{"id":26585,"date":"2023-05-19T11:36:05","date_gmt":"2023-05-19T18:36:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=26585"},"modified":"2023-05-19T13:48:31","modified_gmt":"2023-05-19T20:48:31","slug":"marianne-williamson-wants-to-introduce-a-new-politics-to-dc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2023\/05\/19\/marianne-williamson-wants-to-introduce-a-new-politics-to-dc\/","title":{"rendered":"MARIANNE WILLIAMSON WANTS TO INTRODUCE A NEW POLITICS TO DC"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Positioning herself as an alternative to Trump\u2019s neo-fascism and Biden\u2019s neoliberalism, the Democratic challenger takes aim at \u201cthe corporate takeover of this country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>BY&nbsp;<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/therealnews.com\/author\/maximillian-alvarez\">MAXIMILLIAN ALVAREZ<\/a><\/strong> MAY 18, 2023 (therealnews.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/therealnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/GettyImages-1385236005-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&amp;ssl=1\" alt=\"Marianne Williamson speaks into a microphone onstage at South by Southwest. She is wearing a grey suit and gesturing with her arms outstretched. Behind her is an abstract design typical of the SXSW aesthetic.\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson speaks onstage at Guerrilla Tactics &amp; Asymmetric Political Activism during the 2022 SXSW Conference and Festivals at Hilton Austin on March 14, 2022 in Austin, Texas. Photo by Mike Jordan\/Getty Images for SXSW<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Marianne Williamson explains her 2024 presidential campaign\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FTsrD_WQMHo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The 2024 election season has begun, and while a second Trump vs. Biden showdown is expected by many, a number of challengers have emerged within the Democratic Party. One of them is&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/marwilliamson\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Marianne Williamson<\/a>\u2014author of several self-help books, and former 2020 presidential candidate. Williamson joins TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez to explain what she\u2019s about, why she\u2019s running, and how she hopes to transform US politics through her candidacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>Studio Production: David Hebden, Cameron Granadino<br>Post-Production: Adam Coley<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-transcript\">TRANSCRIPT<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m Marianne Williamson. I\u2019m running for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The other night, Donald Trump was on a CNN town hall, the Mussolini show, if I\u2019ve ever seen one. I think that anyone who thinks that traditional transactional politics is going to beat that back is delusional, in real denial. This is not politics as usual, and I\u2019m not a politician as usual. I\u2019m running for president because I\u2019ve had a 40-year career working with people whose lives are falling apart, and what\u2019s happening in this country is that people\u2019s lives are falling apart. I have seen it when people were ill. I have seen it when people were getting divorced. I have seen it when people were addicted. I\u2019ve seen it when people found out that their children were addicted. I\u2019ve seen it when people lost someone that they love. But this is now an ubiquitous wave of despair, and it is a consequence. It is not a cause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is a consequence of not only personal factors, but societal factors, economic factors, public policy that make it too hard for the average American in the richest country in the world to even survive. I see a political system that not only doesn\u2019t speak to that, a political system that maintains that and effectuates the policies that created. So I\u2019m running for president because we need a president who is willing to look at that, to realize it, to recognize it, to name it, and to harness the same principles, the same dynamics that I know from a 40-year career to be those things that not only enable people to endure such crises, but also to transform them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s why I\u2019m running for president, because I believe that the idea of a president who represents the status quo means either a president who represents, as someone like Donald Trump was, what is basically a neo-fascist, neo-authoritarian threat to democracy, or a neoliberal, such as President Biden, who represents something that is eroding democracy from the inside. It\u2019s like neo-fascism is the disease, but neoliberalism has weakened our immune system, because every individual life is a cell in the immune system. People are like this. People don\u2019t even have the bandwidth to deal with something like a fascist threat. They\u2019re just trying to stay alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So until we start having a more real, deeper, more authentic conversation about what the real problem is, the real source points of what\u2019s happening in this country, then we won\u2019t heal. We won\u2019t repair. We will continue to be, as we are already, vulnerable to seriously neo-fascist, neo-authoritarian forces. I think I\u2019m a person who understands all this and can speak to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, Ms. Williamson, Marianne, thank you so much for sitting down and chatting with me here on The Real News Network. I really appreciate it, and I have so many thoughts about just that opening salvo alone, and I promise viewers and listeners we\u2019re going to dig into all of that over the course of our conversation here for The Real News Network. As you said, you are running for the Democratic nominee for president in the 2024 presidential election that is on the horizon. In many ways, the campaign has very much kicked off, and we are fully in the windstorm of another election cylce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yes, we are cycle. It has begun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yes, I want to dig into all of that. But before we get there, I want to start by addressing Real News audiences where they\u2019re at, right? Our audience, I think, is rightly skeptical of electoral politics. This isn\u2019t some ultra-left ideological purity thing, right? I think the fact is that Real News viewers and listeners are a pretty heterogeneous bunch who come to us largely for our coverage of social movements, so the labor movement, the prison abolition and police accountability movements, the climate justice movement, et cetera, because, frankly, they have lost a lot of faith in our system of electoral politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They\u2019re also largely working people with busy lives, who understandably want to devote their limited time, energy, and money to areas of struggle where they feel like they can make a difference. The past two election cycles coupled with the standard political rot and inaction and corruption from DC politics have given people little hope that the changes they desperately want to see in the world are going to come through elected politicians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So before we talk about the race itself and expand on your vision for the country, I think we need to start by talking about these very real concerns that people have. What do you say to people out there who have been explicitly taught by our corrupt political establishment not to have faith in the electoral system, or a lot of folks out there supported Bernie and had their hopes crushed by the DNC two elections in a row. What do we say to people who may support your message about how this time could be different, and what have progressive candidates like yourself learned from the failed or squashed Bernie campaigns that could ensure a different or at least a fairer result this time around?