Authoritarianism And Codependency Of The American Voter Ft. Marianne Williamson
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And we have the perfect guest for that today. We do. Mary Lynn Williamson. What's going on, girl? Hello. A disruptor in the Democratic Party. Yeah, I certainly tried. Certainly tried. Well, that's what I want to ask. I'm like, you've been running for office for a long time. You come out here with all these ideas. And then, like, what makes you want to run for office when the Democratic Party puts such a, like, stiff arm at you at every fucking, like, corner? Yeah.

It's so funny. Both my Republican and my Democratic friends would text me. It's like, he's just not that into you. They don't like you, honey. They don't like you. I think I, um,

I foresaw. Yeah. Okay. I saw what was coming and I had to feel that at least I tried on every possible level and, uh, all the way through running for DNC chair. Yeah. So, um, I feel like I'm the one person in America who can say, well, I really tried. And, um,

I mean, I'm not saying other people haven't made tremendous efforts towards everything that needs to happen. But I mean, in terms of electoral politics and the Democratic Party and what was needed on the presidential level and so forth. So I, yeah, it was like being a leg limper, you know. But that was then and this is now. Yeah.

As far as running, you know, I saw people say she's the perennial presidential candidate. Well, Joe Biden ran four times. Right. Within their club. Jill Stein. Running. Yeah. Let's talk about Jill Stein. All right. Because where's that bitch at? I don't know where she's gone. She like stole a bunch of votes from folks. She promised the world. And then just like she always does, she disappears. And so that's why I say I love me some Marianne Williamson because you at least stick around.

Well, that's not the main difference in my mind. The main difference is I ran as a Democrat. So I think a lot of uninformed Democrats looked at me that way. And the narrative that was created was she's a spoiler. But you can't be a spoiler when you're running as a Democrat. That's like seventh grade civics. So we are where we are. And as you are clearly responding to in most powerful ways, and I so commend you for that,

uh we have to now be with the present there's there will be a lot to talk about uh how a big hole was created and all that trump had to do was walk into it um and i do feel that very strongly and it goes back decades but right now uh is not the time so much for analysis as it is a time to respond to this moment which once again you do beautifully and i'm i'm with you and i think that uh

That's the conversation that most matters now to me. What do you think about the new DNC leadership? We've got Ken Martin now and we've got David Hagen as a vice chair and a couple other folks. Like having gone through that experience, you were on stage with them, hearing from them as they were giving their answers to the debate topics. Like, how are you feeling about the DNC structure right now?

The DNC should be doing what you're doing. Oh, what's that mean? Like how? You're on it. This is what happened today. This is what the woman in Hawaii did. This is what the Shats did. This is what you can do. You do watch the show, Marianne. Thank you. I do. If I had been DNC chair, you would have received a phone call from me. Same.

quickly, the people who won are the best that in the box will give you. We are now at a point where the box is so saturated with the obsolete and inadequate that the fact that they're the best that the old system will give you, I wish them well. But, you know, beginnings are everything. And

I said on some podcast, well, let's give Ken six weeks. I endorsed him because the other person who was a main contender was definitely of the corruption of the old, and I had experienced it myself, kicking people off the ballots who you don't want because you think the party has a right to endorse and all of those things, which are absolutely untrue.

I know just the way energy works. They had to come out like now. That's one thing you have to say about the Republicans. They will pivot on a dime if something's not working. And you know, it's interesting because a lot of them come from the private sector, but

if it's not working on Wednesday, you better fix it by Thursday or you could go under on Saturday. The Democrats have not fully faced that we are under. They lost White House, House and Senate and all these state legislators, which are now not just majority Republican, but even super majorities. And we are in the midst. We are not approaching. We are not at the risk of. We are in the midst of an authoritarian takeover. And they're still talking and acting like it's, what, 1995.

So yeah, for 1995, I mean, they're always, they're like, they're a beat behind. So now they're saying all the things that I was trying to say and that other progressives were trying to say for the last few years. Now they need to be, you

But you're doing it. And I think that that's the point. The impulse of this moment, the zeitgeist of resistance is not coming from there. Is there anyone who you think is doing a good job? Within that system? Absolutely. Either within or just around? Yeah. Well, besides people like yourselves and Chris Murphy, Senator Chris Murphy. I love Jasmine Crockett from Texas. Yeah, of course. I love Greg Sazer. And immediately what...

If the Democrats were really on it, they would get together now just like they did in the Republicans. Man, they get rid of a House leader they don't like. And immediately they should put in someone with the fire of a Jasmine Crockett, with the fire of a Greg Cesar. And they should demand it.

And because there are individuals doing good things, like you were talking about Schatz, like you're talking about the senator from Hawaii. So it's not like individuals aren't making efforts, but the overall face of the party is still the old sclerotic elite establishment that somehow does not exist.

has not psychologically and emotionally taken in the level of the defeat that we are all experiencing. They're not taking it in because it's because of them. And if they had a shred of honor, they would shut up, step aside and hand it over to people who might know what to do now.

Okay, Marianne. Yeah. Do you, you know, one person who is taking, I think, quite a bit of initiative is Bernie Sanders by going around the country for his No Dictators, No Oligarchs tour. Now, the fact that a man in his 80s is the one hoofing it across the country is, I think, quite...

