The Wild Reed: “We Have an Emergency On Our Hands”: Marianne Williamson On the “Freefall” of American Democracy

This past Saturday, former 2020 presidential candidate and A Politics of Love author Marianne Williamson joined Yahoo Finance’s Zack Guzman for an exclusive interview to discuss reparations, the 2020 presidential race, and presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden's proposals for the economy.

As usual, Marianne took matters to a deeper level and made a number of critically important and insightful points, including the following.

We aren't living in normal times. And so the normal conversation between what's on the left and what's on the right is not the dichotomy, not the contest, not the struggle that matters the most today. We're living at a time where the sort of golden mean of American politics, the kind of yin and yang between what's on the right and what's on the left, is not the deeper polarity.

The deeper polarity is between forces of real democracy and forces of commitment to the traditions of American democracy versus an authoritarian takeover of sorts. So I think people of principle, whether they're on the left or on the right, know that there is an issue underlying all the social, economic, and political things that we normally associate with the issues. The deeper issue is breaking the freefall of American democracy.

And that's why I believe a lot of people recognize in Joe Biden – look, he's not a conservative's dream candidate. And he's not a progressive's dream candidate. We all get that. But he is someone that I think the majority of Americans realize represents a certain level of decency and democratic norm for this country that we most desperately need.

I hope that Joe Biden realizes that the majority of Americans want Medicare for All. What too many corporate Democrats call this far-left mentality is actually the center of where Americans are. You know, in the segments that I've seen on your show in the last half-an-hour, we're talking about desperate times for a majority of Americans.

We're talking about seven million Americans who are on the verge of an eviction crisis. We're talking about a lack of direct cash relief to people who desperately need it. We talk about rolling the dice with the safety of America's children in order to serve an economic paradigm that is becoming increasingly obsolete and unsustainable.

So the idea of whether or not [Biden]'s going to the left or going to the right, whether he's having John Kasich [speak at the Democratic convention] – you know, as someone who is on the left of the political spectrum, I'll tell you this: the fact that the Democratic party, including Joe Biden, has drifted further to the right than I would wish and that many of us would wish, is like two broken arms and two broken legs. The presidential agenda of Donald Trump, however, is like a bullet near the heart.

So I'm very clear, and many Republicans and many Democrats are very clear that we have to take care of first things first. Once Biden is inaugurated, we can duke all of these things out. But right now, we have an emergency on our hands. And that is breaking the freefall of our democratic freedoms.

– Marianne Williamson
July 25, 2020

The Wild Reed

Monday, July 27, 2020

“We Have an Emergency On Our Hands”: Marianne Williamson On the “Freefall” of American Democracy

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