Presidential candidate Marianne Williamson drops by the Small Doses with Amanda Seales podcast to make her case on why the American people should elect her as the next President of the United States. The author and former spiritual leader shared her thoughts on the rise of neofascism, the failures of the Democratic Party, and reparations.
This will be the second time Williamson has vied for the Democratic nomination for president. She previously ran in 2020.
“What I’m saying to the American people is the system is not delivering to you what you deserve in the richest country in the world and what a government of the people, by the people and for the people would deliver to its people—because the government has become of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations,” Williamson says.
Disrupting The Status Quo
Always with a healthy dose of skepticism, host Amanda Seales presses Williamson for concrete examples from her background in grassroots activism and practical strategies that would allow her to enact real, meaningful change from the Oval Office.
“My qualification is not that I know how to perpetuate [the corrupt American] system … My qualification is that I believe I can help disrupt that system. And that’s what I believe my candidacy represents, is the disruption of that system,” says Williamson.
The Dems Need To Do Better
Despite running for the Democratic nomination, Williamson concedes that the Democratic Party, under the leadership of the “corporate elite” Democrats, have failed the American people despite the party’s progressive rhetoric. And this failure has given rise to neofascism (white nationalist ideologies) that we see across the United States today.
“I feel the fact that Democrats have not given people enough over the last few years has helped pave the way to the rise of neofascism. Large groups of desperate people become a kind of petri dish out of which all kinds of personal, political dysfunction almost inevitably arises,” says Williamson.
Americans deserve better than the” incremental change” that President Biden has offered, Williamson argues, adding that the Biden administration missed opportunities to codify abortion rights, voting rights and more back when the Dems held the majority in both chambers of Congress.
“It’s not the way it is because the situation is complicated, the way they would have you believe. It’s the way it is because the situation is corrupt,” says Williamson.
When it comes to universal healthcare, climate change and a guaranteed living wage, Williamson says her platform is less about compromise than her fellow establishment politicians.
“Those are all things where the power of the presidency could have made a difference … [Biden] also said … that he would veto a Medicare For All bill if they came to his desk. Those are examples where my behavior would simply be the opposite,” she says.
Reparations Is A Key Issue
The presidential hopeful acknowledges the “generational bipolarity” ingrained in the American system since the country’s inception.
“I think every generation lives out its iteration of that dichotomy between enlightened principles and how we actually behave. I mean you had 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence—41 of them were slave owners. So that dichotomy between who we are and who we say we are has always been there. And in my opinion, our generation is living out just the latest iteration of that bipolarity,” she says.
Reparations are listed among Williamson’s key issues on her campaign website.
“I want this country to repair itself, I want a reset and I want a new beginning. We can’t have it until we are willing to look in the mirror and clean up some things from the past,” she says.
Listen to the full episode of Small Doses: Sof Running For President with Marianne Williamson here.
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