But what do you think of that approach of taking it local and physically going into people's spaces? We're in the midst of an all systems breakdown and we have to have an all systems response. Anything and everything. Yes. You could not name one thing that I wouldn't say. Yes, please. Podcast. Yes. Oligarchy, anti-oligarchy tour. Yes. Run for office. Yes. There's nothing that we don't need to do. And he even said something, you know, the Republican Party,

an outsider who didn't think inside, who was outside the box and who said, we're going to change everything came along. Well, guess what? You had a Democrat who came from the outside and wanted to change everything and thought outside the box. To me, that was a homeopathic remedy, whether it was me or someone else. Me personally is irrelevant, but that homeopathic energy

They were so like, no, you're not qualified because to them, ultimately the qualification meant qualified to perpetuate the system as it is. And to a great extent, Bernie existed within that. However, huzza, huzza, huzza, huzza, everything he's done, much love, much adoration, much respect.

And of course, it's wonderful what he's doing. And at this point, one tour is not going to do it. One podcast is not going to do it. It has to be each and every one of us every single day. I feel like people didn't understand maybe because you're a woman, maybe for a number of reasons, the sort of new age spiritual background. I feel like they didn't really understand what you were trying to say.

And what you were trying to say was more of a cultural argument.

where people are less at each other's throats, are more personally connected to each other, and that there's a bigger reason why this hate is appealing to people beyond the words that he's saying, beyond the fact that people want to build a wall on the southern border. And I think that there was sort of this like miss with what argument you were trying to make because they're also stuck on tactical changes when there is no...

Mm-hmm.

Well, everything you were saying about what they do, quote unquote, wrong, I certainly agree with. In terms of attitudes towards myself, I don't think it's that simple. First of all, if you actually look at my work, it's very traditional. It's ecumenical. It's universal spiritual themes. But I'm talking about what's at the heart of all the great religious systems. I'm not a...

You know, I'm not chanting under the moon and cut velvet. That's actually not me. I am, but people tried to paint you as this like kooky whack job and that was so unfair. That's exactly right. But that's what they do. They character assassinate.

That's exactly what they do if they don't want someone in the conversation. So this whole idea of woo-woo, crystal lady, this was said by people who have not read my books and who just didn't want anyone who was not already in the club. So I think you actually – so there's some stuff in your books and some stuff that you've said that I think is universally true to today. So I want to ask you – take us back to the 90s for just a quick second when you were sort of like –

yourself realizing what the energy in the world was like. One of the things that you said was in your 20s, you were in an existential despair, distracted by, quote, bad boys and good dope.

Same. Okay. I think we all feel that, right? But what did you learn from that? And what do you think that young people in their 20s and 30s now who are similarly still facing existential despair can do to get out of that? My 20s were garden variety. The problem is that they were not yet calling it a mental illness. Mm-hmm.

The 20s are hard. Yeah. They are hard for every generation. They are not a mental illness that a multibillion-dollar pharmaceutical industry has yet figured out that they can exploit for profit. Mm-hmm.

I mean, when I have talked to some of the people who were treated the way they were treated, when I asked them what the trauma was, they fell in love for the first time. They had their first heartbreak. It's not a mental illness. It's your first heartbreak. It's terrible. It's not a mental illness. So none of that is what led me into the political arena. I was always interested in politics, but when I was in college,

You read Ram Dass and Alan Watts in the morning, and then you went to a Vietnam War anti-war protest in the afternoon. There were no separate lanes. It was a countercultural revolution. It was politics. It was spirituality. It was sexual. It was musical. It was spiritual. It was everything. Nobody told you to pick a lane. It was understood this was about our humanity.

I felt that my main way that I could be of service as my life unfolded was in the area of personal and spiritual transformation. Although I even then was very active as a nonprofit activist as well. However, what I began to see over 20 years, and that 20 years makes sense because it was the 20 years since Ronald Reagan is really what we're talking about here.

When I first knew people, you know, my career developed in a way that I was very up close and personal with people whose lives were in big trouble. But when my career began, America still worked for most people. So the agony, the dark hour of agony was usually an exception and not the rule. Oh.

What I began to notice towards the end of the 1990s and as the 2000s came is how many people I met whose despair was,

was the rule and not the exception. It wasn't just that they got cancer. It's that they had no health care. It wasn't just that they didn't have a job. Yeah, they had a job, but they had to work three of them to put food on the table. So I began to realize the ways in which no amount of private charity and no amount of personal transformation

would compensate for a basic lack of social justice. Don't you dare tell me to help people be resilient. In the richest country in the world, why should it be so hard? Right. So what do you think blocks the progress on any of that? Because I agree with you. I think really what leads to those lives of despair and leads to this sort of tragic outcome

anger. And, you know, I think about it with like the Luigi Mangione situation. Like that is a, that is a something someone turned to when they, they thought there was no way that there was going to be any change. And what do you think that ultimately, how do you, I guess, make the argument that

So much of our dysfunction leads to the fact that people are just generally unstable because capitalism at this point requires this from people. You can't live in survival month after month and year after year and not have a quote unquote mental health crisis.

A U.S. senator once said to me when I was running a non-denominational spiritual church thing in Detroit, Ms. Williamson, do you have any idea maybe what we should do about the mental health crisis? And I said to her, yeah, stop driving everybody crazy.

We are the only advanced democracy that does not have universal health care. In no other advanced democracy are people putting GoFundMe pages up on the internet to try to pay for life-saving operations. You have 70 to 90 million people in this country who are underinsured or uninsured. The crisis of underinsured, yeah, people have insurance that covers going to the doctor. Mm-hmm.

