A conversation with Marianne Williamson

Marianne Williamson is an author, spiritualist, political activist and nonprofit founder. After running a brief campaign for president in 2020, she announced her bid for the Democratic nomination in March. In July, Williamson selected Laconian Carlos Cardona as her campaign manager. 

Last week, she sat down for a conversation with the editorial board and reporters at The Daily Sun, an opportunity offered to any presidential candidate that requests it.

Editor’s note: This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. 

Daily Sun: You just came from a visit to Maine. What kind of issues were on voters’ minds there?

Marianne Williamson: My experience so far in this campaign has been that the diversity that most matters is economic diversity. I don't speak differently to a white audience or to a Black audience, to a rich audience or to a poor audience, to a gay audience or a straight audience. I speak to the part of us as Americans, that is, in which we feel a common sense of responsibility to course correct our country at a time when the vast majority of people, no matter where they are in America, know that something's gone wrong, something's awry. And where I see most people experiencing the results is economic.

We've been through so much in this country. My experience is that the average American that I speak to is ready for a deeper conversation. 

People know that the political establishment is addressing issues in a transactional way, and we need a more transformational approach. The political establishment addresses symptoms, but does not address root causes. Too often it doesn't want to address root causes, because if they address root causes, it's glaringly obvious how often they are the root cause — the policies by which they consistently make it easier for those who already have capital to get more capital and more difficult for everyone else to get by. 

Sun: I’m wondering if you can apply the transformational framework you described to a specific policy. If elected president, how would you actually implement that transformational framework, on that one issue, especially working with such a polarized and deadlocked Congress?

Williamson: On the issue of a deadlocked Congress, this is always true: any president, I don't care who the president is, is going to be hoping for a House and Senate who align with their vision. That's no different. You stand for something. You use executive orders where you can and, most importantly — and something I think I could really be strong at — is the bully pulpit. 

One of the policies that I have is the [creation of a] Department of Children and Youth. 

I have met elementary school principals who have told me they have students in elementary school on suicide watch. You have schools all over this country that have trauma rooms. Why is childhood in America such a trauma for millions of children? 

Transactional would be more money to education. Transformational [would be] hungry kids can't learn. Transactional is "what are we going to do about gun laws?" Transformational is "what are you going to do 10 years from now when you have an entire generation growing up who was praying every morning that they wouldn't get shot in school?"

To young people, the establishment, traditional political conversation, is increasingly obsolete. It's not relevant to them. Why is that a danger for us Democrats? The danger for Democrats in 2024 is not Donald Trump. The Democrats need to stop thinking that, if they just say one more time how bad Donald Trump is, that that will help. You could indict him 91 more times. People who don't care, don't care. The danger electorally to the Democrats in 2024 is people staying home.

We need to be offering to people a far more compelling, more exciting vision. Mine is an Economic Bill of Rights, universal health care, tuition-free college, canceling college loan debt so these kids can get in the game, subsidized child care. Americans cannot afford America. They can't afford to have children. They can't afford rent, one in four lives with medical debt. We should have paid family leave, we should have guaranteed sick pay, a guaranteed living wage.

When I ran four years ago, the Democratic electorate understandably was like, "We just need somebody who can beat Trump, we just need somebody who can beat Trump." And, in retrospect, it was naive to think it was going to be as simple as that.

This time people realize — they're ready to realize — that something's wrong at a deeper level. 

Sun: How would the lives of average Laconia citizens be improved by the end of your first term?

Williamson: One of the things in Laconia that I would definitely be on top of is the child care crisis. 

I want subsidized child care [and] paid family leave, which would make a difference in the lives of those who have children here. I've read enough about New Hampshire: you need young people. But if I look at child care costs ... you don't have what you need to attract.

Sun: The distribution of income and wealth is remarkably warped right now. What would you do to change o ver time, the distribution of income and wealth?

Williamson: The first thing I would do — and that I find interesting was not done when [Joe] Biden and the Democrats had the White House and the House and the Senate — is we need to repeal that $2 trillion tax cut from 2017. We need to put back the middle class tax cut that should have been put in by us during the Obama years. Also, get rid of these absurd multibillion-dollar subsidies that go to companies that are already making billions of dollars. ... Stop giving it away to people who do not need it. I believe that we should have a reduction in the defense budget. When we do that, we will have the cash on hand to pay for the kinds of things that I'm talking about, and that is what will start to close that gap. 

To me, when Franklin Roosevelt said the primary responsibility of the presidency is not administrative, but moral leadership, that's what I want to point out to this country.

Sun: Let’s shift gears and talk about this primary race. How do you find an appetite within the Democratic Party for a candidate with your background when the very concept of an outsider candidate is still very much associated with Trump?

Williamson: The problem with Trump was not that he didn't have experience. ... The problem is his character. The problem is who he is as a human being. It wasn't what he didn't know, but what he didn't respect. 

Sun: One of the chief concerns voters express about President Biden and his qualities as a candidate is his age. How do you feel about the role age is playing in both primaries but especially in the Democratic one?

Williamson: I'm very careful with that one when the press asks me about it because, first of all, I’m 71. And I also tell people that I'm only running for one term, because I don't think that a baby boomer should be president in 2028. Nobody needs me to point out for them the obvious issues that President Biden has on that, so I'm careful. We don't want to be ageist and we don't want to be unkind. The American people can see what they can see.

Sun: You spoke about how the president has so much power as a moral leader. What would moral leadership look like in a foreign policy arena under your presidency, especially considering the two major conflicts going on in the world right now? 

Williamson: Ukraine. We don't need to be giving the message to the world that you bad guys can chop up countries anytime you want to invade them. 

But in the last few weeks it has become clear that, with this counter offensive, they're not going to be able to do any more than keep this at a stalemate. ... This counter offensive did not do what we all hoped and they're locked in.

I'm open to taking sort of a next step with Ukraine and am a little torn within myself ... I'm sitting with a question mark in my mind about Ukraine I did not use to have.

In terms of the Israelis and the Palestinians, we need three things, and we need them simultaneously, which is what makes it so difficult. We need a ceasefire, we need those hostages released and we need a plan immediately to begin towards a two-state solution.

The truth of the matter is, there never has been a military solution to the situation. Like in the BLM chant, "No justice, no peace." As an American president, I would have been far more vocal both in the Knesset and in public: those settlements are illegal, that occupation is illegal and that blockade is wrong. At this point, no matter what happens with that war, they've got to get on with a two-state [solution].

And even though I am on the left politically, I am horrified by the infusion on the left of such an unbalanced perspective, filled with disinformation. Anybody in my mind who glorifies the needs of Israel but at the expense of the Palestinians, or who glorifies the needs of the Palestinians at the expense of Israel's right to exist, is not part of the solution.