Marianne Williamson is a spiritual leader and bestselling author who is currently the sole Democratic candidate challenging Joe Biden in the primary election. Williamson is running on a progressive platform that includes strong support for labor rights, Medicare For All, and what she calls “a politics of love” that emphasizes compassion for the least fortunate. Today she joins to discuss her family’s history in the labor movement, her belief in the need for an alternative to neoliberal politics, her ideas for transforming the country, and the most pressing foreign policy questions of our time. The full conversation can be heard on the Current Affairs podcast.
Robinson
We see headlines all the time saying Democrats are lining up behind President Joe Biden for his reelection. Elizabeth Warren, when asked about your candidacy, replied pretty bluntly, “Joe Biden will be the Democratic nominee.” Other Democrats have been reluctant to get into the race. I want to start by asking: Why run against Joe Biden?
Williamson
It’s interesting, what you just described was Democratic politicians. Theoretically, this is supposed to be determined by Democratic voters. It’s all about the politicians and the political class. The primaries are supposed to be about Democratic voters—and in open primaries, perhaps independent voters—who decide who the person should be that runs against the Republicans in 2024.
So, you’re right. Democrats have this codependent relationship with the DNC, which is interesting because you don’t see that on the Republican side. Everybody’s kind of lining up, and those who supposedly know say, “We’re not going to run anyone against Biden, and nobody’s going to primary Biden.” And then what, just hope for the best? I think it makes sense in a democracy that people should run for office who feel moved and have something to offer and say.
One of the things you realize about a presidential campaign, or any political campaign, is it’s a long job interview. Whoever wants to interview for the job should be able to interview for it, and then the primary voters should decide, particularly at a time when we have a neo-fascist authoritarian threat at the door, who they think would be the best person to take them on.
Robinson
I agree with you, it’s incredibly important to have choice. I’ve said the only places where you only have one name on the ballot is a banana republic. Choice is important.
But you’re running against Joe Biden, and you’re making the case that once they have the option between you and Joe Biden, they should pick you. So the question is not just the case for choice, but why are you the choice in particular?
Williamson
Firstly, I don’t even think I’d use the word “should.” I think they should have the option. They should hear what Biden has to say if he’s running, and they should hear what I have to say. We have very different agendas for going forward at this time. His agenda is the amelioration of stress and helping people be able to survive more easily what, I feel, is an inherently and fundamentally unjust economic system. The agenda I’m offering to people is an economic U-turn in this country: the moving away from the alleviation of stress to fundamental economic reform.
Those are two different visions, not only of the country going forward, but of what it will take to beat the Republicans in 2024. People should have that option and think very deeply about which way should we go. In a democracy, the voice of the people should decide.
Robinson
Some Democrats would make the case that Joe Biden has been a good president. Others would just say he’s less disappointing than expected. They would say, “We held on to the Senate, he passed climate legislation and the Inflation Reduction Act, and put in a few different regulatory measures.” Why would you say it’s not enough, and that we need this more transformative vision that you’re talking about?
Williamson
Take what you were just talking about with climate change: as of this decision yesterday with the Willow Project, he has completely wiped out any benefits we would get from the investment in green energy and from anything in the Inflation Reduction Act—this is a massive catastrophe for the climate change movement. Al Gore talked about it as deeply reckless and irresponsible. So, there’s a big difference between Joe Biden and me on climate change.
It’s that playbook you’ll hear from the corporatist Democrats. Often they’ll say the right things so that you won’t notice they’re doing something else. Biden will say climate change is an existential crisis, and then give more permits for oil drilling than even Trump did. This approval of the Willow Project: not only is it so immoral to steal the habitability of the planet from our great-grandchildren, but even beyond that, how are you going to expect to face Gen Z voters in 2024, having so completely betrayed them on a level that so many of them legitimately care about?
Robinson
In your last run for president, unfortunately, one of the sound bites you became known for was saying that your first act as President would be to tell [then-New Zealand Prime Minister] Jacinda Ardern, “You go, girl”…
Williamson
No, that wasn’t the line.