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, I think all of the questions and concerns that you enumerated are very legitimate, but this is not the first time in American history that times have been tough. We all need to toughen up, buttercup a little bit. It wouldn\u2019t have been easy to be an abolitionist. It wouldn\u2019t have been easy to be a woman suffragist. It wouldn\u2019t have been easy to be part of the original labor movement. It wouldn\u2019t have been easy to be working in the civil rights movement. Those were desperate times, too, and there was every reason, given just as there is today the tremendous institutional resistance to the changes that people were standing for. There was no more reason to think they could succeed then than there is \u201creason to think we can succeed now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So working for justice, working for love, working for real truth in our hearts as we see it has never been easy for any generation. But in all of those movements, abolition, women\u2019s suffrage, labor movement, civil rights movement, they ultimately prevailed, and it took more than a couple of election cycles. For that matter, to say that Bernie didn\u2019t succeed, well, he didn\u2019t become president. That\u2019s true, and none of us are naive about the system that locked him out. But he came within striking distance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A candidacy like mine wouldn\u2019t exist, I don\u2019t think, if it hadn\u2019t been for Bernie. I don\u2019t think Bernie would\u2019ve existed had it not been for Occupy. Everything pushes the needle forward a little, whether it\u2019s The Real News Network or somebody\u2019s podcast or independent media or the labor movement or an actual campaign. No one person or one action is going to fix any of this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But I think it\u2019s important that we remember that those of us who stand for many of the values that you and I talk about and the policies that I\u2019m sure we\u2019ll be talking about here are aligned with the views of the majority of people in the United States. Poll after poll shows that, and something that Cenk Uygur said on The Young Turks not too long ago, I heard him say this, and it was like a brick to my forehead. \u201cSomeone is going to break through.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So maybe it won\u2019t be me, but to minimize the importance of the presidency is silly. The president doesn\u2019t have a magic wand. No president does, and no president should. But the president\u2019s not just what the president can do to move things forward in the direction of justice. It\u2019s what the president can do and continues to have done over the last 50 years, particularly to keep the needle from moving forward. So I\u2019m not saying that this is the most important thing. I\u2019m not saying I\u2019m the only one who can do it. I\u2019m just saying we have to work on all fronts. On this particular front, I am the one who is saying the things and standing for the issues and standing for the policies that those of us who see the world a certain way agree with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I want to pick up on that point about the expectations that we project onto the presidency and how that plays into perhaps the expectations that we have of ourselves and the rest of the political system and the way the two relate to one another. We have a very bizarre way of talking about political qualifications in this country, as I\u2019m sure you know. Of course, the media is going to continue to assert that you are unqualified for the position of president. On the other hand, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton were both presented to us as the absolute most qualified people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Oh, look how qualified Dick Cheney was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Right, or Dick Cheney.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thank you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When most people hear that, all they hear is that they are creatures of the same DC political machine that they despise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That took us here. Bingo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of course that crowd says that anybody who is not one of them is unqualified, because that person is not there to effectuate and perpetuate what they\u2019re already doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Exactly. So what do you think makes someone qualified for the position of US President, and what makes Marianne Williamson specifically qualified? Yeah, let\u2019s talk a bit about what expectations people should reasonably have for any president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>First of all, I want to point to something I think is very interesting about the US Constitution. It says that in order to be president, you have to have lived here for 14 years, you have to have been born here, and you had to be 35 years or older. Now, if the founders had wanted to say, \u201cHad to have been a congressman, lawyer, governor, senator,\u201d they would have, and they didn\u2019t. I think they didn\u2019t for a reason. They were leaving it to every generation to determine for itself what that generation thinks is the skillset necessary to deal with the challenges of that time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I believe for all the reasons that you just said someone whose career has been entrenched in the car that drove us into the ditch, I reject their assertion that only someone like that should be counted on to drive us out of the ditch. Washington, DC is filled with political car mechanics, some of them really good political car mechanics. The problem is we\u2019re on the wrong road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The qualification that I have is not to effectuate and maintain and perpetuate a corrupt system that has driven us six inches from the cliff, six inches from the cliff in terms of the state of our economy, the state of our democracy, the state of our environment, the state of people\u2019s lives. My qualification is not that I know how to perpetuate that system. My qualification is that I know how to disrupt that system. I think that if you ask how, I\u2019m doing it already. Who else is running for president, saying the things that I\u2019m saying? Although Bobby Kennedy is, we do agree on the issue of the corporate takeover of this country, which is that core issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So of course, those whose power and money relies upon the continuation of that system, of course they project it onto anyone who is not one of them. \u201cOh, that person\u2019s fringe. That person\u2019s wacky. That person\u2019s crazy. That person\u2019s dangerous.\u201d Yeah, dangerous to them. \u201cThat person\u2019s not one of us\u201d is what they\u2019re saying, and there is a political media industrial complex. You know that, being part of independent media, and their control is huge. But once again, so was the control of the slave owners. So were the robber barons. So were those who held firm the institutional suppression of women that kept women\u2019s suffrage at bay. So were the segregationist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So my qualification is that I know a life that is in trouble when I see it. I know a life that is in trouble, and I know that a group of people is no different than an individual, because all that a group is is a group of individuals. The same principles that heal and transform one life will heal and transform this country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Number one, look in the mirror. This country will not heal until we look in the mirror. Give an example. Let\u2019s talk about the southern border and the crisis there right now. So what do the status quo politicians say? Well, they say some things that are accurate. Certainly we need to have many more resources down at the border. We need to have more legal ways of entry, et cetera. But what does it mean to say America\u2019s going to have to look in the mirror here? We need a president who, as I would do, says in order to deal with this, we are going to have to look honestly at American foreign policy in Latin America over the last 50 years. Hello. We are going to have to recognize what sanctions due to people\u2019s lives. We are going to have to recognize all the ways that we have destabilized countries and governments in ways that have actually contributed to the abject despair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What is a person going to think of what people are running from? Think how dangerous and desperate your life has to be that you would be willing to walk through a desert with little children in the most dangerous terrain in order to get someplace where you really don\u2019t know how they\u2019re going to treat you so that maybe you could get a job as a busboy. Could we have a real conversation here about what\u2019s going on at the border?