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The Marianne Williamson Campaign RIP



The graves are now full of the coffins of campaigns for the Democratic nomintion for POTUS in 2020 that have bitten the dust for a number of reasons.

One of the most fascinating of the departed is the campaign of Marianne Williamson, a New Agey spiritualist writer and lecturer whose interest in electoral politics took everyone by surprise when she announced it, almost a year ago now.  On January 28, 2019 she walked onto a stage in Beverly Hills, California to announce her candidacy and its goal, to: "engage voters in a more meaningful conversation about America, about our history, about how each of us fit into it, and how to create  sustainable future."

You might fairly judge from that language that it was never entirely clear that the office of the President was part of her goal.

Williamson enlivened the first  couple of debates, and her presence has been missed from the subsequent ones. She was the very rare intersection of two Venn diagram circles -- one might be labelled "those white people in America who believe in slavery reparations" and the other "people who distrust childhood vaccinations."

The thing to keep in mind about Williamson is this: she may have been a feather in a rising wind. Non-denominational spiritual gurus, some with belief systems that cross the usual partisan lines in odd ways, may be more active in our politics in the years to come than they have ever been before.

It is in fact a New Age.



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