and amplify that reading to massive audiences online. When the content undermines faith in US elections, the results can be legitimately alarming.
Room for Disagreement
Some astrologists, instead of telling followers to hold onto hope, admitted they made the wrong call when they predicted Harris would win.
One horoscopist, whose account is called Astrology Blitz, acknowledged post-election that there were also signs that pointed to a Trump win. He wanted Harris to win the election.
“There’s a million things going on in the sky, and I looked at the few I wanted to,” he said. “Astrology is perfect, but astrologers are not perfect.”