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is what I mean. We need a president who\u2019s going to cut through the seventh grade \u2026 although I think at this point, that\u2019s an insult to seventh graders. When it comes to individual relationships, I think Americans get down as real and authentic as any other country. But when it comes to our public dialogue, we\u2019ve been trained to think in the most immature, sloganeering, inauthentic ways. This is not a time in America to be immature thinkers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So what are my qualifications? My qualifications is I\u2019m going to look and say, \u201cOkay, that\u2019s it. This is the situation, and I know that that situation is that way. You want this old cowboy image of a politician who\u2019s going to come in and treat that symptom.\u201d They\u2019re only going to treat that symptom in a way that they think will help them win the next election, by the way. To hell with thinking about what it\u2019s going to be for the next generation or generation after that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I want to come in there and say, \u201cWhat\u2019s underneath that? What\u2019s underneath that? What caused that?\u201d I believe my experience is that when you talk for real with people, they hear you. Politicians talk to Americans like we\u2019re stupid. I don\u2019t think Americans are stupid, and I don\u2019t think Americans are unwilling to have a conversation about what\u2019s really going on. Then you build your public policy positions, as I have built mine. No candidate has more elaborate set of plans than I do, as on my website, Marianne 2024. But we need a president who speaks to the level of symptom and not just cause. That\u2019s my qualification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Going to the question of expectations, reasonable or otherwise, that we have of a president, as someone who can institute that change, how do you disrupt that system when it\u2019s held together by such a tremendous suffocating blob of corporate money, media manufactured consent, military-industrial complex, backroom deals even within the party that you\u2019re running in?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The president doesn\u2019t have a magic wand. No president does. No president should. Obviously, the president hopes to have members of the House and the Senate who at least partially agree with her. No guarantee that this would be so. There\u2019s been no president, even our favorites, who didn\u2019t have senators and congressmen and in many cases Supreme Court justices who block their way. But none of that takes away the power of the executive branch, which lies in the hands of the president alone. The president still has the power of executive orders. The president still has the power of the bully pulpit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So when I think of the things that I want, whether it has to do with universal healthcare, free college tuition, free childcare, guaranteed family leave, guaranteed sick pay, guaranteed livable wage, an economic Bill of Rights, Department of Peace, Department of Children and Youth, when I think of all those things that to me represent the kind of economic, political, and social U-turn that this country needs, I\u2019m not naive enough to think, \u201cOh, I\u2019m going to go in there, and all those things are going to happen right away.\u201d Of course I\u2019m not, but I can tell you this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I would go in there. I would not be thinking about getting reelected. I would be thinking about just making this happen and then when I leave say to the Republicans and the corporate Democrats, \u201cYou try taking that away from people. See how that will do for you.\u201d I will begin the season of repair. My presidency will not be looked at as one in which everything she talked about was achieved. But it will be looked at as, \u201cWow, she started. The U-turn began to happen. It\u2019s grounded.\u201d It\u2019s like I see myself as wanting to just open the door and say to a lot of people like yourself, \u201cCome on in. We\u2019ve got the Oval Office for four years.\u201d Millions of people will rush in. But I feel like, \u201cHelp me open that door.\u201d It\u2019s like the tip of a spear. It\u2019s not the spear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I would definitely reinstate those fireside chats. Then I would talk to the American people. This is my second run for the presidency, and I\u2019m seeing already what I saw last time, which is there are two worlds. One is the political media industrial complex, and it is more corrupt than I would\u2019ve feared. Then there are the people. We\u2019re a decent people. We\u2019re a decent people, and we\u2019ve got to get beyond our silos and beyond this Left versus Right. The main dichotomy in this country is not between Left and Right. It\u2019s between huge masses of suffering humanity versus those who don\u2019t have a clue, and those who don\u2019t have a clue hold the money and hold the power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yeah, no, I think that\u2019s well said and very much consistent with what we see and hear and report on every week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You know what? They need someone like me to talk to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, and like I said, we talk to folks around the country every week for The Real News. We hear and get a lot of feedback from our audience. We know where they\u2019re coming from, and I have to imagine that you\u2019re speaking to a lot of areas of concern for them. But the fact remains that, like I said, Real News viewers and listeners tend to really base their politics in social movements and in the primary areas of concern, like climate, economic justice, housing justice, prison abolition, and police reform, so on and so forth. For those folks who watch me specifically, they\u2019re very invested in the plight of working people, the labor movement, so on and so forth. They build a lot of their political preferences around that. Many people have told me they will not vote for Joe Biden because of what he did to the railroad workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I agree with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I think we\u2019ve done a good job of at least presenting to Real News viewers and listeners who will ultimately have the decision for themselves about what to do with this conversation. But I think we have presented a good faith case for why they should take it seriously. But I know that folks will want us to ask about \u2026 In the same way they look at Biden and the railroads, they may have seen the political article with the allegations about mistreatment of staff, toxic workplace in your past campaign. That\u2019s where they\u2019re coming from. I think that folks will understand the peculiar timing of when that article came out. They\u2019ll understand that there are a lot of folks who have worked for you who have had positive experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thank you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But what do you say to them, those people who are concerned when they read that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, I think that article said I threw a phone at someone. I never threw a phone at someone. That article says that I hit my hand on a door. It was a door, Max. It was a door. So after that article came out, I walked around for weeks with what I\u2019m supposed to be \u2026 It was like something out of The Scarlet Letter or something, walking around in shame. \u201cMaybe I\u2019m this terrible person.