This is Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone from July 26th. The entire article is very long but highly readable - Taibbi reporting from Iowa campaign stops. Here he is on Williamson:
"Williamson is a small, almost ethereal figure with silver-streaked hair and intense eyes that 19th-century authors would have described as being “like coals.” Her superficial eccentricities and occasional incautious statements (she once said “there’s a skepticism which is actually healthy” on the issue of vaccines) have caused reporters to chortle at her run.
"But her speech is not a lifeless collection of policy positions. It’s an interesting, tightly written diagnosis of the American problem. Precisely because socioeconomic stresses have pushed them into heightened awareness, she says, the American public sees what she calls “a transition from democracy to aristocracy,” and the corporate sector’s “insatiable appetite” for money that dominates American life.
"Williamson is not a traditional orator, with a voice that fills the room. You can barely hear her without a microphone. But she grabs crowds. Nobody is checking sports scores or Twitter. They’re in.
"Williamson goes on to say that most Americans are aware that their government is now little more than a handmaiden to sociopathic forces. She describes a two-party system that, at its worst, operates in perfect harmony with the darkest impulses of corporate capitalism, and at best — presumably she refers more to Democrats here — sounds like institutionalized beggary.
"“ ‘Pretty please, can I maybe have a hundred-thousand-dollar grant here?’ ” she says. “ ‘Pretty please, can we maybe have a million dollars in the budget for all this?’ ”
"Heads are nodding all over the place.
"“They say, ‘I can get you a cookie.’ ”
"This elicits a few yeahs from the crowd.
"Christ, I think. This woman is going to win the nomination."
I didn't watch this debate. I don't have the heart for it right now.
A psychotherapist I saw in my 30s was high on Marianne Williams. That was a time when I was much more open-minded and believed that people could be transformed, and I listened to some of her tapes at the therapist's urging. But I honestly don't remember any "healing nuggets" I gleaned. Mostly I remember her voice, which was higher, breathier, way too fast.
Since then, she has modulated her voice and, as she appeared on her NewsHour chat with Judy Woodruff, Williams appeared to be quite a good diagnostician of our national ills, as Taibbi notes.
But I don't see diagnostics translating into practical policy. This didn't work for her when she ran for Congress. America may need a psychoanalyst after Dry Drunk Daddy Trump has turned us all into a giant dysfunctional family. But I don't see her as presidential material.
A cynical person might see Williams's run for the presidency as a bid to zhoosh up her spiritual guru biz. But your post makes me interested in watching the debate tomorrow.
"...I don't see diagnostics translating into practical policy." Me neither. But I don't think her pretty much not-serious candidacy is going to hurt her book sales any.
I watched the first hour of the debate last night, the first time I had watched CNN since Trump won the presidency.
We fail to recognize how much CNN has an influence on all this. They did last night what they did during the last presidential season. Get a bunch of partisans on stage to argue with each other. Only in this case the partisans were the candidates themselves.
The format did not allow for us to get to know the candidates very well. The hour that I watched appeared to be Sanders and Warren defending their record of progressive proposals against the newcomers who basically accused them of being too idealistic, and too far left against which they mainly said they were more practical (like Hilary who lost the last election?) and were new (but there really wasn’t time to check that out).
Being unfamiliar with Williams I could not figure out what she was trying to say.
We are now in the phase in which the show is the media’s interpretation of what went on, which is something completely different.
Does not matter much. As the rules for support get much stricter, most of the candidates will disappear from the stage and we will get to the real debates among three to six candidates.
I was glad that Sanders and Warren stuck together; I would like to see either a Sanders/ Warren or Warren/Sanders ticket.
"We fail to recognize how much CNN has an influence on all this. They did last night what they did during the last presidential season. Get a bunch of partisans on stage to argue with each other. Only in this case the partisans were the candidates themselves.
The format did not allow for us to get to know the candidates very well. "
Jack - to your point: I had commented elsewhere that the candidates have more or less the same views from issue to issue (and possibly I was channeling Taibbi in saying that, but it's not an excuse). But here is Jim Geraghty with a corrective to that cynicism.