Robinson
It wasn’t? I’m sorry—
Williamson
This is important because if I had not said it in such a silly, nervous way, what I was actually saying was reasonable. So, let me say what I was reasonably saying now, since I didn’t exactly pull off my delivery correctly the first time: Jacinda Ardern had said that she wanted New Zealand to be the best place in the world for a child to grow up. What I was saying when they asked, “What would be your first call?” was I’m going call her and say, “No country will be better than the United States as a place for a child to grow up. Girlfriend, you’re on!” Silly delivery, but not a silly thought at all.
Robinson
The reason I mentioned it is to ask: What should people expect the first acts of a Williamson presidency to be?
Williamson
The first thing I’ll do is cancel the Willow Project. The second is to cancel every government contract with union busters. I will call Cory Booker and Tim Scott, and anybody else who should be in that room together, to talk about serious police reform. I will try to sway Congress to bring up, by subpoena if necessary, every CEO from every price gouging company. I will do everything I can to cancel the entirety of the college loan debt. I will declassify marijuana from a Schedule 1 drug. And, I’ll get about the work of trying to effectuate universal health care, free college and tech schools, the Family Leave Act, free childcare, and livable wages. Now, that’s not all going to be achieved in the first 100 days. But, I’m going to start the conversation and use the bully pulpit. I will make what appointments and executive actions I can take to get us on the road to a genuine season of repair in this country.
Robinson
You mentioned cracking down on union busters—I noticed that in your Issues page, one of the things listed first is “empowering labor.” I don’t think I knew this about you the last time you ran, but you have on your website some interesting facts about your background. You are from a labor family and you talk about your father and grandfather. I don’t think everyone knows about your roots.
Williamson
My grandfather, Solomon Williamson, was a worker on the Rock Island railroad. My father used to tell the story about how, when he was a little boy, his father took him to hear Eugene V. Debs. My father was working at the Ford plant in 1937, and my brother worked with Cesar Chavez down in South Texas when none of us were eating grapes. It was the time of the big great boycott. And most importantly, when I was a child, I remember being told by my parents, “if you ever cross a picket line, don’t bother to come home.” So, the importance of labor was very ingrained in us when we were children.
I could not have understood as a child what I understand as an adult. Given the fact, even since the time when I was a child being told those things, what the scourge of unregulated and unfettered capitalism has done to the working people of the United States, to the planet, and to all of us, that labor is a necessary factor in any meaningful pushback.
I’m running for president, so I understand people in office make a difference too, but labor is a major pillar of resistance to the overreach by unfettered capitalism, and we should support it in every way possible. When you look at this aberrational chapter of the last 40–50 years of neoliberalism and trickle-down economics, their playbook included demonizing, squashing, and squelching unions—union busting became part of the normal playbook. And that’s where you need a president who says enough is enough, and doesn’t just say it, by the way.
We have a president who says, “Hey, I’m labor Joe.” Really? Because when push came to shove, when all workers wanted was sick pay, you sided with the railroad barons. So, we need to do much more, and actually make the Jeff Bezoses and Howard Schultzes of the world know that union busting, and the union busting tactics that have become so normal in those industries, must stop, and the working people of the United States have an absolute advocate in their president.
Robinson
You lay out on your website a labor plan that has 25 different policies, including paid time off, establishing a worker resource center, requiring worker representation on corporate boards, ending non-compete clauses, and preventing employers from wrongly classifying full-time workers as independent contractors. I take it this is all grounded in the belief that a workplace should be fair, and that workers deserve to not surrender their rights when they cross into the workplace each morning.
Williamson
It’s grounded in a belief that the Declaration of Independence is our mission statement, and that God gave inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Someone who works full time—sometimes one, two, and even three jobs, and many at less than 15 dollars an hour—and cannot even afford a place to live, is not able to pursue happiness.
Not all chains are visible. People are shackled by the economic insecurity and anxiety baked into the cake of a system where a stockholder value and short-term profit maximization for huge corporate entities is put before the safety, health, and well-being of people, animals, and the planet. And what we have now, which you obviously know, is our government chops wood and carries water for and is bought and sold by those people.