But it doesn't cover the tests that the doctor says you have to have. 18 million people, even those who are insured, can't afford the prescriptions that the doctors give them. I have had doctors say to me, I don't even know why I bother practicing medicine anymore. It's tragic. People used to say to me, what are the side effects today? They say, what would it cost? So what does it help them to go to the doctor? Meanwhile, in 2016, and this is why Bernie, I believe, would have won. He was saying,

Medicare for all, Medicare for all, Medicare for all. And so it's not like the Democrats didn't have the winning issues. It's that the Democratic elite and the establishment that hold it hostage did not want to put out the real winning issues

And I saw it this time, too. They'd rather lose to a Donald Trump than actually disconnect from the donor base that they had on levels that they feel they needed. Just the effort they put into keeping you out of even being on like the Vogue list or any of the lists. I mean, we talked about it on Under the Desk, too. Every time a list would come out about who was running, you were a registered running person and they would like leave you out. But then they would put in somebody who didn't even have one percent of the vote or didn't have anything. And I thought that that was

That started to become, to me, very obvious and intentional and unfortunate. It's a political media industrial complex. So they partner. And yes, invisibilization. Complete invisibilization. In a way, and you're absolutely right. Even, like just my name not even mentioned, even when I was...

higher in the polls. So when CNN, now in 2020, it wasn't that way. So in 2020 out of CNN town hall, for instance, this time, even when my poll numbers were higher than a Chris Christie or Vivek Ramaswamy, even at one point, Nikki Haley, they do the Republicans and not me. But,

But let's talk about the unbelievable codependency of the normal average Democratic voter that they went along with that. That people thought somehow it was like a Wizard of Oz thing, that somehow there are these really brilliant strategists up there in the high levels of some Mount Olympus Democratic Party, and they must know. So we have to do what they say. And they would absolutely lie with things like, we don't – oh, we don't –

We don't primary a sitting president. Well, I'm old enough to remember Lyndon Johnson. He was damn well, he was a sitting president. Eugene McCarthy primaried him. Bobby Kennedy Sr. And by the way, that's what made Johnson drop out.

Eugene McCarthy did so well in New Hampshire, but they wanted to just protect Joe no matter what because they had decided. Right. They. What did you think of the postmortem from after the election? Did you tune into any of that? Yeah, I did. And, you know, my own ego would get a little involved there because...

I didn't hear anybody say, well, that's exactly what Marianne Williamson was saying. You know, because we all know she's invisible and didn't really exist. Or she's a joke. And also the interesting thing, well, she's a joke. We can't possibly consider her. Came from people who knew I was not a joke. They had been in the room when I spoke. And so their whole idea is to say whatever you think it will take to get people not to listen to her.

The manipulation, the exploitation, I want you to think she's such a joke that you would be considered a joke if you even went to hear her.

I'm telling you, I mean, I know that you felt that. We certainly felt that kind of pressure from all kinds of people. And something I want to come to just quickly next is if it wasn't people putting you and Jill Stein in the same package as if you were in any way alike, which you weren't, it was people putting you and Oprah in the same package. And they were like, well, she's just an Oprah personality. I was like, I don't think that that's exactly true. I think certainly she was recognized by Oprah. But on the other side, you know,

at least Marianne Williamson isn't trying to fucking kill us like Dr. Phil or Dr. Oz is. I mean, crossing over with somebody is not necessarily an indication of good or bad, but can you talk about a little bit sort of the Oprah effect that was on this past election, the good, the bad, the ugly? Well,

Well, also, first of all, I have to say, I think a lot of people are not old enough to remember a time of her sort of heyday. That woman has done so much for this country and for this world and for many people in their individual careers, including mine. So she really gave me exposure. So I have tremendous respect for her. But I want to go back a little bit because even though towards the beginning, you had made some comment about how, well, you came from the spiritual new age. If anyone actually read my issues page.

Mm-hmm.

Nobody had an issues page like mine. Mine is a straight up, pretty far left, you know, issues page over and over and over again. So people saying that she was just about those things, the intellectual laziness, those were people who had not read my website and had not listened to me and had not read my books. Also, I don't think it's bad to be a crystals girly. Even, I'm not saying that you are, but I am. I'm like constantly looking for a little something to just give you peace in the day. I don't think that was so disqualifying if it was true. Like, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I...

I have great respect, for instance, for self-help authors. It's just that I'm not one. Right, right, right. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. It's not, you know. Yeah. I think it was really like an aesthetic kind of distinction. Yeah. And also because when you were looking at this many candidates, I'm thinking in like 2019, right?

There was nothing, not much to really distinguish them in terms of policy. It was either like moderate or progressive. And I think for part of me feels like if you would run as a Republican. Yeah. Oh, they would have gone crazy for you. Republicans tell me that all the time. Republicans say, come on over. We love you. In fact, that's what's so strange to me. So a lot of Republicans, this is how they look at me. Well, I don't agree with anything she says politically, but she's a nice lady. I kind of like her.

How the left looked at me was, well, I agree with her, but I didn't like her. It's not her turn. She's not in this line of succession we've decided. Yeah, all that. It all goes back to this, like, self-seriousness. Like, we have to come... You have to be able to rise in a certain way and in a certain, like, lineage. And...

But the Republicans don't do that. Right. No, they don't. That's what's so interesting. Vivek Ramaswamy wasn't an elected official. Donald Trump wasn't an elected official. When I, in 2019, we would sort of go places, you know, all the candidates together. And every time Amy Klobuchar saw me, she would say, are you having fun yet? Oh, God, that was such a good impression. That was just scary. I wish that I had had...

what it takes to say to her, let's be very clear. Yeah. I don't need your permission to be here. James Madison gave me permission to be here. That's right, girl. Born here, 35 or older, 14 years lived here. The founders did not mean to be creating a political class, but the Democrats had this idea that in order to be qualified, you had to be one of them, come up through their ranks, which another thing about that is,

they think that they're the only people who have had careers. Right, right. We've just had different experiences and different qualifications. And I think right now, someone who has the qualification of having worked closely with sociopaths for 40 years and knows a lot about the psychology of sociopathy and what it does to people's lives and how to dismantle it, it is exactly the kind of qualification we could use right now. Yeah, girl, I feel that.