"You can look at quite a few asterisk-level candidates in this Democratic field and see an effort to force today’s Democratic party to have a debate about how they want to address a particular issue. Tulsi Gabbard wants to tear down whatever’s left of the bipartisan foreign policy consensus, and contends that we might as well work with the likes of Bashir Assad to stabilize Syria and accept that even dictators who commit war crimes are better for our interests than promoting democratic systems that could empower Islamists. That is a big controversial challenge to the established principles of U.S. foreign policy.
"On the opposite side, Joe Sestak wants America to wake up to the threat of “an illiberal world order led by China and Russia” and to restock America’s toolbox for dealing with potential foreign policy crises.
"Tim Ryan wants to force the Democrats to take a good, hard look at the towns and small cities where the mill, factory, or mine has closed and people feel left behind and figure out how to get technological innovations work for them instead of against them.
"As loopy as Marianne Williamson can sometimes sound, you could probably find a broad spectrum of Americans who feel like economic abundance isn’t helping a spiritual sickness that grips America. Andrew Yang’s got about a million new policy ideas, some intriguing, some awful. John Delaney wants to enact mandatory national service for all 18-year-olds."
Geraghty writes this in the course of a criticism of the sheer size of the Democratic field this year, something that Taibbi also notes in his warning that Democrats may find a way to blow this. Geraghty's point in this passage, which I think dovetails with yours, is that the debate format doesn't allow these candidates to make these thought-provoking pitches. In a debate, candidates can't set the subject; they must answer whatever questions the moderator poses to them. Sometimes, a candidate may have a better intuition about what's important to Americans, what's important for America, than the television moderators do.
I didn't watch last night's broadcast end to end - I was out doing something else during the first hour, and then I was back and forth between that and a couple of ballgames. I watched two of the segments in which she was called on by the CNN moderators. And I have to say, there is something compelling about her when she speaks. She definitely holds one's attention. I know almost nothing about her, but I understand she used to appear on Oprah from time to time. Based on what I saw last night, she's more comfortable speaking on television than most of the professional pols.
During one of her segments which I caught, she said something about the country being enveloped by "dark psychic forces" (or something similar). I guess I'm part of the elite, because I react to statements like that just like Taibbi describes reporters on the campaign trail. But I can believe that there is a segment of the populace who would nod vigorously to a statement like that.
I would also say, based on what I saw last night, that she's in the process of carving out a memorable identity that distinguishes her from her 19 (or is it 23?) opponents, the rest of whom have the same poll-tested positions on virtually every issue.
Jim, My first question to all candidates goes like this: "OK, you have a plan, but I don't care about its Title II, section 3. What I want to know is, how will you handle a Republican House or Senate that can block your plan in its tracks. And, by the way, how will you get all the Democrats in aboard?" This is important. Trump knew no one in politics as a politician (maybe as a returner of gifts, yeah), and that is why he can't keep people in his employ and has a higher turnover than a MacDonald's competitor. Do these brilliant outsiders have the faintest idea of who, in their alleged party, they can appoint as, say AG, Secretary of State and Secretary of Labor? Or, like Trump, will they pick volunteers, in-laws and whoever the friendly think tanks force on them?
Both Delaney and Buttigieg have said things about a national service program for youth. Sanders and Warren, among others, are in favor of free college. Someone needs to put the two ideas together and come up with something like a GI Bill for non-military service. The GI Bill has been a successful program and doesn't draw the "entitled spoiled brats who expect everything to be given to them" ire that "free college" seems to.
Here is a link to Buttigieg's plan. https://peteforamerica.com/national-service-plan
He seems to believe it will provide some type of bonding experience for Americans.
Raber, as a Navy veteran, says that it's not a bad idea, but dislikes romanticizing military experience too much. There is, apparently, quite a complex social structure by rank and rate, even on a small destroyer such as he was assigned to.