The government in Washington has become a system of legalized bribery. The government should be the advocate for the people; a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. It’s become a government of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations. You can’t have a democracy and behave that way. Louis Brandeis, the late Supreme Court Justice, said, “You can either have vast amounts of money in the hands of a few, or you can have democracy. You can’t have both.” We have an oligarchy today, and I’m running for president because if somebody doesn’t name it, then there’s no way we can disrupt that system. And if we don’t disrupt that system, we are going to lose our democracy to the neo-fascist threat that is in our midst.
Robinson
So far, you’ve been talking in the language reminiscent of Bernie Sanders. That’s my language, you’re speaking my language. But there’s something rather different about much of your messaging. Your book is A Politics of Love, and you often speak not just about the crimes of neoliberalism, but of something greater, in language that is openly emotional and spiritual. You open your book talking about the AIDS crisis that you witnessed firsthand in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and the love and compassion you witnessed there.
Could you discuss what you’ve seen over the course of your life counseling people and how it has influenced your vision of how love and politics go together?
Williamson
In my 40-year career, I’ve been very up close and personal with people at some of the worst times in their lives. It used to be a kind of joke in my world, “Nobody calls Marianne because things are going well.” I would often get the call when the worst things possible have happened: you got the test results back, and it’s cancer, or your child is addicted to heroin; you find out some of the worst news possible. So, I have experience of what it takes to both endure and transform a crisis. I’ve come to see that the psychological dynamics that prevail within one life prevail within the life of a country because all that a country is is a collection of people.
So, what do you have to do to endure and transform a crisis? You have to be honest and willing to look in the mirror and ask yourself, “Am I who I say I am? Where am I? Where am I not standing on the principles which I purport to believe? Where do I have to clean up the past? Where do I need to atone and make amends?” Some people say America needs to go through the 12 Step; America needs to go through the same process an individual needs to go through when you realize what I’m doing is not working, and it’s going to take serious change to turn this thing around. You need a president who will name and say it for real. What’s happening is the political system doesn’t want to have a real conversation about what the real problems are because they are the problem.
Robinson
I have found your message very compelling, and especially believe language about love and compassion really needs a place in politics. You discuss the the language of quantification and the importance of speaking honestly about caring for one another. As someone who has found your message inspiring, I need to ask you about a report that came out this morning. I do think it’s somewhat disturbing in the allegations it made, and I want to give you the opportunity to address it. The article quotes from twelve former staffers who alleged to have witnessed abusive behavior by you, which they describe as “traumatic and terrifying uncontrollable rage.” They say you would scream at people until they started to cry, viciously mocked them, etc. It quotes your former New Hampshire campaign director saying it was consistent with their observations, and your former Iowa state director citing “belittling abusive, dehumanizing, and unacceptable behavior,” and saying he couldn’t subject future campaign hires to that vitriol.
Obviously, you know, people want to be able to believe in your message of workers’ rights and dignity, and in love. How do you respond to that?
Williamson
Notice their names aren’t mentioned. The allegations were ridiculous things like, “She threw a phone at someone.” Categorically untrue. I’ve never hit anyone. What I have done is raise my voice. What I’ve done is had a temper tantrum—I don’t think any different from the temper tantrums I’ve seen men and other women have. Not that I’m proud of that. I’ve never presented myself in my books or talks as a perfect, enlightened master.
I think anytime somebody criticizes you, you do have to ask yourself, as a life principle: Is even 10% of it true? So yes, to whatever extent anyone has felt disrespected by me—they say twelve staffers—you could find 25 people who say, “I worked with her, and I liked her.” This is a hit piece. But to whatever extent any of that is true, of course, I’m sorry, and I hope that no one would experience me in any way that is disrespectful.
Robinson
You point out that the allegations here are anonymous. But, Politico says the reason people had to be anonymous was that they said they had non-disclosure agreements that—
Williamson
Which is normal in political campaigns.