\u201d Have I raised my voice at the office? Yeah, I\u2019ve raised my voice. I think probably everybody else who\u2019s running has raised their voice at the office as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If anybody\u2019s ever felt disrespected because I raised my voice, of course, I\u2019m sorry about that absolutely. Not everybody likes me. I\u2019ve got enough texts from enough people who have worked for me. \u201cLove you, Marianne.\u201d I don\u2019t know what else to say. If there have been moments \u2026 Yeah. Have I raised my voice at the office? I have. I\u2019ve seen a lot of articles about women and their behavior at the office. I don\u2019t know. I\u2019m sorry if I\u2019ve ever offended anyone. But at this point, I\u2019m hearing stories about people who have said things about me, and I know that I talked to that person two or three times and it was nothing but a lovely conversation. So I don\u2019t know what to say. I\u2019m not going to just wear that as this mantle of shame, because I don\u2019t deserve it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, we just published an interview that I got to do with two incredible worker organizers, Taylor Marie Doggett and Courtney Rose Laudick from the Congressional Workers Union. They\u2019re trying to and have successfully unionized offices in the House of Representatives. They\u2019re focusing on the Senate right now. AOC\u2019s campaign workers unionized with the Campaign Workers Guild. Bernie\u2019s campaign staff unionized with the UFCW. If your campaign staff expressed an interest in unionizing, would you voluntarily recognize it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Absolutely we would, and we\u2019ve already discussed it. Yes, in today\u2019s world, absolutely. There\u2019s no other correct position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To your point about not being selective at how we apply this standard, do you think there is a larger conversation to be had about the conditions of campaign staffers and DC office staffers across the board?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, I think every situation is different, but on a political campaign, it is a 24\/7 type of thing. Social media is 24\/7. So I think that there are things that people enter into a political campaign understand is the nature of the job. I worked at a church for a long time, and people would expect to take vacations at Christmas, like, \u201cNo, no, no. You don\u2019t understand. Christmas is our biggest day.\u201d Do you know what I\u2019m saying? But I think for all of us who understand that this country has become completely lopsided and that there is this power concentrated, the power not only of money, but of control and so forth, in the hands of a very few at the expense of the very many, anyone with any consciousness at all about these things recognizes how important labor is as the front and center bulwark against such overreach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let\u2019s talk about that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Okay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let\u2019s talk about where we as a country are right now and what Donald Trump and the Republicans and Joe Biden and the Democrats are offering in response to that. Like you said, we just watched that travesty of a town hall with Donald Trump hosted by CNN earlier this week, and we know what we\u2019re getting from Trump and the Right. Yet it feels like Democrats and the media have learned nothing from 2016, and for the rest of us, this all just feels like a nightmarish bout of deja vu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But amidst all of this, whether we\u2019re talking about climate catastrophe, as you mentioned, the assault on voting rights and just basic democratic governance or the general erosion of the social fabric, which people feel. I hear about it all the time, as I know you do, too. There is a palpable sense in the country that 2024 is a point of no return, and we as a society are running out of time to address these threats before they come to permanently define our reality. 2024 for many of us does feel like our last chance to collectively decide whether or not we\u2019re going to tackle them head-on or just accept them and deal with the chaotic fallout. What do you think is needed to meet this moment? Do you see that need being met anywhere in government or beyond? What are Donald Trump and the Republicans and Joe Biden and the Democrats offering instead?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, I\u2019m running, remember. I wouldn\u2019t be running if I thought that what Joe Biden was offering was enough to counter the neo-fascism that is represented by that element of the other party, namely Donald Trump. Obviously, I don\u2019t, or I wouldn\u2019t be running. Joe Biden and that kind of corporatist Democratic politics represents an effort to help people survive an unjust economic system. My point is in the richest country in the world, why should your economic system be so hard to survive? We should be ending the injustice. We should not have an unjust, rigged economic system. That is the agenda. That alone, I believe, will be enough to counter Trump in 2024. What Biden\u2019s agenda represents is incremental change. Now, if Build Back Better had gotten passed, that\u2019s really quite wonderful if it had. I understand about Manchin, and I understand about Sinema. But you can\u2019t just say, \u201cWell, if that had happened\u201d-<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cImagine how great it would be.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yeah, and what are they going to say? They\u2019re saying things like, \u201cWell, we cut child poverty in half.\u201d Well, first of all, if you cut child poverty in half, you could have ended it. That\u2019s number one. Number two, yes, but once that child tax credit expired at the end of six months, you didn\u2019t permanentize it. They said, \u201cOh, we brought a $35 cap on insulin for seniors.\u201d Well, first of all, to be honest, Trump did that. Second of all, insulin should be free, and there should be Medicare for all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That which is going to counter Trump and I believe the only agenda that is going to counter Trump will be one in which we say to the American people, \u201cWe\u2019re going to make a complete economic U-turn, a complete economic U-turn. We are going to recognize that there is a corporate aristocracy in this country, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, big food, big agriculture, big chemical companies, gun manufacturers, big oil, and defense contractors, and they are no different than the landed gentry in 1776. We repudiated that in 1776. It\u2019s back. That\u2019s why it\u2019s called a corporatocracy, and we need to repudiate it again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is why Franklin Roosevelt said, \u201cWe wouldn\u2019t have to worry,\u201d he said, about a fascist or communist takeover as long as democracy delivered on its promises. Democracy, it\u2019s not delivering on its promises. How can we expect a younger generation to go to war, political war in 2024 for Joe Biden when he approved the Willow Project, when he has given more oil drilling permits than even Trump did? When Franklin Roosevelt said, \u201cIt has become clear to me,\u201d he said, \u201cthat we must become radical, fairly radical for a generation,\u201d we must become fairly radical, radically American. Radically American means that this is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. We