And many bonding experiences seemed to revolve around contraband and exploration of off-limits areas in various ports. Amsterdam seems to have been quite a highlight of one NATO international sea exercise. There were also ship exchanges to foster international understanding. Some of the American sailors talked excitedly of a Vicars and Tarts party the British soldiers hosted.
Yeah, I wouldn't romanticize military experience much. My husband was in the Army National Guard. He said the best thing about basic training was that it felt so good when it was over. Drill sergeants were borderline abusive. Sometimes not even borderline. There was camaraderie among the enlisted men because they had a common enemy. I'll have to check out Buttigieg's link. I think something like a domestic Peace Corps would be more useful, if it was voluntary and linked to tuition assistance.
It was taped for our return from firefly land. Will let you know. The idea of a lady guru replacing whatsit sounds like a one-season sit-com. Only in Americur.
The NY Times gang of pundits rated last night's performers on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being awesome. As one might expect of NY Times opinion makers, they're pretty skeptical of Williamson. But I would recommend reading their comments - most of them found something about her that impressed them, apparently against their own best judgment in some cases.
Picture yourself in a boat on a river With tangerine trees and marmalade skies. Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly, A girl with kaleidoscope eyes.
Cellophane flowers of yellow and green Towering over your head. Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes And she's gone.
Thanks for the laugh of the day, Patrick! I usually start singing "White Rabbit" when she comes on, but Raber seems quite taken with Marianne and shushes me up.
Remember what the dormouse said Feed your head, feed your head
Jim Geraghty may be right that more is going on than appears to the naked eye. But 20-something is not a manageable field, especially in a "debate" format that is really serial, drive-by cries for help. But I am bemused by the phenomenon that has emerged.
Not only did the New York Times pundit rate the performances ("Harry Truman's performance was marred by the way he used his hands") and demeanor ("Theodore will never get anywhere by shouting so much in that squeaky voice. And those spectacles!") of each candidate, but it also counted how much time each candidate got to make sound noises. The candidates with the most money, best poll numbers and most media attention (which have an uncanny 1:1:1 relationship) generally got the most, ta-da! time to talk. And why are we not surprised?
Thanks for the Beatles, Patrick, but I think Irving Berlin wrote the lyrics for this one:
There's no business Like show business Like no business, I know Everything about it is appealing Everything the traffic will allow Nowhere could you get that happy feeling When you are stealing a graf in Dowd
Oh, and this just in... Joe Biden says he will not be so nice tonight to Kamala Harris and Cory Booker. No word from Harris or Booker, but the latter is probably over the moon that Biden mentioned him.
Marianne Williamson is just another very savvy televangelist. Her comments and demeanor are dog whistles to well-heeled liberals attracted to woo-woo because orthodoxy is so confining and free to the hoi polloi.
Williamson, in many respects, is not unlike Trump in that she is a self-promoter, good at "reading" her base, and can use the presidential run as a way to get a wider forum in which to tout her ideas.
Don't take my word about Williamson+Trump. Just saw a whole thing about in WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/08/01/self-centered-religion-shared-by-marianne-williamson-president-trump/
This is Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone from July 26th. The entire article is very long but highly readable - Taibbi reporting from Iowa campaign stops. Here he is on Williamson:
ReplyDelete"Williamson is a small, almost ethereal figure with silver-streaked hair and intense eyes that 19th-century authors would have described as being “like coals.” Her superficial eccentricities and occasional incautious statements (she once said “there’s a skepticism which is actually healthy” on the issue of vaccines) have caused reporters to chortle at her run.
"But her speech is not a lifeless collection of policy positions. It’s an interesting, tightly written diagnosis of the American problem. Precisely because socioeconomic stresses have pushed them into heightened awareness, she says, the American public sees what she calls “a transition from democracy to aristocracy,” and the corporate sector’s “insatiable appetite” for money that dominates American life.
"Williamson is not a traditional orator, with a voice that fills the room. You can barely hear her without a microphone. But she grabs crowds. Nobody is checking sports scores or Twitter. They’re in.
