Marianne Williamson on her US presidential marketing campaign, the economic system and Gaza | Elections News | USAEMALL.com

Washington, DC – Marianne Williamson says she is just not merely working a protest marketing campaign.

A religious writer who’s difficult President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination within the 2024 presidential race, Williamson believes somebody wants to face as much as the rising company influences within the United States authorities.

“And I’m not the kind of woman who keeps my mouth shut,” Williamson instructed Al Jazeera from her residence in Washington, DC, earlier this month.

Only as soon as in US historical past has an elected president not obtained his social gathering’s nomination for a second time period. That makes Williamson’s marketing campaign a protracted shot. But she stays undeterred. Her marketing campaign is one in every of two Democratic challenges looking for to thwart Biden’s nomination, amid drooping ballot numbers for the incumbent president.

While the opposite Democratic contender, Dean Phillips, is working from a centrist platform, Williamson hopes to rally progressives, a rising drive within the social gathering.

With her voice rising at occasions in indignation, Williamson decried how company greed was shifting the nation — and the Democratic Party — away from their long-held beliefs.

“We are at a point now where short-term profit maximisation for huge corporate entities has become America’s bottom line,” she mentioned.

“And that corporatist perspective supersedes democratic values, humanitarian values and the safety and the health and the wellbeing of the American people.”

A progressive challenger

Her 2024 platform echoes lots of the Democratic priorities articulated by Senator Bernie Sanders, one of many nation’s most recognisable progressive voices.

He ran for president twice, within the 2016 and 2020 races, going through Williamson herself within the latter. She ultimately dropped out, endorsing Sanders as an alternative.

Williamson rose to fame within the early Nineties together with her best-selling ebook A Return to Love and appearances on a TV discuss present hosted by Oprah Winfrey. Later, in 2014, she unsuccessfully ran for Congress as an impartial in California.

But together with her presidential platform, she hopes to push additional than Sanders did on a number of coverage points.

For instance, Williamson backs a common healthcare system, however her plan emphasises the necessity for more healthy meals, water and air and a much less tense way of life, saying that the present financial system will increase “the probability of sickness”.

The candidate additionally needs to create a Department of Peace to suppress violence and handle its root causes domestically and internationally.

Williamson’s nearly holistic coverage method is underscored by her soft-spoken, guru-like persona. The writer’s spirituality has led some to dismiss her candidacy as unserious. She went viral, for instance, after saying in a 2019 major debate that she would “harness love” to beat then-President Donald Trump and his marketing campaign of “fear”.

Williamson is just not unaware of that fame. She acknowledges that she made “silly” statements on the debate that she credit to being “nervous”.

However, Williamson mentioned there was a deliberate push to solid her apart within the 2020 race — a marketing campaign that she mentioned has intensified this time round.

“This time, it’s a full-on assault: mischaracterisation of my personality, of what I’ve done with my life for the last 40 years. This is strategised. This is purposeful,” she instructed Al Jazeera.

Shortly after Williamson introduced her candidacy in March, Politico printed an article citing nameless former staffers who described the candidate as “abusive”. She dismissed the story on the time as a “hit piece” and refuted its particulars.

And on Wednesday, Williamson’s marketing campaign confronted one other setback when the Massachusetts Democratic Party submitted solely Biden’s title for the state’s major poll, successfully excluding her from the record of Democratic candidates.

‘There is no wiggle room’

Still, Williamson has drawn some, albeit restricted, momentum. A Quinnipiac University ballot final month confirmed her polling at 12 p.c, far behind Biden at 74 p.c.

The progressive month-to-month The Nation, nonetheless, famous final month that the polling hole between Williamson and Biden is just like the margin between Republican rivals Trump and Nikki Haley — although much less consideration is being paid to the Democratic race.

While the hole is nonetheless big, Williamson argues that she deserves extra media consideration, particularly with some polls exhibiting Biden trailing Trump within the common elections.

For his half, Biden has waved apart the polling knowledge. “Everybody running for reelection in this time has been in the same position. There’s nothing new about that,” he mentioned when requested about his low approval rankings earlier this 12 months.

Instead, Biden and his allies have hoped to redirect consideration to the US economic system, which is exhibiting faster-than-expected development, low unemployment and inflation slowly coming beneath management.

But Williamson mentioned the oft-cited financial knowledge doesn’t inform the entire story. For instance, she pointed to a current research exhibiting that 62 p.c of Americans stay paycheck to paycheck.

She additionally harassed the excessive value of dwelling many Americans face, which she mentioned is because of cyclical inflation in addition to company price-gouging.

“For millions of people, it could be the difference whether or not you keep your apartment,” Williamson mentioned. “So for the majority of Americans, there is no wiggle room.”

On Gaza

Democratic voters are additionally cut up over the Biden administration’s help for the conflict in Gaza. Biden has expressed “unwavering support” to Israel, promising to supply it with billions of {dollars} of further support regardless of humanitarian considerations over its navy marketing campaign.

The Israeli offensive has killed greater than 20,000 Palestinians, and Israel’s leaders have pledged to proceed the conflict till Hamas is eradicated. The Palestinian group had attacked Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 Israelis and taking tons of extra captive.

The White House and Pentagon have mentioned repeatedly that they aren’t drawing any “red lines” to restrict what Israel can do with US support. Biden, in the meantime, continues to dismiss rising requires a ceasefire.

For her half, Williamson has referred to as for an finish to the preventing, the discharge of the Israeli captives and a world push for a broader decision of the Palestinian-Israeli battle.

“I understand Israel’s need to slay the monster. But this military action is only feeding it,” Williamson mentioned. “There was never a military solution here. And there is not a military solution now.”

Williamson added that whereas there may be “no minimisation of the horror and the barbarism and the pure evil of October 7”, Palestinians have been affected by Israeli occupation, settlement enlargement and blockades round their territory.

“I don’t see any solution here but a ceasefire, a release of hostages, architecture for a two-state solution immediately,” she instructed Al Jazeera. “The death of a Palestinian child is no less horrifying than the death of an Israeli child.”

Williamson’s place displays the views of a majority of Democrats. A December ballot from the New York Times and Siena College discovered 64 p.c of Democratic voters felt Israel ought to cease its navy marketing campaign to stop civilian casualties, even when Hamas had not been “eliminated”.

But Williamson blames outdated worldviews for policymakers’ opposition to a ceasefire.

“The president is stuck in the 20th century — not just on this, but on many things. And that’s the problem here,” she mentioned.

Biden has been a staunch supporter of Israel all through his decades-long political profession, which stretches again to the Seventies — a time when the nation was seen as an important US ally within the Middle East through the Cold War.

In truth, the president has repeated the identical pro-Israel statements verbatim for the previous 40 years.

That stance has led many Arab and Muslim Americans to pledge to not vote for Biden within the upcoming election due to his help for the conflict. So what’s Williamson’s message to these voters?

“I have a very difficult time saying anyone should vote for me,” she mentioned. “People should vote their conscience. People should listen to what the candidates have to say, consider deeply within their own hearts and minds what they think is best for their country and the world, and then should vote accordingly.”

Asked in regards to the US vetoing a United Nations Security Council decision that referred to as for a ceasefire and the captives’ launch, Williamson mentioned: “Shameful. Shameful.”

The Democratic primaries kick off on January 23 in New Hampshire.