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Hey, I got another question because you're talking about how like the Republicans, you know, they basically want you to come on over here because they know you're dynamic, you're interesting, you have good thoughts.

With the RFK Jr. and the Maha stuff, there's a lot of danger in that world, though, of having somebody like him do Maha. What's your take on the Make America Healthy Again situation we're in with them over there? You were mentioning before about the debates in 2020, and I was the one who said...

We don't have a health care system. We have a sickness care system. But in order to address that, we'd have to look at our food policies, our chemical policies, our agricultural policies, at which point they'd like grab that microphone away from me as soon as possible. So the general issue of the, and one of the things I talked about on that debate stage was we have the highest level of chronic disease.

of any nation. So the larger issue, and then actually I never said anything about vaccines like he did. However, the pharmaceutical companies and all that, they will project to make it. Now, as far as Bobby is concerned, I consider him a friend and I feel if you take the vaccine thing away,

Because we agree that vaccines are safe and they should be given to us. I think everything needs to be looked at. Listen, measles, mumps, rubella, trouble, infectious diseases, you don't mess with that. Right. In terms of other elements and should there be scientific, same scientific exploration as with other things. Yeah. There were some legitimate questions people had. I knew women who were PhDs in biochemistry whose careers were ruined because they dared to ask questions. So, yeah.

I don't know why this slavish attitude towards anything Big Pharma says as well. However, what I've seen happen over the last even couple of months is very disturbing to me. I don't care. I used to say to people who had become very enthusiastic about Bobby, I used to say during the campaign, but aren't you afraid?

that by his endorsing Trump, you are giving heft, sharing heft, political weight with someone who could become an authoritarian dictator.

Yeah. So what we're going to be healthy, but living in a fascist society. So at this point, to me, a very powerful moral statement would have been over the last two months if Bobby had said, I can't.

No, I'm with you. That's my opinion. And I think that did certainly have an outsized impact on Trump gaining so many votes with the RK, Jenny, Purple. We could have had that. We could have had it. Yeah. We could have had that. I was talking about that stuff before and then also kicking Bobby out that way. We could have had that. And-

Yeah, we could have had that. And by the way, all of the people, and this is part of what's so sad, prior to this phenomenon of what we're going through now, if you look at the people who were the food activists, they were Democrats. Right. So where do you think they went wrong? Is it with like the corporate capture? Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely. Absolutely. As soon, you know, Bill Clinton seemed to say, we can, we can try to help people, but also play with the big boys. So they adopted this template. We really feel your pain. We want to do everything we can to help you, but we will not cross the line past which we would be offending our corporate donors. And of course, of course, Citizens United and all of that made it so much worse. But, you know, in 2008, it was,

such a light. That campaign, the Obama campaign was so exciting. This country gave him the mandate to be the president he said he was going to be. He had the House, he had the White House, he had the Senate. And as soon as he got in there, within about six weeks, it was obvious not what he was going to do. Do you think that was maybe because he hadn't yet had the experience to navigate

you know, he hadn't been in government for that long. And my feeling with Obama was like, he came in with these ideals, but then he was able to sort of be misled into making certain compromises, especially because he came in during the financial crisis. And like, maybe he didn't see how his values would map onto his actions in a long-term way. Boy, the excuses we make for handsome men, huh? Yeah.

There are things which George Bush would do and we would all yell at bloody murder. But if Obama did them, oh, poor baby. Poor baby, they won't let him. But he made no indication that he wanted even to try.

So, yeah, it is true that, and it's certainly obvious now, but this has been true for a while, the Democrats, the Republicans will win an election. They consider their win their mandate, which it is, by the way, and they will go so far as to abuse their power. Democrats act like this, well, we'll have to wait for the next term. We didn't really win a mandate. Help us win. Send us some money. No. Our codependency with that, our enabling that. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Stop asking me for $3, Nancy Pelosi. I don't have it. And that's one thing about Republicans, man. They hold, look at the Tea Party. Look at MAGA now. They might put somebody in office if they do what they don't like. We're just, the Democrats have just become a spineless bunch over the last few decades. And I didn't grow up in an age where we were the spineless people. We were the cool people. We were the creative thinkers. We were the life ships. Hello. Hello.

Well, that's tight. I have a question about growing up, too, because I know your dad's an immigration lawyer, your brother's an immigration lawyer. Immigration was a big topic this particular election cycle. And I'm not sure that people really got to hear your thoughts on immigration and, you know, what's going on here. So, like, maybe tell us a little bit about what you know with this sort of family and legacy knowledge here.

Well, yeah. My father was a labor organizer in 1937 with a then CIO organizing the Ford labor, I mean, the Ford motor plants in Detroit, Michigan. My brother worked for Cesar Chavez. I was brought up to believe you cross a picket line, don't bother to come home. See?

And nobody let her talk about this, right? Because everything we learned about you was, oh, she's a kook. She's a kook. But you guys are now listening and you're like, fuck, how come we didn't get to hear any of this stuff, right? Because they wouldn't have me on. Right. They wouldn't let me debate. They wouldn't give me a town hall. They wouldn't have me. See, in 2019, I thought...

thought for a minor candidate, I got fair coverage actually. I was on MSNBC enough. I was on CNN enough. I got a CNN town hall. I was on the debate stage. Yeah, they put me over on the side. But I was a minor candidate. This time, I had one interview on ABC the morning after I announced and somebody went, no. And so the only place where they would ask me about issues would be on Fox. Yeah.