"Williamson goes on to say that most Americans are aware that their government is now little more than a handmaiden to sociopathic forces. She describes a two-party system that, at its worst, operates in perfect harmony with the darkest impulses of corporate capitalism, and at best — presumably she refers more to Democrats here — sounds like institutionalized beggary.
"“ ‘Pretty please, can I maybe have a hundred-thousand-dollar grant here?’ ” she says. “ ‘Pretty please, can we maybe have a million dollars in the budget for all this?’ ”
"Heads are nodding all over the place.
"“They say, ‘I can get you a cookie.’ ”
"This elicits a few yeahs from the crowd.
"Christ, I think. This woman is going to win the nomination."
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/iowa-2020-election-democrats-taibbi-858522/
I didn't watch this debate. I don't have the heart for it right now.
ReplyDeleteA psychotherapist I saw in my 30s was high on Marianne Williams. That was a time when I was much more open-minded and believed that people could be transformed, and I listened to some of her tapes at the therapist's urging. But I honestly don't remember any "healing nuggets" I gleaned. Mostly I remember her voice, which was higher, breathier, way too fast.
Since then, she has modulated her voice and, as she appeared on her NewsHour chat with Judy Woodruff, Williams appeared to be quite a good diagnostician of our national ills, as Taibbi notes.
But I don't see diagnostics translating into practical policy. This didn't work for her when she ran for Congress. America may need a psychoanalyst after Dry Drunk Daddy Trump has turned us all into a giant dysfunctional family. But I don't see her as presidential material.
A cynical person might see Williams's run for the presidency as a bid to zhoosh up her spiritual guru biz. But your post makes me interested in watching the debate tomorrow.
"...I don't see diagnostics translating into practical policy." Me neither.
DeleteBut I don't think her pretty much not-serious candidacy is going to hurt her book sales any.
Herman Cain. Herman Cain.
ReplyDeleteI watched the first hour of the debate last night, the first time I had watched CNN since Trump won the presidency.
ReplyDeleteWe fail to recognize how much CNN has an influence on all this. They did last night what they did during the last presidential season. Get a bunch of partisans on stage to argue with each other. Only in this case the partisans were the candidates themselves.
The format did not allow for us to get to know the candidates very well. The hour that I watched appeared to be Sanders and Warren defending their record of progressive proposals against the newcomers who basically accused them of being too idealistic, and too far left against which they mainly said they were more practical (like Hilary who lost the last election?) and were new (but there really wasn’t time to check that out).
Being unfamiliar with Williams I could not figure out what she was trying to say.
We are now in the phase in which the show is the media’s interpretation of what went on, which is something completely different.
Does not matter much. As the rules for support get much stricter, most of the candidates will disappear from the stage and we will get to the real debates among three to six candidates.
I was glad that Sanders and Warren stuck together; I would like to see either a Sanders/ Warren or Warren/Sanders ticket.
"We fail to recognize how much CNN has an influence on all this. They did last night what they did during the last presidential season. Get a bunch of partisans on stage to argue with each other. Only in this case the partisans were the candidates themselves.
DeleteThe format did not allow for us to get to know the candidates very well. "
Jack - to your point: I had commented elsewhere that the candidates have more or less the same views from issue to issue (and possibly I was channeling Taibbi in saying that, but it's not an excuse). But here is Jim Geraghty with a corrective to that cynicism.
"You can look at quite a few asterisk-level candidates in this Democratic field and see an effort to force today’s Democratic party to have a debate about how they want to address a particular issue. Tulsi Gabbard wants to tear down whatever’s left of the bipartisan foreign policy consensus, and contends that we might as well work with the likes of Bashir Assad to stabilize Syria and accept that even dictators who commit war crimes are better for our interests than promoting democratic systems that could empower Islamists. That is a big controversial challenge to the established principles of U.S. foreign policy.
