The New Yorker Radio Hour - Marianne Williamson Would Like to Clarify

Episode Date: August 30, 2019

Marianne Williamson, the self-help author associated with the New Age movement, has never held political office. But the race for the Presidency, she thinks, is less a battle of politics than a battle of souls. In her appearance in the July Democratic debates, she said that President Donald Trump is bringing up a “dark psychic force.” “The worst aspects of human character have been harnessed for political purposes,” she tells David Remnick. Williamson sees herself as a kind of spiritual counter to Trump, reshaping our moral trajectory. And she does have policies, which include repealing the 2017 tax cut and an ambitious plan for slavery reparations, and also tapping some surprising people for her Cabinet. Campaigning on her credentials hasn’t been easy: she’s had to debunk some myths and clarify some statements. She is not an anti-vaxxer, she insists—she apologizes for her earlier remarks on the subject—or a medical skeptic. “I’m Jewish,” she says, “I go to the doctor.” She does not, she says, even have a crystal in her home. “I know this sounds naïve,” she complains, but “I didn’t think the left was so mean. I didn’t think the left lied like this.”    New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

From One World Trade Center in Manhattan, this is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of the New Yorker and WNYC Studios. Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Marianne Williamson, who's running for the presidential nomination, has never held national office. She's never held any political office, but she's certainly a public figure. And like our current president, she's been a best-selling author for decades. Her books on self-help topics include A Woman's Worth, and healing the soul of America. She's a close friend of Oprah's,

and she frames her critique of Donald Trump, not in political terms, not in policy terms, but in spiritual terms. This man has reached into the psyche of the American people, and he has harnessed fear for political purposes. So, Mr. President, if you're listening, I want you to hear me, please. You have harnessed fear for political purposes,

and only love can cast that out. So I, sir, I have a feeling you know what you're doing, I'm going to harness love for political purposes. I will meet you on that field, and, sir, love will win. She impressed some viewers with her convictions, however, unorthodox, and after the First July debate, Marianne Williamson was the most Googled candidate. I spoke with her about her campaign for the Democratic nomination early last week. I think the fairest question to ask you is very simple.

Why are you running for president? Donald Trump being president has changed the world, and it's changed the world not only globally in terms of geopolitics, but I think personally for many people. I'm one of millions of people. I'm sure this is true of you, and probably everyone listening to this program to some extent. Nothing is the same in terms of where we see ourselves in relationship to the rest of our lives, to our country, to the rest of the world. and I think that there's a deep question we're all asking whether it's inchoate or whether very clear and conscious, which is how can I possibly help?

And I think we all feel, most of us, called on some level to use whatever skills we have to try to make a difference at a time such as this. So I challenge the idea that only the people whose careers have been entrenched for years

in the limitations of the mindset that drove us into this ditch, are qualified to lead us out of this ditch. I think this is one of those times in American history. That require what? A spiritual leader, above all? Well, can we talk about the narrative of American history? Slavery did not end because the political status quo of the time decided to end slavery. It ended because with the abolitionist movement that was, in fact, begun by the early evangelicals and Quakers. So, yes, it came from a religious and spiritual foundation.

people rose up, the people stepped in. And with civil rights, the political establishment of the time did not wake up and say, let's desegregate the South. A Baptist preacher named Dr. Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, rose up. The people stepped in. So, in fact, with every major course correction in terms of social justice in the United States, it has in fact been an intervention by the people themselves. And to be honest with you, David, yes, it has been centered in religious. and spiritual circle. Absolutely, William Lloyd Garrison played an enormous role.

Martin Luther King played an enormous role. Are you putting yourself at that level as a spiritual and inspirational leader? Absolutely not. I did not say that at all. I have been working for 35 years up close and personal with people whose lives are in crisis. And that's one of the things that gives me the insight I have, because I've seen what bad public policy does to people's lives. It's what gives me such a passion about changing that bad public policy. I've been working for years with people who live daily the economic tension and anxiety created by this oligarchic system.

The first thing we have to do is to return to principle. This is how you change a life. This is how you change a country because all that a country is is a group of individuals. So you have to ask yourself, where am I and where am I not the person I say I am? The people of the United States need to emotionally and psychologically rebond with the principles. of the Declaration of Independence. And those principles are written on marble walls, they're written on parchment, but principles die if they're not alive in us.

