{"id":26679,"date":"2023-05-24T12:36:35","date_gmt":"2023-05-24T19:36:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=26679"},"modified":"2023-05-24T12:36:36","modified_gmt":"2023-05-24T19:36:36","slug":"marianne-williamson-you-dont-even-know-what-misogyny-is-until-youve-been-a-woman-running-for-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2023\/05\/24\/marianne-williamson-you-dont-even-know-what-misogyny-is-until-youve-been-a-woman-running-for-president\/","title":{"rendered":"Marianne Williamson: \u2018You don\u2019t even know what misogyny is until you\u2019ve been a woman running for president\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Edward Helmore<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In second presidential bid, Williamson is running a more grounded campaign \u2013 as a political outsider appalled at how America\u2019s political elites have ignored the needs of ordinary peopleMon 22 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

May 2023 07.00 EDT (TheGuardian.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A<\/strong>penthouse-gym in north-west Washington DC served as a campaign stage for the long-shot Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson<\/a> last week. Athleisure-clad political consultants came and went, as if typecast from a political TV drama. The Washington monument poked between buildings in the distance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Williamson is far from an average political candidate, even in the modern era of American politics where it often feels much of what was once unthinkable has become a scary new normal. She is not a politician, but instead an author and wellness guru, whose quixotic first tilt at the White House four years ago was far from successful but saw her grace the Democratic debates and score a viral hit with her message to Donald Trump<\/a> that she would \u201charness love\u201d to defeat him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This time around, Williamson is running a tougher, more grounded <\/a>campaign \u2013 treading the turf as a political outsider appalled at how America\u2019s political elites have ignored the needs of its ordinary people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The chances that Williamson will become Democratic nominee for president next year are very slim. But there\u2019s no doubt that her message has the power to resonate, particularly among the young and with women, and with those who feel America\u2019s current travails cut deep and are being ignored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had a 40-year-career working with people whose lives are in trouble. When I started that was the exception, not the rule. The work I did then was an adequate response to the suffering I saw in front of me, but now there seems to be a ubiquitous wave of people\u2019s lives falling apart.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

An obelisk is much more than a phallus<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Williamson is also increasingly clear on some of the traditional barriers she faces. Williamson, 70, is just the second woman \u2013 the first being Republican Nikki Haley \u2013 to have thrown her name into the 2024 presidential nomination contest ring. Both have received a seemingly reflexive push-back from their respective parties and some quarters of the media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sexist? Quite possibly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAn obelisk is much more than a phallus,\u201d Williamson said at her event, observing the monument beyond. And then more directly: \u201cYou don\u2019t even know what misogyny is until you\u2019ve been a woman running for president.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Williamson was less interested in symbols of power than her political agenda. She\u2019s never held public office, though she ran unsuccessfully for California\u2019s 33rd congressional district in 2014, and for the Democratic party nomination in 2019, endorsing Bernie Sanders after dropping out the following year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among her platform positions is an increase in the minimum wage, reparations for racial injustice, a more muscular response to climate change, comprehensive educational reforms and the creation of a US Department of Peace. She talks of \u201csoulless hyper-capitalism\u201d which she sees as the fundamental affliction of an America run by a government \u201cof the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now she\u2019s doggedly upgrading her old messaging about personal growth and universal love, attempting to dig a channel from new age enlightenment to political power, and to turn around what she sees as an economic, environmental and social crisis engulfing America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Williamson
Williamson speaks on the first night of the second 2020 Democratic presidential debate in Detroit, Michigan, on 30 July 2019. Photograph: Lucas Jackson\/Reuters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m socio-economically well-travelled,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd my experience has had to do with the endurance and transformation of chaos. I\u2019m interested in the principles of truth, and the realization that America is out of control. America is in chaos.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The liberal, Jewish ex-lounge singer from Texas arrived in Los Angeles in the 1980s and began to gather the stars \u2013 Madonna, Michael, Liz and Warren \u2013 and Hollywood power brokers of the era around self-healing psychotherapy and applied her energy to the Aids crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She set up in New York, giving a talk once a month on a Course of Miracles. Her career took off via Oprah Winfrey, and she became known as the TV star\u2019s \u201cspiritual adviser\u201d. A book publishing empire followed. Almost all her titles applied \u201clove\u201d to whatever the title subject at hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After her first run for the party nomination in 2020 she moved to Washington, which she describes as a walled city, not a bubble. She\u2019d recently gotten out to visit East Palestine, Ohio, after the toxic train derailment turned the sleepy burgh into a byword for chemical disaster at the hands of a big corporation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe economically oppressed in this country are being oppressed by the same forces, whether on the left or the right. The real divide is not left and right, that\u2019s a veil of illusion, it\u2019s between those who are suffering and those who don\u2019t seem to have a clue. It\u2019s about millions of people living with chronic economic insecurity,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s little sign that those actually arranging Democrat political power have much time for Williamson, and they have fenced her out. But she is not put off, touring the country and doing campaign stops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy would I capitulate? I\u2019m a 70-year-old woman. I\u2019m not part of that system. I\u2019m not coming from that place of do what they tell you and you might get on that committee or get to run in 2028,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