"On the opposite side, Joe Sestak wants America to wake up to the threat of “an illiberal world order led by China and Russia” and to restock America’s toolbox for dealing with potential foreign policy crises.
"Tim Ryan wants to force the Democrats to take a good, hard look at the towns and small cities where the mill, factory, or mine has closed and people feel left behind and figure out how to get technological innovations work for them instead of against them.
"As loopy as Marianne Williamson can sometimes sound, you could probably find a broad spectrum of Americans who feel like economic abundance isn’t helping a spiritual sickness that grips America. Andrew Yang’s got about a million new policy ideas, some intriguing, some awful. John Delaney wants to enact mandatory national service for all 18-year-olds."
Geraghty writes this in the course of a criticism of the sheer size of the Democratic field this year, something that Taibbi also notes in his warning that Democrats may find a way to blow this. Geraghty's point in this passage, which I think dovetails with yours, is that the debate format doesn't allow these candidates to make these thought-provoking pitches. In a debate, candidates can't set the subject; they must answer whatever questions the moderator poses to them. Sometimes, a candidate may have a better intuition about what's important to Americans, what's important for America, than the television moderators do.
Tom, you might be right. But ...
ReplyDeleteI didn't watch last night's broadcast end to end - I was out doing something else during the first hour, and then I was back and forth between that and a couple of ballgames. I watched two of the segments in which she was called on by the CNN moderators. And I have to say, there is something compelling about her when she speaks. She definitely holds one's attention. I know almost nothing about her, but I understand she used to appear on Oprah from time to time. Based on what I saw last night, she's more comfortable speaking on television than most of the professional pols.
During one of her segments which I caught, she said something about the country being enveloped by "dark psychic forces" (or something similar). I guess I'm part of the elite, because I react to statements like that just like Taibbi describes reporters on the campaign trail. But I can believe that there is a segment of the populace who would nod vigorously to a statement like that.
I would also say, based on what I saw last night, that she's in the process of carving out a memorable identity that distinguishes her from her 19 (or is it 23?) opponents, the rest of whom have the same poll-tested positions on virtually every issue.
Jim, My first question to all candidates goes like this: "OK, you have a plan, but I don't care about its Title II, section 3. What I want to know is, how will you handle a Republican House or Senate that can block your plan in its tracks. And, by the way, how will you get all the Democrats in aboard?" This is important. Trump knew no one in politics as a politician (maybe as a returner of gifts, yeah), and that is why he can't keep people in his employ and has a higher turnover than a MacDonald's competitor. Do these brilliant outsiders have the faintest idea of who, in their alleged party, they can appoint as, say AG, Secretary of State and Secretary of Labor? Or, like Trump, will they pick volunteers, in-laws and whoever the friendly think tanks force on them?
DeleteA presidency is not Amateur Hour.
Both Delaney and Buttigieg have said things about a national service program for youth. Sanders and Warren, among others, are in favor of free college. Someone needs to put the two ideas together and come up with something like a GI Bill for non-military service. The GI Bill has been a successful program and doesn't draw the "entitled spoiled brats who expect everything to be given to them" ire that "free college" seems to.
ReplyDeleteHere is a link to Buttigieg's plan. https://peteforamerica.com/national-service-plan
DeleteHe seems to believe it will provide some type of bonding experience for Americans.
Raber, as a Navy veteran, says that it's not a bad idea, but dislikes romanticizing military experience too much. There is, apparently, quite a complex social structure by rank and rate, even on a small destroyer such as he was assigned to.
And many bonding experiences seemed to revolve around contraband and exploration of off-limits areas in various ports. Amsterdam seems to have been quite a highlight of one NATO international sea exercise. There were also ship exchanges to foster international understanding. Some of the American sailors talked excitedly of a Vicars and Tarts party the British soldiers hosted.
Yeah, I wouldn't romanticize military experience much. My husband was in the Army National Guard. He said the best thing about basic training was that it felt so good when it was over. Drill sergeants were borderline abusive. Sometimes not even borderline. There was camaraderie among the enlisted men because they had a common enemy.
