Self-healing author Marianne Williamson (70), who is running for the Democratic Party’s 2024 presidential candidate, officially launched a presidential campaign that seems unlikely on the 4th (local time) and became the first challenger for US President Joe Biden. the media reported.
Williamson, who is full of discourse on unusual spiritual healing rather than requiring actual votes from voters even in the election campaign, said in front of a crowd of 600 people in downtown Washington on the 4th, “We are upset by this country, and we are upset by this country. I am worried about it,” he began his speech.
“Therefore, we see it as our mission to spread our vision of justice and love powerful enough to overwhelm the forces of hatred, injustice and fear,” he said.
Williamson pointed out that there are numerous challenges that the United States is currently facing. “I don’t think any one person, not even one president, can fix that alone,” he said. But a president who can tell the truth about those situations will do a lot more good for him.”
Many say that the 70-year-old Williamson, who was once the spiritual mentor of Oprah Winfrey, is nothing more than a symbolic primary candidate for all Democrats in the United States, and rather a touchstone to show how strongly the Democratic Party rallies on Biden’s side.
But Williamson began his first campaign in the marble-column President’s Office at Washington’s Union Station. This is also the place where President Biden appealed to voters across the country through a speech in support of the Democratic Party ahead of the midterm elections in November 2022, “Please do not get swept away by political polarization and only think of democracy in crisis.”
Williamson adopted the red, blue, and black election emblem, which signifies the two slogans of “new beginning” and “destroy the system,” and began his first challenge for the 2024 presidential election by touring the early election states with the earliest voting dates. do.
That location includes New Hampshire, South Carolina, where the Democratic National Committee is planning its first primary. If Biden loses here, local Democratic and Republican lawmakers say that it will be a loss of face for the incumbent president, whether or not the opponent has a chance as a real presidential candidate.
Williamson, as if conscious of it, said in his inaugural speech on the 4th, “If anyone in this room feels like a normal adult, I will have to take my candidacy seriously.”
“I have run for president before. So I’m not naive enough to succumb to people and forces who don’t accept anyone who doesn’t fit their pre-sets.”
He criticized, “Those people will think that if the car that drove us to this bog before fell into the bog, the person in question should be qualified to take out the car.”
Associated Press reported that Luke Stowell (20), an American University student in Washington, who was listening to Williamson’s candidacy speech in the front row that day, said, “I think it is a great message pointing out all kinds of prejudice and stereotypes that have been prevalent in American society.” reported that
Ivan Claudio (24), a law student sitting next to him, told the reporter, “If President Biden is re-elected, he will serve until he is in his late 80s, but that is a bit worrying.”
Biden, the oldest president in US history, will be 86 at the end of his term if re-elected. A recent Associated Press-NORC Public Affairs Institute poll found that many Americans, even some Democrats, do not want President Biden running again.
President Biden has not yet made an official declaration of candidacy, but is expected to do so in the coming weeks.
Williamson did not directly mention President Biden’s name in his speech on the 4th, but said, “Trump’s fall from the 2020 presidential election prevented the United States from falling over the cliff, but the current situation is also dangerous with the cliff only 15 cm away.”
He said it was especially because Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Trump follower and far-right, was favored as the Republican nominee, and Republicans still followed Trump’s slogan of “Make America Great Again” (MAGA).
Within the Democratic Party, there is no presidential challenger other than Williamson, and almost all of the Democrats, from the left to the center, are supporting Biden. Therefore, the Associated Press analyzed that it is unclear whether a candidate forum for the primary election will be held even after Williamson runs as a presidential candidate.
Williamson, who serves as Oprah Winfrey’s mental aide and is also popular for online mental counseling, prepared to run for the Democratic presidential nomination a year ago during the 2020 presidential election.
His signature pledge was to create a new Department of Peace within the US government. He also presented the federal government’s fiscal policy to pay large-scale reparations to black Americans for hundreds of years of slavery and racial segregation.
But Williamson stopped campaigning weeks before the 2020 Iowa convention to endorse Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. Sanders finished second to Biden in the Democratic primary and was unable to run for president.
Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.