have become a government of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When the Republicans are hitting you with big lies, the only way we\u2019re going to defeat that is with big truths. Now, what the corporatist Democrats tell is truth, but not the whole truth, not nothing but the truth. We have to name what\u2019s really going on in this country, what\u2019s been going on for 50 years, the massive transfer of wealth into the hands of a small group of people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>During the 1970s, we had a thriving middle class in this country. We had a thriving middle class in which the average worker had decent benefits. The average worker could afford a home. The average worker could afford a house. The average worker could afford a car. The average worker could afford a yearly vacation and to send their kids to college. It\u2019s not an accident that that\u2019s not the way things are now. So what you\u2019re going to say to that average worker \u2026 What? You\u2019re not even going to raise the minimum wage? Even when they talk about raising the minimum wage, it\u2019s still not talking about raising it to a level that\u2019s actually a livable wage in many states in this country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We have got to face this. Then the elite establishment Democrats say to people like myself we\u2019re trying to hijack the Democratic Party? No, they hijacked the Democratic Party. We\u2019re Franklin and Eleanor. They\u2019re the Whitneys and the Morgans and the DuPonts and all those. We need to go back to the Rooseveltian principles and pillars of unequivocal advocacy for the working people of the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, look, not every rich person is a greedy bastard. Not every poor person is humble and pure and kind. This is not about individuals. This is about systems. No conscious, righteous person of wealth wants to feel that they create wealth at the expense of other people even having a chance to. So they go on and on about capitalism. How can you be a capitalist if you don\u2019t have any capital? Many of the people who are locked out of any kind of righteous profit creation \u2026 We\u2019re just talking about people just wanting to live. We\u2019re talking about people having a hard time just paying for food, paying for rent, having a place to live, people who are college graduates, people who are having to work more than one job just to make it to hold on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Look how many people who are homeless in this country. We\u2019re making it until one eviction notice. We have over 3 million evictions in this country today, which is larger than at the height of the housing crisis. This is baked into the cake. This injustice is baked into the cake. So number one, people know it. If you put up someone like a Joe Biden, who\u2019s going to say what, that the economy\u2019s doing well?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I told a story last night. I was talking to a man, and he\u2019s a good guy. I don\u2019t want to even say his name, because he\u2019s a nice man. But he\u2019s a pundit who\u2019s out there a lot, right? I was having a conversation with him on his podcast. First of all, he said, \u201cWell, by all indicators, the economy is doing well.\u201d I said, \u201cFor who? For 20% of Americans.\u201d 20% of Americans are living on this island, and this island is surrounded by a vast sea of economic despair. So that\u2019s number one. For who? You just keep saying it. It\u2019s like you said, manufactured narratives of the economy is doing well, the economy is doing well. For who? That\u2019s number one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Number two, and then he said something. I said, \u201cOne in four Americans live with medical debt. 18 million Americans can\u2019t fulfill the prescriptions their doctors give them. People are rationing their insulin. 68,000 people dying every year from lack of healthcare, 85 million uninsured or underinsured.\u201d He said, \u201cWell, we have universal healthcare, don\u2019t we?\u201d This is a man who\u2019s a pundit out there quite a lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s when I really realized. I live in Washington, DC, and I was always told, I think you and I might have even had this conversation, that it was a bubble here. It\u2019s not just a bubble. It\u2019s a walled city, and once again, it\u2019s not nice people versus not nice people. But there are people in this country making policy on a daily basis who are just walled off from the ravages of human suffering that is so prevalent in this society today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Someone needs to speak to this with power. Many people speak to it. In my career, I read an article about myself many years ago saying, \u201cMarianne Williamson doesn\u2019t say anything everybody else isn\u2019t saying, but she says it when the lights are on and the camera\u2019s on and the microphone is on.\u201d I feel the same way here, Max. I\u2019m not saying anything that everybody I know isn\u2019t saying. I\u2019m not saying anything that you\u2019re not saying. I\u2019m not saying everybody I know isn\u2019t saying, but could somebody run for president and say this, please? Could someone be president and say this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, and be president and follow through. So as you said, you have a well-stocked policy page on your website. So what does meeting this moment look like on a policy level?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Okay, first day, first day in office, cancel the Willow Project. Next thing, after you cancel the Willow Project, you cancel every US government contract with a union-busting company. Next thing you do is you audit the Pentagon, every dime they spend. Next thing you do, you deschedule marijuana. Next thing you do, you bring together a group of people who are experts on everything related to childhood from the time a child is born, everything, neurophysiology, neuropsychology, health, education. You really get to work on a transfer of resources into the hands of our children ten years and younger. If you want your economy to thrive in ten years, you take better care of your ten-year-olds today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So these are the kinds of things that you can do, that the president can do on the way. Obviously, we need a just transition from a war economy to a peace economy. We need a just transition from a dirty economy to a clean economy. This is not the time to be ramping up fossil fuel extraction. This is the time to be ramping down fossil fuel extraction. Yes, that is within the purview of the presidency. The president can say, \u201cStop that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, is the president held back by the people like Joe Manchin? Yes, but still, there are plenty of things the president has done, such as the approval of the Willow Project, that Joe Manchin did not force him to do. Sometimes I feel like the Republicans clearly overuse power. They abuse power. But sometimes the Democrats are so namby-pamby with it. \u201cWell, we didn\u2019t have a mandate.\u201d I remember that\u2019s what they always said about Clinton and Obama. \u201cWe didn\u2019t have a mandate. We\u2019ll do it in the second term,\u201d and then they never do. The Republicans say, \u201cThe mandate is that we won the election.