Many on the left are hoping to persuade Marianne Williamson to run for president-- whether Biden runs for reelection or not. I don't know what Marianna will decide to do, and I don't know if she has decided or not, but I do know what she is doing, right now. She is working with a large group of congressional candidates in the hope of bringing more progressives into Congress. And I know that the first election of the cycle-- in Florida's open 20th congressional district-- saw an unexpected with for Marianne's candidate, Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, over the establishment favorite. Sheila is now serving in the House.
Please take a look at the list of candidates Marianne has endorsed and is working with now. You can contribute to any of their campaigns at that link above or by clicking on the Candidate Summit thermometer on the left (a live link itself). These are men and women who have eschewed campaign contributions from corporate PACs and corporate lobbyists and who are running against establishment candidates against incredibly steep odds. Yesterday, Biden himself, jumped into the Cleveland race to endorse the conservative candidate against Nina Turner. Marianne is not the kind of woman who wilts in the face of that kind of challenge-- exactly the opposite in fact. She sat right down and wrote this guest post for DWT readers about why she's supporting Nina Turner's campaign.
My Friend Nina Turner
by Marianne Williamson
Last weekend I went to campaign for my friend Nina Turner in her Congressional bid in Cleveland. The race is an embodiment of the struggle for the soul of the Democratic party, between a machine-funded corporate candidate (Shontel Brown) and a real populist for the people (Nina). As is so often now the case, the machine-funded corporate types like to present themselves as the grown-ups in the room, while those standing strong for the poor, the near poor, the barely middle class, the working people of the United States, and the traditional values of FDR’s democratic party are cast as fringe-angry-crazy-progressive-people who want too much too fast.
Nothing could be further from the truth, given that what us fringe-angry-crazy-progressive-people want are things considerate moderate in most European democracies. Universal healthcare. Excellent public schools in all neighborhoods, not just the affluent. Free or very inexpensive higher education.
Plus, we want cancellation of the college loan debt now economically shackling 45 million Americans. A Green New Deal. A genuinely fair, less militaristic American foreign policy and repudiation of the military-industrial-complex. An appropriate push back against corporate forces now chaining our democracy.
We can have all those things, but only if we show up for the struggle. And the corporatists are doing everything in their power to convince us not to even try. The animus being displayed against Nina Turner is more than political; the neoliberal establishment is genuinely afraid of her. And why? They recognize the threat she poses to the corrupt order that has eroded our politics, our economy and in many ways our society over the last forty years. She places what she calls a “radical humanitarianism” above short-term corporate profit maximization. She says it like it is; they know that if Clevelanders send her to Congress, she will say it there.
Nina is not the first American politician to come up against the ire of the corporatist machine. FDR’s New Deal policies, based on the idea of fundamental economic reform and enlightened social conscience, received a similar reaction from the corporate elite when they first appeared on the political landscape.
When campaigning for his second term as president, Roosevelt said this:
Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me-- and I welcome their hatred.
I should like to have it said of my first administration that in it the forces of selfishness and lust for power met their match.
And that’s the thing about Nina. In her, “the forces of selfishness and lust for power have met their match.”
FDR’s New Deal sensibility is reemerging in America today, not embodied in just one person but embodied in many. The reason Nina is uniquely qualified to carry the torch is because she’s so talented, so heartfelt, and so passionate. Anyone who has heard her speak and agrees with her politics knows that in her we have a political treasure. We must not, must not let this opportunity pass.
Any last-minute donations, or calls to friends or family in Cleveland, is so important right now. The election is on Tuesday. Make sure you talk back to the disgusting lies and smears they’ve been putting out against her. I’ve gotten to know Nina pretty well over the last two years, and I can vouch not only for her politics but for her personhood. She has a huge heart and she wants fairness for all people; otherwise, she would not be putting herself through the ringer of another political campaign. Congress needs her. America needs her. At such a moment as this, how blessed we will be if Clevelanders raise her up and lift her high.
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