The Other McCain

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‘Dark Psychic Forces’ 2020

Posted on | July 31, 2019 | 1 Comment

 

As John Hoge reminds his readers this morning, when I went to South Carolina in March to cover Marianne Williamson’s presidential campaign, I was the only national reporter covering her. Nobody thought she had a chance, but last night in the CNN debate, she got the biggest applause of the night with her advocacy of slavery reparation and her line blaming Trump’s success on “dark psychic forces”:

We have an administration that has gutted the Clean Water Act. We have communities particularly communities of color and disadvantaged communities all over this country who are suffering from environmental injustice. I assure you I lived in Grosse Point [Michigan], what happened in Flint would not have happened in Gross Point, this is part of the dark underbelly of American society, the racism, the bigotry, and the entire conversation that we’re having here tonight, if you think any of this wonkiness is going to deal with the dark psychic force of the collectivized hatred that this President is bringing up in this country, then I’m afraid that the Democrats are going to see some very dark days. We need to say it like it is, it’s bigger than Flint. It’s all over this country. It’s particularly people of color. It’s particularly people who do not have the money to fight back, and if the Democrats don’t start saying it, why would those people feel they’re there for us? And if those people don’t feel it, they won’t vote for us and Donald Trump will win.

 

Here is the thing I keep reminding my conservative friends: You have to keep in mind that this is about Democratic primary voters, the kind of highly motivated hard-core leftists who will turn out on a snowy February night to participate in an Iowa precinct caucus. If you tell me that Marianne Williamson is “too crazy” to win, my answer is, “You’re telling me Elizabeth Warren is not crazy? Bernie Sanders is not crazy?”

If candidates like Warren and Sanders now define what is “mainstream” for Democrats, there is no feasible limit on what is “mainstream,” and the only reason Marianne Williamson is considered a long-shot candidate is because the extremist left-wing fringe has become overcrowded.

People who calculate the odds according to standard political analysis always miss the rising forces of a new era, which is why almost none of the pundits took Donald Trump seriously when he came riding down that escalator in June 2015. You may not attribute Trump’s startling victory to “collectivized hatred,” but it did signify a seismic shift in American politics, and if Democrats don’t adjust to this shift, they will indeed “see some very dark days,” as Williamson says.



 

Category: Debates, Democrats

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One Response to “‘Dark Psychic Forces’ 2020”

  1. So This Is the State of American Democracy | 357 Magnum
    July 31st, 2019 @ 11:56 pm

    […] I feel like I’m living in the world described by the movie Network, it just isn’t all about the TV broadcasts. ‘Dark Psychic Forces’ 2020. […]