Robinson
So, they are, though—
Williamson
So maybe they would have. Listen: if this is somebody’s experience, if they felt that way, then they felt that way. I also know based on what the reporter sent to me that they were saying outrageous things, like, “She threw a phone at me.” Categorically untrue. “She mocked a person who was overweight.” Categorically untrue. What I have done is raised my voice and said, “This has to be this way or that way,” during a presidential campaign, and I’m not proud of that. Listen: there are enough people who wrote to me today who have worked for me over the years to give very supportive comments. Anybody can see this is a hit piece. And anybody can see I’m a human being—I am, and I never said I wasn’t.
Robinson
You say any anyone could see this is a hit piece. I don’t think allegations should be taken as true just because they’re made. [But] with the NDA [non-disclosure agreement] thing, you seem to be saying they had to sign NDAs which—
Williamson
People have signed the same things that they sign in any political campaign. There are all kinds of information in a political campaign that must not be shared. That is standard.
If somebody reads an article like that and thinks, “Given that, I don’t like this woman and I don’t want to vote for her,” then I understand that. I think other people will look at it and see differently, but I’m not in control of how people hear that. I know who I am, that I’m a decent human being who has flaws, like anyone else. But, I’m not at the end of this day, having read that article, drowning in self-hatred. I’m not. I know who I am. And I know what those situations are. And I know who Paul Hodes is, though.
Robinson
I read it as someone who really likes you and is trying to make up their mind who to throw their support behind in this campaign.
Williamson
I really understand that.
Robinson
With the NDA thing, they said it wasn’t just staff. It said, “Two former staffers said they witnessed Williamson’s personal aides try to get taxi drivers service workers to sign a—”
Williamson
That’s ridiculous! I read that from when the woman—that is categorically untrue.
Robinson
So, there aren’t going to be any taxi drivers coming for—
Williamson
I raised my voice and got upset. I don’t want to sound defensive here, but I don’t want to go there. And I understand what you’re saying that you have to think about this, and I understand that. Think about it. But I can tell you, I never did that with a taxi driver.
Robinson
It’s difficult. I would ask you the question: would you enforce an NDA against someone who was coming forward with accusations of mistreatment rather than—
Williamson
I’m not Donald Trump. Listen, I know what’s going on here. I know that the political establishment is throwing its cannonballs against me because they want to deflect. They don’t want to talk about the things I’m talking about. They don’t want to talk about universal health care, raising the minimum wage, an economic U-turn, and serious mitigation of climate change. So, they’re going to do this, and I understand what some of these people are trying to do. Other than that, though, Nathan, I can’t control how you, and how anyone else, reads that and the assumptions that are made. I can only say what I know to be true, and I think I’ve already done that here.
Robinson
I agree. The question that would have helped me figure out what I think is it said in here that the message was NDAs would be strictly enforced. Someone said the message they got—
Williamson
No, I did not call my lawyer today. I rolled my eyes and I knew when this was really coming.
Robinson
They said they fear to go public. So if someone did come public with accusations of mistreatment, I take it they do not have to fear that they’re going to suffer legal consequences for that.
Williamson
I’m not Donald Trump. No, of course not.
Robinson
I don’t want to press this too much. Obviously, I agree with you that these are the sorts of accusations that fly. But, I think it’s also very difficult to know—
Williamson
Well, not really. Not if they think about their own lives. Not if they think about having been in a high-stress situation. Not if they think about for a man to be held accountable he has to grab a woman’s breasts. For a woman to be held accountable, she has to fail to say “please and thank you.” I think many people realize some things. And having said that, I also would say, when I’ve raised my voice, if anybody has experienced me the way some of that was, I’m really sorry about that. And I hope that nobody will ever have anything like that to say. again.
Robinson
There’s a double standard, but it’s not “not saying please and thank you.” They’re saying, “traumatic and terrifying.”
Williamson
I’m sorry. If anything I did was traumatizing, then your bar is low. Terrifying? I don’t know what more I can say here. I’ve gotten angry. I can be a bitch at the office at times. If that’s the worst they have on me is that at times I’ve been a bitch at the office, I think I’m okay. If anybody says, “Boy, she’s been a bitch at the office; therefore, I will not vote for her,” I have no control over that.