I'm curious about your tactical emphasis or your genuine emphasis on harnessing emotions. Why do you see that as crucial to beating Trump? What has happened in this country and what has happened in many places in this world is that the worst aspects of human character have been harnessed for political purposes. racism, bigotry, anti-Semitism, homophobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia, et cetera. No intelligent observer thought that these things didn't exist in the United States. But we thought we had reached a point, we thought we had reached a consensus several decades ago, where there were lines past which we would not go on either left or right,

that no political, major political entity would give a megaphone to any of the, these voices. Those levies have fallen. Now, the problem is not that they're more haters than decent loving good people. That's not the problem. The problem is that the haters in this country have become collectivized for political purposes. There are a lot of wonderful, decent, loving, really good people out there. We could harness all that and change the world. When you become president, you enter a world of Mitch McConnell. You enter a world of a Senate that is very unlikely to be majority Democratic. You enter a world of all kinds of political realities and obstructions and difficulties. What would happen on January 20th when you become president of the United States,

what would a Marion Williamson administration look like? There are four pillars to the moral politics that I believe that we need in this country at this point. First of all, it has to do with a moral economy. Trickle-down economics is an amoral system that has led to immoral consequences. So my sense of what needs to change economically, holding capitalism accountable, I consider myself a capitalist, but I think we need capitalism with a conscience. What does that mean in terms of policy? Well, we need to repeal the 2017 tax cut, put back in the middle-class tax cut, stop the corporate subsidies. Why do we pay $26 billion in subsidies to the fossil fuel companies alone? The

government needs to take back its own negotiating power with big pharmaceutical companies. We need to look how much of our military budget is actually money that the military said that they need to provide for legitimate security concerns and how much above that is money that has to do with short expenditures that mainly have to do with short-term profit maximization for defense contractors. And I agree with Elizabeth, we need that 3% tax on the assets of billionaires and 2% tax on the assets of 50 million and more. These are the kinds of change. on a pure policy level that will begin to transition us back to a functioning democracy and not just a functioning corporatocracy or oligarchy.

What would a Williamson administration look like? Who would you bring to the fore in a cabinet in your presidency? So first of all, all the people in my cabinet would have to have a lot of experience in government. But they would also have the consciousness that I wish to bring. So my attorney general, for instance, would have to be someone exquisitely aware and alert to the racial disparities in our criminal sentencing, in policing, and so forth. And I would also want my attorney general to be someone who is very aware of white-collar crime

and also very alert to the issues of voter suppression. So really strong, kick-ass, progressive attorney general. Yeah, kick-ass. Absolutely. Kick-ass. Now, in terms of it's... Secretary of State? Well, it's pretty funny about Secretary of State because my idea of Secretary of State, my fantasy secretary of state is outside the box, but I thought, wow, this person would be perfect. And then I recently read that person say in the New York Times about my appearance. And then one of the debates, he said, that woman shouldn't even be on the stage. Who is that?

I thought Nicholas Christoph would be the best secretary of state, that he should be secretary of state. The Times columnist. Yes. And because his geopolitical understanding of what is going on in this world is so, to me, he would be. And then what you get under him are the lieutenants, right? But then I read that he can't stand me. So I thought, well, he probably wouldn't want to work for me. Have you met Donald Trump?

No, I saw him once. I was at Mara Lago for a party when he was married to Marla Trump. Right, Marla Maples, right. How long ago was that? It was a fundraiser for an AIDS organization I had founded. So it would probably have been in the 90s. And back then, what did you think of him? I thought about him.

What I think a lot of people did, He was like this vulgar American character. I didn't hate him. I thought he was, you know, my mother would have had a word for him, a Yiddish word. Which one? I'm not going to tell you what Yiddish word. We allow all Yiddish words on this program. No, no, no, no, no, no, it's a word.

But I wouldn't have, you know, at that time, and this is something that I find very mysterious, actually. If you look at interviews with him from the 80s, he was really different. He even looked different, which makes me think, gives me my own theories about what's involved. involved in all this. Which is? When you see features on someone's face change that much, I'll leave it at that. But he, even when he talks... It's not just aging.

What are we talking about? Do you research, David. But he... Wait, wait, wait, what does that mean? I'm not, I don't want to, I don't want to go into that. It's just that I think that there are a lot of people who have, who find a lot very curious about the president. But I don't want to go into any of that. But I will say this, when he talked about politics...

But wait, you're... You're running on a, on a, admirably, a policy of being straightforward about what you mean and what you think. But I'm not running on a campaign, a personal demonization, a personal attack. I can keep it to my conversations about the president's policies. And that's all I want to do. And that's all I would want to do if I, if I'm in a way. Character doesn't matter? Character, absolutely does matter.