DeleteI'll have to check out Buttigieg's link. I think something like a domestic Peace Corps would be more useful, if it was voluntary and linked to tuition assistance.
It was taped for our return from firefly land. Will let you know. The idea of a lady guru replacing whatsit sounds like a one-season sit-com. Only in Americur.
ReplyDeleteThe NY Times gang of pundits rated last night's performers on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being awesome. As one might expect of NY Times opinion makers, they're pretty skeptical of Williamson. But I would recommend reading their comments - most of them found something about her that impressed them, apparently against their own best judgment in some cases.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/07/31/opinion/debate-winners-losers.html?em_pos=small&ref=headline&nl_art=1&te=1&nl=opinion-today&emc=edit_ty_20190731?campaign_id=39&instance_id=11290&segment_id=15710&user_id=7bba122dbc8acf5289c69a5c9f2867a2®i_id=87407961emc=edit_ty_20190731
What do I think?
ReplyDeletePicture yourself in a boat on a river
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies.
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly,
A girl with kaleidoscope eyes.
Cellophane flowers of yellow and green
Towering over your head.
Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes
And she's gone.
Etc.
Thanks for the laugh of the day, Patrick! I usually start singing "White Rabbit" when she comes on, but Raber seems quite taken with Marianne and shushes me up.
DeleteRemember what the dormouse said
Feed your head, feed your head
Jim Geraghty may be right that more is going on than appears to the naked eye. But 20-something is not a manageable field, especially in a "debate" format that is really serial, drive-by cries for help. But I am bemused by the phenomenon that has emerged.
ReplyDeleteNot only did the New York Times pundit rate the performances ("Harry Truman's performance was marred by the way he used his hands") and demeanor ("Theodore will never get anywhere by shouting so much in that squeaky voice. And those spectacles!") of each candidate, but it also counted how much time each candidate got to make sound noises. The candidates with the most money, best poll numbers and most media attention (which have an uncanny 1:1:1 relationship) generally got the most, ta-da! time to talk. And why are we not surprised?
Thanks for the Beatles, Patrick, but I think Irving Berlin wrote the lyrics for this one:
There's no business
Like show business
Like no business, I know
Everything about it is appealing
Everything the traffic will allow
Nowhere could you get that happy feeling
When you are stealing a graf in Dowd
Or maybe the model is just the WWE Smackdown.
Oh, and this just in... Joe Biden says he will not be so nice tonight to Kamala Harris and Cory Booker. No word from Harris or Booker, but the latter is probably over the moon that Biden mentioned him.
DeleteI'm going to call it now. It will be Warren/Harris.
DeletePatrick, Warren/Harris to be the perceived winners of tonight's debate? Or the ultimate Dem ticket after it's all said and done?
DeleteI predict that they will be the ultimate choice.
DeleteIn today's Acts of Faith newsletter from the WaPo
ReplyDelete"I’ve worked for Marianne Williamson. She is no kook."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2019/07/31/ive-worked-marianne-williamson-she-is-no-kook/?utm_term=.a94f9d1f1b0e&wpisrc=nl_faith&wpmm=1
Sorry. Call me biased. But anyone who follows A Course in Miracles professionally is a kook.
DeleteWe are going to be seeing a lot of public support for the worst Dem candidates from certain "concerned citizens" from now on.
Marianne Williamson is just another very savvy televangelist. Her comments and demeanor are dog whistles to well-heeled liberals attracted to woo-woo because orthodoxy is so confining and free to the hoi polloi.
DeleteWilliamson, in many respects, is not unlike Trump in that she is a self-promoter, good at "reading" her base, and can use the presidential run as a way to get a wider forum in which to tout her ideas.
With that skill set, maybe she's the One, spoken of in prophecy, who can defeat the Orange Dragon.
DeleteDon't take my word about Williamson+Trump. Just saw a whole thing about in WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/08/01/self-centered-religion-shared-by-marianne-williamson-president-trump/
Delete