Robinson
People just want to know—
Williamson
Oh, I’m not sure.
Robinson
I think they want to know that you’re for real because there’s a lot of concern for workers’ rights and dignity at the moment.
Williamson
You know what? This is how real I am. If you actually read my books, and have heard me talk, I’ve never claimed to be anything other than who and what I am. Plenty of people know me well, and I’m a decent human being. I am not a perfect human being. I think I’m in that middle section: I’m a decent human being. That is my appraisal. I have flaws. But I read an article like that, and I know it for what it is. Yes, I understand, and I also had emails today from people who have worked for me showing support.
Robinson
I want to get back to policy because I think that’s what’s important. You talk a lot about the health care crisis in America. You spent your life dealing with people who often times are experiencing the worst of the American healthcare system. You are an advocate for Medicare For All, but you go beyond that and talk about holistic health. Talk about the way you think about the healthcare crisis in America.
Williamson
We have a higher level of chronic disease in the United States than in other advanced democracies. This is not just about the fact they have universal health care and we don’t, it’s also about the fact that they have more regulated ingredients in their food. We have known carcinogens that are spewed into our water, air, and food all the time. But because of deregulation and corporate capture, big food, big agricultural, and big chem can actually do so much that we know it makes people sick.
So then the question cannot just be, “How are we going to make people well?” We also have to discuss how we are going to proactively create health, and that’s what I’m interested in. I’m interested not just in a sickness care system, but in a genuine healthcare system. How are we going to proactively create a more healthy environment? There are people who live in food deserts in this country, who don’t even have access to fresh fruit and vegetables. We know issues of environmental justice, where particularly disadvantaged people in poor neighborhoods have toxins that are thrown into the air around them in ways that would not happen in richer neighborhoods. We know about the water in Flint, Michigan and Jackson, Mississippi, and now we know about what’s happening in East Palestine, Ohio.
So, the issue of human health is far bigger than just who pays for things once you do get sick. Although I’m adamant about universal health care, I know that there are more issues involved in actually creating a more healthy population.
Robinson
You have been the subject of a number of attacks that I regard as quite unfair. When I have tweeted about your campaign, I get people saying, “Williamson is an anti-vaxxer.” You have made strong criticisms of pharmaceutical companies and so forth. When people say, “She doesn’t believe in treating depression,” I wonder if you could respond to things that are said about you.
Williamson
It’s like crystals and auras. You can look through all my talks, and you will not find anything that is about crystals, or anything that is anti-vax. I made a comment about mandates, and that’s a civil liberties issue to me—this was before COVID, and we don’t have federal mandates. But I never made an anti-vax comment. That was just like all the rest of this stuff: the way to get me out of the conversation.
Robinson
One of the things I like that comes across in A Politics of Love is that you really take seriously the obligation we have towards children. Obviously, children suffer the most under capitalism because it rewards you proportionately the amount of value you can generate in the marketplace, and children can generate almost no value in the marketplace.
I love this quote from you about immigration, you say,
“If you forcibly take a child from parents’ arms, that’s kidnapping. If you take a lot of children and put them in a detainment camp that causes trauma, that is collective child abuse. These are state-sponsored crimes.”
One of the things I like about the way you talk is you say things that are pretty frank and call us out for these kinds of moral oversights.
Williamson
Yes, absolutely. I believe that I do. And so, given what you just said, you can see why the system would like to throw a lot of fairy dust in people’s eyes. It should be obvious to people at this point. The fact that I say things like you just quoted, that I stand for things like I stand for in this campaign, rattles the system. The sort of cozy neoliberal perch is not comfortable having someone say the kinds of things that you just quoted. Although, interestingly enough, they don’t mind if you write it in a book.
See, that’s the thing: they say, “Stay in your lane.” They want me to stay in another lane than theirs because they want to continue to effectuate and perpetuate a system that is so repeatedly, economically unjust. There’s nothing even in any of the things you and I have discussed today which can in any way match the systemic violence that is done to people, bodies, animals and the planet, which is simply a part of the way business and politics happens in the United States.
