Marianne Williamson: Media Was Dedicated to Making Me Seem “Crazy”

New Age guru Marianne Williamson made quite the splash at the Democratic debates last year, coming out of nowhere to hold her own on the stage, even as it was clearly obvious that everyone from the moderators to the DNC wanted her gone as quickly as possible. Williamson brought a much different kind of sensibility to the primaries, spending as much time talking about the power of “love” as about the policies of President Donald Trump. And while she was dismissed as a kook by most in the media, her unusual campaign pronouncements made her a viral star on Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter.

It became quickly clear to Williamson, however, that she was up against something bigger than just Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and the rest of the Democrat field of candidates. She was up against a media establishment that wanted nothing more than to discredit her and her out-of-the-box approach to running for president.

In an interview with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach on Facebook this week, Williamson said that the “political-media-industrial-complex” is determined to keep candidates like her from reaching the voters.

“There were talking points that were everywhere. That I was crazy, that I told AIDS patients not to take their medicine. The most crazy things were said,” recalled Williamson. “To whatever extent I know, I don’t want to say, I just think there is a political and media establishment elite. I don’t think it’s Democrat or Republican. And I think that they have a way of protecting their own and suppressing voices that they don’t wish to be on the stage with them.

“The job of the DNC should not be to, in any way, dictate the process,” she continued. “The job of the DNC is to facilitate the process.”

Williamson continued, saying that the two-party, exclusive political system was blocking unique voices from being heard on the national stage.

“Political parties were not mentioned in the Constitution, and George Washington warned us against them when leaving office,” she said. “He said in his farewell address that parties were formed factions of men who would care more about their faction than about their country. And when you look at the history of the United States, third-party voices have been extremely influential.”

She said that the Democratic Party of 2020 was a far different beast than the one she knew as a younger woman.

“The Democratic Party that I grew up with, I am beginning to think more and more is very different than the Democratic Party that’s become not as corporatist as the Republican Party, but … dominated by corporate money and corporate policies,” she said.

It’s obviously not our take that the major problem with the Democratic Party is that it’s too beholden to corporate America, but Williamson does make some good points about the two-party system. When all you have are Republicans and Democrats, you risk seeing good debate, interesting thoughts, and actual progress to fall through the cracks. That’s a lot of the reason that Trump was a breath of fresh air in 2016. Hopefully, as time goes on, both parties can find additional room for people who don’t feel the need to spout party orthodoxy and nothing more.