Hocus POTUS: The Witches Who Brewed Up a Hex on Trump Are Really Cackling Now

I know some things are just coincidence, but Halloween’s coming up so hear me out. Isn’t it interesting that Trump contracted coronavirus on the day of a full moon? Not just any full moon, but a full moon on the first day of October. Think about it: Trump has a lot of enemies, a lot of them are female, liberals and minority groups…

All I’m saying is Lana Del Rey said she hexed Trump in 2017, and I’m sure she wasn’t the first or the last person to do so. If the growing popularity of WitchTok (Witch TikTok) is anything to go by, witches are probably hexing Trump every day. In July, for reasons that were never explained, baby witches apparently hexed the moon, so of course plenty of witches are hexing Trump — a man whom many would argue is a far more worthy receptacle of a little hex than our lovely moon. So we know it was happening, the question is, did it work?

“My personal opinion is that no, witches didn’t directly give him coronavirus, but I do believe we had a hand in manipulating his fate, from hexes to sour spells to tarot readings across the country,” Tessa, a 16-year-old witch from New Hampshire, tells me. Tessa made a video about hexing Trump in April. “Hexed Donald Trump in a cemetery for some Lana Del Rey solidarity,” she writes above a video where she sticks a knife into the ground of a graveyard (a powerful sentiment, but in reality, she felt that her hex was sloppy and rushed, so unlikely to affect someone as powerful as Trump).

However, Tessa recently did a tarot reading about Trump which left her shaken — something that she also shared in a TikTok video. The card she uncovered was Justice, which means that a fair decision will be made and people will receive what they deserve. This seemed stark, considering Trump had just been diagnosed with coronavirus. “It was pretty amazing to get such a clear and concise reading,” Tessa says.

Meg, a 24-year-old from Iowa and a fan of WitchTok, was also shocked when she saw Tessa’s reading online: “The last time I did a card reading for someone and pulled Justice, he was sentenced to 14 years in jail the following year.”

Meg isn’t currently practicing as a witch, although she does believe in manifestations and energies, so she says that seeing Trump be diagnosed with coronavirus has made her consider becoming more spiritual. She’s recently made a pact with her friend that if Trump dies, they’re going to convert to Judaism after years of sitting on the fence about it. “If he was to die from something he joked about, denied and completely ignored, I would take that as a sign of a higher power.”

Trump’s positive test has definitely resonated with many witches, even if they personally haven’t been hexing him. Bella, a 23-year-old witch from Oregon, decided not to hex Trump through concerns that doing so might accidentally harm someone else. However, she still thinks something significant may be happening in the spiritual world right now, perhaps as a result of witches casting more positive spells against Trump such as sigils, which are used for protection. “During the Black Lives Matter protests, I’ve seen a lot of sigils for protesters to keep them safe,” she explains. “When the news broke, my thought was maybe there were just so many things like sigils going around and so much energy against Trump — I like to imagine that there’s someone up there in the sky who thought, oh God, there’s too much energy directed at Trump, I’m just going to fling it out to him!”

If what we’re looking for is a spell that isn’t necessarily a hex, but comes from a large group of witches, the Bind Trump movement might be a good place to begin. The movement was started by a man called Michael Hughes, who wrote a spell against Trump in 2017. The spell requires a range of items, including an unflattering photo of Trump (which you can print from his blog), the stub of an orange candle and the Tower tarot card.

Cherry, a 45-year-old from Maryland, is one of the administrators of the Bind Trump Facebook group and has been doing this spell regularly since the movement began. She tells me that it’s important to note that the movement isn’t about hexing Trump or directly harming him, even if a few online participants of #BindTrump appear to wish him ill. “No, I don’t believe witchcraft gave Trump COVID — his own stupidity and hubris did that,” Cherry says. “The intent is all that really matters — to stop Trump from harming all of us. Maybe we should have put a line in there about him not hurting himself as well.”

Cherry can’t be sure how powerful their spells are, but she believes they’ve acted as a source of comfort for many during Trump’s presidency: “It’s definitely a salve for those of us who are so angry and feeling helpless about the lawlessness coming from this administration.” Cherry also hopes their ritual is making Trump feel uncomfortable. “I’d like to think that Trump knows we’ve been doing this ritual every month since the February after his inauguration and it’s rattled his cage a bit,” she says.

Although she doesn’t think she gave Trump coronavirus, Cherry still sees significance in the timing of Trump’s diagnosis, seeing as it occurred at the start of a month book-ended with full moons. “I feel it’s a sign that all of his wicked ways are coming into the light.”

Artie, a 26-year-old witch from the U.K., also believes Trump is more likely to become ill from a larger force than any one individual casting a hex. “You need to have a lot of power to affect someone in the public eye and especially to kill them, if that’s the aim — that takes a lot of energy,” they tell me. However, Artie has felt an energy shift this month which they believe could be affecting Trump too. “I’ve had a really shit year, but then suddenly loads of really positive things were all happening in one go,” they say. “And it’s possible I’m not the only one experiencing an influx of karma.”

Artie has also been seeing angel numbers all the time (sequences of numbers like 1234, 1212 or a repeat of one number, such as 1111). “I see them every time I look at the clock, which means something good’s coming. I think Trump’s been walking a fine line for a very long time and there’s a lot of people who don’t like him, specifically women, indegenous people and other marginalized people who are open to the supernatural,” Artie continues. “So it wouldn’t surprise me. But I’m hesitant to say anything in case saying it out loud undoes it.”

We can analyze our tarot cards all we like, but it remains hard for us to say for sure what’s coming. However, with Halloween on the horizon, where we’ll see the first full moon to occur across all time zones that night since 1944, perhaps it isn’t too much of a leap to imagine something special. “A lot of people have called this year a purge and a cleanse and we’ve been confronted with the most awful people,” says Artie. “The peak of all that is probably Halloween. I don’t necessarily think something will happen, but we might have an answer or resolution by then.

“I’m not for the death penalty, but some people just need to go.”

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Bethan Kapur

Bethan Kapur is a freelance journalist who spends a lot of time scrolling social media (she calls it "research"). Her other interests include fashion and all things pop culture.