Robinson
I want to ask you about foreign policy. It’s not yet an issue area listed on your website, but obviously, it’s one of the major areas a president has to deal with. The war in Ukraine, for instance, continues to rage after a year. Some critics of American policy in the Biden administration, including Noam Chomsky on this program, have accused the administration of fueling the war by providing weapons but declining to pursue a diplomatic settlement, arguing that the United States is more interested in weakening Russia as a geopolitical competitor than in bringing peace to Ukraine. Where do you stand? Do you accept that criticism? How do you feel?
Williamson
Firstly, the only solution that’s going to be possible here is a diplomatic solution, a negotiated settlement. Even General Milley says that the only question right now is: At what point can there be a negotiated, diplomatic settlement in which Ukraine even continues to exist? If you go back over the years at America’s involvement with NATO and our Aegis missiles in Poland, the United States is hardly an innocent here. We did poke the bear. Now there are some people who I do think did have the nefarious motivations that Chomsky says, just to weaken Russia, To me, that is horrifying and absolutely unacceptable.
But, I think there are a lot of things going on here. If you’re going to be anti-imperialist, you have to be anti-imperialist when a Russian is doing it, not just when an American is doing it, even though we do not have totally clean hands when it comes to NATO and the Aegis missiles, and also with what happened early on when Boris Johnson made that trip over there. Those things are indisputable. But if you look at what’s happening now, to me, none of what we just said is justification for this brutal dictator—and he is a brutal dictator—to make this horrifying invasion of a sovereign country. It’s not like we could just withdraw and say, “Okay, let’s have talks.” If we withdraw our military support right now, Putin will simply crush Ukraine and will cease to exist.
So, we shouldn’t have a blank check or anything like that, but most experts believe that the next few months will give us a very good indication of what is possible for Ukraine. At this point, I would support the support given to Ukraine. Russia knows it can’t win this war. Let Ukraine get to the point where they can have a negotiated settlement that gives as much benefit to that country as possible.
Robinson
One of the big fears that people have coming out of the war in Ukraine is that obviously the United States and Russia are both nuclear-armed powers with enough catastrophic, city-destroying weapons to annihilate one another and most of the world many times over. The United States and Russia have come perilously close to almost direct conflict. There was just this collision with a drone and a fighter jet. And at the same time, people are talking in the language of a new Cold War as tensions between the United States and China have been rising, another nuclear armed power that continues to build more nuclear weapons. There’s a lot of discussion about whether the United States will go to war over Taiwan.
You have been a pretty strong advocate against militarism and the military industrial complex and for peace. How do we keep ourselves from inching towards a catastrophic World War? And how will you approach relations with both Russia and China as President of the United States?
Williamson
In terms of the nuclear threat that by that Putin could pose right now, what are you going to do living the rest of your life and your children’s lives knowing that if you don’t do whatever Vladimir Putin wants, he’s going to threaten you with a nuclear bomb? We can’t live that way. I grew up going to Ban the Bomb protests. We should have a stringent and serious Non-Proliferation agenda right now. Even now, we’re spending trillions on actually adding to our own nuclear arsenal. So, we have a long way to go before we ourselves are the responsible actors in terms of the nuclear arms race. That comes first. The second point is that we have to envision a world in which we can cooperate with people, including China, in fighting common enemies such as climate change. This going to absolutely be necessary. We are competitors with China, but we must not become enemies with China.
The saber-rattling that’s going on right now, almost as though we’re in a Cold War, is very dangerous, and it must be tamped down. At the same time, people have a right to recognize that the US government has allowed companies to go over to China to exploit the US worker and take their factories and businesses over there, putting up a third finger to workers in the United States, so they could make more money in China. So, it’s correct that ends, whether it has to do with paper, aluminum, or steel. We have to bring that kind of manufacturing back to the United States. But I don’t think, right now, Xi Jinping [President of the People’s Republic of China] actually has an economic boom on his hands. And he also knows that if he were to mess with Taiwan, for instance, there are many ways that not only the United States, but the rest of the West, could make things very difficult for him. We have to be very firm and careful, there is no doubt about that. It is a gnarly world out there.