Yeah. And Al Jazeera. Yeah. Yeah. So they, they didn't want you to hear my views on things. Right. Okay. And I don't want to make this about me. This is about anyone. The point is not me. I'm a big girl. It's about the fact that they would not allow any voices other than theirs. And the job of a, of a, the, the political party is, should not be a gatekeeper like that.

Didn't Dean Phillips sort of run to show that you couldn't run? Like that was kind of his point of his campaign. No, I think the point of Dean's campaign, and I can go back to immigration if you want. The point of Dean's campaign, Dean felt that his age, that Biden's age made him unelectable. Yeah, it did. Yeah. And I felt it was not just his age. I felt it was a lot of things made him unelectable. I'm with you. Because...

Yeah, let's go back to your dad and your brother and the labor and the immigration stuff, because I really want you to be able to talk about that. So organized labor is the greatest bulwark against assault by unfettered capitalism. Right. You know, period, end of story. And that is why, you know, the first...

The NLRB, which, by the way, people need to understand. I don't know if you've covered this yet on TikTok. I haven't seen it, but you need to. Right. NLRB, now he's below quorum. He fired the director. He fired one of the members. And remember, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have already sued trying to take it to the Supreme Court to say that the NLRB is unconstitutional. This is who Musk is. Yeah.

Then that happened even before. So protecting labor, of course, when you look at the whole assault on that $50 trillion transfer of wealth over the last 50 years has been made up, of course, the tax cuts for the very, very rich and demonizing unions have been a big part of that. I've liked, I think Sean Fain shows some...

You know, the kind of spirit that we need. But a little late, hello, because for years they were compromising. And I think Americans need to remember that there was a bipartisan bill over $8 billion. This is all Congress's fault for years and years that they wouldn't fix this. There was a bipartisan bill. It was Donald Trump who walked in.

and told the Republicans not to pass it because it would have given Joe Biden a win because he knew it would have helped. And at this point, what is happening with ICE...

41, you know, they said we're going to take the worst criminals first, but 41% are people who had no criminal record whatsoever. I think we're all pretty much turning a blind eye at this point. Tom Holman, these people are cruel. And I think we should be very aware of this. When you look at every, not just ICE.

And Tom Holman, when you look at the way Musk is sending these insulting letters, there is a cruelty to what these people are doing. There's almost a sadism to what these people are doing. I really believe that that's sort of the underlying reason.

sort of psychological, the animating psychology of this whole thing is people get to act out their anger and cruelty in a way that seems political, but is really just they're letting their own hatred kind of

flow out of them. Yeah, I also think Republicans have a humiliation kink, but that's just my own thing. If you hate other people, you hate yourself. I said I also think Republicans have a humiliation kink. I think there's something about folks like Marjorie Taylor Greene who like to get up there and cause a scene and be insane, and they do it for the kicks of it, not because they think there's any kind of benefit. They just like

don't understand the difference between positive and negative attention or something. Do you remember that moment a few weeks ago between Marjorie Taylor Greene and Jasmine Crockett? Yes. That's why you need Jasmine Crockett. I know. She knew how to give it back and those two white men standing there like Raskin sort of understood and the Republicans were like, what? What is a bleached blonde bitch body? Bad blonde blonde bad bitch body, whatever. Yeah, the whole thing. It's wild. It really is.

So another thing that you did that folks might not know is you run a series of different nonprofits that kind of like built on fixing a new problem that you found from the old problem. So I really appreciate that about you. And I want to know, in this era where Donald Trump and Elon Musk are essentially taking away all the federal funding that usually supports really good nonprofit work, where people are coming into a situation where they have less and less disposable income to help support those charities that they really care about, what do you think about the kind of like nonprofit situation we're in right now and

Like how, what do you think about it, I guess? Did you see what happened at the Carter Center yesterday? No. Jimmy Carter. Do y'all know about that yet? No. No. Jimmy, I'm so glad that he has already passed away. This would have broken his heart.

So the Jimmy Carter Center had published its schedule for the next few months. There was a woman who'd written a book about climate change, someone who'd written a book about homelessness, and someone who'd written a book about the civil rights movement. They were told that they would now cancel those talks and that from this point forward, from this point forward, all scheduling would need to go through the National Archives.

Oh, wow. I know.

This is a cultural takeover. So even what you just asked was asked from a place of, given that we are a free society and nonprofits can do what they want to do as long as they follow the law. Right. I don't even feel that they're coming for everybody. Right. So is it mutual aid then? It's even smaller than a big nonprofit. It's like the only thing we could do is try to help who's next to us right now. I don't know. I think, you know,

I'm a believer. First of all, two things. I think nature is organizing the resistance. And by that, I mean, each of us is being led to do that, which we can do. You're doing the podcast. You're doing a TikTok. Another person is writing another person. You know what I'm saying? Everybody's doing their part. And another line from Gandhi, he said,

When asked who is the leader of the Indian independence movement, he said, the small, still voice for God. Oh, no, he said the small, still voice within is what he said. So I think if somebody feels that it's in the area of nonprofit, they should definitely do that. The only thing I will say is that

Their plan, this is not just, yeah, they were serious about Project 2025. This is they're adding steroids to it. So I think they will be on the lookout for anything that they can possibly pick apart. But I don't say that to increase people's sense of despair.