\u201d I\u2019d go in there and do it. I would not be thinking about a second term, I assure you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I want to pick up on that. This is also something that you and I talked about on your show when you last had me on to talk about the East Palestine disaster. Hopefully we\u2019ll have time to circle back to that. But I said something to the effect of elections are important. I think we should all be honest about that, right? Even if we despise the whole circus of campaigns and the corruption of elected officials, yada, yada, yada, the fact remains that policy decisions shape the ground upon which we live, work, and organize, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So we\u2019re going to have to contend with it regardless of how we feel about the electoral system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So for that reason alone, elections are important, but they are not the end all, be all of politics. They are not on their own enough to change the world in the ways that we want to see, which is why I think we need as many people making change in as many areas of their worlds as possible, in their workplaces, their apartment complexes, their neighborhoods, their unions, their school boards. We all know how Barack Obama\u2019s campaign effectively tapped into this root work of change-making movements and organizations to help him get elected in 2008, and then he more or less disbanded or abandoned all that organizing infrastructure as soon as he and his technocrats took office. How would you do things differently?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Okay, so first of all-<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, and just let me \u2026 because I want to get the question on the record. How would you harness, empower, and work alongside other change-making movements, from the labor movement, the climate justice movement, the housing justice movement, those who are standing up against corporate greed and endless war, those who are standing up against attacks on teachers and queer people and trans people, those who are standing up against book bans and censorship, and how would you hold yourself accountable to those people and those movements?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A campaign is a long job interview, and it\u2019s where people get to know the candidate and where a candidate get to know people. Long before, by the way \u2026 Not only am I deeply involved in that now, I was in East Palestine all this week. I was there all day on Tuesday. Not only am I learning from people, I\u2019ve been learning from people. My 40-year career has been learning from people whose lives are at the effect of every problem you just mentioned. So I go into the White House not only saying, \u201cCome on in, guys,\u201d but already having heard so much. For instance, I want a 21st century economic Bill of Rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When you look at someone like Barack Obama, I remember I was one of those people in 2008, oh, just completely enthralled. I thought we had the next Abraham Lincoln. The day he got there, it was so clear it was that that was the campaign. The tragedy there to me is that he was given a mandate. We all said, \u201cHere\u2019s the House. Here\u2019s the Senate. Here\u2019s the White House. Go do all that.\u201d He got there, and he chose not to. He turned out to be a creature of that system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m a 70-year-old woman, and I\u2019m not even from that system. The joy for me, the high for me is doing it. There is nothing in it for me to not do it. There\u2019s no prize. There\u2019s no cookies that I\u2019m going to get for playing along. I\u2019m going to get there despite those people, and they\u2019re going to be hard. They\u2019re going to be tough on me while I\u2019m there. But that\u2019s why my hope and my certitude is that the people who send me there from exactly the movements you\u2019re talking about will be able to see every single day, \u201cShe\u2019s trying.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Democrats have this codependent relationship with these Democratic presidents where if a Republican would do something, we would yell bloody murder. If a Democrat does it, we go, \u201cOh, poor baby. He wanted to,\u201d but when there\u2019s absolutely no evidence he was even trying, right? You would see that I was out there every single day, and if it wasn\u2019t happening, I would get in that fireside chat or I would get on television and say, \u201cYou the American people need to know what your president is trying to do, how it\u2019s being blocked, and who it\u2019s being blocked by. I\u2019m not going to be able to fix it any more than I just tried. The only way this is going to be fixed is you need to get really involved in your primaries, because there\u2019s going to be an election in two years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There\u2019s a line, \u201cVirtue is its own reward.\u201d The reward would be for me, \u201cI laid it down today, and I tried.\u201d Would we win every little thing? Of course we wouldn\u2019t. But it would be impacted on the political ethers that you have a president there who\u2019s trying, who\u2019s actually advocating for the people instead of what the establishment Democrats do, which is, \u201cWe want to help the people. We\u2019ll do what we can around the periphery, but we don\u2019t want to challenge the underlying corporate forces that make the return of all that misery inevitable because we don\u2019t want to turn them off,\u201d because it\u2019s like with someone like Obama saying he wanted universal healthcare. Well, Obamacare, clearly what happened, he got into office, and the insurance companies said, \u201cWe\u2019ll let you go this far,\u201d and now Biden, who won\u2019t even mention the public option.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I don\u2019t understand it. I don\u2019t understand the psychology of the Left right now, because on one hand, you have a president who has given more oil drilling permits than even Trump did, who has approved the Willow Project, who has given the go ahead for the exploitation of liquified natural gas. Now they would point and say, \u201cYeah, but in the Inflation Reduction Act, there\u2019s all this investment in green energy,\u201d which is good. But all of that investment, the benefits of all that investment is basically nullified between the Willow Project and this gargantuan military budget. The US military is the single largest institutional emitter of greenhouse gases that there is. It\u2019s all gaslighting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So then there are all these environmental leaders who talk about how they\u2019re going to support Biden. When you ask them, \u201cWell, why are you going to support Biden?,\u201d they say, \u201cWell, who else do we have?\u201d I feel so invisible. What they\u2019re really saying is, \u201cWho do we have that we know would take our call?\u201d That\u2019s the main difference at this point. There are too many people representing progressive policies in this town, in Washington who get their phone calls returned and don\u2019t realize how they\u2019re being played. They get a Christmas card. They might even get invited to a reception at Christmas at the White House. They\u2019re just pulled in enough. It\u2019s not the way to harness power. If people know that have you, what\u2019s their motivation to change? They know you\u2019re going to vote for them again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yeah, yeah. I have been encouraged to see at least some folks in my neck of the woods, the labor movement, some unions like the UAW and other union locals saying, \u201cWe\u2019re not just going to automatically endorse [inaudible 00:45:36].\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Oh, well, that\u2019s happening in New Hampshire for sure. Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yeah. So like, \u201cGood. Use your collective power. Don\u2019t just give that away without getting anything in return.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yes, I hear you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Speaking of phone calls, so I want us to finish off by talking about that economic U-turn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But before we get there, I want to just take people back to 2020 for a second.