Robinson
Israel has recently launched multiple deadly raids in the Occupied Territories. Israel’s hard right government claims jurisdiction over all of Palestine and refuses to recognize the sovereignty of Palestinians. The major human rights groups, from Amnesty International to Human Rights Watch, have long since described the situation in the Occupied Territories as worthy of the name apartheid. I don’t know if you accept that designation. Would you impose new limits on US aid to Israel?
Williamson
Israel today has the most far-right government it has ever had, and this should be disturbing to any lover of democracy. Even Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, when he went over there, has said publicly, “Watch it, Bibi.” And if he said that publicly, I can only imagine what he said privately. But the President of the United States should be saying, “Watch it, Bibi.” For the security of the Israeli and Palestinian people, the United States should have equally robust support for the safety, security, and human rights of both peoples. And right now, the policies of this Israeli government are not in keeping with those democratic values. As far as the word “apartheid,” there are some laws in Israel that you can’t deny. They have some things that going on there that they absolutely have to change. And I do think that any military support for Israel should be absolutely designated for defensive purposes only, and there should be more support given to Palestinians.
Robinson
I want to conclude here by coming back to this broad question of the difference between a Williamson presidency and the presidency of another Democrat. One of the most important things you can do for us here is to lay out how your America would look compared to Joe Biden’s.
Williamson
We now have 68,000 people who die every year from lack of health care.1 One in four Americans lives with with medical debt.2 Eighteen million Americans cannot afford to fulfill the prescriptions that their doctors give them. Eighty-five thousand people in America are under-insured or uninsured.3 Half of America’s seniors are living on $25,000 or less a year. Twelve million children are hungry in this country.4 What you would have with the Williamson presidency is a woman who is looking at that all the time, who recognizes we have a corporate aristocracy in this country, whether it has to do with insurance, pharmaceutical, big food, big chemical, and big agricultural companies, gun manufacturers, and defense contractors.
For me, this must end. We repudiated an aristocracy in 1776, and we need to repudiate it again. For the secretaries of the agencies that the President appoints, we must stop the sense of double advocacy, where we’re trying to advocate for the people, but also playing footsies under the table with big ag, big chemical companies, or whatever. If I were the American President, I’d be someone who would say—unequivocally using, among other things, the bully pulpit—that this is a corporate autocracy and the government has been captured by it, and that the role of the President and of the government itself should be to advocate for the people, of the people, by the people, and not of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations. You’d have a woman who is laying it down and saying the truth that way.
No President has a magic wand, and no president should. But at the same time, at the very least, we’ve had even Democratic presidents who, even when they talk the talk, would actually, in the final analysis, side with the short-term profit maximization goals of corporations, as opposed to the safety of the health and well-being of the American people and the planet on which we live. And in an American Presidency, that would not be true.
To go back to what you were saying earlier, the last 40 years of my life and career has been spent doing everything possible in my work founding nonprofit organizations trying to help people. Nothing in that article changes what I’ve done with my life for the last few decades—I just wanted to say that. There are many people who would stand up and say that, and I think are saying that right now. I’m not trying to bring that subject up again, but I was a little bit too apologetic.
Robinson
Well, I—
Williamson
I apologize for any actual mistakes I have made, but I think the picturing of it is that I’m being made to apologize for things that I’m not enrolled in the belief that might have been some—we’ve already done it, so there’s no point in going back to that, but I feel if someone were to see my life, they would not think I was a bad person.
Robinson
Your public life obviously has been very commendable.
Williamson
In my private life, I’m an okay human being, too!
Robinson
It’s difficult for people who don’t know you to know how to feel. The expression “don’t meet your heroes” was used in the article—this idea people present one face, and you think they’re amazing, but then behind closed doors that can be different, and we’re all searching for someone we can really believe in.
Williamson
But, there are many people who have worked for me, and I know because of how many of them wrote to me today who think I’m just fine, thank you.