Sure.

this narrative that was promulgated about anti-electoralism. Right. Mm-hmm. So do something that can actually matter. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Oh, there's just, there's so much to talk about, but well, maybe you can give us a little hope though, because you're good at this too. Like, obviously, you've been told, you've been told no a lot. You've been, like you've said, you've been in a situation where you've been 20 and it's difficult. You've been 30 and it's difficult. You've changed paths so many times. Like, is there anything we can learn from the past right now that can help us in this moment and not have despair and turn the tides? Yes, absolutely. And thank you for giving me that opportunity. Yeah, raise us up, Marianne. We're ready to go.

So when I was asked after running for president twice, what was your experience? Both times I said the same thing, that the system was even more corrupt than I had feared. And the people of the United States are even more wonderful than I would have hoped. I have traveled this country extensively in both aspects of my career. The problem is not the American people. That's the tragedy here.

The idea of a full-on representative democracy, the whole Jeffersonian concept that the only safe repository for power in this country is in the hands of the people is absolutely correct. And that's why to see any political party withdrawing support from the hands of the people thinking they know better was an attack on democracy itself. And that's what they thought. Democracy is under threat. Therefore, we have to suppress democracy. The answer now is,

This country was founded. I'm a romantic about American history. I'm a romantic about the Declaration of Independence.

All men are created equal. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. This is a spiritual and moral statement as well as a political one. It was baked into the cake at the beginning. We had out of 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence, all of whom were risking their lives to sign that document because of the British and one that would have been hanged, 41 of the 56 were slave owners. So from the very, very beginning,

We had this struggle. This characterological bipolarity is part of our DNA. Every generation from the beginning all the way, even now, we are reiterating the same pattern. The struggle and the contest between those who get the profundity

in terms of the ages, not just me and my life, but in terms of the ages that you would have a society in which the goal is for anyone to have a chance to thrive, for anyone to have a chance to self-actualize, for anyone, no matter who they are, to have a chance to soar. It's extraordinary. It was life-changing and it's radical today. But there have also been from the beginning with slavery and

Those who, for their own ideological and or financial purposes, no different than these tech bros today, who for their own purposes found the democratic ideal inconvenient. And they have proven over and over that they will go to the most atrocious lengths to limit the capacity of democracy to expand. Now, let's look at our history.

We pushed them back. A generation responded to slavery with abolition. They responded to the institutionalized oppression of women with the women's suffrage movement. They responded to the Gilded Age with the establishment of organized labor. And they responded to segregation with the civil rights movement. It's our turn. Now, the problem is, because it's the same pattern, the problem is, or I won't say the problem, the challenge is. Okay.

Okay. That in all those other cases, it was a specific institutional identity which needed to be eradicated. It was like an invasive surgery needed to be done, and it brilliantly was. Okay, we need to abolish slavery. Okay, we need the 19th Amendment. Okay, we need to establish labor law. Okay, we need to segregate. We need to desegregate. We need a Civil Rights Act and voting. This is like a cancer that's already metastasized. Okay.

And the incredible lack of psychological perspicacity on the part of people who think they are so freaking smart, the pseudo-sophisticates who thought we don't need any of those kinds of thoughts. We got this. Like they didn't got this. And that they have the arrogance to still be there. But that's another topic. The point is now the American people, let's not be the first generation to wimp out on doing what it takes.

But the abolitionists and the women suffragists and the early labor organizers and the civil rights movement didn't wait for the Democratic Party. What? What? Or even the Republican Party. Now it's us. It's on us. So my hope is, you know, if you look at

First of all, we had to come out of our denial, right? You can't just jump to the resurrection. You got to know there was a crucifixion. You can't just jump to the entrance to the promised land. There was a slavery in Egypt. I mean, all these ancient archetypes are a message in how life works. But, you know, I was thinking this morning, and this is where...

Some people get like, oh, she's going to that religious stuff again. However, these are deep messages. They are ancient messages. So Moses had led the Israelites out of Egypt. They were on their way to the promised land, even though nobody knew where it was. About that point, the Pharaoh decided, I want my slaves back. So he sends the Egyptian army.

And he said, either kill them or bring them back to slavery. So talk about between Iraq and the higher place, because you're in front of the Red Sea. If you go into the Red Sea, you're going to drown. If you go back, the soldiers are either going to kill you or take you back to slavery. At that point, Moses raised his rod, and he was told, you have to wander into the water. You have to wander into the water. You have to wander into the water. And the water

It went all the way to here before the tunnel opened up, right, in the water, and then the Israelites were able to run through. And that's a sign that this is all about us now. If you're going to give in to despair, it won't happen. If you're going to spiral down, it won't happen. If you're going to cave, it won't happen. If you're going to acquiesce, it won't happen. But if you stay strong with intention, this isn't going to happen on my watch,

Because listen, all the money, all the power, all the technology of the time was in the hands of the slave owners. They always have that worldly power. We have intention.

We have that I would rather die standing than live on my knees. If we summon up and outgrow our complacency, which I don't think anybody's complacent right now, but if we really stand strong and every day participate and do something, do not count us out, you know, Churchill once said.

You can always count on Americans to do the right thing after we have exhausted every other option. We are often slow to get there. Everybody in the world knows it about us. They know the world is on fire and we aren't noticing. But once we get there, we slam it like nobody's business. And that's where my hope comes from. I

I know the American people. I know how the system, how inadequate our political system is to handling this moment. But I know within us, all of us, you, millions of us, and don't even think about being in the box.

Just do what you get today. You know what? I'm going to do it. And so, yeah, my father used to say, don't let the bastards get you down, little sister, as long as we're doing that. And we can't coddle in ourselves and we shouldn't coddle it in each other.

