Marianne Williamson

At 72 years old, Marianne Williamson has this physical status:

Marianne Deborah Williamson (born July 8, 1952) is an American author, spiritual leader, politician, and activist.

She has written 13 books, including four New York Times number one bestsellers in the "Advice, How To, and Miscellaneous" category.

She is the founder of Project Angel Food, a volunteer food delivery program that serves home-bound people with HIV/AIDS and other life-threatening illnesses.

She is also the co-founder of the Peace Alliance, a nonprofit education and advocacy organization supporting peace-building projects.In 2014, Williamson unsuccessfully ran as an independent to represent California's 33rd congressional district in the United States House of Representatives. On January 29, 2019, she announced her campaign for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 United States presidential election.

Early life and education

Williamson was born in Houston, Texas, in 1952, the youngest of three children of Samuel "Sam" Williamson, a World War II veteran and immigration lawyer, and Sophie Ann (Kaplan), a homemaker and community volunteer.

Williamson was raised upper-middle-class in Conservative Judaism. Her family attended Congregation Beth Yeshurun. She learned about world religions and social justice at home, but first became interested in speaking from the pulpit on social matters when she saw her rabbi speak against the Vietnam War. Her family also traveled internationally during the summers when she was a child. She has said that it was through travel that she "had an experience, at a young age, that people are the same everywhere."

Williamson attended Houston ISD's Bellaire High School, serving as class secretary of the student council. After graduating, she spent two years studying theater and philosophy at Pomona College in Claremont, California, where she was a roommate of eventual film producer Lynda Obst. In 1973, Williamson—an active antiwar protester—dropped out of college and lived "a nomadic existence" during what she calls "her wasted decade." She moved to New Mexico, where she took classes at the University of New Mexico and lived in a geodesic dome with her boyfriend. She broke up with her boyfriend a year later and moved to Austin, Texas, where she took classes at the University of Texas. After leaving Texas, she went to New York City, intending to pursue a career as a cabaret singer, but got distracted by "bad boys and good dope." Vanity Fair wrote that Williamson "spent her twenties in a growing state of existential despair". In New York, Williamson suffered from deep depression following the end of a relationship. She has said that this experience gave rise to a desire to spend the rest of her life helping people.

Personal life and family

Williamson's older brother, Peter, became an immigration lawyer, the same profession as the siblings’ father. Her late sister, Elizabeth "Jane", was a teacher. Her father, and maternal grandparents, were Russian Jewish immigrants. Her grandfather changed his surname from Vishnevetsky to Williamson after seeing "Alan Williamson Ltd" on a train.

Williamson described herself as a "Jewish woman" in a 2022 interview.

She was briefly married in 1979 to a Houston businessman. She said the marriage lasted "for a minute and a half."

She took in, and cared for, a friend who had terminal cancer.

In 1990, she gave birth to a daughter, India Emmaline. India pursued a doctorate in history at Goldsmiths College in London.

In 2006, a Newsweek poll named her one of the 50 most influential baby boomers.

Two years later, during the financial crisis, Williamson lost two of her homes in the Detroit metro area, valued at nearly $3 million, to foreclosure.

In 2013, Williamson reported having assets estimated to be valued between $1 million and $5 million (not including personal residences).

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Political career

Williamson ran as an Independent in California's 33rd congressional district in the US House of Representatives in 2014. She was lauded as a "tireless" campaigner, but she was chastised for failing to articulate concrete details in her plans. Her supporters characterized her lack of plans as a strength, but she claimed she was not a "made-to-order" candidate" who provided "lip service."

Prominent elected and public officials all supported her campaign, including Ben Cohen (of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream); former governors Jennifer Granholm and Jesse Ventura; former legislator Dennis Kucinich and Alan Grayson; and Van Jones. "Today" by Alanis Morissette wrote and performed Williamson's campaign song, "Today."

Williamson ran for office on progressive topics including campaign finance reform, women's reproductive rights, and LGBTQ equality. She raised $2.4 million, of which she personally contributed 25%.

Williamson came in fourth out of 18 candidates, earning 14,335 votes or 13.2 percent of the vote (Republican Elan Carr placed first in the primary, but Ted Lieu lost the general election to the top vote-getting Democrat from the primary). Williamson spoke about the process and its results: The process and its result: Williamson was unsure about the procedure and its conclusion: Williamson said.

Williamson revealed the formation of a presidential exploratory committee in a video in which she said that there was a "miracle in this world in 1776 and we need another one [that will require] a joint effort of love and a gift of hope to our country and perhaps the world."

Williamson said on January 19, 2019, while visiting New Hampshire, she had "good positive energy to make me feel confident about taking the next action" and that she had hired Brent Roske to lead her Iowa operations.

Williamson, who has expressed disbelief in "traditional politics" and believes "they must be overpowered," expressed her dissatisfaction with her political discourse and her assertion that American democracy's foundings were under threat, necessitating a "whole-person politics that refers to emotions and psychology."