There\u2019s such a fear of Donald Trump, they assume the best way to go is with Joe Biden. I disagree<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s such a fear of Donald Trump, they assume the best way to go is with Joe Biden<\/a>. I disagree. You have to be in complete denial to think that status quo, transactional politics are going to be enough to defeat the energy that he [Trump] represents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople are blinded by their fear of him,\u201d Williamson continued. \u201cThey think if they attack him enough people will change their minds. But this a man who said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and supporters wouldn\u2019t care, and I think that\u2019s probably true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll beat him by offering the American people a better deal, and agenda for genuine economic reform, an economic U-turn.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Integral to that, she said, would be a 21st-century economic bill of rights \u2013 universal healthcare, free tuition, free childcare, paid family leave, guaranteed housing, a livable wage and sick pay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week, Williamson also announced plans for a Department of Children and Youth, arguing that children, because they have no economic agency and no vote, are \u201csystematically neglected\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPublic policy in America sets children up to fail. Our children are the biggest collateral damage from hyper-capitalism. So I would place a tremendous focus on children, and create a massive transformation of resources. I want every school to be a center of learning, culture and arts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Marianne
Marianne Williamson, founder of Project Angel Food Founder, at the Aids monument groundbreaking on 5 June 2021, in West Hollywood, California. Photograph: Emma McIntyre\/Getty Images for Foundation for the AIDS Monument<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Students go to school in fear of gun violence, a situation she says that will exacerbate mental health issues in the future. The current debate, she says, doesn\u2019t begin to address the issue. \u201cIt\u2019s a sophomoric question, is it cultural or is it guns? It\u2019s both. It\u2019s gun safety laws and the glamorization of violence that people make money off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur food policies are violent, our climate policies are violent, our justice policies are violent, our economic policies are violent. The violence perpetrated against women on TV blows my mind \u2013 and the emotional violence on social media. We\u2019ve sexualized violence, and we will have a violent society until we chose to become non-violent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But her message of love and equity could be marred by other reports of the author behind the scenes. Shortly after she announced her run, Politico ran an article claiming she had episodes of \u201cfoaming, spitting, uncontrollable rage\u201d during her 2020 White House run. Williamson later called the accusations a \u201chit piece\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI raised my voice in the office. They said I threw a phone but I\u2019ve never thrown a phone at anyone. If people feel I\u2019ve been disrespectful to them, of course, I\u2019m very sorry,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some also detect a political hand. Williamson has claimed the Democratic National Committee is \u201crigging\u201d the party\u2019s primaries in favor of Biden by ruling out a debate \u2013 \u201ccandidate suppression if a form of voter suppression,\u201d she says \u2013 and the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, responded to questions about Williamson\u2019s candidacy with jokes about auras and crystal balls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOf course they call me an unserious candidate because they don\u2019t want to be called to the carpet for being so unserious about the things that matter most,\u201d she hit back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOf course they would see me and those like me as dangerous, because from the perch they\u2019re on I am dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Politicians love to talk, but none possibly as much as Oprah-trained spiritual gurus turned politicians. And Williamson is now on a tear. Over the past month, 38 videos have gleaned 4m views and more than 600,000 \u201clikes\u201d<\/a> on Gen-Z popular TikTok.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this may be where Williamson likes to be \u2013 firing salvoes, getting her voice out there, offering the damned salvation, slipping on occasion into what sounds like life-coaching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And after the traumatic four-year experiment of allowing a political outsider from the far right to enter the walled city of US politics<\/a> without knowledge of or care to learn how the levers of political power operate, resistance to another outsider on a political quest is unquestionably elevated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI can see that it would be an extremely difficult job, and I can\u2019t imagine that it would be fun every day,\u201d Williamson says of the prospect of the presidency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI would simply try to be as good a person as I can be. I\u2019m not claiming to be what I\u2019m not. I\u2019m running for president, not sainthood. I am a decent woman who has, I feel, some insights about this country and some insights about what is happening that could be of value.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Edward Helmore In second presidential bid, Williamson is running a more grounded campaign \u2013 as a political outsider appalled at how America\u2019s political elites have ignored the needs of ordinary peopleMon 22 May 2023 07.00 EDT (TheGuardian.com) Apenthouse-gym in north-west Washington DC served as a campaign stage for the long-shot… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[137],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26679"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26679"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26680,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26679\/revisions\/26680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}