Poor me. No, we were born for this. Do you think that we've exhausted every option yet? No, we haven't even begun to exhaust every other option. We're just at the beginning. What we want to have because then that means we're going to do the right thing. Exactly. We're asking for some help. We're ready. Yeah.

Oh, man, I hope we made all the bad decisions so far. I think Elon is certainly the harbinger of hell for me personally. So I'm hoping that we're at the end of that. I got to tell you, this is the second time Moses has come up on this show this month. We're on a Moses kick lately. We talk about Moses a lot here. All the time here. But the thing is, I do think that what the right has is they have a spiritual calling towards what they're voting for. And I think that in many cases...

Is it a spiritual calling? I think they, what I mean is many of them are motivated by religious values that are sort of eternal beliefs. And I don't know that,

the left has offered something on that level of values that they've been stood up to that people can really trust. I don't know when the over secularization of the left began because Bobby Kennedy is the one who originally said that we were fighting for the soul of America. And of course, Martin Luther King was a Baptist preacher, but I felt even with, with me, I felt so looked down on and I'm thinking, well,

You do realize that 90% of the American people say they believe in God, right? And you are absolutely right. There's an arrogance and a condescension towards people of faith that was just plain strategically stupid, if nothing else. Not everything. It was just country. Yeah. But also, you know what's very interesting that you might not, a lot of people I don't think realize, when you look at the greatest social justice movements in the history of the United States,

most of them actually emerged from religious or spiritual centers. In the days of abolition, there was black abolition. Obviously, the movement itself was segregated. But among white abolitionists, they emerged from the early evangelical churches in New Hampshire. And among the women suffragists, most of them were religious Quakers. The entire suffrage movement came from the Quakers. And of course, Dr. King was a Baptist preacher.

Because what a religious or spiritual perspective gives you is two characterological aspects that I think speaks to what you were saying. Number one, first of all, I think the left has been very hampered. When you have no sense of the larger spiritual dynamic, you become very naive about evil. Mm-hmm.

and all of a sudden it's on you and you don't know what to do, well, you made fun of people who recognized it. When you say the larger spiritual dynamic, can you be just a little more clear about what, I think I know what you mean, but just-

There is the sense of the counterforce. There is the sense of the destructive power. You don't have to call it the devil, but it's an aspect in human consciousness which is purely without love. Yes. And it is active and it exists in our minds. And if you do not fill the room with light, the darkness sets in. Fear, fear.

All evil is simply a lack of love. And that's why you need to take care of people and you need to take care of the earth. You need to do the good stuff. And so what has happened in American politics over the last few decades is it was so amoral. Democratic politics, that is what this particular strain of capitalism was. Even Adam Smith, who was the main architect of free market capitalism, said it cannot exist outside an ethical context. Mm-hmm.

So what a, not a dogmatic or doctrinaire, but just some level of religious and spiritual understanding. Number one, that you find what you see as evil intolerable. Not going to happen. Not going to happen. Not going to bend. And number two, you have a faith that something else is possible. You see the light on the other side of the horizon. Mm-hmm.

Can I add a third? Because I've had my own spiritual journey. And I think that for me, the thing that it gave me, and I am not a practicing religious person, but I do believe in God and I do believe in a higher force and spiritual energy. And I think the thing that that gave me is this sort of innate respect for other human beings or beings in general, simply because they are. And that someone's worth does not come from...

what they've earned or what they look like or how able they are. And I think that that's kind of the piece that got lost because

in the past few years, decades really, is that the value of humans just because they are human beings. That's exactly it. That is, you so eloquently put it. And once again, that goes back to all men are created equal, given by God, the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Governments are instituted to secure those rights and

And that if government's not doing its job, it is the right of the people to alter it or to abolish it. What you just said and said so beautifully is exactly what the moral basis of the Declaration of Independence is. And over the last few decades, if the Democratic Party stops being the keeper of that,

And this soulless, amoral, sociopathic strain of capitalism becomes our bottom line and supersedes humanitarian and democratic values. You know what you get? What we got. And anybody with the slightest knowledge of history would have seen it coming.

Anytime you have large groups of desperate people, what you just said, when you do not take care of people, large groups of desperate people become a petri dish.

out of which throughout history, all manner of societal and personal dysfunction inevitably arises, including ideological capture by genuinely psychotic forces and the rise of and attraction to the political strongman. Hello. Oh my gosh. And that's how we got here. You know, like as a, as a queer person, since the eighties and nineties, when I grew up in the Catholic church,

feeling completely rejected by religions or having a lot of religious trauma from all the bad stuff that was happening in religion made a lot of folks like me leave the church or leave the idea of church or the idea of, well, does God actually care about me because I don't fit into any of these particular religions? And I have to say, I shouldn't be as shocked and sort of energized by the things you're saying like,

but this is maybe the first time that I felt like, oh, you can't have a relationship with God or universe or bigger than you without being a part of what caused you harm, which was the structure of a religious abuse. And I bet there's a lot of folks listening at home right now who are feeling maybe as like internally confused as I am, but it's okay. We're learning. We're learning new things here on the show. This has been happening though. The largest denomination, uh,

of so-called religious denomination in America today is called the unchurched. The unchurched, yeah. Okay, that makes sense. People who have rejected the dogma and doctrine of organized religions, but then found they had thrown away the baby with the bathwater. They never meant to disconnect, much as you were saying. They never meant to disconnect from the gold at the center of it all, which is universal spiritual themes. Right.