But we were, we were getting into areas here that went beyond character. And I don't need to tell the American people the president's character because the president's character is very obvious for all to see. Now, I know this has come up and I know it's controversial and I know there have been different statements on it, so I want to get you on the record. And as a parent of someone with a severely autistic child, I want to get straight what you think about vaccinations. I'm just not quite clear on whether you're an anti-vaxxer. I am not. Or you're somewhere in the middle or you think vaccinations are right and necessary, as I do. vaccinations have, look at smallpox, look at polio, where would we be without vaccinations? Vaccinations save lives. And anytime that there is a medical intervention, there's benefit and there's also risk. And the government absolutely must come down on the side of the public good. I made an admittedly sloppy comment about the removal of exemptions. Tell us what the comment was and how you would correct it. I said that they were draconian. I said that they were Orwellian. I said, well, that sounds kind of Orwellian and draconian to me. remove all the exemptions. And how would you say it now? I would not say that. It was a sloppy

comment that a presidential candidate should not have said. Fair enough. And so in other words, what you're saying is to say, for example, the parents, many parents, in fact, in the Los Angeles area who are trying to get out of vaccines that have to do with measles, they're wrong. The issue of a lot of those people that I've heard is I've heard legitimate questions of people wanting to know why can't the measles vaccine be a separate vaccine. I don't find people who ask those questions to be a bunch of crazy anti-vaxxers. I think that everybody is just concerned about the health of our children. Well, that's fair enough, but sometimes even the most earnest and right-minded people are just scientifically wrong. Indeed. And the government has to

make the decision that based on its evaluation, scientific evaluation, is in the best interest of the public, and that's what I would do as president. You've been running for president now for a bit, and I wonder what you've learned from it. You've gotten, you've had some good moments, particularly in the second debate. You got, God knows Twitter rushed in behind you, and you got an enormous amount of, and Google as well. What happened to Montana? And then you've gotten some coverage that portray you as a kind of crystal-gazing kook. You've gotten all this. How do you respond to the experience, the life experience of running for president for at least a few months? It's certainly a challenge to practice what you preach.

I know this sounds naive. I didn't think the left was so mean. I didn't think the left lied like this. I thought the right did that. I thought we were better. And you've been getting it? What's been unfair? Tell me what you...

Oh, come on. You just mentioned crystal gazing. There is no crystal in my home, David. There's never been a crystal on stage when I've talked. I have never told an AIDS patient not to take their medicine. I've never told anyone not to take their medicine. I've never told anyone that their lovelessness created their disease. I've never told anyone they could love enough to cure their disease.

I'm Jewish. I go to the doctor. This idea that I'm that person. Let's entertain the possibility that you don't go to the presidency. Is there a way to lose well here? In other words, to have an effect while losing. And what would it be? Of course.

Well, I feel, to be honest, David, I feel I've already impacted this conversation. Were there other candidates who are talking about reparations? They wouldn't be talking about reparations if I had not opened that up and made it a pillar of my campaign. Are you saying you introduced reparations as a campaign discussion? I certainly did, and I hope you will. Wouldn't that come as a surprise to Cory Booker and others? No, it would not come as a surprise to Cory Booker. Corey would say, yep, she sure did.

Absolutely. Look at my website. I went from the moment I announced in January, I talked about reparations in my opening speech. I first wrote about reparations in Healing the Soul of America, my book that came out in 1997. It has been on my website as part of the main pillar of my campaign since the very beginning in January. And I have talked about the difference between race-based policies and reparations. I have a very, very extensive conversation about that, and absolutely yes. Right now, as I understand it, you are not scheduled to be in the next debate.

I have the 130,000 unique donors. I got 2% at the Monmouth poll yesterday, just like Julian Castro did, Beto O'Rourke did. I just yesterday morning was asking myself, what's the message here? Am I supposed to just wrap it up? And I thought, well, I'll let my trip to New Hampshire tell me. And when hundreds of people are showing up, and everywhere I go, people in airports, you go, don't you leave, you stay in there. Okay, but that happens, in fairness, that happens to any candidate who's doing the work, who's running around New Hampshire and Iowa, people come up and say, stay in there. They don't all get what I got.

At what point do you say, in other words, what's the determinative factor for you? I'll know the point. I'll know it in my heart, but it's not yet. I'm running for president. Marianne Williamson, thank you so much. Thank you so much. Mary Ann Williamson, who's running for the Democratic nomination. I'm David Remnick, and that's the New Yorker Radio Hour for today. Thanks for listening. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.

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