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Okay, okay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I want to talk about where things are now. Biden and the DNC say there are not going to be any debates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They\u2019re trying to act like you\u2019re not there. When they do pay attention to you, they\u2019re trying to smear you and belittle you and so on and so forth. So that\u2019s where we are right now, on top of changing the primary schedule in the most transparently obvious way to help Biden, yada, yada yada. But let\u2019s go back to 2020 for a second. This time three years ago, because I think it\u2019s easy for a lot of us to forget where we were in the Democratic primary, Bernie took New Hampshire. Nevada had a head of steam. Iowa, there was a bit of bullshit, pardon my language, going on. Pete Buttigieg declared victory before the results were in. But anyway, the point is that Biden was getting his ass kicked, right? He wasn\u2019t even in the top two or three in those races. Then South Carolina happened. We don\u2019t have to go into Clyburn and the political machine there, but between South Carolina and Super Tuesday, phone calls were made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I think one particular person made those phone calls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Oh, yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We all know who it was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So our old friend, as Bernie would say, my good friend Barack Obama starts putting in calls to Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar. They drop out the wagon circle around Biden, and the tides shift very quickly, very dramatically. This was happening on March 3rd. To everyone watching, remember what happened in the next two weeks in March of 2020. COVID hit, right? Trump was vastly popular before that. So it took a COVID emergency and a lot of DNC rigging to essentially scare a lot of people who may have been receptive to Bernie into thinking, \u201cOh, God, Trump is messing this up. We need to just go with the safest option, and it looks like that\u2019s going to be Biden.\u201d Biden was more or less forced down our throats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the point is that a lot of people did not want what Biden was selling until COVID hit and Trump bungled the response. A vast majority of Democrats didn\u2019t even want Biden to run again in 2024. So we don\u2019t have to pretend, like you said, that Biden has some mandate or that we have to pretend that we like what he\u2019s put on offer in his first term. So I guess what is your message to people about how we\u2019re already talking about Biden as a fait accompli and there\u2019s no point to even have a primary?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, obviously, I\u2019m running.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So the very fact that I\u2019m running says, \u201cReally? You going to go with that? Really?\u201d We\u2019re almost just trained to think, to limit. This has been going on for so long that people have been trained to limit their political imaginations. I\u2019m older. I come from a time when so much of what\u2019s going on now, you go, \u201cAre you kidding me? What are you talking about here?\u201d So you tell me. Why would people not be taking the campaigns of people who are not Biden more seriously? Many people are, by the way, or I wouldn\u2019t still be in the race. Many people are. If you look at Kennedy and myself and you look at our numbers, you have over 50% of Democratic voters saying, \u201cWe want to see someone else.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hopefully they are seeing this media blackout. They are seeing how this works. Everything you mentioned, the rigging of the primary system, it\u2019s no different, like you said, than 2020. They\u2019re doing it, I suppose, this time for the same reason they did it last time. They think they know. It\u2019s like men sitting around a table, smoking cigars 100 years ago. \u201cWe know the best candidate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So why is the party that claims to be the champion of democracy, which we should be, so wary of democracy in our own house? The Democratic voter, anyone planning to vote on the Democratic primary, should see every single agenda, every array, all the array of options politically laid before them, because this is a very serious question, as you\u2019ve made clear here. Who could beat this person in 2024?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I think it is delusional. I think you\u2019re in complete denial to think that status quo Joe Biden politics \u2026 That doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re taking away anything from the good that he\u2019s done. This is not about going negative on Joe Biden, but it\u2019s about really? You watched that Mussolini show the other night on CNN, and you think that this president and this president\u2019s agenda is going to defeat that? Come on. Can we at least have a debate and talk about what the options are here?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So to those people, someone like myself is very outside the box. That\u2019s the point. You know who else is outside the box? Donald Trump. He\u2019s an establishment politician right now because he\u2019s changed the establishment, but he\u2019s outside the box in terms of what we grew up to think politics was, which is why you need someone like myself. You need someone whose energy could take on that person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s funny. As you know, I was raised deeply conservative and made an ideological journey over the course of my life. I look at someone like Trump and the new populist Right, and I see through the bullshit. Again, pardon my language, but it\u2019s like for all that is new and different and out of the box about Trump, what was his signature policy achievement? A massive transfer of wealth-<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2026 from working people to the top 1%-<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2026 through the Tax Cuts and Jobs Acts, which exploded the deficit by over a trillion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>40%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He is just like every other politician in that regard, or every other Republican politician in that regard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But all these people think we just need to attack Trump. When he said, \u201cI could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and my supporters would still support me,\u201d I begun to think that\u2019s true. So we are not going to win by attacking Donald Trump. We are going to win by presenting to the American people a genuine, fundamental economic alternative, universal healthcare, universal free college and tech school, universal childcare, universal paid family leave, universal guaranteed housing, guaranteed sick pay, guaranteed livable wage. That\u2019s what the American people deserve. That\u2019s what would beat Trump. Even more importantly, that\u2019s what would begin to repair this country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just a quick aside question is it\u2019s been interesting to see that amidst that media blackout and the rigging of the primaries ahead of schedule, you\u2019ve still managed to explode in popularity on social media, particularly with Gen Z on TikTok. Why do you think that is?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because young people, this is their lives. They see through the BS that you were talking about. They don\u2019t have an institutional memory of when status quo politics worked for them at all. I can\u2019t even imagine being in your twenties and carrying tens of thousands of dollars\u2019 worth of college loan debt. Debt is crippling. One in four Americans live with medical debt. It used to be that the American Dream was to have a house with the picket fence. Now people just dream of getting out of debt before they die.