Robinson
Right. But, when people are under a nondisclosure agreement and can’t talk about it, it’s difficult to know how to evaluate it, though.
Williamson
Okay, then everybody’s going to have to make that decision for themselves, and I honor that.
Robinson
Many people have been burned by, for example, Bernie’s two campaigns that didn’t succeed, and perceive the process as being rigged. They think that the DNC is not going to hold any debates because they don’t want you to debate Joe Biden. I think one of the crucial things for any independent campaign to take off is to convince people that it’s worth spending their time on and believing in, even if they sense that there’s a rigged process that you can’t win. What would you say to people who are cynical, and come to you and say, “I like everything that you say—I’ve gone to your website and read the whole agenda, and it’s everything I believe in, but they’re going to crush you, and you will lose; I don’t want to get burned again by putting effort in another campaign again when I know we can’t succeed”?
Williamson
That’s a lot to process, and I respect the processing that people are going through. I’ve been running for one week, this campaign will go on for a long time. But I will tell you about cynicism in general, not specifically about cynicism about my candidacy. Cynicism in general is an excuse for not helping. Look at what the abolitionists, women’s suffrage, and civil rights workers went through. It’s not easy to try to change the world. It’s not easy to go out there, and look what I’m doing, going out there—it’s not easy for any of us. So, I think that we’re all having to look at where we have to be within ourselves.
One of the things that we’re going to have to get over and surrender, if we truly want to repair the world, is the belief that it can’t happen. We’re all going to have to recognize that what we’re going through in our generation is just the latest iteration of what generations before us have gone through. This is a story that has been with us from the beginning. On one hand, we were founded on the most enlightened principles of equality and equal opportunity, but of the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence, 41 of them were slave owners. So, that’s baked into the cake; that bipolarity is part of who we are. It is the American story.
Over time, Americans have self corrected. We responded to slavery with abolition, institutionalized oppression of women with a women’s suffrage movement and the 19th amendment, and segregation in the American South with the civil rights movement and desegregation. It’s just our turn. It’s the same stuff—it’s all back, even the white supremacy. The thing is, this time, it’s not a specific institution, like excising a tumor: abolish slavery or get an amendment. Instead, it’s more like an atomizer spray of injustice. That’s where the intersectionality comes in. There’s mass incarceration, the Willow Project, hungry children, lower minimum wage, and women not being able to even control their own bodies—it’s the entire economic mindset and ideological mindset that creates all this.
Franklin Roosevelt said that he thought we would not have to worry about a fascist takeover–which is what we should all be worried about right now–as long as democracy delivered on its blessings. And that’s why we need to have universal health care, tuition-free college and tech schools, free childcare, and to unshackled people. Those are the blessings of democracy we should be providing.
Robinson
Bernie Sanders was asked about your candidacy, and he did not say what Elizabeth Warren said. Instead, he said that he thought that you would raise a number of important issues. It is clear to anyone who listens to you that nobody else is discussing these things in mainstream politics the way you are.
Correction March 21, 2023: Williamson made several claims in the piece about harms facing Americans that were actually underestimates. On her claim that one in four American adults lives with medical debt, we added a note with a source that the number is estimated by the Kaiser Family Foundation to be closer to four in ten or 41 percent. Her claim that 85,000 people are uninsured or underinsured was corrected with a note clarifying that the actual amount is closer to 30 million uninsured and 40 million underinsured (the latter refers to a pre-pandemic estimate).
Listen to the full conversation on the Current Affairs podcast. Transcript edited by Patrick Farnsworth.
Editor’s note: A 2020 study published in the Lancet estimated that if Medicare for All were enacted, 68,000 unnecessary deaths would be prevented per year. ↩
Editor’s note: Kaiser Family Foundation in 2022 estimated the number to be around 41 percent of adults. ↩
Editor’s note: Current estimates are that around 30 million Americans lack health insurance; prior to the pandemic, an additional 40 million were considered underinsured. ↩
Editor’s note: Children’s Defense Fund estimates that around 10.7 million children are “food insecure,” meaning their families don’t have enough to eat, according to their 2021 report. ↩