Williamson officially launched her presidential campaign on January 28, 2019, in front of 2,000 people in Los Angeles, and named Maurice Daniel, who worked with Donna Brazile in Dick Gephardt's 1988 campaign for the Democratic nomination — as her national campaign manager with her campaign committee, "Marianne Williamson for President" had filed on February 4.

Williamson's campaign announced on February 16, Paul Hodes, who served New Hampshire's 2nd congressional district from 2007 to 2011, as New Hampshire state director and senior political advisor.

Williamson had a campaign team of 20 as of May 1, and a week later, she revealed that she had received sufficient contributions from unusual contributors to enter the formal primary debates. In the first quarter of this year, her campaign raised $1.5 million, from 46,663 unique individuals. Williamson then met the electoral requirements, with three separate polls at 1% from qualifying pollsters on May 23.

Williamson said in June that she had traveled to Des Moines, Iowa, ahead of the 2020 caucuses. Williamson's campaign announced that it would appoint 99 "Virtual Iowa Caucuses Captains" (each assigned to a single county) to turn out supporters in both virtual and in-person caucuses in response to Iowa Democratic Party's planned creation of "virtual caucuses" in the 2020 race.

Williamson appeared in the first primary debate later this month. She spoke for four minutes and 58 seconds, her 17th fastest speaking time among the 20 candidates. According to Ardern's remarks that democratic voters were "confused" and "transfixed" by Williamson, who said that her first act as president would be to call New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and say, "You are so on" in a reference to Ardern's emphasis on creating a world that protects its children.

Williamson appeared in the second primary debate on July 30, 2006. She spoke in eight minutes and 52 seconds. Despite being 19th in speaking time, she was the most Googled candidate in 49 of 50 states and attracted the fourth-most interest on Twitter in 49 of 50 states. The rise in searches was prompted by her remark on the Flint water tragedy (which she referred to as a "dark psychic power of the collectedivized hatred") and her assertion that President Trump was harnessing a "dark psychic power of the collectivized hate" that she later characterized as bigotry, bigotry, homophobia, Islamophobia, and xenophobia, which she later described as ethnophobia, bigotry, bigotry,

Her campaign argued that her name was often left out of polls. She also expressed disappointment with the media establishment for failing to treat her with the same esteem Ben Carson or Herman Cain was afforded in recent elections, as well as ridiculing and dismissing her candidature:

Williamson appeared in an interview with Eric Bolling on the day of the third DNC debate, but she did not qualify, expressing more dissatisfaction with the media when she said she wasn't being recognized. "What does it say that Fox News is nicer to me than the lefties are?" she wondered at unscripted remarks.

Hillary Clinton told Tulsi Gabbard that Russians were "grooming" her to be a third-party candidate that could help Trump reelect them through the spoiler effect (though Clinton claimed she was referring to Republicans, not Russians), on October 18, 2019. "The Democratic establishment has got to avoid smearing women in inconvenient fashion," Williamson said of Gabbard. Women who don't follow the party line will get backfired."

Williamson revealed on January 2, 2020, after meeting several fundraising goals, she would have to continue running without campaign staff. Williamson announced the end of her campaign on January 10, promising to help the Democratic nominee.

Many pundits reacted anaesiously to Williamson's brief appearance as amusing, such as Peter Wehner of The New York Times calling her "an amusing presence" or Alexandra Petri of The Washington Post writing, "We are all dreams in the mind of Marianne Williamson." We'll all be vanished if she stops believing in us even for a second. However, some came to agree that her message was ultimately persuasive and influential. "It feels crazy to say this," New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie wrote in response to the stage's July 30, 2019 Democratic debate, although Williamson out-debated virtually every other participant. She gave a convincing answer on reparations and then returned to the most important issue for Democratic voters after defeating Trump." "Marianne Williamson Won the Democratic Primary" in Slate, the following year, after Joe Biden accepted the Democratic nomination, Tom Scocca wrote an essay. Scocca compared Williamson's retaliation to Trump: "I'm going to use love for political ends." "I will walk with you on this field, and love will triumph, sir." Biden's acceptance address ("Love is more powerful than hate." Hope is more effective than fear. Light is more able than dim. "Marianne Williamson's message is what the Democrats are carrying into November," the author said.

Williamson said that her lack of elective office experience did not disqualify her from serving as president. She said that not having been in office before was, in part, what made her uniquely qualified. She argued that the belief that only experienced politicians would lead the United States was "preposterous," arguing that experienced politicians led the US into unfounded wars, extreme wealth disparities, and environmental harm. She called on her expertise in empathy, differentiated thinking, and political vision to be rewarded on par with elected tenure, quoting President Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1932 statement that "The Presidency is not merely a political office." That's the least of it... It is a place of moral education that is preeminently "ethical":

Williamson argued that Donald Trump's presidency raised the profile and political involvement of White nationalists, and that, as a result, was more important and that needed "more" than prior political experience was lacking:

Williamson maintained that she fulfilled all the eligibility to be president as laid out by the United States Constitution, and that those who refused candidates without having served in office were elitists who opposed the country's political process and values. She appealed for a procedure that opposed media favoritism in favour of bringing forth candidates to voters, encouraging those candidates to "do their best" and then "allowing voters to determine for themselves by their own independent research."

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