And community and love and rejecting evil and being able to recognize evil and all that kind of stuff, for sure. If you want to know my little quickie theory on how this all plays into organized religion, it is that human beings who are flawed, ultimately, in order to maintain control in societies where there wasn't a governing structure or a sense of control, they're

What people in positions of power have done, some with better intentions than others, have, I don't want to say weaponized, but used the natural human inclination to believe in a spiritual...

In a spiritual God, you could call it whatever it is, force, and has taken that human feeling that is real and there is a creator and turned it into a system which is divorced from the spirituality. It can be used if you access it properly, but it doesn't mean that you are actually channeling that.

And that's organized religion. Well, absolutely. Some of the greatest evil perpetrated on the planet, both in the past and today, by the way, who are we kidding, is done in the name of God. And that is why in the First Amendment, our founders were aware of all that. And that's why they made freedom of religion, not only that you are free to worship how you wish, but whether or not you wish. But this is what the Democrats did.

People, as you were just saying, are hardwired to believe in a higher power. If you do not show respect for the real thing, people will fall for the ersatz version.

So the Democrats gave up morality and they gave up patriotism. They dropped them like, we're too cool. We're too cool to talk about those things. Dropped them like diamonds in the sand. And a bunch of far right wing extremists said, oh, we'll take that. We can use that. We can really...

You're right. Do something with that. I'm going to keep you here all day, Marianne. I've never felt so good in my life. Where are you guys? We're in New York, but we come down to DC quite a bit. I know you live in DC now, right? We'll have to get you to meet up or come back up again. I'd love to. I love New York. I'd absolutely love to. That would be fun. Let's do it. We can continue this conversation off mic. Yeah. What's next for you though? So now we're all rizzed up and feeling good. What's next for you in this, in this world?

I think that, you know, I said earlier this idea that nature is organizing the resistance. I think we all need to be very alert to what's happening in this moment. Relationships we already have. It's not about the future. It's about being fully present in this moment. So all I know is that I'm talking to you right now.

And that's enough. That's good advice. And I don't mean that theoretically. I mean it really truly. And I think that's another metaphysical concept, actually, that whatever you need, it's either right in front of you or on its way. We sometimes miss it. The metaphysical idea is that the universe works like a GPS, that if you take a wrong turn,

The GPS will automatically recalibrate. So the recalibration is going on right now. What's important is that we be receptive and available. Because nobody right now, you can't rationally figure out what to do when faced with utter insanity. Right.

It's a deeper level. It's a deeper level. And I think that's why the Dalai Lama said, in order to save the world, we must have a plan, but no plan will work unless we meditate. I used to say at my talks, pray in the morning, kick ass in the afternoon. So I think people are realizing, whether you see it in religious terms, spiritual terms, secular terms, it doesn't matter.

Something about preparing your nervous system because what is going on now, and they know this, and they're very good at this. They're very shrewd. They're very shrewd.

they're attacking our nervous system with all of this. It's an assault on the nervous system. That's why they're going so fast. That's why they're coming on, coming on. So to be able to prepare your nervous system so that you can both endure this moment and then transform this moment. So it's as much taking care of everything that needs to be taken care of on the vertical as it is, quote unquote, strategizing

on the horizontal because it's going to come from another place. Yeah. It reminds me of like what they tell you to do after grief is like, okay, accept that you're in the grief. You can't do anything but be in the grief. Your ship just sank. You're in the water. You're wet. Those are the things that your body can handle right now. And then once you recognize those things, you can maybe start to look around and see if there's an island you can swim to. But the place we're in right now is I'm in the water and I'm wet and I have to survive that first.

Is it that? Is it that though? I don't know. I think it's more like the house is on fire and my children are upstairs. I don't have time to see them grieve. I need to go get the kids. I think it's more urgent. I think we had two or three weeks of grief, actually. When I see you on TikTok, I don't see you speaking to the grief. Not anymore. Yeah.

I was devastated. So I don't think we don't need to be coddling our, we're all in despair. Okay. We all get it. You know, this is not, you know, you, there are a lot of hours in the day. You can cry for an hour and then get out there and kick ass and save your country. That makes sense. Yeah.

And keep your eyes open for your calling. I think that's the, that's really the answer. It's going to be different for everybody and it will be different for you in different moments. And the answer is to stay alert to that. Little things matter for sure. And no, nobody's part is more important than any others. That's something that happened on the left. We just thought they would handle. We farmed out our citizenship. We farmed out our own best thinking.

This is not an age of the soloists. This is an age of the choir. Everybody, sing your own note. Love that. Thank you, Marianne Williamson. And you are a singer. Do you still sing? In the shower. Okay. All right. Well, that's good, too. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for being here with us. You gave us a lot of hope today. And I hope that people at home learned just as much as we did. You're welcome back anytime. We appreciate you so much. Wonderful meeting you. And I hope we get a chance to meet privately as well. Absolutely. Let's do it. Am I...

a part of the Church of Marianne Williamson. I don't know. I'm feeling really good right now, though. And that's good enough for me today. That was great. I thought that was a lot of insight. And that is a voice that deserves to be heard. I agree. Yeah, it makes sense to me why she became an Oprah spiritual guru. I mean, she had some thoughts that slept. I agree.

Oh, totally. I think there's a lot to think about. And I love that idea of like pray in the morning, kick ass in the afternoon. Like we said, you know, it's important you take time for yourself and meditate. What's happening now is an attack on the nervous system. I just think there was so much to take from what she said, whether you're ever going to vote for her or not. Right. There was a lot of really valuable things. And I appreciate she came on and gave us that time. Totally. There's plenty of valuable things people can do that don't involve actually being the elected official. Yeah. But.

Until next time. I'm V Spear. And I'm Sammy Sage. And this is American Fever Drink. Good night.