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So young people, they don\u2019t see the Democratic Party any any more than the Republican Party as having served their need for healthcare, a desire to get an education to make their lives better. Many of these young people who even got the education, now the loan debt is so great they\u2019re working in jobs that aren\u2019t even a result of the education they just got, because if they took that job, they can\u2019t see how they\u2019d ever pay back the bill. So they\u2019re in jobs they hate in order to pay back the bill, or they\u2019re in jobs they hate, as millions of Americans are, because it\u2019s the only way they can get healthcare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Everywhere I go, I ask people everywhere I go, and I got the same response every time, state after state after state. \u201cHow many people in this room either are a young person who has said or knows a young person who has said \u2026 If this is true, please raise your hand, and keep your hand up, because I want the whole room to see. Under normal circumstances, I would think of having children, but given the state of the planet, I don\u2019t think it would be a responsible thing to do.\u201d We\u2019re at a point now where probably a third of the room raises their hand. I have to point out this is not normal, and you\u2019re going to elect status quo politicians that are keeping the situation where is it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let me tell you something else. You talk about those migrants at the southern border now. That\u2019s nothing compared to what we\u2019re going to see in the form of climate refugees in the next 10 or 20 years if we don\u2019t get ahold of these carbon emissions and this climate crisis. We are on a trajectory. We are headed for the iceberg. Now, the Republicans are headed right towards it. The establishment Democrats would hit it at an angle. It\u2019s like the Republicans represent a nose dive. The establishment corporatist Democrats represent a managed decline. But there is an alternative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yeah. Well, and I want to end, because I know I only have you for a couple more minutes, but end on that question of managed decline, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I remember recently seeing a potato on my countertop. It got hidden behind some stuff. So at this point, the potato was the shriveled little thing with all those gross sprouts coming out of it. I just stared at it, and I was like, \u201cThat\u2019s this country,\u201d right? That is this sort of desiccation of US society while all that\u2019s good and all the value that working people produce is sucked out by vampires in the military-industrial complex, sucked out in the form of massive tax cuts for the wealthy, sucked out in stagnant wages, so on and so forth. This is something that I hear both implicitly and explicitly as I talk to working people day in, day out for my work here at The Real News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What I hear talking to working people is that there is this general sense that everything is slowly going to shit in America. People are working longer and harder while their wages stagnate and the cost of living continues to squeeze us, while executives and Wall Street shareholders suck all the massive profits that we are producing with our labor. But it\u2019s not just that. It\u2019s like the quality of consumer experience on the whole is going down the tubes, and people feel by and large more alienated from each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is a depressing vibe that America is a dying empire and we\u2019re all just watching it decay as we toil and as we continue to be screwed over and taken advantage of by a ruling class full of power-hungry, profit-seeking, war-obsessed maniacs. What will it take to turn this thing around, right? How can we actually get ourselves as a society to admit that things like trickle-down economics and unfettered corporate deregulation and corporate consolidation, the War on Drugs, the War on Terror, the war on unions, turning higher ed into this massive student debt trap, not guaranteeing things like healthcare and housing, how can we admit to ourselves that all of these policy decisions have been colossal societal failures that can and should be reversed? What would that look like, to take, as you said earlier, an economic U-turn in this country?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you have a presidential candidate who agrees with every single thing you just said and who has said so and whose policy positions align with that, support her, not because her being president is going to fix all of it in a day, but a president who even sees the country that way. We\u2019re not going to begin a season of repair until first we\u2019re willing to acknowledge how sick we are. Everything that you just said I agree with 100%. I\u2019ve said it. I\u2019ve written books about it. It\u2019s on my website, everything. If you see a president, someone actually running for president saying exactly those things, send in a dollar. Put it on your social media. Come on, everybody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As long as I\u2019m running, it\u2019s not like you can say you don\u2019t have an option. As long as I\u2019m running, you can\u2019t say you don\u2019t have a president who says just those things that you just said. Even to have that person in the conversation, if you\u2019re willing to say the things that you just said and then ignore that person, then I would say it\u2019s on you, because no matter what happens in my campaign, whether it takes me to the White House or not, at the end of this process, I\u2019m going to be able to look in the mirror and say, \u201cI ran for president saying those things.\u201d There was an option of a president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even when you were talking before about the labor movement, yeah, but it took Franklin Roosevelt. He established the NLRB. It\u2019s both and. I\u2019m not Trump. I\u2019m not like, \u201cOh, I\u2019m the only one who can do it,\u201d anything like that. But what\u2019s it going to take? I asked myself that. What it\u2019s going to take is a candidate who says those things. Then I looked in the mirror, and I said, \u201cThey\u2019re going to be awful to you. They\u2019re going to smear. They\u2019re going to say terrible things about you. They\u2019re going to be ugly. They\u2019re going to be mean.\u201d I thought to myself, \u201cWhat a hypocrite I\u2019ll be if I don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, Marianne, thank you so much for sitting down and chatting with us today at The Real News Network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thank you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Before we go, where can people go to learn more about you and your campaign?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marianne Williamson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thank you. They can go to marianne2024.com and all the social media platforms and all of those things. I really, really appreciate you, Max, not only for the work that you do, the books you write, the things you say on Real News. It\u2019s been wonderful getting to know you, and it\u2019s an honor that you have me on. Thank you so much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximillian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thank you, Marianne.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Positioning herself as an alternative to Trump\u2019s neo-fascism and Biden\u2019s neoliberalism, the Democratic challenger takes aim at \u201cthe corporate takeover of this country.\u201d BY&nbsp;MAXIMILLIAN ALVAREZ MAY 18, 2023 (therealnews.com) Marianne Williamson speaks onstage at Guerrilla Tactics &amp; Asymmetric Political Activism during the 2022 SXSW Conference and Festivals at Hilton Austin&#8230; <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2023\/05\/19\/marianne-williamson-wants-to-introduce-a-new-politics-to-dc\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/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":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26585"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26585"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26603,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26585\/revisions\/26603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}