Marianne Williamson on the Movement for a People's Party

Author, activist, and former Democratic Presidential candidate Marianne Wiliamson was one of a number of progressive figues who spoke last Sunday at the People's Convention 2020.

Organized by the Movement for a People's Party (MPP), the virtual convention also included Dr. Cornel West, Sen. Nina Turner, Sen. Mike Gravel, Danny Glover, Chris Hedges, Ryan Knight, Chris Smalls, Medea Benjamin, and Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap.

Oh, and before anyone gets bent out of shape worrying about this movement taking votes away from Joe Biden in his race against Donald Trump, you can relax. The Movement for a People's Party plans on running its first crop of candidates in the next election cycle.

Following is an excerpt from The Progressive's Christopher D. Cook's report on the August 30 People's Convention.

In a surreal year that has spiraled from surging hopes for a Bernie Sanders presidency to today’s pandemic-hemmed fear and a tight election between centrist Democrats and fascistic Republicans, now may be just the right time for a new political party.

As voters face a dismal “lesser of two evils” election in which a Biden/Harris ticket represents the only alternative to four more years of Trumpian fascism and racism, the Movement for a People’s Party aims to prevent such dreary and sparse choices in the future.

“We’re going to get that neo-fascist out of the White House, and we’re going to build a People’s Party and get to work,” said former Ohio state Senator Nina Turner, chair of Bernie Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign, as she culminated the first-ever online creation of a political party on Sunday, August 30, following five hours of webinar speeches melding outrage and inspiration.

On the heels of the Democratic and Republican national conventions, the Movement for a People’s Party (MPP) speakers blasted this “duopoly” for its long bipartisan allegiance to corporate power, oligarchy, and militarism. Speaker after speaker skewered the Democratic Party and its nominee for decades of adherence to corporate and Wall Street interests, military spending increases and war, and its refusal to support Medicare for All, even amid a deadly pandemic.

By press time today, 7,639 convention participants (among viewers and online listeners, who numbered roughly 95,000 on Periscope) had voted to approve the official creation of the People’s Party. As of now, organizers say, there are three active state chapter Twitter pages – Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Ohio – and the MPP’s all-volunteer crew is working on building local chapters in other states. Organizers aim to tap local activists across the country to help launch party chapters as well as state-level hubs and nine regional branches.

The day-long virtual convention – which also featured Dr. Cornel West, Danny Glover, Marianne Wiliamson, Tim Black, Amaya Wangeshi, and other progressive icons, podcasters, and organizers – builds on more than two years of MPP organizing.

The stakes of the moment are starkly clear: a raging pandemic, soaring unemployment and poverty, and a fascist and racist president versus a Democratic nominee who has stated, “nothing would fundamentally change.” Against this backdrop, speakers warned against both the continuation of Trump and the perils of a Democratic Party that relies on corporate money and stifles fundamental change.

Actor and activist Danny Glover said “in face of growing fascism . . . when peaceful protesters are viciously attacked . . . if we don’t act now, we’ll find ourselves in a darker moment than we can imagine.”

Cornel West, citing the “marvelous militancy” rising in the streets, called for a “prophetic fight-back that is intersectional,” in a multiracial, multigenerational movement to combat “the neofascist in the White House,” and the “milquetoast neoliberals who keep voting for his military budgets,” along with “unbelievably grotesque levels of inequality.”

From the convention’s opening moments, the rage and hope were palpable. Host Nick Brana, MPP’s national director and a veteran of Bernie’s 2016 campaign, provided a stark lay of the land. “The kind of crises we are facing indicates the two parties can’t deliver what we need,” said Brana in his opening remarks. “There’s a word for that – it’s called a failed state.”

– Christopher D. Cook
Excerpted from “New People’s Party
Rises Amid Grim Election Options”
The Progressive
August 31, 2020

Four days after the convention, Marianne Williamson was a guest on Rising with The Hill's Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti. In this interview she discusses her support for the People's Party and her involvement in last Sunday's People's Party Convention. It's well worth watching.





Related Off-site Links:
People’s Party Convention Speakers Bring Hope In a Dark Time – David Doel (The Rational National, August 31, 2020).
'DemExit': Virtual Convention Aims to Create US Leftwing Alternative – David Smith (The Guardian, August 29, 2020).
New 'People's Party' Emerging From Disappointed Left to Host Inaugural Convention – Paul Kurtz (KYW News, August 28, 2020).
Marianne Williamson Is Back – to Talk About Forming a Third Party – Holly Otterbein (Politico, August 18, 2020).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – September 4, 2020
• “We Have an Emergency On Our Hands”: Marianne Williamson On the “Freefall” of American Democracy
• The “Freefall” Continues
• Eight Leading Progressive Voices on Why They’re Voting for Biden
• “The Republican Party Has Now Made It Official: They Are a Cult”
• Branko Marcetic on the DNC: “Progressive Symbolism and Empty Rhetoric in Place of Real Political Vision”
• My Summer of Supporting Progressive Down-Ballot Candidates
• Progressive Perspectives on the Biden-Harris Ticket
• Fascism Is Upon Us
• Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – June 2, 2020
• Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – November 5, 2018