That headline is not my contention (I didn’t watch the debate, for Reasons), but the consensus of people who did watch it. Jim Geraghty:
A lot of us are laughing about Marianne Williamson, but there’s some of that same dynamic that drove Trump to the nomination in 2016. She’s a figure who’s famous for being connected to the entertainment world, who isn’t interested in policy details, and who emotes in a way that generates raucous applause from the audience. She’s the political candidate for people who aren’t that into politics. Ben Smith of BuzzFeed mentioned that a Marianne Williamson staffer told him, “when she visits the networks, reporters and producers sneer at her, but the makeup artists always cry when they meet her.”
And her lack of interest in policy means she’s always talking about bigger, vaguer, more emotionally resonant themes in her own kooky way: “This is part of the dark underbelly of American society, the rainfall, the bigotry, and the entire conversation that we’re having here tonight, if you think any of this wonkiness is going to deal with this dark psychic force of the collectivized hatred that this president is bringing up in this country, then I’m afraid that the Democrats are going to see some very dark days.” A chunk of the American people is going to find talk about “dark psychic force” as crystal-waving nonsense. Another chunk of the American people is going to hear Williamson and respond, “finally, a candidate is addressing the real problem.”
Well, Tuesday night in Detroit, the veteran New Age motivational speaker Marianne Williamson hit it out of the park and brought the Democratic Party into the Nutcase Era.
The key problem afflicting America, in Williamson’s view, is a “dark psychic force” that is weaving a racial divide. It is the cause of white nationalism. That racial divide is causing an “emotional imbalance” that is interfering with human thriving. And this betrays the purposes of the founding fathers, who brought America into being to allow us all to have “possibilities.”
To most of us elitists, this either sounds wacko on its own terms or is dismissible as a semi-pagan illiterate translation of classic Christian thinking about the devil’s role in ordinary life. But we dismiss the power of this approach at our peril. These are key themes not only through American history, but also ideas that have played a significant role in the Age of Oprah.
Williamson has been speaking in this way to gigantic audiences for close to 40 years, under the East Coast radar. And you know what? She’s really good at it. And she brought real feeling and passion to the most visceral issue for Democrats at the present moment. She essentially said that racism and white supremacy are nothing less than demonic and that saving America from their evil is a moral task.
She dominated post-debate search results:
She won a Drudge post-debate straw poll with 48%, though no idea of the methodology there.
This bit was evidently the most-applauded speech of the night:
Marianne Williamson already won the debate tonight. Let’s wrap it up now. #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/thV9JBOm38
— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) July 31, 2019
That’s mostly the usual far-left Social Justice Warrior garbage the hard left pushes these days, but she says it better and with more conviction than all the other clowns.
Robert Stacy McCain (who, like me, was early on covering the Williamson campaign):
Here is the thing I keep reminding my conservative friends: You have to keep in mind that this is about Democratic primary voters, the kind of highly motivated hard-core leftists who will turn out on a snowy February night to participate in an Iowa precinct caucus. If you tell me that Marianne Williamson is “too crazy” to win, my answer is, “You’re telling me Elizabeth Warren is not crazy? Bernie Sanders is not crazy?”
If candidates like Warren and Sanders now define what is “mainstream” for Democrats, there is no feasible limit on what is “mainstream,” and the only reason Marianne Williamson is considered a long-shot candidate is because the extremist left-wing fringe has become overcrowded.
More tweets on Williamson:
I may be wrong, but I’m pretty sure Marianne Williamson has the ability to summon demons. pic.twitter.com/R9BseCnQ8Q
— Kyle Morris (@RealKyleMorris) July 31, 2019
Okay I know we’re all having fun with this Marianne Williamson stuff but in all seriousness her policy ideas are terrible and she’s wrong about everything, just so we’re clear
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) July 31, 2019
Anyone who thinks that Marianne Williamson can’t win the election hasn’t noticed that 7 million people just pledged to go to Area 51 to meet the Aliens.
— Margot Cleveland (@ProfMJCleveland) July 31, 2019
Old and Busted: The DN figuring how to screw bernie Sanders out of the nomination.
The New Hotness: The DNC figuring out how to screw Marianne Williamson out of the nomination.#DemDebate #DemDebates
— BattleSwarm (@BattleSwarmBlog) July 31, 2019
marianne williamson abt to be the first pres to swear in on a stack of tarot cards
— jaboukie (@jaboukie) July 31, 2019
.@marwilliamson is doing so well in the debate that @Google is going to suspend her ad account.
CC: @TulsiGabbard
— BattleSwarm (@BattleSwarmBlog) July 31, 2019
And another debate is up tonight…
