I attended a Marianne Williamson campaign stop so you don’t have to
Not that you would.
For a presidential candidate constantly talking about energy, the “vibe” at Manchester Community College last Saturday was lackluster at best.
Those who forget that Marianne Williamson, the holistic spirituality author, is running for president are not alone. On my trip north to see the big guy—President Trump, that is—over the weekend, I too almost forgot there was a Democrat primary race going on in the Granite State.
However, unlike the incumbent president, whose handlers cited the state’s “whiteness” as a reason to bail on its first-in-the-nation tradition, other Democrats like Williamson campaigned in New Hampshire ahead of Tuesday’s election.
Good thing a quick Google search prompted me to take the I-293 connector in time for what might have been the saddest political rally—if one can call it that—that I have ever witnessed, aside from one of Biden’s socially distant, masked functions from 2020 that are etched permanently in my memory.
Marianne Williamson’s campaign team, all appearing to fall into the same over-70 female demographic, manned (or should I say womanned) a table impressive enough for a high school student council election.
Even the dollar-store flags are droopier at Marianne Williamson events.
In her team’s defense, this would have been on-par with many political campaigns prior to the dawn of the Donald Trump Rally Experience, in which SRO crowds and the booming sounds of the Village People have set new expectations for enthusiastic voters.
Team Marianne understands how large a room to book for the candidate. They chose one of adequate size for the approximately 80 people in attendance, with plenty of space to spread out comfortably. While a few diehard fans sported Williamson merch, many Granite Staters appeared to be making perfunctory rounds, just for the pre-primary thrill of it all.
One man, perhaps an undecided voter, took notes.
Marianne Williamson delivered her stump speech and then opened the floor for questions.
I admit I am not in disagreement with many issues the spiritual guru campaigns on. The nation’s problems are not attacked at their root. The mental health of our adolescents—future voters and the incoming workforce—is woeful. Young adults are facing crippling debt and have unmarketable degrees to show for it. War crimes are bad.
These opinions, which the mainstream media often stamps as “far out,” are being increasingly endorsed by grassroots voters. Many current U.S. policies questioned by Williamson are reminiscent of RFK Jr.’s equally “zany” third-party campaign.
Where Marianne Williamson loses me is when she starts rattling off solutions.
For instance, the best-selling authoress (three New York Times bestsellers) accurately dissected the evils of the military industrial complex. But instead of promoting isolationism, ending proxy wars, or being extra selective with allies, she proposed a…better idea?
“Nepal has a Ministry of Peace. Why don’t we have a Ministry of Peace?”
When Williamson brought up the need for prison reform, I was hopeful she would cite some recidivism rates, throw out some cash bail numbers, maybe argue for safer conditions for inmates.
Instead, she conjured the loudest applause of the afternoon with a promise to end the War on Drugs.
“We need to treat drugs as a health issue—not a criminal issue.”
Forget the whole “moral society” thing for just a moment. Try using that platform to win the votes of family members of the 112,000 lives lost to fentanyl overdoses in 2023.
When Williamson opened the floor to questions, one older gent raised his hand to make a decent point. At 75, he said, he has never seen a society this devoid of conscience. To him, the slippery slope seems to have started back when public schools barred God from the classroom in 1963.
The “homeopathic remedy” candidate of 2024 provided a convoluted response about feeding the hungry etc.
“God is love,” she crooned. “We don’t need God in our words. We need love in our actions.”
That quip brought him almost to tears. I was crying on the inside, for different reasons.
Marianne Williamson’s platform is a little too hippy-dippy for me—okay, a lot. All but 5 percent of Tuesday’s Democrat primary voters in New Hampshire agreed.
But if a Ministry of Peace or Love or Good Vibes is ever created, I would not dream of a better appointee to serve as its Secretary.
